How Gygax almost killed my PC... from beyond the grave...

Tell me if you've heard this one before: A sleestak walks into a time doorway...and ends up in Castle Zagyg

Yesterday, my morning private English student cancelled.  My wife took our son to his art class.  I was home alone.  What to do?  Why, find a FLAILSNAILS game on G+, of course!  Joe the Lawyer has been running players through Troll Lord Games' Castle Zagyg, which was Gary's last published version of Castle Greyhawk before he died.  And it was a blast, even if I had to leave a bit early.

A short play report:

Thidrek the Sleestak, having reached the rank of Hero, is summoned to the underwarrens below Fort Low.  He must prove himself worthy to join the Library of the Skulls when he passes by entering a Time Doorway and finding success beyond.  The doorway opens up on the world of Krynn, where Castle Zagyg has appeared and is under siege from a dragon highlord's army.

Thidrek teams up with a motley crew of adventurers.  [I should have written down everyone's characters' names, but I didn't.  Sorry.]  There were a Barbarian, an Illusionist, several Halfling Thieves, a Dwarf Fighter, a Magic-User (Elf or Human? Don't remember).  It was a big group, and a bit chaotic IRL with the DM and 9 players.

Anyway, the Illusionist and Dwarf have explored quite a bit of the ruins before, but the remains of the main keep have not been entered.  We head down into the dungeons to bypass the moat and other defenses.  We find a very large room with magical circles for summoning demons and a pair of stone golems guarding it, but as we don't mess with anything they leave us alone.  The next large room was the charred remains of a library, with stairs leading up.  Suspecting a trap on the stairs, we were very careful before proceeding.

At the top, we find the main hall.  Ghosts feast and revel within.  Invisible servants wearing white gloves gesture for us to sit at the high table and enjoy the food there.  After a bit of attempted interaction with the ghosts (no response), we eventually gave in to our curiosity about the food.  And as should be expected in a Gygax module, it was the feast version of the deck of many things.  Thidrek ended up quaffing a goblet of wine, which the roll I made for it revealed it to be poison.  Luckily I've got those awesome Labyrinth Lord Halfling saving throws.  I just barely made my roll.  If I'd still been 3rd level I wouldn't have made it.  Other effects included turning green, getting Haste applied, and being polymorphed into a bumble bee (the barbarian).  Luckily Thidrek was carrying some Hive bug powder and was then able to communicate with the bee (who, by sampling more food, ended up with a voice as loud as a lion's roar).  Another player (one of the halflings, I think) got stuck with a fishy smell that wouldn't go away.

Anyway, after that, our bee scouted the next room and found two bandits and two guard dogs.  We surprised them, took out one dog and one bandit, and the others surrendered.  We tied up the dude and took him along as our Gimp door opener.

Next we found a large chamber with several smaller chambers nested within.  Some empty storage lockers, a hallway with valuable tapestries, and a couple of bunk rooms, each with a lone bandit (one was a sergeant).  We took them down and looted their rooms, finding a bit of treasure.

About this time several players had to go.  I stayed another 30 minutes after that, and Jason Kielbasa joined us with another Magic-User and his bugbear henchmen, but as I said, I had to go.  Thidrek was called back through the Time Doorway (his share of the loot delivered by Dimensional Express the next day), ending his hero-quest.

I'm not sure when I'll have another chance to play in some FLAILSNAILS games, but I'd like to.  I also wonder if any DMs would be willing to let me play a Flying Swordsmen PC in their D&D/AD&D/retro-clone game...

Beast of the Week: Huntsmen of Annuvin

My son wanted to rewatch the old Disney "The Black Cauldron" movie the other day, which is inspired (got the characters close, but the story is pretty different) by one of my early fantasy influences, the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander. 

