Modules

  I haven't posted here in a very long time. Time is one reason. My deliberate choice not to give spoilers on all the modules I've been running is the main reason for that. I should catch you up a bit.

Our gaming group has largely kept up with most of the official 5e campaign books. The group really enjoyed Dungeon of the Mad Mage. Strixhaven is pretty fun. We've also been enjoying several full campaigns of Dungeon in a Box. It's top-quality third-party stuff, imaginative, and very fun. Again, I would write about that but I'd rather not give spoilers. We've also started playing Gaslands off and on, that's a fun time with Hot Wheels in a rules-light Mad Max/Twisted Metal kind of game. 

We have been gaming most Saturdays though lately, several months end up jammed to where it's only 1 or 2 sessions. I still occasionally run some of my own homebrew D&D adventures. For a while, I was DMing my Ravnica homebrew games at a nearby Play Live shop, but the Pandemic put the breaks on that. I have also been enjoying playing at the MCSAC Friday Fun Night each month, as a player and substitute DM for my friend Mat. Lately, we have been really diving into third-party 5e content. There are a lot of strong kickstarter games out there.

I've been mostly keeping up to date with listening to the Critical Role podcast, which is so good. As a longtime DM I know that every game, every DM, player and group are different. Critical Role are a special group though and what makes them stand out is that they are all actors who happen to game. They've been criticized for being "scripted" but I disagree. Improv with some prep is what we're seeing and that's how a good D&D game runs. Groups I've played in are much more tactical, focusing on combat, skills, exploration, etc. with a touch of roleplay where for CR the roleplay is way in front. Everybody has a different style. I love our games but if I'm going to watch or listen to someone else's, that's the one. Mathew Mercer is amazing. Brendan Lee Mulligan is also incredible. Check it out if you haven't.

 

Aftermath of Golden Heroes (B Team)

The B Team vs monstrous ape temple guardians. Minis: Dave Pierik

Photo © Dave Pierik

Hive

Long ago, the Golden Heroes defeated an arch-villain named Jaramon, who was bent on transforming the world through polymorphic magic, mutation and other means. His passionate commitment and philosophy of change brought him many enemies but also a cultlike following. The heroes defeated him and his cult at his Temple of Transformation. But not before Jaramon was able to breed many new monsters in his failed attempts to sculpt the perfect creature. The heroes declared victory, left and went on to many other adventures.

Now, there are still some problems. 

In the remote desert village of Madhu, somewhere in the Sikglo desert of Ganis, a gnome known as Sod is effectively the Mayor, however reluctant he is to fill that role. 

At one time Madhu had a couple of dozen businesses and serves as a minor waypoint along the caravan routes. Points of interest include Broken Fountain, the Wall Tower Inn, the Hex-Side Temple of Aspirations, a Temple to Pelor and another to Kord, and a few temples shared by clerics and priests when they visit. She-Deal's Supplies, a Statue of Dhuma, a Gambler's Hall, the Rally Station (where the town militia trains to prepare for emergencies) the storm tunnels, Desert Flower & Fashion, Mystical Mel's, Gerchon's Kitchen, The Madhu Madhouse tavern, a General Store, Flute's Rake and Shovel Shop, Cork-Screw & Grape wine shop, Applonia's Pineapple, Lookout Tower, Well & Ration House (Sod's business, he controls the water) Fardham the Great's Apothecary, Slingee's House of Gemstone, Love of the Witch Potion House, Desert Farm Supply, Mel's Camels and Crynyor's Alehouse. 

Now, take the first half of the above list and keep it. The second half is mostly gone. It may perhaps return in some form but the owners of most of those businesses (with the exception of Sod and Mystical Mel) are deceased. Visitor's have slim choices in terms of food, drink and entertainment. Cactus juice and expensive water quench thirst. Ale is cheaper than water. Ostrich eggs, cashews, butterflies and blue-green ants are the main things people eat around here.

This oasis owes everything to Sod the Gnome, who refuses to actually run it as a town. People take turns volunteering to do what needs to get done such as creating and enforcing laws. All the places that were built here, including the Wall Tower and the Storm Tunnels, came about this way.

The previous session, the B Team fought giant mutated wasps after finding people in town covered in cocoons. The town population were being turned into insectoid monsters one by one. Fortunately the party found the gigantic hive and burned it. So the population Madhu went from about 200, to about 12. Now, after caravans of refugees came from the South, it's back up to about 200 due to settlers.

