In the panel above you should see links to pages about the games I’m currently playing. Those pages will have links to blog posts with actual play posts, technique thoughts and houserules. Other pages that aren’t at the top of the blog at the moment are:
The quote above is clearly me not remembering the famous Sid Meier quote about game design: “Games are a series of interesting decisions.” Thank you to those who have pointed that out.
At the bottom of most blog posts you might notice links to my Threadless shop. A few years ago I started combining my librarian’s passion for finding old out-of-copyright pics and general geekery with the Affinity Art Suite and this Threadless shop was born. I set up the shop so the proceeds that would go to me go to amazing organizations. As of November 30th, 2023, the shop has earned $710.67 total for organizations like Medshare India, Fair Fight, National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network, National Center for Transgender Equity, National Network for Abortion Funds and many more.
tl;dr: Tamrin’s Outlaw Friends drove off 11 Crookhorns, felling almost half of them but at a cost.
This was after clarifying the map. Crookhorns had run all over the place. There were arrows hither and yon. It was a confusing mess.
Princess and Madame fell but held on (1 round for every point of Constitution felt more right than 0 = death). I’ll have the other characters say more and add more personality to the combat. I felt like I was giving too much energy to getting the procedures just right.
Princess used her Grimalkin ability to turn into a near-invisible blur of claws and teeth behind bloodshot-berserker-eyes before falling.
Spiro tried to backstab a Crookhorn but missed, resorting to a desperate head-butt before the battle ended. He spent much of the battle near-death.
Morain made herself a big target and took the brunt of the damage, bleeding frozen blood as she almost fell.
Ebbi rained death from atop the willow tree and saved both Princess and Madame Pusskin’s life when she rushed to find her mushroom-loving friend and get a second dose of Ghost Shroom. Princess gave Ebbi her shiniest marble as a thank-you for saving her friend.
In the end, the Crookhorns failed a morale save and ran. One of them protested, “But I was about to burn down this willow tree!” Still, they ran.
tl:dr: Ebbi makes a skeleton friend and then the group runs into an old enemy and a mob of Crookhorns…
During the week I asked if the group wanted to move north along the lake or take the more direct route through the forest. The forest-lovers seemed to take the day. Off we went.
We started a touch late and we were tired, so we ended a little early, getting a little less than an hour to game. It was short and that was okay. I could use the time to flesh out my thoughts on Hoarblight Keep. As usual, the encounter tables and hex details of Dolmenwood delivered. That said, looking for Getting Lost rules was a little frustrating, ping-ponging me back and forth between PDF’s in a way that would’ve been frustrating with a book too. For some reason the miro board I set up with lots of screen shots of the PDF was coming up really blurry.
Ebbi got nice spotlight time picking some Spirithame mushrooms (which we quickly renamed Ghost Shrooms after I couldn’t find the description and just winged it, saying they glowed with a ghostly blue light) and doing a successful foraging dance. Tamrin, Princess, Madame and Spiro looked like they were unhappy in the cold spring rain. Moraine was feeling the Faery Malaise of the area – Ebbi seemed in her element. While in the midst of a great day, Ebbi was a touch ahead of the group, looking for shelter, as they were hoping to end the travel day early amidst miserable pouring rain.
She ran right into Colly, a polished white animated skeleton with an armful of mushrooms and a strange rune on her skull. Ebbi and Colly quickly started talking mushrooms (Colly communicates with understandable teeth whistles) and became best friends right away.
Moraine, Colly and Ebby headed out while the rest of the crew set up camp, started a fire and sought to dry off under the cliff overhang Ebbi had found for them. I forget why I decided I had to roll a random encounter. Someone had rolled something and it seemed clear that they were about to run into something dangerous. They did.
Sir Blackchurch came crashing through the underbrush without a weapon, shield dented, brow cut, horns covered in someone else’s blood. “Crookshanks!” he exclaimed, “We need to fight together or we are doomed. They are sworn to Chaos itself!”
Moraine assessed, making sure it wasn’t fae trickery (the player asked me some questions and I answered – it did seem wildly unlikely but they soon realized they could trust what they were seeing) and handed the Breggle knight who had been taking Tamrin to be beheaded, who had been hunting all of them, who had been their mortal enemy her spear, took out her sword and banged it against her own shield, being able to hear the approaching Crookshanks.
