Ben Parkinson's page

So sorry it has been such a long while since I posted on this thread. So much water under the bridge and so much roleplaying that is being done still here in Uganda.

Yes, I am still here and we are still playing. I am currently running Serpent's Skull here at the Chrysalis Secondary School and Patrick, who was so young, when we started this thread, is now an ICT teacher at the school and is also running a weekly campaign.

We built a secondary school here in a remote location in Northern Uganda during the pandemic and our intention is to turn it into a centre for innovation, where we demonstrate so many new and exciting activities, some entrepreneurial, some developing vision, others helping problem-solving and others, like RPG, developing imagination.

The school now has 150 pupils and needs to grow to 250 to be sustainable, but we are gradually getting there. Our teachers are growing with us and many are becoming involved in our boardgaming (we have about 200 boardgames here in our library) and some are exploring with RPG. If people are interested I can talk about the challenges in developing roleplaying and boardgaming in this environment and our successes.

If you want to know more about Chrysalis, we have a new web-site http://cyen.online or http://www.chrysalisschool.org where you can see the magnificence of what we have built on 12 acres of land. We even have a 400m athletics track! Gaming for everyone is always on Friday nights and the RPG is currently on Sunday and Monday nights, for those involved.

Serpent's Skull I have found an interesting and immersive adventure so far. I just have the first adventure, so will run out of adventure by the end of next term, but the group is a relatively new group of players, though it includes Arnold, from our original group to guide them - he is now in his A level year and wanting to be an architect! The others are also A levellers and one is in Senior 3 (of 6). I wanted to run the adventure with a party of four, to provide a significant challenge and they have made good decisions so far, avoiding the barbarian camp, while still at Level 1. They've just handled the vegepygmy area, though it was quite hard for them. We're using just the iconics - Ezren, Merisiel, Valeros and Kyra.

We very much like Pathfinder 2 and have gone through much of Age of Ashes, which I do want to return to, though many of our players have spread apart. I don't have the other P2E adventures, as yet, so will wait for those to come in time. We've also been playing Starfinder, which as GM has been a lot of fun, though surprisingly lethal to the new group handling it.

Anyway, let me know, if you want to hear more.

It's been a gruelling few weeks, as the group have been aiming to retake Fort Rannick from he ogres - a more dangerous group of ogres would have been hard to find. Yesterday, a double critical on the Samurai brought him down to -50 HP, only for him to find a greater resolve, which allowed him to negate one of the critical, so only -11 and surviving.

The cleric (Arnold) has been having a field day animating all of the dead ogre foes seemingly without recourse only to find that the local town Turtleback Ferry no longer wants to have anything to do with the party, despite their protecting the town from danger. "Ungarateful" he pronounced, but I think he learnt that some actions have consequences and that perhaps you cannot do good doing evil things.

Our wizard (Kenneth) has turned out to be a greedy wizard and the other members were very irritable with him yesterday, which feels also like a good learning point, as the real life impact of his greediness was also felt by the real life person. Nevertheless, he continued his actions and we will wonder whether his soul has been lost to Kharzoug!

All in all, I would say the campaign is working better now than it has historically, though they feel that perhaps another campaign might be more suied to them.

Next week we are taking a short 2-week break to dabble with 5th edition - Banquet of the Damned. We will resume the Runelords Saga thereafter.

Patrick (now a paladin) will be running an RPG competition adventure at the Uganda Village Boardgame Convention - https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/uganda-village-board-game-convention if you would like to find out more or support.

Some may remember that a few years back, the team here at Paizo, helped a small Ugandan group of roleplayers - Patrick, Joseph, Brian and others - who were running their own roleplaying campaigns and Pathfinder modules and taking part in a Kingmaker campaign that I ran for them. We will be forever indebted to Paizo for the encouragement they gave us and support in the form of core rulebooks and bestiaries, campaigns, modules, pawns and maps, none of which we could have afforded without them.

While the roleplaying has been instrumental in teaching so many things to these young people, especially problem-solving, through creativity, the need for reading has meant that roleplaying has been less accessible to many. Also, the modules written were targeted to a life experience that many of our children were unfamiliar with. To combat this we have been running Nyambe and other campaigns, with less diverse storylines, at least for the new members. For the long-term members, anything is fine now and we have been running Rise of the Runelords, where we are currently storming Fort Rannick! (Level 9)

What has been more successful has been boardgames and last year we ran the incredible first Uganda Village Boardgame Convention, where we taught children a wide range of boardgames from the simplest, to more complex games like Robo Rally and Legends of Andor. Not only this but last year, we had very few adults who could teach board games, so our teenagers did it all themselves - the planning, the graphics, the training, the organising, the budgeting and even some of the food provision.

This year we are doing a second convention - details at https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/uganda-village-board-game-convention - which is going to happen in May 2018. Last year we started up new boardgame clubs in nearby Gulu and the children there will be coming to this convention. However, we are also starting at least four new board game clubs in remote places in Northern Uganda and we will be inviting representaives from each of these clubs to attend the convention this year on a residential basis.

However, we are reliant on outside support for this event - food transport, security and even games - so we are looking for your help to achieve our next stretch goals, which will be to add four further clubs and upgrade our facilities to accommodate additional people on our site.

If you would like to contact me about the project my email is socentafrica@gmail.com - you can see more about the charitable work at http://cyen.org.uk/gamechangers

Thanks for reading this far!

Sorry for the delay in posting - we have just been up north delivering the Uganda Village Boardgame Convention!

This week's Saturday session I decided to just focus on a single battle and take some time to explain some of the rules to the group. They seemed to be having difficulty with melee and ranged and the rogue was not understanding "flanking" so a map and some Pathfinder pawns was needed.

For the first time, I think the group were genuinely worried about their characters and taking precautions to ensure their survival. The cleric (Susan - 14) was in the thick of things and went down early, gradually bleeding to death, so I had a chance to explain the heal check and also the slowcoach paladin from the other end of the room managed two lay on hands, to bring her back up.

Bolso (Rose - 13) was panicking about her half orc ranger and seemed too scared to get into melee, with the tengu, but eventually gained her confidence. The rogue (Daniel - 13) did some serious damage and the wizard (Ronald - 13) finally took out some creatures with his 2nd level Burning hands.

So, all in all, a successful session and thumbs up to Pathfinder's pawns for making the game more real. I ended the session by asking them to think about how a group like the Silver Ravens should expand, just as I will ask them in future to expand their social projects. So we will wait to hear their ideas.

The other game on Saturday was Arnold and Joseph's and they had a lot of fun trying to rescue the kids in Crown of the Kobold King. The group had to wipe out several ghouls before they were all paralysed, which again showed the group the importance of preparation and ranged attacks against some. This adventure is still proving brilliant for newcomers and they really enjoyed the session.

Patrick (14) was not around this week and he has also been preparing for travelling to Koro again, where he plans to run a mini adventure he has developed, known as the Caverns of Koro. It's going to be a 1 hour competition session, where the best group will win a prize each day, depending on their success. This will be at the Uganda Village Board game Convention, which we are holding 18th to 20th May. We're looking forward to this...

Last night's session for me was quite tricky. My group had had exams most of the day and seemed a bit tired, but we plugged away and I set myself the task of completing part 1, where they finished the Livery Stables. They hadn't remembered too much of the Silver Ravens story from last week, so we had to recap a bit and re-explain who they were and that the party was hoped to be the new Silver Ravens. They liked the concept, but still seemed a bit reluctant to embrace the rpg idea.

Francis (12) was the one that seemed the keenest to get into battle, while Susan the cleric seemed more intereted in spells. Ronald the sorceror seems a bit non-plussed by everything, but he's very diligent and will be the first to level up his character to Level 2. I taught them about Channel Positive energy and we also talked about damage resistance, as everything they fought had this. We also talked a little about disease...

So, little by little, we are building up the game scenario. Daniel, the rogue, is quietly assimilating everything and smiles surprise, when his character does something useful, like unlock a grating or kill off a small creature. Next week, they are going to have to understand things a bit better and I can tell they are still struggling a little bit with accent, as Susan re-explains things to Rose in her local language.

The other groups fared mixed again. Arnold/Joseph running D0 Hollows Last Hope, finished this in double quick time and when I checked on them were well into D1 Crown of the Kobold King. The 2xDM system seems to work for them and their players definitely had a great time, while the monsters didn't roll well at all...

Patrick's group finished a bit early and he is in a very difficult part of the adventure - the investigation in Battle of Bloodmarch Hill. Will let you know how they fared next time.

My players were after chocolate this week too, but I told them the chocolate game was once a year!

Forgot to mention - Patrick, Beckham, Arnold and Joseph are hoping to go up to Northern Uganda in mid-May to inaugurate the first Village Boardgame Convention. They will join a team - if you are interested in finding out more about this unique event, then please go to http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/the-ugandan-village-boardgame-convention

Patrick will be running a new competition Dungeon there too!

