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| Cover Image property of Bastionland Press LTD |
This past weekend (April 25th, 2020), I began running a game of Electric Bastionland. Of course, given the current Covid-19 situation, we played over Discord rather than in person, but I think it worked out pretty well.
In this post, I will go over a little bit about what Electric Bastionland is, for those who aren't familiar with it; the outline I had of the first adventure of our campaign (the Quest for the Nine Piece Suit); and what actually happened in running the adventure.
Other adventures in this series:
Other adventures in this series:
What is Electric Bastionland?
"Bastion/The electric hub of mankind/everything is here."
Electric Bastionland is a Tabletop Roleplaying game, in which the players take on characters in the story who must seek out treasure in order to
pay off their massive shared debt. It is a further developed version of another game by the same creator, Into the Odd.
pay off their massive shared debt. It is a further developed version of another game by the same creator, Into the Odd.
The setting/flavor of Bastionland is incredibly significant to what makes it unique, but it's also very hard to put one's finger on. The creator of the game is British, and that certainly comes across in the tone and feel of the setting as a whole. The setting has a Victorian/industrial era feel to it in how things look and in how people dress, but it's also not a world so mundane that it can just be summed up in terms of our own world. It's a world filled with odd things. There are aliens. There are mockeries (think muppets, but weirder and more deranged). There are monstrosities that once were something else but have been warped into being destructive forces. And there's so much weird *stuff* just lying around. In some way, with its Oddities (strange objects with unique powers), it actually feels sort of like Numenera, which I'm already familiar with, but which I'm not going to take the time to talk about here, since this is already going to be an excessively long post.
There are three parts of the world in Bastionland. There's Bastion, the only city that matters; the Far Country, the world beyond Bastion, failing and decrepit; and there's the underground, which connects everything.
Through the extremely simple and fast-paced character creation, players are assigned a Failed Career, representing what their character was doing before the game started and giving them some equipment relevant to their character. Together, the player characters share a massive debt and have turned to treasure hunting as their one hope of dealing with it.
The system for playing Bastionland, like character creation, is extremely simple. Characters have three core attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Charisma), and when they want to do something, they roll a 20 sided die (d20) and if the result is lower than the relevant attribute, they succeed. Unlike a lot of other tabletop games, in combat, players don't roll to hit their foes. Instead, they just roll the damage of their weapon, taking down the foe's HP (or health protection) by that much. When a character runs out of HP, they're critically wounded and risk death. NPCs attacking follow the same rules as players.
If you want to know more about Electric Bastionland, you can check out the author's blog here, or you can find the book itself for purchase here or here. There's also a free version here.
If you want to know more about Electric Bastionland, you can check out the author's blog here, or you can find the book itself for purchase here or here. There's also a free version here.
The Quest for the Nine Piece Suit
Pages 320-321 of the Electric Bastionland book (as well as this blog post) define the character of Alaine Crevatte, his clothing store, and the Quest for the Nine Piece Suit. The book defines what each of the items of the suit are and where to find them, but doesn't define the actual adventures of doing so. I felt like the Nine Piece Suit quest seemed like a good campaign framework, especially since the different elements serve as something of a sample plate of the different main areas and elements of Bastionland.
My Players' Characters
My players had the following characters, which did play a role in what I populated the adventure with.
- Zastra, a failed practising chemist. He has a long knife, a flask of Never-Melting Crushed ice, and a test tube of liquid that can make an object look gold.
- Rades, a failed corpse collector. He has an axe, a wheelbarrow, a plunger, and there's a hand that follows him around and listens to basic instructions.
- Sol, a failed gang enforcer, former member of Solid Nation gang. She has a busted face, a sledgehammer, silver face paint, and a chain that can transfer harmful effects between two people.
- Percy, tenth in line for the title of Eminent-Raider of Ruther's Ford. He has a fire poker, a fur cloak, and a warhorse
- J.R. Pufnstuf, a failed mendicant mycologist (studies fungus). He has a khukuri, a mushroom cap hat, a pouch of salty moss, and a mushroom that induces sleep and causes nightmares.
- Salacia, a failed wilderness recluse. She has ragged clothes, a portable raft, and a machete.
Alaine Crevatte’s Forum of Fine Suitery
"The door rings a bell when you enter, but Alaine is already there waiting for the next customer. Between the overloaded rails, and coats hanging from the ceiling, there is barely room for four people inside.The air is heavy with ironing steam and peppery cologne." (Electric Bastionland, pg 320)
Alaine Crevatte is...
