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My group resumed playing through the Shattered Star AP back at the end of July. I have finally posted my session notes for Session 1 today on my blog, Bugbears for Breakfast. The link is Book 3, Session 1. I will be posting at least one session a week, two if time allows and I haven't caught up yet. We just played session 10, so I have some ground to cover before I catch up.
My weekly group started the Shattered Star adventure path. The GM ran a precursor adventure (Master of the Fallen Fortress, also by Paizo) which we've mostly completed. It gave our group an earlier exploit for the local Pathfinder Society lodge to learn about and justify bringing us in for the AP. Our group decided to all play ratfolk, mostly for the swarming and Darkvision, but also as it was something new to do. We've reached Session 5 of the campaign, which starts us on the AP itself. (The link is to my session notes for the game.) I'll try to keep the spoilers here to a minimum, but the session notes will all be spoilers, so be aware of that.
There used to be a Campaigns sub-forum for posting updates about ongoing campaigns. I can't find it now, so I'm posting this here for those that might be interested in such a thing. Session notes for Session 4 of our campaign are now live on my blog, Bugbears for Breakfast. Did I mention we are all playing ratfolk? We are. It makes certain parts of the written adventures stand out in unusual ways. We have just finished playing through Master of the Fallen Fortress as a pre-cursor to the Shattered Star adventure path. I've also just fixed the forward navigation links, so if you want to start at Session 1 you can and easily move forward. I'm also consolidation our first Pathfinder campaign, The Aldelle Group, into an easier to reference set of pages in the right sidebar. That can be found here. I have Book 1: Dyson's Delve completed, but I'm only part way through Book 2: The Gate Saga, so it is not visible yet.
Our group is playing through Master of the Fallen Fortress as a prepatory adventure to starting the Shattered Star AP. I'm writing up my session notes on my blog, Bugbears for Breakfast. To avoid dropping spoilers here, I'm posting the link to the Session 1 blog entry. Ratpack Session 1
I'm running behind here, but I seemed to have missed a critical piece of communication. I pledged $105.00, but it was $5.00 to the MMO and $100.00 to get the book upgrade. I do not seem to have ANY communication asking to confirm or explain this and it looks like the books are shipping. Help please! Patrick Walsh
Long story short, our DM on a new weekly campaign moved to a different state, ending his sandbox campaign. One of the new guys, who had just started playing D&D in this campaign, volunteered to step up as the new DM for a new campaign. I've been writing an adventure log for the campaign (amongst a few other things) over on my Blogger blog, Bugbears for Breakfast. I'd repost here, but there's a lot of material and some of the posts are a bit long. We are up to 42 sessions now (I'm two sessions behind on transcribing my notes at the moment) and mid-way through a major quest in the service of Ra. We have been very happy with the Pathfinder rules. Our next hurdle is the player group splitting into two as one of the founding players is going away to college and will only be available on weekends, which are busy for several others. The DM will be running two groups in the same world at the same time, each on a different sub-mission. I'm looking forward to it!
This thread is for folks who have entered an item in the RPG Superstar 2010 contest, only to notice a small but critical error in their entry AFTER hitting "submit". For example: There was one aspect of my wondrous item I debated with myself over, especially as I was having problems assigning a cost to it. After hitting "submit", I was surfing the forum and found this statement by Clark: "Never put XXXXX in a magic item..." The thing I was debating was, of course, XXXXX. Farglecarp. I find this frustrating for two reasons:
2. If I was working freelance, I could call Clark (for example) and say, "Clark, that thing I just sent you? Delete the first sentence of the second paragraph. Everything else is fine, but delete that sentence. In fact, let me send you a corrected version via e-mail." I can't do that here and it is frustrating. Arggggh. sigh. Next person.
Are paladins required to serve a specific deity or can they serve an ideal like clerics? Clerics are not required to serve a specific deity (see p.22 of the Beta, Domain Powers, 2nd paragraph). There is nothing in the Beta rules that explicitly states that paladins must, but nothing that explicitly states they have the option not to. While there might be something in the 3.5 rules that answers this, Pathfinder needs to have its own answer, specifically stated. Other wise I'm playing 3.5 with some house rules and I'd rather play Pathfinder. (Note: It would be good if this was explicitly stated for clerics as well, as opposed a side mention in the class powers.) Thank you ahead of time for your answers.
