I just read all through this journal in the past few days. Great stuff James. I wish one or more of my players would keep a campaign journal. I thought one might since she likes to write, but even she doesn't. I keep a journal as DM, both so they don't forget important things that have happened and so I don't forget which NPCs they've talked to etc., but it's written in third person not in character so it's not nearly as interesting to those not in our group.
Keep up the good stuff James, and don't let Mona push you around so much. :P We want to see more of your journal, but we want Pathfinder too.
Creative Director
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I have a confession to make:
My players reached sodden hold in our last session and I've been postponing the next one until tyralandi's next journal entry...
I need inspiration...
Oh no!
Well... Dungeon #148's approval meeting is tomorrow, after which I'll actually have a little bit of relax time. Sounds like a good time to see about getting more caught up here...
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Creative Director
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... Dungeon #148's approval meeting is tomorrow, after which I'll actually have a little bit of relax time. Sounds like a good time to see about getting more caught up here...I'm curious. Is that approval for content, or approval for print?
Approval for print. Every month I bring the final printouts of the magazine down there to show them to Wizards of the Coast; it's pretty much the last step in creating the magazine. Nothing in the magazines goes in without WotC's approval.
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I'm curious. Is that approval for content, or approval for print?
Approval for print. Every month I bring the final printouts of the magazine down there to show them to Wizards of the Coast; it's pretty much the last step in creating the magazine. Nothing in the magazines goes in without WotC's approval.
I'm further curious. And I know you're busy, but--how often do you have to go back for a re-do ("re-do," as we Army officers say--I just got a re-do today on my QTB--Quarterly Training Brief)? A lot of changes? Cosmetics? (My re-do is virtually all cosmetics, as in, "The CG [Commanding General] doesn't like blue; and I think your bar chart is 2.2 keystone right; and 'noncommissioned' doesn't have a hyphen, Major! Come on, get with the program!)
Ooohh...I think I might be threadjacking...
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Creative Director
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Hmmm... I think I'll go write up another journal post Right Now to unthreadjack this thread!
But first: The approval meeting went smoothly. In the past 50 or so issues (the time I've been working on Dungeon) we've never had to go back and redo anything except to sometimes make minor corrections here and there to the text that got caught at the meeting (stuff like fixing typos or adding a map tag). Wizards of the Coast has been incredibly generous in basically letting us do pretty much whatever we want with the adventures in the magazine, to be honest. The approval meetings are honestly more like trips down to Renton to show off and hang out with friends for a half hour or so, to tell the truth.
OK! Time to go write up another journal entry!!
Goodmonth 12, 595 CY
I must admit, a part of me wasn’t surprised to find out that the supposed city guards we’d rescued from Sodden Hold, Martal and Regim, hadn’t shown up at the garrison. Dram and I asked about the others that they were supposedly escorting, the crazy ex-tax collector Gattel and the elf Ilya Starmane, and again, no news.
Seemed obvious what had happened, in hindsight. Some of those we’d rescued were actually more doppelgangers. Perhaps all of them.
Dram and I hurried back to Sodden Hold to report to the others, but when we arrived, it was pretty obvious that reports wouldn’t be necessary. Two dead bodies lay in the alley across from Sodden Hold, both gray and wrinkled humanoids dressed in the uniforms of city guards. Frothlethimble, Rac, Gar, and Demon Boy told us that they’d returned to the area not long after we’d left, and when they saw the “guards” were chasing poor crazy Gattel, they confronted them. Bloody combat was the inevitable result. Alas, Gattel was murdered by the doppelganger guards before they could be stopped.
We hid the bodies as best we could, and came to the decision that it would be best to return to the Green Dragon to rest and recover before we returned to Sodden Hold to investigate the watery pit.
