"Boise Incident" Instigators

Kafranbel Has Spoken

2012-01-20T00:28:00.001-07:00

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T08:39:00.004-07:00

HackMaster Fortunes

2011-12-11T12:10:00.001-07:00

My wife Carolyn likes to do some interesting HackMaster projects and I like to help out where able. One thing she came up with was adding a little twist to the fortunes we get from the fortune cookies at the Chinese restaurant where we hold our Toastmaster meetings. She posts them on her blog.

She cannot always attend because of work and on these occasions I try to take notes for her. Several weeks ago I also made some HackMaster fortunes and totally forgot to give them to her. I found them in my phone yesterday and thought I'd glom on to her awesome idea and share them with you. Don't get too excited as this won't be a regular thing for me.

In case you have trouble reading my writing, the HackMaster fortune reads, "You shall soon make a long, overdue personal decision. 15 BP for a +3 specialization or skills."

In case you have trouble reading my writing, the HackMaster fortune reads, "You will travel to many exotic places, meet exotic creatures.....and kill them"

Linian Check-In

2011-12-03T11:21:00.001-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted about the online game. My group has made some sort of circular progress.

We've headed out of the city to go hunting for Kobolds. The little blighters have been raiding farmsteads on the edge of the frontier for some time now and there is a bounty on their heads for anyone brave or foolish enough to go after them.

Out first encounter with the Kobolds comes when we reach a farmstead that is under attack. We manage to kill or route the Kobolds and save the farmers. These people are pretty much pacifists who prefer to flee rather than stand up for themselves. We stay for a couple of days and try to teach those willing and able some rudimentary skills so they could at least defend themselves should they choose to. They'll still flee when attacked, but at least they are willing to keep the Kobolds from pursuing them as they do so. The Fighter types work hard with the men in the family and Linian spends as much time with the women and children. He's much more comfortable indoors and the kids remind him of his own siblings.

The group continues on, circling the other farmsteads until we come to the last one, which is basically the very edge of the frontier. The farmer is a cantankerous old man who has his place fenced up and tries to keep everyone at bay. We make our presence known and end up camping barely in sight of his property. The next day we head on into the wooded hills.

Our Ranger scouts up ahead and discovers what appears to be an area of Kobold activity. Most of the party charges in and succumbs to a combination of pit traps, guard weasels, and Kobold crossbow bolts. The Kobold have fortified guard posts that are basically dug into rocky outcroppings. I managed to get in close to one and they have 3 or 4 in there with crossbows and the tunnel leading in seems to have more Kobolds reloading and handing off crossbows so they can fire at a much faster rate.

You know things are getting bad when I take part in the battle. I do my best to cover the retreat of the badly wounded fighters.

We leave the area of the Kobold warren and find a small defensible cave to hole up in. The cave is an old bear den that I correctly identify as a winter den. After cleaning it out and making some defensive foxholes around the edge we have a place we think we can rest up for a while. On the way to the cave we came across an Kobold patrol that we were easily able to overcome. Personally I think we should just ambush patrols out in the open where we have the advantage instead of attacking their den where they have an overwhelming advantage. What do I know?

Awesome Paint Job!

Our first night in the cave we come are attacked by another Kobold patrol. We overtake them with some difficulty since they were spread out so much, but we manage to take them all out before they can make it to the safety of the den. We had some outside help from a wandering Fighter/Mage who was hunting after the Kobolds himself. Evidently they (possibly this very patrol) had just killed some of his family and he was out for revenge. The Fighter/Mage was more than willing to join up with us.

In the morning we set out to find some more Kobolds to slaughter. Our Ranger thought he knew where one of the patrols was encamped away from the warren. We headed back to what looked like familiar territory to me. Some Kobolds were spotted and everyone took off to engage them. Soon another small group of Kobolds were seen and the fight was on in earnest. The Fighter/Mage took a nasty blow and was knocked down while the ranger went out by himself to engage the new group of Kobolds. The fight was going badly as I slowly entered the fray.

As I tried to cautiously move closer should the group need my help I was assaulted by more crossbow bolts from an unseen location. We were back at the Kobold warren! We had just approached it from the far side this time. I rushed in to try and drag the Fighter/Mage out of the battle. The Cleric took over for me, saying he could revive him to fighting spirit. Further in the Ranger had been knocked down, possibly killed.

Throwing caution to the wind I rushed in to cover his body with my own. Under the cover of my shield I was able to determine he was alive, but barely. As I stared to drag him out of combat I saw the Fighter/Mage rush past me to assault the Kobolds still engaged in combat. In a moment he too was down. The Cleric took the Ranger from me and I moved forward to get the Fighter/Mage. The attacks were relentless there and I didn't wait to see if he was alive or dead. I dragged the body back as fast as I could while maintaining cover from my shield.

(OOC: We ended the session there. We all will have to wait to see what happens...)

Man Down! Man Down!

2011-11-23T13:40:00.001-07:00

We are still playing in the HackMaster adventure Dusk of the Dead, because it takes a long time to clear out the undead. We managed to go through every room in the waystation and get the comatose cleric into a nice warm bed near a fire. The room we left her in seemed relatively defensible. It was clear a losing battle was fought here, with zombies coming in through both windows as the door was well barricaded. The floor was littered with bit of gore and chopped off zombie hands and fingers.

Out of Character (OOC) we new the cleric would come to in a couple days, In Character (IC) we new she was badly injured and may very well die. She was the only one who new any first aid. My fighter, having been badly injured and bandaged many times in the past, did what he could for "his" cleric. OOC next level I'm not spending any build points on combat specialization and instead I'm going to pick up some First Aid and maybe another skill. IC, leaving the Caregiver Cleric so we can flee is NOT an option. To the best of our knowledge we've cleared the place, but then we find a trapdoor to some sort of cellar. Our normal method of clearing rooms was to walk up to the room and rap on the door/window, call out something to the effect of "here zombie, zombie" and wait for a response. When we did that in the cellar we got a very strong response.

Instead of opening up the interior door down there, we set up around the trap door and sent Cazon, our Human Rogue, down to open the door a crack and run back up. He got the detail since he is the fastest of the group. Once the zombies started shambling towards us, we just whacked on them at the natural choke-point which was the trapdoor. It took a lot of time, but it worked.

Once we were sure we had checked every single room in the place we ventured outside. The first thing we noticed was there was another outbuilding that Cazon had failed to mention when he scouted around outside the day before. It was only a small chicken coop, but it had to be checked anyway....and then those poor chickens needed to be fed, and then the animals holed up in the barn as well. Some poor stablehand is going to have one helluva mess to contend with when they clean that place out.

We start a fire and call out to the woods, "Fresh unwashed Dwarf here for you culinary pleasure!" we figured there would be a few stragglers in the woods somewhere, and we were right...to an extent. A few more zombies came shambling out than we expected. The initial plan was to retreat back to the waystation should there be too many, but they got the drop on us and I was the only one able to move before they surrounded us. I couldn't leave my party for the relative safety of the waystation, so I moved in between the fire and Salt, the other Dwarf. I called for Cazon to form up close to my back, but he was too slow. A couple of zombies got a hold of him before he could do much anything. Salt and I are fighting off zombies and after I down one I finally hear Cazon call out that he is in trouble. A quick side-step towards him leave me more exposed, but I'm able to help him by knocking back and killing one of his attackers. Another zed grabs him and pretty soon he has four of the foul undead chomping on him. It was grisly and he succumbs to his wounds.

Salt and I decide to fall-back to the waystation, and while the zombies feast on Cazon she has an opportunity to disengage. I'm surrounded and after I knock back one zombie I think I have a chance to make a break for it. I'm grabbed by two zombies and they each take a small bite out of me. I am very fortunate in that I'm able to knock back one zombie that ends up landing in the fire. With only a second to spare I just start jogging away from the zombies, dragging one away with me. It continues to bite at me as I make my way to the side door of the waystation, but I just have to take it. Salt unbars the door just in tie and helps me kill the one that latched onto me.

We make a very quick plan. We make our way to the front door of the waystation and open it up. We will attack one zombie at a time (hopefully) and if we need to we will fall back to the door to the inner courtyard and reset. If we have to we will then fallback to the room we left the Cleric in and fight to our deaths defending her as long as we can.

As bad as the combat at the fire had gone for us, it was far worse for the zombies at the door. We were practically knocking them back through the door more forcefully than they could claw their way in. We were able to whittle the zombies down at a really fast pace.

Now we need to rest and to properly bury Cazon. I'm hoping that Tecane will come to soon, but if I have to I'll carry her out of here.

Mark Plemmons Sighting?

2011-11-17T16:14:00.001-07:00

Jolly Blackburn posted a teaser picture from the upcoming Knights of the Dinner Table comic #181. I has seen him working on this pic on JustinTV, but couldn't see it up close until this preview from the Kenzer & Company forums.

In highlighting this "discovery" I also made a point to update Gordo's T-Shirt. I figure he should be supporting the right BSU if he's going up on my website.

The 99% Need a Break

2011-11-06T16:59:00.000-07:00

I have finally witnessed my first "Occupy" demonstration. Occupy Salt Lake City is taking place in Pioneer Park, just across the street from my hotel. In years past the park was a haven for Salt Lake City's homeless because there was a shelter nearby as well as a mall. Great place to kill some time before getting your free handouts and begging for more handouts.

OSLC really only changed the look of the park. I'm used of being in SLC during the warmer months so it is usually homeless just laying about. Now it is just protesters milling about and sleeping in tents. The lightpoles and crosswalk poles are plastered with Occupy propaganda and if you were familiar with SLC and not the protests you'd just think that someone gave the homeless tents. Pretty lame protest.

The protesters need to take a break....

For your HackMaster Musings...

2011-11-02T20:28:00.001-06:00

Used without permission:

Stevil Van Hostile

2011-10-27T12:36:00.003-06:00

Do you know Stevil from the hit comic book Knights of the Dinner Table? Not sure if Stevil is based off of Steve Johansson from Kenzer & Company, but I've spent enough time around Stevil, er I mean Steve, that I totally see the influence. Even if Stevil is based off of Steve, they are two totally different characters.....and they both are characters.

Stevil.....the real one...he tells it like it is. He likes to go off on these little rants about games, gamers, and life in general that are hilarious to watch. The thing about his rants though, when I ignore the delivery and actually listen to what he's saying I tend to find I really agree with him. The man is very insightful at times.

Even though he's a member of the D-Team, he doesn't participate all that much on the KenzerCo Forums. The man is busy, ok. When he does post it is usually to put up some new alpha or beta testing material for the upcoming release of HackMaster. Most of the playtesters are running a mix of HackMaster Basic and whatever new rules have been released for testing.

Stevil's name and image have recently been cropping up to taunt GMs that have dropped the ball and given their players far too much control, or GMs that simply screwed the pooch. I'm currently playing in an adventure where another table's GM apparently specifically went against the authors specific instructions regarding the introduction of the adventure and of course the players had a cakewalk.

I'm not sure Bulburd will survive his zombie adventure, but I'll be damned sure that he takes as many deadheads as he cane with him!

This other GM.....some of the GMs are giving him a well-deserved hard time. Steve chimed in to say something about the God of Assassins. Piecing things together it sounds like this GM has a player who follows the Assassin deity and was able to command the undead in the adventure, forcing them to immolate themselves in a bonfire the players built. Assuming this is true, there are some issues with this. a) Clergy of the Assassin God evidently don't have the ability to affect the undead in any way, b) There were some penalties (I don't know what) that should have made commanding/turning much more difficult...possibly impossible, c) Undead aren't going to off themselves. That should have been construed as an attack and their control ended at that point.

Someone else had posted a pic of Stevil's floating head which I appropriated to commemorate Stevil's thoughts on the Assassin God possibly seeing a contract kill shambling around as the undead. The second pic was just my entry in making fun of the GM.

If you would like to make your own KenzerCo/HackMaster/Aces & Eights floating head spouting Stevilisms. Here's a base file:

EDIT I had another go, using some higher rez pics and downloading a nicer background. The heads aren't as big, but I can play around with them easier.

Zompocalypse Part II

2011-10-25T12:32:00.000-06:00

SPOILER ALERT!

If you plan on playing Kenzer & Company's Dusk of the Dead, then don't read this entry.

Where we left off last time, our intrepid band of mercenaries were trapped on the second floor of a waystation with an unknown number of zombies milling about downstairs. Our group, consisting of 6th level Dwarven Fighter Bolburd (M), 5th level Dwarven Fighter Salt (F), 3rd level Human Rogue Kazon (M), and 3rd level Human Caregiver Tacane (F) has had the opportunity to flee the waystation, but instead has chosen to remain and deal with the problem at hand. A very brief discussion about burning the place down with the zombies trapped inside was dismissed out of hand. This waystation exists here for a tactical reason as much as a financial one. It supports the keep by protecting the caravans that travel to it, so it must remain intact. Thankfully we aren't too keen on keeping the place pristine.

The two rooms we are in at the moment have already been smashed up a bit. Bolburd and Tecane hole up in the smaller room while Salt and Kazon take the larger room next door. Their doors open up at right angle to each other in the small hallway bordering the third, larger bedroom. The idea is that Salt and Bolburd will engage zombies coming up the stairs and down the hallway two-to-one. If we need to attempt to turn them, Tecane can be seen down the hallway from the small room. The ladder we used to climb up to the room is partially in the room, with the bulk of it sticking out the window. We've weighed down the end with our packs to keep the far end up off the ground. The very last steps are for Kazon to move some furniture into the hallway to try and make it single-file access only while Bolburd smashes a hole in the wall between the two rooms. If we need to move between rooms, we won't be able to use the hallway.

Moving the furniture and smashing the hole in the wall brings forth the zombies. Salt and Bolburd take down the first two without difficulty. We realize that body disposal might be an issue since we have to let the zombies have some access to us. Tecane bashes another hole in the wall for us to drag and drop bodies into the courtyard below if needed. Zombies come up the stairs into our trap, but some veer off into the larger room. Kazon was wanting to get into the fight and he doesn't have to wait long as zombies eventually crash through the adjoining wall from the large bedroom into his room. Since he is being attacked by multiple zeds Tecane goes through the hole into the next room to help him out. She is quickly grabbed and the battle in the hallway is bogging down. The zombie bodies are impeding the progress of new combatants, so Bolburd goes to help what is shaping up to be a larger battle in the other room. Bolburd manages to knock the zombie on Tecane away from her, but two more grab on. They start munching away and Bolburd is unable to help as he gets grabbed as well. OOC: When zombies latch on to a PC, that PC has their weapon damage limited to a d6p. That makes it difficult to knock any zombies back. Furthermore, once a PC has been grabbed twice (doesn't have to be the same zombie) every adjacent zombie gets a free 1d4p bite....every 10 seconds!

Tecane soon goes down and is at negative hit points. It is up to Bolburd and Kazon to try and save her. Bolburd is severely hampered because he has been grabbed, but he manages to kill the zombie on him which coincidentally had a hold on Tecane. Kazon manages to knockback and kill the second zombie on Tecane. These actions briefly create a little breathing room, allowing Bolburd to grab the unconscious Cleric and toss her body somewhere behind him before moving to plug up the hole in the wall with his own body. He'll have to fight zeds two-to-one, but he hasn't been injured yet, so he might prevail. OOC: I had to use my KoDT Mulligan to try (and fail initially) to knock back a zombie and Kazon's player Adam ended up using a mulligan and burning 10 Honor to force a re-roll. Tecane's player Jaime also burned some honor to up her defense from another grab (and set of free bites) and to stabilize her wounds. Essentially we had to pull out all the stops and be a little lucky.

Salt has been kicking ass in the hallway this whole time, but she is almost cut off from the group. The bodies are piling up and becoming a hindrance and at one point she fumbles, which causes her shirt to become hopelessly twisted up, hindering her ability to fight. Since the zombies are pretty much pouring into the larger bedroom she has some space to fix her impediment, which means she removes her shirt! Salt isn't what you would call an attractive woman and hopefully she can get some clothes back on before anyone else sees her. OOC: There is a little more content regarding this here.

We had to break here and we won't be playing this game next week due to work schedules.

Weaponology

2011-10-25T10:42:00.000-06:00

I was perusing my Netflix que on the Xbox and one of the recommended TV shows was Weaponology from the Military Channel.

Not a bad show, but probably not one I'd really want to get into. The first ten minutes or so of Season 1: Episode 9- Booby Trap is worthwhile for player and GM viewing. That informative ten minutes were about the beginnings of booby traps and depicted a fair number of nasty traps made with wooden sticks.

I realize that with my dual RPG and military experience going back several decades now, I don't have too much of an issue imagining how these types of traps come together. Other players and GMs may not. Bolburd, my Dwarven fighter, recently suffered a nasty wound from an ankle trap that limited his movement to 1/4 normal speed. That really hurt his combat effectiveness.

On the GM side of things, imaging you have a kobold lair that the PCs are trying to infiltrate. Those little buggars probably have a series of small, easily constructed traps littering the appropriately sized approaches to their nest. This show could get you started on a few good examples.

As for being a player, this episode could show you why adventures often had a 10' pole.

Ho Hum....

2011-10-20T10:09:00.000-06:00

Still playing Wednesday nights with much of the same group I'd been playing with for the last year. Going on the third GM rotation, so I'm still playing Linian. Right now the game is kind of a drag so I'm usually busy watching TV while we play, something I'd not normally do.

We've been having problems with MapTools, which causes way too many delays. It doesn't really help that I'm playing a support character. If the session is combat heavy, which easily happens, I'm not going to be doing much. Playing a game online can sometimes slow the action to a crawl so that 20 minute combat at the game table takes an hour or more to resolve online.

The game overall is enjoyable and please don't take this as a gripe and moan post about the online game. I knew what I was getting myself into when choosing to play an Elven Rogue. Sure, I could run up an engage in combat...I might as well start rolling my 3d6's right now.

Right now I'll stick to protecting the Mage or the party pack mule.

My beloved battleaxe

2011-10-17T11:46:00.002-06:00

It's been a couple of weeks since our group has been able to get together to play HackMaster due to Carolyn's work and traveling. We were planning on getting together to start a new campaign using the Beta Player's Handbook and some of the play-testing material. I rolled up a Pixie Fairy. The material for that race is very much still Alpha material, so I filled in the gaps with HackMaster 4th Edition material.

Carolyn, our GM, got her hands on a new adventure written by DSK. It is a Halloween themed adventure for level 5 PCs and she wanted to run that. No problem. I pulled out Bolburd, who just made 6th level. We have another 5th level Dwarf fighter, an almost 4th level Human Rogue, and a 3rd level Human Caregiver Cleric. Although we just started, it is obvious that I'm going to have to pull most of the weight fighting wise.

That's OK.....it is what I do. I don't want to get into spoilers, but we'll bee needing a heavy hitter. We are trying to use the new rules as they come out and one of those rules "nerfed" my PC's weapon. The Battleaxe went from doing 4d4p damage to 4d3p damage*. A couple folks on the KenzerCo forums got a little pissy with this change and I'll admit to being a bit torqued myself. I spent a LOT of build points (BP) into my battleaxe specialization. The weapon is pretty damned slow and if you wanted to do a lot more math than I'm comfortable with you can find other weapons that do more damage over time. Yes, some people did a damage per second (DPS) calculation. Thing is, this isn't World of Warcraft and there are other considerations to deal with. First of all, damage doesn't mean squat if you don't connect. Second, as you level your PC and start fighting tougher monsters, they are going to have higher damage resistance (DR). The dagger may end up having the highest DPS calculation (not sure what does.....I don't care), but as the baddies scale up you'll have a helluva time actually dealing damage, much less knocking them back.

In preparation for the game last night I went ahead and looked up the new stats for the battleaxe. I didn't want to go off of forum chatter. Yep, it is now 4d3p damage. Glad I bought those D3's. Wait a second, what's this? A battleaxe does 3d3p damage versus shields. Before they did half damage, expressed as 2d4p. This means I do a little more damage versus shields than I did before. There is a little asterix by the damage notation in the PHB. The battleaxe is more effective against heavier armorer foes. If my enemy is wearing heavy armor or has a DR of 5 or more, the battleaxe lowers their DR by 2. Hells yeah! The battleaxe is far from nerfed. Game on!

*If you don't know already, the "p" means that the dice penetrate. If I roll a 4 on a d4p, then I get to roll the die again and add it along with a -1 to the previous roll. If I roll a 4 again, I get to roll again, still adding a -1 each time I roll the die. Some people get confused and think the second penetration is an "additional" -1, as in the next die gets a -2, a lucky third penetration gets a -3, and that would be it. Doesn't work that way, each time you roll a penetrating die, it is just a -1. Basically the die range is simply reduced by 1, so a 1d4 that had penetrated has a range of 0-3 instead of 1-4. Statistically this increases the average die roll by .5, or so I'm told. A d4 would roll an average of 2 and a d4p would roll an average of 2.5, which would be expressed as 3. This change from a 4d4p to a 4d3p basically took the average roll from 10 to 8. My stat math might be off, but you get that generally speaking the total die roll is reduced by about 2.

Linian Linrynor

2011-09-23T13:01:00.001-06:00

Our Wednesday night game switched GMs again to Joe and a new campaign so we all rolled up PCs again. I've been contemplating switching primarily to "support" player characters instead of fighters, which most people prefer to play in HackMaster Basic. I don't blame them, fighter-types are usually more fun in a game that is heavily combat oriented.

