Saturday, June 26, 2004

More June sessions

So Crom lived. Maybe you think he should be dead, being that he was at negative 14 hit points or something like that from the giant beetle. Well, Crom's g-d Io didn't want him to be dead. Crom was to stubborn to die, Jon didn't want Crom to die, and I didn't want the campaign to lose the only lizardman paladin it has ever seen. No, the party didn't have the money or connections to get him resurrected, especially in the underdark. I could have thrown a magic item their way that would take care of this little problem. Ultimately, because he had gained enough experience to level, and the new hit points would keep him from dying, I awarded XP early in his case, and told Jon that Io had refused Crom entrance into the kingdom of the dragons.
And I replaced the fallen Daybill, the halfling bard giant hamster rider, with Nightsong Sharpfang, a female kobold with very similar skills, including an uncanny ability to ride Lomax, Daybill's now-lonely mount.
The group is getting a bit bigger. For a long time, it was just me, Jon, Rob and Alex. Then Phil started coming. Now that school is out, Shane plays too. Most of the Wednesday characters are 4th level now. There's Crom, Nightsong, Aiko (Penny's dwarven monk), Shianji (Alex's dad Rob's monk, the only character besides Aiko to survive the campaign from the start), Alex's samuri and Phil's new character (a gnome sorcerer, I think) plus whatever Shane brings next Wednesday (I think he's working on a rogue). Sometimes Carson makes it, and he has a half-orc barbarian who is only 3rd level, but should hold his own.
Currently, the party is trying to locate and destroy a psionic artifact, a ballista of the mind flayers. Things are going to be tough for a while, especially with everybody in the underdark.
Every other Wednesday, Alex runs Star Wars, and he is an excellent gamemaster who knows the rules well, can put together a good story and spends time and hard work on mapping, npc's etc. My Twilek Scoundrel is no longer posessed by a Sith, and my Jedi Counseler, Quern Bomon just levelled to 11th. It's too bad Pieda died, but oh well.
The Saturday group keeps plugging along. Chaun brought a new player, Shawn. It's a good sized group that meets just once a month on the second Saturday. Since we started new characters just a couple sessions ago, the highest-level characters are 3rd level, I think. Roddy plays a paladin, Robby has a cleric, Penny has a dwarven archer, Carson has a monk, Shane plays a ranger, and Jesse replaced his wizard with an orcish barbarian, I think. I have a couple of NPCs, Mick the Gangly (a fighter) and Telpin (a bard). Phil plays a rogue, Chaun and Shawn play fighters, I think. I'm probably forgetting a bunch of stuff. Most of the party is human. The campaign focus is on an invasion of very motivated "moon" elves bent on taking over the Aarde.
I have talked to a few people about doing a Magic: The Gathering booster draft tournament at Old Town Hobby on the 3rd Saturday of July, August and September. 3 boosters and a 10 am-4 pm or so tournament with prizes for $12.50. I will run it and judge it (and play the "bye" games to keep people from getting bored). The perfect number of players would be 8. I have to go now, more later.

Thursday, June 03, 2004

5/26/04 and 6/2/04 Sessions

Things have been tough for player characters the past couple of weeks. A week ago Wednesday the 26th, Alex ran Star Wars and half of our characters were possessed by the Sith ghosts. We finally left the tomb of the dark siders, but Koyi Komon, my scoundrel, will unfortunately discover that when he returns to his senses, more than half of his considerable fortune (about 50,000 of his 99,000 credits) will have been spent on carousing and an old bounty hunter enemy who was hired by "Koyi" (actually the possessed Koyi) to wipe out rivals in a town on the mining world Selfor.
Then last night, I ran my Aarde D&D session. Happily, I have my new 3.5 edition DMG, and I was also armed with some good notes and ideas for the game. The party is in the Underdark now, and Ani (Alex's ranger) pushed the canoe off downriver. So they have been down there for about four weeks and run through their torches and rations. Most of the party are humans, but luckily they have a couple of magic weapons that give about 5' of light to see by. They're exploring deeper into the caves, mainly because they are tired of eating Hydra meat (see notes from the last sesssion). With lots of water everywhere, they focus on the drier caves. Jon's paladin, Crom, being a lizardman, has darkvision, which is helpful when the party encounters 5 Fire Bats, which they dispatch somewhat easily. Phil shows up late, and we hand him Xymo (a human fighter). Daybill (the npc halfling bard), Aiko (Penny's dwarven monk) and Crom uncover a pit trap which Shianji (Rob's human monk) jumps across with the party's only 50' rope. Daybill begins to cross and falls 30' onto spikes -- and lives! Ani falls while climbing to rescue Daybill, and also lives, then cuts open a boulder-sized egg sack with a giant beetle inside. Upon hearing other beetles making their way to him, Ani and Daybill scramble out of the pit. The 10' long Giant Rhino Beetles attack the party with a vengeance. At the end of the encounter, Daybill, Ani and Xymo lay dead. Aiko is unconscious, and Crom appears to be dead (but it turns out he isn't). More next time, gotta go.