Game log 17 March 2024: Spikes and sacks

Personae dramatis

Tonfa Guy, doesn't speak or have a name but has a tonfa
Felcanis, elven cleric
Grignok, handsome orc druid
Augustus, human cleric

Dénnos, human sage (NPC)

Quid occurrit

Tonfa Guy steals a torch and they get out of Bóllā. Honsou sticks around to do something to the cows. Nobody asks what.

They set forth for the spider lair. The day is mostly uneventful, albeit oddly slow-going for such a pleasant day. Around midday, though, they find a big spike of animal horn embedded in a tree. Tonfa Guy gives the whole tree a wide birth. Grignok looks at the spike, seeing as a manticore spike. "They're big and have spiked tails and are depicted in artwork that accompanies the songs of the bards Emerson, Lake, and Palmer!"

Augustus looks for tracks, but finds none. Things are much too scuffled around there to tell for sure. Nobody messes with the manticore spike and they move on.

Felcanis sets up camp, and casts Create Food to help Grignok out. The night is uneventful.

The next day, storm clouds are above. Aside from the downpour at midmorning, the day is uneventful. They make it to the tree a bit after midday. They climb the tree, though Tonfa Guy fails to lift the gear on the first try.

Once up top, Grignok casts Shapeshifting (Panther) on himself. After Felcanis and Augustus cast Lend Energy and some wait, they go into the spider lair. The webs inside are rewoven, and the ettercap bodies are husks.

Dénnos and Augustus burn the webbing, and they go down the hallway, past one branching right. At another branch, they keep to the left, and go into a chamber. The chamber is packed with web-filled sacks of many sizes, between one to ten feet long. Each sack has hidden outlines of its trapped victims, shrouded in shadow.

Augustus looks for the fungus, and does not find it. The rotting of the already dead gives off a nasty reek, and there's another smell that he can't place, vaguely musky. Grignok's whiskers cannot detect any movement. Not even shallow breathing, as best he can tell. 

Res aliae

I haven't posted this because I'm lazy, even though I had the post pretty well written the day after the game. However, there's been another development: John Mathern, who played Felcanis, was found dead in his apartment on Good Friday, and we heard about it a week later. He was 56 or 57. John had a number of health issues, many of which were visibly apparent and many of which were underlying, but still, this came all of the sudden. We're gonna miss him and his upbeat attitude, and his humor. As Roman, who plays Tonfa Guy (and about fifteen other characters over the years—can you stick to one, man?), said, John is the only player he ever had who said, "I'm shooting the dragon in his butthole with my laser rifle." (This was one of Roman's many Rifts games, if I remember right.)

Rest in peace, John. I'm glad at least that you got to live to get to Con of the North in February one last time.

Game log 6 November 2016: Time to level up and get dirty again

Dramatis personae

Caleb, wizard
Mayhem, barbarian
Ash, squire
Kim, thief
Kôštē, cleric (NPC)
Villûdē, guide (NPC)

Quid occurrit

They went back to Mīstássun. On the way, they ran into three men with spears. One of them, who wore stud piercings in his ears, yelled at them to stop. “Doncha know about the toll?"

Caleb said, “There never has been a toll before."

The man with the stud earrings said, “We are collecting tolls in the name of the Queen!"

Caleb asked, “Where are your papers of commission?"

“Papers? We don’t need no steenkin’ papers!"

And then the fight started. The goons yelled, “Make it easy on yourselves!” as they came near.

Caleb said, “We are … on our pockets!"

Kim said, “In your wet dreams!"

The heroic murderhoboes had a field day on the not-so-heroic murderhoboes. Mayhem took out two, and Ash took out one. Kim broke her sword trying to stop one from hitting Caleb. They looted the bodies, and Kôštē bound their wounds.

On the bodies, they found 3 gold pieces, 140 silver pennies, and 147 copper farthings, as well as a bit of amber. More interesting though less lucrative were papers saying that the three men were members of the Reapers mercenary outfit: Permónos, who wore the stud earrings, Prēssīvós, a buck-toothed man, and Dībrátor, who had a hook for a hand. Kim knew the Reapers were mercenary band that camped outside of town and whose leader hung out at the Scarlet Harlot tavern.

Once in town, they sold the bit of amber, and Kim bought a new sword. They spent the next week training and hanging around the bars, keeping their ears open. They heard tales of a dragon living in an odd church in the Eldalîvā Woods in the west, and about the Armor of the Ape in an old tower in the Dumenrôn Swamp to the south. Caleb pored over old books, and found that the dragon Hiszgorr the Poisonous lived in the north of the woods, and tales an odd beast with a flailed tail roamed near a tower in the swamp. Not wanting to fight a dragon, they chose the swamp, though this time wanting to keep away from the ibathene.

