Dungeons & Dragons 30 Day Challenge- Failed

 Doesn't look like I'm going to get to finish this challenge. This week has been insane around my place and the next few days aren't looking much better. Maybe I can continue the challenge because there are a few topics I'm looking forward to covering but for now, c'est la vie.

Dungeons & Dragons 30 Day Challenge- Day 9

 Favorite Character I Haven't Played: My next favorite character. Kidding, I guess my favorite character would be Mongoose Half-Ear, Half-Hand. He was Eric's halfling thief, I know Ganth doesn't have halflings but it used to, Mongoose is the reason (In the lore that I will include in the future) they are no longer on Ganth. 

 Mongoose Halfling (Icran- I Can't Remember A Name) started off as a decent thief in Waterdeep in my Undermountain campaign. If you had the boxed campaign to Undermountain then you might remember seeing a goblin standing over a gold coin in the hallway outside the entry well. (SPOILER ALERT) The goblin winds up running away upon seeing the players and if someone picks up the gold coin they have to make a save or the coin burns a hole through their hand. The group didn't have a cleric in the party so they left the dungeon and went to a sawbones cleric and he half-assed fixed his hand. 


 Now with a poorly reconstructed hand and a few minor minuses the group went back in to the dungeon. The group would eventually take the hint and buy healing potions. (If I remember correctly it was the third trip to the sawbones cleric) Later in the dungeon, and after many, many traps, they arrive to a door deep in the second level. Mongoose puts his ear to the door to listen, but discovers that the door is covered in sovereign glue. The group decides to cut off Mongoose's ear. To add insult to injury the group finds a magical earring further into the level. They, as a joke, let him have it.

 Little did they know... The earring had a power enchantment on it. The enchantment made everyone within earshot of the wearer believe everything that the wearer says as the absolute truth. So, Mongoose went back to Waterdeep and declared himself as one of the Nine Lords of Waterdeep. The rest is history, or will be if I ever get to finish writing it. 

 So in conclusion, Mongoose Half-Hand is my favorite character I haven't played.

Dungeons & Dragons 30 Day Challenge- Day 8

 Favorite Character that I've Played: I've had several characters over the years, I know some think I'm going with Jaccob Sorrow but he's one of my favorites, not my favorite. I had a minotaur pirate, dwarven thief, female illusionist (she was hiding as a man), and even average human fighters. My favorite character of all time would have to be Straahd La`Roc. Deep Gnome war priest of the elemental deity Icran. He started of as a second character, the auto-cleric, never intended as a main character, but after he was created I noticed he was Chaotic Neutral so I decided to play him as half mad. I made insane choices for him, put his hands into a cauldron of true chaos, killed a friendly npc for smelling strange, and even healed one of the enemy npc's because it was 4 of us on 2 of them. After that campaign, Eric used him as an npc leader of a band of mercenaries, Band of the Black Hand. I've even used him a couple of times as an npc when I'm running the game.

Dungeons & Dragons 30 Day Challenge- Day 7

 Favorite Edition: That's a tough one. Basic is where I started but didn't ever own or DM it. My Thoughts: It was great for opening my eyes, and many others to RPGs, rules are light requiring many, many house rules. Good system to start with.

 First Edition, or AD&D to the originals, I got my first few books and they were exciting. Lot's of material for spells, campaign worlds, deities, class ideas, new magic items, new monsters, and you can't forget the awesome random dungeon generator. My Thoughts: It was a vast and much needed upgrade to the previous system, probably the best upgrade to the entire system to date. Still suffers from many house rules needed. Great game to start with.

 Second Edition shouldn't be called second. It honestly should of been more of 1.5 Edition, but let's roll with it. This is where my paychecks disappeared towards. I loved the three ring binder monster manuals. Insane box sets, great campaigns, massive dungeons, the the whole set of the Complete books (Some were crap but most of them had great material), Non-Combat skills (Most were crap but some were great and still a good idea), new races, new classes, new monsters, and the list goes on and on. My Thoughts: It was a nice and much needed update to AD&D. Still using plenty of house rules, but most game breakers are covered. Really great system to start with.