Sorry for the delay on this update.

We have now run 2 sessions with our new group of kids from remote Ugandan villages. These children are generally very bright and quite eager to learn new things. Roleplaying is, however quite challenging to them, as their upbringing to date has been restricted by their environment and also they are still struggling a little with their English aural comprehension, because in reality they have only been in a fully English speaking area for 2 months. The age of the children vary between 11 and 15, though they are all in the first year of secondary school.

We made a couple of changes to the programme and we have two groups of four and one of five, all mixed gender.

I am running Hell's Rebels, as planned. However, Patrick decided to run Giantslayer, as this adventure had piqued his interest and he had already run some of it successfully. Joseph has joined with Arnold to run the other game, which was initially going to be TC1 and then we decided to run Hollow's Last Hope, with a view to following on with D1 Crown of the Kobold King and then maybe D1.5 and Hungry are the Dead. E1 is just too gruesome!

We did some excellent preparation sessions with them and they chose the type of character they would like to play balancing to ensure every group had a fighter type and a healer type. We also asked them to write a character background, which some did really well.

Next we split them into groups and I ended up with a group of 5 for Hell's Rebels. I thought this adventure would be relatively straightforward for them to envision. Evil overlord takes over the town - residents need to work together to send him back where he came from. However, the opening session outside the Opera House was very challenging and it was hard for them to see their character doing actions such as rabble rousing and pickpocketing. We ended up with completely the wrong outcome, with Rexus Victocora having to rescue them with some Dust of Disappearance. Subsequently, he sent them down the next exploration area and the team are really still learning how to work together. The ranger seems to run away from everything and the cleric thinks they are invincible. The rogue is doing quite well and the sorceror has picked some very specific spells, which need changing. However, they defeated the first couple of bunches of adversaries and we will see what next week brings - hopefully the Livery Stables will be completed by then.

Patrick's session in the first week started really well. They enjoyed the tug of war, then the investigation session started and the group did not bite at all. This was always a worry but Patrick resolved this for week two by presenting it in new ways and even little Ben (11) was clear on what had happened in Session 2.

Arnold and Joseph seem to be having the most fun and they have nearly finished Hollows Last Hope, with just a few more mushrooms to find. This great adventure has proved just what was needed and works a treat to bring the kids in more gently. They have not done everything perfectly, but have enjoyed everything so far and are eager for the next session.

We had a surprise for them this week, as we incorporated a game of "The Chocolate Game" into the session for Easter. These kids had never tasted chocolate, so it was a great experience and a fund ending to the whole evening.

Will try to keep the thread updated...

Next year, I hope we will run three separate campaigns with the new group:

Reign of Winter - Patrick
Hell's Rebels - Ben
Rise of the Runelords - Joseph

I really like the Hell's Rebels Adventure Path (though I have only the first part), as it fits so closely with our own vision for changemaking - mobilising youth to tackle corruption and solve social problems using enterprise.

Kingmaker we will run monthly.

Anyway, happy Christmas to all who have contributed to the thread. Thank you for all your ideas and enthusiasm for what we do for fun in Uganda.

Gosh, that is quite complicated. When we did it, I randomly chose one of the barbarians, so we got that sort of right, but it is quite a bit weaker than I had imagined. I have forwarded your text across to Joseph, as he is the one with the spell.

The silver hammer is gone for now, then. He will have to buy himself a new one! I just felt that acid might not have a lot of effect against the silver.

Possession - is that like domination?

Kingmaker has gone quite slowly this year, so I am sorry to hear that we have been overtaken! We hoped to finish Part 4 before Christmas, but did not quite manage it, with just one session left to go. We had been running one session a month, so hence the slowdown.

It looks like I haven't written things up much, so I will give a rough outline of what happened in Part 4.

Firstly, I should say that I wasn't sure that the kids would like this part. It seemed complicated, with less adventure and more politics, but in practice that's not what happened. We also had a few changes to the participants in the sessions, as I wanted to give some new people a chance to prove their enthusiasm. Agnes (13) took over Lini from and Droogami from Barbara and Arnold (13) started up Amiri. We still had Imrijka (Brian - 15), Balazar (Joseph - 16) and Damiel (Patrick - 14). For now Sajjan (Oswaldo - 16) has not been available much.

Part 4 started with quicksand and it demonstrated that the kids liked to be able to fly. It's been a very critical part of most of the battles that someone could fly and they have all tended to go for this option. They have also learnt about dispel magic and how powerful this can be under certain circumstances, with people magically levitating or flying above lava pits! They negotiated the quicksand very easily as a result and met with a very unusual creature that tried to drown them, which again was countered by flying upwards.

They took the long way around the lake and enjoyed smashing up a boggard town. The kids seem to need to have easy battles mixed in with the very tough ones, as it gives them confidence and they enjoy the confidence (and bragging). Next they fought another strange creature, which was trying to eat Lini's eyes, but it was too weak to trouble them too much.

Arrival at Fort Drelev was another matter and this proved really very difficult. They arrived by boat and found themselves dodging boulders from hill giants. Damiel, afraid that his folding boat might be smashed to pieces, drifted to the shore, and folded it up. By now archers had spotted them and were firing from the fort, so they moved out of range to consider their next move, which was to sneak up to the town in disguise and....

Herein lay a problem. Outside the fort was a wagon train, that was waiting until morning to enter the fort. The leader of the caravans seemed friendly enough, but the group did not trust them and let them enter on their own, with the group staying behind. They didn't use their disguises to find a means to enter and kind of gave up and bypassed the town, battling a few creatures with long arms whose name escapes me in a cave by the lake. Upon slaughtering these, Damiel decided to turn them into alchemical zombies, so two new party members were born.

Arnold, who is a very new player, playing Amiri, is the least likely barbarian you would expect. He avoided combat at all costs and was rarely in the front line. The rest of the group had started to pick up on this and sort of goaded him into action. He wandered off from the rest of the group and I rolled a wandering monster for him. It turned out that he had stepped on a flower, which was the friend of another flower and he found himself becoming a victim of frosty triffids. Superior barbarian speed saved him and he managed to return back to camp, frozen to the bone, remembering that you should never split the party...

Next morning our adventurers had by then decided to storm the keep, with their new chuul footsoldiers leading the way. They forgot to heal the barbarian and were spotted at a distance by the archers of the fort and soon after a powerful wizard appeared on the battlements. This wizard seemed to have enormous numbers of spells and was starting to take them out before any had of our party could get close. The barbarian had by then rushed into the trees to find cover. I could see where this was leading and I decided to roll a wanderer, ending up rolling 4 x adult black dragons on the table, so I advised the group that as they advanced they could see a mass of some black flying creatures in the far distance.

The battle showed the kids creativity. Damiel summoned swarms to distract the wizard, then turned into water to hide in the river. Imrijka greater commanded the archers to jump into the river and then turned invisible. Balazar, sent his eidolon flying up onto the battlements with a fireshield. Lini spent her time healing and calling down lightning storm bolts. The zombie chuuls were easily climbing up the walls. Amiri hid in the woods and would not come out.

However, the battle was still not going all that well. The wizard was eliminating the swarms, the hill giants were pounding on the eidolon and the proficient archers were picking people off effectively, so Amiri felt compelled to make her move, drinking up a couple of cure moderate wounds potions. She raced across the battlefield and started climbing the walls, only to find herself under fire from 20 odd archers. She fell down off the walls....dead.

Now some people might be saying which battlements and you would be right. I made a mistake and had thought that the fort had walls on each side, which was not in fact the case, but still our fort did!

Suddenly, the black dragons decided to make their move and swarmed the town on all sides, one of them flying around to the side of the fort where our players were. It landed next to Imrijka and decided to bargain for the players' lives, while the other dragons distracted the troops and the wizard teleported away to who knows where.

Now some may remember that Imrijka is a half orc inquisitor of steely resolve. Brian who plays Imrijka was playing himself and no imaginary dragon was going to intimidate him! Most of the rest of the group was far away or incapacitated, but Damiel also appeared and similarly stood his ground. "One magic item from each of you will do", the dragon said, "or you will be a sticky mess on the floor". I'm not sure how the rest of the conversation went, but shortly afterward the dragon took the meaty half orc and flew away with him to his lair. Continued lack of cooperation from Imrijka meant he later ate him.

By now though the other dragons had decimated the town, taken away the Baron, who led the town, enabling the remaining party members to step in and talk to the population. They met a woman named Satine who reassured the rest of the population that these were friends not enemies. They met their friend Sajjan in the local inn (now to be played by Brian) and a new urban ranger dwarf named Balaric Agarum.

Balaric was a character designed by Rabid Hamster Workshop. Since most of our kids lack the experience to make high level characters, this was a good option for them. We need more of these pickup characters on the market.

