First Session Winter 2011

We got back to it yesterday...And here's a brief look at how it went:

The girls started off in Sandpoint (where we left of before), and decided to spend the month touring Solomon around the local area in order to show him the sights. (Thistletop, the Lighthouse, etc.)

They also took the opportunity to have some of their magic items identified (free for their service to the community) at the academy. (ring +1 protection, ring of jumping, wand of knock, Nualia's talisman, adamantine sword, etc.)

Two things of note before they begin their 4 day journey to Magnimar:

1. They've been invited to join the Pathfinder Society
2. There are murders happening in Magnimar that are eerily similar to the Skinsaw Man's m.o.

Gearing up is accomplished and off they go. (Coral walks...opting to buy a more superior horse in the big city instead) Late September is a perfect time to travel the coast, and the weather does not disappoint. It is pleasantly cool during the day, with a breeze blowing in from the ocean as they make their way East, South-East toward the city.

Day one goes by w/out a hitch and they stay that night in a roadside flop house built specifically for the purpose. Day two dawns bright and sunny, promising to be unseasonably warm. As the day progresses and the party draws near their second stop (a roadside tavern and flop-house together), the wolf Jaeger alerts his master Quick Silver that he detects smoke on the wind.

She sends him off and he comes back quickly reporting that 4 large "men" were heading their way. Large as in larger than an ogre! Quickly moving off the road the party hides the horses in a shallow depression covered by bushes, and then climb some larger trees for a better view.

Mere moments later four exceedingly large figures come stomping into view. Obviously giants on a raid, the party notices the bags slung over their shoulders...and w/in one of them they notice movement! They must somehow trick the giants into dropping their bags so that whatever is trapped inside may escape.

A plan is concocted and set in motion. Dropping oil and flame from the trees the party members ply their ranged weapons to good effect. After a tense moment where the dwarf, Mock, is chased from hiding by a wandering giant, the group ends up dropping the leader! The rest turn tale and run, leaving the bags on the ground.

One young boy named William emerges, but in the end, that is all. The entire community was wiped out and the giants were taking the bodies...where? Hard to say, but east is the consensus.

A few more days on the road and no more encounters finds the party in Magnimar, the second largest city in Golarion! And a massive city it is. Marveling at the wonders, they make their way to the Pathfinder guild house in lower town. Where they meet Eando Kline, the chapter president.

Kline greets them and gives them the lowdown on the area. Especially the murders. He also informs them that they have been invited to a dinner with the Lord Mayor in four days time. The reason is not really clear, but the opportunity is! After he's spoken w/ Coral and Quick Silver, he pulls Shalelu aside and speaks briefly w/ her as well...what is said though is unknown. (But later she tells the two that she was the originator of their invitation into the ranks of the Pathfinders, for she is one herself!)

The next day is spent in the chapter house writing down everything they can recall of the Sandpoint area and their adventures there. Meanwhile Shalelu and Mock stay in the chapter house and wait for the two to free up.

Day two in Magnimar is spent shopping for the proper attire. Mistress Vyl, in high town, has done dresses for some of the most prominent ladies in the area, and she's happy (though a bit stuffy and proper) to do so for the two adventurers. 180 gold, and a day later the two have taken care of the preparations for the meeting w/ the Lord Mayor.

Day three is free...So they decide to go and check on Aldern's townhouse in high town. Just to look around and see if there are any clues leading to this Xanesha character. (a name at the end of a letter found in Aldern's laboratory) The place is boarded up on the facade, but the back, through the garden is not. They make their way to the back door and use the keys also found in Aldern's laboratory.

The townhouse is obviously empty. The dining area has obviously been ransacked and after looking in the next few rooms, it becomes clear that someone was looking for something w/ no small amount of urgency. Quick Silver's keen gnome ears picks up voices from one of the so far unexplored rooms!

Quietly the party moves into position, throws the door open to find...Aldern and Iesha sitting having a conversation!

Obvious confusion reigns. A confused and slightly outraged Aldern invites the 4 in while Iesha goes to get refreshments. He claims that he's been here the entire time and doesn't know one whit of what the group tells him about ghouls and ghasts. Just then Iesha comes back into the room...

And that's when they change.

Starting up Again

I'm going to use this "hibernating" blog to jot down some ideas for my girls. Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles they've asked me to play again!

Where were we?

With the aid of the cleric Solomon Kane, they'd just conquered Aldern Foxglove and stopped his devious / diabolical plans to turn the population of Sandpoint into raving ghouls, and to win the attention of his Love, the elf Coral.

After their accomplishment, Solomon has invited the two to the city of Magnimar. Also, he's asked the two if they would like to join the Pathfinders, a group of "professional" adventurers.

Apparently there have been some murders in Magnimar that are too similar to what's happened here in Sandpoint to be of coincidence. And after the success here, the two adventurers have been requested from on "high"...things have become desperate indeed!

==HIGH LEVEL OVERVIEW==

I've got an idea for a linked series, or campaign. After defeating the ghast, Aldern, in Sandpoint the characters are drawn into a series of murders in the city of Magnimar. The master mind behind these is the horror, Xanesha. Who's taking orders from others. (*a message notifying Xanesha that she's to keep Magnimar in terror and confusion in order to distract them from aiding Fort Rannick)

Next step would be Fort Rannick and answering the call of the Black Arrows, of which coincidentally Shalelu's father is one. The ogres are part of the giant incursion that has been spurred to madness and destruction by others in the shadows.

Mama Graul's "lover" is a hill giant lieutenant to Nosnra. He's also been feeding the Grauls information and weapons, which are of quite nice, if odd, craftsmanship. (made of an unknown black metal which can only be identified by the elves as Drow manufacture)

Naturally the trail leads to the despicable giant Nosnra who's been leading raids against small hamlets and villages located throughout the Sanos and Ashwood forests. Shalelu will ask the characters to accompany her in order to find out who was behind the death of her father. If this doesn't work, a small village that the girls travelled through (maybe even Sandpoint) will be ravaged by the attacks. Striking close to their hearts.

And on down the line: As they finish w/ Nosnra it will lead on to the Frost and Fire giants. From there down into the depths of the earth and eventually to Kiransalee and the city of Erelie Cinlu (sp), which of course has been decimated and occupied. The priestess has been waging a war against the surface world, as well as collecting bodies for an undead army.

Modules:

Pathfinder

- The Skinsaw Murders

- The Hook Mountain Masacre

Against the Giants

- Steading of the Hill Giant Chieftan

- Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl

- Hall of the Fire Giant King

City of the Spider Queen and The Vault of the Drow

This is LONG campaign that will be run w/ the White Box rules. We'll see how it goes. I'm fairly certain that it won't ever be completed. But we can dream, right?

Wish us well.

Idea: Black Plague

Ever seen 'The Black Plague' starring Sean Bean? The movie's not that great really, but there is a kernel of take-away: It's a perfect RPG adventure!

A baron or ruler of a territory beset by some type of disease or malady (could be of the biological or magical kind really.) has lost contact with one of his / her villages. They've hired the adventurers to go and check out why.

Turns out that the village is actually safe from whatever is plaguing the rest of the area. The reason of course is that the villagers have turned to demonism and are being blindly led (or maybe not so blindly?) by a necromancer. The mission is to get rid of this menace, whether it be the necromancer alone, or the village as a whole.

Although, I must admit, a bit of subterfuge is a wonderful thing. Some drugs / potions to falsely lead characters into believing something that isn't so... whatever. But there is a lot of room for head games here. NPC interactions could be a large part, and in fact should be, of solving who or what is behind this.

