S.Baldrick's page

The Abomination.

Has anyone finished the SCAP and lived to tell the tale?

WARNING SPOILERS!!!!
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We died lat night in the final confrontation with Adimarkus (Spelling???) We killed one of his aspects but it killed us all to do it. After being pushed into the flamming pillar at the end of the test, Adimarkus returned (although diminished) and our paladin (the lone survivor) weak and level drained used (the better part of valor) a scroll of Plane shift to escape.
Has anyone else made it out alive??

Kord and Arioch, the Lord of the Seven Darks.

"Blood and souls for Arioch! Blood and souls if you aid me!"

This isn't a good song for playing during a D&D game, but perhaps beforehand to get into the spirit of things....

LYRICS FROM "THE NECROMANCER" BY RUSH (Album: Caress of Steel, 1975)

. Into The Darkness
"As grey traces of dawn tinge the eastern sky, the three travelers, men of Willowdale, emerge from the forest shadow. Fording the River Dawn, they turn south, journeying into the dark and forbidding lands of the Necromancer.
Even now the intensity of his dread power can be felt, weakening the body and saddening the heart.
Ultimately they will become empty, mindless spectres; stripped of will and soul, only their thirst for freedom gives them hunger for vengeance..."

Silence shrouds the forest
As the birds announce the dawn
Three trav'llers ford the river
And southward journey on
The road is lined with peril
The air is charged with fear
The shadow of his nearness
Weighs like iron tears

II. Under the Shadow
"Shreds of black cloud loom in overcast skies. The Necromancer keeps watch with his magic prism eyes. He views all his lands and is already aware of the three helpless invaders trapped in his lair..."

Brooding in the tower
Watching o'er his land
Holding ev'ry creature
Helplessly they stand
Gaze into his prisms
Knowing they are near
Lead them to the dungeons
Spectres numb with fear
They bow defeated

III. Return of the Prince
"Enter the Champion.
Prince By-Tor appears to battle for freedom from chains of long years.
The spell has been broken; the Dark Lands are bright. The Wraith of the Necromancer soars away in the night."

Stealthily attacking
By-Tor slays his foe
The men are free to run now
From labyrinths below
The Wraith of Necromancer
Shadows through the sky
Another land to darken
With evil prism eye.

You could also include "By-tor and The Snow Dog" as another Rush song that is good for getting into the spirit.

SPOOOON!

Curses! Someone beat me to it!

I guess mine will be "NOT IN THE FACE! NOT IN THE FACE!

I love this series but i feel like its being rushed. I am looking forward to seeing how the movie comes out. But are you guys aware they are also developing a RPG with green ronin i know i can't wait to see it.

Actually, yeah. I was aware of the RPG although I did not know that the very capable people at Green Ronin were doing it. Very cool.

As it is, Dresden has been the inspiration for more than one of the characters that I have played in various modern setting/fantasy/horor GURPS games over the last couple of years.

I'm glad I read this. Moreover, my party is glad that I read this I just wish that I would have read it sooner. Last night my group had round 1 with Adimarchus. The party got their a** handed to them. Adimarchus 1, party 0. Three party memebers (1 PC, 2 NPCs) were dead within 2 rounds. This adjustment will make the encounter much more doable.

I'm seriously considering forming the Greyhawk Liberation Front - any takers? :-D

Count me in!

Amen! Fight the power brothers and sisters! Fight the power!

Don't you know it's just like a rainbow in the dark? :-D

Fake Healer wrote:

Oh yeah, Forgot one of my favorites..

All music by DIO. Holy Diver baby!

And we are the last in line.

Listening to my own playlist on windows media player...gotta make a new one soon it's getting old. It's ecclectic, but not nearly as ecclectic as Lilith. Btw, I envy you Lilith; I'd be a much happier man if I could stand to listen to half your tracks.

Does anyone use music to set the mood during a game session?

Yes. I have been doing that since the 1980s. Generally heavy metal with some Wagner and movie sound tracks thrown in for good measue.

