Flowers of Algorab - Episode 16 - Slipstream Inversion

Once again travelling with work (and back after a fortnight away for holiday), the technology worked fine from the Premier Inn. As usual, I'd upgraded the internet to the faster option to try and minimise any risks.

Originally, we'd though that this would be a session with everyone for the first time since the start of the summer, but circumstances conspired and we were without Andy (Rashid) again. Before we started, there was a discussion on how vulnerable everyone that played last session was, and the realisation that healing and recover was minimal from when we ended. This directly led to the crew buying the Phoenix Engine upgrade for the bird - it allows it to regenerate in extreme circumstances - at the end of the session, spending their crew points.

We opened the session with the characters continuing to explore the crystallised professor's office, hoping to find more clues on how to stop the slipstream experiment from continuing to expand and destroy the station.

My reflection is that this session felt dangerous again; the critical system in the game means that characters are always at risk of dying, and some the signature attack table elements are quite vicious. The positive is that it means that the game always has a tension in combat, the negative is that realistically, it's likely that at least one character will die at some point and we will have to deal with that as a player group. The campaign is built to allow substitutions, but I'm sure that it will take an emotional toll when it happens.

The end of the session left us about to return into the main sandbox, which means that the next session will likely be consumed with planning the approach for the forthcoming sessions. Where will they want to take the Slipstream Cruiser Akhander? The summer homework that has long been put off is coming due...

Our Crew

• 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).
• Corvus the Bird, a specter; cobalt blue, with a long beak, always observing. Usually handled by Arda.

The New Seekers (Corvus, Arda, Meristo, Fassour, Rashid and Lieto)

The Session (Spoilers for The Flowers of Algorab).

At the opening of the episode, our crew found themselves recuperating from a fierce encounter with a peculiar crystal creature. The GM recounted the brutal clash for the benefit of those that weren't present, highlighting that our heroes narrowly avoided grave injuries, though Meristo Koulas did suffer some knocks. The creature, showcasing a signature attack mode unlike any they had previously encountered, ultimately fled after a relentless assault from the party. This was an encounter that nearly saw the end of one of our heroes, a tense moment for all involved.

Our group was left in the remnants of the battle, amidst broken machinery and the frigid atmosphere of disarray. They found themselves in the office of Professor Melitreides, faced with a researcher encased in crystal, a ghastly sight bearing testament to experiments turned awry. The office was rich with clues, peppered with log notes pointing to the dangerous science of the Argumoda Experiment that had consumed its creators.

Amidst their exploration, the group heard subtle but eerie chittering coming from a vent adorned with scratch marks. This called for quick thinking; they devised a plan to seal the vent to prevent any unseen, possibly crystalline creatures from emerging. The tension in the room was palpable, as they quietly argued the best approach, ultimately deciding to use a canister of cryogenic material to freeze whatever lay behind the vent's shadows. They sealed it with stack of books, hoping their impromptu barricade would hold whatever they faced at bay, at least for a while.

The threat sealed away, there was a whispered debate about the nature of the mysterious chitterings. In jest, Fassour remarked on the density of algebraic texts as being hopefully sleep-inducing for whatever critters lay beyond should they break through.

The cluttered desk revealed intriguing items including a crumpled love letter, hinting at a heartfelt connection between Adina and an unknown 'B.' The intrigue deepened as they speculated on hidden codes within the letter, questioning its ties to the station's researchers and possibly deeper secrets sewn into the station's quivering narrative. Was it a love letter or a secret coded message? Checking records, they believed that Adina was an algebraist who had recently returned to Ship City.

The discovery of more documents about the Argumoda Experiment amongst the scattered papers spurred a scientific discussion led by Demar, a knowledgeable presence, about the experimental tests being conducted on the station. The concept of inversion and scaled tests became focal points. Fassour Faradi, with a mix of humour and skepticism, engaged with the theories, pondering the pragmatic approach to invert a growing crystal phenomenon threatening the station.

As the group prepared for action, strategic considerations around resource management, path choices, and potential threats from unseen creatures were voiced, with Fassour maintaining a deadpan humorous take on their perilous situation. They reinforced their resolve to tackle the Argumoda Experiment, understanding that the balance of chaos and order hung by a precarious thread, woven with the crystal strands of time itself. However, they decided that it was time for some self care, and withdrew from the section of fractured space, back to the rest of the station, to allow for rest and recuperation.

Resting overnight, they prepared to return to the fracture. They shared details of what had happened, managing to gain agreement from both Station Chief Azade Jaspel and Professor Nisma Kabakoutal-Doussa. The latter's dislike of the Continuum Modeller's approaches was overcome by her desire in understand the phenomenon that they had created, her interest peaked by the video footage, information and technical summary from Demar Doui. The urgency to close down the experiment was emphasised by another more violent light quake, shaking the station to its core.

Thus primed and ready, or at least partially recovered, the New Seekers plunged deeper into the labyrinthine corridors of Professor Melitreides's haunted legacy, each step a stride toward either salvation or ruin. They pressed resolutely through the corridors and rooms that they had previously travelled through, haunted by moments when they felt the crystalline jackal-like creature was shadowing them in the depths of the translucent crystalline walls, just at the limit of what they could make out through the fractures.

Reaching. the heart of experiment, our intrepid adventurers encounter an unstable sphere of slipstream energy, tethered dangerously and stabilised by the reactor's force-fed power. Amidst their strategic inspections, they glean that the sphere, though unstable, holds together by a precarious force. The group—Meristo Kulas, Fassour Faradi, Arda Qamar, and Lieto Miesma—realises the necessity to cautiously invert the values controlling it to ensure a safe collapse rather than just cut off the power.

As they orchestrate their plan, a pressing challenge emerges in the form of the Professor, now transformed into crystalline form by the chaotic energy release of the experiment. The need to shift him away to safely input the crucial inversion becomes apparent. Fassour, leveraging a unique talent that allows him to harness his strength in persuasive ways—akin to an intimidating 'thug'—steps up to handle the situation physically, ensuring they maintain control over the potentially volatile setup.

In their efforts, they are suddenly besieged by bat-like crystal fluttering creatures emerging from previously traversed vents, adding layers of danger to their already dire situation. Arda Qamar, quick to react, calls for tactical vigilance, even attempting to manage an observational role amidst the chaos. Lieto Miesma provides analytical support, piecing together the delicate scientific sequences needed to stabilize the energy sphere lest it wreak further havoc.

As they fend off their aerial assailants with varied success, using everything from flamethrowers to improvised cryogenic devices, the reactor linked to the unstable sphere sparks dangerously, culminating in a blast of energy that ripples throughout the vicinity. Though they manage to avoid immediate harm from the blast (thanks to the dice favouring them), the structure of the station itself does not fare as well. The severe jolting of the facility makes it difficult for the crew to retain their footing, their suits affecting their ability to manoeuvre swiftly.

In this climax of elemental and physical onslaughts, the crew find themselves navigating their subsequent actions amid blasts of energy, swarms of crystalline creatures, and the desperate need to input the critical inversion codes. Amidst the defensive chaos, they utilise their respective abilities—some in combat prowess with Meristo's guidance, others through technical means with Arda's and Lieto’s insights to Demar Doui, to try and resolve the situation.

The session crescendos with the successful inversion and the subsequent stabilisation of the chaotic slipstream energies permeating the station. As the sphere collapsed, it released a hazardous burst of blight, which the crew's suits' protective armour provided some resistance to, albeit with varying degrees of success.

With the slipstream sphere now collapsed and the immediate threats momentarily abated, the adventurers, though wearied and battered by the ordeal, gather their energies. They attend to the fallen Professor Melitreides, whose form, freed from the crystalline encasement, collapses in exhaustion—a mirror to the adventurers' own drained but determined spirits, ready to face the next chapter in their thrilling voyage through the realms of science, mysticism, and the unknown.

The discussion turned to the extraction from the dangerous area while ensuring the safety of Professor Melitrades and any other survivors. The heroes debated the next steps in their escape, checking on other researchers, only to find that the other trapped researchers were less fortunate, succumbing to the harsh conditions of their entrapment. The body of one researcher was never found.

They navigated through damaged and hazardous corridors, with the structural integrity of the station compromised and environmental conditions a persistent threat.

Before they left the fracture, they checked out the power system for the experiment. In the reactor room, they encountered a powered-down neutronic continuum reactor, a marvel of technology they only recognised due to their prior briefing. Despite the challenges, they managed to access crucial data from a terminal, which proved vital but complex, surpassing their technical comprehension but hinting at further mysteries tied to the slipstream experiments and potentially sabotaged expansions.

