Game Results for December 7, 2006

by: Charles Plemons - December 8th, 2006   Filed under: Age of Worms 1 Comment

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

by: Charles Plemons - December 7th, 2006   Filed under: Dungeons & Dragons Add Comment

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

by: Charles Plemons - December 6th, 2006   Filed under: Dungeons & Dragons Add Comment

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

by: Charles Plemons - November 30th, 2006   Filed under: Age of Worms Add Comment

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

by: Charles Plemons - November 29th, 2006   Filed under: Gaming Add Comment

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

by: Charles Plemons - November 29th, 2006   Filed under: Gaming Add Comment

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

by: Charles Plemons - November 28th, 2006   Filed under: Gaming 2 Comments

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

by: Charles Plemons - November 27th, 2006   Filed under: Gaming Add Comment

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.

Argh! Thar Be Zombies

by: Charles Plemons - November 26th, 2006   Filed under: All Flesh Must Be Eaten 3 Comments

Next month sees the release of Eden Studios’ latest All Flesh Must Be Eaten product, Argh! Thar Be Zombies. Fairly obviously, it combines two genres, pirates and the living dead. It should be interesting. I plan on getting it myself, but I’m curious if anyone thinks it sounds like something fun to play?

First All Flesh Game in the Books

by: Charles Plemons - November 25th, 2006   Filed under: All Flesh Must Be Eaten 2 Comments

Casey and Colby got to experience our first All Flesh Must Be Eaten game, using Eden Studio’s Unisystem rules. In a four-hour time period, they successfully completed the adventure, Thirteen Ways to Die… Choose One.

The evening began as the Coppertons (Carl and son, Daniel, and girlfriend, Linda) along with their bodyguard, Stefano, and hired driver, Norton, picked up injured teenage hitchhiker, Eli Landau, while trying to find their way to San Francisco in a raging thunderstorm. Eli gave them directions to the little town of Thirteen Pines, where the group hoped to find a fast way to an interstate or expressway.

The group’s minivan crested a ridge and drove toward the dim lights of town. About halfway down the incline, the car’s power cut out, sending them spiralling out of control as the power steering failed. After a few tense moments, the group crashed into a stone flower pot in the center of a roundabout.

Crawling out into the rain, they ran into Fly’s Hardware and General Store only to find the proprietors eating a man in the back. The group snatched up axes, chainsaws, and flammable liquids and torched the hardware store, but the proprietors pursed them into the rain. The group fled to the J.P. Landau municipal building, only to find it partially burned. They rushed within and locked the doors.

After a bit of rubble clearing, the group proceeded into the basement and found some large firearms storage safes. Three were standing open and empty, but a third was sealed. Using a key from upstairs, they opened the safe to find the animated corpse of Constable Reeves within. Norton surprised everyone by pulling a large revolver from his coat and blowing the head off the zombie. The group then found eight semi-automatic rifles, with no bullets.

They then proceeded into the information center and the town library, and killed a half-torn-in-two zombie who spewed acidic slime all over Stefano. They also watched a “survivor” of the town die in the upstairs room as she succumbed to her injuries. A bit of research revealed things were not right with the Landau family, and the group began suspecting J.P. Landau to be behind the events.

They went out and searched the forestry station and found two bullets for the Ruger Mini-14s they had collected. Like the other buildings they had visited, they burned this one down too. They then went to the church and graveyard and found some strange things in the Landau mausoleum. As they moved back toward the center of town, the world seemed to spin, and suddenly buildings they had burned down were still standing. To make things worse, they found zombies of themselves moving down Romero Street and up Barrow Hill!

The gang killed some of their zombie “clones” and went up the hill to the Landau estate. There, they found Landau sitting on a black stone throne surrounded by thirteen zombies. Daniel shot and killed him, and the zombies attacked as hundreds more came shuffling onto the scene. Norton went berserk and shot Daniel, and Carl and Stefano hacked Norton apart with an axe and chainsaw. Then, the zombies began turning into Landau everytime the man was “killed”. Desperately, they fought against the man and the zombies. They discovered a living “clone” of Daniel, and the real (injured) Daniel went to untie him, but had his throat ripped out by a zombie as the last bonds fell free. Carl went berserk, and Stefano whipped out his spring baton, and the remaining of the thirteen zombies went down hard. Finally, Landau was defeated, and the storm dissipated in an instant. As the clouds disappeared in a puff, the remaining zombies fell lifeless to the ground. The horrors had ended for now, but many questions remain unanswered, including the origins and humanity of the “clone” Daniel.