My first session of Clay that Woke is behind me. So here’re some of my thoughts.

1. Prep. We scheduled the game on 2 days notice, I spent 1 day reading the game for the second time, and then I followed the book about what things to prepare before the game. I have to admit, that preping the situation, ideas & NPC’s was longest since I played Warhammer. I didn’t expect this.

It took me a while to generate two situations. At first I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of taking real life problems and twisting them, but it worked very well! (I won’t say everything – players are watching,Idon’t want to spoil their fun). I didn’t decide how the employment is connected until the beginning of the session.

2. Situation: Ontetrukh has taken a new wife, Vaiperhai, who was (partly?) ghyeana and had hair on all of her body like ghyenas do. He is disgusted with this but he don’t want to divorce her because he believes he will live as long as he is married to her. So instead make her cover with white cloth and he sends her to Puda, the phisician, who day after day removes the hair – and that leaves parts of her body bleeding and festering. (PC minotaur takes her to Puda by riksha).

Sero, a gladiator is in love with Vaiperhai. I think he doesn’t know about her condition,but it is possible they are lovers (PC minotaur is a messanger between them).

Alm Khera works in spring baths where he sells insects like ticks and water striders mixed together. The blood in insect’s abdomen contains meaningless and exciting stories of the people the insect drinked from before, and when the blood mixes together the story is passed to the new person. In this way their stories then spread around the city. It is told that a drop of Pakrym Empyrei’s blood is stored in one of those insects. (PC minotaur accompanies Alm Khera).

An insects story: Empyreus’s 7 wives killed themselves after his death,but he loved them so much that they turnedinto silvery fish that’s song are heard sometimes.

3. I was running the game, other players are a) +, b) a history teacher, trad gamer, c) a women with no rpg&fantasy experience at all. Reading the game by them was not an option (sorry, +, the language is pretty, but very sophisticated!), so instead I talked about various setting ideas while showing the illustrations – and it helped showing what the game is about. After making characters we had maybe one hour left and so we just started with some scenes, I played with the strange imagery, defined things with stories (like: Sero is a pit fighter, it is told that after the fight Pakrym Empyrei prized him with a smile).

4.Problems.
a) I’d love to have rules summary in the book (or on the web page) – what to put in the Krater and when, who is winning when it’s a PC-PC interaction.
b) our trad gamer asked questions like „I want to make a spot test” „how wide is the street and what is speed, weight and direction of the cart with melons” (when his minotaur was chasing a woman) or tried the „Mommy, may I?” trick. It looks like I have to break his habits – at least for this game.
c) the new player doesn’t seem to have problems with story gaming (I assume it’s more natural) but she’s less experienced and sometimes doesn’t catch the atmosphere.
d) we had only one inflection (drawing from the Krater) – fornow it seems that narrating failure for one’s character is not easy and I have to adress this on the next session.
e) I think I put wrong tokens in the Krater and possibly it was to the disadvantage of the player.
e) it took me a while understanding weird beliefs and quid pro quo thinking, I still don’t get the difference. What does it mean intrinsic character?

5. Likes!
a) setting – dreamlike, steamy, colorful, magical in a different way – I love it! Best things: stories, urwicga, wives, glittering, seeds, being naked as standard. Adding new things is pleasurable.
b) Rules light – I can concentrate on talking even in mechanical effects decided by the Krater.
c) minotaurs

Generally it was great and nice. And maybe it is possible to make a campaign of it.

#GamesIPlay is my project where I talk about games.The idea is to write more in English. I aim for writing and speking more fluently and to get some self esteem from this. If you see me making bigger mistakes (grammar, wrog use of words) please correct me in the comments (or give me a link with explaining a problem).

And of course – talk with me about games!