This thread is to report missing bookmarks in the Alpha 2 PDF. Case in point: There is no bookmark for the Druid class - all the bookmarks for it are under the Cleric as a result. Also, many of the spell entries are listed as a subheading under Animal Growth or under the Designer's Notes for Find the Path. Wonderous Items as a sublisting of Staves. Really, there are many issues with the bookmarks that are easy to fix. Provided you have the file password, that is.
I like the rules for Round 5. I like no word limit, I like that this is a "mid-adventure" encounter rather than a boss fight. I like that format is up to the writer, but the contents are SRD only. I've done some RPGA LG mod writing and have used a variety of layouts for encounter descriptive text, up to and including multiple branch duplications depending upon in-game variables (is the NPC with the party alive or dead, did they anger the wrong person, do they have the McGuffin, et cetera). Without this freedom, I would fear a straight jacket effect. Thoughts?
I finished reading the Prince of Redhand adventure last night and realized that the AoWAP takes place before 583 CY. There are multiple references to the Bandit Kingdoms NOT being controlled by Iuz (as they are in the Living Greyhawk Campaign, now in 596 CY) and Iuz spying on Redhand "in case he decides to invade". Am I correct in this? If so, this might make an interesting REAL reason why Iuz kicked off what became the Greyhawk Wars - he saw the threat to his rule (and it's all about him) that Kyuss almost pulled off (assuming the PCs are successful in preventing the Age of Worms) and decided to make sure that did not happen again. Everything else was a smokescreen or convenient, the true goal was to secure the Rift and forestall anyone from trying to bring about the Age of Worms ever again. Once it was in his possession he let his armies keep rolling to hide his true goal (plus, they needed the exercise). All the extra land and souls were a great bonus on top. I know there are different canon reasons for the war (don't have them right now), but what if AoWAP is the secret truth?
A Cautionary Tale Dramatis Personae
This group represents a random selection of adventurers who happened to be in a village on the frontier when the Sheriff needed some work done. They are from different areas of a multicultural kingdom to the south, hence the mixing of “western” and “oriental” classes. Pre-Story
The posse tracked the dire badgers to their lair, smoked out the lair, and then killed the two adult badgers that came out. After use of the village’s meager supply of healing potions, the deputies went into the lair to finish the job. They found some badger cubs and dispatched them, but also found the remains of a gnoll the young had been feeding on. The deputies searched the gnolls body and brought back everything they found, including a message written in gnoll. The sheriff had the scroll translated by a local sage and realized he had a problem. The message on the scroll was from a gnoll shaman to his chieftain. The shaman was secretly excavating some ruins near the village, looking for a relic that would “restore gnolls to their rightful dominance”, and was requesting the chieftain send more slaves to expand the digging. More slaves also meant more gnoll warriors in the forest near the village instead of two weeks away on the plains. The sheriff could not send his posse out after the gnoll shaman and his warriors as that would leave the village defenseless against any other raiding parties in the woods to the north. However, there were some adventurers in town he could send with no problem… The Story
At the sheriff’s office, this group of six strangers is put in a side room to wait for the sheriff. Isaac, a very chatty gnome, starts the introductions and the adventurers had a few minutes to talk amongst themselves before the sheriff arrived. When the sheriff arrived (following his large belly), he quickly explained the situation to the adventurers. He offered a small reward for the work, plus the adventurers may keep anything they find with the gnolls, except the relic, if the gnolls have found it. The relic is to be delivered to the sheriff so he can send it to the Count for proper disposal. After some clarification on the reward, the adventurers agree as a group to track down the gnoll shaman and his warriors and, in the sheriff’s words, “handle it.” The sheriff leads the party of adventurers to the location of the dire badger lair and then leaves to let the adventurers “git to it.” The party of adventurers spends an hour searching the dire badger lair, verifying the sheriff’s story (including the very smelly and very decomposed body of the gnoll). Nelrin searches the ground looking for tracks and eventually finds the path of a dire badger dragging the gnoll body back to the lair. With the sun setting, the adventurers decide to make camp and follow the trail in the morning. Mister Z made a camp fire while Nelrin pulled his possum animal companion out of his back pack, surprising most of the party who had