Refreshing!

Wow, I really meant to get back to this sooner.

So, "When last we left our intrepid band of adventurers..." they were in the mountain town of Delve, and had just defeated some ice mephits who had been freezing the townsfolk... or they were just hanging around after the demon froze all the townsfolk. I guess I never did figure that out.

I was away for this session. Probably on vacation at Disney World, if memory serves. We explained it that Zorenthiel's duties as a priest and healer overrode his arcane curiosity, and he stayed in town to help free the rest of the people, rather than go with the group to defeat the demon.

Because I find the journal entry written by Jason (Pate's player) to be so entertaining, I'm going to quote it word for word here. :)

"Today we went to kill the demon thing that has been freezing all the nice townspeople. We were supposed to be looking for Ehrdren's dad, but we never really seem to get around to doing stuff like that. Which is a shame, because I miss my donkey Forget-Me-Not and I am pretty sure he can help me out with that. I hope they are taking care of him. I mean my donkey that is. Ehrdren's dad is dead; I guess he doesn't need taking care of.



We beat up a little demon (again) and he gave us the information we needed (again). He led us to a cold cave. We tied him up outside. You can't trust demons at all...especially little ones. I used lots of rope.

The cave was icy cold. The Lady felt bad for us so she made sure the cold wouldn't bother us. She didn't do anything about the ice though. I think maybe she wanted me to try something else besides jumping at big monsters and beating them up until I black out. She maybe has a point. A little ways into the cave we almost fell into a pit. It was pretty deep so we used rope to cross it. We used all of my rope..and I had a LOT of rope. I need to buy more. Timond and Illeana got a little banged up climbing across. It was a little funny. A bit later we got attacked by..um..a wall? It looked like a big bit of wall made out of clearish honey. It kinda ate Timond and Calatin's dog. It didn't have a mouth, and I looked. We beat it up though and pulled Timond and the dog out. I don't know what else to say about THAT."

DM Note: This was an attack by a gelatinous cube that hid in a side passage and attacked when the party moved past it.

"Further into the cave we saw an awesome ice slide and we knew there were monsters at the bottom. And this ...this was so cool. Timond sent a fake bear down the slide to scare the monsters and I slid down the slide to start the beatings. Only there was a big hole at the bottom (who does that?) and I fell down it. Illeana helped me get out and we started the beatings proper. There was three little ice demons and one huge Ice Demon.



I walked over and started beating it up (see, I listened to the lady. No running or jumping). And it started beating me up back. It was really strong. I wish I could fight like that. I think Illeana was healing me, but I am not sure. It's hard to be smart and notice stuff when I get to beatin'. Timond summoned a big gold lion and lots of fire too. I think he hurt the big Ice monster more than I did. Calatin couldn't fight because he was trying to get his dog out of the hole. The little ice demons were so happy we beat up their daddy that one decided to be Timond's slave. I am not sure if I trust him, but he seems nice enough. I guess. And the townspeople were so happy they decided to give me a adamant hammer. I think I will give my old hammer to Timond. He needs to bulk up. The townspeople are giving an adamant weapon to Illeana, too."

DM Note: The one remaining ice mephit, upon witnessing Timond deal the fatal fire-based blow to the ice devil, decided that he should serve his new master, the mighty wizard Timond. He is now Timond’s lackey. We’ll see how that goes.

"After that we finally went to Ehrdren's dad's place. We didn't get to talk to him because it has so many stairs. Hopefully we can get my Forget-Me-Not back tomorrow."

DM Note: The party descended into The Deeping Well (where souls wait after death, before moving on to the afterlife), seeking to speak with the singer of the well, Drogan, as well as with Ehrdren’s father who recently gave his life in exchange for returning his long-dead wife to new life.

It sounded like a fun session, and I regret missing it, but if memory does serve, and I was at Disney World, I'm sure I was doing something just as fun, if not more-so, so I'm not too broken up about it. :)

Brisk!

"When last we left our intrepid band of adventurers, they had just exited the Feywild through a Fairy Circle, and were confronted by the pixie, Widdershins." was how Craig started off our next session. He always started off our sessions with that line: "When last we left our intrepid band of adventurers...". I enjoyed that. It seemed to tie everything together.

Anyway, Widdershins confronted us and wanted to know where Kai was. I hadn't known about this, but Kai (Toni's human bard) was married to Widdershins. Calatin had taken a ring that Kai wore, and I suppose it was specifically for this purpose, as he handed it over to Widdershins, giving him the bad news about Kai's death at the hands of the shambling mounds. He was not pleased, of course, and left.

We traveled to the nearby human city of Ebrandel, and took the time to identify all the magic we'd found, spend some money on new things, and have Timond create some new magic items for us. The next step in our journey would be to find a portal that would lead us to the Deeping Well... the place where all souls go to as they journey to their final destination. We, of course, wanted to avoid the usual method of arriving there... you know... death, and we discovered that there was one high in the mountains. We set out, climbing the mountain trail, until we reached a vale at the top. There was a mining town we were making for, named Delve, and upon approaching we noticed something very strange. The town glittered in the sun, as if it was covered in diamonds! Reaching the town, we discovered the true reason for this... it was actually covered in ice!

Approaching the town, we didn't see any movement and everything was deathly silent. Stepping through the open gate, we found that all the buildings were coated in ice, and there were actually people here, but they were all frozen in ice, and they were still alive! We set to work as quickly as we could, releasing as many as we could until evening set in. We took everyone outside the city, built up a big fire and sat everyone around it. They told us that a white dragon attacked the town, freezing everyone and everything with its breath!

As we were completing our preparations for the night, and dreading the possibility of facing off against a dragon, when we heard some noise coming from inside the gates... some chattering... and went to investigate.

Poking our heads inside, we saw three small humanoid creatures lurking about near one of the buildings, talking to one another. Trying to get their attention revealed them as illusions, and Zorenthiel made his way over to check things out. He spotted the one creating the illusion, but failed to spot two others... one by the gate, and one up on top of a roof.

While we were distracted by deal with one of them, suddenly, a shadow fell over the area and a huge white dragon descended upon us, breathing a cone of cold over us! During the fight, Zorenthiel noticed something strange, though. Looking up, the creature on the roof was pointing a wand at the dragon. Suspicious, given that we'd already seen one of them generating illusions with a wand, I got everyone to concentrate on that one guy and take him down. Then, to prove to the others that the dragon was an illusion, I had Zorenthiel charge the white dragon! Swinging his staff, it passed right through the dragon, confirming my suspicion and showing the others that it wasn't real. We mopped up the other two little guys, and then went out to the fire, where we discovered that Pate had taken down three more.

One was still alive, so we questioned him. He turned out to be an ice mephit... a kind of elemental creature. The mephit's "Master" had sent them out to coat the town in ice. Apparently a dwarven priest released some great evil in the mines, nearby.

In the morning, the group left town for the mines, with Zorenthiel staying behind to continue efforts in releasing everyone still trapped in the ice (I missed that next session, so it was a convenient excuse. :) ).

Wild Times

So, there we were, stuck in the Fey Wild. All around us were huge briar patches that matched the size, shape and location of the buildings of Barston.

We met up with Toni's elf ranger then. I think she spotted the portal show up, or just spotted us. I believe she'd been searching for a way out of the Fey Wild ever since she crossed over via a Faerie Circle... but I can't recall exactly. Either way, we were all in the same boat, so she joined our group, and we headed out to find a way back to the "Real World". We journeyed east, though, to get us out of the Eveninglands, so that when we came back into the "Real World", we wouldn't immediately be breaking our vow. I believe that if we did break our vow, we would get sicker and sicker, the longer we defied the vow, until we died.

We figured out how to get out, first. I think it was an arcana check from Timond that did it. Or maybe it was combination of him and I, plus Calatin. I don't remember. In any case, whoever figured it out, we had to find the blood of an "Aberration". The Fey Wild is like taking nature in the real world, from the beauty to the danger, and turning all the dials up to 11. An aberration, an evil creature born from foul magics or even fouler warping of reality, is so alien to the Fey Wild, that the natural tendency of the Fey Wild is to expel such a creature. So, if we sprinkled aberration blood onto a faerie circle, that would act as a portal home.

Using our knowledge of the fact that an aberration would corrupt the Fey Wild around it, we had Calatin ask a passing animal if there was such a corrupted area nearby. However, now that I think about it, all animals could simply talk to us normally. Still, having a druid talk to them made for better conversation. heh. A bird of some kind directed us to a nearby swamp.

