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Post by bryce0lynch on Oct 29, 2020 4:34:39 GMT -6
D&D and Philosophy, at Existential Comics, is one of my favorite series. There are five or six of them. Kant: "So you aren't going to attack with me because you want to pretend you don't know what 'evil' means?" existentialcomics.com/comic/23
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Post by bryce0lynch on Oct 14, 2020 14:39:06 GMT -6
Level 1 of The Darkness Beneath in Fight On! magazine.
If it whimsical and folklorish, the way OD&D should be. Terse, evocative writing with lots of interactivity and surprises.
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Post by bryce0lynch on May 19, 2020 12:51:01 GMT -6
Isn't it academically possible that a quantum event could cause a sperm whale to materialize 100' feet in the air right now?
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Post by bryce0lynch on May 18, 2020 11:21:05 GMT -6
Speaking an an impartial observer ...
Generally, the only response to critical feedback should be either "Thank you for your feedback" or something along the lines of "Can you help me understand why you said X ..." This goes for food, movie, or any type of review. Other types of responses tend to indicate, IMO, an over-investment or defensiveness.
Should you do otherwise then one of two things are likely to happen. 1) Nothing. The critic has moved on with their life. The way you should. 2) The critic responds, at length, picking apart the rebuttal. Assuming the critic had their reasons, and that their reasons are based on thousands of reviews, this is likely to be a quite well supported response. The creator tends to not come off well in these exchanges, be they video games, food, movies, other forms.
If you do respond you should write it, work on it, and let it sit for a bit and reedit before you post. This will help with both emotional arguments and to help with a well-reason argument.
The playing field is uneven. The creator may have done a handful of works. The reviewer likely has seen thousands. This doesn't mean, at all, that the reviewer is CORRECT, but it does mean that the reviewer probably has had more time and opportunity to fashion their arguments.
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Post by bryce0lynch on Feb 20, 2020 8:50:22 GMT -6
Can someone, hopefully, help me remember the name of a blog I can't remember?
I seem to remember a blog that described each session of an RPG game, it was something that like a UFP spaceship and they were visiting Carcosa. Or something like a UFP spaceship and something like Carcosa.
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Post by bryce0lynch on Feb 6, 2020 7:55:16 GMT -6
5 - Dino Riders of the Bleakmarsh!
Date The 23rd/24nd of Reaping, a Friday/Saturday.
Players Karen - Fighter - Level 2 Harley - Halfling - Level 2 Melark - Magic User - Level 1 Charley - Magic User - Level 1
Hirelings (all played by PC's) Nargax the heavy footman (second expedition), an army vet, ramrod straight Werdic the heavy footman (second expedition), last survivor of a murder spree in his monastery. Bardoon, the light footman, who likes to stab things The Broken Shield - Mercenary company of 6 heavy footmen with special tactics: Wade, Jax, Louis, Oscar, Templeton, Hanibal
Adventure Log Waking up in The Silver Swan, the party resolved to burn a day so Melark could use his magic powers to read the stone tentacle tablet. Doing so, he discovered a ritual that would, with a sacrifice and time, allow him to summon a malign being from another dimension! This gave the party pause ... given the gold and objects they were uncovering, they needed someplace safe to keep everything, and the miners guild just wasn't going to cut it. They set out to find a place to buy and hit the Heifer to let their hirelings know they were leaving tomorrow instead of today, also finding time to stock up on supplies for their next expedition. Finally, they spoke to Furby some, who they had smuggled in to the inn. He told them tales of The Last Resort in the lower caves, as well as the Reptilemen and how they rode dinosaurs in to battle and had war lances! Harley had to see it! They also noted that the gold & ruby necklace had an inscription from a Malvoy, from the castle on the hill, and mentioned the third member of the wizards guild in town, Aristide, the one who had not attended a dinner party for several hundred years ...
The next day they gathered their men at the Heifer, as the bartender yelled out "Odds Change!" when they entered. There were groans from the other patrons. Leaving the gates they were ignored by the guards and fifteen minutes later came to Franks place. Pounding on the door they heard Frank's woman screeching at him to get up and answer the door. (It was 9:30am? Don't farmers get up early?) There was a crash from inside, no more screeching, and Frank answered the door. Charley bought a couple of flasks of beet juice from him, as a curative, which he retrieved from inside. Meanwhile Harley negotiated to use Franks AirBnB to house Furby. The plan was that Furby would stay with Frank for a few days until they party could escort him to Monta-town in the Prison of the Silken Caliphate ... it was getting too hot in town for Furby to stay there with any reasonable guarantee of safety. Frank rented the party his empty shirt-filled pigsty for 50cp a night, and then tried to jack up the price when he saw it was a monster/freak that was going to stay there. Furby understood that Frank was his new slave master, and off the party went to the Bleakmarsh, after Frank reminded the party that he was the forefront of civilization that was coming to the region. A man of the earth!
Another blast of mist erupted from the sinkhole, and then the party went down the wide stone ramp, no longer as afraid, with all their henchmen in tow. They explored the two areas to the south, where they had heard battle sounds their first trip in. They found only old blood, broken spears, and in some places crab carapaces. Triangulating from heir map, they determined that the crab-men and the reptilemen must meet in these hallways, from the location of the sloping tunnels, and do battle. Not ready to go down deeper, they went back to the room near the Cousin It's where the heard the raucous party. Entering, they found nothing but shirt, vomit, piss, and blood scattered among old hay. As they searched the room Bardoon, their lookout, called out "Creatures!" Having seen the Bardoons torch in the dark, a group of four reptilemen were coming down the hallway! They were currently making their way around a pit in the hallway so Charley chucked a flask of oil at one side, causing one of them to slip and fall in to the pit! The reptilemen came on, screeching their terrible shrieks! The henchmen stood firm, forming a semi-circle around the door to the room, luring the reptilemen in, where they were quickly dispatched. Searching, the party found some chunks of gold, amulets, on leather thongs around their necks, and they retrieved a fourth one from the one who fell in the pit and died.
They moved onward, to the door they could not open. Charley offered a gold coin to the hench who could chop the door down, so they set to blunting their blades before Harley stopped them. The door would have to wait. They returned then to the green mist hallway, the last place on this level they had not now explored. Massive amounts of oil were deployed, and the mist burned away. One by one they went through the hallway, stacking up at the door at the far end. First Harley. Then Karen. Then the next one ... and while that happened Karen, afraid of getting caught int he mist again, opened the door.
This time she saw a 6 foot tall androgynous emerald green guy with the most beautiful blue eyes she had ever seen. She promptly turned around and stabbed Harley. Harley, screaming, ran back down the hallway as Karen went through the door and closed it! The party ran down the hallway, threw open the door, and stacked up in the hallway beyond, Harley and Bardoon leading the way. Two stairways, both leading down, one on either end of the hallway. Karen was calling for help at the bottom; she was tied up! And there was a pile of treasure! Hurry and free her before the green guy returned! Charley hesitated. He could see a pentagram in the corner of the room, glowing white ... what to do? While hesitating, Werdic cried out! The creature was behind him! He had come up the other stairs! Fire erupted form his blue eyes, narrowly missing the party! The hallway was cramped! It was hard to get to him past their comrades! Bardoon and Charley ran in to the room at the bottom of the stairs to come up behind him! And Bardoon was quickly stabbed by Karen as he ran in, she had been hiding beside the doorway! But she, being Karen, missed! Bardoon continued, running up behind the green guy and stabbing! Charley looked deep in to Karen's eyes and, casting a spell, freed her from her enchantment! He gave er a bottle of Franks "beet juice", quickly learning that it was a ctually a bottle of Franks piss. Oh that rapscallion Frank! Meanwhile Melark took out the first sized orange gem. Warm to the touch. Unstable magic. He fired a blast of flame ... burning off the left side of the emerald guys face! Another round and he chanced it again, this time catching him full on and vaporizing the left side of his head, his brain falling out on to the floor ... before he vanished! Melark cackled at the power at his fingertips ... well, until the emerald guy appeared in one of the two pentagrams in the room, still blackened and missing a brain! Fixing his bright blue eyes, deep set in a horribly burned face, at Charley ... fire erupted and consumed Charly and his 2hp! The emerald man vanished again, reappearing in the other pentagram, only to vanish once more. Freaked out over the loss of Charley, the party quickly rummaged through a huge pile of gear on the floor, the loot from countless hobo's that had previously fallen victim to the emerald man. Coins, gear, fine silk cloaks ... and a slender wooden stick with a door on the end, right out of 1313 Deadend Drive ... a little plastic frame and little door that opened. Some kind of wand, they supposed. Maybe it opens doors? And a man, a priest, tied up. Ardic he was called, and he was quickly welcomed as a fellow full-share friend! They quickly regrouped and retreated, before the emerald man came back.
It was still early, so they set out to the tunnel of the reptilemen, venturing in to a deeper level. After a sloping tunnel down they found a cave chamber set with spears, wood, stone, metal, covered with human skulls, dinosaur skulls, arms and legs of various creatures. The stench was terrible! "Scarecrows" remarked Melark. Two passages west, one with a little shelf drop down and one with flowstone leading down, and a passage to the south, where they could also see a side passage to the west. Taking the northernmost of the west passages, Karen, leading the way, put her foot in a small hole filled with punji stakes! Only her plate mail footwear saved her! Continuing down the dark cave passage, lit only by their torches, they came to another long chamber. Exits to the north, west, and south, but the chamber empty. They started north ... but then ...
"Monsters!" shouted Nargax from the rear! Turning, they saw four dinosaurs charging at them, being ridden by Reptilemen with stone lances! They were bottled up in the hallway again! Nargax, faithful Nargex, vet of many war campaigns, a solid and stoic member, went down, stabbed by a reptileman lance and then bitten in half by a dinosaur! Aiieee! Aieee!! The party tried to maneuver, to bring their numbers to bear! It was too cramped! But, lucky hits dismounted one reptileman rider, his mount turning lethargically away. And Bardoon! Mighty Bardoon, eager to stab, and rejecting spears so he could see the light fade from someones eyes when he stabbed them ... he went down also, slain by a reptilemans lance! Regrouping, the party concentrated on the reptilemen, slaying one dinosaur mount and the rest of the reptilemen.
This was rough. Charley dead. Nargax bit in half. Bardoon now forever in his happy stabby place. Malark tried to ride a dinosaur but it would not respond to him. The party, having had enough, retreated, with several of their henchmen having sullen faces. They returned to town.
Only to find Franks place looking a lot better! Furby was working the fields hard with Frank nearby, cracking a whip! They chastised Frank, even though he said he was just cracking the whip AROUND him, not ON him. Furby seemed happy, he was fed and Frank gave him some whiskey. They told Frank no more cash, since Furby was working that was the payment for his AirBnB. They paid the gate guards their 10% tax on loot, again getting an official receipt.
A somber day. Several dead. Several with their morale broken.
Deaths Charley - Burned to a crisp by a nude androgynous green guy with blue eyes Nargax - Bitten in half by a dinosaur mount Bardoon - Stabbed in the chest by a reptileman lance
Loot & XP 1 Dino Mount 7 Reptilemen 1 Nude androgynous green guy with blue eyes 5 gold nuget amulets (50gp) 2 silk cloaks, with giants eyeballs on the back in red thread (50gp each) 100pp 1500sp 330gp Wand of something having to do with doors Scroll with 2 holy spells that allows the holy man to remove a curse and find lost objects
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Post by bryce0lynch on Jan 30, 2020 9:47:17 GMT -6
4 - The Broken Shield delivers! Date The 22nd of Reaping, a Thursday. Players Karen - Fighter - Level 1 Harley - Halfling - Level 1 Melark - Magic User - Level 1 Hirelings (all played by PC's) Nargax the heavy footman (second expedition), an army vet, ramrod straight Gygar the light footman. (second expedition) Werdic the heavy footman (second expedition), last survivor of a murder spree in his monastery. The Broken Shield - Mercenary company of 6 heavy footmen with special tactics: Wade, Jax, Louis, Oscar, Templeton, Hanibal Adventure Log The Silver Swan was mostly still asleep while the party trotted over to the Hurling Heiffar with Melark, now recovered from the dysentary of his encounter with the Wizards Supper Club three weeks earlier, but with Charlie nowhere to be seen. The Heiffar was in full swing already at 8am; their heavy time being the evenings when expeditions get back through early morning when they leave again. Nargax, Werdic, and Gygar were hired for another day. Also hired were a company of heavy footman: The Broken Shield. Specializing in group tactics, they were expensive but the party rationalized they would be able to tackle the stirred by reptilemen in the Bleakmarsh if they were hired. Leaving the town gates, Ed the gate guard was happy to see them again and inquired about their friend they brought in a few days ago. Clancy said they wouldn't come back and he was dumb to let them in but he knew they would come back! He asked how much treasure they had brought in on all of those large sacks of coins Stickyfingers was laying on and Karen told him 500cp. The tax being 5sp, a clerk came out and gave them an official receipt with wax seal and entered the details in to the log. Enquiring further of Ed, it seems that a personal retinue of the kings taxmen showed up in town about three weeks ago, there being rumors that the local nobility, the Malvoys in the castle up on the hill, had not been as diligent as they could have been. As they left, his buddy Clancy tore in to him, asking him why he had to be like that, chatting up everyone who passed through ... Passing by Franks place they were verbally assaulted by him, wanting a SP to clean up the blood, vomit, and shirt that their friend left the last time they were there. They talked him down to 4cp, and were almost sold a fresh locally sourced heirloom beet for the price of 1sp, about 100 times what it was worth. Oh to be rich and have no concept of how much money is actually worth! They hit the sinkhole after a large cloud of mist erupted. At the bottom they found the body of the older boy (~12) they had escorted out a couple of days ago. He had been gnawed upon. They had no idea why he was there. They explored north, finding a wondrous site: a waterfall that was flowing backwards, water crashing from a pool in to the ceiling and flowing out through a gap 30' above! Karen took a look in to the water, it was too deep to see in to and the shore dropped away quickly. [Side note: good lighting effects in Marengo cave in Missouri create weird optical illusions with the water. A must see!] As she looked in she saw some eyes. Attached to a GIANT frog. Who surfaced. And breathed gas on her, she being evidently momentarily stunned in to not reacting to all of the warning signs like: you see eyes, attached to a giant frog, that surfaces, and opens it's mouth. It's tongue snapped out and attached to her, dragging her in to the pool! Not to worry though, The Broken Shield sprung in to action! Templeton and Wade run up and grabbed Karen by the shoulders, dragging her back while the other four, in a synchronized ballet, ran run, surrounded the frog, and stabbed in unison, killing it! Hiring these guys was starting to see like a good idea! Harley stripped off his armor and a rope was tied to him, a couple of people holding it, while the hirelings spread out to guard the many exits from the room ... including two on either side of the pool that sloped down quite steeply ... Harley jumped in, and swam UP the waterfall, surveying the passage above, it being not really workable to explore further. He dived back down in to the pool, and saw a small chest in the water! They got it out with rope after he dove in again, finding it sealed with wax! Just then, Gygar yelled out "Something coming up from down below!" Two pale looping humanoids, covered in sores, leaped upon Gygar, knocking him down! One clawed at his chest, ineffectually while the second ended up knocking the first off his chest! The entire group surround them and quickly dispatched them, but Gygar had been hurt bad. He was still up, but only had 1hp left. He soldiered on! The small coffer went in to a Karens backpack. Traveling south, and west, they found a cave chamber with a ball of flame that was rolling around on the ceiling of the room, leaving char marks on the ceiling and the tops of the walls. Not being able to figure out how to exploit it, they moved on down a long and wide cave passage leading west. Coming to a crossroads, they found two small children poking some decaying bodies with sticks! It was the other young boy from a few days ago, the brother of the now-dead one, about 8. With him has a 2 year old, his younger brother. After they came home with all the silver their dad sent them back for more. Frankie & Brad were scared, and got separated from their older brother. Could the party help find him? Gygar, being nearly dead, was tasked with escorting them back to the surface, it being only about twenty minutes away ("Just enough time for a wandering monster check", thinks the DM ...) The west crossroads went on about 200' further, ending in a dead end. The north has a small chamber full of rags and, searching, they found a stone tablet. It had strange creepy writing on it that no one could read, as well as a pictograph of a humanoid being rubbed on by a group of tentacles. Loot! Although they knew not what to do with it. To the south, after another long cave passage, they found a small pool of water, a spring, with small mushrooms growing around it. Huddled up next to it, in a fetal position muttering softly to itself, but a large humanoid covered in verdant green leaves, just like they saw in Monta-town. It was in bad shape, it's nose cut off, scarred by many intricate knife cuts, and deep lash and whip marks. Malark figured out it spoke hobgoblin after Harler calmed it down with food and soft words. It's name was Furby and it escaped a few days earlier from "Salicia", down deeper. It's friends had all been killed in a party Friday night, it then having escaped "Salicia" on Sunday. It had been a slave to the reptilemen and briefly worked as a day laborer at "The Last Resort" a nice place, Furby said, also down deeper. A bar, tavern, etc, run by a human. They took Furby with them as they continue exploring. They headed back to the entrance room, this part of the cave system being played out. Only to find, in the entrance room, the bodies of the two young children, and Gygar! They had been butchered, some of their organs and meat being removed as if they were cattle! Oops! (Looks like the DM rolled a 1 on that wandering monster check ...) Before the party was the misty hallway, stretching to the west. With the newfound confidence imparted by the mass of hirelings, they headed that way. Unlike all of the other passages, this was not a cave. It was worked stone, inlaid massive blocks of limestone. 