The other side of the Gamehole

Gamehole Con was this past weekend in Madison, WI. I was convinced by my friend Chad Delp (His Blog). I'm glad I listened. Another friend, Cory, was gracious enough to open his house to me. (Here's his blog)  We had an absolute blast at Gamehole Con!

Cory and Chad in all their Gamehole Glory. Ian, we didn't miss you at all!


Thursday night, I drove in and got lost in Madison, after dealing with construction traffic through Chicago. After taking a tour of downtown, and the student area of the city, I decided to actually go looking for the house. Turned out I was 5 minutes away. After the pleasantries, we settled in and watched some Daredevil and some movie trailers. Everybody retired for the night soon after.

We headed to Alliant Energy Center Exhibition Hall about 7:30 am on Friday. Chad and Cory both had their badges and event tickets, so I headed off to get in line to get mine. After looking at a 100 person line, we (some people in line) realized there should be two lines. Which meant I was there about 3 minutes! Gamehole organizers, please note, VIG attendees would like our own line for these things.

I had some time to kill before my 1st game, so I headed to listen to Jeff Martin's True Dungeon Seminar. I heard a lot of things in this one that I had not heard before. But, those are not my secrets to kill.

My first game, at 10 am (of 3 for the weekend) was Dark Outpost, with James Ward. And wouldn't you know that I forgot my Deities and  Demigods to have signed by him. It's always interesting contrasting the old-school guys to the new school guys. This game was a lot of fun, and his favorite line seemed to be "what do you want to do." I made it almost to the end, and was killed by . . . something. When I still had 29 HPs, 31 Shield Points, and 10 Armor Points left. Those old guys do love killing adventurers!

My next game was with Bill Webb at 8 pm. This left me a lot of time to shop the dealer hall (no Castle Xagyg to be found, and no 6th Edition OD&D empty box either.) But, I did run into Bill Webb, and talked extensively about the Silver Bulettes, the state of the industry, and several other interesting topics. He also gave me a hell of a deal on a butt-load of books.

Other notables that I got to see for a little while included: Zach Glazer (of Lesser Gnome fame), Frank Mentzer, Tim Kask, Luke Gygax, Ernie Gygax and Brendan LeSalle (X-Crawl if you didn't know.)

Finally, the time came for the 8 pm game! Mr. Bill Webb himself, running Swords and Wizardry! Even though he forgot his minis, this game was AH-MAZE-ING! It had 21 players at the beginning, and 7 of us first level characters survived and defeated a lich! We had destroyed one phylacrety when we woke her. We scattered like the mice we were and got lucky that our stalwart Paladin was able to hold her off for 10 rounds or so! This bought us the time to destroy the other phylacreties and find a sword that would hurt her. Half-toe the Halfling "proquierer" walked out level 2!

After the game, I spent more time socializing with Bill, Frank, and Mike (I think, a head-honcho of NTRPG con.) I got to hear a great story about Frank's early days of gaming: he was playing a werewolf and raiding a farm with some other monsters. They left him to get the baby, who was in his high chair. Well, the baby won initiative and stabbed Frank's werewolf in the eye with a silver spoon. That may be the only time I have ever heard of a baby killing a werewolf.

Saturday, I had the whole day to myself. Cory and Chad said I had to go with them to the Original House of Pancakes. The bacon there is to die for! The pancakes were pretty good too. If you're in Madison and have the time, I suggest it for breakfast.

I spent the day on Saturday wandering around the con, listening to stories and talking to interesting people. I only had one game at 8 pm, with Dungeon Bastard himself. And what a game it was!

We were each given 25000 gp, as seen here:

These were used to bid on things, similar to Cutthroat Kitchen. 1st was character creation. I ended up spending 6k on Gandalf, and giving a competitor a whale. The 1st challenge was a combat, where I got to cast spells with Scrabble tiles. I would roll 2d10, and have that many tiles available to make spells out of. The first spell was "Crawls," which made all of the ghouls we were facing crawl on the ground. My second spell was "Talent," which made a ghoul begin dancing on the deck. This was great fun. Here's a couple of pics from the event that Cory took for me:

At the conclusion of the combat, I did not get immunity, and then rolled a 1 on a d20 and a 1 on my bonus d6 from the gracious judge, Jen Page. So, my night with the Dungeon Bastard was over quickly. That last pic was the final monster, the Beholdasaurus Rex. Check out Chad's blog for the subsequent rounds of this game.

Shortly after, I packed up and headed home, to guarantee the wife lets me go again next year ;)

It's been a while

It's been a long crazy summer, but cooler weather is here again. Hopefully, that means a more regular posting schedule. Work on Mord Mar has been moving . . . sideways.
I've decided that the city being inside the dungeon just doesn't work. So, I have moved the home base to a swamp. The walk is about 8 hours to Mord Mar.
Swampsedge is an outpost of dwarves that fled from Mord Mar. Over time they have evolved. I'm working on a new template for 'swamp dwarves.' We will see how this pans out.

