Episode 7 – The Old Ones Were Never Meant to Be Fought

Hey folks, welcome back to the Table.

This is the Summit or Circle podcast.

I'm your host, Vince. This is Season 2, episode 7.

Today we're opening with one of the weirder, darker, and more

misunderstood books and Palladium Fantasy Second Edition

book 2, Old Ones. And I want to say this right up

front. This book is not about monsters.

It's looks like it is, and it reads like it probably should

be, but if you run it that way, you're missing the whole entire

point of this book. Old Ones is not a best theory.

It's a warning label. Because this book is Palladium

telling you very clearly that there are things in the world

your players are not meant to fight, not meant to understand,

and definitely not meant to control.

This isn't like the old AD and D manual, you know, the Gods,

deeds and demigods book or whatever that you went through

with your friends and tried to kill everybody in there.

No, this is different. And this alone makes it one of

the most important books in the line.

Now let me start with how most people encounter this book.

They flip through it. They look at the creatures, they

see massive stats, strange abilities and things that feel

wildly out of scale for them. And then they close it and say,

yeah, I'll probably never use this.

You know, you've probably said that yourself many times.

And I wonder how many people actually use this book.

I know I do. And most people, this is

probably a common thing. They'll just flip through it and

not really use it. And they're not wrong for doing

that, because a lot of people don't use half the stuff that's

available to them. Because the Old Ones are not

meant to be dropped into combat like a dragon or a demon or

something like that. They're not bosses, they're

background radiation for the game.

They warp everything around them.

And once you understand that, the book suddenly becomes

usable, scary, and incredibly effective when it comes to the

game. So let's talk about what the Old

Ones actually is in Palladium terms.

So an Old One is not just ancient, it's not just powerful,

it's not just an alien. It's something that existed

before the world worked the way it kind of does now.

Before magic had rules, before God had all these domains,

before reality settled. That matters because when an old

one shows up in your campaign, the rules don't stop working.

They start bending to their will.

Time kind of feels wrong, space feels unreliable, and magic

behaves unpredictably. And players should feel that

immediately. Now, here's the most important

thing. I really kind of want to stress

about this here. The old ones are are not really

the story, they are there as pressure behind the story.

If your players ever fight an old one directly, something has

gone really wrong to be honest. So how do you actually use this

book is probably some people are asking me right now.

You kind of use it indirectly, use it through cultists, ruins,

corrupt regions, and consequences.

You use it the same way horror stories use a monster when

they're talking about it sparingly.

Let me give you a little bit of an example here.

So instead of saying there's an old one sleeping beneath this

city, you show effects like people start disappearing,

dreams become shared, animals start kind of reacting strangely

and differently, magic rituals start producing unintended

results. The old one never actually

really appears, but everyone kind of feels something, or

maybe feels it but doesn't know what it is.

And that's how this book works best.

Now, the cultist, because this is where most GMs start, and

that's probably the right instinct when it comes to

dealing with the old ones. Cultists and Palladium are not

just bad guys in robes. They're people who found

something that they should not have.

That could be power, that could be knowledge, that could be

truth. There's a lot of things, a lot

of factors, and the book does a great job of reminding you that

cultists don't always think they're evil.

In their mind, they aren't. Some believe they're saving the

world. Some believe they're restoring

law. Something lost.

Some are just kind of desperate, looking for something, grasping

for any type of answer. That's kind of important to

remember when running cultists could, because when players

confront cultists tied to the Old Ones, it shouldn't feel

clean. They aren't bandits, and they

really aren't merchants. These are people who saw behind

the curtain, and now they can't Unsee what they saw.

Now let's talk about the mechanics, because Palladium

does something subtle here. Old One influence often doesn't

come with clean attack rolls or damaged numbers.

It comes with curses, corruption, mental effects,

environmental changes. This is where the system's

resistance mechanics matter. Saving throws, mental endurance

and PPE sensitivity not to win, but to survive.

