tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79542670403168072112024-03-13T22:38:00.827-07:00Fantasy Adventuring BlogRed Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.comBlogger184125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-12347159647176959652023-11-10T03:35:00.003-08:002023-11-10T03:35:32.663-08:00More on Giak Army organisation - theorising more unitsOne of the things I keep coming back to in my fantasy gaming is my Orc and Goblin army, for <i>Warhammer</i>, and later <i>Kings of War</i> (see the 'Raising the Standard' tag to go back over me building parts of it), and now, possibly for <i>Oathmark </i>(for which, I will perhaps resurrect the 'Raising the Standard' tag); and one of the things that feeds into how I think about Orcs and Goblins is the Giak Army List in the Second Citadel Journal. I never had any of the Giak minis (I did have a dream recently that I was searching for some in a second-hand shop, that's how much they've infested my consciousness, even 35 or more years later), nor indeed any of the <i>Lone Wolf </i>gamebooks from which the Giaks come, but I really liked the idea of a huge Goblin army organised into regiments along the lines of the Giak Army List, and it's helped pattern the way I've thought about Goblins, Orcs, and indeed Orks, ever since.<div><br /></div><div>The idea I was pushing towards some years ago (<a href="https://fantasyadventuringblog.blogspot.com/2016/08/oldhammer-giaks.html">link</a>) - to use build an analogue of the army using <i>Warhammer </i>Goblins to stand for Giaks - will not currently work. Goblins have mostly been withdrawn by GW: in the current 'Age of Sigmar' iteration of Warhammer, there are no Goblin (as opposed to Night Goblin, 'Gitz', or Orc, 'Orruk') infantry units. The only 'Goblins' are what used to be known as 'Forest Goblin Spider Riders', and some Wolf Riders (and there only seem to be 3 of these). There is a limited number of Gnoblars (grey Swamp Goblins that hang around with Ogres) from GW but there is little flexibility in what are basically single-piece sculpts (different heads is your lot here); if I do anything with Gnoblars it will probably be just bulking out other units. </div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps I find a way to build the army from the current sets of Night Goblins and Orcs that GW is now selling. The Night Goblins I'm considering - there are several options in the Infantry box that might be useful. As to the 'Orruks' - nothing I've seen in the new ranges strikes me as good for the units I'm after. Maybe I can pick up enough old GW Goblins from ebay to build an army, or maybe this will forever remain in the realm of speculation. But, as I'm unlikely to often venture back into a Games Workshop premises to play, maybe the presence of non-GW models might not be a problem and I can do this using Goblins from another manufacturer. Mantic in their <i>Kings of War</i> range (<a href="https://www.manticgames.com/games/kings-of-war/goblins/goblin-regiment-2020/">link</a>) and North Star in their <i>Oathmark </i>range (<a href="https://www.northstarfigures.com/prod.php?prod=11449">link</a>) both have Goblin Infantry that have weapon options including bows, spears, slashing weapons and some crushing weapons, though it seems the prevalence of the latter is much less than other sorts. North Star also do some Wolf Riders that might serve, as Giaks also ride wolves (they organise their wolf riders into units of 20). These Wolf Riders seem to be compatible with the Goblin Infantry which may increase choices when it comes to weapon swaps etc. And, as I mentioned at the top of the post, I'm building units for <i>Oathmark</i>. A colleague mentioned it had a good campaign system at work one day (there's a very long backstory involving running a quick D&D campaign in our lunchbreaks) and I've picked it up on his recommendation, but not yet fought any battles. It could be a good reason to re-activate the building of a Goblin army anyway.</div><div><br /></div><div>Mantic also do Wolf Riders, and is also expanding its range of Orcs, which may feed back into this if I go for a mix of 'Orc' and 'Goblin' units. The Riftforged Orcs especially seem suitable (<a href="https://www.manticgames.com/news/designing-the-riftforged-orcs/">link</a>), as they have a range of crushing weapons and good armour. This makes them something like the militaristic Giaks - but they seem much larger, they're something like WH 'Black Orcs', even larger than the standard Mantic Orc Infantry. Depending on how I sort this, that might not be a problem.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Giak army list entries are these:<div><br /></div><div><b>Unit Name: Colour: Symbol: Notes:</b><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Gorakim Red Fanged Jawbone Gourgaz leader</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">('The Animals')</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><br /></span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Konkorim Yellow Bow crossed by All armed with</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">('The Hunters') 3 arrows short bows</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><br /></span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Kaggazheg Orange Flaming Leader wears</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">('Fire-Dogs') Dog's Head a Doomwolf Pelt</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><br /></span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Moggador Dark Crossed No Edged Weapons</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">('The Hammerers') Blue Warhammers</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><br /></span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Nadul-Nak Black Black Flag Dressed in Black</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">('Nightfighters')</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><br /></span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Lajakann Grey Grey Heart & Gourgaz leader </span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">('The Stonehearts') Scimitar</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><br /></span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Ogshashez Purple Serrated Dagger No Blunt Weapons</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">('The Throat-</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Slitters')</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"> No Pole-arms</span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Nanenrakim Light Black Arrows All armed with</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">('The Life-stealers') Blue short bows</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><br /></span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Orgadak-Taagim Dull Human Head All armed with</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">('The Humankillers') Red on a pole Pole-arms</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Anyway - the Giak Army List is cool and inspiring. This is about taking that inspiration and going elsewhere with it.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><div><br /></div></span></span></div><div>I think there are similarities between the Giak Army List and the 'Clerical Quick Reference Chart' in the back of <i>Deities & Demigods</i>. In D&D, there is a standard progression of evil humanoids, known as 'KGOHGBO', which stands for Kobold-Goblin-Orc-Hobgoblin-Gnoll-Bugbear-Ogre, and represents humanoid tribal monsters of increasing resilience. Taking the idea of the KGOHGBO progression as being, basically, 'O&G', finding out what gods were worshipped by the various races, and basing units on that, I came up with the following notes towards a new regiments list (formatted as the Giak Army List, listed in KGOHGBO order):</div><div>
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Unit Name: Colour: Symbol: <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Notes:</span><br /><br /><i>Stak-Danakim </i> Orange Skull Kobolds: Spears <br />
<i>('Orange Spears') </i> Follow Kurtulmak<br />
<br />
<i>Gudjagim </i> Grey- Bloody Axe Goblins: Axes<br />
<i>('Mighty Ones') </i> Green Follow Maglubiyet<br /><br /><i>Naogjatim</i> Dark Unwinking Orcs: Black Spears<br /><i>('The Unsleeping')</i> Red Eye Follow Gruumsh<br /><br />(Hobgoblins would go here but they worship<i> </i>Maglubiyet along with Goblins)</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Staz-Ekug</i> Dirty Triple- Gnolls: (no edged weapons?)<br /><i>('Yellow Punishment')</i> Yellow Flail Follow Yeenoghu</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Hugzakim </i>Black Morningstar Bugbears: No Edged Weapons<br /><i>('Smashers') </i> Follow Hruggek</div><div><br /><i>Ruzzakim </i> Blood Taloned Hand Ogres: (edged weapons?)<br />('The Destroyers') Red Follow Vaprak</div><div><br /></div><div>Italics represent my attempts at using the Project Aeon word-lists (<a href="https://www.projectaon.org/en/Main/EnglishToGiakWordList" target="_blank">English to Giak</a>, <a href="https://www.projectaon.org/en/Main/GiakToEnglishWordList" target="_blank">Giak to English</a>) to create unit names. In the case of <i>Ruzzakim</i>, I'm translating directly from Vaprak's title, 'The Destroyer'. For the rest, I'm picking some aspect of the deity and running with it. For the '<i>Stak-Danakim</i>' I'd have preferred some name relating to Kurtulmak's cunning, but cannot find a Giak word that equates to cunning, cleverness or trickery (traits particularly prized by the Kobolds and reflected in their God's nature).</div><div>
<br />
Some classic tropes connected with 'Orc' units in <i>Warhammer</i> (axes and skulls for instance) are in this list connected with Maglubiyet (Goblin/Hobgoblin god) and Kurtulmak (Kobold god) respectively. On the other hand, Gruumsh, the Orcs' one-eyed spear-wielder seems (in <i>Warhammer</i> terms) to be more likely to be a Goblin (particularly Night Goblin) deity, given the prevalence of eye-imagery, and the use of spears, by Night Goblins.<br />
<br />
Vaprak and Hruggek are relatively unproblematic - Hruggek smashes things and Vaprak tears them apart. I know <i>Warhammer </i>understands 'Ogres' differently to D&D, but to me, from a D&D perspective, they're still just the biggest sort of Orc (when they're not what Tolkien calls by the name of 'Trolls'). Anyroadup, big Goblins and their smashy god, big Orcs and their vicious rippy god called 'The Destroyer'.<br />
<br />
Yeenoghu, the demon-prince who is the Gnolls' deity, is a problem for two reasons. Are Gnolls really bigger Orcs? Maybe. Maybe as much as Kobolds are smaller ones. For a long time I've mentally broken KGOHGBO into two parallel groups - KOGO and GHB. Gnolls are just bigger Orcs. But there aren't really any whip/flail weapons for WH Orcs, nor Goblins neither. Not enough to make units out of anyway, maybe the odd one. Perhaps just having non-edged weapons is enough, if such a thing is possible, given the general lack of crushing weapons for Goblins? Perhaps this could be a Night Goblin unit with some of the weird weapons like nets and the ball-and-chain weapons of Night Goblin fanatics? </div><div>
<br />
There are no archer-regiments in this list. That's because no KGOHGBO god has a bow as a weapon. 6 regiments mean that I can add two bow-armed units to this list (no more than 25% of Giak units can be bow-armed, at an 'Army' level of organisation at any rate, and they have to be short-bows, so no Orcs with longbows or x-bows in this list).<br />
<br />
Giaks group their units (the basic unit, the 36-model regiment/warband, is called a 'dorgar') into divisions called 'zegorim' (which looks like a plural, and elsewhere that just seems to be another word for 'Giaks') which consist of 3 regiments. The way the 25% bows is supposed to work rather fails in the overall list at a sub-army level, however, because no matter how you slice it (9 units, 3 divisions, 1 army) you can't have a 3-unit division with a bow-armed unit in it that is not more than 25% of the total. So the 25% must only apply at army level not division level. No reason I suppose that you can't have the two archer-units in the same division, in that case. But it's not elegant, I think.<br />
<br />
Anyway, the DDG list has got me 2/3 of the way to a 'new' 9-unit Giak army list, and two archer-regiments has got 8/9 of the way there, at least in outline. The way I think I shall divide it up is something like...<br />
<br />
Orgar Shug-Tanzar or Army-Green-Storm - a favourite army name of mine, named after the 'Green Storm Commandos' in the Philip Reeve books... my 40K Ork army has a unit called the Grub-Dakka Orkyzag, or 'Cunning Attack Green Lightning', as that's the closest I can get in Orkish to 'Green Storm Commando'. I think it's a good name for an orcish/orkish unit. But there's no word in Giak for 'cunning' that I can find as I mentioned in discussing the 'Orange Spears' - and anyway, Giaks are supposed to be grey so maybe 'grey storm' would be more accurate. Unfortunately, there's no word for 'grey' (or gray for that matter) in the English-Giak word-list either... 'Army Green Storm' will have to do.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm going to apply certain rules here. The first is that I think that I should assign an independent 1-in-6 chance of a Gourgaz leader to each unit (for using these as 'real' Giaks - in the original list, some Giak units are led by Gourgaz, which are axe-wielding troglodytes); the 2/9 of the original list seem to be around that kind of chance. I found a pic of a Gourgaz, but I no longer know where.</div><div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiiF-EBHcUjgw2i89YnIEP0mdMY4e2Ocg8gKMZ6q9pt3iRxjB-eccMtiFuiU0CttGA-ZFW7U29D4WP6PzqX-j9bz1JOxQb7uqsxpErTP6xx89b2pj0jhUrqDigNEvEUKs0mZaeBXZvHSFd/s300/Gourgaz-with-Axe-Copie.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="174" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiiF-EBHcUjgw2i89YnIEP0mdMY4e2Ocg8gKMZ6q9pt3iRxjB-eccMtiFuiU0CttGA-ZFW7U29D4WP6PzqX-j9bz1JOxQb7uqsxpErTP6xx89b2pj0jhUrqDigNEvEUKs0mZaeBXZvHSFd/w232-h400/Gourgaz-with-Axe-Copie.jpg" width="232" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is an artist's impression of a Gourgaz - by the looks, it is intended as a standee</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><br /></div><div>I rolled 5, 4, 1, 6, 6, 1 for the units I have, then 4, 3, 1 for the as-yet-unknown units; so the units with Gourgaz leaders will be 3 (<i>Naogjatim</i>,'The Unsleeping') and 6 (<i>Ruzzakim</i> 'The Destroyers'), then the final unknown unit, which on balance should probably be another unit with edged weapons (they're certainly easier to come by then bludgeoning/crushing weapons). </div><div><br /></div><div>The following assumes I'm using the current <i>Warhammer</i> range of figures...</div><div><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Unit Name: Colour: Symbol: Notes:</span><br />
<br /></div><div><i>Stak-Danakim </i> Orange Skull Orange Spears <br />
<i>('Orange Spears') </i> (Night Goblins with spears?)<br />
<br />
<i>Gudjagim </i> Grey- Bloody Axe Axes<br />
<i>('Mighty Ones') </i> Green (Orcs with axes?)<br /><br /><div><i>Naogjatim</i> Dark Unwinking Black Spears: Gourgaz leader<br /><i>('The Unsleeping')</i> Red Eye (Night Goblins with spears?)</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Staz-Ekug</i> Dirty Triple- No Edged Weapons<br /><i>('Yellow Punishment')</i> Yellow Flail (Orcs with smashing weapons?)<br /><br /><i>Hugzakim </i>Black Morningstar No Edged Weapons<br /><i>('Smashers') </i> (Orcs with smashing weapons?)</div>
<br /><i>Ruzzakim </i> Blood Taloned Hand Edged weapons: Gourgaz leader<br />('The Destroyers') Red (Orcs with axes/swords?)<br /><br /></div><div>(Unknown archer unit) <i> </i>Shortbows</div><div>
(Night Goblins with shortbows?)<br />
<br />
(Unknown archer unit) <i> </i>Shortbows<br />
(Night Goblins with shortbows?)<br />
<br />
(Unknown unit) Edged weapons?: Gourgaz leader<br /> (Orcs with swords?)<br />
<br />Additional considerations: as two units list 'dark red' and 'blood red' (which I guess is more vibrant) as their regimental colours, they should probably be in different divisions, as should the units using orange and 'dirty yellow', just to avoid the confusion of colours; just because it makes sense, the two spear-units should be in different divisions, and the two archer-units should also be in different divisions. That is the plan... but as I only have the sketchiest ideas yet for three of the units, maybe I can organise the six units I do have a plan for into two divisions and leave the third for now, with the two regiments of archers in that. I have in effect two spear units, two smashing units and two slashing units, and can put one of each into both divisions.<br /><br /></div><div>
From here I think I can break the units thusly:<br />
<br /><b>First Division</b> -<br /><br /><i>Stak-Danakim</i> - Goblins with spears (orange)</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Ruzzakim</i> <i>- </i>Orcs with swords (blood red)<br /><br /><i>Hugzakim</i> - Orcs with smashing weapons (black)</div><div><br /><b>Second Division</b> -</div><div><br /><i>Gudjagim</i> - Orcs with axes (grey-green)</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Naogjatim</i> - Goblins with spears (dark red)</div><div><br /><i>Staz-Ekug - </i>Orcs with smashing weapons (yellow)</div><div><br /></div><div>Problems then come because the number of smashing weapons in the various boxes is very small. Building 2 units of 'smashers' will be tricky from any individual range. I am aiming I think for 40 Goblins per 'dorgar'; if I substitute any with Orc models, maybe 30 per regiment would do. The original Giak list has 36-model regiments (it doesn't explain what to do if the unit is led by a Gourgaz however, that's something I will have to think about later). If I'm fielding the army as a 'counts as' rather than just 'inspired by', they really should all be Goblins.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then, of course, the problem is that any Night Goblins who are not archers will have 'Bad Moon' shields. These come integrally cast with the arms. It is of course possible to shave off the shield designs and paint them appropriately but that seems a real faff, and perhaps suggests I should look elsewhere for my models. Or, I could use the shield designs as-is, and just paint them in the requisite colours. In that case I could just do all of the units, for both armies, with the exception of the units with smashing weapons, as Night Goblins, and paint all of the shields in the required colours - so I have yellow moons, blue moons, purple moons, several colours of green moons etc. It's not an ideal solution though.</div><div><br /></div><div>Whether any of this will ever exist in the flesh (or at least in miniature form) is unknowable. But I think the <i>Oathmark </i>Goblin Infantry and Wolf Riders are the front-runners for models I might actually obtain in the near future, and I can begin to grind through unit-building. I've sort of talked myself into buying a few boxes of each I think and seeing how I get on with them. Of course, I'm also trying to get this army ready for playing <i>Oathmark</i> anyway. That has certain limits on units - no more than 4 units of one type, as a hard maximum, so whatever army organisation I go for, I can't have more than 4 Goblin Infantry, 4 Goblin Spearmen etc, which will start to impose some further restrictions on what I can and can't field. Whether I get any of the Mantic Goblins (or Orcs), or anything from GW, I'm less sure about. Watch this space, perhaps not too intently; the Army Green Storm is rumbling its way over the horizon... maybe...</div><div>
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</div></div>Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-82043064849354460642023-02-21T15:25:00.000-08:002023-02-21T15:25:10.693-08:00Accidental Rohan Army<p> Honestly, I'm not quite sure how it happened. I used to have some Lord of the Rings minis. I know how <i>that</i> happened - about, oh, 21 years or so ago, when my eldest was very small, we went to the cinema to watch the first Harry Potter film. While there, we were treated to an advert for the first of Jackson's Lord of the Rings films. Apparently, according to Mrs Orc, both me and Orc Junior sat through it all with stunned and entranced expressions.</p><p>Cut to a few weeks later: I saw that Games Workshop and De Agostini had brought out one of those 'collect a magazine every two weeks and in only 700 weeks you'll have a complete scale model of Tina Turner'-style things, but this time it was LotR. The first issue was something like £2 (a very reasonable price), and came with a sprue of Moria Goblins and some paints. Awesome, I thought, I have to get that, Orc Junior will love it.<br /><br />I was right; at which point (maybe I should have kept my damn fool mouth shit) I said "if you like those, just wait until you see what's in Grandma and Grandad's loft." I knew my old Warhammer figures were up there see. So next time we were up at my parents' place, I got the box down and we had a look through. Lots of Goblins, some Dwarves and humans... not as many Elves as I remembered... but then I remembered swapping some Elves with a friend for some Goblins when I was about 14, which probably explains it. Anyway, we brought it back to the Orc cave and started playing something like Warhammer and also started getting more paints to paint them up.<br /><br />And of course we started going to Games Workshop. Very quickly, Orc Junior's interest went from Elves and Goblins to Space Marines and Tyrannids. So that's how we ended up playing 40K.<br /><br />It's also why I ended up buying loads of stuff over the years on ebay. I now have literally dozens of half-started armies for a whole load of games, including LotR (or Battle Games in Middle Earth or Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game or whatever it's called). But I didn't have many Rohan minis - Theoden, Gamling and Eowyn from the 'Heroes of Helm's Deep' set, and that was all, until I got a somewhat random collection of minis in a job-lot. There were half a dozen riders, including an Eomer, and three plastic footsoldiers. Not enough to do anything with, and they stayed in a box for a long time. With a lot of other LotR minis - men of Gondor, lots of Moria Goblins (including the very first ones), various Orcs, some Numenoreans and Eves of the Last Alliance. Some of them, I had an idea that I could do some kind of Game of Thrones tie-in. I have two Boromirs, and as I've mentioned before, I think there's some mileage in a Boromir/Nedd Stark crossover. I know that some people used LotR minis for GoT projects. Some of one the job-lots had had their helmets shaved down and the White Tree armorials scraped of their shields before I got them, I presume for similar purposes. But all told, I didn't have reasonable forces for anything LotR related, and I didn't have any small skirmish fantasy rulesets that I was interested in playing (I was playing Kings of War a while ago, but had built a big Goblin army for that) so they just went back in the box.<br /><br />And there they stayed until very recently. But, maybe in October or thereabouts I was chatting to someone at work who is also a gamer. For him it's mostly Napoleonics, but he's not averse to pushing the odd Orc around on a table. We were talking about different games, and I was saying I liked games with a campaign-type structure, and also quite liked 'random' things happening (like, monsters that weren't part of either army turning up on the battlefield) and he said that he'd found the Oathmark system interesting for the way it provided some kind of storytelling in the background rather than just every battle existing in a kind of limbo (I paraphrase, but that was the essence of it I thought). Long and short, I decided to get hold of the Oathmark rules.