Dungeon Grrrl's page

I am so glad so see a few posts. After the massive silence from my last post, I was afraid Id stopped being interesting. :)

About the chase scene. My players remember it fondly, a madcap dash through the mist-lined and darkened streets of Hallowfaust. They often hold it up as a golden example of chase scenes. So , here's the funny thing.

It wasnt a chase scene.

Go back and read what happened.

It' a series of fights people run to and from. Voronex against UnJohn is the only real "chase" and even that is mostly spot checks vs Hide interspersed with fighting. Almost all running occurred "offscreen," with a tactical map pulled out when people cross swords.

But because I presented it as a chase scene, and it had the trappings of a chase scene, people remember it as one. Score one for DM trickery.

As for Aaston's fate, you'll just have to keep reading. :D

I think I'd like to see 'create a religion' as a fluff round.

That's a GREAT idea. Include cults and secret socities to give some leeway, and watch the fun fly!

EDIT: To answer the above question: No, Prestige classes are effectively "off the grid" as far as multiclassing penalties go. You can take 14 of them and suffer no penalties, besides driving your DM up the wall.

Which my group always saw as backwards. IOts PrCs we restrict multiples of the most. You can train as a rogue/fighter/ranger if you want to, but not an arcane archer/eldricth knight/hortizxon walker without taking a penalty.

Black Days of Kor Kammor
Game 14

The Heralds of Dawn are once more captured, and joke among themselves that they must be the least successful hero band in the history of Kor Kammor, until Ryssa points out they keep escaping and winning, which arguably make them the most successful hero group, based on number of escapes from near-certain death. Somewhat grimly the group all laugh, except Tiera.

The group is locked in a dujis, a pit made from a volcanic bubble in the Underfaust. Majic is difficult in the durjis (there's a caster level check of 20 to cast anything successfully), and more importantly any magic cast angers the spirits of those killed by the lava flow, who scream in rage. This makes subtle magic impossible, so the jailors know if the prisoners try something. The Heralds are stripped to their underclothes, so they have few options anyway, but the durjis is the last line of defense against something clever.

They are visited by Kuthven, a Hallowfaust bailiff. He has been assigned their case, sicne the blackshields (guard) who captured them receive a bounty if they are convicted (and thus aren;t considered unbiased in their testimony). That said, Kuthven is here to tell the Heralds that chasing a criminal they have hunted down across the seas isnt an acceptable reaosn to violate curfew or attack any city defender, undead included. Put simply, if the Herlad's version of what happened is true, they're guilty. Further, they have been spied on by the Shadows (the city's secret police) since their arrival (as a diverse group of adventurers with no declared reason to be here, thus likely troublemakers), and the shadow's testimony carries more weight than the Blackshields or the Heralds themselves.

At least one of the guards the group assauklt was a retainer of a guildsman, which makes their entire night's actions a high crime. They are guilty of 12 cases of assault of a guard (the skeletons), 5 of assault of a retainer (the 4 golems and the guard captain), four counts of vandalism (breaking into the empty building and the fight in the bathhouse), one of distutbing the peace (Voronex fight with Unjohn) and 10 counts of breaking curfew (the whole group). That falls just short of requiring final forfeiture (execution), but combines for a 4,310 gp fine and 210 lashes with a whip. Since the group agrees they act together, that's 431gp and 21 lashes each.

Tiera coldly replies she'll kill the man who approaches her with a lash. Kuthven warns that if she does, she'll be executed for murdering an agent of the state. Kuthven asks the group if there were any extenuating circumstances about their actions, but warns that only those that would have an impact on Hallowfaust would matter to the court. The group can't think of any, and Kuthvan informs them their trial will be within two weeks, as mandated by law.

Somewhere between a day and many hours pass. A young magister guildsman, Aaston Ebonflame, comes and asks if Juiren and Mhyssi are willing to come assist him in some matters. He is a member of the Anatomist's Guild, who study the processes of life and death. They are necromantic healers, and often people with plagues and similar ailments come to them from around the world for cures when divine magic fails. Aaston says is hoping Mhyssi's familiarity with both forms of magic, and Juiren's dedicated healing magic, might be able to aid them in curing some particularly sick victims.

Aaston is not promising any quid pro quo, but he is one of the most influential guildsmen, and was just made a member of the ruling council as his master and head of his guild is soon to pass to the far side of life. His goodwill might spare at least some of them the punishment of lashin, or replace the existing punishments with exile, which would do the Heralds very little harm. Ryssa and Lyssa confirm they have heard his name in the streets, and many citizens believe he'll rule the council someday. Despite Voronex's strenuous protests, Mhyssi and Juiren agree to go with him.

Unfortunately, unknown to the Ruling council (or the Heralds), Aaston is also an agent of Zankaras, a necromancer blackguard hiding in the Ghosts's Quarter and planning the violent overthrow of the council, and subjugation of all Hallowfaust under the vile rule of a necromantic state of death demons and ghouls. Aaston is trying to create a perfect disease, something that ravages mind and body, and soul if possible, and only he can cure. He hopes the disease will also allow him to take control of the perceptions of those he cures. His research has hit a block however, and the "victims" he asks for Juiren's help with are secretly Aaston's test subjects. He mines Juiren for ideas on what could be wrong with them, and takes notes he plans to use to improve the power of his shadowplague.

Mhyssi he separates from Juiren, claiming only arcane spellcasters are allowed in the deepest parts of his Underhallow chambers. Once he has her alone, he poisons her in her food and drink to drain her Int and Wisdom, making he more easily manipulated. With a number of <i.charm person/i>, <i>suggestion</I> and ,<i>geas</i> spells, he convinces her he has the power to free her friends, who are really marked for death. Mhyssi tries to plead with him, then (lead on by his spells and manipulations controlling her perceptions) to seduce him to win her friends lives. Aaston admits there are acts he's always wanted to experiment with, but no one could ever know about them. Mhyssi swears to do as he wishes and never tell another creature, if he will assure her friends' lives will be spared.

Aaston then brings forth his secret cache of vampire spawn, ghouls, and zeombies. Over the next week he does sanity damage to Mhyssi (or takes two points of temp Wisdom damage from the experience, above and beyond the wisdom lost to his constant poisoning of her), and brands her inner thigh with the mark of Metorba, the greater God of Undeath (thus granting her the Evil Brand feat as a bonus feat). In the end she qualifies for the Lichloved feat, should she choose to take it. Mhyssi is just one step from broken, and when she returns to her friends she wears not her own silks, but a tight outfit of black leather and chillbane silks designed to protect from the cold.

Meanwhile, Juiren manages to heal all of the vitctims, but also creates numerous theoretical ways magic diseased *could* work that Aaston had never thoguht of.

Meanwhile, a week has passed for the rest of the Heralds. After their first day, they receive four visitors every day. Captain Huegin, who Quince defeated, comes and plays pas stones (see the Royal Game of Ur) with him and works on recruiting him for the Stygian guard. Kuthven comes each day to update them on their case, and Lyssa and Ryssa work (successfully) on befriending him. And the Guild Masters Numadaya (or the readers of the cracked bones) and Mar Widowson (or the chorus of banshees) visit Tiera daily, and talk to her. They are clearly taking her mettle, as well as trying to convince her they can aid her if she agrees. There is no doubt two guildmasters could overrule the high court as a matter of state if they choose, but tiera refuses to help them in any way, though she is polite. He friends refuse to pressure her to do so, either.

A few single visits occur as well. Daronnelle receives a visit from an elven captain, wishing to know if she wants a message carried to the <I>Hawksail</I>. She declines, but is glad elven sailors know where to find her. Voronex receives a visit from some fireturk dwarves who run a legal service within Hallowfaust, who promise him free services is he is so inclined. Voronex is moved, as this indicates the firetusk dwarves see him as one of their own. He does decide to tell them all he knows about the upcoming dwarven petrification, which in time would reach thema s well. The firetusk dwarves promise to ensure that information is not lost, even if Voronex is.

After a week of waiting, Juiren and Mhyssi are returned to their friends, and Captain Huegen and Kuthven bring the Heralds of Dawn to the High court, But instead of the triumverate they expected, they find Grand High Mistress and ruler of the High Council Danar, Grand Mistress of the Animator's Guild, waiting for them. She sits in an animated chair of human bones, that moves on eight spiderlike arms. She is ancient for a human, and never herself moves, allowing her chair to use it arms to pick up and manipulate objects. Along with her are several spectres, bound by collars of bone, and some unique, prsinte, human-looking zombies who could walkt through most cities without attracting attention. As soon as they see her, Huegen and Kuthven kneel.

Danar explains that she has spoke to UnJohn, and decided to take this case personally. First and foremost, she absolves them of all charges. The Heralds are free to go. However,

UnJohn is scheduled to die for his crimes, comiited both recently and when he had visted many years ago. Danar will waive that final forfeiture and turn him over to the Heralds, if they in return do a service for hallowfaust. If they choose not to, they are free to return to the city, and come and go as they please, as long as they promise to obey the city's laws from now on. Without that promise, they will be politely escorted out of Hallowfaust.

Voronex thanks Danar, and notes his need for UnJohn is great. If the service does not conflict with his morals he, at least, will undertake it. The other Heralds agree.

Danar reveals that some force in the nearby frigid forrest is luring undead away from the city. Some powerful necromancer is sapping the city;s strength, and building its own. Danar fear it is desciples of the vile necromancers who were kicked out of Hallowfaust ages ago, and that this represents preparations to take Hallowfaust back. She wants the heralds to find who is responsible, and rbing word of their strength and location back to her. The Heralds agree, and Quince quips that he doesn't like the necromancers of hallowfaust, but he's she he prefers them to the necromancers who are seen as vile by Faust standards.

Tiera surprises everyone by suggesting she stay and work with Numadaya and Mar Widowson. Upon strong questioning by Voronex, she explains that if she is free, there is much she can learn and she may help them track down who is stealing their undead spirits. She refuses to work under threat of lashing or consequences to her friends, but as Danar has released her, she's willing to use her talents as best she can to help Voronex accomplish the task that gets him UnJohn.Voronex is uncomfortable elaving her alone, but when Quince volunteers to keep an eye on her, V accepts.

