It’s been a minute, so I thought it high time to share some progress. Here’s what we’ll cover this update:
Quest Hooks & Ritual Feats
Hospital of Quiet Minds
Medusite
Conclusion & Partings
Quest Hook & Ritual Feats
I originally pitched Quest Hooks & Ritual Feats as separate sections, but while writing I realized they belonged together.
Have you ever played a game, fought an enemy, and thought ‘that’s awesome! I want that’? At the table we usually call this “NPC magic,” and I hate it. There should be as little distinction as possible between NPCs and PCs. Basically, PCs should be able to do whatever an NPC does.
At times these differences are necessary for the story or mechanical balance, but the greater this dissonance grows the less players feel part of the world and more like they’re playing a video game.
This change benefits both Quest Hooks and Ritual Feats and allows the two pieces to reinforce each other. We’ll get richer, more personal Quest Hooks for GMs and deeper, more immersive Ritual Feats for players. This new section is called Red Mass.
Here’s a sneak peak at part of the rough draft for Blood in the Streets, one of the entries in Red Mass.
Blood in the Streets
Rumors change as they spread from tongue to tongue, but you’d need not meet a gossip to know someone holds this city in a vice grip. At sunrise, the streets fill ‘til bustling, but look and see how they walk with eyes to their feet and never saying a word without need. At dusk, the streets clear, shutters slam shut, cats prowl, and the city listens with bated breath for a portent of the morrow.
Sacrament
Faithful may carry out ritual murders in the dark hearts of crowded cities to instill fear, provoke hatred, or elicit other emotions. This holy blasphemy is best suited for rogues, sadists, and anyone capable of killing in plain sight then absconding. To earn the Blood Queen’s blessing of Delectable Fear, a faithful must perform 5 ritual murders with the following conditions:
Commonality of Victims: Each victim must share some aspect such as profession or class.
Consistent Method: The manner of murders must be recognizable and attributable to the same entity.
Commentary: The deaths must speak to some purport whether personal or social and cannot be solely for slaying’s sake.
Delectable Fear - Ritual Feat
Death and fear hand in hand.
[REDACTED]
Here’s a few of the other entries:
Ecstasy & Death
Saints of the Setting Sun
Delicate Degeneracy
Also, here's some new art from Amin Manaa.
Hospital of Quiet Minds
I’ve shelved over a month’s worth of work that went into the second narrative dungeon. Hospital morphed into something that went beyond the bounds of a D&D 5E supplement. It grew into its own game involving characters made up of their constituent body parts and movement based combat. It is, in two words, a skirmish game. I’m proud of what Catacolyte designed, but the work is best suited for a different project.
So, where does that leave Hospital of Quiet Minds? The mechanical effort helped settle the core narrative elements. Hospital will raise questions like whether we are our bodies or our brains and force PCs to confront their own self-conceptions.
Medusite
I stand by the core thematic aspects of the Medusite, but the mechanical execution didn’t feel right. Playtests revealed that we need to beef up the class' foundation and better integrate Inheritance Memories. While it needs a rework, I can’t wait to see how it turns out!
Conclusion
Sins of Our Mother is Catacolyte’s biggest project yet, and I’ve found the sheer size difficult to manage. Unfortunately, I may have to delay Sins by a few months. That said, this book is double Cult’s length, and page for page is denser. Sins already has more content than Cult even at just 30~ pages. Please look forward to its release, it’s going to be great.