Oh, and a new "Halloween adventure" is 1/2-2/3 written for the group!

Day 9 (On Day 14): Favorite PC I would like to play

Hmmmm. I'm not really sure that I have a PC that I would like to play. I guess, if I did have one, it would have to be Tanis Half-Elven. He is my favorite character in any of the D&D books. But, I don't think it is as much fun to relive stories I have read as it is to write new ones.

Day 8: A bit late, but a favorite PC of my own

So, I have been a little off track. I'm hoping to catch up in a flurry of blogs. So here is day 8. A favorite PC of my very own.

I have a couple of great characters right now. But, the one I am going to write about today is Thomas "Rock Solid" Trampier. AKA Thrust. He's my X-Crawl character. When I was at GaryCon this year, I had Terry Pavlet draw him for me (the image is at the bottom of the page).

X-Crawl starts characters at 3rd level, so Thrust already had a bit of history. He's 23 and a zookeeper by day, and an X-Crawler at night. He and his sister, Lilith (AKA Lust) were on teams in both high school and college (Division V and Division IV respectively).

Thrust hails from Seattle, Oregon, as does the majority of his current team. They have competed in a few Crawls (live pay-per-view death sport in a world with technology from the 80's coupled with magic), notably: Memphis Crawl (where he lost his left eye), the Celebrity Invitational (where his ear was grazed by a goblin shooting a gun at him) and currently 3 Rivers Crawl.

Thrust was once a gung-ho, ready to take on the world man. Losing his eye to an orc barbarian (and a woman at that! The shame!), and almost having his head blown off by a .357 have curbed that enthusiasm.

Now-a-days, Thrust is a bit more pragmatic. Until the rage fills him. When his sister is threatened or when a teammate is seriously injured, he loses it. (He's a 1st level Barbarian and 4th level Brawler.)

He is a lot of fun to play. There are a lot of tactical options, and he is a blast to RP too.

Day 7: Favorite Edition

Favorite Edition is a tough one. I currently play Pathfinder. But, my favorite edition is 1st.

5th edition I have not played enough of yet. I do like Advantage/Disadvantage enough that I put it into my PF games now.
4th edition I did not play at all.
Pathfinder is what I currently play, like I said. But I hate the super-heroness of it. I hate that there are too many rules and characters types. At least they fixed the power issues of 3.X
3.X this was the best system that dungeons and dragons had. Then they ruined it with 100s of books.
2nd edition may have actually been better than 1st, with the add of skills. But I can't get over Gary's game being stolen from him.
1st edition is the game for me. I love the simplicity of it. "Here's what I want to do." No feats. No skill checks. Just some dice, paper, and imagination to fuel adventures.
0D&D I own all the books, but refuse to use them in a game.

Day 6: Favorite Diety

I'm a couple of days late on day 6. Told you it was going to happen.

Anyway, this is kind of an odd question, compared to the others so far on the list. Everything else so far has either been personal (how started, favorite dice) or universal (Race, Class, Game World). Deities in RPGs don't apply to everyone. Not playing a cleric or paladin? Who actually chooses a deity then?

My favorite RPG deity is St Cuthbert. My most recent religious character, a half-orc paladin followed him. He was around for most of my early RP days.
And he doesn't live in the Realms.

Day 5: Favorite die or dice

This is going to be short:

My favorite die is a 6 sided alien die I won from a buddy, Eric. We have a tradition of making bets. We bet dice. I won that one in a game of Magic.

My favorite dice are d10s. Simple math is good.

Day 4: Favorite Game World

Finally, something interesting to talk about! Obviously my favorite game world is Mord Mar. I've really enjoyed building it so far. It hasn't been without its challenges though. Most are chronicled here. Instead of rehashing those, here are some of my favorite things that I am working on now.

1. The Demons. All of them. Belle is my favorite (a CG Succubus that works for Var Nae easing people into the next life.)

2. The expansiveness of the setting. For a finite system (a megadungeon), there are any number of places that can and should be fleshed out. The group is currently going through a noble's manor.

3.Bear Jarl. The golden dragon is awesome. And fun to RP.


My favorite published setting?
Greyhawk.

It started it all. It has the original megadungeon. It is also 'dead.' It didn't bloat into 3 quadrillion books. Each DM had the ability to make part of the world his own.

Day 3: Favorite Class

My favorite PC Class . . .

