Nah, the kid was wearing sneakers – top of line knock offs, the best that a five finger discount could get the kid – because, well, almost everyone else did. Never had a gift for fast fingers, and as his burning lungs were swiftly informing him, fast legs were, if anything, further down his list of life skills. His footwear of choice was a pair of not quite designer, but also not quite department store own brand baseball boots; laces never done up, tongues hanging out as he slouched his way around the city. Usually. And now, running like fuck, he could at least be grateful that whichever Indo-china kid younger than him had put his keds together hadn’t been beaten into stupidity when he was sewing in the final stitches. That and the big ape behind him wasn’t wearing anything close to running shoes.

And why the fuck had he thought it was a good idea to head here anyway? As if getting away from crowded areas did him any favours when chased by someone with at least a two foot height advantage on him, and wearing a badly tailored suit that just screamed ‘spook’.

Hell, you could always tell them; even under-cover cops took the time to try and hide the bulge over the chest made by a shoulder holstered 9mm. When they weren’t cold cocking some down on his luck juvie or stim-head with it that is. But not this spook, hell no! He wanted anyone he was running down to know exactly what they were about to be staring down the barrel of. And judging by the way it shifted, and the occasional glimpse as his jacket opened a little every other pace, it was bigger than a nine, mat black and could punch a hole in the kid bigger than his fist.

Every pace the kid took away from the mall, away from the strip – away from people whose presence alone seemed to have been enough to stop the man monkey from drawing iron – made it a hell of a lot more likely that any second now, the next and last thing he heard would be the bark of a gun. The goon wouldn’t have shot him in front of people right? That idea – of course - occurred too late to be of any practical use. That’s why all he’d heard was a name shouted; all he saw was the furrowed brow of a government employee who would struggle to spell ‘government’ with the right number of letter Es; all he felt was ice cold terror dripping down his down spine like a snow cone dropped by a total fucker called Steve. Long story. And then he started running.

The noise of people died out quickly, especially those shouting abuse and taking the piss at him as he broke into a full headlong run away from the arcade. Cat-calls and jeers, with not a man jack of them doing him the favour of putting a foot out and tripping the goon, not even throwing some iced slush over the shitty suit to distract him. Once away from his ‘friends’ the noise had dropped to just a crowd, a crowd he darted and dashed through, hoping that his small size would give him an advantage, not thinking that his pursuer wouldn’t care less about barging people out of his way with a linebacker’s determination and speed.

Every time he turned his head, for just a second it looked like he was opening up a lead, then that big round head would reappear, snarling as its owner shoved some preppy wannabe to the ground and in a few long strides continued to close the gap. As the garish lights of the mall fell away behind him, the no less garish illuminations of the strip took over, but ahead of him he could see them getting thinner, seeing shadows sneaking in as the density of the crowds lessened. Maybe that’s what had drove him forward; the chance to hide? Who the fuck knew. But right now, all the kid could do was curse his damned foolishness and keep on hoping. Keep on running.

Why didn’t he just stop? He could have done so pretty much as soon as he got out the mall, away from people who would never let him forget if he got taken away for some petty shit he’d pulled. The longer he’d carried on running, the harder it was to stop and submit. The redder the goon’s face had gotten, the more angry his grunts had become. He doubted the bastard was in any mood to stop and have a chat now about why he was running what seemed like half way across the city. He’d run; he must be guilty. That was all he could think must have been going through the mind of the lumbering figure behind him. And with every foot he put in front of the other, he was just making him madder, making it more and more likely that the worst that could happen, was in fact going to happen.

“Please, just hit me in the leg”, he prayed silently. A leg shot could attract some attention to the scene, not kill him, and he could still survive…

What scene? There was literally no one here bit the kid and the spook. A leg shot would be just as fatal, since the bullet that followed it would be fired at leisure and would certainly open a new breathing hole in the kids face. One he personally could do without. There was fuck all left for him to do now but hide, maybe climb. His options were as thin on the ground as grass. There was nothing here but derelict buildings and ‘Dumpster’ brand trash containers. Those things would do nothing for him, a few seconds to hide maybe, but that was it, forget what you saw in the action vids, those things could barely stop a thrown rock, let alone a bullet.

And of course, with his life in the balance, and every bit of him needing to concentrate on finding a way out of this cluster-fuck, the kid’s mind went off on one.

Why was he being chased by this spook? This is not a question posed to some imaginary reader of the kid’s life story, it was the thought screaming through his brain as he ran. Was he on some government hit list for net runners? Three words to answer that question; im-fucking-possible. He’d bought his first deck less than a week ago, getting bored shit-less with the lag on public terminals, and the queues to get onto a decent machine at a cyber-cafe. It had taken months of not partying to get together the funds to pick one up.

