Interview: Greg Setliff's The Elixir of Kosomodes
Mix some potions and roll some dice
The Elixir of Kosomodes launches today so go check it out! I was lucky enough to game with Greg last year and now he’s joining the financially lucrative realm of game design and self-publishing. He’s crafted a really intriguing adventure that has loads of something that I wish more DCC adventures had: loads of handouts! Check out the interview:
Hi Greg, you've got a city-based adventure that you're crowdfunding, The Elixir of Kosomodes. In the adventure, you detail just a couple areas within that city. Were you trying to channel any specific inspiration to capture a certain "feel" for the city? I've seen some folks will try to emulate Punjar or Lankhmar.
When I’ve run the adventure for my home campaign, I set it in Ankh-Morpork from Terry Pratchet’s Colour of Magic, which is the fantasy city that I am most familiar with. Of course, that city has a lot of Lankhmar in its DNA, but I’ve only recently started reading Leiber’s books. I did sneak in a not so subtle nod to the Discworld books into my adventure, by the way (hopefully some of your readers can spot it).
For The Elixir of Kosomodes, I decided early on that I would leave the setting intentionally vague. The action takes place entirely within the confines of an out-of-the-way merchant square that would be right at home in any of those fantasy city settings and also one in a judge’ own home-brew campaign setting.
So the PCs are all migrants to this city and find themselves accidentally out after dark. After some shenanigans, they find themselves at an apothecary, which is the core conflict and adventure-site of the adventure. What drew you to that? Inspiration from your own game sessions, pulpy stories of mad scientists, or something else?
I have quite the soft spot for the mad scientist thing, but this adventure began life as an idea for what would become its main puzzle. Without giving away too much, the players (not just the PCs) use common household ingredients to mix their own elixir. If done correctly, their elixir undergoes a noticeable change that can be interpreted in-game and determines the outcome of the story. The nature of the elixir-based puzzle necessitated the apothecary setting. Got to get those strange ingredients somewhere!
Speaking of inspiration, the story itself was largely inspired by Jack Finney’s 1955 sci-fi suspense novel The Body Snatchers, which was later adapted into numerous films retitled The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. If you know those stories, you might recall that the aliens devised an insidious plot to take over earth. PCs in this adventure, discover something similar going on - but with lots of weird fantasy twists.
Tell us a bit about what players are in store for when they play the adventure. I notice that "grexes" are a prominent monster, and one which can take over a PC. I suspect the list of "playable NPCs" might be a solution for when PvP deaths occur because of those grexes.
You never know what’s going to happen when a PC becomes possessed and the judge takes control of their character sheet! The playable NPCs included in the module serve a couple of purposes. As you suggest, they are there to replenish the party’s numbers when needed. Generally a good idea in a DCC game. But the real reason I included them was more practical. I run Road Crew games at the university where I work and my players often come and go between sessions. Being able to quickly convert NPCs into playable characters mid-adventure was a simple solution to accommodate an ever changing cast of players.
The Elixir of Kosomodes has 3 "journal handouts", a recipe for preparing an "elixir" as a prop, and a puzzle themed around potion labels. I love having handouts at the table and having 5 different handouts is more than 95% of DCC adventures. In your opinion, how do the handouts improve the game session?
The handouts were added in response to my very first playtest. Earlier versions did not have them, and I found that PCs struggled to understand what was going on without lengthy exposition from the judge or some know-it-all NPC. I wanted the PCs to discover for themselves what was going on inside the apothecary, and figure out how to solve its mysteries. Each of the handouts provides clues to figure out how things went down before they showed up.
The recipe and the cutout labels, on the other hand, are intended for the judge to prepare the elixir components and label them prior to the game’s final session.
You've also got several puzzles in the adventure. One thing that I noticed was that the adventure suggests moving certain clues around to fit the narrative that the players are creating. Any tips for designing and play testing puzzles?
There is a prescribed place for PCs to find each elixir component, but in playtests, they kept breaking the bottles, setting them on fire, drowning with them in their pockets, or just drinking them. After all, trial and error is one way to solve most puzzles. It’s may not be the best way, but the results can be pretty funny! It was clear that there needed to be some flexibility in finding the essential pieces to the puzzle if they were ever lost. So, if your PCs decide to throw their elixir bottle as a missile weapon, then insist on failing their Luck checks, they can always find another one elsewhere in the apothecary.
The physical representation of the elixir puzzle is of my favorite parts of the game. There’s nothing quite like listening to your players carefully describe how their PCs will solve the puzzle, and then relishing the look on their faces when you reach under the table, pull out four vials marked with weird symbols and say, okay then, do it!
Thanks for sharing so much! Anything that I didn't ask that you wish I did? Please share if there's something you gotta tell folks!
I had a lot of fun making this adventure. But it would’ve just stayed on my laptop had I not been encouraged by the DCC community to put it out there! I am very grateful for that.
I hope y’all liked the interview! Curious what folks think of the puzzles and handouts that Greg talked about. If you have a favorite puzzle/handout from a game you’ve played, share it in the comments!
What else is going on?
H20-Pocalypse
Grab your surf board and get ready for next week’s interview!
A zine containing goblin, hobgoblin, and bugbear classes for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.
Get a ton of hidden gems for $10! I’ve got a trilogy adventure called The Scourged Realm. It’s three Bloodborne inspired adventures made for the tactical solo game RUNE.
Great interview Stefan! I had already backed the project but now I feel even better about that decision with so many projects to choose from right now!