http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/ Sat, 13 Jun 2026 09:54:36 +0000 MyBB http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=514 Sat, 14 Sep 2024 20:38:11 -0400 tmjva]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=514
Well the old campaign ended, a new campaign started, and we are about 2 years back into it.  Picking up from last Session...

++++ START OF SESSION ++++

The group started by playing one round of the upcoming game in the next issue of Saxe ‘N Violets since there was a new player with Navy experience and Tracy wanted their critique. Again there was only one hit by the American’s and they were declared the winner.  Realizing it was to be an easy and possibly a silly game the naval member gave it a thumbs up approval.  One note is a laser pointer was used to determine a hit.  The table the party played on was covered with plexiglass and the laser had a tendency to bounce off the plexiglass into the player’s eyes.  A dark background of cloth is recommended to keep that from happening. (Or a non reflective surface.)

By the way, Saxe N' Violets started shipping this week.  Volume 19, Issue #1.

Then the party turned back to Hackmaster. The last couple of sessions involved fighting 24 Troglodytes (trogs) and at the end of last session one Trog retreated and the party assumed it was going for more help. Two other Trogs were retreated taking back two wounded Trogs that were badly injured.  That left three Trogs fighting the party for three rounds.  Since there were only three rounds they went like this.
Round 15
Woz hits a trog for 13 points.  A Trog attacked Junkyard with a claw-claw-bite attack and did 1+1+5 hp of damage.  Another Trog hits Jax for 7 points.  Jax struck back for 5 points and Junkyard hit one for 4 points.
Round 16
The Trog that retreated had circled around and attacked the party from the rear with a Javelin and hit Lindor for 15 points.  Fizzle then fired his crossbow at him for 6 points.  Woz stabbed a Trog for 17 points and killed it.  The last Trog hit Junkyard for 1 point and Junkyard fought back for 8 points and the Trog went down with a Threshhold of Pain check.  Jax quickly slits its throat and killed him.
Round 16
The Trog that circled around did not advance and the party decided not to rush him giving him free shots so the party decided to retreat to where they came from and heal up and decide their next action.

Obviously, the Troglodyte tribe has now been alerted.

Our Clerics then took the opportunity to heal.  Xanos healed Junkyard for 13 points and Junkyard returned the favor and healed Xanos for 11 points.  Then Xanos healed Lindor for 12 points,  jax for 20 points and then Junkyard for another 12.  The party then discussed whether to go back and keep searching for the captured VIP slave, go back and fully heal up, and/or get help.

If the captured VIP slave is not captured, she will be the Troglodyte's evening feast.

While the party is healed and discussed what to do, Fizzle took a side trip by himself to go back to the torture room and report and look for more help.  Luckly he had no encounters.  When he reached the torture room and reported what happened he is told to report it to HR since this is critical information.  He went back to the fort again with no encounters and somehow avoids the rust monster. He met the dwarves trying to recruit him and they escort him to HR.

The GM conveniently forgot the Magnetic Rust Monster encounter.

On the way the Dwarves escorted him to the armory and allowed him to gather armor for the party to replace instead of repairing it.  The old armor will be repaired and then added to the armory.  He gets leather for himself, Lindor, Junkyard and Woz.  He also gets plate mail for Jax and Xanos.  He then reported back to HR.

HR is concerned with the quantity of Trogs encountered.  The fort assumed there were only a few and left them alone.  This could cause security problems so the alarm was sounded the alarm and HR called the Commandant and stormed off to the courtyard where the troops are then assembled.  He explains the situation and tells them to armor up and be ready to go.  Fizzle will lead.  A party of 2 hobgoblins, a baker's dozen Goblins, 2 Dwarves, a dozen more Goblins, 32 Gnolls, a half dozen Bugbears, 3 more guards. 1 Wood Elf, a Pixie Fairy and a Puppy.  The tower guards and the kitchen staff will stay in the fort. HR, the Commandant with Fizzle next to him head into the dungeons.  HR tells Fizzle they will use a secret door to avoid the Rust Monster.  Fizzle is voted MVP.

++++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR ++++

Raja, a 2nd level Grunge Elf Battle Mage
Jax, a Human Ranger (5th level).
"Gnolito", allegedly a 3rd level Barbarian Gnoll
Junkyard a Grunge Elf Ranger (3rd) / Druid (4th).
Shaqueta a 2nd level Painted Mage a Sidekick of Junkyard.
Woz, a Human Thief (5th level).
Xanos a 3rd level Cleric Sidekick of Woz.
Lindor, an Elven Fighter(3nd) / Mage(3rd), with a fixation on Junkyard.
1 Ox (pulling the 4 wheeled wagon). (Also back in Bramwald).
64 Rabbits (in the 4 wheeled wagon).   (Also back in Bramwald).
Two Lizardmen who stayed behind to run and clean up the the party's Bathhouse and other properties.

--
Saxe N' Violets
Tracy Johnson
BT








NNNN]]>
Well the old campaign ended, a new campaign started, and we are about 2 years back into it.  Picking up from last Session...

++++ START OF SESSION ++++

The group started by playing one round of the upcoming game in the next issue of Saxe ‘N Violets since there was a new player with Navy experience and Tracy wanted their critique. Again there was only one hit by the American’s and they were declared the winner.  Realizing it was to be an easy and possibly a silly game the naval member gave it a thumbs up approval.  One note is a laser pointer was used to determine a hit.  The table the party played on was covered with plexiglass and the laser had a tendency to bounce off the plexiglass into the player’s eyes.  A dark background of cloth is recommended to keep that from happening. (Or a non reflective surface.)

By the way, Saxe N' Violets started shipping this week.  Volume 19, Issue #1.

Then the party turned back to Hackmaster. The last couple of sessions involved fighting 24 Troglodytes (trogs) and at the end of last session one Trog retreated and the party assumed it was going for more help. Two other Trogs were retreated taking back two wounded Trogs that were badly injured.  That left three Trogs fighting the party for three rounds.  Since there were only three rounds they went like this.
Round 15
Woz hits a trog for 13 points.  A Trog attacked Junkyard with a claw-claw-bite attack and did 1+1+5 hp of damage.  Another Trog hits Jax for 7 points.  Jax struck back for 5 points and Junkyard hit one for 4 points.
Round 16
The Trog that retreated had circled around and attacked the party from the rear with a Javelin and hit Lindor for 15 points.  Fizzle then fired his crossbow at him for 6 points.  Woz stabbed a Trog for 17 points and killed it.  The last Trog hit Junkyard for 1 point and Junkyard fought back for 8 points and the Trog went down with a Threshhold of Pain check.  Jax quickly slits its throat and killed him.
Round 16
The Trog that circled around did not advance and the party decided not to rush him giving him free shots so the party decided to retreat to where they came from and heal up and decide their next action.

Obviously, the Troglodyte tribe has now been alerted.

Our Clerics then took the opportunity to heal.  Xanos healed Junkyard for 13 points and Junkyard returned the favor and healed Xanos for 11 points.  Then Xanos healed Lindor for 12 points,  jax for 20 points and then Junkyard for another 12.  The party then discussed whether to go back and keep searching for the captured VIP slave, go back and fully heal up, and/or get help.

If the captured VIP slave is not captured, she will be the Troglodyte's evening feast.

While the party is healed and discussed what to do, Fizzle took a side trip by himself to go back to the torture room and report and look for more help.  Luckly he had no encounters.  When he reached the torture room and reported what happened he is told to report it to HR since this is critical information.  He went back to the fort again with no encounters and somehow avoids the rust monster. He met the dwarves trying to recruit him and they escort him to HR.

The GM conveniently forgot the Magnetic Rust Monster encounter.

On the way the Dwarves escorted him to the armory and allowed him to gather armor for the party to replace instead of repairing it.  The old armor will be repaired and then added to the armory.  He gets leather for himself, Lindor, Junkyard and Woz.  He also gets plate mail for Jax and Xanos.  He then reported back to HR.

HR is concerned with the quantity of Trogs encountered.  The fort assumed there were only a few and left them alone.  This could cause security problems so the alarm was sounded the alarm and HR called the Commandant and stormed off to the courtyard where the troops are then assembled.  He explains the situation and tells them to armor up and be ready to go.  Fizzle will lead.  A party of 2 hobgoblins, a baker's dozen Goblins, 2 Dwarves, a dozen more Goblins, 32 Gnolls, a half dozen Bugbears, 3 more guards. 1 Wood Elf, a Pixie Fairy and a Puppy.  The tower guards and the kitchen staff will stay in the fort. HR, the Commandant with Fizzle next to him head into the dungeons.  HR tells Fizzle they will use a secret door to avoid the Rust Monster.  Fizzle is voted MVP.

++++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR ++++

Raja, a 2nd level Grunge Elf Battle Mage
Jax, a Human Ranger (5th level).
"Gnolito", allegedly a 3rd level Barbarian Gnoll
Junkyard a Grunge Elf Ranger (3rd) / Druid (4th).
Shaqueta a 2nd level Painted Mage a Sidekick of Junkyard.
Woz, a Human Thief (5th level).
Xanos a 3rd level Cleric Sidekick of Woz.
Lindor, an Elven Fighter(3nd) / Mage(3rd), with a fixation on Junkyard.
1 Ox (pulling the 4 wheeled wagon). (Also back in Bramwald).
64 Rabbits (in the 4 wheeled wagon).   (Also back in Bramwald).
Two Lizardmen who stayed behind to run and clean up the the party's Bathhouse and other properties.

--
Saxe N' Violets
Tracy Johnson
BT








NNNN]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=513 Sun, 09 Jun 2024 22:06:30 -0400 tmjva]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=513
Should I start posting HackMaster AARs again?

(No poll, just reply.)]]>
Should I start posting HackMaster AARs again?

(No poll, just reply.)]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=498 Mon, 12 Oct 2020 18:58:59 -0400 tmjva]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=498 http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=490 Tue, 17 Mar 2020 21:26:00 -0400 tmjva]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=490
On Wednesday major local corporations recommended avoidance of all non-essential gatherings.  Later during the week came a spate of municipal and statewide lock downs and the declaration of a national emergency.  

This time we had double cheeseburgers and fries individually bagged for each player from a national fast food chain.

I put the room numbers in the summary, so they coincide with narrative.  Old timers may recognize this place.  Corrective note to earlier narrative, [Room 18] did not have the curtain block the door to the south.  I was reading from a paper copy and I should have used a magnifying glass.  Now that I've seen it blown up on a screen the party should have been able to go that way.

++++ SUMMARY ++++

[Room 11]

From fighting the skeletons the party picked up any maces the skeletons had dropped (to improve their weapons) and proceed to the next room.  Which was essentially the back side of another secret door.  Peeking, the party noticed 5 Hobgoblins, one guarding another door, two flanking what appeared to be a throne, one standing in front of the throne reporting to whom was seated there the party's attack on the Hobgoblin barracks [Room 10] minutes before, and lastly the biggest baddest (4th level) Hobgoblin chief you ever saw.  (Even his body double was wearing a Screen Actor's Guild "muscle suit" to play this role.

So the party decided to rush the guard, close the door and overwhelm the rest with Kobolds and Teenagers.

This eventually worked, losing only six Kobolds in the process.  (They had lost the first nine fighting the skeletons.  Sorry I forgot to mention that.)