The Heralds pack up, and head out to see who is stealing the undead of Hallowfaust. They don't realize, as they walk through the mists pouring out of the forest, that the answer is a being they have fought before.

End Game 14

There were things on television a lot of people wanted to watch that night, which we had discussed in advance. So, I ran in snippets and with small groups when they were free. It was a party game, with chips and buffalo wings and punch and the TV in one room and individuals rp-ing in the next. We do this sometimes, and it workls well because people can do things without everyone else sitting in boredom, but if they have to ask another PC a question they're available. This also let me handle what was going on with Mhyssti to her player's content, which *might* have been boring or uncomfortable for other players (though, in truth, it turns out that's clearly not the case).

Neither Quince nor Tiera could make it to the next game, which is why they stayed behind.

So... anyone still reading this?

1.) Neutral. I have not seen the books, and I refuse to commit to any sort of decision regarding it until I have them in hand. I can see myself running both editions.

2) It won't. I like Paizo's stuff, regardless of edition.

3) See #2.

QFT

In my own games, the multiclass xp penalty is applied like a hammer, but only for:

Taking more than one *Prestige* class

Swithcing classes after taking less than 5 levels. If you take 5 levels of rogue and then switch to fighter, your fine. If you;re hopping back and forth between 3, youre in trouble.

And humans still get to ignore that.

Erik,

I feel for the acid-churning frustration you must suffer for being in charge of decisions that affect people's livelihood and not being given the basic facts you need to even have a *chance* to make that difficult choice.

I know I've been pretty anti-4e in the past. I'm not as knee-jerk opposed as I used to be. At this point know, I'll follow Paizo no matter what decisions you make. In fact, right now you look to be my primary rpg supplier, whatever edition you support.

I want to run a game system with support, but I have decided your company's support is more important than any others. two of my three favorite rpg writers do stuff for you. thinks like your item cards and in-character seer cards are too cool not to use. Your adventures are interesting and well-written, and your game world is shaping up to be the first one Ive really been interested in running as a DM, ever. The Supestar contest is the coolest thing to hit gaming since 3e. I even like your fiction line. :)

So, know that a lot of us are with you, GSL or no GSL, 4e or 3e.

how much of a bonus would you suggest?

If it's a named bonus (say, profane), then +2, +1 for every 5 full levels of the characters.

Unnamed bonus? +1 per 5 levels or fraction thereof.

Christine gets the contract and the title of RPG Superstar, and I'm thrilled to tears for her. My Jan 09 budget now has one item on it!

That said, I think we readers all came out as winners!

And, I am looking forward to the next RPG Superstar.

I am not as afraid of 4e as I used to be. Some designers I love and trust (and let me emphasize, I trust them very much) have said 4e is going to be able to do D&D. That makes me happier.

If paizo stays 3e I suspect I'll do almost no 4e. If Paizo goes 4e... sigh... I will too.

And people don't believe those who say they won't switch are right about their actions (as a movement) because there are always people who say that, yet Coke is still drunk in vast quantities, Revenge of the Sith was still a blockbuster, and every edition of D&D got a huge crowd behind it.

Yes this situation is different. They're all different. There are always hold-outs (see: Osric). But the new version of things generally wins out. Even New Coke isn't a counter-example, since they never went back to using real sugar, and their sales apparently increased over the old formula.

From a similar game I ran once (Scions of Hell):

They have a special destiny. When they are together (define together how you like) they gain a bonus to attacks, damage, AC and saves. They stick together out of sheer greed for the power it gives them.

(Warning: Scions of Hell ended when one player successfully overcame all the others, trapped their souls in a suit of mirrored armor, and had them "with" him forever after. We were all amused and agreed it was a fine ending to the game, but your players might feel differently. But until that moment, the game worked great.)

Black Days of Kor Kammor
Game 13

Morning comes in Hallowfaust, but no dawn comes with it. A dim ring of light sits where the sun ought to be, and the learned are unsurprised. The sun will be occluded all day, blocked out by one of the Little Gods, the dark moons that take complex paths and are only visible when they block out the stars. This is a Black Day. There will be four more this year, then none for more than a century.

The trap is swt. UhJohn, known murderer, baiter and scout extraordinaire is set to arrive today. All efforts have been taken to ensure he'll take up a room at the Fish's Head. Voronex needs him to guide an expedition through the Firestorm Mountains, to mount an attack on the Alictors who are turning Voronex's people to stone.

Quince seeks him to force him to answer for his crimes, as part of Quince's quest to prove he is a man of honor and values.

Mhyssi wants to ask some pointed questions, since UnJohn seems to have worked for the Blood Hoard of the goblin tribes.

The rest of the Heralds have no special need for him, but support their allies in the ongoing quest. They do now realize, however, that they may not all have the same end goal.

The day's shadows stretch long, as Quince keeps to the main drinking room, disguised under a dirty cloak, the only member of the group unremarkable enough to be openly visible without drawing UnJohn's attention. Ryssa and Lyssa stalk about invisibly, keeping an eye out for a double-cross, or sign UnJohn has allies. Tiera takes the day in meditation, while Voronex just paces. Daronelle talks to him about why he cares so much for his dep, as they obviously spurned him. Voronex responds that if he can;t be bothered to save his mothers people, he would deserve being spurned. To prove they were wrong in their treatmnet of him, he must save them precisely because they abused him.

Daronelle tries, but just doesn't get it. Listening in, Tiera does.

In the early even, less than an hour before curfew, UnJohn comes into the Fish's Head. He is clearly in a poor mood, and complains about the dreary color and cold air. He takes a room, and makes no complaint about its condition.

The black sun sets. It is night.

Mhyssi, Ryssa and Lyssa knock on UnJohn's door. Wearing their most seductive garb, they explain they got stuck in the tavern on a job, and don;t have a room for the night. They ask if they can convince him to let them stay in his room. He is completely taken aback, and utterly fooled by their thin ploy. He opens the door, and stumbles back as the Herlads walk in. It's night, and there's no place UnJohn can do. As Quince walks in, he's holding the writ for UnJohn's arrest.

Voronex clears his throat, and tells UnJohn they need to talk.

UnJohn bursts into action, which surprises no one. Auriji is by the door out of the room (Maja Gada ready), and Voronex is between UnJohn and Mhyssi, Juiren and Tiera. Daronelle is in the hallway outside the door, prepared to go after him. Ryssa and Lyssa lurk in back, trying to get a read on UnJohn's plans. Quince is near UnJohn, ready to go after him if he bolts away.

He doesnt.

Instead, UnJohn lunges at Quince, tackles him, and carries them both out the window onto the street two stories below. UnJohn lands on quince, and knocks the wind out of him. Then UnJohn starts tearing down the street, Pulling out a stolen citizen's token and screaming for the Silent Watch.

Voronex takes flight immediately, keeping an eye on UnJohn. Daronelle rushes to go tell the propriator that friends of her have been kicked outside, after curfew. Auriji leaps down after Quince, and with a scream of frustration Mhyssi goes after her. Juiren goes after Mhyssi.

UnJohn has been to Hollowfaust more than any of the Heralds, and he came here for a reason. He's had a plan to shake off any pursuit for years, and now he enacts it. He heads right for the Flesh & Bone, a pleasure house that operates late at night, and always has a Silent Guard nearby. As Quince, Voronex, Auriji, Mhyssi and Juiren run after him, UnJohn cuts and stabs himself, so he looks well harried by the time he comes across a group of skeletal guards. He flashes his stolen citizen's token to them, and runs through. The Heralds, of course, try to follow down a street lines with just a single wisp of mist.

They don't have citizen's tokens, and they are running after an injured man who does. The orders of the skeletons are simple, but this event is covered. The skeletons attack.

Voronex flies past the frey, keeping on UnJohn's tail. Mhyssi and Juiren step up, throwing area heals and turn attempts, figuring to clear out the skeletons.

The skeletons shrug off the positive energy like water, and begin swinging magic longswords. Auriji and Quince, planning to run through the opening they expected the spellcasters to create, are swarmed and flanked immediately. The skeletons aren't a match for them one-on-one, but a patrol of a dozen of them starts to do some real damage. One of the skeletons steps back and pulls out a gong, and begins banging it (lacking lungs to power a whistle).

Daronelle explains the problem to the innkeep, and he does blow a whistle to summon the guard. He also warns her that if her friends resist, the silent guard will take them in by force. She does not find this reassuring. She goes to check their rooms, and fins Ryssa and Lyssa already packing, in case a flight through the city is in order.

UnJohn sees Voronex is still following him, and makes for the baths. Voronex follows, but must as a result land to run within the baths. Since UnJohn was ahead of him, Voronex loses track of him. Voronex blocks the entrance he came in, and begins stalking for another exit.

As Auriji dispatches the last skeleton, four massive flesh golems arrive as reinforcements, summoned by the gong. These are the Risen, masterwork combinations of necromancy and elemental binding. Quince tries to reason with them, and is rewarded with an attack by the vorpal axe of the leader, which lands a critical but not a limb-severing one. The Heralds are done talking, they counter-attack. The Risen are far, far tougher than the golems.

Ryssa and Lyssa guide Daronelle to their escape route, a short hop over an ally into a store next door that is vacant at night. It gets them free from any repercussions, at least momentarily. Tiera refuses to go with them, on the assumption that Gildmistress Numadaya can and will find her.

Voronex realizes the cold air flowing in through the barred windows creates a thick mist across the tops of the heated baths, and moves near one fro a closer clook. UnJohn burts out from the water, and drags Voronex in, hoping to drown the misshapen dwarf. UnJohn has been fighting underwater on and off for years, and assumes the advantage will be enough for him. Voronex inhales mightily, and saps 6 of UnJohn's Strength, ending that advantage.

Auriji, Mhyssi and Quince are overcoming even the mighty Risen, as Juiren throws healing spells to keep them up and fit. However, this has now taken long enough that a group of the Stygian Guard, living warriors in defense of the city, has arrived. They order the group (and the remaining Risen) to stand down. Auriji has carefully not raged, so she can clamly surrender to the authorities at this moment. Mhyssi and Juiren, already a bit spooked that healing spells do so little in Hallowfaust, also comply. Quince...