30' tall and 30' wide, the floor worn smooth with countless traffic. They headed in to the mist ... only to find, about 100 feet down it, that the mist was coming from a bubbling pool of water that had formed along a collapsed section of wall/floor. They looked, and saw nothing. The hallway was sloping down a bit, and the mist was, inexplicably, lighter in that direction. They continued. Another 200' and the massive avenue ended! There were two massive brass doors, inlaid with scenes, to the west, ending the hallway, as well as two smaller normal doors, one to the north and one to the south. The massive doors had art deco fairytale scenes, light woods, meandering streams and creeks, and fairy tale knight from French romances complete with pennants and banners riding their chargers about. There did seem to be an unusual number of bridges in the scenes, and the knights always seemed to be riding towards the bridges in all of the little vignettes. They tried to open the doors and failed. Furby looked horrified; The Citadel of the Dark Masters, he pleaded with them! The decided that wasn't their thing and gave up on the massive doors, instead heading north. Coming to a T they went west, passing a short side passage that ended in a door. There was some raucous noise coming from behind it, A LOT of creatures being noisy, Malark identifying a few hobgoblin words now and then. The avoided it, continuing west, past a pit trap to turn in the hallway that ended in a room. What a room! In the middle was a suite of plate mail armor on an armor stand and two-handed sword on a stand next to it! More importantly, right the threshold were a Cousin It and a few of the smaller verdant green leaf creatures. All of which were lying in a huge pool of blood, all of them being neatly cut in half. Some experimentation with a 10' pole yielded two 5' poles and the observation that there were some blades that swung from the ceiling, lighting fast and razor sharp, when the threshold was crossed. Karen offered 5gp to any hireling who would crawl under them, since the blades only came down about 2' from the floor. Templeton, from The Broken Shield, accepted the challenge, after some razzing from his buddies. His friends held his beer while he crawled under them, avoiding the blades! He looked back and gave a Thumbs Up sign ... and then a second set of blades were triggered, these being offset away from the first by a few feet! *Schlock* went his hand! He was pulled back and bandaged. "Chicks dig scars!" he noted, while getting many slaps on the back from his Broken Shield buddies. He then crawled BACK in to the room to get his hand, as a momento, coming back again! Everyone in The Broken Shield had a newfound respect for Templeton. The party went back to the T, again avoiding the noisy creature room. Walking down a short hallway they avoided a tripwire with cans and jars in a net on the ceiling, a crude alarm. Going through the door at the end they say a room with a fountain and two albino rats, normal sized rats, frolicking in it, one having a copper piece in its mouth. The eastern part of the room was full of crates, barrels, and two sets of bunk beds. Harley and Karen entered further, everyone else huddling around the doorway. Harley say a Cousin It laying on the floor, behind some crates. He tried to parley, but the Cousin It pulled a rope, causing a ceiling note by the fountain to fall, which Harley leapt out of the way of! It jumped up and pulled out a wicked double-bladed battleaxe! Karen and Harley entered combat, killing it almost immediately! And as they did so Nargax, bodyguard of Malark who usually brought up the rear, cried out! Two more were in the hallway behind them! The party entered the room, forming a semicircle around the door, drawing them in, and then slaughtering one! The other made a fighting retreat down the hallway, yelling over his shoulder "Breeyark! Breeyark!" The Broken Shield, advancing down to kill it, yelled out that there was secret door! Killing the Cousin It, they found that the secret door led BACK in to the room they were just in, the Cousin It's using to to get behind the party! Pretty Sneaky Sis! Going back to the bronze doors, they headed through the south door. Coming to a portcullis, they raised it up. This section, and the northern section, again being of worked stone, unlike the rest of the caves. In fact, this room was COVERED in bas reliefs, every wall surface, showing lizard-like men with elegant features, almost elf-like, frolicking with dinosaurs. They heading out the only exit, to the south. Avoiding a pit, they came to a door the the hallway ended at. They pounded at it HARD but it wouldn't budge a micron. They gave up and returned to the pit, finding that, at the bottom, there was a hallway running east and west. Going west, the came to a room with four statues. Three were of lizard-like men with elegant features, in alcoves on the north, west, and south walls. In the center of the room as a fourth statue, of a small crocodile with yellow eyes in a "pool" of rocks. Harley, searching, found the the western statues could be turned, releasing a secret door behind it. Looking in they saw a small landing and then a VERY steep set of stairs going down. Almost ladder-like in their steepness. They closed the door and headed east from the pit bottom. They came to a set of stairs, going up, that ended in a blank wall. It was obvious there should be a door there, so they searched until they found it. Another room, with an exit on the north, covered in carvings! But this time the lizard-like men looked more reptillian, and were casting spells and using magic while they played with the dinosaurs! Heading through the door they fond another similar room, but they looked even more lizard-like and were casting even more powerful spells. There was also a fist sized orange gem in the middle of the room, taking precautions they retrieved it, Karen noting that looking in to it she could see a raging inferno of fire. And not that "Hearts on Fire" valentine day ring fire either, but a real raging fire! They headed through the north door. More carvings covering the walls. Even more lizard-like and almost no elf features at all. And they were casting VERY powerful spells, like blowing up stars in the sky spells. In fact, they found a secret door behind that scene, opening in to a hallway that full of a pale green mist. It wasn't flammable, but they soon discovered that throwing oil in it and lighting it did cause the mist to burn out somewhat. Karen took a deep breathe and ran the length, 501, crashing through a door at the end! She found a short hallway, with a set of stairs going down on either end. It now being 6 hours inside, they decided they needed to return to town, since it was getting late and "No one returns from the Bleakmarsh after dark" Karen fell asleep as she returned down the hallway, but was retrieved and slapped awake after ten minutes. They made they way back to the entrance uneventfully, and avoided Frank yelling at them. They had nothing to declare to the gate guards, a cursory search not looking in the backpack with the coffer, and paid 1GP for all of them to enter. Returning to the Singing Swan, Harley used his local contacts to get in tough with Fast Eddy to unlock the small chest. He was out of place in the Swan, so they went to the alley out back, Eddy unlocking the coffer for them. As he started to open it both Harley and Karen, immediately and in unison, slapped the lid down with Harley dismissing Eddy. Eddy, looking straight at Karen, asked her if she ever had any friends that only wanted her for her pickup truck and didn't want to hang out or even have a beer together after loaning it? Eddy was given an extra gp. Back in their rooms they got ready for a fight and opened it ... finding a MAGNIFICENT delicate gold necklace with HUGE rubies. It had an inscription: To my darling Malvoy, from Aristide." Noting this was the name of the local noble family, they decided they would have to be careful "pawning" it. A quick trip to Drez the Unspeakable's tower, the host for Malarks supper club party a few days earlier, revealed only three members of the local Wizards Guild/Supper Club/Dinner Parties: Drez, Malark (who just joined) and "Aristide", who hadn't come to one in a couple of hundred years now. He id'd the necklace as just being a necklace and the gem as magical, offering to take it off their hands. They declined, deciding he was low-balling them, even though he DID say he's cast minor spells for cost if they did. They wrapped up and headed to bed at the Singing Swan. Deaths Gygar the light footman - Died off screen escorting two small children back to the surface. Butchered by killers and remains placed in stone cairn by party. This was his second expedition with the party. Loot & XP Giant Mutated Frog 2 pale mangy looping pouncing humanoids 3 Cousin It's Intricate gold & ruby necklace (5000gp) with a inscription To my darling Malvoy, from Aristide. Stone tablet with strange writing and picture of tentacles rubbing on a humanoid figure Fist sized orange gem that can erupt with fire bolts, but is unstable ... wodenswander.blogspot.com/2020/01/4-broken-shield-delivers.html
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Post by bryce0lynch on Jan 23, 2020 8:58:31 GMT -6
Players Karen - Fighter - Level 1 Harley - Halfling - Level 1 Charley - Magic User - Level 1
Adventure Log Karen and Charley, having met outside the tower of Drez the Unspeakable, looked over their newfound treasure map from the last excursion. Back at the Singing Swan, while consulting with Harley, it seemed easy enough. Just four rooms in to the Prison of the Silken Caliphate there was a note of Treasure, with the word LOTS underlined three times. Simple enough, right? Plus, they had stirred up the reptillians in the Bleakmarsh and wanted some time for things to settle down. Karen also needed an extra day of rest to heal up.
Off they went to the Hurling Heifer. There seemed to be much anticipation by the bar patrons, the place already packed at 8am, as drunks and layabout hobos will do. Baited breaths abound as Karen and Harley walked through the door ... and then sighs and cheers as Charley walked through ... and Rado and Aramil did not. Karen took to the table and the recruitments began! Werdic the heavy footman was hired; he was the last survivor of murder spree in a monastery and took up a life as a hired man after that. Nargax was hired, a stoic heavy footman who called everyone Sir and stood at attention a lot. Bardoon the light footman was hired also; an ex-bodyguard with a desire to "stab things again." Gygar the bowman was the last of the crew hired. Charkley pulled out some magic daggers to sell, and while most of the patrons ignored him, one elf, from a table of hard living men in the back corner approached. He was very interested in the magic wares. Wanting to know what it did, and if Charley used it, and what spell Charley had memorized. Charley noted "Fireball" in response, once an offer to teach Power Word: Kill was offered by the elf, Denkel. Supplies were obtained and the crew set out to the Northwest, to the Prison of the Silken Caliphate, in haste lest the patrons of the Heiffer ambush them. As they left, more wagers by the patrons were made ...
They followed the river for two hours, speaking of the places nearby. The Well of Souls, rumored home of the demonlord Orcus, and it's infested wilderness. Zelkors Ferry, to the north of the Well, and rumored to be an easier entrance to the Well. The Black Maw, site of where the dawns first light touched the earth. The Bleakmarsh, site of their first two expeditions. The Barrowfield, home to countless barrows ... and the undead. Overlooking it all was the corrupted Castle, Xentillan, home of the local bandit lords/rulers: the family Malvey.
They found the side trek to Prison and followed it, finding a slot canyon a few hundred feet deep, sealed off by a wall. It had a tunnel through the center to get in to the canyon and a collapsed section to the north and south they could climb over. Harley scouted the tunnel, only to find murder holes. The ones to the north side of the tunnel he saw nothing ... and ran back quickly when the ones to the south had the sounds of moans and rattling chains! They proceeded over the rubble to the north to gain entry to the canyon, not taking the tunnel.
Inside the canyon were several ruined building foundation, covered with weeds. There were worked stone entrances to the canyon walls to the north and south, as well as a cave on each side higher up. A great steaming pool of water, from a waterfall, was deeper in, as well as another cave and another worked stone entrance. And, of course, the great arch, 20' wide, in the shape of a demon mouth: the main entrance to the Prison of the Silken Caliphate. Gygar took a shot at a cute little bunny on a tree stump, only to miss. The bunny didn't move. They decided to avoid it and, finding a statues of a heavily armored man, kneeling on one knee, in one of the ruined foundations, Charley knelt also, and then had Bardoon kneel, both to no effect.
The took to the entrance and quickly found it ended in a small room with a wide staircase going down, the walls covered in graffiti. "Karl was here" "So were the Shining Shields!" and other graffiti as well, in crude hand, in an unfamiliar alphabet. The treasure map was consulted, a marching order obtained, and down they went. And down. And down. 100'. To the bottom.
Decay and mold assaulted their noses as they entered the first room from the stair. Five exits, but the map indicated the one to the southwest. Karen opened the door, to find a room with skeletons on the flood, and old dried bloodstains. They entered and Bardoon was instructed to smash the skeleton skulls with a hammer. He did one. Then a second. Then a HUGE wind picked up in the room and a booming voice shouted "Fools! Flee before your bones rest here forever!" with a sinister booming laugh following. Bardoon, scared, was given a magic ring by Charley, and instructed to rub it when he was scared and it would make him not scared ... but warned to never do it twice in a row or he would go blind ...
Nothing happening, Karen lifted a rusty portcullis to the west, as their map indicated, and Bardoon spiked it open. They found a T, with one side having a door with a wheel carved in to it, inlaid with charcoal. But the map indicated the north passage. As the neared the northern door great rat squeeks were heard behind them. Oil was laid out on the floor quickly and, as a HORDE of giant rats turned the corner in their direction they lit it! One made it through, quickly killed, and two turned back and ran away (strangely, causing the Voice In the Room to once again threaten the rats with fooldom) the rest taken by the sudden flames. The hallway, stinking of bloated rat and burned hair, was left in favor of the door to the north, as the map indicated. Inside they found a fountain, dry, with carvings of leaping fish. They threw a copper piece in, to no effect and headed out the western door, as the map indicated.
Coming to a crossroads they saw a cave to the north, with a strange green glow coming from it, and another room to the west. To the south they found another portcullis, closed, and a hallway with four doors on each side, ending in a door, just as their map indicated. Karen raised the bars again and, once again, it was spiked open. The map said the door to the south ... but temptation was too much. Karen investigated one of the doors, trying to open it. It would not budge. Turning to leave, suddenly voices were heard behind the door. Moaning. Pounding on the door. Loud. And then from another door. And another. And then a voice, in a dry whisper. "Is someone there?" repeating itself. And another voice, also dry "Bob, is that you?" The voice pleaded to be let out, for the door to be broken down. They were exploring yesterday and were trapped inside, with the door closing behind them. Help, please! The heartless party ignored them, going through the southern door.
To find a chapel, and home of the secret room with the loot! Vaulted ceiling, the alter made up of bones! And, on the wall, a great inlay of bones making up a 7' diameter Grinning Skull. Charley lit some incense and placed it on the alter. And then started laughing hysterically! Karen responded by destroying the alter, smashing it with the magic sword Illuminator! And then SHE started laughing also! They quickly found the secret door where the map indicated and saw a small room. It had black robes with skull patterns on them, and a few skull hat vestments, with tiny skulls hanging down from them as if they were braids. Charley donned one set as Harley found a poison needle on the chest. Opening it, they found two vials of pink liquid, sweet smelling, and A f**k TON of silver coins. Harley declined, but PC and hireling alike filled up their santa claus bags with silver coins, as both Charley and Karen stopped laughing. Charley set about repairing the alter Karen had smashed as Harley gave his hireling free reign to take as much silver as they wanted, greatly improving his morale.
And as he was doing so ...
A group of creatures appeared by the portcullis! Small, red, scaley, and looking for all the word like little devils! They set up a ladder and started taking out the spike that held the gate up! Then they saw the party! Yelling at them in a weird language, and then "Bad men! Dumb men!" Charley appeared in skull regalia, and shouted back at them! Up to this point Charley had been doling out silver and gold to his hirelings pretty regularly when they showed doubt, and now he did the same with the little devil people. It seemed to greatly improve their mood! They offered to take the party to Monta-town. There was much apprehension but Charley insisted on going. They followed the friendly little creatures, back to the entry staircase room, over a pit they were warned of. Through several rooms, one of which had intricate stone carvings all over the walls. Through a gate manned by a little devil person, they went through a living quarters full of the devil people, then another room full of boxes and crates and piles of supplies on the floor being sorted by devil people. All the while being encouraged by the little friendly devil people tugging on their hands and clothing. They heard a din and saw light ahead, to the south ...
A great chamber! Full of noise, smoke, sounds, and lights! Little stalls set up all over the room, subdividing it, with little devil people manning them! Selling everything! Small snakes in cages in one! Another frying small snakes in cages to eat! Ropes made from hair! Clothing/rags! Weapons! Armor! Arrows! A broken down wagon dispensing drinks! A curtained off stall ... and countless others! And the people! Little red devil people! Patrols of them and great blobs of hair, like bulkier versions of Cousin It, not features visible! Svelte men, nearly nude, but with the heads of pigs! Little verdant green people that seemed to made up from leaves, and much taller versions, looking stern. Hairy men with the heads of various breeds of dogs, Doberman, pit bulls, rottweilers. And .. a few rough looking humans drinking at the wagon! Charley was hungry and went off, out of the room to the east, with some little devil men. Harley went to peek inside the curtained off stall. Karen approached the humans drinking.
Charley was taken to a nearby room, The Rat Kabob Kafe written on the walls in ... red paint? He ordered a rat kabob, being surrounded by people of all sort eating rat kabobs. The little red devil waiter asked him if he wanted it bloody as hell or burnt to a crisp, and was confused by the "medium" response, until they figured out Charley was a gourmet and wanted half and half, and continued his habit of overpaying. A rat in a cage was quickly killed, skinned, gutted, and grilled, served half raw and half burnt, just like mom used to make. Until ... his friends hosed back up, coming in the cafe in a hurry.
Karen approached the drinking men. "What are you guys doing down here?" was responded to with "Hey baby, looking for you! How's it going?" She backed off fast, but a little devil man asked if they were bothering her, this being a safe space fo everyone. She replied yes, which got the men a stern talking to from the patrol of little devil men and hairy Cousin It's. Karen could see the drunk men giving her a dirty look when she heard Harley calling out. It was not good.
