Bjørn Røyrvik's page

I'm no expert on mid 19th century Danish but the Danish in "Journey to the Center of the Earth" had some very odd elements. Some of it was perfectly fine, other things were weird. I suspect Verne rather hastily used a dictionary rather than relying on anyone with actual knowledge of the language.
Apart from that, it was fine. An important piece of early SF but rather unremarkable by the current state of lost world fiction. I know that in SF the 'fiction' aspect generally overshadows the 'science' but the bit that really put me off was not the subterranean world but how the protagonists ride a semi-wooden raft and take a volcano to the surface again and only feel a bit singed rather than being nigh-instantly reduced to ash.

Anyway, on to Leigh Brackett's The Starmen of Llyrdis. I've read only a alittle Brackett previously, a collection of her work titled "The Sea-kings of Mars and othe stories", in Gollancz' Fantasy Masterworks series but I remember exactly nothing of it, which means I need to re-read that too at some point.

John Blanche, the artist behind much of the iconic look of Warhammer and WH40k, passed away June 1.

We watched the first episode yesterday, and chose B&W, which worked without issue. It was entertaining enough that we'll watch a few more episodes at least, quite possibly the whole thing.

Most of the session was spent on combat, so a very short update this time.

Before heading down into the water, the party asks the newly re-limbed Aoinse about the electricity room and the clockwork constructs. The reply is pretty much what Tibor expected: the constructs could be useful but the power would need to be turned on and repairing everything would take far longer than Tibor thinks is reasonable given the circumstances. Without any way to know how powerful a combatant Aoinse is without their spells, and to ease the DM’s burden of running many characters and monsters, Aoinse remains behind to try to repair and restore power to the temple.

In the water the party is almost immediately set upon by a bunch of skum, which are not particularly dangerous, even if they are tougher opposition than the skum they encountered earlier in the AP. The mummies that the party had previously tried to ignore enter the frey and attack both sides. They are pretty nasty, and their DR makes things difficult for the party, until Sylvia’s apprentice Lucius tries out his new feat and spell: Fireball modified by Steam Spell. The mummies all fail their saves and are easily finished off with a subsequent round of attacks.

Tibor again pushes the party to quickly clear rooms and ignore looting, until they come to another room with more skum, including one that the DM labeled as an herbalist on the VTT. Sylvia’s attempts to distract with shop talk as one herbalist to another fails, and combat is engaged. It was a slog of a fight, with Tibor missing a lot and movement being really slow and difficult for everyone but Tibor because no one else has a swim speed. Things got a lot better when Sylvia remembered she had the Aquatic Cavalry spell. The PCs are now far more mobile and Bo-bi able to charge with his lance, combat is swiftly ended.
Pressing on the party finds yet another room full of skum, but with everyone more mobile combat is fairly uneventful. Josephine exhausts her Wand of Cure Light Wounds and there are not many potions left from Sylvia’s once great stock of them. Hopefully the party will be able to find and free the missing colonists, and destroy the rest of the enemies here without needing too much more healing.

Once the skum are defeated the party clears out the rest of this floor, stealing a magic ring off the finger of a statue of Ka the Preserver. For once the rest of the party exhibits some reluctance to loot something, not wanting to incur the ire of an actual god. Tibor intones a holy prayer along the lines of “O great Father Earth, if you do not want me to loot this ring, give me a sign”. No signs are shown, and no divine wrath is evident when he gingerly slides the ring off the statue’s finger.

A statue of a hero beheading a giant snake is found and the party fails to easily remove the sword. Tibor, a bit testily, pushes the party on after a few tugs fail to free the sword, bulldozing over Vår’s timid attempts to try again. Heading downstairs into another part of the temple, the party is immediately set upon by horrible crusty monstrosities wearing scraps of fabric. Could these be the missing colonists?
Either way, the mutants instantly attack and despite their DR and decent HP, they are defeated. Our single Haste spell is used in the combat and Bo-bi takes a fair amount of damage, causing Vår to spend her last 3rd level slot on healing him.

The enemies are defeated and the session ends. Hopefully the next session will see the last of this temple.

The DM has expressed some annoyance at Tibor’s AC of “only on a 20” (which technically only applies to mooks) but agrees that he built into it at the expense of being less effective at dealing damage. Mediocre attack rolls and poor damage rolls this session did not help.

When the description of Saveth defeating Ydersius came up I was puzzled at the description, which did not fit with what I had told the players of the event when I ran Serpent’s Skull. Then I became depressed when I realized that was because no one remembered much of anything about that AP. It turns out that the DM remembered well and decided to keep this bit of the AP unchanged because it looked cool with the justification that just because someone put up a statue of an event doesn’t mean the event took place as depicted. So I’m mollified that someone remembered it, at least, and am now left to wonder at how the Azcans learned of Ydersius and his defeat by the Carnifex many thousand years before their rise. Perhaps they got some stories from serpentfolk and edited them for their own purposes.

"A thousand steps into the night" was good. I'll keep an eye out for more of Chee's stuff.

On to Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. Early on there are a number of issues that bug me. It claims that Heimskringal was written in runes, which it wasn't. It claims that the author's patronymic was Tarlesson when it's actually Sturlason.
It invents 'Norse' names like Saknussemm, which do not sound at all like Northern Germanic except, perhaps, to an 18th century Frenchman, and has some weird Frenchified spellings of real places.

Some time is spent discussing whether or not the party has time to invite the woodies to the fight or if they should press on right now, concluding with “yes, we do have time”. Sylvia is sent to contact them since she can move fastest. The woodies are not familiar with her but she was given enough information to more or less prove her non-faceless stalker nature, and the woodies quickly make ready to fight. Fortunately the woodies do not get tired so they can hustle and be fresh for fight upon arrival, which ends up being at night.

The initial assault on the complex is cut-scened because of overwhelming force and surprise, and everyone enters the ruined temple. The woodies end up protecting the entrance, both to stop any reinforcements from coming from outside and to stop anyone escaping from this direction.

The PCs make their way down the stairs from the entrance hall and immediately face some people who look human and blame us for their kidnapping, and a destrachan. There is some discussion about the quality of the ‘ch’ in the monster. The DM wants it to be a hard ‘k’ sound, I lean towards a velar fricative, but despite our best efforts it ends up being destra-chan. The fight inflicts some damage and the stunning roar actually does stun a couple PCs but no one is in real danger. Of more concern is the nature of the opponents. Remembering the attack on Thincol’s Jewel, the PCs mostly assume that these are faceless stalkers, though Tibor has a nagging feeling that some of them might be dominated colonists. Some of the opposition turns to faceless stalkers upon being felled but some do not. Not wanting to accidentally kill more friends, the party starts dealing non-lethal damage and ties up unconscious ‘humans’.

Tibor then presses the party fast through the complex, ignoring anything that smacks of wasting time on looting or otherwise interesting things like reading or fiddling with the crafting stations. He is partially successful in this. A room with clockwork constructs standing inactive is ignored, and so is the room that appears to give power to the entire structure. Yes, the party might be able to turn things on and have a bunch of construct allies against the baddies, but these constructs might also turn out to be hostile, and we have no idea how much time turning things on would take, so Tibor insists that the party leaves things as they are. The first interesting thing they bother to interact with is a broken construct which they activate. It turns out to be a sentient cleric of Ka* the Preserver, but one that has been inactive for 4000 years and seems to have lost his clerical mojo. They are lacking a leg and Josephine stays behind to help repair them.

The party presses on and sees a broken vault with lots of shinies on the floor. For some reason no one wonders why it hasn’t been looted yet, but even so Tibor insists that they leave it and move on. Vår, who should have been called ‘Magpie’, is utterly incapable of not trying to loot something and casts Detect Magic and picks up some shiny magic pearls. This is obviously a trap and the party is subject to Murderous Command. Fortunately some people make their save, and those who do not make their save fail to do much damage. The party beats a hasty retreat, taking nothing with them. With some restraint, Tibor again reminds people that he said looting could wait until later, and everyone agrees again. This agreement lasts precisely until the next opportunity to loot, at which point Tibor gives up.

