Sunday, August 31, 2008

Splug! All Adventuring Hero!

With a since of purpose the mighty band of adventures set forth to determine if the historical ramblings of the sage were accurate? Was a Cult of Orcus trying to re-open an ancient rift to the Shadow Fell?

Persona Dramatica
(We have had some minor changes since the first post on this subject)
Zoltan the Reformed - A middle aged human wizard that has distant nightmares of a past life
Zarzthor - Dragonbord Warlord who finds himself in the thick of each battle
Extel - Human Ranger - Strong, brash, & young, wielding two blades
Sliver Elmwalker - Elf ranger on a quest to find those that killed his kin
Eldcar Elddarion - Halfling rouge - cocky, self-assured, and self proclaimed antagonist of Extel
Uhlk - Human Fighter - UHLK SMASH!
Elladen Phaers Halladen - Softspoken Eladrin Swordmage that uses the power of the life drinker to keep the battle moving. An a healer of others extraordinaire.

The party had no problem finding the remains of the keep. Only the odd looking wooden shack in the middle looked to be from the current century. Behind its doors they find a path leading into the damp dungeon of the keep. Entering the first room the party sees a goblin yelling and waving at them from across the way. Eager to engage in combat, the party moves forward to engage. Several warriors and a few sharpshooters begin ranged assault. Extel made an ill advised move across the floor and fell into the 10' pit trap and was attacked by a rat swarm.

The few goblins were quick work and off the party went to the east. They found a secret door to the North along the hallway and another group of goblins digging for treasure. These however had a few guard drakes to keep them company. The battle fought on multiple levels was a bit tougher, but the party continued to press after only finding a small holy symbol of the Dragon god Bahamut.

Back to the secret door, the party encountered a large sleeping goblin. However, Extel, again, tripped on his feet ('1' on his stealth check) and Balgron the Fat was able to sound the alarm. The fight was made tougher as a Goblin Hexer entered the fray and the alarm was sounded bringing in the goblins and hobgoblin torture from a near by prison cell. The party was fighting on two sides of the large connected rooms. Extel, Zarzthor, and Elladen fought the hexer and his goons while the others contended with the hobgoblin and his posse coming in behind them. Characters fell, blood was shed, much pain was given. An extended rest was in order.

The evening passed with out incidence and the party continued looking for a way down deeper into the keep to find the evil. Their next room was the tourture chamber and prison cells that the hobgoblin controlled. In one cell, weak with hunger a goblin prisoner cried for help. "Help Splug!" "Splug very, very nice" "Splug your friend". And here we see the unbridled hostility between El and Extel. El was in the mood to slay the pathetic goblin while Extel was looking for a porter to carry his stuff. In the end Splug joined the group as porter and guide.

A decision needed to be made. Should the party explore the last remaining door, or explore the caverns near the excavation site. The party made towards the last closed door and found a maze with pictures on the floor blocking access across them. Splug warned them that the scary dead live here. Not good to go that way, but forward the party went anyways.

Unable to determine how to cross the pictures, the party went to the east again and encountered a patch of zombies and rotters. They were able to dispatch them with create ease and had no issues with the second batch that came from behind. Moving forward, the party entered into what appeared to be a chapel to Bahamut, but as the Rouge passed the threshold to the larger chamber, a large "BONG" was heard and a skeleton legion appeared from the sarcophagi along he edges of the leading hallway. The team leap into action, taking the minion Skeletons to task quite easily, but having some fight with the warriors that had combat advantage on the a few members. Five minutes searching the room, a the "BONG" went off again. Thinking quickly Zarzthor knelt in front of the alter and gave a prayer to Bahamut, which dispelled the second wave of skeletons. In the battle, the might Splug slayed two minions, earning the respect of his 'peers' "Splug no hero, Splug just carry stuff"

And with that the game was adjourned. Double doors leading out of the room to explore, undead around every corner, and Splug gots your back!

jp
Winterhaven Evil Guild Local #1001

Saturday, August 23, 2008

World Builder Update!

Greetings avid fans... Or at least the two folks that get the RSS feed from the site! :)

Just an update on how the world turns. As you can see their has not been a lot of movement on the surface of the world. Some cities made some lands taken. Most of the movement has been from the expansion of the races and the addition of new races.

Below is the political map of the current world. I could have better color coded the maps, but hey, you can figure it out if your smart. :) You can see that many of the races are starting to 'bump' into each other. Won't be long until armies are raised and wars are fought.


Here is a list of the races and sub races so far and their starting locations. Their will be a test later.

