P.H. Dungeon's page

There is big difference of what someone can do with Glock with an extended clip and a steak knife, and I guess if the only thing you've done with your gun is shoot a snake than it is just wasting space in your house, so you might as well get rid of it. I own a steak knife and use it for cutting steak. I don't own a gun because I don't need to shoot people, so what would be the point of having something that I would never use?

If you are a hunter, and really feel the need to go kill animals than get a bow- it would be more challenging and sporting anyhow. Of course that said, there was a man killed in a library here in Toronto a little while back with a crossbow so...

Shifty wrote:

Time to start handing in the guns guys.

You don't need em, and kids don't need to keep being shot by them.

Considering my guns have never been used to shoot anybody.... unless you count that copperhead a couple years back..... why should I turn mine in?

Hey, a lady stabbed her husband and kids with a steak knife last month, I guess we need everybody to turn those in too.

Personally, I feel much safer living in a country where we don't feel it's our RIGHT to carry guns. I'd rather walk around knowing that no one has a gun, than feeling like everyone does.

Unfortunately, Canada is not devoid of firearms, and there have been many instances of shooting deaths here in Toronto. Many of guns used in those crimes are making their way across the US border into what should be a much more gun free country than it is. So I wish that America would stop making so many weapons because its messing with our way of life up here.

A gun is not a tool. It is a weapon. It is designed for killing. You may be able to argue that a rifle is a tool designed for hunting animals, but handguns are designed solely with the intent of killing people. The more "tools" there are around that are designed to kill people, the more people will be killed by them. Taking away guns doesn't solve the issues that make people like Jared Loughner, but it would make it more difficult for people like him to do what he did yesterday.

Gun Control won't solve these problems, but it would still be a step in the right direction. To see that these tragedies don't continue requires an entire paradigm shift. It requires people to get rid of the everyman for himself attitude, and start thinking more about community building. It requires having a population that is willing to sacrifice more of what they have to help reach out to their fellow citizens. We don't do a good enough job of that here in Canada, and IMO the US attitude is even worse. The entire nation is built on the idea that everyone has the right to do what ever they want (within the loose laws that exist), which doesn't lead to strong community. This attitude has always struck me as ironic given the amount of people in the states that claim to be Christian.

I know the GTA is growing fast, but the Toronto District School board has been shrinking, so the people moving downtown must primarily be people without kids. I agree though that city does seem to be growing a lot faster than they can keep up with infrastructure. Some of the outlying burbs seem to be plateauing a little as well. For instance, Peel Dristrict was hiring lots of new teachers and building lots of new schools in Brampton about 5 years ago, but that has started to slow down significantly now.

Actions like this are just symptoms of the deeper social problems. I work in the education system in a low income area. I see first hand what happens to kids when they are dealing with poverty and growing up in families plagued with problems. How much funding is there for helping these people- little to none. How much funding does the government put towards things like children's mental health- little to none. Until some of these underlying problems are properly addressed incidents like this will likely only become more frequent. Unfortunately, there seems to be little interest from the public or most governments in dealing with such problems. Most people just don't care, but then are shocked when events like today's happen. There is a reason why there seem to be so many wackos around.

How good a shot do you need to be when you are firing an automatic weapon into a crowd at close range?

Sure, even if there was extensive gun control in the US he probably could have made a bomb or still got his hands on a gun. However, I contend that it does take a bit more effort and know how to set up a bomb than use an automatic weapon, so if hadn't of had such easy access to a gun he may not have committed the crime he did or maybe he would have. I watched the youtube videos he posted, he clearly seems like a guy with an antigoverment agenda who was ready to go out and do something radical, which turned out to be shooting a lot of people (assuming those videos were actually posted by him and accurately express his true views, and are not some sort of fabrication, setup or ruse). It just seems to me that if there are less weapons around that are designed to kill people, there will be less instances of people killing each other.

Yeah but with capitalism, the best way for those private individuals to earn more wealth is to produce more products that they can sell, which is only really effective if you have people consuming those products, hence the consumption part.

I'm not suggesting that other systems are necessarily better. They all have their problems. I'm just saying that how capitalism has come to function in the modern word is unsustainable in the long term.

So what are the thoughts here on the shooting of the Congress Woman in Arizona?

As a Canadian coming from a country with pretty tight gun control laws, I often wonder when I see stories like this, why Americans are so pro firearm (I know many aren't). It seems like any yahoo can get their hands on an automatic weapon and cause s$!@ whenever they want. Carrying a gun in the US wouldn't make me feel safe. It would just make always be thinking about what a f$**ed up country I'm living in. I would feel safe living in a country where I knew no one else was carrying a gun either. Of course gun control doesn't always prevent gun violence. We have our share up here as well (see the Montreal Massacre several years back), but I don't feel like I have to worry about everyone and their brother walking around with an Uzi under their coat.

From a Canadian POV. I live in Toronto, and there are a lot of union and non union jobs, as well as fairly left wing political leanings (despite the recent election of a very right wing mayor). However, Toronto has a strong economy, and though it has its problems it is not in decline in anywhere near the way a city like Detroit or Cleveland is. In fact I don't think it's in decline at all (we just need to improve out public transit). I've visited most major Canadian cities and several American ones as well. I was shocked when I visited Detroit and Cleveland. I tried to visit the Detroit Art Institute, and I felt like I was driving through a third world country/war zone to get there. When I went to Cleveland with a friend of my mine a few years back, we decided to go check out the downtown. It was so creepy because the closer you got to downtown the quieter it got. It seemed like everyone had vanished. In Toronto if you go downtown (no matter what time) there is always lots going on and lots of people. My experience of Cleveland was very much the opposite. I also noticed that people in Cleveland are very fat. I have no really statistical evidence to support that claim, but it certainly was evident. We went to the Cleveland Zoo, and spent more time counting fat people than looking at the animals. Of course there are plenty of fat people here in TO, but it seemed like a lot more in Cleveland.

Despite my generally positive view of Toronto, I think that in the long run we are all screwed. I just don't see it possible to sustain a society/civilization based entirely upon consumption, which is what capitalism is. The freedom to do what you want, take what you want, have what you want, sounds good in theory, but when you apply it to an entire society, you are asking for trouble. Eventually, it will all come crashing down on our heads. One good pandemic in Asia would do it just fine. I hope it doesn't happen in my life time, but I won't be at all surprised if it does.

When the US collapses, we will likely be not far behind.

I have not seen the original either, but I thought this movie was awesome. I'm not a huge western fan, but I am a huge Coen brothers fan. The Coen brothers doing a remake is not like other directors doing a remake. They understand how to make good movies.

We've had another new addition to the group. This character is an Elf by the name of Ardyn, who happens to be a two weapon fighting ranger.

The party currently consists of:

Bella (level 14 changeling/rogue/sorcerer)
Melek (level 14 tiefling wizard/warlock)
Corvin Androsax (level 14, human/cleric)
Turak (level 14, minotaur/warden)
Ardyn (level 14, elf/ranger)

Session 35 – Wolfsbane

I am no fool.

I know that those that I have been traveling with are involved in events that will affect the whole world. If they do not succeed it will allow chaos and darkness to swallow the land. I have seen them fight and I believe that without me, they will all die. So even though I have responsibilities here in Grimmsburg, I will join them.

Melek has proven to be resourceful in discovering a vague idea of where the fragments of the God Engine have disappeared to. It would seem that our ‘destiny’ is dragging us into the Feywild. I’m relieved for even though I have an affinity for cold I prefer a more temperate environment than the North.

It would seem I am the last of our original band, everyone else either dead or retired, but mostly dead. Corvin foolishly blames me for the loss of his sister Deryl back in the Trollhaunt, but I care little for his opinion. There was honestly nothing that could be done. He does not seem to realize that this is a dangerous path we walk, and it is being watched by the gods, not all of them the good ones. He will learn that lesson though, and probably sooner than later.

Knowing that there are paths to the Feywild in Moonstair we returned there. Someone new, an elf named Ardyn, has joined us. He had served the Jarl as a warden, and apparently spent much time hunting orc bands in the Nentir Vale. Apparently, he had heard of our deeds, and wanted a chance to join a band of adventurers foolish enough to take the fight to the Norland’s most dangerous enemies. I couldn’t help notice that he carried a weapon with a frost enchantment. With my ability to make these weapons more effective, we will fight well together.

We waited until the moon was full in the sky, then using a circle of standing stones near Moonstair we arrived in the Feywild. We sought out the place where Melek made his pact with his fey patron. Melek again made use of his Eagle’s flight ritual, allowing us to search miles and miles of Feywild swamp from the air. Eventually, we located an island in the middle of the swamp that was speckled with crumbling stone menhirs. It was here we landed, for according to the tiefling it was the spot where he had first encountered the Maiden of the Moon.

We made camp on the island, and we waited until the moon was full in the sky. At some point I fell asleep. In fact, we all did. Everything became dreamy haze. I recall seeing a woman appear to us. She was a beautiful eladrin with eyes like the moon and long flowing silver hair. She held in her hand a slender silver sword. I recall her saying to us only a single phrase: “Slay my enemies and find what you seek.”

I remember little else. When I woke up we were no longer on the island in the swamp. Instead, we were on a cold, windy mountainside overlooking a forested valley. The moon was still full and in the sky. We could hear the howl of wolves down in the valley. On the opposite side of the valley, a moonbeam shone down illuminating some sort of fortified gatehouse type structure built into the side of a mountain. A winding road led up the mountain from the forest to the gatehouse. It was pretty clear that this was our destination, though we had no idea where we were or what the place was.

We contemplated waiting until morning, but decided to press on. Thus, we entered the dark alpine forest. The trees were towering giants, and a bed of needles carpeted the forest floor, leaving little opportunity for smaller bushes and plants to grow. It made walking relatively easy. All around us we could hear the howls of the wolves. As we went the howls started to get closer. The beasts had picked up our scents, and soon we were beginning to catch glimpses of them moving among the trees. I tried to scout ahead but it proves fruitless. We are still ambushed in a clearing by the foul beasts. They came at us from all sides, hunting in a pack. Some were hulking dire wolves, others were smaller werewolves that had assumed a deadly hybrid form.

It is the first time I was able to witness Corvin in a fight. He was much different from his brother- quiet and introspective and he seems to have only some of the Androsax foolishness. He does however possess his brother’s bloodlust and he throws himself into battle. I watch as he is brought to within an inch of his life several times only to be drawn back by the will of his god. He will only have himself to blame for his death.

The elf proved to be just as effective as I though, ruthlessly cutting into foes with his twin scimitars. Working together we were able to make quick work of our enemies, for what he started I could finish.

I drew back and fired from the shadows, taking cover behind a large log. The darkness of the woods swallowing me so effectively that the wolves could not see me. They passed me for easier prey, that being the fire hurling tiefling. Melek remained in the middle of the clearing when the wolves closed in, and as a result he was savaged by them. Fortunately, Turak was his usual self. He came to Melek’s aid, crushing skulls with his mighty maul. We made quick work of them.

In the end, I was the only one who left the battle without a scratch, and the others were thankful for Corvin’s healing magics. Undaunted we continued, and now we stand at the foot of a cliff ready to enter a massive fortress. It is going to be a long night.

We've had another new addition to the group. This character is an Elf by the name of Ardyn, who happens to be a two weapon fighting ranger.

The party currently consists of:

Bella (level 14 changeling/rogue/sorcerer)
Melek (level 14 tiefling wizard/warlock)
Corvin Androsax (level 14, human/cleric)
Turak (level 14, minotaur/warden)
Ardyn (level 14, elf/ranger)

Session 35 – Wolfsbane

I am no fool.

I know that those that I have been traveling with are involved in events that will affect the whole world. If they do not succeed it will allow chaos and darkness to swallow the land. I have seen them fight and I believe that without me, they will all die. So even though I have responsibilities here in Grimmsburg, I will join them.

