Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Thoughts...

So, been hiding out, trying to game and rarely finding a game to play.  Also, had to move some stuff, from my move in Jan.  So, that sucked up time on Sunday.

I did happen to play my buddy's d20 sci-fi steampunk game called Into the Black.  It is fun.  Loving the set up of the world and the group is working...to some extent.  There is always problems with the crew.  Part of the fun of the game really.

Been mulling over things and, after reading this guy and Zak's hack, I want to try and work on my own system or hack.  I have a few ideas I have been keeping on the back burner, I think it might be time to dredge them up for a bit and shake them out.

Short post, I know.  But, hey, I will b posting more soon.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Into Nightwick Abbey

From the journal of Erasmus of Kars:

I heard the murmuring in the Medusa's Head that there were some who were heading back towards the ruins of Nightwick Abbey again.  The last time I went in, I made a nice little haul for myself.  Yet, whatever has been brewing there has done something to the town itself, for my silver that once kept me in food and spell components now was no longer good enough.  I donned my robes, grabbed my stout staff and gear and spellbook and went out to the Frogling Rupert outside of town to wait for the others.

I like the Froglings, and though I don't pray to the gods of this place, I find it strange that the Froglings can't join us in town because they worship other things.  I think it is just a way to keep the little green guys guys down.

I found the group and joined in, naming myself Erasmus.  The demons in the wind started to cackle as I came to rest my mismatched eyes on the group.  A cleric of Law, a Shazi or something to that effect, a fighter type--I think in banded mail and girded with weapons--named Tisqualalqual and the grave digger Abraham whom I've never talked to--his eyes able to stare at you and the wall at the same time unnerve me a little. (Yes, my eyes are strange as well, but at least I look at you with both the green and blue one at the same time.) We headed towards the abbey and skirted around the edge of it to the graveyard below.  Some of them had been here before and found an entrance to the mausoleum and wished to further explore it.  I thought why not, since the dead never stay still very long in this place.  We also picked up two hirelings, Hammish a fighting man and a porter who I can't remember his name, sorry mate.

After  bit of exploration into the mausoleum we found the room with four statues that the grave digger kept talking about and went about tying sacks onto the heads.  I thought he was a fool until the bag started to expand when we opened the first of the four sarcophagi in the room.  (I know the demon in my head laughed all the more from my surprise.)  Then, another Frogling by the name of Fredrick joined out little troupe.

At that moment, some eldritch ball of energy floated into the room and exuded thick ropes of slime.  All were safe except myself and Tisqual.  I was able to slip away after the initial barrage.  Yet, the thing found Tisqual to its liking for it started to suck away at the man's body.  His cheek and face grew dessicated.  The rest of us tried to attack the thing to little avail.  I even threw magic at it, and it only empowered the thing.  Tisqual died in the battle and the thing just floated away.

The sarcophagi were looted, four knights with rings, plate and silver crosses, we left Tisqual in the room and headed back to town.  That night we sold a majority of the booty.  I kept one of the garent rings and one of the signet rings--you knew know when it might come in handy.  Abraham kept a cross for himself and I think Fredrick did as well.

The next day we left to foray into the abbey again, were joined by the dilettante Lazzaro.  An odd fellow who spoke of magic and other things like he had dabbled in them yet knew nothing of the deeper science behind it.  He joined us as we headed back to the abbey and we all explored the ruins of Nightwick.  It had been some time since I had been there, and that strange growing kudzu of mauve had an eldritch affect on the stone.  It was growing them.  It seems the abbey is trying to repair itself.  I noted that for myself and while I did, the graver digger and the others went to look for the source of the kudzu.  They found it and started to dig it up.

They found a thick, thirty foot mass of root.  Most of them started to attack it, wanted to destroy the thing.  I was still unsure as to what to do, when someone threw oil at it and lit the thing on fire.  A thick purple haze roiled from it, along with the screams of something.  We even found holy items affect it and cause small burns and blisters to appear on it.

We lost the Frogling Fredrick to the haze, he passed out and while Shazi and Lazzaro--who talked of dissecting the Frogling if he didn't wake--tended to him, I found myslef having to follow the gravedigger into the treeline to try and get more trees for kindling.  I thought it was a better to go with him that have him go off on his own and end up dead.

It was a good thing, for we spied a group of goblins coming towards the ruins and the two of us hid.  We were soon joined by the rest of the group who spirited away with the Frogling, who was unhurt.  Though, part of me would like to have watched this dissection.  I am intrigued to find out what sets a Frogling apart from a human and frog.

