Blue Hand Group

rollover test

2010-03-01T16:15:00.001-08:00

Wikipedia

Dungeon Delving...

2010-02-28T21:06:00.000-08:00

With their orc prisoner in tow, the group plunged into the caves in search of Grenyarna's shrines. The party had added to its membership Belial, a goblin warlock, as Buck and Misty rode off into the sunset.

Working their way through the caverns, the group was beset upon in the darkness by a group of devilish choking fiends: a choker and two darkmantles. In the chaos, the orc prisoner ran away. At a fork in the tunnel, the party chose to go down the path their orc guide had told them contained greater mystery and peril.

Sensing nearby magic, the group came upon a glowing purple patch of cave wall and the corpse of a fellow adventurer: Timonium the Dungeon-delver, from whom they extricated several treasures. Timonium warned that someone in the cave had betrayed him with his last will and testament. Studying the purple wall, Ragnar found a small button, which revealed a puzzle:

"I am found once per week, but never in a year; I am found twice per evening, but never in a day; I am found once per day, but never in a month."

After some scrupulous puzzle-solving, the group realize the answer was KEY.

They entered a shrine of Grenyarna, where Ragnar quickly gorged himself on some more fire water, gaining improved climbing ability. He continued to drink from the Grenyarna pool and experienced a vision wherein he saw a green-skinned kobold beckoning to the party for help.

The group went farther down the cave until they came to a vast chasm, with a 300 foot drop and groups of dire bats flying around through the skies. They turned back to the fork in the road, and continued down the other spur, presumably the way the orc went.

Shortly, the party was hailed upon with crossbow fire. They spied an orc encampment. Ragnar was lured into the open with promise of more fire water (which he drank, becoming an asthmatic). He collapsed and two orcs dragged him into a mine car, fleeing with their prisoner. The rest of the party jumped in a second car and chased them, like that scene from "Temple of Doom."

After an interminable fight, the party killed the orcs and recovered Ragnar ... just in time to find the kobold he'd seen in a vision: Ka'Bob.

They returned to Grenyarna's shrine, where Ka'Bob revealed his intention to revive the ancient deity with use of fell spells. The party had some internal debate, but turned on the vagabond. He turned invisible and slinked off.

The party chased him down the chasm, though Dimble stumbled and fell half the way. A dire bat followed him, but clever use of silence and light spells (as well as a few well-placed eldritch blasts) kept the dire bats at bay. The party found the cave of Belcher, the fire giant, who made a pact with them that he would give them the potion necessary to destroy Grenyarna's shrine if they brought him the heads of 10 dead grimlocks...

Fort on the Frontier - in search of Grenyarna

2010-01-26T07:39:00.001-08:00

Following the sneak-attack from the orcs in the cave the previous week, the party voted as to what course to take. Would they explore the tunnel deeper into the mountain, continue exploring the forest, or return to the Fort? The vote was for the forest.

After getting lost and stumbling into a fight with a snake-like monster, the party returned to the dryad to learn more about these goat-men; the dryad told them that the goat-men's god, Grenyarna, prefers to live underground and has many shrines scattered throughout the area. So the party went to the foot of the mountain range and began exploring, eventually finding a large rock with Grenyarna's eye symbol scratched into it.

Ragnar used his thief skills to find an entryway into the rock, leading down to a small underground shrine. The snake creature was there, which - still wounded - they slew. A goat-headed fountain sprayed bio-luminescent green water into a puddle. Next to the pool lay a skeletonized wizard holding a goblet. Naturally, Ragnar decided to use the goblet to drink from the bio-luminescent water, as did Dimble. It had mysterious effects on them ... and one other. Ragnar searched the small shrine some more and found an opening that he crawled into, revealing the lair of the snake-like creature ... large enough for both itself and a mate! The party fled.

The party continued searching until they returned to the cave where they'd slept two nights earlier. The party decided to stake the cave out, rather than sleeping inside it. After a few hours, a group of orcs entered the cave from the secret door. The party waited until they were drunk on grog and attacked in stealth, quickly dispatching all but one of them (named Hammy Orc, incidentally), who promised to take them to another shrine to Grenyarna...

Forbryte Wiki

2009-09-10T09:51:00.000-07:00

Here's the wiki on the Forbryte campaign.

http://sites.google.com/site/forbryte

Cult of Car-Ob

2009-09-10T09:42:00.001-07:00

After having completed the quest to the House of Menander, the Elf Bard began seeing visions of things and suggested to the party that they return to the evil temple under the city that they had found through the rat tunnels and the crypts of the de la Peur family.

The party, comprised of Bard, Don "Dwarfo", Artemis Ridcully, Hamfast "Hammy" Gordlington, and Minz, the newcomer dwarf that befriended Blake and Larry on a trip to a ruins in the South, entered into the windy rat tunnels and emerged into the temple complex. Upon entering the main temple area, Bard went berserk, attacking the statue of the giant eye with much fervor and recklessness. Cutting chunks of statue away, his newly found sword-blade began to peel and the shiny coating began to chip away, revealing a rune-covered black blade underneath.

The racket drew the attention of the evil priest who emerged from behind the curtain and re-animated the skeletons the party had destroyed in their previous entre into the temple. After a hard-fought battle, the skeletons and priest were defeated. When Minz began removing the priests platemail for his own use, the party recognized the priest as the man who escaped in their battle with the snake Cult of Car-Ob. Interestingly, he bore the arms and symbols of the frog-man statue, rather than the snakes worshipped by the cult.

Bard seemed to have an uncanny ability to detect things, including secret doors and the party discovered a secret chamber behind the curtain that they had previously missed. Inside the chamber, they found many unholy religous trappings. Searching further, they found the priests chambers and in it, a book, a potion (which Bard drank and was henceforth rather minute, standing a mere 6" tall) and a collection of gold.

Eventually, they also found stairs which led down and a passage to an abandoned house in the shanty-town outside the city walls.

Exploring the hallway outside the temple, they found a large, burned-out area, but also the rotting remains of a bathhouse. In the bathhouse, they fought a strange tentacled beast and recovered a quiver of 10 magic arrows which Bard had discerned lie beneath the water's murky surface. Escaping the tentacled beast, they returned to the city - through the rat tunnels to avoid the hefty tariffs they would surely be forced to pay at the city gate.

Snurdle Snurdle Snurdle

2009-06-01T08:28:00.000-07:00

Our band of intrepid adventurers, having lived it up for a week on the town, were meeting up back in the common room of the Silver Eel, within the Dark City District. Having relayed their wild tales to each other, someone mentions that he overheard that a particular city guard by the name of Kal Borzio was a particularly corrupt fellow. The newest member of the group - and old "friend" of Artemis, Snyrdle Syrdleson*, an odd and particularly cruel and cowardly man suggested that everyone get together and rob Kal's house while he's on duty. The party, in a bit of a criminal mood (Hammy having just been released from prison) agreed.

The party set out to gather intelligence on the guardsman - first seeking out some off duty guard at the tavern. Artemis buddied up to a drunk guardsman named Eulor, extracting information from him about Kal with regular and magical means. Kal, it seemed, was a particularly corrupt and vile guardsman - even judged against the low standards set by the main of the city guard who generally accept bribes and look the other way when their "friends" are pursuing their "business". Additionally, Eulor relayed that Kal often hung out at the Green Dragon Inn - a favorite haunt of the guard when off duty.

The party headed over to the Green Dragon Inn and easily spotted Borzio and his compatriots. After watching during a long night of drinking, they followed him home. Along the way, a group of shady characters approached him and Blake (or was it Larry?) overheard that they were expressing concern that Borzio may not be able to hold up his end of the bargain. Eventually, he appeased their concerns and headed home and fell asleep in a drunken stupor.

Staking out his house, the sneaky Blake (or was it Larry?) crept in through the window and inspected his home. Finding the keys on the bedside table, he opened the footlocker, removing a large bag of coins and some paperwork. In the meantime, Snyrdle set up a rope across the front door for Borzio to trip on upon awakening. Upon returning to the inn, the party found the bag full of silver and the paperwork to include references to many shady characters and links between them.

The next day, the party split in two. Half followed Borzio around and the other half went to talk to Eulor, who cautioned them against getting involved with Borzio and his shady dealings. Eventually, Borzio and his guardsman crew headed to a mansion in the weathly district of the city. The party lied in wait while it appeared that Borzio and his men were doing private guard duty at the house.

After some time, Borzio headed out of the house and headed into the stables. The shady characters the party had seen before headed out of the stables, through the gate and (with ropes) up and over the wall of the next property. In the meantime Blake (or was it Larry?) headed into the stables and found a trap door in the floor which led to some tunnels below.

Eventually the robbers returned, their bags full of loot. The party couldn't decide what to do. Should they kill the thieves and take their stuff? Kill Borzio? Shout out the alarm for the city guard? Turn Borzio in? Their indecision left a sizeable gap between themselves and the thieves who by now were down in the tunnels below. They waited for Borzio to return to the stables, knocked him out then once again couldn't decide what to do. Eventually, they tied him up and headed into the tunnels themselves.

Finding themselves in the sewers, they eventually were able to track down the band of thieves, whom they engaged in combat. After many arrows were fired, they recovered the stolen loot and looked for an exit from the sewers. The emerged into the moonlight near the city market and headed back to the inn.

* Note: I can't remember Snyrdle's real last name, but Snyrdleson goes so well that that's what I'm calling him for now. Here's what Snyrdle looks like:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/PeterLorre.jpg

Tales to Astonish!

2008-08-03T06:07:00.000-07:00

The expedition ... continues

Behold, my friends! Come hear the tale of adventures from the years, the days, of yesterday -- adventurers whose bravery did not depend on things like feats, or race/class distinction, or even double-digit hit points.

These brave and hardy adventurers continued their adventure on the dangerous side of the River Shrill. Two elves (Illuminar, also known as Balthazar, and Gildor Von Dandelioneater), two men (Benedict the Pious and Emirol the Pathetic), and a dwarf (Balin the Illiterate) were joined by Galeena the Graceful, a sagacious, if self-described ditzy cleric. (Though no one knows where she came from or how she got there.)

Left to right: Galeena, Balin, Benedict, Emirol, Gildor, Illuminar - plotting an intelligent, cogent strategy

They searched through an abandoned town, finding naught but rot, rats, and a residue of a once great civilization. (They also found statues marked with circled-stars and secret doors.) Balin the Illiterate, who seemed to assume a more devil-may-care attitude toward life, took to chopping doors down rather than opening them. In his haste, he split off from a party. "Balin, I shall not leave you alone, unaided," Benedict said. They were set upon by a nest of rats, who defeated and devoured them.

Emirol, Galeena, and Benedit - true heroes

Meanwhile, the rest of the party was exploring the rooftop of another building, and continued exploring the ruins. Upon finding a bubbling fountain-stream, Gildor - his elf-kinship to the nature world roused - rushed to slake his thirst. But bepoisoned he was! and lost a hit point -- permanently.

Benedict, Illuminar, Emirol - three great sages of days long gone

"Where are the other two?" asked Illimunar, adding, "I'm sure they're alright." They circled around until they discovered Balin's and Benedict's corpses. Overruling Gildor's idea to use the bodies as decoys against some later foe, Galeena had them buried and performed a funerial ceremony: "May your spirits soar, amen," she said. The threnody of our morning stretched to the farthest corner of the generic world in which we live.

To mourn his fallen friends, Illuminar paints his sword - TruthSeeker - blackest black

We searched through piles of garbage, finding some baubles and treasure amid the ruination. We found an ivory tube containing a scroll of three cleric spells, a mighty find.

"We'll find those devils..."

Then we heard through a door mighty arguing. We investigated, casting open the door -- two OGRES! Alas, alack, fear, fire, foes!!! We engaged them and, despite their numerous hit points, defeated them. (In 1st edition, monsters didn't get strength bonuses to damage.) We looted their lair, finding much gold. An imaginary mounted paladin came by and made reference to his many feats. "Are you from the future?" asked Illuminar...

"Take that, foul villain!"

Behold... the Ocarina of Time!

2008-07-27T08:07:00.000-07:00

"The Bepoisoned Orphans!"

2008-07-20T07:18:00.000-07:00

When the crew of The British Tar visited Sister Mary Albright's orphanage, they encountered a sorry sight: dozens of bepoisoned orphans. Who could cause such menace?

Before they had a chance to do anything but roll for initiative, they were attacked -- by ninjas most foul! Ninja upon ninja attacked our group of shipping merchants/light pirates, confusing them with their ninjacrobatic attacks, smoke bombs, and shrieks of "Banzai!"

The ninjas attack!!!

Confounding the problem was when bepoisoned orphans ran into the combat, but Ras T. Farr discovered they could be easily jumped over. The ninjas, led by a level 4 "Boss Ninja" named Daimyo, were eventually vanquished, but not before one delivered a near-killing blow to Sid Vicious ("Yarr! I hurt meself worse shavin' every mornin'!").

Sid Vicious, "Oi! Oi!"

The group discovered a note on Daimyo that revealed the source behind the orphan poisonage: the environmentally unsound training practices of Sid's arch-enemy, the Double-handed Mongolian, had contaminated the orphans' well. Treachery MOST foul!!!!

Ras T. Farr, ending sentences with "mon" since 1756

After Ras T. Farr bought a parrot, the buccaneers raced to the port to depart for Barbados, to deliver coffee beans to the merchant prince Chartreusebeard, and encountered along the way the Most Sir High Lord Peter James Bond, Ras T. Farr's childhood bully, who mocked the crew for the meagerness of their ship. Count Morgan insulted him back, and caught the eye of Mabel, his cousin, who gave him her monogrammed 'kerchief.

Count Morgan, in search of his family's Ocarina of Time

After a few meaningless rolls on a non-existent random encounter table, the ship arrived in Barbados. The party sold Chartreusebeard the coffee and learned from him that Black Velma, the sea witch, was living nearby on Prickly Pear Island. C-beard gave them a compass to find her and a bejeweled conch-shell. He also gave them the warning that she was held captive by some fiend they must slay!

Scallywag, a realistic role-model for all the girls out there

Ignoring the rumor they'd heard that the Sea Witch had a new boyfriend, the party landed on her island, snuck up to her cave, and shot an unsuspecting centipede creature in the back. Then a mighty battle ensued with the centipede's brothers and father, an enormous monster with a Tougness save of +11 named George Cauldron. After slaughtering the monsters, they learned that they were - in fact - the Sea Witch's husband and children, and that C-beard was a jealous ex-boyfriend. However, the gift of the bejeweled conch shell helped the Sea Witch forgive and forget, and she gave them an indigo-based recipe to cure the orphans.

Black Velma, the Sea Witch, and George Cauldron

Escape to the Milf Woods

2008-06-25T07:16:00.000-07:00

Where we left off...

Most of your characters made it out of the prison alive, but
Blacktooth the Kobold and Gorbag the Cutthroat were left behind.

Most of you will quickly learn that Gorbag was chewed apart by dogs.
Meanwhile Bynum, one of your party's Clerics, stayed behind to try and
help the undserving Gorbag, and so was severly injured in the escape,
though he is in fact above ground with the group now.

Meanwhile the surviving party members (who are together now) have
decided to make a mad dash for some rocks in the distance, to hide and
to try and get some shade. All of you feel the blistering sun
scorching your skin as you jog across the lunar plain. It is a one
mile run to make it to the rocks, and it is as if you are running
across Death Valley. Your companions are faring poorly. All characters
will suffer 1 hp of damage for each half-mile run in the daylight.