Enter Linian.

I've been unusually blessed in rolling up PCs online. Balen was rolled using the dice function from MapTools, but Linian came from rolling up stats using an online die roller built into the RPoL website that Joe likes to use.

The picture I found online and I tweaked to give him greying hair. I wish that I had kept the source file because I'd like to give credit to the artist. There were hundreds of pics I had to sift through to find one I really liked.

Linian's pertinents:

Class:  Rogue
Alignment:  Chaotic Neutral
Birthday: 3rd Day of Prayers, Month of Frost Thaw age:132

STR: 11/52
INT: 13/77
WIS: 12/08
DEX: 10/13
CON: 10/28
LKS: 17/03
CHA: 20/58

HP:  18

Experience: 534
Honor: 31

Attack:  +1
Defense:  +1  (+3 with Long Sword& armor)(+9 with Sword armor and shield)
Damage:  +0

Speed:  Long Sword - 10(8), Club - 10
Reach:  Long Sword - 3.5'
Init:  +1

BP:


Quirk:  Foul-Mouthed
Flaw:  Premature grey

Proficiencies:
    - Long Sword
    - Med Armor
    - Shield

Specialization:
    - Long Sword, Level 1 (Defense)

Talents
    - Parry bonus Long Sword
    - less Sleep
    - No Accent

Skills:
    - Language (Elven):  76%  Lit: 15%
    - Language (Vardrarian):  25%%  Lit: 0
    - Language (Gnome):  15%  Lit: 0
    - Language (Dwarf):  19%  Lit: 0
    - Language (Barbarian):  21%  Lit: 0
35% arcane Lore
21% Acting
16% Administration
12% Animal Husbandry
22% Animal Empathy
15% Appraise Gems & Jewelry
29% Arcane Lore
12% Boating
13% Cartography
10% Climbing/Rappelling
12% Current Affairs
29% Diplomacy
27% Disguise
26% Distraction
10% Escape Artist
64% Fast Talking
12% Fire Buiding
21% Forgery
63% Gambing
36% Glean Information
10% Hiding (+50)
20% Interrogation
15% Intimidation
34% Listening
15% Observation
10% Pick Pockets
13% reading Lips
50% Recruiting
12% Resist persuasion
25% Rope Use
22% Salesmanship
45% Seduction, art of
14% Sneaking (+50)
10% Survival
13% Torture
12% Tracking
17% Urban Survival

I'm in the process of buying back the Foul-Mouthed quirk. I don't mind swearing and probably do it too often anyway, but since this is an online game I don't have the face-to-face interaction and any swearing I do just seems contrived and out-of-place to me. It takes a couple of sessions usually for me to get a good feel for a PC and foul-mouthed just doesn't fit in for me.

My initial PC background:
Linian Linrynor is not your average Grey Elf. His family comes from the “other side” of the forest and isn’t held in very high regard. Elves tend to have long memories, longer than even their years would suggest and in the eyes of his community, Linian doesn’t come from good stock. The “patriarch” of the Linrynor clan was a man named Shifan whose greatest claim to fame was dying shortly after poking a giant lizard with a stick. Unfortunately Shifan had sired children so the lizard didn’t remove the Linrynors from the Elven gene pool. In more recent times, Linian’s Great-Great Grandfather was exiled from Sylana for worshipping the Harvester of Souls.

Linian’s parents haven’t fared too much better. Linian’s father, also named Shifan, is a minor crook who has done some time in prison (forced house arrest). He still traffics in illegal goods, mostly counterfeit coins which he uses as part of a small moneylending operation. His mother, Seviavena, is a kind hearted soul, but she is a hopeless romantic and a raging hypochondriac. Fortunately she is content enough to remain at home and raise the children. From his father, Linian has been able to learn a little bit about appraising gems, jewelry, and coins, and he has some “lowlife” contacts in communities throughout the region. His mother made him memorize a small book of Elven poetry, in order to “woo” her future daughter-in-law. Although he had shown some promise as an artist, Seviavena also arranged for Linian to be apprenticed as a healer, but he was quickly dismissed from his apprenticeship after “the incident”.

Linian is devoted to his brothers and sisters. Unfortunately only two of his siblings remain alive. As a child Linian spent time in the woods playing with his brothers, which isn’t unusual for Elven children. On one such occasion they ventured too far into the woods (the family home was on the outskirts of the community) and they were set upon by a small band of orcs. Cyrn was killed immediately by the ambush. Devarel and Toratin attempted to hold off the monsters while Linian ran back to get help. Devarel was slain by the time the guard could respond. Devarel’s death hit Linian pretty hard since in his mind he sacrificed himself. Toratin was badly wounded, but recovered and in time joined the very guard unit that rescued the two remaining brothers. Linian has one surviving sister, Whylee. He had another sister Jelena, but she died shortly after birth from a hereditary disease.

Linian, or Lin-Lin to his friends and associates, is ready to move on from Sylana and interact a bit more with the outside world. He has a knack for languages and knows that he is a bit more charming and definitely better looking than most. He’s not above using his whiles to get ahead. His father has him convinced that the humans are a bit of an easy mark and he shouldn’t have to work too hard to get a leg up on them.

I like using Kenzer & Company's Kalamar Player's Primer for rolling up PC backgrounds. I go through the various tables, rolling dice and taking notes, before tying all the results into one big background story. This has helped me out a bit later in-game.

When one of the players suggests that maybe they could save some coin by staying at my place for the night. Hell no! All Linian needs is to bring some Dwarf home for his mom to go on for weeks about having picked up the Dwarven Flu from the visitor. If we need a place to fence stuff Linian has contacts here in town and in several other communities.

It is fun sometimes to be able to sit back and watch the rest of the group go all gung-ho on fighting the bad guys while I sit back and charm the pants off the local ladies and do most of the non-healing support work. At least I'm not as likely to suffer a sucking chest wound.

GM Resources

2011-09-16T17:58:00.000-06:00

It is one thing to have an idea. As GMs, and even players, we get ideas all the time. Personally I keep a little notebook, which I am always losing, where I can jot down some ideas. I'll be sharing some of those game-related ideas here since I'm not doing much in the way of character journals.

Putting ideas into practical use is a whole different story. Some of my ideas have seen the light of day, more have been started then pushed aside, and some have required parts and pieces obtained, but haven't actually been used. Of course most never leave the notebook.

When other GMs get good ideas and put them into use, I am awed. Not always, because let's face it, some ideas (or just execution) suck. Most, however, do not.

I've always like geomorphs. The idea is just a fun one for me, but I cannot get motivated enough to actually put some together, which is why I like this blog. Great job.

The geomorphs are cool enough, but what really took things up a huge notch for me was this idea. Seriously, it is so cool I don't want to spoil the surprise. You need to stumble upon the coolness all on your own.

If you just need to generate a quick geomorph map and don't want to download all of the individual geomorphs, you can use a web-based program called Dave's Mapper.

New Game Table

2011-09-12T20:05:00.000-06:00

I've been playing HackMaster, but not with any PCs that I'm keeping journals for. My Wednesday night group has switched GMs and this time I'm attempting to play more of a support PC. Support PCs, in my opinion, are a bit on the boring side as far as gamer tales go.

The Sunday night group just finished a small published adventure that....well, let's just say I didn't care for it. The premise sounded good, it was an honorable mission, but the execution was very lacking. Before you go blaming the GM I should note that I finally read the adventure just after we finished playing it. I found it a bit on the bland side and quite verbose. Glad it is over.

One new predicament is that we may have picked up a new/old player. One of our first HackMaster players moved back to Boise and has expressed interest in gaming with us. He's played one session and rolled up a new PC. If everyone shows that gets our table size up to six, including the GM. That is a bit much for our small kitchen table.

First attempt at 42x80 tabletop

We have more room in the living room, but the table is still too small, so I endeavored to build a new tabletop. My wife and I ventured down to Home Depot with measurements in hand. I figured that we could fit an eighty inch by forty-two inch in the living room. Unfortunately I couldn't fit that big of a slab into my FJ40, so we had the particle board cut into roughly forty inch square sections.

Laying out lines for added support

When we got it back home I was able to measure out the dimensions of the kitchen table onto the two pieces. After pre-drilling some holes I screwed in some two by two supports that keep the sections from sliding around the table. There is less than a half inch of movement while nestled on the kitchen table, but it isn't as sturdy as I'd like. The sides only have six inches clearance which is just fine, but the ends are eighteen inches and bend/flex a bit too much.

Added end supports

Sealed and painted

After the game I got some help bringing the unified table out to the driveway where I had set up some sawhorses. Using the leftover two by twos, I fastened some extra supports for the ends of the table. I put a good coat of Kilz primer sealer on, followed up by a coat of white semi-gloss I happened to have lying around.

Holes patched with caulk

Top sealed and painted

We flipped the table over and before I painted this side I figured that I would fill the screw holes. The screws were countersunk and then plastered over with some caulk I had lying around. I thought I had some wood filler around, but the caulk was going bad and if the table flexed any I didn't want the filler cracking or popping out. The caulk should hold up.

Now that was done, I was able to seal then paint the tabletop. Easy enough.

Starting the grid design

Halfway done on the grid

To be a real game table though, it needs to have a grid laid on top. I was planning on using low-tack painter's tape to mark off some of the table to paint with a contrasting color. Then I'd alternate the tape lines to paint even more of the top such that I'd get a nice checkerboard of 1" squares. That wasn't going to work. The tape was too fiddly so I needed another method. A straight-edge and some Sharpies would do the trick. I laid out some reference tape, marked it off every inch, and then did the hard work of making the lines.

Completed grid

It was almost painful, but I took my time and got the marks down. The grid was a little off at the edges so I just left them to be. If I had tried to square out the grid I think the results would have been shoddy.

All set up in the living room

After the grid came the real fun: six coats of Varathane Spar Varnish. It turned the white tabletop more of a mottled beige. I liked the results as it seems more like parchment. After the sixth coat dried for 24 hours I used some corner supports screwed down over the corners for added protection. They worked like a charm.

The Spar Varnish gives the tabletop a waterproof finish that lets us use wet-erase markers just like the game mat does. We have to be careful with the red markers though, just like we do with the game mat. The only issue is that the table is very glossy. If the blinds aren't closed, people sitting opposite the window cannot make anything out over the shine.

Notice the shine

No big deal....we'll just put the game mat down.

HackMaster Podcasts

2011-08-21T20:51:00.000-06:00

We haven't had the Sunday night group in about a month due to Fandemonium and work shifts. We are in the middle of the Free adventure from KoDT. I think it was issue #175, but if you don't already have it, then I'd start with Bundle of Trouble #1 and work my way up to the current issue.

The Wednesday night game has a new GM, new PCs, and a new campaign. I'm playing an Elven Rogue with high diplomacy and recruiting skills, along with the normal array of assorted social skills. My PC is foul-mouthed and is prematurely grey. When rolling the PC up, I kept getting "racist" as a quirk. The GM allowed me to keep re-rolling until I got something different. It took 4 rolls to get "foul-mouthed".

Unfortunately I just don't have a real good feel for this PC. I keep slipping from being foul-mouthed to just lippy, and that isn''t what I'm, trying for. Two sessions in and I just don't have the PC in my head yet. Hopefully that will change soon.

My wife, our home-group GM, has a podcast. Now, I'm biased, but I've recently been listening to other podcasts and I think her group does a bang-up job. I highly recommend listening to Sugar & Dice. (link is to the iTunes podcast link).

Some of the other podcasts I've been listening to (generally individual episodes):
Role Playing Public Radio- Interview with Jolly Blackburn
Wapcaplets Episode 49: HackMaster Basic
Bend Bars Lift Gates Episode 4: There's No Crying in HackMaster

Some comments about these podcasts.....so you cannot say I didn't warn you.

The interviewer for Role Playing Public Radio says "um" and "and" so many times that I about cringed every time he spoke. If there is one thing that Toastmasters has instilled in me it is a keen awareness of when a speaker overuses these filler words.

The Wapcaplets podcast was just a brief review of HackMaster Basic. I caught one thing he got wrong regarding initiative, but it was a good review overall.

I don't recommend listening to Bend Bars Lift Gates. It was basically just a group of players sitting around the microphone whining about the events of their last game. If not for the fact I was just letting it play while I did dishes, there is no way I could have stuck around to listen to this drivel.

Now it isn't HackMaster, but one of my buddies is part of a 1st Edition podcast that rocks. I highly recommend Roll for Initiative.

HoB Product Recall Alert!!!

2011-08-18T21:28:00.002-06:00

An excerpt from Balen's missives home (translated from Dwarven):

2011-08-05T14:36:00.002-06:00

Mother & Father,

No one can be happier than I am that I have managed to survive what we expected to be a terrible battle. It was terrible, but I was not able to take part.

We rushed North with all haste to return to the caravan, hoping to get there in time.

What we did not know was that those enemy that fled before us were not seeking to attack the caravan. Instead they lay in wait to ambush us. The group had taken a wagon and affixed both horses to it. Hours into our rough journey we rounded a bend in the trail to be confronted with a thick blanket of smoke. I grabbed by gear and immediately jumped from the wagon. As I did so, a flurry of crossbow bolts pelted the side of the wagon.

My compatriots barreled through the smoke wall as I rolled to a stop. I could hear the whinnying of the horses, which were obviously in great pain. While my shield was beside me, there was no time to ready it. I drew my warhammers as I stood and rushed the enemy. Two spearmen had seen me and left the group of crossbowmen to face off with me. One spearman tried to keep me at bay while the other engaged me. Both clumsily missed connecting and I was able to knock the fight out of both men in maybe two seconds.

The crossbowman had moved to the other side of the smoke barrier, presumably to engage the rest of the party. The horses made such noise that I was convinced they were being tortured to death. There was a loud crash and I could hear my compatriots entering the battle. Instead of rushing to assist them behind the smoke barrier, I trusted that they had matters in hand and I made sure to dispatch the spearmen before cautiously regrouping.

By the time I could get back to the group, the crossbowmen and their leader, some sort of evil cleric, were dead. The horses had been set on fire and went wild, throwing most of the party out of the wagon before trampling the cleric on their way to crash the wagon into the trees.

We gathered up out belongings and looted the corpses. Surprisingly enough, they had absolutely nothing of value to them, not even some basic supplies. We did find some shovels and Zaki found some tracks. As we took care of the battle site, Zaki scouted out the tracks. He had found something and had called out he was in trouble. The whole party rushed to help, but of course being longer-legged they got to him well before I could. I was able to reach the Elf lass first. She was squared off with a giant cat creature called a Lioness, and a few seconds from death. The Lioness had clamped her mouth across the Elf's throat and was biting down hard. Fortunately this really immobilized the Lioness and I was easily able to plunge my warhammer deep into her ribcage, dropping her dead.

Zaki and the Hobbo girl had taken down another Lioness when all of a sudden a great roar was heard. A male Lioness had come to the battle! The Lioness was a brute with a huge ring of hair and a battle-scarred face. Although it was far away it immediately charged the Hobbo, who had turned and fled at the Lioness' roar. That beast was fast and I didn't think, I just reacted. Probably the dumbest, or bravest...funny how those two often work together...thing I've ever done.

I used my skill in mimicking animals to roar back at the Lioness. When he heard me his head snapped like it was on a swivel and he abruptly altered his charge, coming for me instead. Its path brought him past Zaki, who was able to take a swing, but missed. The Lioness lunged at me, but it was easy for me to deflect his blow. I was able to throw at elbow it the Lioness' face, but missed. My follow-up did not miss. I cracked that thing so hard it was sent reeling back and down. The Hobbo came back to engage the beast and Zaki was about to do the same, but I waived them off. This was my kill.

There was a fourth lioness in a pit that our earlier foes evidently had dug. It died from it's wounds. The male Lioness was skinned and I requested the pelt as a trophy, as well as the moniker "Lionsbane".

We made out way back to the caravan, but it was too late. There was a great battle between the caravan, some cultists, and apparently a detachment of Kalamaran soldiers. The caravan had been prepared and survived because they were able to set up adequate defenses.

Master Gorum welcomed us back, absorbed the news we had to deliver, and awarded us our pay. There is a chance that we might fight back against this cult of bandits, or we might work our way up the coast some more. There is also a chance that we might go West over the pass and into the resistance camps. For that reason, more than any other, I have dropped my surname and have adopted "Lionsbane". I changed my name when I left home to insulate the family the best I could from my actions here. Now that I have been gone for a while it is time to do it again.

I expect it could be some time before I can write again, but we will see.

May the Ancestors Watch Over You, as they have been watching over me.
-Balen

I had to take this one.....

2011-07-30T18:11:00.002-06:00

Face took the Hardest Gary Gygax Quiz in the World and got 50%!

You are a Gary Gygax Swashbuckler. You are cunning in the ways of Gary Gygax. You've probably been to Gen Con once or twice, and if I searched your house, I bet I'd find a Gary Gygax autograph, a humorous D&D-related T-shirt, and/or a stack of Dragon magazines.

Paladin Code: You completed this quiz without using Google.

I remembered an answer and played around without cheating.....

Face took the Hardest Gary Gygax Quiz in the World and got 80%!

You are a Gary Gygax Superhero. If aliens ever invade Earth and challkenge us to a Gary Gygax trivia contest, you will be our champion.

Paladin Code: You completed this quiz without using Google.

Another letter home...

2011-07-19T15:21:00.002-06:00

An excerpt from Balen's missives home (translated fromDwarven):

Mother & Father,

This is a very difficult letter for me to write, and while Ihave so much to relate to you, the subject is uncomfortable and I am in a lotof pain, both physically and emotionally.

After rescuing the girl we headed back towards the Skinned MinotaurInn. We were fortunate enough to comeacross the Cleric of the Eternal Lantern and his new guards. We handed the girl over to their care andcamped out in the rainy night. Weintended to resume our travels immediately and felt that the girl would besafer with the Cleric since we knew we might be heading into bandit lands.

We were wrong. Thenext morning we came across the remains of a battle at the Inn. There was but on survivor and it wasn’t thegirl. I cannot bear to relive thedetails. While I prefer those of my ownrace, I cannot abide by the level of depredation and cruelty visited upon thesevictims even if they wer not of our blood.

We didn’t tarry long, but returned to the ruined outpost,where we were told these butchers were hiding out. We dispatched all agents of evil that cameacross our path, and we would have perished in the attempt if not for theassistance of a forest spirit. We knowthat at least one evil human escaped North from the battle. As we licked our wounds we were blessed bythe forest spirit and healed partially from our wounds. I also received a unique weapon to help inour efforts, a Great Warhammer made from a dark wood that is as hard as stone.

We thought we had rested for far too long with the spirit,but it was but an hour. We regrouped andset to clear the ruins of any stragglers. Inside we found a cellar that was riddled with traps. Our foes had left a group of Hobgoblins, ledby an Ogre, to prevent our following them. The battle was fast and fierce and I was nearly mortally wounded by theOgre.

After the battle, and after avoiding a series of traps, wediscovered evidence that this foe honors the God of Strife, and that theyintend to push North and kill Master Gorum. We make haste to catch up and put down this threat once and for all.

This may be my final letter. If it is, weep not for me. Knowthat I have honored our clan and our name while striving to put down an evilmenace. Send word to Bolburd that he maychoose to rejoin Meika at Karasta, or work his way back here to avenge mydeath.

May the Ancestors Watch Over You, as they have been watchingover me.

-Balen

Origins Bound

2011-06-19T09:23:00.001-06:00

Origins kicks off next week, which coincidentally starts on my 40th Birthday. This year is going to be different because of that fact and the fact that I haven't been employed in seven months. Believe it or not, even GMs have ethical boundaries that they aren't willing to have crossed.

Fortunately much of the arrangements were made about 11 months ago. Airline tickets were purchased with miles, hotel rooms were bought on points and because of my birthday I'm even getting some free food at the local restaurants. I signed up for various member programs and a lot of them like to bring you in for some free grub when your birthday rolls around.

If you are going to Origins, I highly recommend checking out BD's Mongolian Grill. It's good food at a decent price and really needs to be attended with friends. I'll be going there at least once.

In the last month or two I've been working on squaring things away for the convention. We've got two authors writing a total of six adventures for the convention and they usually need a lot of work to get things ready. I just hope that we got enough things fixed and shipped to enable the games to run smoothly. For the record, summer con tournament adventures are always a pain in the ass and usually require large amounts of editing/fixing before the convention. It is just the nature of the beast. Even my adventures have to be edited heavily from an outside source. This year was no different. I won't go into details here because someone might pull info they shouldn't have prior to the game.

I think the GMs won't have too many issues and the players will have fun, which is the important thing. Since HackMaster Basic came out we tweaked the tournament layout. In HackMaster 4th Edition tournaments were a brutal affair where just surviving was an accomplishment. Adventures were written with the express intent of "hitting the players sideways" and trying to kill every PC was the primary goal. Tournaments were highly competitive affairs that encouraged munchkins, cheating, and post-game whining. Story was often a bit weak and the nature of the game discouraged some players from participating. When HackMaster first came out they had to make the games single elimination affairs because it was difficult to get enough convention space and GMs. As the years went by fewer players bothered. I know of groups that play HackMaster as their primary game that went to Origins and GenCon, but lost all interest in playing in tournaments.