<br /><br />So now I have Oathmark, and was looking for factions I could apply the rules to. I can no doubt get a few units together pretty easily. I have 20-or-so Numenoreans and about the same Gondorians (with heavier-looking armour) that I could field as a couple of Human units. But I was irritated by the Rohirrim. If only I could make those into viable units - not too difficult, I had both foot and cavalry models, surely it would be easy to find some manufacturer (maybe someone making Ostrogoths or something) to add to the minis I had.<br /><br />But the scale of the Rohan miniatures (especially the plastics) is on the small side, it seems. A bit of asking around over at the Lead Adventures Forum rapidly rapidly lead me to the conclusion that if I wanted to build a ... let's call it 'ersatz Volkswandrung' army on the cheap, that matched the small force I already had, probably the easiest way to do it was to get more job-lots off ebay.<br /><br />So, here I am. I know have about a dozen cavalry (in various states of repair) and about 70 foot (again, some broken); this will let me field 20 with shield and hand weapon, 20 with shield and spear, and 20 with bows. These can be added to my Numenoreans and Gondorians, to produce a decent infantry force. The cavalry I'll have to fudge for a little while (maybe I'll get some more, who knows?) but should be able to field something approximating 10 horsemen pretty soon. That seems like a good beginning for a Human army in Oathmark.<br /><br />But it does mean I have now, accidentally (as I've never really played BGiME) a Rohan army, of a kind. Or I will have, if I get on with the painting. So that's the point of this - another of those 'I'm building an army and going to chronicle it here' posts, and I hope, not the last ... we shall see, but soon, perhaps, there will even be photos.</p><p><br /><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /><br /><br /></p>Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-38275762601799603262022-12-12T14:57:00.002-08:002022-12-14T14:06:14.765-08:00Megadungeon design - first principles<p>The Caverns of The Rift are a megadungeon. There's no real question about that as far as I can see. It would be extremely difficult to work out exactly how big it is, though Level 1 contains 12 different sublevels or zones and 443 rooms, Level 2 contains 16 sublevels and 695 rooms, Level 3 is 14 zones and 499 rooms, and Level 4 is 4 sublevels (one of them huge) with 359 rooms. All those levels have corridors that go of to areas waiting to be further expanded, if necessary. Weirdly, the PCs completely bypassed Level 4; having just about started to explore Level 3, they decided it was too dangerous and went Level 5 instead. No, I don't understand it either.</p><p>The first 4 Levels are pretty much completely fleshed out with just over 2,000 rooms (maybe 50 of these are just notes rather than full descriptions)... 5, 6 and 7 are substantially finished (maybe 75%) and Levels 8 and 9 are partially sketched out. There is a staircase - it's almost legendary, and called 'the Endless Stair' - that connects many levels directly, but the PCs haven't found it.</p><p>Level 10 is a vast subterranean world, a kind of Underdark-ish hexcrawl (more a pointcrawl really) called the 'Abyssal Realms' (there's even a blog label for that, though to be fair I haven't posted about it for a while). That is done differently; I haven't detailed individual rooms for most areas in the Realms, more like encounter areas, but it contains something like 60 unique locations. These range in size from individual small encounters to subterranean cities. Unlike the caves of the Rift, which are quite tightly-constrained in an E-W direction (the caves the PCs have gone to stretch for about a mile along the south side of the Rift), and somewhat in a N-S direction (the south wall of the Rift is the northern edge of any tunnels, and they stretch... an undetermined distance to the south), the Abyssal Realms stretch for dozens of miles under the mountains in all directions. If the PCs make it there, the campaign will have to change, with the PCs' 'hometown' changing from the above-ground Rift City to somewhere underground that they can use as a base of operations (and place to pick up new party members). There are a few contenders for a new underground base for further exploration. But as I say, the PCs didn't reach it, and may never, as the Rift City campaign has ground to a halt. </p><p>So, what's the point of it all? Originally when I conceived of the caverns in this huge valley called 'The Rift' I had in mind something like the Caves of Chaos, but 500 times bigger. A series of caverns over many levels that were linked together, that had factions and stories and lives, in the side of a vast valley. That seemed like a cool place to go adventuring, and provided one of the necessary elements that I'd identified for the game - an adventure site that would be suitable for repeated visits from a local base. That implies a megadungeon.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXAEOfX07WTWDr7pwTL4AOVBDz2h0vrcgnzSAWp1hEeOhs4SeeULh4WxpIWNKVS01CGPNjQTqBWnht16tFwcGq4HeZu5_FnN_S61br8mYWf8Eq4_T9iOcbHiRVLdD4XB5FeTEcxHPWPfVJcCtAu4N6D7lcTxODeWD-6LxDSRcJYfn9Doj1rZ7B0En_TQ/s1920/valley%20with%20caves.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1920" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXAEOfX07WTWDr7pwTL4AOVBDz2h0vrcgnzSAWp1hEeOhs4SeeULh4WxpIWNKVS01CGPNjQTqBWnht16tFwcGq4HeZu5_FnN_S61br8mYWf8Eq4_T9iOcbHiRVLdD4XB5FeTEcxHPWPfVJcCtAu4N6D7lcTxODeWD-6LxDSRcJYfn9Doj1rZ7B0En_TQ/w360-h640/valley%20with%20caves.png" width="360" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image from Dream by Wombo, using prompt 'valley with caves'</td></tr></tbody></table><p>This I think is actually my fourth megadungeon. The first was something I started nearly 30 years ago and it didn't get very far - a Dwarf complex somewhat inspired by descriptions in <i>Magician </i>by Raymond Feist, and <i>Song of the Dwarves</i> by Thorarin Gunnarsen, that I was reading in the early 1990s, I think. I had a few plans but did very little work on it. That was folded into my second megadungeon, Silvergate, the abandoned Dwarven city that got somewhat further but has still stalled (or maybe been abandoned... by me rather than the Dwarves this time, though it also has a blog label). I think I'll probably go back to that and try to push it forward at some point though.</p><p>The third megadungeon I think never even made onto the blog. I don't know why to be honest, it would have been good to throw some ideas around here. As it is, it exists only on Facebook. Again it's a stalled project, an attempt to co-operatively build a megadungeon. There's been some serious work put in by one contributor - not me. It's called 'The Labyrinth of Nodnol' (<a href="https://www.facebook.com/The-Labyrinth-of-Nodnol-2232911786996674">link here</a> for those on Facebook) and is based on the London Underground/Overground map.</p><p>Then came The Rift. A few of us were talking about starting a D&D campaign and I offered to DM it. I didn't really have any ideas other than that the structure needed to account for people not being able to make every session, so the idea that the dungeon needed to be near the PCs' home base came about. This would allow them to make periodic visits to the dungeon, rather than having a campaign based on travelling from one dungeon area to the next (or even, travelling overland to a series on minidungeons). Perhaps that will be the format of the next campaign; perhaps it won't. The other option of course is just a huge underground exploration, but I wanted to get round the problem players not being able to make consecutive sessions and their PCs being stuck in limbo while life went on a round them. So, I decided on a structure that says that the PCs get the hell out of the dungeon between sessions.</p><p>Constantly travelling to the same place also implies lots of entrances. The PCs discovered (I think) 16 entrances into the caves, which variously take them to Levels 1 (7 entrances), 2 (4 entrances); they also discovered one entrance each for the 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th levels. As I say, this is from memory, there may have been more they discovered.</p><p>I used a variety of methods to generate the content. A lot of it has come from some random dungeon generators, particularly <a href="https://donjon.bin.sh/adnd/dungeon/">Donjon's (link)</a> AD&D Dungeon Generator. Other Dungeon Generators are available, and some have been used, including the old WotC Generator (like much of the free content on Wizards, this seems to have been taken down sometime around May 2022) and Save versus Total Party Kill's 'Dungeon with x Rooms' (<a href="http://dungeon.totalpartykill.ca/">link here</a>) - it only generates short room descriptions so I've also used maps from <a href="https://dysonlogos.blog/maps/">Dyson (link)</a> and<a href="https://paratime.ca/rpg-games.html"> Paratime (link)</a>, among others, as well as creating a lot of my own. All of these sources have been smushed together to create the (approximately) 2,400 rooms so far detailed/mapped out in the Caverns of the Rift.</p><p>But, now I'm going to start a new megadungeon, though as the Rift Caverns had 2,400 rooms and were not finished, the projected new megadungeon with 365 rooms looks a bit tiny. This new megadungeon is my response to the "Dungeon23" project. This is a kind of design challenge that basically asks for a dungeon-room a day, every day through 2023. The original post is <a href="https://seanmccoy.substack.com/p/dungeon23">here</a>, though I found it on a Facebook post from someone else. There is a hashtag, #dungeon23, but I don't do twitter and that probably hasn't worked anyway. In the original post, the 'rules' are pretty simple - "Megadungeon for 2023. 12 levels. 365 rooms. One room a day. Keep it in a journal."<br /><br />I don't have a nice journal, but I do have a blog. I'm not promising to post every day but I will try to post much more regularly than I have been doing. This timetable does give momething to aim at.</p><p>I first read the original post today, but heard about this a couple of days ago. The original says (words to the effect of) 'generators are fine, the point is to get it done and produce something'. But, I've built a megadungeon (substantially) with generators. I want to exercise my grey matter. I *could* just go to 'Save versus Total Party Kill' and ask the dungeon-room randomator to produce a 365-room dungeon. Then all I'd have to do was map it. That would save loads of bother. Or I could get Donjon's generator to produce 12 dungeons of about the right size and tweak anything from there. Both of these would be valid ways given the original guidance to produce the required output, but I want to see if I can do this from the power of my own brain. I may well at some point fall back on the generators, but I want to resist that as long as I can, so I can get an idea of what I can do by relying as much as I can get away with on my wits.<br /><br />I have an idea about the overall design and how I'm going to 'pattern' the rooms/days, and I have an idea about how I'm going to populate it wit monsters, traps and treasure (it will involve using Moldvay pretty heavily) but I have almost no ideas about what I will actually put in as content, except that room/day 1 will be an entrance. That's all I know right now, except for one thing that I will tease you with because I don't want to say just now. I have for a long time wanted to construct a certain type of dungeon and this will be that type. That's all.<br /><br />Hopefully come the New Year I'll start posting more about this. In the meantime, happy dungeonering, folks!</p>Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-39510894961456655762022-12-02T07:28:00.003-08:002022-12-02T08:36:15.729-08:00End of an Era<p> Well, it looks like the Rift City campaign is no more, and 'The Wandering Monster Table', the experiment to bring open-table D&D to Leicester is over, after a little over 5 years.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLYezsJztytVf8oNj9kaj9GQWUywUvafso0npRDgda9rynISjztm56swlMppC-dQSo2svoNWEK-N5pVjgTAZkgyFbBzd3u-bU6yIN7_ltwPLDrzaz2rMeYvtU3ODgnHcEB6VwgLe1TmPIxAnMuwrhHxSitXecEh9W5aFh6z1T6nFP447EjoiX3pYF1PA/s1920/Medieval%20Mule%20Sanctuary%202.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1920" data-original-width="1080" height="491" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLYezsJztytVf8oNj9kaj9GQWUywUvafso0npRDgda9rynISjztm56swlMppC-dQSo2svoNWEK-N5pVjgTAZkgyFbBzd3u-bU6yIN7_ltwPLDrzaz2rMeYvtU3ODgnHcEB6VwgLe1TmPIxAnMuwrhHxSitXecEh9W5aFh6z1T6nFP447EjoiX3pYF1PA/w276-h491/Medieval%20Mule%20Sanctuary%202.jpg" width="276" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brigham's Mule Sanctuary, his retirement plan, interpreted by 'Dream by Wombo' (look it up, I've had fun playing with it) AI art generator</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>I've mentioned in previous postings on the blog that it has morphed into something quite different from the original conception, becoming something more like a regular gaming group, and also (primarily because of covid, but also due to to work commitments and people moving away) migrating from meatspace (and not just face-to-face but in a publicly-accessible space) to online. However, the Rift City campaign was conceived as a drop-in game and in theory at least remained so until the end. And that was the point really, to give people a regular game that didn't involve committing to be at every session.</p><p>This was why I adopted the structure I did for the campaign - adventuring in the Rift took place during the day, and at the end of the day the PCs high-tailed it back to town to lick their wounds an count their loot. Then, 'the next day', a potentially new constellation of adventurers would brave the caves and return in glory or defeat.</p><p>It's been fun (mostly), and some hard work to keep it going. But over the last couple of sessions, only two players have turned up - Brigham and Ugli, who were the players of Polly the Magic User and Gibbet the Thief in the very first session. We decided if no-one else wanted to come to the next session, we'd knock it on the head. I put out a call on Facebook (most of the players, something like 25 of them, who'd been to previous sessions are on there) but no-one committed to coming. So, I've pulled the plug.</p><p>Thanks players for turning up and running through the games I put on, I hope everyone had fun... but it's time to find other things to do every first Sunday of the month. Ciao!</p>Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-91941153215850715872022-08-05T13:42:00.001-07:002023-11-10T02:23:15.034-08:00Rift City Campaign Session 60 - out of the Rift!<p>I'd like to start with an apology to anyone still reading this. It seems I've put two posts on the blog in the last year. I've been very bad at keeping it up to date. I originally started the blog to discuss fantasy gaming, mostly Warhammer and related topics, but after I did, I started playing D&D again and that became the main focus. But lately I've been posting neither D&D nor miniature-gaming content. So, I'm sorry to anyone who feels disappointed. Perhaps no-one is, in which case, that's OK, but in case anyone is, you have my apologies, and at least the expressed intention to do better.</p><p><br /></p><p>I'm not really sure why it's tailed off. I have been continuing to run the Rift City Campaign, and messing about with a bunch of other things; I just haven't been good at talking about them. But, with the Rift City Campaign, and the 'Wandering Monster Table' project, now 5 years old (we had our first session in August 2017), it seemed like a good reason to sit down and say something about it. So I will.</p><p><br /></p><p>First, the 'Wandering Monster Table' itself. This was originally conceived as a monthly drop-in game in a (relatively) public space. Our first six sessions were in a pub, on the second Sunday of the month; we had to move for a month when there was an event on for one month (there's a comedy festival that takes place every February in Leicester, and the pub was a regular venue); we met at the house of a couple of people from the group for one session; but after the festival, we went back to the pub for about another year.</p><p><br /></p><p>Then, the pub we met at closed down and we had to find another venue. So, for a couple of months, we went back to the house of the players we'd been to previously; then we found a different pub, for about another six months.</p><p><br /></p><p>After this however, I got a new job that involved travelling on Sunday evenings. This meant that we had to move the session, to Sunday afternoon, when most pubs are serving food and much less keen to let some weirdos use a couple of tables. But shortly after this, Covid happened and all the pubs were closed anyway. Also, people couldn't meet face-to-face. So, we started using Discord.</p><p><br /></p><p>So for half of its life, the 'public drop-in game' has existed as an online game instead. It's still a drop-in game, in theory, but I don't think we've added any players online that hadn't come to face-to-face sessions. I'm not saying the project is a failure - it certainly isn't, it's the longest-running campaign I've been involved in bar none; three people came to the first session (apart from me) and two of them are still regular players; and hopefully people who've played in it have enjoyed it (I certainly have) and will continue to enjoy it; but it must be admitted that it doesn't really fulfil the original brief any more. But, that's OK; who in the balmy days of the Summer of 2017 could have predicted Covid? Not me at any rate. Maybe, at some point, we'll get back to face-to-face meetings in a public place; maybe we won't.</p><p><br /></p><p>Anyway, that's the 'Wandering Monster Table'... what about the campaign itself?<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>At the previous session (in June) the PCs had decided that they need more magic items - specifically <i>Bags of Holding</i>, as they'd found what turned out over two sessions to be several dragons, and were trying to find ways of carrying back the piles of coinage that tend to be found in dragony hoards.</p><p><br /></p><p>There are no 'magic shops' <i>per se</i> in Rift City. Not quite true; there are no general magic emporia, but there is an Alchemist who has opened a potion shop, and potions are sometimes available from some of the temples too, but the supply overall is erratic. Perhaps I've done this 'wrong'; maybe it would have been more sensible to have a magic shop in Rift City, but my thinking has been that magic should be somewhat more difficult to access than say torches or iron rations. It *should* make it more mysterious and 'special', but perhaps it's just more annoying.</p><p><br /></p><p>However, the party knows that there is a more substantial city about four days' journey away. 'Rift City' is a somewhat rough frontier town, built on the momentary profits of exploiting the adventurers coming back from the monster-infested tunnels in the Rift - it's sort of like a gold-rush town. It hardly has much infrastructure. The 'big city' is actually a real city - much bigger than Rift City and, the PCs hope, with better amenities. </p><p><br /></p><p>So, I worked out how far away it was and estimated how long it would take to get there. In effect, it's four days' journey through mountainous terrain, unless something goes very wrong. I wondered about this, rolled up some encounters for different times of the days involved, and knocked together a rough-and-ready plan of action. My estimate was that we could do the journey in one session, then the PCs could have as many sessions as they liked in the city, and then come back to the Rift if they wanted to, or use the city as a basis to go off elsewhere.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEIOUsE3OdE8DivGBI9vfWWOKGhRJsTdwuV19p7LebhR0NhHAfmUwWkHLbf8q1L5U7JA47wuVqypaOsu8Ltb--gdFjD71hlPFpQqF4Hb5PD85Bz0m8H68ClNaIe_mZm5KNbuVAT6p-R0c-1BLogScIO5KSXRUVGnQVd6APXLUjaDsIAhHxfBYlycykJA/s960/291798009_5202606449823420_8758346809885854874_n.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="502" data-original-width="960" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEIOUsE3OdE8DivGBI9vfWWOKGhRJsTdwuV19p7LebhR0NhHAfmUwWkHLbf8q1L5U7JA47wuVqypaOsu8Ltb--gdFjD71hlPFpQqF4Hb5PD85Bz0m8H68ClNaIe_mZm5KNbuVAT6p-R0c-1BLogScIO5KSXRUVGnQVd6APXLUjaDsIAhHxfBYlycykJA/w400-h209/291798009_5202606449823420_8758346809885854874_n.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #0a0a0a; font-family: roboto;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Illustration I found googling 'fantasy mountains', to post on the group's Facebook page: © Wizards of the Coast by Alayna Danner</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>I've discussed at various times on this blog what a 'quest' campaign would look like and how it could be made to work with an open table like The Wandering Monster Table - most thoroughly in <a href="https://fantasyadventuringblog.blogspot.com/2018/03/questing-in-elfgames-iv-adventuring-in.html">this post from March 2018</a>. The short version is, as long as the PCs finish the session somewhere relatively 'safe', where people can chose to stay and new people can join the party, an open table should be able to accommodate a campaign involving PC travel. The trick is ending the action at a point where there can be a reasonable 'changeover'.</p><p><br /></p><p>As I mentioned, I'd estimated that the journey from Rift City to the city called 'Selen' by the inhabitants of the Rift could be accomplished in one session. I really should remember Helmuth von Moltke's dictum 'no plan survives first contact with the enemy', and not just remember it, but also rigorously apply it to D&D as soon as I get any barmy notions like 'the PCs will probably do this, it should take that long'. No. Doesn't happen.</p><p><br /></p><p>First, though the players were all agreed to go to Selen, there was no consensus on <i>how</i> they were going to go. I had assumed (me and my assumptions) that they would just set off and go along the road. But, instead, they decided to attach themselves to a caravan. That's OK, I know caravans come and go, some of the early plots and hooks around the Rift concerned the raiding of caravans by Kobolds and the theft of supplies destined for Rift City. Caravans are definitely a thing in the vicinity of Rift City.</p><p><br /></p><p>So I rolled up a random caravan. I don't have any specific rules for creating caravans - maybe I should write some - but there are Merchants in the D&D Expert book. There caravans can be of different sizes, so I randomised creation and rolled one up. I got the largest size of caravan I could, about 20 merchants and 80 guards; but I don't see wagons making it through the mountains very easily (even with the relatively-OK roads that I assume exist... it doesn't matter why but 'OK roads' seem reasonable in context), so I decided this caravan would mostly be mules - a giant mule-train, basically. I randomly determined when this caravan would be setting off, and as luck would have it, the PCs only had to wait one more day.