[Silent Titans] The Song of Dr. Hog and the Mouse Minigame

Silent Titans is a full package rpg adventure written by Patrick Stuart and illustrated by Dirk Detweiler Leichty. This is not a review but an attempt to participate in the creative triumph that I see Silent Titans is. It will not be easy to understand the following without reading the book. I urge you to purchase it. It is well worth your time. I don't think I will end up reviewing it, because I have overwhelmingly good things to say about it, though I might take a crack anyway.

The illustrious cover.

First off: the song of Dr. Hog. I feel like Dr. Hog and his Apes are perfect for a musical encounter. He has his clavichord and his apes wield Tommy Guns which puts me in a jazzy mood. So I would slightly tweak the encounter with Dr. Hog in Chronos' Skull. There would be an Ape dedicated to the saxophone and Dr. Hog would sing the following song, one stanza each Turn.

First Verse and Chorus:

I'm Doctor Hog and I'm here to say,
I'm gonna control your brains in a rather strange way,
You better find some dancing shoes, the best money can afford,
'Cause soon you will be dancing to my fungal clavichord!

You might think me crazy, might think me a loon,
But I like puttin' silver ants in the brains of a baboon.
You better hit the dance floor, because soon and very soooon,
You all will be tiptappin' to my hypnotisin' tune!

(Chorus)

At my doctor school, they thought it was a jape!
"You can't go stickin' fungus in the brains of an ape!"
But I'll prove 'em wrong, I'm gonna blow them all away,
'Cause today oh yes today, I will have my way!

(Chorus)

You might have bested me before, you might beat me today,
But my Dementia Bomb still brought your minds to disarray!
You will still be scum, still be meddlesome riffraff,
And one of these ever lovin' days, I will have the final laugh!

(Chorus)

I am no musician but this song ought to sound something like this. If anyone actually sings this to their players during this fight, bravo! I know I intend to.


The Mouse Game:

There is a minigame in Brom that has the player guiding a mouse through a maze. There is no actual maze outlined and the actual instructions for running this game are unclear. Four option are presented and each turn, the player is to select two options. These options generate coordinate and draw a line from one coordinate to the next. This is a rough sketch of the minigame and honestly you will find yourself just as confused reading the actual instructions. So I have written up some more precise instructions for the purposes of actually running this game.

Draw a six by six line grid. Conceal this from the players.

To begin the game, roll 2d6 and reveal the numbers rolled to the players. The first die is the longitudinal coordinate and the second is the latitudinal coordinate and this is true for all rolls to determine coordinates. Allow the players to hear that you are rolling dice, but do not reveal what dice you are rolling. Describe the numbers rolled as two numbers which appear on a split-flap display. Give a description approximating where the player's mouse currently appears on the "maze." For instance, you roll a 3 on your first die and a 4 on your second, thus the coordinates are (3,4). So you say "Your mouse is in the upper middle part of the maze."

Each Turn, a player must choose 2 options from the list below. Each Option is paired with a die. Conceal these dice from the players. These dice ought to be rolled, the first option giving the longitudinal coordinate, the second giving the latitudinal coordinate. Each turn, draw a line from the last coordinates to the next. Each Turn show them the coordinates on the display.

• Spatial Memory Alteration (1d2)
• Cheese Smell (1d3)
• Fear Directional (1d4)
• Fear Diffuse (1d6)

The goal is to create a loop. If the line ever goes back on itself or loops to a point other than the first, the player loses and is sent to the Wolf Multitude. If the same sets of coordinates are rolled twice, the player loses and is sent to Diagnosis. If the player successfully creates a loop, they are sent to the Reality Gallery.

The line and grid are concealed the whole time. The confusion is good and fits with the theme of Brom, plus the more the players are sent back to the Diagnosis room, the better, in my opinion. Constantly returning to the mental ward feels like a good fit for Brom.


I intend to write more stuff for Silent Titans. There is a wealth of material to build on. I will do a review/literary analysis of Titans at some point and I might try my hand at creating my own Titan. The format for each Titan seems like it would be fairly easy to replicate and the dungeons all follow a sort of pattern so it would be an interesting exercise.