Game night May 3 – DnD5e playtest Ruined Fortress of the Evil Overlord

There were friends, there was pizza, there was cherry vodka with sierra mist free (surprisingly good, perhaps even surpassing strawberry crush – and diet even!) and a good night of gaming. Lets see where did it start…

The party was standing in a hall somewhere, having just slain a procession of orcs. They entered the Flag chamber from the double doors at the end of the long hall. While discovering ancient and expensive flags and banners, they also disturbed a nest of two volts, flying creatures with big mouths at one end and a whip-like electrified tail at the other. Known as ‘electric eels of the air’ the creatures wreaked havoc before being slain. They found a magic banner which radiates a resistance to fear.

Needing to rest, the party camped out in the flag chamber, and spent a tense but quiet night. Moving out the next morning, they chose to return to the chamber with the lightning bolt trap. They miscalculated, believing the trap to be mechanical in nature, and once again the kobolds behind the door unleashed a lightning bolt. This time the entire party was in the room (I presumed) and all but two characters were dropped below zero. The kobolds burst into the room while the elf ranger and cleric tried to save as many fallen comrades as possible. (tpk: total party kill.)

Every tpk is different, and often some of the party survives. The most typical case is when a player is absent, or the character escapes, but in this case, saving for half damage allowed these two members, both of whom had healing spells, to survive. The ensuing battle however, with more lightning bolts, and six kobolds would have been unendurable, so I ruled the party captured. Only one character, the rogue, was permanently killed, and only because at the beginning of the night I vowed that the next character to die must play a monk, and she became interested.

Hours later the characters awoke in a cell room, two per cell. There were bars looking out into the mountain valley hundreds of feet below. Captured again, all their stuff taken, they were back to square one. Estimating the distance to the ground, they at least discovered they finally made it up to the next level. After a lot of work, they managed to escape their cells.

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Game Night April 27 – DnD 5e and the Ruined Fortress of the Evil Overlord

Behold the power of the lava lamps

Even though one person had to cancel for work, even though we didn’t get started until way late and had to scramble for an ultimateley awesome meal of appetizers, even though we are still working our way through understanding the rules this iteration it was still a great night of gaming. The party bulldozed though almost half of the first level of the dungeon.

The night started where we left off. The party had just slain a pack of kobolds and were questioning the lone survivor. Its face and arms were painted with blue lightning bolts, and it spoke of its god who dwelt in the top of the ruined tower. The kobold agreed to tell them where the stairs leading up were in exchange for letting it live. The party agreed and the kobold pointed to a door in the north wall and mumbled something about being through there. He then pushed the door open which revealed a room epty except for a few coins and a chunk of questionable meat in the center of the room. The paladin and barbarian each rushed in of course, eager to grab the booty.

A perternatural sense of danger cause Glory the paladin to stop in place, while the barbarian, sensing victory rushed forward and fell through a trap-door covered pit. It was dark down there, and he took some falling damage, but sprang to his feet just in time to hear two shambling forms moving towards him from the shadows. The fightress was the first to arrive on the scene, shining her torch down into the pit to allow the barbarian to duke it out with the pair of famished zombies. A few arrows were launched from above, but they were ineffectual, and it was the barbarian’s orcish battle ax that quickly slew the monstrosities.

During this time, the kobold prisoner took the opportunity to escape, sticking his tongue out at his captor the wizardess, as he ran off laughing.

Doc piled the bodies to aid his climb to the surface, and while doing so, he noticed the skeleton of an elf, concealed by a grey cloak. The cloak turned out to be a Cloak of Elvenkind, which he lovingly draped over his crush, the wizard Reya’s shoulders.

Old school dungeon crawling at its finest

Moving on, they came to a long hallway with windows at the far eastern end, showing the afternoon sky. The drop was over five hundred feet to the valley floor below, and they could hear vultures screeching above. There were two passages and two sets of double doors out of this room, so they chose the nearest set of double doors and pushed through. The room was empty except for a pair of doors and an old tapestry on the wall. The ranger detected the tracks from many creatures in the chamber and bent down for closer inspection.

While searching the chamber, he oticed a large rack in the wall and heard the scurrying of a multitude of tiny clawed feet. A swarm of rats were about to charge from the hole. Thinking fast, he cast Expeditious retreat on himself, and ran towards the wall hanging, intending to stuff it in the crack. When he pulled down the hanging, it revealed a concealed door. In his hurry he did not notice the small hole drilled through the center of the room before a lightning bolt lanced out from it.

The bolt hit the far wall, and rebounded through the room, injuring the ranger, the fightress, and knocking out the wizardess Reya. Soon after, the party heard the “HAROOOO” of a horn blast from the other side of the door and beat a hasty retreat.

They paused to catch their breath in the long hall, while the cleric healed Reya, and once they were sure no one was coming after them from the recently vacated room, chose to explore in a different direction. The entered a chamber with a large black desk and some overturned cupboards. The ranger sent his ferret familiar into the chamber, which discovered a poisonous centipede just before it was bitten and died from he poison. The ferret, being magical, disappeared, and the centipede reared up, angry at being denied a meal. Its faceted eyes centered on the paladin Glory in the doorway, who glared back and charged. She was unlucky though, trying to charge through the obstacles, and when she brought down her orcish battle axe, it bit into her own foot instead of the vermin. It struck her, but the paladin shook off the affects of the poison and went on to slay the foul beast. The party spent the next ten minutes sacking the chamber but discovered nothing of interest.