One, and only one, character will notice that Guy's Cleric (Bynum) has
dropped unconcious from sun stroke, and he will not make it to the
rocks unassisted. Helping Bynum will undoubtly mean more damage
sustained from the sun for the assisting character. The character who
notices Bynum is "Sticky Vicky". What does she do?

Bone In The Nose Savage

2008-05-11T17:49:00.000-07:00

"On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being a noble, and 1 being a naked, bone-in-the-nose savage, we kill everything 8 and below."

May Day! May Day!

2008-05-01T19:23:00.000-07:00

So the long and short of it was this:

Bronx, Granny, and Sven are exploring the caves. They come upon an opening where there is a group of maybe a dozen savage warriors. Sven suggests that Granny fly over them to distract them. Whilst the savages are chasing granny, Bronx and Sven can loot the room of their precious stones. (Bronx drools: "Oh the stones...")

Granny does so. She flies over the savages' heads and out of an exit on the other side of the cave, finding a passageway that runs east-west. She windwalks down the corridor, chased by savages, only to find a dead end -- Granny is trapped! So she spends a conviction point to empower her wind and creates a gale force that the savages cannot walk against. They are pinned.

Sven, Granny, and a pile of bodies

Bronx and Sven take advantage of the situation to charge the savages at the end of the line. Bronx puts them to sleep and Sven "slottras" them. Granny begins attacking those at the front of the line with her longspear. They have no reach weapons to use and ranged weapons prove futile. Some of the savages realize the situation is hopeless and run off, but all told the party killed about 10 savages and grabbed a pile of loot.

The party paused to lick its wounds and rest, but we heard drum beats. The savages were unleashed! Escape was our only option. So we fled, but two giant caterpillars attacked us on the way out, almost killing Granny and Sven.

It was a good battle, but the decision to flee was a wise one. Where are our friends? Where will we go next?

Fighting the Savages and their Savage Gorilla

2008-04-24T15:37:00.000-07:00

While the party was exploring the cave of savage horrors, looking for innocent natives to slaughter for some reason that we haven’t yet determined, they heard a group of three coming toward us. Granny flew over them to distract them while Sven crept up and “surprise attacked” one. Mongo Von Mongosen slew the second, and the third ran away. The party chased him into the darkness, running at breakneck speed. Sven ran so heedlessly that he almost slammed into a wall. The corridor had hit a “T”, and so we turned to follow the sound of the savage, happening upon him and 10 of his tribesmen. We set upon them with a fury this world has never witnessed. Mongo and Mountain Woman cleaved into savages left and right.

One of the savages raced to the far corner of the room, to a cage with a gorilla-creature in it. Bronx successfully put the gorilla to sleep with his magic. The trainer ran into the cage to wake the beast up, and Sven closed and locked the door behind him.

The savage gorilla, attacking Mongo von Mongosen, ably played by William Shatner.

The trainer began hacking and slashing at the cage gates to create an opening for himself and the gorilla, now awake, but we overwhelmed them with our strength of arms, and collected

40 stones

2 gems (worth 1,200 silver total)

The group continued exploring and found a room full of fungus, which turned out to be acid. Granny flew over the acid to retrieve three gems (worth 1,500 silver total) from the center of the room.

The Big Battle Where Everybody Died (finally)

2008-04-03T08:32:00.000-07:00

After having defeated the Ettins, the dragon and its rider (a druid) swooped in. The druid cast obscuring mist, and the dragon destroyed half of the wooden walkway that were were on, plunging Django, Hordis, and Fraenir into the water and leaving Rin and Daresh disconnected and covered in fog. After a round or two, Hordis and Fraenir made it out of the water and Daresh and Rin jumped in, trying to get to the main building.

Then the dragon swept in for an attack. Breath weapon, 40 points of damage. Some made the saving throw, others didn't. Daresh was now out of range of Fraenir's protective aura and took the full 40 points of damage it was the end of her. Django took 30 (no save, 10 resistance) and Rin was seriously hurt as well for 20. Sir Ector headed to the roof of the building, as did Hordis, to try to get ranged attacks and spells off on the dragon. Django and Fraenir licked their wounds and Rin pulled himself out of the water.

Meanwhile, between various attacks (Rin, Hordis, Fraenir, Sir Ector) against the druid, we managed to kill him. Then, the dragon snatched Rin up and begin to fly above. Django cast grease on Rin, hoping the dragon would drop him at a safe low altitude, but alas the dragon's claws dug in. Fraenir went on the offensive, attacking the dragon pathetically with his morningstar, his acid no use against it. Next thing we know, the dragon has dropped Rin from 100 feet onto Hordis.

Rin took 50ish points of damage and splatted, while Hordis only suffered 30ish. Then, we all retreated indoors. After finding the empty case that used to contain the phylactery of a powerful lich that the Red Hand is using as blackmail, the dragon began crumbling the foundation of the building from below. Django, Hordis and Sir Ector got into the bags of holding, with the group intent on escaping on Fraenir's wings. Fraenir left the building, the dragon still unaware, picked up the body of Rin and put it into a bag of holding and began to fly into the air.

Looking at the distance to shore, and knowing that he flies MUCH slower than the dragon, he realized the futility of trying to fly away. He circled up into the air, waiting for the dragon to emerge, then he dropped the swan boat on him from 70 feet above, doing 15d6 points of damage. It didn't kill the beast and he and Fraenir began an aerial battle with Fraenir taking the worst of it. When all hope seemed lost, he realeased Hordis from the bag, who while falling to the lake below, assaulted the dragon with 2 scorching rays, nearly killing him.

Fraenir made a valiant attempt to finish the dragon off, but took the mortal blow and fell to the water, with Django and Sir Ector's bags attached to his belt. Hordis then managed to assault the dragon a final time with 2 more scorching rays and slew the beast. After several really horrible swim checks, he managed to make it to the surface and find Fraenir's body floating there, which
is how we left things off.

Return to ... the Red Hand of Doom

2008-03-28T14:27:00.000-07:00

When last we met our adventurers, there was some doubt as to their safety, especially in that several of them were dead, two were missing, and one was lying in the middle of a lizardfolk-infested lake with no more spells.

As chance would have it, Hordis and Django -- the "bard in the bag" -- survived. Sir Ector had died but "was sent back" as a dragonborn paladin.

Moreover, the party was joined my the mysterious gnome Skoyer Skallengard, whose motivations were obscured under a veil of secrecy and a veneer of mysticism, and the dangerous former-horde member Skankgar, who had been released from house arrest by the elves to complete her sentence performing community service.

Thanks to some amazingly good rolls from Django, whose bardic knowledge is encyclopedic, and Hordis, whose investigation skills are indefatigable, realized that the party must follow the path of history to the Thornlands, where their they can confront the evil lich king with his phylactery.

If the Red Hand of Doom were able to sway the lich king to their side, all would be lost. Sir Ector made an stellar diplomacy check to convince the elves that they should carry the party by giant owl to the borders of the Thornlands. The party was on a roll!

Then disaster! A bullette arose from the ground and attacked. All the spellcasters were dropped to the ground, Skoyer was gored, it appeared that the party would become this creatures dinner.
Thinking quickly, Django cast haste. Hordis cast shocking grasp. Skoyer cast ray of dizziness. Sir Ector and Hrothgar made a few token attacks.

...

Then Skankgar did 98 points of damage in one round with her mighty scythe.

The monster dead, the party continued on to the mysterious, ghost-infested shrine to some lost, fell lion god. No dout this would be their greatest challenge ever...

Who is Skøyer Skallengard?

2008-03-27T10:48:00.000-07:00

Who is Skøyer Skallengard?

The answer to this question seems to elude
those who ask it. Little is known about the gnome more commonly known
as Skøyer the Surrepititious.
Petty con artist?
Mastermind thief?
Clandestine operative of an unknown power?
Or is he the guy behind the guy behind the guy? Rumors abound.

Who is Skøyer Skallengard?

Most of the information that is known comes from the wildly varying
accounts of those who have claimed to have adventured with him.
Physical descriptions are all over the map, leading many to believe
he's a myth, but reinforcing the belief of others that he frequently
travels in disguise - and often supplements those disguises using
magic.

Who is Skøyer Skallengard?

Adventuring parties tell of rarely seeing Skøyer, but seeing
his effect on the battlefield and the enemy: impenetrable fog,
dazzling light shows, ghostly warriors, dazed and confused monsters,
and sleeping guards, they all knew that he was present. None of these
adventuring parties ever seem to have gotten any insight into WHY
Skøyer chose to adventure with them, or what he stood to gain.

Who is Skøyer Skallengard?

They all do relate, however, that once he seemed to have reached his goal,
whether it was a particular treasure or even just a seemingly
nonsensical piece of information, he disappeared from their ranks,
never to be seen again.

http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=9d9672473a&realattid=f_feaqozig0&attid=0.1&disp=vah&view=att&th=118f02d5717b8be1

2/21/2008 -- By Death Knights beseiged!

2008-03-10T09:54:00.000-07:00

Our heroes emerged from the spiders' lair into a dried out underground lakebed. There appeared to be a giant hole, through which the so Cameron and Toobelain raced out to investigate.

Instantly we were besieged by skeletons. Toobelcain and Cameron charged the undead. Fingar threw a tangelfoot bag. Don Pacheco rolled a 1. The battle looked grim ... and then Chloroxina wiped them out with one turning check. Luckily she was not, "An Easter and Christmas cleric," as Hugo joked.

After we crossed the lakebed and dropped into the hole, we found a small alcove leading into a tunnel full of statues. Naturally, we were attacked by more skeletal undead, including several death knights. They were highly resistant to turning and our mere mortal blows...until Chloroxina nailed them with a Nat 20 turning check. (We were again reminded of Devina's axiom "Who needs to know the rules when you roll 20s?")

Don Pacheco and Toobelcain searched a wall at the end of the alcove and discovered a glyph of warding, luckily managing to disable it. It led into another section of tunnel, where we fought ghouls. They were overwhelming us with their paralytic attacks...and Chloroxina got another Nat 20 turning check to stop a lot of them. Fingar got the killing shot on the last one.

In the next section of the tunnel, we fought shadows, who robbed the mighty Hugo of much of his strength (though none of his courage). Chloroxina came to again save the day with a turning attempt? and rolled a Nat 1. Failure! The battle was tense, as the shadows were incorporeal. But we managed to beat them back. Fingar cast shocking grasp. Toobelcain, Hugo, and the Don dogpiled on one shadow...and Fingar got the killing blow with a magic missile.

In the last section of the tunnel, we found two large shadows. Don blasted one with a firebolt, and Cameron laid out a super-karate-death-punch. After we finished the last one, a mummy appeared, paralyzed Toobelcain, and manhandled the rest of the party. It took everything we had to stop him. How could we survive the next encounter...? (Guy's voice: "Bwa ha ha ha!")

Farewell, Dungeon Master

2008-03-04T14:20:00.001-08:00

I literally teared up when I read this.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/03/04/obit.gygax.ap/index.html

My favorite bit is:

"The quintessential geek pastime, it spawned a wealth of copycat games and later inspired a whole genre of computer games that's still growing in popularity."

Death: the failed save from whence no gamer ere returns.

The Winds of Change ...

2008-01-18T06:44:00.000-08:00

The evening started, as some do – and probably should – with all of us taking a little extra time to eat our dinners and warm up the gaming table over the first 40 minutes of “Snakes on a Plane.” During the naughty scene, Dan piped up, “This is what D and D should have been a long time ago!” also adding that he “loved it when Jared works blue” (whatever that means).

Picking up where we left off last week, Sven explored the ice cave stealthily. Greymane yelled out at him, “Are you OK?!?!?” which of course ruined the stealthiness. Luckily no savages heard him. Greymane insisted Sven explore the nearby river of ice-cold water, to which our pig farmer replied, “What does it benefit a Viking if he gains a river but loses his head?”

(Sven Slotra)

Leading up from the river was a sheet of ice. Granny Weatherwax windwalked up to the top of the ice and saw a plateau from which two corridors lead away. There was nowhere to tie a rope so the others could climb up. Granny would have to make a Strength check to cram a spear in the ice to tie the rope to. Everyone was worried if the old crone had the might. What should the roll be? Nat 20.

The rest of the party scrambled up, Mountain Woman feeling perfectly at home with such scrambling. Sven skulked down one of the corridors, with Greymane in his mind telepathically to maintain communication. Sven saw heard a group of savages fighting in a distant room. It sounded as though there had been a quarrel, so we hoped the surviving savages would be easier to handle.

The group hatched a brilliant scheme to dispatch the savages. Sven rushed in and killed one of their dogs. Thus catching their attention, he then ran back down the corridor, with them in hot pursuit, and ducked in an alcove. Mountain Woman grabbed onto the spear in the ice, acting as a decoy, so the savages and dogs would charge her. Once they were in position, Granny unleashed her wind powers, rolled a Nat 20, and spent a Conviction point to boost the power so that she produced gale-force winds.

The winds pushed most of the savages and dogs off the icy cliff. The rest were easily dispatched. All told, Mountain Woman rolled four Nat 20s the whole night. “Who needs to read books when you roll 20s?” Devina challenged.

Sven hollered, “Not in all my primitive days have I seen such a gale! Granny, when will you stop this cursed wind?” which was, of course, responded to with Granny’s maniacal cackling.

Greymane put one of the savages to sleep with his mental powers. As the savage then, powerless, flew off the cliff to his doom, Greymane did not have time to break mental contact with his victim before he died, which dazed the shaman. It also become a kind of drug to him. Greymane made mental contact with the last remaining survivors before shoving them off the cliff as well so he could re-experience the psychotropic high of experiencing someone die.

(Greymane the Wanderer)

Two of the savages escaped, though, and returned with five more of their kin. The wind spell had elapsed, and Sven was standing at the mouth of a cavern with his spear set to receive a charge, anxious for back-up from Luntnursun and Mongo…

Invasion of the Vikings!

2008-01-11T21:28:00.000-08:00

Following the savage attack on the pig farm, our heroes interrogated the surviving barbarian invader and decided to follow his trail back to his lair. They explored up the stream, crossed over into a dank, dark cave, and Svin Slatra boldly decided to explore in the dark. He sensed a pig-like creature sidle up to him, and decided to offer him a piece of pork jerky. But twas no pig! Rather twas a wolf who wanted no pork jerky, but to take a bite of Svin himself!

Soon a pack of three wolves was upon the party. Quickly they were dispatched, but they proved to be but the tip of a very dangerous iceberg, lurking in the metaphorical waters of this savage frontier.

We continued through the cave, with Mongo the mountain man dutifully mapping for us, until we came to a pond. The record shows that the DM clearly made a serpentine gesture to indicate a creature swimming through the water. Granny Weatherwax summoned the power of the four winds to blast the water and reveal what lied beneath: a wolverine! It attacked, as did its mate from a lateral attack, but the powers of warriors like Mountain Woman and Lumskur Two-axen were too much.

Granny windwalked over the pond to investigate, but we followed a different path, past a dangerous chasm that Mountain Woman got stuck in twice. We happened upon a family of the six savages. Guy slew two with a cleaving blow, and the rest of the party quickly dispatched the others. After pausing to rest, Svin called us, "mewling babies" and insisted he had "never seen such wetnursing." Granny continued to float, as is her way.

More savages surprised us as we continued to search. Svin scored a critical and killed one stone dead. Lunskur (finally!) scored a hit with both axes at once. Even Granny eventually swung at one.

