Dim Carcosa, or darn that Shub-Niggurath...

...in dim Carcosa.

About 10 days ago I managed to run a G+ session of Geoffrey McKinney's Supplement V: Carcosa, now available in a gorgeous edition bound in human skin...er, some sort of extremely tactile substance. Sadly, my own copy is a printed-out version of the original edition, as it were, but as soon as I become independently wealthy, I'll spring for the Finlandian volume.

I've wanted to game in Carcosa ever since it first came out, but seeing as how at the time my oldest son was usually playing in our sessions, I needed to bide my time. G+ sessions are by there temporal nature (for me at least) kid-unfriendly, so I finally got my wish. I grabbed the Carcosan Grimoire (extremely helpful, and I believe its contents are included in the current edition), hunted down my copy of Fight On! #4, containing Geoffrey's Carcosan intro adventure (also now included in the revised edition), and was ready to go. Will and Shane joined me online, having already created basic characters (both Fighting Men--no Sorcerers this time out). I decided on the ODD rules, but with the stat bonuses from Labyrinth Lord, just 'cause. I also started them both out at second level, since there were only two of them. We Carcosa'd them by choosing color and, from the Grimoire, by adding names and a specific item of clothing for each, which gave us:

• He of Mercy, Neutral Green Warrior, wearing Translucent Chains. (Will)
• The Unanswerable Wind, Lawful Ulfire Warrior, wearing Precious Chains. (Shane)

I started them right on the southern edge of the desert, spending the night in burnt-out ruins while in search of treasure. They swiftly encountered a gigantic flying edifice shaped like a kneeling woman clutching at her veiled face, which loomed out of the black night and settled next to their campsite. A being inside sent them on a dream flight across the desert and into caves on the far side, where they viewed a disturbing statuette of greenish-black stone, somewhat reminiscent of a Great Old One whose name rhymes with "Hulu". The entity suggested they retrieve the statue, and waking to find the edifice gone, they decided to comply.

Thence followed the gathering of dried Black Lotus leaves from an enigmatic statue; a quick and brutal fight with some yellow cannibals; more antagonism involving White Lotus zombies and the death of The Unanswerable Wind; the discovery of a heretofore unnoticed captive of the zombies, a Chaotic Blue Warrior named Uttermost Grace of War; the drinking of a potion in an alchemist's lab which promptly turned UGoW into a green man (much to the delight of He of Mercy); an avoidance of a group of Deep Ones; and the final death of both Warriors in battle with a foul Spawn of Shub-Niggurath in the form of a bone-white arachnid creature with burning yellow eyes and plethora of small fanged mouths as they back-tracked through a storage room. Thus the adventure ended, though not before rolling up two new characters:

• The Uttermost Ravishment, Orange Warrior, wearing a Leather Robe
• Shining Life of the Eyes, Orange Warrior, wearing Tight Weapons (?)

Immediate synopsis: We had a blast! It's such a weird setting, I don't think any of us really knew what to expect from encounter to encounter. The wacky dice-rolling turned out to be a lot of fun. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'll use this type of dicing whatever version of ODD I'm running. It's great because it really makes combat uncertain and actually exciting, and you're throwing all the dice all the time, which is always fun.

I'm excited to run it again, and in the quest to find some character sheets, I was tipped off to a limited-edition Carcosan game-aid, which I'll share more about as soon as it arrives in the mail...