We just finished our Monsterhearts 2 series using Lauren McManamon’s Ballhir small town from Codex: Cold.
First off, big ups to a tremendous group of players: Asher Silberman Jesse Ross , Lauren McManamon , Mark Causey & Vincent Eaton all made life very easy for me as MC. I think it’s fair to say everyone brought their A-game.
Some highlights for me:
Vincent’s turn as Robbie the Fae – renouncing his summons home to Tír na nÓg, despite his fecklessness at home
Mark as Malachi the Serpentine – his fraught relationship with his mother, culminating in the grisly funeral rite over his dead sister
Lauren as Eoghan the Queen – the pressure, fear and grief from his execution of Saoirse spilling over into sex with Regan, who manipulated him into murdering her
Jesse as Regan the Infernal – coldly hypnotizing Roisín into the lake, and then we see her swallow water in the vain struggle with ever-increasing guilt and isolation
Asher as Aisling the Glamour – deftly making this side character their own and adding depth to the relationship with Malachi I couldn’t hope to match as well as hinting to Robbie’s Fae world as her own origin as a living spell!
As MC I was pretty happy with this outing, especially with managing spotlight and cuts. Also I purposefully left the fate of the town to the players’ reads of important side characters in the end.
I’m in awe of MCs who integrate new players well into an established group in a short-run campaign – this is the challenge of the Gauntlet’s open table play culture and I’m sure I can work on this skill.
Links to the videos:
S1 https://youtu.be/ewnLKUuAi_g
S2 https://youtu.be/wRUfDm9Lk9w
S3 https://youtu.be/RPfADdSRB44
Also, this is the first time I toyed with Twitter/GIF APs of each session
S1 https://twitter.com/donoghmc/status/1009150192426287104?s=21
S2 https://twitter.com/donoghmc/status/1013329957928538112?s=21
S3 https://twitter.com/donoghmc/status/1018478669793243137?s=21