I tried to play up how miserable Zorenthiel was here. He's used to dusty libraries, not trudging through swamps. :) We found a carving on a tree of a symbol Craig showed us. A snake with a human-like head.

"A Naga." I said, impulsively. A couple of the others looked at me weird, but I just shrugged. We proceeded in, and partway to the center of the swamp we were attacked by a Tyrannosaurus Rex!!

The fight with this thing was really tough, and someone, I can't remember who, even got picked up in the thing's mouth! (We made sure to stick the character's miniature in the mouth of the T-Rex miniature, of course. heh). We managed to defeat it, then moved on, and eventually found the apparent location of the aberration. It was a small ruined fort of some kind, like an outpost. We found a spiral staircase descending into the darkness, and made our way down.

At the bottom, we found a large cavern. There was an open area of ground ahead of us, then a bridge crossing a large chasm. We could hear a strange clicking noise everywhere. An alarming fact about the bridge was... it was covered in webs, and there was a large mass of web that extended from the bridge off to the left, where it attached to the cavern wall. We could see something moving in the webs. Keeping an eye on that, and thinking it might even be some unfortunate thing caught in there, we started across...

Suddenly, giant spiders crawled up from under the bridge to surround us, and some humanoid creature that was actually MADE OF WEBS, stepped out of that mass of webs to the left, and moved to attack us!

Pate charged the web creature, and Ehrdren made quick work of the spiders with his bow! The funniest part of the fight was right at the end, it was Timond's turn, and he whipped a dagger at the web creature. He hit and ended up killing it! Big round of congrats for the wizard, and Pate's admiration!

Continuing on, we entered a passageway and came upon two pools and another open area. The first pool was of a green viscous substance that we figured was some kind of acid, so we wanted to avoid that one altogether. Beyond it was a 10' section of ground, then a pool of water, 15' across. Pate went first, of course, jumping across the acid pit, then jumping into the water.

Well, the moment he hit the water, two creatures blinked into existence, one on either side of him. On one side was an Earth Elemental and on the other was a Fire Elemental. The heat from the Fire Elemental immediately started boiling the water, which was damaging Pate every round, and both elementals began attacking him! He was taking a bad beating when suddenly Timond cast a spell that swapped him and Pate, so Pate ended up back on the dry ground and Timond was in the water between the elementals. He then levitated up. Pointing a finger at the Earth Elemental, he spoke words of power (a Dismissal spell, I think), and the Elemental crumbled away. We were all VERY impressed by this.

We finished off the Fire Elemental shortly thereafter, and then hunkered down on the small section of dry ground between the pools to rest. We needed to get spells back and heal some before we faced the Naga.

Our rest was interrupted though, as again on Zorenthiel's watch, he had to rouse the others, as he heard a loud hissing noise come from the area beyond the pools. When he had gotten everyone up, we spotted the Naga. She was fifteen feet long, at least, with a black scaly snake body and an ugly human head. Pate rushed forwards, jumping into the pool to swim across to get her, but he was suddenly surrounded by the elementals again! Apparently it was a magical trap that reset while we were resting! While Pate was busy with the elementals, the Naga unleashed a lightning bolt that hit most of the group as we were bunched together in the corridor. Timond responded with a fireball that engulfed the Naga. Pate made it out of the water and went after the Naga, with the elementals following after him. Calatin and Hornet made it across quickly and engaged the Naga as well. Timond flung his spells, and Ehrdren plucked arrows into everything, and Zorenthiel called up a magical Spiritual Weapon (in the form of a quarterstaff), which he set upon the earth elemental pounding on Pate.

Pate landed the final blow on the Naga, crushing its skull, just as the earth elemental dealt a staggering blow to him, knocking him to the ground. Zorenthiel's staff and Ehrdren's arrows dropped the elemental. We discovered a huge cache of treasure that the Naga had been hording, and collecting it, and the blood of the Naga, we made our way out again, and trecked cross-country to find a faerie circle. We had an uneventful crossover back to the "Real World", and when we arrived, we were greeted by the pixie, Widdershins.

Things get more interesting.

So, after our group was expelled from Barston by the village elders, we camped outside the town in order to figure out what to do.

During the night, during Zorenthiel's watch in fact, we were attacked! Shambling Mounds! This is where I started to see how the group functioned a bit better. The previous sessions, we were all trying to just figure stuff out, so there was a bit of scrambling, and a lot of impulsive "I cast the spell to see what happens!" kind of stuff... no complaint there... that's just how it goes when you're not 'in the know' about a situation, and I did a bunch of it myself. I'm just tellin' it like it was. ;)

Anyway, Pate was very much the "CHARGE!" type, leaping into battle. Timond liked to blast stuff with fire. Ehrdren was a skirmisher, moving around on the battlefield and firing his bow. Calatin and Hornet used teamwork to flank enemies and take them down.

We beat the shambling mounds, but unfortunately, Toni's bard, Kai, was killed in the fight. As Toni rolled up a new character, the rest of us went on to an encounter with some Redcaps. Man, those little guys were tough! They very much lived up to their reputation as vicious little fighters! I don't know if Craig drew them from some source or if he just made them up himself. Either way, whoever created them did a very good job. We were definitely afraid of Redcaps from that point on. We prevailed against the Recaps, but then a Verdant Prince showed up. He was some kind of royal Fey. Like an elf (perhaps an Eladrin for those 4e players), but far more regal and powerful. He dropped a Wall of Thorns around us and called down a lightning storm that HURT. Wow. When he offered the chance to parlay, oh boy were we quick to accept!

He took us to a house, where we sat down to talk. He offered us our lives and one request, in return for our blood oath that we would never again set foot in "The Eveningland". We had no idea what The Eveningland was, other than that we were currently there. We guessed that it meant that the lands ahead of the advancing forest were in decline. We agreed to his proposal. The others asked for various things... I don't remember exactly what everyone requested. I do remember Mike E. asking for some kind of weapon for Calatin. Magical claws of some kind that were more powerful against fey creatures... ones that he could use while in animal form. I think Roy asked for more spells for Timond, or maybe more knowledge about how to use the staff he had. Me? Since Zorenthiel was lawful good, and was still trying to look out for the people of Barston, I had him make a deal with the Verdant Prince. He didn't want any items. If the group was going to be forced to leave and never return, he wanted the Verdant Prince to take his fey with him and leave, never to return or bother Barston again.

He agreed to that, and everything else. Then he let us out the back door of the house. When we walked out, we realized that it was a gateway to the Fey Wild. He definitely made sure that we left The Eveningland! (That Jerk! heh)

There, we met Toni's new character, an elven ranger with a horse as her animal companion. Zorenthiel was happy to have another elf in the group. Next was finding a way out of the Fey Wild. That would prove to be interesting. :)

The Fresh Start

So, after quitting that first game, I joined Craig's 3.5e D&D game, which ran on Saturday afternoons. Before I joined, the group consisted of mostly characters who were from, or connected to, the village of Lorrik's Haven.

Pate - A male half-orc cleric/barbarian who has, being an orphan, dedicated himself to the protection of children. He is very popular among the village's younger residents and will be sorely missed during his journeys. Of course, the children of the village expect him to return with wonderful, if simple, stories of his travels. Played by Jason

Calatin - A male, human druid who lives near the village and has spent a great deal of time with Broadleaf, a very old treant druid who calls a glen just west of town his home. Calatin's best friend is a wolf named Hornet, who still sports scars on his muzzle from "that time he stuck his head in a nest of the stinging insects." Played by Mike E.

Timond - A male, human wizard who grew up the youngest son of a local farming family. At an early age, he expressed an interest in the strange talents possessed by the local weird hermit, Bartle, and has been studying under him for some time. Bartle just recently kicked him out (in a friendly-mentor sort of way) to find his own path. Played by Roy

Ehrdren - A male, human fighter/scout with a penchant for the great outdoors and a skill-set reflecting that. He is the only son of the owner of the local inn, the Inn of the Sundered Sword, and leaves town with the blessing of his father and little sister. Played by Mike B.