They left the Library Station with the two Professors warily discussing the outcome of the experiment and the data that it had made available for future research. The fracture and crystallisation of the station slowly receded, although the damage remained, needing repair. Once recovered from the ordeal, Melitriedes was committed to analysing the precious cargo of the Nadir Mummy and Slipstream Sphere to discover any secrets that may make their mission to find the origin of the signal easier.

The voyage back to Ship City on the Kumaranti was uneventful. 

Upon their return, debriefings and discussions about future potentials opened up new avenues for inquiry and reflection. As they interacted with other characters, including Master Moska, they navigated discussions about leverage and the relational dynamics aboard the ship, hinting at deeper layers of social intrigue and potential future conflicts.

Source - initially Tabletoprecorder.com, heavily edited for names, clarity and brevity with some parts injected to explain or catch elements missed in the summarising. 

Assumptions in Traveller, revisited (4 new items)

 

Having shared the original post, there were a few suggestions of additional points that were worth including from the folks on the Traveller Mailing List and various Traveller Facebook groups. As a result, I've made some slight amendments to the initial post but there were some completely new assumptions to capture as well.

10) Gravity can be manipulated

Spacecraft and starships have artificial gravity, and contra-gravity systems exist that allow flight, so cities, speeders and unstreamlined vessels can fly and float.

11) Reactionless drives exist (sometimes)

Since the early days, reactionless drives have existed in Traveller (or at least drives that allow a ship to accelerate for half its journey, then turn around and decelerate for the second half until it reaches it’s destination whilst only using fuel for a power plant). The canon developed into these being Star Wars like thruster plates in MegaTraveller, but originally it was suggested that these were fusion or plasma torches. Traveller: The New Era removed thruster plates, and used reaction drives, but the subsequent editions have had both technologies. However, reactionless drives are more limited now; their efficiency drops as you move further from a gravity well, and they become incredibly inefficient in deep space.

12) Technology is not evenly distributed

The technology found in different star systems can be wildly different, ranging from no technology to extremely high. The Imperium equips most of its forces at a sustainable level that can be logistically supported by across the empire, although leading edge equipment is used. However, you could have stone-age technology in one system and cities floating in the air or in space in another.

13) Actions have consequences

The rule of law exists, and actions have consequences. In many systems, use of violence will lead to escalation from the authorities and it is possible for that to follow you off world, especially if a bounty is placed on you. There rules that apply to star systems too, including the Imperial Rules of War, which amongst other things forbid the use of weapons of mass destruction. The rules are not formally codified and the Imperium may flex its response dependent upon the situation, but nuclear weapons (and other weapons of mass destruction) are treated very, very seriously.

Thanks to everyone who shared ideas and their thoughts on assumptions.

22 August 2026

Assumptions in Traveller (edited)

I originally wrote this as an introduction for some players who had never played in Charted Space before. Sharing in case it’s useful.

Traveller’s default setting - Charted Space - is based upon the kind of SF pioneered by Isaac Azimov in the Foundation trilogy, Andre Norton in the Solar Queen books, EC Tubb and the Dumarest saga with lashings of Star Wars (which was released the same year), Herbert, Heinlein, and many more. The setting has subtly developed as new and different waves of science fiction have washed over it.

It is space opera with a veneer of hard SF.

It is not the only setting that you can use; the tools in the game are quite flexible, as has been shown with 2300AD, Judge Dredd, and the forthcoming games of Pioneer and Dark Conspiracy. However, it is the default.

Edit: items in purple have been updated since I wrote this originally.

The key features of the setting are:

1) FTL - Faster than Light - travel

This uses the 'Jump Drive'. Fueled with liquid hydrogen, the jumpdrive sends a ship into jumpspace, where it cannot be contacted. The ship stays in jump until it reaches the exit point plotted or it intersects with a large mass. A jump always takes a similar time; 168h +/- 10% (a week).

Jump drives are rated with a number. This represents the maximum number of parsecs a ship can travel in a single jump. A parsec is 3.27 light years.

Jumping near gravitational masses can cause a catastrophic mis-jump. Ships fail to emerge from jumpspace, or emerge many parsecs away from their destination, and sometimes in the future. The ship is surrounded by a jump-bubble when in jump space. The effect of the jump bubble is potentially harmful to humans exposed to it. Cases of madness have been reported.

2) Communication is limited to the speed of jump

Like the age of sail, messages are carried by ships. There is no FTL communication like subspace radio in Star Trek. Ships and agents operate independently as a result; you can’t call Starfleet for backup. 

The official, public, communication networks are slower than the maximum speed of jump, and the Imperial Navy and others maintain courier networks that are much faster.

3) Power is cheap and high efficiency

Fusion power is common and can be quite small. It is certainly seen as safe. 

4) There is no conscious AI

Computer technology is less well developed and AI pretty much unknown unlike settings like Iain M Banks' Culture or Neal Asher's Polity. The Imperium actively suppresses such technological innovation, but maintains research into the technology and has deployed it (for example when experimenting on creating much more heavily automated starships). Conscious AI eventually escapes into the wild, having been weaponised, and brings about the final destruction of the Imperium as ‘Virus’.

5) There are multiple Polities, many of them Human

By default, the game is set in the Third Imperium, a feudal empire that controls the space between stars but allows each world to govern as it chooses, so long as Imperial laws are not broken. The Imperium is surrounded by multiple other polities, several of which are human, but there are also alien polities.

The Imperium does not allow multi-world polities to join it, unless they dissolve those arrangements. However, in practice this can be flexible with multi-system autonomous regions (such as the Vegan Autonomous Region). The case against such polities can be made with the secession of the Solomani Autonomous Region (much of which became the Solomani Confederation).

6) The Ancients dominated the region previously and had technology far in advance of that used in current times

Several hundred thousand years ago, an extremely advanced culture developed and tampered with the future of the species in the region. They destroyed themselves in a cataclysmic war and are the subject of speculation and exploration.

7) Psionics exist

Psionic powers (mind powers like telepathy) exist and different polities take different approaches to them. The Imperium suppresses psionics officially, but it is at the heart of the Zhodani Consulate’s culture and a cause of distrust between the two polities. Of course, the Imperium also maintains research in this space despite its ban on the techniques.

8) Feudalism dominates

The Third Imperium is a feudal state, with nobles responsible to the Emperor for the systems they are granted as fiefs. The systems themselves can be representative democracies, theocracies and more, so long as they acknowledge the dominion of the Imperium and its control of the space between stars. It could (and has) been argued in the past that the Solomani Confederation (despite its one party state) is a more democratic society than the Third Imperium. Social standing is important if you want to influence and change how things are done.

9) Trade is key

The Third Imperium’s expansion was built as much upon trade & stability as it was with force. Trade demands stability, and stability requires peace. The writers for the Milieu Zero Traveller setting explicitly modelled the expansion upon the way that the East India Company operated; exploitation and violence. This upset quite a few people when it was released (as ‘not being realistic’ and 'not very heroic') but it was officially signed off as canon. Although there are mega-corporations that span the Imperium and beyond, there is also the space for small free traders making a living in the gaps the mega-corporations leave. The Imperial family has significant shareholdings in the mega-corporations in Imperial space.

In conclusion

These are the key features of Charted Space, specifically around the default Third Imperium setting. If you explored further around other polities and deeper into space (for example, the Zhodani Core Expeditions, the Solomani Rim Expeditions or the epic Deepnight Revelation mission) then you will find differences and exceptions to this, which is one of the reasons that I love the setting as much as the simple mechanics.

If you’re a Traveller fan, what other bits have I missed?

15 August 2026

LongCon 2026 - After Action Report - Running A|State 2nd edition.

 

The end of June brought LongCon, the very differently formatted gaming convention that I organise with my friend Graham. When I say organise, it's all pretty loose, because what I mainly do is create three different sets of Google Forms that allow us to manage the weekend. Normally, I also do some cute button badges for the attendees, but this year it wasn’t possible as the wrong size arrived and they would have been been illegible, so I skipped creating them with an apology on the Discord channels. In honesty, I had thought I had enough spares from the previous year, which led to me ordering them too late. 

The format differs from the usual Garricons because you play a single game all weekend with the same players; in effect, a mini-campaign equivalent to five or six normal sessions of play. That's quite a commitment for both the GMs and the players, and as a result we give much more leeway for the GMs to control at least part of the table that they're playing at. Typically a GM can pre-book around half the places at the table for players they want to get into the game, which helps because it gives them people that they know to play with. The preparation uses all the usual safety tags and descriptions that we use for Furnace and the other conventions, but we also ask the GMs to make a more extended pitch and also to describe the style that they use to run a game. I actually found that the hardest part of writing my pitch, because it does drive a bit of self reflection.

