Campaign Report: John of Patmos' Mythic Babylon Campaign Part 1: "Revelation"

For this entry I thought I'd share an early campaign report for the forthcoming Mythic Babylon. This was run in Greece by a GM known on the web as 'John of Patmos.' The campaign was written up by the GM in Greek and I understand has been translated a few times and published in some anthologies of similar campaign reports, but I find it a bit convoluted. So in this case I thought I'd turn to a separate campaign report prepared by the players, which is a lot more concise. The players were a group of musician friends who released their report in the form of a prog rock opera (I know right? Who does that?! (1)) called 666 . It's really good – you can find it on youtube if you search for Aphrodite's Child 666. So what follows is a summary of the campaign based on the rock opera, with a bit of additional material from John of Patmos' version. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The campaign begins in Babylon. Rather than use the default start date presented in Mythic Babylon, John decided to run the game in the year 1595 BC at the very end of the Old Babylonian Period. Samsu-Ditana ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsu-Ditana ) was the King of Babylon at the time, and Babylon a city that had controlled access to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (both important trade routes) in central Babylonia for nearly 200 years. Their rivals at this time were the Kingdom of the Sealand to the south, ruled by King Gulkišar, the Kingdom of Elam in the east, ruled by Širtuh, King of Susa, and the Hittites to the north under King Mursili, who is historically credited with bringing about the first fall of Babylon.

NOTES

1. Okay, my friend Clash Bowley does this, but he's the only one I know.

CAMPAIGN SUMMARY

The events below are presented to coincide with the named tracks on the 666 album. 

1. THE SYSTEM (THEME)

This is the opening track, and it reveals the theme of the campaign, which is destruction and renewal, The lyrics of which quote the GM, John of Patmos who often said 'This is the system to f*** the system', by which he meant 'We'll use Mythras (the game system) to destroy Babylon (the political system).'

2. BABYLON

To open the campaign, John described the scene of a grand week-long festival to that was called celebrate King Samsu-Ditana's ascension to godhood. It was once a custom for kings to ascend to godhood; it was started by King Naram-Sin of Akkad and continued by the Kings of Ur and later of Isin and Larsa; the first two of these fell cataclysmic destruction, and that latter were absorbed by their neighbours. The practice was dropped by the Kings of the first dynasty of Babylon. This campaign is based on the premise that the last king of the dynasty, Samsu-Ditana, was vain enough to re-invoke the practice and thus bring about the end of Babylon.

The opening scene reveals how, masked by all the pomp and circumstance of the festival, the city and it's institutions are actually crumbling from neglect.

Lyrics:

Fallen fallen fallen

is Babylon the great!

Space is getting bounded,

time is getting late! (2)

Masters fall and wonder,

people rise and wait (3)

Fallen fallen fallen

is Babylon the great!

You don't need a coin (4)

I don't have to shine

We don't know the reason

But I need you madly

and you need me too

and we need each other... (5)

and we need each other...

and we need each other...

NOTES: 

2. This is a reference to how Babylon has lost it's shine, its greatness has fallen away. But it's also a clever bit of foreshadowing. 'Space is getting bounded' refers to Babylon's shrinking territory, and time is certainly late – historically Samsu-Ditana was the last king of his dynasty. 

3. 'Masters fall and wonder' is here a reference to the nobility of Babylon falling to the ground in worship of their new 'god' Samsu-Ditana. The people, on the other hand, or more skeptical and fearful.

4. 'You don't need a coin' is quite true – obviously the players found it noteworthy that coinage hadn't been invented yet.

5. A reference to both the vanity and neediness of King Samsu-Ditana and the GM himself, perhaps? But it is a truism that gamers need each other – this is a social hobby, afterall.


3. LOUD LOUD LOUD

As I mentioned, the opening scene was one of pomp and circumstance – a grand festival to inaugurate the king. If you've ever read 'The Curse of Agade' 

( https://www.ancient.eu/article/748/the-curse-of-agade-naram-sins-battle-with-the-gods/ ) you'll know this is likely to be an affront to the gods. And to make matters worse, the great god Enlil doesn't like having his rest disturbed by noisy humans ( https://www.ancient.eu/article/227/the-atrahasis-epic-the-great-flood--the-meaning-of/ ).