A door led through the next chamber, and the paladin led the way, but was lucky for the second time, as she stopped in the middle of the chamber just before stepping onto another covered pit trap. This one opened to reveal a pool of green slime at its bottom.

They soon came to a door that seemed stuck, but the wizard showed a surprising amount of strength. The sleeves of her robe stretched as her muscled bulged, and she pushed open the door, pushing rubble aside to reveal a room whose north end was a collapsed heap of rubble, letting light of the early evening shine through cracks. They heard the rustling of bats in the ceiling, but quietly searched the chamber. The barbarian saw a severed skeletal wrist poking from the rubble, and uncovered an ancient human warrior. Most of his arms and armor were long rusted away except for a gold insignia ring and a ruby encrusted sword sheath which appeared to be magical. The fightress hung the empty sheath from her belt in hopes of soon filling it with something better than the looted orcish battle axes which she and most of the party were forced to wield. They managed to leave the room without waking the bats.

Soon they came to a bend in the hallway, which had a door on one side, and they discovered a secret door on the other. No amount of force they mustered could open the secret door, so they turned their attention to the other one which opened easily enough. It revealed an old cloak room with nothing of interest.

They were just deciding where to go next, and had re-entered the long hall, when a patrol of 7 orcs rounded a corner. Everyone was surprised, but the party recovered first, unleashing a hail of arrows and daggers and charging warriors at the orcs, before the wizardess strode forward with palms held outward. She unleashed a cone of fire that burnt 6 of the 7 orcs to a crisp. The last orc, turned tail and ran, but was unable to push open the door he sought to escape through. He was cut down from behind, and the session ended there.

Whew, we accomplished a lot in a short amount of time. The orc battle began when we were fifteen minutes over our regular end time, and was over less than five minutes later, thanks to the Burning Hands of Reya. Great game.

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Game Night April 19 – Playtestsing DnD5 and the Ruined Fortress of the Evil Overlord

There is a lot going on this week, what with trying to get my store front set up, and trying to finish up the next four installments of the Ruined Fortress of the Evil Overlord, so I am going to have to make this recap brief. Let me start by recounting the meal, which was made up of incredibly delicious grilled burgers and curly fries. I had two burgers, one with grilled onion, and the other california-style with guacamole. Oh yum it was good.

Last week saw the beginning of a new campaign, where the palyers were forced to play zero-level characters enslaved by orcs, forced to escape from a dungeon the night before their harvest. They survived, well some of them did, and made it to the nearest town, Deadrock, though half-starved wearing the bloody armor of their erstwhile captors. Along with this odiferous bunch were a pair of wood elves also on their way to infamous Deadrock, there to see their fortunes made. Greetings were held under the glare of the city guard preparing to open the town gates for another day of business in Deadrock.

A rough and tumble pioneer town, the party did not have much time to explore the sights. They rented rooms, bathed, and went out to by a set of clothes with the meager coin they had scavenged from the slave pens. The next day they were politely asked by representatives of the town concil to exit the town until such time as they could afford their own upkeep. This was mainly done because I wanted to get to the dungeon, and having a bunch of thugs wandering around without a copper to their name was bound to get ugly. Let’s fight monsters.

The party did not resist the nudge toward adventure and before you knew it they were walking the pillaged demesne of the evil overlord. Forgoing the ancient roads, the party struck a path straight across the valley towards the dark speck that was the ruined fortress. With incredible luck they managed to avoid any detection or random encounters along the way, ntil they arrived at the foot of the long stair that leads up the mountainside to the entrance of the ruins. Here they heard a loud buzzing, one might say a GIANT buzzing, and proceeded to build a ring of burning, smoking vegetation, into which they prepared to defend themselves against the rapidly approaching giant bees.

Nearly a dozen bees attacked, and even though the bees were disadvanteaged due to the smoke and fire, one of our new wood elves, a rogue, was struck with a deadly stinger and perished almost instantly from the poison. (I felt bad for the new player, being killed without having a chance, but I let him return the next round with the brother of the slain, who had been running after the party for two days and finally caught up just in time to witnsess his dead brother being carried away by giant bees.)

The party was able to kill or drive off the rest of the bees without further casualties, and made their way up the steps of the ruined fortress, with openings like eye sockets watching their approach. Scouting around the top, they opened a few doors, checked out the flag chamber, an empty office, then made their way to another chamber full of kobolds. Another battle broke out, and this time two characters went down, but were healed by the cleric. The other wood elf turned into a bear and mauled the kobolds savagely, while the human fightress waded through the chamber, and laid waste all around her.

They took one kobold catpive, searchd the room and found a lock box with 55 gold and two 50 gold piece pears, which one of the rogues tried to secretly pocket, but was discovered by the bear, who let out a warning growl. Don’t mess with the bear.

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Game Night April 12th – Playtesting D&D 5 Zero Level Rules for a new campaign.

This week’s game was important for a number of new experiences. We were starting a new campaign, we are using the newest D&D 5th edition playtest rules after mostly not playing D&D for many months, we were starting out at zero level for the first time ever with new house rules I created for use with a new Dungeon Crawl campaign, The Ruined Fortress of the Evil Overlord which I am self-publishing.

meatball cupcakes

There were supposed to be a few more fortuitous concurrences, like breaking open my new metric tonne of miniatures from the Reaper Mini Kickstarter, but alas, they haven’t shipped yet, and so it wasn’t meant to be. It was also an incredible night thanks to Shannon, whose birthday we were celebrating, and who brought delicious steak(!) for dinner, and for Khar (I mean Harrison) who brought both a cake, and cupcakes made of meatloaf with frosting of bacon and cheese. I kid you not, they were the best thing I have ever tasted. I had to drink an extra tall glass of cherry vodka just to thin the meat packing my stomach. It was good.

