Adventure Recap - Day 0 (the pre-quest)

(I intend this to be first in a line of post-adventure posts so that we have a record, however meager and biased, of our adventures that at which we can look back and giggle.)

With Moonglum on the sidelines due to an acute case of being weak, the six of us (Lord Bolt, Taran, Malak, Lotheryn, Iuean, and "Angela") started out on a grey, mournful day in the remote, uncivilized town of ... heck, I don't know, Grant's Pass? It wasn't a very remarkable town. In fact, it was kind of dingy... but crawling with women! Malak's kind of town, as he unsuccessfully tried to convey non-verbally (Malak requires an unskilled "show emotion other than rage check" to use body language -- he rolled a 2) to the group. Anyway, the weather wasn't the only thing that was depressing... all the women seemed depressed, and didn't want to talk to a fly brother (or his crew). We wasted no time in learning more...

after the jump, more on our first adventure.

Anyway, after Malak failed to make any progress by intimidating anyone, finally Ieuan the Bard figured out the source of the women's trouble... all the men went to a mine and never came back. A few awkward conversations later, we found out that a group of racially oppressed goblins ("kobolds") had taken over the silver mine (or so they assumed) and had also, somehow, poisoned the well water. Despite the protests of Lord Bolt and Malak (who both had better things to do than solve someone else's problems), and despite the annoying insistence of Taran the Ranger that Lord Bolt was supposed to care about the problems assailing the village, the whole group went down to the mine.

At the mine, things went from bad to worse. First of all, we couldn't figure out who was supposed to hold the torch. Or whether we should even use a torch and not a hooded lantern. Then we couldn't decide who should stand in the back of the group, and even though we had our best people on the case (Angela and Taran), we kept sniffing down hallways to no avail. We were assaulted by various traps and crappy enemies, pausing just long enough in each room to contract a disease before finally dealing roughly 10 times the damage we needed to just to kill the Kobolds we stumbled across. Malak was probably the star of the show, missing rarely and getting hit even less. Lotheryn struggled with her pet, but healed Ay-Ven at a particularly critical moment, and generally made herself useful. Taran mostly shook his head in the back of the group and wondered how he got here, and Lord Bolt charged to the front heroically (showing some of that Paladin can-do) and missed... and missed... and missed. Occasionally he died. It was very embarassing.

The encounter reached its climax in a long room with shelves, where after dealing with a cloud of baking powder exploding and getting in our face, we killed a bunch of kobolds, then a bunch of rats, and then carelessly freed a Dire Weasel who proceeded to wreak havoc on our sense of self-worth by relentlessly resisting our efforts to just step on it and be done with it. The danger didn't cease with the cessation of the Weasel, though, as Lord Bolt's predatory nature got the best of him at last... he ate diseased oats and fell gravely ill, causing his constitution to briefly drop into negative numbers. Fortunately, though, Angela looted like it was going out of style, and brought back a metric ton of gems, which we promptly "slanged" to the local community.

Oh, we didn't bring back their men. Nor did we find out what was wrong with their well water. But eventually a cleric did heal Lord Bolt's diseases.


Read the rest of this post

Some notes on our first adventure

So I think everyone had fun; I certainly did. Going through the rules was a little tedious for everyone, I think. I'm sure there are more rules to learn. Thoughts:

1. I think we got kind of bogged down in the rules (at the end it seemed like an endless series of dice rolls) so that we forgot that this is a simulation of a story. From what I've read in the DM Handbook, we want to try to steer away from that kind of thinking. I think we did well at this at first when we were talking to townsfolk and going to the mine. I mean, who didn't have fun when Malak got kicked out of the bar and Lord Bolt had to bluff that we didn't know him?

2. Related to that, we have to remember that we can do anything within reason and our DM will let us know if that's possible. Examples in retrospect: Lotheryn could have thrown the torch at a grain sack or a barrel and used that to damage the kobold since we had such a hard time hitting them with weapons. Malak could have pushed over the shelves to try to crush one underneath. Ieuan could have tried to bluff the kobolds into thinking we wanted to be friends. Lord Bolt could have eaten some rotten grain...wait, he did that. Never mind. Obviously I didn't think of these things either, but I figure it will definitely be more fun if we try to think outside the box rather than always "I better go hit this dude with my sword." I suppose hitting a dude with your sword will probably be the best option most of the time, I'm just saying it doesn't hurt to think of different ways to get the job done.