Kai - A female human bard who grew up in a fey city in the western forest. She left the forest, with the help of a pixie named Widdershins, to whom she is married. She me the rest of the group as they adventured in the outskirts of the forest, and accompanied them afterward. Played by Toni

The first session I played was very strange. The group had gone through a bunch of adventures already. They rounded up some escaped animals and monsters for a traveling circus, and fought a bunch of halflings in a wooden giant suit. They saved a villager from undead "Hollow Ones", and fought a "demon" of sorts, that had been sent by someone named Aleksar, to kill Pate. They entered the western wood to find where the Hollow Ones come from, only to encounter a pixie named Widdershins, who answered some of their questions, and told them how the forest was expanding to the east (towards Lorrik's Haven), and about the forest king, who lives at the center. They found that the forest was gray and dead and ashen, as if it had been burned. They discovered an old keep and fought fey spirits known as Slaugh, finding their cache of valuables, including a parchment that contained The Song of the Dusky Fey, which held clues to what was happening. They also rescued an adventurer named Eduard, who had more information, including how the forest shifted around, and that the leader of his group (now missing) had a map that would track the shifting forest. On their way our, they met Kai, who saw them all as different kinds of fey creatures... Timond was a Slaugh, Pate a Redcap, Calatin a Hammadryad (a male dryad), and Ehrdren a Thorn... Eduard she just saw as a human. She accompanied them out of the forest, back to Lorrik's Haven. There, they questioned Ehrdren's father about events of the past, and then decided to head east, to perhaps learn more about the Dusky Wood.

This is when I entered the game. It was a very interesting start... quite strange, in fact. My character, Zorenthiel Moonshadow, an elven cleric/sorcerer, was in the next town east of Lorrik's Haven, known as Barston. Several women in the town were having difficulties, as their pregnancies had carried on almost twice as long as they should have. Zorenthiel had been investigating this for them, mainly with research, when the rest of the group arrived. Joining in my investigation, we they helped discover that the well water was poisoned... not deadly, for for some purpose... and that there were two kinds of magic emanating from the women, and enchantment and an evocation, both concealed by an illusion. We had everyone stop drinking the well water, and Calatin created water for the town from this point on.

Then, with the blessing of the mothers, we began to experiment with dispelling the magics on them. The first attempt, we successfully dispelled the evocation, but not the enchantment. The woman's baby suddenly stopped moving, and the mother became very ill. I had Zorenthiel detect poison, and found that poison was beginning to course through the woman, originating from the baby. Zor worked with Calatin to help forestall the poison, and the woman suddenly went into labor and gave birth to a sickly gray baby that immediately tried to bite everyone. We spared the mother seeing that, and needed a few more days of trying to dispel the enchantment, hopeful that this would return the baby to normal, but dispelling it had no effect on the child. Left with no choice, Zor used his clerical powers to destroy the undead baby, turning it to dust.

Then the other three pregnant women suddenly went into labor at the same time. We determined that it was about the same time that we had taken them off the well water (we had isolated the first woman before the others), and we worked quickly. We dispelled the enchantment first on the next try, and had a stillborn baby, and the same thing happened to the next woman and child. We quickly fed some of the well water to the last woman, stopping her labor (and confirming the exact purpose of the poison). Preparing more spells, we dispelled all the magic on this last woman, and she gave birth to an undead baby, like the first had.

It was quite sad, really, but it didn't seem like there was any way to save the children (other than to, perhaps, just leave the situation be), so I took heart in that, at least, but I still would have liked to have had at least one of the babies born without dispelling any of the magic, just to see what would happen.

Well, after all that, the town leaders asked us to leave. I couldn't blame them for that, but the women were at least relieved to have their pregnancies end, and hopefully they could try again to have children (if they weren't completely traumatized by the first attempts!).

So, it wasn't the most successful start to my time in the game, but it certainly was interesting, and the other players were good people who had a lot of fun with the game. I had a feeling I was going to like this group.

A Return to the Table: Success from Failure

"Why do we fall? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up." Bruce Wayne's father, Batman Begins.

Before moving to Atlanta, the last tabletop roleplaying game session I played, if I'm remembering correctly, was back in 2001. It was a rather unpleasant experience, since it was a first attempt to have my wife, Caroline, get into D&D. She'd wanted to play for years, and my friends were starting a new campaign, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity. It didn't go very well, overall. She left the session feeling like the other players didn't want her there. I assured her that wasn't the case, and that they were just a little overbearing at times, but the damage had been done. I think that we played one or two more sessions, but it didn't last long. After that, up until 2006, I played online exclusively, through email, msn groups, online chat, and play-by-post forums.

That was fine. It worked for a time, and it offered a different medium to work with. I found that that I liked the extra time afforded to me by the play-by-post method, and it gave me the opportunity to do some good writing. The downside is that games took a LONG time to play.

When I got to Atlanta, I joined a D&D Meetup.com group, and went to a few dinners with the group. I also joined my first tabletop game in a long time. It promised to be an interesting group, with Monsters as the Player Characters. I was thinking "Cool! We get to play Monsters that decide to take up Adventuring, since it seems so lucrative for the human-types! :D". I still think that it's a good idea, and it would be kind of neat to run a side-campaign in 4eD&D based on it, but that's for a different post on a different blog.

Anyway, I created an Incarnate Clay Golem... which is an idea I'd been sitting on for a little while. If you're not familiar, this isn't Gollum, as in the ex-hobbit that craved after his "Precious". A Golem is a magical construct. For example, Dr. Frankenstein created a Golem. A Flesh Golem. Also, the episode of X-Files where Mulder and Scully are posing as the suburban couple, and that monster made of trash keeps killing people at the direction of the head of the HOA... that is a Golem. A Trash Golem.

In D&D, for a Clay Golem, a wizard or priest forms a humanoid shape out of clay, and performs a number of rituals over it, and it is imbued with a semblance of life. The golem's creator controls it, giving it orders, such as "Follow me and protect me" or "Stand here. If anyone tries to pass you without first saying the word 'Kalamazoo', hit them, and keep hitting them until they stop moving.". The idea behind an Incarnate Golem is that, by some means, the construct has been turned into a living being. I developed the idea from the rules given in the "Savage Species" book, and he basically started out with a lot of strength and hit points, but he was only a 1st level fighter. The idea of playing a "blank slate", and developing him from there was promising, but the game ended up being a disappointment.

Clay

The first problem was that the DM took my character concept and twisted it into something that HE liked better. Now, I admit that I didn't speak up and say "No, I don't want that" as he changed things and gave me more and more "stuff" for the character. "Clay" (heh) ended up being an Awakened Golem, instead of an Incarnate Golem. Now, what that means is that instead of being transformed into a living being, he had a living soul invested into him. So, he was still composed of clay, and still had all the traits that came with it, resistances and such, and he was a higher level fighter to start. I wasn't entirely pleased, but I put my trust in the DM, that he had a plan or something.

Now, I should say, at this point, that the experience wasn't entirely the fault of the group or the DM, though. I can't blame them entirely. I missed a few sessions, most notably the first one I was supposed to play, because I COMPLETELY forgot about it, only a week after I'd made the character (welcome to a glimpse of what the ADHD-PI mind is like. *sigh*). Apparently the DM was pretty upset about that, since he thought I'd quit without even trying, and took it as a personal slight. I smoothed things over with that, but I still had to miss a session a few weeks later that turned out to be a key one.

In addition, I'd created a character that was pretty much all melee-based, but he never got into a fight. Not once. The only time I rolled a d20 was for a perception check... oh, and a Knowledge: Arcana check, even though I didn't have "Knowledge: Arcana" as a trained skill, but I managed to roll a natural 20 on the die, so I actually ended up knowing something... somehow. I was told that the second session I'd missed contained a bit more action, but at the same time, I was told that even though there was action, it was still not a great session, and it ended with a massive Deus Ex Machina.

The entire experience was just a bit pedantic and there wasn't any tension, except what we created ourselves. The guy playing the giant insect (Thri-Kreen) felt that he needed to debate the merits of allowing any new people into "the Hive", and seemed to relish drawing the negotiations out as long as possible. Otherwise, we just wandered around this abandoned fortress we had claimed as our own, discovering new parts of it without any real challenges, and having more and more NPC monsters showing up and joining our group... each needing to justify, in detail, what they would bring to "the Hive" before they were allowed in.

During my last session, we had decided to use a portal in the fortress, which is apparently how one or two of the other PCs got here. It linked to a wizard's tower, and it promised to mean some action for us, so I got excited. Alright! Finally some action! However, just as those lines were ultimately a disappointment for Ed Gruberman, they were a disappointment for me. The moment we arrived and were about to begin exploring the tower, elements of one of the other character's past showed up suddenly, and whisked us all away to a far distant land. For the rest of the session, we all just sat around doing nothing while he was put on trial for something we didn't understand, and that wasn't really explained to us. Afterwards, I'd found out that the lack of action was because that particular player complained to the DM that there was too much action in the previous session (which I'd missed).