Zero Level Adventuring

The rules of the game are very simple: roll the ability scores (4d6 drop the lowest) three times, do not bother putting them into the attributes — right now they are just nebulous numbers. The characters are literal blank slates, with no class, nor even race or sex (all virgins). Imagine them as grey cloaked figures of questionable lineage. Each character has 2 hit points and an armor class of 10. That’s it.

The fact that each player rolls up three sets of scores means they were not as worried about losing a character. In fact, if some of the characters might have terrible scores and be purposefully put into perilous positions.

Now, as they go through the adventure, which should be geared to be very deadly, they will want to do things, like break something for example. At that point the dungeon master asks them to put one of their numbers into the strength attribute, and make a strength check. If it was successful they would then make a note of their deeds done. Eventually most of characters end up with their scores filed in as the adventure progresses: strength for brute stuff, dexterity to be sneaky, wisdom to be perceptive, etc.

One interesting factor was that the player had time to choose which score went where, and the dynamic of needing a good roll at the moment, countered by the scorer that they wanted for their future character concept, created a great spread of the numbers, not always optimized towards the future class.

This can also be used for deciding racial factors, by asking if anyone has the ability to detect sloping passages, for example, a dwarf might be revealed. Uncovering themes, backgrounds and other specialties, depending on the length of the zero level period are also possible. Even class abilities can be discovered through play,such as a character making a wisdom check to pray to her deity for divine aid, or a sagacious character making an intelligence check to detect the presence of magic.

Each character should be allowed one mundane non-weapon item worth no more than a single gold piece, such as a rock, nail, ice pick, or a flask of acid (what?), a loin cloth and a drab cloak. Whoever survives the adventure becomes a first level character. They can keep the two extra hit points as a reward.

Playtesting the Zero Level rules

Deadrock

Did I mention the extra tall glass of cherry vodka? Keep it in mind. We playtested an adventure called Under Ghost Town, from my upcoming second installment of the Ruined Fortress of the Evil Overlord –Level 0: Deadrock and the Pillaged Demesne of the Evil Overlord.

Six individuals set out on journeys for riches and reward, each wanting to accumulate (and spend) one million gold pieces. The town of Deadrock, a rough and tumble pioneer town on the edge of civilization was known far and wide as a place where heroes were forged. It seemed a perfect place to begin a life of tomb robbing and adventure. On their way they were captured by orcs.

The orcs herded them through a wasteland of conquered desolate territory. They eventually passed through a deserted town, on the edge of which was a corn field ready to be harvested. The bones of the farmers who planted the crops were piled at the edge of town. For weeks the characters toiled in the fields under the whips of the savage orcs, knowing that when the corn was harvested, so would they be.

Tonight was the last night before the harvest. They must escape. Every night bags were placed over their heads and they were marched down three flights of stairs and through two streams before being locked in cells in a dank dungeon.

I asked the players if anyone was sure their charater wanted to be non-human. Two people raised their hands, our local gnome and our elf ranger knew what they wanted. No one else was sure, so I said ok, the room is dark, only the elf and dwarf can see. Gotcha!

One character spotted a ring of keys on a hook next to the door. Another character wove her cloak into a lovely scarf. Another character had a nail and successfully picked the lock to her cell door, go thief! The ring of keys only opened the cells, they had to also pick the door, then they filed out into the hall.

A tripwire was tripped, causing four orc guards to open a nearby door. The party had already taken off down the hall, turning in random directions, until the met the orc captain coming the other way. They found themselves in a dead end, but a stream crossed the tunnels. It was blocked by iron bars, which were eventually bent apart, and the characters dove into the stream and were went downstream just before the orcs got to them.

Then the party were swept up agains another set of iron bars as it passed through another hallway and they began to drown as the ones in the front scrambled to bend or break the bars. One character drowned in that awful mess, but they managed to escape into a new hallway and wne tup some stairs and detected a fresh breeze which they followed up more stairs. This led to a locked door. They cold feel the fresh air blowing in from the rack under the door and frantically tried to pick the lock as the orcs cuaght up with them.

They broke out int the ruins of an old shrine and ran through town towards the cornfield. They found a pile of scythes, then went into the field to prepare an ambush for the orcs.

The orcs stumbled right into the ambush, being surprised, and these amateurs went to town on them with sickles. Heads were lopped of on both sides. The bottle of acid broke against the orc captains neck and its hidoues flesh melted and bubbled away, yet still the ferocious beastman fought on. One gnome went down, then the thief, then the new thief, and one player was on the last of her three characters.

They won the fight, and any humans were allowed to don the bloody studded leather and one suit of chainmail. They all took battle axes, short bows, and a pair of daggers, and divided the 25 gold, then set off for a line of dark along the southern horizon.

They saw a huge eagle shaped creature circling above them right as they came to a small river. One character proceeded to crawl into the river with a set of chainmail, confident it would keep her under water and afe from the terror flying above. It did though she also began to drown and had to be pulled to safety, right as the Hart Bird attacked!