Goodmonth 13, 595 CY
Not looking forward to heading back into a drippy, moist, monster-infested warehouse dungeon, I convinced Dram that it’d be a good idea to spend a few hours this morning to track down Ilya Starmane’s people. She’d mentioned her family lived in Greyhawk, after all. It took a little bit to find the manor, and the elven guards who stood vigilant at the gate to the manor grounds didn’t seem all that interested in letting us in, but we were able to learn from them that Ilya Starmane was indeed a daughter of the homeowners, and that she had indeed gone missing recently. She had not returned, so Dram and I diplomatically avoided saying that we’d freed her but that she might have been recaptured, or worse, murdered. Hopefully we’ll find her soon; I hate to think that our trust in the false guards led her into even greater peril. The fact that they’d killed Gattel didn’t speak highly of Ilya’s chances for survival.
Truth be told, it was guilt at not seeing the poor woman to safety that really drove me back to Sodden Hold. Taan was still nowhere to be found, but the rest of us soon gathered our gear and set out to see if there was more to the warehouse than what we’d found so far. We left Rac on guard, in case Taan returned and needed direction to find us, and then made a quick sweep of the warehouse. Still empty; Ilya hadn’t been returned to the cells.
We finally returned to the strange water-filled shaft. I called upon the grace of Wee Jas to give us the ability to breathe water, and after we leapt into the pit, we discovered what we’d suspected—that after dropping underground, the shaft turned and doubled back up into a larger chamber. Frothlethimble eagerly swam into the flooded room, eager to explore, and was thus able to warn us about the monstrous horse-sized octopus that lurked in the room. Warn us, in that he was suddenly grabbed by a long greasy tentacle.
Fighting underwater… is not my favorite. Even able to breathe the stuff, it’s just a little too strange, and it’s certainly difficult to move and swing weapons. Nonetheless, we defeated the octopus before it crushed anyone TOO badly.
We surfaced in the room beyond to find a platform protruding from the water. A ladder went up the side, and DaeJin, Frothlethimble, and Demon Boy clambered up atop it while the rest of us made sure there were no more octopi lurking in the water. You can never be too sure about octopi.
A sudden grinding noise caught my attention. I glanced over to the platform and saw that Demon Boy had discovered a lever protruding form it. And since it was there, he had, of course, pulled it. The grinding turned out to be the sound of a large submerged vent opening, and quickly the water in the room began to drain. The octopus’s body partially clogged the drain in that nasty way that a boneless monster’s body clogs drains, but soon, the water level had dropped to a point where the platform, once just off the water surface, was now dozens of feet overhead.
Although Demon Boy pulled the lever again, it was apparent that it would take a few minutes for the water level to rise, allowing Gar and Dram and I the luxury of being able to clamber out and onto the platform as well. Frothlethimble couldn’t wait, though, and he capered off into a tunnel he discovered with a hoot. DaeJin followed, and of course, it wasn’t long after that we heard the sound of combat. The water level still hadn’t fully risen by the time several more “city guards” swarmed onto the upper walkway in the room. DaeJin continued to fire at them with her bow, and the rest of us did our best to fight them with spells and arrows from the water. By the time the water level had risen high enough for me to clamber up onto the walkway, the guards had been defeated. And had reverted to their true doppelganger shapes.
And that was when I realized that Frothlethimble’s incessant chattering and murder-talk had fallen silent. DaeJin had a pale, sick face, and silently pointed down a nearby hall. Fearing the worst, that this time the bloodthirsty little man had pressed his luck too far in a case where I was unable to reach him to save him, I was surely not prepared for the sight that greeted me as I rounded the corner.
Frothlethimble lay dead on the ground, several arrows protruding from his chest. Or more precisely… the doppelganger who had been wearing Frothlethimble’s clothing lay dead.
How… When could this have had happened? Had he been snatched and duplicated just recently? Did it happen several nights ago, when he had left the Golden Phoenix to find money to pay our bill? Or had Frothlethimble always been a doppelganger?