With the new game we were able to try and start fresh. Tournaments were whittled down from a nine encounter standard to a six encounter standard. Of the six encounters, only three could be designated as combat encounters, but the other three could transition to combat encounters if they were played poorly. The emphasis is supposed to be on story and completing the adventure. All players get to play in all games, should they choose to. Tournament scoring is still left up to the tournament organizer. For my tournaments I came up with a system that scores based on GM Honor rating, party success, and player ranking.

GM Honor rating is right out of the book. Players get up to eight points based on adherence to alignment & class and general role playing. The two charts are found on page 28 of the HMb PHB. Party success is broken down into how many encounters were completed (up to six points) and up to two points based on party deaths (or lack thereof). The last eight points are a bit tricky, but are allocated based on a player's ranking within the group. Most people seem to read that part as player ratings, which is right out. The players as each table get to rank each other in numerical order on how well they thought the other people played. You don't get to rank yourself. These ranking have to be put into a spreadsheet to come up with the final score. Rankings helped to reduce a few potential player behaviors intended to influence the output. First of all was removing themselves from the scoring. Ranking in order keeps people from being able to simply rate everyone high or low, or just a small subset. The ranking, with conjunction with the spreadsheet, also allows the GM/organizer to account for difference in table sizes. The amount of points available doesn't change even though rankings due to table size could.

It is a work in progress, but it worked out very well last year. The biggest problem was getting the ranking from the players and that was my fault. I didn't do a good enough job explaining the process out in writing. I have different scoring cards this year which will help out significantly.

Another thing I've done, and this started while we were playing HackMaster 4th Edition, is that I formally explain the tournament's grievance procedures and had all the players sign a document to the effect that they have heard/read the grievance procedures. It was getting to be an almost annual event that there would be some big blow-up at the convention. Usually someone complained they were robbed, but they didn't do much at the con about it, choosing to get home and blow up the KenzerCo message forums and create some brouhaha. I'll admit I got pretty pissed at one tournament where we had problems. I didn't do anything about it at the time and I should have, but I was afraid that there would be repercussions. When we had issues at the same convention later I didn't hesitate to complain to the tournament organizer and it made all the difference in the world.

The people there running the show just want to have fun too. That fact gets overlooked a lot.

So I have a lot going on this year at Origins. I turn 40. I also have a phone interview for a job on my birthday. It is a job I not only need, but actually want. I'm very excited by the prospect as it is only one of two or three jobs I've seen that were on my short list of what I think would be "ideal".

If you are attending Origins and are there early enough on Wednesday. Maybe you can come have a drink with me to celebrate not only my 40th, but hopefully a good job interview. I'm bringing a drink called Apple Pie for my friends. Jolly Blackburn gave me a graphic to use on the flasks I'll be handing out to a few folks (I am unemployed, so there are only so many......I hope there are enough).

It is also important to mention that there will be a hard-copy preview of the new Hacklopedia of Beasts (HoB) book for Advanced HackMaster/HackMaster Basic. It looks so good...I can't wait to get to drool over the real thing. I'll have to figure out how to get my hands on a second copy or an updated PDF since this is something I want to be locked away under glass with an armed guard. Jolly made a spoof ad for the book, which I stole to place here. I'll definitely have to give it a review.

An excerpt from Balen's missives home (translated from Dwarven):

2011-06-15T23:09:00.001-06:00

Mother & Father,

Some of the group felt like sleeping in to lick their wounds or nurse their hangovers. We’ve already had some delays that were not avoidable. Sleeping in is avoidable. We managed finally get back onto the road and a couple miles down the road before we needed to halt the wagon again.

At a small river crossing we came across an unusual sight. On the far side of the bridge lay the body of a massive dog. The bloated and distended corpse looked like it had been feasted upon. Sure enough, before we could even cross the bridge, a group of very large ants, the size of a normal dog, came to dissect some of the dog meat. These ants were grotesquely disfigured with open boils and multicolored tumors. We let them get on their way and considered crossing when an even larger ant appeared to stand guard over the meat. We figured we’d wait a while to see if the ants would return to haul off the rest of the carcass.

Not even 30 minutes elapsed before the ants return to remove the remaining dog, but the sentinel ant senses our presence and comes to check us out. We were prepared for this and had set up to fire a full volley of javelins, arrows, and bolts at the behemoth. The dark skinned ranger lets loose before the mark was given and then everyone follows suit. I wait another second and then fire Master Blim’s crossbow which I was using. We injure the beast, but it keeps coming. I manage to stow the crossbow but the sentinel is upon me before I can ready my shield. Fortunately it seemed to be attracted to the Elf’s movement and went right by me to pursue her. I was able to attack it from behind with Norkrak, but it wasn’t enough. The ant swivels around to attack me, and it comes very close to connecting, but I narrowly dodge the bite. Zaki runs up beside me and puts his Warhammer to use. He nearly splits the beast in twain when he connects through a vicious boil.

After washing our weapons we continue on and enter one of the farmlands which we hope is a destination for some of the trade goods we have been escorting. The land is very odd here. The fields are similarly overgrown, with the corn rows nearest the road laden with ears thrice as big as they should be. Watermelon patches bear fruit the size of beer barrels and there is a sickly-sweet smell of death and decay. It smells like something called “silage”, but there is something else in the air too. We continue down the path and some of us can soon pick up the sound of crying. The crying turns into a screech and then goes silent.

Running towards what sounds like a youngling’s cries I notice the stench is getting bigger and I can see more massive dead animals. A couple of cows and a pig lay about, covered in boils and burst pustules. We think the crying is from a farmhouse at the end of the lane and we strive to reach it. We have to approach the barn first , but before we can even get within 30’ of the structure its doors burst open and a giant 12’ tall rooster rushes out. The monstrosity lets out a blood-curdling crow that about ruptures my eardrums. The crow stopped me in my tracks and caused my non-Dwarven compatriots to flee in terror from the beast. For a split second I half considered fleeing myself, but I managed to contain that feeling.

The Rooster rushed up to me and flapped it’s wings with such ferocity that I took a small wound to the head and got pushed back a couple feet. I got what I thought was a good blow in on it, but the monster seemed unfazed. It came back at me with a fury, but I managed to back up some and dodged the blow with ease. Zaki leveled his heavy crossbow at it and nailed it good. The beast still had some fight in him. He attacked me again and I continued to move back. Just as I was set to run up and wail at the creature, I get hit by a javelin! I wasn’t sure if it was thrown by that new Elf wench or the Dark-skinned Human, but luckily it only put a nice gouge in my armor.

That Hobbo girl was the first to return to battle and managed to give the bird it’s death blow. I’ve got to give the girl credit. She plunged her dagger deep into the creature’s thigh and then pulled herself up just enough to remove the dagger and plunge it back into the monstrosities eye. She didn’t even stop to make sure the cock was dead. Patch jumped off of the felled beast and pretty much sprinted towards the farmhouse. Zaki and I ran after her at our top speed and we were joined by the Elf wench and the Human. Instead of overtaking us, they slowed down to match our speed. As effective as they had been so far, it probably wasn’t a good idea for them to rush into danger.

Everyone rushes up when we approach the house and I end up being the last to burst through the door. The scene inside is one of turmoil. The Elf is standing over the body of the Human and the hobbo is squaring off against three massive beetles. One beetle is down and just above it is a small human girl resting on top of the room’s chandelier, currently safe from the fray.

Zani and I split apart and each work our way in around the Elf lass. Another beetle moves in so we can each attack one on our own. The Elf stubbornly standing over the body and even though we can cover her retreat, she refuses to move. The beetle attacks at her and seems to ignore me. Patch dispatches another beetle. It seems that her sword is more effective than Norkrak, but it may just be luck. I managed to kill one beetle and move up to engage the remaining vermin. With the last beetle surrounded on three sides, the Elf finally let herself disengage and drag the Human off to safety while we beat it down into a pasty goo.

A quick search of the house while the party bound their wounds revealed a large amount of seed, some journals and books written in the Tongue and some in Merchant’s Cant. A large chest contained a fair amount of coin and some potions. We boxed anything of value into the chest and loaded it into the wagon. These goods are all the little girl has left of her family and it is only right that we secure it for her. Master Gorum will know what to do with the girl and will see that her inheritance is safeguarded. Evidently this family was good friends of the Master.

It was apparent that the errant javelin shot came from the Elf. Although I saw the Human with a javelin earlier, he was just fetching the implement for her. He uses a bow and if need be, a throwing ax. She feigned ignorance when I brought up the subject and I was too busy guarding the beetle’s entrance to the house to march over to her and do something about it. There is something about her I do not trust. In our first combat she went into some frenzy and slaughtered the captive kobolds and the orc before throwing up. While I don’t think those creatures needed pity, it didn’t seem to be her duty to dispatch them. This last battle she runs away, only to contribute by jabbing me with a javelin? Then she acts all protective over the Human when she could have let us cover him? I think she fancies herself to be much more capable than any Elf is, much less a fancy lass.

We are at a crossroads on what to do. We were to unload at least part of, if not all, of our shipment here, but now we don’t have anyone to receive the goods. We don’t know what is causing all of these mutational growths, but I’m not sure now is the time to try and figure it out. We need to check the manifest and see if there are any other stops before returning to the main caravan.

I think we should see if there are any other mutated farm animals about and put them out of their misery. We should also bury this little girl’s parents. They may be strangers, and they may be humans, but they were close to Master Gorum and I’m sure that is what he’d have us do. We have a lot of work to do and I doubt I’ll wish to add to this letter later, so I will end this here.

May the Ancestors Watch Over You.
-Balen

An excerpt from Balen's missives home (translated from Dwarven):

2011-06-09T17:50:00.003-06:00

Mother & Father,

Once we had freed the prisoners we decided the best course of action was to bring them with us. Don't worry, I'm not getting soft on the poor humans. They were weak and in no condition to take care of themselves. Leaving them behind was a security risk we could ill afford. All we needed was for the slavers/bandits to come back and they'd have far too much information regarding our group.

We continued on towards the inn we knew was further down the road. When we got to what used to be the Triple Crown....I believe it is the Dead Minotaur or some such, we pulled up to a trio of wagons. The first held some wolves, the second some kobolds and an orc, and the third had some prisoners. I stayed behind with the wagon. Krank and his kin kept me company, along with the badly wounded man we rescued. There were some flashy-dressed guards watching the nearby stable. There was some brief discussion back and forth and we were able to tell the trio were slaves....pit fighters that enter combat because they are forced to. One tried to goad me into paying to fight him, saying he was responsible for many deaths at Kadir Ridge. I saw the ruse for what it was, but he attempted to distract me from my duty anyway.

When the hobbo girl came out of the inn to relieve me so I could eat I overheard the trio making a crass remark about the girl. They said something to the effect of, "Maybe when we are done with them, the boss will toss her in here with us." I suspected a trap and after confirming these men could not understand our language I called out to Zaki to gather the party because we needed to leave in a hurry. As our group assembled to leave, a couple of men followed them out and tried to convince us to stay. Their words sounded more like a threat than a concerned warning and I ignored them. One man made his way to the caged wagon and the other went around the corner towards the privy.

I jumped off the wagon, expecting trouble, and sure enough we were soon in some. I later learned that the man that disappeared came back around the corner and cast some spell that affected several of the group, mostly the weak and wounded. I was fixated on the human fumbling around with his keyring. I moved to engage him in an attempt to stop him from freeing those pit fighters. Just before I reached him, he fell to a well-placed javelin. Evidently we had another Elf befriend our party and she had thrown the missile. I finished the man off and dragged his body away from the cage lest those fighters attempt to grab the keys.

The battle was over in a matter of seconds. Evidently I was correct about the trap and our preparations gave us the upper hand in what could have been a nasty battle. The inn keeper told us that he had suspected these men guilty in some earlier disappearances. We searched the bodies and bound two prisoners. While we were securing the battlefield the new Elf went to the one cage and outright slaughtered the kobolds and the orc. Then she started to freak out and threw up all over the hobbo girl. I just don't get that kind.

We had some discussion about what to do with the pit fighters. I was concerned about the one called Crusher, who had said he slaughtered so many of our kind. When we offered them the possibility of freedom the big one called Ox seemed almost confused by the concept. I asked Crusher if he was just trying to goad me earlier or did he truely wish our kind ill will. He admitted being a Kalamaran Lieutenant during the Battle of Kadir Ridge, and to having killed every Person who crossed his blade in battle. He said it matter of factly and without remorse. Then he went on to say that when he was ordered to massacre non-combatants he turned away and was enslaved as a traitor to his people. He tried to be stoic, but I could see the truth in his eyes. As one fighter to another I believed him.

Ancestors protect me....I fumbled with the keys and released the trio then and there from their slavery. If they were going to be a threat and attack us once they had the chance I was willing to find out then and there. They stumbled out of their cage, stiffly rubbed where their shackles and chain restraints bound them, and then set upon our prisoner responsible for their suffering. A single blow from the one called Ox put a dent so large in the Mage's head that you would have sworn it was from my Warhammer!

The trio was truly grateful to be freed and the inn keeper donated a keg to the liberation party. As a group we gave them some coin to see them through to their next destination and we offered them the very horses that carted their cage around. There was much partying to be had in the inn that night.

I allowed myself one drink and then went back to guard the wagon. It is my duty and I do not feel slighted that I was unable to partake in the festivities. I do have a lot to think about though. It has been a very long day and while I could use a bath and some time to comb out my beard, I felt it was important to stay up just a little while longer and write you this note.

May the Ancestors watch over you,
Balen

An excerpt from Balen's missives home (translated from Dwarven):

2011-06-09T17:49:00.000-06:00

[continued from earlier]

Zaki and I were prepared when the alarm sounded and we both let loose with the heavy crossbows we had brought with us from the wagon. Zaki's shot went wide but mine hit the mark. It wasn't as solid of a hit as I would have liked, but I had never fired a crossbow before. We both dropped our missile weapons, readied out shields, and pulled out our weapons. Norkrak felt a bit lighter in my hand than I am used to, but Dwarven steel is much lighter than the rough iron my other warhammers are made out of.

Zaki ran down the path while I decided on a more direct approach toward the ruins. I'm not sure which of us actually moved faster because my progress was slowed by the tree branches and Zaki had to deal with a bandit. All I know is that I broke out of the trees closer to the ruins than he was....not that it mattered. A very large human, presumably the leader of these ruffians, stood in my way.

He tried to anger me by bringing up some gibberish concerning Kadir Ridge and he tried to put me off by stating he only wished to fight Krank. It was confusing that he wished me to leave him alone to battle another, but he was trying to disturb me. Trying to talk in battle, outside of simple orders for your men, is the purview of Elves and non-Dwarven women. I ignored him and pressed the attack. Norkrak landed a solid hit, but the bandit managed to slip aside somehow and escape the brunt of my blow. Zaki and Krank soon entered the fray and the bandit seemed most interested in felling Krank. Turning his attention away from me was a fatal mistake. He was knocked down just as I was about to swing and I was able to sink Norkrak several inches deep into his chest.

I later learned that while this was going on the rest of the party was facing more bandits to the North and once they had been dispatched they were able to attack some others that were trying to kill their prisoners. The guards from on top of the ruins saw the battle swinging against them and pleaded for quarter. I offered none to the one that had taken several shots at me and as he fled he was cut down. Again Norkrak landed a killing blow that was almost sickening in the level of devastation dealt. Had Norkrak an edge, I think it would have cut the bandit in twain.

The other half of the party did decide to give the last bandit quarter. Most of the prisoners were saved, but at least one is very badly wounded. Among those freed was a child clearly belonging to Krank. I do not know why he would work with her captors, even for a time, but it is very clear now why he worked against his fellows. There is more to his story than meets the eye.

We are at a crossroads of sorts. It is apparent that there is a horse missing and no doubt some word of our success has escaped to one or more of the other bandit cells. I doubt that there is much in the way of details, but we will need to be doubly careful as we continue our voyage. There is talk of talking the fight to the next cell, but I would rather that we continue our trek instead of trying to find a group that will prove difficult to locate, much less assault. If we are meant to fight these bandits and their dark leader then it will happen sooner or later. For now though I think we need to continue the task we have been hired to perform.

I'll send this dispatch off if we get a chance to stop at an inn. I could use a hot meal, a warm bed, and some strong brew. The humans tend to make very light ales and mulled ciders. Give me a simple full-bodied lager or a stout!

May the Ancestors watch over you,
-Balen

An excerpt from Balen's missives home (translated from Dwarven):

2011-06-09T17:48:00.002-06:00

Mother & Father,

With Master Brim dead and his killer apprehended, it was time to regroup and decide our next move. The rest of the group had secured prisoners and a surprise ally. Evidently the Hobbo woman used to sail with the leader of this group of brigands. There seems to have been a disagreement amongst the bandits just prior to our arrival and this “leader” named Krank turned against his own people to side with Patch. I don’t know if fighting against bandits and sparing the Elf’s life makes up for turning against his own kind, but that wasn’t for me to decide. Krank had turned himself over to be bound and judged by the Truthseeker we had traveling with us.

I was surprised that the Truthseeker’s judgment was fair and swift. I had expected the Human Truthseeker to release the <near untranslatable slang for female dog so dishonorable that no stud will breed her>. All the prisoners, save Krank, were sentenced to execution. I took Master Brim’s weapon, a Great Warhammer, and felled two prisoners immediately. While I felt some relief executing Master Brim’s killer, there was no honor in it. It was simply a task needing to be done. I have decided to keep Master Brim’s hammer and use it in his memory until such time that it can be returned to his family. It is a fine weapon made of Dwarven Steel and is named Norkrak.

Should Norkrak be delivered to you with word of my death know that he belongs to another and see that it is rightfully returned to Master Brim’s clan. Many details are etched onto Norkrak

Zaki Grom'Okri had been able to join up with us, having been held behind to receive and extra parcel that needed to be caught up with us. He arrived just in time for the Judgment and our deliberations on what to do next. Krank reiterated what we had heard about this bandit group’s brutal treatment of prisoners, but he also gave us some additional information that we did not know. This group we faced was but one cell of a much larger network of almost 400 brigands led by a dark mage and a Hobbo that was a leader of the enemy at Kadir Ridge. Although it was only a decade ago, thoughts of our exodus from our homeland immediately stirred in my mind.

By our guestimation, we had killed about half of this cell. The other half was holed up in a small ruins to the South, along with some prisoners taken earlier. I know my duty is first to the wagon and our shipment, but we have to go and assault those ruins. During the failed ambush one crossbowman was able to flee, so we have to assume that the rest of this bandit cell knows that we prevailed. We will not get this shipment through safely as we are slower than the bandits. “Pushing Through” is just not an option. There is also the matter of the prisoners. We are not duty-bound to assist them in any way, but since we cannot afford to ignore their captors, we should do what we can to assist. I will not lie that it gives me some small measure of pleasure that I might be able to stick a thorn in the side of one of those responsible for Borli and Elta’s deaths. It is just fortunate that all these actions are congruent.

Krank was very accommodating with the intelligence and I think that he can be trusted with a weapon in the upcoming fight. I don’t doubt he would turn on us in a second, but for now his fate is sealed with us. Between the bandit’s argument and the fact that one fled to inform the others, I think he has been marked as a traitor. Should we get overwhelmed with superior numbers he is likely to turn against us, but at that point we would already be doomed. Hopefully Fate will catch up with him, and he need be judged for his previous crimes, but if his help to us is worthy, he judgment will not be at our hands.

We turned the wagon South, bypassing the felled trees from the ambush, and traveled for several miles. Krank indicated when we should pull the wagon over and conceal it. We left two men behind to guard the hidden wagon as the rest of us moved forward. The Hobbo and the Elf snuck forward to get a layout of the guards and the ruins. They returned after dispatching one sentry and set back out. All of a sudden an alarm was called out and we were again set to battle…….
to be continued……..

An excerpt from Balen's missives home (translated from Dwarven):

2011-06-09T17:47:00.002-06:00

Mother & Father,

I realize this is a short letter, but it is as much as I can manage for now. Please accept my apologies for implying everything went well in my first battle as guardsman for Master Gorum, but that is not the case. I am well, but poor Master Brim was mortally wounded.

We knew that there was an ambush ahead on the trail. I felt that the earlier ambush we had seen wasn't what it appeared to be and although I had specifically warned Master Brim that I didn't trust the female. I don't know if her scream was a signal to set the trap or some odd way of distracting Master Brim and the Human Truthseeker, but while our guards were getting ready to counter-attack the ambushers she managed to get the drop on Master Brim with a well-placed dagger to the side of his neck.

I was too far away to do anything but attack the nearest bandits to my position. I charged the first and took the fight right out of him with a single blow. The second bandit and I traded blows, but he didn't get past my shield and I eventually landed another solid blow that about knocked him out. While I finished the duo, our Ranger was able to dispatch the wench. The Elf and the Hobbo dealt with more brigands around the bend in the trail. They managed to take some prisoners. I rushed to Master Brim's side when I could, but it was too late. I'm not ashamed to say that I was furious. I kicked the dead body of the human male off of the back of the cart then set upon the unconscious female. After I gagged her so she couldn't call out for help I removed her dagger from Master Brim's neck and used it to cut off all her hair. Since human females don't have beards this is the best I could do to shame her. I was sorely tempted to just slit her throat, but that would not be justice. We may be in a lawless land, but there are still some rules to be followed.