The newly-formed group set to work exploring the fort and met with some of the captives there, discovering the fact that the Baron was in league with some barbarians who had a camp nearby (apologising for spoilers). In the meantime, they also discovered a massive black pudding and had a lot of fun dispatching this, with Balaric having his silver warhammer dissolved by the pudding (should this have happened?)

They decided to explore the swamp further and after killing a pack of chimeras they stumbled upon some barbarians guarding a cave entrance. They weren't friendly at all and Balazar, now 11th level, tried the magic jar spell and picked up one of the barians souls in a jar. I'm not too familiar with this spell and feel that I might have to deal with it moving into the future - what are the strengths and weaknesses of the spell?

Entering the cave, they had a very hard battle against some evil clerics and two powerful demons. Arnold once again made a poor decision and was killed by the demons - experience really pays in these high level adventures - but the clerics were finally dispatched and the demons returned to their home plane. Arnold's character was reincarnated as a human of two levels lower by Lini and continued to play.

They negotiated the traps and puzzles really well in the next section and we had an epic battle against their first iron golem, which was really fun, as they discovered its powers and vulnerabilities. Then DM revealed a secret door and tempted the players into the most dangerous creature perhaps in the whole adventure, some kind of metal spider demon. Lini tried heat metal on the thing, but it summoned swarm after swarm. Balazar had decided not to use the eidolon, so summoned a massive rhinoceros dinosaur, which was able to bypass the damage resistance better than anything and eventually the creature was dead, a whole session later! They continued along to a large cavern where there were a lot of skeletons, but these were not fearsome at all and were quite easily managed.

So, that is where we are right now, on the cusp of completing this module and likely starting War of the River Kings next.

Next year, we have a new group of trainees and I plan to introduce all of them to the RPG at some point, starting three separate groups. I am hoping that Patrick will run one, Joseph the next and I will take on the third. Hopefully, we can continue with Kingmaker, as before...

If you want to correspond with me, Patrick, Agnes, Arnold or Joseph, then write to me at socentafrica@gmail.com

Our project has been running the Kampala Kids' Olympics over the last few weeks or so and time has been at a premium. Uganda managed a haul of zero medals but in our work on talent development, we also include those with sporting prowess and we have very many brilliant young athletes here, some of whom are roleplayers too.

So, we have not actually continued much on Kingmaker, though I expect to run a session on Wednesday. I have also started a new group on Saturday nights, where we have run one session on the Emerald Spire Superdungeon, which was generously donated to us.

Holidays are here again and we have been thinking hard how to establish dome kind of foothold in the rural areas, as it makes little sense to give rural children things like roleplaying which they cannot continue with when you are gone.

So, we got our heads together and we decided that the children needed to learn how to make dice, specifically d4, d6 and d8. Then we would teach them how to convert their stories into adventures that they could run using their imagination. Connecting the dice with the roleplaying elements is to be the next step and with these tools we hope that the children can start to enjoy these games.

While we have a basic idea how to do this, we'd welcome any organisation or individual that has expertise in this area to help advise.

Everything needs to be be able to use local materials and we think they can note down adventures in their school books - those that have them. We may even be able to fund this bit, as part of the project.

Funding all these things is simply impossible on our own and, as readers will know, we have had support from Paizo and some great support from the RPG players around the world. So for this project, we are asking again for some support at http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/spreading-rpg-in-rural-uganda-to-solve-problem s

We haven't too much time to go with the project and the target is £275, which will take three new roleplayers into Koro to continue the work that Patrick and others have started. Patrick has other things lined up for this holiday and will be at school by that date.

Can anyone help publicise or support the project directly as we just need to kick it off?

Many thanks.

One of the most enjoyable parts of the game is killing the monsters and also seeing the photos of the creatures they face. Paizo were generous enough to give us some pawns a while back and these also help very much in developing this imaginative side. Mind you they don't like being killed in the game and this is also an important learning side, as it shows how teamwork is so important. Even the rogue and flanking is helpful in developing teamwork skills.

I would say that they rarely overcome obstacles with diplomacy. I quite often offer these options, as I would like to encourage this, but they rarely pick up on it, even when severely outnumbered, so I have to be careful to ensure that battles are challenging, yet winnable. That's not to say diplomacy is absent, but that it is different. The kids do pick up on situations that require an empathic response. They do like to intervene where injustice is taking place. They enjoyed a recent scene as the Silver ravens where a player was being chatted up by the daughter of the shopkeeper and his negativity caused a huge bust up, eventually resolved by their thoughtful words and good assessment of the situation...

With the kids, never presume a course of action. They rarely take it, unless it is a learned behaviour, like see monster, monster attacks, kill monster! In other situations, it might just be outside their knowledge experience, so be careful...

It's been a while since I posted, but we have been continuing to run Rise of the Runelords with the kids. They ask me continually to go back to doing Kingmaker (Part 4) and I guess I will do that soon.

I rather like ROTR, but it hasn't captured them like Kingmaker or more especially, the Silver Ravens, though we have only part one of that adventure path.

We more or less completed Part 1 of ROTR, though they didn't manage the gold piece puzzle at the end and missed a few secret doors. However, I do feel they did well and fathomed some of the more tricky rpg moments well. Joseph and Patrick are, for now, taking a break from GMing and I think the main issue is the complexity of the language in the modules, which requires really a lot of work from them, with dictionaries, or consulting me, which they would much rather not do. Something with much simpler language would really help, or perhaps shorter adventures, so perhaps some of the really short PFS adventures (Silverhex Chronicles) might be the ones to work with. Patrick is very good at running Blackfang's Dungeon and we are thinking to run this as a tournament at a new initiative we are planning for late August - Kampala Games Day 2.

The first convention we ran ourselves in 2010 with a meagre few boardgames and some connections with Makerere University. While the Games Day did not attract very many visitors in 2010, Kampala has changed dramatically since then and we expect a much enhanced turnout this time around. We also have a team of young people we have trained who will work on the marketing. We'd love also to include some video games, like Hearthstone, for people to try, so this should attract more people into the hobby.

Patrick is still working on the Nyambe blog at the moment. The event was really very good - even though I missed much of it through illness - and we now know what works much better than the previous event. He's actually like most of the kids here slowly getting into Star Trek, where we are showing currently Series 3 of Enterprise (CD3). If you've not seen it, Enterprise is much-maligned but the later series are really so good at teaching leadership and ethics. Last night's episode discussing the morals and ethics of growing a clone that lasts only 15 days was so interesting...

Anyway, thanks for continuing to read this posting. We continue with our roleplay and gradually it evolves. I think soon we will be able to run PFS. Time will tell...

Well we have now almost wrapped up the Nyambe initiative. For me it has been a frustrating week of illness and so I have missed almost everything, but for Patrick and Daniel, who have as a result taken the "lion's" share of the responsibility, it has been a challenge, but a success.

The theme of the story lies in a war between orcs and humans. The orcs were led by a shaman of huge power, who even when defeated was able to lock up his power in the heart of an ancient dire lion. The children had to find and then destroy the heart, to release the soul, which then found another lion. They searched for plants, researched texts and visions (videos) for information on the big cats and different tribes were all competing against each other.

The children also shared their own local stories, which they knew and Daniel, one of Patrick's friends and also a Butterfly member, took charge of the storytelling aspects, as he is from that particular area. Patrick has lived in the slum most of his life, and has not grown up with these stories and one of the aims of the project is to develop a mini adventure based on these stories, which we will submit to Atlas Games, when it is written up.

The fundraising was so inspiring, that we were able to expand what we were doing to include an incredible trip to Murchison Falls. This place has 4 of the big 5, including lions and leopards and people travel across the world to visit the beautiful and powerful falls, paying $000's for game drives. For the kids of the village, it is just 50km away, but may as well be the other side of the planet for the likelihood of them visiting.

Part of our village programme is to expand the vision of the children there. We've only been working there for just over a year properly, but I've learnt that apparently lifeless, quiet, frightened ignorant village children aren't anything like some seem, when you first meet them. Boosting their confidence, giving them a place to visit (our centre) which is their own, providing regular activities, encouraging talents, has all led to a transformation in the way they think about themselves and their self confidence and roleplaying, while it is only a small part of what we have been doing there has enabled much of this vision expansion.

Travelling to Murchison Falls (today) for them will be an incredible treasure and inspiration. It is just a shame that we could take only 15 of the original group of about 50 children.

Sunday night, we are going to do some Nyambe rpg face to face with a new group of 5 children - Elvis (11), Edmon (12), Joanne (14), Brenda (14) and Walter (11). I'll update you on that one next week...

Patrick took over Bloodmarch Hill battle last week and I think it went well.

I ran a semi-satisfactory session of ROTRL to try to re-unite the party members last week and, by luck rather than judgement, they are almost back together. Actually I roleplayed Orik as a very friendly inquisitive person, ready to help them escape, without actually saying so, but Patrick and Agnes were far too suspicious of him and bull-headed to get into a conversation. Arnold was away in Jinja, so Kenneth stepped in to take over the halfling rogue and did a good job, as I had Gogmurt help ferry them across the gap to the island at night, silenced (by Brian) and stealthed and camouflaged to the waves. They even bought invisibility potions to make treble sure.