Melek has proven to be resourceful in discovering a vague idea of where the fragments of the God Engine have disappeared to. It would seem that our ‘destiny’ is dragging us into the Feywild. I’m relieved for even though I have an affinity for cold I prefer a more temperate environment than the North.

It would seem I am the last of our original band, everyone else either dead or retired, but mostly dead. Corvin foolishly blames me for the loss of his sister Deryl back in the Trollhaunt, but I care little for his opinion. There was honestly nothing that could be done. He does not seem to realize that this is a dangerous path we walk, and it is being watched by the gods, not all of them the good ones. He will learn that lesson though, and probably sooner than later.

Knowing that there are paths to the Feywild in Moonstair we returned there. Someone new, an elf named Ardyn, has joined us. He had served the Jarl as a warden, and apparently spent much time hunting orc bands in the Nentir Vale. Apparently, he had heard of our deeds, and wanted a chance to join a band of adventurers foolish enough to take the fight to the Norland’s most dangerous enemies. I couldn’t help notice that he carried a weapon with a frost enchantment. With my ability to make these weapons more effective, we will fight well together.

We waited until the moon was full in the sky, then using a circle of standing stones near Moonstair we arrived in the Feywild. We sought out the place where Melek made his pact with his fey patron. Melek again made use of his Eagle’s flight ritual, allowing us to search miles and miles of Feywild swamp from the air. Eventually, we located an island in the middle of the swamp that was speckled with crumbling stone menhirs. It was here we landed, for according to the tiefling it was the spot where he had first encountered the Maiden of the Moon.

We made camp on the island, and we waited until the moon was full in the sky. At some point I fell asleep. In fact, we all did. Everything became dreamy haze. I recall seeing a woman appear to us. She was a beautiful eladrin with eyes like the moon and long flowing silver hair. She held in her hand a slender silver sword. I recall her saying to us only a single phrase: “Slay my enemies and find what you seek.”

I remember little else. When I woke up we were no longer on the island in the swamp. Instead, we were on a cold, windy mountainside overlooking a forested valley. The moon was still full and in the sky. We could hear the howl of wolves down in the valley. On the opposite side of the valley, a moonbeam shone down illuminating some sort of fortified gatehouse type structure built into the side of a mountain. A winding road led up the mountain from the forest to the gatehouse. It was pretty clear that this was our destination, though we had no idea where we were or what the place was.

We contemplated waiting until morning, but decided to press on. Thus, we entered the dark alpine forest. The trees were towering giants, and a bed of needles carpeted the forest floor, leaving little opportunity for smaller bushes and plants to grow. It made walking relatively easy. All around us we could hear the howls of the wolves. As we went the howls started to get closer. The beasts had picked up our scents, and soon we were beginning to catch glimpses of them moving among the trees. I tried to scout ahead but it proves fruitless. We are still ambushed in a clearing by the foul beasts. They came at us from all sides, hunting in a pack. Some were hulking dire wolves, others were smaller werewolves that had assumed a deadly hybrid form.

It is the first time I was able to witness Corvin in a fight. He was much different from his brother- quiet and introspective and he seems to have only some of the Androsax foolishness. He does however possess his brother’s bloodlust and he throws himself into battle. I watch as he is brought to within an inch of his life several times only to be drawn back by the will of his god. He will only have himself to blame for his death.

The elf proved to be just as effective as I though, ruthlessly cutting into foes with his twin scimitars. Working together we were able to make quick work of our enemies, for what he started I could finish.

I drew back and fired from the shadows, taking cover behind a large log. The darkness of the woods swallowing me so effectively that the wolves could not see me. They passed me for easier prey, that being the fire hurling tiefling. Melek remained in the middle of the clearing when the wolves closed in, and as a result he was savaged by them. Fortunately, Turak was his usual self. He came to Melek’s aid, crushing skulls with his mighty maul. We made quick work of them.

In the end, I was the only one who left the battle without a scratch, and the others were thankful for Corvin’s healing magics. Undaunted we continued, and now we stand at the foot of a cliff ready to enter a massive fortress. It is going to be a long night.

Melek's journal:

After getting onto the backs of the giant eagles we watched for awhile as the entire valley collapsed into earth, pulling with it the whole of the giant army. Oh, I'm sure that there will be a few survivors, but that particular threat is vanquished. One could almost feel a little bit of pity for them. Well, if they hadn't destroyed Thunderholme Abbey one could.

We proceeded from the valley back to Saltmarsh where we told the populace the "good" news- the giant threat was no more and that, unfortunately, the Jarl’s son was almost certainly dead. At least we'd managed to find the lad’s ancestral sword and return that.

There was a lot of muttering from the townspeople. Many of them don't really believe that we did what we said we did. It doesn't really help when your choice of spokesman is a Minotaur, a Tiefling or a Crime lord. And our coming back without even the body of the only person in our group that they probably trusted with an outlandish story didn’t make it any better. I'll give Jarl Bloodhair credit; at least he gave us a reasonable reward (albeit one far below the actual value, I'm sure) for the sword that we recovered.

We warned them to be very careful in visiting the valley and advised the Jarl to post some sentries there. Who knows what may come out from the pit?

We then returned to Grimmsburg with our news. I expressed to Canon Wulgrim my concern that the King that Crawls may now be in possession of Bjorn’s soul. He promised to see if he could find out if this was true, but he didn't seem particularly optimistic that he'd get a clear answer. In fact, he didn't really seem all that concerned either, although perhaps I do him an injustice by that.

In Grimmsburg we found our numbers augmented by a Priest of Odin. One that I'd never met before. His name is Corvin, and he is an Androsax. He is the brother of Deryl, the girl consumed by Loki’s fire and Derren, the man in Grimsburg that Bella treated with such contempt. It’s far too soon to know much about him, but there seems to be a certain tension between him and Bella. I think that he might blame her for the loss of his sister, since she had been in Bella’s custody at the time of her demise.

After a brief respite to recover from our injuries we decided that what we needed most was more information.

We (including Wulgrim) traveled back to the chamber under Thunderholme where the relic had been held. There I cast a ritual called Whispers of the Edifice that allowed us to question the room itself. From the room we learned that the Abbey itself had been built over the secret room, a room holding one fifth of an ancient artifact known as The Divine Engine of Odin.

At Canon Wulgrim’s request, we then proceeded to fly back to the remnants of the giant stronghold. We found a massive sinkhole where the valley had once been. It was very deep, and the bottom was covered by a thin, putrid mist. There were no signs of any portal to hell or strange creatures coming out of the ground, but I could feel the touch of a malignant god at work, and we could hear the keening calls of what may have been those suffering in his torture dens rising up out fissures at the bottom of the terrible pit.

When we got back to Grimmsburg, we decided it was time to, basically, hit the books and see if we could determine what was going on. So we went to the Skaldsholme Library where we found Briannah, the head librarian and an old associate of our group and the sister in law to our newfound ally, to be in great, great distress. Driven nearly insane by the turmoil of past abuses inflicted on her by cultists, she was totally neglecting herself in the quest for knowledge about the Cult of Elemental Eye. She claimed to be researching the cult, so that she would better know her enemy. I hope that is true. It should also be noted that she is a younger sister of Vesna and daughter of Jarl Surtur. I wonder if the jarl is aware of how bad her condition has become.

Spearheaded primarily by Corvin, we actually managed to get her into something approximating reasonable shape, while simultaneously using the library to research the Divine Engine and the tablets that had been stolen from Turak’s people. The process took many long weeks, and it reminded me of my days back at the Scarlet Stone Academy. Odin helped us with the Hand of Fate pointing to the more useful books.

There was much to be learned about Odin’s Divine Engine. We discovered that it was a powerful artifact created by the gods during the Dawn War to imprison a mighty primordial known as Y’mir. Y’mir is said to be creator of the giants and was a terrible enemy of the Aesir. They used the device to imprison Y’mir in the Elemental Chaos, and after the deed was done, Thor shattered the engine with his hammer. It broke into five pieces, and the pieces were scattered to the five planes. The one that ended up on Midgard was hidden beneath Thuderholme abbey for safe keeping. The fragment that found its way to the Astral Sea was recovered by the Aesir, and is now said to be stored in Odin’s treasure vault. We could not discover the locations of the remaining three fragments. We believe one is somewhere in the Elemental Chaos, another in the Feywild, and the final shard is in the Shadowfell. Whether that is true to this day, and where exactly they are, we don’t know.

We also learned that the King the Crawls was involved with the creation and use of the engine. In fact, during the Dawn War, he was known as the Savior, for he was a mighty god, and it was with his aid that the Aesir were able to push Y’mir’s horde of giants and titans back from the gates of Asgard and defeat Y’mir himself. According to the legends, there were several nights of great feasting after Y’mir’s defeat. During this time Odin grew jealous and angry towards the Savior, for he felt the god was flirting with his wife Friga. Odin summoned Loki the trickster, and together they concocted a plan to at the same time put the Savior to good use and rid themselves of his presence. Odin approached him with an offer. He told the Savior that he could join the ranks of the Aesir if he passed one final test. He would have to travel to the depths of Midgard and defeat the primordial known as Gargath. To aid him in this task the Odin gave him an enchanted sword that would give him the power to single handedly best this deadly foe. The Savior agreed, for he was a lonely god, his great beauty, perfect health and skill made the other gods jealous of him, and few wanted to be in his presence. He saw Odin’s offer, as a great opportunity to gain acceptance among his peers. Thus, he agreed to the quest. He confronted Gargash, and the pair battled their way through the depths of midgard. It was a long, arduous battle, and the Savior only barely bested his foe. When he drove his god forged blade into the primordial to land the killing blow, the curse Loki had hidden in the blade was triggered. It trapped the Savior in the depths of Midgard, preventing him from ever being able to return the Astral Sea. He would never have his place among the Aesir. Over the ages the Savior’s anger and bitterness at this treachery transformed him into the The King that Crawls. Clearly, he still harbors a grudge against the gods to this day.

It seems quite possible that the King that Crawls is behind these events, though we saw clear evidence that the giants were also affiliated with the Cult of the Elemental Eye. Perhaps these enemies of the gods have made some kind of an alliance. Perhaps they seek to reforge the divine engine. Perhaps they believe that by freeing Y’mir they can have their revenge against the Aesir and/or free the Elemental Eye.

We decided it would be prudent to seek out the stolen fragment. For a while the Hand of Fate told us that the piece of the artifact and the Golden Horn tablets were both somewhere north of here. But before we could organize an expedition to go north the Hand indicated that they were elsewhere. Where “elsewhere” is, we are not sure, but we suspect it is no longer on Midgard.

We have decided that for now we will try find at least one of the remaining fragments. If the King that Crawls is in fact trying acquire them so that he can reforge the Divine Engine, than ensuring that they stay out of his hands can only be a good thing. Using the Hand of Fate, we were able to determine that going to the Fey Wild is at least an option with a possibility of success. There I may be able to make contact with my fey patron, and hopefully find a means of locating a fragment of the engine.

Definitely.

Hide yo kids, hide yo wife.

I think CoC is a potentially great system/game to run a pbp with. D&D and some other games are a little too tactical IMO to be good for pbp. I tried running a Dunwich Horror pbp on these boards a couple of years ago. It went well for a few months but fizzled out. However, I'd be into giving this a shot as a player.

The final battle with Volgrum the Titan, in which one of our most beloved heroes perishes.

Bella's journal...

Session 33: Hero is a synonym for Suicidal Idiot

My back rests against the cold stone wall of the cavern. My heart is thundering in my ears as I take deep breaths and try to calm myself. Had the giants followed us we surely would have died, however Melek’s stinking cloud spell and their natural laziness has benefited us with a brief respite. I quietly thank Odin for this blessing.

The situation is dire.

A Stone giant and his minions await us in a giant cavern below. There are no signs of any exits. There is also the added worry that the giants above, perhaps fearing later reprisals for allowing us down here, will come down to join the fight. These are only the visible threats. I have no doubt that several surprises await us in the coming fight. As long as the giants remain above we stand a chance, but I do not like the odds.