The night ended with us staring at a cluster of mysterious icicles...

At one point, Guy noted that this was not a campaign where we were going to look a lot of stuff up. At another, Dan assumed that Granny's initiative score was 16 -- and then Jared rolled a 14 +2 = 16! Gasp. Truly this was a night the skalds would remember. Rolling three critical hits, Devina seemed overconfident, and Guy reminded her, "This is first level: we all suck." Frequent references were made throughout the night to some mythic figure named "Star Owl."

But truly the night belonged to...

The Brutal Battle for the Bell Tower

2007-11-11T15:48:00.000-08:00

The foul legions of the Red Hand of Doom are on the march…few though we may be, we must thrust ourselves valiantly into the gaping maw of the enemy and eviscerate them….

Sir Ector’s Journal Entry Rhest Bell Tower

The dust had just settled from the encounter with Korkulan the Hobgoblin Bladebearer… the party was licking its wounds…Rin was groggily rising to his feet…when the lizardmen struck again. Silently they rose from the murky water in the base of the Bell Tower and launched a volley of poisoned darts at us. With a soft whimper, fair Daresh swooned…falling into gallant Sir Ector’s outstretched arms. Rin whirled and before any could react he put three arrows into three lizardmen…dead…dead…dead! Then we heard them…all around us…swimming in…moving to the walls…climbing up the walls…hordes of lizardmen! Quickly stuffing Daresh into Rin’s Handy Haversack, we dashed to meet the incoming threat.

Django and Sir Ector took up blocking positions on the second floor landing of the interior staircase. Vowing to let none pass—let them come…let them try…ha ha ha! Meanwhile Fraenir, Rin and Hortis made for the rooftop to rain death down upon the lizard hordes. Despite the din of the attack, Rin overheard the arcane whispers of some invisible spellcaster and quickly alerted the group to disperse. We made for each side wall, launching arrows and acid down onto the lizard men below. Then…much to our dismay…the lizardmen began to swiftly climb up the very sides of the Bell Tower…”Lizardmen can’t climb walls we cried incredulously”…These can”, came that weird disembodied voice! Rin rained arrows…Fraenir swooped around the outside of the building and spit acid…and Hortis speared the approaching lizardmen. Deep in the bowels of the building we heard the bellow of Sir Ector’s Kiai Shout which put fear into the hearts of the enemy. As the lizardmen’s main attck neared the rooftop, Django joined us to repel boarders…casting Dispel Magic to hinder their foul advance.

Suddenly, Fraenir was confronted by the shimmering shape of a lizard man emerging from invisibility. Shouting incomprehensibly, the lizardman fired a wand of lightening, shocking our mighty Fraenir. On the rooftop, Rin and Django rained death on the horde of lizardmen as the clambered over the edge of the rooftop. Hortis beautifully angled a fireball and whipped clean an entire flank! But there foul numbers were simply too much…despite our meeting out of death with every blow…the hordes were soon upon us. Hortis, flush with victory, slapped a lizardman across the face with his gauntlet….”Ha ha ha…I laugh at you” he said in his best imitation French accent! Meanwhile, Rin side stepped to fire three more arrows with deadly accuracy. But the lizardmen had an evil plan up their sleeves (do lizardmen have sleeves????). They bull rushed all of us…trying to push us into the gaping opening in the center of the Bell Tower and into the murky waters below. Only the quick thinking Django was able to thwart their plan, fooling the attack with a well timed Mirror Image—which caused his attackers to go flying over the edge with naught in their hands. Rin and Hortis, however, were overwhelmed and pushed over the edge in a swarm of lizardmen.

Our combined defense was now broken up into three solo battles throughout the Bell Tower and the underwater struggle of Hortis and Rin below. On the steps inside, Sir Ector waged a mighty battle against a host of lizardmen. Happy in heat of battle…and humming traditional dwarven war hymns as he worked…Sir Ector slew lizard after lizard. He even goaded them as he swung his mighty axe…”Come you foul beasts…show me what you’ve got!!” Fraenir meanwhile waged a mano on lizard battle with the spellcaster on the dock below…unfortunately, Fraenir couldn’t score a hit to save his life…and he kept getting fried by the lizardman’s lightening bolts as he used up our treasure! Frustrated though he was, he did manage to occupy the spellcaster throughout the battle and keep him out of the greater fight. Alone on the rooftop, Django continued to confound the lizard hordes…tumbling back and forth through them while dealing blow after blow...his Dancing Sword a swirling shimmer of death!

Hortis and Rin were in a race against time as they swirled in the waters below…avoiding lizardmen and other underwater obstacles. Hortis managed to quickly pull himself free and climb atop the landing with Sir Ector. Rin, though he avoided the lizardmen, was slowed and lost precious seconds trying to get free…rather then risk being captured, he cast Speed Swim and vaulted free! By this time, we were clearly gaining the upper hand…Fraenir scored a massive hit on the spellcaster…breaking through his magical shield. Django dealt death blow after death blow...laughing as the lizardmen tried to cut him bad! Ha ha ha ha ha…I have damage reduction…you can’t hurt me!!!!!! Hortis leapt into the midst of the remaining lizardmen in a seeming suicidal act…only to cast Fire Burst and immolate the lot of them.

Finally, we were down to the spellcaster locked in battle with Fraenir. Knowing he was likely to flee, Fraenir leapt on him and grappled…holding him in place. Rin…stepping through the opening…saw his opportunity and fired…critical hit!!!! The spellcaster fell limp in Fraenir’s arms.. his life ebbing swiftly as he realized he would never live to see the victory of the Red Hand fo Doom….

Jessica: home-made d6

2007-11-05T10:09:00.000-08:00

This is my niece Jessica, who made a d6 out of a radish.

Fraenir - how to play him

2007-11-03T21:59:00.000-07:00

Paul sent me this in an email one week where he couldn't come to give some tactics on your and my favorite Dragon Shaman. Here it is should we need it again later.

Jared,

I think it should be mostly self-explanatory, but here are a couple of
things:

1) Hit points: I have a blank sheet of paper in the stack of pages of
his character sheet that should have his current hit points.  I think
its around 1/2, since I had been using my aura to fast heal.

2) Breath weapon: every 1d4 rounds, its 3d6, with a DC of 18, I think
(on the sheet)  I can also cut the damage in half and entangle people.
Its a feat called "entangling exhalation" and it might be in races of
the dragon

3) Flying: I can only fly Con bonus rounds at a time, but I can glide
in between (20 feet forward for every 5 feet down) so I can be up for
a long time.  I can also do a dive attack while flying and get 2x
damage (it works like a charge, otherwise)

4) Healing. I haven't used my healing touch yet.  Its 2xdragon shaman
levelxCHA bonus points per day, distributed however.  With the cloak
of charisma I got from Django, its up to 2x6x3=36 points of instant
healing.

5) Auras: the most useful tonight would probably either be the DR
2/magic (especially against snipers) or the Acid resistance 10 (useful
against the razorfiends or if we fight a black or green dragon)

6) Morningstar: I get up to CON bonus acid surges per day that do an
additional 2d6.  Obviously may not make sense against dragons or
razorfiends.  I haven't used any of them yet.

-Paul

11/01/07 - A world of darkness and short sword-edness

2007-11-01T20:01:00.000-07:00

In a world of darkness and short-sword-edness, one hobgoblin was going to show the Blue Hand Group, I mean, the Copper Tones, the meaning of terror. His name? Karkulan. His weapons? Two short swords. His target? The Copper Tones. His goals? Unsuccessful!

Our story begins with Sir Ector (the Magnificent) and Rincarvornon rowing madly through the lake to catch up with their friends at the tower. Three lizardmen fired darts at Rin, felling him instantly with a plot-paralysis that even his elven resistance could not block. Sir Ector scared them away with two kiai shouts. Once Sir Ector made it to the tower, he hurled Rincarvornon over his shoulder and proclaimed, “Never fear, my small-bottomed, elven companion! Dwarves make light of burdens.”

In the meantime, Django and Fraenir – with an invisibility spell’s cloak to hide them from their enemies piercing eyes – went to investigate the bell tower in the center of the lake. It was guarded by two ferocious ettins. Their armor was thick and their shields were broad. They have many javelins to hurl at our copper-hued heroes. While exploring, Dan rolled a 6 on a Spot check and – quite brazenly – claimed it as a cocked dice. When he re-rolled? A 1. I think we all learned an important lesson that day.

However, our two spellcasters – who usually make light work of massive numbers of foes – were in the fight for their lives against the vicious Karkulan, a two short sword-wielding hobgoblin under a flight spell. He hacked and slashed at Hordis, under a levitate spell, dropping him to -10 hit points. Hordis, a noble figure, hung there suspended in the air under the levitate spell’s influence, unable to drop, his blood floating like from those Klingons in “Star Trek VI” when the gravity goes out. A terrified Daresh ran down the tower stairs to avoid becoming Karkulan’s next victim.

But Sir Ector – who had contributed precious little to this portion of the campaign – moved into fully inspiring, marshal mode and uttered some words of encouragement that boosted Hordis’s endurance by 3 hit points. The warmage was spared a dusty death at a hobgoblin’s hands. “The blood of 1,000 hobgoblins is on my boots, Karkulan!” Ector said. “I aim to make it 1,001 today!”

Incensed, Karkulan flew into Sir Ector. After a might exchange of blows, Karkulan struck the dwarf with two critical hits in the same round. 45 points of damage! The two short swords penetrated up under Sir Ector’s armor and bit into his corpulent flesh. “Your blood will flow like a flountain, dwarf,” Karkulan sneered, and spat in Sir Ector’s face. Sir Ector, with only six hit points, responded with a mighty blow --- that utterly missed.

Rincarvornon lay there helplessly, paralyzed…playing dead his only defense. If Sir Ector fell, there would be none to save the elf.

But then(!) appearing as a flash of arcane might and stunning southern-continental Asiatic beauty, Daresh emerged from the first floor of the tower and blasted Karkulan with a scorching ray. With the extra +1 from her Point Blank Shot just barely enabling her to strike Karkulan’s touch AC, she destroyed him – saving Ector, Rin, and Hordis. Truly, Daresh was the hero of the day. (Of course, if Mark gave all of us magic items worth 180,000 GP, we’d probably be doing OK too. I’m just saying.)

However, our heroes’ respite was a brief one. Twenty lizard-folk emerged from the water and surrounded the weakened warriors. Even though Django appeared and administered some emergency healing, Ector, Hordis, and Daresh had about 15 hit points between the three of them.

The lizardfolk were led by a mighty, plate-mail garbed warrior – whom a cunning Hordis instantly deciphered as an illusion, indicating that some fell spellcaster gives aid to our enemies. It appeared that the hammer would strike hard at our heroes when Fraenir screamed through the air like a flash of invisible, copper-hued lightning to heal Ector back to max hit points just in time.

The lizards moved to attack! Hordis wiped out half of them with a fireball. Daresh brought the other half to within an inch of death with another. Some quick sword play (including two virtually wasted natural 20s in a row from Ector) dispatched them quickly.

But hark! In the distance, Fraenir sensed the approach of greenspawn razorfiends! And 40 more lizardfolk! And a black dragon!

The Copper Tones withdrew into the tower, hoping that this would not be their last stand and that they might yet escape and save the lands from the Red Hand of Doom. Luckily, they had earned enough exThe Copper Tones withdrew into the tower, hoping that this would not be their last stand and that they might yet escape and save the lands from the Red Hand of Doom. Luckily, they had earned enough experience to level up. Would that be enough power to withstand the coming assault?

Surely. Their enemies will crash upon them like water on rock.

Into the Belly of the Beast

2007-10-20T18:14:00.000-07:00

In crossing salt marshes, your sole concern should be to get over them quickly, without any delay. If forced to fight in a salt-marsh, you should have water and grass near you, and get your back to a clump of trees. –Sun Tzu

Our party paused briefly after our short but violent encounter with the lizard men…would the alarm be raised…would we be exposed…tensely we floated in our canoes. But the bussing of insects and the dripping blood of lizard men was all we heard…our battle appeared to have gone unnoticed throughout the vast lake and its environs. We scanned the area with our spyglass…in the scattered lizard men encampments they appeared to be going about their business…in the large canted Bell Tower we could see the still forms of hobgoblin sentries. We held a short (ok…maybe too short) war council to determine our next steps…Django and Hortis—advocates of the sublime—wanted to fireball everything and go in shooting…Rin argued for waiting til nightfall and then sneaking in under cover of darkness…Fraenir split the difference and offered to fly in to conduct reconnaissance from above with the assistance of two potions of invisibility…and so, while the rest of the party sidled up to some low ruins, Fraenir disappeared and launched off on his mission.

His flight took him past the faded glory of Rhest…glorious statues of past heroes…now crusted with age and neglect. The former Bell Tower…slowly sinking into the muck was now canted at a wild angle. Clearly this was one of our enemy’s key sites—they had built a pier all around the outside at water level and had a few skiffs tied up. Swinging up and over the tower he had a perfect view of the hobgoblin sentries…four of them…one at each quadrant. They appeared to be more than your average hobgoblin, and well armed with composite longbows and more arrows than you could ever want. The old bell was still there, but appeared to be no longer functional (righttttttt). As he circled over head, he was also able to spy on the other large structure in the lake…this one too showed the faded glory of old Rhest…the pillars…the statues…the stonework that would make a dwarf weep…beauty that would make an elf long for the woodlands…grandeur that make a human think of vast treasure! This building too had a pier at waters edge…some long low structure attached…and other signs of habitation.

Fraenir…decided he had the opportunity to take out the sentries with a coup de grace…thereby ensuring our stealthy entry into the heart of Rhest. He landed on the edge of the Bell Tower and lined himself up with two of the sentries…breathing his acid weapon, he seared the flesh off their faces...but unfortunately, they did not die instantly…nor did they panic. Springing into action, the hobgoblins moved to defend themselves…except for one who ran to the old bell and began whacking it with his sword…bong…bong…bong… bong… bong…the strident sounds carried off across the otherwise quiet lake…so much for stealth (ah well…the best laid plans of mice and men—and dwarves, elves and dragon shamen). The battle high atop the Bell Tower turned into a hide and seek between Fraenir and the hobgoblins…they peeking over the sides and firing arrows…Fraenir hopping from wall to wall and popping up to breath acid…

Meanwhile, the rest of the party…equally startled by the toning of the bell…scanned the lake. Everywhere, we saw signs of the lizard men responding to the alarm…all appeared to be moving towards the largest building in the lake….some by boat…others by swimming. Clearly they were carrying out some pre-established strategy triggered by the alert. Obviously this larger building was the main focus of the enemy—the Bell Tower was simply an outpost. With the enemy clearly focused on the other structure, we opted to make our way to the Bell Tower to join the fight. Modifying our strategy enroute, we figured if we could take the Tower and then let things settle down, we could launch our attack on the main target from there. Rin, for one, did not want to be fighting lizard men from a boat in the water…a sentiment echoed by the stalwart but clearly not buoyant Sir Ector…and so we set off rowing…and rowing…and rowing…and rowing…(omg…how long does it take to get their!!!???)…

Back at the Bell Tower, the battle raged…arrows taking on acid in a major smack down…hobgoblins began to fall...their flesh eaten away…eyeballs dangling…Freanir too was taking damage...there were simply too many arrows to dodge. Mean while, we rowed…and rowed… and rowed… and rowed… and rowed… and rowed… and rowed… and rowed. Finally, Django got fed up with the slow pace of the canoe and decided to fly into the battle using his scroll. By luck of the draw, Daresh and Hortis were with him in his canoe…and so they got free rides as well…fortunately, there was no one around to hear the collective dwarven and elven expletives that streamed from Rin and Sir Ector as they realized that they were being consigned to a long, arduous paddle across the vast lake...in elven, even the expletives…thes…kyr pas air… mor thes kyda…seemed to spring from Rin’s lips like a gentle song as compared to the more deep toned bass of Sir Ector’s comments…nikh… shtath nikh pel kasht… ghac dar a dholec aruul'daan…if this were Ebberon, we could harness a fire elemental and really get some speed out of this bathtub!

