Stanley Meskys's page

Greetings,

I have been hunting around a bit and was wondering if there has been any published information given on holidays/holydays celebrated in Varisa. Specifically I am wondering about winter time holidays.

I am asking this because I am currently writing a new campaign set in Varisia, during the height of winter. I just want to know if I will be making up something from scratch, or if I will be able to pillage already established material.

Stan

Well here is mine.

The Alchemy Lab of Aziz bin Rashad

This appears to be a large wooden frame backpack with canvas stretched over the wood to make the enclosure. The pack is opened by untying a series of flaps on the back panel. Once opened two bottle racks can be rotated out of the pack on pivots along the edge of the pack. These bottle racks can hold ten potion bottles each, securely. The inside bottom of the bag appears to be made of marble or granite and can be pulled out of the pack 3’ to create a small bench. The bench once extended is 4’ long and 2’ wide. The inside back of the pack has six drawers. Four of these drawers are filled with alchemical equipment (beakers, burners, alembics, mortars, etc); the other 2 drawers are filled with various sized containers for raw ingredients and components. Each drawer holds 30 items via a shrink effect. The pack always weighs 45 lbs no matter how full or empty it is.

Moderate Conjuration; CL 9th; Craft Wondrous Item, Secret chest, Shrink; Price 10,000 gp

On the door issue.

I doubt the party has the materials needed to haul these doors around with them. Per Azaroth's previous post they are 30,687 pounds of admant, not to mention the door weight itself. Unless the party has a portable blast furnace they are not going to get the adamant into anything manageble in size or shape to hault it all out. Bags of holding rapidly run out of space, not to mention if they are tearing the metal somehow off the door you have jagged edges. Bad things for bags of holding. As far as beating them down, I doubt that when you force the door itself down, you are sundering the actual door, but the weak points (locks, hing-plates, etc). So the issue is really moot as they have no means of getting the metal out.

Stan

Greetings,

I have a player who is currently playing a Druid/Wizard/Arcane Heirophant, and is looking for an appropriate magic Staff.

I am here looking for suggestions as to something that is appropriate but not too powerful. The average party level is 11th.

Stan

Its Advanced Civilization for me. I wish we could play it more than twice a year though, but getting everyone together for a 10 hour plus game is hard.

Stan

If you want Moreto to pass of as human, you can also use a hat of disguise to hide his undead nature, possibly giving him a chance to speak before being attacked. Also anti-alignment detection items and items of Gentle repose to keep his alignment hidden and his body "juicy."

Stan

I am relatively new to the 40k universe myself, bus as far as I know there are no Dragons per se in the game. In short stories and books there have been dragon-like Xenos, but they really had nothing to do with the primary races other than to be targets.

On the other hand one thing I have learned is that Orcs in 40k are very complex living fungi.

Stan

Also remember if the party still has the circlet from the Whispering Cairn they have access to a means of making weapons "Epic." In theory as the party progressed through the AP the circlet gains powers, one of the last powers it gains is the ability to bestow a held weapon the "Epic" modifier. I do not remember what the duration is, or if you can do multiple weapons in a day and hand them out to the party. The information is covered in one of the last modules.

Stan

If I remember my Conan correctly the blade was reportedly unbreakable, and forged from meteoric metal. Because of that it had a stronger effect on unnatural creatures and was just unbreakable against everyone else.

By 3rd ed rules it is probably an unbreakable, cold iron blade. It was usable by others because in some stories it was taken away from him and used by others temporarily until he got it back.

It has been a while since I read the original stories, and some of the 3rd party stories are bleeding in in places.

Personally I have dug a huge hole by myself with pickaxe and shovel. It was a 10' deep x 30' long x 4' wide pit along my foundation so I could seal it. It took nearly 2 months to dig. Mind you I also had to deal with lots of large rocks and boulders and I was not working on it 8 hours a day every day.

So in the end yes the time to craft a trap is a bit skewed.

Stan

Character Lost: Darius
Class: Cleric 4/ Fighter 1/ Bard 2 (Wanted to be an evangelist)
Location: HoHR (Under Sodden Hold)
Cause: Giant Octopus was hungry

The party was looking at the well leading down to the first area under the Sodden Hold, trying to figure out the barrel and how to get down there. Darius, being a bit insane, jumped into the well and let his banded mail and gear take him to the bottom of the well. He has a light source with him, so he starts to work his way down the passageway. He emerges into the large chamber with the column. As he slowly moves around the column the octopus moves in for an attack. They did not surprise each other and 3 rounds later poor Darius was no more. The octopus' 8 attacks per round were just too much for him to handle solo.