3. We have to ask TC a couple things. Certainly about Lotheryn's wolf companion and probably about Moonglum's familiar, when he gets it. I don't remember any other specific questions I had, but either post them here or try to remember them for Monday if you have any.

Don't get me wrong, I had a really good time, and I think a lot of those things were weird because it being the first time we've played. I'm thinking Monday will be a real hootenanny.



Read the rest of this post

Plan for Monday

For Monday:

Meet over at our place at 2 pm and we'll get right into it. For food,

Julia and I: We will have salad, fruit, chips, and drinks (mostly left over from tonight). We also have paper plates, forks, etc.

Brian and Angela: Bring some meat and a sidedish.

John and Bethany: Bring your brats and some dessert.

OJ: Beer. Although you might want to talk to Brian and Angela about it, since they might be able to get some cheap beer and maybe you can pay them back or something.

We will have the seven of us, plus TC and maybe his friend. And I was going to ask my parents to join us since they're helping us out by watching the kids the whole time. So that's 11 people, fyi. It should be fun! Call around or post here in the comments whether or not that will work for everyone.



Read the rest of this post

We have a DM

So I just talked to my boy TC and we are stylin'. He can make it this Monday as long as we start in the afternoon and he is good to bbq or whatever as well. The Thursday/Tuesday playing night deal works for him too. Thursday's are better mainly because he has work until 8pm on Tuesday but he is fine coming straight from work and he thought that if we got things set up and ready to go then he could get there and we could start playing by 8:30 no problem.

Read the rest of this post

Example of Gameplay

I read this in the Dungeon Master's Guide. It's an example of the basic flow of gameplay. I found this to be VERY helpful in terms of imagining how the game will play out. Of course we've been dealing so much with the minutia of rolling for characters and picking skills, it's been hard to see the forest for the trees. I think this shows that rather than a series of isolated dice rolls to determine whether you kill some orcs, it's really much more like one of those "You Make the Story" books where you roll dice instead of simply skipping to page 34.

I think this is great. Of course our game will be different - we will have a different DM and we will probably need to ask more questions, at least the first few times. But I encourage you to read through these to get a feel for actual gameplay. It goes to show you that your skill points actually do something. You may have been asking yourself, "Why the heck does it matter whether I have a +2 to Search checks? I mean that's great, but who cares?" Well, as you can see, it may be the difference between you finding a gem in a random pile of junk and just finding junk.

I apologize for the poor quality. I had to copy them as images from a PDF file. I blew them up as much as I could, so I hope you can read them. Enjoy!

Read the rest of this post

Question...

Just how public is this D&D-ing? Also, is "D&D-ing" a verb? Like, I'm not sure whether to make public the fact that I am indeed participating in this game, or just quietly live a double life as an elven bard.

Is everyone here super proud that they are nerds?

I'm not sure that I can even tell my closest friends and family (well, those that aren't part of this venture).

I'm having some self-identity/esteem issues; please weigh in. Who knew such a life crisis could arise from a game?

Read the rest of this post

Time for Monday

Let's collaborate on details for Monday. Some thoughts:

1. As John said, we want to play for several hours since we'll have the time, probably at least 3, maybe 4 hours.
2. That said, we will be getting a babysitter (probably my parents), so it can't be much longer than 4 hours, unless we play in the evening and split it up. For example, start at 5 pm, babysitter drops off the kids at 8 and we put them to bed, then play for another 2 hours or so. But that's kind of a hassle and there's no guarantee the kids will fall asleep right away, especially with people in the house.
3. It may be cool to do a barbecue or at least get pizza and beer or something to go along with our D&Ding.
4. We're happy having it at our place, but since the kids won't be around, it's not a necessity like usual. Although if we do a barbecue, our place may be the most suitable unless we take over OJ's place for the afternoon.