Then, today, while going through an old folder looking for some old character sheets to play in a FLAILSNAILS game (more on that later), I found a page with three creatures from the Prydain Chronicles, the Huntsmen of Annuvin, the Cauldron Born, and the Gwythaints.  I already did gwythaints back in May.  The version from this sheet, which must date back to my high school days, are a bit more powerful.  I may use them as a "greater gwythaint" in the future.  I'll save the Cauldron Born for next month, as they're undead and make a good Halloween monster.  So anyway, here is the monster you do get, the Huntsmen of Annuvin:

Huntsmen of Annuvin
AC: 5 (15)
HD: 3**
Move: 180 (60)
Attacks: 1 weapon
Damage: by weapon
No. Appearing: 1d4+2 (3d6+2)
Save As: F6
Morale: 10
Treasure Type: nil
Alignment: Chaotic
XP: 65


The Huntsmen of Annuvin were formerly human warriors, but due to a dark magical pact, have left their human natures behind.  They still appear as humans, often garbed in barbaric fashion.  Each group has a living Chaotic holy symbol etched into their forehead, which bonds the group together.  They share an empathic bond with their group.  When one dies, all group members within 120' gain 1d8 temporary hit points and a +1 bonus to hit and damage for the next 24 hours.  Huntsmen are enchanted creatures, and are affected by spells such as Protection from Evil, although they have no special invulnerability to normal weapons.

The geek shall inherit the Earth

Just thinking about how times have changed. In the 80s nerds were social pariahs with interests in fringe things like fantasy/sci-fi, comic books, video games.

Take a look at my (fellow foreign) coworkers:
Adam (Australian) likes fishing, WoW, UFC, sci-fi movies and reads Lovecraft and anything post-apocalyptic.

Ryan (New Zealand) likes hard sci-fi and cyberpunk, plus lots of obscure literature, plays drums in a band and brews his own beer.

Matt (USA) loves rock climbing, fantasy lit, is quite the artist and watches anything sci-fi/fantasy on TV or at the movies.

Myself (USA) I like RPGs, comic books, fantasy and sci-fi books, TV and film, video games and the like.

Matthieu (Canada) likes hockey, South Park, and hanging out drinking.

Yes, no surprise I am the "nerdiest" of the bunch. At least as far as hobbies and interests go.  But except for Matthieu, everyone else has a fairly high interest in nerdy things.  Whenever we talk about A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones TV show, and mention King's Landing, Matthieu always without fail thinks we are talking about a Canadian amusement park.

So what has all this blather about coworkers got to do with anything? Well it's just the observation of that other part of "nerdiness," social awkwardness.  Matthieu is by far the most socially awkward of us all.  He's a real nice guy and all, but he doesn't quite click in social situations. In the year I've known him he hasn't had a girlfriend.  Matt has one, the rest of us are married.

Now, I'm not trying to steroetype anyone. I'm commenting on the breaking of steroetypes. 

All five of us are "nerds" in one sense or another. But most nerdy things thesedays have become pretty darned mainstream. And the most socially awkward guy in a group can be the jock who just likes to play sports and go out drinking.

Interesting times we live in.

The Pace of Advancement.

The other day, Justin asked how many sessions we had played of his Vaults of Ur campaign. He thought it was around nine.  I checked my write-ups of the adventures. There have been seventeen sessions (I missed the very first one). 
In that time, Thidrek has advanced to 4th level. He had his first outing as a Sleestak Hero last game.  Very Elder Karl is also 4th level.  Ripper the Orc is 3rd and approaching 4th (Jeremy lost some hard earned XP through unfortunate PC deaths). 
The game is rather treasure poor, but Justin allows us up to 300 bonus XP per session for pictures and play reports. Without the bonus XP, Thidrek would only just be hitting 3rd level. The pace seems good to me, though. Having played in some faster advancing games (3E or Pathfinder), I can honestly say I like this slower speed. It gives us more time to develop our PCs.  Leveling up also feels like an achievement, rather than an entitlement.

The Angry Birds of Ur

Last Saturday, Justin ran yet another session of his Vaults of Ur campaign.  This time, our lineup consisted of Alexei as Maya Culpar the Elf from beyond the Veil, Dean as Very Elder Karl the Cleric (returned from his stint in Zhongyang Dalu as a wuxia Animist), Jeremy as Ripper the Orc, myself as Thidrek the Sleestak - now a Hero!, and new Busan Gamer Matt who joined us late and took over one of our hireling archers to become Strider the Fighter.  [I'll edit in the links to everyone's blogs later if I don't forget - not enough time tonight.  Sorry, guys.]