Iron Maiden "Live After Death"
Rush "Moving Pictures"
Sarah McLachlan "Fumbling towards Ecstasy"
Black Sabbath "We Sold our Souls for Rock and Roll."
Green Day "American Idiot"
The Police "Message in a Box"

Mountain Standard Time here in Utah.

Congratulations! My group is just wrapping it. Next session, they enter the prison of Skullrot. We have been playing for a year and half though.

Awesome! I can't wait to see the line. I'm really looking forwad to the Ptolus book to come out this summer as well.

Thank you Celric and VedicCold.
In my specific case, my party is going up against a creature with DR 20 / Good and cold iron. 2 of the party memembers can over come the DR no problem. A third one doesn't have a hope of over coming the DR. The last one one is armed with a vicious falchion that will do an addition 2D6 of damage. I know that the damage from the falchion will be effected by the DR. I wasn't exactly clear on whether or not the addtional vicious damage would be effeted the the DR.

I have been playing that damage from vicious and holy by-passed the DR but I was wondering if anyone had come across anything "official."

Thanks again for you feedback.

I just have a DR question: Does DR apply to extra damage from items that poccess should qualities such as vicious and holy or does DR include only direct physical damage from the weapon?

Any advice would be greatly appricated.

I can't believe that no one has mentioned Saruman vs. Gandolf from Fellowship of the Ring.
There as also a wizard vs. wizard duel in Conan the Destroyer but it was pretty lame. Then again, so was the rest of the movie.

I think that he may have peaked at "Sword in the Storm" and its sequel "Midnight Falcon." I liked those even more than "Legend" and the Waylander series (which is actually saying a lot).

How about a Dwarven bard name Elvis Ork-slayer? Does that suck or what? A friend of mine played him in a 2nd edition game that I ran around 12 years ago. He had side burns and my friend would always do his Elvis impersonation when he attacked. It got very old very quickly. I rejoiced when he ended up dying on the alter of Iuz!

I almost forgot! I GMed a Champions game with a character named the Blue Dart.

About nine and a half years ago and it was my then girl-friend. She seemed to like it.

How about a Dwarven bard name Elvis Ork-slayer? Does that suck or what? A friend of mine played him in a 2nd edition game that I ran around 12 years ago. He had side burns and my friend would always do his Elvis impersonation when he attacked. It got very old very quickly. I rejoiced when he ended up dying on the alter of Iuz!

Follow up question. I assume it's common knowledge that Tenser and Otiluke were killed by Rary. Is it commonly known that Tenser returned?

On a related note, I've never read "Return of the Eight" - is Otiluke also back? Assuming Rary isn't back, are there "eight" again? Just wondering.

Thanks

Actually, Ottiluke was not brought back in "Return of the Eight." The eight is in reference to the 3 new members that were recruited to bring the circle back to 8. The only name of the 3 that I can recall is Warnes Starcloak (from the old module "The Island of the Ape.) Right after Tenser was brought back, he left the Circle of the Eight to pursue his own agenda which makes sense since the Circle of Eight was strongly tilted towards Neutrality where as Tenser is Lawful Good (or Lawful Good with Neutral tendencies, according to the older write ups that I have come across over the years.)

.

Who in their right mind isn't going to try to chop a certain white haired female into bits as soon as they meet her? She's female, pretty, mysterious, and has her own full page picture your supposed to show the PC's. That just screams big nasty evil person thats going to destroy the party somehow. Why would they listen to a word she says or agree to meet with her? Every pretty female in DnD is evil, we all know that! :)

The rest is great though. Kudos to Paizo and the writer.

Hey, Celeste wasn't evil from the Shackeled City and she was a pretty female.

Then again, I didn't know that when I ran the adventure that she appeared in. (I ran it from the magazine before the hard cover came out). Come to think of it, the party and myself (the DM) assumed that she was evil. Ok. You make a very valid point...

A dose of flashback and the origins of the Free City Trio.

Thank you! You rule! I used to have a comic book with the first ad but I missed the other two.