I play mostly Pathfinder these days, so here's my top 5:

5: Ranger- My True Dungeon class.
4: Paladin- Probably the overall most powerful class in 3.x systems.
3: Brawler- Shoutout to X-Crawl, yo!
2. Rogue- The versatility of this class is unmatched (well, except for the way OP Factotum). Use Magic Device is the best skill ever. Backstab allows the Rogue to be a front line fighter.
1. Wizard- Spells. Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Disintegrate, and Read Magic.

Day 2: My Favorite PC Race

I've been thinking about this all day. What is my favorite PC race, and why?

It really depends, is the only answer I came up with. Here's the rundown:

Pathfinder/D&D 3.X:Humans. The +2 to a stat and +1 Skill point per level make them the most versatile in my opinion.

AD&D 2nd: Half-Elves. I'm pretty sure this was a lingering fascination with Tanis Half-Elven.

Basic/AD&D: Elves. We never used level limits, so Elves had a distinct advantage.

Vampire: Gangrel. I just always loved the loner archtype.

Overall, I gravitate toward whatever is most powerful in a game. 

How I fared for Gen Con

That's my finalized list. All of those are bought and purchased. Here's a readable list:

WEDNESDAY
True Dungeon Golden Ticket 5:00-8:30 pm
St Elmo's Director Room Dinner 9:00 pm

THURSDAY
Dealer Hall Early Access 9:00 am
True Dungeon Sable Gauntlet (combat) 4:00-6:00 pm
True Dungeon Chase into the Underdark (combat) 7:15-9:15 pm

FRIDAY
Magic: The Gathering Chaos Draft 3:00-7:00 pm
Escape the Room: Supervillain Hideout 10:00-11:00 pm

SATURDAY
X-Crawl Tournament 9:00 am-1:00 pm

30 day challenge: Day 1

So, I ran across this today, and since it is June 1, it seemed a good idea to try. I may not succeed with real life (you know, 3 little boys, 2 dogs, a cat, a wife, 2 jobs), but I intend to try.

How did I get started with RPGs?

It is really a mystery lost in the sands of time. It was around 1984, and Marvel Super Heroes and D&D Basic were floating around in Michigan. I lived in Florida. I came to visit my family, and was introduced by my cousins.

Flash forward to being home from vacation. My parents would have none of it though. Moonies owned D&D and I was not allowed to play. So, I would head to the local library, and digest every piece of information I could.The 2 books I remember were Oriental Adventures and Fiend Folio. They made almost no sense to me. No PHB or DMG for reference.

I fought with my parents for 5 years about it. I wrote a paper for school about it. I finally got the okay to play, and haven't looked back.

How to plan a schedule for Gen Con

For those of you not in the know, Gen Con's event list "drops" tomorrow. I've been going to Indy since 2005, and have some idea of what to expect and how to navigate the process. Here's how I do it:

1. Download the program catalog (on your phone, hopefully). Usually* they post it here: http://community.gencon.com/files/  This is in an Excel format. (* last year they did not post the program files in the downloads section.) This allows you to use downtime to scan for events that you want to play.
2. Find events. Lots of events. Find duplicates of games you really want. Keep the event number's handy.
3. Prioritize your events! We will get to the Wish List soon, but while you are looking through the events list, make sure you note event numbers. Make a top 5 list for each day. Don't worry about overlapping times at this point.
4. Make a spreadsheet with all of this information. Here's what our group spreadsheet looks like:
   
    
   
   
   The colors on the right are broken down to type of 'event.' The left column of colors is: Food/Drinks (breakfast/lunch/dinner/bar time), Exhibit Hall (you will want to schedule time for this mammoth nerd sale), RPG/Game, True Dungeon (a high priority for our group, and something that has to be coordinated between 10 different schedules), Pool time (you won't see this on my schedule for GC, but my friends enjoy it.), Workshop, Electronic Games, Other, and Logistics (travel time, for example.)
   
   The colors on the right are the important ones at this stage. Red is a top priority event. Most lists have True Dungeon, You Too Can Cthulhu, D&D special events or other things that can only be done at Gen Con.
   Yellow is a medium priority event. In my case, this year, you will see Lords of Waterdeep World Championships, Munchkin, and other games that I can play at home, but enjoy enough to find competition.
   Green is labeled as "Space Filler." These can be low priority events, or nap time, or screw around time.
   
5. Find the Wish List on the Gen Con website. (It's probably on the drop down menu under your name in the upper right hand corner. It's not live yet, so I can't be sure.)
6. Populate your Wish List. Using your highest priority events as your highest number wishes. If you want You Too Can Cthulhu, you should put all of the YTCC events that you could possibly attend as your highest priority. For example (from the 2014 list):
   You Too Can Cthulhu - Black Letter - Cthulhu Raids AgainThursday 8am - noon
   Friday 8am - noon
   Saturday 8am - noon
   
   Would be listed at wishes 1, 2 and 3. You will probably not get any of them in your cart come registration day (they are VERY popular.) You will have the option to 'release' any tickets that you don't want back into the system, too.
   Last year the wish list limited people to 50 events. This sounds like a lot, but really when you are fighting for a spot in a popular game, they go quickly.
7. Be online about 11:30 next Sunday, signed in and ready to submit your wishlist. Pray for a low number.

