Rod ran his epic-level D&D campaign Saturday night. Shawn S., Marshall, Shane, and Rob were there too. I played Admiral Fergus Dowrimple, head of the Arcane Order etc., etc. He's level 42 and super rich. Cedric's invaders from the moon were after 5 artifacts. As a party, we did what we could to save lives and property. And we did what armies could not: fight epic monsters. Ultimately, we were victorious but that was not a sure thing. I think there were at least 3 character deaths though certainly nothing like that is permanent for epic D&D characters.
We fought giant robots, epic undead, far realm creatures, etc. on five battlefields. The artifacts included a pyramid's moon beam, a lizardman thing etc.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Monday, May 21, 2007
A(D&D) Scanner Darkly * Death of a Pirate
Yesterday's D&D game was based loosely on Phillip K. Dick's "A Scanner Darkly." Shopping for masterwork magic items brought the party to Lhevix, a newer city on Aarde built by Khadgar, the g-d of gold and fire (a retired elven sorcerer character of Rod's). Currently, the city's police force is the most feared in the world. The administrative structure of Lhevix is efficient, but sometimes arbitrary. Periods of extreme funding have been followed by years of non-funding and neglect. Over time, this has led to the current chief of police resorting to magic in order to fulfill his duties to protect the city.
Here's a little bit of his background and back story. Loved and feared, Lhevix's Police Chief Klondin Fire-eye is, like so many of Lhevix's high administrators, an epic wizard. Also like many of Khadgar's administrators he was given a title and a lump sum of 100,000 gp, then he was trusted and/or ignored and forgotten. In Fire-Eye's case, he was Geased to protect the city from threatening crimes, and then left to his own devices. In his true form he happens to have been born a goblin. The depraved hedonists, thieves and thugs of the city were running rampant and nobody cared. Few individuals could have or would have accomplished what Fire-eye did: serving and protecting the largest, richest, most crime-infested city in on Aarde with no budget, policy, oversight or recognition. For ten years, any person wanting to become a constable was hired by Fire-eye, and their salary was paid out of his own pocket. But 20 times their number was needed for the job, probably more. So he used the resources he had to pad their numbers: goblins from the Fire Giant islands, who were actually highly skilled. But despite Lhevix's cosmopolitan makeup, the goblins were not accepted, especially as constables. A strange new drug called Black Root appeared in the back alleys of the taverns, and it was alluring and incapacitating large numbers of the city's best artisans, threatening the very lustre of the city. So Fire-eye used another resource he had: magic. He stayed up nights working to give Lhevix's underpaid constables the tools they needed to infiltrate and enforce social order in every corner of the city: hats of disguise, invisible golems, lots of wizard eyes and a chamber full of crystal balls so his goblin-padded forces could watch everyone, everywhere in Lhevix and beyond. It really bothered people, which is probably why it worked. Pleased with the end result, Khadgar, who served as his own chief of finance, trusting this to no one, noticed Chief Fire-eye and remembered to resume funding his department at appropriate levels. This was a few years ago. Now, Fire-Eye's evening watch captain is a dwarf named Captain Oskar, in charge of over 200 constables (143 of them happen to be goblins). Through all of this the Fire Giant Island goblins have proven trustworthy constables, perhaps from their training by the Fire Giants, perhaps out of respect for Fire-Eye's powerful magic and certainly from awe of the much greater power of Khadgar himself. Incidently, the Fire Giant Islands no longer have any trained constables and are in utter chaos, as these prized individuals are all working for much better pay at Lhevix.
Due primarily to Khadgar's reputation for wealth and his standing policies to provide the most outrageous pay in the world for the best wizards and artisans, Lhevix has risen to the top of Aardes cities in wealth and population. Also, under the direct protection of a deity, Lhevix has completely avoided the turmoil of the Purple Order's drow moon elf invasion. So here of all places can be found enforced chaos and state-sanctioned weirdness. A ring of ash 20 miles in every direction can be found, but there are no evil drow moon-elf invaders in sight as Khadgar watches over his beloved city of strange tall towers and stranger citizens.
So anyway, Cap'n Fergus, Joseph, Revan, Taito, Black-Eyed Bill, Lola, a couple bards, a flying gnome dragon guy, and a githyanki or githzeri walk into a bar in this town, see, and... And it turns out that Captain Oskar has been posessed by the Weaver King (hee hee) into smuggling his intoxicating venom "black root" into Lhevix. Not Oskar, his split personality. In fact, the very guy he was pursuing during his career turned out to be himself, and he didn't even know. For years. This is the part of the plot I lifted from A Scanner Darkly.
Of course, the party caught him and knows everything now. The take-down was kind of challenging though because of Captain Oskar's position, but the party did it easily. But Khadgar was grateful, because the Weaver King's BLACK ROOT venom was the only way the Purple Order could hurt Lhevix.
But where is the Weaver King? No one knows, yet.
XP: 2000 GP: 50,000
Next session: Sat. June 2, 3pm
STAR WARS
Jaina and Garrick led the group in counterattacking a whole slew of pirates in starfighters after they ambushed Akbar's Trap while it was scooping fuel at a gas giant. Then Destro did his thing and practically with his eyes closed he and Jarn took out their base, which was loaded for bear with tractor beams. Actually, that's about it. Oh yeah, the rich old head of the pirates paid off the party to not kill him, and make a braintape and DNA sample for later, so the party made about five million credits.