I hope that the Truthseeker can administer that justice as swiftly as possible so Master Brim's soul can be laid to rest along with his body. I don't know if he has any kin we need to notify, but I assume that Master Gorum will see to those details.

May the Ancestors watch over you,
-Balen

An excerpt from Balen's missives home (translated from Dwarven):

2011-06-09T17:46:00.000-06:00

Mother & Father,

Working for Master Gorum is going well. He treats his employees well and I am not singled out for any reason. We will be breaking off from the main caravan to escort a wagon to a side-market en-route to our final destination. I have been assigned guard duty with a couple humans, an elf, and a damned half-hobgoblin! They seem to take their job seriously and have not done anything to dishonor themselves in this profession, so I am wiling to overlook their obvious deficiencies. I have been slightly disappointed recently in that they were willing to take some risk with our cargo, but only time and Master Gorum will tell if it was an acceptable risk.

Master Brim, one of The People, but I know not what clan, is the wagon-master for our side trip. He either gave the guards the authority or simply relayed from Master Gorum that we had the decision power to make "adjustments" to our journey. We came across what appeared to be an ambush that claimed the live of a human male. A woman claiming to be his sister was still alive and pleaded to tag along with our wagon, and to have us transport her dead kinsmen! I would not have allowed such a risky deviation from our assigned goal, but the rest of the group outvoted me. The female then tried to bribe me with coin to change my mind! I did not take her money, but Master Gorum may wish compensation for this increased risk. Something did not add up to me because the ambush was hard to read, a little premature for my taste, and the human's ruined wagon was far too easy for me to move off the trail. I implored Master Brim to keep an eye on the humans because I didn't trust them.

We did run into some difficulty later along the trail, but obviously it wasn't too bad since I was able to send off this message. It is time for my turn on the watch so I must end this letter now. If I hear of word about Bolburd or Meika I will make sure to pass it along.

May the Ancestors watch over you,
-Balen

Balen Shield-Splitter, 2nd Level Dwarven Fighter

2011-06-09T17:43:00.000-06:00

16.52 STR
16.52 INT
16.37 WIS
18.52 DEX
16.32 CON
6.52 LKS
8.86 CHA

34 HP, TOP 11
31 Honor
1064 Experience

Racist & Prematurely Grey

Skills
Dwarven 84%, Literacy 24%
Merchant Tongue 31%
Animal Mimicry 53%
Observation 24%
Resist Persuasion 38%
Mining 27%
Appraisal Arms & Armor 20%
Cooking/Baking 45%
Geology 24%
Leatherworking 45%
Botany 21%
First Aid 28%
Swimming 56%

Proficiencies
Shields & Armor, Minimal weapons, Great Warhammer, Javelin, Laborer

Combat Profile
Great Warhammer, Attack +9, Speed -2 (10), Init -3, Defense +8, Damage +6, Base Damage d8p+d10p.

Javelin, Attack +6, Speed 0 (8), Init -3, Damage +0/+3, Base Damage 1d12p

Background

Balen Shield-Splitter, son of Klim, grandson of Urdur, and great-grandson of Borli Rune-Hammer himself is a proud Dwarf who was forced to flee Karasta during the Battle of Kadir Ridge. Too young to participate in the battle himself, Balen fled with his parents and four of his six siblings. His oldest brother Borli and sister Elta stayed behind with the defense forces and fell in battle. The rest of the family worked their way East, making a new home in Zoa, but not without “losing” the next two oldest children. During the migration to Reanaaria, and during that time Balen’s brother Bolburd and sister Mieka departed to find their own way in the world. It was rumored that Bolburd joined an adventuring company and Mieka was last heard to have made her way back to the guerrilla camps that seek retribution against Emperor Kabori.

As the youngest of seven children, Balen had no choice but to obey his father and move to Zoa, but he does not consider it “home”. Klim and his wife Kelarr were content enough to live their lives together as peaceful craftsman and hoped to pass on their skills in gem-cutting and leatherworking to their children. Balen has picked up some skills from his parents, but he is unable to forget what had happened at Kadir Ridge. While he had a normal relationship with Borli, he was very close to Elta, Bolburd, and Mieka. Losing so much of his family in such a short time-span has really jaded his outlook when it comes to “outsiders”. The family has either adapted to their new home, or gone off to reclaim their old one, but Balen clung to the old ways. Instead of training to become a gem-cutter or other craftsman, he decided to train in the use of the Great Warhammer, just like the clan’s patriarch (Borli Rune-Hammer). He learned how to read Dwarven even though it is not a useful skill in Zoa. Balen has had to learn a bit of Merchant’s Tongue to get buy, but he has so far adamantly refused to learn any of the “lesser” tongues.

Balen’s sullen demeanor and xenophobic tendencies didn’t afford him many opportunities for friendship and his parent’s quickly learned that it was better to conduct business dealings with other races outside of the home. One of their regular clients, Master Gorum Talek, was always welcome in the home as he was a fellow Dwarven refugee. During Gorum’s trips through Zoa he would visit with Kilm and Kelarr and discuss the news of the world and their people after the business of the day had been finished. Gorum was already a travelling merchant, so his transition to a life outside of Karasta was relatively easy. He sympathized with Kilm and his family’s difficulty in their transition and offered encouragement when he could. From time to time he would also bring Balen a book of Dwarven literature.

When Balen became of age Gorum offered him a guard position with his caravan. Gorum seemed to have some ulterior motives, kind ones no doubt, as to why he wanted to offer Balen such a position. Perhaps he wanted to temper the young man’s racist tendencies or he wanted to keep Balen from rushing back to Karasta. For whatever the reason, Gorum has treated Balen fairly and without special favor.

Balen is at a crossroads in his life. He is old enough to set out on his own but lacks any real direction. He had thought of locating Mieka or even Bolburd and trying to fight alongside them, but he isn’t quite ready to make such a long and perilous trek quite yet. For now he is content to earn some coin and gain some experience while he figures out what to do.

Change of Gears

2011-06-09T17:37:00.001-06:00

I cannot find the "final" journal entry for Hildigrim. I was absent for a session which was our last for a while as the group rotated out GMs. We rolled up new PCs and I ended up with the best set of stats I think I've ever rolled with a straight 3d6. My lowest roll was a 8. The rest were a 12, two 14s, two 16s, and an 18! The GM had us roll the 3d6 online and if it wasn't witnessed by the entire group I wouldn't have believed it myself.

What to do...what to do? When you have a normal set of stats, you usually have an obvious path laid out in front of you. You let the dice tell you what to do. With the awesome stats I had I could have done anything.....I could have started down the path to creating a Paladin!

The last group was rather fighter-light so I decided to come up with a fighter. That 18 was in Looks and the 12 was in Wisdom, so I needed to do a swap. After that I just needed a concept......I've already done the Dwarven Battleaxe specialist. I considered a Human specialized in the Two-Handed Sword, but I wanted a PC with a better defense. In the end I decided to try my hand at a fighter who would be good at taking out enemy shields. That narrowed things down for me......I just needed to figure out what is best for bashing shields. I found the answer in a HackJournal. The Greater Warhammer does d8p+d10p of crushing damage. That d10p will go a long way towards overcoming the defensive value of a medium shield (on a shield hit, the larger of the two damage dice is used if they aren't equal, and the medium shield has to start saving when 12 points damage have been done).

This guy is going to be good.....

From the memoirs of Hildigrim Thorngage:

2011-06-09T09:37:00.000-06:00

The battle that ensued was a tough one. The clerics formed up a line before the abomination, presumably to protect it. Pally, Mindro, and I launched our sling stones while Grymm hurled his axe. Alanara fired off bow shots while Flynn moved in to engage. Two clerics were taken out of the battle relatively quickly and the third ran off. Grymm tried to follow the third cleric, with Alanara’s help, but the robed man got away. The undead beast engaged Flynn and it seemed to be a stand-off. Pally and I moved up to help, while Mindro tried to get around the foul creature. Flynn was grabbed by the beast and struggled to break its grip while it took a small bite out of his hide. We all flailed at the creature for some time until we finally felled it.

Once the battle was over we bound the two clerics that were incapacitated earlier. Grymm wanted to interrogate and then kill them both, but I argued that it was not our place to extract any semblance of justice on these individuals. A quick rifle through the bodies revealed that the beast was actually a zombie and the clerics were anything but. Their holy symbols seemed to be cheap copies of consecrated symbols, which led me to believe they were, at best, anointed followers of Rawen…probably better known as Blonlen in these lands.

Grymm got some information about the cult, but he promised to murder the prisoner in exchange for the information. That was something I could not allow. These men were evil and needed to be punished, but not by us. For all we knew, these men could be the key that helps the villagers get their missing people back. I argued with Grymm and made it extremely clear that I would not see to his wounds in the future if he butchered unarmed, bound, and otherwise helpless individuals. I didn’t like having to make such an ultimatum, but it was the only way I could see Grymm not butchering the helpless men. Much to my surprise, Grymm accepted what I said with little comment, but he then simply cut the binds on the man he was interrogating and handed him a weapon. I was immediately set upon by the Harvester and it was all I could do to defend myself. Luckily my staff is hard to stow and often used as a walking stick. I parried for a brief moment before Grymm cut him down from behind. He landed a terrible blow that spilt the man’s skull open like a ripe piece of fruit. Gore flew everywhere and once again Grymm succumbed to the blood lust that we’ve seen him exhibit twice already.

The party wisely fled from the deranged Grymm, but I was not willing to join them. As I feared, Grymm set upon the remaining bound and helpless Harvester and I could not sit idly by or worse yet, run in fear for my own safety. I tried to defend the helpless man, but Grymm was far too quick and cut the man down where he sat. Of course I was not to go unrewarded for my efforts as Grymm then turned to me still enraged. I was able to block his first blow and was trying to subdue him to no avail when the rest of the party saw my plight and came to my rescue. Pally and Alanara were able to stop Grymm’s bloodlust, but at a heavy price. Grymm was dead, and at the hands of those he might have considered “friends”.

There wasn’t much we could do, the damage had been done. We cremated the bodies of the zombie and the Harvester followers lest they be revivified into unholy abominations. There was talk of burying Grymm, but I felt it best that we take him as close to the village as we dare and let the cleric of his own faith make the necessary preparations. We got Grymm’s mortal coil to the village and I gave his cleric a full briefing. It would have been nice to leave out some of the details, but I felt his clergy should know so the appropriate prayers could be said to reach Zaldi’s ears. My fellow Traveller had returned to the village and after the burial we spoke briefly. He had gone to Prompeldia seeking aid for the village, but none was forthcoming. I had some ideas and sought a more secluded introduction with some of the townsfolk so that we may work to take care of the village’s problem on our own.

Grymm’s death weighs heavy on my mind and even now thinking about it is rough. I will continue this telling when I have had some time to meditate and pray for Grymm’s soul as he is undergoing the next journey….

From the memoirs of Hildigrim Thorngage:

2011-06-09T09:35:00.000-06:00

The newly freed slaves seemed to have trouble understanding that they were free and nothing I could say to them had any noticeable effect. I did what I could for our wounded party members and these freed slaves. As we removed their shackles and handed out robes an Elven lass happened down the road towards our position. She seemed rather disheveled and appeared to have either been in an explosion or possibly on fire recently, but she seemed in good shape physically. She communicated with the party and the Elf woman who we freed and we learned her name was Alanara. She didn’t seem to question what was going on and was happy enough to accompany us to town since that was the direction she was heading.

It seemed odd that the party was so accepting of this stranger, but I must admit that I have never met an evil Elf. As a race I found them quite open, friendly, and generally kind hearted, good people. Before we headed out however I felt that she should know what we were up to lest she get blamed for our activities. Alanara was very accepting of what Grymm and the others had just done….more so than I would expect. I feel there is a story behind that acceptance…and her appearance.

We were just setting out when a blood-curdling scream echoed through the woods. We knew it couldn’t have come from too far since sound doesn’t travel well through woods. As a group we started off to investigate and I had to turn around and “ask” Grymm to stay behind and guard the former slaves, who were in no position to defend themselves. Truth be told Grymm is in pretty bad shape and I feared for his safety. I ordered Pally to stay behind as well….to protect Grymm and the former slaves.

We all spread out and wandered about a little too aimlessly, but the way sounds echo in the woods, who knew exactly where the scream came from. When it became a little more obvious where we were headed we formed up a bit and pressed forward. I was quite shocked to come across a skeleton preparing to attack a little human girl. I was closest and best armed so I stepped up to engage the abomination before he could attack the girl. My efforts were for naught as the creature easily blocked my blow and hit me with such force that I was knocked back and incapacitated. In that moment I felt true physical fear. Yes, I was fearful that I might die should the abomination continue to attack me which he did briefly, but I was much more fearful he would prevail and do whatever vile things it was planning on doing to that girl. Fortunately I managed to dodge the beast’s attack and my fellow party members dispatched it before I was able to come fully to my senses.

After the battle I bound my own wounds and was a bit perturbed to find that Grymm had followed us into battle. While I was not happy with that fact, the choice was truly his to make and if there were no adverse consequences, there is little to fret about. I never got to learn the human girl’s name. She seemed genuinely repulsed by Grymm and Flynn and it was all that Alanara could do to calm her. I’m not sure how the girl felt about Mindro and I, but frankly I wasn’t in a very good shape to find out for myself. Alanara and the girl walked far ahead of us and the girl left as soon as they hit the village.

We dropped off the people we rescued with….with our local contact and when I inquired about how the freed slaves were acting I was informed that is normal behavior, especially if someone was a slave for a long amount of time. The Hobgoblins may have belonged to some lower slave caste and don’t even understand the concept of freedom. That was disturbing, but I think I can understand the behavior a little bit better.

I must have been worse off than I imagined because it was only at this point did I realize that the skeleton we had faced just earlier was trying to drag off the girl into the woods. The disappearances may have been caused by a series of undead abductions! This sudden revelation of mine was amusing to my compatriots as evidently they had figured this out back when I was still physically incapacitated by my wounds.

Grymm wasn’t feeling well and headed off to the inn to rest, although it was early afternoon. Mindro, Flynn and I headed off to see if there were any merchants to offload the armor and weapons we had taken from that pushy Hobgoblin and his goblin underlings. Alanara was content to follow us. We found out that the shady weapons dealer that we saw the day before had passed on to another location. Fortunately another armor dealer had taken his place. As we went to retrieve the gear the spice merchant pulled Mindro and I aside to talk to us. He had heard some rumors that our party was a ruthless band of mercenaries. I told him that we were not “ruthless mercenaries”, but if he had a problem we could try to help. Evidently he had been responsible for the transportation of a merchant’s daughter to Prompeldia for an upcoming wedding. The woman and her bodyguard went missing somewhere within a couple day’s travel from here. I assured the man that we were looking into the series of disappearances and if we found the woman we would do what is right and see her on her way.

The other merchant was willing to look at our armor and weapons, but was quite surprised at the sheer quantity of our stock. He was willing to pay us a fair price for a limited amount of armor and for the weapons we had. Mindro wanted to try to haggle with the man and in doing so lowered the amount he was willing to spend for our goods. Mindro seemed dismayed and wanted to try again even though he knew he was likely to fail. I found the experience to be exciting and encouraged him to continue. Flynn wanted to get the most we could and I think he was lost on the significance of the moment. The goods were just “things” weighing us down. While it didn’t matter that we had this stuff now since we were operating out of the village, in a few days it might be a hindrance. I enjoyed watching Mindro try this new experience and enjoyed even more when he was willing to try again knowing he was likely to fail. In the end, however, Mindro succumbed to Flynn’s advice over mine and sold all that the merchant would take.

As we went to return to the inn we were approached by one of the shepherds we had met earlier. He had word for us once we finished the financial transaction Grymm had established earlier. I paid the man and he informed us that there were several figures skulking along the back woods and trails coming into the village. One was walking with an odd limp and it was obvious they were evading detection. I thanked the man and went off to seek Grymm. Before we parted he brought forth the puppy from the day before and asked if we were prepared to take it. Alanara, who had been relatively quiet until now, immediately responded and the puppy really liked her. I’ve noticed this before that small animals sure do seem to like the Elven folk. The Shepard wanted to make sure we could take care of the animal and then Flynn chimed in how the puppy would make for good emergency rations should the need arise. Most of us were just shocked by such a cruel statement and the Shepard recoiled as one would expect. I think the absurdity of the statement convinced him that Flynn was joking and he let Alanara have the puppy. I, for one, am not sure that Flynn was joking. He seems to have a rather odd sense of personal values. First he is willing to travel across a lawless land in search of a pair of boots, then he wishes to obtain a dog in case he goes hungry? I will have to keep my eye on this Dwarf.

We get to the Inn to retrieve Grymm and find him having some sort of odd interaction with the Overlord Cleric. Since Grymm about gutted the man before I find this turn of events unsettling. There was no time to question this turn of events, only to give Grymm the information and the choice to accompany us or not.

We headed off in the direction indicated and soon enough come across 4 strangely hooded figures. I hail them and one moves forward to speak. I inquire as to why they are sneaking about and the man (?) replies that they are gem traders with pearls and coral to trade in Prompeldia. This response intrigued me since I have no coral to sacrifice to Taktan. I answered back that I would like to see their coral and possibly trade. The similarity between this exchange and the one Grymm initiated earlier in the day is an almost amusing coincidence, but I was genuine in my offer of trade whereas Grymm was using his offer as a stalling tactic. The “merchant” backed up a bit and informed me that he didn’t actually have any good to trade and that he was mistaken. Two of his companions sought to protect the fourth, the one who was limping. I offered first aid and was rebuffed. The fourth figure kept moving forward, bumping into the back of his fellow travelers, as if he was unable to stop movement. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as I came to conclusion that this was probably another undead in disguise and the remaining three were some sort of “handler”. I had my sling out and began twirling it as the lead figure started fumbling for a weapon. I called out “Evil Cleric” in Halfling and “Undead” in Hobgoblin. I was certain that we faced another clue in the disappearances that have occurred as of late.

From the memoirs of Hildigrim Thorngage:

2011-06-09T09:27:00.002-06:00

After we felled the goblins and their Hobgoblin leader, Grymm, Mindro, and I discussed what to do with their gear and the bodies. I wanted to do what I could to respect their cultural and possibly religious beliefs. I had no quarrel with them until they demanded our purses. I understand the brutish bravado and odd sense of honor, but once they crossed the line to banditry I wasn’t so apt to force the issue of a peaceful separation. Grymm was way out of line pushing them as hard as he had, but the Hobgoblin was free to pursue a peaceful outcome as well.

I really don’t understand why Grymm was so offended by my wishing to honor the recently deceased, especially since we were the cause for their demise. I suspect that his hatred for goblinoids goes well beyond the tales that I had heard growing up. The matter seemed personal. I believed, and still do, that every individual has the freedom of choice and just because a particular group is one way as a whole it doesn’t mean that every individual from that group is the same. Odds are the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree however, so there is nothing wrong with a modicum of caution….just don’t get too wrapped up in it.

In the end we decided to give the goblins and their leader a warriors’ funeral, immolating their bodies in the simple trade boat they came in. I said a few prayers I knew to Taktan, translating them into their language. When that was done we fashioned a simple litter to carry the gear we took from the goblins.

On the way back to the hamlet two great things happened. First, we ran into my very first Dwarf. A nice fellow named Flynn. He seemed to be looking for a Halfling that has stolen his boots. I felt it odd that anyone would chase a boot thief halfway across a nation, but does anyone really need an excuse to travel? Flynn asked if he could walk with us to the Hamlet and nobody seemed to mind. I for one was glad to be able to spend some time with a Dwarf. The second thing that happened is that we came across some shepherds with their flock of sheep. Grymm seemed fascinated with the sheepdogs and I later learned that he had been a goat-herder in his youth. I found that pretty cool since mom is a goat-herder. I tried to get him to open up a bit about this one connection we had, but he didn’t seem to want to talk about it. With all of the recent activity, I can’t blame him for not wanting to open up with a relative stranger. Grymm spoke with the shepherds for a while, offering to pay them for information,, and I got to play with a pretty sheepdog puppy. Grymm really seemed to like the puppy and I think a dog would make a good travelling companion.

We made it safely to town and received lodging at the inn for our group and storage for our gear in exchange for a short sword and suit of armor from our stash. A good meal and a night of sleep and we were ready to meet with another local cleric. In order to protect others, I’ll try to be as non-specific as possible. The cleric we met with was a Liberator and they told us of an effort that was being undertaken to help free slaves. Grymm is a member of the Face of the Free and benefitted from some healing from his cleric. I did what I could to assist with his wounds also. During our meeting I had to chuckle when the cleric chastised Grymm for his rash behavior. If we wanted to help the cleric told us we could help free some slaves coming in on a caravan while he tried to gather some information regarding Grymm’s personal quest and our group quest to discover the fate of some missing local children. Flynn decided he wanted to help us in this task and I got to talk to the Halfling that helped us the day before. He was very useful the day before and wanted to help look for the children, so I took him up on his submission for employment.

