The Dee Sanction - review

I've spent the last few posts talking about my campaign for The Dee Sanction. But I haven't reviewed the RPG itself, so here goes.

TL;DR—lovely setting, but I'm not sold on the system.

High Concept

In The Dee Sanction, the player characters are Agents of Dee, practitioners of magic rescued from execution by John Dee and working for his secret organisation to avert supernatural and magical threats. You could think of The Dee Sanction as an Elizabethan version of BPRD or the Laundry, but with the weirdness toned down. What separates The Dee Sanction from Call of Cthulhu, Liminal, The Laundry and similar RPGs is its setting: Elizabethan England.

Physically

Physically, The Dee Sanction is an A5 68 page, perfect-bound book with a colour cover. The internal layout is (generally) two columns in a small but clear font, with occasional black and white artwork. The paper is matt white, and despite the small font, the high contrast means it is easy to read—even with my crappy eyes.

I'm delighted that The Dee Sanction is so condense. As I've said elsewhere, I find most RPGs extremely overwritten with too many words, and that's not a criticism I can level here.

As an 80s fanzine contributor, I have a soft spot for A5 booklets with black and white art. The Dee Sanction presses a lot of my buttons. It feels like a fanzine with 21st-century production values. The occasional artwork is nicely atmospheric, adding to its feel.

I find it interesting to compare The Dee Sanction with Liminal, another recent British roleplaying game. While Liminal has an upmarket glossy feel and gorgeous artwork, some layout decisions (long paragraph lines, low contrast between text and background) meant I found it harder to read than The Dee Sanction's simple elegance.

That's not to say The Dee Sanction's layout is perfect. In particular:

• Too many terms are in bold, including Die/Dice, Agent, Player and GM. Unfortunately, that means some pages look like they have measles, making it hard to find the terms I needed.
• The bullet point font is often (not always) different from the main font, which to my eyes looks wrong.
• Page 45 is a single column of text. I found it harder to read than other pages, confirming that the two-column approach was the right choice. (I'm guessing page 45 was an error.)

Agents of Dee

Character generation first requires choosing your attributes (which The Dee Sanction calls 'resources')—Physicall, Intellectuall, Supernaturall. Then you select an occupation, a damning association (a secret society or organisation), a focus (an occult tome), and your slight magical power (or 'favour of the angels'). These are all rolled on tables filled with evocative descriptions—the tables in The Dee Sanction are a definite highlight. You then choose abilities and round off your character with some belongings and a name.

One omission from character generation—there's nothing about the characters' crimes and backstory, nor questions to bond them with other characters. For example: 

• Who introduced you to your damning association?
• How did your focus help you learn your magic?
• What were you doing when you were arrested?
• Who betrayed you?
• What impressed you about the other agents when you first met them?
• How do you practice your magic?

I did that anyway, but I was surprised not to see it in the book.

The PCs feel different to your usual RPG hero. They are commoners whose lives have been touched by magic and drawn into Dee's organisation. They aren't heroes, but ordinary folk undertaking hazardous missions.

Here's a character I created for our game.

Friar Philip Dickinson of Totness

Portrait from the wonderful
artflow.ai

Philip had just become a monk when the monasteries were dissolved. He fell in with the Goodly Servants of Light (his damning association), who introduced him to the Problemata (his focus).

Intellectuall: d6, Physicall: d4, Supernaturall: d8

Abilities: Architecture, mechanics, quote and verse

Damning association: Goodly Servants of Light (belief in the prophetic focus served in the construction and scrutiny of monuments to channel the wisdom of the Almighty).

Favours of the Angels: Flurry (cloak, smother, blind)

Stuff: Verse for a gloomy part-song, bracelet, shovel

Mannerisms: It's always better to music... (Dickinson plays the crumhorn)

Setting

Setting an occult investigation game in Elizabethan England is genius. And although there's much detail in the game itself, simply imagining an Elizabethan occult spy game is pretty much all I needed. That, plus a bit of Elizabethan period detail (taken from Shakespeare in Love, Elizabeth, or even Blackadder) was enough for me to run a game of The Dee Sanction.

