Die Troglodytes Die

This follows last week's Greyhawk write-up.

Tuckras woke up while they were recovering,‭ ‬and they worked out a plan to take on the troglodytes.‭ ‬He was also really excited about the chance to see the fish priest,‭ ‬which he suspected was a kuo toa.‭ ‬Back in the smaller chamber,‭ ‬they found that a couple of troglodytes had moved ahead and camouflaged themselves for another ambush.‭ ‬Despite this,‭ ‬however,‭ ‬they went down fairly quickly.

To keep from being surrounded again,‭ ‬they had Jinso go out to pick a fight while they waited in the tunnel.‭ ‬In the narrow hallway,‭ ‬the troglodytes had to fight one at a time.‭ ‬The troglodytes were sitting around the priest while it chanted in some fishy language which no one could understand.‭ ‬Apart from Jinso's momentary temptation to abandon the plan and run off into the cavern,‭ ‬it went as planned.‭

Advancing again into the now troglodyte-free cavern,‭ ‬they found the kuo toa standing alone.‭ ‬Undaunted by their numerical advantage,‭ ‬it proceeded to lecture them in fish-speak,‭ ‬gesticulating emphatically as it did so,‭ ‬and occasionally throwing in a random thunderclap by waving its staff.‭ ‬Violence eventually broke out,‭ ‬at which point the priest called up its pet,‭ ‬a giant crayfish,‭ ‬from the pool.‭ ‬They still killed the kuo toa and wounded the crayfish enough that it fled into the underground stream.‭ ‬The kuo toa‭ ‬had‭ ‬some goodies.‭ ‬There were lots of tunnels branching away.

And that's the end of the notes. Next, they wandered through a portal to the Feywild, completely skipping the rest of the cave complex. After some poking around, they found their way to Castle Amber. They explored quite a bit of that before the campaign stalled out.

Ambush After Ambush

This follows last week's Greyhawk write-ups.

At the bottom of the stairs,‭ ‬they found a stinky rubble-strewn basement.‭ ‬Tuckras,‭ ‬the last one in,‭ ‬suddenly collapsed by the entrance.‭ ‬Vyph saw a shadowy figure dart up the stairs.‭ ‬Sakura checked on Tuckras while the others chased the shadow.‭ ‬Tuckras had a small wound like a bee sting on the back of his neck and wouldn't wake up,‭ ‬but seemed to‭ ‬be okay.‭ ‬Sakura stayed to make sure he didn't get eaten or something.

The shadowy figure ran out into the courtyard,‭ ‬pursued by the heroes.‭ ‬Jinso attacked him hand-to-hand while Vyph cast entangle on both of them.‭ ‬The assassin was a human with a big scar‭ ‬down the right side of his face.‭ ‬He had Anton in a big burlap sack for some reason.‭ ‬The fight dragged on,‭ ‬but eventually they bashed his skull in.‭ ‬They found vials of sleep poison and lethal poison,‭ ‬but‭ ‬no antidote.‭ ‬Tuckras seemed stable,‭ ‬but still refused to wake up.‭

In the course of searching the basement,‭ ‬they found some money and a three-foot high worked passageway.‭ ‬Dragging Tuckras along,‭ ‬they decided to investigate.‭ ‬The passage led to a vertical shaft of the same size.‭ ‬Anton cast light on a coin and dropped it to see how deep it was.‭ ‬Once they knew it was a manageable depth‭ (‬35‭')‬,‭ ‬they tied a‭ ‬rope to Tuckras‭' ‬bedpost staff and laid it across the shaft to anchor their rope.

At the bottom,‭ ‬they found a natural cavern.‭ ‬Sakura saw a threatening shadow‭ ‬with raised claws and blasted it with a thunderwave,‭ ‬revealing that it was actually a petrified troll.‭ ‬The arm broke off,‭ ‬so they kept that for Tuckras.‭ ‬A passageway with chiseled-out stairs led down past the troll.‭ ‬At the bottom was another natural cavern with several branching passages and a stream running through at the far end.‭ ‬There were lots of columns‭ & ‬other formations scattered about.‭

Once they all moved in,‭ ‬six camouflaged troglodytes popped out with spears and attacked.‭ ‬A fish-man with a weird‭ ‬eclectic staff kinda climbed out of the pool and commanded them to bow to the majesty of Demogorgon and‭ "‬Auntie Olga Pigtooth.‭" ‬While the troglodytes attacked,‭ ‬he made impressive thunderclap sounds and his eyes glowed.‭

The fight didn't go well.‭ ‬Both Jinso and Sakura went down,‭ ‬and the other two were wounded.‭ ‬Vyph cast darkness and,‭ ‬while the troglodytes stumbled around and picked fights with each other,‭ ‬he and Anton dragged the others out and retreated as fast as they could.

Silence of the Gnolls

I  found some notes I wrote down for the Greyhawk campaign but never shared, so here's another couple of sessions. This one wraps up Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh and moves on to some spinoff adventures I added. More next week.