So, by this point, I'd had enough. When I got home, I emailed the DM and said that I was dropping out of the game. I wasn't mean about it, I just said that I was expecting something else, and the game just wasn't for me. I thanked him for letting me play, and told him that I hoped the game continued on successfully without me. Unfortunately, that wasn't to be the case, because he emailed everyone saying "Anyone else?" and my friend Craig dropped out too, and that caused the game to collapse. Oh well. Sorry. I didn't know that I was a load-bearing player.

Even though that game ended, I was fortunate to have met two of the players. Craig and Dave, both of whom I have been playing with since, and both of whom have become good friends of mine.

Roll Them Bones Update.

I attended GenCon this year(2010), and it was the first time I could make it. When I found out that Wil Wheaton was going to be there, and he'd requested that people at the con give him dice, so that he could prove the theory that you can't have too many, I decided to give him one. As the idea fermented in my head, I came to the decision to give him a very special die. The following is a livejournal entry from today, which acts as an update to Rolling Them Bones.

I MET WIL WHEATON.

This was Wil's first GenCon. He posted about it in his blog. I noticed that he was having a talk on Friday, so I canceled a game to go see him. He related a story about he and his wife, talking about gaming while they were driving in the car. Go read it now. It's not long. I promise I will wait until you are done reading it before I continue with my story...

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...

Okay, good, you're back... So, Wil read us that story on Friday. It got big laughs.

The next day, I'm sitting in on a 4e D&D Dark Sun game DM'd by Chris Sims (formerly of WotC, with contributions to the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, Adventurers' Vault, Monster Manual 2, Martial Power, Seekers of the Ashen Crown, etc etc). The players are myself, my friend Craig Campbell (who is a good friend of Chris' from back in the day, and has written a bunch of stuff for Dragon, Dungeon and the WotC website), Tracy Hurley (aka Sarah Darkmagic), Tracy's husband Fred, and Jobe Bittman (MetaDM). I'm setting up my laptop so that I can record the game (just for posterity), and I suddenly glance to my left, where Fred is sitting... and he has a Yahtzee cup. The first thing that pops into my head is "Like he's shaking them in a Yahtzee cup?" I stifled a laugh, but Craig and I exchanged a good laugh about it afterward, 'cause he was thinking the exact same thing.

I had some misses with Wil... on Thursday I didn't have the time to see him. On Friday I couldn't stand in line long after his talk because I had a game to go to. Then the line was capped before I got there after that game. Then on Saturday I forgot the d20 I was going to give him in the hotel room. Finally, on Sunday, everything matched up. I got into the vendor's room right at 10am and lined up. Within half an hour, I was walking up to his table. He wasn't shaking hands, due to getting Swine Flu at PAX Prime, and I respected that. I showed him a die that Craig's friend Rob gave me... a 10-sided "reaction die" with emotions in text on one side, and emoticons at the other. He thought that was cool. I gave it a roll, came up with "Surprised" and made a surprised face, which gave him a chuckle.

Then I pulled out my d20. It's my first d20, from 1979. I put it on the table.

"Wow, that die has seen some action!" he said.

"Yup, that's my very first d20. I bought it in 1979, and retired it around 5 years later, when I killed a medusa with it. It rolled around on the table for like, 5 minutes before finally coming to rest on the 20, and the DM ruled that my character cut the medusa's head off! I put that one away right after, and it's sat in my dice bag since. I've been reading the stories you've written in your blog about how much gaming has meant to you, and they've given me such a great sense of nostalgia that I want to give you back some nostalgia in return."

"Are you SURE that you want to give me your FIRST d20?" he asked, shocked at the prospect.

"Yes. Absolutely. At first, when I considered it, all I thought was 'No, no way. I can't do that...'. but as I thought about it more, I thought 'I have my stories about this d20, but how much better would those stories be if I gave that die to Wil Wheaton.' So please, take it, with my blessing."

He picked up the die, and put it into the cup beside him, on top of several other dice inside. "I shall place it with its brothers." he said, a smile on his face, and his voice full of respect and reverence.

I chuckled and said "I would only humbly ask that you afford it some small place of honor in your collection."

Both he and his "handler" chuckled at that. I was struck with a sudden thought that it was an ironic chuckle, like maybe all these dice were bound for destruction or something, but I chose to ignore that. His handler asked if I wanted a book or a picture signed, and I chose Wil's "Games Matter" chapbook. The one he read to us from, during his talk on Friday. He signed my book, and as he did, I told him the story about Chris Sims' game. Chris had signed the Dark Sun rulebooks while I was sitting there, which Logan Bonner was going to give to Wil. I made a few suggestions, the funniest (at least to the people at the table) being, after Logan told him to "speak from the heart.",... "Hi Wil. You're cool. I like you a lot. Signed, Chris Sims' Heart". heh. So there was some connection, instead of it just being a random mention of a random person he didn't know.

"So, I'm sitting in on Chris Sims' Dark Sun game yesterday, and while he was signing your Dark Sun books, I was setting up my laptop to record the game. I just put it down on the table, and opened it up, when I glanced to my left... and what did I see?"

"A Yahtzee cup."

He laughed. Loudly. So much so that he started coughing, and it sounded painful (due to the sinus infection). I felt slightly bad about that, but still, he got a good laugh out of it. That was awesome. I don't know what it is about making a star laugh like that. I felt the same as when I made George Takei laugh out loud during the costume contest of the '92 Toronto Trek convention, for insulting Larry "The Doctor" Stewart (geez, that guy was a blow-hole).

"Oh, that's great." he said, with a big smile.

"Yeah, my first thought would have normally been 'Really? Seriously?', but instead, it was your voice saying "You mean, like in a Yahtzee cup?" I said, mimicking how he had read that in his story.

Wil laughed and gave me an Iron Guard Salute in lieu of a handshake. I tapped Games Matter to my forehead in gratitude and respect, bowed slightly to him, and we parted ways.

Other than stumbling a bit at the start of my spiel, in telling him that I was sorry he'd caught a sinus infection, and having to COMMAND my brain to focus on what I wanted to say to him... nay, what I'd REHEARSED to say to him (I didn't want to screw it up), I think it was a pretty good meeting overall.

Of course, it would be totally awesome if, when he blogs about the weekend, that I would get some kind of special mention, even if it was just "Thanks to the guy that gave me his very first d20, even though I can't remember his name!". It's not required though. I'm just glad to pass it on to him. Also, Craig and I listened to the audiobook of Just a Geek on the way home, and it really drove home (ha ha) just what a down-to-earth nice guy Wil is, and removed any last vestiges of regret I might have at giving up that very special d20. Even if, worst case, it just ends up in a box or bag in Wil's closet, forgotten with a bunch of other dice, it has still become part of that die's story for me, and noone can take that away from me. =)

Actually, nevermind the reformat...

I've decided to just "let it go", regarding the format of this blog. It's here as a collection of my memories, not a chronological account of my gaming.

Speaking of which, I remembered something the other day about playing Alron, and this was something of the inspiration to drop the reformat, as I wanted to post about this now!

So, it was early on in my adventures with Alron. We had cleared out the smuggling ring in the "haunted house" in Saltmarsh. We'd mistakenly killed a lot of lizardmen, then made peace with them, and helped them destroy the Sahuagin threat. Then we moved on to other adventures. I'm not certain if we were told about the Caves of Chaos, or if we just discovered them, but we decided to go in and clean them out. They were infested with goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, orcs, gnolls, and a few other nasty creatures. I mentioned some details of this here.

We had made some good progress through the goblins and hobgoblins, and then there was one session where only Steve and I could show up, but we decided to continue anyways. Boy, was that a mistake. We had cleaned out the goblin and hobgoblin parts of the caves, then exited out and went further up the ravine and into another cave, that turned out to be inhabited by humans... evil demon-worshiping cultists, it turned out to be. We made our way around around there, encountering some zombies and skeletons, finding a collapsed tunnel (apparently leading off to another cave system, "The Cave of the Unknown", that the Dungeon Master can develop on his or her own, according to the module text), a door that was nailed shut all around (we made unsuccessful attempts to open it... all the for best, actually. There was an undead Wight inside that room! Nasty beast! Probably would have made short work of us!), found that Medusa that Aubry killed (see the link at the end of the previous paragraph), and then we happened upon a temple, with a lone worshiper kneeling at an altar. Room #55, there on the left.



This is where everything went to pot.

Given that it was just one cultist, Alron stopped everyone at the entrance to the temple, lined up a shot with his bow and fired. He hit the cultist in the back, but only did a couple of points of damage... not enough to kill him... and the cultist started screaming bloody murder! We silenced him, but it was too late. The high priest cultist showed up with a bunch of others, and they were clerics, so they started casting spells at us... including "Cause Blindness", which Alron was hit with. Blind, unable to fight effectively, Alron surrendered.