And there's plenty to draw from—this is the time of Shakespeare, the Spanish armada, the gunpowder plot, catholic conspiracies and so on. (Wikipedia is a great help.)

I found a couple of off-notes, though.

• I found comparing Mr Garland to Al from Quantum Leap or Rimmer from Red Dwarf to be jarring in tone. I played Mr Garland as sinister and mysterious, appearing with a sulphurous smell.
• It's not clear how Dee organises his agents. Does he have many? Or are the PCs on their own?
• I abandoned the Black Seal amulets as they felt too much like magical mobile phones. I prefer to isolate my PCs and make it challenging to contact Dee.

But overall, The Dee Sanction's setting is delightful.

System

The heart of The Dee Sanction's system is rolling a die depending on your attribute (er, I mean resource). So, for a mental challenge, roll Intellectuall. If you roll a 1 or 2, you fail. Otherwise, you succeed. The die you roll depends on the level of that resource—anything from a d4 (50% success) to a d12 (83% success). If the challenge is easy or tricky, you can 'step up or down' the die accordingly.

(I ended up using a more graduated scale, as I described in this post.)

I was surprised at how competent this makes the Agents: an average PC (d6 in everything) succeeds 66% of the time (assuming no stepping up or down). In my game, this occasionally gave the players a sense of security in their rolls that jarred with my mental image of 'ordinary folk.'

The Dee Sanction suggests that instead of dice you can also use playing cards. While this is a great idea to make the game more inclusive, it makes the rules fussy. I don't know how many GM's are likely to use playing cards instead of dice, but the game would be clearer with just dice.

Inevitably, combat is the trickiest part of the rules, and unfortunately, it's not explained well. Here's how combat works:

• When an agent attacks, they roll against their Physicall (stepping up or down depending on their adversary's potency). If they succeed, they do 1 hit of damage—providing their adversary doesn't succeed in an armour roll. (Agents rarely have armour.) If they falter, then they roll 1d6 on their adversary's consequence table. That may result in the agent taking damage.
• When a creature attacks, the agent rolls to defend (again using Physicall, and again adjusted by their adversary's potency). If they falter, then roll 1d6+2 on the consequence table (which probably means taking damage). If the defence succeeds, nothing happens. (Unfortunately, enemy attacks are not explained in the combat rules; they are a page later under 'The Nature of the Enemy'.)

Combat is therefore asymmetrical: the players roll both to attack and defend and risk taking damage on both rolls. However, they only do damage on their attack. This isn't as unfair as it sounds—in fact, combat is heavily weighted towards the players as the PCs only falter (fail) on a roll of 1 or 2, and even then, they may not take damage.

Unravelling: Unravelling is The Dee Sanction's version of sanity rules, and is a mixture of immediate reactions and ongoing effects. It's simple and evocative.

Lost in Translation

Lost in Translation is the scenario that comes with the rules. It's a solid investigation set on a Polish farm cursed by the fae. The atmosphere is dismal and bleak, there are no happy endings here.

The investigation is solid, but it could just as easily be for Liminal or Cthulhu Dark. The Polish setting was a surprise—I would rather have seen something set in London, or even just rural England.

While my players loved the bleak setting, I was disappointed by Lost in Translation. It doesn't reflect The Dee Sanctuary's 'covert Enochian intelligence' tagline, and it didn't show off the system. We made very few dice rolls, and combat only occurred when the players dragged Slavomir from his farm. (They decided not to engage the main villains of the scenario, which was wise but somewhat unsatisfactory.)

Lost in Translation took us between three and four hours, so it is a good length for a convention, but I wished it showcased more of what The Dee Sanction is really about.

The mystery of tradecraft

Unfortunately, Lost in Translation does not elaborate on what I found to be the most mysterious element of The Dee Sanction: tradecraft. Tradecraft is a pool of resources from which all the PCs can draw. It comes in several categories: access, conspiracy, kit, magic, system, vigilance. At the start of each adventure or mission, the PCs choose one tradecraft, which lasts for the entire adventure.

So far, so good. But you need the correct tradecraft tag to defeat strong monsters. As powerful creatures have several tradecraft tags, it will take several missions to deal with them.