</p><p><br /></p><p>Some of the PCs spent this day buying up all the gems and jewellery and platinum pieces they could get their hands on in Rift City, the idea being to take portable wealth to Selen. Other PCs, not so much. They mostly just stuffed money into sacks.</p><p><br /></p><p>Some of the PCs decided to sign up as guards for the caravan. They negotiated a price with one of the merchants to provide two armoured humans, two armoured Dwarves and an armoured Elf. The party at this point consisted of Brigham and Halvor (Clerics around 8th Level), Heedor and Ugli (Dwarves around 8th Level) and Jade, a new PC (Elf of 7th Level). The price was lower than the player doing the negotiating had hoped for, but reflected market conditions; pay (3gp each for the humans, 5gp for the Dwarves and 6gp for the Elf) represent their cost as 'Heavy Foot' mercenaries. Only not for a month, for four days. PCs have to provide their own food rather than it being provided, and there is some danger on the way for sure; it isn't garrison duty in a sleepy backwater. So the pay is much higher than the minimum to get soldiers. But crucially, there are lots of people who could do the job in Rift City (the place is awash with 1st-Level Fighters, Elves and Dwarves) and the organisers of the caravan weren't going to pay loads for 'special' guards. So the five PCs were offered 22gp to be caravan guards.</p><p><br /></p><p>However, others of the PCs decided it would be fun to get mules of their own; so, some of the other members of the party bought seven mules, mostly to carry large sacks of gold.</p><p><br /></p><p>This led to some problems with the caravan. The organisers had agreed to pay for five guards; but on the morning that the caravan was due to depart, two guards and three merchants with seven mules turned up.</p><p><br /></p><p>A quick re-negotiation with the merchants led to a revised offer; 8gp for the Elf and one of the Human (Cleric) heavy infantry; the remaining PCs paid 15gp for up to two mules to join the caravan (the PC with three mules had to pay 30gp). Also, these PCs hired a mule-handler-cum-extra guard, a Dwarf called Gami.</p><p><br /></p><p>At last the PCs and the caravan were ready and the whole travelling roadshow set off through the mountains.</p><p><br /></p><p>According to my rolled encounters, there was nothing in the morning. So, the morning passed uneventfully. I had rolled both an evening encounter, and a situation of some consternation at the end of the day. I'm trialling some rough wilderness creation rules for precisely this sort of situation, and my results were that there would be an encounter with snakes (Giant Rattlers, in this case) and the 'safe' area at the end of the day would be a village of ... Troglodytes. Hmm. Think my procedure needs tweaking a bit.</p><p><br /></p><p>The snake encounter was fine; as originally I'd done the rolling up when I thought just the PCs were travelling (Helmuth von Moltke is spinning in his grave I presume) there was always the chance that the encounter I planned for them would have been triggered by some other part of the caravan. I just asked the PCs where they were in the caravan ('front, middle or back') and assigned a 2-in-6 chance that that was where the snake attack was. And, it was. Had it not been, I'd have said 'there's a kerfuffle up ahead/somewhere behind you...' but it was nearby. The party toasted the snakes - literally, as far as I remember, I think Jade used <i>Fireball</i> - and that was that. I think someone ate some barbecued snake but can't remember who - probably one of the Dwarves.</p><p><br /></p><p>My assumption had been for the village at the end of that, that there was a (friendly) village, but the Trogs had overrun it. So, in the evening, as they approached the village, the caravan came across some bodies in the road. As so often happens in situations when I need 'people' quickly, I turned to Donjon's random generators - this case, the <a href="https://donjon.bin.sh/adnd/random/#type=npc">NPC generator</a>. I must have also rolled for how many bodies there were, because there were definitely three of them. I read the first three entries, and from the descriptions gave the PCs an idea of the people they'd found - two middle-aged women and one younger woman. I also told them the dead women seemed to be fleeing the village and there was a horrible stench around. Several of the PCs have fought troglodytes before (everyone except Jade I think) so I thought it reasonable that they would recognise the lingering smell.</p><p><br /></p><p>The PCs decided to <i>Raise Dead</i> on the young woman. It turned out that her name was Astal, she lived in the village with her parents who were farmers, and she had fled when the stinking lizards had attacked and had started running to the north hoping she and her companions could have made it to Rift City, but were caught and brutally attacked... <i>Raise Dead</i> leaves the raised one with 1hp so the PCs decided that Astal should sit on one of the mules and come back to the village.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>As the caravan got there, the PCs seemed reluctant to go in (I described it as having an earth bank around it: in my imagination, it's a village inside an old disused fortification, and the road passed between the banks on either side). Some of the PCs turned themselves invisible, but they delayed going in for a while. In the meantime, some of the other caravan guards went inside. By the time the PCs had decided to follow suit, I ruled that the other guards had already dealt with the Trogs in the village so the PCs didn't get any experience for that (or the gems that made up the Trogs' treasure).</p><p><br /></p><p>The PCs asked Astal if she wanted to go to her house, but she didn't - the potential sight of her murdered parents being too upsetting. So, instead five PCs, an NPC Dwarf caravan guard, a newly-resurrected peasant girl and seven mules all bedded down in a stable. They worked out a watch rota and settled down.</p><p><br /></p><p>I knew there was going to be an attack of a particular kind during the night. There's a kind of monster from <i>Deities and Demigods</i> called an 'Astral Wolf'. It's in the 'Nehwon Mythos' section, and appears in the Wilderness Wandering Monster Tables for the campaign because, well, everything from the Nehwon Mythos section exists in my campaign. The PCs just don't know it yet because they've only seen the Rift so far. Astral Wolves attack by ambushing people in their dreams and forcing them into the Astral Plane where the wolves then attack them bodily.</p><p><br /></p><p>To be forced into the Astral Plane, you have to fail a save versus <i>Spells</i>. Of course, all of the PCs made their saves, so they just had some bad dreams about zombie wolves pursuing them through a silvery realm. Gami the NPC Dwarf however, who was on watch, woke the party members to show them Astal, - a Normal Human with rubbish saves, who had therefore been transported to the Astral Realm, where she was attacked by the Astral Wolves, and, having only 1hp from her <i>Raise Dead</i> experience, had quickly succumbed to their attacks. So that was that (for the moment) - the Astral Wolf attack served only to give the PCs bad dreams but insta-killed the person they'd only just brought back.</p><p><br /></p><p>The PCs went back to sleep as best they could but there were no further attacks that night. In the morning, the party rose and began prep for the next day.</p><p><br /></p><p>And that's where we ended the session, it having taken massively longer to play that day than I expected. I thought Day 1 of the journey could be 'done' in about 45 minutes - it took nearly three hours. Proof positive that I shouldn't bother trying estimate this stuff, because the PCs will always do stuff I don't expect.</p><p><br /></p><p>What will the next session bring? who knows? Not me. But I have an idea how the rest of the journey <i>could</i> proceed, if the PCs don't take things in strange and unexpected directions, which they might well; and, if and when they get there, I hope they'll find the City of Selen an interesting place to visit and to adventure in.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-71202112259877413592021-12-09T14:44:00.003-08:002021-12-09T14:44:46.166-08:00Rift City catchup...<p>Well, I'm not doing well posting updates to the Rift City Campaign. Session 49 (August, the campaign's 4th birthday!) has been and gone - as have Sessions 50 (September), 51 (October) and 52 (November). Session 53 is almost upon us...</p><p>What can I say? I write fewer notes with the discord sessions, and then it's harder to reconstruct what happened after the event. This makes it far less likely that I'll actually start writing a blog post, and then the next session comes round and I have more to do with less information (and I've already forgotten half of what happened at the session before...).</p><p>What has definitely happened is that the PCs have abandoned the tunnels under the ruins that they were previously exploring, and therefore the search for the tomb of Riha the Bejewelled, and instead started exploring down the hill where they discovered an entrance to a different part of Level 6. They fought Salamanders (the PCs got very hot, and turned one of them into a rabbit); they found some Spectres, Berg charged in and the rest of the PCs stood by watching - as Berg was zapped by six Spectres, making her very dead indeed. RIP Berg, there was many a Dwarf that night crying himself to sleep over his beer I'm sure. There were also some 'evil Dwarves' as the PCs called them (they definitely were evil, I'm not going to lie - some were Chaotic Evil, some were Neutral Evil, a few weren't technically Dwarves, but it doesn't really matter - they were for sure hostile to the party and paid the price) in one of the rooms but they were wiped out and all their stuff was liberated for the forces of Light.<br /><br />Further exploration in the same area over subsequent sessions has yielded some snake-chickens (Cockatrices that is) and some strange big-cats-with-six-legs-and-shoulder-tentacles, which are of course Displacer Beasts, but because I'm using a Labyrinth Lord monster generator (<a href="https://www.mithrilandmages.com/utilities/LLMonsters.php">link here</a>) they come up as 'Phase Tigers', which is a very cool name I think. Certainly, if I were a Phase Tiger, I reckon I'd be very disapproving of people calling me a 'Displacer Beast'. Then of course there were a couple of packs of Hellhounds, which Halvor in particular is theologically very against (his god is a kind of version of the Viking god Tyr, and his mythology has his hand being bitten off by a giant Hellhound. The Hellhound is in turn worshipped by Goblins as a great flaming wolf-spirit of the Underworld).</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXR-YYG5rC-egYyB5ZXk9nPxKl0wJ_bI-E7ytWymh9syh0CKhMyPNT5Tik3i63pQBBz7TVYaHSG-X7x83omDtPGuanbDcxFpwFInSz6N52x_Pl0XvIwnYbSNdpJxoJUtXqlMmZsYVIBY56/s1840/yrt.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1840" data-original-width="1680" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXR-YYG5rC-egYyB5ZXk9nPxKl0wJ_bI-E7ytWymh9syh0CKhMyPNT5Tik3i63pQBBz7TVYaHSG-X7x83omDtPGuanbDcxFpwFInSz6N52x_Pl0XvIwnYbSNdpJxoJUtXqlMmZsYVIBY56/s320/yrt.jpg" width="292" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image of Tyr from Age of Kings, which I don't think is the same of Age of Empires II, but might be. Anyway, this is 'Yrt', one-handed god of Lawful Fighting.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>Halvor's divine interventions have proved particularly useful. 'Sticks to Snakes' (one of the spells Halvor uses most often) has allowed the party to considerably increase their muscle-power, as well as giving them poisoned attacks. It's a powerful spell - though, I ruled (because I can't specifically find a rule for it) that they couldn't successfully attack the Spectres that killed Berg.</p><p><i>Web</i>, from Inarra the MU, has also proved useful. In the last session, when the party was attacked by Hellhounds, Inarra webbed them. This led to a discussion on whether Hellhounds are immune to fire damage, and it doesn't seem they are. The reasoning is that, if the Hellhounds' breath destroys the web, it also harms the Hellhounds. Effectively, they spent two rounds fighting themselves by burning themselves out of the web before confronting the party.</p><p>What else...? I'm not sure, I can't remember at the moment. If you want some better detail, Lyracian (whose PC is Halvor) has written up some of the sessions <a href="http://lyracian.blogspot.com/">on his blog (link)</a>.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-17802076975299143082021-07-26T12:21:00.000-07:002021-07-26T12:21:17.119-07:00Changing the ending of the Lord of the Rings<p>I may have mentioned (just the odd time) that <i>LotR</i> is a big thing for me. I first read it more than 40 years ago and it has exerted quite a pull ever since. But actually, there are problems gaming it (see the 'Questing in Elfgames' label for some ruminations on that - I've mused about this pretty often).</p><p>One idea I've been kicking around recently is a 'what if?' pretty much directly inspired by two facebook memes and more generally by some ideas I've had for a while. I don't like the term 'synergies' but I think it is somewhat fitting in this instance. The coming-together of a bunch of fairly disparate stuff has almost tied itself into something coherent (coherent...<i>ish</i>).</p><p>The first meme was a pic of Cate Blanchett as Hela next to Carl Urban as Skurge, from <i>Thor: Ragnarok</i>, with some text along the lines of 'Did Galadriel take the Ring?'.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXVBKIxTCcMOpNhJBlGsXWu9cTboXAfKFsBJ7M2A6YSWOunzOV8h4Oeqb4-Jh6xzqhjQyAXNKMUA6KYxBgj8AXu_h8zHnE91AoQE3h3veEDmuu5N8FaY5r5tAdb2-jlLSSoaWcgw6Q_ijY/s600/809d60adb7c23c434170b224c32ec5c7bace7f43.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXVBKIxTCcMOpNhJBlGsXWu9cTboXAfKFsBJ7M2A6YSWOunzOV8h4Oeqb4-Jh6xzqhjQyAXNKMUA6KYxBgj8AXu_h8zHnE91AoQE3h3veEDmuu5N8FaY5r5tAdb2-jlLSSoaWcgw6Q_ijY/s0/809d60adb7c23c434170b224c32ec5c7bace7f43.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Didn't find the FB meme but this image illustrates the point - Karl Urban (Skurge, Eomer) and Cate Blanchett (Hela, Galadriel) - Marvel's evil versions of good LotR characters in <i>Thor: Ragnarok</i>? - (c) Marvel 2017</td></tr></tbody></table><p>The second meme was called 'When Elves Go Bad' and had a similar theme. There were pictures of Galadriel twinned with Hela, Thranduil paired with Ronan the Accuser from <i>Guardians of the Galaxy</i>, and Elrond paired with Red Skull from <i>The Avengers</i>.</p><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinQsx485SxjnakARk92yBeZz4Y-1sHboGW244qlx8yn7MYtQc9jHpmLqXgF2J1djMt9EdrR4XHoTBf3jVj59Ry11D_0AzGJ4CdrLV_c-rn4LS_xAN511ecl3JxZ_SbQLt8ajxgIRToUmTF/s772/0cae6a62755e9436ac9962a506493efd.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="772" data-original-width="530" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinQsx485SxjnakARk92yBeZz4Y-1sHboGW244qlx8yn7MYtQc9jHpmLqXgF2J1djMt9EdrR4XHoTBf3jVj59Ry11D_0AzGJ4CdrLV_c-rn4LS_xAN511ecl3JxZ_SbQLt8ajxgIRToUmTF/s640/0cae6a62755e9436ac9962a506493efd.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some random stuff from the net - originals (c) New Line Cinema 2001-2014 and (c) Marvel 2011-2019<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>These images (and the ideas they provoked) slotted into two bits of LotR 'alternative history' that I've been considering for a couple of years. For a little while, when <i>Game of Thrones</i> was becoming popular, people were using the <i>LotR </i>Boromir miniatures for Ned Stark, as they were famously both played by Sean Bean, cementing his reputation as the actor whose character died half-way through (sorry for the spoilers if you've not seen <i>LotR </i>or <i>GoT</i>), and prompting such famous memes as Boromir standing in the snows of Caradhras saying 'Winter is Coming', and another of Boromir at the Council of Elrond saying 'One does not simply walk into King's Landing'. I remember several <i>GoT</i> threads on Lead Adventures where Games Workshop's Gondor and Rohan soldiers were pressed into service in Westeros. In my own (rather small) LotR collection, there are several Gondor and Numenor soldiers who have had their distinctive winged helmets filed off and their 'White Tree' shields scraped so the design has been obliterated. These had come in an ebay job-lot I got a couple of years ago. I have a pretty strong hunch that they were originally intended for an abandoned GoT project. Not having great modelling skills myself, I put them aside, unsure as to what to do with them. Maybe I'm coming up with a plan... Anyway, the idea of 'what if Boromir survived and got married and had kids?' was something floating around in my brain for a while.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-v01lkpYOpFClY6ipOD6fA4uQlTf-85YeKEwfSfKD8Nhj36vSN3axx3t_sTZJlbmEy7WPMzz3vVnSg0CQxI6W3nlIMsHbq7iy1Kx3vLTAhrSjtY-K0Mf-pEO5C8vYoBH-R9T6M9-bV3Mf/s500/sean-bean-as-lord-eddard-ned-stark-and-michelle-fairley-as-lady-catelyn-stark.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-v01lkpYOpFClY6ipOD6fA4uQlTf-85YeKEwfSfKD8Nhj36vSN3axx3t_sTZJlbmEy7WPMzz3vVnSg0CQxI6W3nlIMsHbq7iy1Kx3vLTAhrSjtY-K0Mf-pEO5C8vYoBH-R9T6M9-bV3Mf/s0/sean-bean-as-lord-eddard-ned-stark-and-michelle-fairley-as-lady-catelyn-stark.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If Boromir survived... Ned and Catlyn Stark (Sean Bean and Michelle Fairly) in <i>Game of Thrones</i> Season 1 (c) HBO 2011</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>A couple of years ago, I watched a movie featuring Aaron Eckhardt (who I like) and Miranda Otto (who I really only know from the <i>LotR</i> films so it's difficult to have too much of an opinion on her, though I think she pulls off Eowyn perfectly well). It was called <i>I, Frankenstein</i> (Lionsgate, 2014) and though I don't want to give the game away too much (you never know, someone may stumble across this and decide they want to watch the movie... though I don't think it's very good, ask <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/i_frankenstein" target="_blank">Rotten Tomatoes if you want a review</a>), Miranda Otto plays Leonore, the Queen of the (Were-)Gargoyles in their war with (Were-)Demons. When I saw it originally, I thought 'hey, so this is what Eowyn gets up to when she goes to live in Emyn Arnen with Faramir'.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNDpvnb6tSc4cV3iLakwks_Y3b6cuyDIIUF7sidoUqkAlF-kpf4PoRPrCf9di8XS-Eej2KEp6m1RRfr1Ubv-Lyy2ejcEbM5r5GCddndvEkpKabcn8MvI0FG3TbEk9BlT37s0UtlyO8RM4o/s259/download.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="194" height="405" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNDpvnb6tSc4cV3iLakwks_Y3b6cuyDIIUF7sidoUqkAlF-kpf4PoRPrCf9di8XS-Eej2KEp6m1RRfr1Ubv-Lyy2ejcEbM5r5GCddndvEkpKabcn8MvI0FG3TbEk9BlT37s0UtlyO8RM4o/w304-h405/download.jpg" width="304" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What Eowyn did next - Queen Leonore (Miranda Otto) in <i>I, Frankenstein</i> (c) Lionsgate 2014</td></tr></tbody></table><p>So, already armed with mental pictures of what Eowyn did after LotR, and what Boromir might have done had he survived, and then the idea of Galadriel and Eomer as an evil double act, then corrupted versions of Elrond and Thranduil, I started to wonder how this could all be made to work.<br /><br />The idea of Galadriel taking the Ring is key here. Her speech (the version in the film is slightly condensed but not, I think, significantly):</p><p><i>“And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!” (Fellowship of the Ring: The Mirror of Galadriel (c) Allen & Unwin 1954)</i><br /></p><p>She then pledges to resist the Ring, to diminish, go into the West, and "<i>remain Galadriel</i>".<br /><br />But what if she didn't?</p><p>If Galadriel took the Ring from Frodo in Lorien (freely offered, not forced) then perhaps the 'Queen' she sees herself becoming would become something like Hela. Ultimately of course - it wouldn't happen immediately. The Ring would have to corrupt her more than just giving in to a momentary weakness to take power when offered it, she'd have to start to actually do bad stuff... out of a desire to good, of course, as Gandalf says.</p><p>But what would this 'beautiful and terrible' Queen <i>do</i>?</p><p>It seems to me that the first thing she would try to do would be to neutralise potential rivals. Of these, the most important are probably Saruman and Elrond. Gandalf is 'dead' - no-one at this point knows he's coming back; Saruman and Elrond are the main loremasters who could in theory challenge Galadriel. Thranduil, Glorfindel, Cirdan, Radagast... are any of these likely to be able to mount a serious challenge to the new Dark Queen? I'd suspect not, and I'm sure Celeborn would not go against her either. Beyond their basic raw power, Saruman and Elrond also have more Ring-lore than any outside of the immediate ambit of Mordor - Saruman because he has studied it over centuries (to the point of obsession, madness and treachery) and Elrond because he is actually the wielder of one of the Three. So, a war with Saruman looks to me like Galadriel's best bet - especially if she can convince Elrond to stay on her side. Saruman has already shown himself to be a traitor to the White Council, and Galadriel, I think can make the argument that with Gandalf's death, swift action against Saruman is vital to stop Mordor and its allies triumphing absolutely.</p><p>As the Mistress of the Ring, who also has a close connection with the last bearer of one of the Three (Elrond is of course her son-in-law) I think it might be possible to persuade Elrond of this course of action. So a direct alliance of Lorien and Rivendell against Isengard seems a possibility. Should Elrond be reluctant, perhaps Galadriel could count on the power of the One Ring to sway him, but that's not certain. The power of the One over the Three is sketchy. Certainly there is no suggestion that Sauron was ever able to influence Galadriel, Cirdan, Gil-Galad, Elrond or Gandalf. But, he was their sworn enemy; Galadriel is Elrond's friend, kinswoman and ally. It might be possible to use the Ring's influence to persuade him... for the greater good, of course.</p><p>Sauron meanwhile would be in the dark. The Ring-wraiths have been banished for the time being and the trail of the Ring-bearer was lost at the Ford of Bruinen. Sauron must suspect the Ring was taken to Rivendell but probably not more than that. Saruman is perhaps no better-informed - his agents lost the Hobbits when they left Bree, and though he may have suspected they would go to Rivendell but what else might have happened he can't know. He may wonder if perhaps the Ring would be taken to Lorien, but he cannot be at all certain of this.</p><p>Anyway - a surprise Elvish attack on Isengard is my assumption as to 'what happens next'. Lorien would provide the main component of this force, but perhaps Rivendell would provide some support. Tolkien has Elrond send Elrohir and Elladan with the Rangers of Arnor to help Aragorn and perhaps some similar (maybe even larger) force could be a component of any putative Elven attack. Whatever Rivendell's contribution I expect Lorien to be the main gainer in this adventure. Jackson has Haldir lead a collection of Elves to Helm's Deep and something like this can be envisioned as forming a significant part of the Lorien army.