Dazed, shocked, and more than a little suspicious of the rest of the group, we decided to press on. Demon Boy got the smart idea to tie bits of cloth to each of our shoulders, so we could at least tell who we were, just in case. Before he did, I called upon the prayer of thought detection and looked upon the minds of my supposed allies. It was with some relief that none of their minds registered as wrong in the same way that doppelganger back in the garrison jail had registered. Demon Boy suggested we tie ribbons of cloth to our wrists so that if more doppelgangers tried to trick us, we’d notice. Seemed like a desperate plan, but we did it anyway. In any event, in a daze, we pressed on. We discovered and avoided a pit trap, and found what appeared to be a row of barracks for “guards.” Beyond one of these, a single door beckoned. And when we opened it… things got really complicated really fast.
For within the hexagonal room beyond were all of us! Exact duplicates, myself included, tied to chairs and gagged, squirming and looking at the rest of us fearfully. Gar was having none of it. He barreled into the room and tore off the gag on the second Gar, and screamed, “WHAT THE HELL’S THE MEANING OF THIS?” He seemed ready to chop off his own duplicate’s head, when suddenly the other Tyralandi stood, having wriggled free of her bonds. She tugged off her gag, pointed at me, and shrieked, “Get her! She’s one of them!”
What followed was one of the most surreal and nerve-wracking battles I’d been in yet; a kaleidoscopic melee where it was nearly impossible to tell friend from foe. I’m pretty sure that the real Gar hit me with his axe at least once, but I can’t be completely confident of that. In any event, we managed to defeat them; Demon Boy’s cloth on the arm trick proving to be the key. It turned out that almost all of the ones tied to chairs were doppelgangers—all of them save Frothelthimble, who was rightfully overjoyed to see us. We compared stories, and found out that the poor gnome had been snatched several days ago, not long after we’d first entered the city. Which meant that the “Frothlethimble” I’d eaten dinner with at the Golden Phoenix was a doppelganger… which mean that the poor real Frothlethimble didn’t even have the luxury of memories of the wonderful repast to lessen the sting of never being able to go there again (needless to say, the sting of spending thousands of gold coins).
Reunited, we turned our attention to the other end of the subterranean complex, finding a planning room, and beyond that, a particularly frustrating maze of mirrors. And naturally, said maze was patrolled by more doppelgangers. They seemed to know the maze layout well, and took advantage of shifting walls to keep us confused and baffled, but by now we were growing accustomed to their tactics. We managed to defeat most of them with ease, but one of them got away. And another managed to land a rather hideous blow on Gar, slashing across his face and cutting deep into his nose. The wound was ghastly, and even after magical healing left an ugly scar. He seemed to be content with it, which rather horrified me. How could someone, even a dwarf, live with such disfigurement? It hurt to look at him!
At this time, it was obvious that we were tiring. Our resources were growing thin and Demon Boy was complaining about being hungry. I suggested that we return topside and recover back at the Green Dragon, but the others disagreed. Gar, in particular, argued that we should hole up in one of those nice sleeping chambers back there, and that way we wouldn’t have to fight our way back in here the next day. The argument that it probably wasn’t safe to sleep in the middle of the enemy’s stronghold didn’t seem to phase him—“We can lock the door!”
And so, with great trepidation, I agreed. I wasn’t going to let my friends sleep in this place without someone to heal them, and the beds in the sleeping chambers were uncharacteristically comfortable looking. We picked one and holed up, just like Gar had suggested. And just like I had feared… it was less than twenty minutes before we heard a knocking on our door.
Yeah! The return of Tyralandi! Huzzah!
Great way to convey the use of doppelgangers in an adventure - I likes it!
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Creative Director
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Hello?...
Hi!
Alas... writing the first adventure for Pathfinder, developing the 11th Savage Tide adventure, editing Pathfinder, editing Dungeon, and editing the Rise of the Runelords player's guide doesn't leave me much time or energy for writing journal entry posts. Tyralandi's not gone nowhere... she'll be back soon!
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Hello?...
Hi!
Alas... writing the first adventure for Pathfinder, developing the 11th Savage Tide adventure, editing Pathfinder, editing Dungeon, and editing the Rise of the Runelords player's guide doesn't leave me much time or energy for writing journal entry posts. Tyralandi's not gone nowhere... she'll be back soon!