Even in flight, the trek across the lake too some time…giving Django, Hortis and Daresh a grand view of the battle as the approached. Fraenir was locked in combat with the hobgoblins as more and more of them poured up out of the Bell Tower to the rooftop. The tide appeared to be turning in his favor, when he was stunned by the sudden appearance of a vicious hobgoblin immediately next to him…”I am Korkulan—Blade Bearer of the Red Hand of Boom—I will kill you all for daring to defy us!...Clearly this was no ordinary hobgoblin…he was well armed with two swords which he was obviously proficient with. His assault, however, was thrown off by the timely arrival of Django and his train of hangers-on. Hortis and Daresh launched fireballs at the tower. Though they were startled to see the first bend around some glyph of protection in a stunning display of magic on magic combat, they were able to tell that their powers had prevailed. The second fireball blasted through to the tower roof…taking out many of the enemy. The aerial combat raged…but the hobgoblins arrows were no match for the fireballs and magic missiles of our mages! With the newly arrived reinforcements, the hobgoblins were wiped out on the rooftop. Of Korkulan however, there was no sign…where had he gone…what was he planning…

Meanwhile, Rin and Sir Ector rowed on and on and on. Actually, it was mostly Sir Ector rowing…Rin kept getting distracted by his spyglass, watching the battle from afar and pondering his discussions with Killiar Swiftarrow about how to become an Order of the Oath Bow Initiate…ever the quick witted one, he would quickly dip his paddle into the water whenever Sir Ector turned around. And so as our evening drew to a close, our grand plan seemed to be somewhat in shambles. Clearly the lake was well alerted to our presence…the forces of the enemy were gathered at the main building…we were now largely in control of the Bell Tower (or so we think)…but with Korkulan still about—and we know he can go invisible.

Hobgoblns: http://www.mirf.ru/Articles/1/200/dd_hobgoblins.jpg

Lizardmen: http://pbem-portal.com/org/rpgrealms/ThunderCanyon/Graphics/lizardmen.gif

Fireball: http://www.slappy.net/bm/1999/man/fireball.JPG

The Assault on Rhest

2007-10-14T19:58:00.000-07:00

After a short rest with the elves of Kirin Tor, we realized we had to press on to meet the impending threat of the Red Hand of Doom. Sellyria Starsinger, Trellara Nightshadow and Killiar Arrowswift recommended that we proceed to Rhest with all haste to uncover the source of the vicious Razorfiends and whatever other evil lurked within the ruins. Our new friends, the wild elves of Kirin Tor, provided us with lots of great information on the history of Elsir Vale and the ruins of Rhest—the most disturbing of which was the revelation that the city had been flooded to kill off the last goblinoid horde that had sacked the city. As we made our preparations for the campaign, it became clear that we would not be able to bring Sir Ector’s dire boar and Daresh’s trusty steed (though the image of a dire boar merrily swimming through the fens was quite amusing). Sir Ector tearfully bade his mount farewell—only agreeing to leave him behind with assurances that he would not be the guest of honor at the next elven loau. And so our intrepid band bid a fond adieu to our companion Gade Goodberries—the smallest member of the party with the biggest balls.

In our elven war canoes, we paddled through the hot stagnate Fens…insects buzzing all around us (fortunately no bore beetles!). Stopping only to camouflage our canoes, we made all haste towards Rhest. While the stronger members of our band put their backs into the paddling, Rin scanned the way ahead with his new prized possession—the spyglass loaned to us by the elves. Ahead we spied a lizard man encampment on the edges of the great lake surrounding Rhest and some sort of figures atop the largest building in the center of the flooded Rhest. In hushed whispers, we held a quick war council to decide our course of action. “Fireball em!”, advocated Django, “Just wipe em out!”; “No, stealth is the answer”, countered Fraenir, “Let’s skirt the far side of the river, and lay in a fog bank to obscure us—that way we can get to the center unobserved”. “Bah, sneaking in never works...the DM is omniscient”, scoffed Django. We voted and opted for stealth over blasting, so we quietly paddled along the far shore…passing outpost after outpost…our camouflage working time after time. As as drew near the encampment, Daresh laid in a fog bank opposite the lizard man encampment…while it obscured us, it apparently caught the attention of the lizard men as they had never seen such an atmospheric phenomenon. We overheard the excited voices and caught the sound of some of them sliding into the water to investigate. Django created a massive alligator in the water near us to scare off any that would approach us. Unfortunately, that is where our luck ran out…suddenly, six lizard men popped up on an island in front of us...there was no way to hide.

Django instantly blasted one with his longbow, burying an arrow deep in its shoulder. Rin joined in, dropping two of them with killing shots. Sir Ector and Daresh pappered them with arrows as well but those passed harmlessly by. Hortis launched an orb of electricity, but missed and hit the water, killing scores of fish instead (ummmm…dinner). The lizard men tried to attack us, but were distracted by the alligator illusion. Another round of volleys from our band wiped them out handily. Ahh sweet victory we thought…but our elation was short lived. Suddenly, our boats were rocked from below…Sir Ector, Django and Fraenir all fell over the sides; while Rin, Hortis and Daresh managed to keep their balance and hang on. Six more lizard men had attacked us from under the water—three against each of our war canoes!

Django, fighting from the wtare, launched his dancing sword to dual with the nearest lizard man. Daresh blasted one with a magic missile…the stench of burning flesh wafting into the air. Rin looking down from the canoe, shot point plank into the face of another…taking some damage in the exchange. The tide turned swiftly, however, when Fraenir maneuvered around the end of the canoe and breathed a line of acid all down the line of lizard men…Their flesh and eyes melted away from the faces…their tendons snapping as they writhed in agony…but it was over all too soon…their skeletal faces slipping beneath the murky fens as they joined the rotting vegetation on the floor of the fens. Sir Ector eliminated the last survivor with a critical hit…swing down from above and cleaving his head in two.

As the battle drew to a close, we believed we had not drawn the attention of anyone deeper in the flooded city of Rhest. Fraenir, mumbled in lizard man…”Ummm…nothing to see here…everyone go on home…it’s all over…no need to ring the alarm bell…”. Scanning the city one last time, we were able to determine that the figures on the large building in the middle were hobgoblins…setting up the battle for the next round….

Old Friends

2007-10-06T20:38:00.000-07:00

Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.

Wouldn't you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go…

Where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see, our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows your name…

Mr. Tidbits, so wigged out by the rats that had tried to grabble him and pull him down the well to their vile lair, had run back to town to summon Ruttiger—the Rat Catcher. Vowing never to re-enter the dungeon until every rat had been exterminated, Mr. Tidbit’s refused to return with him. And so instead, he remained in town, working on some esoteric physics thing involving higher math like long division. Meanwhile, our intrepid band beat feet back to the rat room…hmmm, do we want to really do this? “Well, we’re certainly not going to throw a silver coin down the well”, said Lo Dic…so Perrier…not really paying attention, thought Lo Dic had said throw a cpoin down the well…so he did….presto, instant rats! Tons of minion rats…one big ass dire rat…Ruttiger the Rat Cather was in his element…he quickly wailed on one…spearing it through and through…then leap over the rat swarm to attack the dire rat leader. Pork Cullis blasted through one rat with his mighty battle axe, spewing rat guts and blood everywhere. Not to be outdone in the disgusting acts department, Lo Dic went Ozzie Osborne on one of the poor, innocent rodents rolled a successful grapple check…bit the poor thing’s head off…and spit it at the dire rat leader [ok…it’s a rabbit biting the head off a chicken…but you have to admit it is 1. interesting and 2. at least evocative of the act…ok, maybe it does look like something else, but only if you have a dirty mind…]. Perrier, caught up in the moment, produced a flame and waved it over his head…thinking “wow, what an awesome concert this is...what’s that smell??” Then the fight got confusing…everyone trading blows and bites…shrugging off disease…until finally we triumphed…all the vile rats were dead. And then a great cry of anguish was heard...”oh noooooooooooooooo…..I forgot to “catch any” moaned Ruttiger.

Obviously this was great evil temple in the making…rough hewn sections…the well polished room…if only we could identify the etching in work (maybe we shouldn’t have killed the undead artist before his second life was over…)…who is that figure?…seems naggingly familiar…but just can’t place it…like its hanging their right on the outer edges of our memories…teasing us. And so, we shrugged our shoulders (resigned to the fact that all would be revealed in its proper time…it always is…such is the comfort of having a DM…) and headed further down deeper into the dungeon. Our wise leader Star Owl (full name Mas Orn sar thor col ail si shaerorer bol mia eistyl si caelael …which means Star Owl that flies high in the beautiful night sky amongst the heavens) decided that we should proceed down the long passageway—which was the only path we had not yet investigated. “How does he do that” Pork Cullis marveled, “He’s so smart, I never would have thought of that…”. “Well no duh”, muttered Loe Dic to himself, “anyone could have called that one, you can see the flow of the stone work…clearly this is meant to funnel people to the lower level. Elves…always think they are so smart”. “Ouch”, thought the startled Ruttiger, “Who just hit my head with an iron frying pan??!!” Clearly the years of spousal abuse had left him traumatized.

Then we happened upon an area of completed stone work. A large iron bound door blocked our way. After fruitless searches and listening, we gave up and opened the door. Aha! An evil temple…rows of statues of Gorgotha filled the chamber. If only this were D&D and we had ranks in knowledge arcana…or religion…or local…or something. Deploying in combat formation, we quickly spread throughout the room looking for action…and there it was…a huge snake slithering down the center of the room. And then battle was on…ranged weapons peppering from afar…melee fighters wading in to trade blow for blow. Then suddenly we were faced with three other snakes that spread throughout the room. Pork Cullis lasted one…smugly stating “That’s a DC 23 for the saving throw”…”I know I don’t need to keep saying it; but it is so satisfying…”. Perrier and Star Owl fought their own battles…Perrier happily singing away as he did

“O may Thy soldiers, faithful, true and bold,

Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,

And win with them the victor’s crown of gold.

Alleluia, Alleluia!

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,

Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,

And hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong.

Alleluia, Alleluia!

Star Owl...now revealed as the mighty warrior that he was…turned his snake into a long pin cushion. Back in the major battle, things were not progressing well. Ruttiger scored a near critical hit, only to be grappled by the snake and almost staggered, stun, and disabled. Pork Cullis and Lo Dic simultaneously raised their axes…gaining additional attack bonuses using the dreaded “arm pit hair and smell attack”…and finally, the last snake was defeated. Star Owl, wanting harmony in the world, quickly healed Ruttiger. In the sudden silence of the post-battle, we gazed about the vile chamber…wondering who would have created a tribute to such a vile goddess as Gorgotha??? Failing to find any treasure in the room, we moved to the double doors at the far end…readying our actions, we swung them open…revealing the unholy alter chamber and two figures…

Slowly they turned…one, clearly a priest…though not quite right…too pale to be living (hmmm…and honestly, kind of flat)….he looked vaguely familiar, but still we couldn’t noodle it through. His apparent minion however looked very familiar…an undead bug bear zombie…”Oh yeah, just like the General…OMG!!! Look!!! It is the General…they put him back together! Then the unholy priest spoke, “You have killed my undead army!” [which then sparked a vigorous discussion between Pork Cullis and Perrier…army? That was no army…a couple of dozen zombie…a platoon maybe…really more like a squad heavy…but an army?? Come on]. “I am the favorite of Gorgotha, bow before her and Serve Meeeeeeeeeee”…OMG again….it’s Ubberoth! “Die foul blasphemer!” cried Star Owl, launching and arrow true and straight into the priest. Thinking the undead Ubberoth was the primary threat, we circled him and put the hurt on him. When we almost had him down, he suddenly launched some cyber-mind attack on Lo Dic…threatening to blew his head apart. Fortunately, a timely blow by…ummm, someone…killed the priest again. But the battle with our former friend the General was to prove no picnic. Despite being surrounded, he survived blow after blow…how can we kill this guy???!!! Where’s a hill giant when you need one???!!! Pork Cullis, swaggering in like the massive half-orc that he is, thought he was going to plaster the general…only to be plastered himself…unconscious and dying. Fortunately, Perrier (self loathing though he may be…) is a healing priest and he pulled Pork back from the edge of death. Then poor Ruttiger got blasted. Finally, Star Owl barreled into the room…torch in hand…and set the General afire. Perrier…recognizing the opportunity…cast Increase Fire and immolated the General…sheathing him in a curtain of flame…finally, between the fire and the thousands of cuts”, we brought the general to his knees…once again returning him to the peaceful death he had long sought.

What are those zombies up to?

2007-10-03T17:27:00.000-07:00

Curious, we gathered for our night of adventuring…no D&D this…d20 we would now play…we poked at our new character sheets as Paul explained the system…no stats?...we have skills…and feats…what kind of character am I?...being Americans of course, we could stand only so much introduction before we just had to say ok…enough…let’s just play and we’ll figure it out as we go along!

And so our intrepid party of adventurers met up in a random bar (déjà vu Mark noted), and eagerly set out to seek their fame and fortune. Full of piss and vinegar, we heartily strode through the country-side confident that we could best any challenge. Bolstered by the obvious strength of our band, we dared the forces of evil to attack us. Undaunted, we traveled the hills and dales ready to root out whatever scourge may darken the countryside. By the fifth day, we began to wonder if there were any scourges…”ain’t ya got a vile villain or two?...maybe a evil ogre?...a dragon, doesn’t matter if it’s a little one, a large lizard even?...surely some brigand band is out and about!...but no…all just seemed too peaceful…until, that is, we arrived in the town of XXXX (whatever its name was). There the townsfolk were apprehensive. Strange goings on they said. Bodies disappearing from the graveyard. Peoples who were supposed to be dead seen walking around at night…I swears, saw my uncle Octavian I did. He died in a tragic kiln explosion; two nights after we buried him I saw him walking through town!. “Aha”, we chorused, “deviltry afoot! Just the thing for our daring band to tackle. How much will you good townsfolk pay us to lay low these foul beasts?” And then it started, oh woe is us…we are but poor village folk…you should see my mortgage…the braces…tuition…my mother’s nursing care…blah, blah, blah. Curious, we asked them if the knew Duke; but they professed ignorance.