</p><p>The attitude of Rohan, and I think perhaps perhaps particularly Eomer, can explain the Eomer-Skurge connection. Without Gandalf, Theoden is still in Saruman's power, but if the attack from Lorien were rapid enough, Theodred might not be dead yet, and Theoden may not be utterly in despair (which was of course one of the reasons Grima and through him Saruman were able to gain power over Theoden). But whatever Theoden's attitude, Eomer is <i>already </i>implacably opposed to Saruman. He may think allying with the Sorceress of the Golden Wood against the White Wizard is a good bargain (all for 'the greater good' of Rohan of course), even if it means rebellion against his King... and may even make his 'becoming' Skurge more likely, as he is potentially now even more cut off from his kin - his King is of course also his uncle. Perhaps this even opens the door to a rift with his sister. All in all, it looks like the alliance between at least a faction of the Rohirrim led by Eomer and Galadriel's anti-Saruman Elf forces is a distinct possibility.</p><p>Assuming some relative success of Galadriel's assault on Isengard, she is likely to have come away with a greatly-increased armoury both in terms of materiel and knowledge, as well as magical items such as the Palantir. With a Palantir and her own Mirror (that she insists isn't 'magic' but that's semantic quibble I think) she would be in a much more powerful position to challenge Sauron directly than any of the main actors in LotR. This of course would be her ultimate goal, though I'm sure she would rather Sauron exhaust himself on other enemies (like Gondor) rather than attacking Lorien directly.</p><p>But, Galadriel would need further allies. And then, what to do with Nenya? My supposition is that she would make a gift of it to Thranduil, one of the few of the leaders of the Elves who could make immediate trouble for her. With Elrond a potential ally, and also positioned to protect Lorien from any attack from the West (by Cirdan, Gildor or other unknown lords of Lindon who may not share her new ambitions - though, of course, she may persuade them too), Galadriel I think would want to make her north-eastern approaches secure, so a gift of one of the Great Rings to Thranduil makes perfect sense, especially if the idea of potential influence through the power of the One is accepted.</p><p>Over time, the corruption of Galadriel's purpose would be mirrored I think in those who would by now have become not just allies but accomplices - Elrond and Thranduil, completing their transformations into Red Skull and Ronan the Accuser. A lot hinges on her being able to persuade them, but hey-ho, I need some process that corrupts three Elf-lords!</p><p>Of the other characters in and around the Fellowship - well, if the party didn't sail to its breaking at Amon Hen, then Boromir doesn't need to die there and there's no reason he can't survive, marry and start a family, living something of the Ned Stark trajectory.</p><p>Eowyn can certainly survive; she could even become Queen of the Rohirrim. It's not necessary in this timeline for her to meet Faramir, but she may, in which case, perhaps depending on what happens to Aragorn, she might have some role in Gondor too.</p><p>Legolas's alternative life is a bit tricky. His transformation into a pirate I'm not so sure about. However, in <i>LotR</i> his journey in Gondor unlocked a 'sea-longing' in him so something similar may have happened in this alternative timeline. Orlando Bloom has been in many other things, but the recent (you know, last 10 years or so) version of <i>The Three Musketeers</i> he was in is even less <i>LotR</i> than <i>Pirates of the Caribbean</i> is.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU5xIjmLcOz58dw-WOGKmnsqji2-cN4PaOuNmD0fvkPdmrGb3lhyLpdDpsuXxezVwsGSwFaqDzFT8oAyKsaRTki7SLwC_fR2zGtgj5C9e5d-nAbg8JPFEDQgEp2Nq9Yct7MMePVA1J4i9Z/s720/l4ywvb3cf2ud04delymp.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="299" data-original-width="720" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU5xIjmLcOz58dw-WOGKmnsqji2-cN4PaOuNmD0fvkPdmrGb3lhyLpdDpsuXxezVwsGSwFaqDzFT8oAyKsaRTki7SLwC_fR2zGtgj5C9e5d-nAbg8JPFEDQgEp2Nq9Yct7MMePVA1J4i9Z/s640/l4ywvb3cf2ud04delymp.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mystery female companion and Legolas Greenleaf on the shore of Elvenhome? - Elizabeth Swan and Will Turner (Keira Knightly and Orlando Bloom) in a scene from <i>Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End</i> - (c) Disney 2007</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Not been able yet to track a post-LotR career for Gimli, but this pic may show him in a pre-<i>LotR </i>flashback, when it looks like he was involved in a digging project in Harad:</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaUcvwMmFXLnl-5ifYjDBnKikO7CHWKDqAWcKFeBUm_PsRj_KJOOH8op9vnQoLbqVrsjqCrNIFgJphwIAkgRo_tTdpfix5BDwbDCZhNUr7ntqyK5n0ESKtlsx52Avb6Rvic_XZZs3zdAIk/s700/johnrhys.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="467" data-original-width="700" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaUcvwMmFXLnl-5ifYjDBnKikO7CHWKDqAWcKFeBUm_PsRj_KJOOH8op9vnQoLbqVrsjqCrNIFgJphwIAkgRo_tTdpfix5BDwbDCZhNUr7ntqyK5n0ESKtlsx52Avb6Rvic_XZZs3zdAIk/s640/johnrhys.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gimli's early career? - John Rhys-Davies as Sallah in <i>Raiders of the Lost Ark</i> (c) Lucasfilm 1981</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Haldir also might have a dark career in this new timeline, as Craig Parker played the villainous character Darken Rahl in <i>Legend of the Seeker</i>. I don't know much about this but it would perhaps be possible to fit something along the lines of Haldir becoming Galadriel's governor of some possibly southern province conquered by Lorien.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqEboFsIQs_DcM80HthMbt8W3lh4Nk39PuR9S6eR6RFTlpUthogvSAzRXU7SmWB653TQL3uvOw_dUNf8r6aKYetBYRkqgzajKVwHvvGyLXQs5Bz8NH4TDGt2RUFHn6H4aPH374XfzPgvG3/s420/bridget+regan+legend+of+the+seeker+kahlan+amnell+darken+rahl+craig+parker+3036x2592+wallpaper_www.wallpapername.com_60.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="358" data-original-width="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqEboFsIQs_DcM80HthMbt8W3lh4Nk39PuR9S6eR6RFTlpUthogvSAzRXU7SmWB653TQL3uvOw_dUNf8r6aKYetBYRkqgzajKVwHvvGyLXQs5Bz8NH4TDGt2RUFHn6H4aPH374XfzPgvG3/s0/bridget+regan+legend+of+the+seeker+kahlan+amnell+darken+rahl+craig+parker+3036x2592+wallpaper_www.wallpapername.com_60.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Haldir gone bad? - Darken Rahl and Kahlan Amnell (Craig Parker and Brigit Regan) from <i>Legend of the Seeker</i> - (c) ABC-Disney 2008<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Then, there's Gandalf. Of course Sir Ian McKellern is probably as famous for playing Magneto in the <i>X-Men</i> films as he is for his portrayal of Gandalf. Again, he's a Ring-bearer, and if the idea of Galadriel being able to corrupt the bearers of the Three is accepted, it may be that she could do the same to Gandalf, weakened as he is after his near-death experience at the hands of the Balrog. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj5oxZPZVyEFFmfpH-WO3vyAaICsBCd7FLsYJqumZ_kp4ipK3x50es6fc44rxOVL7XKUOlW96dZTLURC5yBzSJ-iDr6ChFqnbZV-W5PG-SF_2zjtGe2yOaIMeqHVamGvuV3SzB2DkO0Qui/s279/Magneto1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="279" data-original-width="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj5oxZPZVyEFFmfpH-WO3vyAaICsBCd7FLsYJqumZ_kp4ipK3x50es6fc44rxOVL7XKUOlW96dZTLURC5yBzSJ-iDr6ChFqnbZV-W5PG-SF_2zjtGe2yOaIMeqHVamGvuV3SzB2DkO0Qui/s0/Magneto1.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Evil Gandalf? - Sir Ian McKellern as Magneto (c) Marvel 2000</td></tr></tbody></table><p>I'm now trying to find other fantasy, sci-fi and superhero flicks and TV series that <i>LotR </i>actors were involved in to fill in some of the other possibilities. It'll be difficult for the Hobbits particularly I suppose. Even if I find some they're unlikely to be 3 feet tall. I'm not sure what Aragorn is bringing to this party as I don't know enough about Viggo Mortenson's career to find a suitable image to shoe-horn into the new timeline; equally, the further exploits of Arwen (Liv Tyler), Theoden (Bernard Hill) and Celeborn (Marton Csokas) remain to be discovered. Perhaps If I can discover suitable films I can put in some further speculations on the alternative timeline.<br /><br />One other character perhaps does have at least a sketch of a further career. Talking to a work colleague recently about some of this stuff, he pointed out that Faramir also appears in <i>Van Helsing</i> - if you've not seen it, Wolverine and Selene from <i>Underworld </i>team up to fight vampires and werewolves in Transylvania, accompanied by Faramir who is a kind of Vatican monk-cum-quatermaster of bizarre equipment (a bit like Q in the <i>Bond</i> films). It is, I think, an enjoyable romp, but doesn't owe much to Bram Stoker's Van Helsing. It can perhaps be regarded as a prequel - Van Helsing in the film is younger than in Dracula (the film is supposedly set around 1888, a few years earlier than the novel), so maybe it's his earlier experiences with vampires that lead to his appearance in Dracula as a seasoned vampire-hunter. Anyway, the monk character, Brother Carl, in that movie is played by David Wenham, that's the point.<br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJW3fKJ_9Ej6nnEef-qdkF5rGLKYcafXx8VYyBE2e00kjkl9Csht1IC5x1SmBSJVVmRjtghhoCCrBX8JH1hyphenhyphen0uLE4e5JzqTwCUQqQ9Psj9EKZPb_D15J1y2yZ8_BSnCMdcLLgt1ATXjVrX/s512/unnamed.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="372" data-original-width="512" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJW3fKJ_9Ej6nnEef-qdkF5rGLKYcafXx8VYyBE2e00kjkl9Csht1IC5x1SmBSJVVmRjtghhoCCrBX8JH1hyphenhyphen0uLE4e5JzqTwCUQqQ9Psj9EKZPb_D15J1y2yZ8_BSnCMdcLLgt1ATXjVrX/w400-h290/unnamed.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">David Wenham (Farimir) as Brother Carl, from <i>Van Helsin</i>g, (c) Unviersal 2004 </td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>Perhaps then, if Boromir doesn't die, and the Ring never comes south, and Aragorn doesn't go to Rohan, then Eowyn and Faramir never meet, and Faramir becomes something like Brother Carl, a member of a secret order of monster-hunters - presumably in Gondor - while Eowyn becomes something like Leonore? Events in Gondor presumably take a very different turn if the result of Galadriel taking the One Ring is that Boromir settles down to raise a family and Faramir becomes a monk, but maybe I need to think a lot more about how that happens!Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-80845616460693922842021-07-10T03:38:00.002-07:002023-11-10T03:01:27.193-08:00Rift City campaign - session 47<p> Well, once again I have failed to do the write-up of the session before the next one has arrived. However, Lyracian has done a qrite-up <a href="https://lyracian.blogspot.com/2021/06/rift-city-campaign-chapter-47-june-2021.html">here</a>. It contains the bare bones of the story - captured Orc seemingly tries to lead the party into a trap, fight with insects and then a confrontation with some death-cult clerics.</p><p>I have to agree, I thought it was a fun session too! What tomorrow will bring... well, I'd say 'watch this space' but if you want your info hot off the press, maybe you shoud watch Lyracian's space, he's much quicker off the mark than I am.</p><p>Tomorrow's session will be the 48th programmed session of the Wandering Monster Table, which I'm chosing to regard as quite an acheivement. We've only cancelled two session in the last 4 years, re-arranged two for the third Sunday of the month,and had to move venue for a few (generally to Berg and Galen/Halvor's players' house, so thanks for that) - not bad to be honest given that the idea was to bring an open table campaign to Leicester. I think we can be somewhat proud of how we've managed to do that.<br /><br />Who knows, maybe for our actual 4th birthday (8th August is the second Sunday in August and is therefore our 4th birthday, even if the opening session was 13th August, the second Sunday in August 2017) we may even be able to meet physically for the first time since March 2020...</p>Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-50916301625282615642021-06-05T06:12:00.000-07:002021-06-05T06:12:27.783-07:00Rift City Campaign - Session 46 and beyond<p>Well, what is there to say? Lyracian at Playing Dice with the Universe posted up a <a href="http://lyracian.blogspot.com/2021/05/rift-city-campaign-chapter-46-may-2021.html">write-up of this session</a> the day it happened, and I have little to add to that report in terms of events of the session. </p><p>I did indeed completely fluff the whole 'summoning the elemental' thing. Not in control of my sources, that's the problem. I rarely have much idea what the players are going to attempt (I thought they were heading back to Level 5/6 where they've been adventuring, but they decided to go back to Level 1 and attempt a Summoning instead) and I was flipping between different pdfs and files for rules and location information and maps and what-have-you, realising that I hadn't updated these locations for months (effectively there were still corpses lying about from the party's last visit) and also that I couldn't find some important notes that I know I wrote but couldn't access; meanwhile, trying to re-stock the dead monsters on the fly, I discovered that the <a href="https://www.mithrilandmages.com/utilities/LLMonsters.php">Mithril and Mages Monster Stocker</a> (my favoured place for grabbing a quick stat-block) was down... anyway, I was unable to keep everything running smoothly and fluffed some vital processes. Sorry guys, but there's nothing to be done now. Oh well.</p><p>I've been pondering XP in the wake of Session 46. The PCs (who are mostly, I guess, 6th Level now, though as I haven't seen their character sheets for more than a year they may be more) have been mollocking around for the last few sessions in a Level 5-Level 6 area. This I feel is more-or-less 'level appropriate'. That's where they <i>should</i> be. Last session they went back to Level 1 and fought a Goblin patrol and some Orcs. Otherwise, they avoided two Insect Swarms. This is not, to my mind, 'appropriate'. The PCs are big heroes now, they should I think be doing more than grinding on low-level monsters.</p><p>I've changed how XP acquisition works twice already while the campaign has been going on (close to 4 years now). After about 6 months of playing 'by the book' awarding XP only for monsters and treasure, with a very occasional small bonus for some good piece of play, with very low XP acquisition and everyone still on First Level, I instituted an 'exploration bonus'. This was a bonus based on rooms explored - I can't remember what I gave out but maybe it was 10XP or 50XP for each new room the PCs explored. However, that started to get a bit creaky when different people would come to different sessions - is the room 'new' if half the party members have already been there in a previous session? Do they get the bonus? Do the people to whom it really is a new room <i>not</i> get the bonus? I gave up trying to remember who had explored which room and instead adopted an idea from BECMI (in the <i>Rules Compendium</i> I think), where an exploration bonus of 10% of the average needed to reach the next level is given out to everyone.</p><p>This leads to several anomalous situations I think. In the last session, the PCs killed, captured or evaded approximately 120XP-worth of monsters, between I think 6 of them. They took about 300GP of treasure - even if that isn't right, I don't think it was much more than that - some SP, some GP and some gems I think, certainly not thousands of GPs' worth. For the sake of argument, the PCs got something like 80XP each from 'monsters and treasure', which given how B/X is set up are the two main ways to gain XP. At the same time, they each gained an 'exploration bonus' of something like 8,000XP (100 times their 'actual', earned XP!) for rooms that some of the PCs (not to mention <i>all </i>of the players) had already visited. That doesn't seem right to me. I don't think the players should be able to use the 'easy' caverns as a way to lever XP out of the fact that they're already high level. At the moment, all they have to do is take their 6th or 7th Level characters into a Level 1 dungeon and kill a few Goblins, then harvest thousands of XP by dint of the fact that they're already six levels 'higher' than the dungeons they're exploring. They get high XP just for existing.</p><p>Another anomalous result of this way of distributing XP is that low-level characters are seen as a drain. This is because the 'open table' format imposes some problems in terms of assimilating new party members, necessitating some minimum level for new players to join at. Up until now, new PCs started at the lowest Level of PCs currently in the game. When <a href="https://fantasyadventuringblog.blogspot.com/2020/11/rift-city-session-37-40-reports-happy.html">Shazam was left to die</a> (no attempt at <a href="https://fantasyadventuringblog.blogspot.com/2016/04/a-system-from-bits-part-ii.html">Elementary Staunching</a> by the other party members, apparently because the bonus is better if you let low-level characters die) I began to wonder if this would break the campaign, with players killing off low-level PCs to get an upgrade for the next session. It hasn't quite worked like that but I think I need to trim how things work. Now seems as good a time as any to put some changes in place to prevent what I would see as 'meta-gaming' the system.</p><p>First, I think that any time a party member dies (and this will include being turned to stone and not turned back), there will be <i>no bonus at all</i>. Ascribe it to PTSD or something but I think that when a party member is killed the rest of the party should not be rewarded. It should be a traumatic event. They can still get the XP from monsters and treasure, but not the bonus. It's a kind of 'trauma tax'. This might have the result of making PCs more risk-averse in the future, but I'm prepared to chance it.<br /><br />Second, when a new PC comes along (because of PC death or because a new player joins) I am no longer going to start them at the lowest <i>Level </i>in the party, I'm going to start them at the lowest <i>XP</i>. If the lowest Level PC is, for example, a 5th Level Cleric with 12,500XP and a new player joins, they could under the current system start with a 5th Level Elf. If the XP total is taken as the basis for the new PC, however, 12.500XP is enough to have a Cleric at 5th Level but only 3rd Level for an Elf. That seems like a better way to do it - though to be honest, I'm not sure <i>why</i>, it just does.<br /><br />Third, the exploration bonus should be level-dependent. I'm going to try dividing the Dungeon Level the PCs were on by the Character Level they have, and applying that to the bonus. So, if PCs are (like the party now) around 6th-7th Level, but go adventuring on Level 1, their bonus will by 1/6 or 1/7 of the potential bonus. This (working with the second change, mentioned above) would mean that low-level characters would level up faster than higher-level characters - in the example above, if the 3rd Level Elf was adventuring with the party on Level 1, they would get 1/3 of the bonus, whereas the 5th Level Cleric would only get 1/5: so the 8,000 (potential) XP each PC would have got from exploring on their own Level would be trimmed to 2,667XP for the 3rd Level Elf and 1,600XP for the 5th Level Cleric. Conversely, if they go exploring on Level 7, they would gain 18,667XP (3rd Level Elf) and 11,200XP (5th Level Cleric). This (somewhat counteracting the first change, above) might make the party bolder in pushing on to lower levels, or at least, less keen to hang around at the 'shallow end', because it would be less worth their while for the purposes of XP harvesting. So between the 'no bonus for dead comrades' and 'reduced bonus for the shallows, increased bonus for the deeps' I think I'm hopefully balancing the making the party more risk-averse with an incentive towards riskier behaviour.<br /><br />I hope, anyway. Of course, if I find through the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences">Law of Unintended Consequences</a> that things are still not right I can still tinker with the system.</p>Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-25402070527733636332021-04-25T09:50:00.002-07:002021-04-25T09:50:59.410-07:00Rift City Campaign - session 45<p>Once more unto the Rift, dear friends...</p><p>On Sunday 11th April the Wandering Monster Table had its 45th session, with Halvor, Berg, Inarra and Kate deciding they needed to stock up on silver and magic weapons to fight were-creatures in the ruins in the Rift.</p><p>At last everyone was equipped with something that could do damage to lycanthropes and other similarly-enchanted creatures, and they set off for the ruins, under which they encountered the were-creatures in previous visits. Ostensibly, they were there to rescue some adventurers that had been captured by Ogres and enslaved (or worse) by the lycanthropes.</p><p>Ironic, given what happened.<br /><br />Lyracian at the 'Playing Dice with Universe' blog has already written up the session (<a href="http://lyracian.blogspot.com/2021/04/rift-city-campaign-chapter-45-april-2021.html" target="_blank">link here</a>). All I have to add is that the adventure was proceeding in distinctly un-lucrative fashion until killing an NPC party gave the PCs a bonanza of magic items; and, as I just hinted, slaughtering the NPC party was a pretty bizarre end to a session in which our 'heroes' (I use the term <i>very </i>loosely) were supposed to be rescuing some NPCs...</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-88763392893330840272021-03-28T08:27:00.002-07:002021-03-31T09:50:14.489-07:00Rift City Campaign -- Session 44<p>Well, the PCs had another go under the ruins in the Rift. Halvor the Cleric, Berg the Dwarf, Kate the Halfling, Brigham the Cleric and Gibbet the Thief once more ventured in search of excitement, adventure and big piles of loot.</p><p>The first thing they did was finish up exploring the tower. They've been there on two previous occasions and had failed to find the room with the trapdoor down to the lower levels. They also hadn't made a map and ended up exploring some of the areas they'd been before.</p><p>In one of the rooms, they came upon some undead presences. These proved a little tricky as the PCs don't all have magic or silver weapons. But with Berg taking two hits and losing two levels, and Gibbet losing one, they did manage to overcome the entities before they were all back to First Level. </p><p>The PCs eventually came to a room they hadn't been before, as it was behind the only door they've found that they hadn't opened. Not in some Quantum Ogre sense, just because it was the furthest from the entrance. In the room, sitting on a rug that turned out to be top of the trapdoor, were a couple of prisoners and some Ogres. They Ogres died pretty quickly, the prisoners did not. Their names were Aben (a female Halfling) and Hames (a male Elf); they begged the PCs to rescue their friends (more prisoners had been taken down into the tunnels, it seemed), and agreed to come and help.