When investigating a room that turns out to be tombs of Ka’s clergy, the floor gives way and sends Vår and Tibor down into the flood room below, which is another tomb. Surprising exactly no one, there are undead down here: three of the sarcophagi open to reveal mummies. Tibor rolls his second natural 1 on a save this session, making it two of three saves rolled. Being paralyzed with fear at the mercy of mummies is not a fun prospect. Bo-bi and Aidu heroically leap down to save their frozen friends, and Bo-bi also fails the save. The GM is nice and declares that the mummies attack Aidu, who is the only active combatant. Aidu has a lot of attacks but DR 5/- reduces most of his damage to negligible amounts. Fortunately he survives being pummeled for three rounds until the paralysis wears off. At this point Vår shows off her new 4th level spell: Dimension Door. She grabs Bo-bi and Tibor and teleports up to Sylvia and his apprentice, while Aidu flies away. Since we do not hear any sounds of the mummies attempting to follow us, we decide to leave well enough alone and just ignore them. If we survive the rest of the dungeon and manage to save the colonists, we can come back and grant them rest. Until then they are not worth tangling with.
A crueler (i.e. more tactical) DM might have reasoned that the mummies would focus on taking out the helpless ones first before taking out the lone active opponent, trusting their DR to keep them standing while they do so. A kind, wonderful, very forgiving DM sighs and keeps the kid gloves on.

With the above-water bits of the dungeon cleared, we end the session.

*The original AP apparently had the construct be a cleric of some god that died in the years between Earthfall and the AP. This doesn’t work with the Azcan pantheon as established by the DM, so many jokes were made about the poor cleric’s spell subscription being canceled, them running on outdated software and in need of an update, needing to contact customer servie to reset their password and similar excuses for why they could not cast spells.
More seriously, it was explained that whatever magic had been stored in their mind had ‘leaked’ away over the years and Ka had not gotten any response from them for so long He wrote them off as dead. The poor construct cleric will need to pray and reconnect to their patron for a while before getting spells again.

The author's preface* to "Gardens of the Moon" says the Malazan stories are ones people either love or hate; I must be a specail snowflake because think the first book was OK.
I actually enjoyed getting into it more than being in it. If I didn't already have the second book waiting for me, I'm not sure I would bother picking it up.

* The preface, for some reason, is at the end of the book. Did some editor not understand the meaning of 'preface'?

On to Traci Chee's A Thousand Steps Into the Night, which reads much like Diana Wynne Jones writing a Japanese-ish fairy tale-ish adventure. First impressions are very favorable despite an excessive use of footnotes to explain terms.

Well into my wife's "Ruins of Azlant Azcan" campaign, and we really should have Yakity Sax playing half the time.

I'm nearing the 18 month mark of what was meant to be a couple of months break from DMing. A break in the middle of an ongoing campaign, no less.

I'm impressed you can eat solid food after a root canal. I was on soup and porridge for days.

To quote The Gamers 3 Hands of Fate: "So, same time next year?"

"The Wind in the Willows" was OK. Definitely stories you shouldn't think too much about. Maybe it's just the changing nature of children's stories, maybe I was just primed to certain thoughts by the introduction, which gave a brief account of Grahame's life, but I got the feeling the stories were less stories for children and more the stories an adult wants about childhood.
Read a Freeport adventure, the name of which escapes me at the moment. Lots of background and characters and setting, almost too much. Not quite to the point of detriment to the adventure, but more than necessary (and this is from someone whoi generally likes lots of flavor.

On to Steven Erikson's Gardens of the Moon, the first book of Malazan Book of the Fallen. A few months ago I watched a video about the series and it piqued my interest, so I bought the first two books. About 100 pages in and I'm quite enjoying it. It does not ease you into things, introducing characters and places and concepts without much context, and there is an element of being thrown into the deep end to sink or swim which I'm enjoying. It remains to be seen if the rest of the book, and series, lives up to its quite favorable first impression.

The PCs, at least those still alive and able to think clearly, feel the press of time but realize they are almost certainly not in any state to take on a bunch of faceless stalkers and whatever their shadowy master might be. They head back to the ships boat they found on the coast by the ruined watchtower and head towards that isle of the faenare in hopes that they might be able to cure at least some of the afflictions. This takes the rest of the day, and when they arrive at dusk, are welcomed and given a place to sleep for the night. They have the requisite spells and components for Remove Curse, Raise Dead, and several Restorations, which makes me suspect the DM is being nice again. With everyone alive and in good shape again, Tibor sets a gruelling pace, pushing everyone to the brink of exhaustion. First they head back to the crazy island, at which point Vår wants to rest. Tibor says “No.” Then they check out the observatory that was listed on the map they found. The observatory was interesting, with a magical telescope and magical control panel. Tibor shoos everyone out and pushes on when it is clear that there are no enemies or friends here. Vår again wants to rest, and Tibor says “No!”

They push on to the columns that Sylvia noted on her flyover, located fairly far south west on the island. The columns are magical but no one can identify the effects here. They do manage to identify the hounds of Tindalos that appear and attack. The hounds get a good first round, even managing to hit Tibor, but they do not do much else as everyone either averts their eyes o Lord, or makes their save (barring one failed save from Tibor), or fails their save but the DM rolls poorly on their gaze damage. Yet again Vår asks to rest and Tibor says “NO!!”

Tibor pushes the party on. They head south to the marsh and see a bunch of will’o’wisps in the distance. No one wants to stick their hand in that particular blender and they assume that the faceless stalkers would not be there either, so they give it a miss.

The last thing they try is towards the giant bees they saw earlier that day. This proves fruitful when they find a clockwork bee that they can wind up and give commands. This, along with a successful Knowledge (history) indicates that there might be the ruins of a temple nearby. The PCs finally get to rest, and the next morning they command the clockwork contraption to lead them to the temple. Here they finally see something promising: a hidden, mostly submerged complex with armed guards. They are far enough away that they cannot see everything clearly, but it looks to be faceless stalkers. Here the PCs debate about what to do: do they call on the woodies for help, delaying any rescue action by the better part of another day, or do they charge in now?

That is a question for next time since the PCs had handily charged through or ignored everything the DM had prepared for the session in their quest to find the kidnapped colonists. If we waste too much time, the DM complains about that. If we actually try to focus on what we are supposed to, we are told we’re going too fast. Truly, the life of a player is one of never-ending criticism.

A quick trip to the big city to visit Games Workshop, since my wife foolishly took on the 100 mini challenge (from New Years, paint 100 minis before 9th of May). She considered stopping at 69 (for obvious reasons), but pushed herself to 81. I managed 8. I blame the cat. Game night on Sunday.

Saturday was a mistake since the Holmenkollen Run was in full swing and so was the national cup final, so the city was full of people getting drunk or running around. For the life of me I could not understand the route the runners were supposed to take because on every bloody street we walked there were runners going in every direction.

Slight correction: the wife stopped at 75 minis and I had actually done 15 or so.

Game night was fun and the wife expressed some annoyance that we for once accepted we were under some time pressure and ignored all the non-critical stuff she had prepared for the night and gone straight to the important bit. This is rather unusual for us, so under normal circumstances we would have followe her plan.

I love Clerics but I keep wishing we had something more like speciality preists from 2e. Domains are just not flavorful enough. They are, however, more balanced.

The rest are OK. Very powerful and useful if done right, but I've no special attachment to them.

Do some yardwork to clean up after winter. A quick trip to the big city to visit Games Workshop, since my wife foolishly took on the 100 mini challenge (from New Years, paint 100 minis before 9th of May). She considered stopping at 69 (for obvious reasons), but pushed herself to 81. I managed 8. I blame the cat. Game night on Sunday.

I generally dislike happy endings where events are forced and handwave previous obstructive plot elements to get to the good end, but I'll forgive "Red unicorn" because it was a good read and it is so rare for Lee's characters to get a genuinely happy end.

The final volume of Fist of the North Star reminded me that I had indeed read the last bit before, but forgotten most of it. For good reason. I have issues with the end but I'll spare you the rant.

On to Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. I've seen an animated movie and Terry Jones' live action adaptation before but this is my first time reading it.

In my last post I said that the DM would have to let PCs die and it seems she listened to me. Here follows a tale of brutal death and mutilation.