Next item on the agenda was to survey and search the room they were now in, which was a 25 by 45 foot room an empty throne on the East end, a door in the South, 4 dead Hobgoblins each with 10 gold pieces, one big Hobgoblin with no treasure, and a secret door in the Southwest corner.

[Room 8]

Finding no traps on the secret door, Needles took the lead into a 15 by 15 foot room, only to be surprised by a Gelatinous Cube and got paralyzed.  The Teenagers came in and destroyed it well in advance of Needles getting digested.  Amid the remaining globs of viscous goo they found a magical warhammer, which the party prevented Grog from destroying, and a a box of 7 scrolls which DeBoDe identified and quickly pocketed.

[Room 7]

Lastly they were on the backside of another secret door on the other side of this room.  (Since it was the backside, I decided to not make it a secret.)  With another peek, the party espied two Ogres sitting at a table playing cards.

Given the time spent fighting the last two rooms I decided to call the game.  Even though I "could" have, the next fight may have pushed it late into the night.

I decided to attach the party's map, if you can't take attachments, sorry.

++++ CHARACTER SUMMARY ++++

- A Barbarian named Grog.
- A Magic User Sole Practitioner (Detective Class) named De-Bo-De
- "Fred" the talking indestructible wooden fish amulet found in session one and taken possession by De-Bo-De.
- A Thief named Needles (who has a fear of needles)
- A Cleric named Torquemada, a Cleric who bought the Inquisitor package with his build points.
- Eleven "teenagers", who are apparently some sort of Sprite kin encountered two episodes back who want in on the "action".
- Rescued wimmenfolk from the village.  One per each defeated member of the Hobgoblin tribe.

  Rescue_2020.gif (Size: 84.38 KB / Downloads: 743) ]]>
On Wednesday major local corporations recommended avoidance of all non-essential gatherings.  Later during the week came a spate of municipal and statewide lock downs and the declaration of a national emergency.  

This time we had double cheeseburgers and fries individually bagged for each player from a national fast food chain.

I put the room numbers in the summary, so they coincide with narrative.  Old timers may recognize this place.  Corrective note to earlier narrative, [Room 18] did not have the curtain block the door to the south.  I was reading from a paper copy and I should have used a magnifying glass.  Now that I've seen it blown up on a screen the party should have been able to go that way.

++++ SUMMARY ++++

[Room 11]

From fighting the skeletons the party picked up any maces the skeletons had dropped (to improve their weapons) and proceed to the next room.  Which was essentially the back side of another secret door.  Peeking, the party noticed 5 Hobgoblins, one guarding another door, two flanking what appeared to be a throne, one standing in front of the throne reporting to whom was seated there the party's attack on the Hobgoblin barracks [Room 10] minutes before, and lastly the biggest baddest (4th level) Hobgoblin chief you ever saw.  (Even his body double was wearing a Screen Actor's Guild "muscle suit" to play this role.

So the party decided to rush the guard, close the door and overwhelm the rest with Kobolds and Teenagers.

This eventually worked, losing only six Kobolds in the process.  (They had lost the first nine fighting the skeletons.  Sorry I forgot to mention that.)

Next item on the agenda was to survey and search the room they were now in, which was a 25 by 45 foot room an empty throne on the East end, a door in the South, 4 dead Hobgoblins each with 10 gold pieces, one big Hobgoblin with no treasure, and a secret door in the Southwest corner.

[Room 8]

Finding no traps on the secret door, Needles took the lead into a 15 by 15 foot room, only to be surprised by a Gelatinous Cube and got paralyzed.  The Teenagers came in and destroyed it well in advance of Needles getting digested.  Amid the remaining globs of viscous goo they found a magical warhammer, which the party prevented Grog from destroying, and a a box of 7 scrolls which DeBoDe identified and quickly pocketed.

[Room 7]

Lastly they were on the backside of another secret door on the other side of this room.  (Since it was the backside, I decided to not make it a secret.)  With another peek, the party espied two Ogres sitting at a table playing cards.

Given the time spent fighting the last two rooms I decided to call the game.  Even though I "could" have, the next fight may have pushed it late into the night.

I decided to attach the party's map, if you can't take attachments, sorry.

++++ CHARACTER SUMMARY ++++

- A Barbarian named Grog.
- A Magic User Sole Practitioner (Detective Class) named De-Bo-De
- "Fred" the talking indestructible wooden fish amulet found in session one and taken possession by De-Bo-De.
- A Thief named Needles (who has a fear of needles)
- A Cleric named Torquemada, a Cleric who bought the Inquisitor package with his build points.
- Eleven "teenagers", who are apparently some sort of Sprite kin encountered two episodes back who want in on the "action".
- Rescued wimmenfolk from the village.  One per each defeated member of the Hobgoblin tribe.

  Rescue_2020.gif (Size: 84.38 KB / Downloads: 743) ]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=489 Tue, 10 Mar 2020 14:22:08 -0400 tmjva]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=489
This time we had a salami pizza.

Disclaimer, I have decided to keep this a low information campaign.  The party has no idea where they are or what world they are in.

++++ SUMMARY ++++

Today's game was a little bit more simple.  They did basically four rooms (or 3 rooms and a hallway) with most of the time taken for debate on what to do next.  My player's inability to make decisions or read clues is amazing.

Situation #1

Starting where they left off, the party sent off half the "teenagers" to guard the rescued Wimmenfolk and start walking back to the village.  The were still in the room with the surrendered Goblins and the Sphinx statue with two broken glass eyes.

Getting the party to investigate the statue was a challenge.  First of all, my gamers have gotten used to the idea that I'll simply tell them things just because they happen to be in the vicinity.  After getting him to look up from his cell-phone, our "Detective" sub-class of Magic User DeBoDe, detected no traps and not magic.  So I had to bring up to the plate the party's Thief,  "Hey Needles, that's what you're here for.  You have in front of you a statue of a Sphinx with two broken glass eyes.  What are you going to do?"  He decides to check it out with a cursory look, nothing.  So finally saying again, "You have a statue of a Sphinx with two broken glass eyes (at this point I stomp my boot twice under the table), what are you going to do?"

He decides to check out the broken glass eyes.

So I tell him, they are big enough to insert a finger or a stick.  (Fortunately, my player chooses a stick.)   In one eye he finds a small poisonous scorpion which is easily disposed of.  The other eye, turns a switch.  (He turns the switch.)

The Sphinx rolls away and there is a stash of treasure behind it.  (Whew!)  A bunch of silver jewelry, nothing magical our Detective could detect.  They decided to put it on the Barbarian's Pack Goat.

Situation #2

Next item on the agenda was to go down the stairs and check out the four other statues at the bottom.  The statues were:  #1  A skull, #2 A demon figure, #3 A screaming figure, #4 A frog creature.

They decided to check out statue #4 and without bothering to check for magic, when touched it turned into a Berserk half-frog, half man.  After defeating it (and yes it took a few rounds), the decided to check for magic and found only the #2 demon figure had magical on it.   Avoiding that, they turned their attention to statue #3 of the screaming figure and found a switch inside its mouth.

Turning the switch, the stairs they had just come down lifted up, and they were faced with a squad of 10 Demons armed with maces and shields.

There was a long pause and my Players could not decide what to do.  If it were any other D&D Party they would have been rushed by the Demons.  I finally dropped a hint, "Try turning the switch the other way."  "Thud!" the stairs were lowered, thus blocking the demons.

Actually the dungeon did not allow for a two-way switch on this, I had to give them an easy way out to rethink it.

Situation #3

The party decides to ask their "guide" (the captured Hobgoblin "leader"), what was the quickest way to the rest of his tribe?

His response was to take the secret door in former Kobold's barracks (which the party discovered last session after getting the Kobolds to surrender), and it will take you to the Hobgoblin barracks.  They found it was a narrow corridor 80 feet long so they had to go single file.

Arriving at the far end they found 10 fully armed Hobgoblins with more captive village Wimmenfolk.  Using the tactic with the Kobolds, the party asked for their surrender or "your leader gets it".  Demanding proof, they have the captured leader "speak" and the party only got peals of laughter in return, including a shout.  "Hey Schlomo, we get dibs on your stuff!"

Unfortunately, the party could only fight them one person at a time with open door frontage.  Grog our Barbarian took damage so they pulled him back and one of our intrepid of "teenagers" with wings healed him from behind when he wasn't looking.  (Our Cleric had run out of healing spells after the battles with the Goblins and the Frog Statue.)

Noticing this ability, our party utilized the "teenagers" like rotating troops putting them up front.  As soon as a "teenager" got seriously wounded, another "teenager" behind him healed him.

During the battle, one of the 10 Hobgoblins casually left the barracks out the back way.  Ostensibly to report the party's incursion.

Also during the battle, Torquemada confronted at swordpoint in the narrow passageway why the captive "leader" (now called "Schlomo") as to why he got no respect from his underlings?  "I'm the Chief's body-double, he said, it always works on the Kobolds."

At this point the party closed the door on the battle and made a careful retreat. It was an about face in the narrow hallway they were in, not a coordinated event at all.  The Hobgoblins did not follow, but they heard laughter.

Situation #4

Back in the old Kobold's barracks the party discussed it.  Questioning Schlomo about how to go about attacking his tribe.  He tells them they could either, #1 take the long way around to the other side where he was captured, #2 try again down the narrow corridor, or #3 fight the "demons" under the stairs.  He explained the the "Demons" are just Skeletons made out to look like Demons with a Phantasmal Force spell.  His tribe knew about the Skeletons, but did not know about the switch in the statue as they thought the room was a dead end under the stairs closet.  It is normally accessed from another room via another secret door.

There was another long pause getting the party to make a decision.  So I finally dropped a hint saying:  Going the back way is probably blocked by now since the tribe has been alerted.  Going down single file again is a non-starter.   But you can probably get more frontage fighting the skeletons, and get past them quicker and gain access from an area the tribe thinks is a dead end.

The party had another idea to go back topside and recruit the surrendered Kobolds (who had kept their agreement and left for other digs).  So the Kobolds negotiated for a share of any treasure.

So getting in line for battle, the party fought the Skeletons, since the Kobolds were smaller they could fight two per every Skeleton.   Our player for DeBoDe rolled the attack dice for the Kobolds periodically interrupting his cell-phone video game to roll the dice.  (Not less than three times I had to mention, "Get off the phone and roll.")  Eventually after defeating them the party found a red square in the center underneath the stairs.  After some some more investigation they discovered by standing on it, the stairs would pivot up.  Apparently this had never been discovered by the Hobgoblin tribe who had just let the Skeletons (disguised as Demons) stay in their room.

++++ CHARACTER SUMMARY ++++

- A Barbarian named Grog.
- A Magic User Sole Practitioner (Detective Class) named De-Bo-De
- "Fred" the talking indestructible wooden fish amulet found in session one and taken possession by De-Bo-De.
- A Thief named Needles (who has a fear of needles)
- A Cleric named Torquemada, a Cleric who bought the Inquisitor package with his build points.
- Eleven "teenagers", who are apparently some sort of Sprite kin encountered two episodes back who want in on the "action".
- Rescued wimmenfolk from the village.  One per each defeated member of the Hobgoblin tribe.

++++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR ++++]]>
This time we had a salami pizza.

Disclaimer, I have decided to keep this a low information campaign.  The party has no idea where they are or what world they are in.

++++ SUMMARY ++++

Today's game was a little bit more simple.  They did basically four rooms (or 3 rooms and a hallway) with most of the time taken for debate on what to do next.  My player's inability to make decisions or read clues is amazing.

