The new Fiendish Codex II is out, and it details the Nine Hells and their denizens. You can see some very interesting excerpts at Wizards of the Coast. They have also posted an art gallery filled with some absolutely fantastic work.
Finding Players
Wizards of the Coast linked to an interesting web site, Meetup.com. You select what you are interested in, and your ZIP code, and it lists other people looking to find the same thing in your area. For example, if you were wanting to find a group playing Vampire: The Masquerade that is looking for a player, you could look here. It looks like it handles far more than role-playing meet ups. Kind of neat.
Game Results for December 7, 2006
It was game session 20 of the Age of Worms campaign and the beginning of the third Adventure Path, The Encounter at Cromm’s Hold. The party found Smenk had stiffed them on his payment and skipped town. However, Delfen met them with eager excitement to see his apprentice alive and the party successful. However, he voiced concerns regarding one of his former apprentices, Marzena. A messenger delivering a letter to her had not returned, and Delfen asked Lyrin and company to ride the 18 miles from Daggerford to Cromm’s Hold to investigate.
The party travelled overland without incident, only to find the keep under siege by a group of 30 lizardfolk. The party approached on horseback and were spotted by some humans manning the battlements of the keep. The soldiers were soon signaling the party for help, and the lizardfolk noticed the approaching horses. Seeing reinforcements arrive, the lizardfolk redoubled their efforts to take the keep, with some attacking the door while others rained javelins up at the humans to keep them pinned down. A group broke away from the horde to face the coming cavalry.
Before the fighting could begin in earnest, Lyrin recited a spell from a scroll he had purchased the day before. For the first time in his life, Lyrin hurled a fireball! The globe exploded in orange- and yellow-hued glory, instantly killing numerous lizardfolk and sending several others twitching to the ground with mortal wounds. Heartened by its effectiveness, the party charged forward to meet the menace head on.
In a few moments, arrows from the party picked off the group of lizardfolk moving to engage. A second, and final, fireball scroll took down several more lizardfolk near the door of the keep. Morak galloped up close to the keep, dismounted and engaged the enemy toe-to-toe and was followed closely by dual-whip swinging Valgen and the stoic Thoril. Brutus split a lizardfolk in half as he pounced on him from off his horse, and then he re-mounted and drove the other lizardfolk into the waiting weapons of Valgen, Thoril and Morak. Cam continued his barrage of arrows from horseback, while Lyrin began picking off targets with magic missile.
The apparent leader of the lizardfolk led the survivors in a last desperate assault on the party, dealing damage to Morak and Valgen in the process. The ranks held, however, and the last lizardfolk was cut down. In but moments, what had seemed a menacing army lay charred, pierced, slashed or smashed on the ground. With their victory complete, the party turned toward the door of the keep to see about the defenders.
Minis and Mapping
Steve Winter is doing a series of interesting articles at the Wizards of the Coast web site. The latest involves various ways to do maps in role-playing. Some of the ideas I hadn’t really thought about. The previous article about range bands is intriguing as well.
Deck of Many Things
Green Ronin has created an interesting product, an actual, physical deck of many things. This horrific (blessed?) item has existed in many versions of Dungeons & Dragons over the years and is often done with tarot decks or playing cards. It is neat to see a dedicated product to put this dreadful item in your hands. Check it out here.
Game Results for November 30, 2006
Game session 19 of the Age of Worms campaign is in the books. The party continued down into the deepest corridors of the caves of Bhaal to find Grallak Kur and his minions. The party fought for some time, with Valgen succumbing to cause fear and Brutus to hold person. Fortunately, both effects ended fairly quickly. The group succeeded in capturing Grallak and interrogating him; however, they had trouble finding useful questions to pose. Valgen inhaled some hallucinogenic mushroom vapors and had a bizarre vision about Bane, Bhaal, Myrkul and the Age of Worms.
Eventually, the party drew tired of interrogating Grallak and listening to him telling them the Overgod will rise if they kill him. So, they killed him. The group then left the caves and returned to the large pool room with the elevator, only to find the elevator smashed, and a six-armed, ogre-sized monstrosity splintering the last bits of the only exit.
This creature wheeled on the party and tore into them. It seemed to feed on magic and surged with unholy energy, making its wounds heal instantly and arrow and blade flow from its hide like water. The party’s newly discovered dwarven rage cleric nearly met death at the claws of the colossus, but a quick-thinking Valgen dragged him to safety. Lyrin found that fire did nothing to the beast, and Cam’s arrows proved a minor irritation. However, the combined pressure from the entire party wore down the monster’s stamina, and it eventually exploded in a burst of gore when finally chopped down.
The party made plans to scale the chains of the elevator to the mines above and escape back into the safety of Daggerford.
HeroQuest Board Game Information
After some conversations about the Descent: Journeys In the Dark board game, I found that several people had not heard about the HeroQuest game from Milton Bradley that came out several years back. Here is one of the best “fan” pages of the old game, for those interested.
HorrorClix
WizKids has recently released a new variation on their popular HeroClix game. It is filled with horror icons of all types. I’ll have to pick some packs up some time. See the official website.
Descent: Journeys In the Dark
Fantasy Flight Games has released a new “board” game that looks really intriguing. It is very similar in concept to the old Heroquest game. Take a look at Descent and its expansion sets. It is astounding in its expense, but it comes with a large number of models, so I’m sure production costs were staggering as well.
Buffy and Angel RPGs Cancelled
Eden Studios recently announced that they and FOX have mutually agreed to not renew the license for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel role-playing games. Both use the Unisystem game system (same as All Flesh Must Be Eaten). Eden will continue to support their existing products, but new releases are not forthcoming.
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