Game logs for 14 October and 28 October 2018: Comings and goings, and lazy GMs

Dramatis personae

Mayhem, short barbarian
Caleb, wizard
Ash, squire
Kim, procurement expert
Xoran, fox man
Grymalkus, not quite as whiny as usual cleric
Attikos, holy warrior
Uruk, orc soldier

Quid occurrit

Alright, I’m feeling lazy. I have a game tomorrow, and a bibliography plan to write (as well as a website to design the next week, and reference observations to write up the week after that—it has been a busy semester). I’ll summarize the action for the two sessions, mostly so I have them online for my own benefit.

Uruk the orc soldier was thrown out of the guard at Fort Rénnutēs for fear that he'd join the oncoming orcs. So, he went to join the skeevy folks who showed up the night before and warned of the orc attack.

No sooner had he come out and Xoran had given him grief for being an orc did a squad of guards from Fort Rénnutēs (or, as Mayhem called it, Fort “Takeapiss”) come out to arrest Kim for the price on her head. After Xoran wouldn’t let them take her, Kôštē went in her stead, thinking they’ll need her healing for the upcoming battle.

They were about to go when Uruk spotted a big slug on the back of Caleb’s neck. Grymalkus did some surgery on it, taking it off as it had started to work its tendrils into Caleb’s blood supply.

That afternoon, they came upon a big sea cave. In it, they fought three big beetles. Mayhem took out one, Uruk pinned the second, while Xoran killed the third. They found evil runes in the opening of the cave, but there were too many to take out without more magical firepower.

The next day, they spent trudging slowly through the hills. After finding out that both Grymalkus and Attikos were out of food, Xoran and Mayhem had the gang spend the next two days looking for more. Caleb was sick with a fever for those two days, though Grymalkus cared for him, only to have Attikos get sick with the same fever after those two days were done.

In spite of Attikos being ill, they pushed on after two days. This time, they walked all day, with no breaks to look for food, though Mayhem had them change their path to keep away from a rockslide.

That night, they heard a screech from afar. Xoran barked to respond, and a big puma showed up. Once it saw the gang, the puma ran to strike. Uruk, Xoran, and Mayhem missed with their opening shots, and Caleb cast Sunlight to help everyone see. The puma leapt at Xoran and tried to put its claw in his face, but Xoran parried and crippled the puma’s claw as he did so. Then, Kim shot the puma from hiding, Xoran gave it two quick sword strikes back, and Mayhem ended its life by cutting off its head.

They went back to bed, and Attikos looked for a sign from Saundīvós, and looked into the sun to see an ogre with a big sword in the hills to the north. They went north, and not long after breaking camp, an arrow greeted them as they trod. “Get away you assholes!” shouted a young woman.

Xoran screamed back, “We’re here for the head of the ogre!” However, she ran away, and Uruk ran after her. He slammed her and pushed her to the ground, and the others caught up to them.

Mayhem recognized the woman as Dúštē, something of a loose woman from his tribe. After asking what she was doing so far to the north, she said, “We’ve gone to worship Lutōdîvē ourselves.” She explained that she and some other barbarians in the Dragon Claw Clan were tired of the harassment the tribe would give them for their free love ways, which she said were of the worship of the love goddess Lutōdîvē, that they left and moved almost to the mountains. They backed off her, and Dúštē told them where the ogres were.

The gang went along the way she had told them, and in late afternoon, they found an ogre. The ogre saw them and shouted “Eat eat eat!” as he ran towards Caleb, whose Explosive Fireball didn’t work. However, Uruk went behind the hungry ogre, and put two arrows in his vitals, ending his life.

Mayhem followed the ogre’s trail, but did not see more by nightfall, so they made camp. That evening, they spotted three ogres, who did not spot the camp. Uruk shot one, Xoran, Ash, and Mayhem took out a second, while the third one didn’t look back until Caleb cast Sunlight. Uruk shot him, and the ogre shouted, “Sun hit me!” Uruk went up to end the ogre’s life and kicked him in the face. The ogre groaned, “Sun kill me!” before passing out and the heroes killing him off.

Res aliae

Obviously, running the game is more interesting than writing the log, but I have to have a record for my own reference, and it's my way of advertising the game to anyone who might want to join.

And someone did. Brandon is the new guy, playing Uruk (pronounced “Erik”) the orc bowman soldier. He's a GURPS fan originally from North Carolina who is now in the frozen cold. It’s nice to have someone else who knows the system well in the game.

The ogres died by low Perception. They didn’t spot the camp, and, even after the gang had shot two, the third one didn’t hear anything noteworthy, as I was rolling Perception checks to see if he had and he failed them badly, and only knew something was up when the Sunlight spell went off behind him. I felt even an ogre wouldn’t be so dumb to not think something was up when the sun came up behind him at 10 at night.

Game log for 19 October 2014

Dramatis personae:

Yémos, a cleric
Anêr, a swashbuckler
Mayhem, a barbarian
Caleb, a wizard

Quid occurrit:

Oh, they've been through the forest with a pony with no name,
And they're about to step into the rain.