Harley had investigated the curtained off stall, finding a small devil woman crouching on the floor, full of bones and chicken in cages. A soothsayer! Handing over cash and spitting on the bones in the old devil womans hands, the bones were rolled and consulted. He was to be rich! He ran outside the curtained stall yelling "Karen I'm gonna be rich!"
Things don't always translate well in Monta-town. All sounds stopped. Everyone stared at Harley. And Karen. They quickly ran to get Charley, noting the enemies they had made and the social faux-pax of yelling out "rich" in a room full of monsters. They had a devil person lead them out, back to the entrance.
On the way they met four trigger happy and nervous dwarves, and one more, Snorri Broadshoulders, on an architectural tour of the Prison, located now in the room full of intricate carvings. He was excited, noting in response to inquiries that he was not on some cultural tourism, he was a dwarf of science, a student of architecture, not like those filthy liberal arts archeology majors. Agreeing to tell him if they found anything interesting, and promising him to look him up at The Lame Lady in Kryshal, they headed back to town.
Stopped at the gates, they, and their santa claus bags fulls of loot, were charged A LOT in taxes, but also their information taken down by an official looking ledger, given a receipt signed and an official looking stamp affixed to it. Weird. Harley and Charley, both natives of Kryshal, had never encountered this behaviour before ...
Deaths None!
Loot & XP 11 Giant Rats 5000 sp 2 sweet smelling potions
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Post by bryce0lynch on Jan 16, 2020 7:18:50 GMT -6
I don't want to keep spamming the other Darkness Beneath thread with my session reports, so I created this one. Here's the second session in the Bleakmarsh, exploring the Upper Caves of the Darkness Beneath ...
Bleakmarsh 2 - Electric Bugaloo!
Players Karen - Fighter - Level 1 Harley - Halfling - Level 1 Stickyfingers - Thief - Level 1
Adventure Log Everyone awoke in The Singing Swan, except Malark, who was feeling poorly after his first mage guild supper club. On the way downstairs Harley say the chambermaid emptying the nights pots out the back door, next to the head of a vagrant passed out on the stoop. It was Stickyfingers! Stickyfingers was known as a local beggar and Failure At Everything. The innkeep offered to have a boy beat him if he was bother Harley, but instead Harley took him up and fed him.
The group planned their next expedition, selecting the tunnels under the Bleakmarsh again. Upgrading and restocking equipment Harley elected against a set of fully depreciated chainmail and, instead, opted for a brand new set, against the advice of the armorer, who insisted it was going to go down in value as soon as he left the shop. They headed back to the Hurling Heifer. Many folk seemed disappointed to see them, while some were overjoyed and bought them drinks. Stickyfingers joined in and bought everyone in the bar a couple of rounds also ... at 8:30 in the morning, while Karen, in her new platemail, stood upon a table and recruited hirelings. A sorry lot, she selected Rado, who was armed with a dagger, leather, shield, and had a broadsword with glowing runes on his back. Also hired was Aramil the Elf, dressed in purple robes and a tall pointy hat decorated with stars and moons ... and wearing leather armor strapped over the top of it all with a spear. 3 gp/day each. Most folks were now three drinks in at 9am in the morning.
The best way to sober up was walking two hours through a hot high humidity swamp full of bugs, they decided. Off they went out of town, past the new guards on the southern gate, and, passing Frank's farm, they didn't see him out in the fields. Harley went over to his shack and pounded on the door, only to hear snoring followed by a shrill woman's voice pregnant doging at Frank to get up because there was someone at the door. She continued to berate him while he continued to snore, a couple of whisky bottles being discovered next to the door, Harley went back and the troop continued to the large sinkhole in the Bleakmarsh ... easily identifiable because of the clouds of mist that occasionally drifted out of the top of it. Down they went, down the stone spiral ramp, to the bottom, where Aramil the Elf hireling immediately identified the glowing eyes in the corner as belonging to possums.
Stickyfingers, asking about his spells for the day, seemed to make Aramil very sad. In fact, many questions that Stickyfingers asked of Aramil seemed to make him very sad. "Read that magic writing!" "What spells do you know?" and so on. Aramil would not answer, just looking sad. At one point Stickyfingers asked him why he was always sad. Aramil waited a few moments and replied "What, do you think are we friends?" A shocked Stickyfingers replying "Well, I don't now."
Deciding that the misty and blackness of the western side of the chamber was still not something to be messed with, they moved down the northern hallway, Rado in front with the torch, and they found a skeleton on the floor in rotting purple robes and a hat with stars and moons. There was a broken staff next to it and the area all around was full of scorch marks. Searching, they found a scroll tube with a scroll with magic writing on it, which again made Aramil sad when he was asked to read it. He did not reply.
They heard the sounds of water to the north and some muttering sounds to the east, so they went east. Finding a small crossroads chamber, they saw a small group of seven halflings huddled together against the wall, as if in a cuddle for warmth. They were scared, and after being calmed down by pleadings to SUMMAR, the halfling god, they noted that their friend Tim brought them down here to show them something and he had gone east from here and never returned. Harley gave them directions out, back to the South, and the troop headed east to find Tim.
They came upon a large cavern full of stalactites and stalagmites and giant black mushrooms, seven or eight feet tall, growing. Rado, Harley and Karen moved in to investigate the darkness in the back where their torch light did not reach, while Aramil and Stickyfingers stayed back. Finding a passage to the south and another headed west, Rano suddenly turned around and, holding out his hand, dumbly stated "Uh. My dagger is now made of rubber." Everyone paused. And then a wicked knife just BARELY missed Rado's back as he turned a bit, the same happening to Aramil back on the other side of the room. The halflings! Coming out of the shadows with wicked knives they seemed everywhere, wicked grins on their faces! Stickyfingers bowstring broke as his bow turned to rubber as Rado was stabbed through the back of the neck, the halflings knife coming out the other side, a dumb look on Rado's face! Rado's torch fell and everyone, party and halflings alike, seemed to be having trouble in the low light with finding their opponents to stab. Stickyfingers solved that by tossing oil on three of them attacking Aramil and lighting them on fire, burning them to crisp and providing more light! Karen stabbed one good before they heard a voice "Zots the word, be a bird!" causing Harley to float up in the air! toward the ceiling!
Then ... there was silence. The remaining two halflings were gone. The disembodied voice was quite. The black mushrooms had turned in to stalagmites and stalactites. The room was searched, finding nothing. They looted Rado, finding his "Linkbearers Union" card ... evidentially he was just a torchbearer and not a mercenary. They propped him up against a wall to take him back when they left.
A bloodtrail led south. In that chamber they found a cold cookfire with cooking spit and and a chamber to the east. As they started in they heard a voice "Back off you f**kers! This is our place! Get your own!" The same voice from the previous room! More cursing and strained negotiations followed, with them going east to find a room with ten cots and footlockers. A halfling was bleeding out on one cot. Karen tried to put it out of its misery, but then ...! A little man appeared. Dressed in black shoes, green pants, a green very and black hat with red hair. He yelled "Nighty night f**ker!" and Karen fell to the floor, asleep, as another halfling stepped out of the shadows and tried to tab Karen. Harley stepped in to calm the situation down, with Stickyfingers offering them some skin of wine. The man in green and the unwounded halfing were having none of it, but the gut-stabbed one declared he wasn't going out sober, and drank up. The little man offer to give them gold and scout the hallways for the party, in return for not being killed. Stickyfingers held out his hand to offer a handshake ... and then turned it in to a bearhug, trapping the little mans arms! Yelling "Stab the f**kers! Stab them!" After Aramil missed one Sticky yelled at him "Use the pointy end of the spear Aramil!" That made Aramil sad. The two halflings tried, the unwounded one stabbing Aramil in the chest, killing him. The wounded one collapsed trying to kill Karen, who had been woken by Harley. The little man broke free and his smooth, calming voice tried to entrance Stickyfingers, who resisted! The little man disappeared, vowing vengeance.
Karen searched the footlockers, finding several hundred silver coins in most of them as well as a few platinum coins ... and a treasure map! Stickyfingers heard sounds to the west and saw the campfire being dug out by unseen hands! And then the digging stopped! Stickfingers saw the top of a large iron trunk buried in the fire fit ... and then the party heard voices from the Stalagtite/mite chamber! "I think I heard the voices over here Timmy!" Investigating, Harley found two small children with a torch and holding sticks, maybe ten and thirteen years old. The younger seemed scared but the older kept punching him and demanded the parties treasure. Karen showed up and went in to Stern Mom Mode, cowing the boys. They brought them back to the "cots" room and let them have as many silver coin treasure as they could carry. They were mollified.
Meanwhile, Stickyfingers checked the chest hinges for traps and finding none began to pick the lock. He got it open, only to get his finger pricked by a small needle. He felt fine. But his finger was turning black. He opted to NOT cut off his finger immediatly and instead chewed up some garlic he had and made a compress for his finger. Inside the trunk was full of gold and silver coins! And a bottle of liquid with flies in suspension and another that seemed full of blood. Stickyfingers, thinking he was poisoned, gulped down the blood liquid. He felt GREAT! Really REALLY good! No hint of feeling bad at all! The trunk also contained a longsword and three silver armbands, two with encircling vine motifs and one with a barbed wire motif. They filled a bag with a thousand gold coins and the rest of the loot as they left the silver behind. Then Stickyfingers vomited up a bunch of blood. A lot. And part of his stomach. And pissed himself. They grabbed the kids and headed back out, to get to town to save Stickyfingers life. Getting back to the "halfing cuddle crossroads" they saw, coming from the west, two seven or eight foot tall reptilians with feathers around their neck, like Harley had seen die in front of him yesterday! They creatures SCREECHED when they saw the party, causing one of the children to run south and the other to sit down and start crying. Harley grabbed the sitting one and everyone RAN south, grabbing the other kid, and going up the ramp in to the daylight ... in to which the reptillians seemed loathe to follow.
Stickyfingers was in bad shape. At Franks farm they negotiated to buy his cart, declining his 10gp initial offer and giving him 1gp. They loaded Stickyfingers and the loot bags in it, ignoring that Stickyfingers was now shirtting himself and vomiting blood almost continually. Going up the gate guards they got a "Woah woah woah! Just where the f**k do you think you're taking that?" in regard to a cart full of bags spilling coins with a body laying on it, everything covered in blood and shirt. "We have to get him to healer!" shouted Harley, in spite of Stickyfingers already being dead. One guard was having none of it but the other related how his mother was saved by quick healer action and let them in if they promised to return to pay the fees.
In they went ... and straight to the undertaker. Carlos Undertaker was very sympathetic to them, offering condolences, until he saw the body! Deciding against an open casket they opted for cremation and left, returning briefly to loot Stickyfingers body of the third silver armband and the rest of his gear. Carlos didn't even recognize Stickyfingers, even though Stickyfingers once worked for him collecting bodies ... so forgettable and such a failure was Stickyfingers at everything in life.
Karen visited the tower of Drez the Unspeakable, who charged her to identify the sword, declining a beer from Drez when he was finished. ON the way out she met a fellow in green dreadlocks, Charley, a fellow wizard and friend of her husband, the miner who died in the Well of Souls. He joined the group.
Deaths Rado the Torchbearer - Dead by halfling knife stab through the neck. Aramil the failed MU apprentice - Dead by halfling knife stab in the stab. (PC) Stickyfingers the Thief - Dead by poison needle trap in chest lock.
Loot & XP 7 murderous little halfling shirts killed 1000 gp 70 pp 3 Silver armbands, 75 gp each, two vine and one barbed wire motif, kept & worn by the party Treasure Map Illuminator, the magic sword. A vial of liquid with flies in suspension. A vial of blood (drunk by Stickyfingers)
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Post by bryce0lynch on Jan 9, 2020 7:09:51 GMT -6
New year and the game restarts! Session report for the Upper Caves follows:
In to the Bleakmarsh ... Karen - Fighter - Level 1 Harley - Halfling - Level 1 Malark Whistler - MagicUser - Level 1
Kryshal! Shining jewel of the west! Last beacon of civilization before the borderlands! A bustling, dusty corrupt metropolis. Inside the slum quarter, inside The Hurling Heifer, a farmer sits at a table with a another. Dirty rags on his feet, muddy clothes, hands stained red from beets, smelling of turnips with a ragged tooth mouth. Over the din of the crowd, the drunken calls for booze, the shouting, one word: 'gold!' Three sets of ears prick up immediately. Instantly homing in on the farmers. Instantly recognizing, without a glance, the other two. Never met before but obviously companions: Hobos4Lif.
They approach the farmer and, perhaps a bit too loudly, speak with him. The kings tax man, ambushed outside of Frank the beet farmers farm. A wagon of gold gone. Down, in the Bleakmarsh, where no one comes back from after dark. They negotiate a price beyond measure, 1gp, for the farmer to take them there. As they leave the Heifer the bartender uncovers a chalkboard and begins to write "Odds" on it ...
Out the great southern gates and down the Kings Road they tell the guards they are day laborers on Franks beet farm. Passing the beet farm they see blood and signs of a struggle. Further in, two hours in to the Bleakmarsh they see a sinkhole a quarter mile off the road. Firmer then the other sinkholes in the area, they see wagon tracks leading to it ... and one footprint, not covered by the wagon tracks. One giant foot, with three clawed toes. A waft of mist blows up out of the cave, cold, defying the laws of physics. Down the sinkhole they go, down the spiral ramp that leads in to it, avoiding the moss and dripping water form the marsh.
At the bottom, a large cave. The stone floor cleared of rubble, it pushed up against the wall. Not as dusty or dirty as it should be. Their torch shows exits from the large cave to the east, north, and northwest ... but they can't see the western edge of the cave ... but hold their breath as another blast of cold mist comes from that direction. They hear rustling in dry leaves to the northwest and Harley sneaks up to check it out. At the edge of the light he sees a pair of glowing white eyes, down low to the ground. And then another. And then another. And another. Retreating back, a plan is formed. The NW tunnel is ruled out because of the eyes. The N tunnel is also out because it's too close to the NW tunnel. The W is ruled out because of the mist coming from it. They head east, Karen leading the way. Again, the floors are cleared of the fallen ceiling rubble, the paths too well used to show much dust. In a large chamber they find a skeleton on the floor in a corner dressed in strange clothes with a metallic sheen. A dead elf. They break its fingers to free the large ruby clutched in its outstretched hand. There might be, they decide, more than gold down in this ole ...
Exploring south they find a single human footprint in the dust off the main cleared path, heading their direction. There's salt in the air now, not stale cave air. They find a cavern littered with refuse. Crab shells and legs, large and small, carapaces, splintered bone spears. And a few broken stone spears and a shattered stone axe. But nothing else. Nearby there's a passage leading down, in to darkness, to the east, with the smell of salt on the air heavy ... they avoid it, not going deeper in. To the south of the refuse chamber, in the darkness they hear screeching and howling. The avoid it.
Moving west they come to a wide passage leading south, going down even more steeply, with the smell of bird guano coming from it, and a large watery white mess on the floor. Malark is looking for spell components, and guano is a big one ... but they avoid going deeper. Heading further in to the darkness of the west they see something on the floor in a T passage ... going further they find a pile of rags, children's clothes, shredded, full of blood. Not a good sign. Passages to the south wind around to the west. Passages to the west wind back to them. They hear more screeching and grunting from the west and northwest as they wind through the dark cavernous maze. And see another pile of clothes. Again, children's rags, in blood. Harley, who has snuck ahead to examine them, sees something crawling toward him from the NW, out of the darkness. Backing up back to his friends ... he sees a large brutish reptilian like humanoid with neck feathers dragging itself toward him ... and the light ... coming from where the sounds of battle are coming from. It looks up ... and then the head drops, moving no more. Karen comes up and stabs it in the head, just to be sure. A quick loot reveals a leather thong on its neck attached to a crude gold medallion with an X in a circle design hammered in to it. A leather bag has rotting human hands in it ... gnawed up. But they are large, rough hands, of men who have had a rough life.
Retreating from the sounds of battle, they see some flickering light to the north. Following it, still past the sounds of battle to the west, they see a wide side corridor to the east, with flickering firelight in the distance. Harley sneaks up again, and peering around a corner he sees ... a flickering bonfire with a giant cauldron sitting on it, something bubbling in it. The walls are covered with small little niches, the size of a cup, and a narrow passage to the rear of the chamber. On the other side of the cauldron is huge pale white hulking brute. Eight or nine feet tall, open girl thingy sores and burst of rough black hair growing from them, two large tusks coming up from its lower jaw. A plan if formed. Oil is readied, to use the cauldron fire. Malark steps out and yells "Good night sweet child!" ... and the brute falls over, slumbering. Harley races in to search the niches, as does Malark, as Karen rushes in to chop its head off! Blood spurts out of the neck comically as Karen expertly chops off the head, the creatures eyes opening once, looking sadly at Karen as it mouths the words "Gulag?"
The niches are full of gold coins! And the cauldron full of human and reptile arms and legs and fingers and eyes and ears! They loot a large number of gold coins, a bronze necklace, and a small bottle of white fluid with snotty yellow rivluts in it. It smells like pine. And then ceder. And then cotton. And then mutton. And then ... every changing.