The party comes ashore on the island and quickly hides in the jungle. Sylvia wildshapes to an eagle and scouts the island. Upon her return she informs the party of what she has seen on her brief jaunt. They discuss which of the notable elements - a ring of shipwrecks on the western beach, an observatory on the mount overlooking the island, and a ruined tower on the eastern shore - to investigate first. Sylvia votes for the shipwrecks on the grounds that it seems most like a camp, Tibor votes for the tower on the grounds that it is likely where the faceless stalkers would station a guard, which they could hopefully capture and question. Bo-bi doesn’t care which way they go so long as they do something other than stand around discussing what to do, and Vår votes for the tower because it’s to our left [referring to a long-standing tradition in our group that we always head left unless there are obvious reasons not to], so the tower it is.

Tibor ninjas his way around the outskirts of the tower and finds a ship’s boat on the shore and some signs of recent movement outside the tower. He waits outside while the rest of the party makes their unstealthy way to it, in case a runner from inside tries to warn people further inland. The tower proves to be empty of enemies. It’s full of trash and has nothing of interest aside from some interesting old, corroded metal maps from Azcan times, with later additions in an unknown tongue. Josephine casts Comprehend Languages and sees that the legend of the map indicates a new place, marked ‘home’ which sits inland, about half way between the eastern and western shores. The party thinks this seems like a good place to investigate next. The tower seems safe enough that they consider using it as a temporary base, until the table takes a bite out of Vår, nearly killing her. The mimic is a vicious opponent and it reduces Vår to negative hit points and kills Sylvia before it is itself killed. The party is shocked by this but Tibor rallies them and insists that they push on. Many of their fellows in Thincol’s Jewel have been killed already and the faceless stalkers are still out there, and they need to wipe out this threat. They wrap Sylvia’s body in blankets and bury it under the rubble in the tower for later retrieval. Lucius, Sylvia’s apprentice who reluctantly joined her for the expedition, now finds himself taking Sylvia’s place as arcane support and suddenly levels up a couple of times.

Then the party presses on to their next goal. The place marked ‘home’ turns out to be a small cave, from which the howls of a tortured rat drift. The party carefully enters and sees a large rat on the floor, writhing about as its body morphs and bulges and ebbs and flows. The cause of this strange affliction is soon apparent as two barely morphus creatures, which Josephine identifies as chaos beasts, attack. They land a single lucky blow on Tibor but he makes his save against the nastiness. He remains unscathed other than this. Bo-bi and Aidu are also hit but are not so lucky with their initial saves and start deteriorating. The beasts are killed off fairly quickly but Bo-bi and Aidu cannot make enough saves to shake off the affliction and are reduced to unstable, nearly mindless flesh lumps. Vår, Tibor, Josephine, and Lucius realize they cannot take the diminished duo with them on the mission and have any real hope of success, so Lucius remains behind to babysit them. Tibor, Vår and Josephine head on to the ring of shipwrecks.

Once there Tibor scouts around a bit. He finds the ring inhabited by what looks like wispy wood spirits. He overhears them speaking Azcan and talking worriedly about ‘spies’. Tibor returns to the others and reports his findings. He assumes the additions to the Azcan map found in the tower were made by the faceless stalkers and the ‘enemies’ noted there would be these woody beings. Under the assumption that “my enemy’s enemy is at least friendlier to me than they are to our common enemy and we might be able to work together”, the party approaches the woodies openly and calmly. They are nowhere to be seen as the party approaches so Vår calls out, in Azcan, that they come in peace and wish to talk.

The woodies barely show themselves, training bows at the party, and very suspiciously demand to know who they are. Some delicate negotiations take place and some good Diplomacy rolls by Vår assures the woodies that the party has peaceful intentions, wishing only to rescue their lost comrades and destroy the faceless stalkers. Josephine quietly informs the other two that these creatures are actually a form of construct, one that is brought to genuine life by the power of ioun stones. As a show of good will, Tibor gives up one of his ioun stones, the cherished mossy green one that gives him a bonus to Knowledge (history). The woodies are almost embarrassingly grateful to the Lifegiver, and promise to ally themselves with the party against the faceless stalkers. The party thanks them for this, and heads off to explore the rest of the island in an attempt to find the bastards. The woodies mention an area with will’o’wisps to the south, and the party puts that on the list. First they head to the old observatory, since it is closer and seems to them to be a likely place to be inhabited. On the way they are assaulted by variant wraiths that drain Charisma instead of Constitution …. against a party that currently consists of two Charisma-based classes out of a total of three people.

By the time the wraiths are defeated Vår and Josephine are sorely reduced but not to the point of uselessness. The session ends with the trio returning to the cave with Lucius and the Dumfounded Duo, and some serious discussion about how to proceed.

Well, that went about as expected once the GM stopped fudging to keep people alive. Mimics are perhaps the DM’s favorite monster in all of D&D so the fact that there was one here was a source of pure joy for her. There were accusations of DM b+~~%$+! to attack our weak points, and defensive protestations that she was merely running the AP as written. Maybe it’s the fact that I have taken little damage in the campaign so far, but I am fine with a little danger and PC death. If we are guaranteed to survive, any wins we have are not satisfying. Now there is a real chance we will fail and that makes the stakes seem more serious and any win we might pull off will feel far more earned.

"The Trial" was OK.

Another Freeport splat, "Buccaneers of Freeport", which was OK. "Fist of the North Star", volume 17. The series was really getting on by this time. I cannot remember reading this storyline, the one with Raoh's son, before. I'm still enjoying it but it's definitely past its prime. Only one more to go.

Currently reading Tanith Lee's Red unicorn, the last Unicorn story.
Another good one.

An hour or so of the session is spent making sure people have leveled up properly. Vår made some good spell choices (Fly and Protection from Evil) and a questionable feat choice (Prodigy for two Perform skills of no use). Generally we are perfectly fine with some mechanical flavor that has no use in game, but this is mostly reserved for the odd skill point, not something as rare as a feat. It wouldn’t have been worth mentioning if it weren’t for the fact that the GM has complained how weak our party is on numerous occasions and how we need all the help we can get. Oh well. She’ll either have to let people die or put on the kiddie gloves (more than she already has).

In the aftermath of the attack on the colony the party helps put out fires and do some first aid, then as dawn breaks Sylvia notices that a storm is incoming. Understanding that the storm will probably erase any clues the faceless stalkers may have left, the party other than Tibor decides to go to sleep so they can replenish HP and spells. Also, Sylvia insists on finishing the upgrade of Tibor’s Headband of Wisdom because he is certain that if he does not finish it and I try to wear it, it will be destroyed. The DM assures him this is not the case but he insists. The look of disbelief on the GM’s face elicits sympathy from me. Tibor does what he can about going through town and gathering clues before heading to bed. The rest of the party does not continue the investigation before Tibor wakes, and they decide to follow what scant clues he got once he gets up. They find some sign of a place where a small boat was moored and people probably tied up. This along with the signal mirror found on “Carver’s” body indicated to the party that the enemies were situated on one of the nearby islands rather than Ancorato, and hopefully the missing people would be there. Which one, was the question and lacking other good leads, they hit upon using Speak with Dead to interrogate the faceless stalkers. No one in the party could cast it and the clerics in Thincol’s Jewel were not high enough level. They decide to see if the faenare can provide the service, which they can. The flying elves also let the party know that they have seen longboats travelling from Ancorato to the larger island straight west of it, and had assumed it was explorers from Thincol’s Jewel. They seem disturbed at the idea of faceless stalkers. The nest-mother herself is powerful enough to cast Speak With Dead and has it available (I suspect the GM fudging a bit to keep the idiots she DMs for from getting stuck) accompanies the party back to the colony. A brief introduction to Ramona and the elf gets to work.