Sorry for being whiny.
It's just that I hadn't heard from her in a week and I was getting worried. ;)
writing the first adventure for Pathfinder, developing the 11th Savage Tide adventure, editing Pathfinder, editing Dungeon, and editing the Rise of the Runelords player's guide doesn't leave me much time or energy for writing journal entry posts.
Sissy.
.
.
.
I'm just kidding of course. You may be busy James, but as far as I'm concerned you're busy like Santa in his workshop making that new train set for me. Sure it may be a job for you (no matter how wonderful and/or romantic a job is, at some point it also becomes just work to be done) but you make a lot of little kids happy. Look at all those cool toys you're working on! Thanks Santa Jacobs!
By little kids I mean 32 year old MEN like me.
*Grunts*
*Thumps chest*
*Jumps up and down and squeals with delight when the new Dungeon arrives*
writing the first adventure for Pathfinder, developing the 11th Savage Tide adventure, editing Pathfinder, editing Dungeon, and editing the Rise of the Runelords player's guide doesn't leave me much time or energy for writing journal entry posts.Sissy.
.
.
.
I'm just kidding of course. You may be busy James, but as far as I'm concerned you're busy like Santa in his workshop making that new train set for me. Sure it may be a job for you (no matter how wonderful and/or romantic a job is, at some point it also becomes just work to be done) but you make a lot of little kids happy. Look at all those cool toys you're working on! Thanks Santa Jacobs!By little kids I mean 32 year old MEN like me.
*Grunts*
*Thumps chest*
*Jumps up and down and squeals with delight when the new Dungeon arrives*
Ditto, but without that whole squealing thing. It's just not manly. ;)
To paraphrase Elan from OOTS: "Work, work, work, work to earn our consumer dollars."
There--with the plus 2 morale bonus to efficiency you ought to be able to squeeze in just a touch of log-writing for us, eh James?
;)
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You think correctly. We're all really, really swamped, but we are scheduled to play again this Thursday, so there will be no shortage of material once James decides to start this up again.
--Erik
But given the popularity of these posts, I think this is becoming a customer service issue... though since we aren't paying for the thread we technically aren't customers... but the more time I spend on the board, the closer by credit card gets to being whipped out... I do need 50$ worth of back issues to own all of AoW...
Yeah that is it, I bid a 50$ order on catching up this thread
OK, I've stopped obsessively checking this thread for updates some time ago. We'll be glad when one arrives. Meantime, it's probably more important for our busy heroes to play than to spend time writing about their games. Have fun with your upcoming game, Erik and crew, and don't worry about us. Some of us can keep the hoi polloi entertained by posting our own entertaining logs, even if they're not quite as good as James's!
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Creative Director
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Here's the deal. I've been working 60–80 hour weeks for the past several weeks in a mad scramble to start up Pathfinder and finish up Dungeon (along with a couple of Demonomicon articles as well, and oh yeah... the Pathfinder Player's Guide... and figuring out what the adventure path after Runelords is, etc. etc.). As a result, there's not much time left for me to write journal entries for Tyralandi, as much fun as they are to write. And even when there IS time... I just don't have the energy to write.
Now... Pathfinder #1 is VERY close to being done, and I've got a few weeks before Dungeon's last issue heads off to press, so this week there SHOULD be a window of opportunity for me to try to catch up on Tyralandi's journals. Which would be awesome, since she just ran out of Hero Points, and I suspect that getting caught up on them might net her another one...
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Here's the deal....this week there SHOULD be a window of opportunity for me to try to catch up on Tyralandi's journals. Which would be awesome, since she just ran out of Hero Points,
Miss Tyralandi may temporarily be out of Hero Points, but you certainly aren't. I knew your plate was full before you posted, but... Wow!
At any rate, enjoy your game, don't work yourself to death, and bring her back to us when you can.While I will continue to obsessively check for updates , I'm sure that's more a reflection of my nature than a commentary on your time table.