This led to the group being chained up in a large cell. They were questioned by the high priest, and me playing Alron (still alone, so it was only me to answer questions and such), I continued with the cocky bullshit, and this ended with Alron being taken down, dragged off to a torture chamber, where an orc torturer used every method of dealing pain he could on him. I had Alron make an attempt to break the chains holding him down, and it was damned close, but the rolls didn't work out, and he was there for the duration. When the orc was done, Alron was dragged back to the cell and chained back up, this time, upside-down. One thing Steve had me rolling for every time the orc did something new was whether or not Alron screamed. He never did. Not even once. He never gave the torturer the satisfaction. Of course, this likely prompted the torturer to be even more evil when he tortured my elven bard (Aubry, the one that slew the medusa).

Now, they did escape from this... I think Alron broke his bonds (finally), then released everyone else, and we beat a hasty retreat out of the caves, back to Saltmarsh to lick our wounds. I believe this is when the whole "Alron runs off and becomes a wereboar" adventure happened.

However, the reason this whole incident popped up into my head is the idea of trends. It seems like certain characters of mine end up with trends that they get themselves into. With Alron, he had two... torture and blindness.

After Alron got back from his adventures as a lycanthrope, he was at the house in Saltmarsh for only a day or so when it was attacked during the night. He woke up, and was trying to find a torch he could light, to see what was going on, when Merlin reported to him that he already had a lantern lit... and Merlin was standing right next to him. He was blind. Again! Great. This blindness turned out to be very persistent too, if I remember correctly.

The trend for my current D&D character, Randall Forrester, is Dominated. He's been Dominated twice by opponents. First time the wizard forced him to throw away his cool magic sword (it was a Paired sword, so with his Quick Draw feat, he could draw the sword AND separate it into two identical swords, one in each hand, all as a free action), and he wasn't able to retrieve it when the rest of the group grabbed him and we made our escape. The second time, the opponent just made him attack his friends, and I think I missed (heh), but still... Dominated is becoming a trend for him.

New Blog... Always A Gamer

I have set up my new blog. You can find it at: http://always-a-gamer.blogspot.com/

As I work towards reorganizing this blog, I will be posting new material to that blog.

Upcoming Reformat

Hello to anyone reading this blog,

I am currently looking to revise the order of this blog, to put it more in chronological order. I'm sure it's fine, and noone out there has any complaints about how I've written it so far, however I strayed from my original intent, and it's likely an anal-retentive thing, but that bothers me. heh. :)

I am going to start a new blog, though, about my gaming experiences here in Atlanta. I've been taking a lot of photos at the games I've been playing here, and I think it would make for some interesting posting. Also, I'm sure that my local gaming friends would like to see the photos I've taken.

Gaming = Barely Controlled Chaos

Okay, I let that go a little longer than I should have.

I sort-of ran out of stuff to talk about, though. I was thinking of going back and re-organizing a bit. I had a style... a plan that I was following to start, and I went off track from that. It's a little disappointing that I couldn't keep it up. Oh well. Maybe I'll do the reorganization again and alter things a bit, but I'll keep the content the same.

In the meantime, a story.

One thing I love about RPGs is their unpredictability. No matter how you plan, no matter how you try to organize things, to lay things down in a line of progression, temporal or otherwise, the players will find a way to go astray... and it typically produces wonderful, highly entertaining results. There are those times when you are forced to deal with a total pooch-screw, to borrow from True Lies dialogue, but thankfully those times are few and far in between, and even when you have reached pooch-screw levels of boneheadedness, as long as everyone is having fun, it usually comes off as a success regardless.

When I think about campaigns gone astray, I typically think back to Steve's awesome campaign world that we completely boned... and it can all be traced to one specific event. I've gone over it already. Our fateful premature interaction with the entity formerly known as Ikthara (I think I got that right). However, I've gone there. This is not the time to go over it again. I've worn that tshirt before.

Instead, I will don another tshirt, one with colorful illustrations by the wonderful Larry Elmore. I come to my online game of 3.5e D&D Dragonlance.

I've mentioned this before, but this is about something specific to the game, rather than how long it was taking.

Now, if you haven't read the books, well, you're in for a spoiler here, so if you don't like spoilers, just stop reading now.

In the books, there is a blacksmith character named Theros Ironfeld, who lives in the hometown of the main characters. Early on, he is caught by the Dragon Armies, as he had been helping to hide elves (who were killed on sight) and sneak them out of town.

The characters arrive back at their hometown after an adventure in a ruined city, where they found The Disks of Mishikal, which contain knowledge of the gods and anyone who reads them can become a cleric. They find their town overrun and occupied by an army of dragon-men supported by dragons and led by a human "Dragonlord" named Verminaard. They also encounter an old friend of the main character, Tanis... an elf named Gilthanas. The elf came to find the other elves, which Theros had been helping, but he was too late. The elves were captured and killed by Verminaard's dragon in the town square. He almost ran in to his death, but Theros knocked him unconscious and dragged him off to his house to save him. The main characters catch up as Gilthanas is out and about the next day, and they are all captured by the dragon army. Theros is brought over shortly after with his arm cut off, and nearly dies, except for the cleric in the main group healing him... but his arm is still missing.

This is a rather large plot point, because there is a legend that the man who produces the dragonlances will have a silver arm... conveniently provided as a magical artifact by the story... so Theros is all set up... a blacksmith, with his arm missing... there you go. Just need some heroes to drag him along until they get him in the right place to get that arm, stick it on him to replace his missing one and the world is saved.... right?

Well, lemme tell yah. heh.

The characters in my game ended up being a day or two early in the "timeline" of the story, due to taking some alternate routes, and returned to their hometown just as the elves that Theros had been hiding were being killed by the Dragon. They helped Theros subdue Gilthanas and they all went back to his house to hide out. The next day, the group went off to the Inn to see what more information they could find, and overheard a dragon army officer saying that they were going to get the blacksmith. Well, a few members of the group took off to his blacksmith shop, and save him... and save him they did! When they arrived, a draconian had just raised a huge partially-forged two-handed sword, ready to bring it down on Theros' arm, when the party members broke in through the door and killed the draconians! It was all very dramatic and heroic and they were able to flee with the blacksmith intact...

BUT

there goes the prophecy out the window. hehe.

It wasn't a problem for me, because at that point, it actually opened up a lot of options for me. Now the story became about searching out the dragonlances that were still around, rather than forging new dragonlances.

Now, as I'd said in the previous post, we didn't get very far into the story, because it was taking too long, but it's a good example of how the actions of the players can completely change the direction of a campaign.

It's quite possible I -wanted- to forget this part...

So, the part that I forgot while writing the previous story...

I'm taking a guess that this was after the ogres, but before the drug dealers and druid and elves.

Alron was captured by orcs. I don't remember how. He was unarmed, so it likely wasn't difficult. He was taken away in a caged cart, to an encampment. When they arrived there, the orcs started herding people out... oh right, I just remembered something else, and that has jogged my memory about how he was caught... Alron had somehow broken a rib, which had poked him in the lung and he collapsed and blacked out... then woke up in the cart being taken off to the orc camp.

Upon arriving, the orcs started herding those captured out of the cage, but Alron, lying there with his broken rib, wouldn't go. Two of the orcs grabbed him, one by each foot, and started pulling him out. He reached out, wrapped a hand around a bar of the cage and flexed his arm, stopping all progress towards the door of the cage. The orcs pulled and pulled, but they couldn't budge him. Why did he do this? Because he KNEW that they weren't going to be gentle about it, and they were just going to drag him out until his head and shoulders slipped past the edge of the cart, and dropped the three or four feet to the ground with a painful thud. He wasn't going to give them the satisfaction.

However, that's when another orc got up into the cage and started smashing him in the face with a mace. He grabbed that orc by the tunic and smashed his face into the bars, knocking him out, which escalated the whole thing, and knowing that he wasn't going to be able to fight with the broken rib, he finally gave in and let go of the cage.

Predictably, they dragged him out until his head and shoulders slipped off the edge of the cart and he dropped the three or four feet to the ground with a painful thud, and blacked out again. =P

When he woke up, he was hanging from an upright post, his hands shackled above his head, with the chain of the shackles hanging over a nail to keep him up. His feet were secured to the post as well. He hung there for several days, the orcs degrading and demeaning him, throwing food in his face for him to eat, until eventually, weak, hungry and tired, they dragged him down and put him to work in the mines.