The party spends some time making a list of questions, trying to make them as useful as possible and as detailed as possible to avoid bad answers. The scene from the recent D&D movie was obviously referenced and riffed on a few times. The party gets some answers from ‘Carver’ but suspect he is not entirely truthful. They spring for a second casting, and the other faceless stalker is far more forthcoming and almost helpful. This is a bit suspicious, but it fits with the other hints they already have and the party finally seems to think they have to hurry. A brief discussion follows if they should take a boat across or try to go underwater in hopes that fewer things will be guarding the approach in that direction. Tibor argues strenuously for the latter, and the fact that they would be traveling faster that way wins out. Sylvia summons her underwater cavalry to carry herself, Vår and Bo-bi’s new cohort Josephine, while Bo-bi himself rides Aidu and Tibor swims under his own power.

Despite the DM’s previously stated dislike of random encounters, one shows up - a trio of sea drakes by the names of Johnny, Ronny, and Roy-Johnny. They take a look at Aidu and start huffing and puffing, or hissing and spitting and asking what a little lizard like him is doing as a pet. Aidu answers that it is Bo-bi who is the pet and what the heck are three dumb hicks like those three gonna do about it. Combat ensues and Bo-bi gets to charge one of them and nearly one-shot him, but get some serious hurt in return when it breathes on them. Vår kills it with a Snowball, then Tibor flurries, hits every time and crits once, avoids the attack, and flurries and crits on his next turn, easily killing it. The third sea drake had charged Bo-bi in retaliation but seeing two of his friends go down makes him rethink his life and he swims off, saying he doesn’t have time to finish the job because he just remembered something he had to do.

Bo-bi and Aidu are healed up and the trip continues. Not far on they see a couple of floating puddles of rancid fat that makes those weird blob-fish look handsome. The puddles swim towards the PCs, but they just outswim the things, not wanting to waste more time and resources.

The session ends there.

The DM privately bemoaned our lack of haste and did the whole “when I played in this game we did everything better” rant. I told her we have been playing with these people for at least 13 years, twenty or so in a couple of cases, and how could she have not known this would happen.

"A caress of twilight" was pretty meh, to be honest. Maybe I would have liked it better if I was younger but right now I found it generic and it did not make me want to read more of Hamilton's stuff.

On to "Fist of the North Star" volume 16, and then to Kafka's The Trial.

So it seems the name of the book was "Amongst our weapons". I just overcorrected with the actual quote last post. Unsurprisingly, the Spanish Inquisition does show up. Our protagonist is also poised to take over his boss' job. Since I cannot help but compare this series to Charlie Stross' "Laundry Files", I am struck bow how much nicer his promotion is lined up to be. Something may obviously happen in later books since the hand-over of power hasn't happened yet but it will almost certainly be nicer than Angleton's fate.

Anyway, on to A caress of twilight byt Laurell K Hamilton. This is the second in the series but my first book by Hamilton. Elven princess, reverse harem, a bunch of sex, urban fantasy. Passable, I guess.

Back after a three week break.

The trip back to Thincol’s Jewel takes a couple of days since the party is moving very slowly because of the cyclops. The poor creature cannot see where it is going, does not have much muscle mass to support it, and is terrified of everything. Every little bug that brushes against him, every peep from a bird causes the poor thing to twitch. Back in town the colonists flock to see the cyclops, and are rather skeptical to the idea of taking him in, but the party insists that he is harmless and needs help. They do not have a good place to put him, so they put up a tent adjacent to their house with plenty of blankets and padding for him to sleep on. The idea is to build a proper house for him when they get the time.

While this is going on the PCs overhear a couple locals bellyaching about some issues and Vår and Tibor go to investigate while Sylvia and Bo-bi remain behind to settle the cyclops in his new home. Vår and Tibor (mostly Vår) settle the minds of a few unsettled settlers and get Aggripina, a recently arrived noblewoman, to start eating again after her silly little hunger strike at the town being poorly defended. In gratitude for having her ego stroked, the woman suggests a big party for the entire village. Ramona comes to see the cyclops that had the villagers in a tizzy and Sylvia assures her that things are going to be a lot better on the island now that the hag is dead. Once Vår and Tibor have met up with her and conveyed that they have calmed things down, Ramona agrees that a party sounds like a good idea and will use some funds to pay for it. A supply ship is in port now and the sailors would probably like a party as well. Ramona goes off to organize the event and the PCs are left to their own devices for a few hours before nightfall.
The faenare ambassador comes by with the Locate Object scrolls the party had ordered to try to find the missing log books, so they use one and fail to find anything. The assumption is that the books are beyond the range of the spell, which is concerning. At the moment they do not see how they can do more to find the missing books, so put the issue aside for the moment.

After this the PCs go shopping, which amounts to Sylvia insisting she can craft most of what we need and the player mostly handwaving away concerns that while Sylvia can do so in theory, the adventure’s timeline may have other ideas. Ultimately, Tibor is convinced to let his Headband of Wisdom be upgraded. The night of the party a bunch of settlers meet up with the party outside their home, reveal themselves to be faceless stalkers, and attack. Tibor’s player sighs at being proven right about the game not giving the PCs a break, and combat ensues. The stalkers are handled fairly easily, though Sylvia and Vår take a little Constitution damage. Hearing screams from the rest of town and seeing fires popping up, the party hurries on, first to the dock. The ship is on fire and the sailors are fighting more faceless stalkers. The PCs clean up here too, take a little more damage, and leave the crew to save their ship. They would have stayed to help fight the flames but heard more unrest in the rest of the village and decide to prioritize helping people over saving property.

They see two groups of frightened villagers, each led by one of the prominent NPCs they have met so far (the smith and the snooty noble), each blaming the other for the attacks and accusing one another of being monsters. The PCs calm things down but are still rather paranoid since these faceless stalkers can look like anyone. Tibor remembers a snippet of legend about these monsters, namely that they can speak any language. In an attempt to root out the baddies, Tibor turns to the rest of the party and, in Azcan (since only the party and one NPC in town not present here know that tongue) says that it is impossible to tell friend from foe, so they should take the villagers to a house on the pretense of taking them to safety, then lock them in and burn the house down. He hopes that any faceless stalkers would give themselves away at hearing this. What actually happens is that no villager appears to understand him and the other PCs give him shocked looks at the suggestion, since he did not explain his little deception. With this ploy failed and no apparent baddies here, they move around town, trying to find more survivors while keeping an eye on the ones they just saved. When they get near the main administrative building they see Carver Hastings stick his head out and frantically waving at them. They group enters and are only annoyed and resigned when the doors are slammed shut and locked behind them and ‘Carver’ starts throwing bad anime villain banter at the party. Combat ensues. Vår, predictably, nearly dies, Sylvia and Bo-bi take some serious damage, and the enemies get a lucky hit (double 20s) on Tibor but he’s otherwise unscathed.
Once everything hostile is dead, the session ends.

It's only a matter of time before Tod of Tod Cutler and Tod's Workship makes a full-scale replica.

The right medication can do wonders. I'm glad you found something that helps.

"Gold Unicorn" was good. Story development, character development and generally well told. Currently on Ben Aaronovitch's Amongst our weaponry, another Rivers of London novel.

I have had basically two homebrew settings which never got anywhere close to playable. The first was started, just barely, in 2e days, and the second in 3.0 but never got to the point where unique mechanics would have been introduced. The second was a generic D&D world, somewhere between Forgotten Realms and Mystara with a dash of Deathgate Cycle, though at the time I didn't realize that. We played something like two sessions before it was abandoned, though every now and then I contemplate writing a bit more but instantly ignore the idea in favor of not writing any of the other stuff I want to write.

The first is a postapocalyptic setting that is the result of how innate summoning for fiends worked back then (any newly summoned fiend could also summon creatures of their own) and the infinite number of fiends. The basic idea is that a tanar'ri and a baatezu encountered one another on some insignificant Prime world, started fighting and started summoning allies. Things got out of hand and the planet was overrun with warring fiends, leaving a desolate land that could give Athas a run for its money on how bad things were, only without psionics and more fiends. In the grand scheme of the Blood War this skirmish wasn't even a footnote, but it was the end of all the cultures on this world. The PCs would be from a secluded valley where a bunch of powerful clerics gathered and managed to keep fiends out. The resulting culture was intensely religious, intensely orderd and strict, and organized religion was dominant. I think I had recently read things like "A Canticle for Leibowitz" and "The Elventh Commandment" when designing the clerical organization. Every now and then I pull out the files and write a bit more so the project is not technically dead. More like a vaguely writhing corpse than actually alive, but not fully dead.