We were still on a Mission from God - or at least a Mission from Elder Karl's god, the Great Bear - to wipe out the giant carnivorous apes south-west of the Broken Obelisk.  Before setting out, we hired a quartet of archers to accompany us.  We retraced our steps, followed some new roads from the statue of the vulture-headed death goddess, and then made our way to the mostly intact warehouse we'd discovered before when we heard the sounds of apes on our trail.

My rendition of the statue

When we got to the warehouse, we found some corpses lying around.  They were of the Vulture Men we'd heard rumors of.  We quickly debated what to do - charge into the warehouse and possibly face Vulture Men or Spiked Circle baddies, but have a narrow easily defensible door to battle the apes from (but possibly become trapped between two hostile forces), or stand our ground.

We decided to put our archers on the roof.  Ripper and Elder Karl decided to come up at the last minute, but the apes attacked before we could.  With the two of them on the ground and the rest of the party firing from the roof, we battled the apes, who threw stones instead of closing to melee.  Elder Karl used his stone fist to good advantage at my suggestion, lifting up one ape as high as he could then dropping it.  It made a satisfactory splattering when it hit the pavement.  We managed to drop one other ape with missiles for sure, possibly one more as they fled from the screams of the Vulture Men.

Before we could do anything, the Vulture Men were upon us.  A large party, around 24 or so, attacked from all sides (luckily they don't fly!).  While Ripper and Karl battled them on the ground, Maya used her Sleep spell to good effect and the rest of us battled a squad that climbed to the roof.  Thidrek took a solid hit in the guts (a critical), but luckily with his new Heroic status, survived the wound that would have finished him before.  Strider the Archer got knocked unconscious (0 hp, Matt took over the last surviving archer, Pliny the Younger for the rest of the combat.  Strabo and Pliny the Elder didn't survive the onslaught.)  Once the Vulture Men on the roof were dispatched, we rained down missiles on those waiting to close with Karl and Ripper, who fought back to back against the wall of the warehouse to keep too many from closing at once.

With a Frazetta style mound of corpses that Conan or John Carter would find respectable around their feet, Ripper and Karl managed to hold off the horde.  And we finally all learned a valuable lesson about firing into melee.  Thidrek, all pumped up on his success (I don't think I'd rolled a single miss all night) decided to shoot at the last guy on Elder Karl.  Of course I rolled a 1.  Sorry, Elder Karl!  Thidrek had to wait until we got back to Fort Low to get healed for that one. 

After the battle, we roped up the sleeping Vulture Men (I suggested we only take one back, but was talked out of it by Karl) and headed back to Fort Low with our prisoners.  Justin informed us by Facebook post that the Vulture Men tried to escape, killed some guards, and one made it out of Fort Low alive and back to wherever they nest.  I knew we should have only taken one prisoner.  No one could speak their language anyway.  Well, that's another lesson learned for the party.

Beast of the Week: Humbaba

Going WAY back for this week's beast, we've got one of the oldest known monsters from the Epic of Gilgamesh, Humbaba, the guardian of the Cedar Forest that the hero and his companion Enkidu capture then slay so that they can bring cedar wood back to Gilgamesh's city of Uruk.  Here's a stab at him in D&D terms:

Humbaba*
Armor Class: -1 (21)
Hit Dice: 12***
Move: 120 (40)
Attacks: 2 fists/1 bite + gaze
Damage: 3d6/3d6/3d6/special
No. Appearing: -- (1d4)
Save As: Fighter 12
Morale: 10
Treasure Type: H
Alignment: Neutral
XP: 3500


Humbabas are lion-faced giants, standing 18' tall.  They serve as protectors and guardians of ancient otherworldly forests, and will violently oppose any who trespass within their domains.  A humbaba is able to communicate with normal animals and plants at will (as the spells), and they can stretch their senses out to a radius of 3 miles through the trees.  They are thus never surprised unless somehow encountered away from their forest homes.  In combat, a humbaba batters opponents with its fists and rends them with its long leonine fangs.  Its gaze is also deadly, and the first time any character meets the gaze (once per encounter), the character must Save vs. Death Ray or die.  Furthermore, each humbaba knows seven Magic-User or Cleric spells of at least 5th level, each of which may be cast once per day.  Each humbaba's spells can be selected as the DM desires, or rolled randomly.


