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  • Dragonlance--

    Jesse had car trouble (he lost his car keys and was stuck at home, and there wasn't enough time to arrange for transpo for him) so he was joining us on speakerphone for the session.

    In the aftermath of dealing with Cyan Bloodbane, we had to work out our next course of action. King Lorac had asked us to find his daughter, but all we knew was she had left to "find help," and could be literally anywhere. Given that forging new dragonlances would take months of work and we didn't yet have the appropriate wizard and cleric to bless/empower them, much less dragons to ride to wield them properly, we decided our next step should be liberating the Metallic Dragon eggs from the Abasinian Empire, as dangerous as that might be.

    As we rode into the region of Estwild, however, my character Gavin recognized the mountain pass we were traveling through and noted that-- while it might be called Estwild now-- this was the road into his homeland, Erol. The same region that had produced the historical legends of Huma Dragonbane and Magius. Gavin had been childhood friends with both. He had some melancholy as he looked over his once-homeland, now pretty unrecognizable after 1200+ years and a cataclysm. Especially when they found a few remnants of the village of Erol in a forest.

    Then they came along where the village and castle of Baxtry should have been, but where the castle once stood was this beautifully-built chateau, with a sign out front reading "Baxtry Arms - The Last Homely House in Estwild." It turned out this was a traveler's inn, and had been built by a master mason (former head of the mason's guild, no less) from Palanthas. The mason explained he'd had a vision in a dream of "a star the size of a mountain" falling to earth, and was told to "raise a home where the star fell." He came out here and built the chateau, but there isn't a huge amount of travelers.

    But, while we were enjoying some sherry (out of game, too; DM Bob brought some very sweet sherry for us all to try), Angus MacKenzie showed up-- the avatar of the god of crafting, Reorx. Angus contrived to have the innkeeper leave to prepare dinner, and then spoke with us all alone, but specifically to Runa the Barbarian, able to tell that something was amiss with her. We explained she'd been experiencing recurring nightmares, and that they were connected to the dragon teeth that had been put into her scimitars' hilts. Angus did some sort of ritual over them, and then basically spoke with the ancient red wyrm dragon Emberekanashli.

    What followed was some lore-dumping, after a heated exchange between god and ancient dragon, as Angus first purged the taint from Runa's swords, before explaining that long, long ago, when the world was first created, the gods learned the stars in the firmament were actually souls, and the first five that were drawn to the world of Krynn were the First Dragons, who became beloved of the gods. But Takhisis (the goddess of evil) corrupted them and the First Dragons turned away from the gods, who mournfully tried to fill the void from their absence by shepherding the mortal races that followed. (Elves, gnomes, humans.) In the First Dragon War, the First Dragons were sealed away in the Dragon Orbs, but now they've been freed-- something that would have taken some manner of divine intervention. Ember and Cyan Bloodbane were two of these First Dragons, explaining why they were so powerful.

    Angus, hearing that we were intending to go into the imperial capital of Neraka, advised us to visit the Monks of the Rose, whose monastery was in the mountains nearby. They might know ways into the city that would reduce our chances of a deadly fight.

    Before retiring for the night, the innkeeper did warn the party that some guests had reported strange happenings in the night, things being moved, etc. So we weren't too surprised when a ghost manifested during the night. And once again, Gavin came in useful here, as he recognized the ghost as Lord Oswal Baxtry, the last lord of the former castle, who had died during Gavin's time, poisoned by a traitor. Oswal was surprised to see Gavin alive, but after speaking with him, we learned that Oswal's unfinished business was simply that he wanted to be remembered; he had died with no heirs or family, no legacy to be carried on. He was gratified to hear that the chateau had been named for him (Baxtry Arms) and then we summoned and spoke with the innkeeper, who was frightened of the ghost, but Gavin again explained the situation. The innkeeper saw the potential for historical significance to putting Lord Oswal's tale to paper, and arranged for paper and pen to be provided to the ghost. The innkeeper would likely use the tale for marketing purposes, and we also saw a possible way for Justinius the Wizard to get his "in" to the Library of Palanthas, if he could be the one to deliver the finished book to the library.