After some thought, I described my GM style like this: 

“Collaborative, Fan of the Characters - Player focussed, narrative-led, open”. 

I hope that’s an accurate description of how I approach games. For safety tools I went with Lines & Veils, X-Card and Open Table. That’s pretty much the norm for the Garricons and I think it gives a practical way to deal with anything that could become uncomfortable for the folks around the table.

This was my fourth LongCon, and the second time that I've run a game. Two years ago, I ran a hack of two classic Stormbringer modules into the Tripod system, which was pretty epic. It also required me to have a plan to hit the various beats within the two modules, and to have a set of off ramps or sections to skip if the players got delayed in any section. Fortunately I didn't need to use any of these when I ran it, but all the way through the weekend I was mentally checking the timing to try and bring the game to its conclusion at the right point.

In honesty, it was much the same pressure that you face when running a three or four hour scenario, but you have to think bigger and manage your time across the whole weekend. You see, there's absolutely no set timing for when you play over the weekend: the space becomes available at 9:30 in the morning, and in practice you can probably run until midnight should you want to on the Saturday. On Sunday, we loose the space around 6 pm. When you take meals, when you take breaks, and when you finish is all at the whim of the table. We're providing a space for a format and not juggling running 80 games across the weekend. I think we had six games in the end, most with five players. Ideally, would've liked a few more games to make the finances stronger (and reduce the need to subsidise where necessary from the other conventions) but hopefully that'll lift up next year.

This time, I didn't go with an epic plot. Rather I was using a Forged in the Dark game which is very much driven by the players around the table. It's a sandbox and has real opportunities to steer the game in the directions that each of the players wants. I picked A|State second edition to run for the weekend as I've been a longtime fan of the City, but never really got to explore it in any depth. I was never taken by the original edition’s rules, but did manage to run a couple of play tests for the publisher when the current version was being created. The books have sat on my shelves after being read since they landed when the Kickstarter completed, and this was a chance to really explore a setting in a game I wanted to know better. Like the original Blades in the Dark, A|State uses a formal mission and downtime sequence, connected to something called the Trouble Engine which generates new dangers and threats for the characters to deal with. It does have flex in the design, and impromptu missions can break out, along with intrusions when the GM throws something relevant to the plots that have developed in.

I was going into a weekend where we were going to create the characters, define information about the corner of the City that they lived in, and then play to see what happens. It was a proper sandbox. The game itself allows you to set your corner anywhere in the City, but for my own sanity, I opted for a destitute part of the City called Mire End, partly because it allowed the players the opportunity to be real heroes for their community, and partly because I have material from the first edition of the game that I could draw upon for inspiration. Fortunately, I had an absolutely fantastic group of players who really embraced the freedom that they were given to make creative decisions, and rolled with the results that came out, for good and for bad. All my players were people I've previously played with at Garricons and other conventions, and all of them are great role players. 

PREPARATION 

The initial step of my preparation was to re-read the A|State rules thoroughly and then go back through them and put sticky tabs in so I could find the relevant bits in play. I knew from the players that I had that they would have no problem with me referencing the rules during the game, so I didn't have to have it all installed in my head. However, I didn't want to spend huge amount of times hunting for things. On reflection, I could've used less tabs, especially as I very quickly realised during the actual play session that the index was very good and comprehensive.

Rulebook prepared, I moved onto the setting. For preparation, I reread the first edition material – especially ‘The Lostfinder’s Guide to Mire End’ – and systematically took notes on plot ideas and NPCs that I could throw in if necessary. I also dug into the QuickStart (‘Nicely, Done’) and the other PDF adventure releases for the game line. In honesty, the first edition material was more than enough, once I cut through the name changes for some organisations and characters. I created spiral-bound copies from the PDFs to reference at the table, using my handwritten notes as pointers for where to go. And this worked really well in play. If I'd had more time, I would've extracted some of the images of locations and people from the PDFs and printed them separately, but that wasn't to be.

 

I also wanted a map as a centrepiece for the table. I wanted it to feel real, and have the location grounded for the players. A|State first edition has a lovely hand-drawn map of the area I was setting the game in, but I also knew that Paul Baldowski had started to work on a redraw of that map in the style used for Blades in the Dark. I reached out to him, and he kindly let me use the file. He'd never finished the project, so I rapidly added in the missing canals and flooded areas, and some names for locations, over two evenings. The sections I completed weren't at the same standard as Paul's superb work, but they were enough for the weekend. I had the map printed by Pixel2Print at A0, whilst making another print of the first edition map at A2. They both looked superb. In one of our breaks, we had quite a discussion about the maps, and came to the conclusion that Paul's was more useful for the game as it had loads of locations detailed, but the first edition map was great for quick reference and style.

During the last week before the convention, we discussed the characters on the LongCon Discord, but I quickly realised that busy diaries meant that we were going to finish this at the table. As a result, I printed off copies of all the different character playbooks. Unfortunately, I didn't notice the fact that I'd accidentally overwritten the master copies of the playbooks when I re-created the playtest characters with the final version rules last time I ran the game. This was only discovered as we started to finalise, so two of the characters became people referenced in the flavour text within the rulebook. That was kind of fun.

The other preparation I did was to make sure I brought a power extension lead and several fans with me because the week before the convention the first heatwave of the summer arrived. I was sceptical how much we would need them, but very rapidly realised that they were a necessity in the afternoon when the sun started to shine directly onto the part of the building we were in. It may be an old stone building, but it doesn't deal with heat well; like most of the UK’s structures, it’s designed to keep heat in.

The only preparation that didn't pay off was a set of lovely etched reusable clocks for the game that I ordered off Etsy, but they didn't arrive until the Monday after the convention. However, I'm sure I'll have plenty of other opportunities to use them.

SATURDAY 

We don't usually do an opening speech at LongCon or any kind of formal kickoff. Normally Graham goes around doing the networking thing he does so well, talking to players and GMs while I'm making sure they've got everything they need. I do wonder if we miss a trick with that, because you don't get much cross-fertilisation between the different groups like you do at the other Garricons. However, I suspect the format will work against that anyway, but it's something to consider for next time.

I told the players that I'd arrive at the Garrison Hotel around 9:30 and we got ourselves started once we’d all arrived. It was a slow start, but an opportunity to catch up with people and to say hello. We went straight into building characters, then developing the corner – part of which was already there because of the existing background I had drawn upon – and then finalising off the Alliance sheet, which describes the ‘Troublemakers’ (characters) and the impact upon the community of their activities. 

A|State is really a game about building community, creating hope and hopefully making a change for the better. The players were a disparate group, a Ghostfighter (knife-wielding warrior), an activist Street-healer, a Sneak Thief, a Mapmaker (fixer) and a Dinginsmith (hacker). Very rapidly, I had quite a complicated relationship web drawn of who trusted whom, and the key contacts and friends in the community. They all hung out on an old canal barge owned by the Ghostfighter which served as a home and community Health Centre.

It was interesting how some random elements developed and shaped the characters beyond the playbooks; Dr. Bob had brought a character photo for use, and their choice - a Bollywood star - captured Debbie’s attention. Out of that, an unrequited love between the Ghostfighter and the Street Healer was born. This drove plenty of interactions over the weekend between the characters and the plot. I love it when things like this become important for the shape of the game.

I started the game gently with two clocks (countdown timers) running for dangers – one involved action that one of the gangs was going to take, and the other was an unseen danger that would be revealed. The latter was a longer clock with eight segments, so unlikely to hit in the first three or four missions. The former, a 4 segment clock, was much faster and likely to rapidly become an issue.

Dr. Bob: Cool moments included the contrast between the Ghostfighter interacting with the orphans (from the Third Church Orphanage they supported) to keep them safe, but also using them as a spy network. 

The game started with some gentle community interaction but soon escalated when one of the local street traders was beaten up by a gang of the youths who were increasingly becoming an issue. An initial attempt to talk the gang down didn't go well, and ultimately the crew decided that they had to do something about this. We then saw the Troublemakers setting up missions to build community support to take action, a key part of which was to draw upon the resources of the Forest Green area in the Burgh, as they had a militia. We saw diplomacy, deals and connections being made along the way the street healer got shot, but was fortunately only lightly wounded. However, threats had been made and the Ghostfighter and mapmaker led the Forest Green Regulars into battle against the gang when they wouldn't stand down.

