Playing Tonight

Post-covid, things have certainly been up in the air.  I think the last time I ran my big campaign was ... jeebus, was it really 2022?  Seems it was ... and we were taking a risk at the time, even though we'd all had two shots.  We've pretty much all had four now, and what with issues consuming the general group's ability to find work, move, sell their property in one case and so on, no one wanted to enter into a sporadic running every four months.  So we've put it off, and put it off.  But tonight, it's a go.

I have one new player and one fellow returning after a 10 year hiatus, the famous Shalar from many years in the past.  It will be nice having a monk rejoin the party, especially as the monk's sage abilities are a massive shift in that class's game investment.  I've not yet had any chance to play test those ideas, though I have no concern about them.  It's going to be fun.

I'm four hours out from starting that game and there's no way that I'm prepared.  So this is a good time to talk about not being prepared as a dungeon master and venturing to play anyway.

Why am I not prepared?  Well, there's just too much to prepare for.  With our last three sessions being far more about moving the narrative along rather than specifically attending to the character's abilities and other details, tonight we have plans to run a "session 0" that is really nothing of the kind.  I used to call them "accounting sessions," but that's not accurate either.  This is more along the line of a general correction of details for all characters, to fully connect them with rule changes and such that I've been invested in creating these last four years.  As such, there's just no way I have of knowing what the players will need, or how much sorting is called for.  The best thing is for me to get ready to answer a few hundred questions while the characters make choices and updates.

Thing is, I have a reputation for providing a satisfactory game.  There's nothing more annoying than a player whining that we should "get to it and play already."  These are the same people who are unable to drive more than 75 miles, no matter how great the beach is, or sit through a brilliant movie because it runs 120 minutes and not 90.  As children, they were unable to wait for their marshmallow.  As an excellent DM, expecting nine players this evening, I can pick and choose who I let play.  I don't have to put up with anyone who hasn't the patience to let the game reach fruition in its own time.  In the end, my players know that I'll provide the two marshmallows I'm promising, and then some.

My responsibility is to be honest and up front with the players, telling them exactly where we stand ... and I've been doing that for a month.  Everyone coming tonight knows what's happening and why.  Having kicked the can down the road these last years due to covid, they're deliriously happy knowing that we're getting back on a schedule again.  This is key.  Once we're grounded, I know that with each progressive session I'll be better prepared ... as I'm progressively immersed in regular play.  What matters is my commitment; not what I happen to do with tonight's five or six hours.

This will be a social gathering.  We've all seen each other, but we haven't gathered for specifically this purpose in a long time.  There has been nine months of built up excitement, so these people are going to be irrepressible anyway!  They won't be in a state of mind to actually take part in a narrative for at least three or four hours, if at all.  And it would be foolish of me to try to make it otherwise.  The players need to be encouraged to relax, to get back into it, to chat and derail and get the fresh rush out of their systems.  This is a BIG part of managing people ... by letting them be people.

I don't suppose that for some of you, the experience has ever been like this.  I have a very powerful reputation for delivering a good game.  I think about D&D day and night, I work on it virtually every day, I'm always proposing something new and I've had a long history of building a deep, profoundly detailed campaign.  After 40 years, I'm well-past any sense of doubt or concern that I won't measure up.

Which, of course, makes me look like a MAJOR egotistical fucktard, and that's entirely fair.  But, may I stress, I've committed well over 3,000 posts on this blog towards a very "moral" form of game play.  The game is NOT about the DM, it is about the players.  My effort is not to preen myself on my cleverness, but to work at being as clever as possible, knowing this will leave me as tired and worn out as a prisoner on a chain gang by the end of tonight's session.  Whereupon, emotionally, I'll crash and burn out, feeling the intense crash of my body ceasing to produce endorphins, dopamine and seratonin all at once, not to mention the sudden quietness of the residence as the players leave.  Anyone whose worked hard at DMing understands how brutally disheartening those few hours can be ... a feeling like being heartbroken.  I have a nice Friulian red wine waiting.

The time, for me, will pass like a finger snap.  I'm focused on what I'm doing, I'm in flow ... and there's opportunity to pat myself on the back anywhere in the proceedings.  When the players leave, they'll be tired also, experiencing their own drops ... so the energy for praising me isn't going to happen, either.  Nope, we'll all burn ourselves out together, leaving nothing but the creeping silence after the game's crash and thunder.

That's how it goes.  Anyone who thinks, having read this blog, that I'm lording it over my players, then you cannot understand what it is that makes them so excited.  No, no, I'm lording it over you ... because my vision of playing is universes apart from what I read on other people's blogs, or on boards, or anywhere on the net.  It isn't Critical Role.  It isn't Chris-fucking-Perkins.  And unless you're one of the players at my table, so that you are invested with YOUR character, you can't possibly understand what's going on by watching.

Understand.  Some of these people have been running in my game for 16 years.  They can't see my game as just a "game" ... they are way, way too invested for that.  The first brick laid for that foundation of their investment was put down 16 years ago.  How could you, seeing it for the first time this week, grasp what that means?

But no, no ... you go on with your one-off sessions, your game con tournaments, your one-page dungeons.  Whatever makes you happy.

Combat Summary

Because I was asked about a summary for Saturday night's adventure in Ternketh Keep, I thought it might be fun to post the experience tally board for the last combat I ran that night.  Below is an account sheet in excel that I use in every combat, to keep track of how much damage people have caused and how much damage they have taken.  During the actual game my accounting is double-checked by the party, who can see the board on the duplicated monitor readout that I use for my games, so that if I forget to add something to their damage caused or their damage taken, they can remind me.

 The list includes all the members of the party, listed in order of how fast they move and react in combat (highest dexterity first, highest wisdom breaking dexterity ties, highest constitution breaking wisdom ties).  Share of bonus experience is awarded according to importance and decision-making among the party members.  Main characters have a 1.00 share; henchmen have a 0.5 share; henchmen of henchmen have a 0.25 share; and followers that are leveled have a 0.125 share (which appears as 0.13 on the display).  The "In?" column indicates whether or not the member of the party took part in the actual combat (made an attack or was attacked at some point, regardless of attack success).

My experience distribution rules (calculated by the spreadsheet) are explained on the wiki.

I'm sorry I can't say what the combat was against.  It was a single encounter detailed in the module, Ternketh Keep, available through my Jumpstarter Proposal.

I told Oddbit that the total damage the party did was equal to 297; the adjustment shown on the table above shows 251.9.  That is because magic damage is accounted as equal to 3/10ths weapon damage for experience purposes.  The party mage cast magic missile and burning hands (wanting to reserve other combat spells for later combats).

Total experience (adding 10%) amounted to 11,057.  Without the 10% bonus, 10,279.  As can be seen, some participants do not get a 10% bonus.

Classes are as follows (for participants only):

• Taver is a 2nd level illusionist
• Vlad is a 2nd level ranger
• Olie is an 8th level thief
• Demifee is a 6th level mage
• Sunsky is a 1st level fighter
• Holly is a 4th level fighter
• Perkin is a 3rd level fighter
• Sharper is a 7th level fighter
• Woodsole is a 5th level druid
• Fehim is a 2nd level fighter
• Sven is a 5th level cleric

The Deep Desert

I am beat.