He wasn’t stupid enough to try hacking his way into any money with what passed for a computer you could get free access to, so he had been biding his time, just practicing  fucking with news feeds and blog sites he detested. Had an opinion that kid didn’t agree with? Prepare for the whole world to think that you liked masturbating to the Discovery feed. Oh yeah, he was hardcore; a real Edger. The deck he’d bought himself could take a crap on the CPU of any public terminal and get the hell out before they noticed the smell, but it was still pretty lame when compared to what the big boys played with.

And what had he done with his new pride and joy since first hooking it up? A big ball of nothing. He’d shown off a few times to people, hoping to impress where his obvious social defects had let him down in the past. And just tried to get his name out there into the hacking community. Not his real name of course, he wasn’t a total red-neck. Silver lining though; if he was to perish in a hail of gunfire in the next twenty seconds, he’d picked a damned fine name to die with.

Blaze. If you asked he would say he never remembered who called it him first and smile as he recounted how it had stuck so quickly. In truth he’d chosen himself, since ‘dickwad’ didn’t have the same ring to it, the same edgy feel he was going for. No matter how often it was hollered at him in public. So, fuck that, set up a website for yourself, use that as handle, and when you meet new people, jut say, ‘oh, everyone calls me Blaze’. Give it a few months and they might very well start doing that. Posthumously of course seemed more and more likely based on current events.

Actually, you know what, fuck dying. These weren’t even ‘Dumpster’ brand, and would offer all the stopping power of a well buttered slice of toast, but they weren’t fucking see-through! Give a well informed and desperate as hell kid a few seconds, and he might just have a chance against some grey suited government spook. A few seconds without direct line of set and any one of the half dozen rounds that would surely be pounding through the thin as hell, tin can of a waste receptacle might just miss the lad. And give him long enough; long enough to dive deep into the pack over his shoulder, grab metal and withdraw a piece. Fuck, he had a plan.

Not a great one, one that had as many holes as the rusted metal box he was diving behind was about to have in it, but it was better than just running and hoping. Would hopefully not be as sweaty either.

Sadly, the metal his grasping hand found as he slid to a halt on his knees, back pack off his shoulder before he was even in cover wasn’t anything even close to an automag. The deck had cost him a small fortune, and self protection had taken the back seat as far as his wallet, and any real effort, was concerned. No, he had not visited the gunrunners, he’d hit the hardware stores!

Not for him the flashy chrome and nickel of the solos, not even the big-ass machetes you occasionally saw the worst kind of enforcers strutting round the strip with. The kid was a fan of zombie vids, and as such, he’d sunk his money into a chainsaw. If anyone laughed at the idea, he would just claim that it had worked so often against a foe ten times more dangerous than a biker gang wannabee after your notes, and smiled to himself, thinking how cool he would look using it in a fight. Of course before that he had needed to siphon some gas out of a car to get the damned thing to work, but right now, that was not high on his list of concerns.

The retort of gunfire was accompanying Blaze’s attempts to retrieve the unwieldy weapon from its cripplingly too small pack. So far, so lucky as it punched a half inch hole though the metal about two foot away from him. Next was the fun of getting it started; he’d practiced a few times and there was no easy way of guaranteeing the motor would turn over on the first attempt. Nothing focuses the concentration quicker than a bullet hole appearing through metal just six inches above your head though, and with that a hard pull on the starter cord, the kid heard the motor purr.

How the fuck had this seemed like a good idea? He could barely move now. It took both hands to keep the damned thing steady which meant moving from his position on his knees to any kind of combat ready stance would be next to impossible. Trying to lift himself up and forward had him tottering over ready to fall face first onto the rotary steel teeth; far from an ideal situation. He had to use a hand to steady himself, had to. Keeping the chainsaw in his right hand he used the left against the cold – and slightly better ventilated – metal and tried to lever himself to his feet.

Just in time too as the Fed turned the corner of the dumpster, eyes all small but filled with rage, lips apart but teeth clenched, flecks of saliva forced between them by his ragged breaths. ‘Life or death time Blaze’, he thought. And dived backwards and away, around the other side of the dumpster, trying to get some space to make a move. Or maybe just putting off the inevitable.

Wait. There was someone else there, a figure stood in a doorway, pretty much just a shadow in front of the light spilling from behind and within. What was totally fucked up though was that the kid was certain he recognized that shadow. Something about the careless ease that they stood there, like whatever was happening in the world was either of no interest to them, or could be solved with bare minimum of effort. Then the shadow got better lit, and the blue jeans and white tee shirt were obvious. The shadow had a name, and that name was Jasper.

For a fleeting quarter second the two of them locked eye contact; the kid, terrified with a side order of embarrassment at knowing he was almost certainly about to die whilst under the watchful eye of someone who would retell the story to anyone he met. Jasper, a smile that played across his entire face as he took in the play unfolding before him. Jasper. ‘The nice guy’. Everyone liked him, even though he seemed to put no effort in at all. They would all listen with rapt attention as he waxed lyrical about the kid, trying to fight off a guy twice his size with a K-mart hedge trimmer. Fuck.