Moments ago, I had grimly suggested that we cast a link portal while we can and get out, perhaps to try again another time. I was flatly turned down and heard Melek mutter something about cowardice under his breath. The teifling believes that now is the best chance we have at accomplishing what we came to do, unfortunately the others agreed. I knew I could have run right then, started casting the ritual while they fought the enemies below. No one could have stopped me. Not being a hero, part of me wanted to leave these fools to their fate. Yet I decided to stay. Bjorn is having a negative effect on my sense of self-preservation.

The battle starts typically enough. Melek and I creep forward and survey our foes from the shadows of the tunnel we are in. The tunnel opens into a large cavern, but the ground is 30 feet below us and there is a ramp descending into the cavern along the wall to the right. The cave itself has only a couple of occupants- a stone giant and two small grey skinned humanoids. I think they may be called Norkers. I had already been watching them for a while. The giant had been hard at work chiseling a symbol of the dreaded Elemental Eye into a massive roughly “Eye” shaped stone that was resting on sturdy stone plinth. He had heard the giants shouting to Melek further up the tunnel, and when that had happened he and his two assistants had hurried to duck behind the altar. Their skins blended in well with the stone, but I had seen them and warned my companions.

There are a couple of other features in the room I should mention. One is a second altar. This one centered on a particularly ghastly looking stalagmite covered with symbols of Torog and surrounded by a pile of rotting corpses. The other thing I notice is a large pile of treasure, likely taken from the abbey, piled at the back end of the cave.

I spot an excellent place to hide behind a large stalagmite, but my concentration is broken by Turak and Bjorn giving a great battlecry and charging down the ramp. I am rendered speechless for a moment, but I quickly realize that their foolish act will not only draw our enemies to the ramp but also give me the distraction I need to reach cover.

Acting purely on instinct, I leap off the edge and use the wall to slow my fall, rolling along the ground at the bottom with only slightly less grace than I had intended. Fortunately, it is only a minor injury, and I am able to reach my cover.

To our misfortune, we discover that the Stone Giant is trained in rune magic, and he is able to cast a spell on both the cleric and the warden as they reach the bottom of the ramp. A glowing, arcane rune glides through the air, hovering over the pair, and its dark power freezes them in placer. Melek decides to remain on the ramp rather than risk the drop, this proves to be an unfortunate choice on his part, for the ground suddenly begins to quake around him and two elementals of earth and stone rise up out of the ground to surround him. From two ledges on opposite ends of the chamber strange, rock creatures reveal themselves and start throwing stone projectiles at my companions. It does not look good for us, but when does it ever look good for us?

It is both fortunate and unfortunate that the Stone Giant decides to walk forward to battle our immobilized melee fighters. If he had decided to throw stones they would have been helpless to retaliate. Moving in gives both Turak and Bjorn a chance to hurt their enemy before shrugging off the effects of the magic.

Then it happens, from the back of the cavern a section of wall shifts and walks forward. The creature is massive and looks like a walking hillside. It is Volgrum the Earth Titan. In his deep rumbling voice he starts shouting to us that he will see that we die here in glorious battle, but that our souls will not go on to Asgard. Instead, he claims that Torog will take them. I can’t help but wince when he says the name of the dark god. It is said to be very dangerous to attract his attention, for he is trapped in lightless caves and tunnels deep beneath the earth, which means that he is free to interact directly with mortals, making him that much more dangerous than most gods.

I put thoughts of Torog out of my mind and focus on the task at hand. I target my bolts upon the Stone Giant first. Luckily, he has already been wounded enough for me to able to take him out with a few shots. Melek had cursed the giant, and when he falls it enables the teifling to teleport away from the elementals. Perhaps Melek was addled by the bruises he had sustained from the elementals, for I cannot believe it when he runs up to Turak and Bjorn to engage the Earth Titan. If that be bravery I want no part of it.

From my quiet corner I rain death upon our foes. Seeing the danger in the unreachable stone men who continue to pummel my companions, I focus my fire upon them. In the center of the cavern the huge altar of the Elemental Eye provides some cover for my companions. I am able to destroy most of the Titan’s forces leaving the Titan himself our only difficulty. Turak had been holding his own against his massive foe, bravely engaging it directly with his mighty maul. Time and again the titan smashed him with his fists or sent him sprawling across the stone floor. Thanks to Bjorn’s healing powers he still managed to live, and with the help of the Thor’s blessings, the spirits of the earth and Melek’s arcane power, they had been chiseling away at the dreadful titan.

The battle is just turning in our favor when tremors start to shake the cavern. They emanate from Torog’s shrine, and I watch horrified as the floor opens up and a chasm starts snaking its way across the ground. The altar falls away as a gaping hole forms beneath it, and I watch as the hole grows wider and wider at an alarming rate. I can feel the hunger of the King that Crawls, and it seems as if he wants to devour the entire cavern.

Not wanting my escape route cut off I scurry across the battlefield to the base of the ramp. As I make my way up to the relative safety of the tunnel mouth I fire bolt after bolt at the Titan. We did not finish him however, and the chasm appears to be making its way towards him. It is as if Torog is seeking out his servant. The titan’s face is hard to read, but I can see what looks like fear on it. And when the chasm reaches him, the ground itself opens up and swallows our enemy. He manages to catch onto the edge, but Melek blasts him with a spell and forces him to lose his grip, and I watch as our mark plummets down into the darkness. It is time to get out of here. Melek appears to agree with me, for he comes running up the ramp soon after I reach the top. Bjorn and Turak however do not. They instead run to the treasure pile at the back of the cavern as I provided cover fire against the couple rockmen that remain up on their ledges. As fast as they are able, they grab what they can and start run back. I know that Bjorn was looking for that mysterious relic taken from the abbey, and Turak was looking for the tablets stolen from his labyrinth. Neither of the artifacts seem to be there, for they come back with only a belt and some chainmale.

Unfortunately for them the chasm never stops growing, and it cuts them off from escape. There is no way to reach the bottom of the ramp, so they made their way towards us. Fortunately, Melek has the presence of mind to fix a rope so that they would be able to climb up.

It was then the unthinkable happens. Bjorn slips and falls into the widening fissure. He throws his hammer and grabs onto the edge in desperation and catches himself. Hanging over certain damnation he screams at us to run. Believing that he could pull himself up and still make it to the rope we follow his command. Melek is able to recover his hammer with his mage hand spell, and Turak climbs up the rope. Just as the minotaur gets to the top, Bjorn, trying to scramble up the loose earth, loses his grip and falls.

I have a moment of shocked silence as I watch my longest and truest companion fall into the darkness. We do not have time to contemplate his fate, as the danger has not passed. The fissure is still widening and we have to get out of this cursed place.

We realize when we reach the upper level that the giants have the same idea and we are able to escape in the ensuing chaos. Melek calls the spirit eagles and I watch our fourth eagle fly into the distance bereft of its charge instead of watching the giants’ fortress sink into the earth. Torog’s wrath is terrible, for not only does he swallow up the steading, but he takes with it the entire valley and along with that they entire giant army. It is a terrible sight to behold, and I almost feel pity for the giants. We watch for several moments. and then with heavy hearts we fly back to Grimmsburg.

I have a feature on my computer/printer (not sure which) that allows me to save as a pdf instead of printing. I tried it out, and it made a nice pdf duplicate of how the character sheet looks on the builder. The only slight difference is that the text on the pdf seems a little blurry compared to the builder, though for the most part I can still read it fine (some of the small font on the power cards is a little difficult to read).

Once I installed Silverlight, I was pleased to say that I could finally run the builder on my mac. I was easily able to throw a few characters together. So far so good.

If you are listening to the radio, I can't imagine why you would really want to listen to anything other than the CBC anyhow.

As for TV, I have basic cable and HBO. I pretty much only watch HBO.

I live in Toronto. It feels a lot different than many American cities (I have traveled extensively in the US and I'm a dual citizen, as my mom is American). The downtown is a flourishing place where people actually spend time after work (instead of retreating to the suburbs, which is the case in many American cities). I think we have a superior education system or at least one that is more equitable. For instance, schools in high needs areas receive extra funding instead of getting less funding because of low standardized test scores (which can be the case in the US). Post Secondar y education is also more subsidized, making it much more affordable than American universities, though still by no means cheap. Generally, Canadians are more socially liberal (particularly in the GTA, depending on the cultural group you are from. This isn't necessarily the case in rural areas or Alberta). For example, there is a tendency to be more accepting of homosexuality, women having abortions etc... In politics the Canadian left is divided between the Liberal (closer to the center) and New Democrat party (more left wing), which has enabled the Conservative party (right wing) to win recent federal elections (generally with a minority government) even though the majority of the population is left leaning politically. You can go to a hospital with an emergency (ie. broken arm etc..) and get treatment without seeing a bill. Day care is not publicly funding and can cost families upwards of $1300 a month, which is hard for single mothers. Canadians aren't big into firearms and we have strict gun control laws. Hunters in rural areas still like their rifles. Liquor is also more regulated, so you can't buy it in the grocery store. Canadians love their hockey. College/University sports teams are not the big deal they are in the states.

I've seen American Tv, we aren't missing anything.

Jason Ellis 350 wrote:

joela wrote:

Maybe it's a midlife crisis. Or maybe it's simply low blood sugar, but I'm thinking (semi) serious thoughts of immigrating to the Great White North.

Any Canadians on the boards? What are the advantages of your country versus the U.S.?

I can tell you a little bit from my experience living just south of Canada (45 minute drive from Montreal). Just don't plan on watching much in the way of American television or listening to U.S. music acts on the radio due to Canadian content laws. When I was selling satellite dishes several years ago Canadian customers were buying them all the time (they claimed for their summer homes in the U.S. but I'm pretty sure most made it further north).

It doesn't take much involvement by an American for something to be excluded by the content laws. Most of the SyFy Channel's programing isn't considered Canadian even though it is all filmed in Canada. And music by Canadian citizens gets excluded for using U.S. production companies.

I don't have a problem with that its Canada protecting its culture uniqueness and film/music industry from the all pervasive Hollyweird. Similar rules exist in Australia, UK and France.

If you are going to live in another country you have to be willing to take on a some of the culture or why bother to move there in the first place.

The Steading of the Hill Giant King

Melek's Journal:

Well, as the man who fell off the Giant Eagle said on the way to meeting the ground, "So far, so good".

I'm really not at all sure what possessed me to go along on this mission to assassinate an Earth Titan, especially given that it was surrounded by an army of Giants. I suspect that "possessed" may actually be the right term for it. Whatever fey power it was that had recently allowed me to learn rituals and gave me insight into the ways of nature may well have been behind it. Or perhaps it was my longing to prove my worth and redeem myself that was responsible. Or maybe my desire to revenge myself on the destroyers of the only home I've experienced for the last dozen years. At any rate, I really don't expect to survive this particular adventure. At least I got to say goodbye to my little sister before leaving.

We still do not know what it was that was hidden under the Abbey. Apparently the Abbey is quite ancient and built upon the ruins of buildings older still. It is interesting that the titan seemed to know of the contents. Whatever it is, I suspect it must be of significant importance.

In all Councils of War one has to pretend to pay attention to people of much less intelligence than oneself. But a council of war where almost all of the participants are hung over is definitely a joy to be experienced. This was the case at the council I attended just before we left Grimmsburg. Both Jarl Sutur and High Cannon Ericson were thoroughly hung over from the great feast that had taken place the night before- the one we had missed out on to do our scouting of the abbey. Fortunately, there was not really that much to discuss, so their condition hardly mattered. The outcome of the council was no surprise- send us off on a nearly hopeless mission to slay the Earth Titan. Presumably they're hoping that we at least do enough damage to slow thing and its army down. Or maybe the Gods will be with us and we'll manage to slay the Titan before we ourselves perish at the hands of a horde of enraged giants.

Dean Danzig's inspirational speech left little doubt that he is a Wizard and not a Bard. A very intelligent man it is true, but he clearly leads the college because of his intellect and power and not because of the force of his personality.

