Session III, Part II

With some effort, the party manages to get Ranme the Half-Insane Wizard to calm down enough to be comprehensible.  The hermit then fills their ears about how much he's Winning: "You borrow my brain for 5 seconds, and just be like 'Dude, can't handle it, unplug this bastard', because it fires in a way that is, I don't know, maybe not from this particular terrestrial realm."

After Ranme finishes ranting, the PCs finally get a chance to explain their investigation and the hermit says simply, "Of course.  Dark forces are at work!"

[As the nameless Fighter] K says, "Ummm.. could you be a little more specific?"

[As the nameless Thief] D says, "Yeah, there's lots of dark forces."

Muttering impatiently under his breath about obviousness, Ranme tells the party that "heka" is the Egyptian word for "magic" and says self-evidently, "Egypt is the source of ancient and terrible sorcery."  When pressed for more, the wizard continues, "This situation has all the hallmarks of a Mask of Nyarlathotep":

When this produces blank stares, Ranme explains that a Mask of Nyarlathotep is an artifact that, when worn, merges into the wearer and can only be removed after death.  The Mask causes him or her to become an avatar of the Creeping Chaos and grants said avatar a number of magic powers, including the ability to rewrite someone's personality by gazing long enough at the target.


The Mask of Nyarlathotep (reskinned from Call of Cthulhu) is, of course, my substitute for the naga from the original N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God.  Not only do I think that a naga is rather overpowered as a final boss for a beginning party (TPKs are fairly easy at the end of N1 if the PCs wander just a bit off the railroad), but, in addition, I don't think that nagas fit the type of campaign I am creating.


The PCs ask the barely sane wizard where the Mask might be hiding, and Ranme replies, "There's a ruined fort in the swamp outside of town- that's the most likely place.  Still, to spread his influence, the Mask's victims would probably be coordinating efforts from somewhere in Orlane itself."


The hermit then descends back into incoherence, so the party decides to head back to town.  Thinking that Le Gendarme is far too passive to have put a tail on the party, the PCs speak with Wiggum, who says that, in fact, a committee of concerned citizens asked for the police detail: the owners of the General Store, the local priest, and the richest man in town, Monsieur Burns:

For lunch, the party decides to go to the Golden Grain Inn.  They quickly notice that everyone is way too friendly.

By sofachairz, deviantart.net

Excusing himself, the nameless Fighter surreptitiously gets up to look around and he detects movement at the top of the stairs.  Heading up to the second floor, he only sees a couple of cleaning staff turning over rooms.  After a partial success on a Charisma roll and after the nameless Fighter slips a few coins their way, the cleaning staff points at Room #8.


In my games, being sneaky is not the exclusive purview of thieves.  Thieves are naturally better in that area because of their high DEX and their class abilities, but a good role-player can succeed with any class.


Room #8 is empty but the door to the bathroom is closed.  The nameless Fighter says very loudly, "Gee, I have to go to the bathroom!" and tries to open the door, finding someone is holding it closed.  After winning an opposed STR check, the nameless Fighter finds a wiry guy inside:

[OOC] K deadpans and says, "If we kill this guy, I want that velvet suit!"

Session III, Part I

The next morning, the PCs wake up to find an angry mob outside the Inn of the Slumbering Serpent.

By Acwaith (Peter Clarke), DeviantArt.com

Looking out their windows, the party sees about a hundred people armed with pitchforks, sickles and other farming implements who are surrounding the inn.  Le Gendarme and a dozen Gendarme Adjoints are there as well, though they seem to be mostly preoccupied with their own heated conversation.  Among the crowd, the nameless Thief sees the people who attended the secret meeting at the General Store, including the owners of the General Store who are bandaged up for some reason.

The PCs begin by speaking with Gendarme Wiggum, who says that he and his men are busy arguing about which is the tastiest type of donut.  When asked about the crowd, Wiggum blanks for a moment and continues, saying that the someone broke into the General Store the night before and that the owners have blamed the PCs for the break in and also have started saying that the party is responsible for the strange things in Orlane.

Making a spot check, in the crowd the party sees that a couple of the people who attended the secret meeting at the General Store have bruises on their knuckles.  Figuring out who's trying to set them up, the nameless Thief casts Ventriloquism, and says in the voice of Le Gendarme, "Those guys with the bruised knuckles must have beaten up the owners of the General Store!  Arrest them!"