Unfortunately, I struggled to make sense of choosing the right tradecraft at the start of the mission to defeat the monster. That's different from other games where the clues to destroy the monster are seeded within the scenario, and I couldn't understand how that works in play. 

I ignored tradecraft in my short campaign (and I note most of the published scenarios so far don't use it).

Version 0.9

The Dee Sanction feels like it needed another round of proofreading and editing. For example:

• The rules for taking a chance (p.13) are in character generation rather than the system section.
• It isn't clear how best to use the names table on p.62. It uses a range of 2-24, which suggests 2d12. That gives you a bell curve around Ralph/Allen/Dorothy/Fortune—but John and Elizabeth are at the extremes.
• Lost in Translation could be clearer—for example, at two points, their angelic guide is described as a compass when it isn't described as such when it is first introduced. I worked out what compass meant, but I had to read it twice. Also, the map isn't as good as other illustrations—an annotated pen and ink sketch would be clearer and more in keeping with the rest of the book.

Summing up

The best things about The Dee Sanctuary are its setting and character generation. The system is fine, but agents seem too competent to be ordinary folk.

Despite its faults, The Dee Sanctuary formed the basis of one of the most memorable campaigns I have ever run, and I have a lot to thank it for.

The Dee Sanction #4: Campaign climax

This is the final part of my short campaign for The Dee Sanction. Part 1, part 2, part 3.

Jon is playing Margaret Chatwyn, temple clerk, and Terry is playing gardener Samuel Hodgeson. We are using Trello as our virtual tabletop.

Session #11: On the road

Hah! Players! 

I spent all week thinking about what was going on at Kenilworth, but Jon and Terry decided to intercept Abaddon instead.

Terry remembered that in their first adventure, Lost in Translation, Dee provided a mysterious compass to track the relic. They wanted to know if Dee could provide them with a similar device to track Abaddon with. The PCs had already provided Dee with a blood crab (so the request seemed reasonable) and a successful die roll meant it would be ready in a day’s time.

(The device was delightfully macabre—a bull’s eye suspended in liquid, always looking toward Abaddon.)

They tracked the crate to an inn in Bishop’s Itchington, accompanied by five people (two they haven’t seen, and three guards). The Agents got friendly with the guards, incapacitated them, and snuck off into the night with the wagon and Abaddon (in a box). And just as we closed for the night, the Agents heard ‘help me’ from inside the box…

Now, however, I need to decide two things:

• What does Abaddon want? (As the Agents will probably want to open the crate.)
• How does the School of Night react to the disappearance of their wagon?

Session #12: Demon in a box

Before the next session I worked out the answer those questions:

• Abaddon wants revenge on its tormentor (Abiathar Crescas, the Spaniard who controls him) and will then go to ground and prepare for the coming War of Heaven and Hell.
• When they discover their precious box is missing, the two remaining School of Night agents (one of which is Crescas, the Spaniard), race to Kenilworth for reinforcements.

As we approach the game’s climax and the PCs are less likely to veer away in unexpected directions, I have fewer things to think about.

We started the session where we left off last time, but Jon and Terry couldn’t decide what to do. They discussed their options, and I chipped in as Philip as I thought of things they hadn’t considered. They finally headed towards Oxford, travelling at night and hiding during the day.

As they had no means of contacting Dee, Philip rode ahead to London. He had the bull’s eye compass with him, so he could find them if they moved. If he didn’t return in four days, the PCs should start worrying.

After talking to Abaddon and their prisoners, the Agents finally had a clear idea of their enemy’s plan: it’s a Spanish/Catholic plot to use Abaddon to turn Elizabeth into a puppet, then have her step down as queen with Mary Queen of Scots taking her place.

On day two, one prisoner tried to escape. He bested Margaret (Jon), but Samuel (Terry) accidentally killed the prisoner while trying to restrain him.

We ended the session with the PCs slowly working their way back to Oxford, Abaddon still locked in the crate. Will Phil turn up as hoped? What are the School of Night up to?

Session #13: Murder hobo

Well, we ended on a great cliff-hanger, but I didn’t like how we got there.