In the most recent game session, the Temple of Kord was rescued from temple guardian apes by the B Team. Gnoll visited the local taverns to gather information, Tiger Lily did some exploration and Nightshade did a bit of gambling, got herself kicked out and returned in disguise to do some more gambling.

The party ventured South by sandskiff and fought intellect devourerers on their way to Dron's hometown , Long Ridge, in the northern part of the Mantix Mountains of Ganis. The plan is for the party to continue South against the tide of refugees, through Demynville, to Barren Heights. Mel Mel is hoping to rescue her lost love Tim Duncan there. She finally learned of his location from a Madhu wizard who happens to be named Mystical Mel.

Long Ridge is a hidden mountaintop dwarven keep and most of Dron's family live there. Dron's cousin Felix went mad some time ago after an encounter while hunting intellect devourers and now roams the area with madness and luck on his side. Dron's father, Gurston the Gurston is a stern traditional dwarf and head of the clan but his mother and her friends were very accommodating for the B Team in light of the fact that it was they who brought Dron safely home to visit. Gurston almost smiled a couple of times even though the group includes an elf, two humans, and even a half orc. But this is a time of strife and the Gurston clan welcome all the help and allies they can get.

Peninsula College

Peninsula College
I have been learning a great deal about multimedia through the program at Peninsula College. I am now a Certified Web Designer, Photographer and Digital Photo Editor. I can get around comfortably in the Adobe Creative Suite 6: Indesign, Adobe Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, Photoshop and also Audition among other things. HTML, CSS and PHP are not the strange terms they once were to me – I have done things with those...

This blog is going to get some upgrades and attention as a result of these new (to me anyway) skills. So what has been lost in game entries while I've been in school might be made up for with a fresher look...

I have also learned how to format and publish e-books. If you would like to see some of my stuff, visit davepierik.com.

Thank you for looking, now back to your regularly scheduled adventure logs...

From July 21, 2013 game

2013 Gaming

Boy have I been gaming less this year. My time is very crunched since I still have a full time job, plus I've gone back to school full time.

That being said, I should report that I've been playing Magic: The Gathering off and on. I even played at a tournament at Olympic Cards & Comics recently.

Go Boros!

I did okay, out of a field of 64 players I won the first 4 rounds, then lost, then won then lost or something like that. I did okay. Red/White aggro is a pretty good build. I love red/white anyway but that little deck was super fast.

I haven't really played much if any D&D this year.

Anyway... I just looked at my blog and saw that I really had not posted in a long time. I'm still here.

One of my new favorite non-gaming game-like things is LootCrate. When PAX sold out before we could get tickets, this was the next best thing, maybe even better in terms of swag anyway. Hopefully next year.

Long Live the... Who?