They left town at 1pm. They hit the sinkhole at 3pm. They've been inside for a couple of hours ... they need to leave soon to get back to town before dark ... because no one comes back from the Bleakmarsh after dark. They quickly make their way back to the sinkhole entrance/exit, the sounds of battle to the west no longer being heard. Up and out, they pass back by Franks farm. He's sitting int he muck next to the road, holding a bloody rag to his head. "Hey! Hey you!" he calls out ... they ignore him. On the way back through the gates of Kryshal they toss a couple of gold coins to the guards "The beet harvest was good!" One guard immediately quits, telling off his super Karl. The group makes its way to the Singing Swan, an inn in he better part of town, staying up all night guarding backpacks full of coin, before hitting the mining guildhall in the morning to leverage Karens contacts ... her dead husband was a miner and the guildhall will hold the gold in bond for her. Malark finds the wizards guild and joins, mostly for the monthly dinners and networking. They plan their next assault ...
1000 gold coins 300 gp ruby 50gp gold medallion 30 gp bronze mecklance 1 potion
Killed: 1 Gulag
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Post by bryce0lynch on Apr 9, 2019 4:36:55 GMT -6
Functionally, maps can be reduced to a graph of nodes and edges, decorated with information for the ref (some of which may eventually be conveyed to the players). Maybe I misinterptret, but it sounds like you are talking about nice based maps. For exploratory adventures these suck. You need mystery and the unknown, and that generally doesn't happen with the player certainty that simple and/or finite maps. Thus a good map heightens player anxiety, provides tactical and strategic options for the DM and players, and serves as a means of cueing the DM to things they need in the spur of the moment.
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Post by bryce0lynch on Mar 18, 2019 10:07:17 GMT -6
"45yo guy wont stop using innuendo at 13YO girls character" Sounds like the kind of guy who would use an image cropped from hardcore pornography as his forum avatar. Point taken. It overstayed it's "tweak Pundit" goal.
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Post by bryce0lynch on Mar 18, 2019 9:27:48 GMT -6
I recall the racist incident less than the 13YP incident, but it FEELS like they both went the same way.
Someone said something once and I let it slide. Everyone occasionally has a fat mouth/f**ks up once in awhile. Same person says it again. I think the first incident was something like "Hey, cut it out" while look at them. And in the other "Dude, chill it with that shirt." In both cases they started to explain/apologize, etc, which I quickly cut off with "Hey, it's ok. Lets move on."
So, basically, I give people the benefit of the doubt, a bit. I make it clear I control the game through short, direct, non-hostile comments, and then also by moving on quickly. I don't dwell on it, explain, talk it out, etc. This is a fast & quick thing, just like all other rulings at the table. And ... I hope no one ever pushes back more than that.
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Post by bryce0lynch on Mar 18, 2019 9:07:03 GMT -6
I've run at least 200 public games. I start with two ground rules that I cover in about a five second script before we start.
"Two main rules: You each need to find a reason to go on the adventure and you have to work together. Everyone got it?" I look around and quickly at them and then say "ok, lets Go!"
I've had to restate the rules about a half dozen times. "Hey, let's remember the rules: find a reason to go and work together. Ok, *Looks at next person in the order* what are you doing?"
Only once has someone pushed back. I asked what was wrong in a "ok, Whats keeping you from having fun?" question and then adjusted. If you HAVE to bring it up, as a player, then I think that's the right way to do it. It's a mature conversation that lasts about a minute, I say "ok, do/take/get x" and then we game more.
And I live in absolute terror of a REAL ass showing up that I have to deal with. Like "racist wont shut up" or "45yo guy wont stop using innuendo at 13YO girls character", both of which have popped up and I've dealt with. If they didn't back down ... Ug. "Look, I asked you to stop and you didn't, you need to leave."
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Post by bryce0lynch on Apr 26, 2017 5:51:11 GMT -6
Another crew went in last night. The were searching for some lost kids ... and researching some ley line/temples/hybrid-Dr Moreau creatures. (Retheme, a bit.) They cleared the SE of fish-men hybrids and degenerate scurvy humans and some sleestaks. They moved on to the NW section, find a partial ley line map in two giant bronze doors, broken from a cave in behind them, sneaking past some large 'Cousin It's' and short named yellow elves with pot-bellies. The armor/sword room stymied them. They rescued one kid who was left by older boys (rethemed pirate kid from the halflings.) Two missing pieces of the ley line door map are in L2 and l3.
For some reason I've gotten 'kids exploring' on the chart three times now when rolling in front of the big doors. Weird.
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Post by bryce0lynch on Apr 19, 2017 9:01:13 GMT -6
ODD74 is groovy.
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Post by bryce0lynch on Sept 21, 2015 5:32:30 GMT -6
Ye old Internets declares that my review blog is now four years old. I figure I’ve read and written reviews for about 1,100 adventures, if I include One-pagers and Dungeon Magazine. WordPress and RPGgeek think I just hit 500 reviews. It’s time, I think, to declare which adventure is The Best.
Declaring a Best Adventure is sure to be a nightmare. Best by what standards? Deep Carbon Observatory is a masters work, every word bent towards a purpose with a focus that’s hard to believe until you see it. I frequently look back on the Bowman/Sham levels in Fight On! magazine. Especially in the case of Spawning Grounds of the Crab-Men, it fits together elements that I can still recall years later. ASE1 brings to life the setting in a manner more vivid than a thousand other city/region supplements have failed and in far far fewer words. Welcome to Mortiston gets the town environment, with events, more right than any other I’ve seen. Stroh’s creativity, especially in Purple Planet, brings things to life in the minds eye. I could go on and on about Bull King, Slaughtergrid, or many of Finch’s work, Like Spire of Iron & Crystal. Naming all of those reminds me of how many I have NOT named but still rank as some of the best ever.
Maybe instead I mean “My Favourite?” I don’t know. Maybe. My “best” adventure is an adventure I always recommend. It’s my favorite to run at conventions. It’s my favorite for running with n00bs. It’s a great first adventure that sets the style and tone of the games to come. I’ve reviewed it before, but it was a part of a larger set of reviews and I don’t feel I gave it the spotlight it deserves. In poking around a bit, researching it for this review, it looks like the author only ever published this one adventure. Two other people helped out just a little bit, but it is at it’s core a one-shot DIY adventure from a person who never did anything else and only has a minor presence under their pseudonym. A nameless drifter showing up to do magnificent work and then disappearing has some romantic appeal as well, as does the appeal of the Everyman, representing all of those wonderful adventures that home DM’s come up with.
As of today, the best adventure of everything I’ve see is …
The Darkness Beneath Level 1: The Upper Caves Fight On! Magazine #2 by Hackman, Calithena and David Bowman Levels 1-3?
The adventure is tight, focused. And it invokes wonder.
More than any other adventure I’ve seen The Upper Caves channels wonder. The amazement of small child seeing something new, or one of those baby animal video when they encounter something mundane that is totally unexpected. More than any other adventure this adventure invokes the wonder of the first time you played D&D. The first secret door you found behind the bookcase. The first time eyes stared back at you in the darkness. So many people have very fond memories of those early TSR D&D modules. Nostalgia plays tricks with you. As adults we know there’s something false in nostalgia. The old adventures seem flat compared to the memories we have of them. This adventure fights that. Tomorrowland in Disney has the tagline the Future That Never Was. This adventure brings that nostalgia HARD. It does the impossible: it lives up to nostalgic memories we have of those first games of D&D.
For example: 4. There’s a small lake in this cavern with a waterfall going in reverse! The waterfall creates an anti-gravity effect in the lake which grows stronger the nearer one is to it.
The text goes on for a bit, but you get the idea. In another room a ball of fire rolls around it. In another there is an alligator statue that eats gems. There is NO appeal, at all, to standard mechanics in ANY of this. The effects are described to the DM, not ruled upon. There’s no explanation offered. In other adventures you’d see “Bob the 99th level MU cast Light, and Permanency, and Trigger, and then Delayed Blast and …” Explaining something robs it of its power. In D&D you want mystery. The mystery for the DM translates to the mystery for player. It’s open ended. No solution is presumed or implied. It Just IS … and the solution is yours to create. I fail. I utterly fail every time in trying to describe just what it is that makes those mundane descriptions awesome.
Let’s look at how this thing starts. There’s the opening paragraph that explains the setup … and that’s it. Eleven sentences. The introduction does four things. First, it give the purpose. This is the usual “first level characters” stuff, and places this first level of the megadungeon in context. Imagine that for a moment. A sixteen level community megadungeon introduced in just 2-3 sentences. That’s some tight ass editing. Focus. The second part of the introduction tells the DM what’s going on. “Troglodytes and Crabmen battle one another for supremacy, while a renegade Leprechaun and his ten Halfling minions play both sides against the middle. The Leprechaun will want to trick the party out of its goods (or use them to gain even more), but the Halflings are thoroughly evil and will probably try to kill the party outright if given the chance.“ Now the DM has the lay of the land. Factions. How the writer intended them when he put the words down. Perfect introduction to a dungeon level. It took two sentences. The third part of the introduction tells you how to the use the tables provided. The last sentence sets the mood. It’s one of my favorite lines ever. “Most of the areas are too large for a torch or lantern to fully illuminate, so the party will always feel exposed to the murky depths just beyond their present vision. I’d not wander off…” Revel in that sentence. What’s it bring to mind? The unknown. Danger. Mystery. Anxiety. It’s the exposure. It sets the mood perfectly for the DM to then communicate to the party as they explore … muck-farmers on their first foray underground. I’m going to come back to this theme, again and again.
Eleven sentences. The rest of the adventure doesn’t even need to be read. That’s right, after those eleven sentences you can start running the thing. You don’t even need to read the entire adventure and be familiar with it. You remember those words don’t you? They start just about every adventure ever written. Not this one bucko. This one is tight. You don’t need to read it ahead of time. Three pages of text and one more for a map. Two sheets of paper. The best adventure ever.
The items are wonderful. There’s this fist-sized orange gem. you can shoot fire bolts from it, for 6d6 damage. It you ever roll 12 or less damage then it burns out, melting the mage’s hand for damage. There’s this cursed plate armor that yells “HERE I AM!” when you get within 60’ of enemies. That’s brilliant! There’s a gold & ruby necklace worth 5000gp … an heirloom of a powerful lord in the area … it will draw attention is pawned. That’s great! Illuminator is a +1 sword, lawful, intelligent, ego=8, detects evil & gems and chaotic foes must save vs paralysis. it’s mission is to expose corruption among nobility, and it will withhold its powers if players don’t try to do that. after a while. Wonderful! Items that provide hooks to more adventure, with the magic sword being the most “normal.” Why adventures ever got away from providing interesting treasure is beyond me. Probably around the time got away from the players and began emphasizing the Plot. Bleech! I’m sure plot can be done well, but not to the exclusion of the players, and hooks.
I know I said you didn’t have to read it first. Maybe. There tend to be 9 or 10 rooms to a page. The rooms STICK. You look at them once, maybe just skimming them, and the entire concept of the room is lodged in your skull. You KNOW. From then on you need only glane at it and you know how to run it and what’s up. I really can’t emphasize this enough. These rooms stick with you.
There are fanciful appeals to old school tropes, like the random corpse table for the searching of the many corpses found on the map. It also defies a lot of what I conventionally note as Important Things In Design. In particular, some of the rooms can be wordy. But once read they stick. Forever more you understand, on a deep level, what that room is about and there’s no need to refer to text anymore while running … or minimal reference anyway.
There’s a lot of personal preference in this for me. What I like as Best may not be what you like. Deep Carbon Observatory, the Stroh DCC works … this may be more conventionally “Best”, or appeal to a larger group. But this adventure, with it’s quiet understated fully realized environment, an introduction for n00bs no matter how jaded, is the one I always think about nostalgically, and the one that lives us to that nostalgic feeling.
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Post by bryce0lynch on Aug 6, 2015 5:33:45 GMT -6
You've done a good job.
Why not spend some Tuesday evening formatting these in to a compendium for Lulu/POD?
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Post by bryce0lynch on Jul 28, 2015 5:28:06 GMT -6
Sneak Peak: The pattern gets old by Gleams.
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Post by bryce0lynch on Apr 28, 2014 10:59:57 GMT -6
Not quite fair G. Most of the more negative reviews of Isle have noted a certain lack of cohesion/context/action. This includes my own. A supplement must be more than a collection of random rolls on the (hybrid monster" or "weird wizard" or "strange statue" table. The designer must bring more to them in order to provide the pretext to adventure. There needs to be some action or intrigue, explicit or implicit, in order to hook and engage on. In that regard Isle DOES fall short of several other examples, including Wilderlands. An extra sentence, per entry, to provide something of that sort would have catapulted Isle in to a legendary status. And I AM an old school guy.