As he was trying to work out an escape plan with his fellow miners, a group of human warriors attacked the camp, and freed everyone, Alron included. They helped him get back into shape (he was here for awhile), and they reequipped him, and sent him on his way... which is when he encountered the druid and the elves and Amanda.

Certainly was a rollercoaster of a journey here... and all for going to hire some builders to expand the house they have... and it was all Milamber's (Francis' character) idea to hire these people. Alron should have punched him in the face when he got back.

All of this taught me two valuable lessons, though... never split the party, and never solo adventure with Steve as the DM. =D

Not the greatest performance...

You know, I think I forgot a part between the werewolves and this, but it's hard to remember exactly where it went in the sequence of events, so I'll just go into it later.

So, as I said, Alron left with his troop of elven archers, and they made their way to the camp of humanoids. Scouting out the area, we found that the prisoners were all chained together, and guarded by an ogre and a bunch of orcs.

We climbed up into trees, and on my first shot, the elves were supposed to take down all the orcs. My hope was that it would draw the ogre to us to counterattack, and would leave the prisoners unmolested.

Unfortunately, that's not how it worked.

Alron fired two arrows at the ogre and the elf nearest him followed suit. The others all picked their targets and started firing.

Instead of coming after us, though, the ogre picked up his huge sword and started slaughtering the prisoners, one by one!

Augh! I had everyone open fire on him, but it still took a few rounds to take him down, which meant a few prisoners that were killed horribly. =(

In the mean time, one of the orcs made it to the edge of the clearing and started shouting his head off towards the main encampment! Alron took him down with a bow shot, but it was too late. Suddenly, we were nearly overrun by a massive force from the main camp. If it wasn't for a large force of elves suddenly decending upon the scene, we'd have been killed horribly too.

We were rushed away with the prisoners, and I found out afterwards that we were basically a distraction for the main force. We'd done our job well enough, not knowing we were doing it... well, the elves might have known, but noone told me. The main force attacked and decimated the larger encampment. I was kinda ticked off at that, but I also felt pretty badly that I hadn't come up with a better plan. We lost some of the prisoners for my lack of plan, and Alron (and I, honestly) still felt rather guilty about that snafu for some time afterward.

Alron didn't feel much like celebrating at the big banquet the elves threw that night. The only upside of the evening was the beautiful female paladin named Amanda that was there. She translated the elven that was being spoken, as Alron didn't know the language, and she favored him with a big kiss as part of his reward (Whoohoo!). Given that Alron was an ugly slug at this point (this has to do with the missing part I mentioned above), this was quite the boon for him. :)

He had to leave shortly after, but as a last token to him, Amanda gave him a magical longsword.

I'll go into the missing part next.

To Continue...

Okay, so Alron had run away from the werewolves, and found out shortly thereafter that he was a wereboar. Not as glamorous as a weretiger, or as powerful as a werebear, but at least not evil, like a werewolf. Still not an ideal situation, though. He quickly headed south, so that he could find somewhere civilized to get cured.

He was making good progress, he thought, until suddenly he blundered into the territory of an ogre family... the kids being the first ones he encountered. Before he knew it, he was set upon by three ogre children... each easily as big as him, and all three together stronger than him. Without any armor or weapons, they took him down quickly, but Mom arrived shortly to spoil their fun. She grabbed the barely-conscious Alron by the foot and dragged him back to their lair, throwing him in a part of the cave with a wooden cell door over the front. Inside were a few other people, all having just as bad luck as he was. Not one to want to stick around to be eaten by ogres (or, really, to fight them while unarmed), Alron managed to convince two of the prisoners to leave with him. The others refused, too scared to make the attempt, so Alron unlatched the door from the inside, and with the two brave ones, he snuck out. He contemplated going back in for the others, but sudden screaming of those left behind revealed that dinner was about to be prepared. Not much to do, so we accepted it and moved on.

Unfortunately, Alron's changes weren't quite so regular yet, and that night, with the two hapless gents he escaped with there at the camp with him, he changed into his wereboar form.

I have no idea what happened to those two, but when he woke up, he was lying naked in the forest. He knew that he was further south, which was good, but on the other hand, he was naked. Happening upon a small village a short time later, he was investigating, not wanting to just walk into town in the buff, when he heard two men talking. Approaching, he saw two rough-looking men with a bag of something, and they were acting pleased with what they'd found... it seemed like they'd stolen the bag, or something like that. Needing some clothes, Alron picked up a stray branch, sneaked up to where they were, but at the last moment, they heard him. They turned around and saw him standing there, buck naked, with his hand behind his back.

"Hey..." the one said, bemused by what he saw... "Whutcha got behind yur back there?"

Well, Alron let him see it... up close. The branch swung around and cracked into the guy's skull, and he fell hard. The other guy ran for it, and Alron let him go. Unfortunately, the blow had killed the guy. I felt guilty about that. I'd forgotten to say "Hey Steve, that's gonna be a non-lethal attack." Bleh. Oh well. I took the guy's clothes, his dagger, and the bag of whatever it was... which turned out to be some kind of dried leaves... which turned out to be some kind of narcotic, according to a druid I encountered afterwards. He disposed of it for me... I didn't ask how he was going to do that... if he ended up smoking it, who am I to judge? heh.

The druid pointed me in the right direction, saying that there was an elven village not far away that I could get help at. I was a little leery of that, given my last encounter with elves, but I decided to just not mention the lycanthropy thing.

With word having been sent ahead by the druid, Alron received a warmer welcome from these elves. They were willing to help him, but they wanted some help from him in return. Several people, including elves, had been taken prisoner by a large group of humanoids... goblins, orcs and ogres. They wanted Alron to lead a group of elves to rescue them. I had no idea what the situation really was, so I was really uncertain about making plans without more information... Steve portayed the elves as rather dubious about that, but he and his troop of archers were soon on their way.

Continued in the next post (and you won't have to wait 2 months for it, either!)

"Boared"... or, "Were, were you??"

Ah puns. Aren't they great? What? They aren't? Really? Well, okay.

Anyway, this was fairly early on in Alron's "career of pain". We'd finished the Saltmarsh trilogy, and the town counsel awarded us with a house on the outskirts of town. It was someplace we could use as a base of operations.

Steve drew up some basic floorplans, but it was really nothing fancy, so we started making plans. Dig out the basement to make a study/laboratory for Merlin (Francis' magicuser), get furniture, artwork, etc. So, Alron took Conan (Jeff's barbarian) and an npc character, and we went to the next city over, to find a crew to do the digging.

On the way, we were camping, and the camp was attacked by these animals. We didn't have the opportunity to light a torch or anything, so we just defended ourselves by the moonlight, and killed the creatures. In the morning, we woke up to find out that the three creatures were gone, and in their place were three human bodies! Oh crap, they were lycanthropes.

Alron had taken quite a bit of damage, so I was fearful of him contracting the disease, so I had him go to the local church in town, to get them to case a cure disease on him. Well, the priests there wanted to have proof he'd contracted it, before they would cast the spell... I think Alron didn't have the gold available, and they said that they'd cast it for free, to rid him of the evil, but they wanted proof of it first.

Not really wanting to wait, he found another church outside the city, but it turned out to be an evil temple. I had him just tell the priest there that he was going to leave, and the priest agreed it was for the best, and that was that. heh.

So, I waited. Next night, Alron went out into the woods (this was probably not the best idea, but I wanted to avoid bloodshed), took off his armor and weapons, and waited... and yup, he transformed into a were-something. I thought it was a wolf at the time.

So, Alron wakes up the next morning, and he's not in the same place that he started... understandable... let's just have a look aroun.... wait a second... these are the same kind of trees that were in the forest I was in... these grow further north. Oh crap. He's covered in dirt and mud, completely naked otherwise, aaaaand suddenly he's got several elves with bows challenging him.

Well, I had him explain that he wasn't sure how he got here, and he didn't even really know where "here" was. The elves weren't impressed, and took him prisoner. Tossing some clothes onto him, they took him to their village, and in front of their elders. They questioned him, and it came down to it that I thought maybe they could help Alron... so I had him say that he suspected that he was a werewolf.

Wrong answer.

Ten elves with bows were on him in a moment, all pointing arrows at his head. Hooooboy.

Without letting him say another word they took him away and threw him into a dark cell with a bunch of others... humans and a dwarf. One of the humans approached and asked him why he was there. He figured it would be good for some cred, and as a warning, so he said he was a lycanthrope. Noone else seemed to understand, but the human talking to him did. He asked what kind. Alron said "wolf", but the man scoffed, saying that he didn't have it in him.