We started the game a couple of days after the events of session 12. It was getting dark, and the PCs were holed up near a village. About a mile away they heard sounds of riders dismounting and saw Marlowe and six others at the local inn. Marlowe pointed in their direction, and the PCs noticed a captive, and correctly surmised that Marlow captured Philip and used the compass to track them.

As Marlowe and the riders could easily outpace our heroes, they realised they had three choices:

• Flee and let Marlowe recapture Abaddon.
• Release Abaddon, if they can trust it.
• Try and take Marlowe out.

And this was where we went a bit too murder hobo for my liking. I didn’t expect them to take the third option. There were too many opponents, and the PCs were a gardener and a clerk. But that’s what they did.

The PCs planned to attack at night, and things went well at first. They took out three guards and Crescus’ pet monkey, but struggled when Marlowe and reinforcements entered the fray.

We ended with a brilliant cliff-hanger though: Samuel, wounded, fled and left Margaret to be captured by the villains.

It was never a good plan, but I found that The Dee Sanction’s system didn’t help. Combat is weighted towards the players (particularly if you have boosted Physicall to d8) so that even a gardener is more than a match for an armed guard. To me, The Dee Sanction characters aren’t fighting men, and I was a bit cross it seemed to encourage that kind of play.

But anyway, we ended up with a great cliff-hanger, with several options:

• Marlowe now knows that Abaddon isn’t far away. Does he chase Samuel (who has already killed three guards) now, or wait until daylight? (The latter, as I want to give Samuel options.)
• Can Samuel release Abaddon?  (Of course!)

Session #14: Abaddon Unchained

We started with Samuel, who returned to the wagon and bargained with Abaddon. Samuel wanted Abaddon to help deal with Marlowe, but was worried about releasing a demon. In return for release, Abaddon agreed not to kill Protestants. Unfortunately, Samuel forgot the blood crabs, so when Abaddon was freed it put blood crabs onto the two remaining guards, paralysing them.

(Despite Samuel having nothing to back up his agreement with Abaddon, I decided that Abaddon would be honourable. After all, it had been locked up for centuries, and was grateful to this pathetic human. The bargain had enough holes in it for Abaddon, who would ignore it after a while anyway.)

Meanwhile, back at the inn, Marlowe locked Margaret away with Philip.

As Samuel led Abaddon back to the inn, Abaddon’s two puppets (the previous guards), joined them. Then Abaddon entered the inn. The first thing it did was reveal its true form—Samuel did not see its face, but saw black bat wings spring from its back. Samuel made his unravelling roll, but the others weren’t so lucky. (This was the only die roll of the evening.)

Abaddon turned Marlow’s remaining guards into puppets, killed Marlowe, and tortured Crescas to death. While Abaddon was busy, Samuel rescued Margaret and Philip and they fled into the night.

And there we ended.

Back in London, Margaret was worried about Dee’s disapproval, but when Dee learned that they faced a demon (a fallen angel), he was not upset. He knows that angels are powerful.

As for Abaddon, it disappeared and is not heard of again. (Maybe I’ll bring it back in a different game…)

We ended with two lovely end-credit scenes:

• In the first, Samuel and Margaret hear a strange noise behind them, they react—and we cut away.
• In the second, Samuel feeds his pet blood crab…

Overall

After 14 sessions, it’s time for something new. So that’s it for The Dee Sanctuary for the foreseeable future. Next time I’ll post my thoughts on the game itself.

Now that we’ve finished, I’ve written up the adventure (Abaddon’s Puppet) and posted it on my Itch.io page.

The Dee Sanction #3: The plot thickens

This is part three of my campaign write-up for The Dee Sanction. Jon is playing Margaret Chatwyn, temple clerk, and Terry is playing gardener Samuel Hodgeson. You can read part 1 here and part 2 here.

Session #8: Lady Viola and the blood crabs

This was a big session. The players burned through a lot of clues and affected the bad guys’ plans in ways I needed to think about.

