Missing Dwimmermount

Today (mid-day Sunday here in Korea, Sat. evening in Canada), James Mal was planning on running a session of Dwimmermount on G+.  Dean, who plays the Venerable Karl in our Vaults of Ur game, had played a few sessions of it already and when I mentioned that I'd love to get in on that game, he asked and I was invited.

Then, due to technical difficulties, James wasn't able to run the game. 

Dean suggested I pull out my megadungeon and we run through that instead.  So Dean, playing a level 1 version of Elder Karl (hey, time travel happens in the FLAILSNAILS multiverse), and two gamers I was unacquainted with until today, Nathan Easton - who quickly rolled up an Elf, and Roger Brasslett who had a spare Druid lying around, ventured out from the town of Silverwood into Yeffal's Great Dungeon.

Here's Dean's recap:

In his youth Elder Karl had a memorable spirit quest into a strange world of elves (very like his companion from the other world, Maya Culpa) and short bearded dwarves. There he met a Druid of the wilds named Elethea and a shifty-eyed shadowy elf who called himself the Black Lotus. In the town of Silverwood these adventurers hired two stout spearmen named Geissler and Kessel, and then all five of them ventured into the huge ruins of the castle of the Mad Wizard Yefal.

The outer courtyard contained a two-storyed building which showed both the signs of recent occupation and of recent intrusion. A room with a suspicious grate yielded only parchments with the scribbled false starts of a frustrated epic poet and an attack by razor-sharp blades from the grate.

The party started to head downstairs but was discouraged by the sight of mysterious magical runes. Going upstairs instead they found the after-effects and skeletal remains of a mighty battle. Investigating the smaller rooms revealed a thieves’ map of Silverwood, a book of prayers and rituals to the Chaos God Loki as well as a dangerous and cursed statuette of the same in a shrine.

The shrine itself was guarded by a ward which made the viewers either flee in terror or think to see their heart's desire. Finally! A hobbit wrapped in a mithril shirt and left to soften for later ingestion. Elder Karl desecrated the shrine with prayers to the Bear and improvised blessed water. There were also two beautiful suits of nobleman’s clothes which we gave to our two retainers to wear. Elder Karl also insisted on laying to rest the corpses of three victims of the bandits who had recently met their just desert.

In the midst of our plunder, three elves stumbled upon us and asked us if we had seen any hobgoblins. The heroes decided that a joint expedition against the hobgoblins would be good, and they also hoped that the elves could get them past the runes on the stairs going down. One of the elves had memorized Read Magic and was in fact delighted to find that the runes were a record of Tenser’s Floating Disc, which he hastened to inscribe into his book.

The now larger party descended en masse into another room filled with the after-effects of battle: this time, three hobgoblins. A search revealed a burlap pouch containing an electrum necklace. Thus without a single fight, the heroes had successfully explored part of the castle and won much treasure, and so all returned to town before any disaster should reverse the day’s good fortune.

 So the lucky buggers got off with only springing a couple of non-lethal traps and only encountering friendly wandering monsters.  They did this by following in the footsteps of an earlier adventuring party, unbeknownst to them (read about it here and here).

It was a fun, impromptu session, and it wasn't even until we were almost done that I realized that I'd only brought my dungeon maps/key/supplementals to the desk.  I didn't have a rule book at all.  Guess my DMing skills haven't atrophied after all!

Anyway, it was fun to be back in the DM's chair, but I'm still looking forward to playing in Dwimmermount with James M.  Hopefully in two weeks.

Beast of the Week: Horned Serpent

Yesterday being Thanksgiving (I'm American if you didn't know), I was thinking of doing another monster from my traveling pocket notebook, based on the "turducken" (a duck stuffed in a chicken stuffed in a turkey and baked), sort of a "kill this monster, then a smaller one pops out of it, and when it's dead a third monster pops out" but that was just too involved. 

Instead, how about going back to Native American mythology and writing up another NA monster? 