By aalcaraz78 (adolfo alcaraz), DeviantArt.com

Le Gendarme blinks for a moment, trying to remember if he actually said that, then shrugs and orders the arrests!

While the guys with the bruised knuckles and the owners of the General Store protest, the crowd looks confused and disperses.  Once the coast is clear, Monsieur Le Mayor visits the party:

By Matt Groening

Monsieur Le Mayor is concerned about the disappearances and paranoia, since, if Orlane becomes any smaller, it will mean that he can no longer collect bribes and will have to get a real job, which would be a tragedy.  When asked about the dark forces at work in his village, Mayor Quimby doesn't have any answers but suggests that the PCs consult with a hermit who lives just outside of town, Ranme the Half-Insane Wizard.

As they make their way out of town, the PCs notice that they've become the center of local gossip and that everyone is looking at them.  Approaching the location provided by Monsieur Le Mayor, the party walks up to a disheveled and rundown hut that has a yard filled with odd junk and some half-starved chickens.

Suddenly, a bedraggled man with wild eyes bursts out of the hut, waving his hands.  The PCs feel a spell coming on as the hermit screams, "You can't fool me!  I know you're minions of the Cat Dude!"

TV Review: Engineering an Empire (2005-07)

I wanted to express some love for the television program Engineering an Empire:

A big reason that I've set my Olde School Dungeons & Dragons campaign in a Sword & Sorcery version of Earth is that this both provides the players with instant basic familiarity and serves as a shortcut to establishing setting verisimilitude.  In fact, R.E. Howard used the same reasoning in placing his Kull and Conan stories in the Hyborian Age.

Produced by History Channel, Engineering an Empire is a great tool for learning more about some of history's greatest empires.  It's a fun and informative program that's easily accessible to non-engineers, covering some of the tools, structures, inventions and other technical advances that helped each featured nation rise to power.  The show also does a good job of grounding the innovations in context (e.g., political, military, economic, etc.) by following various important personages who utilize said innovations as their empire develops.

While not all of the episodes are about ancient empires, Engineering an Empire still covers the heavyweights of the Bronze Age and the Iron Age (e.g.,  Egypt, China, Greece, Persia, Rome, etc.)    The quality of the episodes is a bit uneven (the ones covering Egypt and Rome are probably the best), but the show is still quite solid overall.  Familiarity with the technology gives Dungeon Masters and other would-be world builders a great way to better understand these empires from a very practical and tactile point of view.  Moreover,  the show is filled with plenty of other background details to help bring these great powers to life at your gaming table (or elsewhere).

I also really got a kick out of seeing Peter Weller, Robocop himself, as the host!

Messr Weller, who picked up a Master's degree in Roman and Renaissance Art at Syracuse University and then a Ph.D. at UCLA in Italian Renaissance art history, spends some time as an adjunct faculty member at Syracuse University, where he is apparently "a very popular professor and his classes are rated by students as 'difficult' and 'not easy'."  I suppose it's something of a case of life imitating art, as Weller was a professor in his other iconic movie role:

So, if you're an antiquity buff, gear head, Sword & Sandal fan or are just have a bit of intellectual curiosity, I think you'll find that Engineering an Empire is an entertaining pop history mix of facts and technology.

SC's Parting Shot: 9 of 10

Session II, Part IV

In this thread, Frank Mentzer himself explains some of his design thinking behind the Basic Dungeons & Dragons Red Box solo adventure.  I wanted to recreate the unexpected pathos that the adventure produced for me as a child from Aleena's death, but, as previously narrated in Session II, Part III, the PCs upended those plans by sending Bargle's head flying across the room!  

Additionally, the PCs upended my plans for Warduke, as well.  But, it doesn't go all the party's way: eager for a magic weapon, the PCs try to take the demon-possessed sword, which Warduke abandoned after he surrendered.  However, the sword immediately starts magically urging the nameless Fighter to murder the nameless Thief, and vice versa (since the demon has a radius of influence).  

Quickly, the party drops the magic sword, grabs as much loot as possible, and flees!

