Post by xerxez on Jun 25, 2011 5:36:32 GMT -6
Here is a tale!
Quite awhile back I was running a free form rules light game where we rotated GM's.
Our friend Fish was up at bat as DM.
This was perhaps Fish's second or third attempt at ever having really DM'ed after many years of playing...and he did great. Our party was shipwrecked by a magical storm in a place called simply "the Land". We befriended an old shaman and his mistrustful apprentice at his hut in the rain forest and he constructed magical conch necklaces which collected our voices, and by means of an enchantment allowed us to then speak and understand the language of the Land. We then traveled to a mountain fastness where there was an academy for training both warriors and wizards. Meeting a local ruler we learned that the factions of humans, demi-humans and humanoids from Gandalara had had discovered the Land centuries past and sought to invade it and wrest it from each other. By some unknown power. the Land had disappeared and reappeared in a magical sea where there was no way to get there but by means of the storms. How to get out was a mystery.
The local warlord told us that since that time, the Land had been a place of perpetual war between the factions, usually ending in bloody stalemate, but with each side attempting to gain a new edge to defeat the others. And yet with each tribe there was a collective memory of their lost ancestral home of Gandalara (whose name was now forgotten since continual war had created a survival and not scholastic oriented culture). And all hoped to return there someday. The Land was ruled by 3 demi-gods and one of them met us at the mountain stornghold and sent us on a quest to basically try and unite all of the tribes and when this would happen, ostensibly, a way home would be accomplished. Two of the demi-gods were willing to do business while a 3rd was capricious and quite content with the way everything was.
In order to get around my "no riding beasts" feature of the setting, Fish created these bridals made of woven horsehair and had the demi-goddess give us each one. They were the remains of horse like creatures that had once lived in Gandlara in the ancient past and when you held a bridal and concentrated, you could summon a "spirit steed" which would materialize in a shimmering mist and although it was incorporeal, it could bear you about! Really creative stuff!
How different was Fish's adventure? Well, the Elves of the land were 7-9' tall, grassland dwelling and dressed in primitive animal furs and rode Manticores--real ones not spirit steeds. They worshiped Zhet, an elf demi-god who we met and found that he was more amused by us than threatened and had his fun by creating an illusion of us all being slain one by one which actually convinced some of our players that their characters had been killed! The form he chose to meet us in first was a fire elemental in humanoid shape with a great black iron crown hovering over his fiery head. But he showed his ture form after his illusion trick. Then, because we had slain his Fire Elemental Guardian, he gave us a choice: all of us fight one by one against his best warriors, or, as a group, face one creature of his choosing in his Gladiator Pit. If we won we went free, since he liked our spirit! The creature we fought was the strangest I have ever heard of--an UNDEAD Fire Elemental--yea, the very one we had already slain brought back from Fire Elemental Valhalla. And now he was made of blue and white fire that was icy cold and he was unharmed by steel weapons!
You truly never know what to expect in a role playing game!
I posted a video of the game on my blog if anyone is interested.
Quite awhile back I was running a free form rules light game where we rotated GM's.
Our friend Fish was up at bat as DM.
This was perhaps Fish's second or third attempt at ever having really DM'ed after many years of playing...and he did great. Our party was shipwrecked by a magical storm in a place called simply "the Land". We befriended an old shaman and his mistrustful apprentice at his hut in the rain forest and he constructed magical conch necklaces which collected our voices, and by means of an enchantment allowed us to then speak and understand the language of the Land. We then traveled to a mountain fastness where there was an academy for training both warriors and wizards. Meeting a local ruler we learned that the factions of humans, demi-humans and humanoids from Gandalara had had discovered the Land centuries past and sought to invade it and wrest it from each other. By some unknown power. the Land had disappeared and reappeared in a magical sea where there was no way to get there but by means of the storms. How to get out was a mystery.
The local warlord told us that since that time, the Land had been a place of perpetual war between the factions, usually ending in bloody stalemate, but with each side attempting to gain a new edge to defeat the others. And yet with each tribe there was a collective memory of their lost ancestral home of Gandalara (whose name was now forgotten since continual war had created a survival and not scholastic oriented culture). And all hoped to return there someday. The Land was ruled by 3 demi-gods and one of them met us at the mountain stornghold and sent us on a quest to basically try and unite all of the tribes and when this would happen, ostensibly, a way home would be accomplished. Two of the demi-gods were willing to do business while a 3rd was capricious and quite content with the way everything was.
In order to get around my "no riding beasts" feature of the setting, Fish created these bridals made of woven horsehair and had the demi-goddess give us each one. They were the remains of horse like creatures that had once lived in Gandlara in the ancient past and when you held a bridal and concentrated, you could summon a "spirit steed" which would materialize in a shimmering mist and although it was incorporeal, it could bear you about! Really creative stuff!
How different was Fish's adventure? Well, the Elves of the land were 7-9' tall, grassland dwelling and dressed in primitive animal furs and rode Manticores--real ones not spirit steeds. They worshiped Zhet, an elf demi-god who we met and found that he was more amused by us than threatened and had his fun by creating an illusion of us all being slain one by one which actually convinced some of our players that their characters had been killed! The form he chose to meet us in first was a fire elemental in humanoid shape with a great black iron crown hovering over his fiery head. But he showed his ture form after his illusion trick. Then, because we had slain his Fire Elemental Guardian, he gave us a choice: all of us fight one by one against his best warriors, or, as a group, face one creature of his choosing in his Gladiator Pit. If we won we went free, since he liked our spirit! The creature we fought was the strangest I have ever heard of--an UNDEAD Fire Elemental--yea, the very one we had already slain brought back from Fire Elemental Valhalla. And now he was made of blue and white fire that was icy cold and he was unharmed by steel weapons!
You truly never know what to expect in a role playing game!
I posted a video of the game on my blog if anyone is interested.