Situation #1

Starting where they left off, the party sent off half the "teenagers" to guard the rescued Wimmenfolk and start walking back to the village.  The were still in the room with the surrendered Goblins and the Sphinx statue with two broken glass eyes.

Getting the party to investigate the statue was a challenge.  First of all, my gamers have gotten used to the idea that I'll simply tell them things just because they happen to be in the vicinity.  After getting him to look up from his cell-phone, our "Detective" sub-class of Magic User DeBoDe, detected no traps and not magic.  So I had to bring up to the plate the party's Thief,  "Hey Needles, that's what you're here for.  You have in front of you a statue of a Sphinx with two broken glass eyes.  What are you going to do?"  He decides to check it out with a cursory look, nothing.  So finally saying again, "You have a statue of a Sphinx with two broken glass eyes (at this point I stomp my boot twice under the table), what are you going to do?"

He decides to check out the broken glass eyes.

So I tell him, they are big enough to insert a finger or a stick.  (Fortunately, my player chooses a stick.)   In one eye he finds a small poisonous scorpion which is easily disposed of.  The other eye, turns a switch.  (He turns the switch.)

The Sphinx rolls away and there is a stash of treasure behind it.  (Whew!)  A bunch of silver jewelry, nothing magical our Detective could detect.  They decided to put it on the Barbarian's Pack Goat.

Situation #2

Next item on the agenda was to go down the stairs and check out the four other statues at the bottom.  The statues were:  #1  A skull, #2 A demon figure, #3 A screaming figure, #4 A frog creature.

They decided to check out statue #4 and without bothering to check for magic, when touched it turned into a Berserk half-frog, half man.  After defeating it (and yes it took a few rounds), the decided to check for magic and found only the #2 demon figure had magical on it.   Avoiding that, they turned their attention to statue #3 of the screaming figure and found a switch inside its mouth.

Turning the switch, the stairs they had just come down lifted up, and they were faced with a squad of 10 Demons armed with maces and shields.

There was a long pause and my Players could not decide what to do.  If it were any other D&D Party they would have been rushed by the Demons.  I finally dropped a hint, "Try turning the switch the other way."  "Thud!" the stairs were lowered, thus blocking the demons.

Actually the dungeon did not allow for a two-way switch on this, I had to give them an easy way out to rethink it.

Situation #3

The party decides to ask their "guide" (the captured Hobgoblin "leader"), what was the quickest way to the rest of his tribe?

His response was to take the secret door in former Kobold's barracks (which the party discovered last session after getting the Kobolds to surrender), and it will take you to the Hobgoblin barracks.  They found it was a narrow corridor 80 feet long so they had to go single file.

Arriving at the far end they found 10 fully armed Hobgoblins with more captive village Wimmenfolk.  Using the tactic with the Kobolds, the party asked for their surrender or "your leader gets it".  Demanding proof, they have the captured leader "speak" and the party only got peals of laughter in return, including a shout.  "Hey Schlomo, we get dibs on your stuff!"

Unfortunately, the party could only fight them one person at a time with open door frontage.  Grog our Barbarian took damage so they pulled him back and one of our intrepid of "teenagers" with wings healed him from behind when he wasn't looking.  (Our Cleric had run out of healing spells after the battles with the Goblins and the Frog Statue.)

Noticing this ability, our party utilized the "teenagers" like rotating troops putting them up front.  As soon as a "teenager" got seriously wounded, another "teenager" behind him healed him.

During the battle, one of the 10 Hobgoblins casually left the barracks out the back way.  Ostensibly to report the party's incursion.

Also during the battle, Torquemada confronted at swordpoint in the narrow passageway why the captive "leader" (now called "Schlomo") as to why he got no respect from his underlings?  "I'm the Chief's body-double, he said, it always works on the Kobolds."

At this point the party closed the door on the battle and made a careful retreat. It was an about face in the narrow hallway they were in, not a coordinated event at all.  The Hobgoblins did not follow, but they heard laughter.

Situation #4

Back in the old Kobold's barracks the party discussed it.  Questioning Schlomo about how to go about attacking his tribe.  He tells them they could either, #1 take the long way around to the other side where he was captured, #2 try again down the narrow corridor, or #3 fight the "demons" under the stairs.  He explained the the "Demons" are just Skeletons made out to look like Demons with a Phantasmal Force spell.  His tribe knew about the Skeletons, but did not know about the switch in the statue as they thought the room was a dead end under the stairs closet.  It is normally accessed from another room via another secret door.

There was another long pause getting the party to make a decision.  So I finally dropped a hint saying:  Going the back way is probably blocked by now since the tribe has been alerted.  Going down single file again is a non-starter.   But you can probably get more frontage fighting the skeletons, and get past them quicker and gain access from an area the tribe thinks is a dead end.

The party had another idea to go back topside and recruit the surrendered Kobolds (who had kept their agreement and left for other digs).  So the Kobolds negotiated for a share of any treasure.

So getting in line for battle, the party fought the Skeletons, since the Kobolds were smaller they could fight two per every Skeleton.   Our player for DeBoDe rolled the attack dice for the Kobolds periodically interrupting his cell-phone video game to roll the dice.  (Not less than three times I had to mention, "Get off the phone and roll.")  Eventually after defeating them the party found a red square in the center underneath the stairs.  After some some more investigation they discovered by standing on it, the stairs would pivot up.  Apparently this had never been discovered by the Hobgoblin tribe who had just let the Skeletons (disguised as Demons) stay in their room.

++++ CHARACTER SUMMARY ++++

- A Barbarian named Grog.
- A Magic User Sole Practitioner (Detective Class) named De-Bo-De
- "Fred" the talking indestructible wooden fish amulet found in session one and taken possession by De-Bo-De.
- A Thief named Needles (who has a fear of needles)
- A Cleric named Torquemada, a Cleric who bought the Inquisitor package with his build points.
- Eleven "teenagers", who are apparently some sort of Sprite kin encountered two episodes back who want in on the "action".
- Rescued wimmenfolk from the village.  One per each defeated member of the Hobgoblin tribe.

++++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR ++++]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=487 Sat, 22 Feb 2020 20:48:29 -0500 tmjva]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=487
We had an extra large philly-steak, fresh mozzarella and tomato pizza.

Disclaimer, I have decided to keep this a low information campaign.  The party has no idea where they are or what world they are in. 

++++ SUMMARY ++++

We left off our characters in a 60 square foot throne room with one discovered secret door, a 20 foot wide open pit and De-Bo-De just having avoided a poison pin-cushion on the throne.

Our party decided to take the secret door and found themselves going 30 feet up where they found another door.  Upon opening it up, they were presented with the backside of an apparently indestructible gray curtain that stretched from floor to ceiling that allowed a 3 foot wide gap between itself and a wall.  Grog tried stabbing it, Torquemada tried peeking under it, both to no avail.  (I told them it was attached the floor and ceiling like upholstery to a sofa.)

Grog make his detect magic check and avoided touching the curtain henceforth.

So the party sent the teenagers down the sides of the curtain only to report back that the paths were dead ends.  The curtain apparently enclosed some internal room.  De-Bo-De tried his luck and found a secret door.

Taking standard the precaution of having Needles check for traps and finding none, they sent Grog the Barbarian through first with the rest of the party as back up, only to find:

A hobgoblin entertaining himself with one of the kidnapped wimmenfolk.  There was also a hobgoblin guard looking down an open staircase.  (Since they came through a secret door "known" only to the occupants, they were not expecting anyone from that direction.)  Having achieved an element of surprise, Grog attacked from the Guard's rear flank and Torquemada put his sword edge on the other Hobgoblin's backside and demanded surrender.  Which was translated into perfect Hobgoblin by "Fred" the amulet who was nearby around De-Bo-De's neck and happened to overhear  ("Fred" is only trying to help.)

This was the party's lucky day, for judging by the Hobgoblin's gear lying about they had captured the leader of the Goblin tribe. 

That accomplished, the party hastily had the Hobgoblin leader and his former hostage get dressed and took the two Hobgoblins hostage themselves and forced them with their hands tied to be their new guides to this dungeon.  So without further ado, the party was led down a staircase, to a room with 2 more Hobgoblin guards (who also surrendered), then through another secret door and found themselves back in the throne room they had left, albeit another secret door they had not found (nor had bothered to look for since it was behind a curtain next to one of those braziers). 

Reorganizing with the teenagers left behind to guard their rear.  The party was led cattywumpus across the throne room (avoiding the 20 foot wide pit) and took yet another secret door they had not found and up some more stairs to a 30 by 100 foot long room with 3 doors to the right, four statues at the other end, then it turned right to a 30 foot wide staircase going up.

Their new "guides" led them to the first of the 3 doors telling the party that his allied Kobold tribe lives behind doors 1 and 3, but the 2nd door is just a closet.  Going through door number 1, the party found 20 sullen Kobolds being forced to clean and scrub their clothes, pick up their things and make their beds, overseen the stern looks of the party's wimmenfolk "hostages". 

The party abrubtly announced itself that that had taken their Chieftain prisoner and bade the 20 Kobolds surrender their hostages.  (The party really didn't say that, it was really announced by "Fred" translated into perfect Koboldic.)

"Ding dong the Chief is had, the mean old Chief is had!"  Sang the Kobolds, once again in seemingly orchestrated dancing and song which in the next chorus said:  "Can you please save us from this selfmade hell!?"

Torquemada, slightly out of character said via "Fred":  "Just release the hostages leave these parts, and you can go."   Since the Kobold's belongings were somehow set in order beforehand, and well packed including their toothbrushes, (even their underwear was folded), the Kobolds started to march in single file out the dungeon. 

Somewhat disappointed, the "rescued" wimmenfolk watched them go. 

Meanwhile the party decided to open the closet door (door #2) back in the hallway.  The party Thief dutifully checked for traps, found none, decided it was unlocked, then had the original Hobgoblin guard of the Chieftan open the door.

Plop!  An Ochre Jelly that had been waiting on the other side of the door dropped on the hapless guard.  The party had to kill it with oil and flame but not before it had consumed the Hobgoblin.

A few giggles erupted from the last of the departing Kobolds.  They had apparently kept the Ochre Jelly in the closet as a joke and didn't tell anyone.

That left the next step in this night's gaming agenda.  There were three other things they could do:

#1  Investigate the four statues at the end of the room just before the stairs going up.  (They were a skull statue, a demon statue, a screaming figure statue, and a frog creature statue.)

#2  Up the 30 foot wide staircase going up.  To which the ex-Chieftain said were the barracks for 10 Goblins.

#3  Yet another secret door from the ex-Kobold's quarters going underneath staircase #1 which leads to the barracks of 10 Hobgoblins.

They decided to ignore the statutes and go up the wide staircase.  At the top of which, were 10 Goblins with (you guessed it) 10 wimmenfolk hostages.  However these wimmenfolk didn't have it as easy as the ones with the Kobolds and were in dire need of rescue. 

Additionally the surrender call by from the party did not work as intended so we ended up gaming a battle.   Three Goblins guarded the wimmenfolk, which left seven Goblins versus the party.  This included the Grog, Torquemada, Eleven Teenagers, and the party even recruited the two Hobgoblin prisoners to fight on their side.  (But not the ex-Chieftain.)  Only Needles and De-bo-De remained behind to guard the ex-Chieftain. 

About six rounds later the morale of the Goblins finally broke and they surrendered.