In both these cases if I were to actually get them to the point where I can run them, I would use PF1 because we are used to it and it does basically what I want.

Just started on Tanith Lee's Gold unicorn, a sequel to Black Unicorn. In between the Malleus Maleficarum and this I read a few more Freeport adventures which were forgettable, book 15 of Fist of the North Star, volume 47 of Yona of the Dawn, volume 14 of Made in Abyss, and the recently released Beyond the Silt Sea: the Anattan Coast, a Dark Sun fan supplement.

I've only run Mystara, so that's it for me.
I've definitely considered running Dragonstar again, using a severly homebrewed PF1 rather than a severely homebrewed 3.5.

If one more millenial dismissively refers to me as a Boomer I'm going on a rampage the likes of which even God has never seen.

1965-1980 != Boomers

I hear you.

I should be good and avoid bookstores when I do the shops this afternoon, but we'll see how that goes.

Assuming you are anything like me....BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!

The first episode of Rooster Fighter was amusing. Sort of like what would happen if a non-post-apocalyptic Fist of the North Star got the Cute High Earth Defense Club Love treatment of the genre.

One of the ones I've been really looking forward to this season was Witch Hat Atelier, and the first episode delivers. Good animation, good cast, good stuff all around.

Dorohedoro has a second season too, which is the only one I've tried so far. Rooster Fighter is definitely on the list.

After a brief discussion, the party decides to go for the sea witch without delay, other than resting for spells and healing. They do not wish for word of the defeat of her minions to reach the witch and possibly give her time to prepare and go on the offensive. Whiskas bemoans the state of her home and sets about repairing and redecorating, obviously uninterested in much more company. The kna leader makes her way back to her fellows and the faenare scout will tell Thincol’s Jewel of our decision, and to expect the worst if they are not back within a week.

The trip to the center of the island of Ancorato is uneventful and the party easily makes it up the slope of the dead volcano to gaze on the interior of the crater. To their surprise it is a lake with a central island and an ancient tower there. The remains of a broken bridge are visible but the primary means of crossing seems to be an unsafe-looking barge. Tibor slips into the water to see if he can find the secret entrance mentioned by the scrag they rescued. He comes up again rather quickly when he sees a really big crab coming up to meet him. The rest of the party, now fully equipped with Necklaces of Adaptation, jump in and they easily dispatch the poor crab. Aidu discovers he likes crab meat and spends some time gorging himself.

The party finds the secret entrance and easily notices that it is trapped, to deal some damage and make a lot of noise. Without anyone to disarm it, the party decides to try to use it as a distraction. They plan to use a summoned creature to set it off, then run to the entrance to the tower on the topside of the little island and sneak in that way. This plan, as the less smooth-brained reader might notice, makes some dumb assumptions, which become apparent when the PCs enact it. Setting off the trap works wonderfully, and the PCs rush to the front door and find it barred. No one thought to check it before assuming the plan would work. So the party tries to batter the door down. Bo-bi, as the strongest character, leads the attempt and keeps rolling badly compared to those using Aid Another. Not once in this campaign has Aid Another ever worked as intended, since in every case it would have been better for one of the aiders to lead the attempt. The party batters the door for several rounds before it suddenly gives way to show two scrag just inside. One of the scrag is holding the bar and uses it to hit Tibor. Battle is engaged and the two sea trolls go down fairly easily. Once they are taken care of, Sylvia suggests they run upstairs to find the sea witch. The party agrees but only goes up one floor before someone suggests they go back down and clear the first floor in case there are any enemies there. Tibor is rather annoyed at the wishy-washy decision making here, but they go back down and clear the tower in proper fashion.

On the second floor there is a poor blind cyclops that looks to have been kept in terrible conditions. Fortunately, two of the party speak Minean and can communicate with him. They set him free and he gives a brief version of his story, which amounts to the witch trying to use his blood and various other body parts for divination. The PCs heal him up and let him sit down for a bit. They briefly consider taking him out and returning to confront the witch but Tibor thinks this is a bad idea for many reasons. He manages to convince the party to go for the witch.

The witch turned out to be a hag and the two melee characters failed their save against her ugliness and were weakened. She was seemingly unaware of their presence before they confronted her, and she tried to monologue at them about how she was so close to learning something very important. Tibor was having none of it and rudely interrupted the ranting, starting combat. The hag’s minions in the room are two vampiric mists, which do a number on Sylvia and Vår before being killed. Tibor rushes to the hag and starts hitting her. In true monk fashion, he uses Stunning Fist a lot but it is basically useless. The hag fills the room with Haunting Mists, which also nerf several in the party and makes hitting her really difficult. Thanks to the Con damage suffered, Sylvia goes down rather quickly and the party doesn’t realize it for a couple of rounds because she was hidden in the mists. They get a clue when they notice she had not done anything for a while and did not respond when called. Vår is the only one with any healing that might work but she cannot move fast enough to reach the nearly dead Sylvia, so Tibor bull rushes her the last bit of the way. In retrospect I’m unsure if this should have worked since Tibor and Vår strictly speaking couldn’t see Sylvia and just assumed they knew well enough where she lay. In any case, the DM allowed it because it was a cool move and she’s a bit too soft-hearted to like killing PCs.

Between Sylvia going down and her rescue, Vår wants to try out her new 3rd level spell, Lightning Bolt. She is quite annoyed that Bo-bi, Aidu and Tibor are in the line of fire, and has an epiphany of how annoying it is to have other party members get in the way when you want to do something (Vår has continually been getting in the way of Bo-bi’s charge attempts since the beginning of the campaign). We will see if this newfound wisdom results in a change in behavior going forward. Towards the end of the combat, Tibor’s fourth Stunning Fist attempt finally works and the hag is quickly brought down the next round.

The party spends a little time looking at the powerful magical orrery here and notice that it portrays a solar system rather different than the one they know (some planets missing). Though Tibor would love to stay and investigate fully, the party just loots the tower and escorts the poor blind cyclops back to Thincol’s Jewel.

Currently reading Malleus Maleficarum by Heinrich Kramer. This is the source of much of what people 'knew' about witches way back when. Esoterica has a wonderful video on the book. The edition I have is (or claims to be) the Rev. Summers translation, but it is without any introduction or foot/end notes or any critical information to help understand the contents. There are also a number of minor spelling errors which makes me worry if there are translation errors that won't be apparent.

Either way, it's a fascinating read, though it makes me feel bad for not having read every source it quotes and cites. The bit about witches making penises disappear is the most entertaining bit so far.

Heh, huhuhuh, huh heh huhuh... wang... huhuhuhuh...

There's a reason we abbreviate it to that.

WanG is a pretty forgiving system, to be fair.

The session starts with a long, long rehash of the argument we ended last week with, with Vår pushing for getting on with things and Tibor and Sylvia pushing for returning home to report and try to get the kna on board. We end up all returning back to Thincol’s Jewel and reporting on what we have found so far. While we are there, Ramona mentions two things that are rather concerning. The fisherman that had disappeared a while ago was back, seemingly no worse for wear. Tibor is instantly suspicious; the colony still has no real idea what happened to the original wave of colonists other than that two of their number were under mental control by something aquatic. The fact that this guy was gone at sea and suddenly came back is something to be wary of, at the very least. He voices his suspicions to Ramona, who asks the clerics in townif they might be able to help. They prepare and cast Detect Charm but find nothing out of the ordinary.

The second concerning thing is that one of the teens of the colony is suspected of stealing some important documents and money from Ramona’s office. She has her suspicions about who the culprit might be and wants the party to investigate. The colony follow Thyatian law so she would be duty-bound to lop off a hand if she found out officially whodunnit and Ramona wants to avoid such unpleasantries, especially since she suspects the culprit is a bored and rebellious teen rather than a genuine ne’er-do’-well. Thus the best thing for everyone involved would be for the PCs to fix things and give no hard confirmation or denial of Ramona’s suspicions. Ramona was partially correct in her suspicions and the girl flees at the first hint of an accusation. The party assumes this to be panic behavior learned in a larger city rather than a sensible reaction to her situation on the island. She is swiftly apprehended and questioned. She confesses to taking the money and returns it, but claims she had nothing to do with the documents - according to her she dumped them on the ground and fled with the money. So we are left with another theft of important documents, just like what apparently happened to the first wave of the colony, and a suspicious returned fisherman. Sadly, we are on a timer and have to head north to the kna.