The rest of the party gave him 10 rounds to go down before they followed, Darius went negative at round 7, and was dead by round 9 when the party started the descent into the water.

The party was able to eliminate the octopus before it ran away with its dinner, but not before it had finished Darius off.

Stan

A simple addition would be to plant Abyssal Blackgrass around Dragotha's Lair. Abyssal blackgrass cuts the effective ness of all 'healing' type spells and magic itmes in half. So the party would have to deal with Dragotha with all their cure spells/potions/wands/rods at half power.

I want to say the material came from Heroes of Horror, but I am not 100% sure. It has a 30 foot radius of effect, and appears in areas that have had gates/portals opened to the abyss.

Stan

Also check out dumpshock.com. This is a message board site for just Shadowrun, and several of the editors/authors frequent the site.

If nothing else they will be able to fill you in on module listings, summaries and errata.

Stan

I am running this with 6 players. I have not added any treasure at all, leaving the party a little poor. When I asked the party about this they actually told me they were enjoying the current level of treaure and items as it made them come up with more inventive ways to deal with problems and encounters. They are also happier when they do find treasure.

For the owlbear, the party was not all that interested in it, but the party druid traded the cub for an amulet of natural armor +1 from the bronzewood lodge. Also when the party went to the alchemist to find a means of getting around the brown mold, he offered to give the party a few free alchemical items for a sample of the brown mold.

Stan

Wasn't it a magic card years and years ago?

I am trying to figure out what information Alustan can learn from his resources on the history of the Cairn and the associated organizations. The modules give pleanty of back info so I know whats going on, but my players are asking rather specific questions, and I am not sure what Alustan should be able to tell them. It is not really spelled out what he knows or can learn.

Stan

I am getting ready to run this section in the next few weeks, and planned on giving the grimlocks alchemical darkness devices. Back int he day there was a small publication called the "little Shop of Poisons and Potions" they had an alchemical mixture that blanketed a 10' area in darkness.

Stan

I do not have my copy of the actual magazine with me, but the web enchancement does not appear to have any shading on the copies of the maps they provided. I would say choose the planks that you feel would make the party's life most difficult.

I believe they wanted the party to end up travelling across both earthen areas along the left wall. So they would start at D6, then head along the left path to the first earthy area, then Directly "north to the next earthy area. Then accross the top most beams to the outcropping leading to D8. This would mean the party would not be able to just cut accross to the next area, and gives the water encounter more time and area to work with.

Stan

I moved the mad slasher to its own encounter in the tunnels under the green elevator. I have a party of 6 so I put out 2 swarms, and they beat them with improvised weapons of lantern oil. I nearly dropped 2 characters in the process, and one other player did not stop running until he was out-side of the Cairn all-together. My party was able to handle this becasue they spent a full round doing full run actions to get away and then turn and set up the oil traps.

The best route for the party is to use alchemists fire. It is the easiest solution.

My Group
Fey Druid
Dwarf Fighter
Human Warlock
Human Cleric Dol-Arrah
Human Rouge
Human Fighter(going for Dervish)

No a torch to the lot, no AOE spells, just 2 bottles of oil for the warlock's lantern. The party too sun-rods instead.

I have not recieved my copy here in Rochester NY either. I did get the latest Dragon Yesterday though.

Stan

Dizzyk,

If at all possible could I get a copy of your notes as well. I am preparing to run AoW in Eberron at a local college's gaming club meetings starting in September.

Thanks
Stan
smeskys(at)rochester(dot)rr(dot)com

I have a human artificer in my regualr Eberron game, and he dishes out the damage just as well as any fighter. He is set up as a dual wand wielder and with the abilities he gets to apply meta-magic feats to wands, staves, rods, and scrolls, he can dish out a serious amount of damage every round. he spends most of his down time rebuilding his wands though. One thing to watch for with the artificer, the party will look to him/her for upgrades that are conciderably cheaper than buying them from the book, and every magic item or magic device the party encounters, but does not want will be sucked dry of all experience value for the artificer to later turn around and remake new items. With the proper feats he/she will make be able to take on more experience than he/she outputs on the new item. The experience only goes into thier pool for item creation, but it has gotten to the point in my game that any gee-whiz magic item that is just there for decoration(ie ever-burning lanterns, a washing machine, auto filling food and water devices) gets sucked dry on the way out the dungeon.