Adventure Frame for Magonomia: Catspaw

Layer Marney Tower is Tudor-era country house (a large mansion) whose construction was never completed. It has a staff of servants and construction workers but has had no owner in residence since the passing of Lord John Marney in 1525. No resident, that is, except for a ghostly white cat that continually knocks over armor, claws up the plaster, and generally makes a catlike mess of things. 

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Adventure Frame for Magonomia - The Gullimore Ghosts

As a preview of our upcoming Magonomia supplement, 101 Adventure Frames in Enchanted England, here’s the completed text of another of the 101 frames” “The Gullimore Ghosts” by John Tibbetts and Mark Lawford.

I promise not all of the adventure frames are about ghosts or cemeteries. We are posting this in October, so we couldn’t resist.

About Adventure Frames

Many game masters don't play published adventures as written, but rather use them as a source of ideas for their homebrew games. An adventure frame is just the essential plot structure for a one-session adventure—the part people are most likely to use. It's the spark to set your imagination running. Details of specific scenes, characters, and challenges can be filled in as the game master wishes. An experienced game master should be able develop an adventure frame into a customized story in about thirty to sixty minutes.

Shewstone Publishing's adventure frames are presented in "hook, line, and sinker" format, originally developed by Jolly Blackburn in Shadis magazine in the 1990s. The hook is the opening scene or scenes that motivate the player characters to participate in the adventure. The line is the set of fun events and challenges that make the adventure worth playing. The sinker is a surprise, usually a plot twist, that makes the adventure unique and memorable. The sinker can often be omitted if you want the plot to be more straightforward. Finally, preparation notes give you an idea of what homework the game master should do to get ready to run the adventure.

The Gullimore Ghosts

Stock image from 123RF.com. Used with permission.

by John Tibbetts and Mark Lawford

Summary: Find out why ghosts are congregating at the town of Gullimore

Content Warnings: Death, desecration of graves

Genre: Mystery

Place: A small town

Time: Any era

Length: Medium (2-4 hours)

Hook

The (fictional) market town of Gullimore has a ghost problem. Ghosts arise every night, screaming and pleading for peace. It started six months ago with a single ghost, but now there are at least a dozen. No one has been harmed, but the villagers cannot get any sleep. Gullimore is at a crossroads that many merchants travel, and the disruption to trade has become so severe the sheriff (a high official responsible for public safety) has offered a reward to anyone who can put the ghosts to rest.

Line

Arriving in Gullimore to investigate, the PCs find that they aren’t alone. Others have heard of the problem—and the potential reward—and have decided they will solve the problem.

If the PCs have any particular rivals, they may be present and ready to make trouble. Other, less experienced investigators try to tail the PCs to learn what they know and to try to get the jump on them. Others still are there to sell charms to the townsfolk to ward off ghosts and to ensure a quiet night’s sleep. It’s as though the investigators are as much a problem as the ghosts themselves.

As for those ghosts, they appear to be recently dead—within the last six months or so, which aligns to the length of time the problem has been ongoing. There is no shortage of witnesses, and the fear and dread has turned to annoyance. At night, during the witching hour (between 3 and 4 o’clock), the investigators flock to the streets to try to commune with the ghosts, to catalogue them, and to ward against them.  All the while, the ghosts wail and complain at their disturbed rest.

Speaking to the ghosts is not very informative. They know their names and something of their former lives, but they’re obsessed with being unable to rest and are fruitlessly searching the for what disturbed them.

If the PCs ask the townfolk who the ghosts are, they find the spirits are not local, but there are witnesses who recognize them. One identifies old Rob, a stonemason from yonder town. Another identifies Meg, a farmer’s wife from the other end of the county.

Following the trail to those locations, the PCs can find the ghosts’ graves and can determine via magic or physical inspection that those final resting places have been robbed and the bodies removed.

Sinker

The ghosts are rising because body snatchers have been digging up graveyards throughout the area and stealing the corpses to sell to physicians in the nearest city (likely Cambridge or Oxford or somewhere with a university or medical school). The hauntings are directed toward the body snatchers, who must be caught and the bodies returned to their graves to end the nuisance.

The body snatchers are Bill Tanner and his son John, and they have some limited magical power bought from a theurgist, specifically a kind of ward that hides them from ghostly attention (see the attached spell description). The Tanners live in a quarter of the town that the ghosts mysteriously avoid, and their tanning business takes them across the county collecting animal hides and bringing them back to Gullimore for treatment—a perfect cover.