We went out of the Hamlet to intercept the slavers. They came across us as we were looking for a good ambush spot. I ran off into the woods and tried to hide while the rest of the group moved to engage them in melee combat. It didn’t take me long to realize that the slavers weren’t going to approach my hiding spot, so I began moving through the woods in an attempt to reach the rear of their group. I could hear Grymm trying to bargain with the slavers and there was a lot of shouting about our group being armed. The battle was soon engaged and while the group fought three slavers I was able to reach the slaves.

To the best of my knowledge, I have never met a slave before. I’m sure there are some benefits to slaves and slavery….and I saw some that day, but it is hard for me to think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. This group of slaves consisted of an Elven female, two human males, and two male Hobgoblins. In the case of the Hobgoblins, they were captured in war. This is the only possible benefit to slavery…as a method to keep from executing prisoners of war. I doubt though, that these prisoners would ever be repatriated, but I for one think I that I’d prefer a life of servitude instead of no life at all. To the honor-obsessed Hobgoblins, I bet they would prefer death. All of these slaves seemed incapable of even registering that they might be freed. They didn’t even have any hope left. As far as I could tell they just assumed we were another slaving group taking them as property…despite my best efforts to communicate otherwise.

That was the saddest thing I’ve ever experienced. I don’t think I would be able to survive if I wasn’t free….free to travel. I see the reason why the Temple of Stars ally with the Face of the Free. In helping Zaldi I am sure I am doing Taktan’s work.

Background on Hildigrim's Mindset

2011-06-09T09:26:00.001-06:00

The GM for the Wednesday night online game that I play Hildi in wanted a bit more background regarding how Hildi saw the world. This is my response:

Hildi isn’t quite sure how the world should work. Until recently his entire life has been wrapped up in a 20 square mile area of the gentle hills of the Karmela Mounds. There he lived in a quite agrarian setting with a racially diverse group of people that were generally warm and friendly. Growing up Hildi was exposed to some Humans and Elves, but he is the most comfortable with the shorter races. At this point that means Halflings and Gnomes as he has never met a Dwarf before.
Hildi is a little naive about the world around him, assuming that the rest of the world isn’t too far off from what he had so far experienced. As he traveled through the Kalokopeli Forest, he found the Elves and Halflings there weren’t too dissimilar from the people he grew up with.
How the world should work? That is a lot for a young man to consider. As far as Hildi knows, the world works as it should. Society is made up of individuals and is so much more than the sum of its parts. Individuals often have to conform to societal norms, but an individual is very important and change the world…under the right circumstances. Still very much in his youth, Hildi feels that he has some important part to play in life, but he knows that he is inexperienced and very unsure as to the scope of his importance. It could be he was meant to move a mountain, or simply carry a bucket of dirt. Taktan will make sure he is in the right place at the right time. For now he just needs to be where he is….not where he is going.
Hildi has been traveling pretty much by foot ever since his Confirmation. Sometimes he has travelling companions, sometimes he is all alone. He quickly learned that if he wants to be alone it is best to travel cross-country and if he desires companionship it is best to stick to the trade routes between villages. Hildi hasn’t had any serious problems on the road, finding that people are generally very accepting of a good cleric and willing to trade food and shelter for his services. Sometimes he even gets some hard coin from merchants for travelling with them or simply providing a blessing.
Unlike many adventurers, Hildi isn’t travelling from his “ancestral” home in order to accomplish a task. He doesn’t have a goal or agenda to guide him on his journey. Hildigrim is travelling simply for the sake of travelling. For Wanderers like him, the journey is more important than the destination.

On Alignment:In so many ways alignment is very confusing, yet so very simple. The dualistic nature of this concept is really because it is a meta-game abstract used to justify in-game actions...and those actions get a bit twisted by the manipulation of the PC's player who doesn't always consider the PC's alignment when playing.

Hildi's Alignment/World View on Law/Chaos:The difference between Lawful and Chaotic is the demands that society places upon the individual. "Society" is very scalable so it has to be looked at on many levels. At the national level, Lawful governments impose their rule upon the populace and Chaotic nations do not. To a certain extent it is not possible to have a Chaotic nation as it would just be a large collections of individuals unbound to one another. Should the need arise however, even huge mobs of people can get united for a single cause. Only during that time united could the Chaotic nation possible exist. Neutral countries aren't so much stuck between the imposition of structure and the wild abandon of chaos as they are more a weaker form of a lawful nation where most of the power is held at a lower echelon. A group of city-states banded together as a larger nation for "administrative" purposes would be neutral.

As a community gets larger it is much more likely to become Lawful as it is harder to maintain the structure needed to keep the community viable. Most nations are Lawful as well as a good deal of the larger cities....although some large cities could be rather chaotic, especially if they were built up relatively quickly and organically.

The core of all societies, the family unit, is generally Neutral. Older family members tend to be more Lawful and the younger tend to be more Chaotic. This is to be expected since older family members (patriarchs) generally have to impose the structure on the family and the younger tend to be a bit on the wilder/selfish side. Together they do balance out to Neutral. In cultures where the young tend to be not so wild/inquisitive/chaotic, families are more Lawful.

Hildi's Alignment/World View on Good/Evil: The difference between Good and Evil relates to how much an individual is willing to supplant one's needs for the needs of others. Evil beings not only do not have a desire to sacrifice anything for others, the thought of doing so doesn't occur naturally. Evil beings have no qualms about doing "good" and assisting others, even to their own immediate detriment, but only when doing so is due to an expectation of personal gain that outweighs the costs involved.

Take the example of a free lunch. A Good person may offer a free lunch to a another just because they see that the other is hungry and they have the means to do so, even if it means they have to skip a meal. A Neutral person may offer the other person a free lunch because they have extra, the want to bank some good karma, or for some whim of fate. An evil person wouldn't even consider giving away a free lunch as an altruistic event. If they thought they could gain something of value from doing so....well I guess it really wouldn't be a free lunch then....there has to be a cost/gain.

Hildi believes Individuals come into this world True Neutral, but that doesn't last long. Most children tend towards Chaotic Good and grow into their true selves, which would tend to be Lawful Good/Neutral or Neutral Good. Evil is not inherent in any sentient being, but created. A good home in a strong/vibrant/healthy community is the #1 factor in combating the forces that create Evil beings. Those that try to lead the Good life are morally committed to combating evil the best they can.

Hildigrim Thorngage

2011-06-09T09:23:00.000-06:00

Hilidgrim Thorngage was born in the Kamarela Mounds of Pekal to Furda and Tarin Sajardi. Sajardi is a matriarchal surname passed down because of a curse that had been brought down upon the family name. Originally the Sarazi clan from the Ubikokeli Highlands of Basir, the family “emigrated” to Pekal and reinvented themselves.

Generations ago the Sarazi clan was blessed with twin daughters. One daughter, Sahar, brought the family great honor by becoming a skilled herbalist. She married a promising barrister and gave birth to Hilidgrim’s Great-Great Grandmother Marebal. The other daughter, whose name has been deliberately forgotten, married a ne'er-do-well who stole a herbal concoction of Sahar’s in order to incapacitate another Halfling to rob. The concoction was dosed for a Human and ended up killing the mark. His dutiful wife robbed the grave of the murdered man to steal the evidence of the crime. The murder and subsequent desecration brought a powerful curse upon the Sarazi clan.

Marebal left the Ubikokeli Highlands in an attempt to defy the curse that befell much of her clan. She hired on as a replacement sailor on an Ashoshani merchant vessel sailing out of Bet Urala. Although she was good with the ropes and nimble amongst the rigging, the family curse affected her as surely as it did her family. During a great storm in Elos Bay, she fell from the riggings and was presumed lost at sea. Luckily she washed up on the shores of Pekal just outside of Baneta. There she changed her name to Marebal Sajardi. She met a local Halfling and married him in the town cemetery, as was the local custom, and changed her name again to Marebal Sapran.

The couple moved to the Kamarela Mounds, which were very similar to the home of her youth. The Gnomes and Halflings of the mounds intermingled more than they do in other parts of the world and because of this it is common for surnames to be matriarchal. This is done because a child’s mother is always known, but the father could be in question. So Marabel changed her name back to Sajardi.

The Sajardi clan prospered in their new home. Marebal’s oldeset son Romlin, is still going strong at 163 years of age. Of course at those advanced years, “going strong” means that he manages not to drool on himself. Hilidgrim has a great number of aunts, uncles, and cousins. The men in the family tend to do quite well, while the women still seem to suffer a string of bad luck, as if the curse is weakening throughout the generations. One of Hilidgrim’s aunts suffers from terrible nightmares and another aunt disappeared last year without a trace. Hilidgrim’s Great Uncle Sil is the luckiest person he has ever met. Sil lives a rather rich retired life supported by a constant flow of income from gambling on games of pure chance.

Hilidgrim’s immediate family consists only of his mother Catrakkan (Cat) and his father Nolan. Hilidgrim had a younger brother who died in infancy. He fully expects to have another brother or sister someday. Nolan is a cartographer who can read and write many different languages and Cat is a goat herder who has never strayed more than 15 miles from home.

Hilidgrim essentially grew up as an only child. He was fascinated by ponies, learning to ride at an early age, and loved to sit with his Grandfather and listen to tales of his Great-Grandmother’s adventures far beyond the Kamarela Mounds. Spending time with his father he learned a lot about the outside world, including several languages and the ability to draw detailed maps. Spending time with his mother and all of her insecurities about the world outside the mounds led him to believe that he would be abducted from monsters should he ever leave. Hilidgrim was a late bloomer that was often picked upon by the local bullies. They gave him some unsavory nicknames they occasionally still use.

Although happy with his home life, Hilidgrim loved to wander and explore. He’d walk for miles or borrow a pony and take weekend excursions by himself. On one such excursion Hilidgrim managed to get bitten by a poisonous snake, resulting in a nasty facial scar and a near death experience. Luckily he was aided by a local healer who recognized the boy’s wanderlust and nudged him in the direction (no pun intended) of the Temple of the Stars. Hilidgrim took to worship of the Traveller like it was meant to be. In his early days of his apprenticeship, he had a vision where Taktan himself appeared, telling Hilidgrim that he’d have a mission some day when the time was right.

Hilidgrim kept this vision to himself and although he realizes that he cannot interpret the will of Bright Eyes precisely, he feels that his mission started the day he was confirmed as a Questor and sent out into the world. Upon confirmation, Hilidgrim took the earned surname Thorngage after the leader of his Temple. It was largely symbolic as he was leaving his old family and entering a new one.

Hilidgrim is a Traveller in just about every sense of the word. He truly enjoys being out on the road and learning about other people and places. When meeting new people he likes to “chat them up” a bit or just participate in whatever it is they are doing. He doesn’t care to have a mission in life other than to get out and try new things. It’s not to say he’s flighty, but he tries to live in the moment and enjoy in the participation of a thing and not so much its outcome.

Hilidgrim freely goes by “Hildi” and sometimes gets confused when referred to by his surname. His travelling attire is his daily wear and consists of well-worn leather clothing with dull yellow accents. The most important bit of gear he carries is his Holy Symbol, followed by his boots (A pound on your feet is worth five on your back!) He tends to carry a lot of food as he has a voracious appetite and he prefers to spending his time moving forward rather than foraging for food.

Wow...it has been a while

2011-06-09T09:20:00.000-06:00

Just a quick note.....since I'm playing HackMaster and actually developing some content for use elsewhere I'm going to start updating things on this blog.

Visit to the KenzerCo office

2009-06-29T20:18:00.005-06:00

On Tuesday, June 23rd we stopped by the KenzerCo offices presumably to pick up our pre-orders of HackMaster Basic. The shipment was due to arrive on my birthday the 22nd, but came the week before so we weren't in a rush to try and be the first to get a copy.

Jolly posted via twitter that he'd be at the office to load up the truck for Origins and we had some time before we had to get to the airport for our flight to Columbus.....

Checking out the front of the store.

Coming around to the side

Out back

Jolly Shows up

Rear brief interior shot

And to my Brother-In-Law Dan: Yes, these videos may very well be as boring as your "water moving by" videos from your cruise, but you aren't being forced to watch them. I am still scared of the deep water and simply looking at a map of the ocean makes my heart rate slow to an alarmingly slow rate and I fear I'll die of boredom as I almost did while watching your videos....

To the rest of you: Yes, of course I'm kidding.

Origins 2009 Here We Come

2009-06-19T06:30:00.003-06:00

PrincessNoin and I are starting our annual pilgrimage to Columbus OH for the Origins game fair. We'll be flying into Chicago so we can spend two days visiting my mother in Iowa. On my birthday (6/22) we'll travel from Manchester, IA to Waukeegan, IL to stop by the KenzerCo offices and check out the new, fresh-off-the-presses version of HackMaster Basic!

I'll be posting pics and video of the trip after we get back, but I'll probably do a few updates as we go along. I like to try and type stuff up enroute and then post it once I'm comfortably home.

In other words...stay tuned!

*BTW, for security purposes, if you're dumb enough to try to stop by my home while we're gone, be prepared to say hello to one of my gaming buddies watching the place.....and he knows where I keep my guns.

Probably not the "right" place for this

2009-06-02T14:50:00.002-06:00

"Gee Chris, what have you been up to?"

Not a normal question, except from the folks, but one I do get asked occasionally. I'll refrain from discussion/rants/complaints about work, but the last month has been very, very busy and all the non-work stuff has been gaming related....somewhat.

Carolyn and I went to South Bend, IN at the beginning of May for Geekbert and Snorky's wedding. For those of you who may not know Geekbert is kind of the head honcho for the HackMaster Association. I only say "kind of" because I've been helping him out...which has proven interesting.

Trying to wrangle volunteers for Origins and GenCon this summer is bad enough, but trying to get the events registered has proven an interesting comparitive study between the two best gaming conventions in the US.

Both Origins and GenCon have websites used for registration and admin purposes, but the similiarities pretty much end there. The Origins folks have been so very helpful, answering questions and checking back to ensure our needs (the HackMaster Association) are being met. The Origins folks seem to genuienly care that we come to Columbus and have a good time.

GenCon....what a pain in the ass. Our events still aren't listed. Granted I was late with the initial submission, but I've had every event summarily rejected for a myriad of little reasons. Each time I have quickly made their desired changes and re-submitted them. The longest it's taken to get back to their "issues" is 3 hours. First they didn't like that I had Kenzer & Company noted in the notation block. I honestly cannot remember what the 2nd rejection was. The last time thety didn't think the descriptions were "descriptive" enough. I went through the event listing that was available online and sure enough....the events they did accept totally violated their "rules". It's been over 6 weeks now since the last re-submission and still nothing. I've sent off an email and got a reply that was basically, "We'll get to it when we get to is, now fuck off."

So I'm wrestling with the conventions admin stuff, coming up short on GMs and I still have several adventures to finish up. Two just need editing and two need to be typed up from notes. This has to be done so I can get the props and GM aides squared away. I leave for Origins in 17 days. Adventures should be done and sent off to GMs by June 8th.

Added into this is that Carolyn and I went back to Chicago last weekend to wish Jolly Blackburn a happy 50th at the surprise party that Dave and Jennifer Kenzer put together for him. We were the only non-employees who didn't sit at their gaming table. Pretty cool.....and a great party, totally worth the time and expense.

Here is some linkage to the pics and short videos we took at the party. I feel the need to apologize to Mrs. Mark Plemmons as I think most of the pictures she's in make her look like she's drunk......and she wasn't even close.

Jolly Blackburn's Surprise 50th Birthday Party

Motley Group

2009-05-09T16:36:00.003-06:00

This is my PbP group making a second entry into the dungeons beneath the Little Keep. We have a few more add-ons, so hopefully we'll fare better this time.

Last Friday Night

2009-04-28T17:51:00.002-06:00

My wife usually keeps a great running tally of our game sessions, but she wasn’t there for the last session and you’ll have to settle for my lame version instead:

After defeating the Gnoll tollmen and disposing of their bodies in the woods, the party checks out the not-so-crappy building they were working out of. It was an old, but well-built brick building that didn’t have much to offer except a straw floor and a chest in the corner. The chest is little more than a simple wooden box and it contains a fair amount of coins: 213 Gold Orbs, 24 Platinum Plates, 45 Electrum Luckies, 151 Copper Commons, and 238 Silver Nobles. We were able to get an additional 55 Silver Nobles off of the Gnoll bodies, along with a nose ring, a spell component pouch, 2 decent quality long swords, and an “ok” round metal shield. (I bet the GM didn’t expect me to remember the coinage names!)

The shorter (slower) folks piled into the wagon and we took off until just before nightfall. A quick camp is set-up off of the road and the party divvies up shifts for night watch. We can hear some odd howling and baying in the distance and Klem assumes that the Gnoll bodies have been discovered and a search party is being sent out. The party briefly splits up so a quick patrol around the camp (but within sight) can be made. Before the patrol can take off, a large wounded dog limps into camp. Weapons are brought to bear….

Kylie and Earnest stare at the animal and Earnest recognizes it as a “Moondog”, a good creature. As the party grants the creature access to the camp, it asks for help (evidently Moondogs can talk!). Almost immediately the party is set upon by a number of two-headed dogs, later identified as death-dogs, and a large (as in large size!) Devil Dog.

Immediately spells and crossbow bolts are loosed. Several death dogs are knocked down but not out and the Devil Dog rips a huge chunk of flesh out of Klemwinkle. Dagon and Viggo whittle away the numbers and Hiram casts a spell that conjures a giant hammer that wails away at the Death Dogs. Klem is hit again for a huge amount (again, not far from his ToP check) and poor Kylie is engaged in melee combat, jabbing and bashing with her staff. Several PCs are bitten by the Death Dogs and have to make saving throws or contract a disease.

In the final round of combat, Kylie kills her attacking Death Dog, Earnest just blows another one away with his 12 gauge crossbow, and Viggo manages to down the Devil Dog before he can kill Klemwinkle. Cures are administered to both the PCs and the Moondog, while one PC dispatches the remaining wounded Death Dogs. The Moondog licks the wounds of a couple party members, cleansing the wounds of Death Dog disease (good to know!).

Klemwinkle converses with the Moondog and learns that it had been hunting a vampire off to the South. He managed to wound it severely, but not kill it (forshadowing!). He was wounded in the process and those Death Dogs and the Devil Dog were close to killing it before he came across the party. Klem, playing his role as a Troubleshooter, inquired as to the lay of the land. In addition to the vampire, there are tribes of Orcs and Goblinoids to the Southeast and Southwest. There was a human caravan traveling due South, but that direction is the home to more Gnolls and Flinds. Klem explained their mission and that they would be travelling South. As a parting gift the Moondog gave Klem an enchanted whistle, explaining that if there is any need for his services we could use the whistle to summon him. Then the Moondog walked off into the air…evidently they can speak, cure disease, and fly!

Glorious MapTools! Part II

2009-03-30T16:54:00.009-06:00

MapTools: Getting Connected

Ok, I was going to go over the basic layout, but what good does knowing where stuff is if you can't connect to a game?

After getting the game downloaded and installed, you will (of course) want to run it. As the program runs you may or may not see a brief Java splash screen, but you should see a MapTools start-up splash screen. Please note in the lower left hand corner the version number of your program should be visible. This is especially important if you happen to be have different versions of MapTools on your computer. For a while I was playing in a 1.2 game and a 1.3 game.

Anyway, the program will load and you'll get the default layout.....which will not look much like the screen shot of my layout because MapTools likes to remember how you had things since last time you ran the program. If you get to this point, by all means poke around a bit...when you're ready to continue just read on....

Finished?

Good. Everything you'll need to know to start up or connect to a MapTools game is located under the File tab (Alt-F). I recommend going on down to Start Server. You'll see a pop-up window that looks like this:

Most of it is pretty easy to thumb through, but I'll go through each box anyway because I am trying to do some sort of tutorial here.

Username: Put in a user name here. Even though the program will let you I highly recommend you refrain from making a long username or creating one with a space. For the most part it doesn't matter, but later on if someone wants to send you a whisper in chat, they have to be able to type your name.....and spaces will be seen as part of the message so the chat program will just keep telling the sender that the user they wish to speak with doesn't exist. Backend kind of blows problem that is easily remedied by not being a dumbass on the front end.

GM/Player: After the username you can specify if you are going to be a player or the GM. MapTools allows multiple people to be GMs and the person hosting the game doesn't have to be
a GM.

Port: This is the port that MapTools uses to speak to the outside world through your firewall. You DO have a firewall right? Instead of having a piece of software demand to use a specific port and you have to make sure your firewall will work, you can work the other way around.

RPTools.net Name: You can basically have the RPTools server keep track of your IP info for you so you don't have to give out the IP address to every single player. Many/Most home users don't really have a static IP address anyway, so a whole lot of PITA can be bypassed by keeping your game registered (so to speak) with RPTools.net You can also make the game private so people searching for your game canot find you. Unless you have problems with unexpected visiotors dropping in, don't be that guy and make your game private. Better off just not using the registry.

GM Password: You can require your GMs to log on with a password. Keeps players from logging in as GMs and doing stuff they shouldn't.

Player Password: Just like the GM password but more usefull to keep unwanted players from logging on.

Options: Here you can make it so only the token's owner can do stuff to the tokens on the map (not recommended, more later) and enable the players to reveal the fog of war depending on where their minis could see.