Being out of time we called it a night.  The party having rescued 31 wimmenfolk.  The next step would be to go though the secret door in the Kobold's barracks and confront the Hobgoblins, and as you may guess, an equal number of hostages.

Oh and by the way, I didn't mention it to my gamers, in the just defeated Goblin quarters there is a large statue of a sphinx with broken glass eyes.

++++ CHARACTER SUMMARY ++++

- A Barbarian named Grog.
- A Magic User Sole Practitioner (Detective Class) named De-Bo-De
- "Fred" the talking indestructible wooden fish amulet found in session one and taken possession by De-Bo-De.
- A Thief named Needles (who has a fear of needles)
- A Cleric named Torquemada, a Cleric who bought the Inquisitor package with his build points.
- Eleven "teenagers", who are apparently some sort of Sprite kin encountered last episode who want in on the "action".

++++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR ++++]]>
We had an extra large philly-steak, fresh mozzarella and tomato pizza.

Disclaimer, I have decided to keep this a low information campaign.  The party has no idea where they are or what world they are in. 

++++ SUMMARY ++++

We left off our characters in a 60 square foot throne room with one discovered secret door, a 20 foot wide open pit and De-Bo-De just having avoided a poison pin-cushion on the throne.

Our party decided to take the secret door and found themselves going 30 feet up where they found another door.  Upon opening it up, they were presented with the backside of an apparently indestructible gray curtain that stretched from floor to ceiling that allowed a 3 foot wide gap between itself and a wall.  Grog tried stabbing it, Torquemada tried peeking under it, both to no avail.  (I told them it was attached the floor and ceiling like upholstery to a sofa.)

Grog make his detect magic check and avoided touching the curtain henceforth.

So the party sent the teenagers down the sides of the curtain only to report back that the paths were dead ends.  The curtain apparently enclosed some internal room.  De-Bo-De tried his luck and found a secret door.

Taking standard the precaution of having Needles check for traps and finding none, they sent Grog the Barbarian through first with the rest of the party as back up, only to find:

A hobgoblin entertaining himself with one of the kidnapped wimmenfolk.  There was also a hobgoblin guard looking down an open staircase.  (Since they came through a secret door "known" only to the occupants, they were not expecting anyone from that direction.)  Having achieved an element of surprise, Grog attacked from the Guard's rear flank and Torquemada put his sword edge on the other Hobgoblin's backside and demanded surrender.  Which was translated into perfect Hobgoblin by "Fred" the amulet who was nearby around De-Bo-De's neck and happened to overhear  ("Fred" is only trying to help.)

This was the party's lucky day, for judging by the Hobgoblin's gear lying about they had captured the leader of the Goblin tribe. 

That accomplished, the party hastily had the Hobgoblin leader and his former hostage get dressed and took the two Hobgoblins hostage themselves and forced them with their hands tied to be their new guides to this dungeon.  So without further ado, the party was led down a staircase, to a room with 2 more Hobgoblin guards (who also surrendered), then through another secret door and found themselves back in the throne room they had left, albeit another secret door they had not found (nor had bothered to look for since it was behind a curtain next to one of those braziers). 

Reorganizing with the teenagers left behind to guard their rear.  The party was led cattywumpus across the throne room (avoiding the 20 foot wide pit) and took yet another secret door they had not found and up some more stairs to a 30 by 100 foot long room with 3 doors to the right, four statues at the other end, then it turned right to a 30 foot wide staircase going up.

Their new "guides" led them to the first of the 3 doors telling the party that his allied Kobold tribe lives behind doors 1 and 3, but the 2nd door is just a closet.  Going through door number 1, the party found 20 sullen Kobolds being forced to clean and scrub their clothes, pick up their things and make their beds, overseen the stern looks of the party's wimmenfolk "hostages". 

The party abrubtly announced itself that that had taken their Chieftain prisoner and bade the 20 Kobolds surrender their hostages.  (The party really didn't say that, it was really announced by "Fred" translated into perfect Koboldic.)

"Ding dong the Chief is had, the mean old Chief is had!"  Sang the Kobolds, once again in seemingly orchestrated dancing and song which in the next chorus said:  "Can you please save us from this selfmade hell!?"

Torquemada, slightly out of character said via "Fred":  "Just release the hostages leave these parts, and you can go."   Since the Kobold's belongings were somehow set in order beforehand, and well packed including their toothbrushes, (even their underwear was folded), the Kobolds started to march in single file out the dungeon. 

Somewhat disappointed, the "rescued" wimmenfolk watched them go. 

Meanwhile the party decided to open the closet door (door #2) back in the hallway.  The party Thief dutifully checked for traps, found none, decided it was unlocked, then had the original Hobgoblin guard of the Chieftan open the door.

Plop!  An Ochre Jelly that had been waiting on the other side of the door dropped on the hapless guard.  The party had to kill it with oil and flame but not before it had consumed the Hobgoblin.

A few giggles erupted from the last of the departing Kobolds.  They had apparently kept the Ochre Jelly in the closet as a joke and didn't tell anyone.

That left the next step in this night's gaming agenda.  There were three other things they could do:

#1  Investigate the four statues at the end of the room just before the stairs going up.  (They were a skull statue, a demon statue, a screaming figure statue, and a frog creature statue.)

#2  Up the 30 foot wide staircase going up.  To which the ex-Chieftain said were the barracks for 10 Goblins.

#3  Yet another secret door from the ex-Kobold's quarters going underneath staircase #1 which leads to the barracks of 10 Hobgoblins.

They decided to ignore the statutes and go up the wide staircase.  At the top of which, were 10 Goblins with (you guessed it) 10 wimmenfolk hostages.  However these wimmenfolk didn't have it as easy as the ones with the Kobolds and were in dire need of rescue. 

Additionally the surrender call by from the party did not work as intended so we ended up gaming a battle.   Three Goblins guarded the wimmenfolk, which left seven Goblins versus the party.  This included the Grog, Torquemada, Eleven Teenagers, and the party even recruited the two Hobgoblin prisoners to fight on their side.  (But not the ex-Chieftain.)  Only Needles and De-bo-De remained behind to guard the ex-Chieftain. 

About six rounds later the morale of the Goblins finally broke and they surrendered.

Being out of time we called it a night.  The party having rescued 31 wimmenfolk.  The next step would be to go though the secret door in the Kobold's barracks and confront the Hobgoblins, and as you may guess, an equal number of hostages.

Oh and by the way, I didn't mention it to my gamers, in the just defeated Goblin quarters there is a large statue of a sphinx with broken glass eyes.

++++ CHARACTER SUMMARY ++++

- A Barbarian named Grog.
- A Magic User Sole Practitioner (Detective Class) named De-Bo-De
- "Fred" the talking indestructible wooden fish amulet found in session one and taken possession by De-Bo-De.
- A Thief named Needles (who has a fear of needles)
- A Cleric named Torquemada, a Cleric who bought the Inquisitor package with his build points.
- Eleven "teenagers", who are apparently some sort of Sprite kin encountered last episode who want in on the "action".

++++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR ++++]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=486 Thu, 20 Feb 2020 09:12:27 -0500 tmjva]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=486

We had an extra large ground beef and mushroom pizza.


++++ SUMMARY ++++

Disclaimer, I have decided to keep this a low information campaign.  The party has no idea where they are or what world they are in.  Except for Grog the Barbarian who had just moved in as a lone survivor after his raiding party was defeated during after their most recent campaign, otherwise the party grew up in this awful village of scum.  Even though the party rolled up middle class characters, class distinctions for this village are rather, well, relative.

While still transcribing character statistics, I thought the group was developed enough to start adventuring.  So we have:

- A Barbarian named Grog.
- A Magic User Sole Practitioner (Detective Class) named De-Bo-De
- A Thief named Needles (who has a fear of needles)
- A Cleric (absent this session)

Funny thing about HackMaster Barbarians, they cannot "knowingly" associate with Magic Users at First level.  (So Mum's the word on De Bo De.  Sssshhhh!)

I "woke" the party up at a small village of lowlife "Scum" on the edge of an unnamed river.  Their "Village" being the closest thing to an organizational size one can think of.  A collection of "Huts" is more like it.  Otherwise known throughout these parts as "Huts of the Scum".   In any case the village was raided by itinerant Goblins and all the wimmen folk were kidnapped.  All the pretty ones at least, "pretty" for a Goblin is something better looking than the average donkey.  Suffice it to say, any female who could disguise themselves as a muckraking boy or were past menopause were left behind.

Afterward, the "village" council drafted our young adventurers.  First the Barbarian, only because he was the only one with any fighting experience.  Secondly the Thief, so he could bail himself out of the stocks.  The Magic User (Detective) De-Bo-De, because a village elder's wife had hired him to find out who her husband was having an affair with.  (That Elder is hoping he doesn't come back to file a report.)  And the Cleric, because in retaliation, that same wife decided to have an affair of her own with the Cleric and the Elder found out.  (The Elder doesn't want the Cleric to come back either.)

After some minor adjustments it was discovered most of the party was so weak they couldn't carry their own equipment.  So they transferred the weight to the of a week's worth of Iron Rations to Grog's trained pack goat.  Since Goblins were litterbugs and there were no trail-side sanitation ordinances, the party followed the obvious trail to the Goblin's lair, where they had their first encounter.

They heard loud giggling and musical instruments.

Since De-Bo-De's profession was "Detective" they sent him, which was probably better than sending the Thief.  De-Bo-De was able to "detect" the source of the noise, and using his specialist ability to use the 2nd level "Detect Invisible" spell at 1st level, he found some nearly a dozen invisible "teenagers", with butterfly wings.  Making contact, he convinced these "winged teenagers" with their penchant for petty mayhem, to join them on a raid into the Goblin's lair, (as long as they hid their wings from the sight of Grog and stayed "visible".  So they flew over to a nearby copse of trees where they made themselves look nearly human as I said, like teenagers.

After formal introductions with the "teenagers" the party finally made it to the Goblin's lair.  Where they found a cave entrance with steps going down, De-Bo-De noisily went first and alone.  Of course this alerted the sleeping guard who promptly retreated further inside enough so that De-Bo-De could hear a door slam.  Reporting back, the party all went downstairs to a 55 foot square room surrounded by drapes and a double wide closed door to the left, with a rather well done mural of an Goblin face on the doors.  The teenagers checked behind the drapes to find a 5 foot wide space behind so the room was really 60 feet square.  Thankfully there weren't any Goblins in ambush behind the curtains.

They was however, a pile of garbage in one corner behind the curtains.  Searching the pile they were greeted by a voice saying "Hi, how ya doin'?"  Digging deeper in the trash they found a talking wooden fish amulet named "Fred", and having got the hint not to inform Grog about any magic, they showed it to De-Bo-De, who promptly confiscated it amid more giggles from the teenagers.  "Fred" promptly told De-Bo-De that he can speak any language of his current or former owners, perform a "Change Self" spell for his owner once per day for 6 hours,  as well as improving his owner's armor class by one.  Fred also said he was fire proof, freeze proof, acid proof, and basically indestructible.

Makes one wonder why "Fred" was discovered in the trash?

The double-wide door with the Goblin mural was the next obstacle.  It was easily pushed open however, but as soon as the party passed through it a "Magic Mouth" spell LOUDLY exclaimed "Ho Master, be wary.  Enemies are at your door!".  The party went through it, and Grog hastily did so avoiding looking at the thing because it was magical.  Lastly as De-Bo-De passed by another Magic Mouth spell cast a Detect Magic spell causing a third Magic Mouth to declare (loudly) "Master, they have magic on them."  (Grog cringed when he heard that.)  