At first Quince's player is going to go along with it. But then, he consider's it from his character's point of view. Quince was chacing a wanted murderer. Said murderer ran past a group of undead who are supposed to keep visitors off the streets at night, and they did nothing to stop him. Then, the undead attacked the Heralds. With a vorpal weapon in one case.

Quince, much to his allies surprise, issues a test of mettle to the Stygian Guard captain, who accepts it. While both groups watch in surprise, Quince and Urkail Jin, Captain and third in command of the Stygian Guard, go at it toe-to-toe.

Daronelle, Lyssa and Ryssa are looking to see if they can move from the building they are in to the next building over, a warehouse a bit further away. As they explore, a necromantic ooze slides under the door and attacks them. A pool of small bones, congealed blood and still sticky scabs, it works to overwhelm them with its necromantic cold. Their cries attract Tiera's attention, and she jumps over to their building with her spirit wolverine.

UnJohn discovers grappling vorones is much more difficult with his Strnegth drained, and the dwarf's breath weapon works even underwater if he uses cold. UhJohn tries to get away, but Voronex pursues him relentless ly. UnJohn reaches the blocked door, but is forced to fight rather than taker time to wrench it open. Even so, weakened and frozen, he puts up a good fight and has a chance to defeat Voronex.

Quince hammers at the captain, and after several rounds of combat, defeats him. When he looks up, he sees more than thrity human guards, twice that many skeletons, and half a dozen more Risen as well as some more heavily armored undead. The Commander of the Stygian Guard orders Quince to lay down his sword and, having made his point (and calmed down some) quince surrenders. The heralds are taken off.

Daronelle, the Twins, and Tiera deal with the ooze, but also discover their building is surrounded by more guards and undead. As a wisp of mist drifts by, they also surrender.

Voronex defeats UnJohn, and unbraces the door. As Voronex hauls the unconscious murderer outside, he sees a ring of guards and undead controlling the street. Dripping wet, clutching a stolen citizen's toke in one hand and a prisoner in the other, voronex looks the group in the eye, and says...

"What?!"

He's hauled off to join his other Heralds.

However, UnJohn is hauled in with him, which to Voronex counts as a win.

End game 13

I am playing with a similar idea, but it requires me to add a condition track (SW Saga) to my D&D games. Then casters would take a persiostant condition move when they tried it, and I could give non-spellcasters some kind of massive effort abilities tied to the condition track as well (for balance).

Black Days of Kor Kammor,
Game Twelve

The Heralds have arrived in Hallowfaust, the City of Necromancers.
Some things about Hallowfaust

1. It's from the Scarred Land line. I've had it in Kor kammor a long time, but while characters have been *from* there, no one has ever *gone* there.
2. People are broken into three categories – Guildsmen (ruling-class necromancers), Citizens (people who live and work in the city), and visitors (everyone else, from merchants to adventurers).
3. Undead patrol the streets at night. Guildsmen can command them. Citizens are given tokens, worn openly, to identify them as allowed. Visitors just aren't supposed to be on the streets at night.
4. Hallowfaust is an ancient city that was killed off by the nearby volcano centuries ago. The current government is much younger, and was established by necromancers fleeing prosecution. The city itself is divided into three regions, the Citizen's Quarter (inhabited region from the First Gate to the Second gate, abut a third of the city), the Ghost Quarter (the Second Gate to the Silent River of cooled lave-flow, an unihabited section of town where the population was once much greater than it is now), and the Underfaust (subterranean section from the Third Gate and Great Keep to areas within the dormant volcano).
5. I have made changes as needed for my tone and plot.

The Heralds of Dawn have arrived at Hallowfaust, in advance of their quarry, the murderer and scout UnJohn.

Now what?

While Quince struggles with feelings of dread from being surrounded by undead, and Mhyssi takes some time to explain to Juiren just how well-armed a healer is against undead, Daronelle and Auriji strike out to get rooms. Auriji feels nothing for or against undead, if they keep their mitts of her, and daronelle has been here before. She doesnt like it, but it well used to it. They soon arrange for rooms at The Weary Pilgrim.

Tiera and voronex stay on the docks for a while. Voronex is checking to see if any incoming ships have spotted the Merwhore to get a better feel for when it's really going to show up. He does discover that UnJohn is wanted within the city, for trying to sell bodies of people he killed as fresh brigand victims. No one is looking for him, but if the living guard pick him up, he'll be in trouble. And no ships should be taking on crew for days after his arrival, so he has to go to ground somewhere. Tiera just doesnt want to go into the city, which is filled with the whispers of a thousand weak spirits from the ancient age up through yesterday. When voronex is satisfied they have two days until UnJohn arrives, he leads Teira into the city.

They heralds take in a few sights of the Citizen's Quarter, the Plaza of Owls, Scravenhall (where Ryssa and Mhyssi pick up some books), and a "fear-house" with horror-based plays and poems. Mhyssi finds the Baths, and the girls disappear into them, including Auriji. Mhyssi sends a runner out to invite Juiren in once she discovers the mixed-sex wing, and he happily agrees.

Quince and Voronex get a lay of the streets around their inn, and try to guess where UnJohn will set up upon his arrival. The settle on the Fish's Head, and get rooms there as well. They also observe the Silent Watch of armored, reinforced skeleton guards, and realize that with years to inprove, train and prepare their openly accepted undead, the necromancers of Hallowfaust clearly have guards more dangerous than a typical skeleton.

Meanwhile Tiera, who gets a private bath, finds herself joined by Numadaya, the Guildmaster of the Readers of Cracked Bones and a Person of Importance in hallowfaust. Numadaya hasn't ever had a chance to speak to an elven shaman, and since the readers speak to dead spirits, Numadaya hopes to learn how to expand her powers with Tiera's lore. Tiera politely declines, and then declines more forcefully when Numadaya suggests a bone arm to replace tiera's missing limb might be part of the deal. Numadaya is polite, but cold, and asks Tiera to consider what a Guildmaster's help might mean to whatever mission brings Spring elf into Hallowfaust.

The group regathers, and return to their Inn. Everyone shares input. Mhyssi invites Ryssa and Lyssa to her room, and the three jump Juiren as a group, since Mhyssi is trying to teach Juiren everything there is to know about sex. Auriji, Quince, Daronelle and Voronex set up watches, not feeling safe in the City of Necromancers. While Daronelle is one watch, Tiera goes and talks to her. Tiera wants to know what Daronelle can tell her about the Guilds of Hallowfaust. During the conversation, Daronelle finally asks if tiera and Voronex are a romantic item. Tiera is surprised, and demurs. They are kindred spirits, says Tiera, and find comfort with one another. It is not a romance, nor is a possessive thing. If Daronelle is interested in voronex, Tiera encourages her to explore those feelings and spend time with the solatary dwarf.

Much to everyone's surprise, the night passes uneventfully.

The next day is spent making preparations. Tiera realizes there are spirits following her, and opts to stay near Mhyssi and Juiren, who are trying to arrange to talk to some flesh-sculpters about healing an anatomy. Mhyssiu gets nowhere, until the junior guld men notice Tiera. Then they become much more accommodating, though no definite appointment is made.

Ryssa and Lyssa spend the whole day taking in more fear-house performances, and trying to make contact with the local community of dusk-people (entertainers of all stripes, beggars, assassins and theives), and find it difficult to do more than get the location of a hidden actor's tavern. If there is a community of night people here, where few can go out safelyt at night, they are playing it close to their vest.

The rest of the Heralds make preparations as the fish's head. In disguise and at different times they but all but one room. Voronex goes into that room with Daronelle's aid, and he pee's on the walls and beds. Daronelle is shocked, then amused when he explains no one is going to rent the room, except UnJohn can't afford to attract much attention raising a stink about the stink.

The group split that night, voronex and Quince at the fish's head, everyone else at the Weary. Mhyssi is too tired for games, and tries to gently refuse Juiren. The young healer is hurt and confused, but accepting. Mhyssi is his instructor in more than one thign, and he tries to take this as a new lesson.

UnJohn is due to arrive the next day.

End Game 12.
No fight this time. Running around and making plans and seeing things took too long, and I had to call the session. Everyone had a good time. The romance between Auriji and Quince seemed to gain ground here, but I can't really tell you why. I'm not sure the players could either.

You've seen the movie The Gamers? You know the gaming group in that movie? That's pretty representative of my group; you try mature subjects with them.

Actually, I haven't. It looked... needless for my life. do you recommend it?

DG, you add a ... ah ...

I wanted to say "breath of fresh air to these boards." But that's not quite right.

But you definitely add something!

A shameless willingness to admit rpg players sometimes enjoy skirting (or crossing) the line into intellectual porn?

I have never understood the objection to admitting some groups include sex in their rpg sessions as pointless or unfullfilling exercise. In the 60s and 70s, porn novels were quite the rage, and a big industry. Porn prose is still big on the internet. Why wouldnt the people who enjoy that enjoy adding those elements to their rpg sessions, just like elements from other novels?

In my opinion, "mature" is how you handle subjkect matter, not the subject matter itself.

elves are hot. Tolkien knew that. And people like to think of hot people nekkid.

so, yeah. Elf boobs, only available in fiction. If you like 'em, include 'em.

It allows us to revel in the wonder of places we'll never see, engage in combat with no risk of our own death, and explore ideas too dangerous or rare to take on in real terms.

Also, there are sometimes naked elf girls.

For a novice DM such as myself, that sort of information is pure gold.

That's okay, I'm used to showing the uninitiated the wonders of fun, new activities. :D

I also heartily recommend Robin's Laws of Good Gamemasrtering, and the Advanced Gamemaster's Guide, which are my Dm bibles far more than the DMG.

I'm working on the Breeding Chart for this campaign world. i can't get the formatting to work in the messageboards (I'm bad at this stuff), so check out part one at:

http://dungeon-grrrl.livejournal.com/4791.html

That's covered in the dvati write-up in Dragon Companion. If one body dies, the other one loses one unhealable Con a day until it dies.

Or until it becomes an undead, at least in my game, with this unusual situation.

Yeah, Yelloweyes didn't last long, and her player had more fun with her as an undead than she had as a PC. We didn't have another secondary character for a while.

