Dragon Strike!

I was perusing the latest in horrid D&D fan films this morning and got sentimental for an old board game instructional/story video I used to have on VHS tape.



You're welcome for that Cullen.

Also, there's seems to be yet another D&D documentary coming out that, while as cringe-worthy as most, seems to have some sort of overall point about societies stupification...or something, I'm not sure, but it does poke fun at politics being ridiculous. Anyways, check out the trailer.

To the Earth's Core!

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SPECIAL UPDATE: The soon-to-be straight-to-DVD blockbuster remake of CHILDREN OF THE CORN (that was filmed in my tiny home town of Lost Nation, IA) premiers this Saturday on the "Syfy" channel at 8pm Central!
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I decided to actually give Hollow Earth Expedition a try with my gaming group, and I must say it was a blast. I had a short adventure already planned out for Gencon but never got the opportunity to play it there, so decided to invite my buds over for a convention-style one-shot game of 1930s pulp action!

Now, as my players had never played Hollow Earth Expedition before nor even heard of the dice system, I had to give a quick overview of what was going on. I read the following:

Several months ago, Prof. Challenger received a faint distress signal from a group that identified itself as "Expedition 3." The cryptic messages from Expedition 3 stated they were a scientific crew who had become stranded deep within the Earth's Crust.

Prof. Challenger immediately began work on the Maneuverable Oxygenated Linear Excavator, or MOLE, a drilling machine capable of traversing through the Earth at remarkable speeds.

Most of the world thinks this is either an insane endeavor or a scam, but Prof. Challenger was able to secure funding and pull together a group of distinguished explorers to join him on this expedition. Together, you will travel in the MOLE on a rescue mission to the heart of the planet!

Then I just let the players see all the demo characters I had printed off and let them choose who goes on the mission without knowing what all the stats meant on the sheets. I would explain the rules after they chose characters because I figured it'd be easier to understand while looking at the sheets.

The characters available were as follows (and yes if you're a Sir Aurthur Conan Doyle fan you'll recognize most of the character names I used):

Prof. Edward Challenger -- Mad Scientist (Expedition Leader)
Lord John Roxton -- Big Game Hunter
Ms. Gladys Huntington -- Intrepid Reporter
Preston Weatherby III -- Dying Moneyman (Expedition Sponsor)
Doug McClure -- Ex-Military Rugged Explorer
Prof. Julius Summerlee -- Snooty Professor (Challenger's Academic Nemesis)
Jacqueline Payne -- Archaeologist and Fortune Hunter
Glenda Blondell -- Imperiled Actress

This being their first adventure they opted for a combat-heavy group and chose Prof. Challenger, Lord John Roxton, Doug McClure, and Jacqueline Payne.

The rules to the game are pretty simple, and I won't go into them here. Suffice to say that one of the major differences between HEX and other rpgs are Style points. Each character had a predefined Motivation (Power, Greed, Truth-Seeker, etc.) and a pre-defined Flaw (Overconfident, Absent-minded, Thrill-seeker, etc.). Each time a player plays their character to their motivation or flaw I give them a Style point, which is a poker chip. They can then use these style points to get fairly big bonuses on their die rolls. So for example, Prof. Summerlee's flaw is "Condescending," which means he gets Style points whenever he proves his mental superiority, or just from being a dick in a smarmy and entertaining sort of way. Now, his combat stats are rubbish, but presumably by the time he has to dodge bullets he's saved up so many Style points from antagonizing the group that he can wade through combat by sheer "luck." Style points really made for a fun game, and flew back and forth between me and the players like water.

When starting new games, I prefer to channel my inner Robert E. Howard and start the campaign in media res, that is, toss the characters into an immediate and dangerous situation and gloss over how they got there in the first place. This is much more fun than starting out with the characters sitting around with a long briefing and a Q&A session with the local king, royal sponsor, or general "quest-giver." Don't give the characters the opportunity to waste time haggling with the blacksmith for deals before they've even dented their sword.

With that in mind, the description of the setting was simple and straightforward:

To reach the coordinates broadcast by Expedition 3, the MOLE must travel through over 500 miles of solid rock. You are just getting used to the sound of the grinding drill when suddenly the MOLE is rocked by external explosions. Boiling hot, sulfurous gases penetrate the hull, the electrical systems spark, and the engine pistons scream and struggle to put out enough power! A tectonic tremor has caused the MOLE to fall into a matrix of brittle rock within an enormous magma field!

Then I set down a map I drew of the inside of the MOLE and showed them the five stations, there is the HELM, SYSTEMS MAINTENANCE, ENGINES, AIR PUMP, and SENSORS.


The players had to get ten successes at the HELM within three turns to escape the oncoming rush of hot lava filling the tunnel behind them. Every station gave benefits to other stations or the HELM if successfully maintained, and also gave other stations penalties if not successfully maintained (or in the case of the Air Pump, made everyone start to suffocate and take damage). Of course there were five stations and only four PCs, which is by design. But Doug McClure flexed his mighty thews and manned the bellows of the Air Pump, Prof. Challenger put on his steampunk goggles and drove at the HELM, Ms. Payne interpreted the SENSOR array to help steer the MOLE, and Lord John Roxton took up the monkey wrench and banged on the ENGINES to keep them going. Everybody ignored the smoldering and sparking SYSTEMS MAINTENANCE station and just hoped it would hold until they were safe, and sure enough they were able to just make 10 successes by the third turn and thrust upward through the Earth's crust into an expansive jungle valley! They had little time to ponder this unusual circumstance as they were closely followed by the rushing lava!

