30 day D&D challenge: Day 2

Favorite PC race

   I have 2 favorites really Halflings & Half-Ogres. And they happen to be at opposite ends of several spectrums. Let's start with size. 1st Edition AD&D had 3 breeds of Halfling. Hairfoot, Stout and Tallfellow. I don't think I ever played anything but a Hairfoot. I had read The Hobbit, seen the animated movie, and was still a fairly short kid. I related to halflings on quite a few levels.
   Back in the Basic D&D days, you didn't pick a race and a class, you got race, that's it. Of course, there were only 3 alignments too. It was called "Basic" after all. Back then Halflings were just short fighters. It wasn't until 1st edition that the Halfling came into their own, they could be Thieves.
   One of my first Halfling Thieves was named Eubeen Hadd. ... ... ... WHADDA YA EXPECT FROM A 12 YEAR OLD!?!? I hadn't developed much imagination yet. Idontwannatalkaboutit. Anyway, Over the course of his adventures, he found a pair of gauntlets. You old farts are going to know what kind of gauntlets they were. I played that character for another 2  months before I finally found out what kind they were. They were Gauntlets of Ogre Power.
   Cliché, oh so cliché. Again... What did you expect from Power Gaming 12 year olds. This is by no means a defense (I won't defend that which we all have offended from time to time) this is the way things were. We were all of the same mind back then.
   Basically they were the only things left over after the treasure was divvied up. Well, long story shortened to preserve sanity (yours and mine) shortly afterward the self same gauntlet wearing Halfling also acquired a certain magic accoutrement... A Girdle of Storm Giant strength. That particular Halfling Thief soon gave up a life of stealth and started Tanking for the group.
   In more recent history, there was Olarin Pugtoe. Halfling Rogue. When he had reached about 5th level, I lost interest and was set to hand over the Roguely duties to another player. I had decided to have Olarin develop a death wish. I did have a few rules for his demise however. It couldn't be a wasted death. It couldn't be done by members of the party. And he had to go out in a blaze of glory. Several attempts were made, none successful, to encourage a deceased condition. None succeeded. What did happen, is that a certain member of the party (Dave, forever will his name be spat as a curse by Olarin) went to the other party members and gathered them all to the idea that because the Halfling had escaped death so many times, he should be declared the party's mascot, and gave him the nick name "Lucky". :-|
   Very displeased was I. Thus changed the rules for "Lucky's" demise. Now he would endeavor to take someone with him into the glorious throws of death.
   Again, we shorten because we don't want to offend our readers by telling gaming stories no one want to hear. Lucky as he came to be known, never did die. He managed to take out the offending characters, then he quietly retired to a small town to pursue other dreams. Hence I could play the Necromancer, and Reuse, Recycle, Re-Animate. Muhahahaha!!! Or so I thought.....
   I believe the player's name was Brock??? Maybe. He had been chosen as Lucky's replacement. Brock dutifully rolled up a Halfling Rogue, and we had passed the mantle of "Token Halfling". Or so I thought. Brock decided to take his Halfling for spin, and ended up getting arrested and jailed. The DM rolled on his justice tables, and Brock's Halfling was scheduled to be drawn and quartered. Lucky soon got a visit from a messenger, requesting that Lucky rejoin the party. Personally I think they just didn't want to wander around with a Wizard/Cleric True Necromancer.... :-\
   Thus endeth the saga of my Halflings. Now we turn our eyes to my other favorite PC race... Half-Ogres.