Quickly realizing we were wasting our time negotiating for payment, we opted to make our fortunes on treasure recouped from whatever monsters we slew. And so we hasten to the graveyard…stationing ourselves throughout the hallowed grounds. It was a full moon of course; casting a bright but eerie glow that glinted off the tombstones. Long about midnight, we heard an odd sound…clink…scrape…scuffle…clink…scrape…scuffle…a group of four figures slowly made their way into the graveyard and sought out a freshly filled grave. As they raised their shovels to dig, Mark cried out “What ho miscreants!” Surprisingly, they paid him no heed. So we attacked…[which of course generated lots of discussion as we had to be convinced that we only needed a d20…no other dice…but they all match, see!!...doesn’t matter, you only roll one die…grumble, grumble, it’s like buying all those 3.5 books and then they go put out 4.0]. And so the fight was on… bang, bash, bat, belt, bludgeon, bop, bust, clap, clobber, clout, crack, hammer, knock, paste, pound, punch, rap, slam, slap, slog, slug, smack, smite, sock, strike, swat, swipe, thump, thwack, wallop, whack, whale, zap…hmmm…this new system is interesting…you can get wasted in one blow with this whole stunning thing…and the saving throw, that increases the pucker factor just a bit. Of course the forces of good triumphed and we laid waste to the four zombies. Which of course meant that we still did not know why they were doing this…who had sent them on this foul mission…for what nefarious motive where they digging up new corpses??? Unfortunately, it was only then that we realized that perhaps it would have been a better plan to have followed them back to their lair before killing them…oh well…no problem, we’ll just track them back…ok, who has tracking as a skill…not me…not I…nope…I have no skills…hmmm, think it was the rat catcher…and he’s not here…drat!...fortunately, the zombies had been dragging their shovels and making no effort to cover their tracks, so it was determined that even us poor, untrained folk could track them back to their lair (of course this was not before Devina claimed our treasure—several articles of zombie clothes…ummmmm…stylin! [what will the villagers think of those naked zombies in the grave yard?

Of course the trail led us underground, where we heard the distant sound of pick axes on stone. Skulking slowly and quietly along, we snuck up on a scene from the depths of hell. A work party of zombies was toiling away in a room…urge on by a lizard man of some sort. Quickly sizing up the situation, we laid out a plan of attack…though Guy argued for the subtlety of the “barge in and clobber ‘em” approach, the proponents of the “turn the lizard man into a pin cushion” attack won out (only because we could fire faster). The missile approach proved interesting as our bolts and arrows not only wounded the beast, but under this new system, they stunned him and effectively took him out of the fight. Though his zombie minions turned and attacked us, they were no match for our finely honed combat powers. After making short work of them (thanks to the new “minion rule”…BTW, minions suck, don’t ever buy those!), we were poised to deliver a coup de grace on the lizard man when Mark opted to heal him instead…what did you do that for, I wanted to kill him Guy muttered. So we can question him and find out what’s going on answered Mark, clearly very impressed with his cleverness. Ok, lizard man, tell us everything or we’ll kill you all over again. Obviously fearful for his life, he readily answered…hisssssssssss…hissssssssssssss…hisssssssssssssssss…hissssssssssss…ummmm, anyone speak lizard? Nope. Chop!

This scene was repeated one more time as we ventured further into the dungeon and came across another lizard man and his zombie minions. Clearly this was the higher skilled set of zombies as they were working on the finer touches to what appeared to be a evil temple of some sort. Again, peppering the lizard man with ranged weapons we neutralized his role in the battle. Sam, though grumbling at playing a cleric, cast rage on Guy’s character [ok, so I get tired when I use magic…I need a bed roll]…only to find out that rage in d20 is nowhere near as effective as rage in 3.5. This battle yielded the highlight of the evening, as Mark failed his saving throw…nonchalant roll, casual glance at the result, eyes bug out, face recoils in horror…it’s a 1!!! DOH!!!…fortunately it was not a deadly result and he recovered. Despite our set backs, we managed to wipe out this work party as well. And then set about searching for our well earned treasure. Finding a small back room with two beds, we knew we had hit pay dirt…Devina viscously attacked the mattresses…ripping them to shreds. They always hide their treasure in the mattress she said…that’s what I do!...but to no avail…no treasure to be had…hmmmm, what about this well over here…maybe it’s down there…

Tentatively we peered down into the well…the rough hewn stone plunged as deep as we could see…consumed by the darkness…how far did it go we wondered…Devina, always willing to take a gamble…dropped a silver piece (which she noted…is equal to 10 copper pieces, or 1/10th of a gold piece). We listened as the coin pinged off the sides of the well…the sounds getting more and more muffled as it fell. Before we heard it hit bottom however, the noise was overpowered by a rising squeaking sound…whatever could that be…why do the walls of the well look like they are moving??? OMG….it’s RATS!!!!!...where’s the Rat Catcher when you need him!!!!! Thankfully, we had torches aplenty and waving them wildly over the top of the well we were able to send the rat horde scurrying back on itself…as rat turned on rat however, the scene turned ugly…unable to maintain a foothold, many of the rats fell to their deaths…their small bodies hurtling to the bottom of the well and impacting with sickening thud after sickening thud…whomp, splat, squish, gurgle, squeal,

And so our night was brought to a close…not much to show for our toils but a lot of squished rats guts and some smelly clothes…maybe we can sell our other dice on eBay…

Saving the Town

2007-09-22T13:50:00.000-07:00

“In a way, each of us has an El Guapo to face. For some, shyness might be their El Guapo. For others, a lack of education might be their El Guapo. For us, El Guapo is a big, dangerous half-orc who wants to kill us. But as sure as my name is Don Pacheco, the people of Stickwitch Hamlet can conquer their own personal El Guapo, who also happens to be the actual El Guapo!” ….Don Pacheco de Vasquez

We got to town and things looked grim. Buildings were aflame. Diego had been littered with firebolts and was frothing from some sort of plot-poison. We headed into Duke's office, which was being used as a combat hospital by the townspeople. We were informed that Duke was holding off a wave of attackers and that things were dire. Outside, a cloud of combat engulfed the streets. Anyone entering the cloud may suffer random threats from the mob of banditos. We headed out.

Duke had been holding back a wave of bandits, but was on the ground, suffering from the same plot-poison as Diego, about to be coup-de-graced by the oncoming bandits. It was up to us to save him! Into the fray! Don Pacheco led the charge, heading to the fallen body of Duke, shooting with his hand-crossbow at a nearby thug. One bandit down, a dice roll, and a free attack! on another! 2 down for the Don. Toobelcain sprang forth from the office, attacking another and the attack continued with an oversized Hugo, the aggressive Chloroxina, and Hrolf in beast form. Fingar remained behind the cloud of mayhem and lobbed magic missiles into the fray towards the bandeleros. Victory was quickly won.

With Duke saved, the party dragged him and other townsfolk back towards the safety of Duke’s offices. Then another wave of thugs arrived, awkwardly forming a shield-wall of tower shields, steadily advancing towards the party. Afraid of the damage that a fireball would have on the cloud of townsfolk and bandits, Fingar swung around behind some buildings to flank them, thinking that a lightning bolt from the side would be the end of the line of thugs. However, the rest of the party had other plans and put the attack to the wall of oncoming soldiers. One after another, banditos and bandoleros alike fell to the weapons of the party, with Hugo cleaving through two at a time and wishing desperately for Great Cleave. All the while, we were taking random attacks from the cloud of combat, when, Toobelcane rolled a 6 on the random effects table. A massive fireball crashed down on him, severely wounding the party, but also decimating the enemy front, as well. Mopping up the rest took almost no time and Fingar saved his lightning bolt.

Dragging more townsfolk to safety, a thug emerged from the bar, dragging a woman with him, challenging the party. Clearly, many bad guys lie in wait inside the tavern from which the bandit emerged, but Fingar noticed that he could see in, due to openness of the swinging doors. A small bead of flame emerged from his super-sulfur coated finger tips and suddenly flames erupted inside the tavern, the enemy (and DM) realizing their mistake for clustering so closely together with no townsfolk around. 6 kills for Fingar! Then, suddenly, some of the thugs realized that they actually had made their saves, bringing forth a power word “C’mon” from Hugo which the DM resisted with a high will save. Only 4 kills for Fingar. The few remaining thugs sprang forth, but were quickly dispatched by the party.

At this point, however, El Guapo’s cowardly brother, El Gordo appeared. He and his lieutenants had strung together many townspeople into a circular human shield. They remained inside the circle, convinced that we would not attack and harm the peaceful citizens. What he didn’t expect, however, is that Tooblecane and Don Pacheco have tumble scores of over 10 and could easily reach the inside of the circle. Or that the invisible Chloroxina would summon a Celestial Eagle to fight them from above. Or, indeed, that the wolf-shaped Hrolf could call lightning down from the cloudy skies above! Or, even less, that Hugo’s disregard for human life meant that he was willing to cleave through townspeople just to get to the center of that circle. Or that Fingar, who stands several feet taller than the wolf-shaped Hrolf, who just happened to be standing on a sidewalk 6 inches tall, could not see into the circle of people anywhere near as well as the wolf from his “high ground” and thus could not direct a flaming sphere inside…..oh wait, maybe he did figure that. Nonetheless, the party pressed on. Tooblecane tumbling back and forth to make use of his skirmish abilities, Don Pacheco using his newly improved sneak attack – with both hands! But the tide turning event was indeed the lightning from above. El Gordo, yelling out, “Don’t taze me bro!” felt one last blast from the heavens and fell to the ground, fried.

Screaming at the death of his brother, El Guapo, despite being a barbarian, somehow dropped da’ bomb on the party and circle of townsfolk with a fireball, then materialized in our midst with a few “tough guys”. Everyone in the party was hurting. Fingar was down to 1 hit point and many in the party were below 10. Tooblecane made a brave stand and pressed on with the attack. El Guapo retaliated, dropping the scout to the ground with a dire -8 hit points. Hugo pressed on the attack and the invisible Chloroxina saved the day with a well timed cure serious wounds on Tooblecane. Fingar unleashed lightning of his own, then ducked into the door of the hotel behind him to down some healing potions in relative safety.

At this point, Hrolf shouted to El Guapo:

Hrolf: Tell us we will die like dogs!

El Guapo: Eh?

Hrolf: Tell us we will die like dogs!

El Guapo: You WILL die like dogs!

Hrolf: No! We will not die like dogs!

We will fight like wolves!

Because we are…The Six amigos!

Then: irony of ironies, the same lightning that killed his brother began to rain down onto El Guapo. Hugo traded mighty blows with the bandit leader while Don Pacheco took on one of the tough guys. Chloroxina managed to keep people patched up long enough to keep fighting and, in the end, it was the mighty lightning of Hrolf that destroyed the evil Bandit.

Wherever there is injustice, you will find us. Wherever there is suffering, we'll be there.

Wherever liberty is threatened, you will find... The Six Amigos!

Quality moments of the night:

When Jared told Dan he was "really excited" about 4th edition (mainly for ironic value)
When Devina didn't heal Dan, after promising she would, and Dan called her a heal tease
When Paul told us about his Nepalese and nerdy friend
When we debated whether or not they say the "f" word in the original "Transformers" movie (which, BTW they don't http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transformers:_The_Movie#Release_and_critical_reception)
When Guy told Dan he couldn't cleave because the guy he'd hit was still at zero, so not technically killed

9/13/2007 The Long Trail Home…

2007-09-16T13:50:00.000-07:00

Clearly vile conspiracies are at work. Dark forces gathering…the town is threatened…we have learned that the militia has been waylaid in order to render the town defenseless. BY applying advanced interrogation techniques to the sole surviving brigand, we learned that El Guapo and his brother El Gordo were planning to completely lay waste to the town in the coming days. We had to speed back to town as quickly as possible to warn the town, set up their defenses and assist in the battle. Knowing that El Guapo’s spy Ned, was clearly passing along all information he could glean of our whereabouts, we decided it best to split our band so that at least one group would make it back to town should there be an ambush enroute. The fastest group—Tooblecane, Don Pacheco (riding the shape changed Hrolf)—headed directly for the valley floor; counting on speed to out run any foes. Meanwhile, Hugo, Chloroxina and Fingar opted for a stealthier approach of working along the ridge line—hoping to avoid any conflicts by staying to the more difficult higher ground.

Carefully we picked our way along the rocky path….Haawken circling above and head of us to warn of potential threats. Suddenly he spotted something…signaling a threat that even he was worried about despite his position high overhead…soon we became aware of a buzzing noise…vague at first…then louder….finally deafening…and then they were upon us! Moving lightening fast, a group of giant wasps came flying around the rocks and attacked! Hugo, sun glistening off those massive muscles, swung his mighty great sword and blasted one for 32 points…Vat? It’s not dead yet? Vat kind of vasps are dez? Stinggggggg…Hugo took damage and had to fight off the effects of the poison. Chloroxina, annoyed by all the dust their wings were raising, unleashed a bolt from her crossbow and dropped the injured wasp. We all collaborated to bring down the second…scorching ray…sword…bolts… arrows…but not before it had hit Hugo again…still our mighty warrior fought off the poison. But he was not to be so fortunate with the third wasp…though we killed that one too, Hugo suffered strength damage as the painful poison flowed through his veins. We moved further down the path…again hearing that annoying buzzing sound grow louder and louder…sneaking up, we spied the wasps’ hive…a massive earthen mound with more than 20 of the killers flying around. Hugo and Fingar were hot to attack…let’s blast em…there might be treasure…leave no monster living in our path… Chloroxina, pleaded for sanity…let’s just avoid them…go around. Hugo…awed by her wisdom, noted “Ach du leiber, du ist the voice uf reason for ous parte”… [disembodied voice….oh no, you guys are screwed….]. Skirting the threat, we treated Hugo’s wounds…apparently even going so far as to suck poison out of his wounds…[well, maybe Chloroxina did that, but Fingar swears he ain’t having none of that].

And so we ventured on…the air still and heavy…the sun beating down on us like a furnace…unknown threats for ever in our path…but of course (much to the dismay of the DM)…the ever vigilant Haawken swirled overhead and warned us of approaching danger…this time in the form of four swiftly moving figures that appeared to be tracking us. Hugo and Chloroxina quickly hid behind some rocky outcroppings while Fingar climbed a rock spire and went invisible. He watched in amusement as four hobgoblin monks moved stealthily along the path… hmmm… just how should we mess with them…how about…a celestial dog…let’s see what you do with that. Poof! The yappy Lassie appeared directly in the midst of the four monks…kawhammmm… kawhammmm… kawhammmm… kawhammmm… oops…no more doggie. “Our kung foo is great…mages are weak…come out and fight…feel the power of our scintillating snake attacks…Our Snake Temple to the west is almost complete…and then you all will be subject to our power. The Order of the Lruse Bee is all powerful!” Fingar, amused at their bombastic behavior...and just a little pissed off that they plastered his poor dog…levitated high overhead and blasted the group with a super sulfur fireball….Kung foo this you Carridine wanna-bes! Despite their awesome reflexes, one monk was completely fired and the remaining three were barely standing. “Arrrghh…mages don’t fight fair…we will get you later” they called as the turned and ran away. Unfortunately, even a hobgoblin monk can’t out run a magic missile…and another one bit the dust.

As the sun set, we found a small rock outcropping were it seemed we ought to be able to camp peacefully for the night…barely had we settled down, when two huge dark shapes began moving towards us in the dark. Fingar, standing guard, went for max fire power and blasted one of what ever they were with a lightening blot. In the flash of light, we were able to make out two owl bears moving to attack us. Hugo and Chloroxina groggily roused from their slumber…smelling the electricity in the air, Chloroxina wondered “Are you making silver dollar pancakes?”…”What…pancakes…no…we’re under attack…quick do something”. Chloroxina quickly threw the owl bear attack into confusing by casting obscuring mist over us…causing them to hesitate as we prepared our defense. Hugo…not having time to don his armor [do you realize how long it takes to put on breast plate…omg!]…prepared to go into combat mano e mano when he was shocked to feel Fingar cast mage armor on him. The massive Hugo was taken aback…“Vat? Du ist givink me ur mage armor…dis selflessness is so touchink…” Fingar laughed…“What? Selflessness? Get ur ass between me and those owl bears and do it fast!” Magically armored up with shield of faith….Hugo and Chloroxina attacked….Hugo cleaving through one (body parts everywhere) and into the other. Chloroxina weighed in with her heavy mace, plastering the injured beast and beating its carcass into the ground.