not realized Nelrin had an animal companion. Nelrin sent the possum up a tree to keep a watch out and then turned in for the night. Nelrin was quickly followed to sleep by Chu Li, Isaac, and Ertan. With everyone else going to sleep, Drascir and Mister Z decided that keeping a watch fell to them. After a quick game of rock-paper-scissors, Drascir chose first watch and Mister Z took second watch. Time passed as Drascir kept watch over his sleeping travel companions. The first sign of trouble he encountered was a giant spider web descending on him, wrapping him up tight. Looking up, Drascir finally saw the huge monstrous spider silently descending out of the trees to land next to him. Drascir struggled mightily to free himself from the spider’s web, to no avail. The huge creature bit him, injecting its deadening venom into Drascir. Drascir felt the strength leave his body and knew he needed some help. Quietly, so as to not wake any of the other adventurers, Drascir called out hoarsely to Mister Z for assistance. With a loud snore, Mister Z rolled over and fell into a deeper slumber. Seeing its prey continue to struggle, the spider attempted to inject more venom into Drascir, but was rebuffed by the barbarian’s armor. Realizing the spider would just keep gnawing on his head until it killed him, Drascir finally screamed out like a little girl, waking Isaac, Nelrin, and Mister Z, but not Chu Li or Ertan (for whom sleep was a serious matter). The waking adventurers rallied to their companion's needs and (after Isaac sleepily threw an alchemist’s fire wildly into the trees) they started a wild and chaotic fight with the spider, eventually awaking the rest of the party. At the end of the fight, the huge monstrous spider was dead, Drascir and Mister Z were under the effect of the venom, and Ertan learned that hiding in shadows from creatures with tremorsense does not work the way he hoped it would. After healing the physical damage from the fight, the group went back to sleep. It was Mister Z’s watch now, so he stayed up, still feeling the spider’s poison in his veins. Day Two
At the end of the day, still following the tracks, the party of adventurers made camp once again. And once again, all but Drascir and Mister Z immediately went to sleep. On this night, the dwarf samurai and human barbarian decided to reverse watches, with Mister Z taking the first watch and Drascir taking the second. Mister Z’s watch was passing calmly and quietly, until he noticed a raven sitting on a branch and watching him. Suspecting something was up but not knowing what, Mister Z kept an eye on the bird without giving any sign that he had noticed it watching. An hour passed with him watching the bird and the bird watching him. Another hour passed, the bird still watching him and he still watching the bird. Another hour passed, he watching the bird and the bird watching him. Finally, it was the end of Mister Z’s watch and he was on edge. He quietly walked over to Drascir and woke the barbarian up. Without pointing at the raven, he explained the situation to Drascir. Suddenly the bird hopped off the branch it had been sitting on and flew over to another branch where it could better see what they were doing. Without a word, Mister Z quick drew his throwing hammer and, with a fluid movement, threw it straight at the raven. This apparently caught the raven off-guard and, with an explosion of black feathers, the hammer smacked the raven off the branch. Ertan suddenly bolted right up to a sitting position, awake and feeling a terrible, profound, sense of loss. His first sight was Drascir and Mister Z standing on one side of the camp and looking at the other side. Drascir walked across the camp, past a broken tree branch, and into some tall grass. He picked up Mister Z’s throwing hammer from the tall grass, shook something off of it, turned back, and said, “You got it.” Ertan let out a wail, realizing the “it” was his raven familiar. He had never told the other adventurers of his ability to cast arcane spells and had kept his raven flying high and out of sight. Ertan’s wail awakened the rest of the adventurers, who saw an enraged Halfling stalking up to a puzzled dwarf, the Halfling screaming about the “murder” of his familiar. The adventurers intervened and, after a very tense conversation, the truth came out. It was agreed that Mister Z was not at fault as Ertan had not told anyone he was a spellcaster and had a familiar. Mister Z had been concerned that the raven was a spy of some sort and reacted accordingly. Further, it was agreed that Mister Z and Ertan would sleep on different sides of the camp from now on. Once everyone was finally calmed down, they all went back to sleep and Drascir stood his watch, making sure the party was safe from enemies and that Mister Z would wake up in the morning. Day Three
