TROPHY TRIFOLDS SESSION 2 ROUNDUPS

NoximalⓇ (archaenox di-peranmortil) by glitterbandemissary

Theme: Medicine

A modern horror incursion that sends ordinary people into sinister and increasingly nightmarish corporate medical trial with echoes of Alexander Bubnov's 1993 animation, Clinic.

3 things I liked:

1. "Background: Amateur Fisher (entrails)"
2. "Winding labyrinthian corridors ... indecipherable colored lines painted on the floor branching endlessly"
3. "the furnace of a giant, apparently ancient, machine scraping through and rearranging the gore."

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Over the River by TyphosGames

CW: fairytale danger or harm to children, alcoholism, cannibalism

Another modern horror story—this time a 2-player mini-zine incursion about a brother and sister on an unwanted trip to their grandparents.

3 things I liked:

1. The IC madlib character sheets
2. "month-old Halloween candy ... The chocolate has melted into a mushy puddle, and the fruity candies are old enough to be unchewable."
3. "grandma is making your favourite dessert and asks you both to help her in the kitchen."

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Palace City of the Eternal King by quizlock

Theme: City

CW: body horror, brainwashing

Seems like an easy job—looting a city deep in the forest with few guards, where everyone's pre-occupied with worshipping the Eternal King. If only it were that simple.

3 things I liked:

1. "Condition: You constantly ramble on about "your job""
2. "Priests walk through the crowds, extorting the pittance the citizens carry."
3. "Piles of mouldering food swarming with flies cascade from table to floor. Rancid wine drips from broken carafes."

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On the Road by glitterbandemissary

Theme: Road

A set of d6 tables for creating single-set Trophy Gold incursions for road travellers in a world of dark fantasy, including goals, rituals, treasure, and a d66 table of eerie props for this liminal space.

3 things I liked:

1. "Treasure: A compass that always points to the place it was discovered."
2. "Prop: An abandoned crown of flowers, trampled by travellers."
3. "Prop: An unmarked crossroad apparently ending just a dozen or so feet on either side of the main road."

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The Devil of High Rock by yours truly, Speak the Sky

Theme: Tale.

The hunters have returned from killing the Devil of High Rock and are celebrating with the villagers who hired them to do the deed, telling tales of their exploits—but things don't quite add up...

3 things I liked:

1. "Condition: You see everyone else as goblins, demons, and other fabled monsters wearing human masks."
2. "What about your fellow hunters made you so confident you'd kill the Devil of High Rock?"
3. ngl I really liked writing the parallel prose in Rings 2 and 4

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Home Again, by avunvain

Theme: Engine

In the early days of armistice, the surviving crew of a gargantuan tank discover that the home-front isn't free from the violence of war, and the battle-front isn't just a place of death and devastation...

3 things I liked:

1. "You have false but deeply compelling memories of spending your childhood on the Cataphract."
   
2. "How does the person to your left move you with their eulogy?"
3. "superheated engines melt snow at fifty paces, make the flowers bloom before they turn to ash."

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Nemorensis' Gate by eskur

Theme: Gate

Souls of the freshly-dead seek passage to the underworld, but it comes at an agonising price, and the journey is far from clear.

3 things I liked:

1. "Fog thick as aged gruel rolls over the narrowing path"
   
2. "Ripples reflect out-of-season constellations."
   
3. "An old friend appears, speaking in metaphors. It feels normal."

(also the specific Conditions for each Ring, the soundtrack, and the GM advice.)

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The Hanging Village by Lonelyanodos

Theme: Throat

A Trophy Gold incursion with a handful of sets: a bandit hunt threatens to break the stalemate between a cave village of bat-people and the abominations crawling up from the pit below their home.

3 things I liked:

1. "Bill "Glass-Eye" Reckon ... quotes obscure poetry."
   
2. "Building locations and causeways can be manipulated, as with theatrical rigging."
   
3. "The Last Bastion: Gigantic hanging fortress ... it can be swung like a giant wrecking ball"

(plus the art!)

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Stele of the Jaguar by Calvin J'onzz

Theme: Tooth

There's a stele in the deep rainforest. All the answers the hunters need are written in the stone. They just need to avoid hungry wildlife, rival scouts, and the spirit of the jaguar herself...

3 things I liked:

1. "You feel compelled to run fingers over edges."
   
2. "All flesh points to the Jaguar."
   
3. "Jutting from the edge of the cliff are several tall, pointed stones, taller than the trees. The river spills between them like the salivating overflow of a giant maw."

(also the very incursion-specific character background question that also sets your skills)