Content & "Fun"

Keeping it "Fun"

This is a villains game that will, to use a phrase I've used a few times, engage in "oil the rack, kidnap the princess, burn the village" type villainy. There is a lot of media out there that focuses on villains, and we should think about those as touchstones. They often work because the protagonists are fun and compelling enough that we want to see what happens next. We want them to succeed in the short term but we also want them to lose in the long term. A lot of it is defined by the heroes that they are up against: The Axiomatic Church is designed to be both a saccharine goody two-shoes outfit as well as a stand-in for Christian repression and hegemony. You are literally Satanists. Have fun with it!

Getting Into Trouble: Content

Let’s talk about content. There are three components to villainy that I want to address each thematically to set the tone and expectations: Pain, violence and sex. I’ll talk about the general expectations I have for each category, along with how I think you can keep them fun, then I’ll talk about various “icky” subject matters that the campaign might get into to check for safety and comfort.

Pain

Pain I am using to stand in for matters of torture, but also gore, blood, mutilation and the like. Normally this is something I do not linger much on for my games, but this one will be a little different. That isn’t to say it’ll be a gorefest. Pools of blood and piles of skulls and bones are acceptable, and especially during segments of intense horror this may become more present. A big departure from my other games is that torture (both giving and receiving) will likely play a big role. We won’t elaborate on every detail, but I will ask you what you intend to do and what fiendish way you intend to do it, the pulpier the better. There are plenty of examples in media of this without devolving into Saw or Hostel territory, though there will be occasions where I feel, to get a reaction, to go deep into it. If this is a line or veil for you, let me know, and I can de-emphasize this.

When is pain fun? For me, when the person feeling the pain “deserves” it. Not objectively, but in that lizard brain way. Most of the time, it’ll be your characters and their immediate enemies that face such great pains, but also your enemies (and yourselves!) may inflict it upon your minions and the like. We won’t be lingering on the torturing of innocents or those truly undeserving. Sometimes you’ll face a real hero, and then torture is a matter of them having an opportunity to show their resolution. But a lot of the time it’ll be some stupid, naive, or fanatical person who is barely more than a caricature, and intentionally so.

Violence

Violence is a big one. You are not roaming killers, but you will by the end of this campaign have been responsible for a staggering amount of death, likely both individually and collectively. Again, one of the larger guiding themes here is the cheapness of life (including your own!). Remember that resurrection is widespread and there is an objective afterlife. Plus, the cosmological underpinnings of the universe is that within the fiction, it's fictional. We're playing with dolls, and the dolls are somewhat self-aware. However, killing should rarely be done for its own sake. One should always have a reason for their violence. Sometimes that simply means showing you mean business. Again, unlike my default way of running in the game, I would like to relish in the violence a bit more.

When is violence fun? You can apply the above rule of “deserving”, but just as “cartoon” is an overriding aesthetic and tone choice for this game, it applies here as well. Be slapstick. Describe how your goblin minions howl as they fry to a crisp, running around and slamming into each other. Mention how when you beat Sir Havelyn to death with his own gauntlet, that you can see impressed into the skin of his bloodied forehead his own family’s crest. When you snap a finger to destroy someone with disintegrate, don’t merely say they are reduced to ash, talk about how they are skeletonized, locked in their smug pose when they thought to gainsay you.

Sex

Sex I don’t particularly see as more or less an issue as violence, and pulpy villainy is meant to have a sexy, dangerous allure. The major issue to address here is consent. I have a hard line regarding depictions of rape and sexual assault. It’s not fun, period. However, sexual menace, if handled properly and sparingly, can be effective. Additionally, the existence of things like half-fiends begs some questions about the consent of their conception, so I would consider this a “veil.” It’s a world where these things happen, but off-screen. But more so than my other games, sex will be far more present in play. Not interested necessarily in roleplaying the act out out but frank discussions of it and using it to get an advantage (or simply as a way for you to indulge) are acceptable and even encouraged where appropriate and fun. And what kind of villain game is this if there’s not half-clothed comely maidens/strapping lads to have chained up?

When is sex fun? In the aesthetic language of villainy, being able to be “depraved” in this way is part of why it appeals. Having beautiful people draped all about you while drunk on power (or other things), revealing outfits and blood on naked skin, it’s all part of the schtick. Further, taking advantage of sexual desire is often a shorthand for temptation in general. This is important especially when referring to sexual menace: Kidnapping the princess to ravish her is acceptable when A) you are constantly hoisted by your own petard doing it, as the inability of the villain to make good on the threat is often a source of dark comedy, or B) the “victim” isn’t really a victim at all and is indeed seduced by what you offer. Think of how many villains fall over themselves just to corrupt one object of their desire. You, as a villain, could be similarly amorous. Even if you are not, you should have other desires and indulgences that can be your downfall.

