Hiatus till 2015

Uncle Sam has my number so I will be out of state and without outside communication for a few months.  I'll be returning in 2015 ready to throw a book on the shelves.

Take care all.

Avatar's & Annihilation Playtest: Last time on Team Murder Hobo

 The Last Dozen or so Sessions Log

After discovering the location of the initial crash site, a comet landing 100 years ago the team headed back; sold all their fancy space junk for a tidy profit and were bankrolled by Lord Theodore Rodrick the Third.  Unfortunately, a friend of Youjiro the Silent learned the Murder Hobos was behind Yoh's death, and a firebombing commenced.  Witness pooled out of the woodwork burning the Murder Hobos and Rodrick had them spirited away, where they sought tutelage under some local folk heroes in the mega inn to the south.

There they contended with an invisible stalker murdering their mentors, a pack of vampires that came in and started dining on the common room.  The party followed the trail of local legend Frog God, found the innkeepers store room; a treasure trove from his adventuring days and set off with the new player Neres the Pirate.  Their destination: The Great Glacier, an icy anomaly in the middle of the tropics; if the notes are correct the first crash site is here.  The alien inhabiting Jingle's the Outlaw Dancer's head is dead set on discovering if the one who landed a hundred years ago is still alive.

The party made their way across the icy wastes encountering a white Rakshasa they traded stories with for ancient magic, an ice eidolon corrupted and undead that nearly killed Pemba the Talented Juggler with his Coldfire reaver and a Wooly Tyrannosaurus hunting down a dapper and opulent land walrus who they vowed to rob later.  Along the way they stopped at the sulfurous springs, picked up  new players: mini-Gojira, daughter of the rimescale dragon and Bronan the Brobarian and set off for the crystalline forest the original crash site.

Inside they dealt with crystal soldiers, bear riders, polar wurms and their volcanic cores, phantom wolves from the Wolf Kings pack, and Nodens the Elder god.  Nodens refused to let them down to the depths of the forest and rather than murder him in typical fashion they decided to curry his favor.  They were sent to hunt down Ithaqua and his Shantaks.

The GM forgot the level of the party and they laid waste to the poor, poor Shantaks as the reclaimed Coldfire Reaver left them as giant frozen blocks of ice, peppered with arrows.  Tiamult, Doc Brown impersonator and Ghost of the Frozen Flame used Clef's Proven Dreamwalker Dweomer to bring himself and Neres the water wizard into the dreamscape of Ithaqua.

There they witnessed the creation of the Glacier, the falling purple star and Ithaqua witnessing it all.  The perversion of the star warped Ithaqua, instead of a god he now feasted on his people and thus the curse of the Wendigo was born.  Neres and Tiamult used their iron wills and control over earth and water to contend with Ithaqua but he proved too powerful.  Neres went underwater and tunneled to the crash site to find the fallen star, inside he found a glowing tree.  Touching it his vision went white hot and he disappeared.

Ithaqua by Quest007

Tiamult played a game of cat and mouse with Ithaqua, using the last of his Intrepid to rip off Ithaquas arms and taken them as his own.  While his power grew, so did Ithaqua's control over him, until finally looking in the water's reflection he saw Ithaqua's visage and not his own. 

"Ithaqua you are no more!"

And neither was Tiamult.  The old man that traveled through time and dimensions was undone, his existence wiped clean from history.  In the real world Ithaqua burned into a star, in it's place was a tiny crystal.  Fred the Warper of Madness who acquired a Shantak mount touched it with the Coldfire Reaver which was transformed into Shatterstar.  The crystal transformed into a glowing tree and from that emerged Neres glowing gold, thoughtless he was merely the corporeal form of the alien that fell a 100 years ago.  The alien inside Jingle informed them they must reunite the echo with the original.  Off the party goes to complete their mission.

Final Session report up next.

Avatar's & Annihilation Playtest: The Gears are in Motion. (Team Good Samaritans)

Conclusion of tonight's game
Kara the Jade Revenant fused with the "Beast" an embodiment of chaos as a promise of power.
Marshall Orvar was mangled by the now berserk Kara.
Shepherd Ashaw tried to separate the two using Stormbringer
The sudden crack of wind severed the arms of both Kara and Orvar
Kara fused with Orvar's arm and the return of humanity also returned her sanity.
Kara applied her old stony arm to Orvar who is now being slowly eaten alive by alien crystal.
The party is now traveling to the center of the world to kill Lavos.

Dungeon World Initial Impressions

The cast of characters:

Laneth, Elf Hobo Ranger.  Spent a century or so afflicted by a hereditary curse, now temporarily held at bay by dark sorcery, specifically an amulet. Currently afflicted with the curse of weresharkdom.  Jawesome.
Horribly in debt: because of their hobo ways.
Bonds: Sven is an ally of nature, I must protect him.