So it was that Bjorn, Turak and I, this time with Bella as well, used a linked portal ritual to once again travel to Saltmarsh. After informing Jarl Bloodhair that we intended to destroy the titan, we proceeded to the giants’ steading on the backs of more summoned Giant Eagles. We landed on the roof under the cover of darkness and a conjured storm. We were able to make our way through a smoke hole into the rafters of the steading with little difficulty. The giants were quite obviously very bored, and after seeing how the giants treat their goblin "allies," I've determined to not allow myself to be captured- better to die in combat than to be used as the ball in one of their crude games.

Inside the steading, the giants were very obviously not expecting much trouble, but, unfortunately, were mounting a reasonably good watch. There were well over a dozen giants in the part of the steading that was constructed outside the mountain and an unknown number within whatever chambers and tunnels they had carved into the mountain itself.

Belladonna and her familiar scouted ahead somewhat, revealing that our quarry was mostly likely somewhere within the mountain itself, though she did not explore deep enough to determine exactly where. There was only one open gate leading from the steading structure into the deeper chambers that had been cut into the mountainside. A pair of stone giants and several hill giants were in the common hall that held the gate. Fortunately, all were in a drunken sleep- all but one stone giant. Several more hill giants were lurking in nearby chambers, but they too were for the most part sleeping.

We decided upon a plan that has the small virtue of being less awful than all of the other plans we considered. Belladonna would sneak up to the door, and I would then change places with her by the magic revealed to me by my Fey mentor. Then, between that magic and some divine magic granted to Bjorn we would, with a great deal of luck, be able to silently get everybody into the hallway inside the mountain. From there we would be able to bar the gate and seal out the giants that infested the main portion of the steading.

Unfortunately, luck was not with us. I'm a Wizard and a Warlock, well known for my arcane prowess. Unfortunately, I'm less famous for my stealth. Belladonna fulfilled her role perfectly and got me to the door. But as I tried to open it I managed to make enough noise to rouse a Hill Giant. I'd had the foresight to use my Hat of Disguise to disguise myself as an Orc and that was enough to fool the idiot of a Hill Giant. Unfortunately, the Stone Giant wasn't quite so stupid as to believe that an Orc would come into the steading to empty a chamberpot. All hell broke loose.

In the ensuing fight we managed to slay a couple of giants in the steading proper and make our way into the mountain, barring the door behind us. The giants started to try to batter open the doors, but they were well constructed of heavy logs and designed to withstand their massive kind. The task was not proving easy for them and would take time.

The ruckus we had created drew the attention of several giants residing inside the mountain, and we soon found ourselves in battle with the Hill Giant Chief, a small band of his giant allies and his pet dire tiger. All the while, the giants in the steading proper continued to batter at the doors. The fight was reasonably quick. It took a little time before the Hill Giants thought that it might be better to unbar the door than to fight with us and a little longer still before they remembered that there was a second smaller but completely undefended door at the other end of the U shaped hall that would also allow their allies to enter. Though through tremendous effort on Bjorn’s part we had been able to keep them from unbarring the main door, there was nothing we were able to do to stop a pair of them from getting to the smaller door. As they were throwing off the bar to that door, and as the other giants finally battered down the main door, we finished off the Hill Giant Chief. It had taken many of our most potent spells and resources to win the fight, and we were in no condition to take on the massive force of enemies that was suddenly surging towards us. I urge my allies to rush ahead of me into a tunnel leading even deeper into the mountain. I hung back and cast a stinking cloud spell that I hoped would slow down the giants. I then fled into a tunnel, concentrating on sustaining my spell and moving it along behind me to cover our retreat. I wasn’t at all certain if it would be enough to deter our enemies, but it helped that the giants immediately discovered the body of their dead chief, for at that point a huge argument erupted among them about who would take the chief’s place. Still, I could hear several giants pursuing us into the wide tunnel, which was clearly sloping downward deep into the earth. I kept moving down the tunnel, maintaining the spell and praying to Odin for his blessing.

I think with the release of the second Essentials player book you have a significant amount of options for character creation- at least as much as you would with the core Pathfinder rules, so you could very easily run an entire campaign strictly with Essentials, which would probably work very well if you have a group of players who are new to the game. I don't see myself doing that since my players are experienced gamers and already have purchased most of the other 4E books, but I'd certainly consider it with a new group. In fact I am running a lunch hour campaign for a group of grade 4 students at my school and it is strictly essentials.

P.H. Dungeon wrote:

Here are some of the problems I see (I may be wrong on some of these issues since I'm Canadian not American). It is my understanding that there is a lot inequity of in the Public Education system in the US. Schools who don't perform well on various standardized tests get less funding, which perpetuates the cycle of them doing poorly (In Canada school in high needs areas get extra funding not less). Therefore a school in a wealthy neighborhood will be of much higher quality than one in a poor neighborhood. This means that people who are unfortunate enough to grow up in a low income area are going to have a hard time getting a good education and improving their circumstances. When they grow up their options are much more limited. They are likely going to have to take a low paying job, and when minimum wage is not a living wage, there is more incentive to not work at all and collect welfare instead. It also leads to more blue collar crime because things like selling drugs can be an easy way to make some decent cash. More crime equals more jails. Conservatives tend think that harsher prison sentences are the answer to crime, but it costs money to keep people in jail. All of these problems are compounding to create bigger gaps between the rich and poor in America.

Corporate greed is IMO the biggest obstacle in the way of dealing with any of these issues. Corporations have too much influence in government policy and make it extremely difficult to enact changes that will benefit the majority of the people. The reason being, is that those sorts of changes end up cutting into corporate profits.

What needs to happen is major changes in policy. Schools in Low income areas need to be properly funded. Money needs to be sunk into social programs that will help youth in high needs areas and give them what they need to be productive members of society, instead of turning to crime or welfare as a means of survival. Minimum wage needs to be increased, so that it is worth it for people to work instead

...

I like your proposal on increasing opportunities for small business, but I don't think that it is really "smaller government" that is needed to allow for that, so much as change in government policy. Right now it can be very hard for small business owners to compete with big business like Wallmart and the like. Policies need to be enacted to reduce the amount of power such corporations have and give small business owners a fighting chance. When I say minimum wage needs to be increased, I'm meaning that there needs to be a redistribution of wealth, so that it isn't all being hogged by about 5% of the population. For example it would be nice if there were a way a make big companies (like Wallmart and their ilk) pay their employs a reasonable wage (maybe unionizing). It has thus far proven impossible to enforce, but I think there should be some sort of limit on how much money any one individual or corporation can earn. Once you've hit that limit the rest needs to get passed back out to the people whose backs you built your fortune on.

Here are some of the problems I see (I may be wrong on some of these issues since I'm Canadian not American). It is my understanding that there is a lot inequity of in the Public Education system in the US. Schools who don't perform well on various standardized tests get less funding, which perpetuates the cycle of them doing poorly (In Canada school in high needs areas get extra funding not less). Therefore a school in a wealthy neighborhood will be of much higher quality than one in a poor neighborhood. This means that people who are unfortunate enough to grow up in a low income area are going to have a hard time getting a good education and improving their circumstances. When they grow up their options are much more limited. They are likely going to have to take a low paying job, and when minimum wage is not a living wage, there is more incentive to not work at all and collect welfare instead. It also leads to more blue collar crime because things like selling drugs can be an easy way to make some decent cash. More crime equals more jails. Conservatives tend think that harsher prison sentences are the answer to crime, but it costs money to keep people in jail. All of these problems are compounding to create bigger gaps between the rich and poor in America.

Corporate greed is IMO the biggest obstacle in the way of dealing with any of these issues. Corporations have too much influence in government policy and make it extremely difficult to enact changes that will benefit the majority of the people. The reason being, is that those sorts of changes end up cutting into corporate profits.

What needs to happen is major changes in policy. Schools in Low income areas need to be properly funded. Money needs to be sunk into social programs that will help youth in high needs areas and give them what they need to be productive members of society, instead of turning to crime or welfare as a means of survival. Minimum wage needs to be increased, so that it is worth it for people to work instead of sit at home and treat their bodies like s!%+ (drinking, drugs, smoking, eating fast food). A decent universal daycare and health care system needs to be put into place so that single parents can go out and earn a living, and so that people aren't going bankrupt when they need medical care.

To do this money would have to be diverted away from things like defense, and laws would have to be instituted that would allow for increased taxation on the wealthiest part of society, as well corporations. Obviously, the wealthy have enough political power to keep such a thing from happening at the moment, and things haven't yet gotten bad enough that the general populace has the will to rise up and demand such change.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the future. With the US federal debt being as obscene as it is, I think the country is spiraling towards disaster/collapse. Major reforms need to happen.

The following sessions begin to integrate some of the story from the Revenge of the Giants adventure- with significant changes to better fit this campaign and my style of dming.

PCs
Melek: Level 12 tiefling Wizard/Warlock
Bjorn: Level 12 human cleric of Thor
Bella: Level 13 changeling Rogue/sorceress
Turok: Level 12 minotaur warden
Vesna: Level 12 human warlord

This is Melek’s next journal:

After finishing off Stark and taking over ownership of his fortress we all thought it necessary to attend to some quick personal business. I managed to pick up a couple more very useful rituals and even a minor magic item. The Jarl was quite generous in rewarding me by having the Scarlet Stone Academy further enhance my enchanted amulet. I’m quickly discovering that being a hero defending the city pays very well. And it all is presumably Odin's will. At the least, I've seen no omens suggesting that I should change course. But I must admit that the most satisfying aspect of serving the city is proving to all those bastards at the academy that I am a very powerful hero with connections to the local powers. I bet that they now wish that they hadn't expelled me on mere suspicion so that my recent glories would be better reflecting on the Academy. Hopefully I'll eventually gain enough power that I'll be able to properly avenge the dishonor they have caused me.

I joined with my companions visiting some drip or other that they'd previously adventured with. His name was Derren Androsax, a local noble of a languishing house. Apparently, his sister had also adventured with Bjorn and company, and she had been claimed by Loki’s fire shortly before I met them. They rightly felt it their duty to bring this news to the Androsax scion. We found him sparring with his brother at his family’s estate in the noble district. He took the news about as well as could be expected, though he brother was quite upset and berated Derren for entrusting the girl’s care to Bella. Fools. What did they expect would happen if they left Bella to care for a child? I can’t imagine a woman less fit to be a mother.

I also learned that Derren had married Vesna’s younger sister Briannah, the High Archavist of the Skaldsholme library, an impressive feat. One that I’m surprised this lad was able to accomplish, for he is clearly a buffoon. However, he does seem to love her. He was quite concerned for her health. Apparently, she was kidnapped by cultists last summer, and the experience was quite horrific and traumatizing for her. She has now refused to go back north with the Androsax lad, which is clearly where he wants to be, and she has shut herself in the library, devoting herself entirely to researching the foul cult that abducted her. I fear that such a path can only lead to further pain and suffering. Derren is certainly worried about her, and seems to think that Vesna might be able to help her, though I can’t see her being very good at such a delicate task.

Ideally, we would have liked to spend more time attending to personal business and resting from our recent adventures, but the threat to Thunderholme Abbey was most pressing, and the others finally agreed that the time had come to investigate, an agenda I had been pushing for days. Well, some of us agreed to this course of action. Bella was far more concerned with cementing her position as Starke’s replacement and Vesna was more interested attending to her family and preparing the city for war. No surprise there.

Thus, Bjorn, Turok and myself decided to do some reconnaissance on our own. First we used a linked portal ritual to travel to an arcane curio shop in the town of Saltmarsh, which was the closest major town to the abbey. There we met one of my former teachers- a buffoon and apparently a coward. The people of Saltmarsh were well aware of their proximity to an army of giants and were preparing for the worst. It looked like he was going to save his own loot and flee without even trying to defend the town. Oh, he may have planned on making a token appearance on the wall but he was clearly going to look after himself first.

