The One Hour Pariah Sandbox: City of Ghosts Session 1 Play Report

Due to time constraints and inspired by Luke Gearing's one-hour megadungeon sessions, I'm hoping to run a weekly PARIAH sandbox during my Friday lunch break. This is the first play report: track down all related posts at this link 

Draft cross-section of the valley

The PCs

• Ugly Evening, exiled for forbidden sorcery and Rotten Antelope, exiled for thieving (both played by J). Ugly evening has a pet, "probably a dog"
• Nimble Goat the spirit-touched victim of a blood feud and Wandering Jackal, the strong girl with double-headed axe, an aurochs and dog (both played by C)
• An assumed "quantum cast" of as-yet unidentified pariahs, on standby for when other players drop in and out of the game

The NPC Pariah Band

• 2 youths aged 13 and 10 (one is later revealed to be called Terrible Lake)
• 2 elders. One is skilled in singing, drinking, disguise and horticulture. The other knows singing, a musical instrument, mimicry and animal handling.
• 4 feral dogs, an auroch, a falcon and a crow in addition to the animals already mentioned 

The Set-Up

The following is presumed to have occurred before the campaign begins:

After wandering for an undefined period through an arid upland, the band spied clouds gathering to the north. Following the promise of rain they were led to a (400 foot) deep ravine running west to east with a mighty river flowing steadily through it. 

As the uncannily low cloud cover cleared, the pariahs became aware of a vast structure on the opposite (north) side of the river. Surrounded y 30' walls, multiple weird buildings appeared to emerge, including a sandstone pyramid and a glistening, glass-like structure in front of it.

Following a trail down to the south bank of the river, the pariahs made a camp on an area of reclaimed land criss-crossed with artificial canals. Possibly once agricultural land, it was now covered in scrub.

The pariahs had, for the time being, found a more hospitable home than their wanderings through the desert... but for how long? Was the enormous, stone village inhabited? After a night without any event, one of the youths reported seeing a person leave in a small vessel in the early hours of the morning, heading downriver (to the east), from what appeared to be a wooden dock.

Quick player facing map, lots more maps to follow!

The Game

The session begins with the pariahs locating a convenient raft on the south bank, but then deciding to stay hidden in the scrub on the south bank and spy on the stone village opposite for signs of activity. Aside from the person spotted in the morning, there had been no activity witnessed overnight, including signs of fire etc.

During four hours of spying, the following occurred:

• A colourful flock of birds flow upriver (east-west)
• A peculiar and somewhat unsettling roar was heard from within the city, following a short period of eerie silence
• General ambience of light breeze, rusting leaves and insect chirps: the pariahs also noted that the interior of the city seemed to have very dense tree cover
• The sudden, piercing cry of a very young infant, but then quietened as though comforted by a carer

There was some speculation as to what the baby’s cry signified, but the possibility that the city was inhabited by a similar group of pariahs was considered (among other things). It was agreed that a) they would need to know what was occurring in the city for their own security and b) it would be best to approach with clear intentions: no skulking around or stealth, and they would take a child with them.

A party was formed consisting of Rotten Antelope, Nimble Goat and Wandering Jackal as well as the youth Terrible Lake.

The youth’s name was randomly generated during play: we didn’t establish whether it was the younger or older of the two kids, rather that they were “the most innocent looking”. 

To reach the southeast dock the pariahs first passed by the extensive quay in front of the main walls, acknowledging the impressive state of repair and the us head of tree cover emerging above them… but also the quietness. Not silence, just quiet. The depth of the river was not ascertained, but was deeper than a 10’ pole: the party paddled the raft, not punted.

Alighting at the empty dock in mooring with the he pen rope that had tethered the raft to the other side previously, the quiet was disturbed by the steady sound of rhythmic drumming from somewhere within. Shortly, those sounds were joined by a low chorus of (human?) voices chanting in an unfamiliar language.

Dauntless, they continued. An arch opened the walls twenty feet wide and high. They spied a paved street inside, terracotta tiles laid neatly and in good repair, the joints occasionally interrupted by moss. The street terminated at a brick wall, some 100’ off, maybe 10’ high. A small cat walked along the top before disappearing from view.

There the session ended.

Behind the screen (DISCORD stuff)

The game takes place on discord, using the voice channel facility on the Atelier Hwei server. I've advertised in various places around the internet and a few people have joined the server specifically to participate in the game, but most of the interest has come from people already on the server. That said,  C & J are both new to Atelier Hwei, though I already knew C from local face-to-face games previously.  

Players prepare a pariah (or two) in advance, using a random generator or the free game materials. I shared some information about the game prior (namely the game's core principles  but I wanted to avoid overloading players with two much information. Neither do I want the campaign to feel like a big investment, and I would like to keep the barriers to entry relatively low.

Prior to posting I shared the following conclusions with the players: 

• “Housekeeping” and introductory chat took about fifteen minutes, and then “setting the scene” took about another ten minutes
• Overall this left about 35 minutes where the players were driving the session: the goal is to get this portion as close to 60 mins as possible, and I’ll be keeping a record of this as the campaign progresses
• The whole arrangement other use felt really good, my only personal misgiving was having to terminate the session so abruptly! It’s nice to have a bit of post-play decompression before leaping back to workaday life, especially when playing online
• Really looking forward to session 2, which begins in media res…

Rather helpfully, I received some immediate feedback from J:

• Suggested ending the session at the landing of the boat, to establish a cliff hanger moment
• Keep house-keeping outside of gaming hour: dedicate separate channels for both character and player introductions 
• Direct quote: "There's not much room in there to socialize AND explain our characters AND explore the City of Ghosts, but it might improve the experience of the latter if we had access to the two former elements in a more leisurely manner."

This was really great and inspired me to set up the discord as follows:

Essentially, there are multiple dedicated text channels all sitting together in one category for navigation ease, as follows:

1. Start here provides an overview of how the category is organised and links to materials related to the game.
2. New player introductions allows players to say a little about themselves as there's little time for this during the session.
3. Game chat is the text channel used during the game, but also to share any other specifically game related stuff. We're not at there yet but it may also turn out to be the channel where players organise downtime activities and plan out future expeditions/delves. We'll see!
4. Maps & references is where I pin any useful images previously shared in the game channel
5. Meta-chat is the the off-topic channel for players to get to know each other better
6. thecogpariahband is for sharing characters (the_city_of_ghosts_pariah_band). A few sessions in (as the band grows) I'll pin a roster .

As the campaign progresses I'll keep tabs on how this side of things develops, in addition to what's happening within the game world. 

Read the session 2 report here:
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-one-hour-pariah-sandbox-city-of_26.html 

Links

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

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