Free RPG Day 2016: Part 1 Session Report for "Museum at the End of Time"

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS

FOR THE ABOVE MENTIONED ADVENTURE. DO NOT CONTINUE, IF YOU ARE PLANNING ON PLAYING IN THIS ADVENTURE!

June 18th, 2016, 12:00 "Museum at the End of Time" for MCC RPG

Run at Villainous Lair Comics and Games, San Diego. CA

Players for this session: Steven G. (Bumpy the Mutant, Dole the plantient Banana Tree, Moses the plantient Moss),  Jason H. (Carl the plantient  Sage Brush, Blothar the plantient Bamboo, Mtn Du the mutant),  Lizlo C. (Shai the P.S.H., Donny the P.S.H., Coda the mutant),  Tamar C. (Snow the P.S.H., Peter The Mutant, Rachet the manimal Dog),  Logan S. (Joe Bane the P.S.H., Ker the manimal Warthog, Ribbit the manimal Frog),  Mario T. (Men-Crab the P.S.H., Hue Mann the manimal Buffalo, Man-Bat the P.S.H.)

(Left to Right: Hue Mann, Man-Bat, and Men-Crab.)

Our adventurers decided to wait until the sun had gone down before entering the Glow Desert. Traveling by night to conserve the water they had on them. 

While traveling only one member of the party managed to notice the source of the low rumbling noise that seemed to be coming just beyond the dunes around them Bumpy managed to dodge the first attack of the Giant Crystalline Worm. Dole came to his aid along with about half the party. Dole fought fiercely, but was quickly turned into banana paste by the worm. 

After seeing the uselessness of their initial attacks, Hue Mann attempted to run for the rocky outcrop nearby. Unfortunately, he was run down by the great worn and devoured whole. 

Peter realized the worms silicate form would be vulnerable to water. The party then began to attack it with every range weapon and flask of water they had. They managed to get it down to one HP, before it finally failed it's morale check and fled deep into the sand. This was not before it had consumed four members of the party. Another had been killed by friendly-fire (sling stone upside the back of the head.)

The party decided to rest for the day and bury (and loot) their dead comrades . Two more of the party died of radiation poisoning in their sleep (Man-Bat & Blothar).

Shortly after nightfall the party set out travelling deeper into the desert. After a few hours they could hear a strange deep throated screeching noise from just beyond the next dune.

Joe Bane, Men-Crab, and Shai scouted ahead to see what the noise was. To their horror they saw a number of humanoid corpses moving in their direction. These desiccated corpses gave of an eerie, yellow glow and a green, glowing, dust like powder seemed to be steadily coming from their eye sockets and mouths.

Men-Crab tried to run and hide himself by burying himself in the sand. Shai and Joe Bane shouted out a warning to the rest of the party. Joe Bane attacked with his sling, as Shai prepared to attack with her spear. Most of the rest of the party chose to stay back and attack from a distance.  By the time the Screamers were upon them only four were left standing. Joe bane went down with severe radiation burns and his body was infected by spores. Unbeknownst to the rest of the party, Three others were infected by the spores as well.

After burying Joe Bane, the party traveled on for the rest of the night. At daybreak they found what appeared to be a treeless oasis. After resting under a nearby outcrop, they investigated this strange oasis and found a smooth surface of iridescent blue-green glass. After Snow cracked the glass, Rachet used some strips of leather to fashion a crude dagger. 

The party pressed on through the night, as a sandstorm built up. Barely able to keep together as a group. As the storm began to subside, they could see a strange, green shining cylinder sticking out from the side of a dune up ahead. They approached to find an opening in the base, and decided to use their rope to climb down... all of the party with the exception of Ribbit made it down safely. Ribbit lost his grip at the top and managed to grab hold of the rope further down, but severe rope burns ripped the flesh clean off of his hands. He collapsed at the bottom of the rope, dead.

Beyond this point I will not go into to too much detail in order to not spoil the main part of the adventure.