They only had a few minutes to spare before the MOLE was swallowed completely in lava, so I let them grab their gear and head out the upper porthole, where they had to jump to a nearby tree for safety. Ms. Payne made it easily, and Lord John Roxton had no trouble grabbing a tree. Doug McClure took a stumble and his boot brushed some lava, but he made it in one piece. Prof. Challenger tried to use the MOLE's ejector seat to get to safety, but only succeeded in setting off a small explosion wrecking the control panel and throwing him harshly into the jungle trees.

Once safe, the PCs were able to look around and while the Professor's coordinates said they were deep within the Earth's crust, they could see a shining sun above them and were deep in a tropical jungle! Then, Doug found some tire tracks in the mud, suggesting they were near the site of where Expedition 3 must be operating!

The PCs followed the tire tracks for a few hours and noticed a lot of previously unknown and thought-extinct ferns and insects. Fortunately, Roxton was keeping an eye up while they traveled because he shushed the group as they came upon a horrendous sight... lizardmen!


A small tribe of lizardmen were dancing around a large bonfire and playing drums. Near the makeshift bonfire they saw an overturned truck and a wooden pole stuck in the ground, with a very distraught woman tied to it! The lizardmen danced around the young sacrifice as the drummers thrummed hypnotic music into the jungle.

Lord John Roxton could not stomach the sight of a woman in distress, and immediately took a knee, aimed his .405 Winchester rifle at the serpentine head of the nearest abomination, and pulled the trigger. The lizardman's head exploded in red mist. The crack of the shot scattered most of the tribal serpentmen, leaving the shaman, his bodyguards and the drummers left to defend the sacrifice.

After a few rounds of intense hand-to-hand combat between the group and the lizardmen, a thunderous roar was heard throughout the jungle, and the PCs realized what the drumming was actually summoning. That's right, since this was a one-shot I wasn't holding back, the lizardmen had summoned a T-rex!


McClure raced to cut the bonds holding the captive with his machete as Ms. Payne distracted the T-Rex with her shotgun and fancy moves. She narrowly escaped being bitten in half only by the grace of spending a lot of Style points and using up her special "Lucky" Talent she gets once a game session. The T-Rex finally reached down to snap up the sacrifice as McClure pushed her out of the way and threw a lizardman drummer forward at the same time, feeding it to the T-Rex Gammorean-guard style. With the death of the drummer the other musician lizardmen stopped playing and started to flee in panic. With the T-rex no longer hypnotized by the music it rampaged around the area attacking things at random. McClure grabbed the damsel and ran past Challenger, the T-rex hot on his heals. Fortunately, Prof. Challenger had in the meantime been attaching a fuse to the overturned truck's gas tank. As the thunderous Superpredator passed the jeep the Professor lit the fuse, and the truck and T-Rex exploded in a tremendous fireball! Prof. Challenger barely leapt out of the path of the explosion into a nearby sinkhole.

Once they were clear of the area, the damsel explained she was Dr. Emily Masterson, a British geologist who was with Expedition 3. She explained that they were ambushed by Nazis who had come into the Hollow Earth on an icebreaker Ship via an opening in the North Pole. The Nazis had found a treasure-trove of strange and precious artifacts and hoped to utilize the riches of the Hollow Earth to help their Fuhrer to conquer the world! She was forced to work with a group of Nazis looking for more precious minerals when they were ambushed by the lizardmen. The Nazis fled leaving her to be sacrificed to the Lizardman gods.

Upon hearing this, patriotic Doug McClure expressed his disdain for Nazis and asked how they could stop the nefarious germans from fulfilling their plans. Dr. Masterson said she could lead the party to where the Nazis had found a strange obelisk in the jungle that they believed to be some sort of weapon. The party needed little prodding with the promise of glory, riches, and a possible escape to the surface and so proceeded to follow Dr. Masterson to the Nazi encampment.

Sure enough, upon arrival at the obelisk they saw a bunch of Nazi guards and Nazi engineers lowering a dug-up obelisk toward the back of a large truck. The obelisk swayed unsteadily on some jury-rigged ropes and it was clear the Nazis were concerned it would fall before they got it on the truck. Deciding they needed to stop whatever it was the Nazis planned, the crew threw together a hasty plan. They would play the lizardmen drums to make the Nazis think more lizardmen were coming, and at the same time Ms. Payne would sneak behind enemy lines and pull the stake holding the obelisk upright at a 45 degree angle above the truck. It seemed like a good plan, until the drumming on the mystical lizardman drums accidentally summoned a group of hungry Ultraraptors from the nearby tall grass!


Nazi, Explorer, and Raptor fought in a desperate three-way battle. In the confusion Ms. Payne pulled up the stake and the obelisk came crashing down onto the truck, just as a guard jumped into the truck to avoid an oncoming raptor. He was flattened instantly. The obelisk broke in half and revealed what the rune-inscribed atlantean artifact had been hiding, a miniature black hole!

