Tabletop Scotland 2024

I went to Tabletop Scotland at the weekend and it was awesome! This was my first time attending and I was blown away by how much there was to see, and the positive atmosphere and enthusiasm that seemed to energise the whole event. I felt like I could have happily drifted around the makers’ stalls talking to the artists, writers, designers and crafters there about their cool stuff indefinitely.

I was also pleasantly surprised by the abundance of indie RPGs on show. It was hard not to have ideas sparking off in my head about games I JUST CAN’T WAIT to run, harder still not to just spend ALL OF THE MONEY on weird little books and new games. I did spend more than I planned but have zero regrets and wanted to highlight a few standout faves:

"Odd Jobs" by Macguffin & Company

Macguffin & Co. was the first stall I stopped at and although I didn’t realise it at the time I’m 90% sure the person I spoke to was Jonathan Sims, whose voice I’ve listened to for hours on the excellent audio drama The Magnus Archives. He made a great pitch for their book Odd Jobs, which is a collection of RPG Micro Settings. These are intended for running short campaigns and are system agnostic, which is not something I’ve seen much of. I was really impressed by the diversity and imagination in the settings themselves, and looking forward to running one of these as a break from my regular games.

"For Small Creatures Such as We" by Blackwell Games

I was keen to check out Blackwell Games after seeing Anna Blackwell speaking about Fantasy & Folklore in games at one of the panel discussions. When I got to their stall there was a copy of For Small Creatures Such as We, open at this page:

One does not simply walk away from space otter.

Sold! This is a solo/co-op sci-fi game where you play the Captain of a spaceship and travel around the galaxy doing jobs to get paid and have adventures. There’s a big emphasis on customising your ship and hiring your alien crew as well, so my partner and I are really excited to play this one together and see where it leads us.

"Maskwitches of Forgotten Doggerland" by Handiwork Games

My favourite discovery from the convention. I’d not even heard of Handiwork Games and it turns out they are based in Falkirk, which is actually where we were staying over the Tabletop weekend! I was hooked by the mixed media cover-art (which reminded me a bit of Dave Mckean’s Dust Covers), and reeled in by the title. This is a game in which you play witches in the mesolithic era, travelling through true wilderness between primitive settlements, helping the communities there and banishing dark spirits. It’s a rules-lite, story-focussed game and the vibe is very much in the same wheelhouse as my version of Hags in Legends of Alba. It’s exactly what I want to see in a game about witches: Exploring a vision of the witch as a healer, a sage, a wise woman with a strong voice in the community. I couldn’t wait to get this one home to start reading, and cracked it open on the tram back into Edinburgh from the venue. Aside from the game itself there are also really interesting stories about its artwork, and the inspiration for its setting. This book really is something special.

That’s by no means an exhaustive list of the games I fell in love with at Tabletop Scotland, and not even close to a list about everything I enjoyed at the convention, but it is all I have time to say with this post. I’m already excited for next year’s event and who knows? Maybe I’ll have something to run or show off for Legends of Alba by then! 

Till next time!

A Hundred Thousand Hags

Last time I talked about hags in RPGs and how cool it would be to see a hag that wasn't just another wicked witch. This time I'm putting my money where my mouth is and sharing my take on hags! Generally I wanted my hags to be ancient and strange, to know useful things, and to be having a fantastic time themselves. So this is what I came up with and am using in my games, which are set in a sort of mythical version of Scotland. So far the players have only met one, but she left such a strong impression that the quest to find another hag is one of the main threads driving the characters forward.

The Hags

These venerable wise women are a law unto themselves. They are not beholden to clans, monarchs or even one another. Even Kings listen when they speak. 

Each hag has achieved, through decades of questing, planning and ritual, a sublime and unique self-actualisation. Changed beyond the bounds of mortality, it is the bold, the foolhardy and the desperate who seek them in their distant sanctuaries. For the hags know how all that is will be lost, how all that was will be again, and how all that is to come may yet be changed.

Creating a Hag

Roll 2D10 on the tables below and combine the results to generate a name for this hag.  

D10	Element	Aspect
1	Blind	Bone
2	Bloom	Eye
3	Frost	Fire
4	Moss	Horn
5	Prism	Moon
6	Salt	Shroud
7	Shadow	Skin
8	Thistle	Stone
9	Thunder	Water
10	Wither	Wind

Next roll 3D10 on the tables below to answer the following questions about this hag:

• How has she chosen to express her physical form?
• What does she surround herself with?
• What is her manner towards visitors?