Having heard the Crookshank’s hunting horn bellow, Spiro put on his jacket and took out his knives, Princess ran to help her friends, Madame drew her blade – saluted no one and followed Princess and Tamrin ran after his friends to do whatever bards do when Crookshanks attack.
We’ll start there in a few weeks.
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The list of people I’d wake up to talk to about gaming at 6 in the morning on a Saturday is pretty short but MadJay is at the top of that list.
Thank you to the professional and amazing support staff at Big Bad Online.
In case you missed it, here it is:
Join us for an engaging discussion on the allure of sandbox play as we dig into the immersive worlds of Dolmenwood and Twilight: 2000. Delve into player-driven narratives, emergent play, and the unique experiences offered by these two vastly different RPG settings. Whether you’re a seasoned sandbox enthusiast or new to the concept, this panel promises insights, inspiration, and plenty of food for thought. Don’t miss out on discovering what makes sandbox play so captivating in Dolmenwood and Twilight: 2000.
As we start our Ioun City campaign, I asked that we start with only the Mage, the Thief and the Fighter on the table, using the d6 rules and alternate Fighter rules – all included with the Mage in Carcass Crawler #1. We’ll add classes and other kindred slowly but surely. This got us started quickly with simple characters who could gain depth with time as the world’s lore was learned and things got stranger and stranger.
We’ll add more character options through play, like downloading DLC, whenever the players make significant contact with another group and enter into some kind of agreement with them. Maybe doing a job for the kobold construction workers in Crown Town would open up kobolds as a playable kindred. Taking a job or making some kind of agreement with the local Temple of the Arcane Trinity will open up the Acolyte (also in Carcass Crawler #1, linked above). It will give us a fun result after make contact with factions and encourage us make new characters for the fun of it.
Posted to the FB group for this game:
So, I’ve got this idea on the Ioun City game and when Anthony asked if he could play a Halfling, I realized I had not explained it. So, we unlock new character options by interacting with the world. So, if you go do a job with the Anvilless (The Dwarven Crime Syndicate) who you met last week – you can hire Dwarven retainers and/or make Dwarven characters to play.
That way the gang gets stranger as you make more and more contact with the strangeness of the world around you. If we make contact with something without a clear character option we’ll either see if someone else has made something out in the internets or make it ourselves.
Sound like fun?
Message to FB Group
There is totally a place for a game that starts with a robot, a devil-person and a scrappy thief venturing into a monster-haunted hole. I dig those games. That just isn’t this game (at least not yet it isn’t; the night is young).
As heard on the Daydreaming about Dragons podcast, the Inspiration Goat helps me process media and take parts that are useful for the gaming table.
This isn’t about the hottest new thing or the crowdfunding with the biggest payday; it is just a few geeky things that are inspiring me.
It might be weekly; it might be monthly. It all depends on how fast the inspiration goat chews on media and who can know the chewing speed of my favorite very-real goat?
Click the link, put it on your calendar and join us.
From the Epic Isometric Patreon. When asked what we’d do should we encounter something like this I wrote the following and it might end up being a Thing:
Start butchering it to sell the parts to alchemists, mages and dragon-cultists. Send someone to fetch the nearest dragon-slayer or settle for a dragon-survivor, someone who knows something about dragons so we can figure out where this glorious beast came from, as its lair is now unguarded. We need to get started before the dragon-gold rush begins.
We never thought to ask, “What killed it? What is capable of that?”
(I think this is a novel I want to write more than a game I want to run).
Not new but something I need to remember is out there – The Underclock.
I do love that it is countdown, which makes the time pressure feel much more palpable at the table. I would say “you’ve been in this dungeon for 3 hours now” and no one would care. I would roll a random encounter check and players would glance over. But people pay more attention to the Underclock.
“But Arnold, doesn’t this allow players to game the system? If the Underclock gets down below 6, won’t they just hunker down somewhere safe until it goes below 0?” – You, probably.
The Warden by Daniel M. Ford is the next book on my nightstand. Can’t wait.