I was hoping yesterday or today to write something about rules for crossing deserts, since one contingent of my offline party has decided to quest into the Sahara desert for a strange object they heard about last year - an ever-cold icicle that never melts, that will alter the temperature for miles around.  The 11th level druid wants it so he can hatch the remoraz egg he collected some five years ago, which remains unhatched because it requires continuous exposure to extreme cold.  Why he wants to hatch it, no one knows, but he would rather stumble around in the Sahara than sit for some undetermined time in Greenland.  That way, he can raise the egg in the comparative comfort of Transylvania.

Just now, they've begun making their way from the Nile River at Minya westward towards a region called Kufra - which they know to be occupied by humans of the Jewish faith.  All they know for sure is that they're looking for a place either called Zella, Zelia or Zaila.  As they go, their guide and others they met on Saturday have let them know about a few odd and strange races out there in the desert - creatures who wrap their putrefying skin in bandages (who are not undead), dog-men (whom the party has decided are probably Jackalwere) and humanoids called the dijang.  It is all strange and uncertain and I am loving that the universe in the deep desert is nothing like what they've seen already.

The end of the running left the party preparing for combat against fifty undead camels that are shuffling towards their oasis in the dead of night.  They have no idea what sort of undead, except that they smell horribly, or where they've come from.

The battle promises to be most satisfying.

Sorry, however, I did not have the energy to write down some of the simple desert rules I began running.  Probably won't have time this week.  As I said, I'm beat.

Oh, and I've written a post for the other blog.

No More Dragons

My party last night managed to make their way to their goal.  This was after getting into a fight with several hundred orcs.  These included a number of high-level leaders, 4th through 9th level . . . and the average 7th level party had to give ground and escape.  This took them into the lair of several carrion crawlers.

After all this, last night, it was one ancient black dragon, with one sub-adult and one young dragon as babies.

The party had eleven members, including lower level henchmen.  All but two were at 3/4 hit points or less.

The battle lasted approximately 8 rounds.  The ancient dragon employed its breath weapon twice. The young dragon did once.  Before going down, the dragons succeeded in causing 300 points of damage.

The 1st level cleric (a new player, started about three months ago) managed to do 12 damage and survive the battle.  One 4th level druid, one 6th level fighter and one 7th level fighter did not survive. Though two speed potions and one super-heroism potion were in play, they had no effect whatsoever, as the users were either killed or knocked unconscious before they could employ their three attacks per round.

It was hell.

The total haul in X.P. was around 110,000. (exact numbers unavailable, as I did not add up all the treasure plus what the party got for actually fighting.

The party has agreed, no more dragons for awhile.

Crossed Party Paths

Thank you, Maliloki, for asking a question yesterday that gives me an excuse to write this.

I have had three campaigns running in my world at the same time.  I still sort of do, but the online campaign's hiatus cruelly drags on.  Offline, I still have two running.  The question was, is it the same world for all parties?  And if not, is there a chance that the actions taken by one party will affect another?

My first party began in the town of Kolyeno in the county of Voronezh, Russia, on May 1, 1650.  It began there because that was the first part of my world that I mapped according to the principles my blog readers recognize (elevation, 20 miles per hex, etc.).  I began with Voronezh because it was flat steppeland, lightly populated and a long way from the ocean.  I felt, at the beginning of my mapping, that I should start deep inland, developing my skills as I moved outwards.

I know that in my book How to Run I proposed starting on an island or a peninsula.  I made that suggestion because I know most campaigners don't set out to make nit-picky maps based on the actual world's latitude and longitude.  A writer has to know the audience.

At the time of starting that campaign, eight years ago, I hardly had more of the world mapped than that tiny area of south European Russia.  Kolyeno is a tiny village of about 200 people, the right location to start a 1st level party.  In such a small village, their own, where they had friends and family, they weren't likely to be threatened until they took their first risks.  The choices the party made, combined with random events that involved the party indirectly, led them first towards China, then Persia and finally to Transylvania.  Throughout it all, it was their choice to stay or go.

The online campaign began within two weeks of a spontaneous idea I had in February, 2009.  I called it a 'stupid idea.'  It turned out to be somewhat better.  By 2009 I had four years of mapping under my belt and I had produced sufficient areas of the world to provide several options.  However, as I was working on advancing my trade system specifically for a start in Germany, I wanted to experiment with that.  Therefore, I offered the online players a choice of Mecklenburg, Saxony, Sudetenland, Vogtland, Erzgebirge, Bohemia, Moravia, Upper Austria and Bavaria.  The party ultimately went for the last option.  I rolled randomly for a center in Bavaria that wasn't Munich, Augsburg or Nuremberg (I did not want to start them in a big city) and got Dachau.  Yes, that same Dachau.

That location created the events that followed.  The choices the party made, combined with random events that involved the party indirectly, led them first towards Switzerland, then Cuxhaven (after a slight reboot) and finally to the Azov Sea.  Throughout it all, it was their choice to stay or go.

Of course these two campaigns were utterly unique, though they both started on the same date.  At the moment the First Party was in Kolyeno in Russia, the Second Party was waking up in Dachau, Germany.  When the year turned to 1651, the First Party was stumbling south through the desert east of the Caspian Sea, while the Second Party had just been freed from the hands of a bandit in northern Italy.

The Third Party began late in 2011.  Because I had done detailed maps of the area, and because that party did not care, it began in Kronstadt in Transylvania, again on May 1, 1650.  That party consisted of three persons who poked around the area a little before wandering generally southeast into Serbia, Kosovo and ultimately Albania.  When the year turned 1651 for them, Demifee had died and they had made their way to Amisos in northern Turkey.

Now, this is interesting.  In game time, the Third Party passed down the road from Amisos to Melitene before the Second Party, during January of 1651.  However, in real time, the Second Party had already been down that same road, in April of 1651.  Technically, after the Third Party in game time but the actual campaign took place in winter 2013/4.

If this doesn't fuck with your head, nothing will.

The Third Party never came to the little dungeon I set up for the Second Party (which they encountered on the way back to Amisos), for obvious reasons . . . I didn't need to!  As the Second Party came through, they came across the wounded Sphinx, who they saved, setting up a totally different adventure on the same ground.  Why wouldn't I?

Will these parties encounter each other?  Possibly.  For the next year, until Spring 1652, the First Party will be wandering around the northern Ural Mountains.  This because two members of the First Party pulled from a Deck of Many Things, earning the enmity of the same demon, then played stupidly playing with certain picture-portals in a dungeon (they were warned, seriously, that the pictures were EVIL), the demon grasped their souls and dumped them onto the first level of Hell.  Literally.  The rest of the party then went on a quest to get them out (the characters weren't dead, just trapped, a'la Theseus).  I doubt if the Second or Third parties will stumble across them, there, as 1651/52 plays out.

After that, the First Party settled in their Transylvania fief, only to spend the next year trying to wake up King Carol, the last king of the Avars, who slept for 900 years under a mountain in the Tatras between Slovakia and Galicia (Poland).  That is a whole other story.  For them, as I said on the previous post, it is now late 1653 . . . and for various reasons, they will soon be heading for Khorezm in Turkestan, to fight a big, big fight against an old enemy.

I expect that the Second Party, online, will be managing to keep alive in and around the Black Sea for all that time.

Meanwhile, the Third Party is returning these holy items to their origin.  I can't say yet where they will be, since the players only have some of this information . . . however, it looks like they will be crossing to Aria, in northwest Afghanistan, seeking knowledge.  Just now, they're involved in events in Egypt.