Sure, there are a couple of modules that are fairly similar, Danger at Dunwater, Temple of Set, etc. but overall, I think that after watching this movie, you'll agree, it's a really cool setup for a neat adventure.

Cheers!

Rise of the Runelords - S&W whitebox

Wow, it's been a very long time since I've actually written any of my thoughts on my daughter's game. But I thought that maybe I'd better write this down in order to keep things straight. And what better place than here?

The characters:

• Coral, a fourth level Elven Adventurer.
• Quick Silver, a fourth level Gnome Adventurer (I've modeled this as a mix between a halfling and dwarf, something more akin to 1E AD&D's gnome.)

A quick recap of past events: Sandpoint has been saved from the goblin incursion but now a murderer is loose. And it turns out to be none other than the foppish noble, Aldern Foxglove. For the twist, he has fallen for Coral.

The depravations that he has enacted upon the innocents of Sandpoint are clearly some type of twisted sacrifice to "his love", Coral. It comes to the fore that not only is Aldern a murderous maniac, but also some type of horrid undead, a ghast by all estimations!

His murderous spree in the surrounding countryside has created an army of ghouls, which over the course of a few weeks provides no end of action for Sandpoint's militia. The only known cure for this horrid outbreak is to figuratively cut the head off the snake, and that means that Aldern must die.

Help is sent for and a iron-hard holy man of Pharasma is sent from Magnimar. A certain Solomon Kane (I know, I know...I just couldn't help myself. Could you, if your audience had never heard of this wonderful character?) shows up on the front stoop the church in Sandpoint, calling for Coral and Quick Silver.

His specialty is the hunting and slaying of abominations, specifically the undead. He is also interested in hearing what the two adventurers have found during their escapades earlier in the area. Apparently he's also a high ranking official in the Pathfinder Society, and an invitation to the two is given, provided they prove their worth in the upcoming fight against the ghast.

Gathering up the necessary supplies (plenty of oil and holy water) the group, consisting of Shalelu the Elf, Mock Rockson the dwarf, Coral, Quick Silver and of course Solomon Kane, ride of at first light, heading for Foxglove manor, better known as "The Misgivings".

Arriving a few hours into the morning, the group finds the horrid abode surrounded in odd-acting ravens and crows, chasing them away is not hard though, led by Kane's faith in his goddess. Yet, they don't go far. And this is troublesome.

Figuring that the best way into the house is either through the back, or down into the well, the party follows their noses, figuratively. And thus select the well due to the taint wafting up on the air currents.

Mock is first down due to his aversion to heights and climbing. He makes it w/out difficulty, lights a torch and secures a "beach head". The others follow quickly and they slowly make their way into the darkness.

As the natural tunnel widens out into a limestone cavern, they are beset upon by an enormous bat. The battle is brief though as the group ply their bows to good affect, bringing the beast down w/ nary a scratch. One of the bodies in the cavern proves to be a well known criminal, known by both Shalelu as well as Solomon. A bounty of 500 gold can be collected for proof of his demise. They take his ring, gold, sword and hat as proof. His rotted carcass is well beyond "ripe" and no one is interested in carrying it.

Further in the group runs afoul of a pack of ghouls. They quickly slay them but not before the noise brings four more. Solomon proves his worth and destroys three of them as they approach w/in 30'. (Turning range in my game) Carefully the group moves yet further into the dark, mold strewn caverns.

A huge natural ampitheatre is stumbled upon, wherein a ramp winds its way down to the surface of the water. And along this ramp opens the mouth of a tunnel as well as a stone door. But the group has not the time to explore much beyond a glimpse as out of the dark come howling yet more ghouls. These were once goblins, but are yet fierce opponents.

Arrows take down the first few while the last two are brought low by Solomon's turning. (He can do this but three times / day) Breathing hard the party takes stock of their situation and in the course of this a door is heard to bang open... Light spills forth as Aldern steps out, calling for "his love" to join him.

Coral sneers and throws curses his direction. This enrages Aldern, screaming obscenities, he sprints up the ramp towards the group, waving his gore encrusted razor the entire way.

Solomon steps forward and turns the ghast at the last possible moment! Yet Aldern strains as if against an invisible force to reach is one true love, Coral. And then, he spins on his heel and disappears back down the ramp, the door slamming in his wake.

The group rushes down in pursuit to find the door locked from the inside. Not having anyone in the group who can "force" a lock, they use their hammers, pitons and climbing picks to quickly chew through the rock holding the hinges. Soon the door is laying on its face upon the floor...Revealing a horrid sight.

Once used as some type of laboratory, the room is now a mess of trash, body parts and even stranger, a mass of black and dark blue fungus growing in the shape of a man on the far wall. The overwhelming stench that roils forth causes Shalelu and Quick Silver to collapse to their knees, retching.

By this time Solomon's control over the powerful ghast has ended, so both he and Mock rush into the room to put an end to this abhorrence. Cackling and asking Coral to "join him", Aldern lays into Solomon and instantly paralyzes the holy man. Spinning and kicking him over with his heel, he then faces off with the stout dwarf.

Coral hurls her knife with a curse, but the ghast sees it coming and easily avoids it. Mock and he trade blows with neither seemingly getting the upper hand. Shalelu and Quick Silver shakily get to their feet and advance. Quick Silver pulls her sword and slides beneath the table to take a hack at Aldern's exposed legs...she lands a blow but nothing telling enough to cripple him.

Meanwhile Shalelu stands astride Solomon's body, guarding him from further depredations. She slams home her blade (rolled a 20) and deals the ghast a horrid wound, nearly severing his arm...The creature snickers and lashes out w/ his grisly razor, only to have it pass harmlessly over her head.

Soon though the ghast succumbs to the combined attacks of the four assailants and dies w/ a curse on his lips. Mock brings Solomon back but the fever is running its course through his veins and the priest has already cast his cure disease for the day. He knows though after looking about the room that this was a failed attempt at lichdom and that the abomination on the wall is what is left of Vorel Foxglove...

This place must be cleansed by holy water, fire and then blessed. But is there time? Solomon knows that the disease in his blood will soon take affect but he also knows that this MUST be taken care of. So they quickly make preparations and after two solid hours the job has been done. Though it was not easy, as the house above seemed to groan and moan in protest.

As soon as they are finished they leave as quickly as possible and are greeted by the sight of a collapsing "Misgivings". Apparently the house was held together by the sheer hatred and evil force of Aldern's great grandfather, Vorel.

The trip home is nondescript and they get Solomon to Father Zantus in time as he hurries him into the back to cast the disease from him.

Healed, Solomon pulls the two heroes into his room the next day to officially invite them into the Pathfinder Society and to ask if they would accompany him to the great city of Magnimar, where there are murders taking place that are eerily similar to those perpetrated here in Sandpoint. Coral and Quick Silver agree to go and pack their meager belongings...

It is here we ended. Great session. It was a load of fun and I can't say enough about how wonderfully the Swords and Wizardry White Box rules seem to work for the girls. They love the flexibility and simplicity.

DCC RPG Report

I have just returned from Genghis Con here in Denver, and as promised, I am writing up my impressions of my first time playing Goodman Games' newest effort: The DCC RPG.

First off let me say that I had the particular pleasure of having the dynamic Harley Stroh as a DM...And I'll tell you right now, if you EVER get the chance to play in a game that this guy is running, do NOT hesitate to drop the dough (or whatever) and jump at the chance. I've been gaming for many many years (since the late 70's) and I can count on one tentacle how many DMs were better. (I don't actually have tentacles, in case you're wondering...That'll give you an idea how many I've encountered. That's right, none.)