Silence of the Gnolls

They went back to town,‭ ‬sold some stuff,‭ ‬stashed some money at the Temple of Bralm,‭ ‬and decided to lure the smugglers in and...‭ ‬whatever.‭ ‬Stop them or something.‭ ‬They used a magical disguise and a less magical one made by skinning one of the gnoll heads.‭ ‬They managed to get aboard the Sea Ghost without incident and see the captain.‭ ‬After taking out both the captain and his wizard buddy,‭ ‬they said they were taking over the ship and offered the‭ ‬#2‭ ‬spot to the former bosun.‭ ‬Everybody went along.

The Rainbow Bridge

The party wanted to investigate the place where Sanbalet had been meeting other weevils,‭ ‬so they sailed off in the Sea Ghost to Dunwater,‭ ‬another coastal town between Saltmarsh and the Javan River.‭ ‬Anton wasn't feeling well,‭ ‬so he stuck around in Saltmarsh.‭ ‬Tuckras worked on his sailing skills and got to know the pirates better.‭ ‬It wasn't a long trip.

The trading camp at the mouth of the Dunwater River had been ransacked.‭ ‬There were dead weevils,‭ ‬dead lizard men,‭ ‬dead humans,‭ ‬and debris.‭ ‬There were tracks heading off to the north,‭ ‬into to Hool Marshes.‭ ‬The road ran along a narrow causeway.‭ ‬Eventually they came to a bridge along over a gap in the causeway.‭ ‬Blocking the bridge in an arch shape,‭ ‬they found a transparent gelatinous creature which attacked‭ ‬them when they got close.‭ ‬During the fight,‭ ‬it managed to‭ "‬swallow‭" ‬Jinso,‭ ‬but he survived.‭

The trail ended at a small castle,‭ ‬more a guardhouse,‭ ‬really with a sludgy moat around it.‭ ‬The building was in ruins except for‭ ‬a fortified tower in the back.‭ ‬They poked around the courtyard,‭ ‬then decided to investigate a crumbly tower by the entrance before moving on to the solid building.‭ ‬The ruined tower was full of creepy shadows and whispering voices,‭ ‬and a spider-like creature that could teleport through the‭ ‬shadows.

The next room had a couple of carrion crawlers that attacked them from the walls and ceiling.‭ ‬Beyond,‭ ‬they found an ominous stairway.

2018: Travel Hopefully

GIF & Caption (the one in the picture, smartass) by Swear Trek

Some stuff comes to mind. Two of my cats died this year. Apart from the obvious unpleasantness, I spent a ton of money trying to save them. I also spent a ton of money on an assortment of car repairs. I didn't actually have two tons of money, or even one, so the great taste goes on and on.

I continue to stumble forward in my work on The Nameless Way. I'm still not as productive as I should be, at least not consistently, but apparently it's the best I can do for now. I'll keep trying to do better, of course. Apart wanting to see this one complete, I have other things I need to write afterwards. Oh, also, I got rid of that Wordpress site I had for it because I don't know why I made that in the first place. Anyway, the book is gonna be awesome if I can finish it before I get hit by a super-tornado or something.

Some things got a little out of control in 2018. I'm leaving this vague because I'd like you to imagine a bunch of awesome "crazy artist" stuff and pretend that's what I did. The reality was boring. I think I've got stuff patched together well enough, now. It's not like I had a magical epiphany and solved everything, but if you want to tack that onto the end of the crazy artist breakdown in our little narrative, feel free.

Back in 2017, Julian May died. While this is, of course, sad, the event indirectly did something good for me. I read her Saga of Pliocene Exile back in the 80s. She was a huge influence on me. When I first got serious about being a writer, Julian May was the writer I wanted to be.

The funny thing is, I had forgotten that. After she died, I decided that I needed to reconnect with my literary roots, so I re-read the Pliocene books and now I'm re-reading the Intervention ones. I'm especially looking forward to getting to the Milieu series because, criminally, I never got around to reading those. And it's all been kaleidoscopic.

I've got a new wallpaper/color scheme thingie for this blog. Relatively new, anyway. I'm still trying it on, but it'll probably be here for a bit.

Also this year, I dropped out as a partner of Peryton Publishing. I had been thinking about it for a while. There's not any personal drama behind it or anything like that. I lost interest in game design a while back. Since I realized this and stopped, I've become more and more certain that it isn't just a mood. I don't miss it at all. It goes back to that "don't find your bliss; find what you're willing to suffer for" meme. Some of the stuff associated with game design can be fun, but I'm not willing to suffer for it. Now that I'm done suffering for it, I don't even want to touch the fun parts. I just don't care enough about games to do anything special with them. That being the case, there didn't seem to be much point in keeping my name on a game design company. I still help out with it, though, and the stuff I did is still there. Also, of course, I still play games.

Happy New Year!

