With great power comes...

...a bunch of nasty rogues!

I met up with Jeremy, Adam, Greg, and new Busan Gamer Dean this afternoon to discuss our next game after the Pathfinder game wraps up.  Adam is going to run a Birthright game using 3.5.

Man, for an OSR guy, I'm not getting much old school gaming action lately.  Oh well, I DON'T have time to run a game, and I don't mind playing 3E/PF.  And if that's what Adam wants to run, that's cool.

But man, it's time consuming.  I'm taking my character concept from a now defunct PbP game on Dragonsfoot that was supposed to be a domain-level game, but never got past the supposedly fast leveling.*

So I'll be revising Sildarn Stormborn, Human Wizard.  The original was BECMI, so he was Chaotic, but I'm making him Lawful Evil for this game.  The idea originally was that he would be the Chaotic Magic-User with orc mercenaries when we got to the domain game.  My new Birthright version has Air Element affiliation as his Blood Power, so I get air elemental troops in addition to whatever followers/troops/mercenaries I might be able to afford.

We just went over character creation basics today.  We've got to roll up our main PCs, lieutenants, and then sub-PCs that can be in the courts of other leaders.  Dean's and my characters are in the same domain, so we don't need sub-PCs for each other, but that's still four 3E characters to create, plus my domain. 

It's a lot of work, but I've always enjoyed domain-level play, so I'm looking forward to this game.




*The DM spent way too much time trying to actually calculate adventures or something, from what I could tell.  He advertised it as just a few roleplaying type posts per level, but then had us scouting missions, following leads that sometimes didn't pan out, and generally doing WAY too much in order for us to have 'organic' backgrounds for our rulers.

Beast of the Week: Cuegle

This week's monster comes from Spain that I found surfing Monstropedia.  It's the Cuegle, a creature that can fill the niche of the ogre, but be a bit of a surprise for players.  It may also be the inspiration for the BECMI Athach.  Maybe I'll go ask Frank Mentzer about it on Dragonsfoot some day.  Not today, though. Too much else to do.  Anyway, on with the Beast!

Cuegle
AC: 3 (17)
HD: 5
Move: 90 (30)
Attacks: 3 fists
Damage: 1d6 each
No. Appearing: 1-6 (2-8)
Save As: Fighter 5
Morale: 10
Treasure Type: E
Alignment: Chaotic
XP: 175

Cuegles are human-sized, black skinned creatures with three fingerless arms and three eyes, and a horn sprouting from its forehead.  They tend to rove in remote mountain ranges or underground, searching for prey.  They are primitive, but cunning, and will track prey that they find interesting.  They hoard gold and valuables, and will find any group that appears to have wealth to be prime targets.  In combat, they bludgeon foes with their club-like hands, and may charge with their horn against opponents not in melee, dealing 2d6 damage if they hit.  Cuegles dislike oak and holly leaves, and Druids with these plants in hand can attempt to Turn Cuegles as if the Cuegle were a Wraith and the Druid were a Cleric of equal level.

I see a little silhouette-o of a man...

Inspired by Telecanter, and needing some small graphics for space filler in Flying Swordsmen, here are a few kung fu silhouettes.

We have met the enemy, and he is us.

Yesterday, we had our third session of Brian's Pathfinder game.

To recap, I'm playing Elwood, a Human Paladin.  Jeremy's playing Oxide the Warforged Fighter.  Greg's playing Plato the Half-Elf Rogue.  Robbie's playing Toki the Human Sorcerer.  Jesse rolled up a new PC, Zesser, a Half-Orc Alchemist.  Marc is vacationing back in Spain, so his Dwarf Cleric sat this session out.

We're going through Paizo's "Age of Wyrms" adventure path.  Spoilers await.

So last session, we ended it right after the necromancer Filch surrendered to us.  We manacled him (luckily I'd bought a few pairs!) and interrogated him.  He was a slimy, crafty bugger who evaded as much as possible.  Just as you'd expect.  And we had a quandary.  Cullen the Half-Orc brute wanted Filch's eyes as proof that we'd defeated him.  Well, Plato and Elwood had a problem.  The other two (Zesser hadn't made his appearance yet) were all for ripping his eyes out to take back.  For some reason, though, since he'd surrendered to me, it was assumed that Filch was MY prisoner, so I had final say.  After dragging as much info out of him as I thought we were gonna get, I gave him an ultimatum.  We take him back to town and dispose of him as we like, or we set him free as he desired - but minus his eyes.  He chose to go back to town.

We bundled up all the loot we could gather, the dead bodies (the family of the ghost we'd promised to help and Tagolad the Alchemist - remembered his name this time, now that he's gone!), and marched our captured wizard back to town.