 Third Edition and 3.5 were awesome on the start. New classes, Half-Orc is in, new skills, feats, saves are streamlined, great rules for building... well basically everything from magic items, to empire building, and campaign design. The big down-side was combat relied heavy on miniatures. OGL and D20 system changed the face of RPGs and whether you like it or not, it opened the door to the OSR movement and the massive amount of retro-clones we have today. My Thoughts: It was a major game changer to basically everything we had in the game community. The system had flaws but it was clean and quick from combat, to saves, skills, and character creation. They built a system that with some tweaks could turn into the only system of the future. Amazing system to start with, but if I want mini's I'll play Warhammer 50k.

 4th edition and from everything I've heard about 5th, sorry D&D Next, basically seemed too video gaming to me. In my opinion is they had a great system for a basis with 3rd edition but went the wrong direction with the system.

 So I guess my favorite system would be second edition, it was flawed but had ample info available, third edition would of been my favorite if the system had leaned a little less on game pieces.

Dungeons & Dragons 30 Day Challenge- Day 6

 Favorite Deity: Ahh hell's yeah! Been waiting on this one. The Harvester of Souls, Death Incarnate, and One Awesome Cleric, Jaccob Sorrow. I have several favorites, but he's a player that became deified. Ebon Greeneyes is another player deity. Even Pitch the Black, Straahd La'Roc, Mongoose Half-Ear all reached a sort of deity position. But Jaccob is my favorite. 

 If I had to choose a print deity, then I would honestly say the entire Forgotten Realms pantheon. I like the Greek/Roman feel to deities. Flawed gods are fun because they can slip up, become over-involved, take insane insult from the most minor of comment, and even make human mistakes. I had more planned but got behind on my blogging watching the start of NFL season. So until further ado, cya tomorrow.

 Side note: I will at some point come back to the Ganth Pantheons.

Dungeons & Dragons 30 Day Challenge- Day 5

 Favorite set of dice/individual die: Honestly This post will be pretty brief. I've had horrible luck keeping dice. Last decade I've just used Eric's. My favorite was a pair of clear green 20's from my high school days but they've been gone for years. I have a set at home that I use when making npc's and playtesting an adventure, I think I might take them tonight to the game.

 Nick's starting a Savage World Deadlands campaign. A little spoiler here, I will give a post-game report this week, but I might have to keep my character's abilities secret from Eric's character since he'll want to kill me if he finds out. And I can't wait to see what Eric's boys are gonna make. 

 So in conclusion, YOUR dice are my favorites.

Dungeons & Dragons 30 Day Challenge- Day 4

 Favorite Gameworld: Ganth.

 Favorite gameworld from print materials is fairly easy. 

 I don't care for Dragonlance, don't get me wrong, plenty of cool and neat tings come from there, but I just don't like the world. 
 Don't even get me started on Spelljammer, ugh ships in space!(Sorry Eric, but yuck) 
 Dark Sun is another that's fun and has good ideas, but still not my cup of tea. 
 Planescape is awesome, but it's too big for the limited amount of information you receive. 
 I really like Ravenloft, amazing campaign idea in my opinion, but not enough supporting materials. 
 Eberron is a great idea and congrats guys on winning your spot in D&D lore, but still not there.
 Mystara is fun but not my favorite. Hollow World falls in here too.
 Who can't help but like or at least appreciate Greyhawk, but still isn't my favorite. 
 My favorite would have to be Forgotten Realms, they have Pirates in a huge sea in the middle of the continent, wars everywhere, ancient flying cities that created a massive desert when they fell, Al-Qadim, Maztica, Kara-Tur, The Horde, Underdark, Undermountain, Drow, Waterdeep, Baldur's Gate, well the list goes on and on. What's not to like? A well designed and thought out map, lots of information available, tons of stories and lore, even the gods got reshuffled with a couple of PC's. 

Dungeons & Dragons 30 Day Challenge- Day 3

 Favorite playable class: 1st edition Bard at 1st level.

 Not enough? Here's the requirements: Taken from HERE )

To become a bard, a human or half-elf had to begin with very high ability scores: Strength 15+, Wisdom 15+, Dexterity 15+ and Charisma 15+, Intelligence 12+ and Constitution 10+. These daunting requirements made bards one of the rarest character classes. Bards began the game as fighters, and after achieving 5th level (but before reaching 8th level), they had to dual-class as a thief, and after reaching 5th level as a thief (but before reaching 9th level), they had to dual-class again to druid. Once becoming a druid, the character then progressed as a bard.