So, saying that, this report might be a bit biased. Because, like all games 90% of the energy, pacing, setting, etc. comes from the DM. But I will in all honesty give you my most honest impression of the game.

I played in the second session of the day, a scenario called Beyond the Black Gate. Some of you have probably already read a bit about this at the Goodman forums...Douglas Keester wrote quite a nice review as well <http://tinyurl.com/46z9sk>, go check it out. Yeah, Douglas and I played in the same game.

On with the review then. Our pregens were 3rd level and I got lucky enough to grab the Elf. I say "lucky" for a couple of reasons:

1. I wanted to check out race as class and see if it had much of an effect.
2. I wanted to sling some spells and see that dynamic in action.
3. I didn't want to be a "squishy", and just stand in the back. I also wanted to mix it up in melee.

Oh, I must also premise this w/ the fact that I didn't roll all that well in the game (two '1's along w/ some basically lowish garbage), so keep that in mind. Yeah, you pay for poor rolls in this game. Which ROCKS on TOAST! I'm terribly fond of games where you react to situations, where all is NOT known and very little is truly under your control. Good fun. Very old school in "feel".

I'm not going to actually get much into the module part of it, just in case Harley and Joseph are thinking of publishing any of what we went through. Which btw, I certainly hope they do. This had such a cool feel to it. Sort of a mix of Greek myth that draws in a Persephone and Hades vibe as well as a few other things that were just flat out wicked backdrops.

As most of you already know, the character sheets were very brief. The standard things, attributes (named a bit differently), an ascending AC, hit points, some spell stuff, a few stats on how you hit things, some special racial or class abilities (e.g. I could see 60' in the dark and I wasn't affected by sleep and charm. Definitely old skool there.) and that's really about all the mechanical things on the page.

Now of course the spell slingers each got a small pamphlet of spells, which of course will likely be in the book when it's published. Each spell description had a few different little doo-dads on there that were kind of cool. The famous spell affect tables, listing what your spell roll actually netted you. (I'll explain a bit more about that in awhile.) There was also this area for how it manifested... I think that's what it was called, I don't actually have the spell sheets in front of me at the moment.

But under that manifestation area there were affects that you could roll for and it would be a cool descriptor of how the spell .... uh, well manifested. Duh. Kind of a neat "flavor" piece I thought. It reminded me a bit of that Savage Worlds mechanic of "trappings".

There are many different places that you can read about how casting works, but briefly you have only a few spells (I was third and I think I had a total of 5 spells). But the cool thing is that dependent upon the roll, those 'X' number of spells can last all day long, could fizzle out in a heartbeat (as I quickly found out), might grow in power and effect (thus actually nearly becoming something completely different...read further for more on this.), and of course it might turn you into something pretty nasty if you roll poorly.

A cool mechanic I hadn't heard about before though was the arcane ability to burn a physical attribute point to regain a spell you've lost (usually by rolling poorly in the first place), which was kind of cool. And mechanically it really tied the casting to the affects of magic on the caster's body. I liked that.

Let me give an example: (No spoilers I hope) We were beset upon by some rather nasty beasties and were between a rock and a hard spot. So we decided to activate this item we had found. Now in order to activate it you had to have 3 successful arcane rolls. OK that's fine. BUT, we knew that the power of the item wasn't going to do exactly what we needed it to do in order to get us out of this situation. So, we decided we'd spell burn (spend physical attribute points on a one to one basis in order to increment your spell roll.) in order to change the parameters of the spell. (So in other words, the spell usually only effected one person, we needed it to effect ALL of us.)

Already the game had me. I mean how cool is that? You're able to change a spell on the fly in order to bend it to your will. You just have to pay for it.

So my elf dumped 12 points into his roll. Twelve. If you're counting, that's a lot. I was obviously betting the bank on this roll right? Well I rolled a '10'. Average, but it netted a 22, which was good enough. (It was actually the second 22, so we were cool there.)

But right before it was triggered I attempted to put the hurt on this prone opponent. Here's where things went south. And I actually said as I rolled the dice, "Why shouldn't I try and kill the bad guy on my way out?"... I rolled a '1' on the die, and said, "That's why." Ooops.

Bad things happened and we ended up in a bad place once the other item triggered. Magic is super fickle in this game.

We were lucky as all get out that our cleric was rolling like a champ. He didn't roll anything lower than a 15 on any of the heal rolls! Amazing.

Oh and speaking of rolls, our barbarian (a fighter w/ a barbarian background) missed one roll all night. Seriously? Glad he was on my side.

Another situation where things went sideways for us was near the end of play when our mage rolled a perfect 20 on a Prismatic Spray! The results ended up knocking out all the bad guys as well as the entire party, minus the mage. This might sound bad, but in all honesty it was a way out that didn't even exist right before he rolled that dice. So the game dramatically changed because of that roll. It was so cool. You can't script stuff like that.

Alright, so my impressions of the game. I liked it a lot. I'm an old school guy at heart. I play Swords and Wizardry Whitebox w/ my daughters here at home, and I love it. I play in a Pathfinder game every other Tuesday night, but I'm not in love w/ the rules. Way too much fiddly stuff for my tastes.

The DCC RPG ran incredibly quickly. Combats were fast. I mean really fast. Fewer spells to choose from might have given you less "flexibility" but it also makes you think creatively as well as speeds things up in terms of available choices. One attack per character made things go fast.

No minis really caused everyone at the table to be completely engaged in what the DM was saying. Therefore no one was doing their "own thing" while someone attacked, and relying upon the battle mat and minis to "tell the story" when they refocussed.

While I think the game would play just fine w/ minis, it plays VERY well w/out them. I don't use them in my games if I can help it.

Melee for warrior types is kind of neat. You get one of those wacky dice to roll w/ your d20 when you roll to hit. The number of sides goes up every "X" amount of levels. It reminded me of the wild dice in Savage Worlds a bit. Except w/ this system you actually added the two together.

Joseph had just come up w/ a new mechanic for the fighters as well. If you were descriptive enough in your attack, wanted some type of cool outcome (not on the scale of critical) and if you rolled above a certain number on your extra dice, the DM would come up w/ some mechanical advantage. (e.g. -4 on the monster's next dice roll due to blood in the eye, etc.) It worked out well I think. It may be a bit vague on the differences between a critical and this "cool" affect. I worry that it might not be clear cut enough for some groups who just don't trust their DM enough, or are too much the rules lawyer type.

Now obviously w/ Harley at the helm it wasn't an issue. We just rolled w/ it. Rule zero baby. Very old school.

The neat thing about this game was that it felt "loose" enough to add a ton of creative play w/out feeling like you were breaking some rule or another. Yet at the same time, it was well structured enough so that guys who had been playing 3.5, 4E, and Pathfinder felt as if they were in "good hands". Which is a pretty decent accomplishment if you think about it.

At times though I wondered how I might have felt if I were playing the straight up mage, while I was rolling so poorly. Here's the 4E trap: They attempted to give everyone something to "do" every round. In other words, no mage would ever "run out of spells". With the elf I had options, I could attack, I could fire my bow. I had things to do. The mage on the other hand was pretty much screwed if his spells didn't seem to be working right. (or in my case, my dice.)

But on the plus side, w/ the mechanic where you can burn attributes in order to regain spells available, you'd be pretty hard pressed to run out of stuff to do. Magic items are obviously rare in this game. We ran across one... And we were all third level. So you can't fall back on those.

I might like to see some kind of Gandalf rule though. Let the mages carry and fight w/ swords. Although, to be honest, I didn't see anything saying you couldn't as a mage. Hmmm.