For a job well done, I credit the PCs with experience for overcoming two major challenges:

* solving the identity of Messr Infamous, and

* preventing Aleena's death

Our next classic Olde School D&D adventure is the highly respected N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God:

Atmospheric and investigation based, Against the Cult of the Reptile God isn't your typical D&D module, but Douglas Niles does a great job with the setting and the mystery, which are full of flavor and interesting plots and details.


Returning to Vĩnh Long, Capitaine d'Artagnan is pleased with the PCs' work and offers them another job: the mayor of Orlane, a village made up primarily of Gaulish expats located just south of the main trade road between Vĩnh Long and Cần Thơ, has requested help.  Formerly a prosperous and booming farming community, people have started suddenly disappearing for unknown reasons over the last year.  Paranoia has gripped the once friendly town and people are moving away in droves.  Consequently, Orlane's population has more than halved.

Again, d'Artagnan earlier sent an elite team but hasn't heard back from them, so he needs another group to check out the situation.  Again undeterred, the PCs accept the job.  They also decide to make Aleena a permanent member of the party.


When the party reaches Orlane, they find most people nervous and unwilling to speak with strangers.  To set up a base of operations, when given the choice between the Golden Grain Inn and the Inn of the Slumbering Serpent, the PCs choose the latter, dropping their excess gear and beginning their investigation.

As the party explores Orlane, a couple uniformed men start following them, who turn out to be Gendarme Adjoints and who say they are following orders.  Curious, the PCs go speak with Le Gendarme:

Gendarme Wiggum, who is an affable fellow but doesn't seem particularly smart, says people have been inexplicably disappearing, often times in the middle of meals or the like.  Apparently way behind in his paperwork, Wiggum is unable to give an exact number of people who've disappeared, but believes the number to be about 50 and he also hasn't been able to discern a pattern to the disappearances.

Checking out the house of the first known disappearance, the PCs find some coins from Rạch Giá, an infamous pirate port on the west coast of Fantasy Vietnam.

With a fell reputation, it is widely known that strange persons and artifacts routinely come from far and wide to Rạch Giá.


Next, the PCs try talking with a farmer who disappeared for a while but then returned, but he is an asshat and rudely blows them off.  The nameless Fighter rolls a critical success on his Charisma roll!  Strangely, however, this seems to have no effect, as the farmer continues to be an asshat.

Later, the PCs treat the Gendarme Adjoints to lunch at the General Store.  Conversation with the husband and wife owners goes a little awry, and the suspicious nameless Thief tries to check out the back of the General Store, only to encounter the owners' sons blocking the way.

After dinner, the nameless Thief slips out of the inn and heads back toward the General Store.  He notices he's being tailed, and is both able to lose his tail and also find out that the tail is one of the Gendarme Adjoints that had been following the party earlier.

Reaching the General Store, the nameless Thief stealthily creeps up to the building.  He sees heavy blankets over the windows to the back room to (literally) cover up a secret meeting going on.  Most of the conversation is muffled but he does make out the word "heka".  The meeting adjourns shortly before dawn, and the nameless Thief sees several people come out of the General Store, including the asshat farmer and the other Gendarme Adjoint that had been following the party earlier.

However, D's extraordinary string of good rolls ends when the nameless Thief breaks the window while trying to sneak into the back room of the General Store, waking up the family inside.  As the lights turn on, the nameless Thief flees!

Session II, Part III

Here is the map to the dungeon I used for this delve:

I like this map because, again, it's naturalistic: rather than exactly 10' wide corridors meeting at right angles, I can easily see the above as a tunneled out cave complex that was first used as tombs, then repurposed by Mr. Infamous.


The PCs enter the cave complex from the west and approach the point where the corridor artificially narrows; the party suspects a trap and disarms it.  Shortly thereafter, they encounter a very strange looking beast:

As an experienced player,   D knows about carrion crawlers, but  keeps quiet.  K is a rookie, so he has no idea what the heck it is.

The nameless Thief successfully Hides in Shadows while Aleena and the nameless Fighter present a two-person front to the wriggling mass of tentacles.  K is a bit taken aback when I announce that the strange beast gets EIGHT attacks per round!

Then, there's a moment of silence when Aleena is struck by a tentacle and, failing her Save versus Death, she stiffens with a gasp before slumping to the ground (for my Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition homebrew I conflated the saving throws down to three: Fear, Magic and Death).  As a further result, the room plunges into darkness, since Aleena was carrying the torch!