In the atrium, the party found the corpse of the long dead security guard. They took his "Metal club", The strange "rectangular medalion" he had around his neck (unable to decipher the strange, mystical symbols on it, or what the "realistic painting" of a man in a strange blue outfit on it meant), "the shiny metal medallion" ("It would make a great broach for your cloak"), and his strange looking hat. 

Most of the party went exploring the room, as Moses almost killed himself attempting to figure out how to use the "metal club", destroying the artifact in the process. 

The party got separated in the "Hall of Portals".  Ker wandered off into a particular room on his own, when he turned to see what the squeaking sound was behind him, he was pelted with darts. Two of the party lost their way back out of one of the rooms as the others were hunted down by a group of primitive apelike men. The last thing most of them heard was a "Squeak-squeak".

It was a TPK, but a lot of fun was had!

"They Served Brandolyn Red" session report 28.11.2015

WARNING CONTAINS SPOILERS!

"Mors enim cum indignum roges!"

Players: Kyle, Tony, Steven, Mario, Benji, and James.

Characters: Frey Vintner the herder (muleskinner), Flyk the squire (of Doran Whitegrass), Quaan (the gravedigger), Tahm Vintner (woodcutter), Aphelius Whitegrass (elven sage), Quark Leddy (mendicant),  Arrum Vintner (the butcher), Floren Whitegrass (elven forester), Osgood (the radish farmer), Gumby Vintner (trapper), Thruen (dwarven chest-maker), Butters Vintner (confidence artist), Diamond (dwarven blacksmith), Pious (mendicant), Blackbrow (halfling mariner), Doug Vintner (squire), Dale Vintner (Healer), Edd Leddy (corn farmer), Harman Dragontear (dwarven blacksmith), Even Whitegrass (elven barrister), Gronk (dwarven rat catcher), Bartholamew (the Merchant).


This was a wild and fun game from the start. I chose to use the family background options from the start.  This made for some interesting roleplaying from the players.  The players started with four characters (two primary, and two back-up.)  The total play time was about four hours. We had one RPG newbie at the table.

The opening wedding chaos had Floren Whitegrass attempting to drag the bride off to safety. Dale Vintner (the healer), believing she was poisoned, immediately crammed his fingers down her throat to induce vomiting. While looking for weapons one of the party managed to steal a bottle of Brandolyn Red from the gift table. The rest of the party were pairing up to defend other members of their various families from the antmen. The final result was two dead PCs and two badly injured.

Other highlights in the adventure involving the PC's were:

1  Dragging of the corpse from the pond, only to loot the corpse and toss the body back in the pond to feed the Zombiegator.

2  The gleeful joy the party showed at sacrificing one of their own to the ghost of the wine press.

3  The stairs of death! (the simple things in life are always what kills you) Mud Stain 1 Stairs 2

4 The looting of the crypts. One of the party was crushed by a slab of stone as they pried it free from the wall.

5  The final battle involved a charm person misfire that resulted in one of the PC's and Frezzo Leddy falling in love.  The PC chose to defend Frezzo from the party, as the rest of the party battled their way through the corpse harvester to get to them.
Three of the party survived the battle, as Frezzo fled off into the caverns. They recovered the scalpless head of the groom, and have headed back to town.

Things to do while on Vacation #2: Find new podcasts to listen to...

While trying to catch up on my reading, I often find myself listening to podcasts in the background.  Nothing makes me happier than finding people discussing the same material I am trying to read.

I've been reading through appendix N material a lot lately.  I've been enjoying the Appendix N podcasts on The Tome Show for a while.  I'm glad to see that Judges Jen and Bob Brinkman and Judge David Baity have started a new Appendix N discussion podcast titled Sanctum Secorum.

The focus of Sanctum Secorum is how to apply ideas from the original material into your game.  It's well worth checking out.

Another promising new podcast is for game designers and judges has just gone live.  Designers and Discourse promises to be a one on one interview format roughly an hour long with host Jim Wampler. The first episode is an hour and nine minute interview with Michael Curtis discussing the development of the Chained Coffin setting, and game design in general.

