What I Have Been Doing During My Holiday Break

 

Painting Frenzy

My last post was on December 10th and it was to show off the latest fantasy painting challenge. Despite my lack of postings, I have been very busy. In a pathetic attempt to clean and organize the hobby space, I noticed that I have a lot of left over figures. These are figures that remained after I had based them in units. For example, I use 24 figures (six stands with four figures per stand) for a unit of close infantry. Depending of the manufacturer, I might have 4 to 6 extra figures left over.  In some cases, I found packages of figures that I have no idea why I bought them. I found two packs of Essex Greek peltasts. So, I have been painting these extra figures and then mounting them on single stands. I have capitulated and decided that in addition to being used for games with my son, I would use the single stand figures for playing Lion/Dragon Rampant or any other rule system that insists on single-stand figures. 

The mess is real

Trip to Chicago

My family and I made our annual trip to Chicago to visit my family for Christmas. The subzero weather really forced us to hunker down. My daughter and I did go into downtown Chicago. Normally, we visit some museum or other cultural venue, but she just wanted to visit all the upscale stores that line north Michigan Avenue. Other than that excursion, we all sat at my mother's house doing not much of anything besides some baking. 

Chicago-style hotdog and fries

The "Bean" at Millennial Park along Michigan Avenue

When you stare into the Bean, the Bean stares back at you

Looking north on Michigan Avenue. Not the best
picture, but way at the end is the famous Water
Tower that was one of two buildings that escaped
the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

Daughter enjoying her pizza

Chicago deep dish pizza. I wept with joy!

I had planned to run a D&D game, but no one was all that interested. Even though no game was played, I did get this from my daughter for Christmas:

The recipes are pretty basic but the stories that accompany them are pretty entertaining. 

Rescue the Princess: part 2

This episode of my solo dungeon crawl was conducted while at one of my daughter's many activities that I have to drive her to. This time it was art class. The teacher lives way out in a "hollar" or valley. She has no wifi connection or even good cell phone connection, so it was up to what I had on my laptop and cell phone to game.  I almost exclusively used Labyrinth Lord for this game as well as the No Budget No Frills Pencil and Paper Dungeon Generator.  I have a dic rolling app and a card deck app on my phone to assist me.

Pictures were added last minute to greatly enhance the story.

After finding nothing in the room [see the previous game (3)], the party goes back to the intersection where they fought the crab spider (2). When they arrive, they find that the carcass is no longer there! It appeares that it was dragged down the hall going north. After a consult, the party decides to first explore the hall to the east.

See bracketed numbers in text for explanation. North is up.

As they travel down the corridor, they encounter a small body lying in the floor (4). It turns out to be a hobbit.

The wounded hobbit

His clothes are torn, and has had multiple wounds on his body. The more recent wounds consist of puncture holes on his upper arms and neck. In his hand is a dagger with a bloodied blade. It looked like he dragged himself to this location from down the hall. Sister Yabringa finds him to be alive but barely. She casts a cure light wounds and after a few minutes, he is conscious. Cuthwaith mutters to himself, as he didn't get a chance to clean the Hobbit’s pockets out. The groggy hobbit states that he was kidnapped many days ago; by whom, he doesn’t know, and dragged into the tomb. He managed to escape, but was attacked by various creatures while trying to get out of here. They party asks if he wishes to join them, but he quickly declines. He wants to be out of there as soon as possible! Youngrin and Gladwell escort him back to the entrance. They give him some rations and water and tell show him the direction back to the village. Despite his wounds, the hobbit quickly heads off down the path.

 While Youngrin and Gladwell were escorting the hobbit the rest of the party travelled further down the hall. On the floor is a trail of blood splatters leading to where the hall ends at a door (5). They waited for the two fighters to return and then turned their attention to the door. Cuthwaith checks and finds no traps and the door is slightly ajar.  He also hears nothing. They party surmises that the hobbit must have come out of there. They decide that the fighters will go first, followed by Kassira and the thief, and finally the magic users, Bral, and the cleric. Readying his battle axe, Elgrum takes the lead and opens the door.  Inside, 4 stirges are present hanging from the ceiling like bats!