The kna are amenable to an alliance, despite Tibor’s clumsy attempts to woo them (bad Diplomacy roll). Fortunately Vår swoops in and uses her significantly better score to secure their aid. Only their leader bothers to join us, but we are assured she is the best warrior amongst them. Back in Thincol’s Jewel we convince the faenare diplomat to join the party, though he will not be coming underwater with the rest of the party. His job will be to keep an eye on the surface, especially the volcano, and whatever he can see from the air and drop colored dye into the water to warn us of incoming threats. Back in Thincol’s Jewel we have yet another strange occurrence to investigate. Several goats were killed, with wounds that look like what one might expect from a giant lamprey. Even more puzzling, the only footsteps in the area appear to be human, and they lead to the beach and into the water. Everyone’s first thought is chupacabras, but this seems unlikely. The party muddles about and Sylvia shapeshifts into a dog to try to pick up some scent. The smell is nothing she is familiar with. Tibor suggests she goes and sniffs people around town, especially the returned fisherman. Said returnee does indeed smell similar but not identical. Without any more information to go on, the party puts this on the back burner and heads off to the naga.

At the naga’s cave on the east coast, the party makes introductions all around and a simple plan is made - charge in and kill everything we see. It is a simple plan, one with decades of gaming experience behind it. It used to be that we would spend hours debating issues and coming up with complex and intricate plans, only for them to end up being Charge and Kill upon execution. These days we save a ton of game time skipping past the planning and going straight to C&K.

The first shark-kin are easily dispatched, and even the tougher ones that come a bit later are not much of an issue. The real issue is the giant shark that appears after a couple of rounds. It’s big and scary and its bite has a real chance of killing characters in one chomp. The naga, whose name will forever be Whiskas in my head, and Sylvia are sorely wounded and Vår is reduced to nearly dead (saved only by the ioun stone we found that lets her Con count as 2 points higher for negative HP) in a single bite each. Bo-bi is ecstatic, however. After many levels he is finally, finally, allowed to get his full Cavalier benefits of Challenge, and a mounted charge with a lance and Spirited Charge. He manages to do this twice in combat and is easily the one who deals most damage to the monstrosity. Tibor’s contribution to combat was to basically make three attacks a round, roll a nat 1 on one of them, miss normally with the second, and deal minimum damage on the third. Seriously, my virtual dice hated me this session. However, on the whole he took very little damage thanks to high AC, even if the big shark did hit him once, and he did soak up a lot of attacks from most shark-kin.

Eventually the shark-kin are defeated and the allies rejoice, and the PCs level up.

"Vokterne" was, sadly, a disappointment. I feel bad saying it - I know writing is hard for most people not called Asimov or Stephen King, and writing well is harder - but this was not even mediocre but it wasn't particularly good. The prologue and first chapter or two were fine but things fell apart after. It was a self-published book and it really could have used a few rounds with a proper editor, not just for some grammatical issues but general plot, worldbuilding, and characters.

On to Brent Weeks The Black Prism. This is the first of his stuff I've tried. While the epic fantasy and characterse are fairly generic so far, the magic system is somewhat novel and people use guns.

There are a few, over the years. The ones that first come to mind are:
Sturm Brightblade from the Dragonlance Chronicles.
Fyodor of Rashemen from Starlight & Shadows (mostly for Liriel's sake).
Many named characters in Fist of the North Star elicit tears when they die.

I think the worst was a one on one RPG I played with my wife. My PC had to kill his daughter. This was an NPC we had roleplayed from her birth and through life, ups and downs, so we knew both of them better than pretty much any other fictional character I've come across. I was down for weeks.

"Black unicorn" was good. More of a children's story than her normal fare, as evidenced by the lack of sex. The sort of story one could expect from Diana Wynne Jones (another author I quite like).

I read a couple of Freeport splats, whose names escape me at the moment. One was a bunch of items, both magical and mundane, to add to a Freeport campaign. Mostly flavorful but not necessary for a good game.
The second was an adventure that tried to do the 'natives of lost island sacrifice outsiders to the god' bit but tried to make it actually mean something beyond pointless colonial racism. It succeeded well enough that I could see what they were trying to do. I'm not so sure that it succeeded well enough to make it work without unfortunate echoes of RL issues. In any case the adventure was mostly interesting for the bits of worldbuilding it added rather than the events of the adventure.

Currently reading Margareth Sand's Vokterne (The Guardians). Coming off of Lee I was worried that this would be as disappointing an experience as Cinnabar One, but Sand is a better writer than whatshisname. The plot is as follows: long ago the Earth made four groups of guardians to protect itself and maintain balance. Air Earth Fire Water. They lived in harmony yadda yadda yadda, Fire Nation attacks.

It's not quite so much a rip-off as I made it out to be (the Fire antagonist is a spirit that has to possess humans rather than being a human with fire powers) but that was the first thing that sprang to mind. We'll see how it ends.

The red forest looks a lot creepier up close than it does at a distance. The cause of the blood-red leaves seems to be actual blood, as is evident when the party takes a sap sample from one of the trees. Most of the forest is like an oak forest - little in the way of undergrowth or other types of trees. The party does spot one very obvious place to go, a large tree pretty much smack dab in the middle of the forest.

On their way to the Obvious Encounter Point, the party does come across a pile of vines that suddenly move to attack them. The vines are handled easily. Soon after they come across a strange giant creature lying covered in the same sort of vines that they had recently defeated. The party rescues the creature, which mumbles something in a tongue they do not recognize. Sylvia, for once, gulps a Tongues potion and questions the creature. It is a scrag, something the party had not recognized by sight but are slightly more familiar with by reputation. It claimed to be working for the Witch, sent here to gather certain things, but was taken unawares by the vines and subdued, and lay there basically helpless, only its regeneration keeping it alive. It is grateful to be rescued and does not want to return to the witch’s service. It gives the PCs some inside information, such as an underwater entrance to the witch’s lair. Sylvia, despite being the naturalist amongst the party, had a hard time understanding the concept of a caldera lake and kept thinking there was an undersea entrance far longer than she should have. Nevermind the rivers of the island flowing from the volcano, I guess. The party lets the scrag depart in peace despite some misgivings and move further into the forest. Pretty soon after the scrag they come across what look to be human corpses that have been very infected by a woody, crimson substance. The pseudo undead have some damage reduction which significantly hampers the party’s efforts at killing them, except for Vår, whose Snowballs make her the DPS queen of the encounter. The zombies are not particularly dangerous, fortunately, and the party moves on with minimal damage taken.

Slightly more interesting was some strange tracks they discovered just a bit on, a motley collection of hooves, claws and feathers. Initial assumptions about what could make the tracks land on hippogriffs, and the party starts wondering if they could tame some for later use. Of course the monsters that left the tracks were perytons, far smarter and less nice than hippogriffs, and combat is engaged quickly. The perytons use their flight to stay above the party, but Bo-bi has a lance and Tibor puts his recently acquired High Jump ability to good use. Tibor’s ki pool (magic) also comes in clutch in overcoming the DR (Magic) of the creatures, while Bo-bi and Aidu lament their lack of magical enhancement on weapons. Both Tibor and Bo-bi get annoyed at Vår getting in the way of them getting to the enemies, and consequently being targeted by the enemies, taking damage, then running to hide amongst the frontliners. In general, they are tired of Vår doing stupid stuff and getting in the way when combat ensues, then running away and whining about how scary things are when she gets smacked. They consider certain measures to stop this happening. Obvious solutions like asking her not to get in the way don’t work, so more extreme measures are considered, like putting a collar and leash on her then tying her to a stake when combat starts.

