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...