</p><p>So, everyone rolled back the rug and opened the trapdoor, where they found a staircase heading down to the south. They followed it to a landing where stairs went east and west. The east stair smelled bad (probably Troglodytes down there) so they took the west stair. This opened into a wide E-W hall with various doors and corridors off. Taking a door on the north wall, they found themselves in a room where a man dressed in black was playing a lute and singing to to a female human, a female Ogre, and a couple of Giant Rats The female human was one of the captured NPCs, a young woman called Miranda, and there seemed to be some sort of magic going on. A fight rapidly ensued with the music-man being <i>Held</i> (then killed), the Ogre and the Rats being killed, and Miranda falling unconscious when the music-man died (and his spell was broken). On regaining consciousness, Miranda told them that the other prisoners had been added to a group already in the tunnels but that 'the man with the dark eyes' had taken a fancy to her and told the Ogres to hand her over to him. She agreed that coming with the party (given Aben and Hames were with them) was a good plan. So they looted the room as best they could and, after setting what was left on fire, they left.</p><p>On the way out, they ran into a couple of rough-looking fellows who seemed to be some sort of wandering guard patrol. Unconvinced by the PCs' explanation, the guards resolved to 'check with Eldwin' (the music chap with rats and women in his thrall, now dead and in a burning room). As they passed the party, a quick attempt at a surprise backstabbing was made... and failed. These guys too were immune to normal weapons apparently... so a short and vicious fight broke out between the PCs (five of them) and their NPC allies (three) on the one hand, and the two guards on the other. The only problem was that due to the lack of magical weapons, only about 4-5 of the PCs could fight anyway. But obviously, the PCs could deal with a pair of lycanthropes even so. Looting the bodies netted some sacks of low-value coins and a couple of pieces of expensive jewellery.</p><p>Deciding that by this point that is really was time to head back to the City, they made their way back to the exit. Heading out through the ruins, however, they ran into another patrol - this time 6 more lycanthrope guards. Again the fight was brutal but eventually 6 dead werewolves netted another 300GP for the coffers - and no-one from the party's side died. No-one was infected with lycanthropy either, though it was pretty close in some cases. </p><p>High-tailing it back up the forest path the party was back in Rift City in time for tea and the division of spoils. What will happen 'tomorrow' is anyone's guess...</p><p><br /></p>Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-32076922044981740892021-03-06T08:29:00.000-08:002021-05-31T23:41:37.677-07:00Faith + Magic = Reality<p>I have too many things on the go... but this will I hope be quick. Then I can get back to writing about '<i>Labyrinth</i>' or something.</p><p>Reading a book at the moment, called 'Coldfire Pt.1: Black Sun Rising' by Celia Friedman. I'm rather enjoying it. It contains what I think is a great idea. The action takes place on a planet where a magical force, called 'fae', sort of sloshes about in tides and streams... in some ways, it's a bit like weather. It means that some places are both easier to cast spells in, and magically more fraught, because with great power comes, well, greater chances for things to go wrong. Magical tsunami sweep the continents, vortices of magical currents swirl around and earthquakes of thaumaturgical energy batter settlements and the brains of the magically-susceptible.</p><p>It also affects the local flora and fauna. First, there can be an interaction between fear and fae, which means monsters are literally born of people's imaginations. Fears manifest themselves physically. Imagine a creepy grinning skeletal figure with a paralysing touch, and a ghoul could actually appear behind you.</p><p>Then, it can affect evolution. What is believed becomes real so if people think that geese are fish that grow into birds from barnacles (as was believed in Medieval Europe for instance), then, I guess, that's what starts to happen. Over time creatures come to evolve to be the way people imagine they are.<br /></p><p>I like the idea that belief shapes the world around us. It seems like it could work well in game terms, for at least two reasons. The first is, suddenly, all those weird monsters in the <i>Monster Manual </i>and <i>Fiend Folio</i> and the pages of <i>White Dwarf</i> make a particular kind of sense. That monster over there with the legs of a giant moth and a trunk and the body of a hyena seems improbable... doesn't matter, someone imagined it in a fever-dream. Who cares if dragons can't fly? If people <i>believe</i> they can fly, then they can. It is, if I can coin the term, a very Pratchettian way of looking at things. Faith + Magic = Reality. This I think has some relationship to what Jens is talking about over at 'The Disoriented Ranger' <a href="http://the-disoriented-ranger.blogspot.com/2021/02/another-exorcism-of-thoughts-who-are.html">here</a>, where he talks about how people in different societies pattern reality, and how stories emerge (also of course something Pratchett talked about a lot). Obviously, Dwarves and Trolls and Dragons aren't real for us... and aren't real for us, even 1500 years ago. But they were real for the people who believed the stories about them in Northern Europe during <i>Volkswanderung</i>, the period Jens is exploring in <i>Lost Songs of the Nebelungs. </i>Our lack of belief doesn't change the nature of the world they inhabited.</p><p>The second way it works is, it gives you a great excuse to make things suddenly weird, which is sometimes good. I don't think it's fair to do it all the time: if everything is weird, then nothing is is weird, it's all just confusing and I guess quickly stops being fun... the players lose all agency because if there's no apprehensible (spellcheck doesn't like that one) logic then there's no basis for decision making and nothing has meaning. But, perhaps, the weird builds up (in a measurable way) until it breaks through into reality and changes things. I'd love to work on mechanisms for this. Instead of Wandering Monsters, a sort of Magical Mishap table. Of course, if the PCs' fears can create monsters, maybe this is the best justification for a Wandering Monster turning up (see above). </p><p>But, and this is one place I'm having problems with the application of this concept, if the Wandering Monster has actually been created from a PC's fear, it should probably be something that the PC fears... and that might require either knowing in advance what the PCs are scared of (in which case someone I'm sure will claim to be scared of being captured by the very attractive clerics of a sex-god/dess, or maybe suddenly finding huge amounts of money... again, Pratchett talks about this... the 'unexpected money Goblin' or something), or alternatively, it means listening very hard to what the players are saying and incorporating that into the game - so when they go "I hope we don't run into any trolls down here", the next thing they encounter should be trolls. But my feeling is it's difficult to pattern a wandering monster table on the basis of 'whatever the PCs said 2 minutes ago'.</p><p>I guess most of us who use wandering monsters have some sort of system like 'roll 1-2 on a d6 every 2 turns, more (frequently, or just a bigger number) if the party is being noisy/careless with lights/setting fire to things/leaving food lying around etc. Instead, this would be more like applying Magical Mishaps if the party did something ritually 'wrong', or if they were tired or distracted, if they had misread the flows of magic... I remember The Angry GM describing the use of wandering monster dice that are stacked up in front of the players so they'd know how noisy they were being or how much time they were taking (<a href="https://theangrygm.com/redesigning-random-encounters-1/">in this post here</a>). Perhaps the 'fae detection' could be similar - a kind of 'charge' that builds up depending on the players' actions.</p><p>The ability to <i>use </i>magic (possibly even including 'safe' magic like potions or weapons) would maybe require something like a saving throw to be successful. This could be augmented by such things as an accurate map of the magical currents, or maybe something analogous to a miner's canary or Universal Indicator Paper - something that detected fae energy to help with knowing safe levels and places. All of this may require extra systems to check or it could be as simple as a <i>Save</i>. But the effects of (conceptually at least) 'failing' the Save?</p><p>I shall be considering this more, no doubt.</p>Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-35562068006739919112021-02-27T06:48:00.005-08:002023-11-10T02:55:20.833-08:00Rift City campaign - session 43<p> The party made their... what, let's call it '43rd' visit to the caves in the Rift (it's not really, we missed a couple of sessions due to work issues, and on some sessions, they've made multiple visits, leaving after a good quick haul and going back 'the next day' during the same session... but <i>about </i>43rd) on 14th Feb. </p><p>Yes I know that's Valentine's Day, but as it turned out, the four players who came to the session are two couples. </p><p>No I didn't do anything particularly Romantic for the session, but in line with some of my recent musings, I made extra-sure to use Reaction Roles and Morale rolls. I know I should do that anyway, but... I made extra-sure.</p><p>Anyway... Halvor the Cleric, Berg the Dwarf, Gibbet the Thief and Brigham the Cleric (that was the marching order) made their way towards the towers that they'd found last time. They'd got a treasure map at the last session that looked something like this:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD0dw_j6IIoamBVPmeeh0reznxG3Jk6-KDgahH8_zouFK5VoggvXla94aGikMskGX5qLCoQdLTsrg1IJy-dBRsTGf2ZiHyxX-BoOx_zmtjdPuQlhdYHc5Mgv1gzUZP1oNbKS6y4O2epyrs/s612/Skile%2527s+Deep.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="610" data-original-width="612" height="399" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD0dw_j6IIoamBVPmeeh0reznxG3Jk6-KDgahH8_zouFK5VoggvXla94aGikMskGX5qLCoQdLTsrg1IJy-dBRsTGf2ZiHyxX-BoOx_zmtjdPuQlhdYHc5Mgv1gzUZP1oNbKS6y4O2epyrs/w400-h399/Skile%2527s+Deep.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />In case you can't read the text, it says <span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: times;">"<i>In
the Rift there is the Fortress of Skile, two towers with a gatehouse between.
Beneath the eastern tower, a stair leads down to a crypt where lies the Fabled
Hoard of Riha the Bejewelled. Gems without count and fabulous jewellery are
there, adorning the bones of the last of the Sorcerer-Queens. From the tower,
take the staircase, and at the landing, turn west. Foul things lurk in the
darkness of the eastern stair. In the Deeps, we came to a great room with six corners,
but this was a false chamber – we never found the real burial chamber
beyond.</i>"</span></span><p></p><p>Trying to find the place where the jewels might be stashed, they headed down the path, past the spot where they killed the Giant at the last session (his corpse was still there, somewhat chewed by local scavengers, but substantially intact, so the party, deciding they didn't want a Zombie Giant rampaging around and mindful they were supposed to burn corpses, set fire to it using a barrel of oil they had in the <i>Bag of Holding</i>).</p><p>Going on a bit further past the smouldering corpse, the party noticed a flock of ... somethings ... flying above them. They weren't sure what they were so the PCs hid in the undergrowth for a bit. Turns out that the flying things were hippogriffs, and there were 15 of them. The party was undecided about what to do - Berg, Gibbet and Brigham kept hiding, Halvor decided to try and attract their attention. Then Berg threw out some beef jerky for one, which took it, but then the flock decided that it would rather go and investigate the burning Giant so flew off.<br /><br />The party headed on to the ruins of the Fortress of Skile and found their way in. Remembering there was a pit trap, but not exactly where it was, the party unfortunately triggered it again. No-one was seriously hurt however. Now they've outlined it in chalk so perhaps they'll find it easier to avoid next time.</p><p>Making their way inside they turned to the left to try and find the entrance to the lower levels. The first room they came across seemed to be deserted, but the second contained a hideous spider-type entity. Conscientiously rolling for the spider's reactions, the dice came up snake-eyes so straight into a vicious combat. To be fair, there's only so much interaction I'd be able to role-play as a Giant Spider I think. When they searched the room, they found a chest with some money in it, but unfortunately ripped the old tapestry hanging from the ceiling.</p><p>Pushing on, the PCs found a room decorated with a frieze of faces. Searching these carefully they found that one was hinged to come away from the wall. Behind it was a kind of safe - trapped, which Gibbet disarmed (they still don't know what the trap was, but Gibbet detected a trigger mechanism and disabled it) - and containing a potion-bottle and a bag of cash.</p><p>They'd reached the end of the corridor, but I reminded them that there were other corridors and rooms they hadn't explored in the other direction (this time they'd entered and turned left; last time they turned right). I don't often do that sort of thing but I thought it was justified in this instance. It was a month ago that the <i>players</i> last explored the dungeon, but for the <i>PCs</i>, it was yesterday. I think that the PCs would perhaps remember that there were further unexplored passages to the right even though the players didn't. So, they started to make their way back to the areas they'd explored the game-day before.</p><p>On the way they encountered some 'grey worms' - Caecilia from the Expert rulebook. These were actually fairly straightforward to deal with, in the end. Somewhere, and I'm not certain where now, they also encountered some Giant Weasels, but as I have no real recollection of this fight I'm not sure they really gave the party much trouble either.</p><p>Having retraced their steps, they moved off to the right (east), back through some rooms they'd explored previously, and then on to new territory (actually, they may have run into the Weasels here). This led them to a room of Ogres, who the party, probably sensibly, decided would be a serious threat and a fight ensued. Halvor made good use of his <i>Sticks to Snakes </i>ability (the snakes this time were Spitting Cobras, which blinded several of the Ogres) and the Ogres (6 of them) were disposed of without too much damage coming to the party. However, the fight had alerted other Ogre guards and 5 more then barged into the room when the party were searching. The snakes were still around and had been tasked with guarding the door so the Ogre ambushers were themselves ambushed and soon defeated.</p><p>By this time it was the end of the session. The PCs had searched about 90% of the tower but not yet located the steps mentioned on the treasure map. I guess, they'll be heading back here next session... but one never can tell, they often end up going off in all sorts of unexpected directions.</p><p><br /></p>Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-33442793226800790542021-02-07T09:25:00.002-08:002023-07-21T12:48:09.864-07:00Gaming the Labyrinth - the inhabitants<p>I started posting about 'Labyrinth'. I've made a few notes about the general idea of trying to game it and some of the trickier aspects of how to translate something like the film to something like D&D, or possibly my newly-acquired game, <i>Blue Rose</i> (<a href="https://fantasyadventuringblog.blogspot.com/2021/01/gaming-labyrinth-some-thoughts.html">earlier post linked here</a>). Photos have all been taken from the blog '<a href="http://labyrinthfilm.com/">The Labyrinth</a>' which seemed like a handy source. I tried to use the pics at IMDB, but they were all tiny so I gave up. It seemed really tedious to find more pics from different sources so I just went there and used what I could find. All photos are (c) TriStar Pictures.</p><p>Some of the inhabitants of the Labyrinth, Goblin City and Castle are pretty straightforward to translate into D&D terms. For <i>Blue Rose</i>, maybe not so much, but I'm sure I'll be able to find some ways to do at least some of it when I'm more familiar with the system. I've checked up what some of the characters are called, so will use the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091369/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt">IMDB </a>nomenclature.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJuhmk9IkrpGnB_KDKDppyjJoL1aKKx-_lXcUqFCZNsPVAs7uQVNEvBXPth0GY1H1Mc4SQEvAvU-MjrbalhTVyghvceACCctPOv2pC166P-DEYFh4-MHgngpRKKmj_iOEDltfbWYS-tsvT/s485/labyrinth-jareth-ball.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="215" data-original-width="485" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJuhmk9IkrpGnB_KDKDppyjJoL1aKKx-_lXcUqFCZNsPVAs7uQVNEvBXPth0GY1H1Mc4SQEvAvU-MjrbalhTVyghvceACCctPOv2pC166P-DEYFh4-MHgngpRKKmj_iOEDltfbWYS-tsvT/w400-h178/labyrinth-jareth-ball.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jareth</td></tr></tbody></table><p><b>Jareth </b>"is an Elf" in my notes. Seems obvious, and specifically, a Dark Elf. Also, sometimes disguises himself as a little old lady, or turns into an owl. He seems to sometimes use this latter ability to travel long distances (so it's a real transformation, not an illusion): at other times his mode of long-distance travel is not clear, but I'm going to assume it's always owl-form. He has crystal balls (steady at the back) which can become a peach with a forgetting spell (which wastes time, a vital resource in Sarah's quest) or a kind of floating bubble. He also has some illusion skills - he seems to transform a bubble into a crystal into a snake into a scarf, possibly then a Goblin... which (if any) are real is difficult to grasp (and the scarf may just fall on a Goblin already there). So they could be actual transformations or illusions. He possibly uses the bubbles to transport others to and from the Castle, but perhaps this is illusion too. If he's an Elf, he has a pretty direct <i>Blue Rose </i>equivalent - he could be some kind of corrupt(ed) Vata (a race similar to Elves; there are two sub-races called Vata'an and Vata'sha. Jareth is probably a Vata'an as they have pale skin and silver hair, which is more like Jareth than the Vata'sha, who look similar to D&D Drow, with dark skin and light hair). Alternatively, he could be a Human with arcane powers, in either <i>Blue Rose</i> or D&D. But he looks like an Elf to me.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8opQBDhFfxrGA_JDANl1IBcT9cm6ZnEPo2x2T4fgNktVFk1-s24ItxXBmugB1TQ9NIrgnZYRBsZBQFbU8IHVSZ4-lqVmYwxMXc6sux0iVqzOnndJdzkTtlwJ1UGAJC7zaaWgwQrqNnyym/s391/labyrinth-hoggle-6.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="321" data-original-width="391" height="329" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8opQBDhFfxrGA_JDANl1IBcT9cm6ZnEPo2x2T4fgNktVFk1-s24ItxXBmugB1TQ9NIrgnZYRBsZBQFbU8IHVSZ4-lqVmYwxMXc6sux0iVqzOnndJdzkTtlwJ1UGAJC7zaaWgwQrqNnyym/w400-h329/labyrinth-hoggle-6.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hoggle</td></tr></tbody></table><p><b>Hoggle </b>is a Dwarf who works for Jareth; one of his jobs is as a pest-controller in the garden. He's a coward. He has a spray that kills fairies, likes plastic, and has a (worthless) bag of charms that he values highly. He also has a kind of 'Portable Door' (which he only uses once, maybe only usable once, or perhaps once per day) and knows where to find rope. There may or may not be other Dwarves called <b>Hogwart</b>, <b>Hedgewart</b>, <b>Heggle</b>, <b>Hoghead </b>and <b>Hogbrain</b>. There are no <i>Blue Rose </i>Dwarves<i>.</i></p><p>There are <b>Fairies </b>that bite (no pic of them on the blog where I found the rest of the photos). Hoggle has killed 60, he claims, but we don't know over what time period. He kills about 5 while Sarah is talking to him. A swarm of 10-60 is a possibility, I suppose. We do not know if they're truly intelligent. In D&D they could be something like AC9, Mv 90' (30') flying, hp1, save E1, Att 1 (bite), Dam d4, Ml 9 Al N, I would think. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKY-ua4s4xl6KpsVnCbXqc5aCZdCd1Fc-jtEy5FVKm1-L9nUleAnlsBfyoTsZ1J9LrZzRSaYT-wKm21ih2D7yITqxE4hPuw7qjz0-wMrO13OSgPayLKzf_CfVV8OPMLE9NWH9prWKxhWOj/s217/labyrinth-worm-3.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="217" data-original-width="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKY-ua4s4xl6KpsVnCbXqc5aCZdCd1Fc-jtEy5FVKm1-L9nUleAnlsBfyoTsZ1J9LrZzRSaYT-wKm21ih2D7yITqxE4hPuw7qjz0-wMrO13OSgPayLKzf_CfVV8OPMLE9NWH9prWKxhWOj/s0/labyrinth-worm-3.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Dennis', the Worm</td></tr></tbody></table><p>There's a talking worm, that I decided is called Dennis (he isn't named it seems) who has a wife, drinks tea and knows the way to the Castle. He helps Sarah to identify what we might think of as 'secret doors'. On IMDB he is called "<b>Worm</b>".</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ-L3JIzqVNxQNztOpUHotg6B7FLWLqcy2H6Uj7bqiej9HY7726nJju04gCuICqn0UP1Xj6zGRZ12a4vua2zj_bUF2mZlRN0WKey43uSPt7403GzKnWoIdhkxaBU-CX3zJpdpdII1TiZUN/s349/labyrinth-ardvaark.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="247" data-original-width="349" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ-L3JIzqVNxQNztOpUHotg6B7FLWLqcy2H6Uj7bqiej9HY7726nJju04gCuICqn0UP1Xj6zGRZ12a4vua2zj_bUF2mZlRN0WKey43uSPt7403GzKnWoIdhkxaBU-CX3zJpdpdII1TiZUN/w400-h283/labyrinth-ardvaark.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tilekeepers</td></tr></tbody></table><p>There are tiny people (about 3" high?) that change the flagstones after Sarah has made marks on them. I have since discovered that these are called "<b>Tilekeepers</b>", but no-one has a credit as a 'Tilekeeper' on IMDB. They are perhaps related to Fairies (they seem to be about the same size) but do not have wings. They do seemingly have language and purpose however.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiQ-BU2DR9M0645xz9R6udYiTLngpVhGrYKMx-5RMymsNGKYmO2bjN51QgdSorw1RVm0g9u_OSRv6iGW9UUBL4lZ_bJgg02AJ3NIbk63lVj6SgGOIfvrN0aj6cvygzu2I3YWHpjXSC_rvI/s541/labyrinth-goblins-2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="541" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiQ-BU2DR9M0645xz9R6udYiTLngpVhGrYKMx-5RMymsNGKYmO2bjN51QgdSorw1RVm0g9u_OSRv6iGW9UUBL4lZ_bJgg02AJ3NIbk63lVj6SgGOIfvrN0aj6cvygzu2I3YWHpjXSC_rvI/w400-h208/labyrinth-goblins-2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Goblins</td></tr></tbody></table><p>There are <b>Goblins </b>- many and of different sorts, but they boil down to small and tall (mechanically these are probably many Goblins or even Kobolds, and a few Orcs or Hobgoblins, D&D terms. <i>Blue Rose</i> has no real equivalents to Goblins, just large Orcs, who are called Night People). Some Goblins have sticks with small bitey things attached to them. Two small Goblins are 'the Cleaners', who ride a kind of bicycle-powered boring machine. Others are the Goblin Guard, and come in Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery varieties. The Cavalry carry spears and ride two-legged lizards; the Artillery have cannons and machine-guns, and the cannons seem to fire tiny Goblins. Most Goblins are armoured - at least, the ones in the Labyrinth and City. There's also a giant-sized mechanical construct piloted by a Goblin. However, it's probably best to consider this in relation to its location.