It’s that time of the year again! Halloweeeeeen gammeeee! *cue spooky music.*
I elected to run Mythras from The Design Mechanism, using their Mythic Rome sourcebook. (You can find all of these books on their website or DriveThruRPG.)
Rules Changes for Moar Horror
None! The combat rules in Mythras are pretty horrific already (in terms of body horror), and as I was going for a bit of a Lovecraftian Roman Sex Cult vibe, I just cribbed from Chaosium’s excellent 7th edition of Call of Cthulhu (since both games share a similar d100 engine history and are largely easily converted between.)
Everyone took on the role of a Gladiator or Charioteer (only one Charioteer though), and served in a gladiatorial school (called a Ludus) in northern Africa in Roman Carthage.
The Food
Halloween game is a chance for me to explore another favorite hobby of mine, cooking. I made the following items for them:
- CHICKEN MEADIATORE.
- FRUITED MEAD SOUP
- SPICED APPLE CIDER
- HOMEMADE PEACH COBBLER
THE GAME
Their owner, Marius was losing money due to cheating from a rival ludus known as Ludus XIII. Marius suspected that Scyllah (the owner of Ludus XIII) was cheating somehow and instructed his gladiators to “desert”, swearing their allegiance to Scyllah and investigating what was going on.
We had a training match to teach the combat mechanics (the rest of the game is fairly straight forward.)
They staged an escape, in which an overly abusive guard was slain rather brutally.
After that, at Ludus XIII, the Lovecraftian tension started to amp up as one of the gladiatrs was bedded by Scyllah, and it only got weirder from there.
The big set piece was the “scale” Hippodrome I build. It was converted for a 16mm chariot scale and based on the measurements of archeological references for Roman Carthage.
The track itself was over 6 feet long and the gladiators have to survive a death race against ghostly Roman Chariots and strange monsters.
Overall, it was a great experience, and the sheer amount of fun really made me want to start planning next years already (which is a good sign!)
I’d been growing burned out, so it was wonderful to feel that sense of love of gaming coming back!
Alan Bahr 