The next chamber was another 60 foot square room built out of white marble and with a lengthwise inlaid black marble steps going up to a landing with six columns of gold inlaid marble in front of parted parted black curtains going up to another room.  The walls were covered with bas-relief carvings of soldiers fighting.  (Oddly enough, they haven't found any Goblins.)  To one side De-Bo-De found a secret door on a catch of one of the bas-relief statues, but the party decided to ignore that for the moment and continue on past the curtains.

This place was obviously built by better engineers and spell casters than these Goblins.

The next chamber was another 60 foot square room surrounded by a circle of draperies so that each corner was hidden by a curtain.  In each corner was a brazier with burning incense which to one "teenager's" dismay caused him to fail his saving throw an sent him to a snoring sleep.  Thus alerted the party held their breath and put them out. 

But more importantly was the huge 20 foot wide circular pit in the center of the room and a throne on a raised dais at one end.

Looking into the pit, our Thief Needles could not see the pit walls any further than 20 feet down, so he dropped a lit torch.  It promptly disappeared after 20 feet.  (They all made a mental note of that, for later.)

De-Bo-De decided to check out the throne and without further ado, decided it was a good time to relax.  So he placed his hind end squarely in the middle of it and made his saving throw versus poison as the trap sprang on his behind.  If it had been Needles, he would also had to make a saving throw versus Fear.

All Fred could do at this point was laugh.

++++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR ++++]]>

We had an extra large ground beef and mushroom pizza.


++++ SUMMARY ++++

Disclaimer, I have decided to keep this a low information campaign.  The party has no idea where they are or what world they are in.  Except for Grog the Barbarian who had just moved in as a lone survivor after his raiding party was defeated during after their most recent campaign, otherwise the party grew up in this awful village of scum.  Even though the party rolled up middle class characters, class distinctions for this village are rather, well, relative.

While still transcribing character statistics, I thought the group was developed enough to start adventuring.  So we have:

- A Barbarian named Grog.
- A Magic User Sole Practitioner (Detective Class) named De-Bo-De
- A Thief named Needles (who has a fear of needles)
- A Cleric (absent this session)

Funny thing about HackMaster Barbarians, they cannot "knowingly" associate with Magic Users at First level.  (So Mum's the word on De Bo De.  Sssshhhh!)

I "woke" the party up at a small village of lowlife "Scum" on the edge of an unnamed river.  Their "Village" being the closest thing to an organizational size one can think of.  A collection of "Huts" is more like it.  Otherwise known throughout these parts as "Huts of the Scum".   In any case the village was raided by itinerant Goblins and all the wimmen folk were kidnapped.  All the pretty ones at least, "pretty" for a Goblin is something better looking than the average donkey.  Suffice it to say, any female who could disguise themselves as a muckraking boy or were past menopause were left behind.

Afterward, the "village" council drafted our young adventurers.  First the Barbarian, only because he was the only one with any fighting experience.  Secondly the Thief, so he could bail himself out of the stocks.  The Magic User (Detective) De-Bo-De, because a village elder's wife had hired him to find out who her husband was having an affair with.  (That Elder is hoping he doesn't come back to file a report.)  And the Cleric, because in retaliation, that same wife decided to have an affair of her own with the Cleric and the Elder found out.  (The Elder doesn't want the Cleric to come back either.)

After some minor adjustments it was discovered most of the party was so weak they couldn't carry their own equipment.  So they transferred the weight to the of a week's worth of Iron Rations to Grog's trained pack goat.  Since Goblins were litterbugs and there were no trail-side sanitation ordinances, the party followed the obvious trail to the Goblin's lair, where they had their first encounter.

They heard loud giggling and musical instruments.

Since De-Bo-De's profession was "Detective" they sent him, which was probably better than sending the Thief.  De-Bo-De was able to "detect" the source of the noise, and using his specialist ability to use the 2nd level "Detect Invisible" spell at 1st level, he found some nearly a dozen invisible "teenagers", with butterfly wings.  Making contact, he convinced these "winged teenagers" with their penchant for petty mayhem, to join them on a raid into the Goblin's lair, (as long as they hid their wings from the sight of Grog and stayed "visible".  So they flew over to a nearby copse of trees where they made themselves look nearly human as I said, like teenagers.

After formal introductions with the "teenagers" the party finally made it to the Goblin's lair.  Where they found a cave entrance with steps going down, De-Bo-De noisily went first and alone.  Of course this alerted the sleeping guard who promptly retreated further inside enough so that De-Bo-De could hear a door slam.  Reporting back, the party all went downstairs to a 55 foot square room surrounded by drapes and a double wide closed door to the left, with a rather well done mural of an Goblin face on the doors.  The teenagers checked behind the drapes to find a 5 foot wide space behind so the room was really 60 feet square.  Thankfully there weren't any Goblins in ambush behind the curtains.

They was however, a pile of garbage in one corner behind the curtains.  Searching the pile they were greeted by a voice saying "Hi, how ya doin'?"  Digging deeper in the trash they found a talking wooden fish amulet named "Fred", and having got the hint not to inform Grog about any magic, they showed it to De-Bo-De, who promptly confiscated it amid more giggles from the teenagers.  "Fred" promptly told De-Bo-De that he can speak any language of his current or former owners, perform a "Change Self" spell for his owner once per day for 6 hours,  as well as improving his owner's armor class by one.  Fred also said he was fire proof, freeze proof, acid proof, and basically indestructible.

Makes one wonder why "Fred" was discovered in the trash?

The double-wide door with the Goblin mural was the next obstacle.  It was easily pushed open however, but as soon as the party passed through it a "Magic Mouth" spell LOUDLY exclaimed "Ho Master, be wary.  Enemies are at your door!".  The party went through it, and Grog hastily did so avoiding looking at the thing because it was magical.  Lastly as De-Bo-De passed by another Magic Mouth spell cast a Detect Magic spell causing a third Magic Mouth to declare (loudly) "Master, they have magic on them."  (Grog cringed when he heard that.)  

The next chamber was another 60 foot square room built out of white marble and with a lengthwise inlaid black marble steps going up to a landing with six columns of gold inlaid marble in front of parted parted black curtains going up to another room.  The walls were covered with bas-relief carvings of soldiers fighting.  (Oddly enough, they haven't found any Goblins.)  To one side De-Bo-De found a secret door on a catch of one of the bas-relief statues, but the party decided to ignore that for the moment and continue on past the curtains.

This place was obviously built by better engineers and spell casters than these Goblins.

The next chamber was another 60 foot square room surrounded by a circle of draperies so that each corner was hidden by a curtain.  In each corner was a brazier with burning incense which to one "teenager's" dismay caused him to fail his saving throw an sent him to a snoring sleep.  Thus alerted the party held their breath and put them out. 

But more importantly was the huge 20 foot wide circular pit in the center of the room and a throne on a raised dais at one end.

Looking into the pit, our Thief Needles could not see the pit walls any further than 20 feet down, so he dropped a lit torch.  It promptly disappeared after 20 feet.  (They all made a mental note of that, for later.)

De-Bo-De decided to check out the throne and without further ado, decided it was a good time to relax.  So he placed his hind end squarely in the middle of it and made his saving throw versus poison as the trap sprang on his behind.  If it had been Needles, he would also had to make a saving throw versus Fear.

All Fred could do at this point was laugh.

++++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR ++++]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=484 Wed, 04 Dec 2019 11:49:50 -0500 tmjva]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=484
Tomorrow we are back on schedule with a late start.  No sooner than 7:30PM, so the game will have to be quick and easy.

We had our usual Philly Cheese Steak Pizza with fresh Mozzarella. Lately we have added diced tomatoes.

After Action Report (AAR) for two gaming sessions prior.  (Due to U.S. Thanksgiving Day on 28 Nov, we skipped it.)

++++ SUMMARY ++++

On November 14th, we played Avalon Hill's "Civlization" and the Western expansion board with 5 Players.  It was another game with a learning curve but our new partipant got the hang of it.  I deprecated myself by picking Crete so the other players would have a chance.  By the time we had to quit, we finally got to the point of being able to "trade" a catastrophe because we had gone through the trade decks.

On November 21st, we Played Samurai Swords with 5 players, due to the learning curve we didn't get very far.   One player consistently bid on the Ninja and took out a couple of Daimyo to prevent battle before it started.  Everyone was still fairly even with territories by Turn 6 when we quit.  Although a couple of Players lost an Army and would have been hard pressed to maintain the status quo.


++++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR ++++]]>
Tomorrow we are back on schedule with a late start.  No sooner than 7:30PM, so the game will have to be quick and easy.

We had our usual Philly Cheese Steak Pizza with fresh Mozzarella. Lately we have added diced tomatoes.

After Action Report (AAR) for two gaming sessions prior.  (Due to U.S. Thanksgiving Day on 28 Nov, we skipped it.)

++++ SUMMARY ++++

On November 14th, we played Avalon Hill's "Civlization" and the Western expansion board with 5 Players.  It was another game with a learning curve but our new partipant got the hang of it.  I deprecated myself by picking Crete so the other players would have a chance.  By the time we had to quit, we finally got to the point of being able to "trade" a catastrophe because we had gone through the trade decks.

On November 21st, we Played Samurai Swords with 5 players, due to the learning curve we didn't get very far.   One player consistently bid on the Ninja and took out a couple of Daimyo to prevent battle before it started.  Everyone was still fairly even with territories by Turn 6 when we quit.  Although a couple of Players lost an Army and would have been hard pressed to maintain the status quo.


++++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR ++++]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=483 Wed, 30 Oct 2019 10:27:38 -0400 tmjva]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=483
Next game will be on November 14th.  I have my local American Legion meeting on the 7th.

(Note the new domain for SOCDAISY in the "To" address, we have migrated off of yahoogroups due to group deprecation.)

Games are normally on Thursday nights sometime after 6:30PM at World's Best Comics, 9714 Warwick Blvd Newport News, Virginia 23601.

We had our usual Philly Cheese Steak Pizza with fresh Mozzarella. Lately we have added diced tomatoes.

Summary for two weeks prior:

++++ SUMMARY ++++

On October 17, we Played another round of TSR's "Dungeon!" we had five players this time.  A visiting Player won as a Wizard by pretending to go back to the staircase to replenish his spells, but he really had his 30K in gold.

After taking the game back home I put it in dry dock for refurbishment.  There are no manufacturers for sleeves on those little 28mm by 38mm cards.  So I ended up buying 43mm by 65mm sleeves and snipping them short in a paper cutter 3 or 4 at a time.

On October 24, we Played Rail Baron with 5 players using the B&O extends to New York option.  Again our guest Player came out on top with only 4 railroads, but a good network.  (Although I think he eventually would have lost money but we called it due to time constraints.)

++++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR ++++

Tracy Johnson
BT







NNNN]]>
Next game will be on November 14th.  I have my local American Legion meeting on the 7th.

(Note the new domain for SOCDAISY in the "To" address, we have migrated off of yahoogroups due to group deprecation.)

Games are normally on Thursday nights sometime after 6:30PM at World's Best Comics, 9714 Warwick Blvd Newport News, Virginia 23601.

We had our usual Philly Cheese Steak Pizza with fresh Mozzarella. Lately we have added diced tomatoes.