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Post by bryce0lynch on Jul 15, 2013 13:54:03 GMT -6
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Post by bryce0lynch on Mar 5, 2013 10:34:01 GMT -6
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Post by bryce0lynch on Mar 5, 2013 10:19:48 GMT -6
I decided that three RPG's a week weren't enough so I started a new game every other Monday. It is meant to be zero effort. No prep, no stress, just show up and play B/X if you can make it that night. I'm actually using some megadungeons I've reviewed; a first for me. I scattered Stonehell, Barrowmaze, Darkness Beneath, RA, and a couple of others around. The group ended up going to DB, much to my delight. We've played four times so far. Here's the tale so far. How much can you recognize? S1E1 - GOLD! My new Moonday group has met twice now. This is their story. Algenar - The Elf Ballbuster - The Dwarf Jane - The Fighter Puck - The Halfling Anabelle - The Cleric System - Ruffians & Reprobates, Bryce's 9-page LabLord hack. Coming soon to a DMCA takedown in the heartland. They sat around in the Bar of the Boatman in the city of Krshal, nursing their weak ales and cursing, individually, their ill luck. Then they heard it. They heard it over the den of the farmers. Over the den of the barware. Over the den of bawdy farming songs sung loudly and badly by the drunken fieldhands ... GOLD! It stood out like a flame in the night. And then the conversation was lost. Except ... each of them was instantly aware of four others who also heard THE WORD. They knew, then and there, that they could trust these people with their lives. They they had a bond with them MUCH closer than any that they may have had with their families. These were their people. Kindred Spirits. Murder Hobos. They noted the farmer that had said the word and one approached. Polite at first and then with more gruff the questioning began. Where! Where was the GOLD?!? The farmer was insulted, he wouldn't speak and got up to leave. That's when the violence started. One MH grabbed him, putting blade to his throat, while two others helped drag him outside. The remaining two drew weapons and threatened the rest of the farmers to keep back! And so they made their way to a dark alley to begin the 'questioning.' The farmer had just made a delivery to the Heffer, the Hurling Heffer, of some onions and he had heard someone mention that a gold wagon had gone missing. A quick punch to the back of the head silenced the farmer and the group of comrades went in search of a sign that on it had ... a fat woman puking. It wasn't hard to find. Everyone they met seemed to know where they going before they stopped for directions. Soon they found themselves in a nicer part of the lower-class hovel quarter and saw the place they were looking for. It wasn't hard to find: there were people in every doorway and huge bursts of noise coming form one sunken one, with women and men yelling from the upper floors and dogs fighting in the street in front of it with people betting on the outcomes. The group spread out. Anabelle struck up a conversation with Heironious of Heori, follower of Sir Lorp the Pure One, both knights in shining armor. From him she learned of the field of barrows nearby and The Mausoleum. Ballbuster grabbed drinks and watched a sleeper getting nailed by clients on a table inside. The other patrons seemed to be better in how long the client could last. Jane headed to the bar and ordered 'their worst concoction.' Wagers were placed and money changed hands after he vomited up the bar drippings and piss water. More wagers were struck after he tried again, with the 'new' bar rag drippings. And got sick again. And still more, again and again, until he finally managed to keep down the concoction of stale booze, vomit, piss water, and his own stomach bile. Algenar say an elf in a corner table sitting by himself. Well, except for his pet panther at his side and his two scimitars on the table. He saw him disintegrate someone who bumped his table. People were giving him a WIDE birth. He sat down and struck up a conversation with the strange elf , Galstaff by name, and noticed that his panther was stuffed and his scimitars made of wood. From him he learned of the Prison of the Silken Caliphate, a popular locale to test ones bravery and skills. Puck found a table of halflings. Just as he was approaching a barmaid slammed down a side of venison and the halflings tore in with their hands and teeth in a mighty display of carnage. The barmaid seemed to be extra-viligant about keeping their mugs full of ale... From them he learned of a gold caravan that went missing yesterday in the Bleakmarsh ... and how noone else in the bar was taking it seriously or paying attention to it. The group left at 2am to get to the marsh early ... because people don't EVER come back from the Bleakmarsh at night. Signs of blood and battle were obvious on the road and they followed the heavy wheel ruts off the road and to a sinkhole a bit away. It wound down and down in a spiral to the bottom, some distance below ground. They lit their lanterns, set their order, and marched down ... The first chamber at the bottom of the sinkhole ramp expanded FAR to the west so the group hugged the eastern wall, killing a cave possum they saw and taking it with them. The entered a new cavern and found a dried out and desiccated body on the ground, as well as GIANT lizard footprints. There was much trepidation. They continued to the south, and found a large chamber that had been the scene of a recent battle. Blood on the floor, crude spears, giant crab claws, etc. They made their way further south until, hearing sounds of battle from the south they took an western tunnel ... following as much as they could the wagon tracks on the floor of the giant caverns. Puck snuck back and saw a massive battle between beastmen, crabmen, and reptilemen all by the shoroes of a large underground pond. Wanting none of this, he returned. They tracks finally ended, the rock floor being too hard. They turned left, down a sloping passage filled with broken spear shafts that had head of people, beastmen and reptile men mounted on them. Coming to the end they found themselves in another chamber, this one with two passages east and one south as well as rays of light and dripping water coming from the marsh far above. Continuing their search for the GOLD wagon they found the passage ending in a strange site: a crude home. A large cauldron bubbled, a pile of skins rested near it with a small pile of coins on the floor. Strange and intricate bone decorations were everywhere. And in the middle of it all was an 8' tall gaunt create with a long nose, bristly black hair, long claws, and skin as black as night. It called out to them in several languages as they huddled near the entrance of its home, and switched to common as soon as they said something in it. Eustace smacked his lips and rubbed his cracked & bloody hands and wondered what tasty morsel the group had brought him ... ? He smelled halfling, elf, and dwarf ... One of them perhaps? He crept closer ... and by this time the party could see his eyes clouded over with glaucoma; he was blind. The group gave over the dead possum to Eustace and struck up a conversation with him. Did many people bring him things? "Oh, old Captain Yretch used to, but he hasn't seen him for, oh, a couple of hundred years. There was Archibald the Younger before him and Archibald the Elder after him, good to see the kid made something of himself. Captain Marduck came by last month with a tasty elf ... " All the while Puck was edging closer to get a better look at the small pile of goodies on the floor ... and in the end decided it wasn't worth it. The group excused themselves and backtracked, taking care to watch for the nasty holes in the ground to the west that Eustace had warned them about, near the lairs of the reptilemen. Their pole'ing of the ground paid off when an ankle-breaker trap was found. Just beyond it they found a crossroads with a chamber to the north full of Reptilemen! They roared and charged in to battle ... except for one who had mutant frog legs who hopped eastward down one of the many hallways that left the guard post chamber. Algenar summoned the mightiest spell in his 'Beginners Introduction to Arcane & Eldritch Powers "Man" Was Not Meant to Know" and cast sleep. The three remaining went down and were quickly beheaded and searched, but had no loot. 'Froggy' soon appeared in the hallway they had just came down, looking to flee further west ... there must have been some looping corridor somewhere ... and was dispatched with a lucky arrow shot! The group then went south at the crossroads and found a passage that had been blocked up. It sloped down and many large boulders had been piled up to block the passage off. Some had fallen loose ... and Puck crawled through a hole to explore. He made his way carefully down a rubble strewn slope to find a new chamber. There he saw three creatures floating toward him. Large balls, floating, with a great toothy maw, a large central eye and many many eyestalks all ending in a different colored eye. A) He wet himself. B) He went running back up the slope and dover through the hole he came in through, yelling for the group to "Block it off! Block it off!" ... they decided west would be a better choice. There they found a chamber with a great chasm in the middle and a variety of hallways leading off of it. They then began to worry about time. It must be close to 11am and civilization was several hours away ... they did not want to get caught in the Bleakmarsh after dark ... no one ever returns after dark. They backtracked to the sinkhole entrance so as to be closer to the exit ... (Map link cause I can't figure out how to insert a pic.) cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic1560413.jpg/url]This is the first session of my new Monday game, from a month ago. This last Monday, during the second session, I switched form the party mapping to a map covered in newsprint that they cut off as they explore. You can see a portion of the caverns they explored in the first session. Right under the $199 is the sinkhole entrance room. They did not know how far the chamber went west during the first session. The chamber to the right is where they found the corpse and dinosaur footprints. In the lower right hand off, out of frame, is the room with the pond where Puck saw the battle. The hallway going off the map to the south was the downward sloping one lined with the heads on stakes. Yes, the party had unwittingly stumbled on to level 2 of the dungeon ... This is a casual group, in which people can come and go as they wish from session to session, no big deal. For my part I've grabbed several megadungeons and spread them out near a large town/small city. The whole idea is for a zero-effort game for the players and the DM. The only commitment is that I'll be at the table on Monday at 6:30 ready to run a game for anyone who shows. I like to contrast, so the town is boring and full of mud farmers and people in poverty with skin diseases, all of whom look down on 'People like them', the Murder Hobos. The part of town they hang out in is lively and exciting in contrast, with people like Sir Heironous, Galstaff, and the halflings. S1E2 - Of Gunk & Gods My new Moonday group has met twice now. This is their story. Algenar - The Elf Ballbuster - The Dwarf Jane - The Fighter Puck - The Halfling Anabelle - The Cleric System - Ruffians & Reprobates, Bryce's 9-page LabLord hack. Coming soon to a DMCA takedown in the heartland. The party was in some caverns they reached via a sinkhole on the edge of the Bleakmarsh. They had explored deep in to the caves and then returned to near the sinkhole entrance so they could ensure they got back to town before nightfall. No one returns from the Bleakmarsh after sundown ... Puck decided to wander off home and the rest of the group went south again to investigate the pond he had found. They paused again to investigate the cavern room with the blood and body parts before journeying south to the pond room. They a scene of might battle with dead reptilemen and beastmen and crabmen. As they started to enter the room a group of four reptilemen charged at them from different branching hallways! This was the groups first taste of true hand-to-hand combat! Jane and Ballbuster corked the hallway, side by side in their plate armor and shields, while Algenar shot arrows from behind. The two on Balbuster were mighty warrios and their crude stone implements struck true several times. Anabelle took care of the problem though a new found faith in her generic god by calling on him/her/it to do some generic healing. [Ed: Rule change. She made a BASIC character with 0 spells for clerics at L1. R&R doesn't do that nuts.] The two on Jane seemed to new to the 'combat' thing. After several rounds Anabelle dropped her weapons and went sliding under Janes legs to get in to the mix, only to have the last creature fall on her as jane dispatched it. Ballbuster looted the bobdies while Jane gutted them looking for hidden loot. Algenar tried to salvage some of the 1,000 missed arrows he had shot while Anabelle investigated the bodies of the crabmen. Were these humans wearing crab parts, mutants, surgical constructs? Since the exoshells and giant crab claws that replaced their right hands looked natural they decided they were mutants. They also found several necklaces on the reptilemen made of crude chunks of silver ore. Yeah! Loot! They then investigated a downward sloping hallway a little to the north that ran east. Only to find themselves confronted by a naked beastman wielding a stone war club charging up the tunnel at them, followed by two crabmen! They were surprised and at the mercy of the strange humanoids! One of the crabmen got too close to the beastmans flapping junk though, causing to him to go down in a heap in the corridor, with the offender pausing as if to say 'My bad dude!' The other crabman charged in ... to Anabelles set 10 pole! He impaled himself upon it ... only to being crawling up the pole to reach Anabelle with his giant right crab arm! Eek! The party quickly dispatched he two crabmen, aiming for their soft underbellies and commenting on the lack of effectiveness for a bipedal creature with a hard REAR shell. Meanwhile Jane had the engaged the beastman who had by this gotten to his feet again. Jane gutted him, his intestines spilling to the ground. But the beastman was not done! He grabbed a pile of his own intestines and strung them around Janes neck, using them as a garrote to strangle Jane! Unfortunately, for the beastman anyway, the group then quickly dispatched him before he could complete his maneuver. They had no loot. The party was injured. Spells were depleted. Night was coming. They decided to return to Kryshal. Ballbuster went back on her own. They wanted to go back to the inn, heal up, get some supplies ... what they got were gate guards. Lazing beside the gate were two, ignoring everything and everyone that went in and out of the gates. Until the group approached. One got up and stood in their path, while the other looked on bored. "Well lookey here what we got! Some vagrants!" It was true; bloodies, covered in filth and dust ... it was obvious they were Murder Hobos. "Well Carl, what do you think ..." at which point Algenar shoved a hunk of silver ore in the mans face and walked right in. The guard was stunned. The other guard got up and started looking at the ore also. "Yeah yeah, go in" said the first guard, distracted by the silver. In they went. First stop: assay office. They found a stall and quickly washed off the blood & viscera from the amulets, cut the "leather" thong from it, and founded it in to a more natural' shape. They elected Anabelle their spokesman, since she only had a -1 to her CHR, and went in. She spoke up, with the other three grinning fools standing behind her. The assay guy had clearly seen this thing before and valued the hunks at about 40gp each before pointing them to a silversmith down the street. He gave them 50gp each for the 9 remaining amulets, since he needed silver right then. They all went over to Fast Edy the Usurer to get the cash while the party cuts the other things off the ore. ("How much for this silver candlestick?! Only a little brain matter on it!") The group split. Algenar and Jane hung out at the Heffer. Drinking & gambling was in store for Jane, while Algenar hung out with Galstaff, hope to learn a new trick. In the course of a few days Algenar picked up a new spell for his book from his 'buddy' Galstaff while Jane lost money and they both got a better sense of the Heffer. There was clearly a table of down-on-their-luck guys who who hire out for service for a little cash. They looked like a sorry lot, nursing their watered-down ales. They also figured out that most of the folks in the inn didn't actually have a lot of cash. Most were pretty tight-fisted because they were down to their last few coppers. They thought that the Prison of the Silken Caliphate was a well-traveled locale ... turns out it isn't. A decent number of groups go, and a decent number of groups return, but there are A LOT fewer groups going then they originally thought. They didn't let slip that they got their cash in the Bleakmarsh, instead claiming to have gone to the Prison. Glastaff let on that the Mausoleum was a TERRIBLE place and the Well of Souls a death sentence, but wouldn't say more, his face blanching. They tried to buy some healing potions in the Heffer, but the guy was out for being a sham right before Jane & Algenar were about to test he potions on the guy selling them ... Jane went off to the Temple of Tarvin for potions, following a tip, but advised against it since "Tarvin's an not a very nice person." It wasn't too hard to find: in a nicer part of town surrounded by slightly better buildings than hovels, there was a small hill and sitting on it a great white gleaming greek temple with broad steep, wide stairs running up to it and the glowing words "HOOKERS & BLOW" in giant letters above the entrance. Jane felt very conspicuous as he trod up the stairs, under the sign, being watched by everyone on the street, he being the only one of the stairs. He was met at the top by a priest in white robes tied with a gold sash. The inside was towering & magnificent, with the ceiling being support by huge columns that were seemingly made out of diamond. Not inlaid but rather solid diamond! He asked the priest for healing potions and was told they were 45 gp each. Jane tried to bargain the priest down to 40 when "FIFTY FIVE GP!" a loud voice rang out. It seems Tarvin was a more hands-on deity than usual ... being out of the price range for Jane he returned to the Heffer and filled in Anabelle, who had returned. Anabelle, you see, had gone to the Temple of Sir Lorp the Pure One when the party split. She had made a "request free" donation, which seemed to surprise and excite the young priest. She wanted to intern with him to learn more healing. He readily agreed and pointed out that tomorrow was Free Clinic day and he could sure sure use the help! She spied a man in a pile of hay in the corner moaning and the priest responded that some locals brought him in yesterday on a donkey cart. He had been part of a group that went to the Well of Souls, but was floating in and out of consciousness. Anabelle tried to help him, and found a completely withered and blackened right arm and a chunk missing out his left side, the surrounding tissue black and as hard as rock ... because it was. She questioned the man but all he did was wake up momentarily, grab her collar and scream "THE WELL! THE WELL!" before passing out. The prognosis was not good. Going back to the Heffer she learned from Jane of the Temple of Tarvin and set off with the cash to get a better deal. Tarvin was having none of it, insisting on 50gp as soon as she walked in. She asked a lot of questions about Tarvin of the priest, which mostly just exasperated the poor man,who seemed reluctant to do anything. When asked about literature a 1 page pamphlet was produced htat consisted of the face of 14 year old boy beaming out. When asking for something more extensive she was shown the Holy Word: a 237 volume set, each book the size of an unabridged dictionary. She asked to buy book one and was met with a "Seriously lady?" It seemed she wanted to join Tarvins priesthood ... at which point the priest offered her a discount on those healing potions she wanted. After 3 days of Cure Lights boosting their 1hp/day healing they headed back out at 2am to the Bleakmarsh ... but not before letting it slip that they were returning to the Prison of the Silken. Sir Heironomuos of Heironi was heading there also, so they him get an hours start. After which they noticed a wagon following them at a distance ... they doubled back and lost the wagon that was seemingly tailing them and headed to the Bleakmarsh, and down the sinkhole. This tim they ventured to the west and found the cavern turned in to a broad, high hallway covered in stone tiles & blocks and that was filled with mists. They started west and went, and went and went. Finally they found a small pool of water on the north wall, bubbling and such, that the mist in the hallway seemed to be coming from. Alganar tasted the water and reported it tasted like sulfur. Anabelle began to probe the pool with her 10' pole, or tried to anyway ... she couldn't find the bottom. She got down closer to put more of the pole in ... only to have a giant chunk of mold fly out of the water and attach to her face! Eeek! Jane tried to hit it with his Bastard Sword, and thankfully missed. As a burning sensation started to waft up her nostrils she got her hands under it and flung it in to the pool, at which time the pool smoked and boiled more, and the creature seemed to dissolve. Close call! Jane showed his contempt by taking a leak in to the pool. CAUSING ANOTHER CREATURE TO LEAP OUT AND ATTACH TO HIS EXPOSED GROIN! The acid catheter almost killed Jane, but fortunately Algenar was there with a torch, shoving it up against Janes groin and causing the create to die. And Jane to have a horribly scared groin. Anabelle did her best to heal him up and they continued down the mist-filled hallway. After seemingly forever they found two GIANT BRONZE DOORS closed and with no handle to open them. They were filled with carvings/designs of a fairy-tale like place. Lots of castles, fields, towers, etc. A some bridges. A WHOLE lot of bridges. Who ever did the design had a serious bridge fetish; they were everywhere. The doors would not open. There were small alcoves to the right and left with a door in each so they turned right, opened the door, and went down a hallway to a room. In it they saw a strange sight. Two gaunt people, naked, with patchy hair, were reaching in to their own butts to pull out nuts to write graffiti on the walls. Uh ... And now they were leaping across the room at the group! jane was yelling "Undead! Undead! Turn them!" which Anabelle attempted. Crit. A holy beam of light, with halos, came down the ceiling and struck one of the creatures head on, causing it to flee. Where the light hit the floor was a small and delicate aperitif glass filled with purple Alize. Agenar and Jane got the drop on the second creature, both hitting and killing it. They decided they had had enough (and it was 10:30pm) and to return to town again. Algenar got 100xp for Not Being a girl thingy and tasting the water. The new mapping technique (see session report 1) works well for keeping things going. It also helps keep people on level 1 since they are not putting together that a downward sloping hallway with warnings/enemies means "new level coming" when the hallway leaves the map. R&R is working out great. Still deciding if I want to OGL it or edit things enough to just release it without LabLord and OGL license info. The ghouls were wanding monsters who my second roll indicated were engaged in 'Art.' Tarvin is an old idea of mine from the 90's. Some adventurers become gods. Adventurers are pretty much not a very nice persons. What about an adventurer who became a god recently and is a pretty hands-on guy? The casual thing is turning out great. I don't usually run modules, and I'm kind of doing that this time (bonus points if you can point out some of the products I'm smashed up.) It's helping with the whole "show up, sit down and play" thing that BASIC is about. 