A-h-h-h! Very scarey!

They party manages to get the jump on them just as they were beginning to take off from their roost. Elgrum and Gladwell both miss, but Youngrin manages to hit and cut one down. The remaining party pours through the door. For whatever reason, the stirges fly towards the rest of the party, perhaps to exit the door. Kassira, the thief and Charnel are attacked! They miss the thief and Charnel but hit Kassira. It pierces Kassira in the chest and it is stuck there sucking her blood! Kassira grabs the stirge and attempts to pull it out of her but doesn’t succeed. Sister Yabringa yells,“hold still!” and attempts to smack the stirge with her club. She misses, but fortunately she also misses Kassira. Meanwhile, Charnel casts magic missiles at her opponent but the stirge dodges the missiles! The thief kills his opponent. Gladwell and Elgrum manage to turn around and attack the remaining stirges. Gladwell hits one but it still lives. The stirge locked on Kassira still sucks her blood (down more hits). The other attacks Charnel again but fails miserably due to being hit by Gladwell. Again, Yabringa misses the beast on Kassira, but Kassira manages to jab her dagger into it to try to pry it out of her, giving it 5 hits but not enough to kill or remove it. Both the thief and Charnel attack Charnel’s stirge and together they finish it off. All is left is the one stuck in Kassira that inflicts another 3 hits of damage to her. Kassira is starting to look faint. Just then, Elgrum grabs the thing and yanks it out of her, crushing it at the same time! Blood splatters everywhere! Yabringa immediately presses on Kassira’s wound to stop the blood flow but Kassira looses another 2 points of damage and passes out. Yabringa immediately casts a cure wound spell, which saves her, but just barely.

 “Burn you and your male stupidity, Elgrum!” Yabringa spat, “she could have died because of that!”

Elgrum snarls something in reply and tosses the stirge carcass off to one side.

Cuthwaith picking the lock on the secret door

They check the room. It is a long room only 30' wide but extends 60' in length. The wall at the far end shows an old, faded, crudely-painted mural of a pastoral scene of mountains and forests. In the foreground are images of humans dancing and playing musical instruments. Along with the humans are snake-like creatures. Yabringa, Elgrum, and Youngrin each mutter a prayer of protection as they look at it. In addition to the stirges that they killed, there are the two more recently-killed carcasses on the floor. Inspecting the mural further, Cuthwaith finds a secret door. It is locked but can’t tell if it is trapped. Three darts shoot out as he picks the lock but he manages to dodge them. Inside reveals closet with a bag containing 250 gp and a well-made, heavy crossbow with a leather and wood case that has a leather strap. Within the case are 10 bolts. With each bolt, are two tips that can be screwed into the bolt. One is of iron and the other silver. Charnel casts a, detect magic spell on the weapon, but finds nothing out of the ordinary. Youngrin states that they are in no condition to go further and should rest up here for the night.  The idea of staying in the funky-smelling tomb does not sound appealing, but Charnel nods to Miria who pulls out from a small bag of marble-sized light blue spheres. She gently crushes one in her hands as she sings a soft incantation and the air immediately smells cleaner and fresher. The party feels a sense of calm because of it. Yabringa heals Kassira once more and she is fully restored. They rest for the night. During the night, nothing occurs.

The game wrapped up in a little over an hour. More modifications need to be done on the No Budget No Frills Pencil and Paper Dungeon Generator. For example, the corridor encounter table is a little monster encounter heavy. I converted two monster encounters into events. One was the crab spider carcass being gone, and the other was the discovery of the wounded hobbit. Also, the dungeon encounters table in Labyrinth Lord is a little on the harsh side for a first level dungeon. There were many re-rolls to avoid certain death for the party.

Rescue the Princess: part 1

I started this about this time last year. It a game in progress, and I will periodically update it as I go long.