   There comes a certain time in every gamers life, when all they really want to do is sit down at the table, roll some dice, kill monsters and take their stuff. If you, dear reader, are at this point in your life, I urge you to play a 1st edition game, and play a Half-Ogre.
   I discovered the big bruisers when I picked up The Best of Dragon: Volume IV. It contained the article, The Whole Half-Ogre: Expanded character creation rules for the best darn door opener ever.
   My first Half-Ogre was Zog. He was 9ft tall, wielded twin bastard swords, and could cut down kobolds life a hot knife through butter. He also hated bunnies. I don't remember why he hated bunnies, but hate them he did. I think it was so he would have something to do at the camp at night while everyone else talked over the day's adventuring events. Zog would wander the woods searching for the evil bunnies.
   Sometimes it's nice to be a 9ft tall wall-o-hit points. Those of you reading this hoping to gain a deeper understanding of a Half-Ogre's state of mind... That ship has sailed! Half-Ogres are all about the killing.
  I could tell you the story of Zog and Lord Maeramore the Paladin, but I'd be straying into that realm of "boring gaming stories". So briefly, some of the other notable Half-Ogres that that I can recall are...
   Grunch, Half-Ogre Barbarian. In 3rd or 3.5, can't remember. He had an Ogre's Fullblade. Those were the days *sigh*. He was a member of a 8 character party??/ Might be wrong, not sure. I do remember there were 4 half-ogres, and elf, I think a gnome, a halfling, and possibly a human. I remember he was raging when followed a pack of gnolls and ended him against 8 gnolls, in a confined hallway. Poor Grunch.
   Krang, Grunch's uncle that went looking for him after his untimely demise at the hands of filthy gnolls. He was a Lawful Neutral Paladin hopeful. I was hoping to talk the DM into letting it go that way.
   While not one of my characters, Yonder a friends' half-ogre Bard. Yes you read that right. Half-Ogre BARD. He wielded an ogre sized whip dagger and carried a drum. A member of that same party was half-ogre Paladin. Those were fun games.

   So there you have it. My two favorite PC races.

Happy Gaming!

30 day D&D challenge: Day 1

How I got started.

   Sherman set the WayBack machine... Oh wait, I've already done this here. I'll be starting on the day 2 post now.

Happy gaming!

30 Day D&D challenge

Oki Doki...
   I have never tried one of these, but as I'm redirecting my energies lately, I thought I might give it a try. I'll start on Monday February 1st. This will not only bump up my post count on the blog, it might generate some ideas as well.

I have no idea if I can actually make 30 posts, but I will give it my best shot.

Podcast Inspired ideas

  Getting you people to participate, is like pulling teeth.
   If you don't tell me what you want to see, you're going to get whatever happens to overflow from the reservoir of my mind.
   So I've added a new podcast to my listening roster. The Dungeon Master's Block. Solid podcast, gives me lots of ideas. When I think I want to listen to a podcast I've not heard before, I'll go through the backlog and find a topic that interests me and decide off of that episode. The episode I chose from the DMB was the Underdark episode. That was an excellent conversation, and that particular episode made the saving folder on my computer. I'll be able to glean lots of ideas from it.
   Anywaaayyyy... Back on subject. Driving home listening is where I do most of my idea generation.
While driving home listening to the aforementioned episode, I got to thinking what if the intrepid adventurers came upon the wreck of an Illithid Nautiloid ship from the Spelljammer setting. Now what if there was a gaping hole in the side of the ship (like something broke out from the inside.) The rest of the story kind of filled itself in. The illithid ship was on a mission to capture a Beholder for implantation experimentation. They miscalculated the Beholder's ferocity, and it got loose inside the ship. The Beholder then proceeded to eat the Mother Brain residing on the ship, and consequently went insane, killing the entire crew. Muhahahaha! Mutant Beholder. I can't wait to spring this on some players. An Illithid Beholder... Almost as bad a Tarrasque-a-Lich (still looking for the opportunity to use that little gem) So, now we have a Psionic Beholder and an Illithid Nautiloid waiting to be plundered.
   See what happens when you let your mind wander? It comes back all dirty n stuff.
   This same drive home also yielded some ideas on how to deal with the creation of the Underdark in my homebrew world of Nohj. I have a few snippets of the creation legends for my world. Now I can the origin of the Underdark to the list. Here's what I have so far.