Test Connection: I highly recommend clicking on this button before hitting "OK". MapTools will do a quick test to make sure that people using the connection information you entered could see your computer. I've had some issues where people had a different IP than what they thought they had.....often because their survice provider changed it on them since last time they used MapTools.

Yeah....now on to connecting as a player.

The first thing you should think about is if you are connecting via a local connection or over the internet. One of the strengths of MapTools over it's competitors (or at least those I've played with) was that if you had a player on your LAN and another connecting in over the internet it was easy to do. The easiest way of getting the information you need is to go to File: Connection Information. There will be your internal and external IP in all it's glory. If you have a server running the server name and open port will be showing too.

Going back to File: Connect to Server brings up a slightly different menu than the server start-up, but several of the same elements are there. The only real thing to note is that odds are you will only use the RPTool.net tab or the Direct tab. My group always uses the Direct tab. The GM hosts and his IP address changes infrequently and we also use a Ventrillo voice chat server so we can easily voice over the IP change if needed.

That pretty much concludes the MapTools Connection tutorial. I don't want to lock in what I'll cover next, but what I have left is the general layout, the chat window, the macros, and a ton of usage stuff.

Glorious MapTools! Part I

2009-03-27T17:34:00.007-06:00

I've been harping on an on about MapTools on the KenzerCo forums for a while now and have offered to set up a demo for new users if they so desire. That hasn't happened, but I thought I'd make up some very basic tutorials so a new user could get "hooked up" with using MapTools for an online game of HackMaster. While it's easy to use, there is (of course) a small learning curve..which is to be expected with any new piece of software.

There are some excellent tutorials available on the web, but most have to deal with some of what are called the "Development Candidates", different add-ons to the future version 1.3 release. I wish they'd just get on with saying "enough" and spit out an official 1.3 Release. With all of the updating and adding of files it's really easy to get players and GMs using different versions which will prove incompatable. For that reason I usually stick with version 1.2.

Why use MapTools? In a nutshell it's the best program I have found for running a game online. There are others and I've tried some. Heck, I spent a lot of money on Fantasy Grounds and a ton of time making a special HackMaster customization skin for the thing. In the end I found it a resource hog which caused problems for some of the players and it crashed all too often. There are other great programs out there....I'm sure of it....but MapTools is free and simply works so it's got my vote of confidence.

To start, I suggest going ahead and updating/installing Java. Get the newest version for your operating system.....oh, yes....did I forget to mention that MapTools is cross platform? So now us Windows people can game with Mac users....assuming you're into that kind of thing.

Once you're there, please go to http://www.rptools.net/ Don't go to http://www.maptools.com/

Good:

Bad:

Now that you're on the right page, go over to the "Downloads" tab and click on "Maptools". The page will open up with 1,000,001 options for downloading MapTools builds. Scroll down until you see "maptool-1.2.b32.zip" That is the current Release version of the MapTools Program. There are some great version 1.3 builds, but it is far too easy to get people working off of other versions and then you "waste" a good half hour trying to get everyone on the same program. That's 30 minutes of gaming you could be missing out on!

Download the zip file and extract it and install. If you need help with that...go ask someone else since that's not what I'm trying to teach here.

NEXT: Getting Connected!

ROAD TRIP!

2009-03-07T14:40:00.004-07:00

PrincessNoin and I went to Chattanooga, TN last weekend for HackMaster! Yep, it's a little bit of a distance to go, but we needed to playtest the Tournament of Champions (ToC) tournament for Origins Game Fair later this summer.

This summer is the send-off for HackMaster 4th edition, so I want to make sure that the adventure is worth-while and fits in loosely with the proposed adventure for GenCon. I'm trying something new, but not so overwhelmingly new that players will be scratching their heads going, "WTF?!"

What I'm writing is a three part adventure and my so-called "new" idea is that it's basically going to be played a bit more like a home adevnture. Participants get to play in all three parts and there is no designated "rest" period between rounds. In the more traditional multi-round tournaments, half of the playing field was eleminated each round and every round was self-contained. PCs got to rest & recuperate in between rounds, getting back HP and spells and basically curing any ailments.

I'm simply calling this "new" tournament format an Ironman tournament. The tournament is story driven and I'm not out to screw with the players and make shit up just to "hit 'em sideways" and try to kill them. If every PC makes it to the final encounter in the final round....great, as long as the players had fun getting there.

What I've been up to

2009-02-15T19:33:00.005-07:00

I've been a little busy lately helping out the HackMaster Association with a "little" project: an itsy-bitsy total revamp of the HMA. A new game system came out last year with Aces & Eights and HackMaster Basic comes out this summer, so we've got to get our act together to move the organization into it's next stage.

A real small group of us is working on some of the basics that'll get sent up to the D-Team for them to decide on how to move forward. I'm assuming that they'll make a minor tweak or two and put out the changes or they may ask for additional input from the HMA War College.

Of course that's not everything I've been up to, but it has been taking the largest amount of my time, compared to other gaming projects.

PrincessNoin and I went down to Salt Lake City a couple of weekends ago for a business trip and got to play the ending one-off session of Crypt of the Lizard King. Got some decent loot, mostly some coins and a bunch of new spells......and I ended up spending all of my coinage and a little extra getting new spellbooks made and scribing the spells.

The online group has been a bit hit or miss. Some of the other players haven't been showing and the GM wussed out on Valentine's Day so we didn't play yesterday. Evidently pleasing his wife on Valentine's Day is more important than GMing.....oh well, not everyone can have their priorities straight.

In a couple of weeks we'll be heading down to Chattanooga, TN to playtest the tournament adventure for Origins later this summer.

Quick Change

2009-01-07T09:08:00.001-07:00

I had to remove the twitter feed on my blogs since I was having tweets I didn't approve of being easily viewable on the blog.

A little web fun...

2008-12-29T22:49:00.001-07:00

I found this online generator at...aw crap, I lost the website. I'll try to find it again...here it is. I thought this was fun.

On GM Kills

2008-12-19T23:15:00.004-07:00

I was on a conference call today with someone who plays 4th Edition (Not HackMaster, but that new "other" 4th Edition). In passing the subject of GM Skulls came up.

Evidently there are players of those "inferior" games* who get a bit scared off by the fact that many HackMaster GMs keep a list of their kills.

Sure, I'm proud of my kills....but not to the extent that I'm gunning for the PCs. When I see my personal skull set I think of the games that I've played and the people that I've had at my table.

That first skull....the only red one- that was the first and only time my now brother-in-law played HackMaster. His charismatic bard decided to switch allegiences to the bad guys at the climatic final battle. He really wasn't up for playing and decided that death at the hands of the clingy Druid who he slighted with his betray was the most appropriate way to leave the table.

I have one TPK and several near TPKs where the party "Bravely Ran Away". The TPK was interesting because the adventure was a complete slaughterhouse. I didn't think I was going to be running the adventure...I was probably going to play, so I hadn't read the low-level adventure before hand. Since everybody was first level, the players didn't mind pushing on ahead at all costs even though it was apparant they would be totally slaughtered. That was a pretty fun con.

The next day I ran a different group that didn't fight well at all and got hammered by a classic L shaped ambush. The party was decimated except for one guy who managed to run like hell for the woods. Everybody had a lot of fun though. They voted one of the monsters MVP! The monster was firing into melee and ended up killing a couple of his compatriots and the group figured he was the most effective fighter during the tournament.

I cannot say with any measure of honesty that I recall every PC death....just as I cannot recall every game I've played or all of the good times I've had at the table.

Sure the skull shield can be a scary thing.......but really the issue is how the GM runs his game. Most of the "Killer" GMs out there in reality are those that are running the most games. Tournaments account for a huge number of kills because at tournaments the games may be tougher and the players are much more willing to push things too far and get into a position where they can get their PCs killed....which is more likely to lead to getting the other PCs killed.

*There are no inferior games....just inferior players. OK, maybe not even that, but I have met some poor players before.

Fun with Photoshop

2008-12-19T21:27:00.007-07:00

Normally I'd post this on my other blog, but since it's a pic from Origins '07, I figured I'd post it here.

My wife Carolyn (PrincessNoin on the Kenzer & Company Forums) took this pic of me with BA from Knights of the Dinner Table.

I've done a little bit of Photoshop work, nothing fancy at all, so getting a good result like this is new for me. I started by deleting all of the background from the pic and getting in close to the edge with the eraser tool. Then I blurred the edge and pasted it over the base file copy I re-opened. I blurred that base layer quite a bit (in increments) until I got a result I liked.

All of this was for my Twitter account, so I could use it as a new avatar. I lucked out and Twitter cropped the pic just about perfect.

Original Pic:

Brief Game

2008-11-30T09:55:00.005-07:00

Our online group got together last night for a "brief" game that lasted four hours.

We only had three players and we lost about 60-90 minutes waiting for the third, but that wasn't a big deal since we had so much stuff to go over and it had been over a month since we'd played last.

Taking inventory of our situation we had two ships (one of which had next to no sails or rigging left), 6 captives, and a hold full of slaves. To make matters worse most of our small crew is dead.

We seek counsel from our Captain, since he's probably the best bet for good info about what to do with the ships in their current state. We also question a pirate and manage to get some info to. In the end we decide to transfer any "booty" from the Ghoul to the Sea Wolfe, along with the Ghoul's Ballista and a couple of slaves who have the needed skills to help us and are willing to strike back against the slavers.

The crew and slaves help us transfer the goods and help make both ships as capable as possible under the circumstances. Luckily for us the port we need to head for (Highport) is only two days down the coast and we could almost drift there if needed. The Captain is given instructions to take the Ghoul back up North to Safeton and release the slaves to the town guard so they can make their way back to their families. The Ghoul is to be sold and the proceeds broken down into shares. Every party member and the Captain get a full share and the 10 or so original crewman (or their surviving families) get 1/2 share. Technically we don't owe the crew or captain anything, but it seems the right thing to do and by giving the Captain a full share he's more likely to get the best price for the Ghoul.

Only two of the former-slaves-turned-crew show much promise, but we need a full regiment if we are to even come close to succeeding. We have a new navigator, Barnacle Bob, and a Lizardman named Skarr. Skarr has been a slave for nearly five years, so he's more than happy to get a chance at the slavers....and he's likely to have some good information too.

It took us the whole session to get all the arrangements made and get the Sea Wolfe into Highport. We still have 3 weeks or so to find the slave we're looking for and administer the antidote. We definately need some more help if we are to succeed.

And now for something usefull

2008-11-24T22:00:00.004-07:00

I've mention TableSmith before, but it's been a while and this is such a great program for the GM. A couple of years ago I spent way too much time typing out a bunch of tables for HackMaster. The biggest set is probably the GMG Magic Item tables, but I have a bunch of smaller tables as well, some of which draw fromt he magic item sub-tables.

The SSG (Spell Slinger's Guide) has several tables for spellbook generation, so I got the bright idea of creating a random spellbook generator that starts with the SSG tables and ends with a pull from the magic item tables (actually part of the magic scroll sub-tables). The spellbook generator has some parameters allowing the GM to create a low-mid-high level spellbook and a rough approximation of how full the book would be.

Here is an example:
Standard Spellbook: Monster (Sewer Gopher) hide cover with parchment pages14" x 12" x 8" (HxWxT), 96 pages, 4.5 lbs (Encumbrance Modifier is x3)
M1: Wrygal's Deception (2 pages)
M1: Zymun's Guidance Counselor (HJ 4.23) (6 pages)
M3: Icy Sphere (HJ 4.15) (5 pages)
M2: ESP (4 pages)
M2: Challandra's Life Draining Hand (HJ 4.22) (6 pages)
M1: Patternweave (3 pages)
M1: Enlarge (1 pages)
M2: Telepathic Mute (5 pages)
M2: Wizard Lock (4 pages)
M2: Reveal Secret Portal (6 pages)
M1: Imaginary Friend (1 pages)
M1: Magic Missile (6 pages)
47 blank pages remain

I've also made tables for a random selection of a Chosen One's spells which takes into account the Chosen One's level and Charisma, and I've got a few more tables in mind.

I do need to update the tables to take account of newer KoDT and HackJournal issues, but this is my latest source list:
HackMaster PHB
HackMaster GMG
HackMaster Errata Last update 8/15/2003
The Adventure's Guide to Pixie Fairies
Lord Flataroy's Guide to Fortifications
HackJammer
The Grifter's Guide to Life's Wildest Dreams
By the Sword
The Combatant's Guide to Slaughtering Foes
The Spellslinger's Guide to Wurld Domination
The Zealot's Guide to Wurld Conversion
Knights of the Dinner Table up to Issue #137 (missing #124-126)
HackJournal up to Issue #25
Adventures: The Tower of Jhedophar, Wryneck's Wheelhouse, Crypt of the Lizard King, Tomb of Unspeakable Horrors, The Prophecy of Shardar, Porpher's Enchanted Garden, City of Brass, Annihilate the Giants, Little Keep on the Borderlands, Smackdown the Slavers, White Doom Mountain, Slaughterhouse Indigo, Road to Aster, The Hidden Shrine, Lost Caverns, Robinloft & Robinloft 2: Tahd's Legacy.

Some adjudications have been made as to table location and percentages when not specified by original source

I cannot stress how useful I've found TableSmith to be. The program is Shareware and the author only requires a $5 registration fee if you want to disable the prompts. Totally worth it!

Got in some guest gaming

2008-11-22T21:01:00.005-07:00

My online group is on a minor hiatus. We switched to Saturdays and it's been hard to get everyone together. We may end up trying for some new players once the GM is finished with his dissertation.

I recently got to visit Tennessee and chose to spend my nights in Chattanooga so I could visit with HackMaster GM extrodinaire Topher. Actually there are quite a few people to visit in 'Nooga.

Topher runs a game on Monday nights and I was able to bring in Waydol, my 5th level Archer Specialist. He about bit the big one last Monday, but luckily I got in a last arrow shot that did in the Cyro Hydra before multiple heads breathed on me. We also fought some Ice lizards.

The next night was an interesting game with a different GM, one I'd never played under before. The group was almost entirely magic users. Just one Cleric and a 1st level Half-Ogre Crossbow Specialist rounding out the group. I brought in my DS Invoker Urddas Nerthol and risked playing some coupons under this new GM. He hit me with an Honor loss, but elected to post-pone any coupon retaliation.

What coupon did I play? I had two coupons, which is normally a big no-no, but these were special coupons from Knight of the Dinner Table that were made to go together. Normally coupons have stated on them that only one may be used per session, but these two didn't and they were actually used together in the comic. The first coupon allowed me to cast Find Familiar without any material components and the second allowed me to roll on the special familiar table without having to take a bunch of familiar quirks and flaws to attempt the same result.

Now the significance of this is huge because coupons are essentially there to break the rules and allow things that normally wouldn't be allowed. Quite a few are minor, like dice bumps or a free item. While the rule-break here is essentially a cost savings of 1000 gold pieces, but for my DS Invoker the rule-break is that he gets to have a familiar, which isn't normally allowed. DS Invokers are normally restricted from being able to cast conjuration & summoning spells.

Anyway I managed to get a good enough roll ont he special familiar table to get myself a Fairy Dragon. I named him Yeenayhe, which is Cherokee for Fairy. I'm kind of suprised at how powerful this thing is for a familiar. He has a lot more hit points, a breath weapon, and can cast spells as a 4th level magic-user and a 6th level cleric. Fairy Dragons are peaceful in nature and the breath weapon is a euphoric gas, so it's not going to be fighting for me. I am assuming that the spells will not be aggressive in nature. I'll have to look at the suggested spells and look for commonality for figureing out which spells Yeenayhe will have. Obviously my home GM will have to sign off on it.

I figure that this familiar will just make it one closer step to my DS Invoker's retirement. He wants to eventually become a doctor and having a familiar that can gas unruly patients can only be a help.

Ahoy Matey!

2008-10-19T09:10:00.004-06:00

We got together for another night of online HackMaster. The group is a bit on the short side with only three players. We also have two PPCs, a couple of proteges, but one is supossed to be a torchbearer and the other is a pretty much a pacificst DS Diviner.

The group holed up in the ship for a couple days. We put her out to anchor out in the bay while we went over all of the paperwork we found in the slaver's bar. It seemed like we might get some better info if we went to the next city south along the bay so we set off.

Earnest, Klemwinkle's DS Diviner protege has the Scholar package and some skill in engineering. He'd been spending his free time repairing a ballista we talked the one town guard out of. It was busted some and we did use a fair amount of magic putting out the fire that would have burned down the garrison headquarters....so they owed us. Earnie got it repaired and just in time.

The ship got attacked by two large octopus-like creatures. Klemwinkle had been in the crow's nest on lookout when the attack occured. Kylie and Earnest started manning the ballista while Dagon and Viggo went to work on one octopus. Unfortunately Klem didn't have his crossbow with him so he had to get down to engage in combat. His best idea was to loop some rope around the mast and use it as a makeshift belt to slide down. (OOC: Like a lumberjack's climbing belt). That didn't work out so well and he fell/slid down quite a bit taking less damage than he should have.

The octopus on the starboard side of the ship has two crewman in it's grip and bites one in half. The port side octopus has one crewman in it's grip. Klem manages to called-shot crit the port octopus , severing the tentacle that had the crewman grappled. Everybody whittles down the octupi until they flee. Viggo and Dagon barely manage to keep a sailor from going overboard with their baddy. In the end we lose just one crewman.

Figuring there were some lessons learned, Klem gets his light crossbow up in the crow's nest and affixes a block and tackle up there. With a rope secure to his body he should be able to use the block and tackle to rappel himself down the mast in a hurry if he needs to. Night falls and the routine goes back to normal.

Klem notices a ship gaining on ours in the dark. He calls the Captain over who determines that it's a pirate ship and we have maybe an hour until they can board us. War preparations are made. Klem blackens up and gears up completely, preparing to snipe from the crow's nest. The crew moves the ballista to the stern and Earnest gets his 12 guage and the ballista loaded. Dagon and Viggo take up positions next to the captain and Kylie helps out Earnest.

It becomes apparent that there are a lot of pirates being led by a mage and their captain. Kylie lobs spells and Earnest pretty much misses everything he aims at. Dagon and Viggo help our Captain engage the Pirate Captain and several Sailors. The Pirate Mage is protected from normal missiles. Dagon does manage to damage him with some magical stones. The Mage then flies over to our ship, draws a burning sword, and begins setting the rigging and sails on fire. As he nears the crow's nest Klemwinkle decides to take action.

Klem, already tied off, takes the free end of his rope and secures it. Trying to move stealthy, he leaps from the crow's nest onto the mage. Unfortunately Klem is a trap specialist and not particularily sneaky. Instead of a backstab the best he can do is make a couple slashing attacks as he falls by the mage. One connects fairly well. Klem takes a small amount of damage as he slams onto the mast about halfway down. Before Klem can act the Mage severs his rope and Klem takes some serious falling damage. He calls out to Earnest and Dagon passes it along, "Target the Mage with the Ballista!". Dagon gets off a Hold Person spell on the Mage and then Earnest finally connects with the ballista! The Mage pretty much gets propelled into the ocean, where he was most likely eaten by sharks (several show up to feast on the pirates that didn't manage to make the ship-to-ship transition).

Our Captain goes down and Klem is almost taken out by several pirates. Dagon boards the other ship and manages to subdue the remaining 4 pirates that stayed behind to man the siege weapons and slaves.

Dagon comes back to our ship and hands out the traditional post-combat heals and cures. We've won the battle, but at a terrible cost. We have two ships, only one is servicible, a couple of sailors, a good 4 or 5 captives, and an untold number of slaves. Hopefully we can get the slaves to help man the ship and row themselves to freedom. We need to get to a friendly port, but that is likely to be a week or so travel away.

Not enough game

2008-10-13T20:59:00.002-06:00

My group didn't get together this last weekend. Bummer. Carolyn and I showed up and the GM was there, but that was it. We need to recruit a few more players. We're playing Saturday late afternoon/early evening (MST) for the next couple months but then we should be switching back to our Tuesday night "regular" schedule.

One of my Play By Post games went kaput and the other one has been experiencing odd lags.

Well, at least we have a Halloween weekend of gaming scheduled for Salt Lake City. I've tried to invite quite a few people.....3 from Boise, 1 from Tennessee, and another from Spokane. I haven't heard back from my buddy in Spokane, but the rest are a no-go. I'm taking care of the hotel and even the transport for TN and Boise.......oh well.

Close Call

2008-10-05T11:06:00.007-06:00

My online group that was playing Tuesdays is now temporarily playing on Saturdays. Our group has been somewhat diminished since we can't all get together, but we've muddled through.

We're trying to stop some piracy going on, and trying to rescue some people who have been shangheid into slavery. Most of us had recently leveled our characters and resupplied. Klemwinkle was able to replace his Half-Ogre Gladiator Protege with a Human DS Diviner named Earnest.

We got ourselves a ship and worked our way down the coast to a town we'd heard might be abel to get us on track. It's a rough and tumble place (ie a shithole watrefront town) and as we blindly disembark the ship one of our crew lets on he's aboard this mission for the same reason we are and we might find someone to help us at a bar called the Broken Rudder.