Kenneth rolled a 1 on the "lock door" roll. I had him shout out in pain, as one of his lockpicks slipped, but the silence spell kept him from revealing their presence. Then they locked Bruthazmus in his room, who is now pounding on the door.

So what will happen next?

We head to Northern Uganda tomorrow for the Nyambe Project. This has been a much more challenging process than I expected, but we will be having Daniel join us, to focus on the story-telling aspects of the activities. Daniel lives and grew up in Koro and his aim will be to blend the Nyambe storyline that Patrick has dreamt up with actual local legends. We'll keep you informed of progress in this exciting development...

Quick update - Joseph advised that the kids (most are quite a bit younger and Under 13) have started the Battle of Bloodmarch Hill, but he didn't sound too confident that they would survive!

My group tonight on ROTRL seemed to have fun trying to think through getting onto the Thistletop Island and not doing all that well, having been also torn apart by the bunyip...at least I hope they enjoyed it!

Next week, I have two of the members captured - the monk and the sorceress - and on the island, while the remainder still have to break in (a bit like Alcatraz).

Patrick's latest idea is on Crowdfunder at the moment, based around the Nyambe books - even the writer of Nyambe is taking an interest in the project!

Here's the link - http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/koro-has-gone-wild-/?

Game resumed in fact this Monday night. There are six players. I'll try to get a run-down on what happened and where they are.

Ben Parkinson wrote:

Joseph just happened to be right here this afternoon, as he has been getting some new characters organised for the weekend. We have quite a few new players unfamiliar with the rules at the moment who are keen to start and so they need pregens.

He says that a PDF would be perfectly fine and help him keep going with that adventure path (which was really going well), while we can all DM the PFS scenarios. I can link you up through Facebook, or if you send to me, then I can pass it across to him directly. He doesn't currently have a Paizo account, just Patrick. Just checked - yes it is Bloodmarch Hill.

That's great! Should be sent to your Paizo account now (in your downloads). I've never gifted before, so I hope I did it right. Please let me know if you receive it. I hope everyone enjoys Giantslayer! :)

Thank you ever so much - it even came with the interactive maps too!

I've advised Joseph, so he can prepare for Saturday!

Welcome back, Ben! It's great to see you again and hear updates!

Sorry about the distance between the posts. We haven't actually stopped, in this intervening period!

Ben Parkinson, I just saw this and I think it's wonderful. I know roleplaying, Pathfinder in particular, has been a very positive change in my own life. It's really great to see children in other countries have a fun time with table top!

I'm sorry Joseph cannot find the first book in Giantslayer. Is it "Battle of Bloodmarch Hill"? I don't have much right now after setting aside my budget for Kingdom Con this month. However, I have some store credit left on Paizo store and I was wondering if it would help if I gifted you the PDF? Or does it need to be a Physical Copy?

Joseph just happened to be right here this afternoon, as he has been getting some new characters organised for the weekend. We have quite a few new players unfamiliar with the rules at the moment who are keen to start and so they need pregens.

He says that a PDF would be perfectly fine and help him keep going with that adventure path (which was really going well), while we can all DM the PFS scenarios. I can link you up through Facebook, or if you send to me, then I can pass it across to him directly. He doesn't currently have a Paizo account, just Patrick. Just checked - yes it is Bloodmarch Hill.

News here that we are still progressing campaigns, with two regular young GMs. Patrick (14) is looking now at the Nyambe Campaign, have run Reign of Winter for a while. Joseph started with Giantslayer - somehow we lost the first book and so now he is contemplating taking over running Pathfinder Society. Agnes has started runningthey will Blackfang Dungeon for the girls.

I have suspended Kingmaker for a bit, as I was sent the latest version of Rise of the Runelords and we have been doing this for a few weeks. We are just about to storm Thistletop with the group:

Patrick - Monk
Agnes - Sorceress
Joseph - Paladin
Arnold - to be confirmed
Sam - Ranger
Brian - Cleric

Runelords is lore-rich and has been and will be a challenge for them. So far it has been a bit linear compared to Kingmaker and they haven't been so happy with this (nor I), but we will stick with it and hopefully they will build enthusiasm for their characters as they progress.

News from the rural Uganda "Koro's Last Hope" is at this link - https://roleplayinginuganda.wordpress.com/

Sorry for not posting recently. Actually we have been focusing on other things and it has been more difficult to organise the sessions, by getting everyone together.

We have also been organising a container to come over from the UK and with it will come all sorts of new material.

Lastly, we are trying very hard to organise a new initiative to follow on from the successful activities last May, where we introduced roleplaying to many children living in remote rural villages. The new initiative will turn a recognised Pathfinder module - Hollows Last Hope - into an adventure week for local children. Some of these children will also be identified as possible GMs for training.

This new fundraiser is at:

http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/koros-last-hope - only a few days left on this!

Will be back in touch with ore news later.

It's been a while since we did Kingmaker and people had got fed up with coming and us being able to run it. Friday nights are not great for us, with our main training sessions on Saturday mornings, but last night we decided to just press on, even though we just had 3, then later 4 of our group.

Grr...no one could find their characters, as Patrick was not there (ill) and so I had to go print out the characters again! Uganda strikes again, when the printer runs out of ink and then the cartridge refuses to work! For speed I wanted to use the characters that were in the back of the module, but without an ability to print, then I quickly transcribed the key information for Amiri, Lini and Sajjan by now had found his own character sheet.

We left the group in Tatzlford. I dropped a heavy hint that the woman from Fort Drelev was around and ready to speak to the group, but for whatever reason the group did not pick up on it and decided to try to track the trolls back to where they came from. I allowed this for a while and this brought them to the edge of the Hooktongue Swamp.

Overnight, I rolled a "near miss" wandering monster of a Dark Naga. Basically this was meant to be for atmosphere to show this place was very dangerous, but it turned into a red rag for a bull and the group wouldn't let it go! Eventually, the group ventured into the swamp and ended up directly in quicksand. Now we realised how far the group had come, as they quickly mobilised into a "problem-solving unit", activated their ring of free movement (I hope that was right) and even Lini had taken Free movement spell, so they were well prepared for this area.

I randomly assessed that this quicksand area would take a week or so to survey and the group determined to add the hex into their territory. Day after day no wandering monster, then they were on the brink of getting to the lake, when Lini (today Kenneth) decided to use his Lower Water spell to demonstrate Lini's power. I ruled that the spell uncovered a sleeping Nuckelavee - what a fearsome monster this thing is - and the creature attacked with its fright attack and Sajjan ran directly back into the quicksand, with no ring of free movement worn! The creature followed up with its Blight Wave attack (10d6!)

Amiri forewent her attacks and jumped to rescue Sajjan, who was still fleeing. Imrijka weighed in with his axe and Greater bane (on Undead unfortunately) and most of the attacks bounced or barely pierced the damage resistance.

Amiri smacked Sajjan out of the fear, having hauled him out of the quicksand, and they both scrambled to attack. Sajjan's improved evasion helped him avoid the blight wave again and again and then a good monster lore check brought Imrijka to realise this was a fey creature and gradually the creature was worn down and defeated.

Quite a lot of fun in a short session - all wandering monsters, which proves that you don't need a scripted encouranter to have fun!

Patrick is back this morning (well) - he ran Reign of Winter on Thursday to some effect, though at the moment we don't have Part 2 available for him to run. His small group has done well, defeating a water elemental and some guards from the tower the enter the next area...

I have run Zeitgeist too, but I'll save that one until we run another session next Thursday. It was a bit of a bad-tempered session and not all that successful!

This week, Patrick has taken over the Reign of Winter campaign, with a view to increasing the number of children involved in the roleplaying campaigns. He is developing into a very good GM - he really has a good memory for stats and his reading is becoming more flowing and descriptive. The new group he is working with are enjoying the campaign, at least in their first main week.

Maybe at one point, I will ask him to post here with a review of his campaign and you will see how he views it.

Yesterday, we started Blood for Blood - Kingmaker 4. This is the campaign with the most experienced players and I was pleased to see Oswaldo back, now playing Sajjan, the Level 10 monk again. We were a little short, though Barbara was also back with Lini. She seems loathe to bring out her "small cat" - maybe she doesn't like the thought of it as a battle cat, or getting injured - but Lini had a very significant session this time.

Firstly, though, we have had great difficulty in getting the kids focused on which magic items they want or need. Maybe it's the fact we have here just one torn Core rulebook, but I suspect we need to do more in terms of GM training, to include the kinds of magic items that are available and how they help the characters. I have tasked them all with finding out how they should best use the 55,000gp treasure they found in Vordakai's tomb....

Anyhow, back to Blood for Blood...

