Community, Lore & The Coded Type Ahead
Essential guide to TLB community events, dark beings, and future horizons
Hey Bayers,
While the fan is courageously trying to defeat the heat wave, let me share some news from the writing room and a little preview of The Lost Bay book.
Community News
Before we start, here are a few exciting community updates:
Round Tables
The first two TLB design round tables have been announced.
September 6: Running and designing for TLB; core rules and principles.
September 13: Running and designing Urban Legends, aka one-shots.
The round tables are open to anyone GM, publisher, or designer. We’ll also discuss and give practical examples of conversions from the Quickstart to the Reborn system. For more info and to RSVP, hop on The Lost Bay server and check the sign-up-games channel (or ask around).
AFIS 2nd Edition
During October, and like last year, we’ll be running the second edition of the All Flesh Is Surplus online convention dedicated to TLB. Last year’s edition was a total success, and with the release of the book being closer, this year should be a blast.
We’ll be having a series of gaming sessions on the server. If you’d like to run a game, get in touch; we’ll put you on the schedule. The final session list will be announced in early September. If you haven’t run TLB, don’t worry, myself and the rest of the community will be more than happy to guide you and provide support. Find us here: The Lost Bay server.
Future Plans
In a few weeks, I’ll be moving the newsletter out of Substack and changing its name. Don’t worry, your subscriptions will be transferred. This move is not purely technical but includes quite a few changes in how I plan to run TLBStudio. In a word, the objective is to share more content and be closer to the community, which has been a bit challenging lately with all the hours spent working at the writing desk or managing the production of the big projects we have. I’m pretty excited to discuss all of this with you in a future newsletter. For now, let me just share the future name: The Coded Type.
Oh, and I forgot to mention: in about three weeks, the first editing pass of the book will be completed! Sam has already finished editing the GM Guide and the User Guide, and is now halfway through the Travel Guide.
Inside The Lost Bay: Miracles
Miracles are The Lost Bay supernatural, Weird, antagonists. Most of them are unique. There’s only one Bone King, one Traveller, one Storm. TLB Miracles are inspired in a way not too dissimilar from classical fairy tale monsters like Little Thumb’s Ogre. They also draw inspiration from Trophy Dark monsters (can’t be killed), or Mythic Bastionland monsters (unique creatures). The book contains twelve of them.
Miracles, sneak peek
Miracles are dark, living gems at the heart of Urban Legends. Overwhelming and powerful, avid death-bringers. They remain beyond understanding even when they have a human form. Manipulative liars, shapeless murderers, brutal destroyers. Pray, pray to your Living Saint to never meet one of them.
But, if the higher powers are too distracted to hear your plea, and like so many unlucky souls you cross paths with one of them, do not confront it because, no matter what you do, it will crush you, bones, blood, and soul.
Instead, be cunning.
Miracles are overwhelming creatures. They’re either offspring of the Faceless God, sent to the Bay to lay the foundation for its coming, or victims of the Faceless God, who bear in their body and soul the mark of its suffocating hold. They’re tormented beings who cast misery around them. Many will try to brutally destroy whoever comes close enough, while others just want to toy with their victims. Miracles are known to shed loss and ruin as they move through the Bay, driven to consume bodies or souls for their sustenance.
Miracles might have a human form like the Hollow Hitchhiker, or a small size like the Death Kiss parasite, or be staggering god-like figures like The Traveller. In any case, they overpower the characters.
When players cross paths with a Miracle, make the encounter memorable. Miracles are not just monsters: they become, with the characters, key members of the story’s cast, at least for a while.
Confronting a Miracle in direct combat results in immediate death. Though players can find ways to imprison, stun, cheat, and hide from them. Clever and lucky PCs can strike deals with Miracles. In exceptional circumstances players might even manage to defeat and kill them, luring them to the edge of a high cliff, crushing them under an industrial hydraulic press, or having a nuclear payload detonate right next to them. Gifts (supernatural abilities) and Summons (invocations of immortal beings) may have an effect on miracles, as soon as they’re not used to inflict direct physical damage.
It’s up to the GM to find the right balance between communicating a sense of dread and letting players feel in charge. The GM might arbitrate that a defeated Miracle bounces back, and reappears later, with an altered form and maybe different goals.
Examples of Physical Confrontations with Miracles
DON’T: The PCs manage to surprise the Bone King and stab him in the heart. He drools black blood, laughs, and mutters, ‘I have no heart,’ before using his Drown move to bury the PCs in mud.
DO: A PC strikes a deal with the Bone King and is granted the gift to rot flesh. The PC uses it to rot what’s left of the King’s muscles. The Miracle falls to his knees, now nothing more than a skeleton with lumps of flesh. The PC takes advantage of the King’s weakened state to flee.
DON’T: The PCs run over Storm with their truck. She takes the blow and careens off the side of the road. As she gets back on her feet, she turns into a sandstorm and enters the vehicle through its air vents.
DO: The PCs are in a bar fight with Storm, who is after the ancient bone comb they possess. She turns into a sandstorm inside the pub. The PCs use the comb to lure her into a walk-in freezer and lock the door.
Example Miracle: Mold Man
A failed Noble Rock experiment. Naked, erratic, and oddly graceful. Loves to dance, speaks in cryptic nonsense, and vomits clouds of infectious spores. A bit sad. Lives in the water reservoir. Occasionally takes a walk in the nearby area, always at night.
Weakness: Connected to the mold and can’t leave the reservoir for long. Dies if the mold is destroyed entirely.
Mood: “Do you want to eat the moon fruit?” Squints and squeaks.
Wants: A quiet life.
Moves:
Cough infectious spores
Blink big kind eyes
Hide in water
Crawl on reservoir walls
Spread mold through touch
Quirk: Body is partly consumed by mold.
Gear: Roll three items on the Stuff table. These were dropped by or taken from folks who visited the area.
You just read a sneak peek into The Lost Bay RPG manuscript, first edit pass. You can preorder the book here.
That’s all I got for you today.
Thanks for reading, have a great Sunday.
Iko