Tired we once again tried to settle down for some sleep….but the evil DM would not let it be so. A swarm of bore bugs descended upon us…biting… boring… with no way to drive them off [look…I’m an evoker…not an enchanter…I don’t have Sleep…get over it!]…we grabbed our stuff and ran…unfortunately we all still had bore bugs deep under our skin…[god only knows what those are going to do…Fingar is bumming heavily; Hugo is worried about the effect on his muscles; Chloroxina just laughs]. Finally, we were able to get some sleep and by late morning were ready to press on. Of course, it was not going to be that easy to cover the few remaining miles to the outpost on the valley floor. As we moved along the narrow path down the mountain we were ambushed by a lone troll…leaping out from hiding right in the midst of our group. Fingar, startled, lashed out with a shocking grasp. Hugo, more startled, whirled and swung…CRITICAL…CRITICAL again…the points tallied…[we called for an abacus]…59 points!!!!! A new record!!!!! The troll cut in two…uh oh…we all looked at the parts…already starting to move and reform…Fingar quickly cast a flaming sphere and rolled it all over the troll parts until he was dead…dead…dead [meanwhile, the DM erased Sir Ector’s old record and scribed Hugo’s name in its place…]. And finally, we were out of the pass and onto the valley floor. In the distance we spied the militia outpost…we made it…we hurried to the outpost confident that we would get help there and be able to send messengers to warn the town. But it was not to be. Johnny James had been there first on his way to attack us at the Temple of Unga Unga. The entire force at the outpost had been slaughtered….though fortunately not all of their horses. Fingar…still spazzing out over the bore bugs…scored the post for anything that might rid him of the pests—of course to no avail. Realizing we had little time to warn the town, we mounted up and rode off…hoping against hope that we would link up with the rest of our band en route to town.

A City in Peril!

2007-09-08T13:43:00.000-07:00

Life had returned to normalcy at the Keep. Gunther appeared to be running the show…“protecting” the Keep…basking in the largess and accolades of the grateful townsfolk and sages. The apparent calm however, masked a growing threat…forces were on the move…conspiracies at works (where’s Tooblecane when you need him??!!)…dark elements joining forces…signs of ancient prophecies coming to pass…and many more very melodramatic events. The calm of the Keep was disturbed by the arrival of a veteran warrior from the frigid wastelands of the North. He was clad in battle scared adamantine armor and welded a mighty great sword. He called himself Jarl Lundbergsson and bore warnings of impending doom. He had only just succeeded in getting the attention of the party when the Keep fell under attack.

Tons of spiders, both large and huge, scrambled over the rooftops to attack the Keep—targeting townsfolk and warriors alike. Our party, always ready for a bloodfest, quickly leapt into action…literally…Ragnar displayed his incredible vertical leap prowess by jumping, swinging and hitting a huge spider high overhead. Black ichor oozed from the cut…dripping to the ground.[Ichor…what’s that we wondered…it’s gross, vile blood stuff¹...] Jarl, bemused at the thought of a dwarf with any vertical leap could only shake his head, such an amazing world this is he wondered. We quickly dissolved into numerous separate battles…Torffin casting an incredible array of interesting and devastating spells…Vampiric Touch…dealing a spider a mortal blow while boosting his own hit points in the process. Gunther was quickly webbed by another huge spider fighting from the rooftops and yet undaunted by the new silky web cloak, he still managed to kill a spider. Jarl, Buck and his animal companion Misty moved to attack another incoming spider assault…Buck summoning a spider swarm of his own for some hot “spider on spider” action. Gunther in an awesome display of archery quickly embedded three arrows into a spider—pinning it to the wall in squirming agony…more ichor flowed. Torffin then hasted the entire party giving us incredible advantage…Jarl went into a whirlwind attack blasting three spiders simultaneously…Ragnar tumbling under a huge spider flanked it for 33 points…sending its lifeless body plummeting to the ground…Buck shape shifted into a polar bear (notorious for their ill-temper) and squashed spider after spider…Torffin and a huge spider traded inconsequential attacks, he trying a scorching ray which had no effect on the spider; the spider trying to smite good…only to find that Torffin was neutral. Though simple townsfolk were still falling, it appeared that we were winning the battle…Torffin got webbed and struggled mightily to get free, trying to cut himself out he muster a mere 6 points against the web…Ragnar snorted at his weakness…while a more helpful Gunther cut him loose. Then, when it appeared we had turned the tide….pause for dramatic affect….

The giants attacked!!! In a classic pincer movement, a hill giant came from the south and a frost giant from the north. Terrified townsfolk ran in horror through the streets “Giants, giants, woe is us…we are all dead…they’re going to cook us and eat us…and the crunch on our bones!!!!” [Jarl hates giants as it was those foul creatures that killed his parents and destroyed his village…launching him on his endless quest to seek vengeance.] The spider threat effectively dealt with, we split forces to face the dual threat…everyone running north to attack the frost giant, while Jarl ran south to counter the hill giant…ummmm, hello…can I get some help here???!!! Alone in his blood lust, Jarl went head to head with the hill giant. The towering giant laughed at the small black armor clad figure that appeared to bar its path…”what have we here…I will crush you like a bug”. Jarl, chuckling, answered back in giantish…Vittujen kevït ja kyrpien takatalvi… causing the hill giant to blush deep red momentarily…then he came to his senses, swung and clocked Jarl for major points. Trading blows, Jarl and the giant bashed each other blow for blow…laughing and taunting each other as their blood flowed. Fortunately, Jarl had his damage reduction armor and Healing Belt to regain his health when he was on death's door. Even so, the hill giant was just too strong and was steadily wearing Jarl down. Just as things were looking grim, the mighty Buck the Polar Bear came to the rescue…growling fiercely, he hurtled down the street, bringing his druidic powers into the battle Flame Strike!!!!!!... kablammmmm… a pillar of flame came down from above engulfing the giant …when it dissipated, a still alive, but very smoldering giant was left wondering what had hit him…undaunted, he attacked Jarl again for major points. Realizing this was it, one last shot…him or the giant, Jarl launched his three attacks (thank the gods for haste!!!)…CRITICAL HIT…the massive hill giant swayed and crashed to the ground…dead…

Meanwhile, the battle raged to the north, Torffin hit the frost giant with a Ray of Enfeeblement, cutting his strength by 9 points (though even that left him with ridiculous “to hits”). Ragnar took on the giant head to head…trading blows…the giant laughing and joking that he would dine well tonight on dwarf!....his humor cut short by Ragnar’s attacks…the frost giant tried to overrun him to go after Torffin, but Ragner stood his ground… stopping the giant in his path and almost bowling him to the ground. Gunther took to the roof tops to gain the advantage of height so he could rain arrows down onto the giant. Torffin again pulled a sweet move out of his bag of magic tricks…casting Black Tentacles which sprouted from the ground, rising up and grappling the giant to trap him in place…the party swirled around him attacking from all quarters…lightening bolts, arrows and sneak attacks…a massive fireball for 55 points (vulnerable to fire….sweeeeet). Finally the giant broke free from the tentacles and attacked Torffin…hitting him for 19 points…Torffin laughed, “hahahahaha…I am the Uber Wizard! Remember my Vampiric Touch, I’m playing with the house’s hit points, you can’t hurt me!!!” The giant, unnerved, climbed to rooftops in an effort to gain advantage…but it was not to be…

Jarl and Buck, having dispatched the hill giant, came hurtling up from the south. Jarl riding Buck the Polar Bear like the cavalry (hmmmm…I like this…riding a polar bear…maybe we should make this our battle tactic…just think of it…how cool is that….Buck was not amused and stopped short, dumping Jarl to the ground). Meanwhile, the others pursued the hapless giant to the rooftops…Gunther launching arrow after arrow, Ragnar his cunning sneak attacks…and finally Torffin, welding the power of fire…killed the giant with a final scorching ray! We won! Where’s the treasure? Wadda ya mean giants have no treasure??!! At least Guy gave us asparagus…

¹ Wikipedia: Ichor is also a rarely-used name for bile; the name for the yellowish-green colour of bile; and a general term for a watery or blood-tinged discharge. In Greek mythology, ichor (Greek ἰχώρ) is the mineral that is the Greek gods' blood, sometimes said to have been present in ambrosia or nectar. When a god was injured and bled, the ichor made his or her blood poisonous to mortals. The term ichor is often misused in fantasy contexts by authors trying to find a different word for "blood" or "ooze", to the point that it has become cliché. Author Ursula LeGuin, in "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie", calls the term "the infallible touchstone of the seventh-rate."

Assault on the Keep!

2007-09-08T13:42:00.000-07:00

When last we left our valiant heroes, they had plunged after their comrade, Talon Darkwater, into a magical vortex that took them to the plane of Pandemonium, ostensibly to rescue Talon’s soul, which as a youth he had gambled away to the were/dire tiefling blademaster known as Verthengetorix Jones. Alas they were all spat back into the Prime Material plane, save Talon, whom they fear they shall never see again. Distraught, the Blue Hand Group splintered, with Buck retreating to the Forbidden Forest, Torffin withdrawing to Darkwood (a notable tree), Gunther burying himself in the role as Castellan, and Ragnar doing god only knows what. It seems that without Talon, the group was rent asunder. But now, a Nordic stranger, a Viking wanderer, Jarl Lundenberger has summoned them together!

Torffin – Strangers from distant lands, friends of old you have been summoned here to answer the threat of the Caves of Chaos. The borderlands stand upon the brink of destruction, none can escape it. You will unite or you will fall. We are all bound to this one fate, this one doom.

Gunther – Woah, Torffin, lay off the wacky tabacky, eh? I know you elves are “lovers of nature,” but c’mon, it sounds like you’ve spent more time puffin’ magic dragons than fighting them. The Caves of Chaos are emptied! Dwarves mine them, kobolds have been integrated into my great society as a labor class, and the bree-yark of hobgoblins is heard only ironically.

Jarl – My new friends… You do not know me, but I come with a great message. I know an evil will beset the Borderlands and fracture the peace that you have labored so greatly to establish.

Ragnar – (to himself) Filthy beasts and vermin. They think that Ragnar is their friend? Ragnar has no friends. Ragnar killed all of his friends. Ragnar had the flesh flayed from his father’s bones!

Buck – Jarl, we Halfling druids are a dangerous breed: half in love with death, living life on the knife’s edge. I am sworn avenger of the woodland realm, protector of the Forbidden Forest, and consort to the spirit who dwells their. The moon’s light is my wisdom, the bark of the ancient elm is my armor, and the dagger claws of the deadly killer spindle fish are my weapons.

Gunther – Yes, Buck is indeed a terror. You could call him a force of nature. I call him friend. For too long have I tended to the workings of the Keep, when I should have been striding the paths of nature with my old companions. I have become what I hate the most – a bureaucrat! My character sheet says I’m chaotic good, but my life has become…lawful neutral!

Jarl – Speak not so ill of yourself! Under your leadership this keep’s reputation has spread across the greater Northern continent. I came here after learning of an ancient tale…

Buck – An ancient tale?

Jarl – An ancient tale that foretells this Keep’s place in history. Should the evil that will befall it prevail, it will cover all the lands in darkness. Should good triumph, then this Keep will become the center of a great empire. But this evil ---

Torffin – This evil cannot be concealed by the power of the Elves. We do not have the strength to withstand both Pandemonium and Isengard. Gandalf, the Ring cannot stay here. This evil belongs to all of the Borderlands. They must decide now how to end it. The time of the Elves is over, my people are leaving these shores. Who will you look to when we've gone? The Dwarves? They toil away in caverns, seeking riches. They care nothing for the troubles of others.

Ragnar – (drooling over a piece of raw (presumably animal) flesh) True.

Buck – Too long have I been away. The forest spirit, the Hamadryad of all Wilderness Lore, has bewitched my senses and ensnared my soul. There is more to life than the flitter of a moon moth’s wings, the gurgle of the mountain stream, and the elegant parade of a herd of elk. There is life beyond the forest’s edge! And I mean to protect that life, though it means my blood will stain the earth.

Ragnar – (still drooling) That can be arranged, foolish peck!

Jarl – You know, I wish you’d let me speak instead of just going off on these ridiculous monologues. And then this crazy dwarf guy whispers how he’s gonna kill you all in your sleep. I mean, no offense here, but --

Torffin – Darkness has crept back into the forests of the world. Rumor has grown of a shadow in the East, whispers of a nameless fear, and this nameless evil has perceived. Its time had now come.

Gunther – You know what, I’m through being the castellan. I thought it would be all about fun and combat and sticking it to the man. But I’ve become the man! And I don’t even have a stick anymore.

Buck – Hrm. I wonder if I can do a rebuild like in the Players Handbook II to get the shapeshift ability. I mean no one ever spontaneously casts summon nature’s ally. I wonder if I can convince the DM that I’ve been on a quest for the last year, so I can just retcon that ability into my persona. Hmmmmm….

Jarl – By the stars in Pelor’s belt! Listen to me! I summoned you all hear to tell you about the threat to your Keep. And if we defeat it, I believe we’ll be able to find out how to rescue your friend Talon and his lost soul. And stop making all these meta-gaming references! There’s no place for that in a serious quest.

Ragnar – (musically) Talon’s soul suffering eternal torment/Ragnar laughs at the pain of his comrades/Ragnar has but one true love/Sweet lady violence is her name…

Torffin – Well, here's one dwarf our enemies won't ensnare so easily. He has the eyes of a hawk and the ears of a fox.

Gunther – I mean, sure I love Nyssa. And I’m happy that she’s pregnant with our seventh child. It’s just… sometimes I feel like I’m advancing age categories and instead of gaining +1 to my mental abilities, I’m just getting screwed on my mortgage.

Jarl – The invaders---

Gunther – Come, friends tis not too late to seek a different end! It’s time to kick some serious posterior. I’m gonna rapid shot and not mark off the arrows I spend. Bwa ha ha ha!

Buck – Blue Handers – assemble! It is time for the disparate fingers of Buck’s Blue Hand Group to coil into an azure fist, and strike out at whatever chthonic creatures threaten us. Now for wrath, now for ruin, and the blue sun rising! Forth Buck’s Blue Hand-erlingas!

Jarl – Look, the Borderlands is under siege. There’s this evil force in Pandemonium. You won’t believe the monsters that she will unleash. Her name is Gorgotha. She means to consume you all!

Ragnar – Does she want me to (rolls dice) serve her?

8/30/2007 The Ballad of Johnny James

2007-09-04T14:52:00.000-07:00

Pleased with the results of our foray into the Dungeon of Unga-Unga, our intrepid party confidently ascended the sloping ramp that led out of the dungeon…relieved in the realization that we did not fall victim to this trap. As we neared the portcullis at the main entrance, we heard numerous voices of an obviously threatening nature. A large force of El Guapo’s bandits was deploying to attack—clearly tipped off to our presence by some person or persons unknown. Our suspicions were confirmed by the timely appearance of Eleanor, a fighter-rogue who had defected from El Guapo’s band (clearly choosing life over ignominious death). Eleanor told us that the wizard Jonny James—one of El Guapo’s principal lieutenants—was leading a force aagainst us. Tooblecane, convinced that the source of the conspiracy was hidden back in the dungeon, slipped away unnoticed for the duration of the battle to pursue his shadowy personal demons.