It's getting late here so I'm going to wrap this up. I apologize if it's all over the place, but I'm tired, and I honestly wanted to get as much down as possible before I forgot. So there you are. I'll try and write more later as things sort of percolate and ideas bubble up.

Cheers and again, thanks Joseph and Harley for a tremendously fun game. I'm sold. I'll definitely be knocking on your door (figuratively of course) when that game is released.

Here's our chance

I'm sure that most of the OSR blog-o-sphere has heard about the wonderful, fantastic, humanitarian, Haiti relief sale that DriveThruRPG and its sister site RPGNow is putting on. But in case you haven't:

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=78023&SRC=haiti

Go check it out. It's absolutely for a good cause.

Interesting side note on this whole thing though: I only saw a dribble of OSR material offered. Now I don't know how the authors were contacted, and I'm making an assumption that they WERE contacted, but I would imagine that this would be the PERFECT opportunity to get some exposure. At this writing, they've already generated over $23K in proceeds! That's well over 1100 eyeballs...And that's in just a few hours!

I'm a little bit disappointed that I didn't see more OSR material. I don't know the details on how the items were selected for inclusion to the list, but I'd be willing to bet that it was on the basis of "If you said 'yes', then some of your merchandise was included."

On the upside, it was so cool seeing stuff from Jim Raggi and Troll Lord Games in there. Good job guys! Bravo! Way to be on the ball and get your merchandise on the list.

Let's Give this Another Try

It's been ages since I've last posted. I apologize for that. Things have become absolutely crazy at home and at work. The holiday season is obviously busy for everyone, but man, this year was nuts. Work became absolutely kooky. I mean really crazy. But I'm taking a breath and thought that I'd write a small post regarding something kind of close to my heart: Playing Dungeons and Dragons with my daughters.

We played a game last winter (about a year ago) that also, for the first time, included my wife. It was a great time. But...all good things come to an end. The girls decided that the lure of the outdoors during the summer was just too great, so we put the game on hold. My wife reevaluated playing and decided that, even though she had a good time, it just wasn't her gig. Sooooo...I was forced to figure out a bit different approach.

Short story long, my daughters (especially my youngest) kept asking when we were going to be playing again. I buckled but decided that the old model (more of a sandbox approach) wasn't really what they were looking for. You have to understand, they don't have a lot of RPG experience, and they're young to boot, so real-life experience is lacking as well. That's not to say that they're not bright, inquisitive and eager. They are.

Like I mentioned, the sandbox just wasn't working correctly, they didn't have the right mindset, as kids, to be bold enough, to just go and "explore". Maybe it was specific to my daughters...I don't know. Either way though, something needed to change. I found myself sort of "guiding" them in order to get things moving.

A story seemed to be the ticket. I didn't want to introduce any type of "rail road" elements, but what I did want to do was give the girls both a sense of purpose as well as the sense that they were "in" a story. I know that this is sounding rather lame, coming from and "old schooler". Either way, I thought I'd give it a try.

I looked around a bit. Looked through my shelves, which are bulging to overflowing with material and thought about a "story" that I'd like to tell, that I thought the girls would like to be a part of. I came up with Paizo's The Rise of the Runelords adventure "path". Yes, that's what they're calling it. A path.

When I gave up my subscription to Dungeon magazine because of WotC (Hasbro) yanking it from Paizo, I had some money left so they sent me the first two paths. I never really looked at them in any great depth due to my quickly waning interest in 3.5. This was right around the time that I started looking around for an "old school" game.

But I thought, "what the heck" let's take a gander at these and see what all the brew ha ha is about. I've got a friend who owns a game store called Enchanted Grounds, and he's been playing (and selling) these things for awhile now. He's an old school guy at heart, and has been playing 1st edition for years and years, so I trust his judgement.

Again, short story long, I paged through it and really liked what I saw. Now this isn't some kind of plug for Paizo, I have nothing invested in their company per se, in other words, what I found is not something I read somewhere, it's my honest opinion.

The writing is clear and concise, the layout is FANTASTIC, the art is meh...it's some of that manga-esque type stuff that just doesn't turn my crank. One of the coolest aspects of the way they do these "paths" though is that they add all sorts of background, support and flavor pieces. It's not just the adventure, it's so much more.

But the adventure itself, is very well done. I can see how some might call it an exercise in railroading, but they're set pieces, not based on any type of forced schedule. There's an overarching story behind what's going on but it's not pushed. In short, I liked what I saw, and had made my choice.

Now, to choose the rules. I had sworn years ago that I would never again run a game of 3.X Dungeons and Dragons. The pain point was just too high. And I certainly did NOT want to expose the girls to that type of rules-bound experience. We'd played Labyrinth Lord and Castles and Crusades, so they had some experience with some of the older style rules. I went retro, I decided that Swords and Wizardry was the way to go. Something very very basic, that doesn't run over the story, but it flexible enough to allow me to adjudicate on the fly.

In the end, we sat down at the table, rolled up characters that ended up on note cards, (they loved that) and introduced them to the town of Sandpoint. All in all it took us about 3 hours. Time flew by and we had a hoot.

From what I remember we've got:

Quicksilver: A female gnome adventurer. (Styled after the dwarf with a bit of druid thrown in as well.)

Coral: A female elven adventurer. (Now this isn't a "normal" elf, she's 1/2 standard elf and 1/2 sea elf. Her home is somewhere out west of Sandpoint.)

They've just entered town and are having supper in the Hagfish. They've been involved in the "yarning" that goes on there, have met a few of the locals. and have been regaled to some extent with a small portion of what's gone on in town over the last couple of years. They're hooked.

So anyway, I'll post the adventure write-ups as they happen. This is going to be fun.

Castles and Crusades (Session 8, Dec 8, 09)

Players - PCs
Ed - Roog (1/2 ogre fighter)
Ray - Lassirial (Elf assassin)
Wes - Brother Thabitor Fisk (Human Cleric)
Jeff - Fast Fingers Freddy the Filcher (1/2-ling thief)

NPCs
Thiala - (Human Female Paladin)
Elmo - (Human Ranger)
Spugnoire - (Human Merchant / Wizard)
Drizzle Spatchcock - (Human Wizard)

We had another game of Castles and Crusade the other night. I'm going to try something a bit different this time, instead of a play-by-play format I'll give a shot at writing out a bullet list of events. Experience and treasure will come at the end.