Suddenly, everything started to be pulled toward the tiny black hole between the two broken halves of the obelisk. As objects and creatures fell into the dark matter, it grew in intensity and was able to pull toward it larger and larger objects. The players had to hold on for dear life not to get sucked in. As the Professor secured himself between some trees with a hastily-erected harness, he noticed that when the smaller broken-off pieces of the obelisk fell into the hole it decreased in size slightly! On the other side of the battlefield Lord John Roxton noticed it too. Held by his belt and secured to a nearby tree by the stout Doug McClure, he was able to take aim and shatter one half of the obelisk with a well-placed round from ol' Matilda, letting all the smaller pieces fall into the hole, decreasing its size significantly. Unfortunately, the other half of the obelisk was on the other side of the black hole from Roxton, which would suck his bullets into it if he tried to shoot past it!

Seeing his only chance, the professor overloaded the dilithium oscillator on his experimental Stun rifle and tossed it to Ms. Payne, who was able to throw it under the other half of the Obelisk just as a huge explosion rocked the valley. The obelisk section was thrown into the air and came down into the black hole, nullifying the black pulsar, or what was known to the inhabitants of the area 100,000 years ago as an Atlantean Gravity Bomb! The Nazi's plans to take the bomb back to the surface had been foiled!

The trucks and encampment destroyed by the implosion, the players gathered themselves together and headed toward their only hope of escape, the Nazi's icebreaker ship docked just a day's hike away. But as they got to the shore their hopes were dashed, as some time in the night the ship had been attacked by what must be giant sea beasts, or had suffered an artillery explosion, as now only pieces of the deck and various debris bobbed out in the water.

Where would they go now? How would they survive in this hostile world? Where did the rest of the Nazi sailors and soldiers go? Would they ever find their way back to the surface? Find out next time on...

Trapped in the Hollow Earth!

Star Wars: Battles of the Outer Rim

STAR WARS: BATTLES OF THE OUTER RIM

EPISODE I

SIEGE OF RYLOTH

It is a dark time for the Galactic Republic. Civil war rages as the newly-formed CONFEDERACY OF INDEPENDENT SYSTEMS declares independence and quickly absorbs a number of important and influential systems into its number. The Republic has responded to this threat by unleashing the GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC, in what throughout the galaxy has come to be called THE CLONE WARS.

After a number of defeats on Duro, Commenor and Balmorra in the Core, the bulk of the Separatist forces have withdrawn to the Mid and Outer Rim territories, reinforcing their holdings and controlling access to the Corellian Trade Route hyperspace lanes. Emboldened by the Separatists’ seemingly hasty retreat from the Core worlds, SUPREME CHANCELLOR PALPATINE and the JEDI COUNCIL have deployed a significant force of clones and fleet elements to the Outer Rim to liberate the loyalist systems in the region and break the siege on the hyperspace lanes.

Above the tidally-locked planet Ryloth, a vast battle rages between the armies of the Republic and Separatist Forces. Enmeshed in this battle is the Venator-Class Star Destroyer JUSTICAR, recently sent to the Arkanis Sector from Coruscant to bring much-needed reinforcements to the Republic forces in the Outer Rim …

Two sessions in and the Force is strong!
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Fire up the hyperspace navicomputer and strap on your ridiculously elongated rebel helmet, its time for some Star Wars!

As most of you know, Star Wars is the greatest Space Opera of all time (definition of Space Opera notwithstanding). So my Tuesday night D&D group agreed to drop the Longswords and Magic Missiles and dive into some X-wings and Blaster Rifles after much prodding by me. We even got a sixth player to join us who altered his work schedule just to be able to shoot droids on Tuesday nights. Now that’s dedication to the Force. I downloaded a boatload of Star Wars sound effects I play during the game, and I’m always looking for more, because you just can’t have enough sounds of blaster bolts ricocheting off of lightsabers.

We’ve got a human scout pilot named ‘Rolan Antillies,’ of the upper New Corellia Antilles’es, who is a fairly crappy pilot who’s never actually successfully landed a starship/starfighter/landspeeder/speederbike, but he’s got a famous piloting name so he stays employed. There’s a Bothan scoundrel “technician” for the Grand Army who speaks binary and has an underground hacker following on the holonet that call him ‘The Warlock.’ The Jedi are represented by an acrobatic flippity-doo-dah Jedi named ‘Romulus’ who focuses on the force insomuch as it allows him to aggressively use his lightsaber on stuff; as well as his estranged twin Jedi brother ‘Remus’ who went the Force Wizard path, knocking dudes around with his mind-bullets. There’s also a half-baked jetpack-wearing Clone Sergeant/failed ARC trooper (bad early batch) named ‘A-144’ that was determined not suitable for ARC duty but too skilled (expensive) for genetic recycling, so was shoehorned into the regular Clone Army. Finally there’s the hulking Wookie ne’er-do-well named ‘Garrrgull’ who specializes in tearing the arms off of ‘bots and things.

The group consists of a bunch of semi-random Republic soldiers and contractors all thrown together in the Clone Wars after the Republic Star Destroyer they were traveling on gets hit by a couple Proton Torpedoes upon exiting hyperspace. They were all in the same Turbolift when this happened, and of course the primary power went out. Once they figured out how to get out of the Turbolift shaft the clone is contacted by ‘T-1138’, the clone commander for the ship, who lets him know that droids have breached deck D-327 (which our heroes happened to be on) and are heading for the shield generator in engineering! Early in this adventure they learned that while battle droids have terrible aim, blaster bolts really hurt when 20s are rolled by the DM. We had to break out the ‘Treat Injury’ rules pretty early in the session.