Here are two options (feel free to chime in with others):

Option A: Come over to our place around noon. We'll barbecue (or do something else food-ish), I'll go drop the kids off while we're cleaning up lunch and when I get back we can play from like 1 - 5.

Option B: Come over around 1 or 2 pm, play for four hours or so, then my parents can bring the kids back around 6 and we can barbecue at that point.

I think I prefer Option B of those two. Let me know what you guys think. Obviously, this also depends on TC's availability, so let us know as soon as you can, Brian. Like I said, we have no problems hosting, but if someone else wants to volunteer, that's cool too.

Edit: Or, as OJ suggests, you can all come over at like 7 am and we'll just play until midnight like the hardcore nerds we are.

Read the rest of this post

Monday

I don't have practice on Monday so I am good to go all day....LET'S DO THIS!!!!

Read the rest of this post

We doin' this?

So I've been looking at a premade adventure that I downloaded for level 1 characters and I totally think I could run it if we wanted to get together and give our characters a test drive. I'm interested in DMing anyway so I think it would totally be fun.

Read the rest of this post

Template Feedback

Template update:

This new style should be pretty good for our purposes, although I will look for notepad-scroll type background that we can use to add a little texture.

Read the rest of this post

Nerd-dom

This is not a posting on dice roll percentages, feats or skills. It is however, a brief glimpse into how being an undercover D&Der is affecting me. I am sure this is how John's and my wedding will be:

http://www.brides.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=59154&start=0&tstart=0

- sigh -

Read the rest of this post

Respect Us!!

From the Wikipedia entry on D&D:

As the popularity of D&D grew throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, the game was referenced more and more in popular culture. Numerous games, films and cultural references based on D&D or D&D-like fantasies, characters or adventures have been ubiquitous since the end of the 1970s. Typically, though by no means exclusively, D&D players are portrayed derogatively as the epitome of geekdom. References to the game are used as shorthand to establish characterization or provide the punch line of a joke. Many players, irritated with this stereotype, embrace the fact that professional basketball player Tim Duncan, comedian Stephen Colbert, musician Moby, and actors Vin Diesel, Matthew Lillard, Mike Myers, Patton Oswalt, Wil Wheaton and Robin Williams have made their D&D hobbies public.


Speaking for those that are AAVE-fluent, I find this list of celebrities devoid of a G contingent. Obviously Tim Duncan is black (partially) but he's not exactly "TD from the block," or anything. I would like to hear of, say, an Elijah Dukes playing D&D, or a Tyrese Gibson, or even a Marshall Mathers.

Update (8/26): as Dan alluded to in the comments, Vin Diesel is half-black. And he is pretty hard. In fact, he has the name of one of his D&D characters tattooed on his BACK! Isn't that ridiculous? He says that during the filming of one of his Riddick movies (either the Chronicles or Pitch Black, I don't remember) he and Judi Dench and this other actor dude used to play D&D after the day's shoot.

Read the rest of this post

Addendum to Lotheryn the Druid

The Council had only one idea as to the source of the evil harming our lands. Some twenty-five or thirty cycles ago (forgive my inaccuracy, such a short time period means little to a young elven woman who has seen the birch leaves fall 200 times), our grove was visited by the strangest druid I had ever met. At least she claimed she was a druid. She was an old woman, but by the way she forced her way into our midst, it was apparent that her appearance belied her age. She vehemently insisted to see our High Council, intermittently yelling incoherently and babbling about some new Power found in Nature and some prophecy about a man chosen to wield it. Druids tend to be an eccentric lot, choosing to align themselves with the fickle forces of Nature more often than humanoids, so this was not entirely out of the marshes, but the experience was stranger than most. The High Council, of course, dismissed the woman as quickly as she had come. Before she left, she struck a pentagram into the forest floor with her staff and uttered a vague curse about being left without the very force that sustained us. She then took her Natural form, which happened to be, oddly, a moose, and galloped off as if a High Druid had evoked a lightning storm above her. Those of us in the Order would not forget this woman, but the encounter was not treated with any measure of gravity. Now it appears that may have been a mistake. Whether this woman is the cause of the blight that has sickened our grove or merely a seer, she must have answers. My charge was to seek the terellor, while the task of seeking this woman was given to a druid of more seasons than I. Although if I can find any hints as to her whereabouts, it would certainly help in regaining good standing with the Council. I must keep my ears sharp as the wolf and my eyes sharp as the hawk, all while remaining patient as an oak. I am quickly realizing that this is no simple journey to have undertaken.