The players were semi-encouraged to travel to Tatzlford - I just said that they had had some reports of antagonistic on the western border, which stretches all up to Tatzlford, so they decided to investigate, only the find the village almost under attack. Lini found herself in her element, while she thought how her spells could be used to make the forest as inhospitable as possible for the oncoming attackers. And when they arrived she saved her lightning storm to sway the battle in the PC's favour. Level 10 druids have a lot at their disposal, so she then summoned an insect plague to thwart the approaching army!

The weakened attacking army were able to be handled by the tatzlford garrison, which left the players free to deal with six enormous trolls, which attacked the village as a second wave.

It's hard to explain, but Kingmaker has created a kind of troll vendetta amongst these players and there was a mixture of elation and trepidation, when it was clear that they had to destroy these trolls. Kenneth (the wizard) resigned himself to an early death, knowing it would be difficult for him to survive the onslaught. Patrick also fearfully flew up into the air and bombarded trolls to stop them regenerating. When the wizard eventually died (what happened to greater invisibility?) the alchemist raced down and plucked the body from the hungry jaws of the trolls.

Imrijka gave his sword greater troll bane and they started to make in-roads, but, the trolls had isolated the players, so they were pinned against a wall and couldn't work very easily together. Even at +10 to hit, the trolls were hitting regularly, pounding on Sajjan and Imrijka. Lini called lightning and then boosted the strength of Sajjan, who became a highly dangerous troll-pupling machine, before he succmbed to their rending claws.

In a fit of rage, at Kenneth being stolen from him, one of the trolls went on a rampage, grabbing a nearby dog and woman for dinner instead. It crunched up the dog, but Lini entangled it, before it was able to escape with the young woman and the final troll was then overpowered, in six rounds...

It finished quite late, but I think it has set the scene for the fact that the PCs are now going to have to both defend and expand their realm. Next week we are back to Zeitgeist!

Thank you, Chemlak - I'd certainly never come across this. We will be returning to Kingmaker next Friday, as we move to tackle Blood for Blood. The kids are starting to make their Lvl 10 characters and we are using PCGen now for this.

Varnhold has been relatively "Kingdom tracking" free and we might need to get down to this issue with a vengeance in Part 4.

On the LGBT issue, I would say that the kids here are more innocent and certainly information poor compared to their counterparts in the West, though certainly some girls in this slum and rural areas are married off early. I don't think this is a bad thing as the children have a lot of other very challenging issues to deal with.

I don't think the kids in the Kingmaker group are all that interested in character relationships, as they are focusing on problem-solving, being good leaders and how they are going to expand their kingdom! I don't think I am whitewashing, simply focusing on the bits the kids are most likely to be interested in.

Uganda has an unjustified high profile in being anti-gay. My experience is that it is quite an accommodating society here, though western influences of all kinds are scrutinised for their relevance to Uganda. The kids are taught in school to be anti-gay, but I really feel that it is being over-egged by international media. Yes there are persecutions, but other issues - corruption, child mortality, child sacrifice, frequent lack of basic healthcare, inadequate policing - are accepted as being greater priorities.

Ok, so numbers are increasing here and enthusiasm for GMing is starting to increase. I've been asked to do some GM training, which would help these young people to improve their understanding of the rules and secondly to become better GMs, by making things more fun for the players. There is some footage of Patrick and Brian GMing at this link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvEX8dXf7pw - and I do think they have a level of confidence which means the others enjoy the game, though the problem-solving elements of RPG seems to be a much more challenging part of the activity for GMs.

Does anyone have any resources for teaching GMs, other than those on the Paizo web-site?

Our new roleplaying room is now set up, with a nice table and even a new roleplaying laptop, paid for by RPG supporters. We're looking forward to starting some new adventures and I am hoping that next week that Patrick and Joseph will continue the Reign of Winter Campaign.

Last night, I thought it would be interesting to start the Zeitgeist campaign, which is complex and just run it to give our trainee GMs something harder to get stuck into. Actually I was very proud of how well the kids handled this campaign and how they worked as a team and are set about solving the problems on the HMS Coaltongue. I'm not sure whether to say too much here for the sake of spoilers. Suffice to say, I have asked them to make notes of the key people they meet and note their "motivations" as characters. I feel this is a new arena for them and will be helpful in learning "influencing skills", which will help them as young changemakers.

Actually, on the HMS COaltongue, everything is in the balance, as we ran out of time last night, and we won't resolve things until two weeks time!

Anyway, thanks for your interest in this thread - if you have any feedback on the video, then let me know.

Ok, we were back to Reign of Winter this week. I left by accident my book under the fridge and when the power went off, it more or less disintegrated the first 20 pages, but I am muddling through!

Our group has changed a little bit now.

Agnes is playing Khania, the Dwarven fighter
Brian is (for now) playing Merisiel, the iconic rogue
Patrick is playing Guldan the monk
Daisy has (for now) taken over Snowabella, the Ice Witch
Kenneth is playing Mundi Oldfoldson, the sorceror
Beckham is playing Bestobest, the halfling cleric

We left the group sheltered from the icy wind and under the protection of Nadya, a local from Irrisen. A strange fiendish bard had just approached the cave and was starting to question the group ostensibly for "stories" and our party, though careful weren't very persuasive that they were natives of the area. The bard left early next morning and our party headed through the snowy wastes to Waldsby.

We've been asked to try out Syrinscape's amazing background sound system and I straightaway put on the "Icy Wastes" to set the scene. For me actually it really transformed the whole scene and it was so much easier to picture what was going on. A swarm of ravens dived down on the group and Mundi Oldfoldson managed to despatch them with a single burning hands spell (cue fireball on Syrinscape).

Nadya told the group to try to blend in the town and not attract attention, but soon the proprietors of the White Weasel had them in their sights and the party made distinctly unwelcome...

Next a small group of soldiers appeared searching house to house. They grabbed Nadya and our party decided to try to stop them, creating a major incident, more soldiers coming, even the sergeant. Guldan and Mundi managed to waylay the second group, while the first group of soldiers were slept by Snowabella and quicky despatched by Khania and Merisiel. Bestobest kept Guldan up, in his battle with the sergeant.

We used the "Bugbear Battle" on Syrinscape for this battle and thumbs up generally for such a nice product.

Seeing most of his posse dead, the sergeant made his attempt to escape...

More next week!

I should also say that we have done our village RPG events and I'll be posting something about those very soon, as soon as we have the videos completed. It was a great success!

The final figure was £1279, so many thanks to all who contributed from this thread!

We leave for Northern Uganda on Wednesday this week and the activity will continue until the weekend. We've also been able to enhance our equipment and facilities here with tables and chairs, so we can have more concurrent games running and a generator, so we can use the computers in the village areas.

The Reign of Winter group will come back next week and so we have taken an opportunity to finish off Part 3 of the Kingmaker long adventure. We were nearing meeting the boss himself, with the other members of the group - including Maria (Feiya) - able to finally make it. Agnes from the Reign of Winter group has taken over Lini for now.

After the brutal battle with the cyclops zombies, I allowed the group a complete rest to regather strength. We also had to level up the characters to Level 9 and have found the PCGen package, which people are getting used to and should help them more carefully understand these much more complicated characters.

We've actually circuited past much of the content in Varnhold, as the group have more or less ignored exploring, just continuing with the main mission, but I have hinted to them that they will be crowned kings if they expand their kingdom to 80 hexes and so for Part 4, it is quite certain they will get back to exploring again!

Well-readied, the group explored and found the circular room, which was the focus of Vordakai's and the previous civilisation's magic. Stepping forward Imrijka alerted the giant water elemental waiting there and found himself on the wrong side of its slam attacks. The rest of the group piled in and it became something of a bloodfest, with the elemental doing greater cleave to take out several party members at once, the party's blows ineffectual against the elemental's resistances.

After some damage the elemental retreated into a second chamber, which was also inhabited by Vordakai, the boss himself. At the sight of the party, Vordakai teleported Agai, the dangerous fey denizen, who had eluded them on a previous adventure. This previous battle was perhaps the most fun to date, so it seemed a nice idea to bring back this enemy for the final confrontation, noting also we have 6 players and the module is for 4.

By now the party had figured out what was effective against the elemental and managed to summon creatures to absorb its damage while it was finished off. Vordakai summoned the fey while Sajjan charged and was summarily dispatched by the fey and Vordakai. That's how we left it - a wounded party in the midst of a battle...

A week later we resumed and the group had a strategy up their sleeve. They cast a wall of ice to try to give them some breathing space to heal, but Vordakai used dimension door and dominated Feiya, who took great relish in doing 40 points of lightning damage to the whole of the rest of the party. Meanwhile, Agai tried and failed to smash through the wall of ice intially and then, on a second smash crashed through.