After their first harrowing battle, the PCs decided that rather than take the direct approach and get shot to pieces by battle droids, they’d go through the maintenance tunnels. During their crawl through the dark tunnels they rescued an R5 astromech droid that had become trapped in some live wiring. The Bothan nearly destroyed it trying to retrieve it, but the Corellian pilot – familiar with Republic droid tech – managed to pull off a motivator inversion and re-polarize its core matrix, all using a simple hydrospanner!* As such, the R5 astromech is surprisingly loyal to the failed pilot, and follows him everywhere beeping all the way.

After a few near-misses with avoiding those ubiquitous chasms found in all starships, a number of battles with squads of battle droids trying to destroy the shield generator, and seeing the death of a Jedi Knight at the hand of some Separatist melee-bots, the heroes witnessed a Sorolsuubian Techno-Union chief fly out of the hanger deck and into the sprawling space battle with a kidnapped Twilek ambassador in tow!

As they saw the Techno-Union Separatist leaving in his Sorolsuub Lamba-class assault shuttle, they quickly jumped into any ship they could find in hot pursuit. The pilot, humorously confident in his piloting skills, opted for one of the ARC-170 fighters taking the astromech and the force wizard along as a gunner. The rest of the crew jumped into the “Golden Mynock,” an ambassadorial YT-2400 star transport prototype. Both ships rocketed out of the docking bay in hot pursuit of the Separatist kidnapper.

The space battle was huge, and difficult to keep straight. For some reason I decided that I needed a full four Republic star destroyers, three Separatist Banking Frigates, and one Droid Controller Ship all on the map along with 23 droid tri-fighters, 16 vulture droid fighters, 11 Clone-piloted ARC-170s, 6 Jedi Starfighters, 12 space mines and 5 patches of ‘space debris’ randomly floating about the board while the chase occurred. Oh yeah, and 1/4th of the board was a gravity well due to the pull of the planet Ryloth. This was probably a little too much to keep track of for our first foray into the spaceship combat rules, but I follow the creed that if you think of some awesome thing for a game but don’t know if you can follow all the rules properly, then make rules up on the fly and still do the awesome thing.

The PCs had to do sensor sweeps to see the mines, which would move every round and disappear from the map. They also had to avoid engaging in dog fights with the droid ships as the Techno-Union kidnapper flew past them, and the droid ships would move based on a highly technical algorithm called “my 40k scatter die.” If the PCs got too close to an enemy capital ship I’d roll a chance based on the size of the ship that they get stopped by a tractor beam, but the capital ships were pretty busy defending themselves so the chance was very low.

I anticipated that the PCs would most likely try to cripple the ship they were chasing and catch up to it, using their magnetic clamps to board the ship, or they’d chase the ship into the planet’s gravity well and force it to land. Less likely, but still possible, was that the ship would make it to the Droid Control ship on the other side of the board and that the PCs would have to call in some Laat/i gunships filled with Clone Commandos to board the ship with them and take it down from inside. Instead, they decided to follow the Corellion Pilot’s lead and crash their ships into the docking bay at full speed on the same round that the Techno-Union ship landed to take advantage of the momentary opening in the capital ship’s shields, and busted up every ship in the hanger (including their own).

They crawled out of their ships and into a huge droid firefight and barely survived. A vulture droid ship crashed in behind them and began blowing the hell out of the upside-down ARC-170 the pilot was trapped in, but the Force Wizard made a heck-of-a-roll and Force Gripped it until the Lightsaber Jocky could cut it to shreds. The Wookie nearly died and almost everyone took at least a blaster bolt to the kidneys before the battle was over. You see, I had prepared an encounter in the hanger for the PCs and two groups of Clone Trooper Squads (from the Clone Wars book) just in case of the third possibility, and after a second of consideration I decided to use it as-is, minus a few battle droids that were in the path of the crashing ships. Hey, if you want to land aboard a Droid Control Ship you’re goona see a lot of droids, what can I do? To add insult to injury, the Techno-Union guy ran into the bowels of the ship with the Twilek Ambassador and got away...for now.

Once the hanger was secure and the Bothan slicer hacked into the computer they saw all droid squads in the area converging on their location, so the slicer locked a few doors, the clone and pilot set up a couple explosive traps, and they all went back to their favorite strategy – hide in the maintenance tunnels. Now I’ve got a group of hapless and very wounded Republic soldiers hiding in the astromech maintenance corridors trying to figure out how they are going to contact their buddy T-1138 and get some assistance. Do they try to get to the heavy-defended comm. station and radio for help? Should they go to the heavily-defended detention area where the Separatist bad guy is probably taking the Twilekkian Ambassador? Or should they head to the extremely heavily-defended core reactor and shut down the ship droid controller system?

I love Star Wars.

*Hydrospanner note from the Personal Log of Remus. Entry 03, 19 BBY

Ravenloft, Redux

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So avid readers will remember that I DM'd an online Ravenloft 3.5 ed game on Fantasy Grounds with some buddies of mine a while back. Specifically the "Expedition to Castle Ravenloft" game, though we never got into the Castle itself. This was my fauilt, as I didn't have the patience anymore to convert maps and dialogue into type form anymore, and the Castle itself is such a huge project I just gave up. It didn't help that I had made an agreement with a guy on the FG forums that I would convert the realm and encounters around the Castle and village, etc. into FG format and he'd do the Castle itself, except after I sent him my stuff he never reciprocated. That was pretty much the end of it.

