Cult of Aois III

Read Part II.

Osvald the assassin was lost again to turbulent dreaming. Again he found himself hiding in a nightmare; the very dungeon the heroes are delving into. Every night this assassin found himself hiding from the Ogre while it sang it's vile rituals to summon the dead.  Were these the souls the assassin had sent to death? But one night the assassin saw Faylor burst into the room to challenge the Ogre, and so took the chance to escape.

In the attempt, the assassin was slain by the scything bones of the Ogre's skeleton guardians. In his dying breath the assassin begged for life, and a demon of these cursed halls whispered back. The assassin did not pass on. Instead he was transformed into a spirit of shadow and jealous hunger. He realized then, that he would never wake from this. I used the Wizards' World 'vampire' class as an inspiration, although I plan to modify the model significantly.

Faylor was desperate to defeat the ogre and so opened the black chest. Faylor found that for him -- the price of opening resulted in the obliteration of his connection to magic. Thus forth Faylor walked the caves as an explorer not a mage (the player wanted to change classes without sacrificing his character's backstory). But the trauma of the transforming experience knocked Faylor unconscious. In the chest, Luukol found black barnacled spear wrapped in seaweed. In the chest Aever found a shield with a gargoyle's mein carved into the front. Luukol and Aever desperately held back the ogre, but only until Faylor regained his senses, at which point the heroes retreated.

Even with the assassin reinvigorated by demonic energies, the heroes dealt the ogre a death by guile rather than brawn. The heroes retreated into the low halls and set up a spear tipped choke point in the room of the collapsed statue. Jareth's unconscious body was found here, along with his familiar who was desperately trying to drag him from danger. Luukol and Aever managed to toss and pin the ogre with polarms while the assassin and Faylor loosed their arrows from the shadows. The unconscious Jareth was treated after the ogres final howls. Seeing as the assassin proved to be a true ally in the fight, the other characters invited him to join the descent. Faylor found a crawlspace in the statue's rubble which led to the Ogre's original chamber.

The ogre's elvish accomplice claimed to be the ogre's prisoner not its ally. Faylor was particularly distrusting of the elf, but Aever managed to convince the party to allow the mysterious elf at least a weapon for defense. A spring bubbled beneath the stairs, forming a river which fell in quiet waterfalls from an open-top plateau. To the south a decrepit outpost winds further into the depths. To the north a massive kiln in the shape of a helmet sits outside a door. The door is at the base of a cliff face with numerous winding caves in the lofty heights. Listening behind the door, Jareth heard the goblin tongue.

Traveller

The other day I dropped a post on Reddit entitled, 'Classic Vs. Mongoose Traveller' to determine which edition would most adequately suit my storytelling needs. I've never played Traveller because I've never been able to decide which edition to devote myself to. The following morning the Traveller 5E Kickstarter went live. Odd timing. Now only a couple days in, the 5E Kickstarter has already raised over $34,000.

There have been some legitimate concerns about the 5E Hardback's price tag. Marc Miller suggests his tome will be the "Ultimate Edition" weighing in at around 600 pages. To get an actual physical copy of the game, Kickstarter funders must be willing to pay out $100 + s&h. Unsurprisingly this has raised a fair number of eyebrows despite the fact that Miller exceeded his pledge goal in just two days. 

To be fair a 600+ page hardback for $100 might be more reasonable than it first appears. If this Traveller 5E is complete and without the need of further supplements, then the price actually seems about right. The downside of course is that the 5E content cannot be broken into more convenient separate purchases. But that is because this new hardback aims not be the 'core rules set,' but rather the source of absolutely everything ever, one would need to play Traveller. 

I'm not sure what the Classic Traveller black book box retailed for in the seventies, but a quick kata in internet-fu allowed me to find the original box purchasable, albeit lightly used, for around $40 today. Now consider the price of supplements, there were six more (after the core 1-3) I believe. If you buy all nine, perhaps going the Classic Traveller route might be a bit cheaper, but I doubt by much. Miller notes though, that he is creating substantial never before seen material as well for this new edition. For someone like me, having ALL the content in one hardback book is appealing. And I have to admit, the black cover looks absolutely slick. 

The demand for an affordable PDF reached Miller's ears already. Added today; a pledger offering $51 receives a full PDF version of the 5E. This is still a lofty price tag, but one I think a lot of fence-sitters will be pleased with. I probably will wait to see what happens. The fact that Miller is adding such significant pledge rewards so quickly is interesting. I hope to have the hardback edition one day, but for now I'm waiting to see if Miller throws in more rewards before I pull the trigger. 