The party then started to focus on healing but Agai was damaging them faster than they could heal and Vordakai set about paralysing the group. Balazar summoned an enormous woolly rhinoceros, which did very big damage to pierce Vordakai's damage resistance and kept the mage busy, while the rest of the party focused on the fey. They finally dispathced it and Vordakai decided to teleport back to his own chamber to heal.

Without any real damage dealing, the wizard finally succumbed, with two party members left free from paralysis - whew - that was close!

Was very late so we called it a night.....more next time including part 4!

Incredibly, we've raised £999 for Patrick's trip to Koro - a tribute to the selflessness of the rpg hobby and I'd like to thank all those who have been able to support and those who support with ideas and well wishes.

Tonight, I am hoping we will be able to do the climax to the Varnhold Vanishing, so I'll post about that, as soon as I'm able.

KINGMAKER INTERLUDE

Once again we moved the Kingmaker forward and the experience of this young but intelligent group is starting to tell. Mosters with special powers were trounced by intelligent use of spells, difficult terrain was circumvented by the use of the ring of freedom of movement. I now really have to throw everything at the group, to make sure they have a challenge maintained.

This week, they took Xamanthe back personally to the village and were disappointed to find that they weren't incredibly grateful with mounds of treasure. Back to the Death Valley they plodded and further into the tomb. A few weeks back a soul eater nearly took two lives irretrievably, but the group this time managed to handle two of the creatures, at the expense of the Eidolon, who bore the brunt of the wisdom damage and disappeared off to its plane, only to be resummoned after the battle.

One can't underestimate the importance of "flight" in Pathfinder, as it really helps to solve difficult situations. Joseph (Balazar) also cast dispel magic on the undead wizard to see him plunging down from his place of advantage into the burning lava, meeting a very swift end.

Next they pressed forward to meet the brutal cyclops dread zombies. These things can do some crazy damage with power attack, so I brought the wizard down from 81HP (he has 20 CON) down to 3HP in just one round. Nevertheless, the dread zombies were despatched one by one, with Imrijka's mixture of bane and flames of the faithful.

Damiel so much enjoys these sessions with his alchemist, Damiel and his brain goes into overdrive at the thought of turning these things into Alchemical Zombies - his latest discovery. I can see the party expanding still further with these fearsome beasties.

He's finished school this week for the holidays and we hope now that we can find a little bit of financial support for him to go to our centre in Koro, which is South of Gulu, in Northern Uganda and a very remote spot. If you're interested in supporting him, then we're just looking for US$100, which will cover his transport and food. The details are at this link - http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/the-village-roleplaying-project/

Thursday we continue with Kingmaker, as the Reign of Winter group are at home in the village, so I think we may even finish Part 3, if they move speedily!

Sorry for the delay - we have had two more Reign of Winter sessions now and the group has started to mature a bit into their roles. I decided to remove Chadda, as she seemed to lack interest in the game and have swapped in Brian, who is playing Merisiel, the rogue, until he has time to set up his own real character.

We started the session with the doll, which had the party split into two and with so many options was trying to lead party members against each other and paralysing those who did not agree. The wizard was fleeing too as he tried to pass the haunt, leaving him effectively out of the battle, while the others tried to fire arrows and bolts at the flying doll. It dropped down to stab at the monk, but he made his save against the paralysis and finally made short work of the creature with his fists.

Snowabella, the ice witch, seemed to be interested in the blue gem and they twigged that the mirror eye meant that someone significant had been watching them and this set the group a bit on edge, but then they were suddenly rushed by a giant weasel, who had been tracking them. It quickly overpowered the wizard, who had just got past the haunt, and ran off, carrying him away to its lair, with the halfling Bestobest in hot pursuit using longstrider and his special freedom of movement ability on the snow. This proved crucial as he was able to revive the wizard in the weasel's mouth at the same time as Snowabella conjured an eagle to distract the creature from its prey. The delay proved fatal, as the creature was smashed to a pulp by the monk and Kharnia.

The journey continued and the winter grew more and more fierce, so much that they could hardly see their hands in front of their faces. Mundi the wizard, using burning hands to burn through the ice ahead of them, they spotted an enormous portal spewing ice and snow from its midst. A tiny fairy then started firing miniature but very painful snow arrows at them from concealment above. It then let loose a crack of thunder which alerted the other nearby denizens, including a moss troll.

Patrick was clearly very happy to be in a battle with a troll again, even a less powerful one and laid into it, missing, missing and missing again, though...

Eventually the group prevailed and the wizard burnt the troll to a crisp. I didn't know the stats for the Moss troll, as it wasn't in the main bestiary we have, but I made up some suitable info, which I hope didn't make it too easy!

As the creature died, a black-armoured horseman flew through the portal, his mount evaporating into dark smoke. Time was almost over, though, so I quickly talked through the purpose of the rider and explained the much bigger story that the players had become embroiled in. They sat in wrapt attention and I could see the adventure was truly born...

We will have just one more session this Thursday as the kids have to return to their villages for the holidays. However, there could be a possibility of taking the adventures to the rural village children (as I have threatened on previous postings), through a new launch at our centre in Northern Uganda. If I can, I will post on this, as and when it happens....

KINGMAKER INTERLUDE:

Above all the Kingmaker group are the most enthusiastic. Because they hadn't played for a while, all of the characters had gone missing and so we had to start a bit from scratch yesterday. Uganda can be the embodiment of chaos theory and if order is not maintained, then chaos rules!

Nevertheless, they remembered many of their skills and abilities and one or two of the characters were located...

We left the intrepid group having tackled a dangerous water trap and survived by the skin of their teeth. So they then continued through the secret door and onto the next room, where there was a detailed description of the location. These descriptions are sometimes challenging, as we have to stop and translate or describe items which the kids know neither the word nor any idea of what the item might be and this can lead them into danger in the adventure...

This room had three shrines, with two braziers filled with oil, two offertory plates filled with dried blood, and a double door. It's actually a very dangerous trap and the group, rather than really understand what the braziers were for, just walked into the trap - 9d6 cold and 1d6 wisdom damage. I have to be supportive here and sometimes give them some GM support. Next was a piscodaemon - they had never fought a demon before, so its resistances were very difficult for them and also they did not really understand anything about holy or aligned weapons, so this became a long and very demanding encounter.

Nevertheless, they did manage to pull through, with lightning bolts, call lightning, firebombs from the alchemist and a pitter patter of hits from the eidolon and monk. The wizard was able to use his mirror image to great effect too, as he pumped in lightning bolts.

The session ended with our group talking to Xamanthe the centaur and she recounting her "conversations" with Vordakai. The group were deathly quiet, when these revelations were being explained and this shows the power of the story and how much they feel they are a part of it.

They agreed to take Xamanthe all the way home as she was paralysed but that was going to be decided upon the next time we played...

Well the last two sessions have been quite short. The girls are very reluctant to move away from their responsibility to serve food and this is quite disruptive for the evening, as this week they were sent on an errand, just as we were about to start and then throughout the evening, they seemed to have their mind on when the food was ready and when they needed to be there to serve it.

::sighs::

However, we did make some progress. It seemed to take an inordinately long time to search the bandit lodge and I had to drop a hint/reminder of what they had actually set out to do, before they discovered the Lady Argentea locked in a secret room in the cellar.

This group seem very comfortable to converse with NPCs and my "jolly hockey sticks" noble seemed to go down a treat. The poor old wizard/sorceror (we haven't decided what yet) had contracted chillblains and they had to spend 500gp to rid him of the disease.

In an effort to get them moving again, I encouraged the group to go back and also suggested to Patrick that another might want to take on the lead, which he has been very good about, though everyone else lacks experience in this area. Kenneth eventually took the lead, but misinterpreted leadership by being at the front of the party. Surprised by a posse of frost skeletons, the wizard felt victim to their icy aura and blades. However a round or so later, they were clocked into submission by warhammers and greatswords.

Bestobest, the halfling, told me this week that he was beginning to realise what an important role he had in the group as I was wondering whether he was getting bored with healing - it seems not. Having healed everyone back up, they proceeded to walk straight into some animated trees, which caused quite a hassle, one throwing the dwarf's axe 50 feet into the undergrowth. Karnia beamed as she told me she would draw her warhammer and she clubbed the thing to death.

They continued along the path and were thrown into disarray by the ice maze haunt, the party being split into three. The animated evil doll seems to have created quite an impression on them as round by round passed by and they had yet made a scratch on the thing. So, I decided to leave it with them as a puzzle for next week. How do they defeat the doll?

Other than Thursdays, we now have a Saturday night session (tonight) with Joseph DMing. He has found some older boys interested in playing and they are playing The Godsmouth Heresy. Patrick's Kingmaker has stopped for the moment, but he and new GM, Smith, are sharing the GMing of a new adventure - I think it is Hollows Last Hope.

I am kind of looking forward to doing our monthly session on Kingmaker tomorrow morning - hopefully not too many interruptions....

Sorry have been a bit remiss with updating - we have had two sessions, since I last posted. I'll update shortly.

