Tabletop Fun

[Ceir]

Got to sit down and play a few runs on one of the Final Girl modules I picked up, Haunting of Creech Manor. I definitely see why people have ranked it low on the list of season 1 films - in my post a few up from here, I did say I knew it was pretty RNG swingy, but dang. I like it thematically, and yet - one run I found the Possessed Kid in short order, and two moves away from where I needed to go, boom, done; another, I never found her despite my best efforts, the Poltergeist murdered everyone else and finally splatted me; and in yet another I didn't even get a chance to look for the kid because the Poltergeist went from zero to a hundred in about a turn and a half and just blitzed me. Part of it I can chalk up to learning the map and mechanics, part of it is my luck with dice at any given time, but part of it definitely is the mechanics that are harder to mitigate.

Despite all that, I'm not too disappointed, it's just the less-fun of the season 1 sets I own. And I can definitely think of a couple mix and match combos that would possibly fare better. The "find the kid" gimmick is tied to the Poltergeist killer, not the Manor location; and there are definitely killers I want to try in the Manor map because it's so much denser and interconnected, and locations I want to try the Poltergeist on that would make the whole gimmick a little easier to plan and mitigate.

On a non-FG note, loot get! I was finally able to source a To Boldly Go expansion for Star Trek: Attack Wing, so now I have a pretty good spread of Federation ships for my Alliance: Dominion War solitaire game; something a little heftier than a single Akira and Excelsior from the Part 1 starter. Plus, regardless of inaccuracy, this is the set with the nice silver paintjobs on the models.

...apparently I'm really hitting the solitaire games lately.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Dragonlance--

So this week's session had us having to deal with (sigh) politics. Dwarven politics, no less. I channeled some of my inner Pratchett by remarking about how "you could stick two dwarves in a room and they'd come out with three different opinions," and the collective noun for dwarves was "an argument."

Basically, in order for us to get the dwarves of Thorbardin to accept the 800-some refugees from Pax Tharkis, it required a royal decree, but there hadn't been a King of Thorbardin in like 250 years. Selecting a new king required someone to forge a "kingsword," but you couldn't do that without the Hammer of Honor. The Hammer had been sealed away in the last king's tomb, and the tomb had been magically raised some 7000 feet up an air shaft in the middle of the mountain. Getting into it required we go into the City of the Dead, the necropolis in the deepest parts of the mountain, where the tomb had originally been located. Dwarves were forbidden from going into the City of the Dead outside of funeral processions, but as none of us were dwarves, this law technically didn't apply to us. But we still needed permission to go there, so we had to speak to the Council of Thanes.

This was where the politics applied. We had the Thane of the Hylar on side (we'd brought back word of his son's death, honor dictated he do this for us) and an allied thane alongside. There was the Thane of the Theiwar, who was a traditional rival of the Hylar, who would vote in opposition to the Hylar, and there was another thane who tended to vote in opposition of the majority due to sheer contrariness (later claimed to be "to keep balance" when we talked to him). We mostly had to make sure we could keep the other two thanes on side. One of them, the Thane of the Aghar, wasn't too much of an issue, she was pretty stupid and voted in the same way as whomever voted immediately before her (which would be the Hylar), but it was the Thane of the Klar who we really had to work on. The DM also noted that the Theiwar thane had a whiff of sulfur about him, which we associated with the Draconians (the "black cloaks"), but when we tried to bring this up to Hornfel (Hylar thane), he noted such smells were not unheard of in mining.

The Klar, as a clan, had delved a little deep, and had gotten hooked on a drug they derived from ground-up mushrooms, dubbed "spice." (This was not a Dune reference, but a reference to Critical Role's Campaign 1, where the bard Scanlan got bamboozled into spending a significant amount of money on spice, thinking it was a name for a drug.) The council adjourned so the Klar's rep could "consider his vote" (he was really just jonesing for a fix), and while Justinius and Cogburn (the two smarties) tried to see if they could get the "contrarian" thane on side, this left Runa and Catt to go talk to the Klar, who wouldn't talk to them about voting until he knew he could trust them, i.e., to take a hit of spice. Which, naturally, was snorted up the nose.