The time to worry about about though would be if he was still sucking breathe in thirty seconds. The goon was following him round the corner; his bulk slowing him down on the tight turn just enough to give Blaze a window of opportunity to strike. He lunged forward, whirring blade whipping up from crotch level to try and hit the guy. Just hitting him would be enough; let the record show that Blaze fought back, that he did not just cower away and die!

He only realised he’d had his eyes closed while making the swing when he had to open them again to see what the hell the blade had gotten snagged on. Oh, and why his face was feeling a bit damp.

AS he opened his eyes he felt what cold have a plant mister spraying onto his face, but it was just a bit too warm for that. The motor was still running, but the teeth had gotten snagged on something. He didn’t want to think about what that could have been, but the word ‘bone’ just kept pushing itself to the front of his brain. He throttled the engine hard and pushed, eyes closed again to keep the fluid from his eyes.

With one last surge of effort he pulled the chainsaw up another half foot and it tore clean through the agents outstretched arm, the business end of it falling to floor with a rather unpleasant noise. The rage had vanished from the Fed’s eyes, replaced with surprise. Surprise and fear – Blaze was amazed to see – before his legs gave up the fight against panic and gravity’s winning combination and slumped to the ground, chainsaw dropped in front of him and still running. The Fed just looked down at him, speechless, his left hand moving up with almost glacial speed to try and stem the blood that was pumping from what remained of his right forearm.

Blaze just watched as the man in front of him went pale, went down on one knee, tried to say something, fell sideways to the ground and stopped moving. Better start breathing, he thought, the worst’s over now and oxygen seems like a damned good thing to have inside me. Someone should tell the Fed that, he looks like he needs some. So naturally, with that funny as shit line rattling round in a mind suffering quite poorly from shock, the kid started laughing. High pitched and knocking on the door of crazy, but thankfully, not being let in.

And that was how jasper found him, laughing and looking down at a man he’d just killed. That shut Blaze up pretty damned sharpish. Being thought of as crazy by this lad with with blue jeans and wife-beater shirt was enough to bring him under control. He turned what he thought would be a ‘seen-it-all-before’ look on the bigger kid, but barely managed to stop himself blurting out with laughter again. Jasper just sat next to him, back against the dumpster, head tilted up as if trying to see the stars through the pollution.

After five minutes, he spoke, ‘It’s Blaze, right? Well done’. The kid turned and took a long hard look at the guy sat next to him and immediately realised he couldn’t much older than he was, maybe even younger, just tall for his age, built a little better too, but his face was just as young. He couldn’t think of a response. Just shocked that he was known at all to Jasper, let alone by the handle he had created for himself. The bigger kid just smiled and slapped his hand onto the kids thigh as he went to stand, reaching forward and down to the Fed’s body, checking his wallet. He was about to sit again when a second thought seemed to occur to him and he picked the gun from out of the tightly curled fingers of the severed arm and a couple of spare clips from a strap on the shoulder holster.

Sitting down again he opened the wallet, taking out what looked like 500 bucks in notes and passed them to Blaze, ‘I think you earned these’, he said before pocketing the wallet and badge for himself. ‘And, no offence, although the chainsaw looked pretty bitchin’, in future, this might be of a bit more use to you’, and with that handed over the pistol that had almost ended Blaze’s life a few short moments ago.

It was heavier than he’d expected, but judging by the gaping maw of a barrel and the size of the holes it had punched through the dumpster, this thing could easily be classified as a ‘hand-cannon’. He slipped it into his backpack, and set about turning off the running chainsaw as Jasper got to his feet once more, smiling at the kid as he did so.

‘The name’s Jasper by the way. And after the excitement you’ve just had, I think we could both use a drink. And you’re paying’. With another slap, this time on the kid’s shoulder he started leading him back to the lights and people of the strip.

‘What were you doing round here?’, the kid asked as they walked, stuffing the tacky chainsaw back into his bag.

‘Trying to get some work. Actually, I hear you’re supposed to be some up and coming net runner! I think you should meet my mates, we might have a use for you.’

With the sickly green flashes from the motel sign, you could just about tell that it was female. Something about the face, but event then, you wouldn’t wager more than beer money on it. She was well built, with short cropped hair and a hard expression. One hand on the upper frame of the open window, the other on a hip that lacked any feminine curve. Wearing loose sports shorts and a grey vest that may in the past had more than a passing friendship with the colour white.

In this part of the City, it wasn’t healthy to advertise that you were a women living alone. True, being a man alone was far from risk free, but with softer targets out there, she felt reasonably safe. Picking on the weak was a popular past time here, and within a night of booking into this fleapit she had assured some not so friendly neighbours that she was not weak.

Turning her back on the street life, she sat on the ledge, enjoying the cool breeze on her skin, still slick with sweat from her exercise routine. Her night time activities required not only skill and athletic dexterity, but an upper body strength that allowed her to bench press a decent sized motorcycle. She had worked harder tonight, partly out of annoyance with herself, but also because it kept her occupied. And it stopped her eyes drifting once again to the front page story that no one knew was about her.