Although the list isn't public yet, my priority list will look something like this:
1. True Dungeon
2. True Dungeon
3. True Dungeon
4. True Dungeon
5. True Dungeon
6. True Dungeon
7. D&D All Access
8. AEG Board Game Night
9. - 12. Random RPG that looks fun
13. Munchkin
14. Lords of Waterdeep World Championship.

Current WYC schedule

This is more for me than the gentle readers. WYG website doesn't give me a nice list of what I have going on at the con.

Friday 6-730 Lords of Waterdeep
Sat 1030am True Grind or 9am-1pm YTCC (decisions, decisions)
Sat 9pm  True Dungeon
Sat 130-3pm Munchkin
Sunday 12n-3pm Artemis War Bridge: WYSN MystWulf

T-minus 14 hours

So, I've had 2 sick kids the past 2 weeks and an anniversary. The last post was mostly written, but I had to finish that up before updating. Now I have a moment of free time.

I'm going to use it to make sure I don't forget anything. I head to Gary Con in less than 14 hours.

1st Mord Mar Session of the Year

So, I ran the first Mord Mar session of the year last Saturday. The players had a blast. We started at level 5, and here's the PCs:

Khyron: Elf Wizard 5
General Wranth: Gnome Master Summoner 5
Moran the Mighty: Human Spy 4, Fighter 1
Abraxes Onyxheart: Dwarf Barbarian 5
Adrax Onyxheart: Dwarf Cleric 5
Hatch: Human Mindchemist 5

Gonn Inkweaver was the party's handler from the Adventurer's Guild. I do love that part of MM, not having to wrangle everyone to a cause. "You are part of the AG, you've been assigned to this team." Simple, sensible, and easy.

Anyway, they were assigned a secret task, finding the king's kidnapped daughter, Jayella Greybeard. The AG was sealed off for the appearance of the Hellevator (an uncommon, but not unheard of event.) They climbed inside and away they went.

They stepped out of the Hellevator into a 10' wide corridor. 2 doors on each side and the corridor continues into a room. They open both far doors. The door on the left has nothing but a set of footprints in dust leading to the NW corner.

Meanwhile, Moran steps into the right hand door, and gets attacked by 6 treasure chests. They mostly miss, push him out the door and shut it.

Khyron enters the room at the end of the hallway, and gets attacked by a gargoyle who just throws rocks from about 20' above. Each character that enters seems to awaken another gargoyle, all of whom throw rocks. The group hustles through the room to avoid rocks (leaving the footprints mostly unchecked.)

The passage splits, continuing forward and cutting right. Most of the party goes to the right. Due to positioning, Hatch steps into the forward passageway, and notices 'neato lights.' Failing his save, he heads toward them.

Meanwhile, the passage to the right led to a room with 3 aquariums. Adrax steps on a pressure plate, dropping a Gibbering Mouther onto himself, releasing 3 more from the aquariums, and dropping one next to Moran.

Quick recap of combat: Khyron maxes out a Fireball. General Wranth opened a pit to divide the battlefield. Adrax was enveloped by a Mouther, and Abraxes did lots of damage. End of this combat, Adrax was down 4 Con and a few HPs were lost around the party. Adrax used 2-3 Channels.

Meanwhile, Hatch has walked under water and into a far corner of a room. Fortunately, General Wranth saw which way he went. As soon as combat with the Gibbering Mouthers was over, he headed to find his lost friend.

This combat was brutal. There were 2 Corpse Candles from Tome of Horrors (PDF and Print). I didn't use the Con drain aura mainly because of the simultaneous fighting. That said, Hatch was brought down to 3 STR, and Moran was brought down to 1 STR before they killed the first one. The second Corpse Candle fled (presumably to guard something or warn someone.)

This is where the session ended for the night. 

New stuff this week

So, these past two weeks have been a good one for acquisitions:

1. 3 Dufex prints all about 6" x 8"."Gods of Lankhmar, (Kieth Parkinson?" "Lord Soth's Charge, (Kieth Parkinson)" and the cover of Unearthed Arcana (Jeff Easley).
2. Cyclopean Deeps Volume 1 from Frog God Games came today.
3. My Bones came in! 
4. Unearthed Arcana, 1E Player's Handbook, and Oriental Adventures came in today. I traded some Bones for these!
5. Necropolis (3E) showed up last week.
6. I found the 3E Ravenloft and Relics and Rituals at a local store for cheap.
7. Gary Gygax's Hall of Many Panes was bought on Ebay and delivered.