While waiting for the possum to report, the adventurers heard the sound of immense wings up in the treetops. After some tense minutes, they heard the wings flap away, Nelrin wondering if he had just sent his friend to his death. A few moments later, the possum climbed back down the tree to a very relieved druid. Nelrin cast speak with animals and questioned the possum about what it saw. It reported that it could only see the tree (due to bad vision), but a big owl had stopped by while he was at the top of the tree. Once he convinced the owl that he was not food, the possum and the owl talked. The owl reported that there were “dog-men” nearby in some ruins and some “small lizard people” much further away. Relaying this to the rest of the adventurers, the group made plans. Ertan went out to scout and find the “dog-men”, undoubtedly the gnolls they sought. Away from the other adventurers, Ertan was like a shadow, moving quickly and quietly through the darkening forest. He quickly found the ruins the gnolls were making camp in from the sound of their carousing and the smell of the smoke from their camp fire. Ertan observed the ruins, once a three story manor house made of stone. Half of the building was a pile of collapsed stone, but the other half still had standing walls and the sole entrance in. Ertan spotted two sentries walking the top of the walls, each making a thirty minute circuit of the ruins, about fifteen minute apart from each other. Lastly, Ertan scouted out a route he could take that would allow him to get to the walls of the ruins without being spotted by the sentries. He then returned to the adventuring party and reported all he had learned. Believing the gnolls to have darkvision (from Isaac’s extensive education and collection of information) and having minimal amounts of that ability amongst themselves, the adventurers decided to attack in the daylight and made a cold camp. At this point, Drascir commented that he wished the spider venom would not make him so weak in the fight the next day. This surprised the rest of the adventurers (except Mister Z) who suddenly realized that the two main combatants of their group had not had a full night's sleep the entire time and had not recovered at all from the spider venom. Correcting their oversight, the adventures developed a watch schedule that allowed both Drascir and Mister Z a full night’s sleep. Day Four
Ertan outlined his route to the walls for Drascir, who had some ability at moving quietly and scaling the walls of the ruins. The two of them would move forward, scale the walls, and take out the sentries. Then the rest of the group would move forward to the entrance and prepare to attack. Ertan would provide cover fire with his shortbow while Drascir would make his way down the inside once the attack started and flank the gnolls. Putting the plan into action, Ertan and Drascir moved forward using cover to their advantage to hide from the sentries. They successfully made their way to the base of the ruins and started scaling the walls. Ertan successfully made his way to the top without making a sound. Drascir was not quite as lucky. Just as Drascir made a ledge along the outside top of the wall, one of the sentries was moving past and saw him. The sentry attacked Drascir, but missed seeing Ertan, who plunged his sword into the gnolls unprotected back, killing the gnoll sentry. Drascir then yanked the body over the top of the wall and threw it to the ground three stories below. Drascir and Ertan then hid, hoping to surprise the second sentry. Unfortunately, rather than sticking his head over the top of the wall between the two adventurers, the second sentry leaned over the wall behind Drascir and saw both of them before they could react. The sentry howled out an alarm, awakening the gnoll camp and the fight was on! Throwing subtlety to the wind, Drascir hopped the top of the wall and engaged the remaining sentry in hand-to-hand combat. Ertan hopped the wall, pulled his shortbow out, and started firing at the gnolls in the hollowed out ruins below. Meanwhile, the rest of the adventurers started the long run to the ruins from their place of cover. After exchanging a few blows, Drascir was able to dispatch the remaining gnoll sentry. Ertan wounded some of the gnolls, but took several arrow shots in return for his trouble and had to drop and use one of his healing potions to stay alive. Drascir started to run his way around the top of the ruins, mis-stepped, and fell to the ground inside the ruins. The gnoll leader sic-ed two hyenas on the fallen barbarian while the he and the rest of the gnolls finally succeeded in making Ertan a Halfling pincushion. Ertan dropped unconscious and (luckily) out of sight of the gnoll archers, slowly bleeding to death. The hyenas savaged the heavily wounded Drascir, nearly ending his life before the other adventurers arrived. Nelrin dragged Drascir back out of the ruins while Mister Z and a wooden stickman animated by Chu Li held the line in the entryway to the ruins. An epic fight between the adventurers and the gnoll warriors took place, gradually tipping in the adventurers favor due to Isaac’s regular use of a wand of healing to keep Mister Z alive and standing. Eventually the last gnoll warrior went down and the battle was over, the adventurers victorious!