It was brutal, and when the fighting stopped, the gang had been wiped out but at a severe cost. The leader of the Forest Green Regulars had been killed, as had half of his men, leaving their part of the Burgh vulnerable to the actions of the Watermark crew. During the mission, the crew had discovered evidence that the street gang was aligned with the Watermark crew, who were the strongest criminal faction in Mire End and part of the infamous Hohler Gang running gambling, prostitution fights and extortion across the whole district.

The situation escalated, as the Watermark crew attempted to fire bomb the canal barge used by the crew that also served as the community health centre. The Troublemakers relocated the barge, having put the fire out, but were now set on a path of confrontation with the Hohler gang’s allies.

Dr. Bob: Definitely the only RPG I've ever played with my feet in a dishwashing bowl of water! 

Sometime around this happening the heat in the hotel reached ridiculous levels so we were forced to stop playing for a bit and carry out a brave real life expedition to find ice cream. It was so hot that the local Morrisons supermarket had shut down much of its freezer section as the display freezers could not hold temperature adequately. They had no ice cream, no ice, and we ended up buying some dishwashing bowls and flannels to use with cold water. 

Some of the players returned to the hotel but four of us took advantage of an air-conditioned car to go to a nearby Sainsbury's where we located ice cream and brought them back. I think we lost nearly three hours due to the heat and people not feeling in a good enough condition to play. Had this been a more traditional plotted campaign that I was running, I'd been very concerned about timing as a result. However, the open-ended sandbox meant that this was much less of a concern.

Once we resumed playing, things rapidly escalated as the crew hatched a plan to steal the money that the Watermark crew was collecting to pay onto the Hohler Gang as their cut. They planned to use this to discredit the the Watermark Crew’s leader, Garsey Hatchett, to gain funds for the community, and hopefully cause conflict between the criminals. Through some clever scouting, followed by sneaking, they managed to drug the beer at the pub - The Locomotive - that was used as a headquarters for the gang. They then snuck in, dealt with the two individuals who hadn't fallen asleep, and then appropriated the money and the gang leader.

They stashed the money in the canal barge, and dumped Garsey Hatchett into the canal while he was still drugged unconscious after a debate about what the best way to get rid of him was. As a GM, it was interesting to listen to the short moral argument about whether they should kill Hatchett (to make sure) but in the end, they decided that death by drowning was more credible if the body was ever found because it may look like he’d tried to run off with the funds and things had gone wrong. Meanwhile, across from the Mire End ferry stage in Folly Hills, the Hohler Gang was waiting for their payment to arrive on the last ferry of the night. It never did, and at dawn, when the first ferry of the next day crossed without the tribute, the gang members headed back to report the trouble to Mr Hohler himself.

Around then we broke for the evening, agreeing to restart at 10:00 the next morning.

I slept moderately well – it was warm but not too bad.

SUNDAY

I had breakfast with Graham, Keary and Dr Bob, and then a good natter with Dr Bob before going back to empty my room and set up for the Sunday session.

The second day of the game seemed to pass much more quickly for me, and things were starting to build up a momentum of their own. The players started to try to build a consensus and establish a Burgh council to keep the Watermark and Hohler Gang out. They handled the increasingly desperate actions of the remains of the Watermark crew to extort money from the people of Mire End because they were afraid of the retribution of the Hohler Gang for the failed payment.

During this part, I was deliberately drawing on the various contacts that we’d established in character generation and play and showing them at the risk of harm. A power vacuum was forming and the Troublemakers needed to act to fill it and establish control over the Burgh or the Hohler Gang would just establish a new proxy with the remains of the Watermark crew.

We also completed the clock for the hidden danger which I started to plan to reveal. This was the Fulgurator’s Guild (who run the railways) surveying the abandoned line through Mire End with the intention of reestablishing it. This was a long term threat to the Burgh which was unlikely to have any direct impact in the time we had to play, but I wanted to make it feel like Mire End and the City were living, breathing places. The real threat to the corner was that the old viaducts and causeways had become the sites of shanty towns, raised as they were from the flooded streets below. I’d decided that the main viaduct near the former Mire End Terminus had a group who were growing a lot of the vegetables for the Burgh on it in a tight knit community so threatening that would be really significant for the community.

With the ongoing tension with the remnants of the Watermark Crew, the Troublemakers decided to destroy the Locomotive Pub, hoping to kill or drive out most of their opposition. They managed to plant explosives at the back of the pub.

Meanwhile, the Sneak Thief went to Folly Hills to visit the Dog Track and have a little flutter. She was accosted by members of the Hohler Gang and ended up in a meeting with Mr Hohler where she was offered a job working for him, replacing Garsey Hatchett. Mr Hohler made it clear that he wasn’t actually bothered who controlled Mire End, but rather about the revenue lost. Ultimately, with the Mapmaker, the Sneak Thief, a deal would be cut that saw the Burgh paying a cut to the Hohlers for their non-involvement in Mire End. The benefit for the corner was that all the rest of the money that the Watermark Crew extorted, from which the Hohler Gang took their cut, wasn’t being taken. 

Dr. Bob: Graham did a sterling job of being the reasonable negotiator in the face of all us firebrands and nutters.

The challenge was to get the neighbourhood to unite enough to agree to this and to also effectively keep some of the money they saved to start to improve Mire End. In effect, the Troublemakers were working on reestablish a Burgh Council. That was always going to be challenging; why would the relatively prosperous people of Forest Green want to deal with with the poor folks that live in the shanty towns around Redberry Park? The characters managed to influence key non-player characters to help them.

They were dealing with the folks on top of the Mire End Terminus viaduct when the Locomotive Pub exploded, breaking the Watermark Crew. Messier and more bloody than they had originally intended, but perhaps the only way to deal with a gang that only knew how to wield violence. As the smoke rose from burning pub in the streets below, they secured the commitment of the people on the viaduct to come to the Burgh meeting.

They followed that up with an interaction with the two Fulgurators who were surveying the viaduct, discovering the potential threat and trying to intimidate them into going away, only to be faced with bureaucracy and a formal notice of survey from the Guild. A problem that would most likely only grow.

The movers and shakers of the Burgh were brought together, and the final act of the game was to bring them together in a consensus, and to secure agreement to pay the Hohler Gang off. The Troublemakers swayed those present, and the tentative first steps to the recover of Mire End were set in place. 

Graham: I'm glad we went to a negotiated settlement at the end. I would have expected you to TPK or punish our corner/burgh if we had tried to directly fight one of the largest crime syndicates around.

REFLECTIONS 

I really enjoyed running this game; I had a great group of players and they took ownership of driving the plots forward. I had beats that I dropped in, along with non-player characters and groups, but really the story was driven from their choices. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous before I ran the game, because I knew that it was going to be two days of effectively reacting and building story together. I didn’t have the crutch of a preplanned plot line like I’d had running Stormbringer two years before. It was both terrifying and liberating.

The thing is, I knew all the players who had signed up for my game, so I shouldn’t have been worried. They’re all good at owning the story and supporting each other, and riffing to build a narrative. Intellectually, I knew this, but I couldn’t avoid being nervous. I suspect that if I ever stop being a little nervous before a game then I’m doing something wrong.

There was only one character choice that worried me - the Dinginsmith. My concern was that the hacker style character was always a challenge in Mire End as the infrastructure is so shattered. However, I think we managed to make it work, and I found a way to link the character to the owner of the Mire End Cogworks (computer tech in the city is mechanical and can be at the nanoscale) in a way that was meaningful.

The mechanics of A|State worked well. It has a mission/downtime sequence like Blades in the Dark. Possibly the only challenge with managing that was when the Troublemakers decided to split and carry out missions in parallel. Initially, it felt very mechanical working through the resolution, but it very quickly just became part of how we were playing and faded into the background. We did see some good character development over the session, which did make a difference to what they could achieve.

I do like the way that A|State handles the Blades in the Dark ‘position and effect’ challenge by turning it into a visual matrix of risk & reward that’s very easy for everyone to interact with. I always found the original hard to hold in my head and use on the fly.

 

 I don’t think I could have delivered the game quite so well without the first edition material that I pillaged for plot ideas and non-player characters. If you’re a GM with limited time, having that kind of crutch is really useful as you can take it and make it your own. I do think that Handiwork Games could use some of that past material and produce a short set of guides for different Burghs in the City as inspiration for the players and GM. The core book does have some nice tasters for the Burghs, but I’m thinking a more expanded gazetteer with people, places and plots to draw on.