That's not bad for a couple of weeks. And more on the way.

CotMA 12

When last we left our intrepid adventurers, they were neck deep in trolls. We had 2 character deaths, and we were in trouble.

Feran: Ranger 6 (me)
Chance: Cleric 5/Rogue 1 (Ian)
Clip-Clop: Centaur Fighter 5 (Jake's character. Played by Dustin. 'Cause Mangonel is dead.)
Inquisitor 6 (Rob)
Mangonel: Human Barbarian 3/Druid 3 (Lion Shaman something or other) (Dead)
Tiefling Magus 4/Rogue 2 (Dave)

It is amazing what a difference 1 character makes. That centaur is brutal. Having him in combat we had a fighting chance.

We returned to combat on Feran's action. He immediately readied an action to hand the centaur his Flaming Axe. This quickly turned the battle. Doing 1d12 +10 + 1d6 will do that. Trolls have low AC, so Clip-Clop was dropping one a round. Add to this, the tiefling dealing acid damage, and Feran tripping the foes. And the Inquisitor was using bane. The red d6 is a Spiritual Weapon. The green die is a 'smoke countdown.' Opening the lane into the room actually was a benefit to us. We could attack several instead of one. Add to all of this the DM's dice were cold. We prevailed in a fight we were very close to losing.

Searching we found a secret room with 13 sacks in it. But, we also attracted a wandering monster. This guy showed up again. And again we ran. Straight back to the sphinx. We found it deactivated. But, it woke up after someone put themselves in the 'betting ring.' We gambled for a way home. And we won!

Coming out of the dungeon, we sold pretty much everything (in Greyhawk). We each had somewhere around 16k in gp. Feran bought a +1 enchantment on his Mithral Large Shield, a +2 enchantment on his Mithral Chain Shirt, and a Goggles of the Night.

Now we take a break so I can run some Mord Mar. Should be about 12 weeks and we'll be back to CotMA.

Gygax Bibliography

So, I have been collecting Gygax's works. I'm at about 25 of them now. Here's my list of in hand:

AD&D
DMG
PHB
MMI
UA
Dungeonland
The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror
Steading of the Hill Giant Chief
The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl
Hall of the Fire Giant King
Against the Giants (G1-3 compilation)
Tomb of Horrors
Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
Temple of Elemental Evil
Mordenkainen's Magnificent Journey

OD&D
Boxed Set (all)
Greyhawk
Eldritch Wizardry

Basic D&D
Keep on the Borderlands

Novels
Saga of the Old City
Artifact of Evil
Sea of Death
Night Arrent
City of Hawks
Come Endless Darkness
Dance of Demons

D20
Necropolis


26 down. A lot more to go. Anybody have leads on books I don't have?

My 2015 Convention Schedule

It looks like I will be attending 4 conventions in 2015! Up first is Gary Con VII. That's in Lake Geneva, WI (the birthplace of D&D!) I have a pretty awesome schedule lined up for this one:

Wednesday: later in the evening: there is a party at Frank Mentzer's house. I'm pretty excited to go there and meet and greet.
Thursday 1pm I have a game of Munchkin. It'll be a nice 'warm up' for the con.

Friday at 11am I am playing in Tim Kask's Curse of the Weaver Queen game. I "know" Tim (he's kind of the patron saint of our Gen Con team: Silver Bulettes). I'm excited to play in a game and get TPK'd by him.

Saturday is a busy one:
10am-4pm is Castle Zagyg: the Upper Works in OD&D. David Bedell is the GM. I don't know who he is . . . yet. But Castle Greyhawk is always fun, no matter what the name.
4pm-8pm is DCC XCrawl, with Brendan LaSalle. I'm really looking forward to this game. I've never played DCC, and have been itching to try it since last year's Gen Con when I picked up the main book. Also, the creator of XCrawl is running the game. So, there's that.
Midnight to ??? is Pub Quiz with the guys from Gygax Magazine. This should be fun. I like trivia, and I like D&D. So, I probably will bomb out early and often. You know what? I think I'm going to study for this. Stay tuned on progress.


Next up is Whoseyercon, in Indianapolis, IN.This con is a top notch fun time. It's 'free.' You can make a donation of you want, but there is no entry fee. Their event schedule is not out yet, but I am pretty sure we'll be running a big dungeon delve in Mord Mar. I'll probably get another PFS game under my character's belt. I'll be playing in a couple of True Dungeon runs. Stay tuned on this one.