Experience: 2,000
Credits: 5,000,000 (to ship fund)
Here's a little bit of his background and back story. Loved and feared, Lhevix's Police Chief Klondin Fire-eye is, like so many of Lhevix's high administrators, an epic wizard. Also like many of Khadgar's administrators he was given a title and a lump sum of 100,000 gp, then he was trusted and/or ignored and forgotten. In Fire-Eye's case, he was Geased to protect the city from threatening crimes, and then left to his own devices. In his true form he happens to have been born a goblin. The depraved hedonists, thieves and thugs of the city were running rampant and nobody cared. Few individuals could have or would have accomplished what Fire-eye did: serving and protecting the largest, richest, most crime-infested city in on Aarde with no budget, policy, oversight or recognition. For ten years, any person wanting to become a constable was hired by Fire-eye, and their salary was paid out of his own pocket. But 20 times their number was needed for the job, probably more. So he used the resources he had to pad their numbers: goblins from the Fire Giant islands, who were actually highly skilled. But despite Lhevix's cosmopolitan makeup, the goblins were not accepted, especially as constables. A strange new drug called Black Root appeared in the back alleys of the taverns, and it was alluring and incapacitating large numbers of the city's best artisans, threatening the very lustre of the city. So Fire-eye used another resource he had: magic. He stayed up nights working to give Lhevix's underpaid constables the tools they needed to infiltrate and enforce social order in every corner of the city: hats of disguise, invisible golems, lots of wizard eyes and a chamber full of crystal balls so his goblin-padded forces could watch everyone, everywhere in Lhevix and beyond. It really bothered people, which is probably why it worked. Pleased with the end result, Khadgar, who served as his own chief of finance, trusting this to no one, noticed Chief Fire-eye and remembered to resume funding his department at appropriate levels. This was a few years ago. Now, Fire-Eye's evening watch captain is a dwarf named Captain Oskar, in charge of over 200 constables (143 of them happen to be goblins). Through all of this the Fire Giant Island goblins have proven trustworthy constables, perhaps from their training by the Fire Giants, perhaps out of respect for Fire-Eye's powerful magic and certainly from awe of the much greater power of Khadgar himself. Incidently, the Fire Giant Islands no longer have any trained constables and are in utter chaos, as these prized individuals are all working for much better pay at Lhevix.
Due primarily to Khadgar's reputation for wealth and his standing policies to provide the most outrageous pay in the world for the best wizards and artisans, Lhevix has risen to the top of Aardes cities in wealth and population. Also, under the direct protection of a deity, Lhevix has completely avoided the turmoil of the Purple Order's drow moon elf invasion. So here of all places can be found enforced chaos and state-sanctioned weirdness. A ring of ash 20 miles in every direction can be found, but there are no evil drow moon-elf invaders in sight as Khadgar watches over his beloved city of strange tall towers and stranger citizens.
So anyway, Cap'n Fergus, Joseph, Revan, Taito, Black-Eyed Bill, Lola, a couple bards, a flying gnome dragon guy, and a githyanki or githzeri walk into a bar in this town, see, and... And it turns out that Captain Oskar has been posessed by the Weaver King (hee hee) into smuggling his intoxicating venom "black root" into Lhevix. Not Oskar, his split personality. In fact, the very guy he was pursuing during his career turned out to be himself, and he didn't even know. For years. This is the part of the plot I lifted from A Scanner Darkly.
Of course, the party caught him and knows everything now. The take-down was kind of challenging though because of Captain Oskar's position, but the party did it easily. But Khadgar was grateful, because the Weaver King's BLACK ROOT venom was the only way the Purple Order could hurt Lhevix.
But where is the Weaver King? No one knows, yet.
XP: 2000 GP: 50,000
Next session: Sat. June 2, 3pm
STAR WARS
Jaina and Garrick led the group in counterattacking a whole slew of pirates in starfighters after they ambushed Akbar's Trap while it was scooping fuel at a gas giant. Then Destro did his thing and practically with his eyes closed he and Jarn took out their base, which was loaded for bear with tractor beams. Actually, that's about it. Oh yeah, the rich old head of the pirates paid off the party to not kill him, and make a braintape and DNA sample for later, so the party made about five million credits.
Experience: 2,000
Credits: 5,000,000 (to ship fund)
Osterlanders lose, regain ogre
A couple of weeks ago, we played Mordheim. Unfortunately I forgot to blog, so I forgot some details. I remember that I could and should have voluntarily routed but didn't, then got crushed and the ogre failed his survival check but one of the Kin got "The Lad's Got Talent" and became a hero. The next skirmish whent better, and after exploration and selling some equipment at a loss, my Osterlanders have an ogre again. So my warband rating went down, then went back up again.
As I remember it, Rod played nastily-fast Skaven, Carson played Marionbergers with blackpowder weapons and Robby played a Vampire and a couple of his loser sidekicks.
Then we went to Izzy's and said "HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHANE!"
Does that sound about right? Ah, I guess.
As I remember it, Rod played nastily-fast Skaven, Carson played Marionbergers with blackpowder weapons and Robby played a Vampire and a couple of his loser sidekicks.
Then we went to Izzy's and said "HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHANE!"
Does that sound about right? Ah, I guess.
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