We get to this place and order a round of drinks. As we quaff our ales Kylie, our resident magic user, spots some bald-headed guy observing us from the rooms on the second level. Since we hope this might be our contact, we don't do much about it. A second round comes for most of us (Kylie and Klemwinkle won't drink a second round). As Klem watches this bald guy, he notices the bugger casting a spell. Those in the group drinking a second round have to make a saving throw versus posion and 5 patrons bum rush us to attack.

These guys are fast! Klem manages a single dagger throw before they manage to cross the room and get to the group. Klem yells at Earnie to get that 12 Guage crossbow loaded and he tries to comply, but gets dropped when Baldy casts Magic Missile on his 1st level ass. Kylie manages to get off her own Magic Missile at a nearby patron and Dargon lucks out and downs Baldy with a Rigor Mortis spell.

After a round or two of combat a drunken dwarf in plate mail and brandishing a long sword staggers over to our group. Thank goodness because we could use the help, but he starts wailing on our halfling torchbearer Viggo. It takes some effort, but Klem manages to down his two attackers. Dargon and Viggo take some wicked hits, with Viggo passing out. Kylie turns invisible and disappears. As Klem moves to take on the drunken dwarf, Dargon calls out to his "kin". A well-placed Command spell later and Klem gets an opportunity to kill the dwarf.

OOC:The GM ruled I needed to make a called-shot to the neck to try and dispatch the dwarf since I was in the process of moving around to get a rear attack on the guy. Fair enough, but I rolled a natural 19, which is a critical hit! Several severity die penetrations later and I deliver a level 30 crit! No use rolling the obscene amounts of damage dice since I cut his head clean off!

Blood splurts everywhere. At this point it's just Dargon and Klemwinkle battling it out with two patrons. One tries to flee and is cut down by Klemwinkle. The bartender, who had been sitting behind the bar observing so far, decides to get involved and fires his own 12 Guage crossbow. Dargon is hit, but manages to heal Viggo enough to bring him back from the brink of death (he was bleeding every round and was down to -6 HP). While Klem battles the last patron, Dargon and Viggo overturn the table and use it as portable cover as they rush the bartender. The bartender must be specialized in the use of a crossbow, because he is getting off a shot every round. Klem is winded and seeks cover behind a pile of bodies.

Dargon and Viggo walk their table/shield over to the bartender's position and manage to knock him down when he fumbles the crossbow. Throwing the table on top of him, Dargon and Viggo jump up and down on the overturned table with enough force to kill the bartender.

The bar is now devoid of hostiles. Viggo, Dargon, and Ernie are way down on HP and Klem is slightly hurt. Dargon heals everyone up and we loot the place.

There is a decent amount of loot on the bodies and we manage to get a lot of documents. Hopefully we can get some more intel from the documents.

Quickie Post

2008-09-21T21:55:00.003-06:00

I'll come by and clean this up in a couple of days......but for now:

Guess Who?!

BALADAR Update

2008-09-06T09:31:00.007-06:00

It's been a while since I posted about my favorite Chosen One/Cleric Undead Hunter of Lathander. I had this token commissioned for use with MapTools, but we haven't had an online game since then.

Life has been busy with conventions and early HackMaster 5e playtesting.

Sometime around Memorial Day we had an interesting conversation with Bethany and Joe and Bethany related to me that she hates BALADAR. I don't get it...seriously, what's not to love? Sure he's a rather blunt straight-shooter that's a bit full of himself, but he'd gladly give up his life and the shirt off his back for his fellow adventurers. He doesn't get too preachy and he's always there for his group.

That's OK, it doesn't bother me. In fact, I just find the whole thing amusing. We chatted a bit more and decided we should get shirts made up. Bethany's shirt would say, "I Hate BALADAR!"; Joe's shirt will say, "Have you seen BALADAR?"; Carolyn's shirt was to read "I *heart* BALADAR"; and mine would say "I AM BALADAR". Trying to work out the logistics would be interesting. I figured I'd try to get the Fraim brothers to do up a PC sketch, get permission to put it on a shirt, and go from there. I sent a request in early June and never heard from them. I double-checked the address they had on the website and resubmitted...nada. At Origins I mentioned my problems with another gamer who knew sombody, who knew somebody and shortly after we get back I got an email. Evidently they use a different email now.

After some back and forth, and me sending payment that's made out incorrectly, I finally get my pic. Too bad it's too late for GenCon. I think I'll go forward, just get a generic BALADAR shirt made up and then have the other stuff embrodiered on.

GenCon Snapshot

2008-08-21T20:46:00.002-06:00

Carolyn and I went to GenCon last week. Now that Con season is over I should have time to post a bit more than I have been. I was helping out with both conventions in the HackMaster department and it was taking up a lot of my free time.

Anyway, here's a snapshot of GenCon:
Wednesday Night- Flew a later flight on United from BOI-IND. Ticked off at lame United people that would not let me upgrade our tickets to First Class using my already purchased upgrades. They'd rather fly two empty 1st class seats than take my $400. Got to Indy pretty late, got moderately shafted by taxi cab gouging us, but got a laugh out of it since I already knew what I was gonna give the guy, so he just screwed himself out of a nice fat tip.

No bellboy service at Marriott so we had to lug our gear up to the elevator room they assigned us. Not greeted properly at the desk either. Nice to know they treat medallion members who paid extra for a concierge-level room this way....

Thursday- Got up and grabbed our mess of stuff and headed over to find Geekbert. Started having some sort of panic attack in the mass of flesh blocking the hallways of the convention center. Short of sleep and entering a level 1 freak-out thinking it's not to late to say "eff it" and grab the first cab and plane home. Luckily Topher and Zari were there and decided to help calm me down and escort us through the sea of unwashed idiots (seriously, can't people at least shower on the first day of the con?). Got over to the Omni hotel where Geebert and fiance (don't recall forum handle, but she's got the bestest first name possible) were deep in an Aces & Eights roll-n-run. Sest up the laptop and printer and ran off a bunch of Aces & Eights pre-gens for the afternoon.

We had a rather poor showing for the Tournament of Champions: 2 tables. PrincessNoin and Larry Anthony ran the tables and I ran interference. The players all partook of a read & sign of the tournament rules and they seemed to have fun. Between the two tables we had one death, one paralyzation, and one missing arm. One group was heavy on Role Play and the other was heavy on Roll Play.

After the tournament we had the unofficial HMA night out: Dinner at Boca di Beppo. The restaurant crowded us all at one big table and maybe 20 minutes into dinner the whole room was ours to play with....we stayed at the table. Not too late of a night since some of us needed our sleep and are far, far too crabby if they don't get it (Ok, I'm talking about me....I'm not any less of an a-hole than normal, I just don't give other people the opportunity to discover the fact on their own.)

Friday- Realized the curtains in the hotel room were the best made hotel curtains ever. Slept way too late not even feeling that the sun had come up. Got our gear together, sans printer, and headed off for round 2 of the ToC. PrincessNoin not up for the second round (It had some difficult parts to run) so JTolman stepped in. Tables were swapped and PrincessNoin stayed at JTolman's table to score the Roleplaying and critical thinking apsects of the game (she did this to provide parity between the two tables). We had a good GM review and most of the questions that came up were (IMO) table GM issues and not tournament issues. Only one death that I recall. Everybody forgot to vote for MVP, so I am reluctant to announce the tournament winner.

There were some serious issues with the third tournament round and we decided to only score the first two rounds. I discussed the matter with the players and gave them several options: No game, run with what we had (not recommended), run a new round written that night by the Tournament Corrdinator (TC), or play a fun game in the time spot. The players were initially promised three four-hour time slots, so any change to that would be their decision, not the TC's. They chose to play a fun game because they came to have fun first and formost.

After the tournament Imp, Neight, Shabby, Topher, PrincessNoin, Kevin Cook, Geekbert, and future-Mrs. Geekbert (Chris)....oh, and Zari (of course) stopped by for a bite to eat at Steak and Shake. Then we headed off to the Live Reading at the Embassy Suites. Some good questions, some dumb ones, and some vandalism to a table cloth occoured. Afterwards everyone headed to the Rock Bottom Brewery for an all-too loud HMA night out. Many napkins and a thankfully-empty diaper were tossed about. We got to see Micheal Phelp's 1/100th second win on the big screen and then Mark Plemmons came in to show us the loser Enie awards that Aces & Eights "won". Seriously....it's hard to take an award seriously when it's printed on a crappy B&W printer and tucked into a $2 frame. I wouldn't put a picture of an ex-girlfriend in a crappy frame like that.

Saturday- PrincessNoin and my 6th anniversary (and for the record it was Joe & Bethany Tolman's 12th anniversary too) started out a bit better than Friday because we remembered to keep the heavy drape open. Geekbert needed help with a Great Space Race "tournament" so we spent 3 hours on that before heading out to the Omni for the "fun" Hackmaster game. Only 2 players showed up so we called it a no-go and after they left for greener pastures another three arrived. D'oh! We spent some quality time in the dealer's room and then headed back to the room for a nap. Seriously Jolly, we went for a nap. I think PrincessNoin read, but I caught up on Z's since I figured we'd be up late. Our "usual" group had dinner at Champions at the Marriott and I texted in a seating request for the Live Reading to Mark P. It was a joke, but I guess he actually saved us the seats for almost an hour. We all staggered in about an hour late to the live reading. Dave called the anniversary couple up to the stage for a "special" reading (aren't they all special?) and we all had fun until the door nazi showed up. I think the hero dropped the ball and forgot to check people at the door like what would make sense. GenCon gets the idiot award of the day for scheduling two big events back-to-back in the same room. A 1/2 hour buffer would've solved many problems.

After the bum rush out the door some of us met in the hall and thought about tracking down Dave & Jolly for some drinks, but we remembered that Micheal Phelps' last medal attempt was on soon. That took precedence. We watched him win again and then retired to our own room.

Sunday- PrincessNoin and I had been given unused Exhibitor badges and we hadn't abused that yet, so we entered the dealer room early because we could. Mark needed some help taking a box of product to the Embassy Suites for a 10 AM seminar Dave was supossed to be giving. When we arrived, Dave was nowhere to be found so we got ready to improvise. Just as we were about to start Dave arrived and promptly closed the seminar taking the audience out for some free coffee. We got to sit and hang out until the conversation ran it's course and then we all walked back to the dealer's room. We finally managed to get some art we liked and said our goodbyes to Kevin and TopherCo over an overpriced convcention luncheon. We went back to the dealer's room and hung out until things ended where we helped with the tear-down.

Actually we are still in Indy until Tuesday afternoon.

I got to play a few hands of a card game with Topher & Shabby, and a couple hours of Great Space Race. I'm a little dissappointed, but I'm always that way unless I get to play HM. Overall it was a pretty fun con....much better than I expected based on "stuff" I've heard before.

Hm...What type of PC am I (assuming this is 3.5)

2008-07-12T20:58:00.000-06:00

I Am A: True Neutral Dwarf Sorcerer (6th Level)

Ability Scores:

Strength-11

Dexterity-14

Constitution-12

Intelligence-16

Wisdom-13

Charisma-13

Alignment:
True Neutral A true neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. He doesn't feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most true neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil after all, he would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, he's not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way. Some true neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run. True neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you act naturally, without prejudice or compulsion. However, true neutral can be a dangerous alignment because it represents apathy, indifference, and a lack of conviction.

Race:
Dwarves are known for their skill in warfare, their ability to withstand physical and magical punishment, their hard work, and their capacity for drinking ale. Dwarves are slow to jest and suspicious of strangers, but they are generous to those who earn their trust. They stand just 4 to 4.5 feet tall, but are broad and compactly built, almost as wide as they are tall. Dwarven men value their beards highly.

Class:
Sorcerers are arcane spellcasters who manipulate magic energy with imagination and talent rather than studious discipline. They have no books, no mentors, no theories just raw power that they direct at will. Sorcerers know fewer spells than wizards do and acquire them more slowly, but they can cast individual spells more often and have no need to prepare their incantations ahead of time. Also unlike wizards, sorcerers cannot specialize in a school of magic. Since sorcerers gain their powers without undergoing the years of rigorous study that wizards go through, they have more time to learn fighting skills and are proficient with simple weapons. Charisma is very important for sorcerers; the higher their value in this ability, the higher the spell level they can cast.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

Origins Pics

2008-07-05T12:02:00.006-06:00

Here is an embedded slide show of our pics. Click center-of mass to open up the album.

OK, this is my first attempt at uploading my very own YouTube video. I highly recommend turning off the audio so you don't hear the way-too-loud crappy Kareoke.

Quickie

2008-07-03T21:23:00.003-06:00

I just got back from a combined Origins/Business trip so I basically need to unwind. More to follow, but here's a pic of my Origins kills:

Little update

2008-05-02T11:10:00.004-06:00

Well, I've gotten some more figs from Devinnight over at Four Ugly Monsters. That earlier rant from when I found out he was selling the custom figs I had ordered previously....well he offerred to make amends by giving me four new custom tokens. I got two new tokens for my PCs and two more generic PF tokens. It took a while to get the new tokens, but they were worth the wait. The man simply does good work. He was pretty cool in giving me the Pixie Fairy tokens not only in their proper size, but in larger/medium size so I could use them as Elvarels if I wanted to. He blurred the wings so they look like they are fluttering. Pretty cool. This guy here is my Gnome Troubleshooter Klemwinkle Cairngrin. I'm not a big fan of the facial hair, but that's such a minor thing.

We've been playing pretty solidly on Tuesday nights, using MapTool. I think most of the group is on the East Coast so what is a 7 PM game for me is 9 PM for them. Needless to say I think the lateness of the game has been the primary factor for when we can't get together. We're based out of a city at the moment and probably averaging 5th level. I'm almost suprised we're that high of a level, but we have been playing for over a year now.

In our current mission I was asked by my guild to take care of a competing guild. It seems these guys are pretty much a thieve's guild, but it looks more like a bunch of bandits that are trying to profiteer (maybe even start a war) in a local regional conflict. They've also been harrassing the Gnomes in the Gnomish Quarter. Being a Troubleshooter, my Gnomish Thief isn't a very traditional theif, but they had me at "harrassing". The group was real cool about being willing to help out, even though there isn't any pay in it. I've been shouldering all costs in this operation, as a matter of Honor, but I'm sure we'll get some good looting to make up for our troubles.

We had three days to get things done and the first day was lost just finishing up normal stuff we had already going on. We started out on the second night and ran into some trouble, but we got a bit more information and I was able to come up with a decent, but slightly complicated plan. Part of the problem was that we don't know the size of our enemy, but we did know that they had some roving guards, guard dogs, and a fenced compound. We found a relatively remote portion of the fence that was near a third story window. I was able to get in a scout around a bit and thankfully was able to get out safe. There might have been a bit of meta-gaming going on because I could see the guard dog and handler on the map, but in character (IC) I knew I couldn't delay because that duo had been spotted earlier.

When we pulled back that night I sketched out the following plan to get our group inside the enemy warehouse:

We would retreat back to the Glittering Gem (inn) to resupply with some essential gear (climbing harness, climbing daggers, climbing/knotted ropes, weaponblack, catstink, and a bag of cats)
Duting the day individuals from the party (but not Klemwinkle because he was a Gnome) would mosey over to the compund and spread some catstink along the fence on that side of the compund we wished to enter. Hoepfully the guard dogs going "crazy" throughout the day would keep the handlers from wanting to check out that side of the building. The handlers were the weak spot of the pair....and this might last for only one night at best.
Our Cleric would memorize a continual darkness and silence spell if possible.
Klemwinke would hop the fence and scale the side of the building using his climbing harness and climbing daggers. Once at the window he would check it for traps and lower a climbing rope.
After the area had been silenced, the group would scale the fence and climb up the rope, using the climbing daggers as footholds as needed. The half-ogre would be last and standing by with the bagged cats. If he sees the guards he'll toss some cats on the inside of the fence.
After everyone is inside, Klemwinkle will climb back down the building and remove his climbing daggers and rope to make it as unobvious as possible anyone had climbed up the building.

Hopefully this would put us inside the compound and well away from the array of traps and guards set-up to repel an entry from the main doors. In my next post I'll have to relay how it's going so far. Every plan has it's "hick-ups"

GaryCon Salt Lake City

2008-03-27T18:19:00.003-06:00

Tournament Alert!

The Dragon Lords of the Great American Desert will be holding another tournament weekend during the Memorial Day holiday.

I'm not really being presumptuous in saying we'll have a tournament weekend as we've gotten together every Memorial Day weekend since at least 2003, when I first popped on the scene. We used to get together at CONduit, but that convention has been going downhill every since at least 2003 (and it was bad enough then!) Last year we met at the Residence Inn downtown, so I'm proposing we do so again.

That location was pretty sweet. Good food a quick walk.....nice and secluded, and we can still check out the OK (and free) parts of CONduit.

I've already invited one special guest, who had to decline due to family plans....more to follow.

Getting to play Waydol again!

2008-03-23T09:44:00.008-06:00

Our "Hostess Inc." group has decided to take a hiatus for a while. I think some of it is Carolyn's desire to play and not GM for a while, but also becuase two PCs (40% of the party) have decided to Dual-Class and crosstrain into some sort of magic-user. This takes them out of the game for a couple of years as they go to school. BALADAR is ready to level as a Cleric, which will put him at 6th level for tournament purposes, which is about where I wanted to keep him.

So...we are starting back up with JTolman's "Troubles Inc." group. I get to play my very first HM PC Waydol Glendarn the Elven Archer. On a couple levels he's not all tricked out, but some recent rule changes (which I helped write) make him a "better" archer.

I need to get a better picture of Waydol, but this is the fig I use sometimes on the table top (the other is an extra Legolas pewter fig from the Lord of the Rings Monopoly):

Great paint job on this! I wish this was my actual fig.

Joe is running us online using a combination of Ventrillo voice chat (he has a Ventrillo Server) and MapTools. We were using a different program, but MapTools worked out so much better for our needs and the price was free! I highly recommend the program. I know we are just scratchingt he surface of what we can do with the program.

I do have a custom fig for MapTools:

Well....I was going to link the artists who made this token for me, but I just found that's he's now selling copies of it as part of a token pack. I'm hoping he's made some changes or otherwise my custom fig isn't really custom anymore. He has some other figs I'd liek to have so I'm buying that token pack....we'll have to see.

EDIT: Ok, now I'm totally pissed off. I went ahead and bought a couple hi-res token packs, and sure enough not only are my 6 tokens part of the new hi-res character pack, but they are better looking than the ones I paid for! I paid $2 a piece originally and now have a whole slew of pics that only cost me $5. When I commissioned the pieces I was informed that he retained teh rights and might re-sell them, but he'd make some minor alterations:

I don't see a difference, aside from the fact he forgot to color in part of the arm. Here is another example or two:

GaryCon Boise

2008-03-20T21:50:00.004-06:00

GaryCon Boise started for most participants at the new TownePlace Suites in Boise. The staff was most accomodating (thanks Katie!) an we all got adjacent rooms, two of which had been upgraded to 2 bedroom suites. One room had actually been downgraded to just a king-size suite, but it was a good room and our guests didn't mind.

HMA Members in attendance:

Christopher Stogdill HMGMA 1339

Carolyn Stogdill HMGMA 1415

Topher Kersting HMGMA 1344

Zari Kersting HMA 10167

Andrew Franklin HMGMA 193

Joe Tolman HMGMA 439

Shad Ward HMGMA 1949

Cristina Ward HMA 10222

The whole weekend came together primarily because Andrew was in town (from Norman, OK)for a conference that occured just before his school's spring break. Topher and Zari were last-minute suprise guests from Chattanooga, TN. We all met at the hotel on Saturday morning once those from Salt Lake City, UT made the drive up. We BSed a bit, ate lunch at Guido's, and then headed over to the student union at Boise State University.

The original plan was to just get some open table space, but when we discovered that a certain nook, complete with conference table, was free and clear we took that space over.

First on the menu was Andrew Franklin's adventure "Pike's Princess", a level 4-6 adventure set in the Kingdom of Kalamer. We played pretty good (and smart) as a group and although we didn't complete the adventure, we did manage to complete the main objective of the adventure, thanks to a Honor Purge from Topher's Anti-Mage. Topher was voted MVP, as could have been expected.

We got a slightly later start than anticipated and it was decided that instead of running the second scheduled tournament we'd go have a good dinner at Tablerock BrewPub and then retire back to the hotel. If we didn't, we'd have had to jump right into the second game and get out ASAP since the sub would close in 4 hours. I don't think anyone wanted to feel rushed.

Dinner was great and we all met up back in Topher's room to have a drink in Gary's honor while rolling up 1st level PCs to play tomorrow. Topher had a die obtained from EGG and we all rolled it during the toast. As the "GM" I offerred a free +1 stat bump to the highest roller, which was Andrew. I don't recall everyone's rolls, but Topher and I (the first two rollers coincidentally) rolled "1's". I also rolled up a PC, a pretty crappy fighter that started off with no weapon proficiencies and a permant -4 non-weapon proficiency penalty. I tried my best to not spend a single BP on any re-rolls, except to keep all of my Q&F off of one table (didn't want all of them to be from the same fighter sub-table). The rest of the night was filled with die rolling, page flipping, and a few stories of games long since past.

