Age of Worms Adventure Path – Game Session 45

by: Charles Plemons - July 11th, 2007   Filed under: Age of Worms 1 Comment

Game summary for July 10, 2007; present characters included Iapetus Hasur (hu-charad giant rogue/vigilante), Lady Aridarye Phylund Brokengulf (human aristocrat/harbinger/ranger cohort), Lyrin Sinbal (simian incantatrix/warmage), Morak Beardfist (shield dwarf fighter/rage cleric), Pitamian Kalal (human yang monk), Syvarius Strongbow (moon elf archer-ranger), Taravin Truesilver (human gray guard/paladin of honor), and Thoril Songsteel (human thug).

With the air elementals defeated, the Mercenaries searched the room over. They lowered Taravin 340 feet into the fog and still found no bottom. With no more rope, they gave up that route. Eventually, their elven tracker, Syvarius, discovered an indention on one of the pillars. When the Mosaic of Icosiol was placed within, the party found the route up into the true tomb of the fallen Djen general. Within the room floated a seemless stone sarcophagus carved with images of Icosiol on top and bottom. The bottom depicted him with a pair of swords, while the top held out empty hands.

Soon after entering the room, they were assaulted by a powerful oculus demon from the foul layers of the Abyss. The hulking creature wielded a deadly sword particularly deadly against good creatures. Dark rays of negative energy blasted forth from the eyes covering its body, and those who met its gaze for too long found themselves paralyzed by the sight. The arcane casters, Lyrin and Moreto, found their spells rolled off the creature more often than not, and flaming arrows seemed not to phase it. The fighting was brutal and bloody, but eventually, Lyrin began a barrage of lesser sonic orbs capable of inflicting devastating wounds. The simian caster ended the battle with a well-placed orb that exploded the demons head like a melon.

After nursing their substantial injuries, the party turned to the room. They searched it top to bottom and eventually placed the Mosaic of Icosiol into the upreaching hands of the sarcophagus. This caused the slab to flip over, lower down and the top to melt away. Inside were the dusty and bone remains of General Icosiol as well as his weaponry, preserved through the ages to fight rising evil when needed. The spirit of Icosiol washed over the group, filling them with its anger and jealously at their living state, but once it divined their intent, his blessing settled up them. In addition to the treasures within the sarcophagus, the ring of the Djen, a lightning sword, the sword of Teshyllal, and a fragment of the Shattered Scepter of Calim, Icosiol’s blessing also awakened the full power of the party’s talisman of the sphere and the diadem of Icosiol.

The rejoicing was short-lived however, because the hiss of a drawing blade filled the air, and a wickedly grinning Moreto boldly told the Mercenaries, “I’ll take those.”

Air Force, United Arab Emirates

by: Charles Plemons - July 9th, 2007   Filed under: Letters Add Comment

Received the following email:

Mr. Plemons-
My name is —–; I’m a Technical Sergeant (TSgt) deployed to the same base as —–. I read the letter you were kind enough to draft and send over here. I, for one, very much appreciate efforts by folks like yourself to make sure we know we’re appreciated and not forgotten. While it’s certainly not as comfortable as home, our living conditions here are certainly far from bad. The worst part, for me, anyway, is being away from my wife and son. My wife and I are both —– years old, with me being 17 days older than her; it’s something I kid her about from time to time. Our son is a little over —– years old, and a constant source of pride and frustration, as I am quite sure you can relate to.

While I have no experience with a family member with Down’s Syndrome, I can only guess the amount of love and hard work that’s involved. Since you signed your letter “In Christian love,” I feel comfortable sharing with you that my wife and I believe that God graces such special children to the parents He feels will care for them best. So know that I consider you and your wife to be special people, and your family will be in my prayers tonight.

I don’t share the same degree of interest in the UFC as you, though I have watched a few matches since being deployed here. It is an interesting sport, and one I’d be much more inclined to watch regularly than the so-called professional wrestling (WWE and that sort). I know the wrestlers/actors for the WWE are atheletes, in the sense that they need to be in very good shape to do what they do, but I don’t consider their form of entertainment to be a sport.

As to one of the questions you posed in your letter, yes there are a few gamers over here that I’m aware of, and I suspect more than that. I, too, started playing DnD at an early age (around 10 to 11), and have enjoyed it, as well as quite a few other different systems. One of the Security Forces folks is actually running a campaign here, which I would love to get involved in. Unfortunately, his shift and mine are different enough to make that impractical.

Well, it’s 2:40 a.m. here, which is 6:40 p.m. on the East coast. It’s time I got to bed, since I have to be on the bus to head in to work by 11:45 a.m. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot them my way, and I’ll answer them as best I can. Thank you again for taking the time to express your support and letting some of us get to know you.

Take care and God bless!
—–
Air Force

Age of Worms Adventure Path – Game Session 44

by: Charles Plemons - July 6th, 2007   Filed under: Age of Worms Add Comment

Game summary for July 5, 2007; present characters included Ashkor (lizardfolk barbarian/battle sorcerer/dragon disciple/fighter), Iapetus Hasur (hu-charad giant rogue/vigilante), Lady Aridarye Phylund Brokengulf (human aristocrat/harbinger cohort), Lyrin Sinbal (simian incantatrix/warmage), Morak Beardfist (shield dwarf fighter/rage cleric), Pitamian Kalal (human yang monk), Taravin Truesilver (human gray guard/paladin of honor), and Thoril Songsteel (human thug).