See, my world is so immense, so HUGE, that even if all three parties happened to be in the same place at the same time, it would probably be a big city - where they could easily not stumble across one another unless I arranged it.  Or, like the Second and Third parties both passing through Tokat, they would be there three months apart or more.

I don't have to take special steps to ensure they don't meet.  Though I do need to keep good records on the date.

Something made easy by the fact that my world uses the same calendar.

P.S.:

Do be sure and catch the newest post on my new cooking blog.

Combat Among the Orcs

A couple weeks ago I posted a picture one of my players had taken of a combat they were fighting.  That picture inspired me to update the quality of my top-down portrayals; here's what two weeks produced for Saturday Night's campaign:

Nice, huh?  The players were very happy with it.  All the imaging was drawn free-hand, though I admit to copying much of it from other top-down figures and objects around the internet.  However, nothing is there that wasn't expressly adjusted for my game.

They're fighting about 80 orcs at the moment, many of them 1st level or better.  There are 11 players and their henchmen, and it is proving a lot harder than expected.  They've performed a bunch of spells; that's a wall of fog down the center of the picture, reducing the effects of the enemy's standard (which the party is going to shatter as soon as the mage Lovi sees it emerge from the fog).  They've also cast two monster summoning spells, producing 12 of their own orcs (lovely and confusing) as well as 9 two-HD grimlocks.

I had meant to take a video of the whole combat - but for some reason the default setting on the program was set to fast capture, so that the video wound up being 63 gigabytes - too large for me even to convert to a usable file for youtube.  Still, this is the battle as the night ended, so I will give it another try on the 15th of April.

Keep warm.  I'm working on new weather tables that seem to be working.

Daughter to Father

I received this letter today from my daughter. A gift, unbidden, for no special occasion at all. The words are hers. It is re-posted with her blessing. I have added few links, a few clarifications.

I began D&D by hiding around a corner listening to my Dad and his friends play. I was never kept from the game, but I understand that, perhaps, it’s not a game for a 4 year old.

Many would like to chalk this up to the supposed “violence” of the game, but the simple fact is, when you are focusing on learning to tie your shoes, D&D will have to wait.

It took eight years before D&D was available for me on my comprehensive level. We played 2nd Edition every morning before class. My teacher encouraged our play: 1) because kids’ holding a book is a good thing; and 2) because it all looked like math on paper.

Patrick, my DM, was very good for a 12-year-old boy. His games were slow, he struggled with the books and he hesitated on the rules. Like all first-timers, the stage fright was his ultimate hurdle, but he told a good story. We were railroaded to the max! I can best describe it as a choose-your-own-adventure book. You felt in control, but ultimately there were only so many pages to choose from.

Anyone who has played can describe railroading: “We don’t like it; we just accept that if we’re going to play, this is how it is going to be.” (Ah, yes: the mind of a 12-year-old, just accepting what it’s given). 

Our group held together for a little over a year, until our schedules had changed and we couldn't meet before class. This was the same year I first played in my Dad’s world.
I struggled, switching from 2nd to 1st Edition; but having a strong DM who knew his rules inside and out made all the difference. Knowing the tradition of picking a fighter first, because it is the easiest, I started there.

The character suited my age. I had no tact, no concept of ambush; I was a hit-and-ask-questions later player. This is where I differ from others. Due to a low head count, only 2 [players], my father also played a character along with us. He played a thief (Frith) and by the power of the dice he often blew his checks, landing him in very bad positions. It was a great time for me. I could watch Frith dig himself out of situations I had never considered getting into. I suppose most people would become more cautious watching this behavior; not me. I was inspired. All I could think was how it would have all played out if it had worked [his attempts to do things].

Once again, a year of play passed and it was all over.*

I am fundamentally a traditionalist. I play paper and pen. I truly like 1st Edition only. This does not mean I do not believe in change.

Am I a player or a DM? I asked myself at 16. It wasn't a choice, being the most knowledgeable and gifted with a purple hand, I was elected a DM. I found this to be a constant struggle. I didn't want to railroad. I wanted my own stories, my own world. I think that is how we all start out; but like so many, I couldn't deliver my dream. I found myself suckling at the Greyhawk teat, grasping for guidance. I looked up how to be a DM online, finding nothing, sinking nights into a scribbler and telling myself, “If I can just make it interesting, my players will invest.” The stress of it all ended it for me after just six months. I remember feeling very guilty, asking my players if I should have ended it sooner.

“We just wanted to play,” they told me. The truth was the same phrase: “We don’t like it; we just accept that if we’re going to play, this is how it is going to be.” (Ah yes: the mind of a 16-year-old, just accepting what it’s given).

At 18, I found myself sitting at my father’s table. Playing the pied piper of D&D, I had brought two people to play with us, making us a group of four. We played for one year like that, in my father’s designed world with largely original rules.

The following year, two more had joined us, taking us to six. We had now started to see gaps in the book. Our druid was starting to have leveling issues (too fast, too much power). Our ranger was a well of hit points considering her mass. These are things that required ‘adjustment.’ This was also the year we began rolling against our stats.

What a dimension it brought to the game! You wouldn't think it mattered, if you liked to play chess vs. cards, but these tiny details were all our players needed as first time role-players.

Having one hand forced a cleric to consider other weapon types. Weak upper body took bows out of people’s hands, building community support characters. And my personal favorite: gymnastics for highly dexterous characters (hand walking, round offs, back springs, etc.). We were excited for both negative and positive outcomes: how would you play a blind character?

We went on like that for five years. People came, people left. Every running brought new house rules, deeper and more descriptive play. Each rule was tailored to class styles of combat.

The mass combat was an utter game changer. 100s of monsters on the field; groups working both together and miles apart, making choices that we only hoped would improve the battlefield and not make road blocks for other groups. Months passed while we rolled dice; nights filled with battle plans, wondering what to do next. At the end, the treasure was wonderful, but the sensation of having survived the battle filled us. Players don’t get a sensation for long and challenging outside the mega-dungeon universe. The truth was – we were always allowed to run.

My Dad often views our long months of die rolling as something he wanted to make simpler, easier to process. We told him, “It was fine, that we were great.” The same as, “We don’t like it; we just accept that if we are going to play, this is how it is going to be.” (Ah, yes: the mind of a 23-year-old, just accepting what it’s given).

Thankfully, he did not agree with us, but continued to improve the system. This brought on a better character generator for NPC’s and monsters.

Now we have been playing seven years. Three of our now seven players have been here since the start. Our rules book has developed into a personal tome for each class; and I look forward to the evolution of my game. Bring on the digital characters and the laptops!

And remember that, “We don’t like it; we just accept that if we are going to play, this is how it is going to be”??

FUCK THAT.

* My circumstances had changed; I couldn't run D&D for a year and I had to let the campaign fold.

The Saga of Demifee, Part II

It's always a bad thing when we're lowered to telling war stories.

Almost two months ago I wrote a post called 'Breaking Death.'  I thought, selfishly, that some readers might be interested in what is happening with that party . . . and along the way I can talk about a sandbox, about making conflict and just generally anything else that seems interesting.

Now, to refresh, the party's mage, Demifee, died.  With details that can be read on the link above, the mage was raised (not in the usual way) with the stipulation that the mage had one game year (from Dec 29, 1650) to return four holy symbols back to their proper place.  If this was not done, the player's character would irrevocably die and be cast quite definitely into the fiery pit.