I make a ruling that the darkness results in a -6 Melee Attack Adjustment, which presents a severe problem for the PCs since another house rule for my AD&D 1E homebrew  removes the Melee Attack Adjustment for a high Strength score: I understand why a high Strength score would increase melee damage, but increasing the likelihood of a hit doesn't make sense to me.

As the PCs struggle in the dark to fight the carrion crawler, a tentacle also strikes the nameless Fighter, who also fails his Save versus Death.  K gets quiet as the melee rages on without the nameless Fighter.

The nameless Thief decides to halt attacking and relight the torch.  Without the -6 Melee Attack Adjustment, he's able to drive off the carrion crawler with a solid blow that sends the beastie fleeing.

When [as DM] I say, "Aleena and the nameless Fighter are merely paralyzed," K is relieved and D says, "A failed Save versus Death doesn't always result in Death."


A bit later, the party encounters some undead, and retreats to favorable ground before Aleena turns the ghouls.


Then, the party finds where Mr. Infamous has heaped together all the treasure from the tombs.  Lurking in the piles of coins is a large snake:

After the snake darts out and bites the nameless Thief before darting back into a pile of coins, the PCs are at a bit of a loss, so Aleena suggests dousing the coins in oil and setting them on fire.

K says, "That's… actually a really good idea," and soon the air is filled with the aroma of roasted serpent.

The snake is slain!

The party notices a tunnel in the corner of the room.  Advancing, they can tell a trap is laid at the other end of the tunnel as it opens into another room.  The PCs also see the shadow of a guy with an impractical helmet crouched and waiting to ambush them as they exit the tunnel.

After the PCs deliberately trigger the trap from a safe distance, melee begins!  The party wins initiative but only by one segment.

Quickly, the nameless Thief (who took a level of Magic-User) casts Sleep… but all the opponents make their saves (my AD&D 1E homebrew nerfs spells that I think are overpowered, so now opponents get saving throws against Sleep).

[As DM] I say, "Gee, that's statistically improbable."

D says, "I really don't need to hear that!"

In a gutsy move, the nameless Fighter charges in!  A hooded wizard in dark robes, screened by a pair of kobolds, is casting also a spell.  In fact, the wizard is using the exact same words as the nameless Thief.

Rushing forward, the nameless Fighter makes a Dex check to dash between the kobolds in front of Bargle before K rolls a critical success on his melee attack, inflicting SIXTEEN points of damage!

Pausing, I look again at the result.

SIXTEEN points of damage!

Another house rule for my AD&D 1E homebrew substitutes the Melee Attack bonus from charging with a Melee Damage bonus, which, again, makes more sense to me.

I originally intended for Bargle to become a recurring villain that would continually oppose (read "screw with") the PCs over the course of the campaign but there was no reasonable way for me to fudge K's damage roll to allow the would-be evil mastermind to survive.  (Now, when the nameless Fighter slipped between the kobolds, the lizards had the chance for Attacks of Opportunity.  However, canonically Bargle is an asshat to his underlings, so I figured the kobolds saw this hellbent charging warrior and thought, "Eh, whatever.  I already got paid.")  Moreover, the PCs earned this surprising victory, so I let it stand.

Bargle is slain!

Meta Review: Heir's Faction Focus

I'm calling this a "Meta Review," since it's my $0.02 on Heir of Carthage's review of the playable factions in Total War: Rome II.

In terms of Total War: Rome II itself, I think it's a fun and great looking game: actually, the visuals are one of the inspirations for my homebrew Olde School Dungeons & Dragons, and part of the reason that I shifted the campaign setting from medieval to iron age.  Another thing that I like about the game is the ability for players to use some real tactics, such as Hammer and Anvil strikes.

While there are many folks doing video commentaries of Total War: Rome II, I particularly like Heir of Carthage's body of work because he is quite humble (he freely admits that he's not the best player, though he is still quite skilled).    Here is a review, of the Nervii, where he does a good job of reacting quickly to a changing situation:

Though Heir's Nervii army build was intended to be defensive, when he sees an opportunity, he pushes his infantry forward.  Then, after getting his light cavalry around the flank to slow down the  retreating enemy infantry, Heir is able to destroy his opponent's center in detail.

