Mirror, Mirror - High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure - Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars By Jason Vey & Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door - Session Report

 Over the weekend we were able to get together & play a round of Night Shift The Veterans of the Supernatural! Things in Bingham have really heated up! 

The PC's got in way over their heads by going into the Morley mansion & finding the Goblyn Glass in the basement. They crossed  over into the dreamlands of  Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door series! And things got much weirder as they found Christopher St.John's 'workshop' along with the magic mirror that dominated the entire basement. The whole mirror radiated with occult  power drawing everything around it! 
The PC this time shot Robert St.John dead & made sure of it! But the guardian of  the Goblyn Glass had them! A giant hairy hand belonging to a Gug reached through & drew them into the glass! 

The The Mirror of Erised photo by  Rob Young from United Kingdom was my player handout stand in for the Goblyn Glass. 

And then the party came face to face with the dungeon of Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door! Things got very weird indeed when it became clear that the party was hip deep in the dream wilderness of  Ultan's Door! They wanted to turn around & go back to Bingham. The mirror wouldn't let them! So now they are face to face with the weirdness of the dreamlands of Ben Laurence. Will they survive the experience?! 

What's really happened is that the PC's have aquired a very special occult key from from Edward Dimond, who wants to see the PC's near the Morley manor. But will it make any difference & can the PC's figure it out in time?! And now a pride  of cats is shadowing the PC's. Now what the PC's don't know?! Agents from the U.S. Army have moved in & claimed the Goblyn Glass! How will they survive?! 

Shot in The Dreams of Others - High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure - Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars By Jason Vey & Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door

 So the PC's in this session of the on going hybrid got a chance to do a bit of investigative work around the old inn in Bingham. This session picks right up after the last one . The PC's ran into Christopher St.John & they shot him! They plugged him dead! 
Or did they?! 

Well not exactly.  They plugged instead one of his doppleganger marionette's made from the dead bodies of his victims. You see Christopher St.John is a puppeteer who got is education within the dungeon outlined in Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door series. The players didn't take any chances with the marionette & burnt the remains then their cleric/priest Father Callihoun sprinkled holy water on it & gave it a proper send off. 
The party cornered the smuggler a  very young  Amos Bradford aka The Raven more ammo & weaponry of a particular type just as he was leaving town. They almost got themselves shot but he was more then happy to take their money.  The party ran across a lost child near the Morley manor. And the players were expecting to find a murdered family or some such. They didn't. But they did find a very terrified family outside of their house. They had no idea how they had gotten there & were covered in blood. But whose was it?! 
And that's when the cat's pride showed up. 

A gang of forty cats on sure footed paws showed up & surrounded the party. The magus of the pride cast a sleep spell to put the family out & the cat general incharge of the pride handed the party a note explaining that they needed to take the Donaldson's away from the house now! There's something really dangerous happening besides the machinations of Christopher St.John! The players didn't make their saves & the meows of the cat magus became very tiring to listen to. 

Illustration from  Through Ultan's Door series.

The party got very tired & each one dropped looking at the yellow golden eyes of the cat magus. They awoke in their own beds in the morning each with a battered cat looking at them. They had their equipment, weapons, etc. all with muddy shoes. But no idea how they got there. But who or what did the cats save them from?! 
Under the pillow of Father Callihoun was a letter from Edward Dimond, who wants to see the PC's near the Morley manor. Near the broom close in  the inn where the PC's were staying one of the cats showed Lord Reggie a curious sword that was left behind by Kane when he was staying there. Weird green dried fluid is on the blade.  

Session Report Zero - High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure - Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars By Jason Vey & Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door

 So today we've  gotten the chance to put into practice some of the things we've been talking about here for sometime. And this goes back into a whole cloth other direction in today's game session or one shot. Or should I say the Connecticut one shot. In 1919's Connecticut in the little town of  Bingham tucked in the  Northwestern hills the residents  are stumped by the disappearance of twenty people into thin air! What's going on?! In 1785 a young boy fell through a hole in reality & right near the dungeon outlined in Ben Laurence's Through Ultan's Door. What came back in 1919 isn't even remotely human at all! Christopher St.John is a 13th level  undead puppeteer fully grown & murderous! Christopher is a thirteenth level puppeteer whose trained under some of the monsters of the dungeons of  Through Ultan's Door.

The PC's were called in by the Pilgrim a mysterious immortal figure who wanders New England searching out local urban legends & stories. The Pilgrim  was a fellow of Cotton Mather & a part of the society of intellectuals & people in the know. He's recruited the PC's who are also a part of this society to find out what's happening. And much of the mythology behind this comes straight out of Skirmisher Games The Mythos Society of New England by Clint Staples. 

Clint Staples was a historian & one of the best writers/designers for Skirmisher Games. And I should have took far more advantage of the friendship on social media then I did. Since then several things have become evident. The OSR ruleset that we're using for this are Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars & Age of Conan both by Jason Vey both have many of these same elements within them. Today was a PC workshop to get characters up & running within this campaign. The men & women of this game are people of extraordinary means. We're not sure if this is going to be an on going campaign. We're not sure if we're going to be using Pagan Publishing's 1995 Coming Full Circle. But its on the agenda as a possibility. 

Bingham seems like your typical New England sleepy town or village. Its anything but. The town has ties to the smuggling operations of a very young  Amos Bradford aka The Raven.  The PC's are investigating the Morley manor house that goes back to the Civil War era which is the home of Silvia Dyer one of the social & political lights of Bingham. And the PC's were met by a horror beyond human kin inside the manor! 

A  marionette that had been created from the body of Silvia Dyer one of the town's leading socialites & member of the board that runs the town under the mayor himself. 

This quick mock up campaign uses several things here at once with a large debt to Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg. The unique lay on of the monster/NPC, the crew of NPC's of the town, & several options. We can  add in the Lovecraft mythos as needed or not. Amazing Adventures rpg by Jason Vey from  Troll Lords is on the docket if we need to tap into it. The local Bingham historian is a former New York City Museum of Natural history executive officer in charge of the Cimmerian collection named Robert Howard.  Karl Edgar Wagner's Kane just left Bingham & the PC's heard the riot act about this scandalous Bohemian businessman. Quite the scandal in Bingham.