So, while all this pageantry was happening in the streets, Enlil was plotting once again to rid the world of Humans. And once again, the crafty god Ea decided to work behind the scenes to prevent this from happening. John imagined Ea thinking 'This is the last time I will help Enlil destroy the humans. I will depose Enlil as king of the gods and place my own son, Marduk, god of the city of Babylon, on the throne. That way I will never have to save humankind again.'

So, when Enlil directed Ea to bring about the destruction, he put his plan into effect: Ea instructed Marduk's priestess, Silanum (her name means 'Spring Lamb'), to unlock the box containing Tablet of Destinies which records the grand plan of the gods for the future of everything. He told Enlil he would unlock the tablet to write the end of human-kind, and on the surface that's what this looked like, but the tablet was really going to be used to re-write out of the position of King of the Gods.

This all happened behind the scenes, of course. The player-characters discovered bits of this plan via prophecy during the campaign which lead up the the apocalypse and the final revelation at the climax.

So, back to the festival, which this track continues to describe. Here John of Patmos described the pageantry in more detail and the players were introduced to the city of Babylon. There were some good role-playing opportunities with various locals, including nobles, priests, craftspeople, and commoners. This scene ends at 6pm - sunset on the first day. The band described it thusly:

Lyrics:

The day the walls of the cities will crumble away (6)

uncovering our naked souls, (7)

we'll all start singing,

shouting, screaming

loud, loud, loud, loud

The day the circus horses will stop turning around, (8)

running fast through the green valleys,

we'll sing and cry and shout

loud, loud, loud, loud

The day the cars will lay in heaps (9)

their wheels turning in vain,

we'll run along the empty highways

shouting, screaming, singing

loud, loud, loud, loud

The day young boys will stop becoming soldiers,

and soldiers will stop playing war games, (10)

we'll sing and cry and shout

loud, loud, loud, loud

The day will come up

that we'll all wake up

hearing and shouting of joy

and shouting together with the freaks (11)

loud, loud, loud, loud

The day the world will turn upside down

we'll run together round and round

screaming, shouting, signing

loud, loud, loud, loud

loud, loud, loud, loud

loud, loud, loud, loud (12)

NOTES

6. Babylon's buildings and walls were made from mud brick and in a bad state of decay from neglect. This was in part because all the festivals the king insisted on holding were keeping the builders from their work. Mud-brick construction is prone to decay, so in some sense the walls were always crumbling, except when kings organized a work crew to re-construct them. But as is implied in verse four, the citizens of the city had been exempted from their normal conscription duties, so there's no-one to repair the walls, and no militia to deal with an emergency. Woe betide the unprepared king who lets his walls collapse just before an apocalypse!

7. Every person had an etemmu, or 'ghost', who can linger in the surface world if their descendants don't treat them well after death. The dead were either buried in cemeteries or under the floor of the family home. Neglect of either could uncover these naked souls and free them to wander the streets. This is exactly what was happening in the city, and the scene ends with a dramatic spirit combat between the characters and some ghosts.

8. This is a reference (with some poetic license) to the absence of horses being sacrificed for the dedication of temples. Without sacrificial horses, temples were not renewed. The houses of the gods were crumbling like everything else. The only new temple was the one dedicated to Samsu-Ditana

9. Typo, here – 'carts' is of course what is meant, their wheels turning in vain in the mud. And note also that the highways (trade routes) were empty - a bad sign when you need to trade your excess grain for metals with which to make weapons or silver currency.

10. Young men were in fact conscripted into war in Mythic Babylon, and also sent to perform other tasks like repairing dilapidated civic structures such a defensive walls and temples. But, to appease troublesome citizens, some cities exempted their citizens from these duties. In this campaign, Babylon was one of them – hence the poor state of the army, temples, canals, and city walls.

11. 'Shouting together with the freaks' is a clear reference to the ecstatic prophets, who were taking to the streets in this episode and later ones to pronounce doom on the city. The characters encountered at least one in this opening session.

12. Some strong fore-shadowing here. This was the day the world started turning upside down. The crowd thundered and Enlil fumed on his mountaintop.


4. THE FOUR HORSEMEN

This track describes several of the early sessions of the campaign into a single song. Things were starting to go bad and the player-characters were sent on various trouble-shooting missions. Here's the summary of events:

During the festival described in the previous session, various gods arrived from other cities – Adad from Karkara, Ištar from Kazallu, Šamaš from Sippar, Sin from Ur, Ea from Eridu, Enlil from Nibbur, and Anu from Uruk, each with their own pageant.