Anyway, avid readers will also remember that I have a new local 4e D&D group I have weekly games with (in-person!). Well, they just got transported into Ravenloft (Barovia, specifically) and fought their way into the center of a besieged town, which is under seige by '30 Days of Night'-style zomb-ires (I've altered the EtCR a lot for 4e). Anyway, one of the players plays a halfling ranger/rogue who's a living turret (*pew pew pew*), and he writes a bi-weekly journal of our games in-character. As his last game was their first foray into Ravenloft, I figured my old players and fellow Ravenloftians might appreciate reading it. I've also come up with a new Fear/Horror/Madness percentile-based system into our Ravenloft games that is very Call of Cthulhu-oriented. So far its worked out pretty good and the players seem to like it, so I may post the details of the system in another post.

Just for reference, the characters are Rong the Dragonborn Cleric of the Raven Queen, Arjan the Half-elf Paladin of the Raven Queen, Wil Blackburn the Human Man-at-Arms, Colibri the Tiefling Fire Mage, and KinKal the Halfling Ranger/Rogue.


Journal of KinKal Issue R1

There was a chill in the air as we got our bearings in this new place. It was dusk and a thick fog hung about the forest the bordered the road. The land we had left was snow-covered but here there was none.

We started off in the direction of the town – perhaps someone there could explain where we were. As we moved down the road the fog seemed to get even thicker and a misty rain began to fall. Though I believe the actual temperature was warmer than where we left, the wet air chilled me. And I had a feeling in my gut…something here was just not right.

We eventually reached a gate in the road flanked by two large statues whose heads had been removed. There was no wall beyond the gate or any other reason for it to be there. The thick forest was as it had been on either side of the road.

The gate creaked open – probably a bit of breeze…though it seemed pretty calm. It just seemed creepy but I wasn’t about to let a creaking gate scare me and strode forward. As the rest of the group followed through the gate slammed shut behind us. The hair stood up on the back of my neck and the feeling of dread increased – that was clearly not natural.

I shook off my doubts and we continued forward but there was still that nagging feeling in the back of my mind that something wasn’t right.

We broke from the woods as the rain increased from heavy mist to a constant drizzle – not enough to soak you, but enough to be cold and annoying. A town lay in a low spot thick with the ever-present mist. However, we did not see any signs of life – no fires, no light, no smoke from chimneys. As we got closer we could see that the doors and windows of all of the buildings were boarded up.

The muddy road showed signs of recent foot travel from many sets of boots, and with the puddles on the ground and rainy weather they couldn’t have been very old. So someone had to be here, somewhere.

A noise up ahead grabbed our attention – there seemed to be an overturned cart of some sort with humanoid figures around it. It was hard to tell what exactly they were doing though the thick fog…but as we got closer it became clear – they were some sort of sick undead creatures feasting on dead humans!
I felt the bile rise in my throat; these were no simple mindless zombies but were instead actively feasting on the dead bodies! Our new addition – I had learned his name was Wil Blackburn – charged forward but the sickly creatures were faster than they appeared and after deftly dodging his blows started swarming around him.

As the paladin marched forward and launched into his attack, he was assaulted from the flank down another street. Fortunately he avoided the attack as the rune-covered creature caused the ground beneath him to open and attempt to swallow him.

The fast zombies gave out a high-pitched scream which was answered from distant rooftops. As we cut down the zombie hoard more of them poured in from the rooftops, surrounding Wil and Ahrjan, while the rune-covered enemy pressed forward. Wil managed to get tangled up with a zombie during an attack and dropped to the ground, managing to get a face full of muddy water which momentarily blinded him.

We were looking a bit pressed and I still felt the horror in my gut. Still I pressed forward a bit as the rune-covered evil sent a wave arcane fear over our front rank. Meanwhile Wil had gotten up and cleared his eyes, but in his drive to strike his foes got his flail tangled and tossed it across the road.

The cart we had seen was now an inferno as Colibri’s bursts had caught that as well as the enemies. I saw a cold determination rise in Rong as he stepped forward and called on the power of the Raven Queen. A shadowy burst of divine energy radiated out from him and several of the creatures screamed as they turned to dust! Ahrjan pressed forward but was trapped by the earth attack and could not reach the runed enemy.

My arrows finally started flying true and I felled a pair of the disgusting creatures that were coming over the rooftops. We had now turned the tide, but the leader was still standing. Rong stepped forward, again invoking his god, and smote the thing. There was a terrible scream as the runes glowed and the creature seemed to collapse in on itself.

Ahrjan yelled some nonsense about that being “his” enemy to defeat but most of us figured it was just more of his “life is pain” morose crap and just nodded until he stopped. Rong seemed a bit surprised at the reaction but little seems to shake the huge Dragonborn. But then again he could have had a look of complete fear for all I knew – his face never seems to change no matter what the situation.

All was quiet…for a moment. Then we heard the scream of another of these wild zombies. The fire – it was clearly visible from most of the town and we pressed on to get away from it before we had more visitors.

Clear of the fire we came upon an open crossroads. In the middle there was a man lying face down. We all suspected…well something. Colibri poked the body with some magical force to see if it would arise as a zombie but it was truly dead…for now. Still, I’d seen enough ambush situations to go marching into this. No, always change the rules when you suspect an ambush. So I quietly climbed to the roof of one of the buildings to our right. Moving stealthily I noted a figure on a roof opposite, seemingly watching the corpse. It was hard to see through the fog but it seemed to be crouched in a pose suggesting a zombie, not a human. I took careful aim and fired – the arrow neatly pierced the creature’s neck and it pitched forward onto the street with little more than a thump.