Read the rest of this post

Lotheryn the Druid

I love trees and flowers and vines and grass. I love the freedom of the bear cub playing amongst the trees, the intensity of the wolf stalking its prey, the gentleness of the deer nurturing its fawn. I love all natural life, whether it wanders or it stays.

I love people also – the laughter of a child, the touch of hands between husband and wife, the beauty of a sonnet sung with passion and reverence, the way a community of elves unites to aid one of its members.

These are not conflicting loves for me. Whether person, animal, or plant, all is life, all love, all need love in return. There are some who think these must conflict, and though this view confuses me, it will not change me.

My loves stem from my parents. My mother, Melindiel, is a beautiful singer. She can take people to times and places they have never seen or imagined. I have never heard a more impassioned performance than her rendering of the Lay of the Wood Elves and Their Search for Elvenhome. My mother, as all good elves, loves the Earth and its inhabitants, but she is never more at home than when she is sharing her gift of song with a gathering of fellow elves.

My father, Borgaladh, chose a different path, one that suited his passion more closely. His love of the Earth prompted him to join the Order of Druids and dedicate himself to the study of Nature and Her power. His life as a druid rarely brought him into contact with any elf outside of his Order, but he took infrequent forays into various elven communities to ensure that Nature was being properly respected and nurtured. It was on one of these forays that he heard my mother sing. For all his love of plant and animal life, not one blossom of elanor nor one grazing moose had touched his heart such as the voice of my mother. Despite his vows to commit himself to his Order, he married her and soon I was born. He attempted to lead a double life as druid and husband/father, but could not and left the order. As a loving reminder of his druidic life, I was named Lotheryn, Blossom of the Woods, in our tongue.

As a child of such a pair, I naturally gained both passions. My mother taught me to love our fellow elves and serve them in whatever ways Ehlonna had gifted me. My father taught me to tend to plants and animals, not to interfere, but to keep them strong and thriving. Although I learned much from my mother, it was my father’s teachings that most held my interest. I spent long hours walking amongst copses of birch trees, studying the insects as they worked industriously at their tasks, noticing how the trees reacted to both sunshine and rain alike.

This passion led me, as it had my father, to the druids. Nowhere else could I find such devotion to the care of Nature. My father warned me of the isolation the Order would require of me, but I impulsively joined anyway. I threw myself headlong into my study of Nature’s Power, especially enjoying my companionship and communication with animals. Healing came as second nature to me. But as my father warned, I soon longed for my home amongst other elves and to once again be a part of a larger community. I yearned, as my mother did, to share my gifts with others.

Although it was frowned upon by the High Council of the druid grove I studied and worked in, I took furloughs back to my home, mostly under the pretense that I was educating my community in the hope that they would learn to care for the Earth as I did. My excuse did not earn me much grace, and so I found myself in poor standing with my Order when our grove and its surrounding forest was struck by an unknown disease. Animals that were once peaceful became frightened or hostile. Trees that had stood for centuries and eons began to wither. One plant especially, the terellor flower, potent in its use as a healing agent, disappeared entirely from the land.

Our Order was in an uproar. A Council was held involving every druid in the grove; such meeting had not been called in over 1,200 years. One order of business was to restore the terellor to our grove as soon as possible. A druid would have to journey out of the forest to try to find the plant and bring it home intact. Seeing my opportunity to visit other communities and to endear myself to my Order, I volunteered. After much debate, the Council agreed to send me out. As I go now, especially to new lands predominated by humans, I see much need for a druid’s love and caring. I see much neglect and abuse of Nature and Her Power. I help where I can, but I know I must find the terellor at all costs.