Further down the calender year, we come to the Granddaddy of all cons, Gen Con! We have the hotel room. We have the VIG companion badges (and the VIGs to go with them!) We won't know schedules until May, but here's what we're sure we are doing:
True Dungeon
NASCRAG - if you don't know this is the best game at Gen Con, like 40 years in a row. They recently switched to Pathfinder, but the rules don't matter. Only the roles do.
Running Mord Mar. Probably 2 different modules.
Lords of Waterdeep World Championship
Maybe another PFS game

To round out my convention year, I will be attending GrandCon. This is where we ran the 3-team competitive delve for Mord Mar last year. We will be trying to talk them into something similar with a private room this year. Probably some Lords of Waterdeep too.

What's new in my game world. February 2015 edition

So, it's been a good week for my game library this month.

I picked up Tome of Horrors Complete and Tome of Horrors 4 from Frog God's sale early in the month. I am totally in love with these books. They would have been worth the money at retail price. Getting ToH4 for free pushed me over the edge to buy them, but I should have picked them up years ago.

They are well made books. In every sense. The artwork is good, the materials of the book are top notch. They are presented well. And all the monsters are available for the OGL. What's not to love about these products?

Then I picked up Rappan Athuk on 15%, also from Frog God Games. This book is insane! The players of my group are already begging to play it, and I've only had it for 26 hours. It is even better put-together than ToH. Faux leather cover, sewn in bookmark. I picked up the Player's Guide, the Monsters Book, and the GM Screen too. You can bet we will be playing this Character Killer soon.

I officially have a COMPLETE map for Mord Mar. It's only taken 2+ years. I have definitely got a lot of work to do. That said, reverting to 1E style map marking/description is something I should have done a long time ago. There's a reason I have all of those monster books. I don't need the stat blocks in the key.

Adventure A Week was doing a firesale on Facebook the other night. For $40, I was able to pick up a set of Rise of the Drow Dice, a RotD t-shirt, and a RotD "sackboy." Aren't they cute? Seriously, AAW does good work. Go check them out.

*Image stolen from Jonathan on FB. I don't know who took it.

PS I'm currently the high bidder on a Sword and Sorcery copy of Gygax's Necropolis.
PSS My Bones Kickstarter should ship today or tomorrow.*EDIT* It shipped today. Waiting for Monday now.

Why blog?

I've been watching my page views go up (over 1200!) That got me thinking about why I blog. There are 3 primary reasons:

1. Keep my players informed. My "home group" has had about 30 players since I started Mord Mar, and not every one of them can play in every session. The blog lets them keep up to date on what's going on in my head, and the Mountain. And we have run con games as well. I hope those players enjoyed it enough to come see what's new!

2. To get the word out. Eventually, I plan to publish Mord Mar, in one fashion or another. And blogging is free.

3. I enjoy it. Keeping tabs on what happened in Castle of the Mad Archmage makes jumping back into the game easier. I feel like I am becoming part of the "online gaming community."

What would I like to add to my blog? I'm glad you asked!

I'm thinking of adding the other bi-weekly game to the blog (that's PF Xcrawl for those of you not in the know.)

I'm thinking of doing a compare/contrast of the various megadungeons out there. Especially CotMA versus Rappan Athuk.

I would like to do a what's new in my gaming realm once in a while.

Con write ups. I think my GaryCon experience this year would be worthy of immortalizing in a blog.

Now, if I can only find the time between 2 jobs and 3 kids. . .

Rappan Athuk

So, these came today. No, not the cracked screen Kindle. That we've had for a while. It is a testament to the old saying "this is why we can't have nice things."

But, back to the Dungeon of Graves. I'm surprised at the lethality of it all. I ordered them through Frog God Games sale, which Tenkar's Tavern blogged a coupon for. I had one of my own, but mine was 10% and his was 15%, so I saved the cash by using his.

The more I buy from them, the more I like their work. This year, I bought Tome of Horrors when they had it on sale with ToH4 for free. And now, Rappan Athuk. Both are top notch work. I have never really been a 3pp guy, but Adventure A Week's Rise of the Drow made me open my eyes.

CotMA Session 11 - What a doozy

A correction from session 10. We had actually negotiated passage to level 5, not level 6 like I had mentioned previously.

The group:

Feran: Ranger 6 (me)
Chance: Cleric 5/Rogue 1 (Ian)
Drow Cleric 4/ Fighter 2 (I think) Nathaniel (our resident trainee. This will become apparent)
Inquisitor 6 (Rob)
Mangonel: Human Barbarian 3/Druid 3 (Lion Shaman something or other) (Dustin)
Tiefling Magus 4/Rogue 2 (Dave)
*The cross class levels may not be correct. I didn't double check with the players on their level ups.

Climbing out of the crevasse to level 5, the first thing we see is a sphinx with a moai head, made from a black stone with magical runes all around it. As we approach to investigate, it turns toward the group and asks "Would you like to make a wager?"