Summary for two weeks prior:

++++ SUMMARY ++++

On October 17, we Played another round of TSR's "Dungeon!" we had five players this time.  A visiting Player won as a Wizard by pretending to go back to the staircase to replenish his spells, but he really had his 30K in gold.

After taking the game back home I put it in dry dock for refurbishment.  There are no manufacturers for sleeves on those little 28mm by 38mm cards.  So I ended up buying 43mm by 65mm sleeves and snipping them short in a paper cutter 3 or 4 at a time.

On October 24, we Played Rail Baron with 5 players using the B&O extends to New York option.  Again our guest Player came out on top with only 4 railroads, but a good network.  (Although I think he eventually would have lost money but we called it due to time constraints.)

++++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR ++++

Tracy Johnson
BT







NNNN]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=482 Wed, 16 Oct 2019 16:53:26 -0400 tmjva]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=482
We had our usual Philly Cheese Steak Pizza with fresh Mozzarella.   Lately we have added diced tomatoes.

++++ SUMMARY ++++

On October 10, we Played two games of TSR's original "Dungeon!" the children's version of D&D played out on a singular map.

The game is full of small cards, 28mm by 38mm.

You start out as one of four types of characters, represented by a simple colored pawn.  A green pawn to be an Elf, a blue pawn to be a Hero, a red pawn to be a uperhero, or a white pawn to be a Wizard.  The objective to return to the start space with prizes as follows:

Elf:  Prizes worth 10,000 gold pieces.
Hero:  Prizes worth 10,000 gold pieces.
Superhero:  Prizes worth 20,000 gold pieces.
Wizard:  Prizes worth 30,000 gold pieces.

Each Monster has a number to roll on two dice to defeat it.  The Elf in this regard has the more difficult die rolls and the Superhero generally has the easier die rolls.  The Wizard also has a much difficulty as the Elf, but he has two spells, Lightning Bolt or Fireball to defeat the Monster.  To mitigate the difficulty of the Elf, the Elf gets to go through secret doors easier.

The layout of Dungeon! very simple, there are a series of rooms color coded for levels one to six.  Each room has a Prize card in it.  On top of each prize card, a Monster card is placed on it.  Players move tokens five spaces down hallways from room to room.  If you open a new room you fight the Monster, if you defeat it, you win the Prize card.  If you lose, you roll on a LOSER table and odds are you may drop a Prize card and retreat.  If you roll snake eyes, boxcars or a three, you drop everything and go to back to the Starting spot.  (On snake eyes your character is dead but you get to start as a new character anyway.)

In any case back to the objectives, the Prizes on levels one, two, and three are smaller and the Monsters are easier to defeat.  Hence the Elf and Hero should stick to those levels.  The Prizes on levels four through six are progressively harder, so the Superhero and Wizard should concentrate there.

Here is the funny part.  Should you drop all your prizes and be sent back to Start, another Player could enter the space where you dropped the prizes, defeat the same Monster and get all your prizes.  Or you can ambush another player and take their prizes.  The game plays with 2 to 12 Players, so in a game with a lot of Players, they have a tendency to follow each other around hoping the other Player has a major defeat to collect the loser's prizes.

There are other small mechanics too numerous to mention them all.

++++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR ++++

Next game is Thursday, we had a new Player show up, so we may get back to HackMaster again.  I have a fallback game in mind if this pans out.

Tracy Johnson

BT








NNNN]]>
We had our usual Philly Cheese Steak Pizza with fresh Mozzarella.   Lately we have added diced tomatoes.

++++ SUMMARY ++++

On October 10, we Played two games of TSR's original "Dungeon!" the children's version of D&D played out on a singular map.

The game is full of small cards, 28mm by 38mm.

You start out as one of four types of characters, represented by a simple colored pawn.  A green pawn to be an Elf, a blue pawn to be a Hero, a red pawn to be a uperhero, or a white pawn to be a Wizard.  The objective to return to the start space with prizes as follows:

Elf:  Prizes worth 10,000 gold pieces.
Hero:  Prizes worth 10,000 gold pieces.
Superhero:  Prizes worth 20,000 gold pieces.
Wizard:  Prizes worth 30,000 gold pieces.

Each Monster has a number to roll on two dice to defeat it.  The Elf in this regard has the more difficult die rolls and the Superhero generally has the easier die rolls.  The Wizard also has a much difficulty as the Elf, but he has two spells, Lightning Bolt or Fireball to defeat the Monster.  To mitigate the difficulty of the Elf, the Elf gets to go through secret doors easier.

The layout of Dungeon! very simple, there are a series of rooms color coded for levels one to six.  Each room has a Prize card in it.  On top of each prize card, a Monster card is placed on it.  Players move tokens five spaces down hallways from room to room.  If you open a new room you fight the Monster, if you defeat it, you win the Prize card.  If you lose, you roll on a LOSER table and odds are you may drop a Prize card and retreat.  If you roll snake eyes, boxcars or a three, you drop everything and go to back to the Starting spot.  (On snake eyes your character is dead but you get to start as a new character anyway.)

In any case back to the objectives, the Prizes on levels one, two, and three are smaller and the Monsters are easier to defeat.  Hence the Elf and Hero should stick to those levels.  The Prizes on levels four through six are progressively harder, so the Superhero and Wizard should concentrate there.

Here is the funny part.  Should you drop all your prizes and be sent back to Start, another Player could enter the space where you dropped the prizes, defeat the same Monster and get all your prizes.  Or you can ambush another player and take their prizes.  The game plays with 2 to 12 Players, so in a game with a lot of Players, they have a tendency to follow each other around hoping the other Player has a major defeat to collect the loser's prizes.

There are other small mechanics too numerous to mention them all.

++++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR ++++

Next game is Thursday, we had a new Player show up, so we may get back to HackMaster again.  I have a fallback game in mind if this pans out.

Tracy Johnson

BT








NNNN]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=481 Wed, 16 Oct 2019 16:43:40 -0400 tmjva]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=481
Games are normally on Thursday nights sometime after 6:00PM at World's Best Comics, 9714 Warwick Blvd Newport News, Virginia 23601.  (Yes I moved back to Thursday.)

++++ SUMMARY ++++

Last game on September 26, we Played two games of Milton Bradley's "Summit" from 1961.  This was a blast from the past from the Cold War that has relevance to Today.  Three to six Players play over a polar projection of a world map and represent major world powers, U.S., Russia, China, Western Europe, India and South American as a whole.  (Given the relevance to the 1960s I think the last two countries were thrown in because they needed to make space for 6 Players.)

The game design offered a "training game" where the random events deck are pre-programmed so the Players learn what to do by doing for the first two turns.  This was our first game so we opted to continue as it was after the pre-programmed turns.  The second game we played naturally.  I won't say what the results were or who won, (mainly because I forgot).

It is actually more fun to describe the game.  The players are supposed to build their economies by spending resources (represented by "I" beams) to build tokens representing steel mills, factories, and military bases on minor countries at a cost of two "I" beams each.  Countries can share the same steel mills and factories, but if you but a military base on a minor country, the mills and factories are removed and the owner gets a token representing scrap to rebuild elsewhere.

Steel mills in your own country produce an "I" beam, and with a hat tip to the colonial exploitation of the time a steel mill in a minor country produces two "I" beams.

The event cards also seem like today's news, for example a trade dispute can make you lose production or that your country develops a new missile so you get a military power token.  One player commented, "These cards can be updated by prefixing it with "Your President's tweet causes ...".

Victory is determined by adding up tokens across the board by event card that calls for a census which may occur several times throughout the game.  You get extra points by having a military base on each country on the final census.

++++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR ++++

Next game is Tomorrow, I plan on bringing out an old TSR classic "Dungeon!" which was a board-like reenactment of a Dungeons & Dragons game back in the day.

Tracy Johnson

BT








NNNN]]>
Games are normally on Thursday nights sometime after 6:00PM at World's Best Comics, 9714 Warwick Blvd Newport News, Virginia 23601.  (Yes I moved back to Thursday.)

++++ SUMMARY ++++

Last game on September 26, we Played two games of Milton Bradley's "Summit" from 1961.  This was a blast from the past from the Cold War that has relevance to Today.  Three to six Players play over a polar projection of a world map and represent major world powers, U.S., Russia, China, Western Europe, India and South American as a whole.  (Given the relevance to the 1960s I think the last two countries were thrown in because they needed to make space for 6 Players.)

The game design offered a "training game" where the random events deck are pre-programmed so the Players learn what to do by doing for the first two turns.  This was our first game so we opted to continue as it was after the pre-programmed turns.  The second game we played naturally.  I won't say what the results were or who won, (mainly because I forgot).

It is actually more fun to describe the game.  The players are supposed to build their economies by spending resources (represented by "I" beams) to build tokens representing steel mills, factories, and military bases on minor countries at a cost of two "I" beams each.  Countries can share the same steel mills and factories, but if you but a military base on a minor country, the mills and factories are removed and the owner gets a token representing scrap to rebuild elsewhere.

Steel mills in your own country produce an "I" beam, and with a hat tip to the colonial exploitation of the time a steel mill in a minor country produces two "I" beams.

The event cards also seem like today's news, for example a trade dispute can make you lose production or that your country develops a new missile so you get a military power token.  One player commented, "These cards can be updated by prefixing it with "Your President's tweet causes ...".

Victory is determined by adding up tokens across the board by event card that calls for a census which may occur several times throughout the game.  You get extra points by having a military base on each country on the final census.

++++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR ++++

Next game is Tomorrow, I plan on bringing out an old TSR classic "Dungeon!" which was a board-like reenactment of a Dungeons & Dragons game back in the day.

Tracy Johnson

BT








NNNN]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=480 Wed, 16 Oct 2019 16:37:07 -0400 tmjva]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=480
Due to a lack of a quorum we played another game of RailBaron with the 21st Century options, namely:

1.  B&O serves New York

2.  You don't have to pay the $1K on your own railroads.  (Saves on time played.)

Oddly enough when not Playing HackMaster I attracted two more players so we had a 5 player game of Rail Baron.

++++ Change of Days ++++

Because the noise and crowd factor on Friday nights is untenable, I'm moving back to Thursday nights.  The other gamers in the room are so loud you can't hear yourself talk.  It is strange that a small room of people who are sitting next to each other feel the need to shout at the top of their lungs.

Tracy Johnson

BT








NNNN]]>
Due to a lack of a quorum we played another game of RailBaron with the 21st Century options, namely:

1.  B&O serves New York

2.  You don't have to pay the $1K on your own railroads.  (Saves on time played.)

Oddly enough when not Playing HackMaster I attracted two more players so we had a 5 player game of Rail Baron.

++++ Change of Days ++++

Because the noise and crowd factor on Friday nights is untenable, I'm moving back to Thursday nights.  The other gamers in the room are so loud you can't hear yourself talk.  It is strange that a small room of people who are sitting next to each other feel the need to shout at the top of their lungs.

Tracy Johnson

BT








NNNN]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=479 Tue, 15 Oct 2019 23:40:30 -0400 tmjva]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=479
We played the board game RailBaron three times, hence there is no HackMaster summary report.  The second game lasted 10 minutes as we determined the winner by early purchases and bad location die rolls by others.   The winner got SAL and ACL before anyone else and two other players rolled Miami as their next destination.

Looking for a quorum next time.  Perhaps we can roll up new characters.