5 minutes to make a character and we're playing. 0 prep time for the players and almost 0 for the DM=Playing more D&D. S1E3 - Luck Runs Out The Moondays - v1.0 Puck The Halfling - R.I.P. Ballbuster the Dwarf - R.I.P. Algenar the Elf - R.I.P. Annabelle, Cleric of Tarvin - Ran away Jane the Fighter - Alive because he stayed at the inn The Moondays - v2.0 Gawain the Thief - R.I.P (lived less than 5 minutes) Solara the Elf Lizzy the Fighter + Annabelle, +Jane (inn) The Moondays - v3.0 Oaf Stonebeard the Dwarf +Solara, +Lizzy, +Annabelle, +Jane (inn) The Moondays had been very lucky up until this point. During their first session they explored every hallway known to man, narrowly missing almost all encounters ... except for the ones they saw coming and avoided. Quick thinking let them avoid combat with Eustice the Black Troll and they retreated hastily when seeing beholders. The second expedition saw them getting lucky with a Sleep spell and using fire to kill something strange and weird they found. They also found the might of the god Tarvin truly terrified a couple of undead, and everyone struck true , easily killing a remaining Gaunt One before it could bring its powers to bear on them. More than once the party had members who were down to their last hit point. The third expedition found their luck holding for a bit until they pressed on to a point it failed utterly. Twice. The Moondays were regrouping at the bottom of the sinkhole when Puck the Halfling and Ballbuster the Dwarf showed back up, complaining that the group left the inn while they were in the john. The party set forth down the great wester mist-filled hallway. Reaching the great bronze doors, they spent some time examining them in detail. They could find no lock and no handle and the doors, 50 feet high, would not budge. The spent some more time examine the fairy-tale inlays on the door and wondered aloud at all of the bridges that seemed to exist on in this design. Finally, just after Annabelle knocked on the 27 times (the number of bridge scenes on the doors) the wide door, made of brass, to the south opened up and and three kids came out. They were armed with sticks and two wore pots as helmets. They were here because Marcus, the butchers son, said they were wimps and they were proving him wrong. The party offered the kids one gold crown each to join their group, and the kids readily agreed. They explained that there was an iron jail gate down the way they came, so the party went that way. They found a hallway that ended in a portcullis blocking off access to a room beyond, the wall of which were all carved with designs. Puck, in an amazing showing of his 8 strength, lifted the portcullis above his head, while Ballbuster and Anabelle helped. They wedged a pole under it and spiked it up, entering the room to explore. The wall designs showed humanoids that looked like the snake people they saw earlier (who were slaughtered by the reptile men) ... except these had vaguely elvish features. They were frolicking in jungle settings with dinosaurs; petting them, riding the, paining them, etc. They also found a lever which raised the portcullis. Puck was listening at a door in the room when he heard orc voices ... and hey were getting closer! Aieee! Anabelle and Ballbuster took up positions beside the door while Puck and Algernon stood in the center of the room. The kids started crying ... which the orcs seemed to hear. Algernon quikly gave gold crowns to the kids and told them to run back home, which they readily did. The door slowly opened ... and then was shoved open mightily. A massive orc stood there, with a group of his buddies huddled around behind some walls 10 feet away. Algernon said 'Shouldnt have done that' and shot an arrow at him, killing him. The other orcs gave a massive war cry and flooded in to the room .. spoiling the corking action of Ballbuster and Annabelle. Algenar let fly with a Sleep spell and got all but three of the orcs. One of them put the smack down on Puck. Puck had broken off his dagger in it and the orc hugged him to death ... while at the same time Ballbuster had another orcs sword running THROUGH her. The orcs were dispatched and the group found the orcs had come from a caved-in room. They went down a side-passage to the south and, just as Annabelle was asking if anyone was checking for traps, she fell in a pit in an intersection. A pit everyone else had passed over. They pulled her out and went in to a room to find three statues of High Snake People in alcoves, with a central dais with a pool of water in it, with a stone crocodile statue in it. Ballbuster poked it and the croc statue opened its mouth. He put his pole in its mouth and the mouth clamped down, snapping off the last foot of the pole! Ballbuster felt bad about life. He id the whole croc/pole thing again and felt overcome by enui. Meanwhile Push found that one of the staues pivoted and opened a secret door. On the other side was a STEEPLY descending passage, about a 25% grade, that twisted in to the darkness. There were bootprints in the dirt. They tied Puck to a rope and sent him down, but the rope came to an end before he saw anything. They pulled him up and Algenar took everyone back to the carvings room to see what the Elf/Snake/Reptile people ate. He saw a scene of them feeding gems to a crocodile! At the same time Annabelle found a handle on the wall and pulled it, opening a stone drawer. Inside were six emeralds and a section of black silk that contained a long thin silver stiletto covered with black runes, and with no crossbar. Ballbuster grabbed most of the loot, but Algenar took one gem and hustled back to the croc statue. The statue opened its mouth and the croc tail wagged faster and faster as Algenar got closer. He tossed the gem in to its mouth and the mouth clamped shut with a *SNAP.* Algenar felt pretty badass in that moment, like he was the king of the world! They continued down a different hallway in the intersection, only to find a door that didn't seem to open and fronted on to a black wall. Going the last direction in the intersection they wet through a room with more carvings, but in this one the people seemed more reptilian and were clearly using magic. They found a stairway that ended in a blank wall, a search of which found a secret door. Going through they found another room with carvings, showing the humanoids even more reptilian and using even more magic. The next rooms had more of the same and a LARGE fist-sized orange gem in the middle of the room. While the rest of the group looked for doors, Puck stared in to it and saw flames inside. Not hokey 70's sci-fi movie flames but ACTUAL FLAMES. He stole it, claimed it disappeared, when in the next room to look at it more, and then said it came back in to existence. Algenar wanted to feed it to the croc. Instead they went in to the last room in the chain, finding super reptilian humanoids casting spells that make stars go supernova. While searching in the 'mirror position' for a secret door, Anabelle saw a green gas coming from a secret doors crack. She ran out yelling GAS! but Ballbuster investigated, falling asleep. Algenar pulled her out and then opened the door, causing the gas to spill out in to the room. Algenar made a couple of "breath holding" forays down the corridor and found a gas clear corridor within running distance. They group made a run for it . They turned the corner and went down some stairs. And then the DOOM OF MAN caught up with them. Ballbuster, leading, came in to a room. There was a huge pile of loot in the middle of the room. Coins, packs, bags, weapons, etc. The group was feeling pain of "$$=XP" combined with not finding much ca$h. There was also a grey circle and a pink circle in the room, each just a couple of feet across. And in the room was an emerald-green naked androgynous creature with bright blue eyes and flames dancing in the palm of each hand. Ballbuster retreated hastily while the party asked what he saw. Then the creature came in to view. The Moons got init. Ballbuster ran in and hit it with hammer. Puck ran in to the room. Algenar missed with an arrow. Annabelle called out 'we come in peace!' from the stairs, which, in retrospect, may not have jived with the 7 point hit Ballbuster delivered. The creature shot flames at Ballbuster, cooking her and killing her. Algenar ran to the pink circle and stood in it. And got immolated the next turn by the creature. Puck offered the creature the orange gem. It waited. Puck tried to take some loot from the pile. And got immolated for his efforts. Annabelle ran away and made her way to town. 3 party members dead. Ballbuster had the emeralds and dagger, so no loot was gained. Back in town Anabelle did some volunteer work at the 'poor temple; but was getting the stink eye from the priest there. He was upset she went to see Tarvin. Anabelle responded with the idea that the priest sell healing potions so people don't have to go to Tarvins temple. The priest was having none of it. Anabelle grabbed a new group and headed back to the Bleakmarsh. This time Gawain the thief, Lizzy the Fighter, and Solara the Elf were in tow. They headed left this time, avoiding the misty hallway. They found a couple of corpses, not dead more than a few days. One was completely shredded. They heard signs of a battle up ahead and creeped up to find sub-humans with a mutant crab-man battling some of the Reptile men. Solara blew her Sleep spell, only snagging two of the Reptile-men. This allowed the sub-humans and crab guy to win the battle, although only the crab-man and two sub-humans were left. The party charged in to clean up. Gawain ran up and missed a human, only to be brained by war club. His fragile 4HP skull and AC5 was no match for the sub-human. The party ended up killing the three survivors, but found no loot. They turned around the corner and found a cave with a large 8 foot tall brute of a man in a loincloth cooking a stew. They greeted him warmly. He pulled out a large metal spoon from the pot and grinned at them, showing his pointed teeth as he approached them. Annabelle said 'I dont want ANY part of this.' and fled back through the battle scene, leading the creature through it to distract him, while the party followed her. Her clever plan worked and the creature drug some of the bodies back to his cave. The group went back to the sinkhole entrance and saw a dwarf, Oaf Stonebeard, fleeing down the ramp with 3 reptile-men in hot pursuit. The party dispatched them in one round and headed back to town. S1E4 - More fun than a bag full of possums! Annabelle the Cleric of Tarvin Solara the Elf Trixie the Fighter Jane the Fighter Oaf Stonebeard the Dwarf Back at the Hurling Heffer the group was huddled around their table discussing what to do next. Annabelle was hot to trot to hire some criminals and go after the green man and all of that PhAt L00T he had ... including the stuff he had takes from her dead comrades. The rest of the group seemed more inclined to go after the hulking brute of a man who was cooking dead bodies over a nice stew pot. Their discussions were interrupted by the doors of the bar flying open and three guys came in carrying a body that they threw on a bar table. It was Sir Heironious! He was gravely injured, covered in many shallow cuts, horribly burned in places, and breathing very badly and shallowly. Three others limped in as well, with one body not moving in the back of a donkey cart outside. Every in the bar was gathered around and talking excitedly as Annabelle stepped up and cured him. They slowly got a story out of him, his comrades, and Galstaff. They were on their way to the Prison of the Silken Caliphate when they were jumped by goblins, who are known to hang out around the prison. They had bags shoved over their heads and were beaten in to unconsciousness, never seeing their attackers. Sir Heironious was badly tortured by the goblins, having his nails pulled out, being burned with torches, and suffering many shallow cuts. One of his group was killed. Everyone was robbed. Eventually Galstaff, also on his was to the prison, heard some screaming and investigated, seeing some goblins. He disintegrated one while the rest ran off to the woods and shot sling stones. It was a brutal attack but Galstaff managed to get everyone out of the clearing and back to a farm where the got a donkey cart and some help to bring everyone back to town. The bar was abuzz! Solara thought it was kind of brutal and unusual for goblins to engage in such activity, especially only eight goblins at that. Heironious was a big deal with his plate armor and two-handed sword and they were geared up for a dive at the prison. Someone nearby agreed it was weird, and noted the increase in attacks like this in the area before everyone was distracted and talking again. The Moondays briefly considered going to take on the goblins but decided that Heironous was at least second level and if he got taken then here was no way they could stand up to the goblins. They went back, planning on hitting the brutish man. They went down the sinkhole only to get immediately distracted by a passage to the north. They had walk by it every time they entered and exited, but it was just on the edge of their light in the darkness of the great cavern so they had not noticed it before. Solara scouted down it to find a natural fountain spurting black brackish water in to a pool that had possums around it, drinking. While the rest of the group guarded and kept watch Anabelle and Jane ran around grabbing possums and stuffing them in sacks. Then three kids walked out of a hallway to the west! It was the same three kids they had seen earlier. Since they had done so well, earning three gold pieces, they had decided to come back and seek their fortunes. Questioned, they reported a room with a giant flaming ball of death to the west. Annabelle, in particular, was unsatisfied with the answer and ending up backhanding the lead kid HARD. He collapsed crying "Don't hit me daddy! Don't hit be again daddy! I'll be good! I'll be good!" while one ran away down the hallway and another ran and hid behind a rock, all terrified and crying. The group went west and down a side hallway where the saw some light. Rolling around on the ceiling was a three foot diameter flaming ball that occasionally shot out flames to random spots on the walls, ceilings, and floors. They decided it would be best to avoid this dead-end room and went back to out the hulking brute. They approached his cavern and heard him humming and singing to himself. Anabelle ran in and emptied the sacks of possums on to the floor and ran out again The brute was excitedly yelling 'POSSUM! POSSUM! POSSUM!' as he ran around collecting them. Meanwhile Solara starting shooting him with arrows as the rest of the moons ran in to the room. Jane stabbed him in the mouth, the other end of his sword coming out the back of his head while Solara stuck an arrow right in his eye socket. [2 crits in a row!] The group was victosious! Searching, Solara found many many many wall niches, a lot of which had a coin or two in them. Anabelle found a potion bottle and Oaf found a golden necklace made of miniature skulls. Actually, miniature skulls covered n gold and then strung on a necklace. Annabelle's potions was golden and smelled of walnuts and ginger. Solara found about 1000 coins! XP! Being full up on resources, they decided to press their luck. They went back to the flaming sphere room and, continuing west they came to a crossroads in the natural tunnel. They headed north in to a room full of rags and shredded cloth. Anabelle and Jane recognized some it as the clothing worn by their dead friends tat the green man killed ... some with bits of charred flesh still attached. Searching, Trixie found a stone tablet full of arcane writing and a picture of tentacles caressing a human female form. It made her feel queasy, as did Solara when she looked at it. About this time Oaf felt the floor to the NE was very weak and the party decided to chisel through it with a hammer and spikes. They made a hole in to a room below and saw a set of full plate, glowing golden laid out in the middle of an empty room. Empty except for the glowing blue longsword next to it. And the pile of large hairy bodies and goblin bodies by he only entrance to the room, on the north. Many were missing limbs. They tied a rope to Trixie and lowered her. She cautiously approached and eventually picked up the longsword. A sword that made her feel good all over ... but strangely she couldn't let go of. Right about then the guard party saw a dwarf and elf coming the hallway. The dwarf was full of bluster, claiming this was their dungeon and that they were looking for a missing silver shipment, and so on. The Moons drove them off while hauling Trixie out of the room below along with the glowing blue gothic armor, which Jane put on. They went back near the entrance and took another hallway. Jane's new armor started shouting HERE I AM! HERE I AM! while Solara saw an elf skeleton with something in its hand down a side passage a group of halfling merchants in a room to the east, huddling and calling out for help. Jane & Trixie went up the sinkhole so the armor would stop yelling, while the rest of the group went to talk to the merchants. They were dressed in finery and were stuck and lost down here after their caravan was raided. They thought the exit was to the west and would the group kindly escort them? Annabelle noticed that their clothes were actually kind of ratty, and some of the group of five were fingering knives. She yelled out a warning and Solara cast SLEEP. Three went down, with the other two quickly falling to the Moons! Throats were cut. They searched them but only found tiny keys in their belt pouches. The went west, where the merchants wanted them to go. Inside a large cavern they found a ratty rug laid out in front of a giant comfy chair, surrounded by lockbox creates labeled GOLD. On it sat a small man with a black beard, smoking a pipe, dressed in a green waistcoat and a green top hat. "You'll be after O'Shanasea's Gold then, will ya?" He disappeared. The Moons searched frantically for him! There was cackling as Oaf's axe turned in to a red herring! And then his armor turned in to a suite of point medallions! Meanwhile Anabelle drank her potion and turned in to a possum, a fly, and then some potato salad. FInally she willed herself in to a werewolf about the time the Leprechaun went down to some blind blows from the rest of the group. The room to the south had eight small cots, a fire pit, and footlockers, opened by the tiny keys. They were full of silver and once fine clothing. Jane searched the fire pit and found a trunk buried under it full of gold and silver bars, a glowing sword, and two potion bottles. Oaf took the glowing white sword and felt it talk to him about destroying the bourgeoisie! Power to the proletariat! These big words went right over Oafs head, and his 5 int. They group returned to the skeleton to collect a ruby from the dead elfs hand, and went back back to down for bookkeeping ... Annabelle was VERY close to second level! At Last!
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Post by bryce0lynch on Sept 4, 2012 10:30:52 GMT -6
Hey baby, hey baby, he ...
Are we going to see a compendium of the levels now that the dungeons complete?
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Post by bryce0lynch on Aug 22, 2012 10:34:26 GMT -6
Here's what I've liked best so far:
ANYTHING written by David Bowman. He wrote adventures for issues 2, 3, 5 and 6 of Fight On! magazine that were mind blowing. He’s almost certainly the best living adventure writer who has a chance of publishing something else (which eliminates Jaquay.) David towers over the rest of the field.
Anomalous Subsurface Environment. Gonzo to the core.
Stonehell. One of the few good megadungeons in existence.
Welcome to Mortiston. Modern zombies, not OSR, but a perfect example of how to set up a social environment in which adventures can take place.
Demonspore. A d**n fine example of an OD&D feel. Everything seems fresh & new again. Matt Finch is one of maybe three people in the OSR who I trust to consistently turn out good adventures (Bowman, Gabor Lux, Finch.)
Beneath the Ruins. Nice OD&D feel.
The Shadowed Keep, Arachnophobia, The Shattered Skull,Ychyrn The Tyrant. Crap! I mean four people! Kramer writes good adventures and has TOP NOTCH layouts. He creates very evocative setting.
Shadowbrook Manor. This has to be an homage to Tegal with the same goofy, fun, and deadly environment.
Wheel of Evil. Fungas men always deliver an OD&D feel.
The Thing in the Valley. A nice pace and and an evocative environment for a horror like adventure.
Tomb of the Iron God. There’s two gods and like 500+ monsters in this FIRST level adventure. Good Stuff!
Voyage to Plague Island. A Weird and wonderfully idiosyncratic adventure.
Gone Fishin’. Great folk tale feel and free to boot!
The Inn of Lost Heroes. Very evocative. Very horror. Very good.
Ironwood Gorge. OBJECTIVLY better than B2, despite what Benoist says.
The Ruined Hamlet/Terror in the Gloaming. Interesting situations and evocative detail.
A2 – The Slag Heap. Three examples of failed villages. A nice look at a borderlands village environment.
AA#12 – The Barrow Mound of Gravemoor. Barrow. Atmosphere. Weird.
