No Man’s Land
Using the rules from Trophy Dark and Trophy Solo, and extra action/theme oracles from Ironsworn. Preparation for this was reading the Wikipedia entry on trench warfare and Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est.
Private Patrick 'Pat' Mills
- Freshly conscripted
- Apprenticed to a smith
- Engaged to Catherine
Traditionally, Trophy lets you exchange some Ruin points for Rituals (magic) at the beginning of the game. I wasn’t sure about that for this historical setting so left it up to the dice whether my PC had lost some of his humanity already. It turns out, he was fresh-faced and naive so I didn’t have to do any more decisions on that front.
Starting ruin [1d4] = 1
The first week at the front line. Boredom and thick mud everywhere. Pat is sure he hears moans coming from nearby in No-Man’s Land. He tries to talk to the medic about it, but he claims not to hear anything.
A trench raid is going tonight. The medic volunteers his name: Pat will go over the top with them, but split off on a rescue mission.
Going over the top. It's a soldierly act but I don't think a fresh recruit gets the Light die for that. Instead, a Devil's Bargain. Anything happening in No Man's Land is risking Body.
Risk: 1 light, 1 dark = 2,6
=> Success
Devil's Bargain: supporting/a new force or old enemy
Action/Theme: Follow/disease
=> Their sneak raid is immediately spotted.
Dark die came out highest, and increments Ruin.
Ruin = 2
Everyone out here looks terrible. Thousand yard stares. One of the men in the raiding party looks worse. How is he even standing? He coughs hard and everyone looks away.
They go over the top first. You can follow the cougher’s progress across no-man’s land from the coughing. So can the enemy gunners. They all crawl across the mud, holding their breath, waiting for the machine guns to end it all.
Eventually everything goes quiet. Not silent but waiting expectantly. Pat crawls along on his own, in the direction of the noise he heard.
Does he find the man alive? No.
It is dark. Pat is covered in mud. Everything is cold wet sludge. He nearly crawls into the man he was sent to find. He can see nothing in the darkness. Here was a big strong man, who lay holding his entrails as he died.
Ruin = 2
BOOM
A deafening blast so close that they both get covered in fresh mud.
Ruin = 3
An enemy counter barrage begins, blocking off his escape. Shells are falling between Pat and his own trench line and relative safety. He freezes in terror.
The light from the explosions reveals a document bag slung over the man’s shoulder. Pat takes it. “You’re coming home with me” says Pat, pulling the man’s arm and crawling underneath to take the whole body onto his back while he still lay in the mud. He attempts to inch his way home with his new burden.
Crawling back through enemy shelling.
Risk: 2 light, 1 dark = 4,4,3
=> Success with complication
Devil's bargain: Plotting against/a death or murder
=> The dead man tries to give advice to help him.
Complication: Someone wants the documents back
The cadaver’s croaky voice by his ear begins to whisper to him about the danger he is in.
Ruin = 4
“They’ll come after you like they came after me. Smear your blood across the land to keep the war going.”
Pat stays quiet, thinking of returning home to Catherine: the house at the end of the lane they will rebuild together, the yellow flowers in the meadow behind, the green grass on the hills, the blue sky overheard.
A flash of orange enters his vision. Pat opens his eyes as gouts of flame scour the air around him. He can feel the heat of the flame on his skin. Great dark monsters with flashing eyes and tongues of flame.
Ruin = 5
In madness, he burrows himself into the mud, hoping the monsters pass over two half-buried corpses.
Risk roll: 1 light, 1 dark = 3,4
=> Success with complication
Devil's bargain: Creating/an alliance or surrender
=> Dead man offers a pact to get out alive.
Complication: Overwhelm/Corruption
=> The scale of death around him becomes totally clear.
The flamethrowers pass by. Again, the croaky whisper in his ear: “if you want to get home to her you have to listen to me. I don’t want to be buried under mud and shelling forever. Promise me a decent burial and I’ll make sure nothing touches you.”
“I need a way home.”
Action/Theme: Acquire/Vow
“I need you to swear it. With your blood and mine.”
Pat closes his eyes and sees only Catherine’s tear-stained face in his mind. She holds in her hand a crumpled letter from his commanding officer. “Regret to inform…”
So he reaches his hand into the dead man’s torse and pulls out a gore-covered fist. With his service knife he cuts a thin red line on the back of his hand.