I was confused by that, but there was little time to debate the issue. Elves came and dragged him and one of the others out of the room, over to what looked to be a temple. They were dragged inside, and strung up by their feet. A cleric began to chant and was going to sacrfice them with a special knife. He stabbed the other, but with them swinging freely, the knife didn't penetrate too deep. Just then, the door burst open, and it was the human he talked to, and the dwarf. There was a prison break. They attacked the cleric and cut down Alron and the other, and everything after was a blurr as they escaped the village.

Well, Alron stuck around for a bit, but left very quickly upon seeing how they acted... thoroughly evil... and it appeared that all of them were werewolves, a roaming pack of them. After escaping, he started to make his way south again... but not before finding out that it wasn't were-wolves that attacked him that night, but were-boars!

That's right. He was a were-boar.

To be continued...

You take the bad with the good...

I was playing Alron, the Archer/Ranger. The rest of the group, as a reminder, was Sarek, the half-elf cleric, played by Mike... Richard, the human ranger, played by Jonathan... Milamber, the human magicuser, played by Francis... Zoroaster, the half-elf fighter/magicuser, played by Joe... and a halfling... I dunno... jester or something... played by Francis' girlfriend, Jen.

So, our group was setting up camp for the night, and someone was casting a few spells off in order to memorize something else for the next day, and detect magic was cast. A tree nearby registered as magical! Curious, we had Sarek cast dispel magic on it. The success of the dispel was dependent on difference in level between the caster who cast the magic spell you're attempting to dispel, and the caster casting the dispel magic. You apply that difference to a die roll, and roll. First attempt, it didn't work... so, we stayed there, Sarek taking that spell as many times as he could (three, I think), and casting it time after time, failing each time, until around 4 days later, he FINALLY rolled low enough to get it! The tree suddenly transformed into a beautiful elven princess!

She told us that she had been put under a polymorph spell by a jealous suitor who would not let her marry someone else. Since the half-elf cleric had saved her, she was in his debt, and if we would escort her to her home, she would arrange for a great reward, part of which was her hand in marriage to the cleric.

So, we're traveling to her home when we encounter an evil cleric. He cast Fear on the party, and several of us fail our saves, including Alron, and the princess. So, I couldn't do anything as my character is running as fast as he can to get away. The halfling, who made her save, is worried about the princess, that she might run into somewhere dangerous, or run into a tree, or fall down and hurt herself... so, she picks up a rock, and throws it at the princess, trying to knock her unconscious. She rolls a 20, scoring a critical hit, and kills the princess (she only had like 6 hit points or so).

In 1st edition AD&D, elves cannot be raised with a Raise Dead spell (which I believe Sarek had access to) because they have spirits, not souls, so that was that... the whole reward/hand-in-marriage thing, all up in smoke because of this.

The real kicker, Jen decided to lie about it. The whole exchange between her and the princess took place in private, in another room, so none of us knew what happened. She told Steve she had her halfling run around, trying to make it look like there were a whole bunch of enemies that had run in and run out again. When Alron got back from his run, and we'd dealt with the cleric and his minions, we went gathering everyone up. We found the princess dead, and the halfling nearby. She told us that goblins had attacked while we were dealing with the cleric, and they killed the princess. We had two rangers in the group, though, so we searched the area, checking out all the tracks that were around, and found that all the tracks were halfling, made by the SAME halfling, and the rock-wound in the princess' head, and the rock lying there... when goblins tend to use swords and spears... yeah... it was kind of like medieval CSI. heh.

If I remember correctly, we took the body of the princess back to her people, and we gave up the halfling as her killer. I believe Steve did something with that, something the rest of us weren't privvy to, probably some kind of spell put on her by the elven wizards, and the halfling was allowed to continue on with us. I was never sure if anything came of whatever "punishment" she received. She certainly wasn't saying anything. Probably for the best. heh.

Roll them bones!

I own a lot of dice.

I still own every die I have every bought, I believe. There may be a few incidentals that got lost here and there, either left behind at a friends or rolled under a couch, never to be found, but for the most part, I still have them all.

The die that is the avatar for this blog is my very first twenty-sided die.

It is quite worn.

I retired that die after I used it to kill a Medusa.

Steve was running our group through The Caves of Chaos, which is the main source of experience points and treasure in the adventure "The Keep on the Borderlands", which is the first complete module included with the Basic D&D set. There was "In Search of the Unknown" before that, with the Caverns of Quasqueton, but that was just the two maps of the dungeon, with basic descriptions of the rooms, but no monsters or treasure. The DM had to add those to complete it.

So, we were going through the Caves of Chaos, and there is one part of the caves that houses the priests of an evil cult. In the cells of this area, the cult leader is keeping a medusa that had been captured. His plan was to cut the snakes off her head, put her eyes out, and then sacrifice her to his demonic lord.

Well, our group went into that room, not knowing there was a medusa in there. We heard movement from behind a curtain, so Fang walks around the corner of the curtain and whoa!! Medusa!! Steve rolls a saving throw vs Petrification... he makes it! He turns his head away just in time not to be turned to stone! He tells us there's a medusa back there, so Aubry, my elven bard, takes out his mirror, and walks around the corner. Aubry makes his saving throw, and the medusa makes her saving throw against turning herself to stone, so they both looked away just in time...

Aubry kept shoving the mirror in her face, and she kept pushing him away, until she finally shoved him, knocking him back, where he stumbled and fell. The mirror broke, and she went after the rest of the group, trying to "stone" everyone.

I ask Steve what my chances are for cutting off her head. He told me I needed to roll a natural 20 to hit her in the neck, and then roll maximum damage to cut her head off.

Well, she'd forgotten about Aubry for the moment, so he stands up, unsheathes his magical longsword and walks up behind her. He grabs a fistful of her snake-hair, and brings his longsword down on her neck!

I rolled that d20, which looked then pretty much as worn as it looks today, and it rolled...

and rolled...

and rolled...

AND ROLLED...

AND FRANCIS WAS TENSING UP AND MAKING THIS "EEEEE" NOISE...

AND IT ROLLED...

AND FRANCIS WAS SAYING "HOOOOLY SHIIIIIT!"

AND IT ROLLED...

AND IT FINALLY ROLLED TO A STOP!!!!

20!!!!

AND FRANCIS FREAKED OUT!!! "OOOH MY GOD!!!"

SCOTT PUMPS HIS FIST "YES!!"

STEVE CURSED AT US!!

Well, it wasn't over yet... I picked up my d8, which was in decidedly better shape, and rolled it...

AND FRANCIS FREAKED OUT AGAIN!!!

8!

IT ROLLED AN 8!!

AUBRY CUT THE MEDUSA'S HEAD OFF!!

HE ACTUALLY DID IT!!

HOLY SHIT!!!

"Fine!" Steve said, disgruntled. "The fucking medusa is DEAD. It's head comes off and rolls across the floor."

Granted, after that was the session where everything went to shit.. when we all got captured, and Alron got tortured... and Aubry got tortured too, even worse than Alron, 'cause the orc torturer REALLY wanted to hurt the prissy grey elf.

Ah well, win some, you lose some... that's the way the dice roll. heh.

My Favourite Game, That I've Never Really Played

I've played Dungeons and Dragons the longest, and most consistently, of any of the roleplaying games that I've played, but my favourite game, ever since I first played it, was Gamma World.

If you're not familiar, it's a post-apocalyptic game, where you play humans and mutants trying to survive in the ruins of civilization. It is hundreds of years after the apocalypse, with much of the knowledge of The Ancients lost. They are seen as almost mystical, and their technology bordering on magic. You could choose to be a Pure Strain Human, a human with no mutations, and a high resistance to radiation and disease. You could be a Mutated Human, with fantastical physical and mental mutations, some beneficial, some defects. You could also play a Mutated Animal, choosing a basic stock animal and applying mutations like mutated humans have.

Typically, you started off in a primitive village, your people scraping out a basic existence in the harsh world. Many adventures start off with rites of passage... sending the group of young humans and mutants out to recover some ancient artifact, to prove their strength and advance them into adulthood.

I've owned every edition of this (except the d20 version, which I thought was a poser, undeserving of the name Gamma World), however, I've never really played it for any significant amount of time.

When I started playing 1st edition game, with my best friend at the time, Quintin. I was a pure strain human, who had some psychic abilities, which I'd "borrowed" from the TV show "The Powers of Matthew Star", which I was watching at the time. The main character of that show was an alien who looked human, and it was sort of the typical 70's "on the run, and helping anyone he comes across" show. Kind of like "The Littlest Hobo", but with an alien kid. heh.