Meanwhile, Marduk's high priestess, Silanum ('the lamb'), was sequestered in the inner sanctum of Marduk's temple upon the E-temenanki ('House of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth') Ziggurat. She started break the seals on the box that contained the Tablet of Destinies, by which to open the fate of the world to change. Each seal required elaborate rituals to unlock, so the process took several hours to complete. Of course, the characters didn't learn this was happening until much later – they were occupied with other things.

From the start of the game, John of Patmos started what he called his 'doomsday clock' to time events. This 'clock' was based on Babylonian numerology, which assigned numbers to the most important gods like this:

10 for Adad, the bringer of storms,
15 for Ištar, the temptress and goddess of battle,
20 for Šamaš, the sun,
30 for Sin, the moon,
40 for Ea, the god of wisdom and maker of humans,
50 for Enlil, king of the gods, and
60 for Anu, father of the gods.

He used this to time the events of play. The first four of these are described in in this song:

THE WHITE HORSE (Day 2 - 4:00 AM)

Ten hours into the festivities, Silanum broke the first seal on the table of destinies – the seal of Adad. An uridimu (a lion with the head of a man) emerged from the temple of Enlil and announced the wrath of Adad. This was accompanied by a storm with driving rain, thunder, and lightning. Prophets cried out about this doom in the city streets, but people thought this was part of the show at this all-night party.

The storm masked the presence of Hittite raiders who were descending on the city from the north. This was an advance party, riding in chariots drawn by white horses and wielding bows. The characters were part of a group sent out to try to prevent the raiders from approaching the city. They managed to fend them off, but the Hittites didn't leave – they made a camp not far from the city.

THE RED HORSE (Day 2 - 9:00 AM)

Fifteen hours into the festivities, Silanum broke the second seal, the seal of Ištar. A kusarikku (bull-man) emerged from the temple of Enlil and announced the arrival of the second doom: The army of the Sealand had arrived, led by King Gulkišar. They came up the Euphrates River on thousands of barges and they begin to assemble their siege equipment, including a monstrous red-painted siege-horse called Zu Gusiaš Temtu ('The Tooth of Temtu' (13)), which was set to work on the weak southern walls of the city. The players characters were joined a sortie sent out to try to disable it and it's inhuman Kurgarra (14) operators. With the destruction of the red horse, the troops surrounding the city settled in for the long haul and blockaded the city, but did not attempt to breach its walls. Again, the citizenry hardly noticed.

THE BLACK HORSE (Day 2 – 2:00PM)

The citizens of Babylon continued to celebrate the ascension of Samsu-Ditana, oblivious to the threats outside the city walls. At the twentieth hour, the Lamb broke the third seal, the seal of Šamaš. Šamaš wass the all-seeing sun, and also the god of justice, fair dealings, and by consequence, of trade. With the breaking of the third seal, a Lahmu (hairy-hero-man) emerged from the temple of Enlil into the unusually scorching afternoon sun and announced the next doom on the city.

An embattled merchant caravan, led by an Elamite trader bearing a scale and leading a trail of black pack horses, managed to break the blockade and enter the city. The merchant spoke of poisoned wheat causing mass death in the surrounding lands, and warned against allowing the forthcoming feast to continue. The characters joined the effort to round up and destroy all the bread they could find before people could eat it – a move heavily opposed by the festival organizers and the king's troops.


THE GREEN HORSE (Day 2 – Midnight)

A brief respite followed, and John described the ongoing blockade and party in narrative terms. But this didn't last long, for at the thirtieth hour, the Lamb broke the fourth seal, the seal of Sin. A griffin emerged from the temple of Enlil and announced the fourth doom – the wrath of Sin. By green moonlight, a self-propelled Magilum boat with a horse-carved prow arrived on the Irnina canal and broke through the water gate. It docked in the karum (trading quay) and and unloaded it's occupants. Thirty sickly Sealander warriors, led by the demon Bennu (15), a deputy of Sin and causer of fits, spread out into the city, killing and spreading disease. With this, a plague of palsy spread through the city, and the characters joined the effort to eradicate the green menace.

Lyrics:

And when the lamb 

opened the first seal,

I saw the first Horse.

The Horseman held a bow

Now when the lamb 

opened the second seal,

I saw the second Horse

The Horseman held his sword

The leading horse is white

the second horse is red

the third one is a black,

the last one is a green

The leading horse is white

the second horse is red

the third one is a black,

the last one is a green

And when the lamb 

opened the third seal,

I saw the third Horse.