There’s quite a lot that I didn’t write about above; the relationships the characters had with NPCs (for example the Street Healer had a former lover who was directly threatened by the action that they took and the Watermark Crew’s response), elements of their backstories that were significant (the Ghostfighter’s local fame and links to the Third Church of the Mortal God) and the quite open discussions about what the right things were to do. Sometimes they found themselves taking actions they preferred not so that they could tie the neighbourhood together (for example, the Ghostfighter, always a bit of a loner, ends up training the Forest Green Regulars after their leader was killed). We also saw the characters connecting people together in the community.

As we left the game, there were multiple threads that could have been pulled to follow up. I’d have happily considered running an ongoing game online if the players had wanted me to. It felt like a living breathing place, and they’d made a difference.

The Troublemakers made a difference to people’s lives, but will it sustain? Will they be remembered, or just fade away? As the game's tag line says...

“You will never forget the City, but the City will forget you.”

12 August 2026

Flowers of Algorab - Episode 15 - It's not Dead, it's Resting

This session was on the road again, and we ended up with a reduced crew. The travel kit worked great, but there was an issue with the Decked extension for Owlbear Rodeo, which meant I relied on one of the players using a deck of cards for our initiative set up. Checking in on the support channel on Discord, it seems that it was something to do with that specific creator's extensions and website, and it's subsequently worked fine.

Once again, we were without Andy (Rashid) and at the last minute Paul (Meristo) couldn't make it. That was pretty worrying because his character was at risk of impending death from what could best be described as Coriolis: The Great Dark's nearest think to a Hound of Tindalos. 

The session was mostly one long - and very dangerous - combat. This was the first time that the characters had crossed anything with a signature attack roll and they very quickly realised that they were potentially a bit out of their depth. They also realised that although the bird is very effective, it's also very vulnerable to damage and it shouldn't be used frontline. It was very soon down and broken, which led to the Monty Python 'Dead Parrot' sketch being revisited. Fortunately, our heroes prevailed but are still in the inter-dimensional fracture and still pretty hurt. 

Our Crew

• 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).
• Corvus the Bird, a specter; cobalt blue, with a long beak, always observing. Usually handled by Arda.

The New Seekers (Corvus, Arda, Meristo, Fassour, Rashid and Lieto)

The Session (Spoilers for The Flowers of Algorab).

We start with the New Seekers finding themselves delving deep into the Library Station within a fractured crystalline dimensional rift. This peculiar setting is the aftermath of the Argumoda experiment, now manifest as the heart of glass—a swirling spherical vortex of Slipstream energy orchestrated by the crystalline-encased Professor Banu Melitreides. Our crew are spread out - having split up - with Meristo and Demar Doui, an algebraist, deep within the fracture having crawled down a vent shaft to access the site of the experiment. They are accompanied by Arda Qamar's bird companion, Corvus. 

Meanwhile Arda Qamar, and her allies scout and manage their paths around the altered terrain, trying to find a way through to their colleagues. Alongside Arda, Lieto Miesma, a keen-minded scholar and archaeologist, and Fassour Farradi, the team's quick-witted burrower and negotiator, strategically negotiate their way through this enigmatic rift. Rashid and Elena bring up the rear, ready to protect the group.

Meristo and Demar, have encountered various phenomena, including mirrored walls that shift colours and a chilling spectacle of a person trapped in the wall in a silent scream. The ordeal tests their resolve, pushing them to stave off despair and pressing them to make critical decisions under pressure. Adding further tension, a multifaceted creature of glass—a shrieking, shimmering predator—emerges as a clear and present danger through the walls. This creature, adaptable in form and terrifying in presence, sets the stage for an intense confrontation. 

Corvus, directed by Arda, attacks the creature, drawing its attention away from the more vulnerable members of the team. Tragically, as the situation escalates, Meristo, another team member, is harshly struck down by the glass predator, enduring significant damage and becoming dazed in the process. In a pivotal moment, Corvus valiantly shields Meristo from further harm using its protective abilities, thereby preventing any further loss of health through a tactical deployment of Arda’s bird handling skills.

The rest of the crew pushes forward though an unexplored passage which fortunately connects to the chamber that the injured Meristo, Demar and Corvus are in.

With every manoeuvre and decision, from defending attacks to navigating through the cluttered and hazardous environment of the rift, our heroes strive to regroup, reassess, and forge onward in the dire hopes of containing the energies unleashed by Professor Melitreides’s hazardous experiments. The adventure's stakes remain as mercurial and unpredictable as the shimmering walls of the fractured crystalline rift they strive to master.

With the turn of the tide, Arda instructs Corvus, to prepare for defence; however, the glass predator unleashes a fierce energy blast, dropping the bird to the floor, seriously injured and lacking in energy. Corvus's fate hangs in the balance, helped only by Arda's quick decision to spend extra energy in an attempt to bolster their diminishing defences.

As luck would have it, the protective efforts manage to momentarily stabilise Corvus, albeit leaving him in a precarious state on the crystalline battlefield. Descriptions of the glass creature’s relentless pursuit create vivid imagery, drawing the players deeper into the conflict-laden narrative. The team's continued efforts are a balancing act of resource management and tactical acumen, striving to defend against the creature while attempting to rejuvenate their faltering companion. Meanwhile, Corvus plays dead, following Arda's instructions.

In a tense turn of events unfolding within the crystalline dimensional rift, the crew closely coordinate their actions against a formidable glass creature. They strategise over the turn order and the sequence of manoeuvres as they face potential damage from the creature's attacks, debating the tactical employment of abilities like Rashid's success in defence and Meristo's potential rally for hope restoration.

As the creature launches relentless attacks, the group discusses the potential impacts, speculating on how affected characters like Meristo, still battling despite his challenges, can contribute. Elena's prowess as an experienced Delver is suddenly remembered, prompting adjustments and a reassessment of the arsenal available to the group, including Elena's capabilities.

The team work together, concentrating their fire, using the cryogenic projector that they found earlier. The projector freezes the crystalline hound like creature, seeming to both slow and harm it. Ultimately, a barrage of fire drives it off, and it disappears into the crystalline walls, with vague images of it fleeing deeper into the rift.

The crew regroup and recover, and then decide to head back towards the initial sections of the fractured library, to explore the passages that they had gone past earlier. Before they leave, they are unsuccessful at recovering the body of the algebraist, Priya Vanak, which is frozen in the wall. They suspect that she may not be dead, but trapped in a moment of time, but their cutting torch and tools are inadequate to penetrate the wall.

They soon find a thickly crystal-covered door marked with the name "Professor B. Melitreides". Fassour, showing practical resolve, manages to force the door open, albeit the effort causes stir and strain amongst the group, who are in need of healing and recovery. Corvus languishes exhausted on Arda's shoulder bereft of energy.

Beyond the shattered entrance lies a distorted office space—grey walls, the pungent scent of electrical burning, papers scattered, a broken drawing board, and most chillingly, a figure encased in crystal seated at a desk. As the adventurers assess the room, Fassour's sixth sense perceives a potential ambush, particularly drawn towards the bizarre scrittering noise emanating from a vent scratched by small, hard claws.

Amid these disconcerting revelations, a pivotal discovery is made. The crystal-ensnared figure at the desk, startled yet stationary, possesses documents under her hand—clues that could potentially unravel the mysteries of this fractured dimension.

Source - initially Tabletoprecorder.com, heavily edited for names, clarity and brevity with some parts injected to explain or catch elements missed in the summarising. 

Books in July 2026

In July I read 10 books (2,637 pages) which takes me to 59 for the year so far (14,965 pages). I read three roleplaying books, two graphic novels and five novels. No non-fiction this month, which was a surprise, but I'm quite close to finishing one which will appear in August's update.

Roleplaying included the excellent Darkened Hill & Dale and Terminus by Sarah Cole. Both of these are system agnostic horror scenarios which I could easily imagine being used with Liminal or one of the many folk horror or Cthulhu based games. 

Darkened Hill & Dale is an anthology of seven different scenarios, all of which read well and present interesting and difference conundrums to the player characters. There's only one of them that I would be nervous of running, but that's not because of the plot, it's more that I'm not certain that I have the GMing chops to deliver the time loop conundrum it presents well enough. 

Terminus is completely different kettle of fish; a single scenario set in and around Tottenham Court Station which links back the King in Yellow. It is very much a puzzle scenario, and will need players to be thinking through what they are facing or they could come to a nasty end. I could see this one being used for Delta Green quite easily. I recommend both of these books; you can get them here at Sarah's website.