Feran, being reckless like he is (and broke) says "I will wager my health" our Drow and Chance (I think) made the wager as well. The sphinx gives us a riddle, which we solve easily, giving us each 1 permanent point of Constitution.

Next we all proffered up some gold, and doubled our money. (Except the Barbarian who bet a hammock and got a masterwork one.)

Then I decided to bet the awesome dagger I found last session. Other members decided to wager different things, and we again won. The dagger became a +2 Flaming Great Axe of Spell Storing. The Drow's Flail became a living steel flail.There were other things in there too, but I don't remember what.

Again, we are asked "Would you like to make a wager?" This time, the Tiefling, Drow, Inquisitor (and Barbarian?) decided to wager their souls against a map of the entirety of the Castle. The riddle was:
(Sphinx made an illusion of a scale set and 8 balls.) "Weighing only twice, which of these 8 balls weighs less than the others?"
The party said weigh 2 groups of 4.Then they weighed 2 groups of 2, and guessed on a 50/50 (which our DM actually allowed) and got it right. We had a "GM moment of weakness" there, I think.

After that close call, we decided we had had enough gambling for a while and headed East, toward a double door. On the way, we encountered 3 owlbears. (Owlbear don't care.) We dispatched them fairly easily, and a gelatinous cube came wandering up while we were searching their alcove. Again, no issue dispatching that, so on toward the double doors.

This is where things get interesting. The doors were locked and barred from this side. Listening, we heard nothing, so we opened the door. There was a huge ochre jelly. We shut the door and made a plan of attack. We reopened the door, and attacked. It did a little damage, split once, then died.

Searching the room, we see 4 doors besides the one we came in. We check one of them to find a proverbial mother lode of books, worth about 30k gp to collectors. We then check another room, to find it full of junk.

A third room is checked, and inside it has 7 earthenware jars and a huge crystal cylinder with a lid tightly on it. The drow and the ranger check it out. The drow goes in, looks around, and comes back out. Then Feran decides to check out a jar. The drow (being our trainee) walks back into the room. Feran taps the jar with a sickle, and a crystal materializes between him and the drow. The drow is hit, grappled and encased in crystal. Feran makes a hasty retreat.

The party slams the door on the crystal, and the Mangonel and Feran run to get the bar that was on the entry door. Before they get back, the crystal shatters the door, and the party flees for the one door we had not opened yet.

We get over to the door, and find it to be barred from the other side. We hall ass back toward the entry door, and Mangonel decides to play hero, holding off the crystal while the rest of us escape. He dies to the 7d8+9 attacks of this thing.

The surviving members of the party head back to the sphinx, and gamble 3 living characters for 2 dead ones to be brought to us, alive. We win that gamble, and gamble a full recharge on all spells and abilities. We also win this one.

Then our drow trainee decides to attempt a riddle by himself. He bets his bones against an item that can shatter the crystal. He loses and dies.

So, back to full health and full strength (minus a drow), we head toward a different exit. This time we come to a room full of summoning circles. We encounter nothing dangerous, and decide to check a room off to the side. Here we find a pleasant djinn who we have tea and read books in his library. He has 37 years left in his bound service to the Mad Archmage.

From here, we head north and turn east. We decide to check one door on our way to the stairs, and hear giant speak from the other side. 4 voices. We bust open the door and attack. 4 trolls! We fight and drop one (yay flaming axe!), but 7 more come from neighboring rooms. We are in for a tough fight.

As the session winds down, we have killed all of the trolls from the room we broke into, Mangonel and the drow are dead (again), and we are in bad position against an onslaught of trolls.

Mangonel is the prone efreet (he drank a potion of enlarge.) All of the other large sized bases are trolls heading in. The wolf to the right is Mangonel's animal companion.

Why?

Why is it when I type into Blogger, the colors come out right, but when I import from Word, the font color stays black when I 'publish'?

Sin Stalker Pt II

Here's a redo of the Sin Stalker. Getting closer to having it right. Slowly but surely.
This time I changed Sinsent to Sinsense, drop the Energy Drain from 2 to 1 and the DC to 14. Sinful Stare now affects all creatures within 30'.

Sin Stalker CR8 

CE Medium outsider (Chaotic, Demon, Evil, Extraplanar) 

Init  +4; Senses darkvision 60', Sinsense*, Perception +18 

DEFENSE 

AC  23, Touch  14, Flat Footed 18 (+4 Dex, +1 Dodge, +8 Natural) 

HP  96 (9d10+45) 

Fort +8, Ref +10, Will +10 

DR 10/Cold Iron or Good; Immune  death effects, precision damage, electricity, paralysis, poison 

OFFENSE 

Speed 30' 

Melee  2 claws +15 (1d6+6), bite +15 (1d8+6) or By Weapon 

Special Attacks Energy Drain (1 level, DC 14), Sinful Stare, Sinstrike 

STR 22, DEX 18, CON 21, INT 15, WIS 16, CHA 19 

Base Attack +9; CMB 15; CMD 29 

Feats: Cleave, Dodge, Furious Focus, Power Attack, Vital Strike 

SINSENSE  Any creature within 60' that has a sin upon their soul cannot hide from a Sin Stalker. They can sense the target through invisibility, blur, concealment, cover, illusion or any other trick. 

