Spes Magna Games

Monday afternoon, I drove over to a friend’s house with my son Christopher and ran a post-apoc game that combines 1978’s Gamma World (GW) with elements from Kevin Crawford’s Ashes without Number (Aw/oN) and Wolves of God (WoG). My friends Mike and his son Peter plus Christopher gave me three players.

We made up characters, taking note of places where Aw/oN and WoG mentioned rules that required some interpretation to fit into GW‘s framework. All three PCs live and work in Oxonia Nova, a thriving village of about 800 souls. After the Great Event that turned the world into a post-apocalyptic patchwork of isolated communities, demon-haunted urban ruins, and dangerous wilderness full of mutant creatures and magical menaces, the Founders of Oxonia Nova rebuilt civilization along the lines of 8th-century Anglo-Saxon England. Oxonia Nova falls under the jurisdiction of a bishop and includes an Augustinian priory. Able-bodied adult citizens of Oxonia Nova are all part of a sort of reserve guard who regularly take shifts in various ways to protect the town.

Christopher, Mike, and Peter made up Albertus Magus, a mutant human Galdorman with the priest background; Raedulf, a mutant rat Warrior with the scavenger background; and Robin, a pure strain human Saint with the outcast background. The trio were pulling night guard in the forest covering the steep hillside that flanks one side of Oxonia Nova. During his shift, Raedulf’s acute rat senses caught of whiff of wet fur and leather wafting on the breeze. Raedulf woke up his two comrades, and then the trio moved out as stealthily as possible to investigate.

Raedulf took the lead, getting ahead of two badders and two arks moving cautiously downhill toward the town. Raedulf noted that it is unusual for arks and badders to work together. Albertus and Robin brought up the rear with less stealth than Raedulf, but the pair saw the four mutant animals slip behind cover. From his position, Raedulf saw them ready ranged weapons, thinking to ambush Albertus and Robin.

The fight that followed was quick and brutal. Raedulf’s razor sharp incisors drew first blood. Albertus summoned a swarm of bees to attack the ark that was barking orders to the other three. Robin threatened divine judgement while promising divine forgiveness should the badders repent of their alliance with the arks. The second ark, seeing the leader swarmed by bees and the badders hesitating to act, used his life leech mutation to kill the bees and the badders while damaging everyone – friend or foe – in a 30 meter radius. Bolstered with more than 40 extra hit points, the ark then fled. Albertus took wing (because he has functional, bat-like wings) and set the fleeing ark ablaze.

Having captured the ark leader, the PCs discovered a large concentrated damage pack (a type of bomb) on the leader’s person. Interrogation revealed some troubling information:

1. The mutant animals were heading to a tower close to town that is part of the aqueduct system that channels rain from the hill to cisterns in town.
2. A traitor in the tower was supposed to let the mutant animals in to plant the concentrated damage pack.
3. The mutant animals belong to the Ranks of the Fit, a neo-Nazi mutant animal supremacist group.

With all that accomplished, we called the game session to a close and made plans to meet again to continue the adventure.

Tags: Gamma World, Oxonia Nova

So, I’m just going to pretend that I haven’t posted anything since July 2025. That’s easier than making excuses.

Ludi Fabularum, the game club I facilitate where I teach, continues to grow. I’ve got more than 20 middle school boys playing Castles & Crusades in a shared campaign world. The boys are divided into four groups. After Thanksgiving break, these groups branch out from Junnmiv, the campaign’s central community, ready to investigate various problems ranging from livestock-stealing stealth humanoids to a city in the mountains that is said to have appeared from nowhere. Three 8th graders help with the GMing.

At home, my Storm Clouds Gather and Heroes of Tejas City campaigns have run into issues. The former is down to two players as our third has had to drop out due to Real Life. The latter has gone into suspended animation because I kept running into a lack of time to prep for the sessions. The heroes did manage to defeat the machinations of Pulcinella and his cabal of villains, but Pulcinella escaped capture.

Since I’m off work this week, tomorrow I’m heading over to a friend’s house with my son Christopher to run a post-apoc game that combines 1978’s Gamma World with elements from Kevin Crawford’s Ashes without Number and Wolves of God. Everything Kevin Crawford writes is RPG gold. If I had few hundred extra dollars just laying around, I’d likely spend it on Sine Nomine Publishing print-on-demand books.

And, since it’s been a few years since I posted anything B-movie related, here’s a new mutant animal inspired by 1957’s classic The Monster That Challenged the World. If you’ve not seen this one, you own it to yourself and all your friends to host a viewing to thrill at the only movie ever made with both giant, flesh-eating sea snails and Chekov’s thermostat.

Syrinx
No. Appearing: 1-10
Armor Class: 2 or 6
Movement: 3/6 swimming
Hit Dice: 12

The syrinx is an enormous sea snail. Fully grown, its shell is about 2 meters across. Attacks against the shell are versus AC 2 and only inflict half damage. The syrinx’s body is slimy and caterpillar-like, capable of extending 3 meters from its shell. The body’s rugged hide is AC 6, and attacks against it inflict normal damage. The syrinx has ultravision. Its powerful mandibles bite for 1-12 points of damage. The mucus that covers its body is an intensity 12 poison that kills by asphyxiation. Each syrinx is a hermaphrodite, capable of fertilizing itself. A syrinx lays a clutch of several hundred eggs over a period of several days in the late summer months.

Tags: B-Movies, Gamma World, monsters