So, a quest.  Do or die.  What is my responsibility as DM?  Upon what circumstances does that responsibility rest?

It is important to recognize that I did not compel the quest.  I let it be known that the player's 'permanent' death happened in unusual circumstances, and that therefore something could be done if the player's wished.  The players considered their options, considered whether they wished to take the steps necessary to bring back the mage.  Which they then decided to do.  Free action, decided upon freely.  Consequences to follow.

Every time the players follow through with the decision (the mage now being alive and fully able to act) to return the items, they are effectively restating their resolve.  It may look like I'm holding a gun to the mage's head, but the mage was in fact already dead.  If I kill the mage because the party fails, they are precisely at the point where they started.

However rough the process is, then, the players have already committed.  They are still free to pull out at any time, accept the consequences and move on.  Are there good reasons for doing that?  Yes.

I run a world where the players typically have more than one character once they have been playing about six months.  The player operating the mage also has a 4th level druid.  If this druid progresses to 5th level, this druid will also gain a hench - thus the mage can be made to stand down, accept fate, pass over everything the mage possesses and the player will still possess two characters.

Because the player does not depend upon their mage for everything (and won't be slapped down to first level if the mage dies or stands down), I am free to play with the mage's survival in ways that I might not otherwise.  By this I mean that I can put the player (and by extension, the party) into situations where they should feel considerable ambiguity about their actions.

For example, they have just recently returned the first holy symbol.  This was a six-pointed star, the apparent Hebrew symbol.  Only, it wasn't.  Sometimes, I really enjoy fitting real-world groups or ideas into my world - this was a terrific opportunity for that.

In the 1st century, there was a group called the Ebionites.  To simplify wikipedia, these were 'Christians' who were determined to continue following the mosaic law of their preceeding Jewish roots.  In effect, they wished to straddle the two religions - but what they managed to do was to get themselves so hated by both Christians and Jews that their marginalization became inevitable.  By the 5th century, they were basically gone.  (wikipedia gives examples to show otherwise, but for my world I chose to dismiss those as rogue Ebionite cults who ceased to be the 'true' believers).

So, armed with this little detail about history, I envisioned a singular tomb in the mountain wilds overlooking south Gazira (Jazira), where the party found the "last of the Ebionites."  The party, remember, is in the year 1650.  The last Ebionite dies sometime (I'm arguing) around 525.  So how does the party return the holy symbol (the Star of Michael, I called it) to its rightful religion?

Well, I made the last Ebionite a mummy.  Embalmed by a gnostic in 525, following Egyptian practices, so that one day the Star of Michael could be found and ultimately returned - whereupon the mummy's power would be vastly increased by the possession of said item.

The party descended into the tomb and found a dozen somewhat focused slaves praying to the mummy, "sustained" by the process of praying so that centuries could pass without them aging, sleeping or needing to eat.  I love D&D.  This allowed the party to get all the information they needed before actually handing over the item . . . making it perfectly clear that if the mage were going to be preserved, the mummy would be given all kinds of wonderful power.

The dilemma was thoroughly effective.  A debate raged over whether or not anyone could think of a third option, but I kept the details simple and pretty tight.  No one liked handing over the item.  Imhotep from Sommer's Mummy franchise came up a good deal.  The party got pretty excited over something that didn't actually require a combat.

So they asked the minions to raise the mummy, which they did.  Then the party made save and the 6th level fighter ran, Demifee ran and the 5th level cleric ran.  This left the 7th level thief and a 2nd level fighter (henchman) to fight the mummy - if the plan of  "Give the mummy the item and then kill it" has occurred to the readers.  It occurred to the players - who, given that the party was running out of the tomb felt they ought to ditch that plan.  And yes, I know, they're supposed to be paralyzed, but this simply fit the situation better; it was a Christian mummy.  Perhaps they're different.

The thief very quietly handed over the star and left.  One down, four to go.  And if the mummy terrorizes the middle east, well . . . the party decided they saw that as more of a YP than a MP.

After all, the party is bound for Egypt to get rid of an ankh.

A clarification.  This is a different campaign than the one that featured the combat pic and the video from this post.  The combat features the younger party, including my daughter, which I ran on the 21st.  They will run again on April 4th.  The party described above ran last on the 14th; they will run again this Saturday, the 28th.

Running

A picture taken of the combat ongoing in my campaign tonight, taken by one of the players.  Just got it in an email, so I didn't even know the picture was being taken.  The party names are plainly visible - image taken straight off the monitor.

The bright splash of colour around the orcs (without names) is faerie fire, added to the image once the spell was cast).

And here's a view of me DMing last night.  It includes the party's decision to let themselves into the combat above.  Apologies for the aspect ratio.



Note the point where I just stop talking, letting the party work it out for themselves.  Note also how I try not to even move or have any expression while this is happening, except when it's necessary to make a distinction or keep the party on track.

Serendipity Squared

The world is a better DM than I am.

I don't know how much value my non-players will get out of this post. I know that I feel I should write it, if only because it demonstrates to the nth degree the extreme unlikeliness of the world. Unlike most who are limited only to their own imaginations, or to what they can scour from purchased modules and adventures, I have this world that keeps surprising me again and again with its combination of unexpected fact and marvelous continuity.

Here is the story, as concise as I can make it. Some long time ago, about four years in fact, the party went through this adventure that resulted in reuniting an Amazon princess with her Father (see, I can do traditional), a quest which involved a certain amount of unreality and inter-plane contact. In turn, the party was granted the privilege of having reality slightly altered so as to give them a single-hex piece of land all their own, anywhere within the area I had mapped up to that time. After a great deal of discussion, the party agreed upon Transylvania, and I parked them in a wild bit of territory in eastern Transylvania, part of modern Covasna.  The map upon which I based my world did not have any significant town in the hex, so that made it a wilderness land, not administered strongly by the Transylvanian Kingdom.  I wrote generally about the hex in this post, two years ago.

After a long time looking around for any additional information about the hex's geography or history, I had come to the conclusion that there wasn't much of anything - frustrating as that was.  So I've been faking it for quite awhile.

The party went off and did this and that, journeyed into the far north to regain two comrades lost due to a bad incident involving a Deck of Many Things (love that item), returned, fought a large army of hobgoblins, goblins and a few drow elves (who dwell deep, deep under the Carpathian mountains, the party discovered), and got settled into their little fiefdom.  Destroying the hobgoblin/goblin army was seen as a great boon to the King of Transylvania, and the designated owner of the party's fiefdom, the mage, was made a land graf over the same area, essentially the least significant of minor nobility.

Then I began starting the adventure the party is on now, the crux of which at this point revolves around their finding a way to contact and return the Avars, who 'stepped out' some ten centuries ago into another plane of existence, to aid them in fighting some other creatures helping the God Xalmoxis accomplish some nefarious purpose.

And now, a piece of information comes to light that is marvelously unexpected.

It is important to understand the time frame.  Fief given 4 years ago.  Circumstances leading to seeking the Avars begun about 9 months ago.  Choice of Avars as the missing race in question chosen entirely at random.

A couple of days ago, I am looking through old folktales looking for inspiration on how to bring about the awakening of the Avars, which I'm not entirely clear about yet.  And in the process I stumble across a reference to the son of Attila the Hun, Csaba, and his relationship to a Hungarian tribe, the Szekelys.