When we started using the Bingo XP Variant, in the Sigil 6 Campaign, I didn’t realize that by keeping the squares on our jamboard (a moment of silence for jamboard, google reader and google plus…) that we’d have a series of signposts showing our hopes, fears, accomplishments and dreams for the campaign. I didn’t anticipate that this would be a fun artifact that would remind me of fun times had with friends.
tl;dr: The group crept into the abandoned temple where the previous gang who ruled the streets of the Dullgray Riverfront neighborhood had their HQ and ran headlong into a water weird.
I grabbed a lovely Dyson Logos Map and wrote notes on it. I didn’t have much. There was a Spotted Lion outside on the river entrance. There were ghouls in the basement. I was going to put a water weird in the pools of water and almost balked when I read the Monster Manual entry.
I’m glad I stuck to it. Yes, it nearly killed half the party. Yes, it might still kill the entire party. Still, it is now one of my favorite monsters of all time.
Tomo the Belt (Fighter 2) and Ocean (Thief 2) got together with their friends Gavin (Mage 1) and Noose (Thief 1) to clear out the abandoned temple the previous gang who held the Dullgray Riverfront as their turf used as their HQ.
But wait! As folks were getting acquainted, Gavin the Mage (yes, named after the creator of the Mage and OSE, the game we were playing), mentioned that he stole scrolls from his master. Gavin’s player was going to just say the scrolls he bought were those scrolls but no, I dig that. I randomly rolled to see the level and then rolled the spells. Rolled to see how adeptly Gavin chose those spells – not so well. Angry Mage incoming…some day.
What levels are the spells, though? I jotted down a quick 2d6 table on my handy-dandy office whiteboard: 2 – 5, First Level Spell 6, Second Level Spell 7 – 8, Third Level Spell 9 – 10, Fourth Level Spell 11, Fifth Level Spell 12, Sixth Level Spell
Perfect? No, but it worked. Gavin started with some extra spells – Light, Water Breathing and Wizard Lock.
They entered on the river-side, where there was a little amphitheatre that the river was slowly eating. While they were looking at the body of a drowned guardsman from the Order of the Spindle (Ioun City’s constables) a spotted lion walked up with a deer in its jaws (rolled on the Monster Reaction Table and it was uninterested – made sense). The giant effing lion sniffed at them and began eating. The mastiff Tomo had bought strained against its leash (rolled on the Monster Reaction Table to see how the pooch reacted to the lion…Sparky wanted blood).
Two Conversations About Sparky
Conversation 1 “I want to buy a wardog.” “Dogs bark. We need to be stealthy.” “You find a mercenary company camping outside the city, more than willing to sell you a mastiff that was meant to be a guard dog but she refused to bark.” “I name her Sparky.”
Conversation 2 We talked about violence to animals. Everyone was okay with a pet dying in-game. I have dear friends who can play in the bloodiest of horror but violence to dogs, horses and cats is a no-no. I get it, seeing our real-life four-legged family sucks. I dont’ want anyone to have to relive that. But the green light was given. Pet death is on the table.
They made their way through the temple. Noose desecrated every shrine to the River Goddess and her Children she could find; we found out she had been sent to become a nun and returned with the scar on her neck that birthed her nickname. Eek! Eek! They found a word written on a wall in a language none of them knew, written in the same chalk that the warnings on the front door were written in. They found books – one on Morganti Blades (I’m reading Jhereg audiobooks on the way to work) and another on the angry incarnations of the River Goddess – how she often cursed places with river ghouls and water weirds.
Then I rolled a random encounter while they were searching a room. They heard a ghoul trigger a Magic Mouth spell in the hall. They got surprise and drove it down to 1 hit point. It threw its hands up and surrendered. Tomo grabbed his rope in one of his sacks (iron spikes, hammer, mirror, crowbar, 10 foot pole, more sacks, etc.) and tied the ghoul up. It offered to show them the treasure in the pools.
I rolled some quick dice behind the scenes and the Water Weird was in the third pool. The ghoul hauled out an unreal amount of treasure – jewlery and gold. The Water Weird attacked but they were ready for it thanks to the book’s foreshadowing. The group was ready to run when Gavin the Mage ran past them with his staff aglow. Jesse read the Mage power:
In the hands of a mage, a normal staff can harm creatures that are immune to mundane attacks.