Horned Serpent*
AC: 0 (20)
HD: 6**
Move: 120 (40)
Attacks: 1 horn, 1 bite or breath
Damage: 1d10/2d6+poison
No. Appearing: 1d4 (1d6)
Save As: F6
Morale: 8
Treasure Type: D
Alignment: Chaotic
XP: 725

Horned serpents are 50' long giant snakes with iridescent scales and one or two crystalline antlers protruding from their heads.  They live in lakes and rivers and may attack those that stray too close to their underwater lairs.  A horned serpent's bite is poisonous; those bitten must Save vs. Poison or die in 1d6 Turns.  Instead of biting, the serpent may spray poison in a 15' diameter cloud around it.  All within the cloud must Save vs. Poison or become sickened, suffering a -4 penalty to attacks and saves, for 1d4 hours.  The horned serpent can also use its horns to lure creatures near it.  Three times per day, the serpent can send out a signal.  Creatures within 120' must Save vs. Spells or approach the serpent and stand enraptured by the call for 1d4 Rounds.  The antlers of horned serpents are prized by Magic-Users and alchemists, and each horn can fetch 2d4 x100gp.

That urge to tinker

What's going on inside my brain?  Not exactly sure.  With three more weeks to go to finish up my Masters of TESOL (read, final projects/papers to prepare/write), I'm in the middle of the Busan Gamers' storm of character creation for potential games (Dean's looking to run 4E or maybe his own take on Jeremy's "Super Simple d20" game - and with Dean at the helm, I know it won't be 4E as just a series of tactical battles one after another, it'll be about story and consequences with the battles serving a purpose other than having them because someone wrote them), Jeremy had a zombie-hunting 40k inspired session of another system he calls Para Bellum that he'd like to continue, Justin just had us redo our Ur characters as Stars Without Numbers characters, and um, well, there is a Pathfinder game that I don't have time for as well but would like to get in on if I did have the time.

Add to that the fact that I've got work to do on Presidents of the Apocalypse.  I've also got the title for the first adventure I'll run with it (although other details of the adventure are rolling around in the back of my mind and haven't coalesced yet).  The title shall be either "Assault on Castle Hasselhoff" or "Escape from Castle Hasselhoff."  Maybe I'll do both as a series?

Oh, and Flying Swordsmen could use another editing pass if I ever want to release it in physical form.  A module or two for it wouldn't hurt either.  And there's the RPOL game I created and have recruited players for, but haven't done much beyond that yet thanks to the above mentioned grad school.

Yet what was it that I decided I should do last night, and am tempted to start working on tonight? 

Go through the AD&D 1E and 2E PHBs and start making some notes about how I'd do separate race and class in my "D&D Mine" rules.  I'm not planning on using them any time soon (want to get that RPOL Flying Swordsmen game running smoothly and also playtest PotA).  Yet the urge is there.  Dwarven Fighter/Thieves.  Human Paladins.  Half-Elf Rangers.  Gnome Illusionists.  Yeah, I could just use LL's AEC, but where's the fun in that, when I could do it myself instead?

I think there's something in the back of my mind that really wants to get back in the DM chair of a good old fashioned D&D game, instead of being a player (although as a player, I could really go for some space opera or supers gaming).

And I'm writing this blog post instead of writing the other Ur session report.  Oh well...

Ur: A new beginning

On Saturday, we played Justin's Vaults of Ur campaign, but with a new twist.  Justin had been wanting to try out the Stars Without Number rules, so we adapted them, using Sine Nomine's "Dungeons Without Number" variant spellcaster rules to do so.  Jeremy and I created alternate characters, while Dean just converted the now Venerable Karl (5th level thanks to some trips to Dwimmermount in James M.'s G+ games) to the new system.

Jeremy created Burg the Orc, a former pit-fighter, while I actually did a conversion of my backup PC that I'd never gotten to play, Thomas the Visionary, a non-battle oriented Magic-User.  I used the Mage option from the DWN rules linked above.

We were based in the old Alchemist's Tower, which we had cleared out and then sold to the authorities in Fort Low, now a walled settlement named Crossroads.  Bandits had attacked and stolen a McGuffin...I mean amulet called the Pendant of True Heart.  We were charged with its recovery.

We set out and found the bandits' stronghold.  walls had been built incorporating two relatively intact buildings, with wooden watch towers also put up at the front of the square compound.  We were approaching from the rear, and spent some time scouting (Burg taking the duties since he's lightly armored and had some skill there thanks to the SWN skill system).  There were two pack-lizards milling around in the ruins.  We suspected a trap, but they were just as they seemed.

After clearing a way through the pole-spiked moat, Burg climbed the wall and busted his way in through a window.  We all climbed in and found a bunk-room.  Thomas picked up a book of pornographic woodblock prints and some dice, and we scooped up a few coins.  There were weird moaning and whimpering sounds coming from below.  Karl investigated the roof, and we found lots of dead bandit bodies and a lone, living octo-ape making the noise.  Below was a food storage room.