Our barbarian, and the kender. Taking fantasy cocaine.

Catt failed the CON save and basically became paralyzed for an hour, while Runa got a one-hour buff to her STR and DEX rolls, but an eight-hour debuff to her INT and WIS rolls. But it worked, and when the council reconvened, the Klar voted to allow our party to go into the City of the Dead.

We had one encounter with a pack of undead dwarves down there, but they turned out to be decent enough, and the spokes-zombie was willing to talk. He'd been cursed for sinning against Reorx the Forge-god and wouldn't get to rest until 77 people had heard his sad tale, and he was at 31. We agreed to listen to his tale, which was long and dull (three hours long), and moved along-- which is when we got jumped by a dozen dwarven assassins. We managed to survive, but found the assassins were wearing Theiwar crests.

Finally we had to solve a puzzle in the tomb of Prince Grallen (the last king's son), noting that his statue depicted him in full armor with a shield and axe, but no helmet, and every armored dwarf we'd met had always worn a helmet. We found a helmet in Grallen's uncle's tomb, put it on his statue-- which became animated and spoke to us. We explained we were trying to retrieve the Hammer of Honor, which was in his father's tomb, which was 7000 feet above our heads. Grallen knew what caused it, but the solution to lower it was inside the king's tomb, so Grallen just opened a portal to the tomb for us.

Next week: the Tomb of King Duncan

Also, gonna be doing my first Tier 3 (levels 11-16) adventure in Adventurers' League this week.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Dragonlance--

So the King's Tomb was a combat-less session, as we were mostly exploring the very large and blinged-out tomb. There were traps only in the sense of "do not touch this artifact" and "you're cheating at the test," but nothing that would overtly seriously harm us. A couple of lore things (Duncan XIV was a BAMF - he 1v1'd a King Ogre, something that took an entire party for us to do) and some healing potions and whatnot were found. Also, some Spectacles of True Seeing, which can see through illusions and similar. (I dubbed them the "Ruby Specs" because of their ruby lenses.)

Also, Kharas (the dwarf who basically made the Hammer of Honor) was ...still alive? We encountered him standing watch in the tomb's trophy chamber, apparently having been in some kind of trance. It was unusual that he was still alive, since while dwarves live longer than humans, they don't live that much longer. And then when we found the tomb chamber itself... we found Kharas's body, dead. We were all quite confused by this, but we the players were dumb and didn't try to Insight check alive-Kharas about it.

We retrieved the Hammer, rang the bell and caused the tomb to descend back to the ground, but as it descended, we saw that a lot more Theiwar thugs were flooding into the City of the Dead, but Hylar warriors were riding down to join us. But there was also a young Red Dragon flying down from the mountaintop, with a pack of Draconians as well.

That's where the session two weeks ago ended. We had a one-shot last week (as Camilla was going to be unavailable), and this week's session would pick up with this impending "boss fight."

We had a minute of in-game time to prepare for the fight, so folks were popping healing potions (if needed), or applying buffs to themselves. Cogburn took cover behind a column in front of the tomb, and used this deployable cover shield to give himself some more cover as well. We rolled initiative, and the Red Dragon went first... flying around to flank the party and unleashed its fire breath on four of us. I failed my DEX save, meaning I would take the full damage instead of half--

Cogburn took 63 points of damage. Cogburn has a max HP of 30. Cogburn died.

In D&D 5e, if the amount of extra damage you take after being reduced to 0 HP is more than your max HP, you instantly die. No falling unconscious, no death saves. D-E-D dead.

The rest of the table was shocked. I... wasn't. I had a feeling from the end of the previous session that I was probably going to die in this encounter. Granted, not that quickly, but I had a feeling anyway.