(The only way I was able to remember the name of this show was by recalling that Louis Gossett Jr was in it, as Matthew's guardian, and I'm shocked that I was able to remember even that detail. Thinking back, the show was likely HORRIBLE. heh. I mean, look a that guy's HAIR!)

The only things I'd encountered in his adventures was stuff Quintin took from Return of the Jedi, since there is a type of armor called "Plastic Armor", which could easily be Stormtrooper armor, and Quintin and I were obsessed with Star Wars at the time (yeah, I'm not at all obsessed with it today... *shoves his full suit of Stormtrooper armor into the closet, where you can't see it*). I encountered some aliens, and that was about it. No mutants, no ancient artifacts, none of the actual themes of the game.

I GM'd a game of it, for one session, with my friends Steve and Francis, and maybe a few others, but I can't remember who. I started them off with the Rite of Passage adventure in the Allegheny County area, near Pittsburgh, but we got bogged down in the rules and me being rather inexperienced with being a Games Master, and we just went back to D&D.

So, I feel that I can't really count either of those two instances.

I'm not exactly sure what has drawn me to this game over the years, despite never really playing it. Maybe it's the message behind it... that the world can be torn down by war and destruction, and we will go on, at least in some form. There is a spirit of rebuilding to the game.

I was told a couple of years ago, by a fellow gamer, that I'm the only person he knows that ever took the game seriously. Every time he got a game going, it was just a silly, wacky game, but I've just never seen it that way. I actually found it pretty strange when he told me that.

Okay, yeah, your characters have fantastical mutations that would never happen in real life, and there are mutated humanoid animals (one adventure module even included cycloptic, human-sized, intelligent chickens), however the writing of the game has never inspired any "yucks" from me. I mean, they didn't make it particularly dark or depressing either (not like other post-apocalyptic games have done), at least not any more than D&D was. It never struck me as game you were supposed to "clown up".

Well, regardless, I've always had my plans to run a game of this. From time to time, I've envisioned what the city I've lived in (Toronto, Edmonton, Ottawa, Atlanta) would look like in the setting, and how the unique characteristics of the city would translate. Not in some kind of screwed up, morbid "The world ending would be cool" kind of way, but just "If I were to set my Gamma World game here, what would I draw for the city skyline? What would the iconic places of this city look like? What traditions or superstitions would the people cling to or warp over the years?"

One interesting, and humorous fact... Atlanta is considered a Gamma World City. :D

Sometimes, I'm a cheeky bastard.

So, back in Steve's big campaign, I had moved off to Edmonton, Mizraith being my last character before I moved there, and when I returned 6 months later, I took on a new character... Thorn Greenwood, human cleric of Teutares.

Teutares is the god of nature in Steve's campaign world, and instead of druids, he has his clerics. They abide by the same rules as clerics do, with a few of their own special abilities and spells. They're basically like druids, except remove all the elemental connections for their spells and their Hierophant levels. They still had some of the abilites of druids, like shapechange, but they can turn plant monsters, like clerics can turn undead.

So, I had some fun playing around with the new spells that Steve had come up with. Reinforestments was my favorite, I think. When you cast it, you create automatons out of the detritus and debris on the forest floor, and you can make these attack. You got one for every three levels, I think. They would pop up behind an opponent, attack, then next round you could make them fall to the ground and pop up in another place, attacking again. Very neat.

Well, when I was playing Thorn, we were still dealing with trying to save the world, but now the gods were even more involved. At one point, we were in the Seven Heavens, talking with Rhom, and he said he was going to send us down to this one location, and there, we would need to retrieve a suit of armor. We gave a big ole' salute and he sent us down in the right location.

It was winter where we were, and nearby was a big hole in the ground, which turned out to be a steam geyser. It went off every so often, which we timed a few times, to make sure it was regular and predictable. Going down into the geyser, we found these little branch caves, and at the back of each cave was what appeared to be a body part of a stone statue of an armored man. So, we took our time, going after one piece at a time, letting the geyser go off in between, then going after the next, until we had them all.

Figuring we needed to put the pieces together and something would happen, we did so, putting the statue back together. If I recall, the pieces all fit together perfectly, and held together, but nothing happened. So, I believe we made camp, and someone memorized "Stone to Flesh". The next day, we reassembled the statue, and cast the spell. The statue immediately turned into a human man and proceeded to attack us. However, part of his attack was magical dominance. Everyone was affected except Thorn.

Being neutral, I didn't see a way that I could take on the whole group, plus this guy, so I said "Well, I guess Thorn leaves. He turns into an owl and flies away." I don't know what I was thinking at the time... that maybe Steve had something in mind, or the like, but he basically took me aside and said "Come on... you have to do more than that..." So, I had Thorn come back.

By this time, the armored guy had taken everyone to a nearby cave. I had Thorn shapechange into a rat, and skitter along the edge of the cave until I saw them. The big guy was standing there, monologuing to Thorns dominated friends, about how he was going to take over the world or somesuch.

So, I had him cast this "tentacle" spell, which had these tentacles grow out of his back... the rat's back at this point, and then cast Poison, the reverse of Neutralize Poison. He ran up between the legs of his friends, and before any of them could do anything, he reached out with the tentacles and touched the big guy... the big guy failed his poison save and died, which released everyone from his control.

At that point, we either stripped the armor off him and returned, or we just returned with his dead body and the armor. When Rhom got us back, he was pissed, complaining that we weren't supposed to have killed him.

My answer back was something along the lines of "Well, you only said you wanted the armor. You didn't say anything about getting HIM back alive. In fact, you didn't say anything about him at all. So, you got what you asked for."

I'm still not sure why my character survived that encounter... mouthing off to the Head of the Pantheon is not conducive to a long life-span. :)

Stepping Back

Wow, taking a look at the previous posts, I inadvertently covered a lot of time there.

So, let's take a step back, shall we?

Back in highschool, Steve gathered a few of the regular Games Club people together, the GOOD players, and he put together a dungeon for us to play through. We made up some characters... I think maybe 5th level or so, maybe higher. I rolled up a gnome illusionist/thief and a half-elf or human ranger (I can't remember). Funny, the only other player I can remember in the group was my friend Marcel. I've lost track of Marcel over the years. I think I might have found him on Facebook, but I have no idea if it's him or not.

Anyways, Marcel made two characters too... one was a thief... or a fighter... I think. Anyways, that's not really that important for the story. heh.

So, this was a fairly typical dungeon... like the ones I described that we played through in Grade School. Entirely random as far as room layout, and what kind of creatures were inside the dungeon. Oh, there was some rhyme, but not much reason. heh.

So, we're down there adventuring, killin' monsters and takin' their stuff, when we came upon this one room. The unusual thing about the room is that it had a solid walkway through the room, but everywhere off the solid walkway was soft, I think like pillows or the like. I can't remember why it was like that. Marcel's character went off into this adjoining room, where there was possibly treasure or something, but he also found some kind of creature that was like a little bipedal turtle, with a crooked neck. Kind of like a combination of these two cartoon characters (Beaky & Cecil, if you're curious, ignore Bugs, although I guess its personality turned out to be similar to him)...

He called the rest of us into the room, and we looked around, but all we could see was a small area on the floor that looked like it had gold dust on it. He swore up and down that there was this little turtle thing there, but we were all "Ooooookay, Crazy Marcel! Whatever!" and we left the room. When we left, the turtle reappeared, but now it was standing on his shoulder.

He walked out of the room and said "Here it is!" but all we could see was the same gold dust, now on his shoulder. We tutted and shook our heads and he got all indignant and left the room, where the thing promptly reappeared, this time on top of his head.

So, he ran out of the room to where we were, shouting "Look, it's on top of my head!"... but all we saw was that same gold-dust on his head, like he'd sprinkled it there.

And again, we're "Ooookay, Crazy Marcel! Whatever! Whooooo!"

He wasn't having any of that this time, though.

"I'm not crazy!!" he shouts, and says that his character pulls out his sword!

Now, I'll pause here for just a moment to say that we didn't let Marcel finish what he said he was doing, which was trying to take his sword out, turn it around and hand it to us hilt-first, so that we would know that he posed no threat to us. However, with his earnest cry, I just had my gnome illusionist react immediately.

"Holy Crap, he's gone crazy! I zap him with my wand of paralysis!" I quickly shouted!

Zap! He was paralyzed. No more words from him!

Marcel protested, finally getting out what he'd meant all along, but I called out "Too late!"

My ranger threw him over his shoulder and we continued on after that.