    Mind you, DM Bob has semi-jokingly told the rest of the table (Jesse is only half-aware this is not a joke) that Justinius will basically never get to return to Palanthas, and he'll contrive to have him get plane-shifted when/if the party ever makes it back.
    PWNADE(TM) - Serve up a glass today! | PWNZER - An act of pwnage so awesome, it's like the victim got hit by a tank.

    There are only Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse because I choose to walk!

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    • I finally got to the reconstituted Monday night boardgame group!

      There were five of us, most of whom I hadn't seen in months. It was good to catch up, particularly with N who has a new medical regime that has resulted in her actually not needing a cane any more! Woo hoo!

      We played "Things in Rings", which has been described as "is a hot dog a sandwich, the board game." You set out three rings in an overlapping Venn diagram, and one person gets three cards, one for each ring. One ring is for "word", and its card lists a specific criterion, such as "has at least five letters" or "has duplicate letters somewhere in it". One ring is for "Attribute", and its card lists some sort of attribute that an object can have. Examples from today were "floats in water", and "you can look through it". The third ring is for "Context", and its card lists a way that objects can be used. A couple of examples were "you can buy it in a store", "makes noise when used", and "single use".

      Each other player is dealt five cards that have nouns on them. The original person gets as many cards as there are other players, and places them in the Venn diagram according to which of the three criteria they meet. (There's a "none" area outside all three rings.) Then the other players try to place their cards, one at a time, into the correct area of the diagram. If they place a card correctly, they try again. If they are incorrect, the first person moves the card to the correct spot and the guesser takes a card. Theoretically the object is to run out of cards, but we were trying to let everyone go out and then guess the criteria cards.

      It's an interesting game, but pretty thinky for me.

      We only got the one game in.
      “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged.
      One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.
      The other, of course, involves orcs." -- John Rogers

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      • D&D AL--

        Got a chance to jump into a Tier 3 (Levels 11-16) game at Adventurers' League this week. So often the higher tier games are the same weeks as the Frostmaiden campaign I've been taking part in, so I haven't really had a chance to do a lot with it. Thankfully, I was able to this week, and I finally brought Seb, my half-orc barbarian, up to Tier 3 by bumping him up to Level 11. Only real new feature I got with Level 11 is Relentless Rage, which basically would have let me keep going if I dropped to 0 HP while in a Rage, which never came up.

        But I got to get some disgusting damage in thanks to Seb's build and his Greatsword of Wounding. To refresh, a greatsword by default does 2d6+STR damage. The Wounding property means it deals an extra 2d6 necrotic damage. Seb has a Belt of Hill Giant Strength, which means I get a +5 in STR. Greatswords are also heavy weapons, so my Great Weapon Mastery means I get to add my Proficiency Bonus (+4) to my damage rolls with heavy weapons. My Rage also gives me +3 to any STR based damage. By using my Brutal Strike while using my Reckless Attack, I deal an extra 1d10 damage if I hit.

        4d6+1d10+12 = an average of 29 damage, 6 of which is necrotic.

        We started the session in combat-- this was a carry-over from the previous part of this adventure-- and I got a Nat-20 on my Initiative roll, but had to spend the first two rounds just getting from where we arrived in the dungeon to where the combat was happening. The continuing adventurers were in combat with a pack of vampires. Seb finally gets in range of one of the vampires, and so I go for my Reckless Brutal Strike -- Nat-20! I double all the dice I'm rolling. (8d6+2d10+12) I took that vampire from full health to almost dead in one strike, and the follow-up attack, while not a crit, was still disgusting, and left that vampire hanging on by a thread.