This City. Full of criminals doing despicable things every minute of every day, but you put a mask on and ‘bang’, you make the front page. Hers was no more than a black balaclava and existed for no other reason than to hide her face, but it had piqued the interest of the news vultures. The artist’s impression brought a sneer to her face, but in the long run was probably not that bad a thing. It looked like the Bugle had hired a cartoonist instead of an artist, and not a very good one at that. As long as the Big Man didn’t start getting interested…

All of this was because of one bit of bad luck. She had scoped the place out for weeks, sleeping – when she had to – on the stained mattress with its rusty springs that she was currently walking over to. Mostly during the day, when the summer heat was stifling and free running was an activity carried out for fun, not profit. The City was great for parkour, almost designed for it. Even Paris wasn’t a match, and she learned everything she new about free running a hundred feet above the French capitol. It was easy to see why He liked it here…

Every Thursday night, at the witching hour, there would two security guards playing cards in their office. There were cameras all over the place, but all the feeds went to this room, and putting two poker buddies on the night shift was a mistake that someone was going to regret.

So last night she had gotten ready to go out. Wearing dark grey, light clothes. Tight to her skin to stop them snagging on anything, and breathable to stop her getting to warm from her exertions. She had played around with some kind of body armour for a while, knowing how dangerous the City could be, but even a little extra weight was an inconvenience she could do without. And lets face it, if she was worried about getting shot or stabbed, she had clearly already screwed up the job in a big bad way. The best thing to do was just never get in the sights of a weapon, and in a close up fight? Well, Paris had taught her plenty about that too…

She knew her route backwards and upside down. Knew that just one camera needed to be knocked out before she made it to the security office. Knew that the two buddies would be at the table, paying enough attention to their hands of cards she could practically walk to their side and put them down before they knew what was going on.

The locks were good, and took about five minutes each to get through. Some were harder than others as she needed to hold her weight off the ground with either one arm or both of her legs to keep as much of self out of sight as possible. Awkward to say the least, but killing another three camera feeds was a lot more likely to get her noticed a lot soon than he would have liked. Plus, she had never cared for maintaining a womanly curve on any inch of her body, when raw power and athleticism suited her line of work an awful lot better.

Soon she was in the corridor, her small light club in her right hand and the left delicately testing the door handle of the security office. She only needed the night watchmen to go down for the count, and killing attracted far too much attention. Of course, some criminals in this City seemed to crave the attention. It was a wonder they ever managed to turn a profit. Not her though, with no hint of grandstanding she pushed open the door, and in half a second she was inside, swinging the club towards the jaw of the closest man.

The metal rod caught him squarely, and she felt the impact run up her arm. He was out for the count, and unless she was very much mistaken, he had not only lost a tooth, but also managed to bite his tongue with the ones he had left. Still, he was alive, and would hopefully have at least dental cover.

The second man had barely glanced over the top of his hand when the club whistled through the air towards him. The metal rang slightly as it connected with his skull and he slumped in his chair. Both were bleeding from her attack, but barring a headache and a lisp, both would be fine. For now though, she figured they would be out for at least an hour. She knew where she was going from here, and would be out the door within twenty…

Someone else was breathing in this room. Quick gasps, panicked. From her right.

She turned to see a third man. Sat with a beer can falling impossibly slowly from his slackened fist as he gawped at her like a confused fish, lower lip trembling. She had no weapon to hand so just started towards him, covering the couple of meters in no time at all, but his slow motion movement still continued as he rose from his chair. She lifted her left leg and placed the sole of her foot just above the kneecap before transferring most of her weight to it. At this he started to crumple, but not before her other foot shot skyward, connecting just below the chin and rattling his teeth.

For anyone else, that would have been enough. But he was built of stronger stuff this one, and as she landed she realised his face was familiar. Another guard maybe, come round to get away from a nagging wife or a bar tab he couldn’t clear ’til month’s end. He had the build of someone who traded on his physique too. Probably played high school football, and realised that after high school, nobody cared at all how many touchdowns you’d scored in that game against the local rivals. Right now though, he was a problem that needed dealing with.

She spun quickly back into a fighting position and continued the movement into a back handed punch, raking the metal spikes of her modified knuckle-duster cross his cheek before he finally dropped back to his seat, a second or two after the beer he had dropped. She had aimed for his jaw, hoping to knock him out as easily as she had done the other two, but he was quick too. Not too bright though, and it looked like his brain had finally caught up to his body, and even though the last impact had missed its mark, the combined assaults had obviously been enough. He slumped back, the four deep gouges already leaking blood down his stubbled jaw.