Introduction
Desclaimer: All characters appearing in this game are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Proctoring final exams is pretty dull. What better time to have another solo RPG adventure, or at least set one up! The problem was that I didn’t have my dice with me. Online dice rollers are OK, but a little slow. Then I decided, why not use my students as templates for characters?   In a small school like mine, you get to know the students well enough to judge their stats and what sorts of character classes they might be. The characters are mash-ups of several students plus the names were changed to protect the innocent. I decided to make them second level characters because it was an upper level class, so they were all juniors and seniors. Besides, I wanted the game to last longer than the first one I had.

There are a lot more members of the cast that I planned, but it fits the story and the relationships they have to one another. I set this one in my old fantasy world that I used for both role-playing and fantasy war gaming. Again, I am using Basic Fantasy RPG (2nd Edition), the No Budget No Frills Pencil and Paper Dungeon Generator (version 4.1) with a few add-ons I made from Tabletop Diversions blog, Mythic Master Game Emulator, and whatever else I happen to find of use. Since its a solo game, I mix and match whatever gaming mechanisms I want. As I go along, I am continuously tinkering with the dungeon generator.

The Background
On her way to pay respects to her future mother-in-law, the Countess of Erelle, the young Lady Hayleea was kidnapped. Her fiancée, the dashing Sir Elgrum immediately rode off with a large, armed party to rescue her. Along the way, his party was ambushed. They defeated their attackers but only Sir Elgrum, Sister Yabringa (Lady Hayleea’s dour spiritual advisor, who managed to escaped being kidnapped), and Kassira Kwin (the rescue party’s tracker) survived. They took up the trail, which led them to a small village on the border with Turonia. Several villagers told of a party hurrying north into the wilds. They continued to follow the trail until ended near some old burial mounds. They returned to town, as Sir Elgrum sorely needed help. While at the local tavern, they were told that those mounds were those of the Gails, ancient ancestors of the barbarians that were now to the north that worshipped an evil snake-goddess. They managed to recruit two fighters, two magic-users, and a thief.

The Characters
Sir Elgrum (Fighter. Str: 16 Int: 8 Wis: 8 Dex: 14 Con: 12 Crs: 14HP: 11). Noble and dashing, but somewhat headstrong. Not a paladin, but very religious. Armor: platemail. Weapons: Two-handed axe, longsword.

Sister Yabringa (Cleric. Str: 11 Int: 16 Wis: 17 Dex: 14 Con: 12 Crs: 8 HP: 8). A plain woman with a shadow falling over her, she is always wearing a perpetual scowl. Maybe it’s her strict orthodoxy to the Faith, or perhaps another hidden struggle. She has been a loyal confidant and spiritual advisor to Lady Hayleea for many years. Armor: Padded leather vest. Weapon: club.

Kassira Kwin (Half-Elf Ranger/Druid. Str 14 Int 17 Wis 14 Dex 16 Con: 13, Crs: 12  HP: 9) A petite but physically strong woman. She is also extremely dexterous and gains a +2 when climbing things.  Armor: leather vest. Weapons: Quarter staff, Short sword (D6+1), and dagger (D4+1). Elves made her short sword and dagger especially for her. They are not magical but gain the bonus in her hands.

Sir Gladwell Ravenlocks (Fighter. Str: 16 Int: 12 Wis: 8 Dex: 14 Con: 12 Crs: 17 HP:12) A wandering knight, he was renown for doing good deeds. He is a great charmer of women. Currently, he travels and adventures with his companions Youngrin and Cuthwaith. Armor: chainmail (sleeveless, of course!) & shield. Weapons: Longsword, dagger.

Cuthwaith Tunnelruner (Thief. Str 14 Int: 9 Wis:6 Dex:16 Con: 12 Crs:12 HP: 5) A good thief, but he’s not the brightest fellow. Tends to get in trouble and has to have his comrades bail him out. Armor: None. Weapons: Short sword, 4 throwing daggers.

Sir Youngrin Bodin (Fighter. Str: 17 Int: 16 Wis: 15 Dex 12 Con: 13 Crs: 14 HP: 10) Gladwell’s friend and adventuring companion. They are often rivals in everything, including women. He tends to be the realist of the two and often has to bail both Gladwell hand Cuthwaith out of trouble. It is said that he is the son of a very powerful lord. Armor: chainmail & shield. Weapons: Longsword and dagger.