Well, I know that Transylvania is occupied mostly by a Hungarian-Romany peasantry ruled by a German aristocracy, so anything Hungarian is of interest to me, so I click on the link and look at the Szekelys.  And I find the wikipedia page.

Now, on this page I find the description that they "are a subgroup of the Hungarian people, living mostly in the Szekely Land."  Now, I've never heard of the Szekely Land.  And I am a major geographical buff ... I know all kinds of worthless junk about all kinds of places in the world, and for something to get through the cracks is very unusual - as anyone who knows me can tell you.  Moreover, I've been reading shit about Romania for four years, and I can't recall ever having heard ANY reference to Szekely LAND.  I might have stumbled across the peoples before, and paid no special attention, but that word LAND would have rung a major bell with me, as that is a huge fascination of mine.  But nope, never heard of it.

Guess, just guess, where Szekely land is.

Yep, extending from Covasna through Harghita and into Mures and Neamt.

Who fucking knew?

On the map above, you can identify the Carpathian and Southern Carpathian mountains by where the areas marked off by the white lines get much larger , in a sort of backwards L through the center of modern Romania.  The area above and to the left of those larger subdivisions is Transylvania.

Well fuck, I am thinking.  The party has been there for four years and I'm only learning about the Szekely's NOW?  I could have been building campaigns all this time ... should have been building campaigns.  I feel sheepish and more than a little stupid.

But what the heck, I know now.  And it doesn't destroy the continuity, since the party is in league with the German aristocracy, and was never in league with the peasantry anyway.  Good enough, I'll start bringing the Szekely culture into the picture, now that I know.

So who are these Szekelys?  Well, there's a lovely link on the wikipedia page, History of the Szekely people.  Good place to start.

But then, you go down that page to where you find "Speculations and theories today," and there's a huge bomb right here, tailor-made for my campaign and the party itself.

Theory number 4 for the origins of the Szekely people:  "Szekelys were descendents of the Avar people, whose Kaganate was liquidated by Charlemagne and Khan Krum in the early 9th century, who relocated to Transylvania in the 12th century."

THUMP.

Now, I said in the linked post above about the Avar campaign that I wasn't using the real world time frame, and that the Avars were disappearing in the 7th century.  But it's reasonable to assume that some Avars disappeared in  the 7th century, and that the remaining Avars were then destroyed in the 9th, and so on.  I did say, after all, that the information the party had about the "last Avars" was a myth.

What this means, for those who haven't jumped forward into the future, is that the party has the opportunity to return the forefathers of the very people over which the party has nominal authority, gain the adoration and respect of the Szekelys, possibly unite them, establish themselves as religious and secular leaders over a whole group of people occupying a 5,000 square mile area, sue for autonomy from the Transylvanian King (probably not independence), and then use an army raised of Szekelys (I estimate casually between two and five thousand fighting men) to carry out further adventures.

And people say the End Game in D&D is boring.

You know what?  You go to the store and buy another 32 page piece of shit from a vendor.  I will stick to running world history.  It is just too fucking amazing.

A War Story

I am on vacation.

Which means for me I am at home, defragging my brain, presently working on the headache of the Jeweller's table, a solution for which is not presently in sight, which is why I haven't posted in four days.  It seemed it would be quite simple ... randomly determined item, material, workmanship, special features, gems.   I'm on that last bit now, realizing that the table has to be tailored for specific size gems to be added to specific sized bits of jewellery, requiring a different algorithm for every type of jewellery that is randomly indicated.

Oh, yay.

So putting that aside, I am also trying to write the first few bits of the book I'm right now calling Yonder, which may be problematic since there's already a 13th century graphic novel called Yonder that was released in 2008.  It's a shame, as the title really fits my theme well.

Anyway, it is not going well.  I have been working for 18 months without a vacation and I have noticed an increasing inability to focus deeply upon given tasks.  I am now in day five, and I am hoping I start to relax soon.  I have to be back at work on Monday.  My hope is that I can at least start the book, enter it onto my other blog and talk about the problems of starting it and the reasons I'm incorporating various elements into the opening.  I hope this kind of information will be useful for others.

My offline campaign went rather well on Saturday, building up a number of themes that have been coming together for some time.  I'm not usually the type to tell war stories, but I'm stretching out my mind and I thought I'd settle into describing what's been happening with my party.  I know some out there like to read this sort of thing.  I really don't, but then I'm writing, so it probably won't be as boring for me as listening to someone else.

Hah.  Well, now that I've set the gentle reader up to be really fascinated ...

Last winter, the party began poking under a huge stone carved as a single piece with the name Xalmoxis written on it.  It was fairly clear from the beginning that it was some kind of altar, but they found it partly buried in the remote woods and Carpathian foothills about ten miles from their borderland fiefdom.  For a whole running the futzed around with it, eventually tunnelling under it into an immense hollow cave.  There they woke up - not intentionally - a large steampunk-like machine that fired a barrage of metal stones at them and then began tunnelling its way horizontally out of the cave.  The party felt they were unable to destroy it, so they retreated to their home.

When it emerged, it did so by a pond in the valley; it reconstructed itself into a 'factory,' and began sucking water up from the pond.  The party found it by stumbling across a tin golem which was roving the countryside gathering boulders and bringing them back to the factory.  The party discovered there were three of them, and after destroying the first followed one of the others home.  By this time the factory was sixty feet long and thirty feet wide.  After much conjecture on how to destroy it, they settled on a lightning bolt, which succeeded in creating an explosion that blew the riveted roof of the factory open.

Inside they discovered the factory had been producing a kind of slurry, which poured out onto the ground from the exploded source and began spontaneously producing flesh golems.  Due to the slowness of the golem production, the party was unable to unload a lot of magic attacks into the mass of golems as they coelesced, so that even though 45 golems were ultimately formed, most were low on hit points by the time the party faced them in hand-to-hand combat.  As well, being able to encircle the main body with a wall of fire, the golems were able to emerge only a few at a time in the wall's opening, and this helped the party enormously.  Still, there were about ten or twelve golems that simply ran off into the wilderness while the battle raged.

As the golems died, the bodies began to melt, releasing a lot of heat.  What was left behind was an egg-shaped oval about a foot long and looking very much like obsidian.  When the battle was over, the party investigated these.  The cleric Widda decided to strike one with her hammer; it exploded, destroying the hammer, obliterating Widda's hand and killing the 6th level assassin and the 6th level mage that are standing nearby.

Returning to town in search of raising and regeneration spells, the party found Kronstadt (eastern Transylvania) in a tither.  The Archbishop of Transylvania had arrived with an entourage, and was said to be in congress with three odd wisemen from a distant land.  This information was given because a member of the party is a Landgraf, a minor noble, and has the benefit of such inside knowledge.  Word got around about the flesh golems, who were killing innocents with abandon, and the party confessed its involvement, and ultimately were approached by the wise men.

These wise men are apparently not human, and they describe their own journeying as something not done by overland; the party still isn't clear.  In appearance, they look somewhat like the mummy before the mummy is quite reconstituted - but has most of his human face.  The wise men became aware of things happening when the space under the altar had been opened and the tunnelling machine had been activated.  These men explain to the party that 1) a gate has been opened between the plane of Pandemonium and Earth; 2) creatures on that plane have sought to awaken the god Xalmoxis for eons; 3) the god Xalmoxis is thought by myth to be sleeping somewhere beneath the south Carpathian Mountains; 4) the gate was opened when the cleric destroyed the egg; 5) the cleric has made herself the perfect tool to awaken the god, and the Xalmoxian creatures will now be seeking her out.

