Princes of the Apocalypse #2

[Game date: 2016 Apr 17]

[GM Law’s write up]

A southern breeze blew warmly as our heroes returned from Lance Rock. Having driven the mad necromancer out of the area, the heroes returned slightly changed for the better. Feeling the shame of having a foe escape from his grasp, Hoggle decided to change his name to Visk. As the party entered the inn, they happened upon a pair of humans who were discussing their longing for work. Having a need for bodyguards and meat shields, Visk implored the pair to join them and the group became slightly bigger. Chango and Kirke were glad to be able to find the work and be able to support themselves. While Visk and Korek drew and posted crude wanted signs around town warning them of the incontinent necromancer, Kirke found daytime work at one of the local quarries. The night passed uneventfully.

As the first rays of sunlight pierced the windows of the inn, Kirke went off to work while the others decided on a day of shopping. After Brother Faruk's near death encounter at the hands of poor medicineship, Visk was able to procure 2 healing kits from the local scrounge shop. On his way back to the inn, a giant sinkhole opened up in the middle of town, sucking four hapless children and a woman. Kirke, being hero to the damsel in distress, grabbed rope to help those in the hole but was unable to keep his balance and fell in. Luckily he found the soft earth to be a great target and was unhurt. Several of the town elders were asking the townsfolk to back away from the hole as they attempted to rescue the victims. Visk, Brother Faruk, Chango, and Korek went into the holy after Visk spotted stone door along one of the far walls. Thus a rescue mission became a journey of exploration.

At the first junction, two stone dwarves guarded the sides of the passage. Noticing these were doors, the party decided to go down the right path. This led them straight to an abandoned privy. Not ever abashed at the prospect of secrets and treasure, Visk lowered himself into the toilet and found nothing. Retracing their steps, the party took the left door and soon came upon a grisly scene. The smell of rotting flesh permeated their nostrils as two giant rats were feasting on a pile of human bodies. When Kirke went to push them away, they turned around and attacked him. As the rest of the party pushed forward to help him, Visk found himself surrounded by three rats and each feasted on one of his lower appendages. The party was able to dispatch them but our brave wizard was feeling a bit diseased. After a quick rest and diagnosis, the party pushed forward into a room with a floating rock. Unable to enjoy the simply pleasures of watching a rock float in the middle of the room, Korek went and removed the rock. Moving into its space, he realized that he as floating just as the rock had. This area permeates a magic of an earthly nature.

As the delved deeper in, our heroes came upon a room with an enormous statue of a dwarf. As the rest of the party marveled at its posture, Kirke noticed the glint of an arrow and warned the party of the impending ambush. The fight was long and arduous. Korek was knocked unconscious and hope seemed lost as our brave knights kept falling prone thirty feet away from the enemies. Eventually they decided that they were men and engaged them. Thanks to Kirke's shield bashing ability, the leader was finally dispatched and the remaining group was defeated. As they searched through the bodies, a familiar sign was emblazoned on each of the dead enemies' armor. It was a triangle with a small vertical line at the base.

After a short rest, our party collected the treasure at the feet of the statue including a very nice dagger. Choosing the eastern door, they opened it to find a balding, frail old man who began to beg for his life. Weary of deceit, the party questioned him profusely until they determined that he might just be slow in the head. As Baragustas lead them through the central corridor, the party came upon a humongous stone. Next to the stone was a half orc keeping watch and a child pinned on the floor by stones. As the poor boy cried for help, our "heroes" questioned the half orc about the underground ruins. They found out that some of the townspeople were in a group that called themselves the Believers. One of the leaders of the Believers was Rotharr Hatherhand, the father of the child. After tying up Grund the half orc and Baragustas, our so-called "heroes" left the kid pinned under the stones and went back toward the east, looking for the Delvers, a mystical group of bodies that were believed to be able to tell the future. They were also interested in the so-called prophet, Larrakh.

Opening the door led into a giant chamber. There were rocks floating slightly above the ground and six bodies could be seen on stone tables. While sneaking and exploring, the scout Korek came across a hiding guard and the fight was on. Between Larrakh's magic and the party's horrible horrible horrible luck, the party was almost destroyed. Brother Faruk found himself using his healing to pick up Visk and Chango during the fight. As the party began to fall, Larrakh sensed his impending victory and could not help but gloat. "Your deaths shall signal the rise of the Cult of the Black Earth!" However, Brother Faruk had heard enough of the blasphemy and channeled the powers of his fingers into a single blast of energy. The bolt struck Larrakh square in the mouth and the cultist beat a hasty retreat as his followers began to fall. Although Larrakh escaped, our heroes have gathered some information on sinister activities that have happened in Red Larch.

Returning to the surface, the party tells Constable Harburk about the cult that has been hiding under the town and the dead bodies that have been found. The Constable suspects that the Believers may be involved and begins a thorough investigation. Harburk questions both Grund and Baragustas and finds out that although both aided the Believers, none of them were directly involved in the murders. Haburk continues his investigations over the next several days as the party rests and decided what their next plan is...

OOC:

Everyone should now be level 3. This is the last time any changes can be made to characters.