Alone in her room the next night, looking at the caricature of herself with ludicrous claws protruding from her finger tips, she gave a wry smile. Who on this planet would be foolish enough to wear such an adornment? They would offer no advantage other than surprise, and make everything else so hard, it wouldn’t be worth even considering such a foolish affectation. Even forming a hand into a fist would be risky, let alone using the fist to do anything…

Last night, she never even considered just getting on with the job at that point. Three unconscious men made no more difference than two, and she needed this score. It was not to be though. As she checked the pulse of the unexpected watchman, she spotted a flashing light on the security console he had been sitting in front of. He must have seen her on camera after being knocked out from a hand of cards. Why he hadn’t raised this with the other two was a mystery that may never be solved, but the silent alarm had been triggered. She had no idea how long ago the switch had been flipped, but sticking around would be at the very least, career suicide. She quickly deleted the last half an hour of footage to play it safe, and was gone.

She left the way she had arrived. Cursing under her breath as she climbed onto the roof and away. She had slept fitfully, not knowing how much had been seen by the guard and how much of it could be used against her.

She had awoken the next afternoon, already sticky from the heat. Before even showering she had had thrown some loose clothes on and made her way to the corner store. Picking up some cold cuts, coffee and a newspaper. She had gone deathly pale while handing over the few dollars to the kindly woman behind the counter when she saw the front page of the Globe. She hadn’t dared read anything until she was alone and could be sure of betraying nothing with her expression.

All day long she had poured over article. The sun had set on her and the City as she either exercised or re-read the front page. She couldn’t help but love this City. The guard had told the kind of story it loved. Either that or the hacks had turned it into what their readers expected. On paper she was lithe and sexual, ‘cavorting across the sleeping rooftops’ no less…

The scratches on his face had been caused by ‘razor sharp claws’, and the large blackening bruise had been ignored as it didn’t fit with the romance of the story. The skin tight outfit they had gotten mostly correct, but had added a push-up bra and stiletto healed thigh boots for some unfathomable reason.

All in all, it bore as much resemblance to her as it did the Indian lady who had sold her the paper. That had put her mind at ease a little, but it did open up a whole new world of potential problems. She had been in the City for over a year now after leaving Paris, and had been working constantly since she had arrived. She had avoided any unwanted attention by being very good at her job, and being thoroughly uninteresting, especially when compared to ludicrous rogues gallery that habitually operated here.

The front page meant that that could very much be over now. And once you got interesting, the Big Man started to pay attention. She crossed the tiny motel room once more to stand at the window as she thought.

In the sky, flickering across what few clouds graced to night, she saw that city was wanting him to come out and play. She would stay in tonight, and keep her distance from the Big Man. If she wanted to carry on working in the City, Celine would have to play it very safe from her on in.

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There are hazards by the bucket load once you start working underground, even more so when you’re hundreds of feet below the surface. So many in fact, that I doubt I will even have to touch on some of the supernatural shenanigans that had my players stiff with fright last time I took them down a mine. A huge threat to consider, since it’s a slow creeping death, is oxygen supply. That far underground, there’s nothing producing oxygen (we’ll get to the other gases in a bit), so the characters will need to carry their own – in back pack respirators – or make absolutely certain that the ventilation in the mine is working. Although the GM can ask for an easy repair roll to get the fans turning, the fun comes with all the doors that need to be the correct combination of open and closed to keep the air going where the adventurers need to be. This can be a great little puzzle, and if they get it wrong, the first time they’ll notice their mistake is when they start getting light headed, far away from the daylight. There may be a point when you decide to knock realism on the head here; it would be almost impossible to change the doors from inside the mine, and totally impossible to move them by hand. Vacuums are created when dealing with the air pressure necessary to keep fresh air pumping that far and that deep, and if a player gets caught between a door that wants to close and the door’s frame (due to another door getting destroyed for instance) they will be crushed to death or have limbs severed in seconds. Fun, huh?

As mentioned, there’s plenty of other gases down there. Stuff that could lead to suffocation or massive fireballs of death. I’ve found it’s best to be fair to your players when it comes to this, as just walking down the wrong passage could be death in a matter in a seconds from suffocation. Be fair, but don’t feel the need to go too easy on them. If they’re going down a mine, they should be warning signs everywhere about the gases they could encounter, so if they choose not to take precautions, that’s their own problem. What they should expect to find are Davy Lamps. These are handy bits of kit that contain a small flame that can be watched to show differences in oxygen levels or the presence of fire damp etc., that they will want to keep a very close eye on. There are more high tech ways of doing this these days, but we are talking very recent inventions, and they’re far from quick to learn to use, or to use when you’re down a mine. Best left in the hands of professionals really.

Now that the characters are down there, and breathing safely; they’re still far from safe. As mentioned, flammable gas is a big risk. Nothing that could cause a spark was allowed down into a mine at the pit head. The miners were very careful about this indeed, but would your players be? If they have guns, then letting them off just once could be the death of them. A horribly painful, drawn out death. Firearms aren’t the only source of sparks though, so keep a close eye on the characters, and watch what they’ve brought down below. And don’t feel like you have to TPK for one slip up; if the group are spread in a line, only one needs to feel the full lick of flame, and even that doesn’t need to be fatal. One would think that it happening once would be enough to make sure that they’re considerably more careful in future. This next bit probably goes without saying, but fire needs oxygen to burn, and since that’s already a problem in a mine, just imagine what could happen if a lot of it gets quickly burnt away?