What Shelob Taught Me

*THE TWO TOWERS BOOK SPOILERS HEREIN*

A friend (Faylor's player) had just finished J.R.R. Tolkien's The Two Towers and expressed that the reason the book is so fulfilling is because it satisfies a desire for both "high" and "low level" adventure. I thought for a while about what he meant -- the more I did, the more I agreed with him. 

Whenever I witness a particularly mighty character in fiction my first question always is, 'how did he/she get that way?' In one chapter of The Two Towers readers witness powerful heroes capable of dreadful slaughter. But the reader witnesses the separate and pitiable trudge of the remaining fellowship in the very next chapter. But most interesting to me, is the transition or 'leveling' the hobbits undergo.

I've been thinking about how Tolkien's telling of Sam's battle against Shelob informed the original designs of Gygax and Arneson. The hobbits are 'low level' in comparison to the rest of the fellowship. As such they must rely more on guile than force to accomplish their goals. Sneaking past a few orcs is a feat, but slaying a monster as vile as Shelob is an altogether more epic challenge. Such would take much grit and careful cunning.

Perhaps this is why 'magic items' have become such a staple in most iterations of the classic game. The 'Phial of Galadriel' as well as the elven forged 'Sting' are essential to Sam's survival against the psuedo-mythic spider-demon, Shelob. Even a hobbit of Sam's resolve couldn't survive against such a threat without the aid of supernatural means. And though victorious, the battle left Sam exhausted to his absolute capacity in enemy territory.

Both in DnD and LotR, magic items don't substitute hard-won experience. But they do provide the necessary edge to perhaps offer survival in an otherwise impossible encounter. Because all low level encounters are potentially lethal, every decision must be made with the absolute strategic proficiency to prevent untimely character deaths.

Because magic is limited in LotR as it is in DnD -- low level players/ characters are desperate for creative solutions. Sam's seemingly counter-intuitive assault from beneath was just the unexpected strategy he needed to wound the beast. In all likelihood Sam would have been killed had he not eventually driven the beast away with the elvish phial's light.

Oddly the turning of Shelob seemed akin to the DnD cleric's 'turn undead' ability. And yet arguably Sam's first strike is comparable to a thief's 'sneak attack.' Of course, as treasure equates experience, perhaps it's not quite fair to rate Sam and Frodo as low level.

Indeed both have remarkable elvish gifts as well as the Ring of Power. But even if Tolkien's texts dont seamlessly translate into the DnD experience,  the influence is sufficient enough that I personally enjoy 'low level' DnD more than the advanced levels. For me, low level character-growth is more palpable and satisfying.

Post Apocalyptic Pictures

Millenarianism fascinates me. Sine Nomine publishes Stars Without Number, undoubtedly one of my favorite science fiction RPG's. So I'm confident Sine Nomine's upcoming post-apocalyptic Other Dust will impress.

When I hear "Post/Apocalyptic" I first think of Revelation, Cormac McCarthy's The Road, or Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead. But for whatever reason, I also picture ruined barns and ruined boats; images I find oddly alluring. I'm sure this reflects the time I've spent in south shore Ma and in upstate Ny. So I've done some scrounging to find the images that speak to my end-of-times nightmares.

This image is just one of many midwestern 'abandoned places' photographs Tau Zero features:

This one is perhaps my favorite photograph from Tau Zero:

This last one isn't anywhere near me either, but it gets the idea across. Find it with the rest of it's gallery at I09.

Call of Cthulhu: New World Colonists

After my pal and I watched the Black Goat short film he suggested I run a historical game about the Roanoke colony. While I'm not sure the campaign will be about Roanoke exactly, the game will take place sometime during the 16th-century and focus on the colonial experience.

I expect a rather different tone to emerge in this game than a classic 1920's/30's era CoC scenario.  Though the Age of Exploration is so removed from Lovecraft's 1920's and 30's, the Cthulhu mythos seem particularly suited to the mysteries lying in wait behind the veil of discovery in the New World.

The Age of Exploration evokes desperation and tested-faith particularly well. The benefit of operating outside of a Lovecraftian purist setting is that I feel more comfortable experimenting. Specifically this game will emphasize survival horror elements more than the traditional CoC session might.

CoC is an investigation and horror game. Adding a survivalist edge will take some research on my part. In New World Colonists, maintaining ones scarce resources, shelter, and warmth are sufficient distractions to keep most from questioning the uncanny. The survival component of this game applies just as much to the cold in pathless woods as it does to horrors from deep space.