Making a blood pact to a talking dead man.
Risk: 1 light, 1 dark = 2,5
=> Success with complication.
Devil's bargain: Opposing/a death or murder
Whose death? This man (1-2) Pat (3-4), Caherine (5-6): 3
=> No matter what, Pat cannot truly die.
Complication: Reveal/Fellowship
=> Every dead man comes to his attention.
With a sickening realisation Pat becomes aware of the world around him. The bodies around him. The souls, broken and mud-weighted, laying in pieces all around him.
Ruin = 5
“You see us now, Pat. All of us, struggling to break free — striving for our own peace.”
In a desperate bid to escape the screaming souls of the battlefield Pat pushes the barrel of his service resolve into his mouth and squeezes the trigger.
“I can’t let you do that Pat” says his companion, the cadaverous fingers wedged into the trigger guard. “We have work to do, distance to cover. You made a promise to me.” Miserably, Pat holsters his weapon and begins to crawl in the direction indicated.
The shelling stops and an eerie calm overcomes the field. A stillness and quietness like a fog. “I’d put that mask on now, if I were you. If I were still alive and breathing, that’s what I would do.”
Put on his gas mask before being overwhelmed. Finally something this soldier should be drilled in, so he gets a Light die.
Risk: 1 light, 1 dark = 1,2
=> Dire consequences
What went wrong? Mask broken (1-2), Too slow (3-4), Mask missing (5-6): 5
Pat heeds the warning and scrambles for the mask that was no longer at his side. Just a burst bag. It was torn open at some point as he crawled through this hellish landscape. As the yellow-green clouds rolls in and his lungs fill with fluid, his companion begins to laugh…
Ruin = 5
“You’re one of us now. The mud, the blood, the foam, the entrails — it is all one for the land to soak up.”
Eventually the cloud of gas passed and the darkness gives way to a sky full of a million stars.
UNE: prejudiced - assessment - last action
Pat splutters and chokes but remains, somehow, conscious. The croaking voice says “you can’t escape that easily, now you’ve made a promise. You’re in this for the long haul. Though really I would have preferred if you’d stayed hale. You look like shit but you can’t die yet.”
Pat stares at the stars while the foam in his lungs slowly bubbles away. His face is covered in pink residue that begins to blacken and crust.
“Can’t die? I can feel my face dissolving.”
UNE: friendly - shelter - enenmy
“We need to keep going, to keep you safe from further attack. Can’t drag either of us home if we’re blown to bits,” and the croaking voice laughed again.
Action/Theme: Change/Freedom
“I’ve seen the stretchers, the men being taken to field hospitals. You made me like this. What did you do to me?” and Pat pulls out his revolver again, this time holding it to the temple of the dead body.
Destroy the thing which made him undead.
Reduction: 6
=> Actions are discovered
Ruin = 4
BANG
“Who goes there?” As soon as the shot rings out he is surrounded. “He just shot that man’s face off.” Pat is held down at gunpoint while rough hands find his identity tags.
Pat listens to the whispered conversation as he lies face down in the mud, yards from his own trench line. All thoughts of returning to Catherine are vanquished from his mind.
Action/Theme: Leave/Direction
UNE: inquisitive - scepticism - flaws
“I think this is the one we’ve been looking for. Who’s the other man? He looks dead too. Are those the documents that were stolen? Bring them both in.”
Ruin = 4
In a moment of clarity, Pat realises now that returning to his regiment, to his apprenticeship and to his fiancee are options all closed to him. Instead he leaps up and makes to disappear into the darkness of no-man’s land.
Escape the horror of returning to normal life
Risk: 1 dark = 4
=> Success with complication
Complication: Shot in the arm (1), leg (2), torso (3-5), head (6)? 2
The burst of movement from a mostly-dead man takes them by surprise, but a lucky rifle shot through the leg cuts him down just as he disappears into the gloom.
Ruin = 4
Pat crawls deep into the comforting dakrness of no-man’s land, surrounded by the muttering, self-soothing souls buried in mud. Every language he had heard and more, each one adding to the terrified cacophony — and Pat could understand them all.
Ruin = 4
What now? Uncovering/a new force or old enemy.
As he lies in the dark he is aware of all the other casualties of war — and just beyond that distant ditch a new sensation: warm bodies. He starts to call out to them in the night…