Charnel of the Mystic Glade (Magic User. Str: 12 Int: 17 Wis: 9 Dex 13 Con: 10 Crs: 13 HP: 6) While a very good magic user, she tends to be rather absent minded. She will often neglect her studies with her apprentice. Armor: None. Weapons: Staff and 1 dagger.

Miria Meeksoul (Magic User Str:9 Int: 16 Wis:12 Dex: 10 Con: 7 Crs: 6 HP: 5) A small, quiet woman, she is the apprentice of Charnel. It is not clear why Charnel took Miria on as an apprentice, nor why Miria stays with Charnel. Armor: None. Weapons: Staff and 1 dagger.

Chapter 1:  Encounter along the way
The adventures left early from the tavern, as reached the end of the town, an old man hobbled up to them. He tugged on Sister Yabringa, reins. “Please blessed sister, my daughter, Enya, was kidnapped the other day and I’m sure she was taken to the burial mounds! Please find her and bring her home to me. She is all I have!"

Sister Yabringa scowls, but Sir Elgrum cuts in, “good sir, fear not! We will find your daughter and bring her back to you."

The old man thanks Sir Elgrum and shuffles off. The party rides at a quick pace, hoping to arrive before nightfall. But shortly before they arrive to the burial mounds, they heard a scream coming from the forest. Kassira volunteers to investigate.

She quietly moves through the forest floor toward the noise. She enters a clearing an sees a large ogre smacking around a young man. Unfortuately, she gives her location away with the snap of a branch. The ogre quickly turns, picks up a large club, and charges after Kassira. Seeing that there is strength in numbers, she turns and quickly runs back to the party shouting, "OGRE!!”

She easily out runs the ogre back to the trail. The rest of the party reacts quickly and prepares for battle.

The party gets the initiative and Kassiera and Gladwell get the first attack. Gladwell misses, but Kassiera gets in a deadly blow (natural 20) but not enough to kill it. The ogre's club smashes into Gladwell's shield but Gladwell is only shaken by the blow. Magic missiles by the magic users seem to only enrage the ogre. After several rounds of combat, wounds are taken on both sides but the outcome is still up in the air. Ffinally, Sir Elgrum manages to plant his two-handed axe into the ogre and it goes down.They search the ogre but find nothing of value.

The party goes back to the clearing and finds the young man. He is conscious but injured. Yabringa cures him. He tells them that his name is Bral (Str: 12 Int: 9 Wis 11 Dex 16 Con 9 Crs 7 HP: 6). He is a young farmer whose wife was abducted two days ago. He managed to follow the abductors here, but ran into the ogre. They ask him if he is from the village that they came from, but he tells them no. He is from another village. He begs to come with. The party is split, but they tell him if he can carry their items and stay out of their way, they will let him accompany them. He has no armor and his weapon was a staff and a dagger. but they promise to give him any weapons and armor if they find it. They decide to camp for the night and enter the burial mounds the next morning. Nothing happens that night and they prepare to enter in the morning.

Chapter 2: Entering the tomb

Entrance into the burial mound

The morning they gather around an entrance way. It blocks by stones and rubble.The Cuthwaith  confidently declares there is no traps, and they have Bral remove the stones. They are in a small room (1) made of earthen walls held precariously up by rotten timbers. At the end of the room are stairs plunging into the earth. Lighting torches and lanterns, they descend the stairs. Reach the bottom stairs and walk along a passage until they get to a 4-way intersection. Suddenly a giant crab spider leaps out at them (2)!

It attacks Bodin and severely wounds him. The poison takes immediate effect and he passes out possibly dead!

The party is stunned by what they see and the spider gets a second attack! It then attacks Bral. Bral tries to jump away but he is hit bad, however the poison doesn’t seem to effect him (successful save vs poison). Instinctively Bral swings with his staff and it hits the spider doing minor damage. The spider then attacks Charnel but misses her due, in part, to her dexterity.

