Praise Be, God of Filth
I was drawn to Praise Be, God of Filth by the art, the recent review from Between Two Cairns and a strong desire to play some Cairn. For a one-page pamphlet, this thing is chock full of evocative art. Each piece was perfect for use at the table. I described a Sploghopper quite evocatively, but flashing the art drew some oohs and aahs. As I generally play online it was a blast to deploy each piece of art and use the delightful isometric map in Foundry. Mad props to artist and writer, Ari-Matti 'Wuggy' Toivonen.
I was prepping Praise Be for a one shot on Friday, but when I didn't get my quota of players on Monday night, I moved it up. We had one hell of a time despite some hesitation on my part about being unprepared. The adventure has no explicit hooks but I used the implicit hook of the kidnapped townsfolk at the bottom. I started the players in the first room of the dungeon to keep things moving.
Praise Be centers on a cult of filthy humans who make sacrifices to the Allbog, a mindless pool of ooze that emits a hallucinogen when fed. There's some critters making their home here as well, the frog-like sploghoppers and scab flies. I played the cultists as a bit dumb because of the Allbog and the hallucinogen.
That's important because the first room has a clothes hamper full of cultists robes. The perfect disguise is no one is looking closely! My players completely ignored this at least 3 times.
When the players met the cultists for the first time they ended up in a standoff with a spear held to one character's spine. A distraction (and a little running away) gave the players the opportunity to defeat the guards and their backup.
The players pivoted to a stealthy approach after agreeing to Fyrtive Gyrt's request to get him some grey goop for food dipping. This goop was very important as they proceeded. The goop, established as tasty, was thrown on a variety of enemies and obstacles to encourage the ravenous sploghoppers to feast.
The biggest obstacle was a dozen cultists that were crawled past. These were dealt with after they surprised and slew their prophet and then triggered a succession crisis.
And that was the exit strategy; instigating a schism and encouraging the cultists to fall on each other while our intrepid rescuers bring the escaped townsfolk to the surface. Success!
Praise Be, God of Filth filled an excellent 2.5 to 3 hours online session with Foundry. I used the air-bladder system (now in the official catalog!) and it was great. I shared the art in Discord and use Simplefog to reveal the map quickly. This was a fantastic time that led to some good problem solving. Strong recommend from me.