The party heals up and comes to the Big Tree. Some more plant zombies attack the players, as well as the roots and vines of the tree. Tibor ignores the zombies and goes straight to the tree and starts hitting it on the assumption that it somehow controls the zombies. He deals damage but is grappled in turn, which he does not resist. His spikey shell deals a bit extra damage to the tree, and he attempts to deal more damage in grapple instead of trying to extricate himself. He is quickly pinned on the tree’s next turn, and left to spend the rest of the combat contemplating the meaning of 18 Wisdom.

Fortunately the combat is pretty easy, with Vår’s Snowballs being very important. The party identifies the remains of the tree as a variant of a yellow musk creeper. Bo-bi and Tibor are ecstatic to find a mithril breastplate and magic lance as part of the loot. Bo-bi because he wants better gear and Tibor because of their historic nature, being from an ancient Azcan noble, possibly royal.

The party decals this section of the island explored, leaving the will’o’wisps for a later date, reminding Vår again that without a way to see invisible the party would most likely die. With only two sections of the island unexplored, the party decides to leave the witch for a bit and check out the easternmost part of the island. They head there and on the coast they find a cave with strange, fragrant moss hanging in front of the mouth. The moss is not the kind one would expect on something at sea level, so we assume it was hung there intentionally. Remembering that there is supposed to be a naga in these parts, Tibor and Sylvia suspect this might be its home. Vår, of course, thinks they should just wander in and see what’s there. Tibor suggests that wandering uninvited into someone’s home is not the best way to make a good first impression (quite the opposite). There is, as Vår points out, the chance that whatever is in the cave is hostile and calling in would warn it of the party’s presence, but the rest of the party thinks this is worth the risk.

Tibor calls into the cave and a large, finned, serpentine creature emerges. It looks scary but does indeed try to talk rather than instantly attacking the party, and since the party knows Azcan, there is no need for Tongues. The party introduces themselves, where they come from, and that they are interested in getting to know the neighbors. The naga, surprised at the visitors, invites them in for tea. She says she is pleased that the visitors are polite and wait for permission before entering her home. Tibor says nothing but shoots a Look at Vår. Aidu loves the cave and comments on how cozy it is, with just the right sort of rocks to scratch yourself on and lots of treasure piled up on the walls. The naga relates its story about how it found the waters around the island full of old Azcan stuff and was fascinated by it. She made her home in an old sunken ship but was recently driven out by the shark-kin. When the naga learns that Tibor also is something of a historian, the two hit it off and talk shop for a while. The naga is very interested in the various Azcan ruins on the island. Eventually, the party brings up the idea of an alliance. The naga wants her old lair back and the shark-kin gone, the kna want the shark-kin gone, and though the colony has had no contact with them, aggressive neighbors are the sort of thing they want to get rid of. The naga is initially reluctant to commit to anything and Vår thinks that the best way to convince her of the scheme is to show off how powerful the party is. This she does by casting Scorching Ray in the cave. To reiterate, she casts a hostile spell without warning in the home of a cautious and powerful being who strictly speaking has no reason to trust the party apart from them being polite. Yes, this is the sort of thing this player does constantly. Sometimes I suspect he maxes Diplomacy on every character to make up for his utter inability to see how his actions might not be popular with NPCs. If ever there was a reason to roll-play and not roleplay, he is it. He means well, just cannot help but screw up.

With a lot of apologies and stern looks at Vår, the party does manage to salvage the situation. The naga makes a cautious agreement, gifting the party with a few magic items in advance to cement the deal, and the party decides to head back to Thincol’s Jewel and report, and possibly contact the kna possibly even the faenare and see if they are willing to participate in action against the shark-kin. Vår is very excited and wants to get to the shark-slaying immediately and sees no reason to report home first. She also is making herself at home in the naga’s cave and thinks the party should spend the night there. Arguments about why this is not a good idea fall on deaf ears. Arguments like while AIdu, the dumb drake, might like it and Tibor finds it passable, mammals will not like it. Arguments like it’s a tidal cave and most of it will fill with water at some point, drowning air breathers. Arguments like the naga invited us in for tea, not to spend the night. Argument’s like it’s a short hike home to your own bed rather than the wet, hard rock and you would be sleeping near a large carnivorous creature that might find you an annoying house guest after you tried to burn its lair. The idea of a collar and leash is increasingly popular.

We end the session there, in hopes that Vår will have forgotten this suggestion next time.

The landlaw was pretty interesting and surprisingly comprehensive for a 13th century northern European thing. Interesting primarily for all the details one can glean about life back then, but there is the occasional genuinely fun law, like how people (i.e. farms) are not supposed to take in people (i.e. wanderers) unless you know them to be right-minded, because there are too many people (i.e. people) that are used to being somewhat useful for a winter or two and then running off with people's (i.e. owners of the farm) wives or female relatives.

Now I want to track down a version with the ON text, and copies of the previous lawcodes of Norway so I can compare them.

Anyway, on to Tanith Lee's Black Unicorn, which I'm enjoying so far. As if I wouldn't enjoy something she wrote.

Picking up from last time, the PCs wander along the northern coast of the island and find a cave with a pile of assorted bones outside, including those of merrow and shark-kin. Being adventurers, the party enters, ready for combat. Almost instantly Tibor triggers a trap which takes out a third of his hit points and alerts whatever is hiding in the cave to the party’s presence.
Sylvia heals him up just in time for the enemies to arrive. These are probably merrow, by the looks of them. They smell terrible, and not just in a fishy way. The pile of obviously gnawed-upon merrow bones outside indicates that these are probably cannibalistic. They attack but don’t do very much against Tibor’s impressive AC. Josephine Bo-bi and Aidu are slightly easier to hit but the fight goes pretty well, though the party is concerned to hear spellcasting further in the cave. The first group of merrow is partially killed and the rest run away, allowing the party to recover some hit points before going to find the spellcasters. The cleric and the bug thing that tried to get Tibor to attack Vår are both there, and call out to Atzanteotl. The fight goes fairly well, though the cleric and the bug are hard to hurt, thanks to Blur and DR in the case of the bug. It manages to escape, leaving the merrow to die.
The place is looted and the shrine to Atzanteotl (whom the party recognizes as a god who delights in corrupting people) is destroyed, and the merrow corpses thrown into the ocean for scavengers.

The party explores a bit more of the northeastern bit of the island, a bit warily in case the bug shows up again. They follow the river inland and come to a nice waterfall that looks very idyllic. Not being complete noobs, Bo-bi and Tibor automatically assume there is a hidden cave behind the waterfall. They and Aidu enter the water to investigate and are set upon by a chuul. Bo-bi has no hope of winning against it but Tibor and Aidu manage to get it to flee, and they manage to kill it before Bo-bi drowns. Vår spent most of the combat on shore not being able to help much and Sylvia got pulled away by the current when she waded in to help, but managed to save herself by gulping a Touch of the Sea potion.

Once Bo-bi is healed back up the party makes their way behind the waterfall where - lo and behold! - there’s the entrance to a cave. The party finds the chuul offspring and eggs and easily takes them out. Fortunately no one makes their Knowledge (dungeoneering) checks to determine that the chuul is intelligent and they settle down to their meal of sorta-lobster once they’ve explored the rest of the cave. The iron ore that suffuses the cave is interesting enough but the cave paintings of humans fighting giant snake-people and the one of Terra and Ixion bringing fire and agriculture to them has Tibor in as archeological tizzy. These seem even older than the Azcan ruins they have found so far. He wants to avoid telling the colony of the resources here to preserve the paintings. The rest of the party make non-committal noises to this suggestion.

This place thoroughly explored, they head to the red forest and are amazed at the weird look and vibes of the place. We have to end the session there because there will probably be another big fight and we are nothing if not very slow in combat.

So, Bo-bi is back with a little handwave to retcon so Josephine stays in town on this particular expedition. The player is getting pretty tired of D&D and had hoped to find the Skald more interesting to play but it wasn’t, and he realized just how badly the party needed more damage output, so Bo-bi is back. The downside is that we don’t get all the lovely skills she has. The upside is our chances of survival have gone up considerably, especially since Aidu is now useful in combat. The usual jokes of the PC being accoutrement to the mount are made.

"Mostly Harmless" was definitely the weakest of the HHGttG stories. Still entertaining but I don't really feel I'm missing out on much if I read the others but give this one a miss.