"Gangly but refined. Every bit of his body carries some sort of accessory, scrap of fabric, or measuring device. He insists that you sit down and let him pour you a drink" (Electric Bastionland, pg 320)
Alaine explains that he has decided that he would like to pursue the quest for the nine piece suit, and is hiring the indebeted player characters to acquire it for him.
The Quest for the Nine Piece Suit
"The story goes that a great tailor had eight sons and one daughter. Upon becoming ill, the children decided to craft him a suit to be buried in, each striving to create the perfect example of that item. Despite working independently, the combined suit was a perfect match. Upon trying it on, the tailor was filled with life and went on to outlive each one of his children, burying each one in the article of clothing that they crafted." (Electric Bastionland, pg 321)
Alaine will pay the player characters £1,000 for each of the pieces of the suit they acquire for him. If they manage to acquire all of the pieces, he will pay off their entire debt (minus the amount he has already paid them.) This stipulation is because he will pay for any administrative fees added onto the players' debt due to the deaths of their characters (£1,000 is added to the debt each time a character dies and a new one must be created), but he will not cover any costs for money that he paid them which they devoted to things other than their debt.
Part 1: The Shirt
"The Shirt is locked in the vault of The Silken Glove, Aggilette Bracer’s highly fashionable bar and fashion-show venue." (Electric Bastionpand, pg 321)
Primary Bastionland Element(s) Explored: Bastion
Primary Bastionland Element(s) Explored: Bastion
The Shirt is being offered as a prize in a tournament of Dummy's Gambit being held at The Silken Glove. Alaine doesn’t care if the group steals the shirt from the vault, rigs the tournament, or wins it fairly, so long as they manage to get it.
- Alaine does have a ticket the players can use to enter the tournament.
- Alaine is willing to pay for transportation to Mulrayon Borough, where the Silken Glove is located, but only if he's asked specifically about it.
This is the first item of the Nine Piece suit listed in the book, but it's also the first one I ended up deciding to start them with. This is because the Silken Glove allows the players to be introduced to Bastion while saving other major setting elements for future items.
Mulrayon Borough
I mostly followed the guidelines in the book for mapping out the borough, although I didn't expect the players to do much with exploring it.
1. Mulryon Market
I assumed that there were shops and other businesses pretty much all along the tramway. However, I labeled the official market here as a place the characters might go to buy mundane/normal supplies, assuming that the shops in the rest of the path were fairly unique/specialized.
2. Flanlisle Park and Fungus Garden
Placed primarily for J.R. Pufnstuf, the failed mendicant mycologist.
3. The Silken Glove
The quest location, defined below.
4. Pump & Dump Chemical Factory
Placed primarily for Zastra, the failed practising chemist.
5. Ruther’s Ford Memorial Bridge
Placed primarily for Percy, tenth in line for the title of Eminent-Raider of Ruther's Ford.
A. Routine Handkerchief Check
The cablecar stops and runs a routine handkerchief check, expelling any passengers undignified enough to not carry one with them. “What do you mean you don’t have a handkerchief?”
B. Urban Grace Encounter
Urban Grace is a fashion based gang. Placed primarily for Sol, the failed gang enforcer, former member of Solid Nation gang
C. Cablecar Bingo
The cablecar stops until someone wins
D. Very dirty parkgoers
These parkgoers have a high risk of touching other people and getting them dirty as well. The Silken Glove is unlikely to let anyone dirty into their establishment.
E. Shoplifters
They are actually lifting the shops
F. Deep Country Protesters
Placed primarily for Salacia, the failed wilderness recluse
G. Monstrosity
Made from runoff from P&D Chemical Factory
H. Domestic Disturbers
People who intentionally disrupt domestic/housing areas and things
The Silken Glove
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| Image found at vintagedancer.com |
The Silken Glove is a combination bar and fashion venue run by a woman named Aggilette Bracer. Her right hand always appears to be covered in a silken glove (thus the name of her establishment). This is not actually a glove, but instead the result of her first meeting with the Living Fabric (described below) in which her right hand was transformed into silk.
The Dummy's Gambit Tournament
Dummy's Gambit is a game in which competitors search for a button (like one from a shirt) that has been hidden within one of three dangerous bowls. The first bowl contains a powdery flowery drug mixture. The second bowl consists of oil that has been lit on fire. The third bowl is a mystery bowl and changes with each tournament. In this case, it is an unknown green gel material. Each player chooses a bowl and searches it for the button to their satisfaction. If they decide that bowl doesn't have the button, they can move on to another one. Players must start at different bowls, but can move to the same bowl as each other as the game goes on.