When we got there, Plato was begged to head off to the Imporium by a messenger boy, and off he went to meet his lady.  Turns out the wizard of the rival adventuring party discovered some evil book and then turned on his former colleagues, killing the fighter and severely wounding the elf chick (not sure what class she is...).  She was dying and only trusted him, being a fellow outsider.  He then spent most of the rest of the evening searching for the town's doctor to save her (which he did, and she told him she was leaving for Greyhawk City in the morning, never to return, and he should find her there if he ever got out of the stinking pit of Diamond Lake).  She should have known better.  The turncoat wizard's name was Kelek. 

I've GOT this action figure!  If I'd known the NPC's name, maybe I could have prevented that bloodshed...

The rest of us took the necromancer to Cullen, and when he tried to shake us down I luckily managed to use Diplomacy to get him to let us leave after just turning over the necromancer.  After a brief interlude of Toki the weakling sorcerer trying to muscle his way past the butler of Alistan the Sage (our employer), we turned in for the night.  In the morning we got a bit of help from Alistan, met our new Alchemist Zesser, and then set out to bury the bodies in the graveyard and proceed to the Whispering Cairn.

This time, we managed to explore the remainder of the cairn, fought one more battle (Plato got taken down to negatives, but I was right by him to heal him up), and found some interesting artifacts - two of them were evil.  Oxide had one of the evil artifacts, and I'm not sure if there was an influence from that (notes from the DM were passed), or if it was just the alcohol Jeremy was drinking, but from about this point in Oxide was getting really nasty and bloodthirsty.

We were all getting a bit suspicious of Alistan the Sage, however.  He kept the necromancer's spellbook, and got snippy about paying us when we brought back the obviously powerful artifacts from the Cairn.  Oxide went so far as to attack, but luckily the priestess of Wee Jas (yeah, my Paladin's not hanging out with the correct circles, but luckily Brian's being really cool with my cowboy Pally's code of ethics) who was still in the room used Hold Person on him.  I got the baby owlbear out of his pack (remember that?) and Plato took out the evil artifact and tossed it to Alistan, who took pains NOT to catch it!

Anyway, Ruby Sorceress of Wee Jas has undead trouble, possibly related to the mine troubles, and what do you know, they think we need the necromancer as he's a specialist about undead.  Now, Cullen's had him for a full 24 hours.  He may very well be dead.  But we get a few healing potions to ease our suffering, then head back to the Feral Dog. 

This time, I'm thinking we're definitely going to throw down with Cullen and his boys, so I suggest we get the half-ogre bouncer out first, since he's upstairs, and get him out of the way.  I bluff him (yes, my Paladin lied to sucker him into an ambush - I am planning to spend some time in prayer and contemplation once the undead threat is stemmed) outside, where Zesser used his poisoned greataxe (he's a melee alchemist) to paralyze him.  We tied him up and drug him into an alley, then Oxide decided to just slay him.  He got initiative, so before we could stop him, bam!, short sword in the head.  Half-ogre dead, we proceed back inside to face Cullen...

And that's the cliffhanger ending for this session.

We had a lot of in-character bickering and tension, which was really really cool, actually.  And very little combat.  The fight with the half-ogre barely counts.  We're having a good time in this game, and we've all really come into our characters.  Even Jesse was really into his new PC, who was the apprentice of his first PC.  It's a shame that Brian's leaving at the end of February.  We've only got a couple more sessions to see how this all plays out.

Beast of the Week: Dokkaebi

OK, so I'm starting off my weekly monster series with a Korean monster very similar to the Japanese Oni, the Dokkaebi (or alternately spelled Tokebi or Tokaebi).  This creature looks much like the oni, but is said to be the spirit of an inanimate object made self-aware.  They have characteristics similar to many Japanese Yokai creatures, being at times scary, helpful, or comical depending on the story.

Dokkaebi
AC: 4 (16)
HD: 6+1**
Move: 120 (60)
Attacks: 1 mallet
Damage: 1d10+2
No. Appearing: 1-4 (1-10)
Save As: Fighter 6
Morale: 8
Treasure Type: B
Alignment: Lawful
XP: 950

Dokkaebi are hairy ogre-like creatures standing 6-9' tall, with tusks, clawed hands, and unruly manes of hair on their heads.  They may be nearly any color, and their hair is typically a different shade from their skin.  Dokkaebi are creatures of justice, who seek out wickedness to punish.  When they are not punishing evil-doers, though, they often delight in playing pranks and jokes on those who have some peccadilloes but are not evil.

In combat, Dokkaebi fight with magical mallets or spiked clubs.  These weapons strike as if they were +2 magical weapons.  Dokkaebi also gain a +2 bonus to damage due to their great strength.  They are also fond of wrestling.  Instead of attacking with a mallet, a Dokkaebi can make an unarmed attack, grabbing an opponent and holding them with a successful attack roll.  The victim may Save vs. Wands each round to escape the hold.  Dokkaebi can make themselves invisible, as the spell, three times per day.