        It wasn't until combat continued that I realized I'd forgotten a feature of my Greatsword of Wounding, but typically you can't retroactively apply something you forgot like that, so I just left it until I got my next turn. Unfortunately, all the vamps soon after went down before Seb got another turn, but there were plenty more in other parts of the dungeon. One of the things that makes vampires a nasty enemy is their bite. Not only do they automatically get to hit with it if they have you grappled, but if you fail a CON save, not only does the bite apply necrotic damage, but it lowers your max HP. This is an effect that can only be cured by taking a long rest or using a high level spell called Greater Restoration.

        When we moved on in the dungeon, we entered a room which had more vamps in it, but also this machine which we'd figured out was causing this enervation effect in the dungeon, causing anyone who spent enough time in the dungeon to lose vitality (lowering their max HP), and simply entering the room where this machine was caused PCs to lose 5 off their max HP. We decided we needed to destroy the machine, so our monk gets into the room and starts whaling on it. When he finally disabled the machine, it caused the crystal powering it to essentially go haywire, and now it was sapping 10 off everyone's max HP every round. Along with the six vamps in the room, that was a nasty threat. Even just looking through the door, as the party's cleric and wizard did, was enough to get hit with the enervation effect. As I remarked about it, "We're basically fighting in the basement of Chernobyl."

        Still, I was able to get in and keep doing some nasty damage of my own with Seb's Greatsword of Wounding, and along with that, used the feature I'd forgotten in the previous combat. After hitting a vamp, I told the DM to have it make a CON save, which it passed on the first hit, but it failed on the second. That's when I explained what the sword does-- if the victim fails the CON save, they are unable to regain HP for the next hour, or until the effect is broken. The victim can attempt the save at the end of each of their turns, ending the effect on a success.

        When I finished reading it off, the DM went, "Ooh! Ewww! That is nasty! Ewww!" I had correctly deduced that the vampires were regaining HP with each bite attack, but thanks to my sword, this particular vamp was now unable to do it.

        Still, thanks to some successful bites from vamps and failed CON saves from me, along with the haywire crystal's enervation effect, I went from 108 max HP to 44 max HP by the end of that combat, when the crystal was finally shattered to stop its effects. When I commented on how bad Seb was doing-- he'd only avoided getting his actual HP (not the max) damaged thanks to the cleric's regular buff that gave everyone temp HP each round-- the rest of the table was shocked and very quickly agreed to let Seb take the Greater Restoration to get him back to full max HP, because otherwise he was in very serious danger in the rest of the dungeon.
        PWNADE(TM) - Serve up a glass today! | PWNZER - An act of pwnage so awesome, it's like the victim got hit by a tank.

        There are only Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse because I choose to walk!

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        • Interesting about the vamps. In AD&D and 2e and possibly a few versions after that, vamps simply drained your levels. You would have gone from level 11 to level 10, losing one level's worth of HP and that level's abilities. Come to think of it, vamps may have been one of the critters that drained you TWO levels at one hit! Very very very nasty monsters! And that doesn't even count them assuming gaseous form at will, polymorphing to bats, and being immune to non-magic weapons...
          “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged.
          One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.
          The other, of course, involves orcs." -- John Rogers

          Comment


          • Well, poot. Un-fun shenanigans, found out one of the FLGSes I frequent is closing next month. Nothing awful happened, owner dude is just retiring - well-deserved, given that running a hobby shop of any stripe (game, comic, whatever) is a tenuous business at best in the age of "it's cheaper on the internet", and then (to make the joke) In This Economy...preemptive RIP, you guys were great for weird stuff.
            Cheap, fast, good. Pick two.
            They want us to read minds, I want read/write.

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            • Some news from the Adventurers' League chapter I'm a part of-- Brian, the player of Boron from our Frostmaiden campaign, has joined the ranks of the DMs in our chapter, and will be running tables soon in the future. The other DMs ran through a one-shot with him on Sunday and collectively agreed that he did a great job. So that'll be interesting.