I rolled a die to randomly determine which bowl the button was hidden in. Then I ran the tournament as a few luck roll with the following results:
1: Character suffers the negative effect of the bowl. (Hallucinations from the first, 1d4 HP damage from the second, and a random mutation from the third)
2-3: Their opponent finishes searching whichever bowl they are on (meaning if the opponent has the bowl with the button, they find it. If the opponent has a bowl without the button, they then move on to the next bowl.)
4-6: The player character finishes searching their bowl (meaning that if the button is in that bowl, they find it, if the button is not in that bowl, they determine that.)
What I would do in the future is different. I would automatically have the character suffer the negative effect of each bowl. It's a dangerous and stupid game. The luck roll would instead look like this:
1: The opponent automatically wins.
2-3: The opponent finishes searching whichever bowl they are on.
4-6: The player finishes searching their bowl.
The Competition
- Sabeyetta, their rival, hired by Epaula Tette (who we'll meet in a later part of the campaign)
- Spindella, a mock spider, hired by Seymora Flounce (who we'll meet in a later part of the campaign)
- Podder Parfait, eighth in line for the title of Eminent-Raider of Ruther’s Ford (and therefore not someone that our Noble-in-Waiting is fond of.
The Vault
The Shirt of the Nine Piece Suit is stored in the Vault of the Silken Glove. The vault is located in the bar's basement which can be accessed by stairways either in the kitchen or backstage. The kitchen stairway leads to the bar's storage, supplies, and cellar area. The backstage stairway leads down to dressing rooms for participants in fashion show events. Both of these sections of the basement are isolated and separate sections from the section where the vault is located. Searching for a hidden door in either location will easily reveal the passage to the vault.
The vault has all the normal defenses one would expect. Primarily, two guards and a heavy lock. However, the real defense of the vault lies within it. Inside is a creature that Aggilette refers to as "the Living Fabric." It is an amorphous blob of silken fabric which is capable of shaping itself however it wishes. The Living Fabric can wrap itself around living entities and transform the parts of them that it is wrapped around into a form of solid fabric. Although the fabric bodypart can still move and act as a normal bodypart would, the process is very painful, inflicting 1d8 damage on the victim.
Although their first encounter was less than congenial, Aggilette and the Living Fabric now have a mutually beneficial arrangement. The Fabric guards the vault and, when it grows, Aggilette can cut high quality fabric from it to use in making outfits for the Silken Glove's fashion shows. In exchange, Aggilette brings the Living Fabric pieces of discarded clothing and other fabrics which it consumes as food. The Living Fabric does not need to eat other clothes/fabric to survive, but it does enjoy doing so very much.
My Players' Journey
So, for all this planning, what did my players do?
They started by talking Alaine into giving them extra funding to cover expenses necessary to obtain the items in question. He gave them an extra £100, which is on par with what someone would pay an expert for 1 day of labor.
They traveled by canal to Mulrayon Borough. They ignored the chemical factory that was dumping multicolored waste into the canal. They went past the shoplifters, and asked if they could find anything coming out of the shops. They found an oddity, a Companion Ball, which is essentially a hollow ball that follows around the character who found it and which they can put stuff into.
Upon arrival at the Silken Glove, they debated on several different plans to try to get the shirt. One of the plans, which I liked a lot, was that they could put Rades' pet/servant hand into the Companion Ball, use Zastra's formula to make it look gold, and then ask the tavern to keep it safe for them while they played in the tournament (giving the hand commands on stealing the shirt for them.) They realized this wouldn't work since the Companion Ball would exclusively follow Rades, and not cooperate in being taken down to the vault. They realized they could just get a box and make it look gold to the same effect, but ended up deciding not to go with this path (even when I gave them the option of buying a storage device that didn't look like a box, so that the bar owners wouldn't be inclined to try to open it and find the hand inside. They debated things like setting the bar on fire (either as a distraction or a method of getting to the shirt,) but they decided this posed too much threat to the shirt itself.
In the end, they decided to enter the tournament fairly, but that if they lost they would ambush the winner and try to take the shirt away. Remember how I mentioned that in the future I would make the game more punishing? Yeah. They suffered no negative effects from it at all. They won the tournament fairly (although it was pretty close the last round against Sabeyetta, coming down to one last roll with a 50/50 chance.)
As they tried to go back to Alaine to turn in the first item of the suit, they were ambushed by Sabeyetta and her flunkies. They threatened to burn or otherwise destroy the shirt if Sabeyetta didn't let them go, so she did, for now. They returned victoriously to Alaine's shop and made their first £1,000.
The book is set in a shattered series of worlds threatened by groups of world destroyers, monsters, dragons, and and more. Magical Essence flows through the multiverse and is used by many for both help and destruction. Main characters include a knight, a smuggler, and refugees from a destroyed realm.
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