Fire brings us neatly onto another huge problem; collapse. Even in modern mines with pneumatic roof supports, the sheer amount of rock being moved can bring down miles of tunnels in one collapse. In an abandoned mine, the risk is even greater, as the supports will have been left without any maintenance for as long at the mine has been left empty. The older the mine, the more likely that it’ll come down when disturbed, and this can be all kinds of fun and terror. Once again, don’t kill the lot of them – unless you’re bored – but have them stuck behind the rubble. This becomes an interesting survival situation as air, water, and food all become very important. Don’t get too worried about the Chilean miners and having the players down there for months; there should always be a secondary draft that will allow the characters to get out. This will mean walking the entire way back up on a one third incline, once they’ve found a way to it of course.

Now, I also had some fun with ghosts when I subjected my players to a Victorian era mine, so feel free to add in anything you like to these little snippets, and if you want to get an idea of just what it’s like down there, find a mining museum that offers underground tours, and wait for the bit when they tell everyone to turn their lights off…

I hope that like me, it gives you some inspiration, and if it does, feel free to sound off below and share them with anyone else not lucky enough to be at GenCon.

Before we get into the advice I just want to say that the horror game I’m talking about running isn’t a splatter-punk/zombie survival kill fest kind of game, although it could very well include elements of any of those things. No, what I like to run are games of creeping terror. Games that stay in your players’ minds and make them nervous to perform even the simplest action while playing. Think about some of your favourite horror movies and how terrified the characters are when all they want to do is close the refrigerator or check on a strange noise. That’s what I want my players to be like when I’m done with them; shivering, in a fetal position and cursing my name.

One of the most fundamental ways of getting this response from them, is letting the players know from the start that they’re going to be playing a horror game. If everyone’s on the same page, it means there’ll be less mood breaking chatter and horse-play coming from your players; something that would be totally totally understandable if they don’t know what kind of atmosphere you’re trying to achieve. If they know what’s expected of them with regard to the genre of the game, they’re going to be more likely to stay in character and respond to in game threats like they’re lives actually depended on it.

Another consideration is the size of your group. This comes from my own experience of trying to keep the intimate ambiance needed for a horror game with a group of seven gamers. Ideally I would try to keep the group at four players, and absolutely no more than six. Smaller games are great, and I really don’t think there’s a minimum number for a horror game. With your group set up, it’s now time to look at the place you game.

I have in the past gone all out on the room dressing for my horror games, but the simplest stuff to get right is also the most important. I know not everyone has as much control over their gaming space as they would like, so take this next bit of advice as what to do in an ideal world. You’re going to want a smallish space, ideally with the players all pretty close together. Intimacy is very much what you should be going for here. Keep the lights low, as this helps just a little bit, but make sure everyone can still see their character sheet and dice. Keep noise to minimum, and if you’re going to use a soundtrack, put some thought into it. One of my favourites for this at the moment is a band named AKLO, who do some great Lovecraft inspired music. Suno))) are also worth a look, as they manage to put together some of the best blackened creeping drone music out there. Maybe not the kind of stuff you can dance to, but it does its job of creeping out the players very well indeed.

One last thought on the room and atmosphere, and this is something I’ve done myself and seen done very well by other GMs too; get the group to sit facing each other, while you as GM sits apart. Make sure everyone can still hear you, but that they will have to keep the noise down a little to catch your disembodied tones coming in from he darkness away from the table. This may not seem like much, but if you can pull it off, it’s well worth the effort.

When it comes to running the game, there’s a few little bits you can do to heighten the tension and thus the fear. First, never worry about splitting the party. Isolation is a great companion to fear. If you do this, impose a strict ‘no OOC chat’ rule around the table, but ideally you should occasionally split the actual group up. If you do this though, try to keep moving between the players, as you don’t want tension you’re building to become boredom. If each player can still hear hushed conversation, the creepy music, or some unexplained noises, you should buy yourself a bit of time though.

Pacing is important in any game, but when it comes to a horror RPG, even the speed that you talk at can be used to ratchet up the horror level. Start slow, and quiet, but shift up when you need to, increasing volume and pitch, but never drop the scare on them when the players are expecting it. If you have the right players, you can even use them to help out occasionally. Dropping a note to a player you can trust, reading, ‘scream when I say the word “door”‘, and then waiting for it to catch the other players unaware is just priceless.

That’s just a few of the things I do to help keep my players gripping the edge of their seats, and since I’ve played more than my fair share of horror games as well as GM them, watch this space for advice for players soon. If you’ve anything you want to add to the above, or you just want share some stories of your own scary horror role playing games, then sound off in the comments box.