Caleb found that no one knew anything about his doppelgänger. Not only that, nobody remembered anything about his doppelgänger, or that he had ever been there.

They made sure to tell the powers that be about the Reapers’ strike. Nabbrášus the mine owner shrugged her shoulders. The Town Watchman at the courthouse said that since the strike happened outside the town walls, there was nothing he could do. The man at the castle with the County took the papers, and thanked them for letting the County know.

Before leaving, they went to see Villûdē at the Wild Cats tavern. She wasn’t having a good night, trying to have the crowd give her money for her tales of the swamp, but they wouldn’t hear of it. “If you saw the ibathene, why are you still alive!” Dodging rotten tomatoes, they went up to Villûdē, and asked her if she wanted to guide them again. Wiping a tomato from her arm, she agreed.

Villûdē had not only heard of the beast with the flail tail, but had seen it, and said it was the santer. She didn’t know about the tower, but said the santer was in the eastern swamp, north of the ibathene and south of the nagas’ island. Caleb, however, thought it best to go at the swamp from the east, taking the road most of the way. Also, he thought it wise to meet the lord of Vēristés Castle, on the eastern road. Friends couldn’t hurt.

Because everybody needs a little ELP.

Thus, they set out on 31 Smôs, two days before the full moon. They took three days to reach the village of Agêdūnon, the last settlement before Vēristés Castle. From Agêdūnon, they set forth, but at midday, saw a tawny blur in the sky coming towards them. As it came nearer, they saw it had leathery bat-wings, the mug of a man, the body of a lion, and the tail of a scorpion.

A manticore. They weren’t too far from the spot in the woods where they fought another manticore a few months ago. It sprayed its tail spikes from afar but missed, while the heroes lobbed their volley. Caleb hit it hard with Stroke of Lightning, and it thought better of the strike and flew away.

As the night fell, they made it to Vēristés Castle. There, nine guards told the
m to hand over their weapons and come inside. After some dithering, they handed over their weapons. “Down with the Queen! Down with Ažbrátōr! Down with Nemmagós!” they shouted to the puzzled gang, and led it inside.

Inside, Lord Kaggrétōr, a man with sharp looks and light brown hair, made them all shout “Down with Ažbrátōr! Down with Nemmagós!” before signing a badly-written screed against the Queen. Most signed with an X, Kim with a squiggle, and Caleb signed, “Praidīvós of Mīstássun.” Kaggrétōr then asked them why the Queen hated him, why she tried to take away his castle, and, if they ever saw Count Gostálios, if they could put in a good word for him so the two could meet to talk.

With that, he threw them out, and tossed their weapons at them. They made camp, not having bought the parts for a raft from the castle.

Res aliae

As the manticore came in, with Chris's head in the way.

We spent a lot of time leveling up. At my behest, the players spent points and money into Carousing, and got two good rumors out of the deal. Being such a shifty crew, having skills in drinking at taverns seemed to fit.

After asking for world details, which brought out the note I had with my original rolls for the world four years ago with the idea that the local tree was a “palm” and the local game was a “reindeer,” Chris (Caleb/Mayhem) thought it a good idea to meet with the nobility, and saw Vēristés Castle near the swamp. Hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time, and I’m always happy to play a loopy NPC.

We somewhat formalized the idea that there were main characters—Caleb and Kim—and more muscle ones—Mayhem and Ash. Mostly, that’s how things have been playing, as when they parley, they use the smarter characters for obvious reasons.

Game log for 26 January 2014

Present:

Caleb, human wizard (125 points) (Nate)
Yémos, human cleric of Dōsaútōr (goddess of knowledge and magic) (125 points) (Eric)
Anêr, human swashbuckler (125 points) (Rett)

Absent:

Mayhem, human midget (er ...) barbarian (125 points) (Chris)

The game starts on the morning of 9 Žnēâns 2852, after Caleb’s and Mayhem’s night at the Scarlet Harlot. Being murder-hoboes, er, wanderers, they spent the night on the floor. The weather is a lovely spring day.

Kôštē, a young female human wizard with cross eyes, starts the day by kicking Caleb (“Kêleb,” in my phonetic spelling, but “Caleb” on the player’s sheet) awake as he sleeps in on the floor of the common room of the Scarlet Harlot. She isn’t thrilled with his discussion of perpetual motion, and is upset that Praidīvós took him as an apprentice even after his spell mishap.