The bodies have been sold to the medical school, studied, and then buried in unmarked pauper’s graves in the nearest large cemetery.

Preparation Notes

You may need a few fellow investigators, each with their own motives and methods, some of whom are schooled in the magical sciences. You’ll also need to note that there is a small district of the town that has remained free from the ghostly invasion. When asking questions in that area, the PCs will learn that the neighborhood is actually where the haunting started, which suggests someone has done something to change things there.

Keywords: Ghosts, body snatchers

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Tales of Renaissance Wizardy: A Glass Half Full

by Chris Hopper

Tales of Renaissance Wizardry is a series of short adventure outlines for use in tabletop roleplaying games. ©2020 Shewstone Publishing LLC. You are permitted to use, modify, and redistribute this article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike (CC BY-SA) license.

Glassmaking - Picture book of Sir John Mandeville's Travels (c.1410), f.16 - BL Add MS 24189

Background

Thirty years ago, Cassio Perno and his associates were invited by Henry VIII to bring Venetian glassmaking to London. For far too long the English aristocracy had relied on continental imports, and with the new church of England, many Catholic glassmakers were now beyond their reach. It was the king’s intent that cristallo soda glass and decorative engraving be brought not only to his new church, but to the secular world. And as England grew, so did the demand for glassware.

Queen Elizabeth has a more practical concern. Her wizards regularly require pure, stout glassware for alchemical concoctions. The stained glass, window, and table trade is great for England’s burgeoning economy, but the steady demand of wood-fired kilns is an expensive undertaking. Jean Carre, a Norman glassmaker relocated to the industrial forests of Sussex known as the Waeld, claims to have revolutionized the industry. His glass is stout and sturdy and, more importantly, made with coal and ash instead of fresh wood. The wealth of coal available in England would free up precious hardwoods for boats and buildings.  But before the queen signs an exclusive contract with him she wants you, her wizards, to put his product to the test.

One of the other experts, Cassio Perno, is set on sabotaging Carre to maintain his hold over the industry. When the wizards presence makes his plan more difficult, he resorts to increasingly extreme measures to ensure the Norman falls out of favor of the queen.

Scene 1: Meet the Glassmakers

The characters are called to Oxford, where Jean Carre is to present his new glassware to the Queen herself.  She is fond of her visits to Oxford, and excited for the opportunity to witness these claims firsthand. After the characters are briefed on this summons, read or paraphrase the following:

Second quad, Jesus College Oxford

A light rain falls over the Jesus College in Oxford, splashing against the thick bubbled glass of the plated windows. A galley of court attendants crowds around flustered academics in the lecture theatre as a young huguenot sets up a series of demonstrations before the Queen and her advisors.

Jean Carre, the presenting huguenot, is a conservatively dressed calvinist with a thick french accent. He wears murrey woolens and the flat topped hat of a woodland worker, and seems out of place in both the bright silks of the court and the black robes of academia. After a series of basic demonstrations, he explains that his process is made using the by-product of industries the queen has already engaged. No longer will she have to burn precious oak, when his glass can simply be made with the leftover ash and lye.

Queen Elizabeth is not so easily won over. After a brief consultation with her trusted advisor and court magician Dr. John Dee, she declares that her wizards will be joining the academics in putting his alchemical equipment to the test.

As the attendants file out, Dee will take the opportunity to ask the characters what methods they’d like to use, and recommend a few of his own. He warns that there are many established suppliers of royal glass that don’t wish a newcomer competing on their field, and encourages the characters to keep an eye on the proceedings.

The attending experts from Oxford are: 

  • Cassio Perno, an elaborately dressed man in his fifties. He speaks with only the faintest italian accent. He’s friendly and polite as decorum requires, but cruel-eyed and clearly intimidated by the younger craftsman. Perno is an accomplished Alchemist, with stats to challenge the wizards if it comes to open combat.

  • Giuseppe Regio, a young Venetian specializing in avertine (opaque, copper-treated decorative glass). He prefers academic dress and is especially interested in the magical applications of alchemy.

  • Siegfried Messer, a German chemist whose expertise is in explosives and other reactants. He’s here as a reagents expert, but also out of academic curiosity. He’s in his mid-forties and dresses unremarkably. Of the three, he’ll be the friendliest to the wizards.

Scene 2: The Tests

If they have the appropriate backgrounds, the characters may take a few moments to devise tests of their own, otherwise the academics do so. Choose one or two examples below as opportunities for the characters to interact with the experts, or to catch an act of malicious intent. It’s important that Perno not blow his cover at this phase: the sabotage is in the setup of the test, not the action itself.