The other roleplaying book that I read was Nathan Russell's Hard City: Noir Roleplaying, which is published by Osprey Games. This has a very workable system - kind of a variation on Forged in the Dark with a bit of FATE.  There's an interesting difficulty approach built into the pool mechanic were negative dice can cancel out positive ones if you get the same results. There's a case generator, and two example scenarios,  each illustrating one of the two types you can use in the game – investigations or capers. Overall, I like it and could easily imagine running with it, but I’m not sure it gives me the GM tingles.

The graphic novels were the two Dreadnaughts collections. These explore the background of how America adopted the use of Judges as seen in Judge Dredd. You can see why it is done, but also how it leads to a slide into a fascist absolutist state. Very much a warning.

M. John Harrison is always a favourite of mine, and I enjoyed the prose of The End of Everything, an end of the world after an alien invasion told from the perspective of the characters involved. Not his best novel, but enjoyable.

I then returned to authors who have featured heavily in my reading in recent years. Christopher Fowler's Ten-Second Staircase was a return to Bryant & May and has the elderly investigators facing threats to their career, a complicated set of murders and almost accidentally solving one of their long open cases. Enjoyable, and I still have another five or six of these in my to-read pile.

I read The Haunting of Maddy Clare by Simone  St. James. Unlike the other books that I've read from her, this was set in the past after the First World War. A young woman from a temping agency takes a job working for investigators into ghostly phenomena, because the job requires a female to interact with the ghost. This is a ghost story about a suicide, but the underlying mystery needs to be solved to find out what drove the girl involved to kill herself, something that poses real dangers and ramifications for the local community. It was well done.

I read the latest spy novel from Charles Cumming, Icarus 17, which was nicely done and continues the story of Lachlan Kite and Box 88, an Anglo-American spy agency. Kite has a person from his past return seeking help finding her son, and the plot presents the perspective from both Kite and the missing person. 

After reading Icarus 17, I decided to read one of the older Charles Cumming books I had in my to-rread pile, A Spy by Nature. Set around the period that New Labour comes into power, it tells the tale of a young man who ends up involved in a SIS operation and the consequences that he and his friends face. There's a degree of ambiguity on how this is written, and I wasn't certain how much I liked the protagonist, but I empathised with the dilemmas that his choices gave him. Ultimately, he has to face up to the consequences of his actions, and in some ways this reminded me more of le Carré when the less savoury and dangerous aspects of espionage have to be faced, along with the tolls on the characters involved. A very different novel to Icarus 17.

1 July 2026

First Impressions - Gallows Corner - A Peasants' Revolt RPG

Gallows Corner - A Peasants' Revolt RPG is produced by Three Sails Studios and is set in England in 1376 in a time of revolution. It's a 246-page full-colour soft-touch hardback book, beautifully illustrated with throughout with a stock silver on black cover showing a gallows silhouette either against the moon or the Sun. The layout is clean and easy to read, but personally I find the font size too big. I can easily imagine this as a slightly smaller book, perhaps B2 or digest especially as there are quite deep top and bottom margins.

Two waves of the bubonic plague have swept through the country and the Hundred Years War is well under way in France. Power is ruthlessly hoarded by the nobility and the peasantry is oppressed with little in the way of rights and freedoms. Indeed, in many cases those rights are being stolen away thanks to the greed of the ruling class who can act with impunity. The players take the part of members of the peasantry who are resisting this oppression.

The game brings its own unique dice pool system and a more extensive meta-game for Influence and Control that reminds me of Blades in the Dark. There's a huge amount to impress in the background and setting, and the game is ambitious in what it wants to achieve. The designers describe it as being narrative first and foremost, which would explain why there are some elements of the system design that I feel let the game down because they are underwritten and unclear. 

Characters are defined with three traits: physical, emotional, and intellectual. Each of these has a single die assigned to it, usually a D6 or a D8 at the start. They also have a trade which is a general area of expertise and a job related to that trade, both of which give additional dice.

Similar trades are presented together under heading the ties them all together. For example, "The Body" includes labourers, miners, pugilists, servants, sex workers, and soldiers. Each of these groups has six different trades within it, and each trade typically has three jobs underneath it; a Soldier could be a conscript, deserter or mercenary. Each of the group of trades has four skills defined, which provide a way to narratively impact the world without necessarily needing to take a test. For example, a soldier could be a survivor which means they are hard to kill. 

Usually skills don't have dice rolls associated with them, but if they do the Narrator is advised to take this into consideration. It's not describing the core book, but the publisher's Discord suggests raising the dice level in such cases.

This lack clarity, needing to fall back on the Discord as a reference, is quite common in the sections on mechanics.

Characters can unlock additional skills, and increase Dice levels with experience. Non-Player Characters are simply defined by the core three traits.

When making a test, players will roll one or more dice from the dice pool. As a minimum they will roll one of their experience dice – physical, intellectual, emotional – but they can roll additional dice if they can justify why their trade or job would come to play. To succeed, you only need to roll a 5 on any of the dice rolled. If another character offers help, this will increase the appropriate dice by a step if their assistance relates to their experience, or they get to roll their job or trade dice if the help relates to that expertise. 

In some circumstances, dice can be reduced down to a single D4. Obviously, you can't roll a success on a D4 if the target number is 5 and there are no adds. Mechanically, there is no point in making a dice roll. Initially, I thought that this was a typo in the text, and the target number should be a 4, not a 5. However, I sought clarity in the Kickstarter comments and the Discord and the designer said this was a deliberate choice. It's not a choice that sits well with me, because several of the NPC as presented have D4 ratings in their experience and this doesn't always align with the character description. Player characters can also have their dice reduced to this level if they suffer some kind of setback. It just doesn't sit well with me that you have a dice to roll that cannot really ever achieve a success unless the character is helped by someone or finds some other kind of advantage.

Characters develop by gaining expertise and training. Every time a test is done that involves a job dice, a player records a point of expertise for the character whether or not the roll succeeds. Once expertise points equal to the value of the next dice step are achieved, the character can undergo training to either raise the dice by a step or to unlock an additional skill. There is also a route to unlock a new job, but the character needs to have achieved at least journeyman level in their job, and there will be a temporary reduction in their skills in the existing job while they learn the new job. Learning two new jobs increase the trade dice by step.

The meta-engine that drives the game is all about influence and control. Influence represents the fame and notoriety of the character and the party, enabling them to acquire followers, known as retainers. They also gain a single benefit and detriment which will happen once per season. Influences measured both at an individual level, and at the party level. Once the party achieves a high enough collective influence, they can stage a showdown with the authorities to gain control of an individual hundred or even the county. Control reflects the size of county and the status the person who rules it.  Control can be challenged by taking part in an active liberation or directly engaging with the central antagonist. These actions can reduce the Control value or increase the parties influence.

This is another area where the game isn't clearly written. The benefits and detriments of influence are clearly defined but the typical amount of influence gained from acting is not. Likewise, examples aren't given of what levels of reduction should be applied to control values. When I sought advice from the designers on the Discord, I found that they said that this was deliberate to give the Narrator flexibility. Personally, I found this a bit of a cop out, because because understanding this is really important in understanding and running the game. I do think they should've included examples in the book and then just stated that they were open to the Narrator's discretion.

The book is also lacking in examples of the mechanics for tests and Control/influence in use. It feels under written. However, I'm pretty confident it will work in play and the clarifications on the Discord have addressed all the areas I wasn't sure about.

There are some useful rules and tables for managing retinues and retainers, and determining the outcome of missions that you may send them on. Retainers are the natural replacements for the player characters, should they die.

Combat uses a diamond to represent the status of a combatant. Combat is a simple exchange; both the Narrator and the player roll their dice (as a minimum the physical experience dice) and the highest roll wins. Success means that the loser;s condition can be reduced, or the winners condition can be improved. Assistance can also be rendered and down or retreating combatants can be captured. Retainers are included by adding their physical dice into the players dice pool. Tests can also be made appropriate points during combat to gain advantage. If you win a round a combat, you gave momentum which typically means that you get narrative control at the start of a scene in some form. Overall, mechanically this is a really simple system with a degree of ambiguity as it's written. It's nothing to set the world alight, but it should work okay.

