Running Rultmoork: What GMs Need to Know

🧠 What GMs Need to Know Before Running Rultmoork

An essential briefing for Game Masters running Rultmoork, a deadly, duality-driven descent into the forgotten temple of Vasi.

1. Rultmoork is Deadly by Design

Rultmoork is described as a “challenging and deadly adventure intended for veteran players.” Characters will face complex puzzles, narrative-heavy moral decisions, and brutal combat encounters. The book even includes optional “Hardcore Mode” variants for many areas—raising the stakes for groups that crave high-lethality gameplay.

🔑 GM Tip: Consider session zero boundaries and party resilience. Ask your players if they want a gritty, unforgiving experience before diving in.

2. Themes of Duality Are Central

The entire adventure is built around recurring themes of duality: light and dark, flow and stagnation, life and death. These aren’t just story elements—they are mechanical, narrative, and environmental forces throughout the module.

The opposing magical forces of flow and stagnation shape:

• Creature behavior and form (e.g., cultists, flow conductors, Ylluliav).
• Environmental hazards (tainted vs. clean water, water clock mechanics).
• Player decisions and their impact on the world.

🔑 GM Tip: Reinforce this theme visually and narratively. When the party chooses to cleanse vs. corrupt, show how the environment and enemies react.

3. The Book Expects a Lot from the GM

Whilst running Rultmoork, several encounters demand thoughtful preparation and flexibility from the GM:

This adventure introduces unique mechanics—such as Grekian language puzzles, flow and stagnation tokens, and conditional item effects tied to relics like the sacred amphora or the tears of Vasi. New mechanics and elements shape how players interact with the world and must be well understood before play begins.

Some encounters change based on earlier choices or environmental triggers. For example, the party’s path forward can be drastically shifted if the flooding of the Water Clock Level isn’t properly anticipated.

The “Visions of the Past” segment add another layer of complexity: these scenes require switching between timelines and tracking player decisions that ripple from the past into the present.

🧠 Read Ahead: The module advises reading the entire book carefully before your first session. It’s crucial.

4. Session Structure is Flexible—but Demands Intentional Pacing

Rultmoork is modular. The party can begin at the base (the sealed dungeon) or the top (the cult-occupied ruins). Starting at either location gives the GM a chance to shape the campaign’s flow, but this also means one could lose pacing if not prepared.

The book’s layout supports this flexibility:

• Optional “Vision Quest” prologue
• Surface vs. dungeon-first exploration
• Split paths between Clepsydra reactivation and dungeon delving

🔧 GM Prep Tip: If you want to open with discovery, combat, or lore, you can front load story (Visions), exploration (Mountain Hike), or interaction (Cult of Still Waters).

5. Tone Matters—Run It Like a Slow-Burn Mystery-Horror

While Rultmoork has combat, its greatest strength lies in its atmosphere: decayed grandeur, haunting repetition, and creeping dread. Ylluliav Vleckmar is the core antagonist, a tragic figure rooted in sorrow and twisted faith, not typical villainy.

Moments of discovery—finding a forgotten altar, recovering a relic, translating a rune—are just as important as any battle.

🌒 GM Cue: Use slow tension builds, eerily quiet scenes, and symbolic callbacks (water, tears, stagnation) to immerse your players in the setting.

Final Thoughts

If you’re looking for a one-shot dungeon crawl, this isn’t it. Rultmoork is best suited for GMs and groups who want a deep, thematic, and haunting adventure with real consequences and layers of mystery to uncover.

Take the time to understand its systems. The payoff of running Rultmoork is a campaign that lingers long after the final tear of Vasi falls.