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Post by bryce0lynch on Aug 22, 2012 4:59:59 GMT -6
It works well. After all, Chaosium publishes a separate BASIC rulebook for people looking for generic rules. Attributes & Skills, right? They used in CoC, Stormbringer, Hawkmoon ... most of their games were based off of it, if memory serves me correctly. I owned it during my 'own all generic rpg booklets' phase. (EABA rules!) Here it is: rpggeek.com/rpg/2108/basic-roleplaying
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Post by bryce0lynch on Aug 21, 2012 4:48:20 GMT -6
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Post by bryce0lynch on Aug 20, 2012 19:38:36 GMT -6
I'm soliciting feedback on a few things in this longish report, so get busy replying and telling me what a huge jerk I am, or how I'm wrong! Wednesday afternoon
I did some chauffeur work for some of the staff and then I checked in to the JW ad walked over to Will Call. I stopped by the lockers on the way but was out of change. This would hurt. Will Call just barely spilled out of the pipe & rope at 3:30pm and the line was moving fast. It looks like they switched over this year from 'split in to multiple lines based on your last name' to just a single line. I believe I recently read a paper that proved this queue mechanism moved faster and indeed it did. A much-needed improvement. Anyway, I was only picking up 3 last minute tickets for events Thursday and Friday so I was happy I didn't have a long wait. I picked up the kids from the bus and we headed to Scotty's for dinner before going home so they could do their homework. Scotty's wasn't yet stooopid crowded but they did have the con menu, had the banners up, and were playing fantasy movies on the Tv's not showing sports. The menu was ... difficult. I had a hard time figuring out what food item was what for several of the items and finally restored to asking the server if there was a burger on the menu. Little Girl and I split that while PokeBoy had a grilled cheese and we started off with pickle chips. The Pretty Girl then showed from her drive down form work and had a salad before dashing off to True Dungeon for the volunteer orientation. Our pickle chips never arrived. It was the servers first night. Hell of a weekend to start off your new serving job. I'm local so I get to try these places out when it's not GenCon. The Ram sometimes has decent appetizers but entrees are not very good and the place stinks. Scotty's food is just plain not good. I tok the kids so they could get some pre-con mindset going but next year I need to find something that doesn't suck. It must be popular because they let people camp and play games? Thursday morning
I dropped the kids off at school and hit the valet at the JW about 9:10am, just as the Big Rock Candy Mountain came on my phone. No Finer Song for a gonzo OSR guy! I'd be humming about the birds & the bees and the cigarette trees for the rest of the con. My intent was to hit the dealers hall when they opened and kill time till my 1pm game. While walking past True Dungeon, in the convention center this year, I saw V, The Pretty Girls best friend, working the door so I stopped to talk. She was on Badge Check duty which, as I just recalled, was the only 'big' room that didn't have convention center staff at the doors checking badges. The entryway of the dungeon looked great, the best they've done yet. They had a bubble machine up high blowing 'snow' and totally revamped how they collect tickets/armbands. More on the 'mechanics' of TD later; I helped V at he door for a bit and tried, for the fourth time this year, to volunteer. They didn't have any sign-up sheets. ARG! I played TD the first year it was at GC Indy. I volunteered just about every year since. I met my now-wife at TD while we volunteered. I built the beholder prop in my garage for TD. The lack of organization behind the scenes is why I stopped volunteering. I suppose it's some entitlement issue on my part but I can't stand the lack of organization. I could have just showed up and I'm sure they would have eventually found something for me, but I prefer to know my schedule so I can plan other things around it. One of the best times m wife & I have had is working a room together as a mimic and DM while we were dating. We tried to volunteer together last year but got split up. I'm sure they prefer full time staff instead of my 'I can only work Thur & Fri' stuff, and a part of me feels bad for volunteering 'on my own terms.' The TD people are VERY nice and I want to help them out but maybe I should just accept that I'm not a good fit. Comments? I hit the hall as it opened and made my way to the OSR booth. I try and keep a low profile but Bill Barsh is an observant fellow; he saw through my secret identity immediately and outed me. There was a wide selection of product: Bills Pacesetter products, XRP's AA line, LotFP and Frog God were all very represented, with ASE1, Black Blade, Chaotic Henchmen, Eldritch Enterprises and ACK all having a smaller presence ... and maybe one or two that I have forgotten. I bought everything I didn't already have. Bill was working by himself so I didn't want to chat much, but he does promise some boxed sets in the future. I ran in to Bill Sunday morning on his way to his booth before the hall opened, while with my son. I wanted to tell him about my sons impression of The Thing in the Valley but he was gone by the time we remembered. (He loved it, and got the ring from the old woman because he was the true hero.) I bought three items from Troll Lord that I didn't have, and then bought two interesting Hackmaster modules from Kenzer. These appear to be mostly straight modules and are saddle-stapled and a bit smaller than their jokey modules. I made a quick pass through the rest of the hall but didn't see anything else of interest to the OSR gamer ... or very interesting in general. Time flies and din't seem a minute since the Tyrolian spa had the OSR boys in it, so I hit champs for lunch. I wanted soup. They didn't have soup. WTF?!??! No soup or chili??! Seriously? I had half a buffalo salad and 22oz of beer before heading over to the Marriott for ... Thursday 1pm - Tunnels & Trolls with Ken St. Andre (Tunnels & Trolls)
I want to like T&T. I've tried in the past to read the rules but I don't think I ever fully grokked them, especially combat. I initially left my R & F open so I could volunteer for TD, but when I didn't hear back I picked some filler games for R & F and this was one of them. What better way to learn the game than with the creator! Most games have a certain feel to them and playing with someone that really knows and gets that feel is the best way to pick it up. Someone who cares about the game system is always better than someone just putting in time to pick up a free con badge. There were seven or so of us and when we picked characters I ended up as A MOTHER f**kING SORCERER... er, I mean wizard. I was, perhaps, influenced by snidermans Thundar game going on at the next table. Anyway, we were given a choice of games and played Dungeon of the Bear. Much fun was had will slippery slopes, rolling balls, were-badger gems, and roving bears. I looted the body of a fellow wizard during combat, drank a healing potion because I was sweating a bit, received a 'gift' of 50' of silk rope from a fellow party member, and kept a magic badger-gem in a sock that I used as a weapon. Oh, and I made an Uruk SPARKLE!!!! You can get away with a lot when your the parties last wizard, er, I mean a MOTHER f**kING SORCERER!!!!It was a good game with a decent amount of good-natured horsing around, as my actions indicate. The game helped solidify one of my core beliefs further: the dungeon is just a pre-text to get some people around and have fun; the party will create their own fun and their own adventure given the pre-text. I liked the bizarre nature of the dungeon and thought it suffered most when it was normal: orcs in rooms and so on. The Pretty Girl came down from work. She had a game over at Union Station and I wanted to play with her so I blew off my 8pm Frag tournament. I put on the tux and she put on a frumpy business dress and we took a cab. This was necessary because the JW and US are as far apart as you can get and I had on my opera pumps. After all, we were part of ... Thursday 7pm - The First Film Crew on Mars (LARP)
I don't care if it does say LARP; keep reading and learn something. She had a ticket and I had generics and this was the first night of three interrelated LARPs. She was a reporter and I was the films producer in a steampunkish/pump setting. The ship had crashed after an encounter with a giant space whale and while the atmosphere was breathable, it was still rough going. I was trying to get my film made and I played the guy very overblown. I started to hit on the reporter, hard, and then changed my tactics after getting my camera confiscated. I decided that we were not going to get rescued and started hoarding/hiding supplies and trying to build a harem. Eventually I got caught by the ships nurse, and I wasn't having much luck converting the ships guards to my way of thinking. Things did not go well for me after that. The game had some problems. A good con LARP needs to give you a brief background, some thoughts on the other characters, some goals for you to accomplish, and have no NPC's. It also needs to be written with character circles. The first three get you started in the game and give you some things for you to work on and get you interacting with the other players. The presence of NPCs means the LARP is a railroad and Something Is Supposed To Happen. That's not fun in an RPG or in a LARP. Character circles are important because of size. LARPs are generally written for a lot of people and if not a lot show up then you've got problems because people you're supposed to interact with are not present. You solve this by writing circles of characters of various sizes and factions with a few hangers on to fill on the gaps. You pull out the circle that most closely matches the number of players present. This LARP didn't really have any goals for us or any preset relationships on the sheets., just some motivations for us. Something like: you don't trust people to do their jobs, etc. This made it hard to find something to do and motivations for interactions. Most of my crew wasn't present so I couldn't really even try to work on the film, hence the switch weasel survivalist mode. The Pretty Girl and I had to leave about 10pm and cab'd it back to the JW. Fing opera pumps! It's not easy being pretty ... Friday morning the The Pretty Girl and I had breakfast at the JW restaurant. We try to have breakfast together at the hotel at least once at a con, usually on Sunday. The coffee tasted burnt. The agave yogurt teaser (looked like and had the consistency of ice cream) was different but not great. The jelly selection was the usual strawberry, grape, and orange. My chicken hash with hollandaise was very delicate ... meaning severely under-seasoned. Srirache fixed that though. She went off to Pilates and Needlefelt while I ... Friday 9am - Escape from the Mucus Mines (Sixcess system)
I signed up for this based on the name. It's a 'new' system, I think? based on d6's, skills, attributes, and is a furry RPG in an arabian setting. Hmmm, I should read more then the titles next time, perhaps. Older crowd, 40ish, until three 20's guys showed up, friends, just wandering trying to find a game. "I knew we'd find a game open in one of these rooms!" My type of crowd! Standard pre-gens and 40 minutes of explanation of the game world and races by the GM ... not a strong start. Imagine someone tried to explain Jorune to you so you could play the game 'right' ... The characters were standard pregens ... who immediately were stripped of all gear in the opening monologue as we were dumped in to the Mucus Mines. It's a kind of Chronicles of Riddick prison with a giant mucus lake in it. We started with flips-flops, a ragged tunic, and a cup. We used the cup to move mucus form the lake to barrels, and also for our water and food. My academic goes over to the lake, fills his cup, and tastes it. It's essentially battery acid. The big trustee in the mines comes over and one of the other players starts mouthing off to him. Hmmmm ... my character concept solidifies. While the other PC is poking the bigger trustee in the chest and starting a fight, I thrown the mucus in the trustees eyes and then start shivving him in the throat with my (blunt) cup in a very murderous and very calculated way. Meanwhile another PC is turning his cup, tin, in to a real shiv. This is about 3 minutes after we were allowed to start playing our characters, about 30 seconds after we were lowered in to the mines. Good Crew, my kind of people! This is all in stark contrast to the deeply historical accurate view of arabia on the characters sheets. Thus started the railroad. We should have killed the trustee and/or blocked his way about a dozen times ... but it was clear we were being railroaded in a chase and in to a climax. Skill checks to climb, jump, open doors, fight, etc. Not my type of game system. Not my type of setting, although I can now mark 'Furry RPG' off my bucket list. The game dragged, a lot, and the GM had to check with someone else several times on rules questions. On the plus side the NSDM game was across the hall and I got to look at their stuff a lot. I went off to the dealer hall, skipping lunch after the big breakfast, when I got a txt from the ex-wife. The school bus drivers are on strike! I was going to take a cab to their bus stop, pick them up, and then drop them off at their 5pm events with about 10 minutes to spare. A strike means they wouldn't get home till 6:30 or so. Ought oh! I jumped in a cab and yanked them out of school early, getting back around 3:30pm. They got to have dinner and I dropped Little Girl off at Teddybear Chainmailing and PokeBoy at the Yu-gi-oh room for this sealed deck tournament while I went back to the JW to get ready for my next game. Turns out the Yu-gi-oh room was not crowded and they didn't get 8 players until almost an hour later. He lost in the first round but was still VERY late for his next game, Wiz-War. We played on a 3d board last year and he really liked it. He then lost his Oh Gnome You Don't ticket while trying to find the table, and went back to the room. Little Girl made it her Werewolf seminar but they were oversold and she didn't push the fact that she had a real ticket rather than a generic. She made it to her 10pm game, Helix & Helix: The Fix. This is a boffer LARP, with zombies, I'm pretty sure. She LOVED it. It was one of her favorite things at the con. I've seen them at Union Station in previous years but they were at the Hyatt this year. I give my kids cash, show them around, schedule something with them each day, give them cells so they can txt me when they move around the con, but otherwise let them do their own things. They are good kids, well behaved and straight A's at the best school in the state, but they are still 12 and 13. I know I hate unsupervised kids and playing with kids in games and I don't want to inflict them on others the same way. In reality though most kids are well-behaved and not problems. We just tend to remember the wild ones which poisons our view of the world. Comments? I was getting ready for: Friday 7pm - One Night in Bangkok (LARP)
Based on Chess, the Musical. Oh yeah baby! The city don't know what the city is getting! Look, I get the LARP hatred. _I_ hate LARPS. LARPs mean boffer weapons, people screaming "QUAD! QUAD! QUAD!" and Vampire players acting emo. Some games are different though, and this is one of them. These are social games and I LOVE social games. I love being gleefully evil, screwing people over, and having fun Fun FUN! That's the definition of winning in my book, not something based on VP's. This is based on the musical, whatever that is, and that Murray Head song! BADDDD!!! ASSSS!!! I contacted the organizers early and got the 'black' player Anatoly. He's the center of the story, essentially. I swapped out my white tux shirt with a black banded collar and wore the tux again. Anatoly is kind of a sad person except when he's playing chess; he loves the game. I tried to watch the musical tuesday night but could NOT make it through it. My Fair lady, A funny Thing Happened, and Paint your Wagon are the only good musicals in my book. Fortunately the wikipedia article is EXHAUSTIVE! Anatoly leaves beats the 'white'/american champion Freddy (based on Bobby Fischer) and then defects to the west after leaving his wife & kids in Russia and stealing Freddies girlfriend. One year later the next title match is in Bangkok and the LARP is at a party before the game. The KGB guy is there, making veiled threats to me about my kids/wife, my wife is there causing a scene, the media is all over me, and the Russian champ is a machine. My goals are to stay calm before the match, take care of my loved ones, and win. The Pretty Girl comes in a bit late and plays Freddies mother. (Either The Pretty Girl and I are allied in a game or e have nothing to do with each other. Games in which we are at odds end with me selling her in to slavery for a can of peaches ... I can be ruthless in my petty evil.) The guy playing Freddy is in all white, just like the musical, and I'm in all black, just like the musical. Everyone recognizes him as Freddy. No one recognizes me as Anatoly. d**n YOU FREDDY! This is all very close to the way the musical played out where Freddy was brash and Anatoly subdued. Once the game started I quickly learned that the wife and KGB (undercover) guy were trying to cause a scene and upset me. I decided to trust Freddies ex, my new GF, implicitly, and arranged a live Tv interview ... very un-Anatoly on the surface of things. All while keeping a very somber, straight face. This makes the media people VERY happy. During the interview I take my wife's hand, introduce her to the world, and tell everyone how the undercover KGB guy is really KGB and is threatening to have my wife and kids and relatives killed. I then excuse myself. This protects my wife and kids, in my mind, since the KGB can now do nothing to them without loosing face, which is all the chess match is really about in their minds. It also takes care of the media since there is NO WAY they are going to put me on camera again, for fear of what I might do. 30 minutes in and I've now protected all of my loved ones AND removed the major sources of excitement/interruptions from my mind. No worries for me! I spend the next couple of hours taunting the KGB guy, playing with the girl who played The Arbiter (got her to sing the history of chess song from the musical, which she had memorized) and getting digs in at Leonid, the Russian champ. I had decided that Anatoly had learned a thing or two form the brash Freddy and was trying to get under the skin of the Russian Machine. "I'm going to use the Indian defense!" or "How about I open with a fools mate?" or "lets play using the original rules of the game!" I was being gleeful, since this involved chess and it was the only thing Anatoly loved. Freddy was brash and a media sleeper. Leonid was just a chess machine. The Arbiter loved the game in a mechanical way. Anatoly was the only one with a true deep romantic love of the game. I also mixed in a little of that crazy Kaissa champ, what I remembered, from one of those Gor books. At the end I went to the restroom and while coming back to the game room was confronted by the KGB guy just outside the door. He had a knife. He was totally defeated and humiliated by my actions earlier. I thought he was going to stab me. Instead, he stabs himself, falls in to me to get me bloody, and then collapses in to the room declaring, with his dying breath, that I had stabbed him. I was stunned! I looked over at Freddy and said " Quite an excellent move. Quite good indeed. He does not play at any ordinary level." The police are called and I get the Arbiter to start the final match. I'm calm, cool, and collected, knowing my loved ones are safe. I'm turning over cards with a quiet, casual confidence, as I lean back in