• PCs wake up after a late night "welcome home" dinner at the Inn of the Welcome Wench.
• Dwarves have stopped in for breakfast on their way north. Fisk asks about news from the road and hears about reavers on the southern coast. The dwarves also supply a map to the Broken Stones.
• Lassirial visits Burne to find out what the bone bowl does. On the way he sees a group of people gathered in the workers camp...around one specific tent. Looks like they're investigating last night's murder. The bowl acts like a crystal ball when filled with human blood. Burne offers to destroy it.
• Freddy digs up his treasure (4 potions) and buries a bit more.
• Roog visits Manni, the smith and asks to have his armor "fitted". It'll take a few days.
• The party stocks up, and hits the road at mid-day, with 2 mules, Elmo, Spugnoire, and Drizzle.
• Elmo leads till dark. He loses his way and they camp.
• Morning breaks with a leaden sky. It starts to lightly rain as breakfast is served and picks up in intensity as they break camp.
• Elmo finds his way back to the trail. (It's very hard to see.)
• They make their way to the Broken Stones. It's a long ways out.
• Situated on a low rise, there are all sorts of tumbled stones, but it hardly resembles any kind of a city at all. It's very large though, covers many square acres.
• Search for a few hours and find an abandoned fire, along w/ a choked passage down.
• Clearing it, they all descend into a system of natural caverns.
• Exploring the rooms they run across 8 legged opossums, a bubbling spring of black water that stinks and tastes foul, yet leaves a pleasant tingle in the mouth and throat when drops are consumed.
• Lassirial examines an elven skeleton and finds a ruby clutched in its hand.
• A slime-covered frog is battled on the shores of a lake that flows "UP" a water...uh...waterfall?
• Freddy is used as an under water spelunker. Tied to 3 ropes he swims out and is caught in the current and swept up the falls into a worked tunnel. At the end of the rope he's pulled back. He spies a chest lying on the bottom of the lake and can't reach it.
• Roog carries a rock out, swaps it for the chest and returns to the shore.
• It's full of silver and an Elven necklace w/ a ruby. There's another setting for a second ruby but it's missing. Lassirial places the second ruby in the setting and Spugnoire detects that it's slightly magic.
• Halflings, ragged and unkempt slink out of the tunnel and threaten Lassirial for the necklace. He runs, they and 3 more of their fellows follow.
• Battle is joined. Two halflings fall immediately but three bring Lassirial to the ground and take the necklace.
• Fisk heals Lassirial. Lassirial back stabs halflilng with necklace, kills him and takes back necklace.
• A voice calls out "Get 'em boys!" and 20 more halflings pour out of a northern cave entrance.
• The unseen voice and Fisk bargain for surrender. Unseen voice belongs to leprechaun.
• Deal is made: Halflings will back off, and for necklace leprechaun will return children and any other survivors. He knows where they are, they're NOT in his possession.
• The 20 halflings disappear (illusion) and the others retreat with necklace. (Lassirial pulls the 2nd ruby out previous to handing it over. Leprechaun does not see this.)
• Freddy stealthily follows leprechaun and finds out that they were not going to return children "right away": No time limit was set.
• Freddy fights leprechaun and puts him into chest that he viewed him digging up and placing necklace into. Retrieves necklace and small "toy" chest.
• Freddy returns to party wearing leprechaun's hat, with necklace in hand.
• Party goes back digs up chest. Fisk again bargains for return of children, now with leprechauns life / freedom in balance.
• Leprechaun leaves to return children as soon as possible. Has necklace to trade with "Prince" for the children. The "Prince" is the son of Ylfritt, some type of Queen who wants the necklace for some unknown reason.

Treasure:

1. 2000 pieces of "Elven" silver (Strange, ancient, octagonal coins.)
2. Gold and Ruby Necklace (Now with Leprechaun)
3. Extra ruby

Experience: 336 / ea.

Castles and Crusades (Session 7, Nov 24 '09)

Players - PCs
Ed - Roog (1/2 ogre fighter)
Ray - Lassirial (Elf assassin)
Wes - Brother Thabitor Fisk (Human Cleric)
Jeff - Fast Fingers Freddy the Filcher (1/2-ling thief)

NPCs
Thiala - (Human Female Paladin)
Elmo - (Human Ranger)
Spugnoire - (Human Merchant / Wizard)
Drizzle Spatchcock - (Human Wizard)

We played another of our bi-weekly Castles and Crusades games this past Tuesday. Starting a bit earlier than normal, we had a wonderful session and got quite a bit of the dungeon under the Moat House explored.

Brother Fisk wakes up to take his watch and heals Roog's bleeding wound before the elated 1/2 ogre falls off to sleep. The next morning dawns sunny and windy as the party tries out some of Roog's "cinnamon toast"...an invention of the cooking warrior. (I'm going to start assuming that when the rest of the characters are gearing up for an extended stay in the dungeons, Roog is off purchasing food items that are NOT your standard adventure fare.)

Down into the dripping, mold and moss strewn halls the party descends. They head immediately for the sections of the dungeon that have yet to be explored. The first room that they run into is an old library of sorts, books lie strewn across the floor in puddles of moldy water. Most of them ruined beyond repair. But this doesn't stop Spugnoire, books are what he's been searching for, and he dives right in.

Most of the titles are of little interest, but after a few hours of searching the ceiling-high shelves, three likely books are located:

1. 'Bubbles from the Bottom Most' - A prayer book.
2. 'Divine Hunger' - Deals with how to gorge oneself and why it's important.
3. 'Follow the Flies' - Some type of book about expansion plans.

All of the books mention a god named Tsathoguaa...which tickles the memory of the cleric, Fisk, but he can not remember anything substantial. A man named Roark also features prominently as well. The book 'Follow the Flies' has maps of the local area, bills of lading, plans of expansion and a map showing the location of the "Main Temple" on some island far to the south.

Adventuring further, with Freddy and Lassirial leading the way as silently as possible, the party wanders into an area that is mostly flooded. The black surface of the water ripples slightly, indicating some type of movement within. The room itself seems to have been a storage room for writing implements, including parchment, ink pots, leather bindings, quills and such.

Water is not something that the party is prepared to cross so they back off and head around the other way. (Two things here: One, the party is really using the map well. Jeff is the party mapper and takes a lot of pride in detail. I love this. Two, it's interesting to me to see how water can deter parties of nearly any level.)

Exploring more of the dungeon, they find a passage that leads around to the opposite side of the flooded room. This section though appears to have been a scriptorium of sorts. Tall wooden desks stand throughout the room, or what remains of them, while paper and books lie throughout. The majority of the room is flooded as well, but it's not till Spugnoire and Roog adventure a bit further to nab a book lying on the side of the water, that they find the water's fairly deep.

As they reach for the sodden tome, a crested, lizard-like head slowly surfaces from the middle of the "pond", hands raised showing no weapons. Roog raises his hands as well, one containing a large mace. The creature grunts out that it doesn't want to fight and is interested in trading.

A difficult conversation follows, resulting in a trade of the silvered sphere for a key that allows access to a secret room located in a yet to be explored section on the map. Freddy considers this a fair trade and contrary to Fisk's warnings, he trades for the key, visions of riches dancing in his head. Nodding, the lizard-like creatures (one other was detected further back in the shadowed hallway.) slowly slip into the water and disappear.

Immediately the party postulates on how these creatures got in here...And Fisk suggests that there's quite likely a natural spring that emerges here in the riven rock and they've swam back and forth this way.

Exploring towards the undiscovered portion of the map, in search of the hidden door and "great riches", the party soon moves into a roughly 'U' shaped room. The northern wall is partially collapsed but, following the lizard creature's directions, they find a well hidden door with only about a half hour worth of searching. Using the key, they enter a dry, well sealed room to find a large desk behind which sits an ancient skeleton pinned to the chair with a silvered crossbow bolt.

A careful search of the room reveals a strange scepter with a frog-like eye sitting atop it. When picked up though, it feels as if the handle is moist, and when Lassirial looks at it, it appears that the handle is actually now a tongue. He drops it immediately. A small bag of agates are discovered in a locked drawer and a scrimshaw thigh bone is found beneath the skeleton's robes.

No one in the party is able to read the scrimshaw writing, but Lassirial comes up with a theory that if one looks "through" they amphibian eye-rod it could be deciphered. This is partially correct, and as he picks up the disgusting scepter, the writing appears to be in common now. Reading it reveals this:

"Brother Roark, The foulsome enemy has found us, and we are now under siege. I have emptied the treasury and am sending it by boat as per your instructions. We will follow in all haste. Once in Tel Qa, we'll ask for Captain Ganlon at the Wharf Rat as we have in the past, and show him our coin. He is a trusted agent, we should be with you soon. Be wary, be vigilant, and my you hunger always."