Don Pacheco, our battle tactician for the night, quickly sized up the situation and noted the strategic significance of the portcullis on the impending battle. Hoping to succeed where bugbears had failed, Don Pacheco, Fingar, Hrolf and Eleanor deployed to the secret hallways on either side of the kill chamber. Hugo and Chloroxina covered the secret door that was the only other exit. Don Pacheco stood ready to drop the portcullis on the unsuspecting attackers. Quietly we waited…the tension mounting… would they fall for the trap? Soon, the initial group of eight thugs, urged on by a particularly nasty looking character who seemed to go by “Mongo”, edged their way into the hall. Fully armed to the teeth, they confidently believed they would make short work of us. Before they could react, Don Pacheco dropped the massive portcullis closed behind them, sealing their fate…then…. A small, almost pea sized red ball seemed to float out in their midst….and WHOOOMPPPPPP… Fingar blasted the tightly grouped force with a super sulfur laced fireball…30 points of damage!!!! An eyebrow-less Mongo looked around in a daze…where were his men…not realizing that the small piles of ashes on the floor were all that remained of his brutal band…beyond the portcullis, the excited voices of the rest of the bandit forces could be heard. Mongo, coming to his senses, charged down the hall…clearly aware pf the secret door at the end…though clearly unaware that a buffed Hugo and an invisible Chloroxina awaited him. He burst through the door, enraged, ready to deal mighty blows…only to be “Calmed” by the soothing sermon of the preacher Hugo…under Hugo’s influence, he slipped into a near stupor. The invisible Chloroxina took the opportunity to conduct a swift reconnaissance of the remaining bandit force…swinging out into the kill chamber, she noted the enemy deployed in a battle V formation…thugs, pistoleros, cross bowmen, shield guards, and the apparent leader—Johnny James. Meanwhile, Eleanor, sensing the shifting of the battle to the outer area, joined Hugo and Chloroxina by the secret door. Rogue that she was, she was unable to resist a sneak attack when Mongo attempted to flee…Critical Hit…Sneak Attack…19 points of damage…then she attacked again…two swings…14 points of damage!!!! To unnerve the remaining bandits, she shoved his falling body out into the kill chamber. This display was made all the more distrubing by the invisible Chloroxina’s hysterical laughter…

Don Pacheco then partially raised the portcullis so that we could move to engage the bandit force as Hugo—feeling particularly religious that night—blessed us all. Eleanor first moved into the kill chamber, firing arrows at the enemy beyond the portcullis. They returned fire, their arrows glancing harmlessly off the statue; Johnny James then blasted her with magic missiles. And then all hell broke loose…more thugs charged in…Hugo, Hrolf and Eleanor moved to melee. Clearly this was what Johnny James had wanted to happen, for he took that opportunity to blast his own fireball into the hall…hitting Hugo, Hrolf and Eleanor (it should be noted however, that this fireball was pitiful compared to Fingar’s deadly super sulfur blasts). While the melee battle raged, Fingar and Don Pacheco continued to fire from the arrow slits—collaborating to dispatch a pistolero with a scorching ray and arrow in the back respectively. Hrolf, in wolf form, disemboweled thug after thug…cause many of the party to wince instinctively at the thought. As the melee battle raged, the bandit force outside continued to use ranged attacks against us… Hugo debated the wisdom of exposing himself to the slings and arrows, only to be urged on by Chloroxina …”Do it, Do it…Live for today…That’s how we like to play!!!”…and so he charged…swung…26 points of damage…cleave…more ridiculous numbers. Chloroxina attempted to cast fear on Johnny James but he laughed off the assault and returned fire with a well aim lightening bolt—hitting Eleanor, Chloroxina and Fingar. Our party pressed forward into the open to engage the remaining enemy, nicely splitting to the left and right flanks so Fingar could launch a lightening bolt down the open lane to hit Johnny James and his shield guard. Seeing his few remaining bandits falling under our swords, Johnny James used a Wand of Lightening on Eleanor and Hugo—flush with blood lust, they barely noticed the pain. Hugo pressed on to attack Johnny James—cleaving through his shield guard and Johnny himself! Fanatic to the end, Johnny gloated as he died…”Your town is already burning under El Guapo’s hand!”…

And then there was one…a sole survivor…throwing down his arms he sought mercy…”Promise me you will spare me and I will tell you everything”… Fingar, smirking chaotically, replied “I promise I will spare you”…the thug, apparently no idiot, had the presence of mind to ask…”ok…but what about the others?”…”ok, ok, you got us…we all promise to let you go”. The thug revealed that El Guapo and his brother El Gordo were indeed planning to attack the town—but that the attack would come in a day or so. El Guapo had apparently been successful in sending the militia off on a wild goose chase—leaving the town undefended. With the help of his traitor in town—who we learned was “Ned”, a flamboyant green robed guy (pressed as we did, he would not name Bob as part of the conspiracy…though some were ready to accept this answer, Fingar believed mind control prevented the thug for properly revealing the extent of Bob’s involvement). At the heart of this conspiracy of course was Bifodeous…

August 23, 2007, On the Backside of the Eagle King

2007-08-28T18:19:00.000-07:00

In celebration of Guy’s and Dan’s B-day, we played a massive fun filled round of D&D…complete with cupcakes (laced with dust of major treasure giving) and a lively discussion of strip clubs in which Jared learned more of the sordid industry in 30 minutes than he had in 30 years of a paladin-like lifestyle…Fingar was strangely silent during most of the discussion…not mentioning his years in the navy and visits to various intriguing ports of call….

As we finished our last adventure, our merry band had the distinct impression that we were through with the tests of the Eagle King. Our hypothesis proved correct as we began our journey last night. Moving beyond the battle of the Hound Archon, we entered a great hall lined with murals…we saw Unga-Unga urging a group of adventurers forward to glory…then the largest fighter among them moving onto a precarious bridge across a great cavern…the fighter seemed to be holding his brethren back as he fought a great battle…finally, victory was his and he entered a wondrous chamber with a great altar to Unga-Unga, where his fellow adventurers joined him…hmmm, we wondered….whatever could this mean…so many riddles, wrapped in mystery, inside enigmas (to paraphrase Winston Churchill)…

Soon we discovered a secret door…one way of course…that led to a massive chamber containing three statues—Unga-Unga, the Eagle King and the Snake King. After a brief debate on the wisdom of completely passing through a one-way secret door (Fingar arguing “What does it matter, we’re not ever going to get past that massive steel slab that dropped behind us anyway”; and Hrolf countering “Hey, I can change rock to clay and we could dig our way out around it!”), we opted to press on and all entered the massive chamber. The statue of Unga-Unga soared over 60’ high, towering above the others. In his hands, he bore a platter as if in offering. Tooblecane quickly scrambled up the statue to report back that there appeared to be some potions and a large gem there for the taking. Don Pacheco mounted the Snake King (in a purely platonic way of course) and saw four potions on his tray; and Hugo easily swung onto the Eagle King to discover a similar assortment of goodies. A vigorous debate then ensued…should we take everything or would that be too greedy and would we suffer DM retribution…Fingar and Hrolf arguing from the floor while the others voiced their opinions from their respective perches. Eventually, greed won out and we took it all…holding our breath…but nothing bad seemed to happen…yet. We searched the room diligently; noting only the main set of doors in the center of the room and a secret door opposite the one we entered—also one way of course coming in, so we weren’t going to go that way.

And so another debate ensued (maybe we should be the “Debate Club”), should we buff up before we open the doors or wait…”There’s definitely a Blue Dragon on the other side….”. Opting to wait we opened the door and were greeted with a spectacular site…a vast cavern…soaring up into the darkness…plunging down some 300 feet (give or take)…spanned by an old wooden foot bridge of questionable reliability…Hugo (havink guessed that he vas the largest muscle man in da partee) gulped…I haf to cross dat? and then vat vill happen??”…bravely he set forth…buffed, but not too buffed (added weight of enlarging not a good idea)…Fingar attempted to cast light into the heights of the cave but his magic was dispelled (and the bridge swung wildly as if in retribution)…Tooblecane, having forgotten the murals, bravely ventured after Hugo…also causing the bridge to sway precariously until he returned to the near side…Hugo moved on…sword at the ready…suddenly, a massive dire bat careened out of the darkness….

Hugo swung and dealt it a mighty blow…it swung back up out of sight, only to return moments later to strike again…Hugo fought bravely on the precarious bridge…falling to the planks after one attack…dangling over the side after another…finally...with a great Arnold-esque move…he hauled himself back, met the bats onslaught…and dealt it a mortal blow!...we all cheered as the dark carcass fell into the depths of the cavern. Heeding the murals, we watched and waited as Hugo moved across the bridge out of sight. He entered the chamber on the other side…knelt before the altar of Unga-Unga and gave his blessing…the rickety bridge turned to solid stone and we crossed to join him…and there…it was treasure heaven!....a +1 Shirt of Heavy Fortitude, Scrolls of Fireball and Dispel Magic (Fingar’s attempts at DM mind control to turn those into spells of Blinking and Gaseous form failed miserably), a Wand of Enlarging, Dust of Illusion, Oil of Enchantment +1, and Tomes of Religion and History...we reveled in the generosity! When finally we recovered from the pagan orgy of celebration, we recrossed the bridge to find the secret door on the Snake King side now open to us…

Following the twisting (almost Snakeine) corridors, we eventually found ourselves standing at the entrance to a mist filled room…barely able to see the hand in front of their faces, Tooblecane and Don Pechaco bravely entered and moved left and right along the walls followed by Hugo who walked straight in…at some magically determined point, the mist dissipated to reveal a massive Shambling Mound that instantly moved to attack Hugo…swinging its vine-like arms for massive damage…instantly our intrepid team deployed in attack formation…Fingar executed Plan A and used the enlarge wand on Hugo to get his “massive, burly man” into the fight more quickly…we pummeled the mound from all sides and quickly turned it into lawn clippings…spells unfortunately proved a non-factor due a Fire Resistance of 30 (seriously…that is just wrong...how can a plant have such a fire resistance…it should have been turned into stir fry!!!)

Then it was on into an unfinished portion of the dungeon…rough walls…stalagmites and stalactites…hmmm…very dark it was….then…WHUMP, WHUMP, WHUMP, WHUMP…Dark Mantles dropped from above…of course easily hitting Fingar with his measly 14 armor class…Ummmfgghhh…Ummmmfgh he mumbled…fortunately the party was able to quickly dispatch his attacker…wisely the party made the decision to quickly press on and vacate the area…well, sort of…caught by the scent of super sulfur, and despite being somewhat shaken at having taken damage, Fingar lingered to scoop up a handful of the sulfur (what an awesome improvement this will be to FIREBALLS!!!!!), and WHUMP…he was once again encased by one of those blasted beasts…having quickly developed a counter-plan, he raised his wand of magic missiles to blast it off his head…only to be told by that ominous voice that such a move was not allowed (come on…if it had been a gun, he could have easily shot it off his head)…but luckily Tooblecane realized Fingar was missing and rushed back to save his ass with only 7 hit points remaining...Gasping for breath, we finally left the dark mantle cavern…Fingar turned and launched a retributional fireball back into the Dark mantle haven…comforted by the sound of lifeless bodies plummeting to the floor he moved on….

Clearly now in the thick of the Snake King’s side of the dungeon…we encountered more and more examples of his foul minions…a carrion crawler who we quickly chopped to pieces…though he had no treasure, we were able to carefully slice him open to retrieve his poison sack for later use…our night ended with an encounter in a room with a statue of the Snake King where an Otyugh that was hiding in a room filled with refuse…we sent in our trusty celestial dog “Lassie” (a movement to name it Brinkly was quashed as that was seen to be very impolitic given his current medical condition)…the hiding Otyugh leapt up to reveal itself and attack the good dog…and the fight was on…despite its vicious appearance, we made short work of it….at that point, we sensed a message from the Snake King acknowledging our feats and opening a way out to the surface…a long slanted ramp we would have to climb—obviously designed to function in reverse…roughly delivering an incoming group of adventures to the room with the Otyugh….

As we came to a close, the group felt something was just not right…it was a sense…a feeling…we couldn’t put or finger on it…and then finally, we saw it…this dungeon…with two sides…one to the Eagle King…the other to the Snake King…with the neutral Unga-Unga in between….WAS NOT SEMETRICAL!!!!!!....”So not 1.0” Hugo muttered….

RennFest

2007-08-26T14:04:00.000-07:00

Here are the pics from the Renaissance Fest!

http://picasaweb.google.com/jaredwhitley/08252007Rennfest02?authkey=F5y2KCM5zwg

Spotlight on: GORGOTHA

2007-08-24T11:57:00.001-07:00

A monstrous medusa deity who reigns over a vast, sprawling underworld network of chambers, deep beneath the earth. She is a goddess of fertility and death, and her blood gives spawn to her followers: medusae, drow, scorpions, spiders, snakes and other denizens of the dark underworld, elements of the soil and of the earth, which is made fertile by the death and decay of flesh.

An aspect of GORGOTHA might be encountered in the largest of damp, underground caves, as a monstrously huge serpeant body, ending in the nude torso of a simultaneously beautiful and hideous woman, with four arms and, of course, her medusae-like head, full of gigantic snakes.

GORGOTHA's own eyes do not have the power to petrify creatures, as they were plucked out many eons ago by the same ancient deity who enslaved her beneath the earth, but her medusae minions still retain this power.

It is said that should GORGOTHA be slain, all of her minions will become petrified statues, all at once, and become one with the earth from which they came. However, it is also said, if an eye of GORGOTHA is returned to her, she will find her way to the surface and begin her reign of terror against the overworld. When this occurs, she will require an undead army who are not affected by her medusae Dutchesses and will serve to enslave all the creatures of light. These are her orders to Uberroth: to help assemble the armies of the dead and aid GORGOTHA in her search to regain her sight, so she can see her way to the surface again!

Living creatures who aid Uberroth, and thus GORGOTHA, in their goals will be rewarded greatly: they will be destroyed first when GORGOTHA comes.

SERVE ME.

Regrettably, Gorgotha's lone worshiper felt that this life was not the best place to "serve her" and lost his life in a noble battle against some hill giants. Gorgotha is looking for a new recruit.

Spotlight on: Toobelcain

2007-08-23T13:03:00.001-07:00

Toobelcain is a paranoid, conspiracy theorist who feels it important to communicate with teammates using a series of incomprehensible clicks, whistles, and hand gestures which he calls "Battle tongues."

His primary attack is springing in for extra skirmish damage then retreating using his great speed. More than anything else, he would like boots of speed.

Toobelcain believes that the true villain in this campaign is a group called the Illumillithid, a secret cabal of mind flayers who seek to eat everyone's brains.

Spotlight on: Sir Ector the Magnificent

2007-08-23T10:49:00.001-07:00

Sir Ector the Magnificent is the combat leader of the Copper Co-ops. He rides into battle on his mighty dire boar, Hrothgar, which was a gift from his wife, Grillka. Until recently, he carried the Co-ops' cleric, Gade Goodberry, in a side-mounted saddle.

Sir Ector's main combat style is to charge headlong into a fight, hoping to absorb damage that might otherwise hurt one of his compatriots. Sir Ector's "best plan yet" typically involves him sacrificing his life stupidly, such as offering to let the green dragon eat himself alive so his friends can then attack the dragon while it sleeps and digests.