chair. (We were playing the card game war to simulate the match.) The russian, Leonid, is hunkered down, concentrating hard, really trying to win War. He had no idea I was the 2009 World Rock Paper Scissors champion ... the real one, not that stupid Spring Break rip off. I win easily, 5 to 2. Game over. GREAT game over. Leonids understudy elopes with my (now) ex-wife (divorce papers were on the KGB agents body) and they defect to the west. Gamblers make and loose money. Freddy re-enters the chess world, preparing to enter next years tournament. A fun time was had by all! I LOVED hearing Freddy yell out "leave me alone MOM!" or something similar during the night. When The Pretty Girl is on then she is ON. Back to the hotel where I worried about Little Girl making it to the room, but she did. Moto GP is in town and LOUD and I don't sleep well anyway. I get about 3 hours before Saturday morning. I have to skip my 8am Boot Hill game because I registered for it before the BGG Math Trade meetup was organized. I did show up and give away my ticket to the GM, in case someone with generics showed up. They all had on cowboy hats. I respectfully asked that if they gave away my ticket that they ask the new player to kill some schoolchildren and burn down a few houses in my name. Little Girl is playing the 4E D&D adventure Good Little Children Never Grow up, by Sneak Attack Press. She really enjoyed it and now wants to run it for the rest of us. It didn't sound very 4e so I'll pick up a copy. PokeBoy is in the Mayfair room playing giant size The Fall of Pompeii. Who doesn't like throwing people int he volcano and burning people in lava? He also played Cosmic Encounter, Incan Gold, and Pokemon Rumble and the Zombie Ninja boardgame. He came back that night with a desire to get all of the Mayfair ribbons. Little Girl couldn't find her 'Build a Foam Weapon' workshop and spent her time in the dealer hall. She bought an animal backpack and some Hetalia stuff. (She was cosplaying as South Italy all day Saturday.) I walked The Pretty Girl down to True Dungeon where was volunteering all day. She had been running around the day before organizing and buying dress-up clothes, and was going to be one hot elf Sorceresses. Instead they tried to make her an ugly spectre. She resisted and proceeded to give the parties a mission, every 6 minutes, for the next 8 hours, while fending off the advances of a desirous bluehand behind the scenes. Sometimes she's too polite; she should have had him moved someplace else. I hit the BGG math trade, which I decided I won. You see, I traded away Outdoor Survival, Wizard's Quest, Warhammer Quest, and about 80 OSR modules magazine for Duel in the Dark, M44: Tigers in the Snow, Cash & Guns: Live, Axis & Allies, Gammarauders, and Frag. I like M44 and C&G and Frag. I needed a wargame, hence the A&A. Gammarauders looks BAD ASS and Duel in the Dark is a backup game for when The pretty Girl and I get sick of trying to understand the rules to Downtown: The Air War over Hanoi. That was at 10am in hall E. I thought for sure they would get shut down because they were in the aisles. There were about 6 convention center security staff (yellow shirts) continually moving people form the aisle to the side, trying to keep the walkway clear. My last trade was late, finally getting there about 10:30. Un. Cool. I ditched the goodies in the room and then hit the Omni for some corn chowder and beer before going to the best game of the con for me ... Saturday Noon - Star Trek: The Trouble with Time Lords (Call of Cthulhu)
oooooooo... . droooollllll! Look at that game title ye mighty, and despair! CoC is one of those games you have to register for the very SECOND registration opens, and you still might not get a ticket. There is a good reason for this. THEY ROCK! This wasn't really a mythos game. Me and two other people were red shirts while other players were Kirk, Spock, Scotty, and McCoy. The red shirts switched over 15 minutes in though when our real characters showed up with The Doctor in his Tardis. River Song, Data, and GARY 7!!!!! I got handed Data and the guy next to me (dutch or german, i think) got Gary 7, but we switched in the hallway since he didn't know who Gary 7 was and I TOTALLY did! In this timeline Mudd was the HR officer of the Enterprise and my mission (turns out G7 was a timelord!) was to make sure the crew of a certain spaceship were delivered to a certain planet alive. The ship? The SS BOTANY BAY!!!!!! OMG! I'm such a fan boi!!!! I get Kirk to turn the ship around (lazy, apathetic, incompetent Kirk. That guy was great!) and we find the Botany Bay. Mostly empty, just four bodies left. In short order the survivors are beamed over to the enterprise and start reading technical manuals while the historian NPC is pushing for more access for them. The dead bodies are beamed over the cargo hold where they reanimate. Zombies!!!! An energy being is eating our dilithium crystals, and the Reliant is having some trouble with the REAL Kahn!!!! We kill the zombies, capture the energy being (I figured out, just from the laugh, that it was The Master!!!! Player skill, baby! A MOTHER f**kING SORCERER!) We eventually defeat kahn by beaming the master over to the Reliant and then go tie up the loose ends. Oh, and Spock mind-melded with The Doctor, got a view of the time vortex, and went crazy, loosing a d50 in SAN. Like all great games it went fast and is just a jumble of AWESOMENESS in my mind. I played Gary 7 as being frustrated by the crews of the enterprise and their idiotic decisions, while stroking Isis. In the end I was going apoplectic trying not to scream at Kirk. It was great! I 'won' and got a prize pick. This happens a lot and I always decline. I have enough stuff at home; I don't need more. We all met for pizza at 5pm. Little Girl even made it on time, which surprised me ... especially since SHE HADN'T BEEN TXTing ME!!!! Turns out her phone died and she could prove it (continuos reboot cycle.) We had pizza and a hotdog from the stand next to the Battletech pods and then went over to True Dungeon for ... Saturday 6:20pm - True Dungeon Draco-lich Undone (Combat)
I've hit TD every year and volunteered most years, even at SoCal when it was running. This year they moved to the convention center and added Sunday sessions. The entrance was GREAT, once of the most evocative ever. It was simple, a small hallway, until you rounded the corner and say the big player areas before it. It seemed to go on forever, with hang out tables and a snack bar that served booze after 6. There was one check-in room per game (they were running three main games and several smaller ones.) In previous years you had checked in outside, in the lights, and given your ticket and gotten your wristband and tokens. This year it was all inside and specific to the game you were playing. It seemed to run A LOT smoother and wasn't nearly as hectic. Of course, we also got there earlier than we usually do. I got the fighter, PokeBoy was Wizard (Surprise!) Little Girl was Ranger and The Pretty Girl was Druid. Our other players eventually showed up and we went in to the coaching room. They had placemats this year for you to place your tokens on so they could calculate AC, saves, and bonuses. It went much smoother. Then it was off to the training room where the combat types slid things, the druid memorized her leaves and the wizard memorized his energy planes chart. They both did GREAT, never missing one leaf or plane chart quiz! PokeBoy, in particular, did a great job, memorizing the positions of about 24 different energy planes on a blank chart. In to the dungeon! But not before the training room guy read us the intro instead of a hot elf sorceress. First room we had to stack blocks up to make an arched entry way. We couldn't get the order right and failed. Second room we met and fought a spectre, third room we fought a molten thing like a water weird (it was some clock based puzzle.) Hmm, we solved a puzzle dealing with anvils, fought a VERY realistic looking stone statue who did a good job standing still, failed a puzzle dealing with dwarven ancestors, and then fought the draco-lich. It killed everyone except for two people, starting with PokeBoy. Eventually the cleric and barbarian killed it and we left, getting two treasure draws each. Oh yeah, I dumped a whole bag full of hundreds of token out on the floor in one room, looking like an idiot. I don't collect/get in to the token thing, but I had a bag from over the years and the kids like it so I was carrying the spares around when I tried to untangle one token that got caught in the handle. Oops! The DM was like "Sucks to be you Sir." heh. It's a good thing they hold no value for me. The Pretty Girl went to a bachelorette party for a girl who met her fiancé in our meetup. They went to the Libertine, which has great food but is small and a decent walk, and then she met her old gaming group, The Indy Cool Gamers, at the Red Garter before they went to the Claddaugh. At the RG they met a stripper who had won a prize in the costume contest earlier that day and who knew a cosplay friend of ours. She mentioned how her friend was always trying to get her to go to a certain wild ass pool party thrown by a certain organization, at which point one of the group pointed at The pretty Girl and said "Its held at HER house!" A MOTHER f**kING SORCERER! PokeBoy went off to play Mayfair games to get his ribbons, but couldn't find anyone to play with him. He was down and went back to the room. Little Girl and I went over to Untion Station for ... Saturday 10pm - Shelter in Place (LARP)
Little Girl and I had a disagreement. She thought this was a LARP. I had seen the book in the Indie RPG booth and thought it was one of THOSE games. We were both right, in a way. The tagline is 'How would you do in an Zombie Apocalypse." Like all good modern americans I have a decent zombie defense plan so I was ready for this. I wasn't ready for a room full of kids and a game of tag, which is what this was. Oh, and the mommies. Moms seem to like to out-mom each other when they are in groups, real or virtual, and a lot of it seems to center around being overprotective. Dads seem to be getting in on it now also. I saw a 10 year old at the state fair who father helped him zip up his pants. The moms were in full on over-protective mode while I pretended to sleep rather than be the snarky ass I wanted to be. I'm surprised they didn't chew their kids food for them. Anyway, the game was tag. The zombie team shuffled while the survivors could run and had a shelter to hide in that we could not get in to. You tagged someone arms and said "1 2 3 Combat". Humans as a CV of 2 and zombies a 1 in the first round. Highest CV won. There were some objects hidden by the zombies around the con room area to motivate the survivors to leave their shelter. Eventually they found a radio and parts to make a transmitter, as well as a shotgun, baseball bat, etc. Then the CV's changed to Human=1 and zombies=2 and the zombies would get in to the shelter. Zombies, my team, won the first game and then we switched sides, with the zombies also winning the second game. The best part was probably watching the pre-teen boys on my team checking out the ass of a cosplay girl that walked by in the hallway. Not subtle at all. Live & learn boys, live and learn. The other team had mostly pre-teen/early-teen girls. Little Girl doesn't get along well with the girl crowd yet and was happy to leave at 11:45pm and not stay for another round. Little Girl slept in on Sunday morning, as did The Pretty Girl since she got back to the room at 3am. PokeBoy had an 8am game of Giant Ablaze so I got cleaned up and we walked down, stopping for drinks along the way. In the Mayfair room he was the only player for Giant Ablaze but there were several guys eyeing the Empire Builder game. He needed an ore ribbon, which you get by playing a train game. I HATE those games, but he wanted the ribbon, so he finally listened to the wisdom of age and played it with the other guys. (Long game, hard to get players, etc.) I went off and had breakfast at Padachu: bacon, toast, and a bloody mary. I came back and he was done with his game so we played Giant Ablaze together so he could get his wood ribbon. It's like Carcasonne with more blocking. We then met Little Girl for ... Sunday 10am - Artemis
We could only get three tickets for this so The Pretty Girl had our luggage taken to the car at the JW while Little Girl and PokeBoy and I played this. It turns out our fellow crew were people The Pretty Girl and I knew. The kids blind0bought his for me for my birthday this year (and it sat unplayed) and The Pretty Girl and I saw it and then drooled over it till we played it at Origins this year. It's a social 6 player Starship Bridge Simulator computer game. One machine runs the server and it hooked up to a projector, as the main view screen. Each of five players has a computer in front of them that is one of the bridge stations: helm, tactical, engineering, science, and communications. One player stands around as Captain. The other players feed him information and he gives orders to the others. it is SOOOOOOOOOOO cool! Little Girl was Tactical Officer, Mr Raccoon Hat. PokeBoy was helmsman PokeBoy. We also has Mr Scotchy at engineering, Mr Hawaian Shirt on Coms, Fearless Leader at Science and me, as The Captain. The Pretty Girl showed up during our briefing so she got to sit on the captains lap as Yeoman The Pretty Girl. We defeated everyone in the first game and then, to reward our boisterous behavior (we were all having a lot of fu and hamming it up) the organizers upped the ante on us. We tangled with a space monster, blew up several enemy fleets, hit an asteroid while Mr PokeBoy was looking for a black hole to fly us in to, and finally got killed EXACTLY as our tie was up. Great Fun! It's only like $40 and you get 6 licenses for it. We played on awesome touch screens, but it runs on almost any PC. You should TOTALLY check it out. We had to hustle to make it to ... Sunday 11am - D&D Next Playtest
The Pretty Girl and I had been to DDXP in Fort Wayne so we had been among the first to publicly play-test 5E. I'd run it for her and the kids at home but the kids didn't really get in to it. In one of my great shames, they seem to prefer 4e, although they like being murder-hobos. Go Figure. Anyway, this was supposed to be our big together event at the con so of course it didn't go off. Bladman, maybe, was telling people they were oversold and could seat no generics. "No problem, we have real tickets." I say. Yeah, the system sold too many, we can't seat you. Sorry. I can give you some promo dice or I can give you a refund. Uh ... Wizards and the RPGA is such a joke. What he meant to say was that all of their judges are off playing/running Pathfinder and they are a disorganized group of f**kwits, but he mispronounced it as "oversold." I just got mail from the The Indy Cool Gamers guys and they claim to be disgusted with their RPGA experiences also (they play and judge both.) Bad judges and bad organization. We had lunch at Harry & Izzy's (expensive, which is ok if it's good. It's not worth it though.) and then all went back to the dealer hall and split up. PokeBoy went off to get more ribbons. He ended up as a Knight of Catan and a Defender of Catan, getting all 10 or 11 ribbons. He also bought a snail pewter mini and a purple dragon mini sculpture, as well as getting a lot of Yu-Gi-oh cards for free for beating The Masters, including one personalized Token card with his picture on it. The Pretty Girl split off, shipped some, and went home at 2 to sleep till 7pm that night. Little Girl and I shopped all the aisles and she bought an anime mystery bag for $40 tat she was NOT happy with. I bought a cool little picture and a copy of Jungle Speed Raving Rabbids edition!!! I LOVE jungle Speed and i LOVE the Raving Rabbids. I was screaming like a rabbid since I got the second to last copy (for $10! score!) The Asmodee people seemed to get a kick out of it. We met up with PokeBoy at 4:10 and left for home, a whole 2.5 miles away. Mutton chops seem to be making a comeback for guys. Daisy Duke/short-shorts seem to be making a comeback for women. The traditional hipster/poser indie rpg look seems to be on the outs. There was an awesome balloon dragon constructed in the hallways and an ad-hoc game of zombies vs humans taking place in the hallways also. Headbands vs armbands tag. The con was super busy all four days. I'd be surprised if they didn't smash attendance records. Nothing stood out for me in the dealer hall. RPGs seem lightly represented, with boardgames resurgent. The indie RPG scene, in the dealer hall, seems down. Disappointed to not see Greg Porter at The Other Indie RPG Booth ... since the booth wasn't there this year. I wanted one of those modular DM screens that I saw last year, but they weren't there. OMG/Axe in the Head had a booth. I gave a spiel to The Little Girl describing the game that so good they gave me some free swag from under the table. Computer scene seemed less represented, both in games and in utilities. Lots and lots of great T-shirt booths this year, more than usual and several smaller ones with cute stuff on them. The cosplay clothing booths are well represented but not overly so, IMO. Mostly steampunkish but the pink frilly maid stuff is now making an appearance in a couple of booths. A scattering of anime items, including adult mystery bags. Tome of Adventure Design and Black Monastery were on sale at the Paizo booth. Mongoose was selling Sex, Dice and Gamer Chicks, which surprised me. Smirk and Dagger was showing off their Fresh Meat expansion for Cutthroat Caverns. It's in a big box and can hold all of the games at once. It looks good. I picked up Moon Base Clavius (russians with nuclear mortars on the moon!), Valkenburg Castle (red dragons! nazis!) and Cyborg (the best cover OF ALL TIME!!!!!) from Zocchi's booth. He claimed that he had never sold another of Cyborg at a convention but I know he's wrong; I bought one about 7 years ago. Nothing gives you geek cred like a Zocchi purchase. I got numerous compliments the rest of the con from vendors in the dealer hall who saw Clavius and Valkenburg. A MOTHER f**kING SORCERER! Oh yeah, I hit the art show looking for 70's style fantasy art of MOTHER f**kING SORCERERS, but didn't find any. I'd appreciate any pointers to some. Trippy 70's fantasy pointers are also appreciated. Hmmm ... anything else you guys wants to know about? From the $5 booth:
RPGA #2 (Cool cover!) Dungeoneer Compendium 1-6 Ready Ref Sheets A Challenge to Arms (Chris CLark) Dark Druids (Kuntz) Garden of the Plantmaster (Kuntz) Prisoners of the Maze (Kuntz) Dimensions of Flight (Kuntz) Talons of the Horned King (Spaceship & Fantasy!) Blackmoor (d20) Blackmoor (4e) From FBI:
Catacombs of the Bear Cult (Dungeon of the Bear not available) From KenzerCo:
In the Realm of the Elm King Dusk of the Dead From Troll Lord:
Dwellers in Darkness - Ulgakur The Black Librum of Nartarus Goblins of Mount Shadow From the OSR Booth:
F1 - The Fane of Poisoned Prophecies The Final Chapter Beyond the Black Wall Beyond the Wailing Mountains The Death Curse of Sven Oakenfist Many Gates of Gann The Mouth of the Shadowvein Down the Shadowvein Stonepick Crossing The Palace of the Vampire Queen The Things in the Forest The Secret of Redscar Scorned It Lurks Below From Lou Zocchi:
Valkenburg Castle Moon Base Clavius Cyborg From the Math Trade:
Frag A&A (*2) Gammarauders C&G: Live Tigers in the Snow Duel in the Dark Other Buys:
Jungle Speed (Ravin Rabbids) hellowithcheese printBattlemaps, wilderness and dungeon 2fer from 9.
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Post by bryce0lynch on Jul 12, 2012 6:14:22 GMT -6
The "feel" of the different versions would be interesting also. From weird and strange OD&D to the Orcs and goblin filled 1e to magical society 2e., etc.
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Post by bryce0lynch on Oct 8, 2011 9:03:26 GMT -6
Are oyou asking about the origins of the statement or the logic behind it? The logic seems clear: only the insane roll the dice in OD&D.
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