The group approached the man and he seemed to have some sort of amulet on him – an old symbol of a sun god of some sort. I stayed on the roof, watching for more enemies while the group searched the body. Suddenly they looked up at the building he appeared to be fleeing when he died. I could see in their eyes that something inside was not right. Colibri gave out some sort of scream and started looking around as if he were surrounded by enemies. Before we could act he had launched a spell at Ahrjan. A moment later the madness seemed to clear from his eyes and he looked confused. Ahrjan slapped Colibri to try to clear his senses but it was obvious he now knew he had been affected by some sort of delusion.

Meanwhile Rong and Wil had gone in and taken care of the floating apparition practically before I could get into the building.

We sat to rest a moment but heard the sound of combat farther along the street. It appeared we were not the only ones fighting zombies in this dread place! So off we raced toward the sound. I checked my supply of arrows on the way; a little more than a single quiver. Hopefully there was someone in this forsaken place that could make a straight shaft and put steel to its tip [after all, in 4e I can’t craft anything…].

We came upon what appeared to be the city center. There were barriers constructed across the roads entering the square but one was broken and zombies flooded through the breach. In the middle a single armored female struck down zombies with gusto, but was hard pressed and wounded.

The barriers were high – clearly made to slow the advance of the quick zombies. It took some of my teammates a bit of effort to clear the obstacle, but it hardly slowed me down. Two arrows took care of two zombies currently attacking the armored lady. She looked up a bit surprised at the sudden aid and I simply smiled; “Yes ma’am, the heroes have arrived.”

With our help the zombies were quickly dispatched – even those foul things that hurled globs of putrescence at us. Without hesitation the lady – who we later learned was Ashlan and a Paladin – started directing people to rebuild the barrier. But before we could get very far with that the ground shook with giant footfalls. I could help but wonder what this place was? Where had we ended up? Was this some sort of slow death set upon us by some evil god? Perhaps there was no end to the flow of living dead and it was simply an inevitability for us to join this army? The thought shook me – slaving was my most hated issue but eternal servitude with the torture of the cold pain of death lingering forever?

A barrier burst open, shaking me out of my thoughts. A zombie the size of a house stood in the newly made breach. I hesitated, wondering how something this foul could even exist. Well, that didn’t matter now, let them come and keep coming. I will fill them with arrows until I have no more, then I will cut them with my swords until I create a pile of bodies so high they can no longer reach me! And somewhere, somehow a bard will sing songs of the crazy Halfling that slew an army of zombies!

I let fly with arrows but the shaking of the ground threw off my aim. Wil strode bravely forward but the creature swung its massive hand at him. Though it struck Wil with the force of a battering ram its back swing had hit a building, knocking lose a tall tower. The tower collapsed on the giant zombie causing massive damage!

The group pressed hard, seeing even more, smaller zombies following the giant beast. Apparently the falling tower had done a lot of damage as the big zombie fell under our assault. Still I had a feeling – something was not right. And correct I was, as moments later the thing got back up! I launched arrows burring several deep it its rotting flesh. Rong, Arjan, Colibri, and Wil smashed, burned, and cut not only the giant zombie but all that followed and soon all of the dead had been returned to their rightful state.

Ashlan thanked us and introduced herself. She indicated that the attack seemed to be over for now and we should retire to the tavern to rest and recover.

Even in the warm tavern I could feel the chill inside me. This was not the normal chill of wet, cold weather but a chill that touched something deeper. Should I fall from this evil and rise as one of these foul creatures I truly hope that my companions will destroy me and ensure that I do not rise again. I most certainly will not hesitate to do the same to them.

Maybe this is some test from the Raven Queen for Rong and Ahrjan? Perhaps I was just unlucky enough to be caught up in the “test”? Whatever the case, perhaps I should at least learn a bit about this Queen and what it is I can do to keep her satisfied.

What are my spell capabilities?

The guy throws out a half-assed hypothetical scenario, and Diesel asks what the weather is like and what his racial bonuses are.

I ask you, how can Vin Diesel be so awesome?

GenCon 2008 -- Engage!

Jump to Comments.

UPDATE: Now with elevator Cougar!

*shiver*

Warning: The sheer NerdCore joy experienced at this year's GenCon will be difficult to ever be surpassed by mere mortals.

Four of my fellow adventurers from last year joined me at GenCon this year, and we totally rocked the damn house in 2008. Our party of brazen PCs were under constant attack from all angles throughout the duration. We defeated a plethora of dastardly beasties during our travels, let's see: brigands, kobolds, werewolves, goblins, Egyptian spider queens, living scarecrows, Imperial Stormtroopers, vampires, carnivorous pixies, and one elephant-sized fire-breathing death goose, to name a few.

Paul and I had a great time playing a game of Hollow Earth Expedition called Burt Fedora and the Temple of the Spider Queen. I had bought tickets for it hoping it would be an alright RPG to check out. Turned out that that four hours had to be some of the funnest rpging I've ever experienced. Paul was hilarious as the ex-prizefighter snobby English Butler.