Had to make a ruling on drowning rules. Decided it was d6 Con damage per round and then a Save vs. Death every round once Con hit zero. They seemed to defeat the monster and dragged their friends from its pool, where they had been drowning. Anthony described Tomo vomitting river water out of his lungs while laughing at Gavin’s mad charge at the Water Weird (a monster that I described as I remembered Larry Elmore drawing it on the cover of Dungeons of Dread, angry water in the shape of a cobra).
It reformed before their eyes and we’ll start there next week.
It felt like I had done a decent job of stocking the dungeon. I had stocked some real duds in the past year, so it was nice to whip up a good one. This was a fun way to flesh out the religion along the river before the Ioun Stones brought in Mages and their industry and their Arcane Trinity Church (more on them later).
tl;dr: Tamrin’s Outlaw Friends saved him in Lankshorn and headed north towards Hoarblight Keep (as you do).
If you want to play through Dolmenwood with no setting spoilers, you might not want to read this.
On their way towards Lankshorn the posse ran across a trio of Woodgrue Musicians, the Lumpfrisk Trio (Grunkle, Krungus and Wumpus) all playing their enchanting music to keep farmers at bay while they made a stew out of the veggies they stole from said farmers. Moraine, the only member of the group who didn’t fail their save, paid the farmer’s a fair bit of silver for their veggies and sent them on their way. Hearing how everyone’s character danced to the Woodgrue music was a lovely way to start the evening.
The trio shared their stew and were playing the song Tamrin wrote about the Lord of Nodding Castle. They had run across Tamrin in a cage-carriage. The crew found out that there was a knight, a squire, a merchant and the merchant’s caravan guards keeping Tamrin; they’d probably run into them in Lankshorn.
On the road outside of Lankshorn Moraine drew a line in the mud – beyond this point she’d only see Tamrin in freedom. Ebbi and Spiro found a deer carcass and dragged it into the road along with a dead tree, hoping to both block the carriage’s path and drew Night Worms. Ebbi noticed the tracks of a big wolf pack moving towards Lankshorn. That is odd. Asking the roots about it, the earth said (I rolled a d6 to see how many words the Roots could say: 3 words) “Shape Changed Witches.”
Moraine wondered if Princess Donut might use her considerable charm to go into town and scout it out. The good Princess liked the compliment and went into town with Madam Pusskin, Right Claw of King Pusskin, at her side. As Princess got to the local inn, she saw a Breggle Knight, Sir Craglow Blackchurch, and his squire, setting the local constabulary to guard Tamrin, who was in the carriage-cage. Sir Blackchurch just wanted some warm food. Hank was concerned about rumors of a wolf pack running around the town but in the end, listened to the knight.
Princess, armed with the head constable’s name (Hank) and a garbage can lid ensorcelled to look like Sir Blackchurch’s shield with the knight’s heraldry upon it (Silver Goat’s head/Black Church), told Hank that he was relieved of duty as per Sir Blackchurch’s orders, “You are free to go hunt down that dangerous wolf pack!” Confused, Hank went to find the wolves.
Princess and Madame drove the cart out of Lankshorn with Tamrin grinning within. Everything went fine until the Night Worms attacked the carriage’s horse, drawn to the road by Ebbi and Spiro’s deer carcass. NOTE: I rolled 3d20 to see how long it would be until Sir Blackchurch and Squire would notice the carriage was gone, thinking they could be right on their trail or quite a bit clueless. They were 20 rounds late.
The Night Worm was attacking a horse and everyone seemed uncomfortable with the cruelty to the horse. We agreed that the horse got away and the Night Worm that wasn’t interested in the deer carcass would instead attack them. Long story short, they drove one Night Worm off and the others dragged the deer back to their lair.
The plan was to head eastward but Tamrin was nervous about heading east, the direction they were taking him to be beheaded. Moraine, ever the fairy patriot, suggested they head northwest to Hoarblight Keep. Everyone shrugged and agreed.
Moraine had suggested the 13 Bandits go west to waylay the knight, who would soon be on his way. Surely the 13 Bandits and 13 wolves (who are really witches shape-shifted into wolves) would go forth and have their own adventures. Both of the groups of 13 were rolled entirely randomly.
And so the group headed north and west towards Hoarblight Keep. Princess could sense a terrible presence watching them all. They ran across a camp of goblins with a human baby, feeding it cooked worm. When one goblin said, “The Lord of the Pit will treat the baby well, right?” The rest of the goblins assured their friend that the Lord of the Pit LOVED children.