Heat tolerance. The glass is placed inside a crucible that is fed bit by bit until the heat causes it to shatter. Perno will sneak a hotter burning wood like oak, birch, or cherry into Jean Carre’s side of the crucible.

Stain. Egg wash and silver powder paints are used to fill etchings on vibrant window glass. While this is decorative, it serves an important purpose for a number of magical applications as well. The wizards may use the piece to attempt a scrying challenge. Perno will dilute the silver with cadmium, burning it to a flat black if successful.

Acid. Increasingly dense concentrations of vitriol (sulphuric acid) are roasted into oil of vitriol. Perno will swap it with the dangerous Aqua Regia to destroy the glassware outright.

Thermal Density. Glassware is heated in the same crucible as before, then doused in water to see if it will crack. This would also be difficult to sabotage, but Perno may have some clever means of weakening the glass prior to it being heated.

The glassmakers brought their best pieces to Oxford, but after the Trials the academics will want to see the glassmaking process itself. Carre’s Wealder glasshouse is two days away by carriage, outside Tunbridge, south of London. The academics will gladly offer to share a carriage with the wizards the next morning.

Scene 3: That Night

The wizards are given rooms at Oxford for the night. These are well-appointed, though the town of Oxford is clearly straining economically. Elizabeth’s reign has made university towns rife with conflict between religious reformers, Catholics, and various class issues. If the wizards decide to sneak out for whatever reason, they may find themselves rolled into a ditch for their finery.

Cassio Perno hopes to use this as cover to murder Carre. He talks the Norman (and anyone who wants to tag along) to a pint at the Bear, where he slips a bit of Monkshood onto his glass. This maneuver is well-rehearsed, and should be hard (but not impossible) for the wizards to spot, if they’re present. If using Magonomia, the Subtle Poison Alchemy spell should be used for this.

Wizards who spot the action must work quickly to save Carre, and detain Perno at the Tavern. If he realizes he’s been caught, he’ll call on the aid of a couple of hired toughs and slip out into the night, relying on alchemy and stealth to avoid being personally involved in the fight.

 If the wizards were not in attendance at the tavern, it’ll be up to their investigative skills to uncover Jean Carre’s murderer.

Scene 4: Investigating the Murder

If the wizards didn’t visit the tavern, or failed to detect the poisoning, they’ll wake the next morning to find the campus buzzing about the death of their guest. As the queen’s wizards, they’ll be in a prime position to aid the local constabulary in the investigation. Interviewing the other experts and staff will reveal the following: 

  • Cassio Perno will be open and honest about befriending Jean Carre by treating him to an evening at Oxford’s finest alehouse. He will allow the characters to search his quarters, having disposed of the poison outside the Bear last night.

  • Giuseppe Regio joined Cassio and Carre, but turned in after a single drink. He didn’t hear or see anything else that night

  • Siegfried Messer is too old for that, and hadn’t left the campus. He heard Carre stumbling around the room.

  • A witness at the bar, a commoner or servant, may have seen Perno slip the poison.

Characters with divination or medical knowledge may detect the poison around Jean Carre’s room, which looks to have been tossed a bit before he collapsed into bed. If they pursue the murder to the Bear, a servant named Emma Burgess will have witnessed the poison slip, but have no evidence beyond her word. Searching the grounds will find the vial, but magic will again be required to link it to Cassio Perno.

Wrapping Up

If the characters prevented Carre’s murder, he’ll compose himself and demonstrate his remarkable process with pride, impressing the remaining wizards and academic experts with his simpler method of production and clear results.

If Carre is murdered and Perno captured or killed, the Crown will commend the wizards for dispensing justice but express their regrets at a failure to prevent catastrophe. 

If Cassio escapes, he’ll slip away from Oxford to lay low until the whole business is forgotten. He’s well established in London, and continues to provide his Murano methods for years. The remaining academics will attempt to reassemble Carre’s methods, but never fully reproduce his methods.

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men …

We played this scenario as part of the Magonomia Actual Play video series: you can watch the entire game session using the YouTube link below. I thought the scenario played very well — though in our case it didn’t quite go as written. That’s a strength, not a weakness, of the scenario: we went a little off script but the concept of this adventure was clear and complete enough that I (the GM) never felt lost or stuck.

When we launch the Shewstone Podcasts, one of our episodes will be an interview with me, the GM, and Chris, the writer, talking about what went well and what was most helpful in the material he wrote. Until then, you can check out our actual play video and compare for yourself!

— Andrew Gronosky