After her pushing, screaming and swearing (mostly swearing), Kôštē tells Caleb that she’ll show how to “do it right” and lobs a fireball at him. Caleb takes the full force of the fireball and falls down (critical failure on his Dodge roll), then crawls behind a table as Kôštē taunts him a second time. Yengrátōr, the barkeep at the Scarlet Harlot, screams out “No blasters!” after all this. Anêr, a young swordsman, gets out of the way.

Yémos comes into the tavern while this is happening, and, after sitting down, stands up again and asks Kôštē if she is a disciple of Dōsaútōr. She tells him she is (“How the fuck can I not follow the goddess?” she says after blowing off her smoking fingers), so he casts Shield on her. While he is casting, Caleb gets to his feet and admits that Kôštē is the better wizard. She walks off after a few more swear words with a smug smile on her face, as Yengrátōr, the barkeep, has his hand on the crossbow mounted under the bar.

Caleb goes up to the bar, and Yengrátōr points out to him and Yémos that Praidīvós wants the other to meet each other. Yémos tells Caleb of the plan to go to Dībités Rock and get the blood of a demon, and has a vessel that Praidīvós gave him for this, a small hollow statue of a balrog that seals at the neck. The two hire Anêr as a guard, and let Mayhem sleep on the floor (his player didn’t show up). The barkeep tells them Dībités Rock is well to the east of Bóllā, in the Eldalîvā Woods.

And they are off with those directions. The only thing of note that happened on this first day was that they passed through the village of Lûtē Downs. This village is a short walk (read: in the next hex) from Mīstássun, and when they got there, the men were out in the field. They ran into a woman with a lip ring who often dropped in a word of some other tongue—nobody knew which one—who didn't know anything about Dībités Rock, but warned them that the folk of Ōndrûnks, a market village on their way, was filled with nothing but thieves.

They camp the night on the road. The next day, the weather is also pleasant, and they pass through the tiny village of Lúrās, notable only for its temple to Rōripermónē, an onto Ōndrûnks, a run-down market village that smells like apples. There, in the dark tavern Magog (how did I miss cracking a "Supper's Ready" reference in play?), Bîs the barkeep, a woman in dangling earrings and speaking in a whisper, smiled when Yémos asked about Dībités Rock, but instead bade them to get a drink. Caleb bought a cider for a silver penny, but not much more came out of her. They went on to Bóllā, where nothing happened other than Caleb buying dried fish for rations.

Were you there to watch the earth be scorched?
Did you stand beside the spectral torch? 

They try going east, but when they set up camp, they learn that they went too far south. Still, the night is safe, and the next day is also the same weather as the last. They go east and a bit north to make up for their wandering the day before, and heard a loud rumbling in a glen. Anêr snuck up, and saw that it was a big sleeping quadruped with spikes on its tail. They chose to sneak away, but Yémos stepped on a branch and the manticore woke up and charged at them.

Luckily, they were far enough away to buff themselves up, so the battle went smoothly. Yémos cast Shield on Anêr, who also got a Haste spell from Caleb. The manticore's spikes flew but didn't hit Caleb, while Yémos smacked it a couple of times with his staff when it got near. Caleb smoked it with a fireball he had been readying as the manticore neared, and Anêr got the killing blow with a stab.

Metagame notes

I gotta get my GURPS legs again after playing so many D&D retroclones as of late. I can remember the basics, but little things like how much extra smack you can get out of an All-Out Attack isn't something I want to have to look up. Only two of us present had GURPS experience, and we were both rusty, though I'm glad Eric remembered to use All-Out Defense and All-Out Attack. I was using Defensive Attack from memory with the manticore when he was hurt; I didn't bring along Martial Arts, and don't plan on it for awhile, if ever.

Everyone got 3 character points. There was no treasure (the manticore wasn't anywhere near its lair), but there was good interaction with NPCs, which is my strong point as a GM. Improv is my weakness, so that's part of why I'm getting rid of plots, at least at first.

While Chris's barbarian, Mayhem (or Mêhem, I guess) being stuck back in Mīstássun is an issue, a barbarian is the easiest to have wander into the woods without much harm. Besides, they had an easy time of it, so he would too, following behind.

None of the characters (or players) knows where Dībités Rock is, so I expect some wandering. I think a dungeon would be good to find in this. And there are many monsters in the woods.

The manticore was more of a pushover than I thought, though they only found one of them and he didn't pull out after his first time taking damage, which was a fatal mistake on his part. He was pissed about being awoken from his nap, so he got a permanent one.

The hexcrawl rules seem to work, though there hasn't been any bad weather yet. I'm glad the rainy season is still a few weeks away, since this lets me work out some kinks. The terrain has been all plains or light forest, neither of which will do much to movement. The game stopped after the fight with the manticore, and the group still has two hexes it can trek for the day.