The party long ago required a book that enables them to escape detection by scrying (their names written in the book allow the magic to work), which the acquired to avoid another enemy they gained in an earlier adventure.  This book now keeps the cleric safe, but it is known the cleric is somewhere in the area and she is being searched for.  The wise men promise to consider the matter, including their new knowledge of the party's book.  They regenerate the cleric's hand.  The party gears up for things getting worse, the assassin and mage receive raise dead spells.  But the assassin fails the resurrection survival and dies permanently.  The player rolls up a new character.

Three members of the party stumble across a weird creature moving through the town and upon approaching it find themselves face to face with a frog-like being about seven feet tall (it straightens from its original appearance).  It pointed a stick with two handles at the party and sling bullets come flying out.  One of the party members suffers 23 damage.  The others chase the creature until it turns onto a street, whereupon an opening appears in space like a door, floating about two feet off the ground.  There is a blinding white light in the opening, and another creature which is waving one hand.  The fleeing creature jumps through the opening and it disappears.

The party returns to the wise men who explain that these are the creatures and they are obviously poking around to find the cleric.  They suggest the cleric needs protection, and becuase the cleric is not a Roman Catholic, she should try to obtain the mcguffin for the next couple of runnings, the spike that was driven into the left hand of Christ.  It is in a castle under a deweomer that will allow its recovery by a Christian, for reasons that are not given.  The deweomer was cast 250 years ago by St. Anthony of Alba, who had some reason not to allow Catholics to have the spike.  The party discusses the matter and decides to get the item.

This brings them to a castle near Brod, which they enter, fight a lot of skeletal warriors and hell cats, and ultimately get the item in hand.  The cleric gets a feeling from the spike that it will work perfectly in a godentag, which is the cleric's perferred weapon; at this point I reveal to the cleric that this makes his godentag +4 to hit and damage, which pleases the cleric immensely.  I also explain that the spike is sentient, but isn't awake, and this worries the cleric immensely.  It is clear the item is an artifact, and probably has both good and bad powers.  The party discusses the nature of these powers, and it is surmised that the spike was 'created' but the unusual events that occurred with the crucifixion of Christ.  In fact, it could be said that the crucifixion was a sort of 'experiment' that required certain elements to come together to form the spike and bring it consciousness.  The party agreed - with some obscured hinting from the DM in the form of the wise men - that the blood of Christ could not create an evil item ... that ultimately the item would have to be made holy by its creation.

The party also found in the castle six maces of profound mastercraftsmanship, worth about 4,700 g.p. each.  They are not magical, but they are associated with a legend, and thought lost.

The legend is that the Avars, in the 7th century, a tribe of eastern Europe, was nearly wiped out by its enemies (here I am not keeping with Earth history in time frame, but it does not matter).  The last Avar tribe was comprised of the people's wisest and most brilliant scholars, and they fashioned a means by which they could escape to another plane of existence.  The maces were - the legend goes - the means by which the gate was opened.  The party does not know how this works.  However, the wise men upon seeing the maces propose that the Avars might be an aid to the party against the other creatures ... allies, if you will.

The wise men have offered the party a group of options: 1) flee, and hope the cleric is never found; 2) kill the cleric; 3) gather all the power they can and find Xalmoxis and send him from this plane before the god can be awoken; 4) prepare for a seige, for the creatures will ultimately gather to destroy Kronstadt and find the cleric.

The party has decided (not surprisingly) to seek more allies, and the Avars seem to fit that bill.  The wise men leave to hunt down the last of the golems and to return to their home to seek a greater wisdom.  The party investigates and reasons out that if the Avars are to be found, it must be discovered where they disappeared from ... ie, where it the last place on earth they were.  They hope to find clues there.

I have to say, the party and I have already agreed that the solution can't be sticking the maces into 6 convenient holes and making a machine work.  That's how Hollywood would do it.  I'm trying to be more clever than that.

Two sessions ago the party left Kronstadt for the great libraries of Europe, deciding that Vienna would be a good choice.  Knowing from experience that it is very difficult to cross the frontier between Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, they decided to go by ship from the Black Sea to Venice, and move up through the mountains.

Last session, on Saturday, the party had trouble getting over the pass into Austria, as it is late winter, but they did reach Salzburg.  They looked into the libraries there, and found they needed to speak to a man named Belisarius who is a scholar in Padua.  The book the party needs, The Tale of Carrol, supposedly tells the exact location of the departure of the Avars.

The party goes back over the pass, encounters some hill giants, which they avoid (though they could easily take them).  They find the hill giants watching them from a distance (the party is 21 persons, retainers included, along with horses and one hippogriff), wary of approaching.  Thus stalked, the party gets down the far side of the pass and there meets an entourage of 100 soldiers.  In one of those coincidences that I love, they find the soldiers are attendants to Belisarius, the same scholar, and he is looking for a hill giant lair because he is looking for an undisclosed object said to have been in the possession of some large hill giant clan these past 120 years.  He does not say what the object is.  The party knows where the lair is, because the druid using commune with nature was able to locate it, about five miles to the west, over a mountain saddle.  They offer to tell Belisarius this location if he will provide the book they need.  Belisarius sends a man back to Padua for the book (it will take 4 to 6 days) and the party agrees to lead the army to the lair.  That is where the session ended.

Interestingly, as the party will now approach the lair, one of the party members is 8 and a half months pregnant.  She joined the campaign two runnings ago.  The background to her character indicated that she started six months pregnant.  With travel times, ten weeks have passed, and she is now due the 6th of April.  It is the 16th of March as the party sits at the bottom of the mountain saddle.  There is some discussion of what will happen if the character gets hit hard.

Okay.  I've done my duty, I've written a post.  Tomorrow, I may write another one.

Done With That!

Seems like this is the time to end things.  The explanation point in the title is not for ending the online campaign, which I've only just done this morning.  Rather, it is to commemorate the ending of the player's mass combat battle, that started in February and has ended this last Saturday, a total of TEN runnings.

The battle ended with most of the party within one or two blows of being killed.  The 9th level druid was killed.  Very nearly also were the 6th level illusionist and the 5th level bard.  But the illusionist was able to use his wand of paralyzation against the drow Queen (a 9th level fighter/magic user) - the second blast got past the Queen's magic resistance and she blew her saving throw.  The road not taken was that if the second blast had failed, the Queen would have gotten a hold of the paralyzation wand, would have used it generally against the party and things would have gotten very bad.  She ventured out to get the wand once she had ascertained that the illusionist possessed it - and rather than use her wand of fire to destroy the illusionist (which might have ruined the wand of paralyzation), she exposed herself.  If not for the on-the-spot arrival of the 5th level paladin on her warhorse (moving awfully fast), the illusionist would have died.

It was all downhill from there.  The 9th level fighter, who had joined from the other fiefdom (and who broke his arm during the combat) was able to sustain the West Gate, and kill off the drow 6th level fighter enjoying the benefits of a haste spell.  The party at the southeast gate finally broke through, and flooded the map with fresh fighters, who wrapped up the small combats quickly.