The Horseman had a balance

Now when the lamb 

opened the fourth seal,

I saw the fourth Horse.

The Horseman was the Pest

The leading horse is white

the second horse is red

the third one is a black,

the last one is a green (16)

NOTES

13. Temtu is the Sumerian name for the god who would later be known as Tiamat. This is a subtle bit of foreshadowing.

14. The Kurgara were third-gender, inhuman, sickle-sword -wielding servants of Ištar. In this scenario a group of them were operating the siege horse.

15. Bennu is one of the disease demons listed in Mythic Babylon, a deputy of the god Sin.

16. White, Red, Black, and Green are all Babylonian colours. White colouring is made from galena, and red from ochre. Black pigment comes from dark grey kohl, and green from malachite.

Four Horsemen of Apocalypse, by Viktor Vasnetsov. Painted in 1887

5. THE LAMB

Here, the band inserted an instrumental track to give The Lamb a theme. The music implies the characters were vainly running around, dealing with emergencies while the Lamb continued her important work. Oddly, the characters themselves were never given musical themes. I understood that they included a Kassite and two Babylonian elite soldiers, an Amorite mercenary scout, and a Diviner from Sumer.


6. THE SEVENTH SEAL

The opening of the remaining seals are described in this song:

THE FIFTH SEAL (Day 3 – 8:00 AM)

At the fortieth hour, the lamb opened the fifth seal, the seal of Ea. At this time, most of the city's weary revelers were asleep, including the characters. When they woke, however, it was to a sound of massive despair, as if the city had uttered a collective moan. The water in the city's canals, its wells, and its abzu basins had retreated, and standing within, cheek by jowl, were the dead. They were grey-skinned, and clothed in white bird feathers. Their mud-caked hands were held high and they wailed, asking for vengeance on the living. The revelers started to panic. Some fell into the the canals and disappeared in the crowds of the dead. It had been Enlil's plan to release the dead into the city at this point, but here, Ea started to diverge from Enlil's script. Silanum called out from the top of the ziggurat, her voice carrying across the city. She bid the dead to wait for the seventh seal. She invited the worshipers of Marduk (among them the player characters) to enter his E-sagila ('House That Raises the Head') temple, and inside they were marked with the symbol of a triangle on their forehead.

Outside in the city, the water returned, covering over the dead, and the followers of Samsu-Ditana managed to get the party going again.

THE SIXTH SEAL (Day 3 – 6 PM)

By the fiftieth hour, Silanum had returned to the sanctum of Marduk and opened the sixth seal – the seal of Enlil. The sun blackened, as if by eclipse. Yet the moon was also in the sky – it had turned red. Meteors fell from the sky, crashing into the city and surrounding lands, causing everyone to take shelter. The earth shook under the feet of the citizenry, causing buildings and more sections of the walls to collapse. The characters spent their time helping people to safety and fighting off attacks through breaches in the wall. Meanwhile, a large crowd gathered in front of the newly build temple to Samsu-Ditana, asking: How much longer must we suffer before our god (Samsu-Ditana) saves us? This situation lasted through the night. Knowing Samsu-Ditana wasn't going to save anyone, the characters took shelter atop the ziggurat.

THE SEVENTH SEAL (Day 4 – 4 AM)

Sixty hours into the campaign, The Lamb broke the Seventh Seal and last seal – the Seal of Anu, father of the gods and lord of heaven. With the breaking of the Seventh Seal, everything stopped. The air was still, and there was complete silence on heaven and earth for half an hour. Nobody could speak, or indeed make any other sound.

Lyrics:

And when the lamb 

opened the next two seals,

We saw the souls,

We saw the martyrs,

We heard them crying,

We heard them shouting,

They were dressed in white,

They'd been told to wait.

The sun was black,

The moon was red,

The stars were falling,

The earth was trembling

And then the crowed

Impossible to number

Carrying flowers,

Shouted amid

The heatless sun

The lightless moon

The windless earth

The colourless sky:

"How much longer will we suffer from hunger?

How much longer will we suffer from thirst?"

And when the lamb opened the seventh seal,

silence covered the sky.

The campaign took a week-long break at this point, so this was left as a bit of a cliff-hanger. I'm going to break here, too, and return next week with part 2.