The Fearsome Hart Bird

With the body of a giant eagle and the head of a stag, with sharp jutting tusks, the hart bird was a dangerous predator. The two most intelligent characters put their heads together and figure dout this was a hart bird, or peryton, and they it had two distinctions. The first was that it used its tusks to pry open the chest of its prey and eat its still beating heart. The second thing was that it was immune to non-magical weapons. They were in trouble.

The wise dwarf prayed for Moradin to bless their weapons, but he was still miffed that she deigned to use a bladed weapon and answered not her prayer. Eventually a magically inclined high elf ranger wannabe managed to squeeze out the minutest of spells, and caused a weapon to glow as if magical. This caused the hart bird to hesitate, and they made a run for the woods.

They made into the woods and built a fire to keep the monsters away and await the dawn. The next day they made it to Deadrock, wielding bloody orcish arms and armor and with no more than a handful of coins apiece. I would say that adventure was worth gaining a level.

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Bad Character Sheet for D&D 5

Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition* Playtest bad ‘and drawn character sheet

The Basic ‘And Drawn character sheet. inspired by collegiate lined (I hated wide ruled) notebooks full of characters made in that awkward transition between the basic and advanced versions of D&D. Really there was nothing else like them in the world, so simple and full of ignorant hope. So many HP boxes worn through with erasers. So many big black X’s marked in fits of rage or lamentation. These sheets use that original transitional style but are updated to fit a complete 5th edition playtest character onto a single sided sheet of paper.

Above is an 800X1100 jpeg, and here is a link to the PDF: d5charsheet

Enjoy, and please provide feedback or comment. These sheets are mandatory at my table.

*I have decided to stop referring to the next iteration of the worlds most beloved beheading game as “D&D Next!” because it just sounds foolish. Plus, what if they decide to make a 6th edition and refer to the playtest as “D&D Next” then it could lead to mass confusion and rioting, however 5th edition playtest will stand the test of time. So it is written, so be it done.

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Game Night D&D Playtest – The Mud Sorcerer’s Tomb

We had a great night of food, friends, and gaming, as usual fueled by the efforts of all, including delicious Thai roast chicken and pork shish kebabs (spell check says I might mean shipboards). The chicken was spiced with an alternative to curry. I didn’t catch the name but it was very good, having much of the same flavor but milder. The pork when finished was as red and hot as a red dwarf star, but painfully delectable. There were also these strange stuffed grape or olive leaves that tasted really, really good, but every person who had one asked at least once what was in them, and despite reading the ingredients, were none the wiser. Marjoram? Shannon has been known to bring odd foods to the table, such as alligator meat, so it is always enlightening to check the ingredients whenever possible. Great dinner.

We had a new player this week, who has some experience with D&D. Despite being a nerd of many years, he only learned 4th edition last year, and taught himself to dm for his group of friends. Playing as the rogue, his character was every bit the rogue. At the end of the night, we were all talking and some one asked him how it was and he obviously had had a great time (just sitting next to whom he was sitting next to I’m sure contributed) but when I asked how he and I compared as dms, he was speechless for at least five minutes, with a sort of glassy look. Finally he said I was much more relaxed. Heh.

I believe he meant that as a compliment, and the evening of play was very consistent with my style of play. We play a very light-hearted game (with occasional short sudden bouts of serious business) and I am a joker by nature, so I can’t help but be as funny as “I can be while dming. Not that I am actually funny, mind, it is just my efforts at humor. The table is also a big mess. Not wanting to draw anything, I decided that with this dungeon crawl, I would use dungeon tiles. This meant that corridors ended up going up and over people’s plates, around a candle, or salt shaker, and often rotated in completely non-euclidian ways. Miniatures were scattered more often by kittens than by stone golems.

I often go into exposition mode and am willing to distort the adventure for the purpose of expanding upon theoretical or philosophical ideas. For instance, I learned this week that the heat density of the universe is lopsided as shown by the cosmic background radiation. The universe is 10 per cent brighter on one side (and there’s a huge cold spot.) This could be linked to patterns in existence before the big bang, since the CMB is supposed to represent the shape of the universe a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the big bang, when the universe was smaller than a single particle. I theorize that this lends credence to the theory of a multiverse, and that the patterns imprinted upon our newborn universe are the latent patterns of the universe from which ours spawned. It seems obvious.

I used this theory of the multiverse to illustrate my point, and even more importantly, to justify why famous characters from across campaigns and editions and levels have all gathered together to go down into a cave. The real reason is that I wanted to playtest the 3/20/13 release of “D&D Next” and one of the included adventures required 10th level characters. Added to this, everyone in the group seemed ready to get back to D&D after four months of modern zombie survival horror. It was a surprise for them to have all their favorite characters converted into 10th level versions for the new playtest. It was an instant success.

Why would all these heroes from different epochs gather together suddenly? Well a small figure in a red robe appeared. He told them he was the master of the dungeon which stood before them, and he explained that all their past lives were nothing more than preparation for this moment. They had only a few hours to break into yonder tomb, and destroy the slumbering corpse of a powerful mud lord and all her minions. Her tomb was in an extra-dimensional space that threatened to break off into a new universe with her mad mud magics, and thereby destroy this reality in the process. Better get a move on!

So that was the set up. They went into a natural cavern, and almost got stumped by the block of granite sealing the entrance to the tomb. For a moment it looked like it might be over before it even started. All the heroes of the ages stood around shrugging, wondering if maybe there might be something better on the other side of the gray mist.