Brinn, Halfling Thief Magnet.  Epitome of debauchery, kleptomania and larceny.
Horribly in debt to Jabba the Hutt
Bonds: Currently running a con with Morgan.

Sven Svenson, Northerner Fighterman covered in animal furs of everything he has hunted so far.    Former farmer searching for his brother who left before him.
Horribly in debt because of farm backtaxes.
Bonds: To make Morgan, hard like me.


Morgan, Elf Wizard.  Haunted child with an overall general confusion, kidnapped by a hermit wizard after taking 1st place at a village Math Fair.  (Courtesy of the Dungeon Dozen)  Seeks to be a normal member of society.
Horribly in debt to that damn hermit.
Bonds: Laneth is wrong, I must teach her the true way of the world.

I really enjoyed how short and to the point character creation was.  It was smooth to the point and really tied the team together.  Also, another great use for +Jason Sholtis most excellent Dungeon Dozen copy. 

A&A Playtest Comet Dungeon 1.1 Initial Descent

Both groups, despite locating and scouting multiple entrances formed by the remaining fragments of the comet (spikes) that struck eventually ended up going through the front.  Since both teams hit a lot of the same content and made a lot of similar choices I'll be talking room layout and the highlights of each team.

Dungeon Entrance

Is blocked by a fallen log, further down the path is a way to drop down where the Comet Spike punctured

Murder Hobos

Fred the Smith easily chucks the fallen tree out of the way
Group moves forward towards the Comet Spike
A few painful randomly determined traps later they reach the Spike

A&A Playtest: Comet Dungeon 1.0

Comet Dungeon 

Behind the Scenes

Now that both teams have completed the Comet Dungeon I can talk about the design of it.  As you may have noticed there is a lot of scribbled information on what originally started out as a turbine diagram with some op-amps thrown in.  The dungeon began with the final room and then moving back and filling out the rest for what would fit the theme.

The Massive Hexagon.

An old wizard had chained and bound an archdemon in this dungeon using a combination of magic and artifice.  The binding left him immune to harm and unable to physically harm anyone else.  Unfortunately for him like any good demon he worked a loophole into the binding that prevented anyone else from leaving the dungeon so long as ye olde archdemon was trapped there.  As a result all the living inhabitants were trapped there and the Wizards constant struggling with the confines of the spell eventually caused a combusting scroll that was his demise.

Before the Comet Impact this dungeon was hidden away and completely undisturbed before it tore four holes into the dungeon.  In addition to the three entrances to the dungeon (trapped front door, gelatinous cube chute, and lab entrance) there would be four more entrances to deposit them in the middle of the dungeon thanks to the comet shards.  The caveat of course is that the comet left plenty of space goop behind that loves to bind itself to metal.  Thankfully, each Team had someone who selected Piece of Ancient Tech: Hoverboard as a Relic so they could scout out these entrances.

Drop zone number one was in the Chimera room where undead servants, dipped in silver to prolong their wear and tear tended to the cages.  Some of them however were hit by space goo and act kinda crazy. The second drop zone is an actual triangular shard of the comet, each side is covered in a lesser spell [Dyne's Runaway Force, Mime's Imprisonment, and Telepathy (PSI)]; it is blocking a T intersection.  The shard is razor sharp and and rope spelunking down carries a 2/6 chance of slicing the rope and stranding them on one side of the T intersection.  Not only that but the goo-less path to the hole crosses over the hidden pit that drops straight into a Gelatinous Cube chamber.   The next hole is into a room with a single visible exit and a bunch of space goo that has completely covered a hammersmith automaton.

The biggest comet entrance was in the Demon's chamber, thirty feet of goo was around the massive hole so only the most ambitious would go storming in there.  The melting comet destroyed half of the bindings on the Demon giving him some autonomy, but still leaving him 50% invulnerable.  The Demon will telepathically call any that make it North of the blocked T intersection or who approach his room from the west.  Likewise, the comet site left a large black pyramid covered in potent Chronomancy spells near the demon.  Inside the pyramid is a dying alien who beseeches any who listen to enter the pyramid so they can enter into an agreement where he uses their body as a vessel (Introduction to the Avatar System).  Only those that have witnessed the non-euclidean geometry from the comet touchdown, from the dead wizards journal, or simply experiencing portal madness are susceptible to the aliens call.

The guildmaster Youjiro the Silent waits patiently in the Wizards false bedchamber ignoring the petulant demon and keeping an eye on the pyramid.  Also an Avatar, but his spirit comes from an ancestral magic sword rather than a space invader, he will attempt to slay any who emerge from the pyramid.  The stage is set, in the next post I'll tackle how the rest of the dungeon came to be.

A&A School of Spells: Lifa

A&A School of Magic: Lifa

The fundamental quintessence, Lifa, is what flows through all living things on this planet.  The blessed and holy among us are a conduit for it.  They can give life, offer redemption, and protect this worlds inhabitants from those who lost their lives and those that feast on the Lifa of others.

Grave of the Fireflies