Night of the Hogmen - Rulebook (Spreads).pdf

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T E E T H
NIGHT
H O G M E N
OF
THE
An Overview Of
The Evening’s Hogtainment
Night of the Hogmen
is a grotesque, single-session
table-top roleplaying game for 3-5 people. It requires one
game master (GM) to run the game, and the remaining
players to portray hapless travellers, forced to flee from
a ravening horde of hogmen during one grim and grisly
night in a cursed corner of 18th-century England.
The game uses a simplified version of the
Forged In
The Dark
rules to tell this troubling story of peril and
unpleasantness, and, as a single-session game, is designed
to be experienced in a more linear fashion than larger
roleplaying settings. It should take between two and four
hours to play, during which time the travellers will make
horrifying decisions and gather allies and items that might
save them at the story’s climax.
This document is divided into two sections. The first is
for the GM’s eyes only, and will guide them through the
unfolding adventure. The second contains information
for all players, including the rules of play. This second
section is also provided as a standalone PDF, so it’s easier
to distribute.
More of
Teeth,
our full-game setting, will be revealed
later in 2021.
We hope you enjoy yourselves.
- Jim & Marsh
PART I: FOR THE GM
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3
The Set-Up & The Scenario
When everyone is settled, the GM should read this to the players:
You have caught the last mail coach out of Carlisle. The horses
seem nervous. You and your fellow passengers are destined
for Gatlock, a remote town under mysterious quarantine in
the very North of England.
The night seems to arrive too early, and it is terrible:
ferocious, driving sleet lashes your carriage for most of the
journey, and the bedraggled coachmen have had to work
their animals to the limits of endurance.
You feel lucky to be inside the carriage compartment, though
it is cramped and the jolting, lurching cabin has made sleep
impossible.
You pass some of the time by introducing yourselves.
Calamity Strikes
Suddenly, an almighty crack convulses the wooden frame
of the carriage and the entire compartment spins an abrupt
ninety degrees, unfixed objects pirouetting around you.
As the impact arrives, wooden shutters splinter inwards,
followed by a violent spray of mud and stones as the carriage
gouges along the wet road.
The coach scrapes to a halt on stone. A bridge!
Inside the cabin there is a stillness for a few moments—
though the icy rain hammers on, and one of the horses picks
up a horrid, panicked braying.
But there is another noise. A sort of shrieking, squealing
sound, echoing through the storm. And it is getting louder.
One by one, you climb out of the wreck. The carriage has
crashed across a bridge, partially blocking it. Only a single
coachman remains standing, the other has been flung from
the vehicle and lays stricken among the hooves of the horses.
The standing man is pointing into the dark behind the coach,
rigid with fear.
“Hogmen!” screams the coachman, fumbling to load a
flintlock pistol. “The Hogmen are abroad!”
He stares with wild eyes into the black. “Arm yourselves!”
Who Are The Passengers?
At this point players should choose one of the possible passengers
aboard the carriage. These are listed on page 16 of this document and
provided in greater detail in
the playbooks.
The players should then ask each other questions, and the GM can help
with prompts:
Why are you travelling to Gatlock?
They say these moors are plagued by ghosts! Do you believe in ghosts?
Do you mind if I smoke?
Do you like horses?
What do you do for a living, exactly?
Have you ever been to India?
Have
you
ever been to Moreton-on-the-wold?
4
5
What Do They Take?
The characters grab desperately at their luggage. They take three items
each.
Players do not need to choose or declare these items now, and
should only do so when it is narratively useful for that object to come
into play.
Players will find a list of the things that were in their luggage on their
playbook. Once described, the item should be ticked off, and may be
used when appropriate thereafter.
One of the coach’s oil lanterns remains unbroken—who takes that?
It’s important to make clear what’s happened here:
there are two
coachmen.
One coachman sacrifices himself to the horde: describing
his grisly demise will make clear what is at stake here.
But there is also the stricken coachman. What the players decide to do
about him, for he will surely die without assistance, could define how
their adventure unfolds. Will they attempt to render aid or, perhaps,
merely steal his pistol? This is a clear decision.
This is also a good opportunity to make clear that the players are
not mighty adventurers and underscore the level of danger they are
immediately in. Dragging the coachman to safety will be very hard
indeed, and the tide of demonic pig people will imminently cascade
across the river, tearing apart anyone who remains in a squealing frenzy
of trotter and tusk.
The True Peril Is Revealed
The sky is split by a streak of lightning.
Three things happen near-simultaneously. The first is that
the surviving horse thrashes to its feet, and in its struggle
to free itself from the shattered harness, plants a shoe in the
spine of the fallen coachman, with grisly consequence. Yet
he moans: he still lives! The horse charges off into the night.
The second is that the hills beyond are briefly illuminated,
revealing them to be alive with pigs and hunched bipedal
creatures. Creatures that are coming your way, with haste.
A cask of lantern oil is leaking across the bridge, spreading
like a black rainbow. The standing coachman fires his
flintlock into it, setting it ablaze and creating a temporary
barrier between you and the horde. A barrier that he is on
the wrong side of.
“Save yourselves!” he screams.
The players must flee.
A Distant Hope Is Spied
No sooner are you off the bridge than you realise that the
road itself descends into the shallow gorge cut by the river,
leaving no alternate path but the one before you. However,
a church steeple glints in the moonlight, much further down
the valley. Perhaps you can reach it, barricade it, and ring
the bell to summon help before the horde is upon you?
Perhaps!
It is some distance.
A ragged and complicated countryside lies in the way.
6
7
Tracking Progress & Peril
At this point the GM must draw two clocks:
The Hogstorm Proximity Clock
This
eight-segment clock
(which you can refer to as the
Porximity
Clock
if you truly must), represents how close the main body of the
hog-horde is to players.
For every major diversion or dalliance, add a section to the clock.
If the coachman was brought along, for example, he must be helped,
and cannot walk unaided.
Fill in one segment of the clock.
If things go badly wrong in their flight from the hogs, multiple sections
may be filled in. If the clock is entirely filled before reaching
The Lone
Church,
the players are beset by the hogmen in the open and likely
torn to shreds. However, if they reach the church and ring its bell, they
may yet survive.
The Hogsiege Preparedness Clock
This
six-segment clock
underscores the importance of collecting
resources on the way to
The Lone Church.
The GM must make it clear that
the players will not survive the
encounter at the church if they do not make preparations
and gather
allies and resources along the way.
How the final encounter goes will hinge entirely on how full this clock
finally is. Take care to note which resources are collected so that you
can describe how they are useful in the final siege.
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9

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