Now, everyone gets a blow. Charnel, being just attacked, manages to fire off a magic missile doing mior damage. Everyone else misses.  In fact Cuthwaith nearly hits Charnel. Miria then casts a spell that does a lot of damage and the spider is dead.

They rush over to Youngrin. Both the cleric and Kassira (who also has the gift of healing) manages to cure him of the wounds, but is it enough to stop the poison? Sir Elgrum decides to leave the dungeon make camp. They carrying Youngrin’s body out. While still unresponsive, Kassira pulls out of a pouch some dried leaves, mixes it with some oil and applies it to his wound. She does the same to Bral.

A day and a night passes. Finally in the late morning, Youngrin stirs and seems to have survived. Sister Yabringa is sure it was witchcraft, and mentions it to Elgrum. Elgrum rebuffs her stating that they should be happy that Youngrin is alive. They camp for one more day to help Youngrin recover. Youngrins Con is down 1 point for the remainder of the adventure.

The following day they reenter to the burial mound. A little more cautious, they send the thief up ahead. Reaching the 4-way intersection, they find the spider’s body still there. They decide to turn left. They travel about 60’ down a straight hall and find it ends with stairs going down. Along the way, they noticed a door on the north side of the passage.In protest, Cuthwaith goes down the stairs a ways, stops and listens. Hearing nothing (failure), he quickly runs back up the stairs.  They decide to go back to the 4-way intersection but first check out that door. Cuthwaith listens but hears nothing (success). Checking for traps (fails), he finds nothing. The door not locked but stuck. Elgrum bashes the door in. The room comes alive with light and music (3). A sourceless, warm glow suffuses the chamber, and a harp you cannot see plays soothing sounds. Unfortunately, the rest of the chamber isn't so inviting. The floor is strewn with the smashed remains of rotting furniture. It looks like the room once held a bed, a desk, a chest, and a chair (from: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/drdg/index.htm). They search for source of the light and music but couldn’t find it. They leave and continue to the intersection.

And there it ends for now. Stay tuned for another chapter!

A Very Short Solo Dungeon Adventure

A few weeks ago, I went up to Chicago to drop off my mother-in-law at O’Hare airport. It was time for her to go back to China. We went up a few days early, so that the drive would not be so tiresome. Other than passing the time with my mother, going through more of my father’s work-working tools, there was much to do late at night.

I have been following Tabletop Diversions and Solo Nexus blogs. Both do a lot of solo role-playing games using several systems. Danjou's Hand (Tabletop Diversions) has his own home made dungeon generator. I decided to give a solo dungeon crawl a try. So, after my semi-annual pilgrimage to Games Plus in Mt. Prospect, IL to buy some dice (you can never have enough dice), I had me a game that night.

For this solo game, I used Basic Fantasy RPG (2nd Edition), and No Budget No Frills Pencil and Paper Dungeon Generator (version 4.1) from Tabletop Diversions blog. I really liked the characters I rolled up, especially the magic-user/thief. Unfortunately, they came to a short end.

The Adventure
At a border village of Turonia, three adventures meet in a small, dingy tavern:

Zor the Bastard (Str: 18 Int: 12 Wis: 14 Dex: 13 Con: 13 Crs: 11). The son of a Bruin warrior and a captured Turonian peasant woman, he was shunned by the Bruin tribe where he was born. None the less, Zor became a skilled fighter. When he was able to, he escaped his village. Since then,Zor roamed the northern lands seeking wealth and a way to escape the legacy of his upbringing. He wears a chain mail shirt (sleeveless, of course), and uses a long sword and dagger.

Syllabatar, the magic-user thief (Str: 16 Int: 17 Wis: 7 Dex: 16 Con: 15 Crs: 14). Syllabatar came from the cities of the far south. Expelled from a school of the magical arts because of his carousing and gambling, he turned to thievery for which he found quite profitable. Over time, however, he found himself in the northern wastes and nearly penniless. A winning hand in cards provided him a map to a long abandoned barrow of the dreaded and mysterious Gaels. Other than a cloak, he has no armor. He carries a short sword and two daggers.