Trusting the goblins’ judgment, the group walked on without comment, never alerting the goblins to their presence.
They entered a border the next day that made Princess and Moraine feel malaise, as if they didn’t belong there but when they came to healthier woods and a small herd of deer happily grazing at dusk, Ebbi was confident they were in healthier lands. Spiro watched a trio of 20 foot pythons curl themselves around their campfire. Surely, a good omen for their journey to Hoarblight Keep.
We had agreed to just play 3 sessions but we renewed and will keep playing for a bit. The hex contents, overall situations on the move and random encounters very much give the feel of a lived-in fairy tale world.
I have a copy of this map in the notebook I carry that has notes and highlighter marks all over it.
For the first adventure I rolled up a rookie party and a higher level party and asked the group which one they wanted to burgle. Since the Mage’s player was out tonight, we went with the lower level party.
Rolling up a quick party was dead-easy. I pasted the parties into a doc and rolled up treasure they might’ve scored. I also rolled 2d6 to see how their adventure went and got a 7 – they took some shots but did fine, all healed up by the time they got back.
The Graymantles are led by a pair of dwarven siblings, Kheldrul and Vondaic Graymantle (thank you, Fantasy Name Generator) in charge of Hamen of the Lake, a Fighter, Egron, a Mage and Graviel, a Cleric. I decided that most Clerics will be bodyguards for Mages, trained at the local Church of the Arcane Trinity. I’ve got notes about that Trinity around here somewhere…
Tomo the Belt (Fighter 1) and Ocean (Thief 1) watched the Graymantles outside of the Four Javelins Inn (Upper and Ground) within the riverside area, Dullgray, that is their turf. I rolled the Monster Reaction Table (maybe my favorite table ever) to see how the inn-keeper felt about them and old Ludolf thought well enough but not enough to mess up his reputation among adventurer clientelle. The old man did not tell Ocean which rooms they were in and they decided not to mess up their neighbor’s business. Tomo tried to join the party but they weren’t buying a bragging warrior who didn’t have a weapon.
So, they followed they Graymantle Brothers as they took the group’s jewlery to get it appraised in the Dwarven neighborhood, Holdfast. They left the rest of the party at the 4 Javelins to guard the gold. Tomo and Ocean followed the brothers at a distance and the Thief rolled a Sneak (failed) and a Pick Pocket (success!) to steal the bag of jewlery. We discussed it, did we need two rolls? I proposed that if he was successful in his sneak, he’d get a +1 to the Pick Pocket (we’re using the d6 rules from Carcass Crawler #1). Ocean’s player wasn’t excited about that roll so I suggested that if he got a 6 on the Sneak, he’d get a +2 on the Pick Pocket. That was a chance he was willing to make. That roll set the tone.
They got 2200GP worth of jewlery from a barrow in that roll and promptly got drunk in celebration. During their hangovers, as they tested the jewlery by putting it on to see if it was magic. I had some fun describing the jewlery and what it said about the ancient king who wore it. The ring showed that he was highly regarded by his family. The armlet was in the shape of a snake, showing that he was dangerous in battle and the ancient iron crown with stones in it showed the king’s wisdom.
Yoretain Boneforged showed up with two other dwarves, who waited across the street, playing a dice game. I described her was a guy described his dwarven character some decades ago and I always liked it. She had a tattoo of a dragon that went down her nose so that her bright red facial hair (mustache and beard) looked like dragon-fire. I think the visitor-to-our-group’s name was Justin…not sure, it was some time ago.
She was a rep from the Anvilless, a dwarven criminal syndicate that ran a part of town folks called, The Holdfast, where dwarf crafts-folk lived and their children, rebelling against their parents’ ways, turned to violence and crime. They worked out a deal, where the Greymantle brothers could buy back their jewlery with some of their share of the gold coins from the barrow and not lose face to the rest of the adventuring party. They gained an ally with one of the city’s factions.
At some point, discussing how their predecessors went outside the city, chasing gold and experience in an outside-the-city delve, and never returned. We decided Tomo and Ocean had not yet moved into that headquarters but isntead, in the tradition of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, lived in a derelict building. Next game, we go into that building and clear it out – because obviously some monster crawled in from the river and made it their lair.
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