This is "Reign of Winter" for the RPG that we are running on Thursdays. We are working our way gradually through the ROTR PACG and have have managed all the adventures up to Blackfang the next one, which we played 5-player, we ran out of time for and thus failed.

We are also continuing Kingmaker monthly and may well run this tomorrow, if there is time.

One of the younger kids, Smith, has just started running his own campaign, so there is quite a lot of gaming going on right now, especially as our new village kids are all enjoying learning how to play things like "Ticket to Ride" and "Agricola".

Anyway, thanks for your messages of support. The roleplaying has taken off so much here and I'm so pleased to see the kids running it independently these days, thanks to support from Paizo with books and others sending adventures and dice:)

Thanks for the idea, TacticsLion. I think the girl concerned will start to develop her ability to tackle new things while she is with us and hopefully she will embrace the idea at some point. We can use coloured tokens or I think the Paizo pawns are less scary than the little figures that I brought with me this time.

So, we left last week with the group deliberately springing the trap outside the bandit lodge and this falling and dislodging a series of pots, pans and pottery jugs, which alerted the bandit guards of the presence of intruders.

Mundi - either a wizard or a sorceror (he seems to be a wizard with a bloodline) - decided he wanted the crossbow, so decide to let the rest of the group sort out the bandits that had appeared on the verandah and started attacking, while he trudged through the thick snow.

Bestobest, the halfling cleric started to learn that his weapons weren't as good as the others, but his day was a series of crucial healings as the players were to find out.

The bandits themselves were a fairly unimpressive crew, who fell immediate victim to the witch's sleep spell. 4 out of 5 fell asleep and were butchered by Chada and Kania (back this week). Even the bandit reinforcements that came were no match - Guldan the monk noticed they were suffering from a disease and was tempted to let them live, but they decided to put the men out of their misery.

A half orc rogue appeared at the doorway and Kania let loose on him, even though she tried to show that she was not part of the bandit group. She parried Kania's blow and carried on surveying the scene, eventually finding a way to escape, with the agreement of the party.

By now though Rohkar had appeared and after failing to have his best spells work, he started to raise the dead bandits as zombies and the battle started to move in his favour, as party members started to fall - first the monk, then the fighter, then the barbarian - zombies really are quite powerful for a L1 group - but Bestobest "spammed" his channel positive energy and with a few good dice rolls, he kept everyone up. The monk went straight for the Rohkar, and grabbed him by the throat, whereupon the bandit chief was forced to banish the zomnbies remaining. Rohkar pretended that he was merely a pawn of the evil ice creatures and even promised to heal the party in the battle against the ice mephit on the bridge.

The mephit, however, gave away that the bandit was in league with her and, when I realised Rohkar had no means of healing himself, then he was easily despatched and after a struggle Guldan managed to stun the mephit and the battle was more or less won.

It was combat all night, but the kids said they had enjoyed it, asking whether we could do it twice a week! I am asked this quite a lot, so encouraging the more experienced ones to run roleplaying themselves (as is happening with Saturday).

Also at the end of the session, Bestobest asked me "Ben, I am enjoying the sessions, but what exactly am I learning?" Maybe I will pose this question to readers of these boards and I told him to think about it himself and come up with some answers.....

Things can't always go smoothly, especially with a new group. Barbara and Agnes didn't make it this week - Barbara had a netball tournament and Agnes was denied permission to come again, because the school like to insist on revising books from 8pm-10pm at night. Shadia was on her own and I toyed with cancelling, as I could tell she has been out of her depth and needing the other girls' support.

Kenneth also is an interesting character and just loves to play the wizard character, as he likes the concept of being a powerful wizard casting fireballs. However, like many of the others, English comprehension is difficult for him and the source material we have - Core rulebook - requires very good comprehension. Therefore, many of the kids have difficulty with the more complex classes and don't really consider the powers of the spells in context, instead just like the "effect".

A good example last night was when the group came upon a group of three bandits, arguing over the split of loot. Some went immediately stealthy. My guess is that Kenneth didn't know the word "stealthy" and decided to cast enlarge person on himself and step forward saying he was no threat and wanted to just talk to the bandits.

The bandits unsurprisingly panicked, firing at the giant that had appeared at long range - note there was thick snow everywhere - and then at the monk that was trying to close on them, proclaiming peace to try to salvage the situation. The barbarian (Shadia) didn't really understand anything that was going on and just followed.

A lucky crossbow shot at long range from the witch (played by Joseph in Barbara's absence) gave them the idea that they could use ranged weapons and eventually the three bandits were despatched, though an easy encounter became potentially threatening.

They then came upon the bandit stronghold and decided to awaken the whole lot by announcing their presence....more next week!

I may have a switch around next week and try some new players. We debated the issue of which children locally would find the roleplaying fun and joseph cautioned by saying perhaps we should try them with some structured board games first, to test their interest and, sometimes, English comprehension, both verbal and written. However, it was quite clear that Joseph's game on Saturday had uncovered some new good players, Simon Peter and Emmanuel, who he will look forward to continuing with next Saturday. Patrick is going to run a session just for the girls next week, though one has expressed a fear of the monster figures we have, saying that they will give her nightmares - any comments on this new issue?

Kingmaker today was quite a lot of fun. We managed to get through the whole of the first level in Vordakai's tomb in just over three hours though our little group was alchemist, summoner, monk and Inquisitor only. With just an inquisitor to heal, though, they did find themselves a bit stretched for healing, as these higher level denizens really start to hit hard.

I noticed today more than any previous session how they were working much more as a team - moving out of the way, so each could use their special powers, healing at crucial times, looking to flank etc. It's not just a learning of the rules, more of a friendship thing or perhaps even a survival instinct. The traps in this section are also very dangerous, yet they solved some tricky situations, as the rooms filled with water, or the undersea creatures had them pinned in the doorway of the cave entrance.

Actually we could have continued for longer, so their concentration span is also improving, despite their young years.

It's been great having so many more dice - thanks to those who sent them - as finally everyone could have their own dice! THough at this level (8), they need to be rolling multiples of each dice most of the time!

I'm told we are going to have a new mini-blog on the Paizo blog soon and also Patrick is about to write a blog about his project and how it is developing on Wordpress. I'll link both here, when we are ready.

Next Kingmaker is scheduled for a month's time, though it was hoped we could do it before then....

Week 2 was somewhat disrupted. We weren't able to start until 9.00pm and some of the kids gor home quite late from school. Chada seemed to struggle with the English this week and was also tired and Agnes didn't make it at all. However.we teach the kids not to be discouraged by challenges, so we ploughed on for an hour and moved through the scenario with the fey lights and then the talking stag, which they found highly amusing.

I didn't dare take the session past 9.00pm due to school next day, so it was just two encounters. Next week, we will focus on the assault of the bandit area, which I think will be a challenge for the group.

Tomorrow, we are going to have our first session on Kingmaker, with the original group - Brian (Imrijka) has just shown up, sent home from school for school fees (he walked about 8 miles), so he can join us tomorrow morning. Also, Joseph is tonight going to run his own campaign, with a new group of his own choice tonight. On Tuesday, Patrick is going to introduce the game to the girls from the village, that we have resident here this year. Basically, we want to test their interest in this type of storytelling.

So quite a lot happening on the roleplaying right now. Will report on the Kingmaker campaign resumption tomorrow.

Ok, we had our first session on Reign of Winter last night. Agnes was able to come in the end, so I made her a swift female dwarven fighter, with a fancy war axe and everyone else stuck with what they had been given.

Sometimes the hardest part of introducing the game is explaining how to play and all of the statistics on the character sheet, but our three new players seemed really adept and quick to grasp this, finding their fort saves, their initiative, their AC and hit points like veterans. Also, sometimes a group struggles with the roleplay interaction at the beginning, but they quizzed the escaped guard like pros and found out almost the information they needed.

They set off speedily to investigate where the attack had taken place and set about searching the place. Guldan (the monk) - check out the Hearthstone reference - was into everything leading the inexperienced party by the nose. Thus he and Barbara the white witch were the only ones near, when the two guard zombies burst out of the carriage. Guldan beat up on one of them, his open handed strikes bouncing off the zombie flesh, but the other zombie smashed the witch into pulp in one round, before she could even prepare.

Then stepped in Bestobest, the little cleric. Only he had correctly identified the zombies and so we offered him, as a new player a chance either to heal one, heal all, attack or turn undead, explaining what each might do. He chose to Channel Positive energy and our witch awoke from unconsciousness.

Step forward Chada, the barbarian. Ok, Chada, roll the dice - "20" - is that good? - roll again, Chada - 4d6+6 damage on the zombie. I get to roll "all these dice"? Needless to say, the zombie was sliced in two. Next stepped forward Khania, the young dwarven fighter. Your turn, Agnes. What have you rolled? - "20" - ok, roll again...."18". Ok, roll me 3d10+3 damage, Khania. And the second zombie was split in two....