After spending some time examining the doors, the party decided they needed to try using the strange seal to open it. They had to revise their deal with Moreto, however; in addition to their normal deal, he asked for three shares of any treasures found beyond the doors. With no other options, they agreed, and Moreto whispered the command words to Taravin. Holding the seal aloft, Taravin uttered the words, and the doors swung open.

Beyond was a large room with a high ceiling and a plunging pit for a floor. About fifty feet down, blue swirling flog obscured everything else. Across the rooms (about fifty feet away) stood two more identical doors. Between the party and this door was the gaping pit and a series of stone pillars. With astounding agility, Ashkor lept from pillar to pillar, skipping some entirely, until he made it to the other doors. Following suit, Pitamian made the trip across. Unfortunately, a pair of greater air elementals came up from the depths and assaulted the party.

The clash was epic in scale, with the party divided and the air elementals buffetting the team with vicious blows. One even took the form of a tornado and swooped up several of the party. The Mercenaries threw everything they had at the creatures, from melee, to ranged attacks, to spells. Moreto and his mohrgs joined the fray, although the mohrgs appears fairly useless agains the airy monsters. The Marquis, however, revealed at least some arcane might, as he blasted away with lightning bolt after lightning bolt against the creatures. He even used a black-rayed wand to weaken one of them.

Tarravin attempted to smite one of the elementals only to discover he could not. Pitamian, from within the tornado unleashed a flurry of punches and kicks. Thoril rained punishing blows from the edge of the pit while Aridarye peppered the elementals with moonsilver shards. Dwarven battlepriest, Morak, ran about healing his companions and Ashkor joined Pit in the swirling vortex. Even Iapetus got into the fray, abandoning his hit-and-run tactics for some solid flail-bashing. Eventually, spell and steel won out, eliminating the elemental threat.

With several of their resources depleted, the party must now decide how to figure out the room. Just moments before the elemental onslaught, Ashkor had discovered the far doors to be fake. Is there anything else of interest here, or is it just one big elaborate trap?

Army, Iraq

by: Charles Plemons - July 5th, 2007   Filed under: Letters Add Comment

Received the following email:

Dear Mr. Plemons,

I’d like to personally thank you for your package that you sent to us. The office supplies will be used swiftly by my medics. Also appreciate the toiletries and bowls. The Soldiers and I do not get to the dining facility very often, because it is about a 20 minute walk in the heat and we usually do not get off duty from work until about 1800 hours. Most will work out for at least an hour after that and then call their wives and children. So, having food around in our barracks is very helpful…and the bowls you provided will be used.

My unit and I are assigned in Baghdad with a very challenging and unique mission, which I cannot discuss, but know that we really appreciate all of the support from our brothers and sisters back in the U.S. We know that the press cannot override the reality of what we are doing. God is with us and will protect us from harm as we complete the mission he has assigned each of us, whether here or back home. Again, we’d like to thank you for your generosity and kindness shown to us.

Respectfully,

—–
U.S. Army

Air Force, Kuwait

by: Charles Plemons - July 3rd, 2007   Filed under: Letters Add Comment

Received the following email:

Thanks for the letter, I received it from —–. There are two AF companies and he is in the other one, but we work together a lot. I really respect the people who take a little time out of their day to remind us over here that even when people don’t agree with a war, they still support the soldiers, sailors, airman, and marines. Thanks to you and anyone else in this program.

My niece just learned to crawl too, I here she is going everywhere. I commend you on the purchase of another Honda, I’m a Honda guy myself. You just can’t beat the quality and reliabilty of a Honda. My wife and I have a 2003 Civic EX coupe. Its the nicest thing I’ve ever owned so I baby it so much my wife complains.

There are actually a lot of UFC fans over here. Im a fan but I usually only watch the pay per views. They show them for free here on AFN (Armed Forces Network). I don’t know fighters or anything, I just watch for a good fight. I imagine it will surpass boxing in popularity pretty soon.

I am actually an avid gamer, mainly adult board games (Puerto Rico, Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan, etc.), Magic the Gathering limited tournaments, and video games. I never got into D&D no matter how hard my uncle tried. He goes to GenCon every year too. I have read some of the material for Vampire: The Masquerade, its a pretty neat setting for a role-playing game, more my style than Forgotten Realms style role-playing.

Thanks for all the news updates, especially about the shark, my wife loves anything interesting about animals. You will learn to love Macs just as much as you love PCs. The hardest part is finding programs to replace the usual stuff on your PC.

A little about myself:
I am happily married, she is actually deployed in the same unit as me. It is a blessing and a curse 🙂 We had both of our birthdays and our anniversary over here so far. We both drive convoys for the Air Force, it is a dangerous job but one that is very noble. My good friend was KIA a couple weeks ago. It was a really hard thing for us, The Air Force isn’t too used to people dying in action since most stay on base “behind the wire”. On lighter notes we only have double digits left until we get out of here. We will return to Fayetteville, NC and continue our happy young lives. We are origianally from Indianapolis, so probably not too far from you. I used to go to Kentucky Kingdom all the time when I was a kid. I heard someone died on the Superman, cable snapped or something and it her.

Well, I’ve got to go
Thanks again for your thoughts and prayers

“Any Airman”

note: Sorry I can’t give you my name but the internet isn’t too secure.