Ick

So let’s talk about the ick. This is a non-comprehensive category of subject matter that I think will come up in play during the campaign that are worth “content warnings” that might not be so fun for everyone. I will give you my stance on them personally, but please let me know if any of these you’d like to de-emphasize or keep off screen (“veil”) or would rather not have be an element at all (“line”). I will attempt to accommodate as best I can.

• Creepy crawlies: There will be so many bugs, rats, and other gross things in this game. If there’s anything in particular you are phobic about or would just rather not have involved, let me know.
• Chattel slavery: The Malthryn Dominion was a slave culture, full-stop, and slavery is baked into the ideology of the Nine Hells, thus the reinstitution of it as a practice will be one of the cult’s major goals. Now, I’m not personally interested in parallels to real-world slavery here, and in particular I find sex slavery not very fun so that’s at best a “veil”, but this will be a recurring feature otherwise. By player request, this will be de-emphasized.
• Race hatred: Demihumans have casual racism towards beastfolk and illbred that can be a useful motivator and help make the conquering of this supposedly Good land a little more fun, but genocide and the like are not really what we’re talking about here, and I want to stay away from “evil race” type stuff, even with stuff like dark elves and the like. Orcs, for instance, are an “evil race” but it’s because of a curse put on them by the elves, something that can possibly be corrected. There are deep racial enmities but while these are present and exploitable, and in some cases major plot elements, they are not the focus.
• Plague / pandemic / sickness: This will play a major plot point at some point in the campaign. Let me know if any element of that is one you’d want to de-emphasize.
• Sadomasochism: Using the above guidelines on “fun”, the inflicting of pain for (implied sexual) pleasure is deeply associated with several varieties of fiends and several NPCs, and a common shorthand for villainous depravity that I’d be remiss to not include, but let me know if you have lines regarding it.
• Death of Children / Helpless: I’m not regularly going to ask your characters to kill children, but neither will I Bethesda style make them immortal or invisible. Sometimes you will be asked to leave no witnesses and create hard decision points that even your villains might balk at. This is likely to remain off-screen as in almost every case this violence is not “fun” even when it’s necessary for the plot, and thus should feature sparingly.
• Crossbreeding: Perhaps not the proper term, but cambions (half-fiends) and tieflings feature prominently, and you have stuff like half-dragons and more weirder beasts which imply “relations” between humanoids and non-humanoids. Polymorph can only get you so far. In the same way I don’t intend to do a lot of explicit description of sex scenes, I don’t foresee this being foregrounded in any sense but if this squicks you out in particular, let me know.
• Prostitution: In a similar vein as slavery, prostitution as an institution was ended with the Axiomatic Church and was considered a religious institution under the Dominion, as the sale and purchase of sex has deep resonance with the Nine Hells. However, I also am not staking the position that sex work is Evil by any stretch (and if your characters look for it, they can find some non-Evil examples), but it is a plot element that we can de-emphasize as needed.
• Animal abuse: the conditions by which some monsters and Evil cultures keep their beasts of burden and some of the acts of torture you will witness or partake in might cross this line, so let me know if it’s an issue for you.
• Self-harm/suicide: Both Quintoro and Ninevarine culture venerate honor-based suicide (in the same way the Romans and Japanese did) and the Axiomatic Church celebrates martyrs and flagellants (one of the archdevils, Belial, also is know for their love for self-mortification), plus driving someone to despair through your villainous acts that they take their own life is a big trope, so this may come up.
• Body horror: This is actually a game that might feature less body horror than you might expect. That being said, this is a setting where drinking blood gives you power and being Evil slowly turns you into a (literal) monster over time, so we’ll be exploring it a little, especially if any of you pursue that monstrous apotheosis with verve.
• Serial murder/thrill killing: There are many monsters (including an entire variety of fiends, the daemons) who are written as enjoying killing and murder just for the sake of it, and there are a few NPCs that tread close to that. Personally, I’d rather your characters not really engage in this trope directly, but you might deal with entities that do, so if that’s an element you’d want lessened let me know.
• Excrement: Okay, this is probably my biggest personal squick button. I find stuff involving feces and urine extremely gross, and scatological humor usually falls extremely flat for me. That isn’t to say I’m opposed to its occasional mention, the sparing use of a peasant throwing a dung pie at a tyrant or someone pissing off a tower, but please, no poop demons, I’m begging you.

Personally I have three major hard lines (everything else is negotiable): domestic abuse (I usually relax this in non-fantasy games because it can be healing for me to deal with, but not in a game like this), child abuse (of all kinds), and necrophilia (as in sex with corpses, the Un-Dead is a little more complicated). I would prefer if these are not merely kept off screen, but not even given mention or place in backgrounds. I know with the former two that can seem a bit limiting, but let’s just say this is a fantasy setting where every marriage is a loving (or at least diplomatic) one, and even Evil parents are good to their children.