              Dragonlance--

              Another no-combat session, as our pack of Misfits trekked from the chateau where we'd been staying up into the Rose Mountains to find the Monks of the Rose. There was some exposition from the DM explaining that the Monks were not named for the mountains. The mountains took their name for the distinctive rose quartz found there, which was highly prized around the world for its quality. (I did joke, "You can only call it rose quartz if it comes from the Rose Mountain region, otherwise you have to call it sparkling quartz.") The Monks take their name from Majere, the Serene Rose, the god of discipline. (The Knights of the Rose, one of the orders of the Knights of Solamnia, take their name from one of the symbols of Paladine, the god of redemption.)

              Along the way, we noticed we were being watched from above, but made no signs of violent intent, since we correctly assumed the monks were monitoring us. We later got a message from them in the form of a parchment attached to a dart which was fired into Sir Evrouin's shield. (We jokingly referenced Monty Python & the Holy Grail at this point. "Message for you, sir!") The monks asked us to remove our arms and armor in the next clearing before continuing, which we did, reluctantly in our barbarian's case. But we were guided to the monastery and eventually met with its Grand Master, Herakles, who asked what brought us here.

              We explained our intent to enter Neraka, on a rescue mission. Gavin did most of the talking, and it came out that we were rescuing dragon eggs, and his own extended lifespan, and all the rest of it, which boggled Herakles's mind. Justinius at this point realized that we were under the effects of something like a Zone of Truth spell. Since Gavin hadn't been attempting to lie, I hadn't needed to make any sort of saving throw, and since Herakles knew the effect was in place, it was startling him with these revelations. We essentially asked for whatever help the monks could give in helping us get into the evil city of Neraka.

              Herakles said there might be some things they could do, and welcomed us to stay with the monastery for at least the night. We were able to go to our own rooms in the monastery to freshen up and reclaim our equipment, at which point there were some discussions among the party.

              Runa the Barbarian went to talk with Sir Evrouin about how to be a leader. She had had a tense conversation with the ancestral spirits of her mother and grandmother, who were pressuring her to be the chieftain of her tribe, a role she didn't think she was suited for. Her mother had remarked that she hadn't thought she was ready either. Needing advice, she went to Evro, who admitted that for all that he was seen as the leader of our party, he had doubts about his own leadership as well, and doubts about whether people they met with respected him, or they respected his role as a knight. It wasn't the same thing, to Evro. He ultimately advised Runa to think about the common goal of her tribe, to listen to what they want, and then she should be able to lead them to that goal, adding, "If you think you're ready to be a leader, then you're probably not ready."

              Justinius, our wizard, spoke with my character Gavin, since he knew one of the more famous historical wizards, Magius, who'd been something of a personal hero to Justinius. Magius, through his life, had gone from being a White Robed wizard to a Red Robe, to a Black Robe, to a renegade wizard, before finally coming back to the White Robes, and Justinius had wanted to know about it. Similar to our wizard, Magius had gone from white to red during his Test of High Sorcery, though Gavin did not know the context for why. (He does know the context for Magius going to the Black Robes, but didn't share it with Justinius; Magius's mother had died of plague, and the distraught Magius sought to bring her back, and necromancy is usually the bailiwick of Black Robes.)

              Justinius admitted to his own self-confidence and heartfelt belief that he was destined to become "a great man," as Magius had been, acknowledging the arrogance of such a belief. He admitted to his near-failure in his admittance exam, and that he'd received an offer from "a powerful figure" which he'd turned down. Gavin remarked that perhaps the long delay before his exam passed him was "a sign from a higher power" to try to temper his arrogance. He asked about why Justinius had gone from White to Red. Our wizard explained that he had tried very hard to protect his friends and allies using his magic, but had failed three Knights of Solamnia in battle. He still carried their rings as remembrance. And not long after that, the Misfits had joined him in his Test of High Sorcery, but had been captured by a renegade wizard. After nearly exhausting his magic trying to protect and save them, Justinius had decided to wield more offensive magic and killed the renegade wizard to save his friends. Justinius said he'd do it again.