Currently reading a recent translation of Norway's first national lawcode, by Magnus the Lawmender. It's mostly a mass-market book, with a brief introduction to the time and major characters, the history of the laws, and their predecessors. There are numerous footnotes, which are nice, but now I'm regretting picking up this verions instead of the deluxe edition because the deluxe edition has a synthesized/normalized text of the originals as well as a translation. Ah, well.

"Gifts" was good, and now I'm sad that she didn't write any more stories in the setting.

Now finishing my reread of the Hitchhker's Guide to the Galaxy with Mostly Harmless. I know I read it when it came out but I don't think I read it since. I remember precious little of it other than the Perfectly Normal Beasts.

It was good to read these stories again. Some of them I've read since in other collections, others I haven't read in nearly thirty years.

On to le Guin's Gifts, the first book in The Annals of the Western Shores, a series of three books of what these days would probably be called YA stories. I managed to read the other two in the wrong order, but the stories are self-contained so it does not matter much. It's le Guin and the worst she has written comes out at pretty OK. This is much better than her worst.

Sylvia summons a couple of hippocampi to ferry the three mammals across while Tibor just swims. He’s slower than the hippocampi but it is a short trip. The party is slightly concerned they might be attacked on the way over but they see no signs of birdpeople on the way. On the shore of the tiny island they are met with two notable things: the first is the giant blue crystal that dominates the hill on the island, the other is the grisly sight of a dead, mostly devoured and decomposed kna hung on a pole, with its gear piled next to it. The party takes this as a sign that the birdpeople do not want visitors, or at the very least do not like kna, so they talk about how to proceed. The option of returning without attempting to make contact is discarded, even if this means a greater likelihood of combat. What takes a lot of time is the discussion of how to make contact. Sylvia and Tibor argue for staying on the beach and trying to attract attention from there. Vår wants to sneak up into their home and make contact that way. Sylvia and Tibor argue that staying on the beach rather than coming into their home is less threatening and easier for the party to escape into the sea than if they get into the middle of the island and piss the locals off by intruding on their home. Vår doesn’t want to give the obviously dangerous bird people a chance to organize and hunt the party by giving them advance warning. Josephine just stands still and silent, looking vacantly into the air.

The high-Wisdom couple prevail and the party builds a small but very smoky fire on the beach to announce their presence. Pretty soon the locals arrive. Only one shows themself - a tall, willowy winged elf - while the rest hide in the forest. The description of the elf made me think of the Gliders from ElfQuest. Peaceful contact is established and Vår, the only character Diplomacy worth a damn, uses a Tongues spell and starts talking. The players of Sylvia and Tibor soon wish their characters could join in the conversation because Vår has a tendency to ignore questions posed, make comments that could seem threatening, and show an utter incomprehension that anything she says or does could be anything less than perfectly OK. This is a constant issue with her player. We know that the point of skill systems is to allow characters to do things players cannot, but some players make it really hard to get behind.
Fortunately the winged elf looks at Tibor and asks in heavily accented Slag if he is related to the tortles of the Savage Coast, because she seems to recognize the Red Curse he suffers from. Tibor is happy to find people from his neck of the woods and they talk a bit about the old country. Sylvia finally offers to cast Share Language so everyone can take part in the discussion, and the elf accepts.

The winged elves, faenare as they call themselves, are a colony that came to the island some 70 years ago from their homeland on the Arm of the Immortals, which is not far off from Zul, where Tibor was born and raised. They moved here after one of their Windsingers had a vision that they needed to come here, specifically to the big blue crystal that reflects sea and sky. Conversation then comes to the dead kna. The faenare claim it was a case of mistaken identity. They thought the kna were skum, and did not realize their mistake until after they had killed the scout. They put his body and his belongings on the shore for the other kna to recover. After this they just kept to themselves. The party is relieved that there was nothing worse about this affair. The faenare invite the party to their hamlet and help the party into the trees where their ‘nests’ are. The mammals are easily lifted by a single warrior each but three have to strain to get Tibor up. A young, blind faenare is the only child in the tribe and she is ecstatic over encountering actual outsiders for the first time. She and Vår hit it off and talk up a storm. Other than general introduction of everyone and sharing information about the presence of the Thyatian colony on the larger island, trade negotiations are opened. The PCs are curious about the big blue crystal and the faenare are thankfully cool with that. Sylvia and Vår investigate it to the best of their abilities but are unable to find out anything other than that it once was very magical. Tibor wonders idly if it used to be an ioun stone for the entire world.

The next day the party decides to return to the kna and the faenare send an emissary to the kna and Thincol’s Jewel. The kna are a bit skeptical of the winged elf but are willing to accept the idea that the death of their scout was due to mistaken identity, though they are insulted at the idea that anyone could confuse skum and kna. Tibor points out that yes, it is strange to us [reptile and fishfolk] that anyone could make that mistake but just look at those mammals and see how hard it is to tell their races apart, especially when they are not standing next to each other.
The kna and the faenare are probably never going to be friends but they are willing to meet with a neutral third party, the colony of Thincol’s Jewel, to work out issues of diplomacy and trade. The kna then give a small reward and offer a number of useful items for sale (“special price for you my friend”) as thanks for the party’s aid in this matter. Unfortunately, the interesting items are well outside of the party’s means, but the kna assure them that the offer will not expire and they are welcome to come back later.

The party briefly contemplates exploring the rest of the island but that idea is quickly nixed because they have an emissary to bring to town and while the elf says he will accompany the party on whatever route they took, it would be a bad look if they got him killed on a stupid adventure. They return home, make introductions, and are immediately asked to go out and take care of a few monsters that attacked the town militia and are probably behind the disappearance of a fisherman they were out looking for. The party does this, and Vår, as usual, runs ahead of everyone else in her eagerness to get places. This time the rest of the party and players just let it happen, and Vår seems surprised when she runs headfirst into the monsters and gets attacked. Fortunately the monsters only reduce her hit point total by a third on a single attack and she survives to fall back. Tibor uses his Hokuto Hyakuretsu-ken once each on the monsters and a Burning Hands from Sylvia (who just took one level of Wizard, on her way to Mystic Theurge) ends the encounter.

The PCs look around and find no signs of the missing person but return to the colony and make their report. Then they head off north again to continue their investigation of the island. On the beach past where they met the kna, they come across a fairly recent construction of whalebones and hides. Abandoned and old enough to be of limited use to anyone attempting to use it now, but far more recent than most things they have found here. They suspect it might be of merrow make, an aquatic humanoid race found in many seas throughout the world. While investigating, Tibor gets the urge to kick Vår quite hard but resists and informs the rest of the party that he was just under some form of mental attack. He spots what seems to be a big fiendish grasshopper some distance off, but it disappears. The party looks around for a bit but finds no sign of it, shrug, and move off cautiously. They note they may have to come back here later. The party, sadly, has no method of seeing invisible creatures.

Then they come to a strange twisted forest with red leaves and a smell of burning permeating the air. They find nothing of worth and realize that staying there for a protected amount of time would be bad for their health, and they make their way through as quickly as possible. On their way out they see some strange lights in the woods and are filled with a desire to follow them. Fortunately, the party makes their skill check and recognizes will’o’wisps and decide to just avoid them. Vår thinks we could take them because she has Magic Missile. Questions about this idea are asked, like how many Magic Missiles it takes to take down one wisp, how many wisps they will encounter, how much damage can the party take while Vår shoots her spells, and what use the rest of the party can be, and how they are going to even see the bastard things without any way of seeing invisible?
Eventually Vår sees the metaphorical light and the party just ignores the wisps, putting them on the map and noting Do Not Enter on the forest. The GM is secretly relieved and not a little surprised at our sensibleness.

The session ends here, somewhat early as the next encounter would end up in combat, which would take too much time considering I had to get up rather early the next day.

My impression is that there are four common answers "Can AI do X?"
1) No
2) sort of, but poorly and you have to make sure you get the right answer, thus negating the point of having something else do the work for you
3) yes, but you'll have to do a lot of expensive and focused training to do what you want reliably, so you're better off doing it yourself in any case
4) yes, but for so limited sets of things that you're still most likely better off doing it yourself

Is this a fair assessment?