Game Eleven

The skies of the Sea of Storms are heavy with soft gray clouds, and the dreary light that seeps through them illuminate a constant drizzle of slow rain. A smudge can be see on the horizon from the crow's nest -- land. Hallowfaust, City of Necromancers, is within sight and it's volcano backdrop is adding to the sky's haze.
It is early morning, and the Heralds are all comfortably asleep. Tiera cuddles protectively under Voronex. Mhyssi is sprawled languidly across Juriren's spent form. Auriji and Quince are dozing, half-alseep, sitting with arms around one another. Ryssa is snoring loudly, while her Wingmaster lover watches her with bemusement. Lyssa is still in the infirmary, having been but to rest next to Yelloweyes. Daronelle is in her cabin, sitting on the edge of her bed and examining her feelings for the Heralds, and her cousin and Voronex in particular.

On deck, the morning skeleton crew, having safely sailed through the night, prepares to wake the next shift. A gull lands on a mast, a good omen. Tea brews, and breakfast supplies get laid out on small cooking stoves. Then, the peaceful scene is ripped apart by a scream from the forecastle.

All logic notwithstanding, Voronex and Tiera make it to the deck before anyone else. The scene that greets them is gristly indeed. Yelloweyes, looking far more gaunt that ever before, is tearing the throat out of a crewman with her teeth, and her wild red eyes show no recognition of the two heralds of Dawn. Behind her is a staggering gaggle of bloody corpses, each looking to kill more crewmembers in turn. None of the deck crew from the current shift have survived, though some up in the rigging are still active and alive, and the crewmen who are staggering up from below decks are instantly seen by Yelloweyes and her newly-created Abhorent spawn.

Voronex yells an alarm, and flies up above the attacking, newly created undead. This distracts them for a moment, allowing the crew to fall back and gather themselves. Auriji and Quince make it onto the scene, as do Mhyssi and Ryssa, but Juiren and Lyssa are nowhere to be seen. Daronelle is right behind them, and begins commanding the ship's defenders, while the captain and other officers rush to secure the wheeldeck.

Yelloweyes leaps from the rolling deck to grapple Voronex, and bears him to the ground. Tiera and Mhyssi both scream in defiance, and charge forward. Auriji trusts her blood-brother to be all right, and ducks around the fron fighting to get to the Abhorrent under in back. Quince dives below decks, and makes his was forward with all speed. Ryssa jumps into the rigging, followed closely by a newly created Abhorrent.

Whiole voronex can't fight off Yelloweye's new undead strength, he can still breath a gout of flame on her. As she staggers back. Mhyssi steps forward and unleashes a turn undead. The Abhorrent turn from her, but Yelloweyes attacks, only to be met by an angry spirit wolverine. Auriji begins killing the Abhorent outside the turn range, and Ryssa successfully cuts a rope to drop one of the ship's masts across the deck, cutting the abhorent off from the wheel deck and the living crewmembers.

Daronelle cuts a path through the undead, and ducks into the forecastle. She finds several crew wounded, and a few dead, but just starting to get upo. She slams doors and bolts them shut to keep surviving wounded separate from the undead. Below her, Quince encounters a few Abhorent making their way through the lower decks, and he engages them.

Voronex, Mhyssi and Tiera team up on Yelloweyes as the greatest threat, and bring her down in very short order. Auriji plows through many undead, and begins to receive supporting fire from crew back on the aft of the ship. Daroneel dances through the forecastle, drawing the active Abhorent into a single room. Quince fights his was up to her. Rhyssa climbs high into the rigging, then uses her whip to trip the Abhorent following her. It falls 30 feet to the deck, and lands, prone, next to Auiji who dispatches it.

Quince and Daronelle trap the remaining Abhorent ones, and when the Herlads arrive the udnead are dispatched, Then, they find Lyssa.

Her bite is badly infected. Black viens stretch through her already pale flesh. She hisses and spits, but ryssa is able to calm her. Then Auriji and Voronex piun her down, and tie her to a bed. Mhyssi goes to get Juiren, who is embarrassed to have missed everything, but no one troubles him over it. He tries new magics to heal Lyssa, and again fails. Soon, he fears, she'll become a full Abhorent, like Yelloweyes obviously did.

Tiera steps up, and offers to face the taint running through Lyssa on the spirit plane. After some discussion o fher lost arm, the party agrees. Since she can cast with one arm, Tiera unloads confront curse spirit and confrotn disease spirit, taking on the two aspects of Lyssa's ailment at once. She must fight the spirits of the horror, alone, and the spirit plane.

(Everyne else is sent to get some burritoes while I run that fight).

Though she is drained and wounded, tiera succeeds. Lyssa us cured, and her link to ryssa re-established. The crew have a mass burial at sea, and Yelloweyes goes into the dirnk with everyone else.

Then, the Hawksail reaches Hallowfaust. The Heralds disembark, and quickly learn the merwhore has not yet arrived, so their quest to beat UnJohn here is a success. The Heralds get rooms in the Citizen's Quarter. They discover local law lays claim to their bodies upon death, unless they pay a tithe to "buy back" their own corpses. Most of the Heralds have a corpse-tithe of 700-900 gp, but Mhyssi has a price of 2,000 gp, and Voronex of 2,800 gp. Lyssa and ryssa together run just 1,000 gp. Numadaya, the "reader of bones" who divines their value either can not, or will not, explain the discrepency.

Grumbling, the Heralds lay out deposits on their own dead bodies. Except Auriji and Voronex. Auriji refuses because she fears it will bring bad luck to plan for her own death. Voronex doesn't care what happen to his mortal clay once he's gone.

Undead workers, mostly skeletons and skeleton constructs, are everywhere. Quince is very put off. (Knowing there are undead, and seeing them in the open in daylight, are different things he points out). Still, the Heralds take up rooms at the Weary Pilgrim, and wait.

Daronnel has a long talk with Juiren, and decides he's not ready to be alone with the other heralds. Most of them are too driven to keep track of him, and Daronnelle is afraid his infatuation with Mhyssi, who is happy to indulge his carnal urges, may come to a bad end. Daronelle asks for, and receives, permission to join the heralds at least for a time.

End game Eleven.

I'll see if I can get to it, sweetie. meanwhile...

Well, the truth of the matter is, if you're human, you're breeding stock. Seriously, humans are the creatures in fantasy that can f@&% and make babies with anything, with dragons being a close second. It actually supports my private theory of humans being the true progenitor race for humanoids...

In Kor Kammor there's a breeding chart. Dwarves have the fewest combinations (making them popular consorts with other humanoids), and dragons have the most (even dwarves ain't safe when a randy dragon comes to town).

Humans and halflings have the 2nd and 3rd most respectively. Then it's aberrations.

And a love potion overrides the chart anyway.

I really appreciate the compliments and encouragement regarding the enxt round of RPG Superstar. That's really sweet of everyone. But there's, in fact, just no way I am going to enter or would possibly win if I did. The reasons are simple.

1. My compositions, spelling and editing skills suck. Suck, suck, McSuckerson. I'd have to have an editor edit me before I submitted, and that would be cheating.

2. I can't hit a deadline to save my life. I am busy beyound the dreams of Tantalus. If I'm not working at my regualr job or freelance job, I'm getting a game ready for, you know, my players.

C> I can't get stuff into a finished format. My game rule material is scrawled on napkins and jotted in files with names like ooogy_thing_in_barn.pdf I have no experience with putting things in a finsihed rule format, and no interest in leanring. I l;ove that there are people who do this, but I amn't one of them.

Some of my best ideas are stolen from a very kind game desinger as it is, and I'd feel awful ever making money on them. When I get stuck I can find him on an instant messenger (sometimes, anyway), and ask for help. No matter what mess I have gotten into, he always has a suggestion on how to get the PCs back to the overall plot.

If you really want to have an adventure like the ones I run, iut's pretty simple. Run any adventure by Nicolas Logue, use all the advice form the Advanced gamemaster's Guide, and tell the PCs they have to have sex with *somthing* once every three encounters.

As promised:

Psionics in Kor Kammor

I love different power systems. As a result, Kor Kammor has both specific cosmological sources for magic, psionics, binders, incarnum, ki powers, and a lot of other stuff AND a catch-all source for any weird one-off or rare power I want to throw in.

But magic and psionics came first. All other powers are newcomers compared to thos ebig two, because those big two draw on the two major forces of Kor kammor – gods, and elementals.

Magic is drawn from the power of the gods, in either divine will (divine magic) or the forces of the conceptual laws of the universe the gods represent in their portfolios (arcane magic). Psionics is drawn from the raw stuff of the inanimate, the purest quantum of the four elements.

Also, the root source of psionics requires knowledge that is, in most cultures, hidden or occultus. Thus in Kor Kammor, "occult" refers specifically to psionics. It is thus much more common in eastern cultures, based on Thailand and Vietnam (just to be different, but still use all the Asian-themed source material), where scholars delving into hidden secrets are a culturally accepted phenomenon. Also, thus, efreet adn djinn are normally psionic. Also, those lands have lizardfolk and animal-head cultures, so psionics are often seen as alien and strange because the people who use them are so inhuman. (Thus the Keepers, the mohj psion monks who looked after Scara Holthel.)

Most people don't see a difference, but it does mean that anyone using psionics is drawing on a power other than the gods, and the gods are dominant.If psionics were to become too ascendant, the great elementals might awaken. Thus, many evil gods go on holy wars against psionics. Also, some psionic elementalist cults try to spread psionics, in the hopes of awaken their gods. Since such cults are generally both chaotic and evil, even good gods sometimes go after them.

Most famously, the Abaddinian order, a group of monk psionics under the leadership of a fiendish efreet psion named Abaddon, fought a war two generations ago to destroy all magic. They were opposed primarily by the Thothites, who worshipped all knowledge-portfolio gods equally. However, since most people saw the Abaddinians as devil-worshippers, this only slightly tilted popular favor against psionics further.

You've clearly delineated where cinematic begins an ends in your game.

Allowed:
Cutting off your own arm with a knife in one round with a Fort save

Disallowed:
Breathing the air out of a dead corpse's lungs underwater though a knife hole.

That sounds about right.

::giggle::

::blush::

Well, she *did* have all the skills needed, and it *was* a boning knife...

I'm glad you all are enojying it!

I'll get to psionics in Kor kammor as soon as I can free up the time!

Thanks for the feedbaclk!

