My irregular update

  We played through Eric's campaign, had fun. I'll let him write about it. Nick's Savage Worlds Deadlands Campaign was fun. My Indian Shaman had to hide his abilities from Eric's religious nut. He wanted to kill anything that wasn't blessed by the Pope. It was more than that, but I'm not going to go too far into it. My guy grunted most of his responses and the few times he spoke, it was either to lie to "the white man" or to give snarky remarks to/towards "the white man". His role in the group was the tracker (which by the way he royally sucked at it) and his secret goal was to scout "the white man" and kill as many of them as he could. It was extremely rewarding to him when he was allowed or even encouraged to kill "the white man" because of "the white man's law". /smirk

 Next up was my Rift's (TM) Campaign. First session the group had the choice of a few missions. They of course chose the one with the highest bounty. (Nick and Eric have their characters listed on a previous post, Eric's two boys had a metal alien speedster and Ben Franklin Techno Wizard) The mission was to scout out another town, a day's travel south. The town had already sent three other scouting mission there and nobody had returned, hence the high bounty. Fortunately for the group, the mission was to discover why all communications had ceased and to help restore communications if they were able. Eric's cyborg has a glitch he's mentally unstable, he currently suffers from the delusion that he has spidey sense. The group has an armoured troop carrier that they use to travel in and the radar tracking system started going off. Eric is the only one with the skills to use the radar, but his spidey sense told him that the incoming missile attack wasn't real, so he ignored it. The carrier was ripped in half during the initial attack. The group climbs out and discover that they were being attack by alien slavers know as the Splurgoth. These guy are the ones you just don't wanna mess with. So two of the group get stuck fleeing, while carrying the other two of the group, who got stunned by the Slurgoth slavers. They make it back home with their collective tails between their legs and actually get the bounty! The Splurgoth attacked the town was all they needed to report. 

 The next highest mission would take the players to an up and coming city near the Texas/Louisiana border. The city had an open bounty on the heads of any clerics or demons of a new cult calling themselves Keepers of the Flame. The group actually ran into two clerics and three demons who were carrying a few new sacrificial captives back to their headquarters. (Both were going to be NPCs to help out the group but one of them would get changed over to a new character for Eric's daughter) During the fight, Eric's boys got tired and we decided to wrap up and pause the combat till the next gaming session. Eric's daughter wanted to play a fairy character in the campaign, so during the down time I made one for her and placed the character in the cultists cart. 

 The next session would actually come almost a month late because I got sick. So I go in to Eric's house ready to rumble...... Then my group turned on me. "We hate this game," they whined," we like the campaign, the characters, and the game world, but the combat sucks and it's just a pain in the ass." So Rift's (TM) Campaign is dead.

 They wanted to play an evil campaign, similar to the one I had originally set up for D&D. (You know, the one I really loved and then somebody had to quit the group, he's back by the way) This time they wanted to run an evil Undermountain Campaign, before or maybe during the Time of Troubles. So we spent the evening making new characters, again. Eric made two new characters, a wizard and a cleric. The wizard is leaning towards necromancy and the other is a cleric of Bane. Nick made a wizard also and a fighter. Eric's two boys made an assassin and a thief. 

 A long time ago, in a small house (now turned into a used car dealership) far, far away... Was another Undermountain campaign with another group. Eric and I were a part of the that group. I was the DM. Eric remembers that campaign and the original entry into Undermountain. So he asked to have them enter through another location, which I agree. So currently I'm devising another entry. Or possibly use another dungeon as a sub-level. I have a few dungeons that I have saved over the years that Eric isn't familiar with and also I'm working on my own Mega-Dungeon. I haven't decided yet. I had thought to just scramble one up with Donjon. (to those unfamiliar with this awesome site, PLEASE CLICK THE LINK, this is the site everyone should have bookmarked) I love the Donjon site, it's great for a quick and dirty instant dungeon. But I want their first foray into a mega-dungeon to be inspired, not quick and dirty. 

 I know I could just throw them into a random location in Undermountain, but I really need some time to fill the place out. If you have ever seen this colossal dungeon, then you will understand. It's a monstrous dungeon with very little area filled in. I know that approx. 60% of a mega-dungeon is empty space but only 10% of Undermountain is filled in. I'd say I'm a good prepared DM. I'd even say I'm fairly good on the fly. But there is no way on God's Green Earth, that I'm even halfway decent with running a mega-dungeon on the fly. 

 So... Here's the plan. I'm going to use a short dungeon that I randomed with the Osric tables. Another clone but but still a good one, and like the great guys over at Goblinoid Games it's FREE. I'm going to flesh out the details, encounters, traps, and treasures while I fill out some of my mega-dungeon or fill out some more of Undermountain. I'm gonna try filling it out completely randomly by us tables from these amazing sources: Osric (Link is above); The Dungeon Alphabet; The Hyper Halfling's Book of Lists, Vol. 1 (Costs about $4 when I bought it but worth it); and a couple of other fun tables that I have. 

 We'll see how it goes....



Side note, I must say this WHY GOD WHY???? and the ALTERNATE COVER makes me cry everytime I see this and realize it's 4th Edition. /mourn

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.