The Kilamanjaro Safari
Once again a telegraph was delivered to me, summoning me to employment with Colonel Yarborough and his Adventure Earth Company. As the payment for the last expedition the Colonel sent us on allowed me to settle several outstanding debts, bring myself up to date on my rent, and purchase Christmas presents for my (much surprised) family, and as the University was between semesters (and the need for research assistants correspondingly low), I packed my bags and traveled to New York City by train. I spent the time on the train skimming my copy of the 1932 edition of The Planetary Guide, recently published and sent to me by my boyhood friend, Elijah Snow, detailing his adventures of the previous year. It looks to be quite the read, full of the many odd things he has claimed to have seen. Upon reaching New York City early Thursday, January 5th, 1933, and being more affluent than in my previous trip, I hired a taxi cab to go from Grand Central Station to the Monolith Hotel, where the Main Office for the Adventure Earth Company was located. Driving through the city I saw that, even in the grip of winter (or perhaps because of it), the lines for the city’s soup kitchens were, sadly, all too well attended. I offered a silent prayer of thanks to Divine Spirit for my relatively recent employment with the Colonel. The last three winters were very difficult and, without my employment with the Adventure Earth Company, this winter would have been as bad, if not worse. The doorman at The Monolith was significantly more courteous to me than my last trip here. Perhaps it was arriving in the taxi or the better state of my clothing than last time. Odd how such minor differences can have such a profound effect upon peoples actions. The warmth of the lobby was heartening after the icy grip of winter during my taxi ride here. I nodded at the hotel detective (who seemed to remember me and then promptly ignored me) and made my way up the grand staircase to the Promenade, where the various offices rented out by The Monolith were found. There I entered the outer office of the Adventure Earth Company. After some short pleasantries with Pam, the receptionist, I was escorted to what I called the Greeting Room, where those of us employed by the Company assembled and waited to be introduced to whichever Client we would be working for. I had never been told what the name of the room actually was and was somewhat hesitant to ask - if it became significant, I’m certain the answer would present itself. Be that as it may, I could not call the large room with its overstuffed chairs and couches, its generous fireplace, its well stocked bar, and its multiple bookshelves simply “the meeting room”, which implied to me a rectangular room that was barely large enough to hold a large conference table and chairs. While hanging my coat next to the door, I observed that several others were already here - in fact the entire team I had worked with on the Mayan Expedition last November. This included: Jack Thompson, the big game hunter whom had once again assumed the duties of bartender while waiting for the meeting to start; Kurt Morison, still dressed in the same scruffy and dusty cowboy clothes he had worn in November (and apparently here long enough to make extensive use of Jack’s bartending skills); and ‘Diamond’ Nick Bartalucci with his “valet”, ‘Dumptruck’ Spinelli. While I have no direct evidence that Misters Bartalucci and Spinelli were actually gangsters, quite frankly I had no doubts they were, either. While I would not normally choose to associate with such individuals, their skills had proven useful in the rescue of Miss Hedges during the Mayan Expedition. I had just secured a short Scotch from Jack (to knock away the last of Old Man Winter’s grip on me), when Miss Amanda Decker (the Colonel’s personal assistant) entered the room from ‘the other door’. While we had never been explicitly instructed to not go through the door that led deeper into the offices of the Adventure Earth Company, none of us had chosen to investigate it either. Through that door came Miss Decker, either by herself or with whichever Client we would be working for. Calling the meeting to order, Miss Decker brought us up to date as to events following the Mayan Expedition and conveying how pleased that Client was with our work. She went on to further explain that, as we had worked so well together then, the Colonel had decided that we would continue working together as a team. I suspect there was some subterfuge here. I suspect that we were not “just a group of new employees”, but had been originally chosen by the Colonel to be a team and our first excursion merely confirmed our ability to work together efficiently. I am curious if any of the others suspect this as well, but have not asked any of them yet. Miss Decker then excused herself, saying that she would return momentarily with our next Client. She went through “the other door” and returned shortly, escorting a gentleman whom she introduced as Mister George Parks. Mister Parks was thin and long-limbed, with straight brown hair and glasses. He appeared to be in his 30’s and wore a nice but ill-fitting suit, showing that he was accustomed to plainer clothing. He appeared very nervous around us, rotating his hat in his hands and crumbling the brim as he did so. He had a hesitant voice and seemed unable to make sustained eye contact with any of us, including Miss Decker. Mister Parks, once introduced to us, explained in fits and starts that he had saved for years to go on a safari in Africa. He desired to climb to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro and see the snow there. He also desired to “see animals of all sorts and maybe shoot some of them. Like, maybe, an elephant or something.” Mister Parks apparently is a fact checker/research assistant for several nationally syndicated magazines (including National Geographic and Outdoor World) and had developed a passion for seeing some of the locations he researched. It was at this point that Kurt, rather drunkenly and slurring his speech significantly, attempted to assure Mister Parks that “ev’ry ‘ting wash