For ease of use, here's a random table to determine spell levels:
Roll 1d8
1: 5th level Magic User spell (roll 1d12 to determine which spell)
2: 5th level Cleric spell (roll 1d8 to determine which spell)
3: 6th level Magic User spell (roll 1d12 to determine which spell)
4: 6th level Cleric spell (roll 1d8 to determine which spell)
5: 7th level Magic User spell (roll 1d12 to determine which spell)
6: 7th level Cleric spell (roll 1d8 to determine which spell)
7: 8th level Magic User spell (roll 1d12 to determine which spell)
8: 9th level Magic User spell (roll 1d12 to determine which spell)

Flying Swordsmen play report

Dean wrote up this play report.  He said I'm free to edit it, but I'll just make two notes:

1. Josh's Ghost Hunter character is named Lao Zun.  Dean couldn't remember.
2. Jeremy's Taoist was using the Heart Crusher spell, not sleep.  No need to have moral debates about throat slitting of sleeping foes when their chests have already been caved in!

Here's Dean's report of play, just as he sent it to me:

August 24, 2012

Last weekend (August 24, 2012) we playtested Dennis’s roleplaying game “Flying Swordsman.” There was Wu Xiaowei the Taoist magician played by Jeremy; a Ghost Hunter (similar to an assassin) played by Josh; and Xiong Di Di, an Animist Shaman of the Great Bear played by Dean.

Very Elder Karl was summoned across the veil from Ur by the prayers of a group of monks to the Great Panda. The monks called him Xiong Di Di, Little Brother Bear, in their language. The Ghost Hunter had already adventured once previously, so he instructed the two new party members on the convolutions of intrigue in this town. At the outset of this current adventure the party was seeking information about a star map which had been pulled out of the butt of a wooden monkey statuette.

Gong Lan the beautiful and deadly thief aided us and persuaded us to help her further. We visited Dian Ma Su the County Examiner, one of whose bureaucratic duties was to store and catalogue the county’s maps. This man revealed that the map was not a star map of any known stars, but that it was probably a map of local features encoded as a fake star map: a treasure map in other words. The Examiner was very friendly, suspiciously so, and helpful to a point, at which he quickly made his exit and refused any enticement to linger. Our wizard detected a faint glamour upon him.

Further questions in the market place and in taverns from such men as Old Kwan “who loves maps” revealed that an old gentleman scholar and cartographer named Hwang lived two hours walk from town in a country villa. The heroes traveled there immediately, and the scholar informed them that he would gladly help decipher the map, if only the party would take care of the local bandits for him. Said bandits had paid especial attention to stealing rare and learned books.

We decided to rush back to the town and use various resources to locate the bandits by drunken rumours, thievish secrets and monastic wisdom. The Abbot of the Great Panda revealed that the bandits were a threat to sacred texts as well, and that there was a rumour that the bandit chieftain was a monster of some sort who appeared human. Then everyone returned to the scholar’s villa, attempting to draw out the bandits by appearing as learned and feeble scholars debating along the road and with scrolls sticking from our backpacks.

Xiong Di Di mentioned that at dawn the next day, he could pray to a minor spirit of the Great Panda and ask four questions. We decided to ask, “Where is the bandit lair?” “What is the key to the code of the map?” “Who personally knows the bandits?” “What sort of creature is the bandit leader?” Of course there was little guarantee that such a minor spirit would know much regarding these questions, but we hoped for the best.

However even before darkness had settled long that night, the villa was attacked by twenty bandits! We ran to the gatehouse and saw three tough-looking leaders among the throng. Gong Lan immediately sprang down into the midst thereof though to little effect at first. The Ghost Hunter prepared to fight, Elder Karl blessed everyone and Wu Xiaowei cast a spell of sleep upon some of the lesser bandits.

Two of the bandits jumped high into the air onto the ramparts of the wall, and there they struck down the Ghost Hunter with two mighty blows. Xiong Di Di healed him, but things were desparate. Wu Xiaowei continued to cast spells of sleep, followed eventually by a charm spell against one of the leaders. The fight quickly turned against the bandits. Xiong Di Di realized that most of the bandits were not at the gate and hurried back to the inner house, but it was too late: the bandits had knocked the scholar unconscious and stolen some sort of document or map.

Fortunately the charmed bandit proved very willing to discuss his comrades’ immediate plans and location. The party made great plans for the next day as rest and recuperation were required now. The next chapter awaits.