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.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
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!)
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!)
Friday, July 10, 2009
"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...
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...
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
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.
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.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
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
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
Saturday, June 13, 2009
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. :)
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. :)
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