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg87TkOsEPu9_BHZDAav4PPXuOQT2aFzERZZX8V-xL5YnAozeCle9PjHf0rcA4ebHDsp4mpRo3GhI3FVVa0YEKXC4veX-rZ9WYWbxERzKrEnbIDdq4ZrVwq29DD6Z8n1PBI5Oj0HyxbaFto/s597/labyrinth-ludo-2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="274" data-original-width="597" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg87TkOsEPu9_BHZDAav4PPXuOQT2aFzERZZX8V-xL5YnAozeCle9PjHf0rcA4ebHDsp4mpRo3GhI3FVVa0YEKXC4veX-rZ9WYWbxERzKrEnbIDdq4ZrVwq29DD6Z8n1PBI5Oj0HyxbaFto/w400-h184/labyrinth-ludo-2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ludo with Sarah</td></tr></tbody></table><p>There's <b>Ludo</b>, a kind of Horned Troll with the ability to call d100 rocks (in 13 hours he does it twice, perhaps he can do it 3 times a day).</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYSIK0I78D73A73zKjBzkuaXtfTNbWkkCp1xh_kef9W8r4Gb8SJhZiclhczkgD04M-9aXDYiBi19CAm2q4IH-dehEiHp2cEhxCv3CJq2kKin7ysarWV5fh83C47Z9lS3MhwTLhJD39dm_7/s633/labyrinth-dance-3.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="266" data-original-width="633" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYSIK0I78D73A73zKjBzkuaXtfTNbWkkCp1xh_kef9W8r4Gb8SJhZiclhczkgD04M-9aXDYiBi19CAm2q4IH-dehEiHp2cEhxCv3CJq2kKin7ysarWV5fh83C47Z9lS3MhwTLhJD39dm_7/w400-h168/labyrinth-dance-3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fireys</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>There are Fire Spirits or "<b>Fireys</b>" - there are five of these (No Appearing d6+2?). They may be some kind of weak fire-elemental. Pretty sure I can find some sort of analogue in both D&D and<i> Blue Rose</i>.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihTXVK7idJe4AXheaYOHXpDk6lXUPgEfuGXlQwoAvj9N8LtO6t2k9s03Sc7jB6LFIjJ20bc6sUgENsOuGq1GKws1l6Sc8WBgS8WPmz7UZwbB7dVhWCBvWIbTWRgupA16-FIWyW8NSG-FT1/s388/labyrinth-sir-didymus-4.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="178" data-original-width="388" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihTXVK7idJe4AXheaYOHXpDk6lXUPgEfuGXlQwoAvj9N8LtO6t2k9s03Sc7jB6LFIjJ20bc6sUgENsOuGq1GKws1l6Sc8WBgS8WPmz7UZwbB7dVhWCBvWIbTWRgupA16-FIWyW8NSG-FT1/w400-h184/labyrinth-sir-didymus-4.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sir Didymus</td></tr></tbody></table><p>There is <b>Sir Didymus</b>, an anthropomorphic Fox-knight (other people think he's a dog, but I think he's a fox), who rides <b>Ambrosius</b>, an Old English Sheepdog. Sir Didymus is brave, but somewhat blinkered. Ambrosius is a bit of a coward. Though <i>Blue Rose</i> has rules for animals with psychic communication, it doesn't have rules for foxes that dress like 14th Century <i>Landesknechts,</i> talk as if they're human and hold weapons. In D&D, I might use the rules for Haflings (not as crazy as it sounds... honestly).</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjawUWY_JzjffJRz-IKxckM2Al1fRJbGgzjQ1SyA6yJ9Ko2uNPg275Ma_6hmaln549Lu2hiNEPwo5WMOvw8hLFe6dPCAleYRwepmwN37r-nm_kCksiz_KvSMJvkAiqTJimL1bernJq1uhV/s434/labyrinth-manbird-1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="366" data-original-width="434" height="338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjawUWY_JzjffJRz-IKxckM2Al1fRJbGgzjQ1SyA6yJ9Ko2uNPg275Ma_6hmaln549Lu2hiNEPwo5WMOvw8hLFe6dPCAleYRwepmwN37r-nm_kCksiz_KvSMJvkAiqTJimL1bernJq1uhV/w400-h338/labyrinth-manbird-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wiseman and The Hat</td></tr></tbody></table><p>There is a sage-type ("<b>Wiseman</b>"), with a talking bird hat ("<b>The Hat</b>"); the sage utters gnomic wisdom (or not), the bird-hat is sarcastic.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHJPirIoIblK195UzmVMKH5h417jxgMhkL9diEfu-wkxqaZjrLyNcIodqYAVwNUqQ8hLLnGqpWI2ktPGmZtsnRtLtH5UW1q2_abxVtxSziwuuA4oFSP9fXjiSqEFY9S7KhEOnKAf9aGkfq/s665/labyrinth-junk-lady-3.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="297" data-original-width="665" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHJPirIoIblK195UzmVMKH5h417jxgMhkL9diEfu-wkxqaZjrLyNcIodqYAVwNUqQ8hLLnGqpWI2ktPGmZtsnRtLtH5UW1q2_abxVtxSziwuuA4oFSP9fXjiSqEFY9S7KhEOnKAf9aGkfq/w400-h179/labyrinth-junk-lady-3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trash-Lady</td></tr></tbody></table><p>There is a kind of bag-lady ("<b>Trash-Lady</b>") who pushes memories as a distraction (which again waste time).</p><p>Then there are lots of guests at a ball. These appear to be human, but there's an outside chance they're Elves (or Vata) like Jareth. Again though, no pics at The Labyrinth blog.</p><p>There are also other sentient beings - the 'Helping Hands', the 'False Alarms', the door-knockers and the 'logic guards' who don't know how their answers work - but these seem to be tied to particular locales. Of course, those above may be too - perhaps the Fireys cannot be found outside the jungle, or the Wiseman outside the garden, but we don't really know. I've pretty much assumed that those with some obvious means of perambulation might move around, those who don't (or whose job keeps them in place like the four guards who either lie or tell the truth) do not and are more like features of the location.</p><p>Locations will be what I get onto in the next post, I should think.</p>Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-4436268404987194292021-02-01T11:53:00.002-08:002021-07-26T13:27:30.086-07:00Questing in Elfgames X - Are the PCs special?Another post I've neglected then re-discovered as I've been thinking about some of this stuff again. This one is on the question of what the PCs represent in the world they inhabit.<div><br />
Are the PCs supposed to represent normal people in extraordinary circumstances, or are they in and of themselves extraordinary? I think there's a general feeling among what could vaguely be referred to as 'old-school' gamers (though some people I know are beginning to reject that label... I just don't have a better one) that PCs are not special. The assumption is PCs will die fairly often and as a result there's a certain disposability about them. This is the flip-side of the criticism that we (ie 'old-school' gamers) have about millennial snowflakes and their over-precious 3E+ characters who aren't allowed to die. "<i>If character death isn't a possibility, how do the PC's actions have meaning?</i>" we howl. "<i>If you can just re-spawn in 5 minutes, how does PC death have meaning anyway?</i>" the millennial snowflakes reply somewhat baffled, and they really do have a point. If we just pick up another character sheet and say 'and there's another adventurer coming at you round the corner' then... so what? How is that any better? I used to do that when I was playing 'Japs and Commandos' (this is what we used to call it, I believe it's now called 'LARPing') as a 7-year old. We'd 'get shot', fall over going "<i>aiee!</i>" and then we'd get up and say "<i>and now I'm another one</i>". That's basically how we treat a potentially endless succession of replaceable PCs. In one of my recent campaigns, when one of the PCs (a Dwarf called Harald) died, his player wrote 'son of Harald' under his name and he turned up the next day saying 'has anyone seen my dad?'. I thought this was perfectly reasonable.<br />
<br />
But, I think this idea that PCs are not special is a mistake. Firstly, because even blacksmiths, among 'Normal Men' in the Moldvay rulebook, only get 4hp and NM saves (and you have to assume that blacksmiths are about as hard as 'Normal Men' get). 'Normal Men' are approximately as tough as a single Kobold and it's a weak PC that can't take a Kobold in a stand-up fight. They are pretty much the weakest thing that PCs will go up against (OK, normal bats, normal rats and insect swarms are pretty weak too... as befits actual things from the real world). So, the PCs can do things 'Normal Men' cannot and if this is true of Humans, I think it's safe to assume that PC Dwarves, Elves and Halflings stand in the same general relationship to their respective races as PC Humans do (though perhaps not quite as starkly, 'monster' Demihumans are a bit tougher than undifferentiated 'monster' Humans). Anyway, mechanically, PCs go beyond the 'ordinary', so by definition, they are extra-ordinary.<br />
<br />
Secondly, and this is kinda more to the point in terms of the design-philosophy or ethos of D&D, it is arguable that it is in some way supposed to mimic the episodic adventures of Conan, Bran Mak Morn, Kull and other picaresque pulp-heroes. I read (years ago, and I went looking for it but can't find it now) an exposition of the idea that D&D is rubbish at epic fantasy (<i>à la</i> LotR) because it is set up for dirty episodic picaresque fantasy (<i>à la</i> Conan). This may not be true - there's certainly a decent argument (<a href="http://unbalancedrpgs.blogspot.com/2018/02/what-does-d-have-to-do-with-appendix-n.html" target="_blank">that I don't actually agree with but I do think the argument should be taken seriously) that D&D is a wargame and nothing to do with fantasy literature</a> <i>at all</i>. Whatever - some people <i>believe </i>that D&D is set up to simulate picaresque fantasy, and that's good enough for me, for the purposes of this argument. The point being that Conan and other pulp heroes were 'special', in so far as they had, at least, extra-ordinary skills, drive etc. And PCs, to my mind, are already special too (due to point 1 above).<br />
<br />
If this adventuring lark is supposed to simulate fantasy literature then PCs <i>need </i>to be special. This is an important aspect of my wondering why we aren't telling the stories that we are reading (if that's what we're trying to do, which it may not be). Also, ten years ago now, Beyond The Black Gate had a post outlining a seven-step approach to building an epic-quest-style escalation into (something like) a sandbox - <a href="http://beyondtheblackgate.blogspot.com/2010/02/high-fantasy-campaign.html">The High Fantasy Campaign</a>. I think it's neat. It left me with the distinct impression that it is possible to use 'old school tools' to make something a bit more epic than what I have previously described as 'shopping at the local cave-mall'.<br />
<br />
Hence looking at <a href="https://fantasyadventuringblog.blogspot.com/2019/01/questing-in-elfgames-ix-it-aint-what.html" target="_blank">how to do 'quests'</a> and <a href="https://fantasyadventuringblog.blogspot.com/2019/01/questing-in-elfgames-viii-mentors-and.html" target="_blank">how to create 'Mentors'</a> a while back. Both mentors and quests are part of epic fantasy literature in particular (not so much the picaresque Conan-style adventures) and somewhat missing from D&D. But there's something else missing from the equation I think, and that's the notion that the PCs are somehow important in the world.<br />
<br />
Frodo is important because he has inherited the Ring from Bilbo. Without the Ring, there's no reason for Hobbits to be involved in the grand events that bring the Third Age to a close at all. It could be possible that Aragorn still went to challenge Sauron and re-unite the kingdoms (maybe, because in a dungeon-bashing expedition from Rivendell with Elladan and Elrohir, he stumbled on Gollum and the Ring himself). Aragorn is important of course, but he might have died in the struggle with Sauron. Then another 'Heir of Isildur' would have to be found... But the point is, Frodo was important because he was the Ringbearer. Aragorn was important because he was the Heir of Isildur. It's not just the things they did that were important, not just the actions they took and the choices they made (though of course these were important, and in game terms, this is what the PCs are doing), it was something about <i>who they were</i> (and this means 'how they fitted into the history and relationships of Middle Earth').<br />
<br />
If (I said if) D&D is supposed to simulate the literature, the PC then is by definition important in the scheme of things. However, the protagonists of D&D games frequently die (unlike the protagonists of fantasy novels, who only die occasionally), so declaring one of them 'the Last Scion of the Kings of Old' or 'the Last Heir of the Mystic Masters' or whatever makes little sense. The world must continue even if the PCs die. Circle of life, and all that. More PCs must come along and continue to believe there's a point to what they do, so like open-ended quests, binary pass/fail conditions are not appropriate. Determining that the PC is <i>a</i> Scion of the Kings of Old or <i>an</i> Heir of the Mystic Masters is good enough. If the PC reaches 9th Level and has been on some grand adventures, the potential existence of other Heirs and Scions is not relevant. If the PC dies in a cavern surrounded by Goblins while still 1st Level, other Scions and Heirs can continue the good fight and the world has not fallen into unending evil as a result of their death. Perhaps there is a prophecy - but as many of us assumed JK Rowling would make more of the prophecy that could relate to <a href="https://www.beyondhogwarts.com/harry-potter/articles/neville-longbottom-the-other-chosen-one.html" target="_blank">Harry or Neville</a>, prophecies should be ambivalent enough to allow for the death of the one that the prophecy relates to. They may not be the only baby born under the Wandering Star, or with a grail-shaped birthmark, or the only child of the Last Hope Gone Bad - they may have a sister. That heirloom may not be the only mark of kingship or magical power, the favour of the gods or the bloodline of the master-thieves of old, or whatever it is a sign of.<br />
<br />
This is something I've apparently been puzzling about for a long time now without really getting anywhere, if <a href="https://fantasyadventuringblog.blogspot.com/2018/03/questing-in-elfgames-iii-character.html">this post from March 2018</a> and a follow-up <a href="/fantasyadventuringblog.blogspot.com/2018/10/questing-in-elfgames-v-back-to.html">from October 2018</a> are anything to go by.<br />
<br />
What I haven't managed to work out is a procedure for doing this. There are a few possibilities I think.<br />
<br />
The first is just making a massive list of possible heroic secrets. This is fine, but is hard work and a bit 'flat' somehow. Also, there's the problem of 'using up' entries... should the same option be open to more than one character? If I have (say) 100 entries I think they're probably going to be quite specific (1, orphaned heir of House Nyleth brought up in secret; 2, flame-haired child prophesied to bring about end of reign of Ice-lords, etc).<br />
<br />
The second is just to get the players to do it, as I tried to do some time ago in the Rift City campaign (see the post I linked to from October 2018, above). This can be complicated, or maybe I was just unclear. Either way, it was much messier than I thought it would be, but there is still some mileage in the way I have done it in the Rift City campaign - the PCs who have given me something to go on have had some hooks to do with their family secrets. Perhaps more will come out.<br />
<br />
The third option is to try to come up with a table using something like the idea expressed in the post from March 2018 that I linked to above, about using story elements and recombining them. This seems to me to be the way that will produce the most flexibility, but it's also probably the most complex in the end. Whether it's possible to do this in relation to the numbers that make up the stats and gold that a character rolls on creation is I suppose the Holy Grail here. It would link right back to the conversations I was having with Jens years ago, along the lines of 'roll a 1 and you're an orphan brought up by Dwarves...' which ties you to the world by giving you a backstory and you a potential mentor in the lord of the Dwarf-hold you come from... but it will be a complicated business coming up with a 7x6x6 grid of possible combinations.</div><div>
<br /><br /></div>Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-65466899940177920482021-01-26T13:02:00.000-08:002021-01-26T13:02:46.610-08:00Gaming the Labyrinth - some thoughts<p> </p><p>It was my birthday a few days ago. That's not the point but it comes into the story. There are two reasons for mentioning my birthday - the first is a treat, the second is a present. It's also 5 years this month since David Bowie died. That's not the point either but it may explain some coincidences.</p><p>I was thinking that I was going to force my family to watch <i>Labyrinth</i>, because on your birthday, you can maybe insist that people do things that maybe they're not super-keen to do but you can say it's your special treat and they should just humour you.</p><p>But, I didn't have to. Two days before, Mrs. Orc was flicking through the channels and suddenly there was David Bowie in his surprising hair and even more surprising trousers, so we settled down to watch it. She didn't mind, she thinks it's a good movie too, and we thought we'd let Orc Minissimus off to do whatever he wanted. He can watch it any time he likes (we have the DVD). And, TV being what it is at the moment, with companies desperate to provide content to captive audiences, four days later it's on again <i>right now </i>as I'm typing up this part of the post. Possibly it's on because, as I say, Bowie died 5 years ago and somebody thought it was a good excuse to put one of his movies on telly.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWSfKtPkFccjKvWju_99TO22I49sje-L7I1GBE1yBCiPx68KzrWIpvhbGqltB41HtSPIXIF3ym6rrMub547teHGGEykVz6aJxq7-hGqlLzowlm8PLNLUTaSUwFr5IcQkRFfOBVmLooqNul/s1800/YgLdQEPrQ5Sip26pfmWd7wm6WK.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1012" data-original-width="1800" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWSfKtPkFccjKvWju_99TO22I49sje-L7I1GBE1yBCiPx68KzrWIpvhbGqltB41HtSPIXIF3ym6rrMub547teHGGEykVz6aJxq7-hGqlLzowlm8PLNLUTaSUwFr5IcQkRFfOBVmLooqNul/w400-h225/YgLdQEPrQ5Sip26pfmWd7wm6WK.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/labyrinth-review/</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Anyway, I started making notes on it because I want to run the Labyrinth (or something like it) as a D&D setting. I tried to note locations, personalities, magic items and whatnot to construct some kid of dreamworld or pocket universe with a similar logic or framework or whatever. I'm not thinking of running this as part of my regular gaming sessions, I think this would have to be a little side-project.</p><p>No-one reading this, I assume, is unfamiliar with the film. But just in case you've been living in a pocket universe of your own for 35 years... Sarah's baby brother, Toby has been taken by Jareth and his Goblins. Sarah has 13 hours to rescue Toby from Jareth's Castle beyond the Labyrinth, or he will be lost forever.</p><p>One of the most important parts of the film, which perhaps is a bit difficult to get across in gaming, is 'time'. Sarah is on a time-limit and Jareth keeps altering the rules. There are various distractions that eat up time. I suppose, one way of doing this would be to run this as a self-contained session: the Labyrinth must be solved by the end of the session or the PCs fail in their quest. So, turning <i>Labyrinth </i>(or, Labyrinth-like, maybe) into a one-shot.</p><p>Obviously, Sarah and Toby come from our world. Not sure how to game that in D&D terms, whether it would be easier to assume that all of this happens 'in universe' or to have a framing where the PCs are actually brought in from outside. I've been thinking a little about portals - <a href="https://fantasyadventuringblog.blogspot.com/2020/03/portals-for-d.html">(link here).</a> Co-incidentally (maybe not, the point is that it mirrors fantasy literature), 'portal fantasies' are mentioned in the game <i>Blue Rose</i> - this is the birthday present I mentioned earlier, because I have now got a copy of the game. I will be reading it carefully to see what I can draw from it to either inform my D&D gaming or whether it might be better to jump in with both feet and run a game using the <i>Blue Rose </i>rules.</p><p>Is it possible to run something like Sarah's journey using <i>Basic D&D</i>? Possibly. But there's a certain amount of what might be called 'alliance-building' that goes on that is difficult to simulate exactly. Sarah's relationships with Hoggle and Ludo, particularly, look easier to 'role-play; than 'rule-play' and that is sort of the point, but also sort of not. Especially for NPCs, reactions should be 'rulable'. All else being equal, if Sarah is kind to NPCs, they should be well-disposed to her. If she is not, they should not be. Jareth may in the end be her enemy but Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus and the other more minor characters should be friendly or not depending on their own motivations and Sarah's interactions with them. There should be a way of constructing systems for developing friendships. Again, <i>Blue Rose</i> has 'Relationship' rules - these I think are more intended for longer-term relationships than the ups and downs of a single session's adventuring, but perhaps there are things to be gleaned from how they handle it. Certainly, part of the charm (for me at least) of <i>Labyrinth </i>is the inter-relationships between the characters that help Sarah to grow as a person. Her relationships with Hoggle and Ludo help her to be less selfish - she's kind to them, and in return they help her on her quest (not it it's about 'returns', because virtue is its own reward, but... having a friend that can summon rocks is certainly <i>helpful</i>). Anyway - alliance-building is a key theme of the film. But whether it's possible to game that in D&D, using the Charisma, Reactions and Morale rules is something I'm going to have to think about. Several years ago now 'Against the Wicked City' blog had a series of posts (using the tag '<a href="http://udan-adan.blogspot.com/search/label/Romance">Romance</a>') looking at some of this stuff. I've been re-reading them and hope they'll help me to work out a way forward (there's a metaphor there somewhere). </p><p>There are some things that it's not clear to me yet how to solve. But the inhabitants of the Labyrinth, Goblin City and Castle however are pretty straightforward in terms of their physical abilities (certainly for D&D, I haven't really assimilated <i>Blue Rose</i> yet) - I'll put them in their own post.</p><p>So, that's what I'm thinking about at the moment...</p>Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-9350447910793886282021-01-18T12:21:00.001-08:002021-01-18T12:21:38.354-08:00Portal FantasyThis post has been dragged out of the oblivion of 'Drafts', for reasons that will probably become clearer in the not-so-distant future. It's is a continuation of my thinking about how to make D&D <a href="https://fantasyadventuringblog.blogspot.com/2018/04/a-new-setting-as-if-it-were-needed.html" target="_blank">more like the literature that inspired it</a> and also the literature that people who might be interested in playing could be reading. <div><br />
However, I may be a bit off base here as I don't really belong to the age-bracket or cultural context that <i>didn't</i> read LotR and Howard and Morcock as a youngster... because I did. So I'm not the best judge of what exactly would be high on the reading/watching list of the people who aren't playing but might be... I'm not so familiar with that literature, so in some ways I'm going into this a bit blind.</div><div><br />Anyway, one of the things that is part of a lot of the fantasy literature I <i>do</i> know about is portals, which I mentioned in the linked post. The idea that people from our world venture (often by accident) into another is a mainstay of fantasy literature, TV and film from <i>Alice in Wonderland</i> and <i>The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant</i> to <i>The D&D Cartoon</i> and <i>Stranger Things</i>.