OK, long story short, they went in, ignored the long pools and then the half orc dove into the square pool to retrieve a key the druid had spotted. In the room of tears, they bottled up a vial of acidic tears and found the secret door, then proceeded to get pummeled by stone golems. We had to turn that statue about 150 times as the characters used that room as their hub while exploring all the way to the purple coffin. Poor Cadence the wise stripped off her lucky charm to make room for the new shiny necklace of choke-you-till-your-dead.

It was getting gruesome. she stood there gripping her neck looking hopeless while the party debated what to do. The wizard I mean ranger had the greatest idea. put her in the coffin, cast water breathing on her, which gives gills, and then create water to fill the casket. Or cast polymorph to turn her into a creature with no neck. (I ruled that would not work as the magic item would transfer with all her other items.) Then the rogue remembered the vial of baby-tears acid, which I ruled worked on the necklace because hey magic baby tears. And because it was the best of the three ideas they came up with, but it was a hard call. i would have loved to see the party toting around my wife in a casket full of water all night, heh. In true role playing spirit, she barely said a word during the whole episode. Come to think of it, she might not have talked to me for awhile after that.

(In the module, nothing short of a wish, or a few specific spells could reverse the affect of the necklace. I always like to see the wacky plans my players concoct, things that Abbott and Costello might come up with when they are drunk, and that is how they usually solve things. Crazy antics. It was not the only time that night the ranger used his create water spell. Im just sayin’…)

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A Rogue’s Gallery of D&D Next Characters

Just a quick post to show off the level 10 pregenerated characters for tonight’s session of the playtest, featuring a remake of a remake of a classic Dungeon adventure, The Mud Sorcerer’s Tomb. All comments (and checking for accuracy) are welcome. Enjoy!

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D&D playtest game night 12-21-12 – End of the baktun edition

It seems like every 297 years it is the same thing: the closer it gets to the holidays, the end of the year, the end of the baktun, and hence the possible end of the world, it becomes more and more difficult to arrange a game night. So between halloween and January we are lucky to get in a few game nights, and this one was fated to be the last of the year. on the menu, in honor of the mayans, was a mexican fare, with at least 100 soft and hard, white, wheat and corn shells, four or more pounds of beef, vegetables red green and yellow, chips, beans, salsas of many hues, and more. It was a feast of feasts. our fridge is overflowing with plastic covered bowls and plates, even though a dozen or more people gorged on the succulent dishes.

the game was the november playtest release of d&d 5th edition, the characters were 3rd level, and the mission was to break up a tribe of cannibals threatening their good friends, the savages of the villages oogachaka and tanaroa.

Many years ago, a villager of oogachaka went mad and began stealing chickens. when his depravity led to him stealing another man’s cock, the man, called Randolphus, was exiled. he went across the bay from the secluded village to a rocky island which jutted from the sea. Into its steep cliff-face was carved a cathedral in bas relief, and a hundred foot tall statue of a warrior graced its entrance. On this island, the mad man attracted a group of canabalistic followers, and every full moon they would raid surrounding villages for babies to eat. forty years passed, and Randolphus became ever more depraved. He marked his body with tattoos and scars, and recreated the markings on the giant statue in the blood and dung of his victims. until last week.

A great storm swept up out of the sea, and at its height, it tore the centuries old statue from its foundation. ever since, their have been terrible sounds of violence and lamentation coming from the island. tomorrow night marks the first full moon since the storm, and it just so happens that Oogachaka is currently blessed with a surfeit of fat, babbling babes. needless to say, the cheiftaness is worried, and would the heroes care to bust up a cannibal party?

They were interested. I didnt even have to bribe them with vast rewards, or hint at heaps of loot waiting to be bagged up. apparently the holiday spirit was in full force: everyone wanted to bust cannibal skull. (This is coming from a party who once used burning babies as a DISTRACTION in a fight – it wasnt even the main event)

But I digress, tonight it was all about saving the babies (for later?) And so after some plans involving sneaking in, pretending to be cannibals, or possibly baby merchants, to yet another trojan horse, but after hearing the entrance was largely unguarded, they decided on the direct approach. They would row over the next morning, and start exacting some righteous justice.

They found the deserted entrance to be empty. a hundred foot section of the cliff face had been carved into an old cathedral inset into the wall. Two great feet, broken of at the ankle, stood within the enclave, with a doorway between them. a few marble pylons jutted from the water, to which bamboo and vine docks had been attached. a stairway carved into the rock of the cliff led up to the doorway between the feet.

The rogues crawled down the hallway, and found it to be partially blocked by a wall of rubble. they cold get past though, and heard heavy breathing from the other side. Three spear wielding guards were surprised and backstabbed by the rogues, as the dwarves worked furiously to smash through the rubble. the battle was short, but poppy the wood elf rogue was stabbed and deeply wounded by a spear before it was over.

after resting they heard grunting and groaning coming from the other side of a skin curtain (edged in tassels made of nipples) at the end of the hall. beyond it was a group of a dozen cannibals in various attitudes of rest. most were asleep, one was whittling a spear head and had stabbed his thumb – thus the majority of the grunting and groaning. the party tricked the cannibals into running down the hall, finding the slain compatriots, and taking off in their canoes to find them. only after they were out of sight did the wizard note to the others that the cannibals set out in the direction of oogachaka. whoops!

Some more hijinks ensued, and the night ended in the middle of a battle with Randolphus the werewolf summoning a Vrock demon, the outcome uncertain.