The Jarl of the town, one Harald Bloodhair, was a very different matter. He had sent off a large expedition under his son to investigate what was happening at the Abbey and to provide support. They had not yet returned and the Jarl feared the worst. The Jarl asked us to try and recover the lad’s body and his ancestral sword. We agreed to the task, as it certainly doesn’t hurt to have more friends among the jarls of the north.

Although we had little hope at this point, we set out fairly late that afternoon on summoned spiritual giant eagles- one of the rituals I had learned. There was something incredibly exhilarating about flying through the air and seeing the world laid out below. All our petty troubles and squabbles were put into perspective. Apparently neither of my companions agreed or shared my pleasure. Minotaurs belong on the ground. You'd think a cleric of Thor would appreciate flying through the sky. You would however be wrong (admittedly there was no storm, but one can't have everything). Our flight covered about 20 miles.

We got to the Abbey and unfortunately found more or less what we expected. The Abbey had fallen. The Abbey itself sat on a narrow spit of land, sandwiched between the sea and the Dawnforge Mountains. We first flew up to the sacred cave on Stormspire Peak. The abbey was built at the base of this mountain centuries ago because the mountain was sacred to the gods and believed to be a place where one could more easily communicate with them and discern their will. The priests had for ages been making the trek up the peak along a treacherous trail to the sacred cave where they would attempt to commune with the gods. We found some foul ceremony had been performed here involving a huge pile of naked corpses and the bloody symbol of The King the Crawls painted on to the rock face. The entrance to the cave itself had been collapsed. Our small hope that there might be survivors inside was quickly squashed when Turak called upon the mountain’s spirits to carry him beneath the earth and up into the cave. He found the altar smashed and desecrated, but no survivors.

We then went down to investigate the ruins of the abbey. There was a small band of scavengers poking about the rubble- a few Orcs, together with a handful of Hill Giants led by a female Hill Giant shaman. Not surprisingly, violence ensued. Despite our numbers being low we managed to fairly efficiently defeat them. For the first time in a long time my Stinking Cloud was very useful, as were the healing prayers to Thor cast by Bjorn. By Thor, can that man keep a party alive and healthy through a battle. Praise be to the son of Odin. Of course, Turak was also the fierce killing machine one would expect. He fearlessly lunged into battle against a pair of towering hill giants, hewing and smashing with his maul and goring with his horns when the opportunity arose. Still, I'm quite certain that I did at least my share as well- the Stinking Cloud did its job wonderfully at keeping the enemies separated, blind and choking to death. We received our share of injuries, but thanks to the gods and spirits we were able win the fight and heal our wounds.

After the dust of battle settled all of the giants and orcs were dead except for two hill giant prisoners. One was the shaman, and both readily succumbed to my Arcane Mutterings.

We more or less confirmed our expectations. We learned that the giants are led by an Earth Titan called Volgrum- the same one who destroyed Turak’s home. Their army consists of several hundred giants and several hundred orcs. The giants are mostly hill giants led by the mate of our shaman captive, but there are also said to be some stone giant clans among them. They had razed and pillaged the abbey and taken several captives. It is possible that Jarl Bloodhair’s son survives, and it is all but certain that his sword is in the hands of some high-ranking giant or even Volgrum himself. It was made plain to us that their plans are to descend on Saltmarsh in a few days.

We also found out that the giants had looted some kind of magic item/relic (or part of one) from a hidden chamber underneath the Abbey. Perhaps the survivors of the Abbey will know more. We investigated the chamber, but found no real clues to tell us what had been stolen. Certainly both Bjorn and I had not known the chamber existed, but clearly the giants had been aware of it, and it may well have been one of the primary reasons they had targeted the abbey.

Being of no use to us anymore, we then separated the shaman from her head.
After that we again mounted our eagles and took to the sky. We flew north into the mountains in search of the giant army. They did not prove to be difficult to locate. Under the cover of night, we quickly scouted out their camp from the air. It occupied a high mountain valley with but a single pass leading up to it. There was a steading at the far end of the valley, which was built directly into the mountainside. We are pretty certain that it holds their leaders, and is where Volgrum will be found. The reports we had gotten from the captured shaman were true- there were hundreds of them, enough to easily crush Saltmarsh and threaten Grimmsburg.

We have since returned home and must now decide what to do. We need to find out more about the relic that was stolen if at all possible, I believe we should launch some kind of attempt to kill Volgrum. Turok is all for this idea. Alternatively, we might try and set up an ambush of the entire army, but that seems like a course of action that would result in the loss of many skanzi lives. Whatever course of action we take, we must decide on it quickly, for the giants will soon be on the move with a titan marching at the front of their army.

I've run it a few times, and overall I like the system. It isn't probably the best system around, but it does modern games pretty good, and it is pretty straight forward ruleswise (similar to d20 except rolling d10s and adding modifiers). Firearms have the potential to be very dangerous, which is IMO a good feature in a modern game. I think I would prefer running Unisystem than d20 modern. I'm not sure if I'd like it better than Savage Worlds though.

It does serious as well as more light hearted.

I picked up the first one that Goodman Games put out called Death in Luxor, and thought it was a pretty cool adventure. It has pregens with it, and lots of good player handouts. It has the potential to be very deadly though, and my group didn't make it through to the end.

I also agree with the poster that mentioned Mansions of Madness. It has several pretty cool looking adventures. I ran one of them. I forget the name, but it involved the investigators traveling to a plantation in North Carolina and dealing with a cult of Yith. We had a lot of fun playing that one. It took us about 2 or 3 sesssions.

I'm a mac user, and I've had a DDI subscription for a couple of years. I use it mainly for easy access to the compendium since I'm a dm, and that keeps it worth it for me, but I'm sure glad to see that I'll soon be able to use the builder.

Keep in mind that if you want the desktop version you can just download it now with the most recent updates and be able to make enough characters to keep you playing for the next 10 life times if you want to, but I realize that most people aren't happy unless they have the latest and greatest of everything.

Thank you very much. That link was particularly helpful. I downloaded those resources and they are REALLY useful!

Unfortunately, I have not journal entries for this session. Here’s a brief synopsis: The Pcs spent the game session searching the lower level of Starke’s lair (the one they encountered him on). They found many hidden vaults and chambers where Starke stored various valuable raw materials and personal wealth, which they of course filled their bag of holding with. They encountered a number of traps and more construct guardians, including an iron golem that was guarding his main treasure vault. They were also able to find all the ritual notes Starke had written on warforged creation, which did indeed confirm that living souls had to be sacrificed and bound into each warforged to give the warforged sentience. Clearly this was why Starke had been buying up gemstones and slaves.

They also removed Starke’s custom clockwork armor and mask. Bella considered taking the mask, but decided against it when she realized that it would likely permanently fuse to her face. Beneath the armor and mask, they found that Starke was actually a tiefling. His tail had been amputated and his horns filed down, allowing him to wear the gear. They had also found Starke’s personal chapel, which was dedicated to the archdevil Dispater, indicating that Starke was secretly a devil worshipper.

Using Starke’s mask as proof of his demise, they made their way into the upper levels of the lair. With the help of the mask, the odd spell, crossbow bolt or blow from a hammer, they were able to intimidate Starke’s men with ease. Most fled or surrendered, but a few were stupid enough to fight and die swift deaths. The heroes also discovered more warforged on these levels; some had gone berserk and were slaughtering anyone in their path. These ones had to be put down. Others had gone catatonic or were writhing on the ground and insanely muttering to themselves. A rare few seemed to have retained sanity and become free willed. These ones were able to communicate with the heroes, and they demonstrated the potential to make useful allies. Unlike the warforged Karn, these modern warforged showed no particular deference towards Melek.

Victorious, the heroes reported back to Jarl Surtur. Bella remained behind to start the lengthy process of ensuring that she would be the one to fill the power vacuum that Starke’s death had created within Grimmsburg’s Underworld.

There next move is to go on a recon mission to Thunderholme abbey to see if it has in fact been sacked by giants or if there is a chance that it can still be saved.

I'm really looking forward to giving this game a shot, but it looks like I will have to gm and we won't have anyone with actual play experience in the group, so we are pretty much all learning from the rule books.

I could use some help from some folks who know the system.

I don't really understand how the attacks vs Target defense work. There seem to be two ways you can do it and I'm not sure which one is the right one.

In the rules it says that a weapon attack is an easy check, meaning you add one challenge die. It also says that you throw in misfortune die equal to the target's defense rating.

However, it also suggests that attacks can be opposed checks, in which case I'm assuming that you compare the target's attack score to the defense rating (as per standard opposed check rules) then you would add challenge die to the roll depending on the difference in the scores.

Is that right?

Would you also still add misfortune dice for each point of defense?

Which way do most people do this?

What is a characters defense rating? Is it determined entirely based on his armor and shield?

I have the new WFRP, and it is kind of interesting to me that it is desinged to be played without a battle map. It still has components to show visual representation to gauge where different characters are in relation to one another. It is also quite a tactical game. I'm really interested in trying it out. However, I'd likely have to dm it, and I'm having some trouble getting my head around the system.

P.H. Dungeon wrote:

Even Savage Worlds encourages the use of battlemats and minis (or more likely paper figure flats) in their games. No matter what system I'm running, I've pretty much always used some sort of visual representation when I gm combats, even if it is just a quick diagram.

There are games which don't need one, and games where they're not important, and some that are designed to avoid the concept (Like WFRP 3e). I've never played D&D without some representation on the tabletop of what's going on. Even if sometimes that has left a party of smarties attacking the salt and pepper pots.

About as different as Pathfinder is from 3.5.

The Battle Against Victor Starke:

Melek's third journal:

You've got to love it when things go pretty much to plan. I just wish that happened more often.

We cast the ritual magic that would allow us to operate underwater and approach Starke’s island fortress from polluted waters of the Grimmsburg harbor. As we arrived, we were attacked by a small pack of oversized, clockwork eels, presumably created by Starke. These weren't really that much of a threat, and we quickly dispatched them before they could raise the alarm. Even with the ritual magic allowing us to fight underwater my vaunted fire magics were somewhat negatively affected but not to any huge extent, and I still managed to make myself useful in the battle.

Next, I cast a ritual to allow us to locate the Hat of Disguise that Starke frequently wears, in hopes that we could pin point his location in the sprawling complex. Fortunately, the ritual worked, and it appeared that Starke was not terribly far from us.

We then cast a passwall ritual that instantly created a tunnel into the compound, which we directed towards where we believed he would be found. The harbor water of course rushed into the tunnel. We were swept into the bottom level of Starke’s lair in a great flow of water. As anticipated, the water even knocked out at least one ward spell.

We found ourselves knee deep in water, in a room with a permanent teleport circle inscribed in the floor. Bella wanted to spend some time studying the circle, but when I pointed out that we had to get to Starke quickly she agreed.

After a quite short trip we found ourselves at a set of large doors. Our detection ritual indicated that Starke was likely behind them. The doors were made of metal and locked with a complex gear lock that was built right into the door. Bella then tried to use her thievery skills to open the doors. She failed miserably with the result being a large explosion, as she triggered an undetected ward. I thought I was far enough away but, alas, I was not. I suffered some injuries, but thanks to Bjorn’s healing powers, I recovered quickly.

As I mentioned, the door mechanism was an intricate puzzle of gears, so I gave Bella some tips on opening it. She ignored those tips and followed her intuition. Good thing the ward only went off the once. Still, the third time is the charm. Bella managed to open the door. Confronting us was a line of Warforged who somehow had been alerted to our presence (I wonder if the ward going off had anything to do with that :-)). Behind the warforged was a huge laboratory where Starke and a band of dwarven lab assistants were obviously trying to make a massive war forged, one at least as large as a giant. 4 people were strapped to tables showing us that life forces or souls are clearly part of Starke’s process.

Mayhem then ensued. Fortunately, my Wall of Fire spell gave the warforged an unpleasant choice- stay where they were and burn in my flames or fall back, thus allowing us access to the room. They chose the latter.