Lance's high level campaign was very interesting Saturday. B, me (Dave), Mat & Ava, Rob, Rod, and Jesse B. enjoyed some political intrigue with good roleplay and then a good combat. Whitewall's king has been missing for 4 days. Esmarelda is uneasy as are the other inner circle advisors. Queen Verisa pays the heroes of Whitewall their wages, 50,000 gp each. She is 8 months pregnant with the crown prince. She happens to be an elf. A tiefling appears almost out of nowhere. "Hey friend," he says. He's wearing fine clothes that are hanging off of him with about 3,000 years of dusty aging and seems not to care. He has been spying on our conversation in a routine and reckless way. His name is Carsh Tarkassis and the more he tries to gain trust the less he is trusted. He seems eager to help but Ruin is highly skeptical, this new guy seems slippery. Regarding the king, whenever questions are asked, members of the inner circle make uncomfortable faces, look away and change the subject. The curious among the heroes begin to quietly dig to learn what they can. Conspiracy theories abound: was King Leonid grabbed by a tentacle and dragged to the Far Realm? Did the orcs of Gorkni kidnap him? Or... dare we think the unthinkable and speculate the king could be dead? No one is saying anything. In the meantime, we are mercenaries with a new boss: Queen Verisa. As far as we are concerned that's good enough for us. Our marching orders are to go to Gorkni and fight the orcs there. As we near the city we make some basic preparations to not be too obvious about or plans. Kontor encamps his 400 giants some distance away and prepares teleportation circles to bring them close when the time comes. Giants are not easy to hide otherwise. Carsh Tarkassis "befriends" a couple of orc scouts who are then slain anyway by Zuzu and Kontor. Carsh is not pleased, and neither is Esmarelda or Ruin because not only can we not question the scouts, Gorkni will know something is up when they don't report in. So we will have to attack immediately this night and not in the morning as originally planned. So be it. Just before Ruin blows up Gorkni's wall with his alchemical charges, B's ranger makes a ladder out of arrows and Zuzu charges up them. The ranger and the fighter leap from the wall to the tower behind it right before it collapses inward on the enemy behind it. Atop the tower appear to be enemy commanders or dignitaries of some kind and Zuzu is making a beeline for them, right up the tower. On the other side of the wall it is not orcs who await the heroes, but mind flayers. The orcs are effectively their cattle, being bred and herded to fight for them but cattle nonetheless. The mind flayers are gigantic too, not typical and seem to be under the command of the dignitaries on the tower. 100' or so atop the tower, Zuzu is fighting Dorsain, Dr. Wiley and Crotus. They should be much more than he can handle but he doesn't care. Kontor summons a huge monster made of chains to join the fight up there but otherwise the party are focused on the mind flayers. The chain monster knocks Dorsain off of the tower and after he lands he is dominated by Carsh Tarkassis. Dr. Wiley and Dorsain are defeated, mind flayers are slain and tentacles from the Far Realm whisk Crotus and the remains of Dorsain and Dr. Wiley away. Zuzu is challenged by a bold orc survivor and defeats him in a single attack. Zuzu's first act as new Warchief of Gorkni is to replace Gruumsh worship with Kord/Marishten. Yes, Gruumsh is not going to be happy about this! Ruin takes the heroes aside in a confidential meeting and reveals that King Leonid had lost his mind and was decapitated by his own personal guard, to save him from himself and preserve the kingdom of Whitewall. The king's head has been preserved in a jar. The populous is not to know however. Currently the pregnant Queen Verisa and her advisors rule. Oh, and we're learning more about Ruin and his strange re-occurances. He was slain by the mind flayers, but a new version of him appears before us bearing his memories and scars, including six black horns on his pale head to represent the mental damage inflicted by the mind flayers, now repaired. Replaced, more like it. But back to matters of the Crown. Succession might not be quite so simple. Esmeralda's bastard son could contend for the throne in theory and other developments are possible. For now, Whitewall is holding together but it is spread thin across both geography and many alliances, races and powerful armies with huge differences: orcs, elves, giants, wildlings, dragons, dragonborn, humans, heroes, golems. And in Lance's campaign resurrection is not a routine matter. Enemies without and rumors of intrigue within. Hmm. We are now 19th level and encouraged to make our characters pretty epic, within reason. We each get two +4 magic items.

White Wall (Lance's high level)