The costumes were in full effect this year, and while the expected Stormtrooper teams and Jedi were present, the convention has a serious case of Anime infection. I don't know what the hell is wrong with people, but the same people who like to make costumes also have a penchant for giant swords, eyeliner and spikey hair. I didn't take any pictures of Anime dudes, but while I didn't recognize a single costume I could appreciate the wierdness of the female costumes. For example here's a girl who, when asked what her costume was, simply replied "I'm a nurse." Upon hearing this I forced Travis to pose with her for a picture, with him being a doctor and all it only seemed natural.

There was also some sort of Steampunk "dance" going on at GenCon which we missed entirely (on purpose), though some of the Steampunkers came through the convention center and I got Devin to snap a shot with the Verne'nites.


Clearly I was more discriminating with who I got pictures with.

Drow and Twileks....

An evil ice queen....
...the queen asked me (in character) whether I was a follower of the Kingdom of Narnia. I informed her that I felt that using talking Beavers to present setting history to the reader is a stupid plot device. She was not pleased.


You may have noticed that I'm wearing a seriously Geek Level 11 T-shirt in some (all) of the pictures. This is not because I make a habit of wearing dragon T-shirts, but is because I was one of the DMs for the never-ending and highly-dangerous Tower of Gygax 1st edition AD&D adventure going on in honor of the Late Great Gary Gygax at GenCon this year. I had to wear the representative Dungeon Master T-Shirt during my session (and thus for the rest of the day). I got to DM the level of the tower I wrote, The Grimm Forest of Unending Sorrow, and I am pleased to say I was able to kill eleven out of twelve PCs in a single hour. I keeps it real for Gary.

There was also a zombie walk that Travis and I checked out. It started at the convention center and spread out into the major metropolitan area, terrorizing the poor NPCs of Indianapolis.

I picked up a number of goodies at GenCon this year. Every morning I was up and lined up at the convention center an hour before opening, even on Saturday and Sunday when the rest of my adventuring party were fast asleep after enduring the 4:30am sessions of Star Wars Miniatures. Why was I so hardcore about this? Because I wanted to pick up the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide and the Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide from WotC, of which they were only releasing 150 copies a day during the convention.

Both were excellent purchases, and are highly recommended if you're into that kind of thing. Especially the Forgotten Realms one. WotC totally Ravenloft'ed Faerun, and killed off a ton of the iconic characters and gods, making the world much darker and dangerous, which I wholly endorse. Elminster and his Deus Ex Machina Mystara magic can suck it.


I also picked up the sister boardgame to the fantastic Last Night on Earth from Flying Frog Games, A Touch of Evil. This game is super-fantastic, and in it you play 18th-century monster hunters who are trying to save a small town from some (randomly-determined) gothic monster. Its very Sleepy Hollow, and the best part is that it is totally cooperative! No more will I have to play the zombie master/evil wizard lord/alien invader just because I own the game. Once I cracked the box and we checked out the rules; Devin, Wes, Jen and I played the hell out of it. I also got my picture taken with one of the characters.


That other dude is from Last Night on Earth (also a fantastic game -- but not totally cooperative). Ignore him (Delp sure did when he snapped the picture).

That's it for this year. Remember to always turn off the targeting computer and Use the Force.

No Gungans Allowed

So our DnD group is having so much fun playing DnD on Monday nights, that we've decided to add another night of gamin' to our weekly games. And we've decided to make it ... Friday nights! Because, and lets be honest, we aren't kids anymore, and saving our Friday nights in case we decide to 'go out to the bar' is about the most pathetic lie we can pretend we believe about ourselves.
Also: Season 4 of Battlestar Galactica is on hiatus until next year, so there's really nothing holding us back now.

Our group's collective second-most favorite setting for games besides the Gygaxian Middle Ages is the Galactic Space Opera setting of Star Wars! So Star Wars Saga is next on the agenda, and as I have the most Wookiepedian understanding of the setting of all of us (and the only person who owns the rulebook), I get to GM!


None of the group has played it before, but I'm not too worried. They learned 3.5, then they learned 4e. Since Saga is sort of a mixture of those two systems Saga should be no problem. The problem is deciding which setting to play in. We've narrowed it down to two choices:

Clone Wars -- The setting with the most promise that got the shortest straw with representation on the big screen. A galactic war involving Jedi + Cloned Stormtroopers vs. Battle Droids and Sith Lords? Who could possibly make that kind of premise boring? I'll tell you who: Hayden Christenson as Mannequin Skywalker and George Lucas over the age of 40. But I feel that I could present some really Jeditacular adventures set within the Separatist Wars.


Rise of the Empire -- The original Wars. Jedi hiding from a tyrannical empire! Scoundrels smuggling goods to rebel cells! AT-ATs and X-wing fighters! This setting has great promise for adventures involving padawan Jedi and escaped Wookie slaves battling the oppressive Empire. And remember, I don't believe in restricting player creation options for the sake of "story" (regardless of the title of this post), so you wanna be a Padawan Jedi Ewok? You're on! Just please try to explain it without referencing Wilfred Brimley or the Caravan of Courage.


So how do we decide what setting to play in? I'll tell you how, we do this old school: A die roll. At the Monday's weekly DnD game we'll not only make characters, but I'll also make an epic percentile die roll to determine the setting:

01-50% Clone Wars

51-00% Rise of the Empire

So what setting will it be? Stay tuned!

Update: And the winner is...

Rise of the Empire by a nose!