Starke’s immediate counters of a cloud of toxic gas and some silly swarm of clockwork bees weren't particularly effective. Actually, that isn't at all fair to my companions, especially not to Bjorn. Starke’s attacks were plenty dangerous, and without his healing magics we would have all perished. Thor is especially good at keeping those doing his business up on their feet.

After some time hacking through the warforged that were still clustered near the entrance, we managed to force our way fully into the laboratory. Turak went into what was essentially single combat with a dwarven artificer, while Vesna and Bjorn were embroiled in combat with the warforged. Bella went after Starke, and I went after targets of opportunity as they presented themselves. A bunch of idiotic dwarven lab helpers were foolish enough to throw themselves into the fray to fight and to die, for we were showing no mercy to Starke’s allies.

The battle proceeded, as we were forced to waste time dealing with Starke’s minions. Then Bella pulled out all of the stops and tried to kill Starke with a flurry of frost bolts from her crossbow. She wasn't anywhere near as effective as she hoped, for his clockwork armor was damn tough to penetrate, but she did manage to significantly weaken him. Starke struck back with a massive blast of lightning unleashed from his armor, knocking both Turak and myself off our feet. It felt like it almost killed me, but I was somehow still alive. I found myself lying on the ground surrounded by Starke’s minions who were eager to kick a down tiefling. Fortunately, my shield was just enough to save my ass from their barrage of attacks, and soon I once again felt Bjorn’s healing powers wash over me.

I crawled to my feet, and it was my turn. I'm loathe to admit how much my diabolic heritage relishes putting the hurt on those already suffering. But it does. And it does so quite effectively. I cursed Starke and unleashed a storm of magical fury upon him. It was still not enough to kill Starke, but it was enough to make him regret his decision not to flee when he had the opportunity. Turak had finished off the dwarven artificer and was now upon him, and thanks to the aid of Turak’s spirit allies and a well placed bolt from Bella, Starke would not be making an easy escape.

Turak finished off what Bella and I had started. Bravely ignoring the crackling lightning that was now streaming from Starke’s armor, Turak strode forward, suffered the pain and put Stark out of his (and our) misery with a mighty blow from his maul.

The clean up after that was swift, as Bjorn and Vesna brought down the remaining warforged.

Then a very interesting thing occurred. In a room attached to the lab we discovered a sentient Warforged from the southern lands, a warforged whose existence dates back to the lost empire of my people. He had been locked in a cage by Starke, and presumably Starke had been using him to “reverse engineer” the lost art of warforged creation. It transpired that he'd been betrayed by Bella (imagine my shock and surprise) and sold by her to Starke. He wasn't happy about that, and wanted little more than to track down and kill Bella. He also seemed to automatically treat me with a considerable amount of respect and deference. Which, I must admit, made a very welcome change from the usual way that my kind are seen.

If time and opportunity allows I have to try and pick his brains, if he has such a thing. He'll have a unique perspective on so many things, combined with knowledge of many things long forgotten.

Fortunately, warforged don't seem to be all that bright and he bought into Bella’s b$+***$* that she had no choice, fearing for her life if she didn't deliver the warforged to Starke. While I don't really doubt that it would have made things uncomfortable for Bella, I'm pretty sure that she had lots of other options and did what she did at least as much for the riches that it gained her as from fear of Stark.

He wishes to return home. Unfortunately (albeit not surprisingly), he doesn't know the make up of any teleport circles there. And I certainly don't trust what the Scarlet Academy will do if they find out about him. Apparently they were also seeking him when Bella betrayed him. I’m not sure if they knew that he was sentient, and I’m not sure that they'd care.

It’s not clear what we're going to do with him. For the moment, at least, we don't have to worry about it. First we need to look through the fortress and make sure that there are no more significant enemies here, particularly on this level. We will also be sure to take the time to more thoroughly explore this lower level. Bella claims it is Starke’s personal sanctuary, and she thinks he likely stores many of arcane secrets and worldly wealth down here. We are eager to find all the interesting and valuable items before soldiers of the Jarl come in grabbing and smashing everything in sight.

Are there rules differences between this game and Dark Heresy?

Even Savage Worlds encourages the use of battlemats and minis (or more likely paper figure flats) in their games. No matter what system I'm running, I've pretty much always used some sort of visual representation when I gm combats, even if it is just a quick diagram.

I was fortunate that during Savage Tide in that I had seen the characters in action so many times that by the time they got to the big boss fights, I had a pretty good handle on what they could do, what their usual tactics were and how I might counter them. For instance, I had to beef Demogorgon up a little, but when they got to him they had already used a lot of their magical resources (debuffing them with a Mordenkeinan's disjunction ward helped with this), so it proved to be an epic fight. Demogorgon made (I believe) 7 PC kills in that fight alone, one character died 3 times in the battle (go rotting tentacles), but thanks to having more than one healer, a staff of healing and spells like revivify, death never kept a character out of the fight for long. It was truly epic, but it took a s&+! load of work and planning to prep it in such a way that I was able to ensure it would truly challenge the heroes. If I had just tried to run the adventure RAW, the PCs likely would have crushed it.

I find that 4E PCs can still be real bad ass, but it is much easier and less time consuming to prep nasty encounters that will give them a good challenge.

donnald johnson wrote:

i was done with 3.5 when i was running age of worms and my powergamer group killed dragotha in one round.

so i have wanted something different for a long time. i was really glad when 4e came out.

my biggest beef with 3.5 was that the monsters had to be built exactly like characters. i am so glad that i dont have to go through that anymore.

its much easier to dm, and my players love their powers. it is very cinematic.

In my case it was the Demon Lord Kerzit in Maure Castle. I'm getting all excited because my players are going head to head with a Demon Lord straight out of 1st edition - I've never got to run a Demon Lord in combat. I was psyched!

They cast dimensional anchour and Force Cage and then buffed like mad, surrounded the force cage completely and readied actions to attack when the force cage came down. Kerzit got maybe one action, before the Force Cage went up and none after it came down. It was such a let down.

This journal picks up where his last one left off. The heroes have returned to Grimmsburg after defeating Skalmed the Troll King. They have discovered tensions high between Victor Starke and Jarl Surtur. In the last session “Starke” (there is some debate among the Pcs as to whether the man even was Starke) had a meeting in the Jarl’s hall and gave him an ultimatum. When the Jarl didn’t readily accept, Starke tried to kill him with a devastating, exploding, clockwork bird, and then used magic to make an escape. Bella foiled the attempt, by shooting the bird down before it reached the jarl, though it still caused great injury to him and many of his men. It seems that the fight is not yet over…

Melek’s Journal:

After having defeated the immediate threat, we only had a very small respite before the sounds of combat came from the courtyard.

Rushing outside, we found a large number of warforged fighting the troops of the Jarl. Alongside the warforged were a number of clockwork hounds as well.

We rapidly joined the battle and were fairly instrumental in ending it reasonably quickly and efficiently. One average warforged is superior to a viking warrior, even one who is a member of the Jarl's personal guard, but is no match for my new companions or for myself.

I was relatively ineffective in this fight since the warforged and my viking allies were too interspersed and since the Warforged are likely immune to my most damaging magics. Still, "relatively ineffective" hardly means useless. Fortunately the monstrosities were foolish enough to attack my flaming aura in an attempt to kill me, and do much harm themselves in the process.

Bella was her usual killing machine, sending in bolts of death from a distance, an effective (if rather cowardly) approach. Turak stayed inside to make sure that it wasn't all a distraction (or, at least, to make sure that the distraction would fail). Vesna spent the entire fight in the midst of the great melee, hacking and slashing at Starke’s warforged with her enchanted blade. Bjorn ended up coming into the fight before we did, having arrived from the Temple of Thor. He had been absent from the negotiations with Starke on other business, and his arrival was quite timely to say the least. Say what you want about Thor, but his priests can certainly fight, and do a fine job of inspiring and aiding their allies. Despite taking a couple of significant blows, I ended up the fight less injured than I was when I started thanks to Bjorn’s divine healing powers. He truly is in Thor’s favor.

The warforged were coming in from a teleportation circle inscribed on the floor of Starke's coach, an interesting (if rather expensive) way of getting troops into the castle. I'm still wondering to what end, though. Surely Stark couldn’t have expected such paltry numbers to win? Even if we had not been present the Jarl would have been able to easily flee. Of course, had we not been there, he would surely have been obliterated by the exploding bird and the majority of his personal guard would likely have been cut down, so perhaps I don’t give Starke enough credit.

Although I didn't hear it myself, Bjorn later revealed that he saw one of the Warforged collapse and whimper for his mommy in a child like voice. It seems highly likely that the souls of youths are being used in the construction of the monstrosities. Starke is a naughty man, deserving of punishment.

After the battle we did the usual stuff. I put out fires that had just happened to start in the jarl’s hall (amazing how often that happens near me), Bjorn and Vesna tended to the wounded, Turak took a piss and Bella disappeared.

Then came the discussion as to what we should do next. Apparently the teleport circle at Thunderhome Abbey is no longer functional. Unfortunately, that indicates that the Abbey has fallen. It certainly means that getting there will take longer and be considerably more dangerous.

Vesna seems obsessed with the idea of building her own Warforged. This makes me pretty nervous. Even if we can find the ritual and even if it is learnable by a non-artificer (both of which seem fairly unlikely) we'd be presented with the problem of getting the jewels and forging the bodies. Oh, yes, not to mention getting the souls into the bodies; I should consider that as well. And all that ignores the possibility that there is some ritual known only to Starke that can take control of Warforged.

Warforged helping to defend the city was a reasonable idea had some kind of accommodation could have been made between Stark and the Jarl, but it is too late for that.

I'll give Vesna credit though, she convinced the Jarl to train all the peasants and to get the local militias into some form of order. I'm not sure if she sees that as useful against Starke, but it will definitely help against the giants should they come at Grimmsburg.

After some discussion of alternatives that could not possibly work (eg, keeping Stark besieged), we decided that the only reasonable course was to try and go into Starke’s fortress and kill him. Bella knows a fair bit about the layout, so we have at least a small chance of success.

The Scarlet Academy is willing to give us some material aid, as is the temple of Odin. We're the only ones willing to risk our lives, though. Typical.

We have a cunning plan involving a passwall ritual, invisibility potions and the like. I bet they won't even survive our making it to his lair, which occupies the entirety of a man made island in the filthy district of the city that is known as the Styes.

We all seem to be going for different reasons. Bella seems to have been personally insulted by Starke attacking the Jarl the way that he did. Vesna, of course, wants to avenge an attack on her father. I’m not really sure why Turak and Bjorn are going along, I'd have expected them both to be off for Thunderhome, but I suppose they have some loyalty to Bella and Vesna. As for me, well I need to cement my relationship with my new allies. More importantly, sacrificing the souls of innocents to create warforged is just WRONG and has to be stopped, and the odds of Thunderhome not already having been destroyed seem low.

I just hope that my new associates know when to fight and when to run. Because running early, quickly and often might be the only way that we survive this, that or actually succeeding in killing Starke.

I could see how you would feel that way.

I had a similar experience when I ran Savage Tide in 3.5. I constantly had to alter/upgrade monsters and encounters to make them pose a challenge to players, especially once we got into the higher levels of play. I would have felt very frustrated it Dragotha had been killed in one round, given how hyped up he had been through the game as an uber baddie.

I really enjoyed running that game, but it got pretty exhausting towards the end, and I was eager to try a new version of dnd, one that would prevent magic from so thoroughly dominating the game.

DM Note: We had another change in our player line up. Deryl’s player had to leave the game and a new player took her place, so we had to write her out of the story and bring in a new character. After destroying the enchanted, formorian, stone cauldron and thus preventing Skalmed the Trollking from returning to life, the heroes took an extended rest. During this rest Deryl’s magical dagger burst into flames and the flames consumed her. The heroes awoke to witness this event and she seemed to be in no pain. Soon her entire body was gone and only the dagger remained behind. All the arcane power had been drained from it. The adventurers were left to speculate the cause, and they decided that Loki was likely behind the event.