Brother Murg (Str: 12 Int: 6 Wis: 15 Dex: 9 Con: 5 Crs: 8). A defrocked priest, Murg has joined with various mercenary bands as their chaplain and healer. He was expelled by his last mercenary company after having drunken brawl with the son of a wealthy employer. Down on his luck, he was desperate to find employment. Murg wears leather armor and has a shield. He uses a mace.

Syllabatar managed to recruit Zor and Murg after a few cheap drinks and tales of fabulous wealth. The next day they set out to find the barrow. Murg’s low constitution means he had a bad hangover. It was several hours of hiking, beyond the borders of the village, but no encounters occurred. They made camp outside of what looked like a small hill with a stone embankment on one side. The night passed uneventfully. The next morning they prepared to enter the barrow. The map had some ruins on it. Syllabatar speaks them and a door swings open from the face of the embankment. The three light torches and enter. They find themselves in a small room. The air is damp and musty. In the middle of it is a 6’ high stele of polished rock. Glowing ruins are engraved on it. Syllabatar reads them and finds it’s a spell of enfeeblement.  He immediately orders the others to avert their gaze. They do, and the spell fails to take hold of them. A single door is on the right side of the room. It is locked and Syllabatar finds that it is trapped. He fails to remove it, and it goes off! A flash of light goes off and they are temporarily blinded. In time they recover, fortunately without any incidents.

This second room longer than the previous one. There are four skeletons lying on the floor. In the middle of the room is a small chest. They look over the skeletons. They clearly have been dead for a long time. Little remains of them but some tattered rags that were their clothes.  Syllabatar inspects the chest. There are no traps but it is locked. He picks the lock. Inside is a large green emerald! They take the gem. There are two doors: one directly across the room another, to the right of them. They choose the door on the right.

The door opens and leads to a short hallway. There is a T-intersection, at which they decide to go left. That was their doom! The hall made a right turn where five Orcs jump them. With a single blow, the largest Orc takes down Zor before he can even react. Syllabatar is slightly wounded by the second largest Orc. Only Murg manages to fend off the first blows by the remaining Orcs. Syllabatar manages to caste a magic missile spell. It knocks out the second largest Orc. Merg smashes one of the smaller Orcs with his mace and tries to get at Zor to heal him, but is just not close enough. Syllabatar just manages to draw his short sword and wounds another Orc. However, his dexterity was not enough to avoid the large cleaver of a scimitar of the largest Orc. Syllabatar goes down in a pool of blood. Merge realizes that there is no way get can get to his companions. He could run and live to fight another day, but decided to fight on and leave his life in the hands of his god. Despite getting another hit in on an Orc, he is overwhelmed and goes down. His prayers were the last words he uttered.

 Post-mortem analysis
 I had hoped the game would last a little longer, but c’est la vie. My adventurers died a quick death despite the fact that I threw them two bones at the beginning. I gave them very generous saving throws on both the magic stele in the first room and the trap on the door leading to the second room. BTW, I made these two traps up on the spot. The random dungeon generator just determines if something you encounter is a monster, trap, something unusual, or empty. I rolled “something unusual” for the first room and a trap for the door. What lost it for the boys was the number of Orcs that attacked them and that they got the first blow. I sort of expected the party to survive the encounter, but they didn’t. Poor Zor didn’t have a chance!

Basic Fantasy RPG is essentially old Advanced D&D that you can download for free. It would seem that Labyrinth Lord is also old AD&D, also free. I have not compared these two systems, but something tells me there isn’t much difference between the two. One thing I will change for my games is how spells work. I've never liked how they worked in D&D, at least in earlier additions. Years ago, I played a computer game called Diablo, which was a dungeon crawl. I liked how they did magic. Both magic users and clerics had "mana" that acted as a magical energy pool. More powerful spells drained you of more mana than weaker spells.

The No Budget No Frills Pencil and Paper Dungeon Generator worked well, but I think I will make some modifications and detail it up, so to speak, especially regarding encounters. For more detail, I referred to one of the sections in Basic Fantasy, but it would be faster if its was all in the Dungeon Generator.