The One Hour Pariah Sandbox: City of Ghosts Session 3 Play Report

Portrait of late (Finnish?) Mesolithic man by Tom Björklund,
used as character art for Wren-in-the-Sedge 

Due to time constraints and inspired by Luke Gearing's one-hour megadungeon sessions, I'm running a weekly PARIAH sandbox during my Friday lunch break. This is the third play report. 

Session 1 is here

Session 2 is here

The PCs

• Nimble Goat the spirit-touched victim of a blood feud (played by C)
• Rotten Antelope, exiled for thieving (played by J1) 
• Wandering Jackal, the strong girl with double-headed axe, an aurochs and dog (played by C)
• Wren-in-the-Sedge a keen hunter. Wears a jerkin of deer bone and leather, and a straw hat lined with wren feathers. Was exiled for angering the spirits (played by O)

PCs vaguely present and supporting NPCs

• Brave Hyena: a lanky young woman outcast for being outed as a thief. She is often bouncing around and enjoys climbing on things. She was a potter and herder in her tribe.
• One of 4 of feral dogs brought by Brave Hyena to see whether it can be trained
• A pariah youth called Terrible Lake, who felt scared and is now hiding in a raft not far from the pariahs
• A number of "quantum pariahs" (including Toothless Eel) representing the potential for other players to on the game in the future, assumed to be camped out on the other side of the river
• Another youth and 2 elders representing NPC members of the band

Over the wall...

We pick up in the aftermath of first contact with the people lurking behind the wall. They have learned the following:

• There are multiple dwellings within the walled "garden", and also signs of small-scale vegetable cultivation
• There is at least one adult and one child
• The adult is female-presenting, wears a pain (linen?) tunic and has chin-length, straight black hair shaved in the centre (like a reverse mohawk hairstyle)

The party waited outside the walled garden, deciding to knock on the wooden "door" (a series of heavy wooden planks lashed together, boarding up an intentional opening in the wall..

NOTE: this session was mostly talking to NPCs. After making an initial, turn-based encounter roll (result: ambience) I switched to making encounter rolls every ten minutes of real time. 

The "door" swung open inwards, a hatch "hinged" at the to, revealing the woman from earlier and a taller, similar looking woman wielding a spear. Not feeling threatened (and reacting well) the two women invited the party inside.

The last person in spotted a small, feral cat trotting idly by as the hatch shut behind them.

The pariahs learned from the two women:

• The shorter, tunic wearer is named Gibbon Chatter (ironically, given her relative speechlessness)
• The second woman goes by Knife Rope (on account of the stone knife hanging from a rope lashed to her waist)
• They enjoyed vegetable stew in the furthest hut with other adults and the children
• The group is composed of pariahs, and like them they were drawn to the settlement by the promising weather system hovering over the city
• The city, therefore, predated its inhabitants
• They have a leader, who would be arriving soon

Lions and Trees

The leader, Ash-and-How, arrived shortly: a gaunt, chalky-complexioned man of advancing years though still fully able. He was neither surprised nor concerned by the pariahs' arrival, possibly ascertaining their potential utility to his band.

The pariahs learned that the group worshipped some kind of supernatural Lion. It emerged that initially this creature had been picking off members of the band, one at a time, until Ash-and-How was able to win its trust and worship it as spirit. He claims that it now protects his people.

However, the group was divided over this, with one side refusing to worship the predator. Instead, they believed that the spirits of the many ancient trees would provide them protection. The two groups had come to blows in the past, though apparently a truce had been agreed recently.

The second group were known as tree-speakers or tree-seekers and occupied some of the walled gardens around the central avenue leading up to the heptagonal pyramid. The first group or Lion Children was split between the site the pariahs were at the time visiting and another series of gardens in the west. They were told that some of the gardens were unoccupied or were just avoided by the two human groups.

Of those present, only Ash-and-How and Gibbon chatter had seen the Demon Lion: Ash-and-How was able to interact with the entity and survive, earning its patronage. Gibbon Chatter doesn't like to talk about it. 

Ghost Market

The Lion Children described an uncanny occurrence, once every quarter of the moon, along the central avenue. Before dawn, boats would arrive at the main jetty (opposite where the rest of the pariahs were camped) from both directions. These various groups would bring tribute to leave at the sealed gates to the heptagonal pyramid.

More unsettling, apparitions would materialise at either side of the avenue, apparently peddling wares to the visiting outsiders. Both human groups stay within the walls of their respective "gardens" while this is occurring. None of the local pariahs of either group (shall we call them gardeners?) had been in direct contact with any of the ghostly traders, but it was rumoured that a Tree-Seeker had been involved in an altercation with one of the visiting outlanders.

Safety of the Pariah Camp

The pariahs wanted to know how safe their current camp was: Ash-and-How confessed he had never been there, but even the Tree Seekers preferred to remain in the city due to its shelter and resources, even though they were not favoured by the Lion! Knife-Rope recounted that on multiple occasions she had seen flying lizards with 40ft wingspan soaring overhead, but that they never landed in the city, presumably because of the lion. Some members of the group had been over there before, but were wary of other predators and didn't remain for long.

Joining the Children of the Lion

Ash-and-How was sanguine about the prospect of more mouths to feed, but indicated that the pariahs would need the approval of their sister community on the other side of the city (and through the territory of the Tree-Seekers). This was even after the pariahs "came clean", revealing that there were several more members of the group across the river.

When quizzed about whether they would have the option to leave in the future, Ash-and-How seemed genuinely confused: "Why would you want to leave? WE have food, fresh water, and the protection of the lion!".

To win the other group's approval, they would need to meet with them and to present some form of gift. Alongside this gift they needed to provide Ash-and-How's token, to demonstrate his approval of their prospective band membership. This token—a bundle of flight feathers from a bird of prey—was given to the pariahs.

Ash-and-How bid them adieu.

Encounters

The exchange occupied the majority of the session: during this time I rolled for encounters every ten minutes of real time as described above. Nearly all of these were ambient effects, invisible to pariahs as they were indoors! One effect that emerged was a whisper: similar to Atop the Wailing Dunes, built into the encounter table is the option of a rumour or secret being disclosed to a random pariah via the voice of an ancestral (or other) spirit. I gave each character a number and rolled a D4: the result was Rotten Antelope 

Rotten Antelope heard a voice tell him: The Ghosts Have a Chief... the voice was comforting and familiar but not identifiable, like a forgotten aunt or uncle from early childhood.

Action

The pariahs set themselves up for the next session by using the mission to the other community of Children of the Lion to have an explore of some of the other gardens. As far as a gift was concerned, they assume that they would be able to pick up some kind of game on the way... although the only animals they've seen so far are parakeets and cats...

Links

Before I list links referred to above, I want to make you aware that my successfully crowdfunded adventure, Atop the Wailing Dunes, is currently available on DTRPG:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/458091/Atop-the-Wailing-Dunes

Also available is the bestiary I wrote with Louis Jenner of So Much Game, featuring illustrations by Edd0, Fergus Channon and uhh... me....

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/463621/Spirits-of-the-Here--Now

Ben Lawrence talks megadungeons with Luke Gearing:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-malignant-presence/id1698032870?i=1000631581709

All one-hour game posts
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/search/label/1%20hour%20game

Tom Björklund instagram
https://www.instagram.com/tombjorklundart/

City of Ghosts Pariah Generator
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2023/12/new-pariah-generator-city-of-ghosts.html

PARIAH Free Edition
https://atelier-hwei.itch.io/pariah-art-free

Sandbox Core Principles:
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-city-of-ghosts-sandbox-playtest.html