Must have been McArtor's character. :P
All right, where is Tyralandi?
About two hours ago, a member of the party met a terrible, terrible end.
--Erik
Well, the ninja died a long time ago. Who else in the party has been rolling low lately?
GAH! The suspence is killing me. I`ve been checking this thread even more often than I check on Order of the Stick!!!!!
For the sake of my fingernails and my male pattern baldness (now augmented by AOW-stress realted hair loss) TELL US WHO TO MOURN!!!!!!
*sob*
I'm putting down 50 gp on Father Frothelthimble.
And I`ll raise you my +1 shiny dagger that you not wrong.. no... wait
*rolls a 1 on his gambling check*
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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James is finishing the final issue of Dungeon this week (sniffle), and work on Pathfinder #2 blazes away. I suspect you'll see a post shortly thereafter.
Lord knows, James could use the Hero Points.
Or could he? It's possible, after all, that it was Tyralandi who died...
--Erik
Lol. Your an evil man Erik (or should I say an evil DM @>) to bait us all so.
Thats very sad news you've given us though. The end of a gaming epoch. Heaven knows I grew up with Dungeon magazine while I was still a nipper. But at least Pathfinder will continue to carry the flame.
Kudos to all of you for working so hard on no less than three magazines at once! As much as we (jokingly) gripe and moan about the absence of campaign updates, I`m sure you guys must gripe and moan even more at the lack of time to actually game. Or heck, do anything else for that matter.
Hopefully, at least now, with your schedules starting to become less hectic, you`ll actually be able to devote sometime to yourselves rather than work. The last coupla months must have been very hard on all you Paizo folks. My continued thanks for your efforts and dedication in getting your products out on time.
Right, end of threadjacking and being sensible.
We want Tyralandi and the boys! :P
By the way, in case your wondering, I have decided that @>) is to be your official one-eyed little green guy symbol from now on. No you dont get to have a say in the matter :D
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Creative Director
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Just out of curiosity - how many times per week, and in how many different games, do you Paizo folks get to play? I'd imagine that right now, with things being as hectic as they are, your playing time has decreased...but on average?
My gaming schedule currently looks like this:
Jason Bulmahn's Eberron game: Twice a month on alternating Thursdays.
Erik Mona's Age of Worms game: Twice a month on alternating Thursdays.
My Savage Tide campaign set in my homebrew world: Twice a mont on alternating Saturdays.
My Call of Cthulhu campaign: In theory, once a month on a Sunday, but in practice, once a season on Sunday. :(
The Call of Cthulhu game's the one that took the most hits from my increased busy schedule, with my Savage Tide one taking the next most hits. I pretty much try to attend Jason's and Erik's games every time, since A) I generally need the time to unwind and relax and B) it's easier to play the game than to run it.
Dungeon's last WotC approval meeting, by the way, is this Thursday. Hopefully after that I'll have time to get some Tyralandi posts up... but no promises!
Contributor
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Just out of curiosity - how many times per week, and in how many different games, do you Paizo folks get to play? I'd imagine that right now, with things being as hectic as they are, your playing time has decreased...but on average?
My schedule looks like this (copy/pasting some of this from James):
Jason Bulmahn's Eberron game: Twice a month on alternating Thursdays.Erik Mona's Age of Worms game: Twice a month on alternating Thursdays.
James Jacobs's Call of Cthulhu campaign: In theory, once a month on a Sunday.
Jeff Grubb's Call of Cthulhu campaign: Once or twice a month on Fridays.
My d20 Modern/D&D hybrid campaign: Once or twice a month on Sundays.
Most of my games are on a less-frequent schedule right now because of the summer and the transition at Paizo.
How do I get away with all that gaming and still have a girlfriend? She's in the latter two games on that list, plus she runs a Hunter (WoD) game one or two Saturdays a month and she plays in a campaign run by Wolfgang Baur on Monday nights. So she's a gamer geek as well. Otherwise, there's no way I'd be in that many games. :D