Bob the DM told me not to put my character sheet away yet, "We'll resolve your final moments on your turn." When my turn came up in initiative, he told me that Cog would have time for one final action before being consumed by the flames. I promptly used my one 4th-level slot to unleash a Lightning Bolt on the Dragon, it failed the DEX save, and took maximum damage for 54 points of lightning damage. Cogburn was reduced to a pile of ash and half-melted slag of artificer's gadgets.

It was nicely poetic and narratively appropriate that the rest of the party rolled extremely well, with multiple critical hits, after Cogburn's death. I joked at the table, "I took the bad luck with me!" and later, when the Dragon attempted to Fireball the Barbarian, Bob rolled terribly on the damage and only dealt 15 points of damage-- reduced to 7 thanks to the Barbarian being resistant to fire damage.

After combat was finished, there were some somber moments as the party mourned their fallen friend. They did try to see if what they thought was some kind of magical pool in the tomb might restore him, but it didn't. Justinius the Wizard collected some of the ashes in an empty vial, promising to take them to the moon for him. (I was touched by that, genuinely.)

Some levity at the table was restored when I half-joked that Cogburn was now hanging out with the Barbarian's Ancestral Guardian spirits (her mother and grandmother), and Bob thought that was so funny he declared it canon. Runa could now hear Cog snarking from beyond, and when folks put on the Ruby Specs, they could see Cog also (though they couldn't hear him), and Cog would also snark and argue with the spirit of a wizard that was bound to Justinius's staff.

After all of that, the party returned to Thorbardin with Kharas and the Hylar, who were themselves in mourning; Thane Hornfel's last son, Arman, had died in the battle. He was distraught upon hearing of it, and then furious after hearing of the Theiwar's treachery. He re-summoned the Council of Thanes, marched straight up to Raelgar, the Thane of the Theiwar, grabbed him by the throat, and skull-dragged him to the overlook. "Traitor! Treason! My last son!" He forced Raelgar to watch as the entire Theiwar clan was slaughtered by the Hylar, intending to execute him himself afterward. Justinius beat him to it, saying, "You may have the clan. But this one has a gnome-sized debt to pay." And killed Raelgar himself with an Inflict Wounds spell.

Yes, in case you mis-read that, there was some genocide going on.

Evrouin the Knight was most displeased. Catt the Kender was horrified.

The party was emotionally drained when they returned to their quarters for the night. Catt went running off, needing to be somewhere else. Evro went looking for her. This left Justinius and Runa alone, as they both mourned Cog's passing. Justinius admitting that while he bickered with Cogburn frequently, he had appreciated the gnome's intelligence and would now miss having that intellectual peer. Runa was distraught that another person she was nominally supposed to protect had died, because her Rage had overtaken her in the moment. Runa and Justinius ended up spending the night together, largely because neither wanted to be alone at that moment. It was surprisingly tender, and furthered the bond that had been slowly developing between the two.

Both felt somewhat guilty for the death for not being able to better protect him. Eric, Runa's player, admitted to me later he'd forgotten that Runa has an ability through her subclass that would allow her Ancestral Guardian spirits take some damage for an ally; it wouldn't have negated the full brunt of the blow, but it would have prevented instant death. I absolved him of it, and even he agreed that Runa-- who had a hatred for one of the dragons that wiped out her tribe-- wouldn't have been thinking clearly enough in the moment (her Rage) to try to protect Cog like that.

Camilla, Catt's player, needed to leave at that point, so the emotional scene that would happen between her and Evrouin will take place next week.

But the hits kept coming. Figuratively speaking. The next morning, Kharas came to the party and asked them to follow him, he had something to discuss and something to show them. Taking them to an isolated courtyard, he revealed that he was actually an Ancient Gold Dragon, named Evenstar. He asked for the Misfits to accompany him to meet with his people (the good-aligned Metallic Dragons) to corroborate his testimony that the evil-aligned Chromatic Dragons had broken oaths by returning to the mortal world, to spur the Metallics into action. Evenstar hadn't been able to take his true form during the fight against the Red Dragon because of oaths that Evenstar had sworn, and because the Chromatics had found the Metallics' eggs and were holding them hostage. To take his true form would have allowed the Chromatics to destroy the eggs.