D10	Feature	Surroundings	Manner
1	Animated hair	Animals	Cheery
2	Astounding age	Carvings	Cryptic
3	Distributed form	Crystals	Direct
4	Round body	Insects	Excitable
5	Magnificent wings	Mushrooms	Flustered
6	Many eyes	Rags	Grim
7	Many limbs	Roots	Prickly
8	Menacing size	Skeletons	Relaxed
9	Terrible beauty	Whispers	Tender
10	Unashamed decoration	Wisps	Weary

Example

I roll a 5 and a 3 for the hag's name, conjuring forth The Prism Fire Hag.  Haha! She sounds pretty cool already! I'm immediately getting a mental picture of some crystalline glass or rock formations with multi-coloured fires dancing inside.

For her physical feature I get a 3 on the D10: She has a distributed form.  Now we're talking - this hag lives as a gestalt network of crystals that pulse and glow with magic fire from within when she speaks.

For her surroundings it's a 2, she has lots of carvings around her.  This fits well with her distributed, mineral-based form: I was already thinking she probably dwells in a cave. As to what the carvings are, this seems like the ideal way for her to answer the important questions the players surely have for her: The truth is revealed in a new carving! And the carvings that are here already tell the stories of the people who've sought the hag's guidance before, so this is also a good place to reveal some unexpected info that could be useful to the players when they visit. I'd probably leave this undefined until the last possible moment, so whatever is written here is relevant to the characters' current situation.

(I pause briefly to find a d10 because I realise I've actually been rolling a d12 so far...)

Finally a roll of 8 tells me this hag is relaxed when she has guests.  Amazing: She's super-chill.  You feel right at home in her warm, crystal caves.

So here's our hag:

The Prism Fire Hag

• Her essence is contained within an extensive crystal network that glitters in the depths of her subterranean home.
• The crystals glow and pulse with chromatic inner fire to the calming warmth of her voice.
• She bestows her wisdom in the form of carvings that form on the surrounding cave walls.

I'd be pretty excited for my players to meet this hag!

What's Next?

Ideally the description of a significant NPC should include something they want. What can the characters do for the hag in return for her council? I've left this out here as this is usually the sort of thing I'd base on the state of the game and the characters.  Here are some examples of things the hag might want though:

• An agreement sealed
• A debt collected
• An event witnessed
• A message delivered
• An ingredient found
  
• A prophecy fulfilled

Other than that I would like to expand these tables to be D20-based for even more unique hag variations, but I'm pleased with the results from the D10 tables.  And a hundred thousand hags seems like plenty for the time being!

Hag Quest

When we encounter hags in RPGs, they are invariably villainous. They're cruel, manipulative and selfish creatures. We see so much of this archetype that I think it has become the prevailing conception of what a hag is. It's tempting to shrug this off as a symptom of the gameplay requirement for opposition in RPGs: The child-eating crone in the woods makes for an engaging adversary for heroic player characters after all. 

But this issue isn't particular to RPGs. In films, TV, books and games it's hard to escape the sinister hag. Which leads me to think the real reason for this is societal. A hag is not just an old woman, she is a powerful old woman. As such, she's been historically side-lined and vilified to the extent that her negative aspect is all that survives. Which sucks.

So what can we do about this in our RPGs? One thing for starters is to find a representation of the hag as something other than yet another flavour of "nasty old witch who does curses". 

I'm running some D&D games based in my own setting which is inspired by Scottish folklore. Hags are a big feature and yes, in the old tales, sometimes they are antagonists. But the pre-Christian myths and legends, where these stories have their roots, are seldom so clear-cut. There's another side to the hag that we seldom see. The wise-woman. The supernatural guide. The Goddess.

So this was one of the things I wanted to explore with my game setting. A hag inspired by the writing of Sharon Blackie and Lucy H Pearce, and the art of Red K Elders. I wanted to prominently feature hags who are powerful, ancient, and have a meaningful connection to The Otherworld. Hags whose wisdom and experience is honoured and respected, rather than feared and reviled.

As I was planning the campaign, I was also reading the preview for Chris McDowell's Mythic Bastionland. I love the treatment of Seers in this game: Cryptic oracles dwelling in distant sanctums, who know the past, present and future. Players are mechanically and thematically motivated to seek them out for advice and guidance. The Seers are also weird, each changed by their unique gift of Sight. In the presence of a Seer, players will be aware they are in the presence of something not quite of their world.

All of this has led me to a version of the hag I'm having a lot of fun with in my games, and I look forward to sharing this in a future post!