Using speak with animals, we found out that a "great dark" had attacked, causing burns but also making the bandits fight each other.  The octo-ape wanted to go home to the "jungle" (we assume he meant the zoo), but was anxious to find his "friend" who had been drug below by the Great Dark. 

We investigated the ruins a bit more, finding a tunnel into the sewers, but also a strange branching path that appeared different.  Thomas had heard rumors of an ancient base in this area, and we thought that whatever the Great Dark was, it must have come from there.  It was getting late, though, and afraid that the Great Dark would emerge come nightfall, we quickly headed back to Crossroad.

The session ended there, but we picked it up again Sunday, with a few more players.  To be continued...

Beast of the Week: Trogdor

Trogdor was a man. Then, he was a dragon-man.  Maybe he was just a dragon?  But he was still Trogdor!!!

Yes, everyone's favorite Strong Bad email from Homestar Runner serves as this week's beast.  Can't wait to unleash some trogdors in my megadungeon!

Trogdor
AC: 2 (18)
HD: 8**
Move: 120 (40) fly 60 (20)
Attacks: 1 weapon, 1 bite
Damage: by weapon+3/2d6
No. Appearing: 1d4 (1d4)
Save As: F8
Morale: 10
Treasure Type: H
Alignment: Chaotic
XP: 1750

Trogdors are dragon-kin with long, serpentine bodies, stubby wings that allow for slow flight, and a single muscular humanoid arm.  Trogdors attack with a weapon (doing +3 damage due to their great strength) and a bite.  They can also use a fiery breath weapon at will.  The breath is a cone 60' long and 20' wide at the far end.  All in the cone take 4d6 damage, but may Save vs. Dragon Breath for half damage.  Trogdors love nothing more than burninating every peasant and village they come across.  There are rumors that some trogdors can shape-shift into human and half-dragon humanoid forms, but this has never been confirmed.

Progress on Presidents of the Apocalypse

With the election just over and Thanksgiving around the corner, I'm plugging away at the latest revision of Presidents of the Apocalypse.  We've always measured the special abilities and powers of the game with "stars" (up to five).  But some powers needed more than one level of ranking, so in this version, I've added "stripes" (also up to five) in addition to the stars. 

Of course, now I've got a bit of a problem that a few non-combat powers don't really need two ranking scales.

Anyway, the change in focus from trying to design a silly post-apoc game to trying to design a silly super-hero game with a post-apoc setting is working well for me.  I've got a better idea now of what the game is supposed to be about.

Beast of the Week: Golgothan

I've got a little pocket notebook that I carry around with me (usually in my backpack, rather than my pocket, but sometimes it makes its way there as well).  I use it to jot down mostly gaming ideas I have while I'm commuting or at work, but it's also handy for keeping information about my various private lessons sorted out.  Way back in the spring, I think, I made a list in this notebook of creatures I thought I would write up for this Beast of the Week series (nearing completion!).  After using a few of them, I mostly would find other inspirations to use during my week, so it became sort of the fall-back option.  If I had no other ideas, I'd write up one of the creatures from that notebook page.

Anyway, this week the inspiration was tied to one of the creatures on that page - the Golgothan excremental, or shit demon, from Kevin Smith's movie Dogma.  After last week's Vaults of Ur game involving a strong fear of a poop monster, I think it's time to unleash this critter on the fifty or so people actually still reading this blog.

Golgothan*
AC: 7 (13)
HD: 9**
Move: 90 (30)
Attacks: 2
Damage: 1d8/1d8+special
No. Appearing: 1d6 (1d2)
Save As: F9
Morale: 11
Treasure Type: nil
Alignment: Chaotic
XP: 2300

Golgothans, or excrementals, are demons created out of human feces culled from places of execution or slaughter.  They stand roughly as high as a man, and have a humanoid form, but their body is a slimy mass of dripping dung.  Those within 30' of an excremental must Save vs. Poison or be unable to act for 1d4+1 Rounds due to the strong stench emanating from the demon.  Even those that save suffer a -2 to hit while within the noxious cloud.  In combat, golgothans can make two slam attacks, or fire off a blob of their own substance up to 60' away as a ranged attack.  Anyone struck by a golgothan or one of its fecal blasts becomes coated with crap, and must Save vs. Paralysis or be slowed (as the spell) until the dreck is washed away or dries (in about one hour).  Once per day, golgothans may use any toilet, latrine, chamber pot or dung heap as a dimension door, appearing out of a similar location within 1 mile.