Technology is also a significant consideration. Firearms are slow and unwieldy, light requires oil or wood, and medicine cannot alleviate some of the malady's modern science solves with a few pills. But perhaps the most interesting element of this game will be the developing relationship players will make with the indigenous peoples.

Cult of Aois II

Read Part I first.

The giant spiders assaulting the heroes were borrowed from Greg Gillespie's Barrowmaze megadungeon. I chose these spiders due to Gillespie's "Blood-Thirsty" quality. Blood-thirsty monsters catch the scent of a PC's open wound and converge to attack the injured target en masse. These are particularly brutal monsters in low level play because hit points are precariously low.

The heroes rolled well for initiative and managed to swiftly kill the spiders with a few well aimed bolts before the blood-thirsty quality could come into play. The heroes noticed that these spiders had white scars that ran like streams (a divergence from Gillespie's design) over their faces and heads. The heroes don't know what these scars are from, but they will probably find out in a deeper level of the dungeon.

Skeletons were waiting silently behind the door to the north. These undead stood in formation in the claustrophobic hall that turned at a right angle behind them into the unknown. The heroes had a hard time hitting, let alone pushing through these restless foes. Luukol managed to turn the undead while Aever stood vigilantly between the dead and the living. The skeletons fled into the darkness and the heroes carefully followed.

Around the corner the heroes found a door with it's arch labelled, "Confessional." The heroes walked into the 10 by 15 room and saw that a screen had been slashed to ribbons in the east. Another room stood behind the ruined screen -- this is where the skeletons were assumed to have run. The heroes looted tapestries off the western and the northern walls before moving into the next room. Hamish, the party's hireling torchbearer was convinced to carry the loot. He didn't complain, he'd been asked to do worse things before...

The other side of the confessional screen displayed a room with much the same parameters as the last. But instead of tapestries lining the walls, delicate and ancient tomes crowded the walls. These books contain a history of the demon Orcus as well as the "summon" spell as it appears in James Raggi's LotFP Grindhouse Edition. A door to the south stood ajar. While the heroes tore through the books, Aever noticed the approach of skeletons from the southern door.

Using door-cover, Aever managed to brutally hack the lead skeleton away from the doorway. But even this did little to slow them, so Luukol was forced to unleash his darker aspect. He did not 'turn' the undead but chose instead to 'command' them to destroy each other. Once the bone dust settled, the heroes were able to move through the short hall the skeletons had been standing in.

The hall led to a grand eastern door. Inside the heroes found a mausoleum; four stone caskets rested in each corner of the room. From here, the heroes could hear a guttural and unholy song coming from behind a fine dark-wood door to the south of the room. A massive onyx chest  sat in the center of the room. A door stood ajar to the east. A lot started to happen very quickly.

Jareth used his ten foot pole to lift the lid of the chest. Inside he found his first familiar, a fox sent on Orcus' behalf. Faylor could stand the singing no more so he kicked open the southern door, tossed in a torch, and strode into the room. Inside he saw a massive chamber held up by classical pillars. Trampled scrolls and relic boxes littered the floor in a pattern of refuse mingling with a pile of corpses. A female elf stood silent beside an ogre who was chanting the vile ritual at the top of a staircase inside a humming magical circle.

Skeletons rose from the pile of dead and made their move towards Faylor who cast 'sleep' before retreating from the room. The elf fell unconscious in the circle, but the ogre stood unfazed. At the door the heroes did their best to brace the door against the skeletons, but the Ogre charged the door himself to see who was on the other side. The party managed to bloody his nose with bolt and missile, but they will be in real danger when he crosses the threshold.

Once Jareth got sight of the ogre he fled, backtracking the route the party had made. Stumbling with the treasure and his hireling, Jareth ran into the half-dwarf the party had had terrified the day prior. Jareth tried to calm the mysterious half-dwarf, but succeeded only in startling him further. Jareth caught the half-dwarf's axe in the eye, falling into a well of dreams drank by his demon patron.

Read Part III.

Tools, Tips, & Crochet

The prophets have spoken. This "God Generator" is an excellent tool for the GM looking to cook up a DnD god on the fly. Read Rolang's Creeping Doom.

Who doesn't want to cuddle with a creepy Cthuloid? Get them at NeedleForge. You can hear what NeedleForge is all about at Gamerati.

Dude is funny. Behind the rage is some real insight. Read The Moldy Vale.