Total Gold for the night and special treasure (including any you have already spent)

440cp/253sp/97gp from dwarven statue

6 small green agates and 2 polished moonstones (130gp total)

dagger +1

54sp from Larrakh's party

4 Mirabar trade bars

Assorted weaponry

Until next time...

Princes of the Apocalypse #1

[Game date: 2016 Mar 26]

(Law starting a new D&D 5E campaign for us to try out. Here is our story which he has written. I posted it here for our reference.)

A group of friends living in Waterdeep were summoned to Red Larch to help an acquaintance of Hoggle. Traveling as a group, Hoggle, Korek, Brother Faruk and Pitus the Fourth made the week long journey to Red Larch. When they arrived, they heard rumors of banditry and robberies as well as strange occurrences happening at a place called Lance Rock.

Needing money to purchase splint mail, Hoggle convinced the constable to offer a reward for helping to clear out some bandits. Heading to a site of known bandits, the group stumbled upon a gang of four bandits and a caged bear. While sneaking in for a closer look, Korek literally stumbled and the fight was on. During the fight the bear broke free of his cage and began to wreak havoc across the battlefield. In the end, both beast and bandit were defeated and Hoggle had enough gold to purchase his armor from the friendly neighborhood half-orc arms dealer.

Not content with dealing with bandits, the heroic party decided to investigate the rumors of strange occurrences at Lance Rock. Approaching the stone, they came upon a sign warning them to stay away else they contract the plague. Ignoring reason, the party pressed on and found a cave near the base of the rock. Wandering in, they encountered zombies and skeletons as they tried to find the root cause of the disturbances. Strategically retreating more than once and almost succumbing to a roaming wolf pack, the party finally encountered the Lord of Lance Rock who bid them to leave him in peace. Being the prudent and accommodating heroes that they are, the group decided to retreat one last time and allow the "Lord" to escape. When they returned, all they found were a few skeletons they quickly dispatched and a hovering stone with an unknown sigil that disappeared after the stone was removed. They returned to Red Larch, warning the townsfolk to beware of the Lord of Lance Rock and with pockets every so slightly heavier.

OOC: The party currently consists of 2 rogues, 1 bard, and 1 wizard. Seems tank/fighter light.

Everyone should be at level 2 now.

Background is randomly determined, if you roll 1d12 I can let you know your character background.

Starting equipment is based off choices from class and background, no starting gold unless otherwise stated.

Point buy is fine.

Healer makes life easier. Not sure if you had Cure Wounds Andrew.

Allowed to change anything about character until level 3.

HP after 1st level will be rolled in my presence. Roll or half, whichever is higher.

Total Gold for the night and special treasure (including any you have already spent)

25gp for bandit ears

99cp/74sp/113gp for bandit treasure

165sp/78gp from Lance Rock

4x 50gp gems from Lance Rock

driftglobe

Total: 99cp/238sp/416gp

Divide by 4

Old Dwarven Forge Pictures–Arena

[Originally posted on the Dwarven Forge forums 2010 Jan 27. Game dates 2009 Dec 01 and Dec 29]]

In a Forgotten Realms game my friend has been running between my regular games (utilizing a completely home-brewed rules system he created), our characters were hired out to escort a group of cargo-bearing lizardmen north along the Sword Coast to Luskan. Turns out, we were part of the "delivery" to the slavers. After putting up a good fight - unexpectedly on the part of our GM, who thought we would just lay down arms, we were subdued and forced to fight in the arena.

I remembered having just seen an incredible arena on the forums, so I tried channeling dudebird as I hastily created one from the 2 cavern sets I have.

We were split into two "teams", and were given descriptions of the other gladiators on the opposing team. We had to pair up and choose a duo on the opposing team to fight.

This was the slaver’s complex, with the natural cavern serving as the arena; one side held the “box-seats” for the boss, and a pair of elevated platforms on each side had archers ready to shoot anyone who didn’t participate or tried to flee. We actually ended the game getting put into the arena that day, so the pictures below was us recreating just the arena portion from memory.

The arena layout, and the teams facing off. The last is a picture of my minotaur weaponmaster laying the smackdown on two of the lizardscum who sold us off into slavery and had volunteered to join in the arena for fun; they didn't expect us to rain on their parade. 8-)

Enjoy!

Old Dwarven Forge Pictures–First Battle

I’ve been going through my old Dwarven Forge posts on the forums and remembered that a lot of the old pictures were deleted during a software error around 3 years ago. I have many of them still, so decided to repost them to my blog for future interest. This was also incentive for me to go through my old pictures and files to clean up my hard drive and organize.

[Originally posted on the Dwarven Forge forums 2004 Nov 24]

My first real use of the Dwarven Forge stuff in my home D&D game. I didn't have enough floor pieces to really re-create the large cavern, so I used the battlemat as the base and the DF stuff for walls and a raised area.

