Big Jake's page

And now the 1st issue is on the stands!

I really enjoyed the story. It's a bit of kitsch, a bit of humor, and a bunch of hack-n-slash, with a twist to boot!

All in all, pretty much what I wanted from a D&D comic book.

My favorite lines came from the Elf, Varis to the Dwarf, Khal:

Go pick this one up!

Big Jake wrote:

The Three Musketeers (1993, with Sutherland, Sheen, and Platt)

Dear god, I figured, given your awesome screen name, I'd have similar movie tastes with you -- alas, I was horribly, horribly wrong! There is no end to how much I disliked the Disney "Musketeers" (although Tim Curry was really good). On the other hand, I never get tired of watching the Gene Kelly version, as hokey as the acting is.

Ah, come on! It's just one movie!

There's a lot to like about the Three Disney-teers:

1: Rochefort. Isn't that a smelly kind of cheese?
2: Porthos: Champagne?
Athos: We're in the middle of a chase, Porthos.
Porthos: You're right - something red.
3: Bad Guy: Dead. They're all dead!
Aramis: Not all of us.
4: Tim Curry!

My group is led by a cleric of Sarenrae, who offers "the bad guys" a chance to redeem themselves before entering in combat. Even then, he tries not to kill anyone, if he doesn't have to (and he never *has* to). He also sees his mission to redeem as many people as possible, and tries to make as many contacts with the NPCs as the AP goes along.

So when the party met Devargo Barvasi, he made sure to leave with the encounter with a contact, if not a potential ally, regardless of alignment, deeds, etc., believing that further contact would only help redeem Devargo later on.

Of course, as written, Devargo dies shortly after the quarentine of Old Korvosa; Devargo closes his docks and is killed by his ettercap ally. I didn't particularly like that ending for him, and that he wasn't around to put up a fight against Pilts Swastel as he sets up his Empire.

Now, my group just finished searching the Direption and decided to take the dead body to Old Korvosa, specifically to Orisini's place, to question the body. They came on shore unnoticed (using water breathing to bypass the patrols) near Eel's End. They quickly noticed the change of Old Korvosa, empty streets, empty Eel's End, and instead of going towards Orisini's place, they stop by to see Devargo to see what's going on.

So, they enter Devargo's throne room, which now is covered in webs like the hold below, and occupied by ettercaps, large and medium monstrous spiders, and a spider swarm, with five "cocoons" hanging from the ceiling in the back of the room.

They fought off the monsters, and rescued Devargo from one of the cocoons (0 Str, 5 hp). After healing him up, and letting Devargo know about the Queen's Physicians, Devargo now owes the PCs big time.

I'm looking forward to Escape from Old Korvosa, to see what the PCs will request of Devargo to potentially liberate the city from oppression, murder and fear.

Here's a recap: 183 Dead, 2 Quit

Whispering Cairn: 65 Deaths
Three Faces of Evil: 69
Encounter at Blackwall Keep: 7
Hall of Harsh Reflections: 15
The Champion's Belt: 9
A Gathering of Winds: 3
Spire of Long Shadows: 3
Library of Last Resort: 1
Side Quests/Treks/Random Encounters: 11

Players that Quit: 2

Some of these numbers are off because I added 4 or 5 for any TPK that didn't include numbers of players.

And, obviously, these are only the deaths listed in this thread.

I am currently contemplating this as well. We start HoHR this weekend, and I'm still not sure how much to dole out. My players have learned quite a bit from their own role-playing and knowledge-based skill checks, but nothing that will help them in the Free City.

Here's a run down of things my players already know:

The Diamond Lake Ebon Triad cult managed to create a powerful creature with aspects of Vecna, Hextor, and Erythnul.

The cultists were interested in the appearance of the Kyuss zombies in the Mistmarsh.

The black dragon Ilthane brought the kyuss worms to the Mistmarsh by infecting the Twisted Branch tribe.

They also know the basics of the kyuss zombies, and that remove disease can cure a person from becoming a zombie.

I'm considering using Eligos to fill in some gaps, and give the initial warnings of things to come. Here's some of the things that Eligos can offer:

Information on the Age of Worms, though I'm not sure how much information to give on this broad topic.

The Ebon Triad's interest in the Age of Worms. I think at a minimum I will say that the Ebon Triad believes that the Age of Worms must happen before the Overgod appears, so they are trying to help it come to pass.

Information on the Apostolic Scrolls. When the PCs find out that Raknian has a copy, the information about them becomes critical. The amount the party knows about the ulgurstasta may help their determination in discovering what's going on under the Free City Arena.

Information on Manzorian. This might be a good time to introduce information on the archmage, though we have to wait another month before we get "The Spire of Long Shadows." Maybe we can get Erik or James to post a short paragraph on some information about Manzorian's current dealings that we could use.

In my Age of Worms campaign the PCs have purchased and fixed up the abandoned mine office and are using it as their home. Finally, over the many weeks of adventuring through The Whispering Cairn and The Three Faces of Evil, the house is cleaned up, and mostly repaired. I made one important change to the cellar: the stairs that lead down to a collapsed area had been converted to a closet. The stairs were completed filled in, packed down, and resurfaced, so the area would look like a 5x20 storage area.

As the PCs were getting ready to meet with Alustan (with a job offer to lead into Encounter at Blackwall Keep), the PCs heard a scream from the basement, and they went to investigate. They found a young girl laying in the closet bleeding profusely from a large gash on her forearm. She appeared to have cut herself on a large ornamental door knocker that was hanging on the far end of the storage area.

The party druid used a heal check and bandaged the girl's arm, but the bleeding didn't slow. The druid did another heal check and determined that the wound wasn't responding to normal treatment and cast a cure light wounds, at which point the cut healed, and the bleeding stopped.

The PCs were alarmed at the strange wound, and did a thorough search of the area. They found two things: the door knocker radiated faint evocation and good magic, and they noticed that the girl's blood seeped into the cracks of the stones and created an arc of a larger circle.

The PCs pulled up one of the stones and determined (through an architecture and engineering knowledge check) that this closet had at one time been filled and resurfaced. They asked the general contractor to get to work on digging up the room to see is something was buried, and they headed off to meet with Alustan.

After their meeting, Alustan cast identify on the door knocker and said that it had a permanent consecrate spell cast on it. The PCs grew suspicious of the young girl, since she appeared to be severly injured by an item radiating good magic, but when they investigated her, she was actually good-aligned.

In the two days that followed, the PCs discovered that the storage area was actually a set of stairs, but were told by the workers that it would take about 10 days to dig up properly, less if they hurried, but that might cause some structural damage.

Since the PCs were on their way to Blackwall Keep anyways, they told them not to hurry the job, and they would see what was down there when they returned.

When the PCs return, they will discover that the blood of the *virgin* girl awoke an evil that haunts a sub-basement. I'm going to use the "Bad Place" template from "Not for the Living" (by James Jacobs, Dragon #336). The PCs will have to rescue the workers and find a way to stop the haunting.

Time-wise, this adventure will take place somewhere around Halloween, so it should be extra-spooky!