The Battle at W H I T E W A L L (Lance’s campaign) The Faction of Brecken Ridge and White Wall are entangled in an arms race of epic proportion, involving dragons and worse. Of the five dragons, each the size of a city, White Wall now owns two: the green and the blue. Armies of incredible size and power are mustering, supported by magical arsenals the like of which has never been seen, and heroes such as have not walked the world in an age. The King of White Wall knows war is inevitable and much is at stake. Once again his kingdom is under attack. Another contingent of would-be defenders has come to him seeking employment. He has rejected so many meek, unworthy and unprepared warriors. How many have died already? He doesn't have time to worry about it. Hopefully this group will be adequate. Tens of thousands of orcs and ogres and their allies advance on White Wall, screaming for blood. They are met by 400 giants, constructs, a hodgepodge of other forces, and a few amazing heroes who are insanely outnumbered. The armies fight upon a gigantic field 200 miles across. Occasionally the shadow of a dragon as large as a city darkens the battlefield. Often, gigantic black tentacles and eyestalks pop out of nothing into the air, slashing and grabbing at anything in sight. At the center of it all, the cause of this battle is the slippery figure, the Military Supplier (Shawn's character, not here for this session) of King Leofrig Middleton, (Lance's human warlord, level 16, or at least that’s the level we're at). Among his advisers is The Old B-tch (Carson's character, not here for this session) who knows it all, it would seem. She teaches and guides in a creepy way and is said to consort with the Far Realm. The King and his advisors watch the battle with interest from within the walls. Among the King's protectors (and arguably the only one he needs) is Hector Custodes (Rob's Revanent Paladin) who as payment for a past failure must defend his King unto death. Oh but that's right, he cannot die. Hector just finished helping the King assess and hire these new heroes and he is about to see how they measure up. The King's Hero is Esmarelda, the Paladin-Ranger (who is also Sar'in the Dragon Lady Sorceress; Rod's shapeshifter has 5 personalities) who can single-handedly defeat entire armies when near groups of dragonborn. It is said she has never been seen at the same time as her friend, the psion Ethos. Though incredibly powerful, the rumor is that she has an equally powerful Far Realm nemesis. Sar’in defeated another entire army defending one of White Wall's outlying cities just prior to the main battle. Now Esmarelda is slaying all around her, including one of the enemy heroes who had been flying on a griffin earlier. Among the heroes on the field is Zuzu (Mat’s 1/2 orc fighter) who passed the mustering trials by swearing allegiance to the King after having proven his ability by wounding Esmarelda in a practice fight. Now Zuzu is deep in the field, going after enemy commanders with gusto. It was Madame Eeyahh (P.’s human cleric) who healed Esmarelda after that mustering trial, by smacking her upside the face for being so stupid! This is a woman not to be trifled with, dark in complexion, standing 6'2" tall and made 100% out of attitude. The cleric will patch together anyone else stupid enough to get hurt. Being healed by getting smacked and yelled at might just help in itself. Burning everything in sight from a safe distance is Rune (Ava’s warforged warlock). V'Ronica (Kayla's drow ranger) is having a good time fighting this battle. Moving with grace, she avoids injury while her attackers drop all around her. Ruin (Jesse's white elf rogue) is closely associated with the throne room and was an advisor during the mustering trials. He arrived mysteriously by boat, having been sent by the men in black organization. Now, Ruin is out there in the battlefield somewhere, mostly unseen as the enemy drop with equal mystery. The giant wrangler arrived somewhat unexpectedly from the hinterlands, claiming to be Emperor Kontor Smidge Lokag, G-d Emperor of the Giants (Dave’s goliath wizard). Accompanying him are 200 fire giants and 200 earth titan giants. After initially requesting an alliance of empires, Kontor kneels before King Leofrig because the truth is they are down to half rations. “We were hungry,” he says simply upon being asked why he joined. Giants do eat a lot, as the carcasses of a herd of sheep consumed the night before battle attest. The giants obey Kontor’s commands without question, as he is their tactician and wizard and also because he possesses the crown of their ancient king, the Eye of the Old G-ds. Kontor found the Eye accidentally while seeking other magical knowledge and spells. He stands nearly 8’ tall (okay, 7’7”) as is normal for a goliath, but his friends among the giants call him Smidge because to them he’s a pretty small giant. In battle Kontor wields a storm spells and a tome that summons nasty creatures such as the Stormstone Fury, which in turn damages foes at a distance with thunder attacks. Because he specializes in ranged magical attacks, in this battle Kontor fights from atop the crenellated white wall of White Wall itself. His giants operate fearsomely on their own, having been given simple guidelines, tactics and instructions earlier (mostly involving who would stand in close combat and who would stay back and throw rocks). The golem wrangler, Shar-I-Zaard (Jon’s shardmind artificer) brings forth clouds of mechanical spiders that give the orcs and ogres fits, then commands a few very tough looking magical, mechanical soldiers to stand and fight in a straight line in front of him. By the end of the battle, the the strange crystalline artificer is completely untouched. The battle is fierce but the invisible siege devices of the orc army are not found in time to save one of White Wall’s towers. It falls atop the final enemy commander who is flung beneath it by Esmarelda. But the fall of his tower dismays the king who is happy the battle is won by his army but gives the tower and its former inhabitants a heartfelt eulogy. Kontor, who climbed that very grand tower on his way to the top of the wall, puts his giants to work replacing the original materials where they go, guided by a prolonged illusion from a scroll provided by the king’s wizards, of the tower as it appeared when it was standing. Though many have died, the orcs might be a bit crestfallen because by appearances from a distance, the tower is somehow still standing after all.