Since I mentioned David Gemmell earlier, I have to also mention Michael Moorcock, Robert E. Howard, David Eddings, Fritz Leiber, Paul Anderson, Jim Butcher, Steven Burst, Robert Jordan and last but certainly not least, J.R.R. Tolkien as having works in my personal collection of books.

For a Canuck (or kanuck?) it is easy i believe to say that Guy Kay is one of the best Canadian Fantasy Novelists out there to date. He has a whole take on magic that is quite unique in his Fionavar Tapestry series as well as Tigana. In the Sailing to Sarantium series he doesn't even give magic a thought. IT is all science based and takes place during the reign of the Greeks and Romans but does manage to put a view on Religion that is quite interesting. Lots of mythology in the Last Light of the Sun.

David Gemmell is ammazing for his Legend series. Druss is one of the most memorable figures in fantasy novels ever, IMHO. The white wolf with the damned and his take on a possible future world. Men melding with animals and magic that is usually ritualistic. Very nice stuff. His novels may be quick but they are amazing.
That is enough from me so

Later

Another vote of David Gemmell. The best way to describe his is if David Eddings and Robert E. Howard had a son, he would be David Gemmell.

I'm 36 and I will turn 37 at the end of this month. I started playing when I was 12 with the old red box basic set. I didn't play much when I was in college but I picked it up again after I graduated. I have been playing longer than some of the people that game with have been alive. Man, I feel old.

I have been trying to just wait for the online suppliments to come out to answer this question however I am at the point of push coming to shove as the PC's advance.

Who should Manzorian likely be in the FR, and suggestions for the placement of Magepoint or another town to takes its place?

Well according the Age of Worms Overloaded pgf, Magepoint becomes Longsaddle in the FR although I am not certain that there is a specific FR character that he is supposed to be replaced by. By the way, I do highly recomend the Age of Worms Overloaded pdf as a great DM's reference for running the Age of Worms.

I read a rumor (I think it was in TV Guide) that someone Nicholas Cage, if memory serves, is considering producing a TV series based on the books. There was no word on actors.

Of course the key words here are "rumor" and "considering"- while this could be very cool it could also never come to pass.

Actually, the TV series is well on its way. Check out Jim Butcher's website: http://www.jim-butcher.com/news/

From what I have heard, James Marsters (who did the books on tape) was at one time the front runner for the role of Dresden but the part went to Paul Blackthorne, who is actually the right height. I'm a big fan of Marsters myself and I would have liked to have seen him in the part but Marsters was one of the first to admit that he wasn't nearly tall enough.

The group that I have been running the SCAP for came up with the name "The Swords of Virtue". I guess it kind of works since everyone is of good alignment and everyone has a sword. It kind of made me want to puke but I'm just the DM.

Time
Newsweek
Entertainment Weekly

Cisco CCNA, working on CCNP Certification
also A+ and N+ certfied

M

I got my CCNP back in 2002 but I let if lapse back in August. Good luck with the program. Those tests are among the most difficult of the industry certification exams.

B.S. in History with a minor in theatre from Weber State University.

Has anyone else read Jim Butcher's the Dresden Files? The adventures of a modern day wizard in Chicago. I must admit that I read the first in the series (Storefront) and I was hooked immediately.

As a DM, I have preceded over 2 really brutal character deaths, at least 2 that come to mind.

Alph, Barbarian/rogue teleported into a container of acid. Dissolved over 6 rounds. The party cleric used her crystal ball just in time to catch Alph’s final painful moments of life. I felt kind of bad about that one.

Elvis Orkslayer, Dwarven bard captured and sacrificed by the cult of Iuz. Considering that the character was a bit of a joke (and the player ran it as a joke character), I didn’t mind too much.

As a player, I guess that I have been lucky. Mine have died in combat or in one case, I had a wizard collapse a cave on him and the drow elves that were about to kill him.
Drow elf: “Now you die human.”
My wizard: “I’m not dying alone.”
One shout spell latter, wizard and drow elves all buried under a pile of rubble and all quite dead.

These days, I would have to say my favorite writer of sword and sorcery books is David Gemmell. His is a mix of David Eddings and Robert E. Howard. I read his first novel "Legend" about six years ago and I have been hooked ever since.