The eye scepter also reveals a thin seam around the top, which when unscrewed, divulges a tightly rolled vellum scroll within. Drizzle looks at the scroll and doesn't recognize the three spells:

1. Excruciating Cauterization
2. Furngoth's Force of Forbidment
3. Word of IOUN

After exhausting all options in the secret room, the group cautiously explores more of the dungeon. Freddy and Yassirial soon come around a corner and spot two back-lit figures standing stock still. Slowly pulling back they inform the rest of the party.

Fisk decides that these must be undead and comes around the corner bearing his holy symbol, "In the name of Odin, I bid thee BEGONE!". No luck. The zombies charge and combat is on. Roog and Elmo take the fore and meet the creatures half way. Blows are traded and much damage is dealt out on both sides. In fact, Roog takes a mighty blow from one of the foul creatures and falls to the floor, unconscious.

Fisk steps into the gap with his spear and slays the undead monstrosity while Elmo's is soon taken down by Drizzle's magic missile. Roog is brought to consciousness just as the room from whence the zombies came turns pitch black. Roog has never seen such a thing and sticks his head into the black "wall"..."Bad dark darkness" he mutters.

Freddy hears a rhythmic muttering from within the room, decides that he can navigate relying only upon his dexterity and hearing, and proceeds towards the voice. A shuffling groan is emitted just as he clears the spell's borders and he finds a tall bean pole thin human kneeling next to a mystic circle on the ground, facing away from him towards a zombie who has just risen from the mess of bodies strewn around the room.

The halfling sneaks up behind the necromancer and without further ado, buries his dagger in his brain, to the hilt. (rolled a natural 20) The evil spell caster does not utter a word and falls to the floor lifeless. Roog comes in and quickly takes care of the recently raised zombie quite quickly.

A sickening sight meets the party as the darkness dissolves. Cadavers, stacked like cord wood, lay along the eastern wall, while evil devices, drawings and experiments lie scattered across the room. The only other exit is an obviously new door in the northern wall.

After looking carefully through the room, the party discovers a brain pan bowl of obvious necromantic worth along with a pile of discarded loot gathered over years of raiding. Bolts of expensive cloth, objects of art and a couple of chipped urns containing coins lie nearly forgotten...a further testament to the necromancer's true interests.

Fisk pushes the northern door open to find himself facing 5 grey goblins. They leap up from a table and attack the priest with gusto. Landing three lucky shots, they bring him to the ground...unconscious and bleeding badly. Charging in, the rest of the party brings three of the goblins down quickly, while the other two break and run. One gets Lassirial's dagger in the back for his troubles and Spugnoire quickly casts a sleep spell...ending their departure.

Meanwhile, Freddy tries the Necromancer's potion on Fisk, in the hopes that it heals his friend. Fisk disappears, it was invisibility. ARGH! What a waste, thinks Freddy. Oh well. He then applies the potion that he knows is a heal draught and brings Fisk back to consciousness. But the priest has fun with his newly acquired invisibility.

There are 6 donkeys tied up to the wall of the goblin's roughly circular room, these, along with a couple of kegs (one small beer and another fine pipe weed.), some rotting food, sleeping pallets, and a rough table and chairs, completes the rooms contents. A long, rough hewn tunnel leads to the east.

The party loads up their newly acquired loot and heads off down the tunnel, assuming that it leads outside. It does, and they emerge into the late afternoon sun, not more than 100 yards away from the Moat House. From there, they head back to Hommlet and the Inn of the Welcome Wench.

Once back in town, they eat a wonderful meal, regaling the rest of the Inn's patrons with the story and then get a comforting night's sleep in their rooms.

That evening, while the rest of the party is telling tales, Lassirial takes care of business. He makes his way to the worker's camp, finds his "mark" and waits. Once the man goes to sleep, the assassin sneaks into the tent and quietly slits the man's throat. He rifles through his stuff, finds proof (a family crest on a medallion) and quietly sneaks back into the night to return to the Inn.

The next day they visit Burne and speak to him about their adventures. He is convinced that the raids over the last few years have been a combination of both the brigands as well as the necromancer. He's surprised to hear that the evil spell caster had been there as long as he had.

He pays the party for their services and speaks to them about the two lost children. This will be the group's next mission. Freddy figures that this might clear his name...

Lassirial pays Burne 100 gold pieces to cast an identify upon a dagger that he discovered in a drawer's hidden compartment in the secret chamber. It turns out the black blade, upon dealing a killing blow, transfers to the user a bonus to his next strike. (See below for more details.)

This is where we ended it. The party has decided to travel to the Jagged Stones in order to track down the children. The parents of the children have left the day before, with two militiamen in tow. But no word has been heard since.

Treasure:

• 5 bolts of cloth, stained and in poor condition, but worth 60 gold nonetheless.
• A jacinth anklet portraying a woman hunting a stag. (10 gold)
  
• A garnet pin. (60 gold)
• A porcelain statue of two dogs playing with a little boy. Chipped but worth 30 gold.
• Two tapestries in fairly good condition. (100 gold)
• Two urns (chipped and worn but valued at 10 gold ea.) full of coins: 223 gold, 97 silver, 576 copper.
  
• A brain pan circled with brass and strange runes. (MAGIC: powers unknown)
  
• A black obsidian knife. (MAGIC: Normally +1 to hit and damage, but upon a killing stroke, a bonus of 1d6 is added to the next to hit.)
  
• A small bag of rare black agates (12 of them at 60 gold ea.)
• Scroll of three spells (see above) (MAGIC)
  
• Eye scepter (MAGIC)
• Necromancer's black iron chainmail (+1 in essence, but also inimical to fey)
• Bone scroll tube with scrimshaw writing
• Potion of invisibility (Used on Fisk)
• Three books (see above)
• Stack of papers from the secret room detailing day to day operations of the hidden cult
  

Experience:

• 643 exp ea.

Wouldn't THAT be cool!

I've been playing Dragon Age Origins on my Xbox 360. I like the game. I don't LOVE the game, but I think it's certainly entertaining and has some replay value, which is something I look for in a console game. (I hate buying a game, playing it once and returning it to some store for credit on my next purchase. Bleh!)

But I was cogitating on what might make a really COOL game. And here's what I came up with from a high level:

• Has the cool character / surface capabilities that Assassin's Creed offers. i.e. You can climb nearly any surface. (Prince of Persia has some cool features in there too...not quite as deep as Assassin's Creed though.)
• Has the neat open-ended character / item interaction that Oblivion offers. i.e. You can go into any house and get up on any table, walk across it and watch dishes break...
• Has the neat scenery-as-NPC features that Tomb Raider offers. i.e. The cool obstacles and scenery in Tomb Raider is as large (or larger) a part of the game as the baddies.
• Has the excellent character / NPC interaction that Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect offers. i.e. There are some really cool choices that your PC needs to make that affect the game immensely.
• Plays like Diablo, in the respect that you can guide a party from a 3rd person vantage point.

Now, put all of these together and imagine a game where you have a party of characters that adventure through cool, other-worldly vistas and interact with neat obstacles like huge, tumbled cyclopean blocks, or cenotes in an ancient jungle. The mechanics are there, someone just needs to put them all together and come up with a game that incorporates both adventure at the grand level as well as exploration on a personal level.

Imagine coming to a cliff wall while on a deep delve some lost caverns somewhere, you have the ability to climb walls, but you've forgotten a rope in your inventory. Uh oh. Now what? Either the game provides for alternative methods of overcoming the obstacle, that aren't so obvious as an ascent with a rope, or you go back and purchase one at the nearest retail outlet. ;-)

There are so many neat possibilities here. I'm sure that someone has thought about it somewhere. But the things that make older edition D&D so cool, the exploration, the strategic thinking required, the gritty swords and sorcery feel...All those things could be incorporated with today's technology and I feel that the resultant game would be spectacular.