Surprisingly, the total time for the whole combat was 35 rounds.  As I said, the combatants were about 225 friendlies against 450 unfriendlies ... but that didn't lengthen the combat time very much.  Ballistas in the enemy hands did prove their worth, but the reload time was so slow that I'm thinking about changing that - even if its illogical, a faster reload time would make seige weapons more worthy of the cost and effort.  To match believable movement rates, rounds are 12 seconds long; the reload time for a catapult was set at 6 minutes and a ballista at 4 minutes (times suggested by source materials).  But that's obviously way too long.  I would lower them each to once every six to eight rounds if I were ever to do this again.

I really don't know if I would.  It took up a lot of campaign time, five months of my D&D running career (I'm not going to live forever).  The party seemed to enjoy it ... and they were certainly happy about the final result.

What follows is primarily for the party's benefit, and for posterity (so I can look at this some years from now).  Here was the fallout.

There were six players in the game.

Kat began the combat as a 1st level assassin, Lorell.  As I was giving experience out for damage done and damage taken at the end of each night, she had made it to 2nd level assassin by the end of the 9th session.  She was given 1/32nd share of the treasure, commensurate with her level, but because she had no henchmen to share it with, she was able to keep all of it for herself.  This amounted to 18,000 experience, making her quite comfortably 5th level.

Melissa began the combat as a 1st level mage, Falcon.  She, too, was able to rise to 2nd level, and she, too, got the share that Kat got.  She also jumped to 5th level.

The justification for both those players to increase so much wasn't contested by the party; they had both managed to survive in the thick of the action in spite of being first level, which meant good playing and avoiding a quick and rapid death, which could have hit either of them at any time.  It was only through smart play that they lived.  And since I feel that in real life, a huge amount of experience is gained by surviving through such an ordeal, I didn't have a problem with it.  This is a game, after all.  I know that many in the past on this blog and elsewhere have bitched and rowed about why they shouldn't be entitled to go up more than one level ... I don't really care about those people.  Both girls, playing in their first campaign, were very happy.  And after all, just because they're fifth now, doesn't guarantee they'll survive their next combat.

The next lowest level of the party was Chris, who has had a 6th level monk (Shalar) for what seems forever, along with a 6th level cleric (Widda) as henchman.  The cleric goes up levels much faster than the monk; so while Shalar was at 59,000 X.P. at the start of the combat, Widda at half that, just over 29,000, was the same level.  Chris' characters received 7/32 of the treasure, which was enough to bounce the monk Shalar up to 90,000 X.P, and Widda to 47,000 (distribution was 2:1).  Unfortunately, neither character went up a level - which was highly unusual.  However, this was appeased somewhat by Widda finding a potion of longevity, which reduced her age from 63 to 53 - enough to kick her strength and constitution up by 1 point each.  Since this increased Widda's strength from 17+1+1 to 18+1+2, and her constitution up to 16 (giving the character six more permanent hit points from bonuses), Chris was happy enough.  And both characters should go up soon.

For anyone who has played a monk, they know that 7th level is the Holy Grail: 2 attacks per round, a better fighting table, the first time the open hand damage exceeds a normal weapon average (6, as opposed to a halberd's 5.5).  Chris is champing somewhat at the bit, now being only 8,000 X.P. away.

My Wife also got a 7/32nd share.  Her 8th level mage, Garalzapan, and her 5th level paladin, Neema, both went up a level; her 4th level fighter, Hig, fell 3,000 X.P. short of 5th (distribution was 4:2:1).  My Wife is deliriously happy.  She also found out just how close she came to dying throughout the whole battle.

Jumping the whole campaign to six weeks after the combat, so that the magic could be identified and therefore distributed rationally, she learned that the drow Queen had been carrying an arrow of slaying designed to kill magic users.  Only chance meant that my Wife had never happened to cast any spell where the Queen could see her do it; the arrow of slaying has no saving throw, and a 9th level drow fighter would have hit Garalzapan's AC on a 4 in 20.  This is information I have been sitting on for six months, ever since I rolled the item and put it in the Queen's possession, without ever breathing a word of it ... wondering every session if this was going to be the one where my Wife's mage was to die.

Sometimes it is hard to be a DM.

My daughter's characters got 8/32nds of the treasure.  This was enough to boost her 7th level ranger, Falun, to 8th level, her 4th level thief, Ariana, to 5th, and her 2nd level mage/thief, Frederick, to 3rd - but her 6th level illusionist, Pen, did not go up a level ... a cruel act of fate, since Pen ultimately saved everyone, including himself.  He was given a +2 ring of protection in compensation.  My daughter was of course adamant that we roll up the ranger's followers RIGHT THEN AND THERE, though it was past 1 a.m. - so we did.  The most interesting result was two werebears, which are going to prove very interesting in the future.

And finally, Kevin received the same treasure as my daughter.  This jumped his 9th level druid (revived by a death's door spell); Pikel, to 10th level; his 5th level bard, Lyrial, to 6th; and finally, his 1st level fighter, Urlgel, to 3rd.  I'm fairly certain that his 6th level thief, Ivan, did not go up to 7th, but I'll have to ask.

More than anyone, Kevin took the hardest hit in the combat, though he acquitted himself very well.  He did lose a low level henchman, Dinin, during the combat.  Though his main character went up a level, Pikel is in the doldrums as far as a druid going up levels (I don't play the rule where druids must fight other druids), since the spells aren't that much of an improvement, and getting stronger is just a process of a few more hit points each level.  And the worst moment of the night was when Urlgen rolled his 2d10 for increased hit points, and rolled two's back to back.  Total increase, adding constitution: 8.  There was much gnashing of teeth.

So, all told, 15 levels gained.  Four characters are entitled to new henchmen: Lorell, Falcon, Garalzapan and Ariana.  Pikel is entitled to a henchman to replace Dinin, who died.  His druid Pikel is entitled to another animal friend, to join his wolf, bear and sabre-toothed tiger.

Thus, a massive haul.  The final total for X.P. was in the neighborhood of 576,000 total ... which matched with a trade system treasure algorithm I've been working on, based on the strength of the defeated enemy as a percentage of the total strength of all persons accounted for in that trading zone.  No single player got more than 32,000 X.P., which was Garalzapan - who received most of the arms and equipment because, technically, the battle was fought on land for which she is the fief lord.  She doesn't know it yet (not being that steeped in D&D detail), but as she has reached 9th level, that is name level for mages, and her character is about to be made a Landgraf of Transylvania ... that is, lesser nobility.

(it's a Holy Roman title, but I can't find the equivalent in Transylvania so that title will do; I'm sure my Wife won't mind)

32000 was more than two thirds the total she needed to go from 90,000 to 135,000 ... but it's a short level for a mage.  I compare it with giving a 2nd level thief (another short level) a mere 900 X.P. for a single encounter.  Considering that it took ten runnings to play out the battle, I find the final totals fair, reasonable and encouraging for the players.

A last note: there are so many changes in the party, so many new people and so many increases in levels that I find myself pressed to manage all the changes.  The fief that needs developing, the things the party will wish to buy with their sudden wealth, the need to rewrite spell levels for druids, bards and mages (spells need to be updated for how they work in my campaign, and I haven't done the spells the party has just climbed up into), plus an enormity of other details.

Funny, I could have been doing this for the previous six months.  But it never seems important at the time ...

Still Loving Combat

Before reading this, you'll want to go here.  You'll find the pictures here much clearer.