Read the rest of this post

Malak "The Destroyer"

As related to Gregor Immilus, to whose memory this publication is dedicated. Gregor had, shall we say, an "accident" when his torso accidentally ran into a two-handed sword. One witness of the event would like to remind the readers that this "accident" might have been avoided had Gregor not made some unfortunate "editorial" comments about the subject of this history. Without further ado...

History of the Tribes of Khanduras

Not much of the history is known of the barbarians of Khanduras. All that is known is they have been there since the Kingdom of Westmarch has started its records. What is known is that the barbarians are grouped into 12 big tribes that are part nomadic and part settled in villages. The villages seem to be around sources of food, water, and material. Normally these tribes are at war with each other and if they are not warring on each other they are raiding the nearby villages in Westmarch. There is no written language among the barbarians at all. What has been found is that the barbarians use hand signals and symbols to communicate with one another. It is guessed that these hand signals and symbols differ from tribe to tribe.

One tribe of note is the one known as the Harrogath, their leader is Gallar the Great, who while searching for a source of food stumbled upon an iron vein and developed a village in order to produce steel. Steel was of great signifigance to the Harrogath due to their god, Crom who is the god of steel and war. They were the first tribe on record to start producing steel and implementing it into their weapons and armor. It was this vein that led them to believe that Crom had led them here to it so they could vanquish their rival tribes. A problem quickly arose with the producing of steel and where this tribe had built the village. It was not near many resources to help produce this valuable metal to them. This led them to continually raid other tribal villages or Westmarch to appease their god and to find resources to help produce steel.

Life in the Harrogath tribe is very brutal, using their standard age of 5 winters old they would start their training. The boys are taken from their families to a master trainer and are in contact with them once a year. The girls however stay with their families and learn to harvest food, produce goods, and mend the barbarian warriors. However, the girls are taught to defend if they need to with the same weapons as the boys. The boys are taught from the early age how to use and craft several different weapons such as swords, axes, and bows. They are taught skills in physical training, tracking, living off of nature, and training animals. After 10 more winters the boys who are now 15 put their survival skills to the test. They are sent to raid a nearby rival village and bring back the heads of their kills. If they are successful in returning with a certain number of heads they are allowed to join the barbarian army, which is more of a militia. Those who make it back but have none or don’t have enough are relegated to returning to their villages to become craftsmen.

One point of great significance to note in recent history of the barbarians is that of the tribe Harrogath. There were two rival tribes Arreat and Cimmerian who grew weary of the vein that the Harrogath was in control of and allied with each other. They planned an attack on that village which was under the control of Gallar the Great, who at that time had two sons Harak and Darius. When the attack happened the Harrogath barbarians were completely caught by surprise and received heavy losses including, Gallar. If not for the heroics of Harak and Darius the village would have been completely lost to the rival barbarians. After the battle both were herald as heroes and given titles, Darius the Vanquisher and Harak the Executioner.

The two brothers both vowed to unite the 12 tribes under one banner to avoid debacles like these in the future and to strengthen the barbarian race. After establishing his leadership of the tribe Harak took the purest sample of iron and had and crafted into a great two handed sword. In honor of the battle he called the sword Kurast and it became a feared weapon among his foes. After taking control of the tribe’s milita army; Harak and Darius went out to conquer the neighboring tribes.


Enter the Destroyer

It was about 24 years ago that a most important barbarian was born to Darius. He was the third child of seven to be born and his name was Malak. Everyone noticed very early that he was going to be a great warrior. He was strong at very early age and showed great aggressiveness towards other people. When he left for his training to begin at age 5 he was put with the older kids after a few months since that was more to his strength and size. He showed great sense in his physical prowess of climbing, jumping, and swimming. He was very in touch with nature especially wild animals; he found special kinship with wolves raising and domesticating them. As for weapons he showed skill in all them but none more so than two handed swords, combined with his strength he could cleave a human in half by the time he was 15 winters old.