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So I'm kicking around some aspects of this question of using portals. I'm looking at the notion of bringing people from our world to the fantasy world to start with.<br />
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How does someone from the modern world survive? Classing modern people in D&D terms is tricky.<br />
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People from our world will generally be human - unless they have also been transformed while being transported, in which case anything is up for grabs. I can't think of a work where someone's body changed by going through the portal, perhaps there are. More likely that the journey releases unknown abilities (you can't do magic in our world but maybe you can by travelling to 'Fabulosa'? Can't think of any works where that specifically happens but it seems like there would be some. Certainly in the <i>Fionavar Tapestry </i>there is a certain amount of 'magic acquisition' but I'd have to re-read them to work out the particular causes). That might have a bearing on what class you could be in the new world.<br />
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I can't think of a single portal fantasy where the transportee(s) did not speak the language. <i>Red Moon Black Mountain, the Fionavar Tapestry, Chronicles of Narnia, Labyrinth, Magic Kingdom for Sale - SOLD! </i>and <i>The Wonderful Wizard of Oz </i>(which to my chagrin I've never even read... though in my understanding the film doesn't depart massively from the book) wouldn't work if Mr Tumnus, Oliver, Loren, Dorothy and so on couldn't communicate. So for starters, the transportees speak 'Common'. Any other languages one might speak in the real world are superfluous. So what if you know English, French, German and a bit of Spanish? Only one of those equates to Common, the others don't exist. Dwarves don't speak Icelandic, Elves don't speak Gaelic. Probably. Though as they're both pretty conservative languages perhaps if the portal takes you back to 10th-century Norway or 5th-century Ireland, maybe the Dvergar and Tuatha de Danaan <i>do</i> speak a recognisable language. But, if you're in 10th-century Norway or 5th-century Ireland, you probably still speak 'Common' - which therefore would probably be Old Norse or Old Irish anyway.<br />
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What about skills? Most things modern humans know would be utterly useless. However, we have a much better understanding of stuff like communicable diseases and infection than people living in our own past and that might be a useful survival skill if transported somewhere Earth-like. Most of us I guess know a few things that might be considered somewhat arcane in a different world, like how to make steel by adding carbon to iron, or how to distil vodka. In general terms we might know more about meteorology, astronomy and such like (especially as regards Earth - portals to completely different world would render such knowledge more problematic) but in practical terms we would know less. </div><div><br /></div><div>Generally, non-physical skills are a bit more problematic than physical skills. Things like Mixed Martial Arts, archery, and various types of sword-fighting might equate fairly well (though if you're trained with an epee and then get a broadsword maybe not), and some things like being able to chop down a tree with an axe or hunting in the forest would be good for many 'fantasy' settings but otherwise, the sorts of skills that it would actually be beneficial to have are often going to be non-gaming ones. Woodworking and such like, though very practical in a real-world setting, are not exactly skills that feature high in character classes for D&D.</div><div><br /></div><div>Thief skills are not really a problem. Picking pockets is picking pockets (and sleight-of-hand and misdirection play a part here too I think). The Thief skills seem to be among those that it might be reasonable to directly import.</div><div><br /></div><div>Unless (see above) the transportation process sets of latent magical talents, Magic Users and Clerics will not be applicable here. Could a devout religious person from our world, whether through faith as an internal mechanism, or from an external source (some god), derive power that enabled them to be a Cleric? Maybe. But I can't see how a Magic User could exist.<br /><br />
Many of us are going to be less fit than people in the past, but conversely - perhaps - more healthy. We often do not lead such active lifestyles as people even 30 years ago, let alone 300 or 3,000. But we don't have anything like the prevalence of rickets, scurvy, polio, leprosy, smallpox or numerous other diseases or other complaints. A year into a global pandemic it seems odd to claim that we're healthier than previous populations but if you went back to Europe in 1349 and talked about a plague that killed 1/1000 of the population, the 60% of the population that survived the Black Death would think you were very, very lucky.<div><br /></div><div>But perhaps some of this is not so relevant. Sarah only stays in the Labyrinth for 13 hours (actually less as Jareth keeps advancing the clock so maybe it's more like 9 hours). Yes, language is pretty fundamental to interact with the inhabitants, but perhaps disease resistance is not so important. The <i>Fionavar Tapestry</i> is perhaps the most 'realistic' attempt at the portal fantasy I can think of, but even then the 'party' (for want of a better term) don't all come down with cholera from drinking polluted water.</div><div><br /></div><div>So there are problems to say the least with using D&D as a baseline for how you could do this kind of thing in a game, in terms of character generation and classing. Probably not a problem to establish basic stats: STR, INT etc are fairly generic categories, but if you've ever tried to convert D&D to be a space-game engine, for example, it's maybe a bit limited. However, 'how to do magic' is a problem that needs addressing for those classes.</div><div><br /></div><div>There are a lot of other considerations around portals. I'm sure I haven't even considered a bunch of important factors.</div><div><br /></div><div>
A fundamental question - Who or what has brought the PCs to this world?<br />
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a Good Deity<br />
an Evil Deity<br />
a powerful Good Wizard
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a powerful Evil Wizard<br />
an accident<br />
an ancient spell<br />
a book or scroll<br />
an ancient magical device<br />
a secret portal (mirror, pool, wardrobe etc)<br />
<br />Not sure if this list is particularly exhaustive. Sometimes there can be more than one answer. An accident, for example, may involve an ancient magical device or spell gone awry. The PCs might be the unintended passengers of a spell meant for someone else, either from a good or evil entity. An Evil Wizard may use a spell or device to trap a questor, etc. Alternatively, an ancient magical device may have been created by an Evil Wizard. So the point of this list is more a 'first cause' than a set of exclusive possibilities. It's probably worth delving into deeper levels of answer that depend on the initial one.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>I've just acquired a copy of the game <i>Blue Rose</i> which has a section on using portals in games - I'm going to be reading that section with some interest (along with the rest, of course - I didn't want it just for that section!). I hope, as it's actually part of the fabric of the game, that it might be easier to sort some of this stuff out</div><div><br /></div></div><div>So, yeah... portals... they're a thing. Not a huge part of what I'm thinking about right now but I guess connected. It's sometimes difficult to know exactly where to put all the speculation.<br />
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<br /></div></div>Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-27085586744722805782021-01-14T08:58:00.012-08:002021-01-16T10:32:33.327-08:00Rift City Sessions 41-42<p><br /></p><p>I didn't get round to putting up December's session (Session 41) so this is partly about that - what I can remember - but I guess it's really going to be about what I recall of Session 42 (which was only a couple of days ago).</p><p>The first thing that happened was that three new PCs joined the party. These were (alphabetically) Helvor, a Cleric; Inarra, a Magic User, and Kate Short For Bob, a Halfling. This is because of the deaths (or at least temporary petrification) of Karensa and Kraghelm, and the retirement of Galen. About 3 years ago, I asked the PCs to come up with a fact about their PCs. Galen's player told me Galen was seeking to restore his family's fortunes so he could marry his lady love. Having amassed 20,000GP he's taking that back to the Elf-lands to hire retainers and give some presents to local dignitaries to re-establish the clan's standing. So, Helvor, Inarra and Kate joined Berg (Dwarf), Brigham (Cleric) and Gibbet (Thief) to brave the caves.</p><p>The first thing the party decided to do - and I have no idea why - was go to the Level 1 cave of Ningal the Magic User and kill her as a witch. They seem to have decided that she's the one who was controlling the Undead, but having killed her, they found her journal that said she'd been having problems with them too, so that wasn't it.</p><p>Then they went back to the cave where Kraghelm and Karensa had been petrified. Nosing around there they found a peculiar upside-down pit trap: it was a patch of water on the ceiling, and Kate failed a saving throw and fell 'up' into it.</p><p>Now; things that look easy to grasp from my side of the screen look somewhat different from the other side. I thought it was pretty obviously a gravity-reversal trap, limited to a very small area. I expected the rest of the party to throw a rope so Kate could climb down (or, 'up' from her point of view).</p><p>But they didn't. They thought it was some aquatic (or at least watery-looking) ceiling-monster with a paralysing/levitating attack - so Inarra the Magic User <i>fireballed </i>it, with Kate still sitting in the puddle. Having done that - bear in mind Kate has now taken d6 damage from falling 'up' 10', and 5d6 damage from the <i>fireball</i> (half if she made her save, I guess she must have done or she'd probably be toast) - the rest of the party decided they'd then <i>dispel</i> the effect, causing Kate to fall again and take another d6 damage. Poor Kate, but honestly, it was hilarious. It also took about an hour before all this was done. Not bad for something from a room description that had originally read, I think, 'the water is on the ceiling'. I don't really want my PCs to know my sources but rest assured, room generator, I am very grateful, those 6 words generated a <i>lot </i>of gaming content. </p><p>It took up so much time that I think there was only time for a fight with some Giant Ants and the PCs decided to head for home.</p><p>For Session 42, they decided not to head back to the Medusa Caves, as they're too difficult to map (being a bit wiggly, again, I don't want to reveal too much about my sources, thanks <a href="https://dysonlogos.blog/">Dyson Logos</a>).</p><p>So, instead, they headed on down the path to find another cave entrance.</p><p>Now, I haven't designed this area beyond a few rough notes. There is a ruin further down the path, that the party found rumours about 3 years ago (and have probably forgotten).</p><p>However, what has been established already is that the wilderness will get more unforgiving beyond the bend in the road. Given the division between 'Basic' and 'Expert' rules, this seems to me to be a reasonable way to conceptualise moving further from civilisation. We joked at the time when Gibbet went up to 4th Level that now the Wilderness could attack him, but having zones of increasing wildness makes more sense. From the Edge of the Rift to the First Bend, is a kind of liminal zone - not completely wild, not completely tame; but beyond the bend, civilised writ does not run. So, a short way down the path, the party encountered some humanoids, at some range. As Berg the Dwarf went to investigate, and the humanoids in question were Goblins, arrows soon started to fly. The party charged the Goblins and saw off about a dozen or so, either dead or chased away.</p><p>Again, not really wanting to give too much away but I looked at my maps for the 'next level past the Medusa Cave' and realised that in fact there are no cave entrances to that level. Not that I have established anyway. So they kept on going until they arrived at the ruins.</p><p>I knew that at some point the PCs would get here but did not expect to have to flesh them out 'on the hoof' as it were. I had a map and some room descriptions - but the original had 5' squares that made no sense. There is a pit-trap that is only 5' square in a corridor - I can't see what would prevent some even relatively-tall human (it was Helvor who triggered it) from just grabbing the lip at the far side to stop themself falling, or at least slowing their descent so they could hang from the edge and just drop the last few feet.</p><p>I told them the squares were 10'. That seemed to solve the problem. It meant all the room descriptions were off and I had to convert everything on the fly. The descriptions were also for a Level 1 dungeon, so I was pulling monsters out and substituting ones of a more appropriate level. As it was, the only monster I remember them finding in the ruin was an Ochre Jelly. It was a little while before they found out that fire was their friend, but they did manage to <i>fireball </i>it and its spawn eventually.</p><p>After that (they'd only searched a couple of rooms of the ruin) they decided to head back to civilisation, with not very much loot. But from my point of view it seemed reasonable that they could have another encounter in the wilderness on the way home (one possibility in the morning, one in the evening... both came up).</p><p>Consulting the tables it was a Frost Giant (1-2 appearing). Well, it was only one that appeared, looking for 'its' Goblins. When the PCs cheerfully admitted they'd killed some Goblins, the Giant got angry and started throwing rocks at them. The PCs being PCs charged (someone was injured by a rock but I can't remember who) and Helvor saved the day by turning some sticks (that he'd said he was collecting at the previous session) into snakes. The spell is a bit underwritten so I decided to dice for the properties of the snakes - turns out, he'd made 11 Pit Vipers. 3 of them managed to make attacks on the Giant, and of those the giant saved one throw... so, as far as I can tell, the Giant died. Cue looting the corpse where, in the treasure tables, the giant has a 25% of 3 magic items plus one scroll. I can't remember what I rolled but it was less than 25. So I told the PCs that they'd found some cash (the best haul in the session, obviously), and also that they'd found a scroll. Then I rolled the first random magic item... a scroll! And the third magic item... a scroll! And the fourth magic item... a scroll! So four magic items, all scrolls... consulting further rolls these were two scrolls of Protection from Undead, one of Protection from Lycanthropes, and a treasure map. I'm so glad they found that at the end of the session, now I have a month to knock up some sort of map for them to go and investigate for the next session...</p><p>What I'm pretty certain is that it will lead to the Sepulchre of Riha the Bejewelled (thanks <a href="https://donjon.bin.sh/">Donjon </a>for I'm sure at the very least you gave me the name!)<br /><br />I really don't know where this session would have been without loads of internet content out there - thanks to all I haven't mentioned too, but some at least will have to be kept under wraps until my players have pushed on a bit further.</p>Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-81791855080033607362020-12-27T15:56:00.003-08:002020-12-27T15:56:42.208-08:00Bakshi's Lord of the Rings, part II - Painting some minisComplements of the Season, one and all.<div><br /></div><div>I have something of an announcement. Not about Rift City, that'll come along at some point, I'm sure.</div><div><br /></div><div>No, more momentous than that. Some paint has been introduced to some minis. I play D&D about once a month. It's ages between my bouts of painting, it's a much rarer event.</div><div>
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Please bear in mind these are 'rescue' paintjobs. They were partly painted, but there was no proper undercoating done, mostly just painting onto the bare grey plastic. I've tried to use as much as feasible of the original paintjobs while still sticking to my idea of trying to paint them up 'Bakshi-style'. Also, the photos aren't great, so apologies for that.</div><div><br />
So, here are Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin, in costumes at best 'reminiscent' of their 1978 garb.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOXD9cHxLaTc73DNPF_xIOTfdtoCaA9qR2dkwsFGisb32POROqAkKFiRmfWOEfElzekrQR9DtWXYDzb3p3e3DYUhy56zlofsJD48M143bPaALlZL9UhcqKQF4BHWzpdqSlcDfVTtkCGSQV/s2048/20201027_143551.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOXD9cHxLaTc73DNPF_xIOTfdtoCaA9qR2dkwsFGisb32POROqAkKFiRmfWOEfElzekrQR9DtWXYDzb3p3e3DYUhy56zlofsJD48M143bPaALlZL9UhcqKQF4BHWzpdqSlcDfVTtkCGSQV/s320/20201027_143551.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Something like Bakshi's version of the Fab Four</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><div style="text-align: left;">However, I do have a confession to make. Having mistaken Merry and Pippin throughout the film (for most of it, I thought Merry had dark hair and wore brown, and Pippin had blondish hair and wore green), I finally sorted out which was which and assigned the right colour-scheme to each character.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Then, unfortunately, I then mistook the minis. I thought Merry had a raised hand (holding a stone) and Pippin had his hand (also holding a rock) out in front of him. But coming to check the costumes for the Jackson version, I see Pippin has a scarf, as does the mini that has the raised stone, that I have now painted as Merry.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Oh well. Not much to be done about it now, I feel. There's a little more to do on these fellows but they're getting there.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The next four are also rescue-jobs. They're painted up as the Jackson movie versions, more or less. Again the paintwork I'm painting onto is not great. Getting really up close there's still a few places with no paint, especially under people's chins. But in the end these are never going to be great works of art. What they might be is fun to play with on a table. That's the main thing</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnlar6yIWkltZprSWPodseZKYH1ClmyHRq5u7n0pfSZNJJKJLevcRaPQCkyfe9XRDfVVY-rgdth9r10KpyV1CrG6kdHWNCsmFwDbhiaNHqV9f4PRHrSCQ4LCOBkv76cyDyMMVz1Auvc9BH/s2048/20201027_143614.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnlar6yIWkltZprSWPodseZKYH1ClmyHRq5u7n0pfSZNJJKJLevcRaPQCkyfe9XRDfVVY-rgdth9r10KpyV1CrG6kdHWNCsmFwDbhiaNHqV9f4PRHrSCQ4LCOBkv76cyDyMMVz1Auvc9BH/s320/20201027_143614.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Jackson... Four?</td></tr></tbody></table>
