Grogmeat 2026

Grogmeat 2026 returned for its 10th year or is 9th?  in Manchester. Our venue for the weekend was the the Brickhouse student venue adjacent Oxford Road station. Despite yellow and amber weather warnings that majority of Grogs  managed to make it to the Northwest England’s second city.

The venue was a little chilly and had illumination challenges but it was wonderful to not have to do the cross manchester dash that has been a feature of other grogmeets. It also served pleasant pizzas and the staff were very accommodating . 

To be fair all GMs had been warned of the lighting issues but most, myself included forgot to provide extra lighting. 

So to the gaming ! 

 A crack’d and Crook’d Manse 

The first scenario was big beard Stef running a hack of a classic called Cafu haunted house mystery.  A bunch of Miskatonic university academics were accompanied by a private eye to attempt to recover books from an abandoned house. In the course of our investigation we may have uncovered what happened to the Arrington investigator who abandoned the property well we have done, but largely we bickered we split up I managed to get myself caught in a cellar with a monster it wasn’t pretty.  After a lot of fun it ended with a suitably ominous horrific ending. Splendid stuff with a great GM and players. 

UNIT: Terror on the Aberdeen to Penzance Express

Operation Kazan – UNIT boards the Aberdeen to Penzance train on which a mysterious infection has broken out and have to deal with the Cornish and Highland Terrorists aboard. While the SAS and scientists on train deal with the infection a investigation team at HQ hunts down leads to help them.  Each player had one character on the assault/rescue team and one on the investigation team. 

I ran this and my assembled players threw themselves into this with gusto dealing with the transformative illness, rowdy passengers, attenpting wierd science while tracking down leads about various groups on the train.  And they saved the day though SAS was taken out by terrorists (the player took on a passenger) and other subject to infection. 

There were easter eggs for Horror Express, the Cassandra Crossing, Who Dares Wins, Plague of the Zombies, The Reptile, Local hero, Ghost story for christmas: the ice box,  pink gins and googlies, Cranford and The Archers (i think thats all of them.)

Elite Level Sport / 2am club 

Then there wss revels and much conversation ending in elite level sport (air hockey) into the wee hourrs. 

A Very Peculiar University 

With some irony the next morning my first game was more Cuthulhu set in the ironic drama comedy of a very peculiar practice run by a medic and an academic in the person of our GM. Talk about busman’s holiday.  I played a nun whom I decided had taken a vow of silence – a concept that would have struggled on a virtual table top but gadly worked really well. We uncovered sinister goings on in the new free enterprise student therapy on campus and saved the day. Even Bob Buzzard came through.

I will say this game had a scene which is the closest I’ve come to tapping a x-card – not in a bad way. It wasn’t gore or anything but a mentally ill patient trying to bargain to be released when they clearly were not well. I am glad i did not tap the card because in a game with some silly element it really raised the stakes of the horror. 

Putney Princess

Next stop 1944 Normandy Rob had put together a WW2 scenario where our socialist tank crew were ccommanded into enemy territory to destroy and if impossible recover the occukt library of (Denis Wheatley’s) Duc d’Richelieu.

Rob had 12mm models of our churchill tank and German opponents with watercolour painted battlemaps he’d done. The system for operationg the tank was close to what i’d developed for watership hull down using black hack. 

We faces moral dilemmas that ultimately split our crew and led to PvP TPK. All the PCs were based on a post war labour Prime Minister so it was very easy to get into our roles.

Great stuff and we all got a model tank my Putney Princess sits alongside my ‘watership hull down’ Bigwig 

4am club 

More carousing – I may be getting too old for this.

Morpcon – Shadow over Saint Vivyan

A WH40k scenario where I was a bodyguard for auditors for a corporate syndicate. Each character had a secret agenda.  Our glorious leader Alar played with considerable gusto by Andrew was an officious bully on the take. I was on the run and looking to find an escape. 

As we got settled in at the quiet town which produced immortality serum for the Empire avoiding the local deadly wildlife and scamming the locals we started to find it a little too perfect. All ending with conspiracy scarey monsters, bretrayal, an attempted fragging and my character having her  brain eaten.

A couple of pints and a leisurely move to the wrong Manchester railway station resulted in a fat man dash across the City and just grabbing my right train. 

All in all a wonderful convention and great to see friends old and new – just a shame its back to reality now.