Most of us took our sweet time getting up in the AM (I think Zari had other plans though) and after a breakfast in the hotel, those who needed to checked out of the hotel and stored their bags in Topher's and Andrew's rooms. Again we headed off to BSU and nabbed the sweet spot on the second floor. Some finished their PCs and eventually I was able to start everyone off in my familiar town of Goblin's Tooth. My town has had some adjustments made to it, mostly from past adventurers, and I think the party had fun getting to know the town and each other's PCs. The role-playing was....interesting. The most notable event in town was Shad's DS Invoker getting forced to enter a bare-knuckle boxing match and winning. Eventually the group got together and headed out into the wilderness to discover the source of some recent problems.

The group worked together and faced 4 combats before it was decided to pack things up so the Salt Lake City folks could return back home. Like the day before, the group did not finish the adventure, but they did complete the objective given them. In this adventure the given objective was pretty simple and easily finished, but the party would be drawn into the larger adventure. The party was beginning the larger adventure, but we ran out of time.

We all headed back to the hotel and said our goodbyes.

I would like to thank everyone who managed to attend our event and I hope that everyone had fun despite the fact (or maybe because) we decided as a group to forgo two tournaments to have a more open home-style game. I knew I had more fun!

Managed one kill this weekend

2008-03-18T18:53:00.002-06:00

There will be more information forthcoming about this weekend's events at GaryCon Boise, but I wanted a quick "shout out" to let everybody know I managed one kill. Technically it wasn't a tournament, so I'm using the standard home game kill skull. I had to decide which color was appropriate....I went with the white one for "miscellaneous" instead of "monster".

The party had killed a particular creature which is largely edible, but has a highly poisonous internal organ. The party made a successfull roll to skin the animal out, but failed on two other rolls which would have let me tell them to stay away from the liver. One failed saving through later and I have another kill.

EGG 1938-2008

2008-03-05T23:05:00.005-07:00

In case you don't play RPGs and/or you've just been living under a rock, I'm sad to announce that the Gawdfather of Hack, one of the co-creators of Dungeons & Dragons, died Tuesday some time in the early morning.

We were jokingly calling our tournament weekend coming up "Stogdillapooza", but in honor of Gary Gygax's passing we decided GaryCon Boise was more appropriate. It's also a bit of an homage to Knights of the Dinner Table (GaryCon was a homage to Gary Gygax originally anyway).

This is not a great picture, but I ordered a batch of large magnets using this picture. They'll be higher quality and cropped appropriately. The background is from one of the original D&D booklets, and the picture of the old EGG himself was lifted from Futurama (don't sue!). I spent a lot of time tweaking this photo...even altered his glasses to show some of the background.

It'll be good to get some of the gang in town to play and I'm sure we'll do a little reminiscing.

Growing up I tried so hard to play D&D. I got a taste of it here and there, but not until I was an "adult" (serving in the Air Force) did I truely get to play with any frequency. I enjoy HackMaster so much mostly because it reminds me of 1st Edition Dungeons & Dragons so much. Thinking back over the years of gaming...and (of course) glossing over the bad tables, I find it interesting that most of my friends I have now and thousands of hours of enjoyment can be traced back to Gary's efforts.

I'll be rolling some dice and knocking back at least one drink in your honor at GaryCon Boise.

Tournament Updates

2008-02-24T10:32:00.003-07:00

OK...here's what we have going on. It looks like we'll be playing over at Boise State University on Saturday and Sunday, the 15th & 16th of March. The atmosphere at BSU is pretty promising and there is both plenty of parking and lots of selections for eating.

We have three tournaments lined up. I was writing one and Andrew Franklin was writing another. The third is going to be the final round of the 2007 Wurld Open. Most of the players coming up/known to be attending were participants in the Wurld Open up until the semi-finals.

I've been in communications with several members that are planning on attending and I think we'll only have a large enough group for two events, but we'll still plan on three. Worst case we don't run one event and have open gaming.

As a change I am not finishing my tournament and obtaining a "suprise" tournament that was pretty much written for half of the attendees. I'd be a fool not to try and run that tournament, especially since I'm the only one that's played it. I'm thinking it's a level 3-5 tournament, but I'm not sure.

Andrew's tournament is entitled Pike's Princess and is written for levels 4-6.

Right now lodging accomodations will be at the Marriott Courtyard not far from BSU and our home.

Ides of March Tournaments

2008-02-08T09:51:00.000-07:00

Things are starting to shape up. We have two tournaments being written and am getting a third before it hits the tournament bank.

One, maybe two, will be a level 4-6, and teh one I'm writing should be a level 3-5, but it may turn into a 2-4 so some newbs could play if they want. We like newbs and shouldn't run games that may exclude them......

More to follow....

This just in!

2008-01-11T14:20:00.000-07:00

If both readers of this blog can open up their calendars I'd like them to mark off March 15th and 16th as dates for some local/chapter tournaments here in Boise, ID. Specific details will be posted as they are learned.

Search for Tavin

2008-01-07T20:17:00.000-07:00

When we last left our intrepid adventurers they had decided they needed to find the local layabout Tavin. They know he likes to frequent the shadiest "tavern" in town, the Crossed Swords. Rue Eris, the Pixie Fairy Chosen One, and Jace, the Elven Archer, headed on off to the establishment to find Tavin.

Standing guard outside the Crossed Swords is a pair of Half-Ogre guards. Not exactly the talkative type, they simply demand "two gold". The PC duo keep asking for information on Tavin and if he's inside. "Two gold" is about all they get out of the brutes. I do let it "slip" that Half-Ogres don't exactly get along with Pixie Fairies, and the pair think the guards are asking for a bribe, which they are very reluctant to do....

So they leave empty-handed and return to the comfort of the Shady Oak Inn. They relate the story of the guards to Amara, Halfling Thief, and Alehandro, a Pixie Fairy Magic User. These two PCs decide to check out the place themselves. Upon confronting the gaurds they also get the "two gold" bit, which they pay. The guards open the door and they walk on in.

The Crossed Swords is a pretty run-down place. The walls and ceiling have shoddy repairs, the furniture is "functional" at best, and the bar is little more than a couple of boxes and racks off to one side. The main feature of the Crossed Swords is a roped off bare knuckle boxing ring pretty much in the middle of the place. Patrons sit about, drinking or watching/wagering on the bouts. Amara and Alehandro belly up to the bar and get a big mug of watered down ale. They are offerred mead or 'devilsblood' for an additional fee. They ask how much the ale is and the server gives them an odd look....the ale is all you can drink for two gold. The guards at the front door weren't exacting a bribe, but gathering the cover charge.

D'oh!

It takes some asking around, but Tavin is quickly located. He's pretty pissed and drowning in what's left of his current ale. They chat him up a bit and ask why he was in stocks when everyone came into town on market day. It ends up that Tavin had rang the alarm bell on the nearby guard tower on a bet (I deviated from the adventure a bit here, because it made sense and I wanted to). In his drunken stupor he gets a flash of recognition...."that bastard still owes me money!" and he lumbers off to find this "guy". His target is in another corner, pretty drunk also, and they begin to argue about the bet and money.

Pretty soon a massive half-orc grabs the two beligerent drunks and announces that they can work out their differences in the ring. The whole bar cheers in the excitement of a new challenge and the two boxers are stipped to the waist and shoved into the ring. The two boxer start to slug it out in a ham-fisted mockery of boxing. It was pathetics, like two monkey's trying to hump a football. Eventually they get to the bloody "I love you man" phase and pretty much pass out. The pair is tossed out back into a muddy patch just beyond the back door. Amara and Alehandro follow them out and try to revive Tavin. Failing that they see if they can drag him off. A halfling and pixie fairy (a Magic User, no less) trying to carry a passed-out human? Nope....all they manage so to make a lot of noise and mess.

The local church is just across the way, actually the closes building to the back of the Crossed Swords. They PCs see a light as the church's front door opens to reveal Brother Rothsby's and his glaring, dissapproving stare. The duo (led by Alehandro) looks up and waves "hi". They made a good friend that night!

Next update: Off into the woods!

The adventure begins!

2007-12-17T17:42:00.000-07:00

Spoiler Warning! You really don’t want to be reading this if you think you might play Lorne Marshall’s Goblin’s Tooth I (Adventure DF14 from Dragonsfoot)

My intrepid band of hero wannabees decided to not spend too much time wandering around town and headed back to the Shady Oak Inn to kill time until Pandorf decided to return with some word of a possible gig. The PCs didn’t know that the Shady Oak was hosting an open town meeting that night, but having nothing better to do they decided to go ahead and attend (not like they had to travel far).

The meeting was pretty bland, except for a small bit where some locals were PO’d that Pandorf had pretty much sold out of his lamp oil stock and the remaining amount was too expensive. Pandorf was trying to explain the basic concept of supply and demand when a lady named Kerna burst into the meeting muttering something about a goblin attack. The local Reeve was sent for while the Inn’s staff tried to take care of the lady and her two kids.

Once Sir Derrick the Reeve arrives the story is solidified that some Goblins had attacked her homestead, killed her husband Otto (a veteran of the Goblin Wars) and set fire to the homestead…..pretty much the goblin standard of rape, pillage, and plunder (not always in that order). Of course the locals in the Shady Oak are upset, but the Reeve calms things down by doubling the Watch and mustering up the local militia. Sir Derrick looks at the PCs and then glances over to Pandorf, asking if “his men” can check out the homestead at first light. Pandorf replies that this group doesn’t belong to the Adventurer’s Guild yet and because the town isn’t under a verifiable danger the Guild’s protection clause doesn’t kick in anyway.

Sir Derrick offers the PCs 50 GP each to investigate the homestead in the morning because he can’t spare the manpower. Of course the PCs accept and they head out at first light.

The trip to the homestead is pretty short, maybe an hour and a half, and when they get there things aren’t as they expected. The barn is burned down, but that is the only structure damaged. The grazing pen is occupied with livestock and the door to the shack serving as a dwelling is wide open. One of the party members does notice Otto’s body slumped up against the wall of the home. A rudimentary examination reveals that Otto was dragged from the spot he died at, his life-threatening wounds were crudely bandaged and that his sword was placed next to his body. The house proves to be in good order, with maybe a third of the provisions clearly missing from the shelves.

The party isn’t sure that this is the work of goblins, but Thale, Jace’s Elven Wardawg is 100% that goblins were here recently and their trail away from the homestead is quite clear. After a brief extended search of the surrounding area, the party follows the trail to the edge of the wood line where they come across some crude goblin encampment. The goblins are a bright orange color and their skin is badly peeling. This group seems to be mostly females and juveniles, but they have an older male who approaches a bit and calls out to them.
Through the goblin’s halting common they learn that his name is Thrask and he leads a small group of goblins who did steal some food from the homestead. The goblins are starving and they do not wish to start a war. They have been pushed out from their cave by some large creature. Thrask’s grasp of common wasn’t good enough to relay what the creature was. The party offers to help and Thrask promises his valued war-trophy (a necklace of human finger bones) as compensation should the PCs defeat the “Hizra-Krontos”. He also tosses them a small pouch of green berries, saying that they are still “good” for “one sun”.

The party returns to the homestead and brings back all of the remaining food, figuring that Otto’s family is being sheltered in the village and won’t need it. The goblins seem very thankful, but Thrask cannot relay that information. Maybe the goblins don’t have a word for “thanks”.

The party decided to head back to Goblin’s Tooth and relays what they’ve discovered thus far to the Reeve. Sir Derrick is happy with the results and promptly pays out the promised gold. He continues with the militia’s preparations and dismisses the party. Since it is late afternoon the party decides to try and get some information about the woods and where the caves may be. They ask Pandorf, who directs them to Jacob the woodcarver.

Jacob doesn’t have much to say, except that the main path in the woods is a giant figure 8 and where he knows good patches of particular hardwoods are. He doesn’t know anything about goblin caves and if he did he’d be staying well clear of them. The party asks more about some of the local townsfolk and anybody who might know more information. They get that Tavin gets around a bit, but that he’s “a lazy idiot”.

The search for Tavin……that is a story onto itself.

Welcome to Goblin's Tooth!

2007-12-14T13:57:00.000-07:00

My new group was blooded by "Relb's Workshop" from HackJournal #1 and now have moved on to the exciting locale of Goblin's Tooth. I've run an older group through the Dragonsfoot adventure Goblins Tooth I: Moonless Night. I introduced another character or two and have tweaked the setting some, but I found that this made a really good base of operations for new players & PCs. Not too big, not too small, and the tweaks let me keep this place going and usefull.

So far the party has come in to Goblin's Tooth on Market Day and they all picked up some fliers advertising for adventurers. The owner of the local Trading Post has some sort of Adventurer's Guild and he's always recruiting. So far they've met Pandorf (Guildmaster/Proprietor) and have also met Shanson and his wife Hazel, proprietors of the Shady Oak Inn (the only reputable inn that Goblin's Tooth has). Carla has been their waitress and the party has also met Tavin, but I doubt they'll remember him.

To date the party has pretty much taken advantage of Pandorf's offer of free room and board in exchange for listening to his speil on the Adventuring Guild. The 500 GP entrance fee is a bit steep for them at the moment. Pandorf has not-so-subtely hinted that he has a job offer that might net them the cash they have to join his guild.

The Adventurer's Guild fee is 500 GP and members must help defend the town in time of need, but Pandorf does offer several great benefits: first off, he has a deal with Shanson at the Shady Oak for lodging. Pandorf also will buy most anything of value at a set rate.....roughly 50% of the item's going rate (varies by condition, but good-quality stuff ends up being about half of the PHB rate). He can get most anything, given enough time, and he will help broker the sale of high value (magic) items with a relatively small commission. He'll also act as a bank for the PCs and can extend letters of credit to other merchants in the country. Pandorf has the contacts already established that the PCs need, and also the leads to possible dungeon crawls.

Of course......there is more going on here, but association with the Guild is well worth the expense.

Shameless plug: I heartily recommend Dragonsfoot for a great place to get some old-style adventures. If I don't get my some of my adventures published I may very well donate them to Dragonsfoot. I definately owe them something for the help they've given me!

Funny Seasonal RPG Video

2007-12-03T17:28:00.000-07:00

Someone posted this over at....well it was posted and I found it. Thought I'd share the love.....

Work has been getting in the way of HackMaster and not much gaming has gone on in recent weeks. Carolyn and I did give my mother a set of HM books for her birthday, which she enjoyed.

Tournaments! Glorious Tournaments!

2007-11-08T15:19:00.000-07:00

Carolyn and I took a long weekend and flew down to Salt Lake City for a group of tournaments held by the Dragon Lords of the American Desert. We pretty much spent the weekend at Hastur’s Hobbies. Our friend Shad served as the Tournament Coordinator (I helped a decent amount) and I filled in as the Head GM. I was going to run a combo level 1 Learn-to-Hack and Roll-n-Run session and then if needed, be the back-up GM for every other session. If I wasn't needed to run a table, I'd get to play. Since we never fielded more than 8 players per session I got to play all weekend!

The first tournament was held on Friday. The adventure, “Against the Salmon Gang”, was a level 1-3 written by Andrew Franklin. Shad Ward (HMGMA 1948) was the GM for a single table of 6 players. He managed to score one kill with a vicious backstab on the party’s mage. Lars Peterson (HMA 1361) was voted MVP. The HMA members in attendance were:
1804 (Rollins, John) , 1948 (Ward, Shadrick), XXXX (Ward, Christina), 439 (Tolman, Joseph), 1415 (Stogdill, Carolyn), 1339(Stogdill, Christopher), & 1361 (Peterson, Lars)

I think this was Shad's first tournament as a GM. He did a decent job, but the game was kind of "blah". It was pretty much the nature of the tournament itself. Pretty soon it bogged down into one large combat. Loot was non-existent....there was probably a good deal of loot, but if you didn't finish the adventure you wee SOL. Shad called it when he realized we were out of time AND he was about to do a nasty backstab on the party magic-user, who was already sucking on HP. Joe called him on this the next day. Evidently Shad called time mid-round and that just isn't right, so after some prompting from Joe (which I agreed with) Shad rolled a good hit on the backstab and did enough damage to do Joe's magic-user in.

We took a break for the night and returned the next morning when Hastur's re-opened. Unfortunately it was discovered that Saturday was also National Dungeons & Dragon Day. Although Hastur’s Hobbies was quite busy with wargamers and D&D people, there were no additional participants for the open HackMaster session. We discussed the matter some and a decision was made for a last minute schedule change to run the afternoon adventure first and then maybe do the Roll-n-Run later. Joe Tolman (HMGMA 439) ran, as a local tournament, the level 3-5 adventure “The Stone Gardens” by Dan Adams. I played my archer Waydol and was voted MVP. We had a single table of 7 players. The HMA members in attendance were:
1804 (Rollins, John), 1948 (Ward, Shadrick), 2193 (Ward, Peter), 494 (Tolman, Bethany), 439 (Tolman, Joseph), 1415 (Stogdill, Carolyn), 1339(Stogdill, Christopher), & 1361 (Peterson, Lars)

This wasn't a bad tournament. We didn't finish it, but some of that was due to the fact there was only one table. We have a tendency to lollygag a bit when it's our "core" chapter group and we're all at one table. This was pretty much an outdoor adventure and my archer Waydol had a couple great chances to shine. He ended up catching a disease during the game....I know it, but he doesn't. Luckily he's headed back to his wife (Carolyn and my first PCs are married to each other) who is a 6th level cleric who can patch him up. Loot seemed pretty much non-existent again...a lot of adventures are such that you really have to do well and finish the thing to get any loot. Although we did lollygag some....I don't think this would have been an easy tournament to finish on time anyway.

As I like to put it, Joe had a real hard-on to run his “Chutes & Splatters” game again. Shad, Carolyn, and I played it one and a half year earlier, but a good deal of the challenges in this particular were randomized a bit, so the puzzles would be different. Joe just didn't let Shad and I participate on the parts we may have had a clue about. Joe served as GM, which Carolyn and Bethany sat this game out. Lars Peterson (HMA 1361) was voted MVP and there were seven players at one table. The HMA members active at the game were:
1804 (Rollins, John), 1841 (Harper, Tommy), 2193 (Ward, Peter), 1948 (Ward, Shadrick), XXXX (Ward, Christina), 439 (Tolman, Joseph), 1339(Stogdill, Christopher), & 1361 (Peterson, Lars)

Even though I had played this adventure once before, I could have been allowed to totally participate in the puzzle portions of the adventure. I couldn't remember squat and when I tried to help out after an appropriate amount of time had passed...I was about useless. Lars carried the group (Shad was still barred from participating, mostly self-barred, because he remembered to much). All I remembered was one of the monsters, which was not exploitable information.

We didn't finish this adventure either. The puzzles took too much time (I really did suck this time around....my PC wasn't as smart as the last one, which is my official excuse) and we had an interesting moment during the first encounter. Shad was playing a Drow fighter with HackLust and decided to use his Great Honor mulligan to re-roll a fumble in the first round. In the second round he rolled a crit with sent him into a frenzy. He quickly killed the monster and then started in on us......I tired once to stop him with a spell, but those damned Drow have great magic resistance. We basically (well not me.....not a sucker) had to take turns being the punching bag until his HackLust was satiated. That ate up time and resources. Then Shad played a coupon to replace the HackLust quirk with another Q&F and after he ended up with three more quirks & flaws Joe played a coupon to make him re-roll one of those quirks. He ended up losing an ear in that re-roll.

We closed out the store again and reconvened on Sunday for our tournament event. This next adventure was officially the Chapter Tournament. Carolyn was the GM this time and she ran Kenneth Osbourne’s level 4-6 adventure “Castle in the Swamps”. She managed to level drain the party’s Undead Hunter and score a kill on another party member. John Rollins (HMGMA 1804) was voted the party MVP and the Chapter managed to field one table of 7 players. The HMA members in attendance were:
1804 (Rollins, John), 2193 (Ward, Peter), 1948 (Ward, Shadrick), XXXX (Ward, Christina), 439 (Tolman, Joseph), 494 (Tolman, Bethany), 1415 (Stogdill, Carolyn), & 1339(Stogdill, Christopher)

Yeah...we finally finished an adventure! This adventure had a theme and it was figured out fairly quickly, which made parts of the adventure far too easy. There were too many solitary type encounters where it was the party against a single foe. Carolyn got another kill....kind of humorous that Joe lost two PCs this weekend. The Pixie Fairy cleric that was level drained ended up getting his levels restored by the use of Shad's Serial Numbered Item (SNI). He had this amulet SNI that lets you request a spell to be cast by your patron deity. Shad's PC was not a clerical type and only had 14% chance (including a 5% Opportunist bonus) of pulling it off and sure enough rolled a 14!

We finished early enough that we could run some long overdue Chapter business. We held elections and voted on a charter change we'd been waiting to do since last summer.

The new slate of officers for the Dragon Lords of the American Desert is:

President (Rot Gut): Carolyn Stogdill HMGMA 1415
Vice-President (Gnarl Gut): Joe Tolman HMGMA 439
Secretary (Wrack Gut) Chris Stogdill HMGMA 1339
Player Advocate (Iron Gut) Peter Ward HMA 2193

The Chapter decided not to elect any Arena Managers since it had not held an Arena event since 2005.

We were all very grateful to Hastur’s Hobbies for their wonderful support of the weekend’s HackMaster events. They took good care of us and I for one would have to say that this weekend was better than some of the convention games have been.