His uncle took great pride in seeing his nephew Malak grow up over those 10 years. He would often visit the camp and help train him and see to his grooming as a warrior. Harak always felt there was something special in Malak, like an untapped power that had yet to be showed to all. Harak not having any sons planned for when the time came Malak to take over the role of leader of the Harrogath tribe. Darius seeing that his brother had taken a special intrest in his son grew jealous of his brother for that. He also began to hate his son for the respect and love he had for his uncle.

The time came for him to go out for survival test. Harak and Darius were there to handpick where Malak’s group would go, Darius blinded by his jealousy hand picked a village he knew to be heavily defended by the Arreat tribe. When Malak’s group began its raid on the village they took heavy losses. Malak seeing his brothers in arms that’d he grown close to over the years fall before him went berserk tapping into a power within himself. He gave over to his anger and everything went white to him.

When he came to all the villagers, men, women, and children had been killed. He was the only surviving Harrogathian to make it back to camp, with his body covered part in his blood and blood of the villagers. The trainers sent scouts to the village and when they returned they confirmed what Malak had told them. This greatly disturbed Harak a bit knowing that his nephew had this power in him at such a young age. Darius meanwhile saw his chance at seizing power with this boy all he need to do is wait.

Soon after his trial of survival they gave him the name of Malak the Destroyer and he lived up to his name in the following years. By this time all but two tribes had been conquered in the north. They were the Arreat and Cimerian tribes. Harak wanting to put his nephew in a favorable position put him in command of his armies to subdue these tribes and complete the unification of the barbarians.

Malak, who was now 23 by this point and who had now established a great following from the barbarian warriors, led them against both tribes. In a years time both had been subdued and Malak returned to the village a hero to the Harrogath tribes. It was at this village that Malak brought back the leaders of both the Arreat and Cimmerian tribes so they can receive their punishment for their attack 26 years earlier. Harak wasted no time in pulling out Kurast and beheading both of the leaders and keeping them on pikes in front of his hut.

Malak was hailed a hero and his uncle welcomed warmly into his hut where they began to plan for the future of their now one tribe. Darius and his two older sons meanwhile stood back and brooded at what had now become the heir apparent to the Harrogath tribe.


The Exile of Malak

A year had passed since the unification of the tribes of Khanduras by Harak and Malak. The kingdom of Westmarch began to feel a little uneasy with the fact that now they had a single enemy in the north instead of many that could be dispensable and dealt with at a time. They began to send emissaries to Harak seeing if he would form an alliance with the Kingdom in exchange for new materials and supplies from the civilized world. Harak seeing this as a sign of weakness began immediately to plan an attack against Westmarch.
He called a meeting of all his chief advisors at that time, which included Darius, Malak, and his two older brothers.

It was at this time that Darius and his two older sons, Kroll and Doruk put their plan into action to move against Harak and Malak. Some of the other advisors at this time disliked Malak as well since he was Harak’s favorite. While in a counsel between Harak and the advisors about moving against Westmarch, they subdued Malak and Kroll pulled his sword and stabbed Harak multiple times. Leaving him for dead they quickly went and got Harak’s personal guards to show what had happened.

When Malak came to he had been shackled to a tree, his father “told” him that to commit such an act against the tribe would be punishable by death. Before they would kill him though they made him watch as they killed his family and any advisor that had supported Harak or Malak. This sent Malak into a white rage and he began to try and break the binds that held him. Believing that Malak would not be a problem any more Darius and the sons left the executioner to carry out his work with Kurast.

Malak now had tapped into that power again, that he had so many times before, but this time it felt different. Using all of his strength and how the chains held him he cracked the tree in half. This setting him loose he quickly killed the guards by smashing their heads and then killing the executioner by ripping out his throat. As he brought himself out of “berserking” he saw his uncle’s sword and picked it up and fled. He ran as far as he could for as long as he could until he could not run anymore. It was there that he collapsed and began to weep for those he had lost. He fell into a deep sleep in which he imagined a big Thor like figure approaching him. He then showed him a land to the south with jungles and a group of people that looked and acted like him. When he awoke he knew that his time here was at an end for now but one day he would return with this new army and seek his vengeance on his family. He then strapped Kurast to his back and began to head south in search of this new barbarian clan…



Read the rest of this post