What’s just happened is a small bunch of people have done possibly millions of dollars/gold pieces worth of damage to his organisation, and the costs still haven’t been counted for if they decide to restart the operation. What profit is there in going after those people? They have already proven themselves to be highly capable and resourceful killers who it would seem foolish to annoy further.

This post is inspired by the soon to be released film Taken 2, and the comic book series Sin City: Hell and Back by Frank Miller, touching on how the idea of revenge as a plot device could be handled in an RPG. A lot of what you take from this blog comes from the type of game you’re going to be playing. I’m not talking about sci-fi versus fantasy, but high adventure/Hollywood movie action versus dark and gritty/life on the line kind of games. If you’re rocking some high adventure kind of game, then you’re going to have players who are nigh invincible, especially if all the bad guys have to throw at them are mooks by the bucket load.

In this instance, I would advise sticking to using revenge as a motivator for the characters. It may be tricky to think of something that will drive all of the party to action. If the group are already well established this could be easier, as they may already share common goals and associates that could be compromised by the bad guys. In this kind of story the avenging angels (read:player characters) will almost always succeed, but the reverse is never true. Boss bad guys will look at the damage wrought on them by a group of heroes and send wave after wave of increasingly tougher mooks against them, all of whom will die without being much a challenge to the PCs. Only in the final act will the party face a real challenge other than attrition, usually in form of a right hand man, who’s been itching for a chance to take them out from the start. Even this will be an easily surmountable obstacle that will open the way to final Boss who will be the only real challenge before the thirst for revenge is satisfied.

This kind of thing is certainly fun, but the final speech from the head bad guy in the comic book mentioned above is far more realistic,

Revenge is a loser’s game. There’s no percentage in it. All that matters is profit… and power. …As for Wallace… let the man be on his way – and prey we never see his like again”.

After watching the trailer for taken 2, all I could think was, Why the hell don’t more bad guys think like that?!

Not every band of heroes is a mook grinding machine though, and if your game lends itself to more realistic combat, then it’s much more likely that the threat of revenge from a powerful criminal consortium, or even dark wizard, would be something worth worrying about. Handled well it will drive the players away from their safety zone, away from friends and allies, and will make them watch over their shoulder every second. It will take some thought on the GM’s part to give a sense of genuine peril without just killing someone,but there are plenty of ways to do it. My personal favourite is to play the first round of bad guys that are sent after them as way more clever and well organised/disciplined than the players would expect from a random group of NPCs.

Expect them to know how to use the terrain; know that trying to take out the PCs in a single rushed charge will do very little, but whittling away at them while keeping themselves as safe as possible makes a lot more sense. They will also know when to withdraw from a fight, and know to keep an eye on their own resources, not wasting anything while doing their job, but doing what they can to reduce the party’s supplies. It’s also a foolish evil overlord indeed who is stupid enough to send out only the one team. Don’t feel the need to swamp them with everything all at once, but use a second team to stymie the PCs as they seek to get themselves squared away after the first attack. Markets or inns that they would run to in times of trouble will be nothing but scorched remains, or closed to them, the owners fearing threats of violence for helping them in any way.

This all sounds very much like the characters are eventually going to die, or just stay on the run, fleeing for their lives for as long as the bad guy keeps his attention focused on them. There are a few ways to combat this, but if you have a strong group of role players, I’m sure they could figure a way out of it that their GM would never see. The opportunity to turn the tables on the  bad guy should be presented though, just to keep them interested.

Maybe one of an attack party over plays their hand and could be captured and ‘persuaded’ to give up some goods on the antagonist? I’m not going to do all the work for you, but you see where this could go. As long as nothing that happens is easy, and the threat from the bad guy remains constant, then there’s a lot of fun to be had with the consequences of your players’ actions, even if they were carried out from the moral high ground and especially if they thought they were doing the right thing. Eventually though, they will want to take the fight to the big bad, and this should be a hard slog indeed,but still a workable option. To deny the players closure after putting them through so much is just plain mean.

So, I hope that’s been useful, but if you have any ideas of your own, or some examples from play that you want to share, sound off in the comments and let us all know.

First off, the zombie plan. I have put some thought into this, and have even checked if all these things will fit into the back pack I use the most. They don’t. This is because I’m a cyclist and the back pack I use on my back is small and light , with only a few essentials in it. The bike is a very important part of my survival plan and as such I have a pannier rack fitted over my back tire and two bags that strap onto that. All my stuff fits nicely into those.

1. Water purification tablets
2. Flint and steel firelighter kit
3. metal water bottle
4. Camel pack
5. Wind up flashlight
6. Wind up radio
7. hatchet
8. Survival knife
9. Basic fishing kit (pocket size)
10. 18″ crowbar (wrecking bar)
11. Rabbit snares
12. box of matches
13. 3 days change of basic clothes (all tight fitting)
14. Waterproof light jacket and trousers
15. two man tent
16. sleeping bag
17. mallet
18. Puncture repair kit
19. cycle maintenance multi-tool
20. OS waterproof map of the area.
21. Tin/bottle opener

There may be other stuff people think I should add. Please feel free to make suggestions; I still have a bit of space.