fine” and that “weed take goods care uv him”. This display greatly unnerved Mister Parks. Miss Decker made calmed Mister Parks, assuring him that Adventure Earth had made all of the proper arrangements and that everything would meet his needs and then quickly escorted him out of the room. Once Miss Decker had removed Mister Parks from the room and before she returned, I turned to Kurt and explained in no uncertain terms that he was no longer allowed to drink alcohol prior to an initial meeting with our Client and took his drink away. He grunted what I chose to believe was his assent. I have learned in the past the dangers of drunken animal handlers while on expedition and was not willing to suffer the loss of employment, let alone possible life or limb due to another’s inability to stay sober while on the job. I still have no idea what the man was thinking, allowing himself to become inebriated like that. When Miss Decker returned, she did not make any overt comment about Kurt’s behavior, but I did notice she verified that he no longer had alcohol to drink. She reviewed Mister Parks’ requests for this expedition and explained that we would be flying out in two days, on November 7th, and that Robert and Douglas (our pilots from our previous expedition) would be flying us to Nairobi, but we would be switching to a local bush pilot there for the rest of the trip. She also confirmed that there was a small Company office in Nairobi we would be able to operate out of and secure final supplies through for the expedition. And then she finally dropped the second shoe. After the peculiarities of our initial expedition, I had expected all of our work through the Colonel would involve similar odd requests and subterfuge. Up to this point, the entire expedition with Mister Parks was fairly straight forward and exactly the job originally advertised. I had been slightly confused at this (again, due to our previous experience) and wondering what “the catch” was for this expedition. Miss Decker finally revealed it, adding (almost as an aside) that the Colonel was asking us to also deliver an envelope to a friend of his in Paris, on our way through to Nairobi. We would be staying a day “or so” in Paris, which would give us time to deliver the envelope. The friend in question was Professor Jay Gaspar at the Sorbonne. We were told we were not allowed to open the envelope and were strictly instructed to place the envelope directly into the hands of Professor Gaspar and no others. We were also told to avoid folding, twisting, or mutilating the envelope in any way. We were assured that French Customs would not present a problem and no one else should be interested in the envelope. I immediately doubted this, but saw no point in arguing the point with our employer. We were given the envelope, which was a plain brown, padded envelope with something heavy and lumpy in it and had the professor’s name, office number, and building written on it, as well as a photograph of the professor so that we would recognize him when we saw him. Miss Decker then concluded our meeting, directing us to tender any requests for equipment to Pam at the front desk. As we had two days to prepare, I took possession of the brown envelope, jotted off a quick list of equipment I preferred the Company to secure here in the States, and went to make some preparations of my own. I stopped by a five-and-dime to pick up some envelopes, a handful of washers, a pair of wooden dowels cut to shorter lengths, and a pot of glue. I then returned to the train station and rode the train home with my supplies. At home, I carefully appraised the contents of the original envelope without opening it and assembled the washers and dowel pieces to approximate the same weight and lumps if felt through a similar envelope. I then did my best to copy the writing on the front to four of the envelopes I had purchased. They were not terribly convincing compared to the original, but by themselves would do fine. I slid one each of my washer and wood approximations into one each of the envelopes and sealed them. Viola! I had four duplicate (more or less) envelopes to use as decoys. Perhaps I was being overly suspicious, possibly even paranoid, but with the excellent post service offered here and in Europe, even during these economically hard times, having a team of experienced field men hand deliver an envelope in Paris was darned peculiar. My decoys might be excessive, but as we used to say in the University Hunting Club, “Sometimes you come back with ducks, sometimes only the decoys.” In this case, I would prefer “only the decoys” on this hunting trip. I spent the next day arranging things locally, letting the appropriate people know that I would be away on employment and return in late January or early February. I packed mostly for the summer weather in sub-Saharan Africa, but included a small bag for our (hopefully) short stay in Paris. I carefully hid the original envelope inside my luggage, where it would not be easily found and secured the decoys in my briefcase. Very early the following morning I was once again on a train to New York City and then took a taxi to the airport. Robert and Douglas met us at our usual embarkation point and lead us to a Short S.32 Empire flying boat. Robert explained we would be taking the flying boat to Dublin and from there the Colonel had arranged access to a Douglas Aircraft Company prototype, something called a DC-1. I was not enthused about flying a prototype aircraft into Africa, especially after Douglas told us about the stalling problem of the engines when climbing. I would later change my mind. Once we were all loaded into the flying boat, we took off and headed east, out across the Atlantic Ocean.
I purchased a copy of Campaign Planner 1 recently which is supposed to allow filling out of the forms in the PDF. However, the copy I received has document security set so that filling of form fields is not allowed. As one of the reasons I purchased this was the promised ability to be able to fill in the forms electronically and then print, this is a significant issue for me.
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