I'm Brendan McLeod, a writer and game designer from Florida.
I'm a tabletop designer who loves making, playing, and publishing roleplaying games. I've created a variety of games and adventures, all of which are available on my itch.io page.
I'm also a podcast creator. Right now I'm making:
- OATHSWORN, a weekly actual-play fantasy adventure.
- THE PRISONER'S DILEMMA, a biweekly show watching and analyzing the 1960s surreal spy show The Prisoner.
- PAPER LABYRINTHS, a monthly conversation with other game designers.
I've spent the past twenty years as a game designer in the video games industry, where I've worked on a wide variety of projects, big and small. If you're here looking for information about that part of my life, you might have better luck with my portfolio.
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the matter of norfydd, part one
Our story begins in the dead center of Spring, after the Company has spent the past two weeks traveling across sandy wastes to reach Norfydd - a remote realm known for its prosperity and its odd happenings.
One of the things I love about Mythic Bastionland is the calendar: it gives you just enough structure to keep track of things. For example, since it's the middle of the spring, I can tell the knights they've arrived on Sceptremass, a holy day when he Seat of Power gathers local rulers to renew their vows of loyalty. I'm using these excellent third-party calendar sheets to keep track of time.
There are two ocean coasts on either side of the map (the eastern sea is just off the grid), and so I offered to either let the knights hug one of the coasts, or to let fate guide their path and instead roll a die for their starting hex. Everyone eagerly agreed to roll for it, and they landed on the single mountain tile, J12, with the sands and hills giving way to rocky paths and crags.
This map shows where they started, and the path they took through the session:
Right away we established that:
- Burgith, the Tome Knight, cares a lot about big data, keeping meticulous track of minutae like number of birds seen each day.
- Aluna, the Bloody Knight, has been carefully rationing her private stocks of strongbeer during the journey.
- Matilda, the Tiger Knight, is dressed in a gaudy dress and is desperately anxious for the comforts of civilization once again.
They wanted to find a vantage point and get a better idea of their immediate surroundings. Doing so doesn't require a roll, it simply requires time, which in Mythic is measured in Phases. There's three Phrases, roughly matching up to Morning, Afternoon, and all of Night. You're systematically encouraged to do things at the day and rest at night, but aren't required to.
At the end a Phase, if you're in the Wilderness, you make a Wilderness Roll:
Omens are just that - harbingers of one of the Myths. The Myths are strange, supernatural phenomena that are visited upon the Realm, and it is the goal of each Knight to seek them out.
Matilda rolled a 2, and so we found a vantage point where the knights could see dunes to the west, marsh to the right, and mountains ahead - but in the mountains, a path marked by tall, pale-blue banners. But we also got our first Omen!
I'm writing these entries with full knowledge that my players might read them, so I'm not revealing what Myths I've rolled or where I've placed them. You could reverse engineer it from the prompts, but I imagine some readers will, but I'm confident my players will not do this.
The first prompt for the nearest Myth reads:
A wretch pleads for charity. She was a Knight, sentenced harshly by the Judge.
And so: atop this switchback where they can see the paths before them, they meet a middle aged woman on the verge of starvation - deaf and without use of her legs, pushing herself in a small cart with a long staff.
We roll to see what Knight this once was and land on the Weaver Knight; the giveaway of her past identity is her staff, which is actually a spear with a long thin cord attached. This is Jigen, and after being fed some ale by Aluna, she draws in the sands to show what happened to her: in the midst of the mountains, a double-sided hammer.
Aluna puts her on her own horse and the Company carries on, into the mountains, towards the road I had mentioned. If this had been any session other than the very first one, I might should've required a roll to go from rough terrain in search of a road, but I think it worked fine as-is.
They ascend into the mountains and find the banners, which are draped like mile-markers along the road headed both back into the forest to the east, and deeper into the west, towards the Holding they know to be present: Caer Gynnyd. The banners feature the sign of an eye with a coin for an iris.
The party comes to rest in an unexpected meadow of tall pink flowers, and passes the night peacefully.
The next day, Burgith invoked the Tome Knight's power of Sunrise Contemplation:
At sunrise each day, choose any area of knowledge. You can ask the Referee three questions within this area, which they answer honestly with yes, no, or maybe if uncertain.
This takes the form of Burgith holding a tome aloft and riffling through it, her finger landing on random words, almost like a Ouija divination, like in this artistic rendition by Matilda's player:
Burgith asks:
- Are there any legendary hammers from Norfydd? No.
- Are there any local blacksmiths? Yes.
- Is there nearest local blacksmith in Caer Gynnyd? Yes.
Matilda spots some wild long-legged mountain pigs grazing in the meadow. As the Tiger Knight, Matilda has one of my favorite abilities, Bestial Renown:
Each time you defeat an animal in a contest befitting its strengths, all animals of that type will react favourably to you.
She squares up with a pig and does a backflip. I have her roll SPI rather than VIG: I have no doubt she can do a backflip, but it takes a certain attitude to capture the esteem of a pig. She fails, and the pig and its kind go leaping across the rocks to safety.
However, she hears clapping and laughter: a local shepherd boy named Moroi is delighted and very impressed with the knights, and offers to lead them. Moroi doesn't have any courtly graces but wants to, and bows excessively. He's attended by six wooly-white hyenadogs and a couple of dozen yaks, which are their flock.
From Moroi, they learn that the adjacent hex contains the town of Sage's Vale, and beyond that is Caer Gynnydd, the holding they seek. The sage that lays claim to the vale is Feldag, the Enthroned Seer, ruler of Caer Gynnydd, whose head is so swollen with knowledge that he is embedded into the wall of his own mountain fortress. It is his insignia we see upon the pale banners.
After another morning's travel, we roll a 3 and get the second Omen of the nearest Myth:
A courtyard in black and white, carved seats in a circle. Vague voices echo, arguing, then a loud clap followed by silence.
I so for as to say that when the Knights enter this place, Moroi and his herd vanish as if they had not been there. There is an eerie silence in this clearing, and Jigen - who has not vanished - is deeply disturbed. She is on the verge of wailing, but holding her hands over her mouth to stop herself from making noise.
I add the further detail that each of the seats is engraved with the insignia of a double-headed hammer or mallet, to make the link between this Omen and the past one clear.
Once the loud clap happens, Moroi appears, as if he's been there whole time, expressing wonder at this place. The knights rightfully ask how he could have missed this place if it's on the road that he travels each day; Moroi has no good answers for this.
We continue on, passing the fork in the road that leads to Sage's Vale. Keen to make sure that Jigen is taken care of - but not eager to keep her in tow - they send Moroi, the squires, and the old woman to Sage's Vale, and decide to continue on to Caer Gynnydd themselves.
We end with the Company passing over a great bridge, many meters across, seemingly very old in construction but still sturdy. The river, far below, is jade green and choppy (thanks to a Spark table roll). There is a sense that, as they pass over the bridge, they are leaving behind nature, and entering a place that seeks to put rules and constraints upon the wild world.
Soundtrack for this session: The Mourning Star by Ka'Bael and Witchbolt
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