Black Days of Kor Kammor
Game Ten, Part Three and Last

The Heralds are fighting a twpo-front war, with two EYes of the Deep down in the sea water, and against a hoarde of Abhorrent One (AO) undead in the inverted hull of a slaver ship caught in a sargasso.

At the deepest point of the battle, Mhyssi is conscious and not badly damaged, but is still making Con checks with high (and growing) DCs to not start drowning, and is at the deepest point of the underwater battle. There is an illusion of her own form slowly sinking past her, and what *appears* to actually be Juiren doing the same. And an Eye of the Deep is attacking her. Her player does a quick calculation on how long it'll take her to get to the air pocket, and decided both she and Juiren will be dead before that happens. Desperate for any way to even the odds, she tries to snags Juiren's tunic (touch attack miss by one) and begins casting Summon Monster II (action point for Silent Spell).

The other heralds keep swimming downward. Meanwhile Ryssa, back safely on the Hawksail asks if they have a sea-caster, They do, of course, but he's not about to risk himelf in the situation Ryssa is describing the heralds being in. Rhyssa just wants a water breathing spell, because since it is a touch, hamrless spell she can transfer it's benefits to Lyssa, her other body. However, she bothces her Diplomacy check, and the caster is hesitant, since he can only cast the spell once per day. Normally, he uses it in emergencies, and casts it on multiple people. The ship's captain gives the caster permission to use the spell, but isnt willing to order him to do so. In the end, Ryssa shells out 240 gp for the spell, then shifts its benefits to Lyssa. She also "buys" healing spells from a 3rd level druid travling on the Hawksail several times during the fight. (This takes longer to arrange than tell, since Ryssa uses rounds of combat time to track people down and talk to them)

Despite being attacked and injured, Mhyssi successfully gets off her summing monster II spell, and calls forward.... 3 celestial porpoises!! Though she cannot communicate with them, they immediately see she is in danger of drowning, as is Juiren. With Swim speeds of 80, the poirposes have no trouble getting under the two, and swimming rapidly upwards. The third swims past the higher of the two eyes of the deep, and is sent back to its home plane with an attack of opportunity,. However, the EotD has no other Attack fo Opportunity to stop the two taking Mhyssi and Juiren up to the air pocket. The two arrive just as Mhyssi passes out, and a round before Juiren would die. He is, however, at -1 hp and in danger of dying anyway if someone doesn't give him aid.

Tiera has her hands full trying to hold the doorway from the Abhorrent Ones, and the beggar with the shiney sword is only some help, having already been beaten, diseased, and exhausted -- though somehow he keeps standing and fighting. Her spirit wolverine helps, and she has spiritual weapons going, but more and mroe of the creatures are cralwing out of the woodwork to swamp the position she's trying to defend. Now, Mhyssi and Juiren pop out of the ocean, breathing but exposed to the undead. The beggar lurches out to defend the two unconscious heralds, leaving Tiera unable to go help them wihtout letting the surviving slaves behind her be swarmed and devoured. Feeling she has few options left, she tries to call the sargasso weeds into the hull. A few fronds make it in through the water, but enough enough to do much.

Meanwhile, the waterborn fighting gets much more interesting. The Eyes of the Deep come rushing up from the depths, and the Heralds are swimming and singking down from abaove. The two groups come into contact, and mayhem is unleashed. Lyssa's dagger is more effective in some ways than Quince's longsword, and Daronelle switches to a twin dagger fighting style, but without doubt it is Auriji's Phrit Fi that once more does the most damage, and she hooks the glitterdust rope over her foe's claw. But the eyes have terribler claws and bites, and one manages to grapple Lyssa. Immediately, it can score its claw and bite attacks one her automatically every round, and she has only half the total hit points of her two-body soul.

Voronex takes the longest to get down, and positions himself oddly away from the others. Everyone assumes he can't possible use a breath weapon, as fire will be useless andd if he uses cold he may kill Lysaa, who is in the same space as one of the two EotD. However, instead of exhaling, Voronex inhales mightily! He catches the two EotD and Lyssa, and does a -6 Str penalty to all of them! (I thought this was a really cool effect for a weakening breath weapon, inhaling their strength, and we made it official from there on out) Lyssa then uses Escape Artist, which doesn't suffer from her lessened Strength, to easily slip free. Suddenly, the EotD hit much less often in melee, and do less damage when they hit. Quince engages the once Lyssa escapes, and hammers at it as it tries to catch up to the Jester, who begins making her way toward Auriji.

But claws are not their only weapons. The other EotD hits Lyssa with a hold person, a paralysis that has her begin drowning immediately. Except, she can breath water now, so even if she loses her breath she's at no risk! But Quince doesn't know that. Quince has to stop fighting to grab her, and move to safety. Darronelle covers his escape with quick, short passes against the eye of the deep, but cant keep its attention long. Quince kicks off a submerged rowboat, which flips and dumps a pile of bodies that begin to be dragged down by their iron chains. These bodies are clearly slaves, their throats bitten out by the undead and their bodies dumped into the water. They drift down, toward Auriji and the lower EotD. Quince believes he has just three rounds to get Lyssa into air, or she dies. Lyssa, meanwhile, checks to see if she has lost her breath, and hasn;t yet.

Voronex zeroes in on the EotD Quince was fighting, and breaths ice on it. Already wounded, it starts to flee. Voronex goes after it, but can't begin to keep up. Daronelle goes after him and can swim faster, but is quickly running out of air. The other Eye heads down, and Auriji is dragged by her rope after it, as the bodies drift about her.

In the hull, Tiera casts plant growth on the few fronds of seaweed that had crawled in, choking off the entrayway she needs to guard. The Abhorrent ones are cut off from the slaves, but so is Tiera. She spins, knocking shreiking slaves out of her was as she looks for another way around, so she can help Mhyssi and Juiren. The AOs start to hack through the vines.

Meanwhile, the beggar is the only one keeping the Abhorrent Ones off the two unconscious Heralds. They rush him, grappling him and bearing him to the ground. One disarms him, knocking his shining sword from him. The sword clatters from the beggar's battered hand, skids across the tilted ship decking, and slides into the sea. The beggar cries out in anguish, but lacks the strength to get the Abhorrent Ones off him. The sword appaears lost.

Food Arrives, and we take a few minutes to eat.

During the pizza break, Auriji's player asks me some questions about her tribe, for roleplaying purposes. She knows as a warrior her spirit is rewarded in the afterlife if she dies wll, and undeath is unacceptable to her people. She knows they burn bodies of the dead in pyres, to free any pieces of spirit trapped within, because she and I had talked about that. What she wants to know is, how does dronwing work into her people's mythology. It's a fair question, and over slices of mushroom and pineapple we discuss it. The Onyx Jaguars (her tribe) are a people that worship spirits of the air. They believe the more active you are the more air you breathe, thus the more in touch with the spirits. So an active death, or a fighting death, is best for warriors. So she doesn't want to die underwater, because water will fill her lungs. So she is putting her soul in risk with these actions.

Auriji's player asks what about bodies that die and then fall into water? After all, she wasn't worried about her soul when fighitng on the deck of the Ill Wind. Now, I'll admit that I was worried Auriji was going to get herself killed again, so I went a little CSI and mentioned that bodied that die, THEN go into the water still have air in their lungs. Auriji's player gave me an odd look, and asked if that was *really* common knowledge among her people. Would Auriji know that? I shrugged and said sure, their shamans find that stuff out and spread it around. I was hoping it t would encourage her to get Auriji, who I liked, back to safety.

Foolish me. Back to the game.

Tiera finds a crawlway leading back toward the part of the ship with Mhyssi and Juiren. She wriggles her way down it, toward the sounds of biting and tearing. Knowing Juire is nearest death (she could see how pale he was) she orders her spirit totem wolverine to guard his body until she arrives. The crawlway is broken with lots of little holes, leaving her vulnerable and exposed as well as constricted, but Tiera does not want to let her friends down.

Lyssa recovers from the hold person the next round and looks at Quince, who is clearly in trouble about air (he burned actions points for extra standard actions to get to her, and that's burned up his held breath fast). She indicates a chain he needs to cut. Having spent time learning rigging, she sees if he's attached to one of the ropes tangled up in the chain, cuts the chain, the heavy crossbeam on one side of the rope will fall, and Quince will shoot upwards. She ties him to the rope.... but unfortunately, her dagger can't possibly cut through it. Quince sees what she wants, but isn't sure he can hack a chain with his sword fast enough....

As the shining sword the beggar dropped slides right at him in the water. Quince is right under where it went in, and it is now falling past him. That provokes an attack of opportunity, and Quince, seeing how bright it is, takes a chance to grab it, Quickdraw it to ready it, and hack at the chain. As soon as his gloved fingers curl around the hilt: Quince is told in his mind the sword is Breach, Sword of Sieges, and it's purpose is Up, not here! Quince accepts this, as he wants to get up too. Since that completes it's special purpose, Breach gives him great power, and Quince Smites the chain. As Lyssa hoped, the Quince goes hurtling upwards. Lyssa is holding the cut crossbeam, and plunges into the depths. Lyssa is still holding her breath, even though she can breathe water and knows it. I didnt understand why, but acknowledge she's still got a lungfull of slightly stale air.

As one Eye of the Deep, roped to Auirji by the glitterdust rope, goes deeper and deeper, Auriji snags one of the bodies of the slaves which had their throats bitten out. She pucnhes her dagger deep into its chest, then moves to suck air out of its dead lungs.

Okay, debate time. It's a cool as hell manever, especially for a barbarian. But I don't believe for a minute it'll really work. But who wants real in a fantasy game? On the other hand, you have to have some kind of baseline, and if it isn't reality, it should at least be cinematic reality. In the end, I tell her that to reward a cool idea, she need not make a Con check this round, and her Con check is set back by 1 point next round. However, it didn't work, and Auriji now knows it won't work, so she wont have any reason to try again. This doesn't penlaize Auriji for her player's cool idea, but it also keeps the game more believable for me (and I discover later, several other players). Evenone is pokay with that ruling, and on we go.