Another big point is the learning aspect for the viewer: Messr Heir takes the time to explain what he's doing and why, and what he could have done better.  Moreover, he also freely points out where he makes other mistakes and he's not afraid to experiment with unconventional army builds for fun.

Another thing that I really like is how Heir is gracious in both victory and defeat, as you can see here where he plays as the Selecuids against Egypt:

In terms of Heir's review of the factions, Messr Heir has a pretty thorough knowledge of the stats, capabilities and relative economic costs of the various unit types and he goes through the ins-and-outs of each unit of each faction, doing a pretty comphrensive job for each faction.  After a quick battle where he attempts to illustrate these points, he also does a rundown of the faction's relative advantages and disadvantages vis-à-vis the other factions.

So, I think watching Heir's Faction Focus might be helpful to someone who already has a basic knowledge of Total War: Rome II and who wants some advanced knowledge and a quick but fairly comprehensive rundown of a  specific faction.

SC's Parting Shot: 10 of 10

Session II, Part II

As you might be able to tell from my post on Session II, Part I, rather than running the Red Box solo adventure completely by the book, I've reskinned it to better fit my campaign.  I do, try, however, to capture the spirit of the adventure and to hit the major story beats.


Before heading up to the caves, the party does some background research and finds that Mr. Infamous  is a magic-user of some skill and, like the PCs, a Gaul.  Further, in addition to kobolds and undead, he has hired a fearsome mercenary named Warduke as muscle:

Not much is known about Messr Warduke, other than he's an accomplished warrior who likes somewhat impractical armor and his eyes glow red because he wields a powerful demon-possessed sword.


After buying some maces, the PCs head out of the city and, as the party approaches the ruins, dusk falls.

[As DM] I ask, "Do you want to push onward into the caves?"

D asks rhetorically, "You mean going into caves that are filled with undead at night, right?"

K says, "Yeah, that sounds like a terrible idea" and PCs decide to make camp.


During the night, the party sleeps in shifts and, during the nameless Fighter's shift, the PCs encounter wandering monsters: the nameless Fighter fails his spot check and only realizes that the party has been overrun by a kobold scout team after a couple arrows are sticking out of his chest.


The nameless Fighter manages to wake the others as six kobolds burst forth from the tree line!  The nameless Thief successfully Hides in Shadows while the kobolds charge toward Aleena and the nameless Fighter.

As Aleena sets a spear against the charge, she notices and comments on the nameless Fighter's lack of a spear.  When the nameless Fighter says he didn't think to buy a spear, she replies that she has an extra, which is a good thing since, a moment later, the nameless Fighter is able to skewer a kobold.

Kobold #1 is slain!

As the melee is joined, the nameless Thief successfully backstabs!

Kobold #2 is slain!

At this point, the remaining kobolds surrender.


After Session I, I realized that I'd oversold the notion of "self-interested bastards" so, to prevent the slaughter of more unarmed prisoners or other descent by the PCs into becoming murderhobos, I instituted the Mercy Rule: riffing off the Dying Earth stories by Jack Vance, if someone asks for quarter and it is not given, the murderer is subject to a Death Curse (DM's discretion).  To balance the situation, if someone asks for quarter and it is given, the asker is then not allowed the harm (broadly interpreted) the other party, directly or indirectly, by act or omission for a night and a day or else be Cursed themselves.

So, in practice, this means that if someone surrenders, the surrendering party's only option is to flee the area for at least two sunsets (without alerting or otherwise tipping off their compatriots that something is amiss).

The PCs don't think to ask the lizard guys any questions, so the defeated opponents take off without another word.  After the kobolds leave, Aleena uses her Cure Light Wounds spell on the severely injured nameless Fighter.


Setting out again at daybreak, the party quickly reaches the ruins above the caves:

The ruins, a graveyard, are devoid of activity so the party presses on.  It doesn't take long to find the entrance to the caves, which is where the bodies are laid to rest, thus the presence of the undead:

The PCs know that Sister Aleena is divinely favored (because Dread Images of Doom and Foreboding are unsubtly magically projected into their minds promising what should happen if misfortune befalls the young cleric), so they put her in the middle of the marching order, where the PCs figure she'll be safe!