 Nuff said.

 Still not enough? Fine. I like most of the classes, thieves are fun, rangers are cool, and even barbarians rock. Some of my favorites are a mage carrying two bandoleers of darts (at higher levels they were wands, and did he ever pay for that oversight during an ambush),  my 2nd edition bard (no relation), and my dwarven fighter. Some classes I hate are psionics and pallys. I love character faults but let me say never make your most charismatic class be your biggest douche.

 But truly, my favorite class would be clerics. I mean come on! With 2nd edition and up they could be total bad asses. Need a healer? Cleric! Need a tank to stand of front? Cleric! Need a caster?  Cleric! No thief? Cleric! With the right race/deity combo clerics can game breakers. (Think I'm wrong?) Check this out, one of Eric and my favorite characters is a cleric. (So?) A deep gnome, chaotic neutral, cleric of Icran (I can't remember a name) he was a deity of earth and elementals, most of his spells were earth/elemental based and was completely unencumbered by any weapons or armor he wore if they were made of metal. Oh he could also summon earth elementals. But he was insane as well. And who didn't ever make the generic dwarven cleric of a war deity? Even clerics of thief deities could stand in as an emergency thief. And don't forget the clerics of magic deities, some got more spells than mages and could still wear armor. 

 As for game breakers just think of it this way, Dragonlance couldn't even handle them for a long time, so they took the gods away. Even Forgotten Realms did it during the gods banished to Faerun and magic going wild. Why? Because clerics will Pump (handclap) You Up! 

 And don't think I'll forget about the baddest cleric of all time.....Jaccob Sorrow. So to sum up, my favorite class would have to be Clerics. FTW!

Dungeons & Dragons 30 Day Challenge- Day 2

 Favorite playable race: That's a tough one. I have played several races, all of the core ones of course, my top non-standard races are Dark Elf, Deep Gnome, Tiefling, Muls, and Blood Sea Minotaurs. (Come on, who doesn't like Kaz the minotaur, he stole the show from Huma, in my opinion) 

 But honestly, most of my memorable characters and even the majority of characters are Human. My main character in every MMO is the Harvester of Souls, Jaccob Sorrow, who is Human. Which I stole from Eric. So I guess my favorite playable race would have to be Human.

Dungeons & Dragons 30 Day Challenge- Day 1

 How I got started: A guy named Eddie.

 There's more to it than that. I was in Mrs. Smith's third grade class. Her classroom had a brand new IBM personal computer and we could stay inside and use it during recess and lunch. Since her classroom was the furthest from the playground, our class was last to recess and last to return to class. All the swings and kickball were already taken by the time our class got outside and when the recess bell rang we all lined up in our class and then walked single-file to the classroom behind all the other classes. I didn't start skipping recess for D&D or computers, I stayed because I hated having to just walk around the fence. (that was the only thing to do when all the equipment was taken) Originally, I started playing on the computer with a friend of mine, Steven. He was a huge Star Wars fan, this guy had the Death Star, AT-AT, Millennium Falcon, TIE Fighter and 2 X-Wings. (I know the list because I spent all of the 5th and 6th grade saving my allowance buying all of them, except the Death Star because his brother blew it up with M80's) I was a huge G.I. Joe fan. (I will not go into my list, because if I did I would cry, thanks to a house fire when I was 18) 

 After a month or so, Eddie started playing on the computer too. He started talking about playing Tunnels and Trolls, he told us it was like D&D. His cousin was the Game Master for T&T. I was already curious about D&D since I had started reading the choose your own adventure books earlier that year. He told us that he did have the D&D game if we were interested, his cousin gave it to him after the Irving Pulling suicide. (Just look up either his mom's name Patricia or BADD Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons, I refuse to do any direct links about that poor misguided woman, she did what she thought was right but IMHO she put a stigma on this game that still lingers 30 years later) We said yeah bring it. He brought in the red box, and the rest is history. 













PS. I would also like to say CONGRATULATIONS to Diana Nyad and her record breaking swim, I have watched this remarkable lady try and fail most of my life. After nearly 40 years she turned her dream into reality. You are a real champion, I tip my hat to you, Ma'am.