SINSTRIKE When a Sin Stalker hits an opponent with an unobsolved sin, it does an additional d6 damage. 

SINFUL STARE 1/rd a Sin Stalker can take a free action to stare into the soul of a sinner. All creatures within 30' must make a Will save (DC 18) or become Nauseated for d4 rounds. After being Nauseated, the characters who failed their Save are sickened while within 30'. A successful save means that that character cannot be affected by this ability for 24 hours (from this creature only). The attribute to the save varies upon the sin (use the most pronounced sin if more than one apply): 

Lust = CHA 

Gluttony = CON 

Greed = WIS 

Sloth = DEX 

Wrath = STR 

Envy = INT 

Pride = NONE

Coins of Mord Mar

So I've been reading Castle Triskelion the last couple of days. This has gotten me thinking about the coins of Mord Mar.

There are many, many mintings of Mord Mar coins. I don't think it is necessary for game play to name them all. Instead, I think, that I will use 2 main time frames.

The more common coins are pre-invasion of the city of Mord Mar.
Platinum from this era are called "scarabs." The 'heads' side of the coin is a scarab, and the 'tails' side is the traditional queen's crown of Mord Mar. Scarabs are octagonal in shape, and measure about 3 cm.
Gold coins from pre-invasion are called "mountains." The 'heads' side of this coin is an image of the mountain, and the 'tails' side is an anvil. These coins are rounded, and measure about 5 cm.
Silver coins from the early era are called "king's pennies." They have an image of the king's crown on the 'heads' side and an image of the Citadel on the reverse. These coins are just under 3 cm, and are equilateral triangles, with rounded corners.
Copper coins from the early days are called "mushrooms." They have a 'mushroom' on the heads side, and an image of the Great Gate on the back. These coins are round, and measure about 2 cm.

The post-invasion coins are minted in Var Nae. Most are slightly smaller than the pre-invasion coins.
Modern platinum coins are called "gavels." They have a gavel on the heads side, and a fisted gauntlet on the inverse. Gavels are the only coin larger than their earlier counterparts, measuring in at 3.5 cm. They are rounded, unlike the earlier scarabs.
Gold coins minted in Var Nae are called "standards." They have an image of a limp flag hanging on a pole on the heads side, and an embossed "VN" on the inverse.
Silver coins from Var Nae are called "holies." They are rounded coins with a circular hole punched through the center. They measure 2.5 cm.
Coppers are called "mugs" when minted in Mord Mar. They measure 1.75 cm and have only a mug with froth on one side of the coin.

Sin Stalker

Sin Stalker CR8 

CE Medium outsider (Chaotic, Demon, Evil, Extraplanar) 

Init  +4; Senses darkvision 60', Sinscent*, Perception +18 

DEFENSE 

AC  23, Touch  14, Flat Footed 18 (+4 Dex, +1 Dodge, +8 Natural) 

HP  96 (9d10+45) 

Fort +8, Ref +10, Will +10 

DR 10/Cold Iron or Good; Immune  death effects, precision damage, electricity, paralysis, poison 

OFFENSE 

Speed 30' 

Melee  2 claws +15 (1d6+6), bite +15 (1d8+6) or By Weapon 

Special Attacks Energy Drain (2 levels, DC 18), Sinful Stare, Sinstrike 

STR 22, DEX 18, CON 21, INT 15, WIS 16, CHA 19 

Base Attack +9; CMB 15; CMD 29 

Feats: Cleave, Dodge, Furious Focus, Power Attack, Vital Strike 

SINSCENT  Any creature within 60' that has a sin upon their soul cannot hide from a Sin Stalker. They can sense the target through invisibility, blur, concealment, cover, illusion or any other trick. 

SINSTRIKE When a Sin Stalker hits an opponent with an unobsolved sin, it does an additional d6 damage. 

SINFUL STARE 1/rd a Sin Stalker can take a free action to stare into the soul of a sinner. The sinner must make a Will save (DC 18) or become Nauseated for d4 rounds. A successful save means that that character cannot be affected by this ability for 24 hours (from this creature only). The attribute to the save varies upon the sin (use the most pronounced sin if more than one apply): 

Lust = CHA 

Gluttony = CON 

Greed = WIS 

Sloth = DEX 

Wrath = STR 

Envy = INT 

Pride = NONE