              Now, during Justinius' tale, and after his almost-mention of Fistandantilus (the "powerful figure"), Gavin did get a flash of a vision of Justinius in Black Robes, and of five bloody finger-marks in his chest-- a sign of Justinius' acceptance of Fistandantilus's offer (from his Test of High Sorcery). He didn't call attention to this, letting our wizard finish his tale, because I wanted to see whether Jesse (Justinius's player) would bring it up or not. When he didn't, because Gavin wants to try to help guide him to either admitting to his own choices or to follow a better path, Gavin instead commented that perhaps the lesson he should take from his Test is this-- That looking for a magical solution first and always may not always be the best option. Like my previous character Cogburn, Gavin remarked on Justinius' obviously great intellect, and tried to steer him to considering options that don't always rely on magic, something which it was clear Justinius didn't quite understand. He did tell Justinius that he would always be there to listen and offer advice. Justinius said he would take him up on that offer, and at this point, Gavin tapped him on the chest-- exactly where he'd seen the vision of Fistandantilus's touch-- and said, "You do that." Just my way of having Gavin subtly tell Justinius that he knows something.

              After joining the monks for dinner, we met with Herakles again in the monks' library. Their order was dedicated to preserving and sharing knowledge, so they had an extensive one. The talk turned to Neraka, and how unnatural it felt. Besides the pervasive sense of evil around the place, it had seemingly sprung up from nowhere about 130 years prior, and had been steadily growing about once a generation since. The monks had been watching this happen, but had not had much luck entering the city without detection. But they had taken sketches of the city as it grew and Herakles showed this off for us.

              At which point, Gavin's knowledge of the past came into play once again. The first sketch of Neraka had shown the ruins of a temple, one which Gavin had seen in his time: the Grand Temple of Paladine at the heart of the city of Istar. The only thing is, Istar had been destroyed more than 200 years prior in the Cataclysm, when its Kingpriest had stood on the steps of the Grand Temple and demanded of the gods the power to destroy all the evil in the world, and the gods had smote the city for it. The Temple had been at ground zero in the Cataclysm, and Herakles said it couldn't be that temple. Gavin insisted he knew the Temple when he saw it, but had no explanation for how it had been transported and partially restored. The subsequent sketches showed the Temple restoring, but noticeably altered, then becoming a fortress, then sprouting five towers shaped like chromatic dragon heads. The party knew what we were looking at-- the Temple of Takhisis, which the great red wyrm Ember had claimed was almost complete.

              We mentioned the need to find "the Everman, the Green Gemstone Man" before the forces of evil could, at which point Herakles stopped us. In our earlier meeting with him, we'd mentioned the Green Gemstone Man, but now our mentioning "the Everman" connected the two terms, which he'd never heard in conjunction previously. The Everman was something that the monks had heard about, initially from a tale overheard in a tavern, about a hunter and his sister who came across a ruin in a forest. He had taken a gemstone from the ruins, despite the protestations of his sister, and in his greed and rage, he'd killed her. As punishment, the gods had cursed him to live forever, becoming the Everman. We postulated that perhaps the gemstone the Everman had taken had been from some of the ruins of the Grand Temple of Paladine, and that the Nerakians needed it to finish their Temple.

              Herakles put at our disposal one of their monks who was an expert in armor, who could research ways to help muffle the clanking of heavy armor (such as what Evrouin and Gavin wore) to help us with a stealthier approach, and give us charts of the surrounding area of Neraka and where patrols were likely to be. So we spent three days at the monastery, during which we were taught how to muffle our armor, Runa trained with the monks and gained the Unarmed Fighting feat to allow her to deal more damage with her unarmed strikes, and Justinius spent time sending messages to our allies to keep an eye out for the Green Gemstone Man, and then scrying on Raistlin, his would-be mentor, who turned out to now be in Neraka, and also wearing Black Robes. Raistlin had clearly joined forces with the Abasinian Empire.

              His scrying also spotted an entrance into Neraka via the sewer outlets, so it looks like the party will once again be traipsing through the sewers of a city...
              PWNADE(TM) - Serve up a glass today! | PWNZER - An act of pwnage so awesome, it's like the victim got hit by a tank.

              There are only Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse because I choose to walk!