Quince pops up with Breach, just as the Abhorrent Ones are finishing off the beggar. However, his means he's free to protect Mhyssi and Juiren... except he's not. Breach is the Sword of Sieges, and it insist on dealing with the Abhorrent Ones trying to get past the plant growths seaweed at the salves, ignores those laying on the ground. Quince tries to refuse, but having accepted its power to get here, Breach forces him to submit to its priorities. Quince scream and yells to get the Abhorrent One's attention, then lkeaps over the the vine choked doorway Tiera left a fewe rounds agi. Here, he stands with Breach, ready to hold it against all comers. This counts as a siege, and Breach gives Quince access to its full array of special powers.

Voronex is falling behind one fleeing eye of the deep, and decided it's time to turn back. He just wanted to chase it far enoguh it wouldnt come back, swim around him, and go get the vulnerabe auriji. But as he turns, he realizes he's swum too close to the sharks, still circling., Now, two attack him and Daronelle. Suddenly Voronex has more serious concerns than if a fleeing EotD is going after Auriji. Daroneele begins making Con checks to not drown.

Meanwhile, Auriji has the highest Con in the group, and it's even higher when raging (oddly the madder she is, the longer she can hold her breath), and she just sank for a few rounds rather than fight, but she's never gotten a fresh breath of air. She's more than three minutes under water now (Extedned rage the only reason she hasnt died earlier), and having to spend action points to increase her Con checks to the 20+ range to keep from beginning to drown.

But Lyssa, frail, pale jester, now reaches Auriji and lets go of the falling crossbeam. Lysaa reaches out for Auriji, and plants a kiss on the surprised barbarian's lips. And with that kiss, comes the last few rounds worth of fresh air from Lyssa's lungs. Lyssa backs away, a trail of blood tricking from her mouth (YOU kiss a raging barbarian girl and see how you look afterward), then takes a big lungful of water, breathing it happily.

Lyssa only had a couple of round before she'd have to had begun making con checks, so Auriji still didn't get a fresh Con-duratin in rounds of air. But I did rest her to DC 10 Con checks, since she got *some* fresh air.

Voronex alternates between weakning breath and cold breath, and he and Daronelle actually dispatches two sharks handily. But she needs air, and is forced to head not for the air pockets, but the surface of the sargasso. Sharks head after her. Voronex takes a round to guts the dead sharks, and swims away. When other sharks swim in, the fresh, dead sharks are easier meals than the dragnblooded deformed dwarf or the fleeing spring elf. Daronelle makes it to the sargasso surface and can breath, but is stuck. She misses the rest of the fight.

Tiera is crawling through a tight space, trying to reach the spot where Mhyssi and Juiren lay helpless, Juiren dying. (We don't kill people until they reach -10, -their Con, or -their level, whichever is greater, but even so Juiren is close to death just from bleeding). She has to duck through an underwater section, which is where she first gets to where she can see the two bodies. All but one Abhorrent One have gone to attack Quince, but that one has finished killing the beggar, and now turns it horrid, vile attentions on Mhyssi. As she tries to squeeze out to help, still submerged, Tiera finds one armed grabbed!

An Abhorrent one has found her, and grabbed her arm through one of the many cracks and opening in the crawlway. Tiera struggls to get free, but even with her bull's strength she is no match for its undead grip. She can see the vile thing the abhorrent One by Mhyssi is doing, but can't get free to help. Worse, it bites and claws as it violates her, and Tiera is sure if she sends her wolverine to stop it, it'll turn its attentions on Juiren, who will die after a single bite. Nor can she cast, because she needs both Silent Spell (as she's currently underwater) and Still Spell (since the APO has one arm). She can use an action point for one of those, but not both. She can hear Quince bellowing in rage, but he used Breach's power, and it won't let him leave a defensible position defending others to save someone with no foritifcation.

Renewed, Auriji reels herself into the EotD she;'s fought so long, and Lyssa catches a ride with her. The eye ties once more to paralyse them, but even though her rage ends, Auriji resists. It tries to bite them, and fails. Lyssa does a mime patonmine of how rediculous the eye of the Deep looks, using her motely hat and a glitterdust mop head nearby (from the original casting of the spell), creating an inpsiring quip. Now that she isnt enraged, Auriji is amused and gains a bonus from the quip to attack the EotD. They are also now beneath most of the debris. Auriji puts away Phrit Fi, and whips out Majah Gada. The Eye of the deep regains its strength, and attacks full force, and Lyssa loses sight of the two in a cloud of blood.

Voronex is also clear of the debirs now, returning his darkvision to full range. He sees the glitterdust rope far benath him, and sees the second eye of the deep headed toward that battle as well. Despite his slow speed, he heads that way.

Quince is a fury, hacking and slashing with Breach and taking on all but two of the Abhorrent Ones left in the hold area. He discovers that with breach, each time he successfully hits in defense of others in a fortification, he gains 1 hp. This encourages him to power attack less, as hitting with more, weaker blows gets him mroe healing. But he still can't reach mhyssi.

Nor can Tiera, and it's driving her mad. The player confirms it's only her arm that is pinned by the Abhorrent One, and I confirm that's the case. Juriens player encourages her to call her wolverine to help her, risk an AO killing him, but then getting free to help Mhyssi, but Tiera can ehar other Aos headed this way, and has other plans. Noting she has skinning and tanning skills, Tiera declares she's pulling out her boning knife with her free arm, and cutting off her pinned arm at the shoulder, working it through the joint as a clean cut.

A bit stunned, I require a DC 20 skill check, and a DC 25 Fortitude save. Tiera makes both (with the aid of an action point). I deal critical knife damage to her, tell her she's bleeding one hp a round, and otherwise let her go. The Abhorrent One with her arm begins to feed on it, And Tiera works her way free for the watery crawlspace.

Auriji slays one EotD, just as the second one arrives. Lyssa nails it with a Tasha's Hideous Laughter, which works despite the type difference (action point for Silent Spell) , and the two Heralds begin swimming upward. They join Voronex, who takes up a reargaurd.

Yelloweyes finds the main fight, at long last, and sees a new band of Aos ready to jump Quince (thoe ones Tiera heard coming). Yelloweyes takes human form, and tries to hit the lead one with a beguiling stare. However, the AOs are fully undead, and thus immune to mind-affecting powers. The Aos jump yelloweyes, baring her to the ground and beginning to feed on and ravish her.

Tiera, bleeding, bursts out and faces the AO violating Mhyssi's unconscious, and now nearly dead, form. She uses her other 4th level spell for the day (With Still Spell from an action point, since she is missing and arm and holding a knife), and casts divine power on herself. Then she jumps the AO, knifing it viciously. The two get into a nasty claw brawl.

Voronex falls behind, but is okay with that. The Eye of the deep he chased off once hits him with a stun cone, which does not affect him, but voronex stops moving anyway. When the creature grapples him, voronex hits it full n the face with cold breath. It freezes, and dies.

Auriji and Lyssa pop up, to see one AO attacking a wolverine, one rolling on the ground bwith Tiera, Mhyssi and Juiren laying in a heap, torn and bloody, and quince finishing off tweo OA by a weed-choked entrance. Auriji dispatches the one fighting the wolvering, and Lyssa applies a healign potion ot Juiren. And now, the healer is conscious, and has nearly his full complement of spells.

Juiren heals Mhyssi. Mhyssi nails the OA fighting Tiera with a scorching ray. Quince dispatches the last one fighting him, meaning he's now free to move from his spot. The group NOW hears the fight around the bend, where Yelloweyes is being bitten and molested. Auriji, Tiera, Quince, and Mhyssi rush around the corner, and engage the last Aos. Juiren checks out the beggar, who is dead and beyond help.

The heralds crush the last of the Aos, and Yellowyes is, just barely, alive. Juiren hels everyone, but cant restore Tiera's arm, which no one can find. Tiera shrugs it off.

Under Tiera's command, the sargasso pushes the capsized ship out (but lacks the strength to right it), and releases Daronelle. With the ship out of the danger zone, the Hawksail's crew help with rescue and recovery operations, which take the rest of the day.

Late in the day, Yelloweyes and Lyssa fall ill as the Abhorrent One bites infect and begin to send black streamers acorss their veins. Though bitten as much as either, Mhyssi makes all saves against the magic diseases. Jurien tries to cure Lyssa (he only has one prepared), but must make caster level checks against the magic disease and fails. Despondant, he promises to try again tomorrow. Mhyssi tells him she's sure he'll do fine, and he perks up. Tiera also promises to try, if Juiren fails, as her magic is different.

The dead are burned rather than buried at sea, at Voronex's insistence. Great treaure is brought from the slaver's hold, which the heralds share with the surviving slaves (each of whom refuse to take more than 1,000 gp each, still leaving the PCs a hefty haul). Quince tries to get rid of Breach, but it talks him out of it. He can do as he will in combat, as long as he doesnt call on its powers. But if he finds he MUST defend innocents anyway, why not use the sword? He grugingly agrees.

Among other treasures, Mhyssi finds an emerald that enhances weapons it is put on, and slaps it on her greatword. Auriji gets a big ring of protection and boots of spring and striding. A lot of magic armor is passed out. Voronex gets a belt of giant strength because no one else will take it (treasure overload, and people felt guilt for voronex not having class-specific items). Daronelle gets a pair of magic keen shocking short swords. Tiera gets a cloak of the bear. There's other stuff I didnt note at the time.

That night, Tiera simple goes to voronex's room with him, convincing Daronelle (with some reason) the two are now an item. Mhyssi is feeling a bit jittery, and asks Juiren if he'd mind if they had sex. Juiren is flabbergasted, which Mhyssi at first takes as a refusal, but when she discovers he's a virgin she decides to "break him in." Mhyssi needs only four hors of meditation, and as a result Juiren is fatigued the next day. Ryssa stays with the master of wings, while Lyssa sleeps in the infirmary with yelloweyes. Auriji and Quince go to their room, and have victory sex, then talk about Breach and what its powers mean.

The Hawksail finds bunks for 78 surviving slaves, and Tiera offhandedly convinces the sargasso to take itself, the capzied ship, and the debris back to the bottom of the sea. As the
Hawksail heads toward Hallowfasut, the seaweed sargasso sinks into the ocean, leaving no sign of the battle that left a Herald permanently maimed by her own hand.