Tracy Johnson
BT







NNNN]]>
We played the board game RailBaron three times, hence there is no HackMaster summary report.  The second game lasted 10 minutes as we determined the winner by early purchases and bad location die rolls by others.   The winner got SAL and ACL before anyone else and two other players rolled Miami as their next destination.

Looking for a quorum next time.  Perhaps we can roll up new characters.

Tracy Johnson
BT







NNNN]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=478 Thu, 05 Sep 2019 20:54:40 -0400 tmjva]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=478
**** THERE WILL BE NO GAME TOMORROW DUE TO WEATHER ****

This concludes a two month hiatus in the campaign.  We have had board games in the interim and cancellations due to absences.  But usually we meet, whether we run the campaign or not.

This is a two session report.  Both nights we had an extra large Philly Cheese Steak with fresh Mozzarella.  The second time we added fresh Tomatoes also.

What has gone before:

[Repeat]  The Party is with a small underground civilization named Cynicism (demonym: Cynics) who are constantly stoned out of their gourd due to the poor diet of mushrooms, underground fish, and lack of sunlight. (I think it's mostly the mushrooms.) The Cynics are controlled by a priestly class of Ba'al worshipers and a tribe of Hobgoblins. The Party has aligned themselves with three rebel Catholic factions whose numbers are still too small (450) to defeat Ba'al. (Ba'al has 550 plus a tribe of 200 Hobgoblins, and a large family of Ogres.)

[New]  This time the party has been reinforced with 500 light foot recruited by Sham the Samurai, 400 from the Duchy of Ten (Town of Rustagern) and 100 from Blackmoor (Gar's Hold).  I set this near the Southwest end of the Blackmoor campaign map near the Nomads of Ten (a.k.a. Plains of Hak).

++++ START OF SESSION ++++

Anyone with a modicum of old D&D knowledge will have figured this is old Basic module B4, "The Lost City" modified for a different set of religions.  Currently the party has decided to assault the government run by Ba'al cultists with reinforcements.  I had transcribed the underground city map from from the module (the oblique map with the lake in the middle) onto a cutting board with a plastic overlay.  Both sides battled it out amongst the buildings.(a)

Because we had large forces I translated this into the 2nd Ed. AD&D BattleSystem rules with 100 person units represented by 10 figures each.  Except the Magi of Jesus which only had 50 Magicians with 5 figures, but as a magical unit they had distance weapons and potentially were more effective than a regular unit.

In this web site version of this post I will add some pictures from the halfway point where we took a three week break.

From the right side of the city, the party set up their forces into units of 10 figures each appearing from buildings "L", "M", and "N" (a) which were the headquarters of the three factions.  200 Brothers of Joseph we called the "Joe Bros" (b), 200 Maidens of Mary ©, and 50 Magi of Jesus (d).  Reinforcements from the Duchy and Blackmoor were to emerge from the main cavern entrance on the upper right side of the map.  Each 100 person unit was also represented by a 6 inch by 4 inch card showing the unit's combat statistics.  You can imagine there were different values shown for Light, Medium, Heavy, and other units.

To make the game more interesting, I told the players to write down their character's name on one of those cards and told them if the unit is eliminated, so is your character.  Sham the Sam(urai) choose the BlackMoor contingent.  Glaxx chose one of the Maidens of Mary units, Paveltepec chose the Magi, Cadfael one of the Joe Bro units, Navel and Thune one of the Duchy reinforcement units each.

I set up the Goblins and the Hobgoblins and tribe of Ogres on the left side of the city on the plateau.

Previously, Glaxx our Druid, used her powers to convince a Giant Constrictor Snake held in the livestock pens from area "F" on the map (a) to help block one of the bridges connecting the plateau to the city to slow down any Hobgoblin reinforcements.  I also made the snake an "Elder Snake" from HackMaster (e) to make it smart enough to understand the request.  Originally, the party wanted the Elder Snake to break the bridges by constriction, after some forethought, I decided the snake wasn't THAT big.  Anyway it did its job as a speed bump and and the Hobgoblins had to fight it to get over the bridge.

Anyway back to the assault, the factions emerged from their buildings and assaulted known barracks and the main temple of Ba'al.  The Joe Bros and the Maidens lead the assault to be backed up by the topside reinforcements based on a die roll for Turn arrival.

To keep players guessing enemy locations with a perfect intelligence assessment, I randomized the Ba'al units among the buildings by placing their cards upside down and added some blank cards.  One known location were the Temple Guards, to which I assigned the Ba'alist Heavy Infantry unit.  I also declared that Ba'alist units would be activated on a die roll or when one of the Player's units came within 5 inches of that unit.  The die roll represented the uncertain effects of the magic mushrooms on the population in its regular diet.  Once the general alarm sounded, it also represented how quickly a unit would muster by getting out of their stupor to put their armor on.

The party quickly defeated the Ba'alist Light and Medium units.  Because of the way BattleSystem works, morale die rolls quickly bring a unit's effectiveness down.  Also figures are lost quickly.  The center lake on the map eventually became a pile of dead figures.

BATTLE HIGHLIGHTS:

The Temple Guards held out for awhile fighting both units of the Maidens of Mary.  But were quickly decimated when the Magi of Jesus unit cast their Magic Missiles and Fireballs on them from a distance.

One of the cards turned over was a unit of Tourist Trolls.  (2 figures, who regenerate hits every turn unless killed outright.)  Defeating them took a few extra turns.
Meanwhile, the Hobgoblins, Hobgoblin Archers, and the Ogre tribe (two figures) finally arrived on the scene and faced the slightly reduced Maidens of Mary and Magi of Jesus.  In a miraculous feat of die rolling, the Hobgoblin Archers got five hits on the Magi of Jesus from a medium distance.  (The number of dice are halved one die for each figure.  Which meant all five dice hit.)  On top of that, all five figures of the Magi failed their Armor Checks which in turn meant that all the Magi were killed in one volley.

After a short pause from that throw, the Player for Pavetepec turned to me and said, "You realize you just killed my character?"

Of course I did.

The Ba'alist Medium and Light infantry held out longer in pitched battles against the Joe Bros but eventually lost due to bad die rolls.  But they lasted long enough to see the Duchy of Ten and Blackmoor reinforcements arrive.  The Ba'alist Archer and Halberd units were then activated just in the nick of time and caused the Duchy and Blackmoor units to retreat back to the cavern entrance due to a morale check.

That is when Ba'al himself showed up at the cavern entrance.  (I used a large Cthulhu-like figure.)

Then I took pictures of surviving unit map locations and we took a three week break.

In the next session the Duchy of Ten and Blackmoor units regained morale and fought Ba'al directly.  I made him a 5 hit unit that regenerated every turn.   Being a large unit, he got two twelve-sided dice to inflict hits, as opposed to six-siders for the Light Infantry facing him.  But Ba'al had bad luck, on those, he rolled a three on one turn and two the next.  The Duchy and Blackmoor units eventually regained their composure and ganged up on Ba'al and imposed 5 unsaved hits to kill it, which took 17 figures hitting all at once.

One the other side of the map the Hobgoblins, Ogres, and Hobgoblin Archers gained the upper hand.  Even though the Ba'alists lost the Ogres the Hobgoblins formed a line in front of their Archers and let the Archers kill all the Maidens of Mary.  (This meant Character Glaxx also died.)  The Hobgoblins then started a march across the city to fight the Duchy and Blackmoor units who had just turned about face and were back to fighting the Halberdiers.

It was touch and go for several turns.  The Blackmoor unit was eventually lost (meaning Sham the Sam's character too).

Finally the Player's side won when they realized once they got into melee with Archers, the Archers were not so effective.  

In the final tally there were only 20 figures left on the Player's side.  All characters except Namo the Thief were killed.

Paveltepec rescued himself by Playing a HackMaster card that said "Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

At that point I reverted the game back to roleplaying mode and told the Players unless Ba'al is permanently killed, he is going to come back.  By this I meant that they had to take Ba'al's center horn and cast it into the lava pit on the island in the center of the lake.  (Much like a bad Conan movie.)

So Namo and Paveltepec went to Ba'al, grabbed his center horn, got onto one of the city's fishing boats and rowed out to the island to do this thing.

"Plop" in to the lava pit it went.

Then I tell them a portal opened up before them.  Cautiously Namo sent one of the surviving Duchy of Ten soldiers though.  The soldier doesn't come back.  So Namo also decides to jump.  Lastly, so does Paveltepec.

(So much for the The Lost City, he Module and the Campaign.)

I told the players they landed in shallow water by a river bank near a swamp area.  In the distance they see people with conical hats in black pajamas tending a rice paddy outside several hooches.

(I was sorely tempted to give the villagers AK-47's and tell the characters they heard music of "Flight of the Valkyries" and a "whop, whop, whop", sound approaching from a distance.  But no, I'm going to keep this a medieval style campaign.  But the ubiquitous greeting, "soldier, me be with you long time" may still be a valid contractual arrangement.  Although I still haven't decided whether the characters can speak the local language.)

At this point I tell them the portal winked out.  

Oh wait, I'll send in the 10 Sprites, along with their musical instruments, just before it does.  (They didn't fight after all, so there should be no penalty.)

Toto, I don't think we're in Blackmoor anymore.


++++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR ++++
BT








BBBB

PART 2.

++++ CHARACTER ROSTER ++++

REFRENCES:

(a) Module B4 "The Lost City", map insert just before page 15.

(b) Brotherhood of Joseph, (originally the Brotherhood of Gorm from Module B4).

© Maidens of Mary, (originally the Warrior Maidens of Madarua from Module B4).

(d) Magi of Jesus, (originally the Magi of Usamigaras from Module B4).

(e) Hacklopaedia of Beasts Vol VII page 86


CHARACTERS

Paveltepec, first level Painted Mage
Sham, first level Samurai (Deceased)
Cadfael, second level Cleric (Deceased)
Glaxx, first level Druid (Deceased)
Namo, first level Thief
Thune, first level Berserker (Deceased)
10 Sprites, in a musical band called the Pharies
500 Light Infantry, enroute (80% deceased)
1000 Cynics (95% deceased)

BT








BBBB

++++ RECORD KEEPING ++++

PART 3.

This is also posted on two forums, and a blog.
http://www.kenzerco.com/forums/forumdisp...ster-Tales
https://blackmoor.mystara.net/forums/viewforum.php?f=76
http://furiouslyeclectic.com/hackmoor/
http://www.furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/f...php?fid=13

++++ PICTURES FROM MIDWAY POINT ++++


  Duchy_Blackmoor_vs_Baal.jpg (Size: 163.56 KB / Downloads: 777)


  Whole_Map_Overview.jpg (Size: 232.81 KB / Downloads: 771)


  Whole_Map_Uberview.jpg (Size: 232.81 KB / Downloads: 792)


  Orpheus_Park_Overview.jpg (Size: 175.27 KB / Downloads: 765)


  Orpheus_Park.jpg (Size: 217.66 KB / Downloads: 808)


  Orpheus_Park_Closeup.jpg (Size: 202.46 KB / Downloads: 800)


  Oblique_Orpheus_Park.jpg (Size: 228.19 KB / Downloads: 786) ]]>
**** THERE WILL BE NO GAME TOMORROW DUE TO WEATHER ****

This concludes a two month hiatus in the campaign.  We have had board games in the interim and cancellations due to absences.  But usually we meet, whether we run the campaign or not.

This is a two session report.  Both nights we had an extra large Philly Cheese Steak with fresh Mozzarella.  The second time we added fresh Tomatoes also.