The goblins went to investigate the fire and were transfixed by the haze.  We surprised them with a rope that we held taunt and were able to drop half of them into the haze.  Yet, we also took in the haze ourselves.  The remaining goblins ran, while we all had horrible visions.  We lost the torch bearer, who tore at his eyes.  Myself, the visions were things better left unsaid for now.

We returned to the town, then a quick foray to Halfdan the Black, another magic-user who is a little to familiar with his black bear friend.  We talked and found another group was sent in to collect specimens from an underground garden and haven't returned.  Also, we gave him some of the kudzu in hopes of finding where the center of it might be.

Our final raid into the abbey was brief, yet we explored the north tower, found it growing as the rest of the accursed place and then went below to fight a few madmen who wore human skin as armor.  One of them wore it well, and it was undamaged int he fight.  Lazzaro took the armor, starting where he was from, it was almost natural.  I shudder to think what type of place that is.

We returned home and I was ready to be done adventuring for some time.  I gained gold this time for my share of the loot, gained some spells from Halfdan the Black and took it as a good sign the demon was laughing in the wind.

Until next time...

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Game Updates, ideas and hating on Blogger

Hello, all:

At first, I was going to try and do the "April Challenge" that some of the other bloggers are doing out there, yet in the end I took the advice of Alexis over at the Tao of D&D.  (I would link the actual blog post, but I searched for it and the page is missing.  Oh well.)  To boil it down, what he said was, "Why bother?  I'll be posting when I can and I don't see a need to do a 'theme' for the month just because of the ways the days line up.  I know some bloggers are doing the April Challenge, and they have some interesting stuff.  They should be on my sidebar somewhere, but that leads me to my next point.

I hate the new Blogger interface.  It seems a little clunky and the previous one was working fine.  The big issue I have with it is when I try to open up several blogs at once, I do that throughout the day, this new interface only opens one window and stacks the blogs one on top of the other so I have to hit the back button on the browser.  The truth is, sometimes--well more and more now--I read these blogs on my iPad and it is frustrating to have to touch the blog title, wait for the screen to pop up and select open in a new tab and keep doing that for all the blogs I want to read.  (ALSO, I am a Luddite, so if anyone knows how I can fix that on my Mac or iPad, please drop me a line in the comment section of dragolite 1 at gmail dawt com.)  ALSO, it keeps saying I'm not folowing anyone when I have something like thirty to fifty blogs I follow!  That grinding noise you hear is my teeth...

On to gaming stuff...
Last Sunday, I was able to continue my 1E campaign with three players, then one dropped out.  He was on Skype and continued to have problems.  He should be joining again next week, I hope.  The other two PCs, Kael the Elven Ranger and Cardis the human thief along with two NPCs, Fulnoch the halfling thief and Sister Thersail, cleric of Theran, delved into the first level of Stonehell Prison.  They did not get very far, since they also were dealing with several issues above ground on the surface of Stonehell.  (I must say, it is an amazing megadungeon.)  They stopped, after only exploring a few rooms.  Didn't camp, just put the game on pause.  Which I thought was a little weird myself.  But, I think it was because of the truncated session we had.

Then, on Monday, some friends came over and we did a modified d20 game called Into the Black.  A steampunky, Victorian space game.  It was interesting.  My character is a treasure hunter, looking for old tech of Earth-That-Was.  (He found a weed whacker and a few crewmembers and I were having a blast deciding what to do with it.  The first thought was a weapon of some kind, putting either a bunch of razor blades or made a modified hubcap on the end.  It was silly fun.)  Overall, I had some fun.

There is one more item I want to touch upon before ending this post.  I have brought it up before, I believe, in a previous post.

Zak S. was playing around with a Cthulhu game set in the 1920's with the player's having some kind of super power or something like that.  That got me thinking about using something similar, taking cues from a few other blogs.  Then. I stumbled upon this guy and it got me thinking of something that would be very much like Zak's idea and smashing it together with Victorian Gothic instead.  With Zak, it was horror in one way, I think my idea is more oppressive and dark.  Yet, I want to have it in a world that isn't typical 1890's London or 1920's New York.  This is a world with steampunk tech, and maybe something even more sinister.  The Mi-go and Elder Things thrum away behind the scenes while the cultists of Cthulhu run amok doing their own evils to the world.

This is just an idea, but it could be fun.