Cold Steel wrote:

I myself am more of a Soloman Kane fan than a Conan fan. One question did REH did anything else besides Conan,Kane or Bran

I vaguelly recalled a western or a pirate novel or was it a short story?

oh yeah, tons of stuff beyond barbarians and puritans. two really less typical stories i recall are "Pigeons from Hell" (odd title, but REALLY creepy haunted house tale) and one about vampires in the old West (can't remember title right now).

About 10 years ago, nearly all of Howard's non-Conan works were released in paperback in what was called the R.E.H. library. I bought all of them. For the most part, they are great (if not politically correct). I remember the vampire in the old West story was "The Horror from the Mound." My favorite was the something like the "Twilight of the Grey Gods" which was about the battle of Clontarf were the Irish king Brian Barou was slain but not before his warriors crushed the pagan Vikings as Odin himself watches on. Awesome stuff.

I just brought the Savage Blade?/world? of Solomon Kane and i noticed that several stories such as castle of the devil and hawk of basti were fragments. years ago i last read them they were complete stories! What gives?

The complete stories were probably the result of Lin Carter, Sprauge de Camp and other writers completing the stories from the fragments. Many of the Conan stories that I grew up on were the result of fragments and notes that Howard left and the work of de Camp and Carter to fill in the blanks. It is likely the Solomon Kane received a simiuliar treatment.

Still waiting in Utah. I just hope I get it be I head off to Finland on December 9th.

I got mine on December 3rd. Now I may rejoice!

Still waiting in Utah. I just hope I get it be I head off to Finland on December 9th.

Many of us 30-somethings just don't hace the time to design and write the way we used to, and I'm certain that I'm not alone in my thanks for your hard work and creativity that brings us these fabulous AP Campaigns set in the best campaign world in the multivers: Greyhawk.

Keep up the fantastic work Eric and Co!

I have to give an Amen to that. At 36, I don't have the time to create adventures like I did back when I was in my teens and twenties. If it wasn't for the AP, I wouldn't be DMing either

Laeknir wrote:

Simply for the sake of nostalgia, "In Search of the Unknown" would be fun to have in 3.5 style. :-D Seriously!

Stop laughing... I'm old.

I think that would be pretty easy, considering that the DM was supposed to populate the dungeon on his own before running the adventure. "In Search of the Unknown" was the first adventure I played in--it's up there in nostalgia like my "Permanent Waves" 8-track for my '76 Ford Granada.

Now YOU stop laughing!!!

Hey I had "Moving Pictures" on 8 track. Granted, my 8-track player wasn't in my car because it's not like I was old enough to drive or anything...

Yeah. I'm old too.

I would love to see a conversion of the Desert of Desolation series. Another good one would be a conversation of The Sential and the Guantlet series.

You have my sympathies. I was dreading that encounter out fear that the party would get wiped out and the campaign would get de-railed. As it was, there was one character death and the player at first did not want the cleric to bring her character back which would have left only 3 characters to finish out the module.

It is a form of undead that was added in the "From the Ashes" 2nd edition box set (at least that is the first place I came across it). I would assume that it the 3.5 version would a templete of some sort.
The Animus was created by the priesthood of Hextor to create a new form of powerful undead. Ivid would grant this special "gift" to certain nobles and generals in the old Great Kingdom. Needless to say, most recipiants of the "gift" did not accept it willingly.

Our female barbarian/rogue got polymorphed into a frog pretty earlier in the fight. After dispatching the hags, two of the party members managed to convice the male paladin that kissing the frog would change her back. (It didn't work.) It was a not so hiden desire of the female barbarian/rogue to kiss the paladin but that wasn't quite the way she envisioned it.

I got my October 28th and I live in Provo, Utah.

A desperate throw by Vadania landed Atar upon the dragon’s back, but his attack failed and he fell off the dragon from 60’, suffering severe injuries in the fall.

I LOVE IT! I thought that I was the only DM that had their party members try the dragon riding bit. In my case it was a dwarf but still.

PS I love your sign on name, one Rush fan to another.