Although his bonus to Diplomacy is ridiculous, Sir Ector's favorite catch phrase is, "Negotiations have failed!" followed by unspeakable violence.

Sir Ector is full of bluster, false modesty, larger-than-life braggadocio, and his in-your-face humanity (or if you will, dwarfity). His teammates tolerate him because the only thing he'll brag about more than himself is his friends. Django is not just a bard, but "the greatest bard who ever put song to story." Gade Goodberry "may be the smallest in size but the largest in spirit." Fraenir is, well, Sir Ector isn't exactly sure what Fraenir is, but he can fly and spit acid and is the best there is at that.

8/16/07 Trials of the Eagle King

2007-08-21T14:30:00.000-07:00

As we rejoined our heroes, they were at the anteroom to a great dungeon, where we discovered two large statues: one to the Serpent King (whose minions we'd battled before) and one to the Eagle King (who we assume is good). Having battled a crew of bugbears, we secured the area and spent some time working out, studying arcana and contemplating the meaning of the gods....all in the pursuit of leveling up, which we did. During this time, we also examined our immediate surroundings...eventually figuring out that this temple was actually dedicated to Unga-unga...a great neutral god who appears to have been trying to mediate between the Eagle and the Snake gods. As we were all in deep contemplation, Toobelcain developed romantic feelings for Chloroxina that he masqueraded behind an aura of hostility and paranoia. Guy asked, "Are you sure you've never been married before?'

When we all felt sufficiently elevated enough to proceed, our clerical duo of Hugo and Chloroxina practiced the divine art of augury in order to determine our best path in to the temple...should we go left...or right...does death face us left....or right....will we find riches left...or right....Hugo was getting such a headache trying to formulate just the right question..."Ach...dis is so confusink"...so we went left....The first room we enter is barren, except for a massive door in the far side...a veritable bank vault...Fingar realizes that even if he had memorized Knock it would have been worthless...the party sighs collectively...that detached voice we keep hearing in our heads cackles..."This lock will be a b---- to open. This will take you a long time...sooooooooo long....you will....."...Don Pacheco cracked his knuckles...rubbed a little sandpaper across his finger tips...Click...it opened...so much for high priced locks!!!

We ventured into the depths of the dungeon...Hugo muttering all the way..."This is soooo 1.0...."....Of course we came to a door...tried it...it opened...and we were attacked...two air elementals had been trapped in the room for eons...they immediately launched slamming attacks...we fought back valiantly...or at least some of us did...our party took this opportunity to hotly debate just leaving them behind or finishing them off...wisely splitting into two groups, one team finished off the elementals while the other group investigated ahead....in a cruel twist of fate, Chloroxina missed searching the air elementals chamber which was purported to be the "cleanest room in the dungeon"...moving ahead, she did manage to find a small lab containing potions of cure critical wounds and gaseous form, a scroll of wind walk, and a 1,000 GP gem.

We next happened upon a great mural room....completely fascinating, it seemed to show the badlands as a lush and vibrant countryside....rivers, streams, bountiful crops...truly a land of milk and honey...what could have happened to make it the waste land that it is today???? Part of the cause seemed to appear in the mural itself...Unga-unga appeared to be trying to warn the Eagle and the Serpent Kings of a pending threat from Blue Dragons....Fingar...feeling the tug of his earlier dabbling in the wilderness arts, wondered if there was some way we could restore this land to its previous state....the more mercenary amongst the group contemplated the mural as well....how could we chop it up and get it out of here...and how much cold hard cash would it fetch...pondering those weighty issues...we pressed on....then, WHAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.....a solid iron slab dropped behind us...cutting off our return...even young Hugo could not batter down the wall...

Faced with no other option, we moved on, happening upon a room filled with odd statues…adventurers…town folk…people of all sorts appeared to be represented…so lifelike in appearance, one had to wonder who the artist was…such realistic portrayals…and then we found it…a cockatrice suddenly burst upon us…threatening to turn Tooblecane into a Rodin exhibit…fortunately we rallies quickly and turned it into chicken fricassee…

Moving on, we arrived at a room containing a statue of the Eagle King...telepathically he seemed to speak to us...."Fear not...I must test you...."....a genie appeared....swinging a massive scimitar, he challenged us to a test of combat….quickly we all moved into action…sweeping left and right, we quickly flanked him…allowing Don Pacheco to make use of his awesome sneak attack capabilities… Chloroxina using her signature move, when invisible to launch surprise attacks…Tooblecane skirmished for added advantage….and Fingar, once again throwing his familiar in harm’s way (hey, that genie already used his attack of opportunity) had Haawken deliver a shocking grasp attack…in short order, the party reduced the genie to a fraction of its health…acknowledging the strength of our group…it disappeared before we could deliver the final blows…finding a small alcove, we took the opportunity to rest and refresh our spells under a statue of a mighty hound archon…for we sensed another major battle ahead…and we were right….

No sooner did we move off the next morning, but we were faced with another test from the Eagle King…a real hound archon appeared before us…projecting an aura of menace, he challenged the will of any that came close to him…his blows to our morale were countered by the blessings of our clerics…wielding a mighty great sword, he dealt severe damage to the party…massive blows to Hrolf and Tooblecane…we hurled spell after spell at him, but were only partially successful due to his strong magic resistance…finally it was young Hugo…fully powered…enlarged…with ridiculous pluses of 16 to hit…in a Conan-like charge….rolls a 9….Don Pacheco quickly does the math…”that’s 25”…”Bah, nein…das is not!....it’s 9 +16….dats….25!”… ”I hit and I do 2d6 +22”….[DM: No way…you’re cheating]…yes way…Hugo then proceeds to rip through an impressive calculation….oops, it’s 2d6 +20 [DM: self satisfactorily…see, I knew you were cheating…]….no matter….even with a roll of 7, Hugo blows the hound archon away…claming his +1 Great Sword as bounty….

And so another adventure drew to a close…we believe we are almost through the Eagle King side of the temple…it appears in the end that our augury did send us the right way…down the side of good rather than evil (though we still have to clear the side of evil anyway)…the mural presents the most intriguing mystery…how did such desolation befall the badlands?…what became of the Eagle and Serpent Kings?...what if anything can we do to restore it to bounty?…will the Red Sox hold on to their lead for first place?

8/10/07 By Bugbears Betrayed?

2007-08-10T14:41:00.000-07:00

We entered the cave and discovered two large statues:
one to the Serpent King (whose minions we'd battled
before) and one to the Eagle King (who we assume is
good). Then we found a small recess in cave, above
which loomed a threatening portcullis.

Hugo valiantly plunged forward, exploring the recess.
Once affirmed it was safe, Toobelcain went in and
spotted a secret door at the end. Then disaster!
Arrows began to fly at Don Pacheco as he tried to
disable the portcullis. The secret door opened
revealing 10 bugbears. A mighty battle ensued. We
rolled a lot in the 1 to 8 region and met with limited
success.

Hrolf piled on the buffer spells and transformed into
beastform. Chloroxina asked how many times Hugo would
fall during the battle... Toobelain climbed up the
statue and leaped off to attack the bugbear leader
(thanks to some physics help from Paul)... Hugo
enlarged and slapped down bugbear after bugbear...
Chloroxina became invisible and plunged into the
combat, mouthing off to Hugo about how he should just
make another character to heal him... Hugo rejoined,
"You better hope you never become visible again!"
Hrolf told Toobelcain not to quit his day job because
he was such a lousy actor when struck by an arrow...

The bugbear leader took a potion of gaseous form to
escape, but we followed him through a secret door and
slew him and his shaman helper (which took a
ridiculously long amount of time).

We found 800 GP (plus any of the bugbear gear, which
we detect magic on, Guy...). The lvl 3 characters
earned 1,530 exp, the lvl 4 characters 1,420.

8/3/2007 Guy's Campaign: An interlude because Guy was gambling tonight on our war ponies (instead of letting us use them to cross the badlands)

2007-08-03T14:44:00.000-07:00

Setting: Immediately after Hugo Valentino and Chlorox the Cleric were rescued from the hill giants, Fingar reveals that they are urgently
needed for a secret mission. Under the confidential directive of the
Sherriff, Fingar was assigned - on pain of death - to rescue Hugo and
Chlorox and take them quickly to Dagger Keep, there to defend a group of villagers from an incoming group of brigands. While the rest of the
party performs a pincer maneuver to cut off the brigands' supply line,
Fingar, Chlorox, and Hugo must stay to protect the villagers should any
trouble come, which - of course - probably won't happen... BWA HA HA HA!!!

Fingar - All's quiet on the perimeter, mates. I'm confident that my
security routine will protect us (remember...I was in the Elven Naval
Intelligence...), but if that paranoid lunatic Toobelcain were here, he'd probably say it's "too quiet."

Chlorox - Yeah, I'm sure nothing bad will happen. I would hate for a
bunch of blood and spent arrows and hobgoblin guts and junk to ruin
Dagger Keep. I just finished cleaning the place! And then I had my nails done. I'm the world's prettiest, and cleanest, cleric.

Fingar - Hugo, how are things on your watch?

Hugo (in Eastern European accent) - On my vatch? Vhat vould I be doink
vatching a borink forest vhere zhere is nothink but borink animals vhen
I have my beautiful muscles to look at? I am so beautiful! I am so
handsome! Vatch me lift and crush and be ze strongest man in ze vorld!

Cholorox - Yeah, you sure are a handsome guy. Now if only you were strong enough to explain to me these inscrutable rules for attacks of
opportunity...

Fingar - Hugo, I'm sure you're really strong, but don't you feel that in working out so much to get big, you may be missing out on things like flexibility and a decent Dexterity bonus to your armor class?

Hugo (in Eastern European accent) - Flexability? I'll be showink you
zome "flex-ability"! (Hugo flexes and shows off his muscles, kissing his biceps and making his pecs dance)

Chlorox - Oh man, he's getting muscle oil all over my beautiful clean floors! Cleanliness is next to godliness and if I don't keep things
clean here I might lose my bonus domain spells!

Fingar - Hey, guys, don't you think we should be
worried more about
protecting the villagers from the brigands than our
"vonderful" muscles
and how clean the floor is?

Hugo (in Eastern European accent) - All ze ladies are lovink Hugo! Oh,
Hugo, aren't you zo big and strong? You are zo vonderful! Hello ladies,
vould you like to watch me cast ze enlarging of ze person? If you know
vhat I mean, and I sink you do?

Chlorox - Fingar, I think you worry too much. Hey, if some bad guys come, why don't you just give them the "fingar"?

Fingar - (Sighhhhhhhhhh) Great, the whole party is protecting people
from these dreadful brigands, and I here I am stuck with a clean freak
who thinks she's a comedian and a half-orc in a posing pouch. (pauses,
looks thoughtfully) Hey you guys, I think we need to start making Spot
checks!

Sensing the presence of danger, we noticed sounds of small creatures rustling through the undergrowth in the near distance. Taking no chances, we locked the villagers into one of the few remaining strong
points within the ruined keep. Suddenly, two goblins appeared and
obviously spying the glint of the setting sun off of Hugo's vonderful
muscles, launched a volley of arrows at him. Unperturbed, Hugo (or as
Fingar fondly calls him "Valentine") moved out smartly to engage the
diminutive enemy. Fingar, laughing at such a puny foe, blasted one to
smithereens with a mere flip of a magic missile.
Then, before we could regroup, they were all over us...appearing from all directions our small party of defenders was quickly engaged in their own separate battles. Hugo held the center line. Chlorox shifted to head of a goblin flanking maneuver from the left...firing her cross bow she was heard to yell..."which of these dice is the 8-sided one"...to which Hugo helpfully replied "count ze sides!!!!!" (he was
quite proud that he figured that out...it was very cute...).

Fingar shifted to cover the right flank (or "a la Droit" as we say in French L'Academie Du Battaille-Fingar was in an exchange program).
Individually, these goblins were not particularly powerful, easily
falling to simple spells, sword thrusts and arrows...and yet still they came on in legion...wearing us down by shear numbers...our hit
points started to fall...

The sneaky devils continued to try and out flank us...mysteriously, they knew exactly where we had secured the villagers and were attempting to work their way there to pick the lock and gain entry...Fingar (patting himself on his back over his own brilliance)
launched a web that covered the entry entryway...hahahaha he thought to himself...DM thwarted...that'll last 30 minutes and the fight will be long over by then...only to see the web go up in flames a few rounds later when the measly little goblin wizard blasted
it with burning hands...

Chlorox, going invisible, created chaos on the enemy
flank...casting spells and yelling such that the enemy was running in
circles...finally, she had the perfect opportunity to attack a near by
threat.  Knowing full well that her actions would reveal her presence,
she lashed out at the enemy, bringing him down.  In the center, Hugo

swung mightily, hurling small goblins right and left...but then...out of the woods...appeared the brigands leader...a giant bugbear fighting
two-handed...he dealt mighty blows...but he was no match for the young
Austrian half-orc...critical hit!!!!!!!!!....DM jaw
dropping (how dare you thwart my main attack) maximum damage....Hugo
laid the leader low...(then, in an interesting victory dance, flexed
his gluteus-maximus at the remaining foes...causing one goblin to flee
in terror...interestingly, it caused another goblin to
smile and move closer...but that's another adventure...)...

Our perimeter continued to shrink as we fell back under the
continued onslaught of goblins, assorted human brigand lieutenants and
the second bugbear leader...(apparently the brother of the first, he was quite upset to see his brother's body cleaved from stem to stern)...

Fingar, facing a goblin and a brigand simultaneously, in the most
impressive "Meadowlark Lemon-Harlem Globe Trotters" move, flipped his flaming sphere behind his back...high up into the air and down on to
the unsuspecting head of the goblin. Chlorox fell victim to an
attack...collapsing with -1 hit points..."Don't vorry...you vell be
fine" Hugo promised...."That's what you said the last time" Chlorox said deliriously (obviously having some odd cosmic connection to the poor departed Elf Bromowitz....)...and so Hugo and Fingar battled on
alone...desperately hurrying to deal with the last of the foe so we
could save Chlorox and the villagers...the evil goblins finally
succeeded in picking to lock and sprayed the villagers with some poison
that sickened them greatly...
 

Hugo...now fully enlarged...wow, you thought he was huge to begin with!!!!!!!!!...cleaved through goblin after goblin...blood
spurting....body parts flying (Fingar almost had a post traumatic stress moment...flashing back to the poor General and the
giants...)....and then Hugo himself was brought down...falling to the
ground unconscious...Fingar "I'll save you later after I take care of the guy who can help me more" quickly administered a healing
potion to the fallen warrior (much to the chagrin of the goblin
brigands who were smited by him in the next round!!!)...in one final,
gloriously climactic, Valkyrian moment Hugo laid waste to the
last of the brigands who were attempting to poison the villagers (some of whom were now in dire straits)..."Take zat you cowardly scum bags,
vhat made you zink you could ever conquer such a specimen of muscled
perfection!!!!!!!!"  

We quickly stabilized Chlorox...healed the rest of the party...all of whom were down to single digit hit points...and administered to the villagers...thankfully all were saved...though one was literally at death's door...attacked thwarted, we gathered the villagers and brought them back to the comparative safety of the town...of course not before shifting through the carnage for our treasure...(subject to adjudication, of course) we found two masterwork keen scimitars (good for a druid that has no weapons if he wants one), some potions of healing (which were all consumed right then and there and an Amulet of Natural Armor +1....
It should actually be 2,100. Extra 100 for saving the villagers.