The party agreed, and rode on Evenstar's back to Solinari, the white moon of Krynn, where the City of Dragons had been established on the far side of the moon more than a millennium before. On the way, the party asked if they could inter or scatter Cogburn's ashes somewhere on the moon, even if there weren't cemeteries or mausoleums or memorials per se there. Reorx the Forge-god didn't have a presence on Solinari like that. But the party decided to try to make a shrine to Reorx for Cogburn, and to have a little ceremony for him there. (Cog's spirit was most appreciative of the thought they were giving to this.)


At one point in the session, while the party was preparing to use Speak with Dead to interrogate the corpse of the dead Red Dragon, Bob got up to smoke a cigarette and asked me to join him, "We need to have a discussion." And that discussion was what to do next. He admitted the party would get the opportunity to use a True Resurrection spell to try to bring back Cogburn-- and was fairly certain the table would try it-- but Bob was going to use some dice-rolling to determine if the spell would succeed. He asked my thoughts on this, and while I initially was all for it, I had another thought about it, and decided it was better narratively if Cog did not return to life. Seeing the emotional effects that Cog's death had had already felt so dramatically important, and bringing him back might undo some of that.

So, Bob asked if I had any thoughts on a new character. At first, I suggested a Ranger, but he instead recommended a Cleric. I only hadn't thought of it because Clerics had not been on offer at Level 1, but once he suggested it, I immediately agreed. The party needed a stronger healer on side, that wasn't always in the front-line like Evrouin. We later talked on the phone over the weekend, as I'd settled on playing a Human Cleric of Mishakal (the goddess of healing), and Bob then pitched the character and his backstory to me. He opened with, "You are 1278 years old." The cleric (whom I eventually named Gavin) had been alive during the Third Dragon War, alongside the hero Huma Dragonbane. Indeed, Huma, his friend Magius, and Gavin had all grown up together. While Huma went off to become a knight and Magius a wizard, Gavin had joined a holy order of healers and essentially became a combat medic. It was during this time that Gavin met a healer's assistant named Gwyneth and the two grew quite close and fell in love. Then Huma returned from some of his adventures with a woman named Silvara, and Silvara and Gwyneth both revealed themselves to be Silver Dragons named Heart and Dream.

The war raged on, Gavin and Gwyneth (Dream) continued to aid in the conflict, and Gavin was there when Huma returned with the Dragonlances to turn the tide against the forces of Evil, and when Huma defeated Takhisis (the goddess of evil) and forced her and all Chromatic Dragons to be banished to the Abyss. In the aftermath, Paladine and the Gods of Good had the Metallic Dragons swear oaths of their own to depart the mortal world, and not wanting to be separated from Gwyneth, Gavin went with her to Solinari, as Mishakal granted him ageless immortality. (Gavin can't get sick or grow old, but he's still susceptible to injury and death by such.)

The discussion was very productive, got my brain fizzing, and I can't wait to see where things go at our next session.

[Nunavut Pants]

So, several more games of Terraforming Mars down. Mostly finishing last in them.

A recent one started reasonably well for me, and got better in the mid-game. My corp allowed me to turn up to 4 of the heat resource into up to 8 money, and I got a card early on that allowed me to turn one plant resource into seven money. The income boost was very handy for letting me play cards!

At one point, I said on Discord "I think this is my 'where it all went wrong' moment." I was in the lead by a modest amount, but did not see any good path forward from my position. I was able to put together a few things, but I dropped to second place in the "most steel plus energy production" award that I had funded, costing me 3 VP, and one opponent really piled on the points in the last two "generations" (rounds of play). Despite one good card right at the end giving me 3 VP, I still finished in second by almost 10 points.

Still, "NOT LAST!"

I think I'm going back to my old form in the current game, though. I don't see any good synergies in the corporations, preludes, and project cards that were available to me. No clear path to the Milestones or Awards, and no good "engine" setup to build.