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              • Picked up a copy of Star Trek: Captain's Chair since my last post. It's a VP-acquiring deckbuilder with some neat mechanics, the gameplay is pretty standard daisy-chaining engine mechanics to claim cards and gain VPs, and there are a couple of options for solitaire mode. The base set has six characters: Picard, Shran, Koloth, Sisko, Sela, and Burnham; and I've done at least basic run-throughs with the first three in Stupid Bot solitaire mode, plus trying a two-handed game of Picard vs. Shran that came out closer than I expected. (Stupid Bot basically turns it into a solitaire puzzle for 'score as high as possible', as opposed to the actual automata that plays cards and actively opposes you.)

                It's dense and crunchy for its size, lots of keywords and icons and if/then/when mechanics; and it's a Wizkids game so everything's maybe just a little too overengineered and fiddly. I'm not normally big on deckbuilders like this, but for me it's the Star Trek factor - I wouldn't have gone for the original game it's based on, something called 'Imperium'. But I do appreciate the variety in what you get, they're not afraid to pull deep cuts for cards, and the expansions look like some more fun characters - more TOS, Lower Decks, Disco, and Enterprise rep.
                Cheap, fast, good. Pick two.
                They want us to read minds, I want read/write.

                Comment


                • D&D AL: Rime of the Frostmaiden--

                  This was supposed to be our final session, but circumstances meant we didn't get into the final dungeon crawl. That said, David the DM did 3D print a gift for everyone, a model of a taxidermied fish called Ol' Bitey, which was a feature in the tavern our characters originally met in at the start of the campaign. (Ol' Bitey is enchanted to start singing if someone gets close enough, Billy the Big-Mouth Bass style.) Unexpected, but we all thought it was funny.

                  At any rate, most of the session was us traversing through the ruins of an ancient city, trying to gather the necessarily steps/components to perform a ritual so we can enter the main tower in the middle. The city had been built by wizards, and the ritual involved demonstrating mastery of each of the eight schools of magic. There were eight smaller towers around the city, each dedicated to one of the schools, each with its own hazards or obstacles or challenges to overcome so we could get the info or macguffin we needed.

                  Early in our exploration, we accidentally triggered a sort of dodge-ball style game that we had to play through. Because our characters didn't know the rules of the game, we were making all of our checks at disadvantage (roll 2d20 and take the lower number), which really sucked for me because out of the six or seven rolls that I did during it, I rolled four Nat-20s which I couldn't take advantage of. Brian (who plays the idiotic Boron) had it worse, however, as he rolled no less than five Nat-1s in a row.

                  The continuing gag of Boron believing he's uncovered the "truth" about my character Rhoric's actual class continued (this week Boron "realized" that Rhoric is an Eldritch Knight Fighter), but finally during the session, Boron came to the uncomfortable realization that he was not, in fact, exiled from his homeland for failing the honor duel with his brother, and it was all a huge misunderstanding. But, rather than accept the fact that he could go home, he declared it would be "too embarrassing" and would stay in the Icewind Dale, "with you," this last bit said while looking directly at me.

                  One of the towers was dedicated to Divination Magic, and there was a huge fish-bowl like crystal ball in it, containing dozens (hundreds) of eyes. I had Rhoric ask it for details on where the tower's ritual components were (as the tower was damaged), and was given the information-- and then after failing a CON save, Rhoric lost one of his eyes, which went into the fish-bowl. So now Rhoric's missing an eye. (David the DM had Boron do an Insight Check, and when he rolled poorly enough, had him "realize" that Rhoric was a sailor.)

                  Toward the end of the session, David realized we wouldn't have enough time to finish getting the bits of the ritual and do the dungeon crawl through the tower, but we all agreed that we could do our actual final session another time.

                  (Also I may or may not have just bought an eye-patch to wear to the next session, just for the lulz.)
                  PWNADE(TM) - Serve up a glass today! | PWNZER - An act of pwnage so awesome, it's like the victim got hit by a tank.

                  There are only Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse because I choose to walk!

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