One amazing thing that happened tonight: usually on the last game session of the year, i hand out x-mas presents to the players, a thank you for putting up with me for the year. character folios, extendable forks, and dragon miniatures are a few of the gifts, but this year, I had nothing. it was for a host of reasons, all to drab to recount here, but my good friend Shannon, and the evilest one of the bunch, came through with TEEFURY shirts for all of us. it was an amazing thoughful gift, and every one of us got a sweet shirt based on the nerdy things we love. mine was an incredible Battlestar Galactica shirt “so say we all” to go with my faded FRAK OFF shirt. thanks to shannon, we all got a present this year, and they were the best presents imaginable.

Note: TEEFURY is agreat, addictive site that offers up a new original tee-shirt every day. buy it now or regret it later.

and so the evening came to a close with hopeful thoughts of the future. The new year will see a change of game focus, and we finished the evening with a short discussion of our options. one of the problems with playtesting the new edition before it is released is that continuity of campaign is difficult. many of the players lack the time to remake their character before each play session, and some classes come and go between revisions, to the point where a campaign becomes unworkable. The fifth edition option would entail having non-linear sets of adventures using pregenerated characters that I supplied. this would work but is not optimal.

Aside — I have more to write on the subject of playtesting in general, and this particular playtest, but a summery would be that I am happy to report that my hopes for the new edition align with many of the most vocal of playtesters, and tend to align with most of the trends in the polls. in that way I am happy that the input is going mostly my way. I am less confident however, that these particular playtests reflect that growing trend. in fact it sometimes seems that many elements are purposefully contrary to polls and player input, as if to either tweak the nose of the playtesters, or more likely, to test out how favorables alternatives are to the conservative base. in any case it makes for sometimes painful campaign play.

We discussed the other options for playing D&D, 1st, 3rd, 4th editions, and pathfinder. A couple people voted for 4th, but most everyone else voted for 3rd edition, even those who have never played it! No one voted for 1st edition, though my wife said she would be willing, but some of the arcane rules (hello THAC0) daunted her. one person voted pathfinder, but i assured the wizard (or future summoner probably — shudder) that pathfinder integrated seamlessly with 3rd edition.

Then i threw out the idea of Walking Dead. Modern times, we play ourselves, or a regular person living in our home town, getting together on a friday night to play games, when the zombie apocalypse occurs. we would use google street view and local knowledge, and an unknown game system to play out a zombie apocalypse campaign. I would probably use a hybrid d&d-like system using hit points, armor class, and the six ability scores, without classes, but having skills, background and equipment be the three main areas of character growth. of course, one bite from a zombie would kill, and the game would attempt to be as gritty and realistic as possible. everyone immediately voted for this idea.

Not sure how long it will last, but we are going to give the modern zombie rpg a shot. Following that, it looks like 3rd edition will be our game of choice for the forseeable future. oh what a long, strange trip it’s been.

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Game night dnd playtest – Thanksgiving 2012

evil dm

the friday after thanksgiving became our “extra special 5 hour marathon event including a feast of leftovers” game night. we started early, and people began gathering even before the sun had set. The day was cold, a sharp turn from the balmy 70′s of thanksgiving day. We had a roaring fire going. our x-mas tree and decorations were already hung, giving our house its most inviting, wholesome warmth of the year. perfect time to chop some heads.

The heroes of this tale began the session in a prison cave inside a densely populated pirate stronghold. The dwarf noticed a section pof wall in the back was meant to look natural but concealed a door. This in turn led to a long sloping tunnel and the roaring sound of water. The wizard was able to guide his snake to the bottom of the tunnel where it opened out into a natural cavern with a swift underground river running through it. the party decided they could exit this way since the river must empty into the nearby sea.

The wizard, aided by the gnomling, used illusion to convince the pirate guards that everything was cool, then the party and thier four rescued savages, the oogachaka, made their way down the tunnel. In the cavern they found a ledge on the far side of the river, and a tunnel beyond. The cursed sword and staff each began to glow with a dim but unholy light, and the party assumed orcs must be near.

They also thought they might be near the tomb whence these items were plundered. To undo the curse that haunted the items, they were told they must undesecrate the tomb of the ghost who haunts them, and so they crossed the river using a little bit of rope and mage hand, and noticed strange markings. At the water’s edge, the stone was gouged with giant claw marks, hundreds of them. Also the keen dwarven eyes of corporal agnes detected the five-edged imprint of a dwarven spike. (though they did not know it, the spike ws driven into the rock when the dwarf Bim and his sons raided this tomb. They were about to find out what made the scratches.)

Following the passage,they came to a pair of huge stone doors, open a crack. When the strongest among them tried to budge, a small pebble under the door caused a great squealing sound to reverberate through the caverns. Removing this pebble allowed the door to open. the party peered into a large chamber decorated with flaking frescoes along the walls. the images depicted that of a human princess and an elven knight in love. Two stone sarcophagi stood at either end of the room, their lids thrown rudely aside. Between them was a treasure pile of gold and silver coins, with a few other sparkling items of interest, like a shield with a mirrored finish and a jacket of woven chainmail of beauteous and delicate art.

above each grave a ghostly figure appeared. They screamed and moaned and held out forlorn arms of forboding, but to the ears of those who held their artifacts, the two wood elves, the moaning took on the sound of words. “give back that which was taken from us…” The rogue answered that she would consider the idea, but first she needed more information while moving into the room and hiding behind the very casket of the ghost to whom her stolen sword once belonged. se found a pile of old rags and bones in a tumbled maess, and realized they were the bones of the ghosts, thrown to the side and intermixed. she began sorting them and had the four tanaroa help. fortunately there were enough differences in man and elf anatomy to make this possible, and in two turns,thy had the male elf skeleton complete and back in its sarcophagus.

just then a roar came from the tunnel behind them, followed by the splashing of water and the clawing of great claws upon stone, as something big emerged from the river. most of the adventurers moved into the room except for the nobleman and the dwarf corporal. they watched as a wall of darkness came towards them, quenching the light source 9which happened to be a gold coin tied to the head of the wizard’s snake staff like a little glowing helmet.)