Soon Afterwards the heroes were introduced to Melek the tiefling warlock/wizard. The following is the first journal from Melek’s player and introduces this new character.

Melek’s Journal:

Well, that has to count as amongst the most eventful few days that I've ever spent. Let’s see: Make a new pact with a new entity, leave the Feywild, return to Grimmsburg for the first time in years, learn that the one place that I really consider home is under siege, and witness a failed coup attempt that is pretty much guaranteed to lead to an immensely damaging civil war.

I shudder to realize that this still puts the week in, at best, third place on the "eventful weeks that I have spent" scale.

But I should probably start from the beginning. I traveled with a group of clerics of Thor from Thunderholme abbey to the town of Moonstair. Our mission was to bolster the town’s defenses, as it was apparently threatened by trolls. After arriving, I learned that the town boasted a mystic portal to the Feywild, and I volunteered to lend my support to a diplomatic mission sent to that realm to garner aid from the mysterious eladrin.

In the feywild I joined an eladrin war band that had become aware that trolls were entering into their realm through some means of their own. They suspected it was linked to our own problems with trolls in midgard, and myself and several good clerics of Thor pledged our aid in finding a means of sealing their access to the fey realm.

Well, that ended up in a complete disaster. We ran into more trouble than a band of pointy eared stuck up snobs could handle, even with my help. Several of them had already died when the rest of them abandoned me to my fate. I managed to fight my way out but soon found myself wandering in the swamps, sick and injured. My last real memory was collapsing in a circle of standing stones that I'd hoped would take me home.

Then we have dreams and images and sounds. I know that in my delirious state, I made some form of Pact with some kind of Fae lord. I really, really wish that I knew more. I guess that I didn't have much choice in the matter. It was that or perish. And I'm pretty sure that my soul hasn't been sufficiently redeemed as of yet, so perishing really was NOT an option.

At least I gained something in the bargain. I seem to have an instinctive knowledge of at least some of my newfound abilities. The Fey step and Eye blink are pretty standard Warlock fare, I've seen them in action before. But how the heck the Pact caused my Winged Horde spell to now be real burning damage as opposed to illusion I do not understand. Darn useful, mind you.

When I awoke I found that I knew the way to a strange formorian cauldron that trolls coveted. Certainly this information must have been gifted to me by the fae that I have made my pact with. That seems a pretty obvious hint as to what I'm expected to do. Wonder if other "suggestions" will be this clear? At any rate, I headed off to where my horns were leading me.

It was soon obvious that somebody had been there ahead of me. Corpses of trolls and various fell beasts littered the ground. As I advanced cautiously, I heard the sounds of people talking ahead. Given that stealth is hardly my strong point I called out. Fortunately for me, they didn't automatically attack the "Evil Devil". Even more fortunately, one of them was Bjorn, a Cleric of Thor that I recognized from Thunderholme Abbey. The rest were the usual motley assortment that makes up an adventuring band. Why do I detect the hand of the Norns in this?

With the help of Bjorn vouching for me I was able to join the band. It turns out that they needed my help to get out of the Feywild as the ritual required Arcane Fire together with a good knowledge of Arcane magic, and the sorceress who had brought them there had mysteriously vanished.

This seems a good place to give my impressions of my new companions:

Bjorn, a Cleric of Thor. What can one say about a Cleric of Thor? Brave, Trustworthy, Perceptive, generally dumb as a brick, and a good person to have by one’s side, as long as one doesn't have to listen to him TOO much.

Belladona – a highly skilled archer- almost certainly a Rogue by profession. I've met her sort many a time before- very, very, very good at killing things. My first impression was that she was something of a coward, but I'm not sure that is true. She definitely likes to stay way back from things and disappear at a moments notice. I have no idea whether or not she can be trusted. In my experience, people like her fall into 1 of 2 categories. Category 1 will betray ANYBODY at the drop of a hat. They tend to either die quickly or rise in power quite quickly. Category 2, choose who they betray with some care. They keep faith with at least some allies (at least as long as the allies aren't a major impediment). Only time will tell which she is. For the moment, I'm going to trust her no more than she is likely to trust me.

Turak - A minotaur. Not exactly sure what he can do, but I think he has some sort of ties to the primal spirits of the land. He hits stuff fairly hard with his massive maul and tends to knock things down a lot. Even more than Bjorn he seems to think with his weapon. Obviously, he’s a little bit of a savage. Still, he accepted me with no problems at all and that has to count for a lot, definitely worth cultivating his friendship. He also seems to eat only hay and mushrooms. I wonder what that is all about?

Vesna - A female viking warrior. She’s the daughter of the Jarl of Grimmsburg, and very, very definitely somebody worth cultivating a relationship with. She also seems to have a reasonable head on her shoulders, far better than I'd expect most viking shield maidens to have.

At any rate, I performed the ritual, and we all returned from the Fey Wild into a troll infested cavern, which afforded me the opportunity to see something of my new companions abilities.

They're all quite powerful, at least as powerful as I am. But they seem to be insanely prolifigate in the use of their abilities. It would appear that they believe the old saw "Never use a hammer to do a job when you've got a sledgehammer available", and they're quite bloodthirsty. Belladona attacked a sleeping Dire Bear. Yeah, he might have gotten involved but one can hardly be certain, and when some of the trolls tried to surrender the decision was made to kill them all anyway, which I had no problem with, actually. Trolls are vermin and should be exterminated. I was just a little surprised that my new associates agreed.

As can be surmised, this little pack of trolls was no match for us. Vesna went down at one point but she was back up a couple of seconds later due to Bjorn’s divine intervention. Bella hung back and sniped, exceedingly effectively. Note to self- never go against her unless really, really necessary. Turak bellowed and charged and hewed mightily with his maul, and against trolls my fire magics were a quite welcome and a useful addition.

Apparently Belladona is also something of an arcanist. After the battle, she threw a portal ritual and there we were in Grimmsburg, in teleport circle located in a tavern owned by the notorious Victor Starke. Apparently Bella works for Starke.

We next headed over to the home of the Jarl for a touching family reunion. It turns out that my companions had found a letter in the troll caves indicating that somebody wants the Jarl and Starke at each other’s throat. This person seems to think that this will weaken the city enough to make it easy prey for the trolls. It also turns out that Thunderholme Abbey is under siege by giants who are being led by an Earth Titan, and Turak believes that it is the same titan that destroyed his clan labyrinth. In my opinion that threat is pretty clearly our highest priority.

While conversing with the Jarl, I also got to meet Dean Danzig of the Scarlet Stone Academy again. I admit to mixed feelings about him. At the time, I blamed him for letting them expel me just because I was a Tiefling. But now that I'm older and at least a little wiser I see that he probably saved my life by getting me away from the vengeful family of that poor fool who died in the lab accident. And I guess that under the circumstances I can't complain TOO much.

I went off to see my family while the rest got involved in some diplomatic mission trying to arrange a treaty between Stark and the Jarl, a mission that turned out to be rather, uh, a failure.

Meeting my family again was about exactly as much fun as I expected. Father is still a raging a*&+##* who is convinced that I've thrown my life away. His reaction on seeing me wearing the symbols of Odin and Uller was priceless. My brother Leucis looked like he'll be hiring my sister Akta to kill me some time soon rather than have me as a rival for the family business (no matter how many times I tell him that I have NO interest in business he never believes me). And unfortunately Killista was out of town with her troupe. At least I got to see mom, which was nice.

The next day we had a big meeting between Stark and the Jarl to see if they could come to some kind of arrangement. The meeting took place at the Jarl’s Hall. Starke arrived in a massive iron carriage pulled by clockwork stallions and accompanied by a half dozen constructs called warforged. The warforged were originally created by my ancestors in Bhal Turath to battle the empire of Arkosia, and as far as I had known the secret of their creation had been lost. It seems that Starke had managed to discover that secret.
Starke acted very, very strangely. He didn't even try and to negotiate, he just presented the Jarl with a rather absurd ultimatum. The Jarl was to give him 1/2 of what he owned, so that Starke could build an army of warforged that would be under Starke’s exclusive control. In return, Starke would use the warforged to defend the city, and the Jarl could retain his title as the Jarl and continue to rule the city. There was no room to negotiate. When the Jarl didn't pretty much instantly agree (the whole meeting took maybe 10 minutes) Starke attacked with a really impressive, exploding, clockwork pigeon. I'll give Bella credit. She reacted instantly and managed to shoot the pidgeon down while the rest of us were gawking. I guess she showed which side she is really on. Given the resulting boom, I'm pretty certain that the Jarl wouldn't have survived a direct hit.

Even more suprisingly, Starke then drank a potion and disappeared. He didn't follow through with the attack; he just left. However, he warforged were ready to finish the Jarl off and they moved in to do just that.

I then tossed up a Wall of Fire to stop them. I gotta give Bella credit again- she didn't b!$*# when she got slightly singed by the fire. The warforged made their way through the fire anyway but were quite damaged in the process. As a result, mopping them up wasn't a big deal. They're reasonably tough but not a whole lot more than that, and they make Vikings look smart :-).

According to Bella, Starke had a look of surprise and awe on his face when she shot the pigeon and it exploded. I’m not at all sure what that means. The whole thing makes little sense. Maybe Starke has gone mad? Maybe he thought that he was negotiating? If he'd intended to kill the Jarl then why didn't he carry through while we were all reeling from the explosion? Did he WANT to start a civil war? Maybe he was surprised when the pigeon went boom? Nothing really fits. I strongly suspect that we're missing at least one vital bit of knowledge.

Not that it really matters all that much. Now we have a civil war. So much for the Jarl sending troops to relieve the Abbey. I hope that the rest of my new associates still decide to save the Abbey. Turak and Bjorne are likely going to be in favor. But Vesna is likely to want to stay here with her father. I have no idea what Bella is going to want. Presumably she's high on Starks hit list right now.

Hmm. I wonder if this was all some sort of ploy to get Bella really trusted? That sounds like something my father would plan- probably not but worth keeping in mind.

I want to try this.

Can you get the punchers at your typical office supply shop?

Do most craft stores carry glass globs in such sizes?

Another alternative for larger creatures might be make a "glass glob". Take your cut out card stock image and lay it on the table. Then build a little mould/wall around it with plasticine. Then pour some epoxy resin into your mould. When it has set peel away the plasticine. You may want to coat the inside of plasticine with vaseline first, so the epoxy doesn't bond to it. Most epoxys should dry clear and leave the equivalent to "glass glob" over top of your image. This could make some nice gargantuan and huge minis since you can't seem to find glass globs in those sizes. I haven't actually tried this, so I can guarantee it will work, but I think it probably would.

I can certainly relate to why you might want to stop DMing 3.5 after level 12. That would be about my cut off as well if I were to run another campaign with that system. I'm not sure if I agree with you about 4E having less "fiddle" room. That may have been true when the system first came out, but with the splat books that have been put and the hybrid character rules, I think there is loads of fiddle room (possibly not as much as 3.5, but still enough to keep the power gamers real busy on those character optimization boards- shudder even thinking about it).

P.H. Dungeon wrote:

I think by flexibility players often mean that in 3.x magic enables you to do much crazier s@@% that can easily break encounters and make dm's job of challenging the party much more difficult/time consuming.

This I agree with. DMing 3.5e for me became a chore. I'm trying to tell a story and some of my players are just crunching the numbers. In the end I refused to DM adventures of higher than 12th level. Now I love playing 3.5e it was different from earlier D&D in that I could make nearly any concept (crunch-wise) that I chose. 4e characters have less "fiddle" and this means less crunch play.

So in summary;

I choose to play 3.5e (actually PF) but DM 4e. DMing 4e, as has been stated numerous times, if far more like my beloved 1e/2e. The grand unified theory of everything (i.e. 3.5e) rule set meant players were very rarely surprised by things and if something was different they assumed I was house-ruling (which I dislike - personal preference, not saying it is wrong). Essentials for me is the new set I'll be running games under - but Essentials only, no pure-4e products.

