Play report: Tragedy at Zaya's Theatre
Update, Aug 5: now featuring a pic of the map!
Spoiler alerts for Tragedy at Zaya's Theatre by Munkao.
This report is a few weeks late again (I've already written about small parts of this in passing in my last house rules & notes post). Unfortunately, that means I've forgotten some of the more fun and interesting twists to the roleplay and table talk - we had a lot of fun with this one and the mechanical parts covered here don't do it justice.
We wrapped this one in the equivalent of one session of under 3 hours over two sittings, including preamble and postscript. We had 4 players for the first sitting (which was quite short, tacked on to the end of the sesh where we finished Het Thamsya) and 5 for the most of it. The party might have won a few extra minutes from the end of the first session but that likely wouldn't have affected the resolution.
This report is for the whole thing. Overall, the party (all experienced and pretty savvy players) figured out the stakes pretty quickly and were determined to find an appropriate, narrative resolution to the adventure while avoiding directly conflict.
With fresh characters after the terrible events at Het Thamsya, our intrepid meddlers found themselves at the gates of Zaya's Theatre where the distraught Zaya himself pressed them into service to retrieve his manuscripts from the Giant's rampage.
The first thing the party did was ask Zaya for a rough map of the area (they also did this with Granny Kud at the start of Drizzle Distillery, in a session yet to be reported), inspired by the map they got at the start of Het Thamsya. That really spoiled them! I'm not a gifted artist at the best of time and I was caught off-guard, so the resulting drawing sucked (sadly, I didn't keep a coffee or photograph it). Blamed the quality on Zaya's distress! They did demand (and got) rough annotations, but only vague ("workshops," "library," "stage," "residences" (the destroyed area to the south)). They also got copies of the playbill, which the some of the players studied quite assiduously: one of them really loved the whole conceit of the performance and embraced it in his own way, and another was determined to find a "lake" per the resolution of the play.
They then made a quick detour to a local shrine to pray for their blessings (per prior post on house rules, and I allowed all types of offerings here). They were they ready to enter.
They spotted the guards at R1 and then turned back to ask Zaya if there was an alternate entrance. I ruled that Zaya knew that local kids would sneak in, so they party searched the perimeter and found the secret entrance at R0. No encounters in the garden.
They entered the Tea Room at R6 and ran into the captain and guards. When the captain tried pressing them into service using the Command gesture, one of the players grokked the utility of the gestures (which, although listed as "optional" in the book, I was definitely going to use). The PCs took the provided guard costumes and responded with the Beseech gesture, saying that they absolutely wanted to follow but "left something in the other room" and would follow as soon as they got it. I wasn't sure if there should be a check here but, since they used the gesture appropriately, I ruled that they could get away with it.
To R7, where they expected to find the scripts on the basis of Zaya's map. They did, however, grab the Ascetic costume and one donned it. They explored the shelves, encountering and handily defeating the Sentient Puppets. One wanted to read Dance Techniques of the Elites and did: the turn resulted in a random encounter with a Manifested Demon. As soon as the demon exploded, the PC wearing the Ascetic costume prudently took it off.
Out the east door and across the wide hall to R8, where they encountered Nina. The encounter went smoothly and they agreed to work with Nina, although there was disagreement in the party about whether they would try to free the Giant or try to drown it. Then onward to R9 where they found and mended the King costume, which the enthusiastic player repaired and donned (also taking the curly wig, which I later ruled became an heirloom), and also insisted that Nina wear the Mother costume. They made a pretty strong argument for it but I couldn't determine any reason for her not to go ahead with it - I can't remember if they argued right away or later discovered that the costume would be an important disguise for Nina to get by her former colleagues.
Then to R10 where our pretend-King bossed the guards around a bit, then they entered the bedroom at R11 where they made quick work again of the Manifested Demons. They continued south, turning into R131. Noticing the King berating the captains, they hesitated at the entry and thought better of entering with their own King for fear of creating conflict. Instead, they turned their attention to R12, commanding the guards from R10 to clear the blockage.
From there they entered R18 ("the lake!"), turning west again into the Main Performance Hall at R17. They ignored the hint about Isau and Mayuw, instead using their King and liberal use of the dance gestures to tell the assembled forces that "we have the situation totally under control" before marching through R19 and to R20, talking down the Champions in both rooms.
As fortune would have it, they entered R20 moments before the Giant did. The The PC dressed at the King presented Nina as "the Mother," who had an awkward embrace with him, and promised him the acceptance and respect he craved. At this point, it was clear that the party had resolved the requirements of the adventure.
The adventure's Consequences (p. 24) note that a few of the characters "will resent the Party and be enemies." I ruled that this would logically be the King and his captains, who were furious that escaping samsara meant they now had no power. There was a confrontation back in R13, but some successful Saves avoided violence (also, the King and his captains were outmatched but the party + Nina). So, these will now be potential confounders in future adventures. The party tried very hard to woo the Giant and Nina to join them, but were disappointed that I didn't let them (there were also a few grumbles when I pointed out that, as junior meddlers, they didn't have the gravitas to recruit anyone into the Meddlers Guild yet). Still, they took the rewards gladly upon leaving and we proceeded to go ahead with Downtime.
Two players read Dance Techniques of the Elites during the adventure so I let them develop this as a skill - I documented this and other downtime activities previously.
Concluding thoughts
Overall, the adventure felt very fun and breezy. It worked best as an opportunity for roleplay and performance - without embracing that, I could see how some tables might find this to be "too easy."
I think it would be a great intro adventure for Kala Mandala, especially for players new to Oddlikes/Cairn/that vein of OSR. As mentioned earlier, this group of players are very experienced and work well together as a team. I suspect a party of players who were less experienced or familiar with the conceits of OSR might have had more difficulty with the adventure.
One of the players in particular took - the one who dressed as King - embraced this took the proverbial centre stage. The party figured out the the major cues about the plot points of the play and the dance gestures early so they moved through the adventure very smoothly. The relatively large party meant that the unavoidable combat with the Puppets and Demons was insignificant. Not that Het Thamsya was too heavy or dark, but there was always a bit of menace from the automatons.
They didn't bother with the entire complex, skipping much of the west side (R4-5 and R14-16) which meant they missed the cool little drum spirit in R16 and the story of Maleuw, Isau, and Mayuw. The latter is too bad, because I'm sure the players would have enjoyed the Secrets of the Rich and Famous (Consequences, p. 24).
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If you're playing from the print copy, note that per Munkao on Bluesky there should be 4 guards here that were accidentally edited out. They appear in the PDF version.↩