Three Mirages

Like most people who GM a lot of RPGs, I sit around thinking about campaigns I might run sometimes. Right now I've got an Icons campaign going that I love (although I still haven't written up the most recent session and the holidays have, as always, slowed it down), so the thing I pine for is D&D. Despite the picture, it would be 5th edition. I just really like that old Erol Otus cover. Anyway, these are the main ideas that keep surfacing.

World of Greyhawk
I had this one going for a while, and had to drop it because I was gaming all the time and had to cut a few things. It started off with a weird vegepygmy adventure which led to Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh and then off into the Hool Marshes where they stumbled into the Feywild and then Castle Amber. I could easily pick this up again. While the time-sink was unfortunate, I was having a blast. This is probably the one I'd be mostly likely to do, because, even if I started a spinoff instead of resuming with the same characters, a lot of the set-up is already done.

Xarkis or Sarkis or Something
I think it might also be fun to run something in the world of The Nameless Way. I wouldn't try to follow the plot of the novel, because that feels a little too railroady. There are plenty of places to explore that I don't even go in this book, and of course the ones the book does visit still have other adventures to offer.

Middle Earth
Ever since Adventures in Middle Earth was announced, I've been turning the thought of a campaign over and over in my head. I've been thinking that, deviating from the official line, I'd run an alternate history where Isildur destroyed the Ring instead of keeping it, but there's still other stuff going on which I'm not going to get into right now. Some of that stuff helps explain why the present-day world (right after the events in The Hobbit) isn't really all that different. A drawback of this one is that I'd have to get the players to acquire and understand their own copies of the Player's Guide. The classes and the way characters are created deviate so much from standard D&D that, otherwise, I would go crazy, constantly trying to explain how everything works.

But of course I probably won't be doing any of these any time soon. Maybe after I catch up on some other stuff. I dunno.

Carnage 21

Okay, so, there were some bad spots and, to top it all off, I think I came home with con crud. All I want to say about the bad spots is that they had nothing to do with Carnage or the resort. Most of it is on me.

On the good news side, I got to hang out with friends I don't see often and made one or two new ones. I even reconnected with a friend I hadn't talked much to in a few years. I got to spend a long weekend on the mountain and stay in a nice room.

I missed my role-playing game session, but the other game I was running was Dungeon! and it was awesome. I had forgotten how much fun that game could be. I'll definitely be doing that again.

Oh, and there was lots of fog. Fog is cool.

And I got some writing done on the way home. I don't have any pictures for that.

The Dreams in the Red Roof

Here's a dream I had Wednesday night when we stopped in Syracuse on the way to Carnage.

We were in kind of a Suicide Squad thing, at least in that nobody trusted us. We hadn't been in jail or anything, just sort of a variation on jury duty selection. There was even a reference to the fact that I had already served and something else about me having missed several phone calls about this and hearing about it on TV or something like that. There were several other people on the team but I don't remember anything significant about most of them.

Jerry was appointed the leader. I don't remember whether this came down from above or was a team vote. Either way, I missed the process because I joined up late. There was also this big monster kind of dude. His name was Groot, but he wasn't anything like the movie/comics Groot. He looked a little like the lanky, shambling trolls in first edition AD&D, but with short tendrils coming out of his temples like Man-Thing. He had kind of a sullen, cranky demeanor and spoke a little like the 80's Marvel Hulk.

There was a lot of sitting around at first, and most of the team avoided Groot. For some reason I had the idea that I was going to want to go all supervillain at some point, so I went out of my way to befriend Groot because he'd be pretty useful for that. The rest of us all had some kind of gimmicky gadget, but no real super-powers. I had this retractable metal whip thing that I could do an assortment of stunts with. This was fairly typical. Nobody had any advantage as formidable as being a giant green monster. So I started hanging out with Groot, making sure he didn't get chased away at mealtime and stuff (Groot was big and scary, but usually not all that aggressive).

I think the reason I was planning to go rogue was that it was kind of a dystopian Hunger Games world. The leader was called President, but was really a dictator who had seized power in a military coup. He had a name in the dream but I can't remember it. Definitely a dude, though. I remember going on patrol in the city and talking about options with Jerry and Tom. The general consensus was that the only way to really change things was to take out the President, but we didn't know how to accomplish this because he was well-defended and had easily anticipated and crushed similar attempts before.

Then we got the news that Groot had gotten into the narcotics cabinet and was now on a rampage. Why was there a narcotics cabinet in our headquarters? I don't know. So I decided that I could use this to further my plan by talking Groot down and making sure he was treated well or maybe helping him escape if things went wrong. Why did I think I could talk down a drug-crazed troll? No idea. I kinda liked Groot, though, so maybe I really was being a little heroic.

Anyway, Groot was up on a bridge decorated kind of like the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge in Cleveland and we arrived below. I used that whip thing to pull myself up, only to find that Superman (yeah, doesn't seem to fit the setting, does it?) had arrived on the scene and was dealing with Groot. I was trying to figure out how best to handle this when I woke up.