Since the roll was so close, I've decided to cheat and make the campaign take place immediately after the events of Revenge of the Sith. This way we can still have a bunch of Jedi padawans in the party and I can still use my clone trooper miniatures.

May the Schwartz be with you.

Fourth Edition is here!

Yay! I have an entire bookshelf full of out-of-date material!

But fortunately, I picked up the fourth edition Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook this weekend, and worked up a character for our game on Monday.


Yes, I know I'm normally our Monday DM, however one of the players (who is also a DM) got all the books through checking the bits along the torrents and has crafted an adventure for us already. So I get to step back and actually play a few games until we 'port over their 3.5 characters (which will be interesting, considering we have two gnomes, a monk and a sorcerer in the crew), and then he and I will switch off as previously planned throughout the "campaign".

Anyway, pouring through the flashy new 4th edition PHB I was struck by a couple things. First, the artwork is really well done. I was worried it was going to look like DnD Modern looked, all cartoony and big-handed and stupid, but fortunately it doesn't. Second is that it is so different from 3.5 I am actually quite confused about some rules. Less confused than when we playtested the Shadowfell adventure, but still a little confused. Oh well, we'll see how it'll play out.

Now, I understand that nothing is more boring than hearing a person talk about some great thing their character did in a game you weren't present at. This is one of the social pitfalls of nerdery, one of the many pitfalls that gives all science fiction fans a bad name. I refer to this as the "Half-Orc Paladin" syndrome. As in having to yell at a stinky squatter at Pegasus Games: "I don't freaking care about your half-orc paladin!" Of course now that Half-orcs no longer exist in 4e I'll have to come up with a more esoteric and stupid race/class combo for that reference.

But I digress, the point being that hearing someone talk about a DnD game you weren't involved in rates up there with hearing about how someone beat the second-to-highest score on Elevator Action. On the other hand, recapping the awesome feats of derring-do of your mighty adventurers with other players who were involved in the game is about the funnest thing possible. Hell, Brando and I still reminisce about the exploits of The mighty Vampire Slayer Quinn of the Dancing Blades and his trusty sidekick, Garsome Cinderheart: Dwarven Orc-Smasher!

All that said, I'm still going to summarize my character creation process for our adventure, in full awareness of my nerdery. I eventually narrowed it down to two options:

1) Rex Thunderguns: Ancestor to Mighty Chief Theogrim Grudgebearer, Slayer of the Twelve Bear-Men of Wereblight Valley, Retriever of the Bone Axe of Ghorz Bloodharvest, and Bedder of the Nine Beautiful Daughters of King Amorinous!

2) Vincent Von Grimm: Decendent of the Half-Dragon Necromancer Xanthugar Nyarlthotep, Banisher of the Black Beast of Butcher Bog, Keeper of the Six Orbs of Ioun Fellhammer, and Bedder of the Nine Beautiful Daughters of ArchDeamon Nicodemous!

Then I found out that one of the guys in our group was making a Dwarven Fighter named "Cuttem Ta'Pieces," so Rex will have to wait. Von Grimm it is! Half-elven Warlock of the Eldritch Arts! Keeper of the Sinister Secrets Man was not meant to know! Singer of the Six-Hundred and Sixty-Six Songs of Sensuous Suffering! Conjurer of Fell Magics Beyond Comprehension!

Behold his power and quake in fear!

I present to you...Vincent Von Grimm!

Ghalstaff, Sorcerer of Light!

Okay, take a good look at this in-action picture of yesterday's D&D session and tell me what's different about it...

That's right, those little plastic tactical action figures are being moved around the laminated map of a haunted graveyard using 4th edition D&D rules!

My friendly local game store got a store copy of the first adventure for 4th edition D&D: Keep on the Shadowfell (no, not the Borderlands), which isn't available until June 7th for us regular folk. As I run my weekly game there on Monday nights, the owner offered to let me borrow it and playtest it for my D&D group. We of course took her up on the offer and decided to take the fight to some Kobold Wyrmpriests.


How does it play? Well...its freaking different than 3.5, that's for sure. Let's highlight some glaring differences we encountered:

- Magic missiles are cast at-will, don't automatically hit, and do 2d4+4 points of damage.

- Everybody can basically cast cure light wounds on themselves at least once per combat.

- Halflings are as fast as humans, and a foot taller than they used to be.

- A Kobold 'minion' has 1 hit point, but a lvl 1 Kobold has 36 hit points and can breath fire.

- Miniatures are absolutely essential to play the game, as everything is measured in "squares." (no more "5 foot steps" or "15-ft flaming cone" or distances on anything, but "5-square burst").

- Bards no longer exist and Gnomes are now monsters, but Half-daemons and Dragonpeople are 1st-level playable races alongside Elves and Humans.

- Fighters can cast "Cleave" at-will, but can only "Brute-Strike" once per day, and neither do what you think they do.

All-in-all we were not as impressed as we wanted to be, probably because the combat was so confusing. It was like the first time you play a Fantasy Flight boardgame, where you think you know what's going on, but realize four hours in that you don't know how combat really works (I'm looking at you, WoW and Arkham Horror!).

4th edition D&D might eventually be fun, but we've all decided to continue delving the depths of The Wizard Thraxdar's Hidden Library of Death using the 3.5 rules for now.

Good news, though, Wizard's of the Coast has officially announced they're going to GenCon this year (what a surprise)!