We started at the Wessex estate, where the PCs met Mrs Brisket and Nurse Staunton (Viola’s nurse from before she was married). Nurse Staunton told them about Viola sneaking off to act, disguised as ‘Victor Smith.’ However, Viola changed after visiting her Suffolk cousins at the end of September. (Viola never went to Suffolk, but the PCs never learned this.)

However, before they can meet Viola, the PCs must get past the fearsome Miss Kent.

Miss Kent entered the kitchens with a jug of water, eyeing the PCs suspiciously. Margaret dulled Miss Kent’s senses using magic and brought her into the scullery to examine her for fen fever.

With Miss Kent distracted, Mrs Brisket and Nurse Staunton took Samuel to see Viola. They found her torso heavily bandaged, beneath which were hideous occult scars and horrible blood mite-leech things.

Downstairs, Miss Kent realised something was up, and she and Margaret scuffled. Miss Kent blistered Margaret’s arm and escaped the scullery, locking the door behind her. Margaret tried to magic an escape by corroding the lock, but her magic misfired (Jon rolled a 1) and she instead summoned demonic flies that angrily buzzed about her.

Upstairs, Samuel used a candle to remove the horrible creatures and captured them in a jar. Miss Kent burst into Viola’s bed-chamber, saw what was going on, and fled. Samuel partially blinded her (clouding her eyes) and tackled her on the stairs.  The PCs bound Miss Kent, but she refused to talk. To make her compliant, Samuel tainted her blood—but misjudged his spell and Miss Kent became critically ill with blood poisoning.

Samuel and Margaret were now suspicious of Lord Wessex, who was preparing for a royal visit at Kenilworth. Was Queen Elizabeth in danger?

Samuel and Margaret brought Miss Kent and the creatures back to their base, where Philip (an NPC) had learned that the Golden Rose was often seen at a haberdashery warehouse owned by William Gynn.

And there we left it.

Following that, I had decisions to make:

• With Viola freed of the blood creatures, the School of Night presumably knows something has gone wrong. How do they react?
• If Abaddon, the blood crabs’ monstrous mother, knows what happened, how does it react?
• How will Dee and Walsingham react to anything the players tell them?

Session #9: The creature in the basement

Due to fatigue on my part, this was a short session. The PCs sent a full report of the events at Egham to Dee (via the sulphurous Master Garland), along with Miss Kent and a blood crab.

That left me with a problem, as I didn’t want Dee to solve everything for the players. The PCs were the stars, so I presented Dee as offhand, erratic, and busy with affairs of state. But the PCs have demonstrated a threat to the queen, so I needed to react.

While they waited for a response from Dee, the players visited William Gynn’s haberdashery warehouse at night. There they found a basement containing bodies, occult symbols, and signs that something had been recently moved. They learned that the warehouse was rented by Francis Reed and tried to track him down.

Tell me what goes wrong? At one point, Margaret used her magic to corrode the lock of Francis Reed’s house—and failed. So I asked Jon what he thought might go wrong, and he suggested that the wooden door catch fire. And as it has been raining, it had to be magical fire, so we made it blue. That’s much more interesting than just having the spell fail—and I found that the players were always very creative in what can cause them problems. (I also talk about this approach here.)

You’re on the right track: I try not to let failed die rolls derail an investigation. For example, Terry asked if there was any paperwork in the basement. Unfortunately, he failed his roll (and was out of Fortune points), so he found nothing in the basement. But as the office would be a better place to search, I encouraged them to search the rest of the warehouse. (I’ve touched on this before.)

House rule #2: As this is a long, multi-session adventure, I ruled that Fortune points recharge every other session rather than at the end of the adventure.

Planning for Session #10: I needed to get the PCs to Kenilworth, as that’s where the action now is. Here’s how I’m going to this:

• One of the clues they have yet to find is a wagon carrying a long wooden box bound in chains that left the warehouse five days ago. This tells them that whatever was in the warehouse is on the move. (I couldn’t work out when to work it into the story given they were sneaking around at night—I’ve hinted that they might want to visit the warehouse during the day.)
• Dee will ask them to go to Kenilworth and check that things are okay for the queen’s visit. I will let the players come up with a story they can use, but Dee and Walsingham can provide official details, a letter of introduction, or whatever the players decide they need. Dee will also provide hints to the nature of the monster.