End Game Ten

On the mechanics side, I like how you handled Power Attack and the punch dagger. One the one hand, the rules say you can't. On the other hand, it is satisfying and cool to do so. The solution of requiring a Weapon Focus feat to Power Attack with it is excellent. You're skilled with this weapon, you can take appropriate actions with it. I'm definitely borrowing this idea.

Thanks, but I cant take credit for it other than allowing it. But yeah, we have enjoyed it as a way to add a but of spice to fights without adding *another* set of feats.

And not, you have a max Power Attack of 5 with the punch dagger. That way there *is* a point, but it's not as good as PA with a longsword. ;)

Dungeon Magazine #146

I'm surprised no one else has mentioned this yet. Dungeon magazine isn't in the SRD. It's not OGL. It's off limits for this contest.

The writers only choices were to handwave and use existing rules, or write up a whole new set of rules just for specific lava effects. I think she made the right choice, because it's playeable.

I'm against taking their names off for one simple reason. In the real rpg publiching world, we'll see their names.

Managing fans expectations, and their comments, in a positive way is as much an RPG Superstar's task as designing a good adventure. There are people who buy, or avoid, things by Mike Mearls, Monte Cook, Owen Stevens, Rodney thompson, Nickie Logue, James Jacobs or even Erik just because they know that name. Some authors are chided for how they respond to fans (See: Mike Mearls on these very boards).

Fair or no, fans and their reaction to your actions outside the stuff you write for adventures is as much a part of an rpg designer's success as having to draw a map for the cartographer. To remove that element is to remove part of what these people are competing to be good at.

Black Days of Kor Kammor
Game Ten, Part Two
It's a bright day on the Sea of Storms. Two Eyes of the Deep (EotD) are attacking a capsized ship. The Heralds of Dawn thought they could handle anything they encountered today. They have miscalculated, and one of them is about to pay for it.

It's dark in the water. While it's full light on the surface, the vast hull totally blocks light below it, and the seaweed sargasso chokes out most of the rest of the light. Voronex's darkvision is cut to half distance for the clutter and detris floating through the sea, those with low-light get clear illumination out to only ten feet, and the humans have only five feet of bright visibility. It's actually easier to see down than up (as the clutter is thinner below them), and the glitterdust rope is clearly visible from a distance, though it's illumination doesn't make the area around it much brighter.

Lyssa, Daronelle and Voronex are in the first major air pocket, in a mid deck now right below one of the middle cargo holds. There is the smell of salt, blood, human waste and fear everywhere. As soon as they pop up, several maddened, patchwork-wrapped grey men turn from their efforts to claw open a hatch, and lock their oily black eyes on the Heralds. These are the survivors of the Ghuraki crew, now fully undead Abhorrent Ones and seeking living flesh on which to feed. Lyssa and Daronelle gamely engage them, but their precision attacks aren't particualrly effective against undead. Voronex breaths fire in great gouts, confident the wood by the waterline is wet enough he won't catch the ship on fire. Lyssa suffers a terrible Abhorrent bite, which turns out to be infected.

Two dozen feet below them in the ocean waters, the Eyes of the Deep's twin stun cones hit Auriji, Quince, Tiera, Mhyssi, and Juiren, with Auriji and Mhyssi both hit by two of the cones. Mhyssi fails her save, is stunned 8 rounds, and immediately begins to sink. Since she is stunned, not unconsciuous, she still gets to make her Constitution checks to hold her breath.

Quince rolls a natural 1 and also begins to sink, drifting right past Auriji and Tiera. Auriji makes both saves, doesn't hesitate, swims past Quince's sinking body to rage and make toward the nearest EotD with her punch dagger, Phrit Fi. Tiera is forced to grab Quince, and struggles to get him to the air pocket the Heralds can see about them, shimmering like a liquid silver sky.

(Aside note -- even though it's a light weapon, Auriji can Power Attack for up to 5 with Phrit Fi. We have a weapons guru in our group, and he was bothered that the punch dagger, which is primarily based on getting your full body mass and strength behind it, couldn't benefit at all from Power Attack. There were a lot of other little bonsues he through weapons should have when used by an expert. So, we added a lot of little bonuses you get if you have Weapons FOcus, which includes up to 5 pts of PA for a punch dagger)

Auriji rages, and begins punching with Phrit Fi, engaging one of the EotD. The other takes a moment to create a minor image of an unconscious Mhyssi, sinking next to the real Mhyssi. Juiren can only see her at the shadowed limits of his vision. He grabs a length of chain hung up by some rope, and cuts it away. The heavy chain drags him down toward the two Mhyssi's faster than he could swim, but that also takes him further from the other heralds and any possible support.

Tiera is having serious trouble hauling Quince up to the shimmering pool of air above her. Then she spots a trailing frond of the carnivorous seaweed. Grabbing it, she depends on her command plants to communicate her need to make it to the air pocket (Cha check). Much stronger than her, the seaweed complies, bringing her and Quince up to the air trapped beneath the ship, saving them both.

Here the battle with the three Abhorrent ones is nearly done, but more of the creatures are moving to the sound of the fighting from other places on the ship. The door the undead were scrabbling at opens, and a ragged, wounded man with a finely crafted longsword (streaked with black blood) steps out. He warns them the ship has at least a dozen creatures still on it, and all efforts to swim out have been disastrous. He's done his best to keep the survivors together, but he has little energy left. He asks the heralds if they can grab a few women and children, and try to get them to safety while he holds off the Abhorrent ones. Vorenex flatly states the heralds aren't fleeing yet, and they plan to save everyone still on this ship.

Alone on top of the inverted hull, Yelloweyes finds a crack she can crawl through as a cat, and sneaks into the hulk. She wants to avoid getting wet, but most of the interior is cut off from the crack she found (which is why the ship is still flaoting, bouyed by the trapped air) and so she has to dive under a section of ship to make it to the main hold. She finds people huddling, but so far no threat or the Heralds.

Meanwhile, Juiren has reached one Mhyssi only to discover it's the illusion, The EotD that created the illusion is hammering at him, but he keeps making Will saves against its paralysis and stun attacks, and spending action poitns for Silent Spell to heal himself from its claw attacks. Mhyssi is still making Con checks, but the DCs now require very high rolls from her, and the EotD turns to attack her stunned form. Juiren releases his chain, and swims for Mhyssi even as the EotD begins to rip her apart. Having cast many times, Juiren is nearly out of breath. With a surge of speed he swims to Mhyssi's side (actions point) and casts panacea. It cures her of some damage, and negates the stun effect. Then, Juiren fails his DC 10 Con check. He passes out and begins to drown.

Auriji is swirling in a cloud of waterborn blood, trading blow-for-blow with the other EotD. It can't overcome her Will save, and she seems more than willing to let it claw at her if it means she gets to stab it. After Auriji scores a particularly amazing critical hit, the EotD decides she is too tough a target, and swims for Mhyssi and it's mate. Auriji grabs the glitterdust rope and swims after it, while tying the rope into a snare. She is now making Con checks every round to prevent herself from drowning.

In the inverted hull, a discussion on who should stay to deal with the Abhorrent and who should go back into the water breaks out. Quince, now revived, asks which spellscasters have water-breathing type spells. Unfortunately, none of the spellcasters has any kind of water breathing ready. The spontaneous casters don't know such spells, and the preparations casters, despite being at sea for days, didn't prepare any.

This resulted in some chiding from other players, until Voronex's player asked Auriji and Quince's players if they had bought any kind of potion for water breathing. In case waterborn assassins made off ther with spellcasters for example. When they confessed they hadn't, the player had Voronex drink his Admixed Potion of Swim/Water Breathing. He bought the potion in Liberty, just before ther party left, and reminded them he'd asked if anyone else wanted to buy one. They had refused. There was no further chiding of the spellcaster's readiness. Voronex jumps into the water, to hlep fight the EotD.

Meanwhile, Tiera yells she'll deal with *everything* in the hull, so the rest of the party can back up those in the water. She decides that since her wolverine spirit *can* fight at full capacity in the hull, and *can't* in the water, it makes the most sense for her to be the ship-combatant. However, since she knows everyone is going to be in dangerous underwater, she wants to free up *everyone* else. Garonelle doesn't hesitate, and jumps into the water. Quince does hesitate, but when Lyssa jumps into the ocean, he feels he must follow her.

Auirij can't move with the speed of an eye of the deep, and continues to swim downward toward Mhyssi and the two aquatic aberrations. Voronex tries to be right behind her. His main problem is even with a huge Swim check, he just can't go very fast. His ground speed is 20, which slows his swim speed as well. Two of the players suddenly suggest maybe I'm being unfair. They want me to give Voronex extra movement because he has wings. They envision him using them to propel him through the water like a manta ray. While I consider this (I give all comments one quick consideration before I make a ruling), voronex's player suddenly, and strongly, vetoes the idea. First, he asks if anyone thinks a bat shoved underwater would find itself propelled forward like a manta ray. Second, he points out he had the option to take an underwater power as a dragonmfire adept, and didn't. Flying is flying, and swimming isn't. I agree that sounds reasonable, and the other players (somewhat grugingly) agree.

Tiera is stuck inside the hull with a dozen mid-level undead converging on her, with only a wounded beggar and her spirit wolverine to help her protect the surviving slave cargo. Juiren is drowning, and while Mhyssi is awake she is almost out of air, and far below the waves. Auriji is nearly out of air, and swimming down rather than up. Voronex is fully able, but can't reach the EotD quickly. Quince and Lyssa are swimming toward the fight, but are once more holding their breath. Yelloweyes is cut off and alone, and no one even knows she's there.

End Game Ten, Part Two

Phew. I think this one takes longer to type than it took to run. We had a little dry-erase board next to the battle-mat, and put a side view of the fight on it. So we drew the ship at the top, and a circle in a specific color for each character to indicate their depth. That worked great, but obviously I can't do that for the campaign journal, so it all sounds a bit complex. I hope you could all kept track of who was where, when (at least as well as my notes cover such round-by-round events).

I'll get the final part of Game Ten up when I can.
Dungeon Grrrl

Nothing but respect for my icon-sister!

I love it. It is my favorite. I will vote for it.

Now, let me talk about about why Necro-Clark's heart won't let him chide you for using orcs.

There are going to be orcs in DnD games. They're iconic. They are also somewhat dull and overdone. When people run into orc encounters, they think "Ho-Hum, more orcs."