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At least Sam still has his pan in this iteration!</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Oh, and I <i>definitely </i>have two Boromirs. One of them will be a Leader of Men in a vaguely <i>Game of Thrones</i>-inspired project. More on that in due course...</div>Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-43577027575655929382020-11-10T13:33:00.004-08:002023-11-10T02:47:38.397-08:00Rift City Session 37-40 reports - happy third birthday!<p>Five bold adventurers took up the call for the 37th Rift City Campaign session. This was the third anniversary of the campaign as we started in August 2017.</p><p>Marching order was:</p><p>Berg (5th Level Dwarf)</p><p>Galan (5th Level Elf)</p><p>Gibbet (6th Level Thief)</p><p>Brigham (5th Level Cleric)</p><p>Shazam (2nd Level Elf)</p><p>Shazam hasn't been to many sessions recently and is therefore trailing a little in levels.</p><p>The party decided to head back to the cave entrance they explored last time. This is a little further on from where they have been going most of the time, they hoped it might mean more loot as the caves would have been raided less often.</p><p>They found their way in OK - nothing else had taken residence in the main room behind the cave entrance. Previously they'd encountered Carrion Crawlers there but this time it was empty.</p><p>Pushing on they came to a room (I think this one also had Carrion Crawlers in last session - this area contained a little nest of them) where there was a doorway they had not previously tried. I can't remember whether Gibbet found the trap but couldn't disarm it, or didn't find the trap (Gibbet in this session was really successful at <i>not </i>finding traps - made all his rolls, I think, on untrapped doors - but very bad at finding the traps on the doors that had them) - either way, an axe-blade swept out when Shazam tried to go through, and the noble Elf was no more.</p><p>I have a houserule called 'Elementary Staunching' that I've used in the last 4 campaigns I've started and discussed several times before on the blog (<a href="https://fantasyadventuringblog.blogspot.com/2016/04/a-system-from-bits-part-ii.html">such as here</a>). It is intended to make combat a little less catastrophically dangerous for PCs by giving them a chance to survive at 0hp until the rest of the party can at least try some battlefield first aid. </p><p>But... the party didn't do it. I'm a little surprised by that. Essentially, the view expressed was 'we're happy for Shazam to die because that way he's replaced by a higher-level version'.</p><p>That isn't the way this is supposed to work. Because of the stricture not to allow too much level-mixing, I ruled that new PCs begin at the lowest level in the party. I also have an 'exploration bonus' to XP to represent the exploration of new territory: this is based on the average that PCs need to reach their next level. Low-level characters drag down that average somewhat and make the bonus smaller. The upshot of the interaction between these two rules that it makes sense (from a certain point of view) to allow low-level PCs to die in order to boost the experience of high-level PCs.<br /><br />That is not supposed to be how it works at all.</p><p>Anyway... Shazam died, and the PCs found a new, much higher-level, adventurer, Kraghelm the Dwarf, back at the town. I think this rule is potentially going to break the campaign.</p><p>More stuff happened. Oh, boy did it happen. But, actually, it's months ago and I can't remember what.</p><p>What I do know is that the party also went adventuring in session 38 (in September), where they visited the Bath-house of Blibdoolpoolp once more, and fought their way down corridors they've never visited before, in the furthest parts of Level 1. They do have a habit of attacking everything though, even things that aren't threatening them. Poor crystal statues...</p><p>In October (Session 39), they went down to Level 3 through one of the areas that they've been before. Marl was able to join the PCs for this one which was nice, as Marl hasn't been for ages. A highlight was a room with levers which they played about with until they opened a door. I think they sussed that the other levers opened other doors, but not that they were standing in the control-room of a prison complex. It didn't matter, they killed the prisoners (who were werewolves) anyway.</p><p>For the November session (session 40) Berg, Galan, Brigham, Gibbet, Karensa (who joined us for the first time in several months) and Kraghelm ventured down - in that order. They decided they'd dare to venture round the bend in the road and try their luck in a cave round there. That's supposed to be the scarier dungeon entrances, though I'm not sure completely certain what level they were on.</p><p>It didn't necessarily go well. Ascertaining from the number of statues in a cavern that there might be a Medusa about, there were in fact three of them. The PCs got surprise luckily but but even so, Kraghelm and Karensa were turned to stone and Gibbet bitten before the fight was over. Gibbet made his poison save so he was OK in the end (a bit hurty from the bite) but with no way to turn Karensa and Kraghelm back to flesh (you can't do that as a wizard until 11th level, apparently) the PCs lashed a rope round Karensa and dragged her back to town so Galan could claim she was legally dead and he was her heir. The statue of Kraghelm was left in the Medusae's cave...</p><p>The legal wrangling took as long as the adventuring. Galan also declared that as he now had 20,000gp in portable wealth he was off - as one of the characters that ages ago gave up a family secret, Galan has bee trying to amass some treasure to restore his family's fortunes and marry his lady-love. Her family blocked the marriage alliance when Galan's family was ruined. He's hoping a bunch of cash (and jewellery, gems and a few magic items) might allow the clan to re-establish itself and regain its influence. </p><p>The net result is that there's going to be a lot of new PCs in coming months!</p><p><br /><br /></p>Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-80744306995198575742020-07-26T17:54:00.000-07:002020-07-26T17:54:02.779-07:00Bakshi's Lord of the RingsI re-watched it yesterday. Not seen it in 40 years, and I have to say I think it stands up pretty well (Mrs. Orc and Orc Minissimus disagreed and gave up round about Lorien I think).<br />
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It has got me thinking. I have a few 'spare' LotR minis that have not yet been painted up. Due to having a couple of different sets (a Mines of Moria set and a box of Heroes of Helm's Deep) and then a few random ebay purchases I have in total (as far as the Fellowship goes anyway) 1 plastic Gandalf, 1 plastic Boromir (for certain - I think I may have another in a different box, maybe 90% convinced of that); 2 Legolases (1 plastic, 1 metal); 2 Aragorns (1 plastic, 1 metal); 3 Gimlis (2 plastic, one with a broken weapon, 1 metal); 2 plastic Merrys; 3 plastic Pippins; 3 Sams (2 plastic, one with his pan broken off, 1 metal); and 4 Frodos (3 plastic, 1 metal).<br />
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I definitely have some spares is what I'm saying... so I think I shall paint some of them up in colours matching the Bakshi versions - though to be honest, several of them have been partly-painted anyway. I definitely started painting the metal Legolas and Aragorn figures back in the day (<i>The Two Towers</i> was released in 2002 so it's quite likely I've had some of these figures for upwards of 15 years). Checking on the others, I think I remember at least putting some paint on Gandalf, but the plastics of Boromir, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli and one of the plastic lots of the four Hobbits have been painted to a greater or lesser extent, and not by me.<br />
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The almost-complete paints somewhat resemble these outfits:<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOPNyd2I3vOQbVPD0fFGaaT-eKyGXpKCC4oXrjVTg7ET6FVCOucr3C_HyLhapxtAK4oiNiYXfFiJkNNiu7Rs4nO4VpyerLoX7EqWyZecCBNb6bxdcvh0K_4Vcu0UL38N3EcxRGQnWII3iN/s1600/8520f017d725587d05d2d71e170055ee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="270" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOPNyd2I3vOQbVPD0fFGaaT-eKyGXpKCC4oXrjVTg7ET6FVCOucr3C_HyLhapxtAK4oiNiYXfFiJkNNiu7Rs4nO4VpyerLoX7EqWyZecCBNb6bxdcvh0K_4Vcu0UL38N3EcxRGQnWII3iN/s400/8520f017d725587d05d2d71e170055ee.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sam, Merry, Frodo, Pippin, from Jackson's <i>Fellowship of the Ring</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Painting them up Bakshi-style might be easier with the Hobbits than with some of the characters. The clothing worn by some of the characters is not really so similar (well, Gandalf is pretty much the same) but the Hobbits aren't massively different. Aragorn and Boromir, definitely different. Legolas and Gimli, pretty different. The Hobbits' clothes are similar, without being identical.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4W5QpG1GEzITCeBwX6Rt7QOeXe8lLXYSD8kFj-dAgd8SVE7wX51zFnXjdPXIqFDmovdeRh4c92KfwR-WXOiNBb98YXk-LRcdnhsiy45NAWMYMUzNQ69T8jPflIQfhLF6i-KHHgSF4LCrd/s1600/ALOTR-Happy.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="474" data-original-width="848" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4W5QpG1GEzITCeBwX6Rt7QOeXe8lLXYSD8kFj-dAgd8SVE7wX51zFnXjdPXIqFDmovdeRh4c92KfwR-WXOiNBb98YXk-LRcdnhsiy45NAWMYMUzNQ69T8jPflIQfhLF6i-KHHgSF4LCrd/s400/ALOTR-Happy.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pippin, Sam, Merry and Frodo, I think about to hide from the Black Rider, from Bakshi's <i>Lord of the Rings</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Essentially, they wear breeches, shirts and waistcoats, with green cloaks over the top (Bakshi doesn't have them given new cloaks in Lorien, but that doesn't matter, I'm painting up 'Moria' Hobbits anyway). Unlike the others, Sam doesn't wear a shirt-and-waistcoat combo, he wears a sort of tunic or smock. The modern GW Hobbits (I'm old enough to remember the original GW Lord of the Rings range from the '80s - in fact, I have a few of those too, in with all my 'Oldhammer' minis) are obviously designed to be faithful reproductions of the Jackson film versions, so they wear jackets as well as waistcoats, and the waistcoats themselves have a considerably higher neck-line than the Bakshi depictions. So I'll have to use a bit of creative licence with transferring the information.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFUhICA7kHaP5tvVfwICA6xy0N2cMlon3hhPkrh0i3cV9RRwRxiwBzAc4KdZZdPB6cpRgfyYOJiAFcT2oY1GweMpfW41Yze6WQU8Ypx8kQow6tS_f9UZwnhh4JxSrCI-HgAaRyoIV4qJlA/s1600/ALOTR-Bree.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="473" data-original-width="848" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFUhICA7kHaP5tvVfwICA6xy0N2cMlon3hhPkrh0i3cV9RRwRxiwBzAc4KdZZdPB6cpRgfyYOJiAFcT2oY1GweMpfW41Yze6WQU8Ypx8kQow6tS_f9UZwnhh4JxSrCI-HgAaRyoIV4qJlA/s400/ALOTR-Bree.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry, at the Prancing Pony, from Bakshi's <i style="font-size: 12.8px;">Lord of the Rings</i></td></tr>
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The notes I made (with occasional corrections to something I misinterpreted in bad light):<br /><br /><i>All Hobbits wear dark green cloaks</i><br />
<i><br />Frodo - red hair, brown <strike>tunic</strike> waistcoat, white shirt, dark brown trews, black belt, brass (gold?) buckle</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Sam - <strike>black</strike> dark brown hair, red-brown tunic, dark brown trews</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Merry - blondish hair, <strike>tan</strike> mid-green waistcoat, <strike>white</strike> pale green shirt, <strike>mid</strike>- darker green trews</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Pippin - brown hair, tan waistcoat, yellow shirt, <strike>lightish</strike> mid-brown trews</i><br />
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This was after getting Merry and Pippin confused, but afterwards I sorted out which was which. By the time I thought about this, it was difficult to tell Merry and Pippin apart, Merry had already gone for his walk in Bree and Pippin had dropped the stone down the well. I should have just waited and got some images from the web.<br />
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So that's the next task I've set myself, getting them painted, the Hobbits first. I shall have to paint over the blue breeches one of them has already been given but it will be fine I'm sure. Whether paint will touch any of the rest of the Fellowship in the near future remains to be seen. From one point of view, it is unfortunate that both Legolases have been painted, at least to some extent. I don't intend to repaint the plastic Legolas to match the Bakshi version, and I'm definitely not repainting my metal Legolas that I painted all those years ago. A bit of a touch-up maybe, but not a total repaint. Perhaps I can paint a different Elf for the Bakshi version, I have plenty. Trying to work out how to paint Gimli, however, in fairly different clothes, will be a bit of a challenge. Aragorn too, their costumes are very different. But maybe instead of the greenish palate of the Jackson Aragorn, I will paint one in more russety tones. But for the ones that are at least partly done, I'm going to finish them Jackson-style.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDF-D4zK6Xfqn8XhByyOx2Ze2kyKfImvmv464Lq-XlFP4GoiZEy9BsCy-z1NS6T427ToDbQ45aYeAMeMk3HwZzPemim3OFiB2fJDwf2d6UU7h3XxWqUsjl7gu6L41Ro6Fa3K8U2mtnQHOr/s1600/lotr8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="309" data-original-width="560" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDF-D4zK6Xfqn8XhByyOx2Ze2kyKfImvmv464Lq-XlFP4GoiZEy9BsCy-z1NS6T427ToDbQ45aYeAMeMk3HwZzPemim3OFiB2fJDwf2d6UU7h3XxWqUsjl7gu6L41Ro6Fa3K8U2mtnQHOr/s400/lotr8.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Legolas, Aragorn, Boromir and Gimli, at the death of Boromir and the breaking of the Fellowship, from Bakshi's <i>Lord of the Rings</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
So that's it - painting of LotR characters. There should be an update 'soon'... whatever that means...<br />
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<br />Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-51073969221520821652020-07-10T05:06:00.002-07:002023-11-10T02:41:04.913-08:00Rift City vague update<br />
Where does the time go?<br /><br />The Rift City campaign is continuing - due to social distancing, it's happening on Discord. We're still getting together once a month to dungeon the heck out of the caverns of the Rift. The PCs (now mostly around 4th-5th level) are currently beating up an area of Level 3. But, somehow, I never get around to doing the write-ups. Part of the problem is that I make fewer notes running the game on Discord and it's harder to reconstruct in the end. But really I'm just bad at this.<br />
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Lyracian, who plays in the campaign, has written up some of the sessions on his blog. Some recent sessions, only partly covered by me, can be found here:<br />
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<a href="http://lyracian.blogspot.com/2020/04/moldvay-basic-episodes-30-to-33.html" target="_blank">Sessions 30-33 report</a><br />
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<a href="http://lyracian.blogspot.com/2020/05/moldvay-basic-episode-34.html" target="_blank">Session 34 report</a><br />
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What happened in Session 35? Well, the PCs were exploring the same area of Level 3 as in Session 34. One peculiar thing was that they found a room that contained four curious devices that seemed to be a bit like a cross between a chair and a covered bath. Three were empty but one contained a (possibly sleeping, possibly dead) occupant. The PCs prised open the lid, and the occupant woke up. It was a male Elf, who seemed somewhat bemused. There was also a cat in the ... sleep-chamber... which also woke up. Berg tried to kill it but the Elf cast <i>Hold Person</i> on her, and then berated Galen and Karensa in somewhat archaic Elvish about keeping their servant under control. It seemed the Elf had travelled in the sleep-chamber with other companions, but also inside another metal ship, a great distance from another star. What the PCs made of all of this is anyone's guess, but the Elf announced his intention to see the world of two suns (news to the PCs, they only know about one) and find some Elven leaders to find out what had been happening since he arrived. The Elf PCs at least should be starting to suspect that somehow he's been asleep for a very long time indeed...<br />
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This is the 36th session coming up. We've actually missed two while I was working away at the end of last year, so technically it might be the 34th session actually run, but for accounting purposes it should be Session 36 I think. We started in August 2017 after all, and thus have been running for 3 years now. I'm quite pleased that we have managed to keep it going - but I'm looking forward to it being face-to-face again!Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-64056728334582995842020-03-02T12:00:00.003-08:002020-03-02T12:00:44.161-08:00Rift City - Sessions 30 and 31Well, it finally happened. After two and a half years, we had a gaming session that I didn't write up before the next session. Working away is certainly taking a toll on both gaming, and blogging about gaming.<br />
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We have had two more sessions of the Rift City campaign, and should be having another on 8th March. On Jan 112th, because I had the 13th off work, we met in our pub venue of most of 2019 in the evening. However, as I can't have the Monday after the second Sunday of every month off work, we're holding them earlier in the day at the moment. Also, because we haven't found a public venue that will take us on Sunday afternoon, we held the last session - and will be holding the next - at the house of Galen, Berg and Karina's players.<br />
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Only, Karina's player isn't Karina's player any more, because Karina succumbed to some poison in session 30. So, for Session 31, a new Cleric called Willow joined the party.<br />
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The party is currently exploring an area of Level 2 away from where they've been before, running into angry apes, shriekers, bandits and Orcs, and gaining a bit of loot of course. Then they found a way down to part of Level 3. There the PCs encountered a high-level Cleric, but with judicious use of a blinding spell they rendered him relatively powerless while they chopped him up. They've done a bit of exploring but it's pretty inconclusive as yet - perhaps just as well, I'd not expected them to go that way and haven't built much of Level 3. Where they'll go next session I'm not really sure so I'm just hoping I can stay one step ahead.Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-8750348095163897342019-12-14T04:22:00.001-08:002019-12-14T04:22:28.560-08:00Rift City - no session 29!It's now the Saturday after we should have had a gaming session. I'm still on a work pattern that means early starts on a Monday and that really limits gaming on a Sunday.<br /><br />We may be able to have a session next month at our usual venue - it depends if I can get the following Monday off - but that's not yet certain, and what happens in February is as yet an open question. This new work pattern may see the death of the Rift City Campaign, which will be a shame as it's been something that I and about 25 other people have enjoyed being part of.<br />
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However, even if it does mean the end of Rift City, it will not I hope be the end of the Wandering Monster Table experiment in open table gaming in Leicester. I'm sure, with a bit of forethought, the regulars can put together a plan to continue the open table concept. It seems to me that the most important thing for open gaming is that the sessions are discrete, to allow for the changing nature of the group from session to session, whether that's because people can't make it or because new people join. Any game that can handle that, and is not impossibly difficult for a newbie to get into, is I think a suitable candidate for an open gaming table.<br />
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One of the things that has been discussed is a <i>Traveler </i>campaign. As long as it is episodic in nature I don't see why not. Something like a <i>Star Trek</i> set-up - a large ship, with the PCs acting as an 'away team' for each session - could work well (this could be for exploration, as in <i>Star Trek</i>, or a military strike team, an investigation into something, or some kind of heist, or any number of other reasons). This isn't the usual <i>Traveler</i> set-up, which tends to feature a team of PCs acting as mercenaries for a series of patrons, or sometimes basically as pirates, while they try to make money to make improvements to their space-ship, but of course this idea (rather more like the group aboard the Millennium Falcon in <i>A New Hope</i>) depends on a fairly stable team, or good explanations as why someone is or isn't there. A large ship or maybe space station, with a large population capable of providing a pool of people from which a suitable 'cast' can be drawn for each 'episode', seems like a viable alternative way of organising an open table sci-fi campaign.<br />
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Another possibility that is being aired is a <i>Runequest </i>campaign. This could be organised in a very similar manner to the Rift City Campaign, though megadungeons are not necessarily a major feature of Glorantha. Small exploring parties however, that may change in composition from one session to the next, are very easy to accommodate I think. There's plenty of adventure to be had in Pavis and the Big Rubble, and PCs could easily spend a long time exploring, treasure-hunting and generally being involved in shady shenanigans without necessarily going far from home at all (so, back in time for tea, as with Rift City).<br />
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However, all this may be moot. There is a rumour that one of the three gaming caf<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16.8667px;">é</span>s in town can accommodate us on a Sunday afternoon, so we may start using them and getting our gaming in earlier in the day, which may solve the problem. I hope we do find a solution that at least allows me to play sometimes on a Sunday. I'm happy to play in someone else's game, especially if I'm only going to be able to play occasionally, but if I can get there more regularly, I'm also happy to DM - and my favourite system is and is likely to remain<i> Basic D&D</i>, so an earlier slot may well allow Rift City to continue. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few months... as in the old Persian curse, 'may you live in interesting times'!Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7954267040316807211.post-85958081520375274412019-11-10T09:27:00.000-08:002019-11-10T09:27:08.674-08:00Rift CIty - Session 28<br />
Alas and alack!<br />
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I had hoped not to have to do this but the Session 28 of the Rift City Campaign has had to be cancelled, at pretty short notice. It should be taking place on Sunday, 10th November, at 6pm. As I type, it's Sunday 10th November, just after 5pm, and I will shortly be leaving town to go to a different city about 2 hours away, where I will stay in hotel so I can get to the office at 6am, so I can get a works' bus to somewhere else, another 2 hours away. Otherwise I'd have to leave here at 4am tomorrow morning to get there in time. This work-pattern doesn't really give me the opportunity to DM the regular session on Sunday evenings.<br />
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I don't know whether this will be a regular thing, but it might be. That might put the kibosh on the Rift City Campaign if it's a permanent (or even short/medium term) thing. We may be able to re-arrange of course, perhaps doing it in the afternoon, I don't know, I'll have to consult the current players and the venue and see if it's possible. Or maybe I'll get some clarity from work about whether I'll be doing this in future. Perhaps someone else could run a different campaign for a bit - some people have been expressing an interest in Runequest, and someone else in running a Traveler game. I don't want to just kill the campaign, but it's not possible with the current set-up in these changed circumstances.<br />
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Watch this space - I hope we'll be back to normal next month, but I have no idea what will actually happen. I want to continue with the open table concept, I think we've done good work over the last 27 months, but something will have to change if we are going to continue.<br />
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<br />Red Orchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07015582577046093985noreply@blogger.com1