House rule #3: I’ve quietly dropped the Black Seal Amulets (page 31) that allow the Agents to communicate directly with Dee and each other. They’re too modern for me, and advice shouldn’t be only a phone call away.

Session #10: William Gynn’s haberdashery warehouse

These are the events I prepared for this session, with my comments (in italics).

• Captain Tallow is found dead, his throat slit. (One of the NPCs reported this news. ‘Covering their tracks,’ one of the players commented. Indeed.)
• Dee instructs the PCs to go to Kenilworth to see if there is a problem. Walsingham will provide a letter of introduction. (The players had realised that they needed to go to Kenilworth. To give them the authority they needed, they went as Queen Elizabeth’s advance security, checking for Catholic dissidents.)
• Mysterious attackers (the School of Night) attack the chapel while the PCs are out and steal anything there. (I didn’t use this as Jon and Terry have been moving quickly. I would have used this to add pressure were they dawdling.)
• Marlowe visits Viola to work out what has gone wrong with the puppet. Viola refuses to see him, and he is barred by the staff. Viola and her loyal staff then decamp to her cousins in Suffolk to get away from Wessex. (This happened in the background, following the events of Session #8. The players didn’t learn of it as they have shown no more interest in Viola.)

And secrets and clues for the players to find:

• A wagon with a long wooden box bound in chains left the warehouse four days ago—by boat upstream and then overland to Kenilworth. (The PCs failed to learn this, through a series of unlucky rolls. However, they worked it out based on what they knew.)
• Francis Reed is an associate of Christopher Marlowe. (Revealed at Reed’s lodging house.)
• Blood crabs react badly to focussed sunlight—use a glass. (Dee provided this information when instructing the PCs to go to Kenilworth.)
• In De Principibus et Regibus Daemoniorium there is mention of a demon with blood-sucking children. The demon’s name is Abaddon. (Dee also provided this.)
• Viola was never at her cousin's. (This clue has rolled over for a few sessions now. The focus moved away from Viola, and the clue was never revealed.)
• A rich lady, accompanied by her maid, visited the warehouse in early October. The witness didn’t see them leave. (The PCs didn’t discover this. This is how Viola was infected with the blood crabs. The maid is Miss Kent.)

During session #10, the Agents revisited the warehouse and Francis Reed’s lodgings. Thanks to terrible rolls, they struggled to find clues. We ended the session with Dee’s instruction to go to Kenilworth.

London to Kenilworth is about 100 miles. Given the poor state of Tudor roads (although they can take a boat to Oxford), we worked out that it would take a couple of weeks to transport a heavy load from London to Kenilworth. However, given that the box only left a few days ago, the PCs should be able to beat it to Kenilworth if they ride fast.

So that’s where we will start next week’s session: Kenilworth.

Next time

So what will our heroes do at Kenilworth? Or will they derail all my preparation and do something different? Find out next time when we conclude our campaign.

Now that we’ve finished, I’ve written up the adventure (Abaddon’s Puppet) and posted it on my Itch.io page.

And here are Tales of Terror suitable for The Dee Sanction.

The Dee Sanction #2: Putting it into practice

Last time I talked about the things I do as a GM at the end of sessions and then between them, including making lists for the following session.

Our Agents are clerk Margaret Chatywn and gardener Samuel Hodgeson (played by Jon and Terry respectively). We’re playing The Dee Sanction online for no longer than two hours using a Trello board as our tabletop.

These are my lists for Session #5, with explanatory commentary in italics.

Part of our Trello board

Events

• Gilbert asks for help—he needs bodies to keep the blood goblin fed. Wants to move into better accommodation, wants help disposing of bodies. Proposes a deal. [Gilbert is from the previous adventure, Ex Libris. I changed the scenario so he could be an ongoing NPC. In the end, he didn’t reappear.]
• Gossip about the bodies washed up on the banks of the Thames. [These are the victims of the currently undefined monster/creature/thing. The bodies appear in session #7.]
• Bodies are being stolen. [Probably stolen by the School of Night and fed to the monster/creature/thing.]
• Report about the fight and the blue eyes [This is a link to Window of the Soul, another published adventure. I didn’t use this event we focussed on Marlowe.]