Such was the pain of Nohj at being rent open, that Aeze called to the stars. From the great black came Zephadros the Defender.

Scylandre Queen of Kahzil dug into the earth of Nohj from the steaming lifeblood of the world did she create all evil dragons to serve her.

Kahzil reached into the chaos and brought forth She of Five faces. He shaped her in a terrifying form and released her onto Nohj.

And thus did Aeze spurn Scylandre for the evil in her heart. Such was her pain and hate that a the behest of the Cold Empress a great rift open inside Nohj for Scylandre to pour all of this into. The blackness distilled underground, and the Demons came to Nohj.

Yes my homebrew world is a work in progress. I'll post more of it, if someone posts a comment requesting it... (Hint Hint)

 

There you have it. Ideas from the drive home. Maybe there is something there you can use, or maybe it sparks something else. Go ahead and head down the rabbit hole, you never know where you'll end up.

 

Happy Gaming!

 

See what happens when you do things your way?

So here we have an update to "I may have bitten off more than I can chew"
After letting things to percolate for a while, I have finally figured out a few things.
It will take between 150 and 200 years for the humans to rediscover FTL travel.
Smaller ships will need assistance to enter Hyperspace.
Hyperspace will be immense.
Any ship that was in transit when the Shift happened, will be a floating derelict in hyperspace. (Muhahaha, Ghost ships!)
Of course my recent purchase of the complete 5 seasons of Babylon 5 may have something to do with my decisions. I can steal bunches from the Bab 5 Traveller source book (and I will guaranteed) [OMG, season 2 is off to a rocky start]
I know that the players will be the crew will be members of the Survey Fleet on a mission to re-establish contact with the outer reaches of the old empire. Because unfortunately where FTL travel has been rediscovered, FTL transmission has not. It could take years for a message to travel from 25 light years away. I haven't really decided on exactly how fast to make interstellar communications yet, but the players will act as an autonomous agent of the new Terran government. The ships will get an assist to the outer reaches by the Tachyon Emission Accelerator gates. This will extend the range of the jump engines on the ships. The ships will have a limited jump range when not using the TEA gates. I intend to design the encounters so that whatever path the characters choose, there will an angle for them to exploit. Maybe they decide to go pirate outside the influence of Earth? Eventually supplies are going to become an issue.
Most of this brainstorming has just generated more questions... :-/
Should I include a chance for the PC's to trade commodities?
What's the time frame for a mission?
What form of government has appeared on Terra?

Of course, I still have the Bloodrose campaign simmering on a cranial back burner, and have decided on a few more of those encounters. Sebastion will be a Boogieman {Cryptic hint}

Anyway, there's the update. Wheeeeeee!!!!

Happy Gaming!

New shineys

I finally finished the two page Deadlands Noir adventure. There were some stumbling blocks over format I couldn't seem develop the coping mechanisms to deal with. But, now it's done, I let my mind wander. It came back with a few ideas....

I have a special place in my heart for the Expendables movies. Mostly because of the rotating cast of bad guys they get, also for the game opportunities it presents. I don't usually plan convention games, I've always aimed for a longer term game. However this fits in with a rotating player type of game. If you have a game where not all players show up for every session (and you can deal with that) me?... Not so much. I've been thinking of what RPG system to write it for, and I dug deep into the primordial lizard brain  to find it. Millennium's End stood up, waved hello, and I had finally found the system. I might have to add a rule for flavor or something, but that was definitely the system. It's very similar to the Pirate ship party idea I heard somewhere. Each character can go on a certain adventure, if someone shows up for one session, and can't make it to the next then their character can escort an NPC or party servant to the ship. Easy way to rotate players in and out of an adventure.