Exposure here. And this ties into something

Palladium does very well that modern games often avoid, and

that's permanent consequences. Exposure to old ones is always

heal away instantly. Characters might gain strange

marks, reoccurring dreams, minor mutations, unwanted knowledge

dreams. I mean, it's a lot of stuff you

can really do burn marks. I mean, there's so many things

you can do with this. Nothing that's going to really,

I mean, and nothing that's really going to break the

character because you're probably thinking it's going to.

No, no, no. But enough that the player

character remembers. Now let's talk about the fear,

because the old ones should not be jump scares because they are

slow. Dread, the kind that just kind

of creeps in real slow like that.

You know, old vampire movie. When you see the vampire shadow

creeping in, it kind of makes players hesitate before casting

spells. The kind that makes scholars

really nervous and the kind that makes summoners rethink their

circles. And this ties directly back to

like earlier episodes. Summoners in Diabolis are

dangerous because they meddle with the things they only

partially understand. Old Ones are what happens when

the meddling goes just a little too far.

That's not an accident. Book 2 exists to give weight to

those choices. Now, the huge the old ones are

huge. Their stats are absurd.

They feel untouchable. And that's intentional.

You're not supposed to fight them like I've been saying.

You're supposed to contain them, delay them, redirect them, and

somehow survive them. That's a very different play

pattern. And Palladium supports this

quest to resale ancient sites, rituals to reinforce weakened

barriers, choices between two bad outcomes.

This is not about victory. It's about damage control most

of the time. And that makes campaigns feel

filled, mature, complete, or whatever you want to call it.

So there are certain regions that are affected by the old

ones, because this is where you can use the book without ever

touching a stat block. A region under old one influence

just feels wrong. Not flashy, not constantly

violent, just wrong. Weather patterns can shift,

magic misfires, creatures behave strangely, and players notice.

This turns travel, which we talked about in an early episode

back in, I think it was one or two into horror.

The road itself feels unsafe, camps don't feel restful at

night, dreams become intrusive, and people don't feel fulfilled

after sleep. You don't need random

encounters. The environment pretty much does

the work for you. You don't need to explain the

old ones. In fact, you really shouldn't.

The more you explain, the less effective they become overall.

Let scholars disagree on them, let the books contradict each

other, Let cultists lie or just misunderstand what they've

learned. Uncertainty is the point, and

they know how to use that. Players should never feel like

they fully understand what they're dealing with when it

comes to the old ones. And that's how the horror comes

out. Because the Old One story rarely

end cleanly. You don't kill an old one, you

don't defeat it, you survive it. You push it back, you seal it

away and you stop something worse from happening.

And sometimes you fail. Maybe not completely, but

enough. The world changes.

That's where Palladium campaigns gain history.

Now another example, because this is where it kind of clicks

for most people, or it did click for me.

I ran a campaign where the old ones never actually appeared.

Not once. The entire arc was about

stopping a cult from a weaken weakening seal.

The first session, the not the first.

The final session if I remember correctly was wasn't a boss

fight. It was kind of like a ritual

under pressure. The cultures weren't powerful,

they were just kind of desperate.

And when the ritual was disrupted, the Old One obviously

didn't rise, but the land never fully recovered.

The players really didn't cheer, so to speak.

They mostly just went, huh, boy, that's over.

And that's a tone that this book really supports.

The Old Ones give your world a lot of depth.

They give you your give. They give your magic a lot of

danger, they give your summoners limits, they give your victories

some type of weight to them. They remind players that the

world existed before them and will exist after them.

And sometimes the best you can do to keep things from getting

worst is just keep on going. And that's powerful

storytelling. And that's the and that's only

just the surface of just the book itself, because I'm going

to talk a little bit further about this and we're going to

keep going because there's more consequences about the old ones.

So we've talked about who they are and more importantly, what

they're not. So let's talk about how you

actually build around them without crushing your table

under hopeless cosmic doom, because that's a trap.