In the end I didn’t use any of the events, so they will carry over to the next session.

Secrets and Clues

• Children have been going missing
• Marlowe is a government spy
• Marlowe is a Spanish spy
• Bodies have all had their brains scooped out
• Bodies were found when a ship, the Golden Rose, foundered

I used the two about Marlowe but didn’t have a convenient opportunity to bring in the missing bodies so they will carry over. (It’s possible I will never use them—so much depends on what happens at the table. But I have them if I need them.)

NPCs and places

• Theatre – rowdy, bawdy, popular
• Run-down theatre – haunted
• Marlowe’s house – unoccupied
• Theatre pub Rat and Ferret – back street room, cockfights, prostitutes
• Sam Gosse – an actor
• Victor Smith (Viola de Lessops) – in disguise as a young boy actor
• Ralph Bashford – theatrical entrepreneur
• Sam Gosse – an actor
• The de Lessops house – rich merchant

Session #5: Marlowe’s play

We started this by talking about Marlowe, and Wikipedia told me his first play was Dido, Queen of Carthage, first performed in 1585-1587 (which was about the right time). It was performed by the Children of the Chapel (who hadn’t performed at court since 1584, for delightfully vague reasons).

The PCs learned that the Children of the Chapel favour the Rat and Ferret for their after-show refreshments. At the Rat and Ferret, the PCs asked about Marlowe and were directed to Victor (who Marlowe spent time with) and Ralph Bashford, impresario at the Rose theatre.

At the Rose, the Agents found Ralph and learnt that Victor (who has not been seen recently) worked at Lord Wessex’s residence and looked sickly when last seen. (As we played, I realised that Victor/Viola could be under the influence of whatever nastiness was at the centre of the mystery (whatever that is), and so I played it that way. The players worried about vampires as soon as they heard that Victor was sick.

We left it with the players planning to find more about Victor and Lord Wessex.

Session #6: Lord Wessex’s estate

Between sessions, I had that idea that the monster/creature/thing creates doppelgangers and the School’s ultimate aim is to clone Queen Elizabeth. (This isn’t where I ended up, but I mention it here to show that my ideas were changing as we played.)

My preparation for #6 was all about Victor (secretly Viola de Lessops). Where has she been? What has she become? Who else knows?

However, the players headed off in a different direction…

First Margaret went to the palace to find Margaret’s good friend Katheryne Lappage, maid of the queen’s chamber, to learn about Lord Wessex. Katherine told the PCs that Lord Wessex isn’t in favour with the queen as he nearly went bankrupt and married a rich merchant’s daughter (Viola) for the dowry. (Stolen shamelessly from Shakespeare in Love.)

Then the Agents went to Egham and Lord Wessex’s home, where they made friends with under-steward Martin Allington in the Queen’s Arms. Using witchcraft to make poor Martin ill (Samuel tainted Martin’s beer using magic), the PCs took him back to the house and ingratiated themselves with Mrs Brisket, the housekeeper. Mrs Brisket told the PCs that Viola hasn’t been herself recently, which worried them as they were still thinking about vampires.

I realised that my story about Viola was becoming muddled, and I needed to get it straight for the next session.

Viola’s backstory

Before session #7, I worked out Viola’s backstory and the overall plot.

Here’s what Jon and Terry said they wanted to explore:

• Research Blood Goblins. (They were concerned that Gilbert’s blood goblin had caused Viola’s illness. It hasn’t, but they don’t know that yet.)
• Ask Dee for the Book of Dead Names. (I have kept Dee at arm’s length, so the players are working on their own, but the book won’t hurt.)
• Samuel to research herbal medicine to help lady Viola. (They convinced Mrs Brisket they know herbal medicine and to let them look at Viola, when Lord Wessex is out of the house in three days.)
• Discover what Marlowe is doing or set someone to watch his movements. (Marlowe has gone to ground, so they will struggle with this.)
• Return after three days to Wessex’s estate and behest of Mrs Brisket to attend to sickly Lady Viola. 