They wisely backed into the room and closed the stone doors, then barred them (with the little pebble) just before a blast of acid struck and slowly ripped a hole through the door. Both warriors were splashed but escaped great harm. as the darkness enveloped, acid spewing foe slithered and clawed forward into the room, it struck out with claws and a ferocious bite. the nobleman was knocked out, healed by a cleric, and knocked out again.

black dragon

Meanwhile the two ghosts beckoned again for the items and the eyes of the female ghost sparked dimly through the magical darkness. rogue let loose her long sword, and cleric let loose her staff. they head the sound of the items fling through the air then grabbed. suddenly the staff’s gem appeared as a spark of light in the maical darkness which grew to become a shard of the sun. it cast the chamber in cleansing daylight, and revealed a coiling black dragon in the doorway. the sword, in the hands of male elf, became animated and danced through the air to engage the dragon. it never landed any blows but did manage to engage the dragon.

The next round the one ghost used the staff to flame strike the drgaon, while the other continued to duel the dragon. when his bones were at rest, he whispered thaqnk you and disappeared – but the sword continued to dance before the drago, now controlled by the rogue. the staff continued to cast its aura of daylight and dropped to lie athwart the sarcophagus of the female human when she was put to rest.

the wily wizard with his infinite bag of tricks managed to scare the dragon at its weakest, having taken massive damage and being dazed by the light. it chose to retreat,but warned before it retreated into a new darkness,that it would seek out and reclaim every piece of gold, silver and treasure of its hoard that was even touched by them.

which obviously means that before fleeing through the river, the party collected 1500 gold, 3000 silver, a magic shield, and a magic suit of elven chain. and no savages were slain in the rescue attempt.

they made it back to tanaroa to find out that a messenger had bent sent from the colony – an infestation of mites had spoiled their food stores, and there would soon be starvation. The oogachaka, in thanks for rescuing the four captured by pirates, agreed to suppply the colony with food, annd everyone immediately set off in a great dancing, singing procession towards the new colony. There was a feast of thanks giving when they arrived, obviously.

A carnival ship had recently docked, being damaged in a storm and blown off course, but that is a tale for next week.

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Game Night D&D Playtest Nov 18 – Ooga-chaka and Tanaroa

On the friday prior to X-giving, the menu was a puritan feast, centering around mounds of white and fluffy turkey breast, surrounded by stuffing, potatoes, peas and gravy. The grocer was running a special on turkey breast that week, just the breast ma’am, and a package of stove top, powdered potatoes, a jar of gravy added to the natural juices, a can or two of peas, and voila – faux thanksgiving feast for cheap and easy to prepare. Besides the 3 hr cook time for the bird, the side dishes were nearly instantaneous..

Enough about the food. Ah, the beverages… j/k we were down a few players, but forged on despite, since our sessions have been somewhat spotty the past couple of months. It was a smaller group, made up of five doughty adventurers who struck out for adventure across the strange lands of Numenoria.

The evening began with loot. a cursed sword and staff lay in a haunted chamber, surrounded by five hundred quite normal gold pieces. The sword had a long slender blade and its hilt was shaped like a pair of grinning lips. The staff was of gnarled oak with a single crystal embedded at one end. Each magic item was haunted by a ghost, and would remain so until the ghost’s tomb was cleansed of its desecration (whatever that means.)

The wizard was disappointed to discover the taint of divine magic upon the staff, and was forced tohand it over to one of the clerics – the taller one Litha the wood elf. The other wood elf, the rogue Zubi-zu took the sword, though neither dared to use them while they were haunted. After scooping up and dividing the coins with the gnomling cleric, the dwarven corporal Agnes hefted her pick-axe of booty-looting and the five of them set off through a revealed secret exit out of the petty dwarve’s cave, and on across the countryside, ever westward as the axe led them. They had no idea how to cleanse the desecrated tombs and thus attune themselves to their new loot, but that was their goal.

On the third day of travelling ever upwards through a land of forests, mountains, crags, and fjords, the party crossed the “continental divide” and gazed for hundreds of miles westward. A great and long snaking inlet made its way into the lands of Numenoria, and along its shoreline were three signs of habitation, villages or settlements, though it was impossible to tell if they were active or ruins. At the limits of vision the great western ocean melded with the horizon and the island off the coast rumored to be the “ruins of a great and ancient civilization” appeared as a dark smudge against the setting sun. The pick axe of booty looting pointed uneringly towards the island ruins.

As the explorers made their way towards the inlet, the altitude rapidly dropped and by early evening they had descended into a semi-tropical rainforest. Before long they heard a rhythmic drumming sound, and it was soon followed by chanting and clapping. The party had just entered a small clearing when a tribe of dark skinned savages danced into view. The men wore animal skins and carried wooden spears, and with each step they either tapped a tree trunk with the butt of their spear or clapped their hands together. They marched in unison led by the leader who sang “Ooga chaka ooga chaka” as they danced along a well concealed path. The savages stopped suddenly in mid stride when they caught sight of strangers in their midst. After a long pause, the leader of the savages questioned “Oogachaka?”