The next part of the book focuses on the background and establishing the area of England that you'll be using for the group to play in. This is done by establishing the point crawl. England is broken into regions, and within each region there are Counties, and each county has several Hundreds. There's an interesting set of key principles for establishing the point crawl;

• England is a living place.
• The space of England is the structure of the game.
• Start local (you don't have to prepare it all at the start).
• Travel should be exciting and dangerous (even though it's abstracted in play).
• Use emergent storytelling – the place and people that the characters meet and react to should drive the story.
• The storytelling is intimate and grand at the same time, linked by the point crawl.
• Players are custodians and victims of England.
• Hope & hardship of the two sides of the same coin.
• Don't get bogged down in historical detail.

The game recommend you start by choosing the County that you want to commence the game in. Although each County has a page of description and some hooks, the material you need to use for the point crawl is not included in the book. You will need to download the county maps and sheets from the publisher's website. Once you have a County in mind, there is a four step process to prepare a point crawl, something that you do during a session zero.

1) Assign a verb to the county reflecting the Crown's actions or presence.

The players and the Narrator select the verb based on the kind of experience they want to have. Verbs include build, grow, organise, fight, destroy, and recruit. Once this is agreed, the Narrator needs to determine how the antagonist will be acting related to this verb.

2) Assign additional verbs to each point in the County.

The Narrator adds additional verbs to points on the map – typically in the Hundreds - to suggest the kind of scenes and events that the players will encounter should their characters visit those locations. It's recommended that a good mix of verbs are used to give a variety of flavours to experience.

3) Create an antagonist and establish the county clock.

The previous two steps establish what's going on, but an antagonist is required to be clear who or what is oppressing the populace. Who is supporting the system that oppresses the people? Narrators are recommended to use tools in a later section of the book to help select the right antagonist to oppose the players. It could be a Bishop, a Lord, a Sheriff, or someone else at county level, but they will have a representatives in each of the Hundreds to oppose the characters.

Once the antagonist is defined, a county clock is set. This is the traditional countdown clock used in Powered by the Apocalypse and Forged in the Dark games, and it represents the time before the antagonists oppressive plans come to fruition.

4) Complete the county sheet

The final stage preparing the point crawl is to establish the level of control of the antagonist. This control is bolstered by each Hundred that they control, until the characters gain enough influence to change the balance. The final decision is which season it is when the campaign starts.

As the players progress in the game, gaining influence and power, the scale of the game can be expanded to operate at regional level rather than at county level. The exact same mechanics are used, but the impact of change will be larger. This is very much something for the later part of a campaign.

The game is played out in scenes, which normally occur when characters visit a location. Each location will have something happening that they can engage with in shape, leading to an ultimate resolution that may tip the balance of power in the Hundred. Usually, scenes will have a related clock and once again there is a structured approach to preparing for play.

1. Choose the scene location (this could be a town within the Hundred or even another location).
2. Build a scene around the verb for that point (although there are some scene suggestions in the book if you are struggling for an idea).
3. Establish the clock for the scene (and it is possible that you could have more than one clock).
4. Plan for the scene's resolution (which means the Narrator needs to have a feel for what success, failure and a mixed result would bring).
5. Use the resolution of the scene to inspire future scenes

When you've worked through a number of scenes, seasons come to an end. Between each season there is an opportunity for downtime where the players can tell a story about an individual they have met, a group they've helped or replaced they visited. These will feedback into the future path of the point crawl.

The game only progresses clocks when something materially causes a reason for a Clock to advance. This is described as a four step process where progress = action = story = consequence. For progress, something needs to have happened, for example a challenge has been met or failed. This will then drive an action and then impact the story. Consequences may then follow. 

Scene clocks are more tangible and have a discreet statement that implies progress and consequence should they be completed. Typically, this is a statement that supports the objectives of the antagonists. There's no obvious guidance on how long the clock should be in the rules.

Once the characters have gained enough influence, a showdown will occur between them and the antagonist which will determine the fate of the County. There's some good guidance around how this should be built along with an example. Effectively, this should be a cinematic affair, challenging and feature the major antagonist. It should relate to theCounty verb, and plenty of opportunity should be given for the players to plan how their characters will respond to it.

The next section the book explores the different regions and counties over about seventy pages. I quite liked this as it gave a top level feel for each county, but it wasn't restrictive. However, I found the lack of maps frustrating. I would've preferred if they've been in the book and not a separate download.

This is followed by section entitled "The English", which provides backgroundon people of different classes; the commons, the clergy, the nobility, and the military. There are entries under each of the classes which describe the activities this group of people are involved with, which is backed up with a set of random tables to generate names, backgrounds, motivations and vices. There are example NPC's and then some ideas for stories involving such people. There are entries for artisans, criminals, farmers, performers, pilgrims, servants, traders, bishops, monks and nuns, priests, lords and ladies, knights, sheriffs, soldiers, sergeants, officers, nurseries, and bandits.

There's also a short two-page scenario; a scene to trigger a campaign from. This has some light guidance, and random choices, and is obviously designed to be tailored to a specific tables preferences.

The book concludes with a section covering eight different verbs, with four suggested scenes as ideas for each of them. This is useful as a source of inspiration.

The final page of the book gives the download link to supporting documentation such as the maps, character sheets, retinue sheets and county sheets.

Conclusion.

I really like the ideas and the themes within this book. It's been put together very nicely, with quality illustration and thoughtful layout (although I find the font too big). It reminds me of some of the more campaign framed Powered by the Apocalypse and Forged in the Dark games. Probably the closest I've come to this is Comrades (write up of my experience running this here), which is also framed as a revolutionary roleplaying game. I can imagine Gallows Corner giving a great experience at the table.

However, I'm going to sell my copy. The under writing in the system, and the associated lack of clarity means I don't really want to invest the time that the game demands to get the best out of it. I'd rather use something like Comrades instead, where everything hangs together, and the campaign mechanics are presented clearly. I know this is a storytelling game, but the lack of clarity and cohesiveness in how the game is presented really undermines any urge that I have to run the game. 

• Having skill levels that generate automatic failures is a red flag to me. There's no point in having the skill if you cannot succeed in it  and that's a design choice the authors have consciously taken.
• If the authors intend for the Narrator to be able to set how influence works, then they should give clear guidance on that. The reader shouldn't have to go and look on a Discord forum to find out how the game is meant to have played. 
• I also found the lack of maps within the book disappointing, especially in a game that is tied to geography. Yes, I know that they are available as downloads but I feel they should've been in the book itself.

This is very much a personal view, and I'm sure many people will really like what's presented here, but some of the gaps press some of my buttons about game design. To me, system matters. Maps matter. If you consciously put greyness and flexibility in the system, you should explain that in the text and give guidance how to use it. Overall, it's a miss for me. However, I'll probably steal the maps and descriptions from the PDFs to use for other games in the future.

26 July 2026

Flowers of Algorab - Episode 14 - Heart of Glass

This session saw the characters enter the dimensional fracture in the Library Station, trying to establish what had happened, whether it could be reversed and whether they could rescue the Professor or any of his team that were stranded in the strange blight-infested and crystalline maze that the station had become.

The session was a remote call for me from a Travelodge, and I used my new microphone for on the road, a J-Lab Talk USB. Technically, the evening went without a hitch, which convinces me even more that the issue I've been chasing was the settings in the Role VTT.  Nearly a full house of players with only Andy (Rashid) missing. This ended up being one of our longer sessions; it must have been going well because I completely lost track of the time we spend on it. We ended on a cliffhanger that is potentially very lethal for Paul's character, Meristo along with the young algebraist from the Continuum Modellers who has joined him in the heart of glass in the dimensional fracture.

Our Crew

• 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).
• Corvus the Bird, a specter; cobalt blue, with a long beak, always observing. Usually handled by Arda.

The New Seekers (Fassour, Rashid, Meritso, Lieto and Arda & Corvus)

The Session (Spoilers for The Flowers of Algorab).

In the realm of slipstreams and dimensional breaches the group of bold adventurers teamed as the New Seekers delved into matters of great cosmic perturbance. The experimental meddling at the station had gone awry a fortnight ago, causing an explosion and the catastrophic manifestation of a crystalline substance caused by a Slipstream caused dimensional fracture, enveloping parts of the Library Station.

Professor Banu Melitreides, along with several algebraists, were feared trapped or worse within their own hubris-laden creation, their laboratory sealed off amidst the station’s lockdown. The task, as grim as it was grand, fell to the explorers. They were to navigate the hazardous fracture, seek out Melitreides along with any other survivors, and perhaps shut down an experiment that crackled with the threatening potential of bridging dimensions unbridled.