Session #7: Bodies in the water

This session, I introduced the bodies of the monster’s victims, thrown overboard from the Golden Rose when it foundered and caught up in one of the water wheels on London bridge. I changed my mind about having their brains scooped out—the bodies are withered and shrivelled instead. 

This session involved them following that up. They found the Golden Rose but not its captain. The PCs also researched blood goblins (which I took from the rulebook), leaving them with more questions than answers.

House rule #1: I introduced a house rule to The Dee Sanction (agreed with Jon and Terry first). Any roll of 6+ is an extraordinary success. While 3-5 is successful, 6+ is a great success. And conversely, a roll of 1 is a bad failure indeed.

Before I ran The Dee Sanction, I had thought the PCs were relatively low-powered; ‘ordinary people with tainted history’ as the book says. However, most of the time, they are extremely competent. With a d6 in each resource (attribute), a ‘standard’ PC succeeds on a typical challenge 66% of the time.

Next time

Next time Margaret and Samuel visit the Wessex estate and meet Lady Viola.

Download Abaddon’s Puppet (the adventure that this campaign eventually became) on Itch.io.

And here I've chosen a few appropriate Tales of Terror.

The Dee Sanction #1, Between Session Moves

I’m currently running a mini-campaign of The Dee Sanction. I started with Lost in Translation (from the rulebook) and Ex Libris and followed that with a longer investigation of my own invention.

My well-thumbed copy

This is how I ran the game, including my thoughts on preparation and reflections on how each session went.

I had two players, Terry (playing gardener Samuel Hodgeson) and Jon (playing temple clerk Margaret Chatwyn). We played for about two hours a week using Facebook Messenger for chat and a Trello board as a virtual tabletop. We roll dice physically.

A base of operations

The Dee Sanction doesn’t provide any details about the organisation that the players work for, so we made that up.

We decided that the PCs’ friends and family believed that the PCs had been executed for witchcraft. That’s what the record shows—and the PCs are now full-time agents of Dee, living in a secure location in London.

The players chose the crypt of The Chapel of St Thomas on London Bridge to be their base of operations. The chapel was repossessed during the Reformation and while it is still used for services, the crypt is now Dee Sanction property. At low tide it has access to the river.

A vague plan

My original plan was to play through the published scenarios and maybe tie in something about the Spanish Armada in 1588 as a big finale, taking 12-13 sessions.

I also had an idea about some monstrosity under London with an appetite for sacrifices. (I was inspired by Scarlet Traces by Edginton and D’Israeli, with a horror that provides something good but at an awful cost.)

I had no idea if or how the two would link up; I was sure that something would come along and make it work.

Episodes #1 to #4

Session Zero and Lost in Translation took up the first two episodes. During episode #3 we explored the PC’s base of operations on London bridge and started Ex Libris.

At the end Ex Libris (in episode #4), the PCs encountered Kit Marlowe and the School of Night. When they reported back,  Dee instructed the Agents to learn more about the School of Night.

And that put things in motion.

End of session moves

When I run a campaign, I use end-of-session moves (as PbtA might put it) to prepare for the next session:

• I ask the players what they are planning for the next session: what are they interested in following up? Who do they want to talk to? Where do they want to go?
• I also now use Stars and Wishes to celebrate the good bits and influence the game’s direction.

At the end of session #4 my players said they planned to check the theatres (and the taverns where theatre-folk hang out) to see if they could track Marlowe down.

Between session moves

Between sessions, I think about what may happen, and make lists.

• Events: Events that may happen during the session—such as things the bad guys may do or the ticking of a countdown clock.
• Clues: Stuff the PCs may learn. I don’t decide where or how the PCs will find the clues, just draw from the clues when needed.
• NPCs and places: Ideas for NPCs that the players may encounter and places they may want to visit.

I create these as checklists within a card on another Trello board. I include previous list items if they are still relevant.

Even though I’ve gone through this exercise, my players will probably veer off in a different direction. But by prepping something, I have something to fall back on.

(I believe Michael Shea does something similar in The Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, but I’ve yet to read that.)

Next time

Next time I will talk about how that worked in practice for Session #5.