Paizo has produced and outstanding game and now WotC has released Essentials they have in my opinion found their way again.

Good on them both,
S.

A journal from Vesna, daughter of Jarl Surtur of Grimmsburg.

Over the years, I have traveled far in trade and on errands for my father, and I have always had an adventurous soul; yet even I am home sick after the atrocities I have faced and the wasted places I have visited in the past few weeks.

In the interest of keeping peace within my father's borders I have joined with Bjorn cleric of Thor, Bella the sorcerous rogue, and a minotaur named Turoc to try to put an end to the evil forces attempting to poison our towns and cities with their vile cults and sacrifices. Having helped to dispatch a dragon in Fallcrest I wrongfully underestimated the difficulty of our next task during which we lost a potent ally named Torfinn to the vile sludge that wells up from the earth as a sure sign of the presence of unspeakable evil.

By Odin how I miss my long boat and my men; would that I could spend one night in their loud and caring company, or even a good nights sleep in my old room in Grimmsburg, or my own homestead. The gods know I spend little time there, but I do actually maintain a household near Grimmsburg run by my younger sister. She was widowed at a young age so I took her in, and I have counted on her trusty eye and hand in running my affairs while I am gone.

In recent days we traveled to the Trollhaunt near the town of Moonstair to deal with rumors of a gathering troll army led by a “Troll King”. Our last fight with the trolls and their king was exhausting and infuriating, let me explain:
After having delved deep into their king’s warren, we found a weapons forge, and we fought several troll guards slaying them all. I was able to shove one into the water just as it was about to take a fatal strike at Bella. I was not sure what to make of her at first, but I have growing respect for this woman as she is a very strategic archer and has seemingly mystic powers somewhat beyond my understanding. I will continue to observe closely, for there is only one thing I value above honesty and prosperous trade, and that is learning; knowledge is a tool and a safeguard in today’s world.

Once we reached the inner caves we faced not just more troll guards but their king. One of his eyes was a magical glowing orb, and when we had brought the troll king to the brink of death and suffered many blows and cuts in doing so, his body vanished in flame taking the magical orb with it. Just before he vanished the Troll king laughed spitefully and revealed that he had sent troops to Moonstair, and that while we fought here in the dank tunnels they were sacking the town. This angered me greatly; all those innocent people, farmers, bakers, inn keepers, wives, children hard working people, my father's people, my people, and yet I may not be able to protect them. Still I will continue and succeed or die trying. I have left my loyal servant Thom and a ship full of my best warriors behind in Moonstair to protect the town. I pray that they will be able to bolster the town’s defenses enough to stave off the raid. Meanwhile, I will fight evil in any form; that is my sworn oath. We shall seek out the troll king, and see that he is dealt with once and for all, so that he no longer poses a threat to my people.

“Mistress…”

It had been a long day. I lie curled up in my tent in an uneasy rest. We are far from home in a cold cavern in the Fey Wild. This was where we finally defeated the Troll King and his stench still permeates the room.

“Mistress…”

Our exploration of the King’s Throne room had revealed that his throne was a portal to the Fey Wild that Deryl was able to activate. It was here that we discovered a group of hags trying to revive the Troll King in a giant stone cauldron.

They didn’t succeed.

“Mistress….”

For most of the battle I kept out of harm’s way, my companions were not so fortunate. Both Bjorn and Turak were the victims of domination by the hags. They used the cauldron as cover so I was having difficulty getting a clear shot. In the end however we were able to interrupt their ritual and defeat them before we had to face the Troll King a second time.

“Mistress…”

I open my eyes and see Cullen flying in front of me, but I barely recognize him. He is no longer translucent crystal, but black and covered in scales. His form bulges out uncomfortably in places in a way that would be painful in a living being. His eyes look into mine, pleading.

“I apologize for awakening you Mistress, especially after such a trying day but it would seem that our powers have grown and I require your assistance to complete the transformation.”

Groggily I prop myself up and look upon the sorry state of my familiar. He really is a mess.

“It is I who should be saying sorry Cullen. You have been a loyal servant and a true friend. I do not say it enough. Without you this mission probably would have been disastrous. Allow me to repay you for all your hard work.”

With that I reach out and reshape his body with my hands and my magic. His ethereal flesh moves like smoke and clay and takes shape by my touch. I find that I am not in complete control of the transformation, Cullen’s body takes shape almost on its own. His obsidian scales glitter in the darkness, his eyes are pools of unending night. His wings are now those of a bat and he melds with the shadows as he hovers before me. When I finish he resembles a small but majestic black dragon.

Cullen flexes his new body, clearly pleased with my work. As I altered his form I could feel our bond changing. We were more closely linked, no longer would Cullen be able to scout afar. I wouldn’t say I liked the idea, but for what was promised it would be worth it.

“I thank you my Mistress, may I continue to serve you as well in this form as I did my last. Now please rest Mistress. As I said it was a trying day and if this were not so important I would not have waken you.”

With that he slips into my pocket and disappears.

I snuff out the light in my tent, ready to sleep and have a start of surprise.

My tent does not go dark, but is in hues of black and white. I can now see in the dark. I look around marveling at the new sense. My sorceress abilities are not flashy or indeed potent. This however is one of the greatest gifts they could give me. My eyes now pierce the veil of shadow. Now I can see just as well as my enemy, no longer will they be able to use darkness to hide. My bolts shall descend on them like rain.

Curling up I return to my dreams, content.

The lack of fluff in the WOTC Monster books has been a common criticism, but I think they have tried to listen, and MM3 was a big improvement in that department. I think the upcoming monster vault will also be good one.

It certainly is possible to build challenging counters that can't be "brorken" easily by a couple of key spells in 3.x. However, it can be difficult especially at higher levels. For instance running fights against giants can be tough in 3.5 unless you give them access to a lot of magic. It can be easy for a high level party to just teleport into their lair, blast the crap out of them with a bunch of maximized or quickened spells and then teleport away, leaving a bunch of charred corpses behind. As a dm you have to work harder to set things up, so that things won't be that easy.

P.H. Dungeon wrote:

I think by flexibility players often mean that in 3.x magic enables you to do much crazier s*&# that can easily break encounters and make dm's job of challenging the party much more difficult/time consuming.

To an extent I have to agree with you here. Pathfinder and 3.5 made it much easier for players to be lazy and just fire off a spell to overcome certian things (particularly social challenges if the right spells were used).

However, I got very good at creating situations where everyone had different roles to play to succeed in those situations, and the old one spell to rule them all doesn't seemt o play a big part in my games.

Interestingly, the guys in my PF game that like to play casters don't like 4th ed, but the other guys do. I'm still muddling my way through as a DM for 4th and I think that may have contributed a little as well. However, now we've played a lot more, and there's so much more choice of options out there now, I find 4th edition is playing more and more like our old 3.x/Pathfinder games.

And its easier to DM. Have I said that already.

What I don't enjoy about 4th is the books seem really "hollow" when I read them. There doesn't seem as much depth or feeling to them as there is in Pathfinder, particularly the monster manuals. There's just something unsatisfying in the MM books since they rarely contain much detail about the creatures themselves, their behaviours, their habitats or history. It is this meat and bones that really gives a DM inspiration for great game building. So I'm glad I have experienced over 20 years of DMing and gaming to draw on when it comes to fleshing out the baddies into something more than numbers. However, this is the trade off you get for having great and easy to use stat blocks created at multiple challenge levels. I can live with it.

Cheers

I think by flexibility players often mean that in 3.x magic enables you to do much crazier s@~# that can easily break encounters and make dm's job of challenging the party much more difficult/time consuming.

I play both systems (Pathfinder and 4th Ed). Like most others here, I see no deifference in the type of game I can run.

What I do get is very easy DMing in 4th edition, and not so much in Pathfinder. I run a weekly 4th edition game using the Scales of War campaign and modified sections of Rise of the Runelords to mix things up. It takes me less than an hour to prep the game which we then run for 3 - 4 hours. That's good given my time restraints.

I run a Pathfinder game for another group (with some overlap) but we play once a fortnight (in good times) but closer to once a month on average. Even though I'm running a pre written AP, I still generally have to prepare more for Pathfinder because I often need to read up on spells and feats to fully understand what the critters can do.

Both sytems let me have fun and involving games. But 4th edition wins the GM ease of use factor hands down.

Pathinder has more felxibility in some areas, but that's mostly from what I'm hearing from my players. As a GM I'm not seeing a difference either way.

Cheers

To keep it simple for you as a dm, I would just use saving throws (even for PCs). If a character is forced moved onto a square of ice, have them make a save or fall prone (except for maybe a rogue, who would likely prefer an acrobatics check). I'd do the same with the steep slope. The person isn't really trying to climb the slope or balance to walk on ice, which to me would be a situation where a skill check would be more appropriate.

We had a question come up last night with regard to Come and Get It but more generally to forced movement. We understand that if you try and move someone over a pit or 'harmful square' they get a save to fall prone instead. As I understand it, you also can't slide someone through a blocking square (like a pillar or something). You also can force someone to move through difficult terrain with no modifications. What if it's a square which requires some kind of skill check to maneuver through?

Can I push/pull/slide an enemy into an ice square they need to make an acrobatics check to enter without falling over?

Can I push/pull/slide an enemy into a steep slope they need to make an athletics check to climb?

So the essentials stuff is not yet in the Character Builder?

This is definitely an issue with D&D in both 3.5/Pathfinder and 4E. The system itself caters towards players who like to min/max by giving them zillions of different options and combinations for putting together characters, which can be fun and rewarding, but also offers opens the door for system abuse/exploitation. It is very easy for players to get wrapped up in trying to wring every little ounce of PC power out of the D&D sponge. What so many don't seem to understand is that it can just lead to frustration for dms and make the game less fun for other players at the table, as everyone else feels like they need to do the same thing, so that they can make sure that their characters' aren't left in the power gamer's dust. It is hard to deal with this issue because there is a fine line between building an effective character and power gaming/optimizing. Usually, you can tell who the power gamers are based on their personalities and why they come to the table. Personally, it isn't my preferred play style, and it is one of the reasons I've become increasingly frustrated with dnd lately- though I should probably hate the player not the game (but they're nice enough people, so it's kind of hard to hate them). None the less, power gamers may well force me into early retirement.

P.H. Dungeon wrote:

I have some power gamers in my group as well, and it can make running a 3E game pretty challenging, as such players can easily create builds that really tax the system and make it difficult to easily create challenging encounters. It also can lead to one player having an uber character and another player having a really gimpy character. That is my main beef with 3E. 4E solves these issues to a significant extent, but doesn't totally resolve them (at least not with my group).

Yeah, power gamers can cause problems in 4e too if they try hard enough. (Or get ideas from CharOp.) I just had a falling out with my group's youngest player, because he wanted to use a cheesy hybrid combo. So I house ruled Eyebite to not work with Divine Challenge, he got upset, and long story short he's taking a time out from my campaign.

So yeah, rules lawyers and RAWtards happen in every edition, though some more than others.

IMO the wizard and cleric aren't that much different than the standard 4E wizard and cleric. However, the fighter and rogue do look a lot different. However, in some ways if you go with a 4E fighter you are quite limited in choice as to how you put him together. For instance, you can't really build an effective ranged fighter with essentials or a fighter that specializes in two weapon fighting. You pretty much either build a sword and board type fighter or a great weapon fighter. This is where I think many players coming from 3E might still feel frustrated. The standard 4E fighter has a lot more options for different types of builds, especially with the help of books like martial power.

I do like that the Slayer fighter build in the Essentials is a "Striker" instead of a "Defender", so you can now build a martial character that is really good at smacking things for loads of damage, which can be fun if you don't want to deal with the complexities of marking opponents and using Fighter's Challenge. Previously, the best way to build a character like that was using the Barbarian Class, and if you didn't like the feel of being a "Primal" character, you didn't have a lot of other good options for creating such a character.