It's my offline party urging me to write this post - I would probably just forget about it, because this is a fair bit of formatting to get this ready ... but what the hell.

Here is the mass combat at the end of Round Four:

Something bad has happened; the end of the third round showed a group of men, at the bottom of the map, rushing towards the south wall with ladders.  This image shows those men largely obliterated, some of them shown in white to indicate they are stunned and unable to do anything.  A fireball exploded in the middle of them, and so much for that assault.

The elves in the bottom left still waiting for the rush of hobgoblins from the SW Gate.  The mastodon (Pony) and the 7th level ranger, Fayln, mounted upon her hippogriff are managing to hold off the mass of goblins centering in on them, plus one cavewight (much like an ogre) and a yellow figure marked 'Prince.'  This last is a drow elf (I don't play night/day rules for drow).

The interesting part of the battle is what is going on at the N Gate ... where all hell is breaking loose.  The cavalry which hit the goblins in round 3 are pulling out now (the leader, marked Neema, is a 5th level paladin).  Meanwhile, hobgoblins that were on the wall have leaped to the ground (it is a wooden wall, 12' high); and goblins are still streaming from the main gate - although the druid, shown as Pikel, has warped wood to force the gate to remain open, so that when the goblins are killed the gate can be entered freely.  Over the next ten rounds, he will wonder about this strategy ... but there was no way to warp the gates shut, for once he was close enough to warp them, they were already open.  Meanwhile, the cavewights have dropped off the wall and are attempting to flank the party on the party's left.

At the SE Gate, the dire wolves are playing havoc with the zero levels ... this is just the beginnings of that combat.

Now, there were some technical errors when it came to saving files at this point; accidentally saving over files or failing to save at all.  So this next round is technically halfway through round 6 - so the party has gone twice since the last map, but the enemy has only gone once.  Thus the enemy are about to move:

The remnants of the ladder carriers, led by the 9th level lord of the forces aiding the party, and his 7th level cleric henchman, now rush towards the elves to help them against the hobgoblins.  If the reader will notice, midway up the map on the left is a figure, Penn, who is a 6th level illusionist, also moving to help the elves ... so things are not as dark there as they may seem.

Midway between the elves and the mess at the N Gate, the glaivers who have been hurrying all this time have finally reached the hole left behind by the mastodon.  Fayln and Pony continue to fight the good fight.  Some of the cavalry have gotten bogged down fighting hobgoblins in front of the wall ... three pass through the glaivers as they rush forward.  The rest of the cavalry have reformed and are now rounding outside the walls, looking for their next charge.

At the N Gate, the 1st level mage (Falcon) has managed to sleep two cavewights and two others, relieving some of the pressure ... the line grows longer, as the remaining enemy continue their attempt to outflank the good guys.  This is the sort of thing, I think that would be very difficult to portray using most mass combat rules.

Note the single figure, Ivan, to the left of the combat at the north gate.  This is a 6th level thief, who has managed to successfully hide in shadows (no need to move silently) and is going quite unnoticed.  He's about to do something stupid.  Please take note the group of slingers who were upon the wall, who have now leapt off and are hurrying to provide support for the enemy ...

As it happens, at the SE Gate, that party is doing quite well with the dire wolves.  In addition, the party's 8th level mage (transformed with a candle of invocation into 10th level), Garalzapan, has let go a fireball at the E Tower - and eliminated everyone there except for one lone goblin (who happens to be 7th level, and now quite weakened).  As such, the mage is no longer invisible.

This next map is the end of the 8th Round, so there have been 2 and a half rounds passed since the last map:

Starting as ever with the bottom left, a group of slingers has dropped off the south wall and have been harrassing the blue-colored humans fighting with the elves.  However, they have managed to kill a goodly number of hobgoblins (the Lord breaking his arm in the process).  This has resulted in a few more hobgoblins, all they could spare, rushing forward from the wall - and even if this doesn't wipe out the elves, it will prove to keep this group busy for awhile.

Some evil has befallen the Ranger; she failed a save vs. Hold person, and is now struck immobile.  Her hippogriff, 'Hathor', defends her body, but a hobgoblin champion (7th level) has moved in for the kill.  Meanwhile, Pony has been reduced to 2/3rds of its hit points, beset by two cavewights, and although the glaivers are pushing through the wall they are finding themselves beaten down by the Prince, who is attacking twice a round now.

As well, note a yellow figure to the right and lower down from Hathor, marked 'Queen' ... this is the frightful figure in this keep, another drow elf of indeterminate level.

This brings us to Ivan, who has chosen to approach the tower, and to climb it, intending to slaughter the hobgoblin crossbowmen inside.  Crazy.

The line at the N Gate has gotten longer, and finally the hobgoblins and goblins are successfully working around the line of glaivers.  Much of the force of the party is dependent upon the bard (Lyrial), whose playing through this has given +1 to hit and damage for the party, and -1 to hit and damage for the goblins, hobgoblins and cavewights ... but that is starting to slip.

Now, while it appears that the cavalry is running away, in fact they are simply slowing and wheeling - this is the first part of the turn.  At the speed they were going they could not turn more than 60 degrees a round ... but now the front has slowed to a crawl, and it readying itself.  Note the three cavalry from before who freed themselves in the 6th round have been struggling to catch up with the main body.

And finally, the dire wolves are mostly gone.  The mage is moving forward so that he will be in range to caste pass wall, which will open up the interior of the fort to the party`s attack (particularly the zombie`s under the control of the party`s sixth level dwarven cleric, Widda).

Very well, one more round, and then I am spent: this is the end of the 9th round:

Still the elves are fighting hobgoblins, and not much has changed.  The slingers on top of the hill to the right of the elves are keeping those four pinned down ... it just takes too long to climb the hill, and the cleric is attempting to restore to consciousness one of the others.  But although the battle looks like its ground down, things are about to shift against the hobgoblins (the Lord`s bad luck can`t run forever).

Inside the fort, on the west wall, the glaivers are still being chewed up by the Prince, while the ranger Fayln is getting very nervous.  It doesn`t look like the glaivers are going to reach her in time, does it?  Note that the Queen has paused, and hasn't moved from her place.  Heh, heh, heh.

The slaughter continues unabated at the N Gate, on and on ... with no seeming end to goblins rushing out to be ground down.  But steadily, the party is winning on the right flank, and losing badly on their left.  It looks now like things are sliding out of control ... ah, but look to the right!  Neema and the cavalry have turned around, and are now about to ride right at that group of slingers moving down the hill to support the enemy's right flank against the party's left.

And lastly, the SE group is mopping up the dire wolves and starting to move towards the wall.  Next to the mage, Garalzapan, it reads: "Throwing Pass Wall 1 round cast" ... very soon there will be an opening for the zombies to force their way through ...

End of First Round

Two weeks ago I wrote about last night's combat.

Sorry, I don't have a lot of energy to explain this.  We spent most of last night just getting ready and getting set up for this combat.  Organizing equipment, asking for help from nearby Lord, casting spells and so on chewed up most of the session.  We actually got to the end of the second round, but I thought I'd save this at the point where the party (blue and green) first met resistance.  I think they divided themselves overmuch, but its not for me to make their decisions for them.

(Blogspot wouldn't print it clearly ... the file is 3.46 megs.  If anyone wants a clear version, email me at alexiss1@telus.com)