The other idea came from a casual remark on twitter. Shannon from the Gamerstable podcast was saying she wanted to be able to play Pokémon and D&D at the same time. This nestled into my grey matter and started to ask "THOSE" questions... So we have some preliminary notes.
All PokePath trainers will be Druid class. (For the non-lethal game) Summoners for the deadly version.
This will be written for the Pathfinder game system.
 There will have to be some new feats. Some of these feats will make it possible to choose the specific creature from the "Summon Nature's Ally" spell.
The Druid's animal companion will act like Pikachu from Pokémon.
This game will be run in the Fae worlds.
I am still working on it, and it's only a rough outline, but it's a start.

Of course, I am still making wands and working on the Harry Potter Fate game, but this is what has captured my imagination this week.

Happy gaming!

Fun with Wands

   I've been distracted the past few weeks. I got a mini lathe for my birthday, and finally got it set up. I've been a wood worker since I was a kid. My dad had a workshop in the garage, and I've found working with wood fairly easy. The second part of the equation is my fascination with Harry Potter wand lore. The rest of the colorful material in the books is ok, but I have a special fondness for Wand lore.
   Taking all this into account, after I got my lathe set up, I had to make my wife a wand. She's wanted a custom wand since she tore through the Potter books like something akin to excrement through a the digestive system of an untamed ornithoid.
   Like anything, you always take a practice run first.

This is a mere 15 minutes of just playing around on the lathe, then some brief half-assed carving. Primitive, but it showed me how easy it was. So I tried something just a little bit more difficult.

 

Where this isn't an exact replica of the Elder wand, I was just trying to work out the method for attaining the basic shapes. Not to mention, basswood practice blanks are really cheap.

 

   Now, having had a couple of practice runs, I felt I was ready to try for something resembling a real wand. My wife likes purple heartwood, and why not, it's purple. It's her favorite color. Some time ago I bought a purple heartwood turning blank. So, here I go... Wait a sec, the blank is just a bit too big, better cut it down so I don't waste valuable wood. My first mistake was thinking it would easy. Purple heartwood is some of the hardest wood I've ever encountered. This stuff is very, VERY difficult to cut. Look it up on the internet, all the opinions are pretty much the same. It finishes beautifully, but getting there is a pain. After great amounts of sawing by hand, I finally got it down to a manageable size and made my wife a wand.

Yes, that is an amethyst crystal set into the end of the wand. I've been holding onto that crystal for years waiting for the right place to use it. Anyway, it's a 12 inch Purple heartwood wand, polished with just beeswax. Not bad for a first attempt, right?
   Keep in mind the whole time I'm working on wands, my wife and I are writing background for our fictional wand shop. Established in 1623 in New Amsterdam, Van Alden's Wand Shoppe has been a purveyor of find wands to the Americas ever since. Marcus Hephaestus Paracelsus VanAlden proprietor.
   Being the gamer that I am, I just couldn't resist turning our conversations into an rpg setting, hence my version of Harry Potter FATE was born.
   Because I enjoy making up my own material, this game would only be set in the Harry Potter universe. Not taking place in England, this would happen in the U.S. of modern times. We had some details scribbled down on scraps of paper, of how the magic culture of America evolved away from the English model. Wizards & Witches often name their wands, and are frequently passed down through generations. Heirloom wands will boost the power of some spells. Many magical families have a certain affinity for certain kinds of magic. You get the point, I started writing yet another game.
   At my office, the woman I share my pod with is also a huge Harry Potter fan, so I decided to make her a wand. I've been buying exotic turning blanks for a few months prior to actually getting a lathe in anticipation of being able to carve wands. For Julie I chose American Holly.

The picture isn't great, but I carved a crescent moon on the end, and the main part is carved to resemble a unicorn horn. Here, we have a 12 inch New World Holly with a Dragon heartstring core.

   So, here I sit on a Friday morning, writing on my blog and getting ready to go out into the garage and turn another wand. I have no idea what this one will look like, I just enjoy playing with my wood. ;-)

 

   I know I'm going to use Rose wood for this one, and I'll give to someone deserving. I was going to give it to whoever answered a trivia question, but I couldn't think of a decent question. So if you tell me why you deserve it, I might give it to you.

 

Happy gaming!