This led to a long conversation between the explorers and the band of savage hunters, neither side knowing what the other was saying. The savages language consisted of two words, ooga-chaka and tanaroa, and all else depended on inflection and facial expression while saying those two words. Even so, they managed to agree to travel to the savages place for a bite to eat. It was not a long walk, and before long, a great wall made up of crudely piled stones rose up out of the jungle before them. The path led to an archway composed of three stone slabs, and two lazy guard-savages leapt up and rubbed their eyes in surprise when they saw the hunters approaching with a new kind of quarry. Beyond the wall were two villages, Oogachaka and Tanaroa, and a large mound of dirt rose between them. on this mound sat the head chieftain, whom they were invited to visit. In the center of each of the two villages were smaller mounds, which acted as the village graveyard, and a forlorn figure stood atop one of the mounds.

The gnomling detected the presence of undead, and went to inspect the mound in the village of Oogachaka, and the suspcious figure, while the rest of the party went to the head chieftain. The gnomling discovered it was a zombie atop the mound, but it was not aggressive and looked like it was teken care of. The zombies hair was brushed and its skin was burnished like a nice tanned hide.
The zombie followed the gnomling as she backed away.

Meanwhile chief OogachaKA tried to enlist the parties aid in a quest. Using a skill challenge of intelligence checks, the party tried to decipher the meaning of each oogachaka in the chiefs speech. They deciphered it as “Blue giants have stolen our hearts and minds and want to rule over us as tyrants! Will you help?”

What they actually needed help with was that a number of their people, including the chieftain’s son were held captive in a nearby pirate stronghold. They wanted the party to rescue them, and the chief also knew that the cave in which the captives were held was also an old tomb – and might be the one the party is looking for. They agreed at once. After a bit of discussion it was decided to use the “Trojan horse” strategy, and they had the savages build them a great wheeled monument to give in tribute to the pirates. They also had to explain what a wheel was. Round, like the moon.

Soon a somewhat rustic statue of a T-Rex, the tribe’s totem, was built. It rolled along on a platform with a wheel at each corner, but the wheels were shaped like crescent moons, so it was a bumpy ride. The wizard was dissatisfied with the quality of work on display, and before climbing into the tail section of the beast, he used his magic to make the statue *shiny*

Soon the party was hidden inside, and with the trapdoor in its bottom closed, they trounced and jounced all day long as the savages struggled to push the thing through and the jungle and as close to the pirate encampment as they could get. Soon they could see through the nose holes the wooden barricade rising up ahead, and above it a wooden guard tower, with a pair of pirates on guard, who started yelling at the savages. The poor souls soon bowed down to the ground in the direction of the pirates, begged for oogachaka, then scurried back into the woods, leaving the huge and hideous T-rex looming alone in the sun.

A group of pirates approached, and tapped and prodded the Wooden monstrosity. The wizard was prepared for this, and had cast *silence* in the interior of their hiding place. The pirates tried to push it, but it was heavy. When tapping produced no echo, they determined it must be solid. “Foolish savages,” one remarked to the other, who replied ” but ooh it is shiny, we should take it to the captain.” And thus the statue was dragged into the vipers pit, surrounded by over a hundred pirates, with a guard tower, a stout wall, twenty huts, and four long ships of the viking variety. The statue was placed in front of the nicest grass and waddle hut, and the captain approved of the new town mascot at once. The pirates commenced to feast and carouse, while in their midst an enemy patiently waited.

By midnight all the fires had burned low and the pirates were passed out in the sand all along the strand. The wizard wriggled free and dropped out of the T-Rex’ bottom to land with a plop in the soft sand. The rest of the party soon followed, and they tried to make a plan. The rogue scouted around, and saw that the wooden guard tower, still manned by a pair of sleepy guards, was built upon a rocky outcropping and that there was a cave opening below it.

They decided disguise was the best course and began gathering up nearby pirate garb. A dirty laundry basket full was found, and the wizard took a moment to cast a *clean* spell on the clothes. It quickly became apparent the clothes were now too clean and fashionable looking, making them appear to be tourist pirates, and so the wizard went back to work and cast *soil* and *clean* until each article of clothing was the perfect amount of “used, but not too used.”

So attired the party made their way to the cave entrance and saw it was barred with bamboo buried in the sand. Four savages sat in the dark recesses of the cave, watching. Above,the guards noticed the newcomers, but in a pirate metropolis, 5 new faces was not a surprise. They engaged in small talk about having to take care of the slaves, who should be taking care of them. They found out the slaves would be taken to the boats as rowers the next day.

The party then got in a discussion about how to save the four prisoners. They were expecting more slaves than four in order to incite a slave revolt. Thy considered stealing a ship, but the pirates could probably out-sail them. They considered puncturing the other ships. It was risky. Then it was remembered that all coastal waters around Numenoria are shark infested, and the idea of a sea-based escape lost its appeal. The wizard suggested a few variations of turning people into giant rocks or hermit crabs. The elf rogue looked up to notice the pirates in the guard tower were watching and listening with interest. The party then removed the bamboo and moved into the cave, trying to act natural. The dwarf noticed the outline of a secret door in the back wall of the natural cavern, and the four captive savages questioned “ooga-chaka?” and we ended it there.

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