Dokkaebi can also use their mallets to "create" inanimate objects, as a djinni, except all goods are permanent.  The objects created are actually teleported to the Dokkaebi's location from some other place, not conjured from thin air.  Because of this, Dokkaebi are careful about how they use this ability, only conjuring goods when there is a great need.  Dokkaebi mallets only function in the hands of a Dokkaebi.

Monsters, monsters, and more monsters

On my trip back to the States last week, I took some of my megadungeon stuff along.  I'm currently keying the 3rd level of the dungeon, and got from 18 rooms up to 100 rooms keyed.

But I only had my listing of Classic D&D monsters (a homemade document with most of the non-planar BECM/RC critters, plus some of the Creature Catalogue monsters I use a lot and some of my home-made critters thrown in too).  For the past couple days, I've been going through my PDF collection of monster books, looking for other stuff to use.

There's a lot of good stuff out there, between Classic, AD&D 1E and 2E (especially the 2E Monstrous Compendiums of various campaign worlds and annuals), and 3rd party stuff like a PDF a friend sent me of White Dwarf's various creature feature articles (many of which are in the Fiend Folio, but not all!). 

I feel like I'm swarming in monsters!  And that's not a complaint.

I've had an idea to try and make a new monster every week here on the blog.  That's my goal, anyway.  52 new monsters (or stats given to various non-D&D monsters like I usually do) in 2012. 

Stay tuned, the first one should be coming up maybe tomorrow or Friday.

A Christmas Miracle

This is NOT a gaming post, but it's to let you all know what I've been up to and why I've been posting so infrequently.  And there's a little bit of the weird/unexplained about it, so who knows, it could maybe provide a bit of inspiration for something in a game.

On Dec. 2nd, my sister and her family were in a car accident.  My brother-in-law and his father (who was driving) suffered some minor injuries, while my two nephews, Ben (10) and Brian (7), both were badly hurt.  Ben suffered a broken hip-bone and some lacerations.  Brian had a serious head injury.

Ben made a speedy recovery.  Last week while I was visiting, he was mobile (we went bowling even!) and in good spirits.  The doctors say he's fine, he just needs a bit of PT to get back full mobility.

Brian, however, was close to death several times.  On the night of the accident, the doctors say if he had gotten to the hospital 30 minutes later, he would have died.  They thought he wouldn't make it through that first weekend, but he did.  Two weeks after the crash, the swelling had gone down enough that they could remove some of the monitoring equipment and take a full MRI of his brain.  One of the doctors thought the damage to his brain stem was so severe that he had 0 chance of recovery, and would likely die if taken off the respirator.

My sister and her husband made the painful choice that being in a coma on life support was not a life, and decided to have the respirator turned off.  But Brian didn't die.  He was breathing on his own.  Still, the doctors said Brian wasn't likely to live out more than a week.  I was making my travel plans about this time.

I arrived in Statesboro, GA on Dec. 26th in the evening, and word was that Brian was doing fine.  The next morning I went to see him, and walked into his hospice room to find him with eyes open, looking around at people, and perhaps trying to recognize me (I hadn't seen him in person since he was only 1 year old).  He was making gurgling/humming noises.  If someone called to him, he would turn his head or eyes in their direction.  If you took his hand, he would squeeze it, if weakly.  These were all things the docs had thought he'd NEVER be able to do because of the brain stem injury. 

That day, the doctors examined him again, and recommended moving him out of hospice and back to the hospital in Savannah.  That afternoon he was moved.  We spent the afternoon/evening with Ben, taking him to a comic shop, book store, bowling, IHOP, etc.

Wednesday we drove down to Savannah and had more good news.  The doctors were going to do surgery to replace the piece of skull they'd removed when his head was swollen.  When he recovers from that, he will be admitted into a rehabilitation hospital in Atlanta (where they live now).  He'll get PT, speech therapy, everything he needs to regain as much functionality as he can.  I'm praying for a full recovery, and so are thousands more. 

OK, here's the weird part.  Wed. evening, at dinner (I flew out Thurs. morning, so this was the last I saw them for this trip), my sister told me this.  On the night of the crash, she never lost consciousness.  Their car had been hit from the side and flipped over, and they were all trapped inside.  Another car came by and stopped, and a young petite woman was trying to help get them out, but was too small.  Both she and my sister remember there were suddenly three or four people dressed like EMTs who showed up, and helped get them out of the car.  When the ambulances showed up, those helpers were nowhere to be found.  My sister and the woman who helped think they were guardian angels.

One of the other cars to arrive on the scene shortly after the wreck was a man who IS an EMT, although off duty.  He had forgotten to buy something for his wife, and was taking a different way home than normal, and passed the accident scene.  This man called for airlift helicopters for the boys before the ambulances arrived - something that normally only the ambulance EMTs can do.  That saved Brian's life that night. 

So even if there were no guardian angels, just some good Samaritans who somehow managed to slip quietly away after helping, I think we still witnessed a miracle this past month.  Brian is not only alive, but he's recovering from injuries that the doctors thought were irrecoverable.