Name the fucking horse! — Richard Jeni

The pony got the name of either "Greymare" or "Bill" when the group found him, wandering outside on the afternoon of 3 Blôs. They chose to head northeast to Káddrakos.

After a few hours of walking, though still before nightfall, six wolves suddenly set upon them. The pony, whatever her name is, stepped back, while the wolves rushed to the two fighters afore the others, and got little nips at them before they could gather their wits about them. Anêr and Mayhem started taking swings, while Yémos cast Shield on Mayhem, and Caleb cast Explosive Fireball. The wolves started biting at their legs, and one ran around towards Yémos. Mayhem got a killing blow, and as it died, the wolf turned into a hairy man.

Uh-oh.

Not quite.

Caleb threw his Explosive Fireball, but it didn't make the werewolves panic, as it would true wolves. Still, it killed another wolf, but the living wolves cripple the legs of both Anêr and Mayhem, Anêr dropping his sword while trying to parry the blow. Another took a bite out of Yémos's chest, and he falls down.

Now, the wolves tried to drag off the three heroes. They bit on the heroes and started to pull them off. Anêr grabbed his sword and stabbed at the wolf. The wolf must let go of Anêr to get away, but did and then bit on him again. Mayhem swung his axe into the wolf dragging Yémos, while Caleb tried to lob a Fireball at the last wolf, who had run after the now-spooked pony, but he missed.

After a few more seconds, Mayhem and Caleb, who had run up to the others, killed the wolf on Yémos, while the others howled and fled. After a few minutes, Caleb caught up with their pony, then brought her back and did some first aid on the others. Both Anêr and Mayhem found they can walk on their legs, so Mayhem set up camp and shelter.

The night went without issue, though Yémos didn't sleep well. He healed Anêr and Mayhem, then the others loaded him onto the back of the pony, and grabbed their gear. Early that morning, a beetle almost as big as the pony set on them while they walked to Káddrakos. As they tried to kill the beetle, Anêr ran around to the back of the beetle, and it let out a cloud of harmful mist, which makes both Anêr and Caleb, who had run up to the beetle to stick his sword between its plates. Anêr, however, stayed in the mist, and put his sword through the plates in the back of the beetle, killing it.

Yémos healed both Anêr and Caleb, though his spells didn't work well on the latter. Mayhem went hunting while Yémos healed, but didn't catch anything. Yémos cast Create Food on the bug, which gave them both two meals and the farts, much like the bug, though not deadly farts.

They didn't make good time due to the wounds to both spellcasters, so they set up camp that night, still a few miles from Káddrakos. Mayhem set up the camp well, but he couldn't make a good shelter from the reeds and sticks in the grasslands. The next day, Yémos healed Caleb, and that afternoon, they found the body of an orc in leather and bearing a shield and axe. Yémos figured out the burnt Celtic cross on the shield of the orc marked him as one of the Vile Brand band, and they found eight silver pennies on his body. They easily found his cause of death: vines covered him, and had strangled him.

That night, they made it to Káddrakos, storm clouds overhead. Anêr and Yémos went to the Church of Bagóbros, and there, a plump gnome woman named Dīrónē leaned up from her cobbling and healed them for a few pennies. They asked Dīrónē of any quests. She told them that she had heard of a dragon in a ruin in the hills to the northwest, and told them the tale of Atilíā, a thin gnome woman from Dīrónē's youth. She was a peddler who had sold a stone statue of a baby, who, when dipped in water, turned into the lost son of the Duke of Magápos. A few months after this, the other gnomes found Atilíā's body in the middle of the road, stakes nailed in her hands and feet.

Meanwhile, in the Winking Friar, Vískōl, the barkeep, was glad to see them. Allikolía, the one-armed gnome ranger, was not there. In the small crowd of drinkers was a hobbit with deep-set eyes, who talked loudly about going to sell leather to the army in a keep in a land filled with dead trees. When they figured out about whom the hobbit was talking, Mayhem went up to him, and the hobbit mocked Mayhem for being a barbarian, then let him know that, if the wizard in the keep had money, he'd be happy to do business with him.

That night, it rained, which made the roads bad. Mayhem, however, thought he knew how to get to Ōndrûnks without going through too many puddles, and so they set out. However, that morning …

Extra ludum

This ends on a cliffhanger since it was five minutes to four, and we were going to go at four-ish. I gave out two character points since I let the werewolves fail their second morale check, which was a gimme. The next encounter is five bandits, and I have some time to roll them up: 9 November.

It's hard for me to believe it had been so long since they had started a walk and set up a camp that I had trouble remembering the rules in Dungeon Fantasy 16. It took a minute or two to get through that again.

The most creative idea that happened was that, while the wolf was dragging Yémos, Eric wanted to cast Create Food on the wolf. After all, the spell doesn't say you can't cast it on still-living matter. It seemed so wrong but so clever that I wanted to find a way to let it work, but I couldn't. The Butcher spell in GURPS Magic: Death Spells is Very Hard and needs Magery 3 to work. Prerequisites aren't a big balancer, but this is a guideline that says you just can't do this. Still, it was a great idea.

And what do werewolf bites do, anyways? Do they turn the victim into a werewolf? Or into a furry?