Now onto the cyberpunk!

1. Back pack? I’m sorry, but do you realise how expensive this suit is? And you want me to ruin its lines with two straps over my shoulders? No no no, I may carry a briefcase on occasion, but it must be bullet proof and colour matched to the suit. Inside that? A laptop and basic data suite would be enough I think. I carry my life in my pockets. A wallet with a trauma team card and the ID I need to get places. Maybe a few hundred EB to see me through in the kind of dives that don’t have a cred-chip reader. Oh, and my phone. I understand the trend for on board cyber-telecommunications, but really, these days phones can do so much more than let you talk to people. A weapon? You’ll only find out what I’m carrying and where, the hard way. Anything else I need, I buy…

The following tips and advice are all based on widely perceived historical fact, so feel free to use them, whilst I take some pleasure in using my History& Heritage degree for the first time since graduating over a year ago. The aim of this blog is to make being a ranged combatant in any medieval like setting a bit more interesting than standing at the back loosing arrows while staying out of trouble.

First let us consider one of the finest examples of a bowman from the medieval period, the English warbow user. This isn’t idle speculation, or a sense of national pride (why should I be proud of something I had nothing o do with, just because it was done by people born within a certain geographical proximity?), but is actually true. It wasn’t naturally the case though, it was actually a law that made the common Englishman so proficient. All males of a certain age were required to practice for several hours a week, giving them the barrel chested build one needs when trying to pull a big ass longbow. And I mean big. Taller than a man kind of big. One point of note is that they weren’t trained to hit targets as much as you would think. Ignore Robin Hood and the archery butts with round targets; that was very much what the better bred shot at whenever they lowered themselves to take part in this activity. No, what they were trained to do was pick a range and land an arrow in it. At the time this was key because they would be firing in volley and wanting to concentrate the arrows as much as was possible. Since most archers in roleplaying games aren’t loosing arrows with 200 hundred of their mates, we shan’t spend any longer talking about that.

Lets get to the good stuff. Why use a warbow instead of a crossbow? Sure, a crossbow is a devastating weapon, designed to work well over long distances, without losing much of its stopping power. It was also designed to be used from withing a castle shooting out, with a small team of men to cock and load it. For a quick reason as to why you shouldn’t rely on them out in the open, just look at what happened at the battle of Crecy. The rain plays merry hell with a bow string, and a warbow can be unstrung when required, with the string coiled up and put under a hat. It’s not exactly easy to re-string in a hurry – even the men who used them all the time and were built like oxen couldn’t do it that quickly – but a combat round or two is well worth it if you don’t want your arrows to fall very short indeed. If anything did go wrong with the bow, or for that matter the string or arrows, don’t fret. Due to the nature of using a bow, it should be safe to assume you know how to repair, replace or just make new bits, provided you have access to basic resources. If your GM disagrees, I’ll have a word.

On top of the basics, most bowmen would also carry around molds for arrow heads, and know how to melt down and reform metal to make new ones. This fact isn’t probably that important, unless you’re playing with a GM who likes to punish careless archers for missing their targets and instead sending arrows over the horizon. No, the thing to take advantage of here, is the type of molds you should expect to have:

Regular. Nothing too special about these, but just remember that they’re all barbed. Only way to get them out is to push them through. Nasty right? It gets better. If you’re going to be loosing more than a couple of arrows, take them out of your quiver or satchel and put a decent handful point down into the ground. Not only will this be quicker to grab them, but also give the arrowhead a nice coating of dirt. Just in case they survive the shot, the infected wound will kill them. This works for all arrow types by the way.

Bodkin. Armour piercing. Don’t get too cocky though, you’ll need to have your target within fifty feet and hit straight on. If you do though, they punch through a breast plate and right into the person wearing it.

Broadhead. Mainly used as a horse stopper, as most other arrows don’t do that much damage to the half ton of muscle that is a war horse.

To make it easier to swap arrow heads, and more of a pain to get them out of wound, they’re not stuck fast to the shaft. Simply spit down the join, then push it on to the arrow with a twist to keep it as secure as it needs to be. A simple twist and pull will take it off again meaning you can change arrow heads in a hurry if you need to.

And one final point; never rely on just your bow. Have a short sword or long dagger about you too. Sometimes an arrow will drop a chap, but not finish him off, and if they’re still wearing armour, you want something that get into the gaps between the plates (armpits are the best if you can get nice and close). And of course it wouldn’t kill you to get the blade of your weapon nice and dirty too, just to make sure it will kill the bugger you’re sticking it into.

I hope you all have some fun with that, and please feel free to show off about the cool stuff you’ve done with a bow in your own game. Next time, we discuss crossbows, and ask why they’re never as deadly in games as they are in real life.