July Funnel Jam - The Cyclopean Organ

I'm planning on taking part in the Funnel Jam hosted by SageDaMage this month, and in keeping with the principle of Showing My Work outlined in my first post I thought I'd sort of liveblog the attempt. Generally my instinct is to hold back on showing off anything I'm doing until I've refined it quite a bit, so I'm trying to fix that by inflicting my stream of consciousness writing process on anyone who stumbles on this. Lucky you.

Funnels have fascinated me for a while, but I've never gotten around to running one. Having started my RPG obsession with character-centered, low lethality stuff, multiple character deaths in a single adventure as not just possibility but expectation is pretty alien and exciting to me. At the same time, the idea of the events of the funnel as a starting point and seasoning for long term, organic character growth is very much in my wheelhouse and something I want to explore in depth.

So I'm crazy about the idea in abstract, but I've been going back and forth on what kind of funnel to put together, and what system to use. My erstwhile obsession with Freebooters on the Frontier has been on the rise again, but the format that game uses for its funnels is a little looser than what I'm looking to put together. Also, I'd really like to put Cairn through its paces, so I think I'll be writing it for that in the end.

However, I do like the looseness of the Freebooters stuff, and creating procedural toolkits over hard-and-fast mapped dungeons is definitely more in my comfort zone. I also love the room Freebooters leaves for player input and co-authoring of the world in its Funnel structure. I can't help but feel that a bunch of rando disposable nobodies as characters is going to inevitably hurt player buy-in a little bit (at least for the type of players I run for), and getting to shape the starting situation to their taste feels like it would definitely help with that.

So in mulling over how to thread the needle, I figured out a way I could make things even more hectic for myself: use another format that I've never attempted before! I'm going to make my funnel a depthcrawl, another format that I've become completely obsessed with since I received my copy of the new printing of The Stygian Library. A depthcrawl will let me focus on tables and tools over maps and static encounters, while remaining broadly compatible with the principles Cairn spells out that made me so excited to run it in the first place.

So, to reiterate and to list it out for my own benefit, here are my goals for this project:

• A small-ish depthcrawl, hewing fairly closely to the formula Emmy Allen lays out for the Stygian Library.
• I want to keep the tables/expected depth comparatively small to ensure a Final Location can be reached in one or two sessions, as this is not meant to be an open-ended campaign but rather a contained adventure. Otherwise I think I can stick to proven tools here.
• A Cairn/ItO compatible adventure, another thing which I've never done.
• I'm going to need to come up with some character creation procedures for level 0 characters, but as characters in these games generally start quite weak I figure it's not going to take that much tweaking. But I do have another idea that should make things more difficult for myself:
• Some collaborative worldbuilding prompts built into character generation. I'm taking this from the worldbuilding procedures in Freebooters and more directly from Stonetop, where there are specific, relevant worldbuilding questions tied to each individual playbook to help players add their own flavor to the setting. I want to do that with the villager backgrounds for this funnel.
• I know this doesn't necessarily have a lot to do with the Funnel itself, and I may end up cutting it in the end, but it's something I want to try. I think a more fleshed out world outside of the funnel has value as actionable content for campaign continuation. And I don't think it's an entirely foreign concept for ItO at least - Electric Bastionland's character debts built into the backgrounds have a similar purpose as hard edges for creative crystallization .
• Check off the key goals of a funnel - a strong and actionable hook, very deadly challenges, and the potential for transformative character development with far-reaching consequences.
• I've got to list this one specifically because I have a bad habit of shying away from all of these things. They're all so...impactful, and irrevocable, and that means they're hard to gloss over or retcon if you make a mistake. Hence my bad habit to avoid them at the table. This will be an exercise in making me take the kid gloves off, both as a designer and as a GM when I test this thing. I'm going to obliterate my instincts to overbalance and sandbag, and just let things be crazy. Wish me luck!

Okay, now to the actual content of the funnel before I wrap this up. I'm going to be developing a little idea I've had wandering around in the back of my mind for a while: The Cyclopean Organ.

Metropolitan Cathedral Organ, Mexico City - Ted McGrath

(I'm definitely aping the Stygian Library naming convention with that name, yes. Here's the pitch:)

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The village of Torond lies on the furthest southern spit of coastal cliffs, far away from civilization - a treacherous journey by sea, and an interminable trek by land over endless rolling hills of swaying grass to the north. Those lands have been abandoned for as long as anyone can remember, known to be cursed by the giantfolk that lived there once, damned for all future inhabitants in that culture's resentful dying days. There's not much sign that they were ever there, now. Not apart from the Organ.

The Organ is atop the highest hill for many miles, visible from the outskirts of Torond on a clear day. It lies crouched over the summit like an oversized vulture atop a much too small perch, its highest spires doubling the height of the hill itself. Pipes sprout in every direction, in bundled groups and erratic single outliers, all petrified black wood and grey and gold metal, still gleaming as if every inch was just polished yesterday. Several of the pipes lay along the ground, their mouths gaping at passersby, daring them to venture inside. Nobody has, not in a generation. They don't remember why, just know from tales passed down and rumors half-remembered that there's no profit to be had in trifling with the Organ. They just leave it be, glowering across the surrounding lands, never sounding but for the faint, haunting glass-jug notes sounded by wind blowing across the flues.

Until last night, when some fool minstrel fresh off a merchant schooner had too much to drink and went up into the hills, traipsing right into the mouth of the thing. And for the first time in the memory of any still living in Torond, the Organ sounded up properly. A tuneless cacophony of unearthly chords, whistling and hooting, fluting and reeding, shuddering and shaking and vibrating the whole town. Masonry began to crumble, buildings shifting dangerously in the blast of racket that reverberated across the hills.

In the small hours of the morning, the people of the village pulled together to repair the damage. At least whatever the outsider had done inside that gargantuan twist of pipework was done with. And then, exactly six hours after the echoes of the first blast had faded, the Organ awoke again. This blast was louder than the first. Homes were swept into rubble. The lighthouse atop the cliffside disintegrated, sending the lightkeeper and their family tumbling into the white waters below.

Even before the last ringing notes evaporated, it was decided - someone needed to go in after the musician from strange lands that had started all of this. Someone needed to stop him, or whatever he'd started. Before the next blast, maybe six hours hence. Maybe sooner.

There are no heroes in Torond. Only normal folk, every last one of you. But someone's got to find the hero inside of them. To save the village. Your village.

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This guy got a little long, so I'm going to leave it there. Next time, we throw together some key concepts to build the Organ around!