What has gone before:

[Repeat]  The Party is with a small underground civilization named Cynicism (demonym: Cynics) who are constantly stoned out of their gourd due to the poor diet of mushrooms, underground fish, and lack of sunlight. (I think it's mostly the mushrooms.) The Cynics are controlled by a priestly class of Ba'al worshipers and a tribe of Hobgoblins. The Party has aligned themselves with three rebel Catholic factions whose numbers are still too small (450) to defeat Ba'al. (Ba'al has 550 plus a tribe of 200 Hobgoblins, and a large family of Ogres.)

[New]  This time the party has been reinforced with 500 light foot recruited by Sham the Samurai, 400 from the Duchy of Ten (Town of Rustagern) and 100 from Blackmoor (Gar's Hold).  I set this near the Southwest end of the Blackmoor campaign map near the Nomads of Ten (a.k.a. Plains of Hak).

++++ START OF SESSION ++++

Anyone with a modicum of old D&D knowledge will have figured this is old Basic module B4, "The Lost City" modified for a different set of religions.  Currently the party has decided to assault the government run by Ba'al cultists with reinforcements.  I had transcribed the underground city map from from the module (the oblique map with the lake in the middle) onto a cutting board with a plastic overlay.  Both sides battled it out amongst the buildings.(a)

Because we had large forces I translated this into the 2nd Ed. AD&D BattleSystem rules with 100 person units represented by 10 figures each.  Except the Magi of Jesus which only had 50 Magicians with 5 figures, but as a magical unit they had distance weapons and potentially were more effective than a regular unit.

In this web site version of this post I will add some pictures from the halfway point where we took a three week break.

From the right side of the city, the party set up their forces into units of 10 figures each appearing from buildings "L", "M", and "N" (a) which were the headquarters of the three factions.  200 Brothers of Joseph we called the "Joe Bros" (b), 200 Maidens of Mary ©, and 50 Magi of Jesus (d).  Reinforcements from the Duchy and Blackmoor were to emerge from the main cavern entrance on the upper right side of the map.  Each 100 person unit was also represented by a 6 inch by 4 inch card showing the unit's combat statistics.  You can imagine there were different values shown for Light, Medium, Heavy, and other units.

To make the game more interesting, I told the players to write down their character's name on one of those cards and told them if the unit is eliminated, so is your character.  Sham the Sam(urai) choose the BlackMoor contingent.  Glaxx chose one of the Maidens of Mary units, Paveltepec chose the Magi, Cadfael one of the Joe Bro units, Navel and Thune one of the Duchy reinforcement units each.

I set up the Goblins and the Hobgoblins and tribe of Ogres on the left side of the city on the plateau.

Previously, Glaxx our Druid, used her powers to convince a Giant Constrictor Snake held in the livestock pens from area "F" on the map (a) to help block one of the bridges connecting the plateau to the city to slow down any Hobgoblin reinforcements.  I also made the snake an "Elder Snake" from HackMaster (e) to make it smart enough to understand the request.  Originally, the party wanted the Elder Snake to break the bridges by constriction, after some forethought, I decided the snake wasn't THAT big.  Anyway it did its job as a speed bump and and the Hobgoblins had to fight it to get over the bridge.

Anyway back to the assault, the factions emerged from their buildings and assaulted known barracks and the main temple of Ba'al.  The Joe Bros and the Maidens lead the assault to be backed up by the topside reinforcements based on a die roll for Turn arrival.

To keep players guessing enemy locations with a perfect intelligence assessment, I randomized the Ba'al units among the buildings by placing their cards upside down and added some blank cards.  One known location were the Temple Guards, to which I assigned the Ba'alist Heavy Infantry unit.  I also declared that Ba'alist units would be activated on a die roll or when one of the Player's units came within 5 inches of that unit.  The die roll represented the uncertain effects of the magic mushrooms on the population in its regular diet.  Once the general alarm sounded, it also represented how quickly a unit would muster by getting out of their stupor to put their armor on.

The party quickly defeated the Ba'alist Light and Medium units.  Because of the way BattleSystem works, morale die rolls quickly bring a unit's effectiveness down.  Also figures are lost quickly.  The center lake on the map eventually became a pile of dead figures.

BATTLE HIGHLIGHTS:

The Temple Guards held out for awhile fighting both units of the Maidens of Mary.  But were quickly decimated when the Magi of Jesus unit cast their Magic Missiles and Fireballs on them from a distance.

One of the cards turned over was a unit of Tourist Trolls.  (2 figures, who regenerate hits every turn unless killed outright.)  Defeating them took a few extra turns.
Meanwhile, the Hobgoblins, Hobgoblin Archers, and the Ogre tribe (two figures) finally arrived on the scene and faced the slightly reduced Maidens of Mary and Magi of Jesus.  In a miraculous feat of die rolling, the Hobgoblin Archers got five hits on the Magi of Jesus from a medium distance.  (The number of dice are halved one die for each figure.  Which meant all five dice hit.)  On top of that, all five figures of the Magi failed their Armor Checks which in turn meant that all the Magi were killed in one volley.

After a short pause from that throw, the Player for Pavetepec turned to me and said, "You realize you just killed my character?"

Of course I did.

The Ba'alist Medium and Light infantry held out longer in pitched battles against the Joe Bros but eventually lost due to bad die rolls.  But they lasted long enough to see the Duchy of Ten and Blackmoor reinforcements arrive.  The Ba'alist Archer and Halberd units were then activated just in the nick of time and caused the Duchy and Blackmoor units to retreat back to the cavern entrance due to a morale check.

That is when Ba'al himself showed up at the cavern entrance.  (I used a large Cthulhu-like figure.)

Then I took pictures of surviving unit map locations and we took a three week break.

In the next session the Duchy of Ten and Blackmoor units regained morale and fought Ba'al directly.  I made him a 5 hit unit that regenerated every turn.   Being a large unit, he got two twelve-sided dice to inflict hits, as opposed to six-siders for the Light Infantry facing him.  But Ba'al had bad luck, on those, he rolled a three on one turn and two the next.  The Duchy and Blackmoor units eventually regained their composure and ganged up on Ba'al and imposed 5 unsaved hits to kill it, which took 17 figures hitting all at once.

One the other side of the map the Hobgoblins, Ogres, and Hobgoblin Archers gained the upper hand.  Even though the Ba'alists lost the Ogres the Hobgoblins formed a line in front of their Archers and let the Archers kill all the Maidens of Mary.  (This meant Character Glaxx also died.)  The Hobgoblins then started a march across the city to fight the Duchy and Blackmoor units who had just turned about face and were back to fighting the Halberdiers.

It was touch and go for several turns.  The Blackmoor unit was eventually lost (meaning Sham the Sam's character too).

Finally the Player's side won when they realized once they got into melee with Archers, the Archers were not so effective.  

In the final tally there were only 20 figures left on the Player's side.  All characters except Namo the Thief were killed.

Paveltepec rescued himself by Playing a HackMaster card that said "Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

At that point I reverted the game back to roleplaying mode and told the Players unless Ba'al is permanently killed, he is going to come back.  By this I meant that they had to take Ba'al's center horn and cast it into the lava pit on the island in the center of the lake.  (Much like a bad Conan movie.)

So Namo and Paveltepec went to Ba'al, grabbed his center horn, got onto one of the city's fishing boats and rowed out to the island to do this thing.

"Plop" in to the lava pit it went.

Then I tell them a portal opened up before them.  Cautiously Namo sent one of the surviving Duchy of Ten soldiers though.  The soldier doesn't come back.  So Namo also decides to jump.  Lastly, so does Paveltepec.

(So much for the The Lost City, he Module and the Campaign.)

I told the players they landed in shallow water by a river bank near a swamp area.  In the distance they see people with conical hats in black pajamas tending a rice paddy outside several hooches.

(I was sorely tempted to give the villagers AK-47's and tell the characters they heard music of "Flight of the Valkyries" and a "whop, whop, whop", sound approaching from a distance.  But no, I'm going to keep this a medieval style campaign.  But the ubiquitous greeting, "soldier, me be with you long time" may still be a valid contractual arrangement.  Although I still haven't decided whether the characters can speak the local language.)

At this point I tell them the portal winked out.  

Oh wait, I'll send in the 10 Sprites, along with their musical instruments, just before it does.  (They didn't fight after all, so there should be no penalty.)

Toto, I don't think we're in Blackmoor anymore.


++++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR ++++
BT








BBBB

PART 2.

++++ CHARACTER ROSTER ++++

REFRENCES:

(a) Module B4 "The Lost City", map insert just before page 15.

(b) Brotherhood of Joseph, (originally the Brotherhood of Gorm from Module B4).

© Maidens of Mary, (originally the Warrior Maidens of Madarua from Module B4).

(d) Magi of Jesus, (originally the Magi of Usamigaras from Module B4).

(e) Hacklopaedia of Beasts Vol VII page 86


CHARACTERS

Paveltepec, first level Painted Mage
Sham, first level Samurai (Deceased)
Cadfael, second level Cleric (Deceased)
Glaxx, first level Druid (Deceased)
Namo, first level Thief
Thune, first level Berserker (Deceased)
10 Sprites, in a musical band called the Pharies
500 Light Infantry, enroute (80% deceased)
1000 Cynics (95% deceased)

BT








BBBB

++++ RECORD KEEPING ++++

PART 3.

This is also posted on two forums, and a blog.
http://www.kenzerco.com/forums/forumdisp...ster-Tales
https://blackmoor.mystara.net/forums/viewforum.php?f=76
http://furiouslyeclectic.com/hackmoor/
http://www.furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/f...php?fid=13

++++ PICTURES FROM MIDWAY POINT ++++


  Duchy_Blackmoor_vs_Baal.jpg (Size: 163.56 KB / Downloads: 777)


  Whole_Map_Overview.jpg (Size: 232.81 KB / Downloads: 771)


  Whole_Map_Uberview.jpg (Size: 232.81 KB / Downloads: 792)


  Orpheus_Park_Overview.jpg (Size: 175.27 KB / Downloads: 765)


  Orpheus_Park.jpg (Size: 217.66 KB / Downloads: 808)


  Orpheus_Park_Closeup.jpg (Size: 202.46 KB / Downloads: 800)


  Oblique_Orpheus_Park.jpg (Size: 228.19 KB / Downloads: 786) ]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=475 Thu, 25 Jul 2019 21:46:28 -0400 tmjva]]> http://furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=475
The weather has improved, and I expect a re-attempt at the BattleSystem rules again Tomorrow.

Due to lack of quorums and sometime just due to the awesome heat, we have played mostly Settlers of Catan and Rail Baron for the past few weeks.  The 7th of July had no game at all since I was out of town.  I had not game on July 19 due to the heat.  Although on July 12 we had a change of venue to my home.

Also had a home game on July 13 where we played Axis & Allies and on the 20th we played a couple scenarios of PanzerBlitz.]]>
The weather has improved, and I expect a re-attempt at the BattleSystem rules again Tomorrow.

Due to lack of quorums and sometime just due to the awesome heat, we have played mostly Settlers of Catan and Rail Baron for the past few weeks.  The 7th of July had no game at all since I was out of town.  I had not game on July 19 due to the heat.  Although on July 12 we had a change of venue to my home.

Also had a home game on July 13 where we played Axis & Allies and on the 20th we played a couple scenarios of PanzerBlitz.]]>