Arguments about the recklessness of the experiment bubbled among the factions. Professor Kabakoutal-Doussa, the pre-eminent leader among the conservative Projection Theorists - traditionalists of the Navigators Guild's modelling of space-time - clashed with the Continuum Modellers led by Professor Melitreides. These Modellers had supported the hazardous slipstream recreation—the Argumoda Experiment—that now threatened to tear asunder the Library Station.

Yet, amidst the gravity of their mission, the explorers found space for levity and contractual bargaining. They queried the depth of their wallets just as much as the mysteries of the cosmos. Lieto Miesma, with a gleam of capitalist shrewdness, wrangled improved payment for their perilous inquiry, arguing the dangers they were about to wade into were no trifles.

Faced with the conflicted factions in the Navigator's Guid,  mediated by Station Chief Azade, the explorers needed to tread a careful path through political and cosmic minefields. With brazen hearts and curious minds, our explorers embraced their charge, wading into the fractured unknown, armed with intellect, bravery, and a peppering of existential dread over the safety of the realms they were committed to explore and protect.

In the tangled web of cosmic exploration and experiment, Arda Qamar found herself amidst young scientists gathered like moths to a flame, eager to share their findings. Their discussion revealed a concerning spread of crystalline material outside its original containment near the lockdown area. Curiosity piqued, Arda jumped at the chance to examine the material, though she was cautioned to keep this venture from the prying eyes of certain superior scientists who might disapprove, especially Professor Kabakoutal-Doussa.

Arda, alongside Fassour and Lieto Miesma, planned to split their efforts to maximize their understanding of the situation. Arda and Fassour would inspect the quarantined crystalline sample, while Lieto would engage with a separate group of Continuum Modellers, hoping to glean insights from their sidelined expertise.

The scientists led Arda and her companions to a remote laboratory. Here, amid discussions of containment and the properties of the mysterious crystals, an urgency tingled in the air as Fassour identified the substance as 'proto-blight', a theorised precursor to the dangerous blight. The discovery implied a ticking clock, the potential transformation of the proto-blight into a full-blown calamity.

Even as they took precautions with masks and containment procedures, the adventurers wrestled with the implications of their find. The atmosphere grew tense, and a palpable shudder through the station underscored the gravity of their situation. Something - most likely the fracture in space time - was threatening the integrity of the asteroid the Library Station was constructed upon. Amidst it all, through a dramatic flourish, Fassour used his Mercurian blade to contain a newly materialised crystal, a vivid reminder of the unpredictable and possibly perilous nature of the substance they faced.

Meanwhile, Meristo Koulas was drawing closer to the heart of the problem with another group of scientists. Discussions revealed a slipstream experiment gone awry, potentially set to devastate the station unless the adventurers could navigate the intricate scientific and bureaucratic maze to find and apply a solution.

In a tale weaving scientific intrigue with the spectre of disaster, the adventurers found themselves not only exploring frontier science but potentially fighting to prevent an anomaly from undoing the fabric of their space station and perhaps reality itself.

Our intrepid adventurers engaged in a critical discussion on the precarious situation at the station. Meristo was particularly concerned about the increasing threat of the experiment that had originally caused the destabilisation. He suggested contacting Professor Nisma Kabakoutal-Doussa for essential input data, considering it vital for their next steps. 

The conversation shifted focus on how the data could potentially help shut down the hazardous operation but frustration was evident since direct access to the control system was necessary, and Nisma had been less than cooperative when previously approached by Demar Doui, a Second Algebraist from the Continuum Modelling group.

Ultimately, the crux moved towards confronting Professor Nisma directly at her quarters to persuade her to hand over the crucial data. The group, now joined by hesitant yet determined allies, prepared for what could be a taut exchange. Upon arrival, they were greeted by Nisma, who was visibly strained and dismissive, frustrated by the experimental blunders that had endangered the station.

A spirited debate ensued, with Meristo trying to appeal to Nisma’s sense of duty to protect the station, while Lieto showcased projections on the station's accelerated degradation to bolster their argument. Despite initial resistance, the professor finally conceded, handing over the data reluctantly but with a stern caveat that her cooperation was purely based on the potential of bringing those at fault to justice before an ethics committee.

The adventurers, now equipped with the crucial data thanks to Meristo’s logical persuasion and Lieto’s analytical support, planned their next moves meticulously. Their continued preparations and strategy discussions set the stage for the high stakes operation awaiting them as they hoped to not only salvage the experiment but also prevent a potential catastrophe from unfolding. Prior to embarking on their perilous journey into the heart of the station's anomaly, they undertook one last review of the data to ensure everything accounted for, leaving nothing to chance in their looming encounter with the unknown.

In the mysterious depths of a crystalline-encrusted station, our adventurers found themselves wrestling with the complexities of the environment and the equipment they carried. Lieto Miesma, Fassour Faradi, Meristo Koulas, Rashid al-Madri and Arda Qamar were deep in discussion regarding their supplies, strategising carefully about the amount each could carry based on their strength and the weight of their equipment.

They entered the contaminated section of the station through an improvised lock-seal which was showing signs of port-blight crystal contamination. The New Seekers did consider using the large Blight Eco-Suit parked by the entrance, but decided against it due to the size of the equipment.

As the group ventured forward, they encountered a cluttered area that required agile navigation. Maristo stepped up, taking the lead with the support of Elena, a seasoned ruin diver hired by Fassour at Ship City, to manoeuvre through the debris. Despite initial stumbles, hope and teamwork saw them through without incident.

Upon entering a lab thick with the ominous blight, the party noticed their feathered companion Corvus reacting to the infection. They decided to clear the blight-infested room using Corvus's abilities, allowing safer examination of the intriguing contents within—cooling tanks and a cryo projector, which Fassour and the others decided to claim in case they proved useful further in.

As Arda and Lieto used an artefact scanner to investigate the crystalline debris, they discovered it to be an extra-dimensional compound, valuable yet potentially tainted by Blight. This revelation posed a risky opportunity which they decided to explore further.

Investigations continued as the adventurers noticed a vent in the ceiling, prompting thoughts of further exploration despite the cramped conditions. The reliable Elena, ever agile, ascended to scout ahead, confirming the tight fit. Nonetheless, Maristo, undeterred by the narrow space, prepared to venture into the vent supported by a tether managed by his comrades, ensuring his safety in the precarious environment.

In a gripping segment of their adventure, Meristo ventured alone through the narrow, claustrophobic vent, depleting valuable supplies as he navigated the tight space. At his journey's end, he discovered an eerie chamber. The chamber, dazzled with prismatic walls and a hovering sphere of pulsating white light, housed a crystalline figure engaged in mysterious tasks at a terminal. The figure, typing slowly, appeared absorbed in its work, oblivious to Meristo's presence.

Meristo relayed his findings to his comrades, igniting a discussion about the potential control centre of the perilous experiment they sought to contain. Despite attempts to interact, the crystalline figure remained focused, interacting only with its machinery and ignoring all attempts at communication.

Determined to understand and potentially halt the experiment, Maristo decided to enter the chamber himself, facilitating Corvus the bird to bypass him and explore further. As the others speculated on the situation from afar, Meristo engaged with the figure, only to face continuous disregard.

Compelled to solve the enigma, Meristo switched tactics and sought help from a nervous scientist, Demar Doui, hoping his expertise could decipher the ongoing experiment's parameters. The scientist, battling his nerves as he squeezed through the tunnel, finally joined Meristo by his side after a clumsy descent.

Confronted with the perplexing setup — a machine regulated by varying energy levels and a potential reactor overload — Meristo and his scientist ally realised the urgency of modulating the reactor to prevent disaster. The revelation that direct intervention might cause an explosion added to the tension, prompting an immediate need to find a safer method to wind down the reactor's power.

Leaving the chamber through an alternative exit, Meristo and the scientist, guided by their analytical findings and Corvus's vigilant exploration, continued their precarious mission. They stumbled upon further anomalies, including a tragically entrapped scientist within the crystalline walls, adding layers of emotional and ethical complexity to their already daunting task.

Looking at the station layout, they suspected that the alternative route would take them back to the rest of the New Seekers. They resolved to press forward, hoping to mitigate the cosmic threats they unveiled, preparing themselves for potentially dire confrontations, whether with the forces of nature or the possibly uncontainable powers unleashed by human ambition. As they entered the next chamber, something angular, crystalline and unnatural started to emerge from the wall behind them, leaving the fate of Meristo and Demar Doui fate hanging in the balance. Perhaps the rest of the New Seekers will be able to come to their aid...

Source - initially Tabletoprecorder.com, heavily edited for names, clarity and brevity with some parts injected to explain or catch elements missed in the summarising.