Kadmoniah Session 0

I promised myself I would publish a session report before the next session. Since Session 1 is two days from now, the clock has arrived to collect its due, so here it is!

The Upshot

It went well. Not without some hiccups, which mostly pointed to a missed direction of prep, but all lessons to be learned. But I had enough heads nodding vigorously that I feel well-set for an engaged crowd.

I haven’t mentioned the name “Kadmoniah” before now, here or with the players, but I got tired of writing “Fantasy Ancient Levant” in my notes all the time. Suffice it to say, it’s the name of the campaign, and, I’m assuming, the general region the campaign is starting in, which is roughly equivalent to the Iron Age Levant, circa 600 BCE. I owe the feed a World Description post, but that one is going to be long in writing and longer in editing down, so I’m going to leave it at that for the moment.

The Front Matter

I wanted to get off the starting line quick, but I also didn’t want to jump straight into playing at the beginning of the first session and potentially have players bounce off the system.

In my day job, I’m in management (having graduated from “helpful software engineer” to “officially part of the problem” several years ago), and there are plenty of managerial techniques that drive me absolutely batty, which I avoid like the plague. That said, I’ve found that a decent icebreaker gets a lot of the awkwardness out of the way up front. But mine hid some intelligence gathering: “What’s your name, your preferred pronouns, and your prior experience with RPGs. If you have one, name your favorite RPG experience.” This gave me insight into what the players found enjoyable in the past.

One thing I noted for the future is that I need to write shit down. I was expecting my memory to cover for me with these “favorite moments”, and so far I’ve only been able to dredge up three of the five.

I then launched into the Strong Start¹, which I did as a Dreaded Read-Aloud.

For over a thousand years, the Bnei Zoharim ruled the coastal kingdom of Zoharai – a land of fertile fields, bustling ports, and mysterious Powers that few outsiders understood.

Two and a half centuries ago, the inhuman Ashtoki Empire swept down from the highlands, hungry for Zoharai’s wealth and magic. They conquered the land and exiled the survivors.

Then, as Ashtoki armies closed on the capital of Beit Eish, something catastrophic, yet inexplicable, happened. In a single day, the entire Ashtoki Empire was annihilated—their armies destroyed, their homeland reduced to screaming ruins. Zoharai lay empty, and no one knows what did it.

For centuries, no one dared enter the abandoned kingdom. The neighboring powers – paranoid Nitzurei, ambitious Shadu-Rabi – all kept their distance, terrified of whatever force had destroyed the Ashtoki.

Only recently has the mountain empire of Shadu-Rabi grown bold enough to allow settlement in Zoharai – but strictly farmers and traders. Anyone caught treasure hunting faces imprisonment.

Meanwhile, the exiled Bnei Zoharim survive as outcasts throughout the region, their eyes always turning toward their lost homeland and the riches buried within its haunted ruins.

Players had questions at this point, some of them lore-based and some of them logistical. I deferred a lot of them, including the multiple inquiries on when we were going to roll characters, but most of their questions led me into giving my notes about the campaign.

I laid out some basic OSR-ish declarations, like “there is no story; we’re not making a movie; unexpected and undesired things will happen”, as well as the inspiration for the setting. The group really got into the idea that since this was, effectively, the Iron Age, we’d have less advanced technology than what you might see in a faux-medieval vanilla D&D setting. So, a steel sword would be a legendary-level artifact. No compasses, no plate mail. Here I opened the door a bit wider on my approach by letting them know that where there is something that doesn’t make sense, technically, to point it out and we can retcon or discuss it as a group, rather than rule solely by GM fiat. Although I was quick to follow up that I’m not going to go so far as to list every possible New World crop and ban them outright, so let’s keep to topics that are impactful to the game. Put your briefcase away, Rules Lawyer!

And speaking of the game, I said that first and foremost we are here to enjoy ourselves, and so, here was everyone’s favorite pastime at an RPG table: a survey!

For the common RPG activities or themes listed below, pick the three (in order) you’re most interested in:

__ Exploration / Discovery

__ Intrigue / Story

__ Character / Role Play

__ Combat / Warfare

__ Advancement / Power

__ Heroism / Righting Wrongs

__ Riches / Influence

Anything else you’re interested in? ______________________

This went way more smoothly than I was expecting. I was shocked, in fact, that three of the five players bothered to actually write something in the “anything else” block. UX surveyors would kill to get 60% engagement. This survey served double duty: setting expectations for the players of what kinds of things might be at play at the table, as well as giving me a concrete starting point for what kinds of activities the players would actually be opting toward, helping shape my prep. The “anything else” was sweet gravy on top.

The top 3² were 1. “Character / Role Play”, 2. “Exploration / Discovery”, and 3. “Intrigue / Story”. Amazingly enough, “Heroism / Righting Wrongs” was the only category to get zero votes. So I’ve got a pack of good little sociopaths on my hands. But really the interesting outcome is that I plan on de-emphasizing Riches, Advancement, and Combat (although Riches was a tad higher) at the outset, although I plan on continuing to ask questions like this (but not subject them to another survey) at the end of every session, effectively “what are you interested in doing next time.”

That last led us right into Safety, which I covered relatively swiftly. The RPG table can be a vulnerable space, so I will be on the lookout for anyone feeling uncomfortable. I laid out the X card and explained it. I don’t know if it will end up getting used, but I wanted to explicitly set the intention.

Next, I had the group do a pass-and-read of the Player Duties from Knave 2e, since it’s a decent statement of the OSR approach to the player’s job. I then launched into The Rules, which they’d been endlessly fascinated by (one kid had pulled out their 2024 PHB and said “so I guess I won’t be needing this, then?” I like to think my “nope!” was polite enough). The lion’s share of my experience running D&Dish games is with Old School Essentials and Knave 1e/2e. Since I wanted this to be a quick start and to give the players enough leeway to not feel locked into a class, I opted for Knave 2e as the primary, with OSE serving as a backstop where there are gaps with Knave³.