Dragons (Good) - B15

-- Chromatic Dragons - C14

Eladrin - M11

-- Drow - D9

-- Elves - O10

Dwarf - G9

-- Desert Dwarf - F8

Orc - E4

Lizard Folk - F16

-- Sahaugin - D17

Humans - F11

-- Southlanders - G14

-- Norsemen - K4

Halflings - J10;Goblins - N9; Gnolls - D7; Hobgoblins - G7


Only a few Avatars have been created and even fewer orders. I expect those will come more into play as each player wishes to 'mess' with another players race.

jp
Master of his Domain

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Warmachine Update

Just a quick reminder of the upcoming events for WARMACHINE and Hordes in the local area over the next few months.


6 Sept - Legends Event - 1030 at The Game Shoppe. We are cutting the points to 500, but otherwise following the rules. Post if you have a question...

20 Sept - Legends Event in Lincoln - I'm not running it, Sam is, but thought I would throw him a shout out to help him! The games should be at Gauntlet Games. Sam - Let me know the times

27 Sept - Breast Cancer Brawl at The Game Shoppe. This will include the Pretty in Pink painting contest. This is a charity event, so be sure to sign up and dig deep!

5 Oct - Nuke Con Tournament. - The site says 8am, but don't be fooled. We will start at 10ish.

Then, not in Omaha, but we are all heading down is WARMACHINE WEEKEND down in Springfield MO. That will be 17-19 October! You NEED to go to this. It is a moral imperative!

That is a bunch of stuff. In mid November look for a 750 point event with heavy jack/beast rules.

On a side note I purchased Montenebra (or however you spell it) and played to games today. I like her stuff, but it is going to be tricky. The 500 point game was vs. Chris' Troolbloods led by the big drunk. I did a good job of tying things up and killing them, but he got through the army quicker.

Second game was Phillip at 750 vs. his Razzy Menoth list. I had some great combos. Got five flameguard in a tramble, head butted a Menoth heavy into the river and ripped a second apart on the first turn. The Seether betrayed me twice. Not sure I can take it in the future given the disrespect! Deathjack had Razzy on the ropes. Rolling three die for damage at a -2, I rolled a '4' . The unhumanity of it all!

Either way they were both great games and I can see her potential in the game. Needs more work to refine and I think she would be great in a 1K with Aspy!

That is it for now... Keep the furnace lit!

jp
Undead Overlord of Omaha

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Winterhaven... At last!

We have been gone for about three weeks from the game. A combination of FoW tournaments and WM events conspired against our intrepid party to continue their quest into the dark. We gathered at around three, while Kyle did anyways, at my basement and set out for adventure.

After a quick recap on last months happenings the party settled into their roles. Arriving at Winterhaven the settled into the Wrafton's Inn for the evening and learned that the Lord Mayor Padraig was at the next table having an evening ale with Valthrun the Persistent. Sliver engaged Padraig and presented the letter of introduction. Intrigued to here of their adventures against the Kolbolds in the manor house, Padraig agreed to see them in the morning. Valthrun however sat at their table to hear their story, and requested a favor. It seemed that an old friend of Valthrun, a fellow scholar from down south, was visiting and using Valthrun's as a base camp for a search for a dragon's burial ground. Poor Douven has been missing for about a week and he was concerned. He asks the adventures to check in on Douven to see if all is all right.

After an evening of rest the part goes to the Manor House and meets the Lord Mayor who states he has tracked the kobolds to a lair in the south east. He can't get the villagers to work with him to destroy them, so he is willing to pay the adventures to accomplish the task.

Our hearty adventures set out with two tasks under their belt. Shortly after departing town however they are again ambushed by a set of kobolds. It is a tricky fight with the Dragonborn Warlord (Yes he is a warlord now. Re-booted to first level! :) ) going down a few times... Which seems to be a common theme. After the engagement, Halladen and Sliver found a set of tracks leading away from the road to the south east. Convinced that this will take them to the Kobold layer, they head out in search.

When they come upon the stream they find a set of kobolds engaged in a ritual outside a waterfall. Combat ensues with a slinger dodging off to 'warn Irontooth'. The party clears the outside and sets fourth to attack the lair proper. Sliver, Halladen, Extell, and Uhlk enter through the waterfall while VIII, Eldacar, and Zoltan entering from the main cave entrance. Many minions died and it was looking good for the away team when Irontooth and a pair of Worm Priests showed up to swing the battle back in their favor. The Dragon Shields held the line and Irontooth engaged VIII, but despite his great amount of hit points he went down in the end to a sly flourish and a floating burning orb. With Irontooth and the Dragon Shields gone, the Worm Priests didn't last long.

Deciding to rest for the evening, the party headed to the Dragon burial site. They found a Gnome (Look a Monster!) leading a pair of halflings and some human rabble. With the exception of the triple stone shot on Eldacar the battle was pretty simple to handle. They rescued Douven and were rewarded with a magic locket.