A lot of GMs read book 2 Old Ones and think the only two

options are ignore this or end of the world and neither one is

right. Old Ones works best when they

operate on a gradient scale. Influence first, consequences

second. Direct confrontation.

Never or almost never think of an Old One activity like a

pressure leak instead of a just like a monster encounter.

Something is slowly seeping through for you.

At 1st it's kind of real. Subtle dreams repeat across

different characters. Spells feel off again.

Animals react badly to a certain location.

Nothing that screams Old One, just enough that the players

start comparing notes. That's where it becomes

important. You want them to realize, you

want them to come to a realization from the table of

the clues, not directly from you as the GM.

Once players start saying things like, wait, that happened to you

too, you kind of doing it right. So the cult structure, because

this is where most old one, old one adventurers kind of live.

Cultists should never feel like a single organization with

matching robes in a clean hierarchy.

Like they're going to a job at the office or something.

They're fractured, they're contradictory, they often wrong

about what they serve or what they do. 1 cult might believe

the old one is a God that will reward them.

Another one believes is forcing a cleansing of the world.

Another believes they're holding back by feeding it controlled

sacrifices. I it's all those can.

Them can be wrong, and that's fine, because the old ones

really don't care. That gives you a kind of

flexibilities. Players can wipe out one cult

cell and feel like they accomplished something while a

larger problem really remains on sale for them.

That keeps the momentum. That keeps the momentum without

resolving the threat. An Old Ones adventure works best

as situations and not really plots.

Something is happening, the players step into it, their

choices determine how bad it gets.

That's pretty much it. You don't need a a grand

prophecy. You don't need a chosen one.

You don't even need an end of a world timer for here.

You just kind of need pressure. A seal is weakening.

A ritual is being attempted. A corrupted site is expanding.

Players aren't there to win, they're to they're to make sure

things don't get worse. That reframes success.

Stopping a ritual halfway is a win.

Saving a town but losing a forest is also a win.

Sealing something imperfectly but buying time is also a win.

Palladium supports this kind of success better than most systems

because it doesn't assume clean outcomes.

Now let's talk about the magic users at the table, because all

one should scare them more than anyone else.

Wizards, Diabolis, Summoners, warlocks, These characters live

closest to the problem. Their abilities brush up against

the same forces that created the old ones.

That doesn't mean you punish them, it means you kind of show

them their limits. Spells might work, but they just

have a little bit weird vibe to them.

Or they just feel wrong. Circles might hold, but you

might feel a strain in the circle, which is weird.

Summoning might attract more attention than you intend.

This doesn't have to be mechanical every time.

Sometimes it's just a narrative feedback.

Summoner feels watched while drawing a circle.

A diabolis recognizes a symbol they really shouldn't know, or

they've never seen and just instantly knows.

A wizard dreams of a spell they've never ever learned or

knew about. These moments add weight without

taking agency away from players. Let's talk a little bit about

corruption, because this is one of the most underused tools in

the book. Old One.

Corruption doesn't need to turn characters into monsters.

It could be small, a faint mark that really never fades.

A reoccurring whisper at night, an irrational aversion to

certain places. Things that a player can role

play for their character. Things that don't break the

character, but add a little flavor or color to them.

And here's the key. Do not rush corruption.

Let it. Let it accumulate really slow.

Players should forget about it and then remember it when it

matters. That's how it stays creepy.

Travel. Because Old Ones make travel

worse in various specific ways. Regions touched by the Old Ones

don't have stronger monsters, they have unreliable reality

involved with them. Paths ship shift, excuse me,

Landmarks don't line up. Distances feel just wrong.

A mile could be 3 miles, an hour could be 5 minutes.

It's just weird. Warp things like that.

And this ties back to earlier episodes.

The world becomes a threat again, Camps don't feel safe,

rest doesn't feel restful, and again, dreams are intruded upon.

You don't need an encounter every night.

The uneased really does the work for you.

Do not over explain the old ones.

And I can't emphasize that enough.

I know I've said it before, but I can't emphasize that enough.