I went over a handful of the house rules, as well as doing the “Scared Straight” talk with people new to the OSR – “death is a real possibility, you need to act smart, etc.” I’ve overdone this in the past to create absurdly cautious parties that take weeks to do anything, so I didn’t lay it on too thick (also the Player Duties had already worded it better than I could extemporaneously).

I covered some logistics – I’m going to hang onto the character sheets, for instance⁴ – and then asked if we needed a break, to which there was a resounding reply of “Nope!”. Which meant it was time for…

Rolling Characters

I did another Dreaded Read-Aloud as the preamble, just to get people in the mindset of the party:

You are students of a Yeshivat Ganav – an academy that trains adventurers to delve into ancient ruins and recover lost treasures. This profession is barely tolerated by respectable society; adventurers are seen as a necessary evil at best, grave robbers at worst. Only the Bnei Zoharim (and demihumans, who are even more shunned) are socially permitted to live the life of an adventurer.

Your Ba’al —- the master who owns your academy —- invested in your training, equipment and your current expedition. He expects a substantial return on that investment. The debt you owe weighs heavily on your future, but life-changing adventure is out there, waiting.

Again, I got some good vibes from this, head-nods and the like. So they were picking up what I was laying down.

One of the players had gotten the schedule mixed up and thought we were doing 90min instead of 150min, so he had to leave. I gave him my printed-out copy of Knave to roll on his own. This will probably be front-matter for Session 1, but hopefully it won’t be too much to deal with.

But now, the time had come: Q: Would there be any Elfkissers in the crowd? A. Boy-howdy, would there!

I had anticipated players wanting this and bolted demihumans onto humano-centric Knave like so: I took the three base kindreds from B/X, Hebraized them (Tzlalim=Elves, Khamum=Dwarves, and in an unclever turn, Chaztim=Halflings⁵), adopted their basic kindred bonuses (listening at doors, etc), and added the wrinkle that demihumans get a -1 on all CHA checks among human NPCs. I will probably play around with how broadly that applies, though.

Two of the four remaining players wanted to play a demihuman, one opting for an “elf” (Tzlalim are really more like djinni than trad elves but I didn’t go too far into fleshing that out in the event I had none). The other, though, really wanted to play a character from a web comic, basically “an elf but with deer antlers, sort of like a satyr.” I channeled my “bias toward yes” and said “absolutely! Let’s assume you’re statted like an elf for the moment, but let me think some more on it.”

All the players were a little confused by the classless-and-encumbrance dynamic in Knave.

Player 1: “How would I be a Druid?”

Me: “Put a point in CHA⁶ and work toward connecting with a nature patron.”

Player 2: “Can I carry a shovel as a weapon? Would that be one- or two-handed?”

Me: “Well it’s primarily about size, but I’m not going to give you d10 damage from a shovel. Just buy a longsword.”

But at a certain point it started making sense. All the clerical talk I had with a player about blessings and the number of points in CHA triggered a thought, and I turned back to the deer-antlered elf player and said “instead of magical research, you’re going to have an innate connection with a patron, no symbol required.” They were very into that idea.

I let the character rolling languish a little too long. I really should’ve channeled my inner teacher and gotten up and walked around the table to see what everyone was doing and to get them help. I realized I was missing some key handouts and had to rely on my (now) sole physical copy of the rules. Again, all fodder for next Session 0.

Finally, we’d solidified characters, and we had about 20 minutes left, so I went right into play. They’d asked me if we were going to play at all today, excitedly, and I told them it was my intention that if we had 5 minutes left we would still do something.

Play (be it ever so brief)

I did one final Dreaded Read-Aloud to set the scene⁷:

You crossed the border into Zoharai last evening on a mission to break into an ancient tomb. Before you could even begin your work, a Shadu-Rabi patrol appeared from nowhere and hit you with a sleep spell. You never saw it coming.

You wake up in the middle of the night, imprisoned in a metal box. The walls are made of ibsteel - cool to the touch and incredibly strong. The container sits on a flatbed wagon pulled by a single horse, driven by a man you can barely make out in the darkness.

Through gaps in the container, you can see the rolling hill country of Zoharai passing by in the moonlight. You’re being taken to the border lands where prisoners are typically sold into slavery.

You are in a steel prison on wheels, traveling through dangerous territory in the dead of night. The ancient land around you holds both treasures and terrors. Your debt to the Ba’al remains unpaid.

What do you do?

The players pretty immediately jumped into it, asking what they could see, did they still have their stuff. I had them roll d6 and took the top three. Those three rolled randomly on their inventory slots to determine what had been left on them in the patrol’s haste. They had a knife, a bear trap, and a piece of armor. They saw a blue floating light, kind of a will o’wisp, over one of the hills they were passing by, but it didn’t seem to be offering any help. I noted that ibsteel is a historical creation of the Bnei Zoharim, vaguely known to be used in ceremonies, so they would know that the use of it as a cage was meant to be offensive.

They ended up landing on the ol’ jailer fakeout – one of them would pretend to be arguing with another, ending up in a fight and one of them fake-choking the other one, who would be using his high CHA to really lay on the urgency. Meanwhile they set up the bear trap at the back of the cage. The driver bought it, stopping the wagon and trying to peer in between the mesh to see what was the source of all this screaming and noise. Out of the gloom behind him, a huge hand reached out and grabbed around his torso, flinging him sky high. The party watched his lantern arc up and down and then disappear.

And scene!