Don't get me wrong, I far prefer a face to face, table-top RPG to an electronic stand-in any day of the week. But during those all too common times when you thirst for adventure and you can't whip a group together out of thin air at 10 pm, then the e-game will have to suffice.

Ciao for now.

Castles and Crusades (Session 6, Nov 10 09)

Players - PCs
Ed - Roog (1/2 ogre fighter)
Ray - Lassirial (Elf assassin)
Wes - Brother Thabitor Fisk (Human Cleric)

Jeff - Fast Fingers Freddy the Filcher (1/2-ling thief)

NPCs
Thiala - (Human Female Paladin)
Elmo - (Human Ranger)

We had another session of Castles and Crusades last night... Here's what happened.

While the party was going on downstairs, Freddy decides that he'd take the opportunity to make a little "coin" on the side. After a bit of perusing the crowd downstairs, he figures that the best mark would be Spugnoire, the merchant. A bit of chit chat with one of the barmaids and he figures out which room Spugnoire resides in.

But there's a problem, the upstairs common room has people inside and Freddy's afraid that they'll catch him in the act. So what to do? He figures out a plan, goes back downstairs to pay the barmaid enough for 9 small beers, head back upstairs and tells those in the room that someone downstairs has bought a free round of drinks. The common room clears in a heartbeat. One problem solved.

Next he heads to the merchant's room and hastily unlocks it. In he slides...the room is dark and well kept. A cloak hangs on a peg behind the door and inside he finds 8 silver pieces. Under the bed is a backpack and 5 potions. And at the foot of the bed sits a small, dark wooden chest. He looks for any traps and not seeing any he unlocks it.

PSHHHH! Tinkle, tinkle... A glass vial breaks and acid is sprayed everywhere. Only Freddy's fast reflexes saves him from a full-on blast. Still, it sears his skin and burns holes in his shirt. Ah, but inside are 3 scroll tubes of bone. And under that, hidden in a secret padded compartment lie 4 gems of moderate size. He takes all but the scroll tubes.

Hearing motion outside the room he rushes to the window and hurriedly climbs out. A little too hurriedly in fact, he slips in his haste and falls. He lands poorly and twists his ankle but immediately recovers and hobbles to the side of the Inn, feigning drunkenness. Around back and across to the house next door he stumbles....and behind he hears a gruff voice. "You OK? I saw you fall from that window."

Freddy turns and there stands the Blacksmith, from across the way. Freddy explains that he was partying with some folks up in the room and they got a bit too rambunctious and he fell from the window in his drunken state. The Blacksmith seems mollified and leaves. Freddy wanders to a nearby grove of trees, buries his treasure, wrapped in his shirt, and marks the tree w/ a small 'W'.

Now he needs a shirt. It is a warm evening, but it's rather unusual to be running around w/out a shirt at this time of night. The work camp for the castle is near and Freddy finds a rather-too-large shirt there. Afterwards he decides to see if he can't sneak back into the Inn. He climbs to the roof but finds that there's too much traffic now for him to make it inside. Seems that in the interim, Spugnoire has gone back to his room and found it pilfered.

Ostler Gundigoot gets into the action and has guards circle the building in case the thief is still out there...Little do they realize. But by this time Freddy has taken up refuge high in the old oak standing next to the Inn. The guards find nothing.

During the entire interlude, the party has let out and Spugnoire, before he's figured out that he's been robbed, approaches Fisk asking if it would be OK if he tagged along to the Moat House. He's dreadfully interested in libraries and wizardly tomes and such... and there's sure to some of that at the old Moat House right?

Also, Yessirial has taken it upon himself to find his mark. He heads to the work camp, knowing that the mark was last seen there. Sure enough, after about an hour of observation, he find the man. He's changed...of course, hard labor can do that, but Yessirial recognizes the walk. Seems he's in some type of position of authority, the men pay a certain deference to him. Well, now he's go the location, he'll save the rest for later.

Next morning comes and Elmo shows up, looking for his share of the pay. Ooops. The party tells him that they don't have it with them at the moment but that they'll buy him a magic axe as soon as they can afford it. He seems happy enough with this arrangement.

Freddy has since woken up and wandered off to find a shirt that fits a bit better. He comes across the tailor, who's tossing knives, with no small amount of skill, into a board. Perfect. He purchases, for one copper bit, a shirt previously made for a child. Outfitted thus, he heads back to the Inn to tell his story of woe.

He was beset upon while upstairs in the Inn last night. The men, possibly up to four of them, came from behind, knocked him unconscious and took him outside, via the window, to roll him. Everyone is upset. Spugnoire sits there with his mouth open, and Ostler is horrified. To think, this all happened in HIS INN! At Ostler's urging, they all decide over breakfast (which coincidentally, Roog helped cook) to go and see Burne about this disturbance. After all, it has been suggested that the escaped bandits from the Moat House could quite possibly be behind this bold assault.

Burne, ever level headed, suggests that they ask around town and find out if anyone saw anything suspicious. Gulp...Freddy's not too keen on that score. The topic soon changes to the Moat House though. Burne pays them each 20 gold talons, as agreed, for the first foray. But he's willing to offer 20 more per head, if they go back and map out the dungeons. He's got maps of the upper floors and would like to reconcile them with what the party comes up with, but he's got nothing for the lower sections.

The party agrees and takes their leave, just as a two men and women, obviously husbands and wives, come across the small draw bridge, guided by the sergeant-at-arms. The women are both crying and the men are obviously very upset. Seems that their children, a little boy of 7 and a little girl of 9, have gone missing, after heading out to the Broken Stones on a dare.

Freddy, eager to somehow clear his name, comes back and asks if there's something they can do to help. Burne says that there might be, and after a bit more research into the matter, he'll contact them. For now though, off to the Moat House.

The party gears up at the Trader's establishment, Fisk purchases a shield, Yessirial some crossbow bolts and inquires about some poison. Somehow he just knows that these two can get their hands on some. Indeed they can whispers Ranos Davl, but it will take a week to get it in. Too long says Yessirial and leaves without.

Summer breezes blow across the land as high clouds scud through the sky, the journey is actually quite pleasant, considering the last half is through a swamp. Nothing untoward occurs though and they reach the Moat House about 40 minutes before dark.

A little reconoitering by Yessirial and Freddy and they find out the the trap's still in place and it doesn't appear as if they brigands have returned. As night falls it's decided upon by the group that they will bed down in the same room that they'd occupied nearly a week past. They find it abandoned, close the door and proceed to make camp.

Later that night, on Roog's watch, the 1/2-ogre decides that the lure of spices, in the old kitchen, is just too much. He quietly disarms the pans from the door (Fisk's wily warning system), and sneaks out. Coming to the old kitchen, he peers through the door to see some type of enormous bug crawling upon the counter. He quietly sneaks in and deals the creature a tremendous blow. But the bug proves more resilient than that, it spins about and leaps upon the surprised Roog.

As the monstrous tick attempts to find purchase upon the warrior's body, Roog deals it yet another blow...that would have felled an ox. Yet the creature still moves and scrabbles for a hold.

The probiscus finds a target between Roog's neck and the armor, where it sinks in deep and starts to suck. Roog yells and pulls the disgusting bug off, dashing it to the ground whereupon he deals the final blow, smashing it to pulp. Disgusting.

Looking though the broken and rotted cabinets, Roog finds a small tun of sealed cinnamon. Hopefully it's still good... With his prize happily tucked beneath one arm, and a finger staunching the flow of blood from his wound, the tired warrior makes his way back to the room. He quietly replaces the door alarm, waking only Yessirail, and he reclines peacefully up against the wall to resume his watch. All is right with the world.