Ever. The moment you give them clean

motivations, clear goals, or tidy origins, you, you weak

them. You weaken them.

Let scholars argue, let cultists text contradict and let ancient

tones be incomplete or damaged. Players should never be sure if

they stopped the right thing for the right reason.

Endings, endings, endings because the old One stories end

differently. They don't end with the victory,

they end with survival. The seal holds, but barely.

The cult is broken, but the change, the damage of the change

that they made remains. The region is saved, but

changed. That's satisfying in a Palladium

way. It gives the world more history

when it comes to it when you're writing it down and fleshing out

your world. Players could point to a map and

say this isn't the right place anymore, we were there, but why

is it different? It seems odd and I think that's

better than treasure to be honest.

But that's just me. From a role-playing perspective,

as AGM, I'd rather have that than massive dumb combats or

just finding treasure. That's just OK.

More treasure. Yay Boo.

Because, you know, that's really just about it.

Let's just kind of bring this back in here.

The old ones give a setting depth.

They explain why magic is feared, why some knowledge is

lost, why certain regions get are avoided.

At times they give way to the summoners and the anabolists who

push the boundaries. They give meaning to restraint.

And most importantly, they remain.

They remind players that not everything exists.

To be fought somethings is just to be endured, and that's rare

in fantasy games. Palladium leans into that

instead of backing away from it. So if you've had book 2 old one

sitting on your shelf untouched, dust it off.

Give it a read. I mean like in depth.

Sit there with a cup of coffee or tea or beer or Scotch or

whatever your whiskey. I'm whiskey man myself and read

it over. When you're reading it over,

think about how you can use it in your campaign.

Also think that or remind yourself that these aren't

monsters. Their background pressure.

They're going to add mystery and consequence to your game.

Because when players realize they're staying on the edge of

something vast and uncaring, every decision suddenly matters

more for them. And that's where Palladium

Fantasy does its best work. So let's kind of stop right

here. We'll talk about something next

time. I'm not sure what we're going to

talk about. Hopefully you've been enjoying

these episodes of me going over certain things with Palladium

Fantasy Second Edition. You can head over to

railgunsanddragons.com is where our website is, where you can

just check out all the stuff that I've been writing on that

blog there, as well as catch up on old episodes.

All these episodes are available on various podcast platforms and

stuff like that. As well as I put them up on

YouTube. For those that like to listen to

them on YouTube, you can just go to youtube.com slash at Summoner

GM. That is the default place for

that. I don't expect that to do really

well because it's just going to be audio podcast and where they

call audiograms for YouTube and you can go there and listen.

You may like it there as well. Again, I am looking for a Co

host for this podcast. While I don't mind doing this

solo, I think a discussion podcast is a little bit more

interesting and that's how it started.

Unfortunately, I lost my Co host and I wanted to keep this

podcast going because I really enjoy the Palladium systems and

I think doing a podcast that people can listen to while

walking or doing dishes or whatever house chores or

whatever the heck they want to do, sitting at work, doing

something that is mind numbing. They want to listen to something

that might trigger an idea. These podcasts are just to

generate ideas for people out there.

If it sparks one idea and a person and they walk away

saying, huh, OK, then that's what this this podcast has done

its job. That's really the purpose of any

podcast that I've ever done in my life.

Not here to make money, not here for fame.

I'm just here to help out the GM or the player out there generate

ideas. So with that said, I'm going to

head out. Hopefully you have a great day.

Keep original, keep it old school.

Oh, and before I go, I'm going to do these once a week.

So don't expect more than once a week for these podcasts.

I'm going to try to release it every Wednesday, maybe early in

the morning or the afternoon depending on when it's done.

I'm going to try to record them ahead of time, but you can

always contact me at [email protected] for my

e-mail address for this podcast. For now, until I get a proper

e-mail address, I don't know if I'll get one or not.

But whatever, I'm gonna head out.

Keep original, keep it on school.

Goodnight and God bless everybody.

The Story