Strange Aeons GM Overview

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Themes

When planning to run Strange Aeons, the primary themes that emerged were Identity and Family. The first one is obvious, given the initial memory loss of the players. “Who am I?” is a question which drives the players for the first three modules. However, after that is resolved, the theme of Family takes a more significant role.

The use of memory, dreams, horror and insanity are tools to explore these themes. By keeping these themes in mind at all times brings the players a sense of emotional engagement to the campaign.

General Issues

Strange Aeons is an excellent campaign, but in places suffers from “combat fatigue”, particularly in the later modules. The Mysterium is a good example of this, where there are a bunch of rooms where the players are attacked as soon as they enter every room. As such, I have modified many encounters to be more role-playing based.

Player Character Backgrounds

In my opinion, the guidance for the player backgrounds is one of the weakest parts of the campaign. Having all of the players as simply former henchmen who happened to be handy is narratively unsatisfying.

I changed this aspect to The Mad Poet seeking “interesting minds”, leading Count Lowls seeking unusual individuals who may have been asylum inmates, captives, locals or even family members. Given that the players spend half the campaign without their memories, this provides more role-playing opportunities, and generally makes more sense.

The player characters used in my campaign are given here.

Hints and Tips

I recommend that GMs familiarise themselves with the following rules, as they feature quite extensively during the campaign:

· Haunts

· Diseases

· Poisons

· Addiction

· Knowledge monsters (which skill relates to which monster types)

· Incorporeal (make sure clerics/oracles are aware of Ghostbane Dirge)

· Oozes

· Swarms

· Auras