High Fantasy + CSI: An Improvised Unbelievably Simple Role-playing (USR) Adventure

The other night, Lady Shadowmoss wanted to play an RPG while she worked on a sewing project. I had nothing prepared, and so was hesitant at first. She also isn't familiar with any rule system - even those she's played games in several times, including the LARP she plays several weekends a year! After a little thought, I decided that by using Mythic to aid in the story creation and Unbelievably Simple Role-playing (USR) to handle the mechanics, it would most likely be a good time.

The more serious minded among you will probably shudder at the over the top-ness of some of what follows:

Scene: 1 Chaos: 5

Veruka Pepper* was sent by the Order of the Light (an independent, now non-religious, organization that has tasked itself with recovering and destroying evil artifacts. Think Friday the 13th TV series) to the village of Hinchcliffe where she was to meet with the friar of the village church. The friar had informed the Order that the Crystal Skull of Fizrep the Wizard had been stolen. The skull, which is rumored to have all sorts of dark and sinister powers, had been under the guardianship of the friar’s religious order for several centuries, moving from village to village under the utmost secrecy - even the Order of Light only knew of its existence but not where it could be found. It had been in its present hiding place for 25 years and was due to moved sometime within the year, upon the Bishop of Tribecca's order.

After a slow start, mostly due to difficulties of teaching someone Mythic who has a very different gaming style than I do, Friar Ashwic showed her where the skull had been hidden beneath a flagstone behind the altar of the church, and informed her of the legend that surrounded the skull (which I totally improvised to my own pleasant surprise)..

Using her innate ability to detect magic, Veruka found that she received the equivalent of magical static possibly due to the great strength of the magic present. She searched the space for clues and found wards etched into flagstone that she didn’t recognize, but which she copied down for analysis later. She also found that the skull had been placed in the hole on top of and surrounded by salt. She gathered a sample - aware that she could use a ritual to turn the salt into a sort of divining rod for the object it had once surrounded.

The ritual itself will require a candle,a non-violently coerced participation of a being of the same alignment as the object (in this case we’ll just say evil since the game has no alignments) and a rare purple flower collected by full moon light from the slopes of Mt.Snoogles in the prefect of Hawkewind.

Looks like she has her work cut out for her.

End Scene 1

*Veruka Pepper, Jr. Agent, Order of the Light

USR Stats:  Action: d6, Wits: d10, Ego: d8, HP: 9,

Specialisms: encyclopedic knowledge (think Hermione Granger crossed with Sherlock Holmes) Wits+2, defensive art (i.e. dodge) Action+2, detect magic (innate, not a spell. Either a mutation or psionics.) Wits +2