I am finally getting around to reading The World of Ice and Fire... by George R R Martin, Elio Garcia, and Linda Antonsson (of Westeros.org).  I'm hoping to find enough time to squeeze in a reread of the Dunc & Egg novellas. I already have them, but I couldn't resist getting the new collected set of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (by George RR Martin).  If you are into the the ASoIaF series, there are plenty of great podcasts worth checking out.

Here are a few of my favorites:

http://podcastoficeandfire.com/

http://radiowesteros.com/

http://www.historyofwesteros.com/

Wars and Politics of Ice and Fire


Recommended Comic Books: Scottie Young's  I Hate Fairyland #1 (and it's alternate cover @#$! Fairyland! #1), the Hinterland series put out by Vertigo.

Things to do on vacation: #1 Update old monsters!

I had to take advantage of some free time today. I decided it was high time to update a classic monster from the early days of D&D.  This one is an update of Dave Hargrave's Bubble Man. The original version was published in 1980 by Chaosium in All the World's Monsters Vol. III. If you are looking for some crazy classic creature ideas, you can still find the pdf cheap at http://www.drivethrurpg.com

And Yes, those are the Bubblemen!

DCC RPG rules options... Crawl No. 11 the Seafaring Issue

Found a nice surprise in my mailbox last night! Crawl! no 11
The naval warfare and nautical mighty deeds articles by Bob Brinkman will be quite useful in my current "Halfport" campaign. I'll have to do a little modifying to include ironclads, primitive submarines and torpedoes.
Daniel J. Bishop's has some great ideas for using deep elders. Some are close to the rules I am already using in Halfport. The other material might slip in nicely.
Sean Ellis put in a great piece dealing with life on board a ship. Included in the article are charts for ship morale, random on board events, and a wind speed table.
The Rev. Dak put in a fun table of ideas for sea propulsion, including the complications that would ensue.
The artwork of Mario T. is awesome as always.All in all, it's a solid issue and worth picking up!

Crawl!

RPG a Day 11 Favorite RPG writer:

The toughest question so far, there are so many great writers over the years.  Gary Gygax , Dave Arneson, David Cook, Tom Moldvay, Frank Mentzer, Tracy and Laura Hickman, Mark Acres, Lawrence Schick, Jim Ward, Joseph Goodman, Jon Mar, Harley Stroh, Greg Gillespie, Michael Curtis, Jobe Bittman, Daniel J Bishop, Zach Glazar, Stephen Newton, Mark Bishop....the list goes on.
There are plenty more writers that I just can not recall at the moment, and this list is only of D&D and DCC RPG authors!  There are even more writers for other games.

By far the most prolific in his time was Gary Gygax.  He left a lot up to the DM in running his adventures, but the bare bones were there to make the adventures fun and exciting.  He was great, but there were a large number of even better writers that wrote for his company, and the many other companies that formed afterwards, that were almost as influential on gaming.

I honestly can not say that I have a favorite writer, or even a group of writers.  Every one of the above listed writers has a unique style of writing.  All of them create material to inspire your own campaigns and adventures.  Ultimately, it comes down to what you find useful for your table.

I guess you might say that my "favorite writer" is you, because it is what you take from the past and current writing to create for your own gaming groups that matters.  Loot, plunder, and outright steal if you have to, for material to keep your friends having fun around the table.  You never know it may turn into a marketable adventure or campaign setting some day, that will inspire some other gamer's table.

Villainous Slayers July 25th session part 2

Our adventurers pressed further into the cavern system wading through waist deep ocean water, eventually walking into an ambush from above. The Nevodari and Orkril began by dumping lit barrels of oil down from an overhead sinkhole in the chamber above them. It eventually turned into a running battle spread over a few chambers.
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The party found their way the upper level and defeated most of their foes, before the last few of the Nevodari fled deeper into the caves. The victory came at a great cost with most of the party badly injured, and with the loss of P___head the warrior. (Failed luck roll on turning the body.)

Torgud the Unlucky was not having a good day with his lay on hands. By the time combat was done he was at an eight disapproval, had lost all but one of his spells for the day, was making spell checks at a -2, and needed to start praying to his god for the next hour.