Having collected evidence from Irontooth of a death cult of Orcus and Douven's statement that the team was looking for artifacts for a ritual to re-open the rift, the party finds out about a keep that was built to protect a rift between the world and the Shadow fell.

Can our heroes find their way through the keep? Will they be able to stop the ritual before it is completed? Who is the mysterious Kalarel and how powerful is he?

Stay tuned for next weeks adventure!


Some out of game notes:
- I had a great time. I think, by and large the guys enjoyed too.
- We only got four encounters for the night, but we did have a lot of interruptions with food ordering and arrival. Plus we had two in town encounters that might have slowed things as well.
- My basement is snug with eight guys. Next time I'll set up the two 4x4 vice the painting table for use.
jp
I like D&D!

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

World Builder Continues to the Second Age


The three Lords of Creation have moved the world into the second age. The pic shows the ending geography from the first age. It can change, and most likely will, but the next age is creating the races and population. During the First age we had the Dragons (good and bad) as well as Eladren (plus Drow and Elves) show up. My first turn I plopped down the Dwarfs and a race of my own Desert Dwarfs plus Orcs.

Should start seeing some new stuff popping up as we get the world populated. Won't be long until city states start rising and war is declared!

The graphic has been a learning experience. I have run out of layers multiple times having to consolidate much of the forest pics to save room. The Island of Fog in the SW is Lord Steve's Dragon Island. More to follow!

jp
Lord John Creator of Dwarfs and Orcs!

Friday, August 8, 2008

JP Out!

I received and email today from Privateer. Looks like I didn't make the interview cut for the game design position. Much sadness. :( Not unexpected, but I am out. I was glad to make the first cut, only wish they would have gone a bit faster on the selection process. I expect that the 'winner' will be announced just before Gencon. Thanks to those that helped me play test it out.

I've been chatting with TJ, and we might try to put something together for submission to a company like Playroom... Just for S-n-G's. Never hurts. So stand by to be subjected to more play testing!

jp
[Whine]but I want to design games....[/Whine]

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

As the world turns...


Here is the current world... Progress continues... I'm liking how it is shaping up. Looks like the rivers will add a nice travel aspect with the Giant Lake. Each square is about 200 miles across give or take 50, so it is a pretty big inland fresh water sea at this point.

Steve has given us the Good Dragons and Rob has his Avatar in place... Expecting another race to pop out next turn.

Still in the first age. On turn eight. Starting in turn 10, if one person votes to move to the next age we move. So far no one has indicated the switch. I would like to see more diversity in the NE and SE corners, but we have all been concentrating on our sections. Enjoying the growth and bet that the next age will be more 'enticing' as we start laying down the races and start their interactions.

jp
Bow before Zod!

jp

Sunday, August 3, 2008

World Builder Continues


Here is a snap shot of the current world as it is being built. Three of us decieded to tackle the challenge and it seems to be an OK process. Steve is working on 'Monster Island' down in the SW corner. Rob is doing the hills and stuff on the East coast. I've been working on the mountain range, swamp and desert in the NW.

I think we will have a few more rounds of the first age before we get into the hard core racial builds.

jp
Creator of Destiny

Warmachine Tournament & Shadows over Camelot

Greetings,

I ran a 13 person tournament on Saturday. I had 4 pre-registrations and ten show out of the wood work. Not complaining, Ok, I am complaining, but it would be nice to have been able to plan ahead better. We used the new Steamroller rules at the 750 point level.

Brian A. took the overall with a nasty eVlad list. Shawn took second with Legion and Chris took third with a trollblood list. Sportsman and Painting went to a Lincoln guy visiting, Sam. Hoping Sam will sign on for the Pressgang and carry the flag out east. Adam, poor adam, brought up the anchor again.

Afterwards I headed over to Marks and we played two games of Shadows over Camelot with seven players. The first was with the regular box and the second was with the new expansion. We lost both. Players weren't ganging up on the non solo challenges... We'll get you next time Evil! The expansion adds some nice touches. I like the travel and Merlin, but the new Witches cards are tough.

jp
Nice Thrall and Accuser of the Innocent!

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Nuke Con 08

I've signed up two events for Nuke Con 08.

On Sunday I'm going to run a WARMACHINE & Hordes 500 point tournament and on Saturday Night I'll run a IK RPG based on 4e Mods.

I can't hit the Fall Out Shelter, but you might. Not sure what the issue is. Nuke Con site is www.nuke-con.com.

Rob is running a FoW tournament on Saturday in the morning if I remember correctly as well.

jp