And this is where we cut it off for the evening.

I didn't feel as if I had the proper energy level last night. It was unfortunate because we only play once every two weeks and the sessions are too few and far between for me to be flat. Work has been a bitch lately though so it's been tough to mentally and emotionally get to that place I need to be. Nevertheless, I think that the guys had fun during our brief session.

We played from 7 - 10 pm. 3 hours every other week doesn't seem like nearly enough to get any kind of emotional impetus going in a game. Oh well, if that's the best we can hope to do, then we'll certainly make due.

Castles and Crusades (Session 5, Oct 27 09)

Players - PCs
Ed - Roog (1/2 ogre fighter)
Ray - Lassirial (Elf assassin)
Paul - Drizzle Spatchcock (Human MU)

NPCs
*Thiala - (Human Female Paladin)
Elmo - (Human Ranger)

*My eldest daughter played Thiala (yeah, I spelled it wrong last posting), for a little while last night.

Two of our our players bowed out last night, so we played with 4 (3 after my daughter left.) and due to an imminent winter storm warning, cut it off a bit earlier than normal.

We opened with the group entering Hommlet about 2 hours before the dawn, after a long journey through the swamp and then west on the "Great Road". As they entered town they noticed small plates of food surrounded by nearly burnt-out candles, sitting on porches and steps everywhere.

Not sure what to make of this strange tradition, Elmo split off for home while the rest of the party proceeded to the Inn of the Welcome Wench. After waking one of Ostler's daughters they were soon sitting before a well stocked table of breakfast food. A few things of note occurred during the meal:

1. Broog showed Ostler and the head cook his mushrooms (called Night Caps) that had been harvested from under the Moat House. They were indeed rare and according to Ostler, very expensive. So much so that the small bag, once traded, paid for breakfast, rooms and a "formal" dinner that evening which will feature dishes created with the special mushrooms.
2. Ostler's daughter told them that the candles and food were for the fey folk. On each full moon and new moon a small sacrifice of food must be made, or the fey become upset and bad things happen.
3. All the goods that the party garnered from their journey to the Moat House were laid out for others to view. Many workmen and locals, in for breakfast, saw the treasures and were amazed.

A well deserved rest followed the hearty breakfast, allowing the party to catch up on much needed sleep.

Eight hours later and the party is sending out invitations for the formal supper to those in town that might be interested in purchasing items from the Moat House. These people are also quite important dignitaries in town and it is for this reason as well that Drizzle is interested in them.

The list of invitees is as follows:

1. Rufus and Burne
2. Canon Terjon of the church of St. Cuthbert
3. Brewmeister Jep
4. Gremag and Ranos Davl from the Traders Establishment

And of course all the members of the party, Freddy, Fisk, Lassirial, Thaila, Brool and Drizzle, are in attendance as well.

Lassirial hangs back and carefully watches each who enters, trying to figure them out and assess their relative strengths. This information is then relayed to Drizzle, who stores it away for future reference. The assassin finds out some surprising things while verifying some suppositions:

• Rufus and Burne are who they claim to be
• Gremag and Ranos are more than they claim to be (Gremag also somehow recognizes Lassirial's assassin's symbol sewn into his clothing)
• Canon Terjon is gruff, yet also quite experienced
• Brewmeister Jep is who he says he is
• Ostler is more than he says as well

Wine is poured and hors d'oeuvres are served while items from the Moat House are perused and conversation is had. Canon Terjon takes immediate interest in the silver sphere with the small black stone-tadpole within. He claims that it is a religious item from a long lost god, who he's not certain. But the item itself is called an Egg of the Old One, and he says it would be ill advised to handle another one. They've been lucky this time around.

Other items go to other people and all in all the group makes a grand total of 900 gold pieces! The following is a list of items sold:

• A jeweled dagger
• 2 bolts of fine cloth
• Crystal flagon and 4 goblets
• Inlaid wooden box with ivory handles
• A couple suits of armor (2 leather, 1 scale and 1 ring)
• A longsword, spear, and 2 short swords

All in all a pretty decent take.

This is where we ended it.

A couple questions for next session that the group might want to think about:

1. Did you want to sell the sphere to Canon Terjon?
2. What's the deal with Gremag and Ranos?
3. The job at the Moat House is not yet finished...there's pay to be had via Burne.
4. Burne would like to compare the party's maps of the Moat House with what he has.

Book Review 'The Deed of Paksenarrion'

I don't often do book reviews. Well heck, let's be honest here, I've never done a book review, and there's a reason for that. I often think that reviews are generally meaningless. All of them are subjective and if anyone knows anything about people, it's that, "what appeals to one, won't appeal to all". So going into this with eyes wide open, and realizing that I'm being absolutely and completely subjective here, I'm going to attempt to write down my impressions of the book 'The Deed of Parksenarrion'.

First and foremost, I'd hadn't heard of this book until a buddy that I play D&D with was telling me about it after we had a discussion about paladins. So, I had no real preconceived notions, other than the paladin thing, going into it. This is surprising really, I used to be a voracious reader and it came out about the time that I was reading 2 to 3 books a week. How did I miss it? I'm not sure.

Written by author Elizabeth Moon in 1988 and 89 as a three volume set, the omnibus was published as a whole in 1992, and for that I'm glad. Personally, I absolutely LOVE having a series in one book. I loathe having to traipse all over the city looking for the second or third in a series if the local shop has sold out. Yuck. Sure it's a "big" load when travelling, but I'm OK with that.

Now, as for my overall impression of the story itself, I loved it. It was the first book in a long time that I've had a tough time putting down. There were a lot of reasons for this I imagine.

The author had military experience and it showed. Much of the book takes place while Paksenarrion is in the military and there is a lot of texture that the author injects that lends such realism. She does a great job of also portraying a very strong and competent heroine. There are things that go wrong, yes, she gets injured, but overall, Elizabeth Moon does a very good job of making you believe that there's a little bit more to this girl Paksenarrion.

Another thing that I noticed right away was that the author played Dungeons and Dragons. There were obvious references to it throughout the book. James M. over at Grognardia has blogged about books that have been influenced by the game versus books that have influenced the game. Like him, I generally prefer the later category. I'm not a big fan of books that have nearly literal links to the game. But this one was different.

The references, while obvious, weren't overdone and heavy handed. Moon changed things subtly so that if you didn't know anything at all about Dungeons and Dragons things would still make plenty of sense. In other words, she didn't assume that people reading the book were gamers.

But if you read closely you'll run across references that are just so old school that you can't help but smile. Elizabeth probably played the game during the "golden age" of D&D, and the little tid-bits that you come across are so obviously "Gygaxian". I really loved those parts of the book. Heck, I loved the whole book.

I'm not going to tell any of the story here, but suffice it to say that the writing isn't your standard high fantasy. Yes there are elves, dwarves, gnomes, orcs and even the equivalent of Drow, but magic, as it pertains to the setting is very rare and wondrous. In other words the overall story is very gritty.

The story takes place on a much more humanistic level so there's no hugely sweeping, fantastical vistas or world crushing magic spells, etc. It's a very down to earth, if such a thing can be said, and because of that, it seemed to strike a chord in me that was much more reminiscent of the Swords and Sorcery or Swords and Planets genre. Most of my reading has been Leiber, Howard, Smith and Vance of late, so I was not expecting to like this book, even with all the friendly accolades. But I did.

I liked it a LOT. Pick it up if you haven't yet and give it a chance. It's pretty good stuff.