So, the new three players were very much in the thick of things and enjoyed the session, which continued with the group wandering into a trap and then deciding to return back to the village to recover and sell the jewellery they found and buy some more equipment.

More next week...

We've decided on characters today and it will be a mix of people who know and people who don't know anything.

Kenneth is playing a Half Orc draconic heritage sorceror, as he wants to be a dragon disciple as a prestige class and saw it in the core rulebook.

Barbara liked the sound of the Winter Witch, but wanted to be a gnome, as she played Lini last time. Also, Maria was a witch before and stole the limelight a bit!

Shadia seemed enchanted by the picture of Amiri and so is playing a female human barbarian

Beckham is very small and decided to play a halfling cleric of Desna. He'll find out that being a halfling is not so easy in Pathfinder!

Lastly, Patrick started school today, so I haven't seen him, but he said he'd like to play a monk. We'll find out tomorrow, whether he ends up with that class.

We're set to play tomorrow, with a following wind, so will report back on the first session soon.

I'm back in Kampala again and it's very hot, even for Kampala. Everyone is eagerly anticipating the resumption of Kingmaker and we have decided to continue the campaign on a monthly basis, as some of the original group are now in Boarding.

Since I was last in Uganda, we have been sent a lot of new modules ((BG THANKS TO THOSE THAT ARE HELPING) and dice etc., so many that I have had to delay sending it over on a container we are planning. Also I have now met with our new project members and we have decided to start a new campaign with some of them. I am going to kick off Reign of Winter on Thursdays and Patrick is going to introduce the other members slowly with some easy scenarios, using local language, as many are not yet ready to understand English from and English person. Running RPG sessions in local language is very important to our strategy, as we hope to include some sessions in villages next May.

So, we have decided to run with a group of three boys - Patrick (13), Kenneth (13) and Beckham (12) - and two girls - Barbara (14) and Shadia (13). They are going to be working on their characters today and tomorrow, so we will see what they choose! All have excellent English and are very keen to get started.

We'll be building a lockable quiet room and office on site, which will also house a small kitchen in February, so I am hoping that this room can be dedicated to board games and RPG and thus encourage a bit more play during times when it is too noisy in the main centre.

I've got a lot of new stuff to try out - lots of dice and new adventures and new Pathfinder books. Also I have my new cohort of young people with whom to try out the games.

Will post soon with more details...

Ok, well the New Year is here and Patrick has made a decision to start the Kingmaker campaign himself, in the absence of continuing things through Fantasy Grounds.

He said the first session was really fun, as the party let the bandits come in, demand the money from Oleg and Svetlana, "have a cup of tea" and then disappear off. Only when the bandits had left did Oleg become very shirty and tell the "adventurers" that they were cowards, did the group pull their socks up and chase after the bandits! Those who donated to the project have enabled us to support these overnight sessions

Patrick is running a session mixed boys and girls every week now and he has also drawn up a plan to develop and recruit very many new children locally onto his programme, which sounds encouraging, since Patrick is only 13. The Butterfly Project has also recruited Patrick onto its own training project, which teaches children to be young social entrepreneurs.

We have just added 15 new members including Patrick - https://chrysalisuganda.wordpress.com/2015/01/01/15-new-butterflies-joining -the-project-this-month/ - and we will be starting their training on 7th Feb and I should be back in Uganda by then. We will try to find a window in the week to continue the Kingmaker (Part 3) and this is likely to be mid-Feb. Hopefully, Patrick will also continue his version too in the meantime!

Thanks for continuing to follow the column. Maybe we will be able to update it more frequently soon.

I managed to acquire a copy of the Pathfinder Card Game for Christmas and this will also be coming across with me. It does seem rather complicated, but we will see how the kids cope with it.

Disappointingly the downtime has slowed the RPG down a bit and it now looks to be delayed until school holiday time in December. We've received a wonderful box of materials from Save Against Fear and much of this will be going across for Christmas, with our Christmas Present box for the slum kids.

If finances permit, we are also going to test out a roleplaying adventure in some villages in Dec/Jan time. Watch this space for information.

While, net is back at the Centre, we're still ironing out some technical issues, but in the meantime, Patrick has started his own Kingmaker session with some new youngsters - congrats to him. For those that are supporting the project, we are using what we receive to pay for the kids' food when they stay over at our centre. Most survive on one meal a day, so it's a good thing to be able to support them with an evening meal, when they come to stay.

Many thanks also to Save Against Fear - http://www.saveagainstfear.com/ - who supported the project through their convention this year.

Will try to get things back online ASAP!

I am back in the UK for a stint now, though hoping to continue the campaign, minus one (in boarding), via Fantasy Grounds. The idea is to use FG to keep track of the battles and do many of the visuals through the screen. If feasible, then I would like to get a lot of lite licences and put them onto the various computers we have there or maybe even acquire an Ultimate licence. If not, then we can try to continue via Skype, at least as a trial.

This is the last session, then, that I ran last Thursday evening and started with the party in sight of the Centaur village. I didn't mention on the last hasty post that a few members of the party had spotted some scraps of paper being blown about Varnhold town and had managed to piece some together to make posters. Some of these were quests from the Restov Swordlords given to the people at Varnhold and one, in particular, was encouraging maeghar Varn's townspeople to establish diplomatic ties or eliminate the Nomen Centaurs.

Our party knew this, as they viewed the centaur settlement below them, but were almost surprised by a war party speeding towards them. Imrijka's eagle eyes saw them able to react and, in Kukula's new group invisibility spell's absence, the whole group turned each other invisible, though not before they had been spotted by the centaur group and they did not have enough spells to cast on the eidolon. Knowing they had only 7 minutes of invisibility, they started to move quickly in different directions, but not before the centaur group had encircled the whole party.

A less experienced group would have just tried to bash themselves (easily) out of this situation, but Balazar saw an opportunity for a way to enter the town on their own terms. They cast ghost sounds to confuse the war party, Sajjan leapt over the centaurs and the other party members tried to squeeze out of the ring of attackers. The alchemist also flew out of the circle. But they didn't do anything to break the invisibility, allowed the eidolon to be captured with a net and eventually chose to let the war party take them into the town on their own terms, the centaurs fearful of what the party might do next.

Now one thing the party is very poor at is "diplomacy" skill and they don't have anyone much good at this, so persuading the centaurs was always going to be tough. They also are generally less than keen to part with any treasure they had found and Damiel's new Skybolt longbow was also one of his proudest possessions.

Despite the village being full of 100 centaurs, the villagers saw themselves as significantly outmatched and somewhat intimidated by the array of powers displayed by our party. The usually feisty centaur leader seemed subdued, as she discussed the issues and capitulated when she heard of the quest the group had, explaining that her daughter Xamanthe had gone to the Valley of the Dead, despite her express orders.

As an aside here, it was interesting to roleplay this group as a matriarchal society, with the female centaurs cracking whips and forcing their male counterparts to labour in the fields. Our boys saw this as being very unjust and even challenged the female leaders about it. They tried to influence the male centaurs to rise up against the women. The boys in our group still tend to bully the girls, to my chagrin, and the girls tend to be less confident about sharing their ideas, but I hope that we are making progress in this area.

Heading South now to the Valley of the Dead, the party encounters a large silver dragon circling overhead (later I realise this thing is supposed to be dead) but the party hide and so there is no engagement. Once they enter the valley, then I try to describe the place as picturesquely as I can.

They pass and eliminate a dangerous-looking zombie cyclops and then travel eight miles through a winding path through the mountains. Balazar says it seems like Skyrim, so I say Skyrim without the snow!

Eventually the path leads into an enclosed area, with a sllow-running river running through it. In the middle of the wide river is an island with a smoking chimney in the middle of it. Afar is a cliff and "small" creatures can be seen perched on the top.

Balazar starts to fly across, as does Damiel, though the distances are long. About halfway across, the small birds (wyverns) leap off the cliff and start flying towards our group. Immediately the half that were swimming the river reverse their course and only Balazar, astride his eidolon have the guts to continue.

I was actually surprised by this and aware now how important each's character is to them and also how concerned they are for their own safety. I encouraged them a little - three wyverns should have been no match for a concerted group - but I realised that Kukula, their sorceror, had not been able to make it and so their long range ammunition was unavailable.

So, the group really had to engage in melee and Feiya, the witch, found herself swimming across, making it difficult to cast spells and her far behind the rest.

The ensuing battle was close and Damiel once more stung by the wyvern (he and I forgot his +4 resistance to poison) and was one save away from death through CON loss. Balazar used the necklace of fireballs found on the troll leader and Damiel was able to use his longbow to send bombs from a distance. Sajjan and Imrijka were struggling to use their powers again in the flying battle.

So the party eventually were able to land on the island and, as I leave Uganda for a time, they are at the entrance to Vordakai's tomb, though they don't know it. I levelled them to Level 8, knowing what was inside and we said our goodbyes!