This was for our first and longest running D&D 3.0 game – the Frozen North. They PCs had ended up in Wallachia, Ravenloft, after tracking down the “funny man” – a Vampire that was kidnapping children. He lived in a cavern that was made of pourous volcanic rock. His “coffin” was inside the raised porous rock, and when reduced to 0 hp and turned into gaseous form, he retreated under it, making it quite an ordeal for them to get to his body before he regenerates.

Pictures Taken 2004 Aug 28

AD&D A2 – Stockyards of the Slavelords, Part 2.1

My group wanted to finish playing A2, so this past holiday weekend, I continued where we left off last. As the party recuperated from the battle with the goblins, the Cleric/Magic-User and Paladin left to summon more help. In their stead, a human dual-classed Monk/Magic-User, a dwarven Fighter/Thief, a half-orc Fighter/Cleric and a human Ranger joined the group from among the rescued slaves. (The Paladin’s player couldn’t make it and the other wanted to switch PCs; three other players also joined – 2 first time AD&D players and 1 new to RPGs!)

 

Having rested up, the reinforced group opened the secret door concealed in the back of the surprisingly clean iron maiden. The rough worked stone passageway slowly filled with a mist as they worked their way forward. Some dozen yards later, it ended in a steep falloff to a new floor some 30 feet down. The scouts had no problem descending, and re-ascending 50 feet further ahead where the passageway continued.

 

As the group proceeded forward again, they unworked stone corridor began to once again show signs of having been worked.

 

Turning the corner and proceeding, a sudden horn blast echoed toward them from ahead as a net dropped onto the middle of the group. With only a moment to catch their breath, the forward guards raise their defenses just in time to see a group of wolf-riding goblins charge from around the bend into the entangled midst!

 

Falling net trap!

 

A frantic battle ensued, leading to a defeat of the goblins, but not without casualties on the side of the heroes. The newly rescued Dwarven Fighter/Thief and Monk/Magic-User were amongst the dead; the former claiming some vengeance on his captors before this fall, but the latter falling to the charging goblins before he had a chance to act.

 

 

Fallen heroes

New gamers!

My friend’s kids have gotten to the age where they can “get” TTRPG. As others have noted, with the popularity of MineCraft, many middle-school aged kids now are very familiar with the D&D tropes (hit points, experience points, leveling, skeletons and monsters, etc!), so it’s a small jump to tabletop RPGs.

This weekend, we had a little gaming convention with a bunch of friends; as a prelude, I ran the little ones through some introductory D&D games. I gave them free reign with Dwarven Forge tiles to build some layouts, then gave them a scenario.

The farmers from the outlying fields to the west failed to show at the last few market days; travelers from that direction gave reports of monsters lurking in the tall unharvested corn stalks. Since the Greyhawk Wars two decades ago, the adolescent PCs were the only able bodied men and women in Hommlett who could be spared to go an investigate…

Why a Star Wars RPG is so fun

One of the most difficult things about starting up a new campaign is filling all the players in about the background of the setting such as important events and peoples in the world, all while doing so without boring them out of their minds. I've been recently reading through the Game of Thrones series (or, rather, the Song of Ice and Fire series for the purists) and would love to run a game in that setting; it's dark and gritty, with many multi-faceted individuals all intent on their own goals and agendas. But, there's no way I could convey even the basics of the background of Aegon the Conqueror and the Seven Kingdoms, Mad Aerys and Robert's Rebellion, or the Seven gods and the weirwoods in a reasonable blurb.

I mean, face it, we have all had (or been) players that could care less about the difference between a Lannister and a Stark without just wanting to know whom to attack and which dice to roll for the attack. And, save all (or at least, the majority) having read some of the books, it would quickly and easily turn into a generic fantasy campaign without a great deal of work on the GM's part to constantly drag the player's into the world. It's often hard enough to keep players focused on the game without going off on tangents as it is...

And so, that's a HUGE reason I'm thoroughly enjoying running my Star Wars Dawn of Defiance campaign right now. Regardless of what players may think about the validity of Episodes I-III, or how the d20 Saga doesn't do this right, ALL of us know the Star Wars universe. I don't need to fill them in on how a senator named Palaptine was recently elevated to Emperor, or how there was once a religious order called the Jedi that was decimated by his right hand man Darth Vader, or even that a Twi'lek is a humoid creature with long head tentacles. We all have the same background knowledge of the world, and its as simple as saying the Wookie bounty hunter wears a bandolier of thermonuclear detonators that fills the same image in all the players minds (and identifies him as one mean NPC not to mess with).

Prior to starting this campaign last year, we'd been playing in the World of Greyhawk for close to the past 10 years, well, actually, probably longer than that; and even then, it was still very much "wait, Veluna is a theocracy also? I thought it was the Theocracy of Pale?" With this being the first time I'm regularly running a "shared background" game, the difference is so refreshing!

I think in the past, that was why I enjoyed running games like Shadowrun, Dark Matter, or more recently, Gamma World - I could set it in the context of the real world, a truly shared background. In the future, I think this could very well be a much larger draw to bringing in others who otherwise aren't inclined to game with us. In particular, I'm thinking of all our wives/girlfriends, who wouldn't come near our games now agreeing to play a game based in the Harry Potter or Twilight universe.