But not with THIS encounter. Sure, they're just orcs. But the ENCOUNTER is so over-the-top action fun NO ONE could fell it is ho-hum. The environment IS the encounter. using something more interesting than orcs would TAKE AWAY from the genius of this design. Plus, it let's you use orcs in a fun encounter, so you have them in your DnD game without boring anyone.

Second, if the PCs are too high level this encounter is probl;amatic. If they can do teleport circle, or polymorpph into giant flying creatures, or have portable holes, or any of a number of other things, part of the fun is gone. this workls best for characters who should be fighting orcs. It is a genius middle-action piece, preceeded by the fights and sneaking in to get the statues, and followed by the big land race, or the inevitable night battle when the orcs catch up to whatever fortification the players throw together.

In short, unlike most encounters, it is perfect the way it is. I am actually floored.

I find myself having trouble judging this fairly. I'm not used to other people's pencil maps. I would have drawn it differently, but then it's for the cartagrapher, not me. Other than missing trap info, it does seem to complete and well thought out.

I think the fight might be more dynamic with more moving, or moveable, map elements. that said, I *like* the notes about destroyign the lighting, so you can't please everyone.

Overall a fine effort, and as Erik said, I suspect just another encounter for your home campaigns, which I am now really curious about.

And Jonathan Swift was a big fat lier for suggesting people eat Irish children.

Writers get to use some literary mechanisms to get their point across. Nicky was entertaining and provoked a reaction, which is all a writer is really asked to do. And you got it for free!

While I didn't go into in it any detail, the fact that she's one of the Hearts of War is in Mhyssi's very first cast entry, in Black Days of Kor Kammor Game One.

I used the eyes of the deep out of the tome of Horrors (Thanks, Clark!) because they seemed creepy and cool. those few of my players with deep D&D root freaked. I hadn't run into them before so it was a lucky choice for me, with extras emotional impact for some.

That depends. Are you willing to have an animated cat as a co-host?

Diehard does not let you stay up until you die, because that's stupid. It means your character is always kicking until you kick the bucket. I t makes non-lethal failure much more difficult. Instead, Diehard lets you remain active until you reach -5 hp, and increases you hp to death by +5 or to your Con, whichever is greater. (IE if you have a 16 or higher Con, you die at neg hp equal to your con, 15 con or less you die at -15). This also allows warriors to expand their to death range, which can be important at mid-to high levels, when single blows start doing 30-50 hp can can take you from fine to dead too easily.

At every level, you may select *either* a +1 ability score boost, *or* a feat. This replaces the normal feat every 3 and ability socre point every 4. The power up to PCs is actually minimum (over 12 levels you get 12 ability scores or feats, rather than the 8 you get by core rules), but it makes certain character types (including low ability socre, high skill heroes) much easier to construct. (Most people feel players need more feat anyway).

When a creature takes a "5 foot step," it goes a distance equal to its natural reach. Colossal dragons aren't casually scootching the length of one claw anymore, they now take a stride or two, just like Humans.

The identify pearl is a focus, with a 10% chance of breaking each time it's sued. There are lots of ways to avoid paying the pearl cost nowadays, but you should still think twice about casting identify when low on supply.

Scribing spells into your spellbook costs 10 gp per spell level. gaining access to new spells is hard enough for wizards without a 5th level spell running you the same as +1 armor just to write down. Potions, scrolls, and magic healing and defenses dont cost less for wizards, why should gaining their basic class ability cost so much more?

Wow, looks cool. And, a nice nod to how these things are presented in real worl rituals

I am not a huge binder fan, but this may be useful to me anyway...

Mearlsie is in a tight spot. But he's also the new designer on the block when it comes to official D&D. He didn't design 3e, or 3.5 e, but he did a lot of design work for it. His choice as one of the architects of 4e makes sense, he sees problems and wants to fix them.

I don't like where the game seems to be going, as myt D&D game. I had the same reaction to Iron heroes -- neat game, but too far removed to be D&D. I had the same reaction to Mutants and Masterminds for that mateer. Now, I love me some M&M, because ti works better than any other superhero game I have played. But I don't happen to need another fantasy game. I lvoe the one I have. So I may play 4th ed, just like I have played Iron heroes, but I am unlikely to play it often, or run games in it.

I'm not sure what else he can say. I'm sure his corporate masters need him to walk a fine line, and that's fair, he works for them. And he may think things I love are stupid or bad ideas, but obviously he doesn;t want to say that.

It is clear to me Wizards has decided D&D needs a new audience. They are designing this game for that audience. Blessings on them, and Mearlsie, bgut I'm not part of that group. I am now just sad, but it's fair. Their game, their rules, their call. I hope absolutely everyone that picks it up loves it, as I don't beleive in wishing failure on good folks, and Mearlsie is good folks.

I also hope for success to those supporting 3e into the future. No ill wishes on anyone from me.

I strongly suspect part of the problem is that many of us would disagree about what the "gems" are.

Still, Paizo has this stuff now. I trust Mikie or someone else has a file that contains all the submissions. If they decide some of this material is too good not to use, they can use it, in a complitation or elsewhere.

In theory a major celestial bloodline elf is not *immune* to the Despair of Winter, though everyone assumes such a character would go on centuries longer without giving in. (It's been established that half elves don't normally live long enough for the Despair to set in without a magic cuase, and half-elves of various types, like Tiera, are actually more numeorus than elves, because half-elves are more fertile with other half elves than elves are with fuill-blood levels.)

However, Mhyssi is the last of the Hearts of War. The entire bloodline has a celestial tinge, and is famous (among elven scholars) for never having lost a member to the despair. Now, in part that's because they were all warriors, so they sought out important battles to keep them driven to fight for good until something killed them, effectively self-limiting their lifespans through combat. But many of them lived centuries longer than most elves can hold off the Despair, and it's wondered if their immortal, celestial blood is why.

Or, piut another way, no one is sure if Mhyssi is an exception or not.

No, no one cast any water breathing spells. Yes, the fight is completely submerged (though there were air pockets). They were all depending on being able to hold their breaths for an underwater fight.Of course, each standard action you take reduces the number of rounds you can hold your breath (starting at equal to your Cohn) by one, so that bacame an issue, as you'll see.

So, some people asked me my email or livejournal emssage, what the heck is a "Ghuraki" slaver, and why do we care?

well, unless you are playing in Kor kammor, you probably don't. But in case you do...

Cast your minds back to early in the life of the OGL. My main game group was one of those groups that was convinced our home campaign (not Kor Kammor at the time, mind you) would make a brilliant rpg product. So, we started compiling elemetns from all our games to make a set of game books -- Campaign Setting, Campaign-Guide's Handbook, and a MM-like book. And in that MM book, we were going to include our repalcements (niche-wise) for all the things not in the OGL. For example, my Blasphemer was chosen to take the place of the beholder.

For Githyanki and Githzerai, the group decided to use my Ghuraki. The Guraki are as much a condition as a race, a set of pirates ruled by the undead Drowned Queen all of whom have contracted her unique form of Mummy Rot. However, they are not yet undead, although they do have a strong connection to the negative plane of death (also called the deathlands). As their bodies rot, they bandage the corrupted sections of flesh in an effort to slow the progression. (When they lose too much of their life, they become Abhorrent Ones, which are full undead, controlled only by the Drowned Queen and her lichloved Bloody Maidens). They are generally deathmasters, hexblades, true necromancers and death-tinted arcane knights or spellsowrds.

rather than travel the astral plane, the Ghuraki are accursed to spend most of their lives in the para-elemental plane of fog. In that place, they build vast citadels out of sunken ships and captured docks, floating in the endless mist. From time to time, a Bloody maiden gathers enough power to peirce the misty elemental veil, and take a ship out onto the sea. It always carries a mist with it, wherever it goes, and the Ghuraki can only survive within the mist. (Think the Fog movie from a few years ago for how this often plays out in coastal towns).

Because they can never stay outisde the plane of fog for long, the ghuraki must raid for anything they wish to have with them. This means they hit coastal towns, other ships and islands to loot food, art, crafts, or anything else they might want. They also trade in slaves, both for their own purposes, and to other evil groups. They are famous for "Broken" slaves who have had their will ground down until they do whatever they are told, but retain a personality so they aren't boring automotons.

Slave ships are particular feared, because each one can hold as many as 500 slaves. Thus, the Heralds had ample reason to believe a few might have survived even the worst wreck.

Do you know when they are going to be available? They look sweet, and generic is often better than printed on.

Okay, everyone be nice. Just doing nicknames, Like I do. I didn't mean anything by it.

Or did I?...

;D

Dungeon Grrrl wrote:

Mothman wrote:

I preferred it when Dungeon Grrrl was bouncing up and down.

Sweetie, most men do.

Because it means she's happy. And she's our friend. And we prefer our friends to be happy.

That's sweet! Thanks, chi-chi!

While I am sure it is entrancing and exciting when Dungeon Grrrl does it I am afraid I am rarely swayed by girls jumping. Outside of it being an intellectual exercise of observation it doesn't do much for me. I am rather fascinated how breasts move though. Its remarkable.

Isn't it? Hypnotic, even, if the reactions I get when, um... less supported... are any indication. especially in t-shirts. Why are you all so facinated by t-shirts?

I must admit the special ability you list in your profile is intriguing though. I definitely want YouTube evidence of that.

As if I could get any work done if gamers spotted me after I posted something like that!

EDIT: Also, Blood of the Gorgon shall be decidedly mature...as mature as the patrons want in fact...especially since it's not for public consumption, so really, I can be as evil as I (and the patrons) want me to be. YAY!

Do you have *any* idea how much overtime you just made me consider, so I could be part of this?

As if my feet weren't sore enough already. Now let's see.... if I skip sleep on Friday nights... that's four extra hours...

You're a bad man, Nickie. that's why i love you of course, but it's still painful. (Not that pain is always a bad thing...)

You're right Clark. It was worth the whole contest just to watch wolfie work it. ;)

Love to you all, and much thanks for my favorite gaming event ever to hit the internet.

Okay...

First, I know know a little toooo much about where Boomer gets his ideas.

Sceond, that looks a lot more liike my gaming group than I would have thought.

Third, everything the dwarf says is gold. everything.

Thanks (?) for sharing.