We're in a place with intelligent undead. It's actually very unnerving to me. I guess the theory of the uncanny valley does have more validation than I first suspected. I enjoy the company of the half-orc Slash. She's a kind soul, if strange even for a half-orc. The changes I've noted on her person make me wonder if she isn't something else entirely.
Hmmm... I'll have to ponder that a little more later.
Today however is full of it's own mysteries. Like why this place hates Warforged and how the hell a little halfling was able to throw one bodily from our inn this morning. Must've been his too large bracers. I wish I'd had more time to look at them.
We ate breakfast and argued a little amongst ourselves. Seems those with the loudest mouths are also those with the smallest minds. Typical. I was however able to procure a jar of jam. This mission is looking brighter already!
~0~
Malik, or Merrick the Warforged seems to have more of an aversion to undead that I. We found the tracks of his horse leading to the perfect ambush position and the devastated bodies of a goodly number of the undead soldiers that police this place whose name I can't recall. We won't be here for long so it doesn't really matter.
Luckily we were able to get rid of our giant. He was an uncouth being, hulking and stupid. And he dared to take away my biscuits and jam, the fiend! Wonderfully for him an earth elemental came crashing from above before Merrick could do away with him completely. The Warforged was kind enough to point us in the direction of a Bard. He's a silver tongued devil if I've ever met one, but he seems reliable enough, seems. I'll have to keep an eye on him and a finger over a potion or two. Just in case.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Enter The Alchemist
I looked at the paper in my hands with intense scrutiny. It seemed that the group that was on this particular mission kept loosing members. Fun. Checking the pocket mirror I kept close I made sure I was still in the right form. Silver white hair, check. Violet Red eyes, check. High nose and strong cheek bones, yup. Most importantly I was pale enough, not a hint of grey marred the sublime paleness of my skin.
Beside me in the small room was a halfling. He had a badger on his side and smelled of the crisp must of the outdoors. His leather armor was stained, his brown hair was mussed up, but all in all he looked very capable and as in-sorts as a Halfling can be.
I was early. Always early.
After about 15 minutes the gate master in his runed robes summoned the group I was supposed to meet; join. Subconsciously I readjusted the alchemist lab I wore on my back and tugged on the chain shirt hidden beneath my blue green, double breasted, long coat.
They were an odd bunch to be sure. A human looking noble, who could no long accompany them because he'd been 'marked'. I made sure to note this, advantages that I had always gave me a little flutter of excitement, I would need to remember it. He asked for my papers and looked them over along with the halflings. There was a dwarf, an orc female named Slash, A Gnole called Two Ears, a human druid who acted like an Orc... I believe his name was Thunk. A surly old dwarf cleric with an onyx horse whose name I cannot pronounce or hope to spell correctly. The Halfling I believe introduced himself as Gerrard. Finally a massive earth giant. I couldn't have asked for a better cross section of the world. My drawings and my observations will no doubt come in handy to farther my abilities; and keep me hidden.
We're traveling to the west now, seems we will be doing so for a week. I can't wait to try out my new bombs... I wonder what my new comrades will think.
~Flannery Out
Beside me in the small room was a halfling. He had a badger on his side and smelled of the crisp must of the outdoors. His leather armor was stained, his brown hair was mussed up, but all in all he looked very capable and as in-sorts as a Halfling can be.
I was early. Always early.
After about 15 minutes the gate master in his runed robes summoned the group I was supposed to meet; join. Subconsciously I readjusted the alchemist lab I wore on my back and tugged on the chain shirt hidden beneath my blue green, double breasted, long coat.
They were an odd bunch to be sure. A human looking noble, who could no long accompany them because he'd been 'marked'. I made sure to note this, advantages that I had always gave me a little flutter of excitement, I would need to remember it. He asked for my papers and looked them over along with the halflings. There was a dwarf, an orc female named Slash, A Gnole called Two Ears, a human druid who acted like an Orc... I believe his name was Thunk. A surly old dwarf cleric with an onyx horse whose name I cannot pronounce or hope to spell correctly. The Halfling I believe introduced himself as Gerrard. Finally a massive earth giant. I couldn't have asked for a better cross section of the world. My drawings and my observations will no doubt come in handy to farther my abilities; and keep me hidden.
We're traveling to the west now, seems we will be doing so for a week. I can't wait to try out my new bombs... I wonder what my new comrades will think.
~Flannery Out
Saturday, September 17, 2011
The Fighter
It was hot. No... maybe it was cold. The amazon of a woman shook out her right hand and gripped the shield tighter with the three hale fingers on that hand. Didn't matter anyways, she'd lug her scale mail ass up whatever mountain she had to in order to bring the weird druid back to life.
The bard made of crystal hummed a jaunty tune to himself as they continued their trek and the halfling could barely be seen flitting from shadow to shadow; like a mouse evading the hawks that whirled lazily overhead. Damn birds. She hated birds. Standing regally on a boulder she shook her mean looking spear at the oblivious creatures. "And stay up there you feather brained cowards!!!"
The bard chuckled. "I don't think we have to worry about them Mara." He said with a more orangish glow that usual lighting up the blue of his crystal limbs. One hand held up the tattered end of a purple sash.
Brown eyes regarded him for a moment, the odd flecks of living sparks that winked in and out of existance in her irises as she thought over something. "We need to find this King and a map. He can't be king of the world."
The halfling shouted down that they were being too freaking slow.
Mara held her spear in the crook of her arm and retied her chestnut brown braid into a bun above a sun browned neck. "Yeah yeah, we're coming. First things first and all that crap."
"Don't worry, we'll get to the bottom of this." Arrd said winningly.
Mara tried to smile, but it looked like more of a snarl. "Good. Because I'm not serving no stupid make believe king. Damned purple sash crap, stupid gnome cities, stupid no Wage..." The mumbles continued as the woman clicked and clanked after the energetic Halfling.
The bard made of crystal hummed a jaunty tune to himself as they continued their trek and the halfling could barely be seen flitting from shadow to shadow; like a mouse evading the hawks that whirled lazily overhead. Damn birds. She hated birds. Standing regally on a boulder she shook her mean looking spear at the oblivious creatures. "And stay up there you feather brained cowards!!!"
The bard chuckled. "I don't think we have to worry about them Mara." He said with a more orangish glow that usual lighting up the blue of his crystal limbs. One hand held up the tattered end of a purple sash.
Brown eyes regarded him for a moment, the odd flecks of living sparks that winked in and out of existance in her irises as she thought over something. "We need to find this King and a map. He can't be king of the world."
The halfling shouted down that they were being too freaking slow.
Mara held her spear in the crook of her arm and retied her chestnut brown braid into a bun above a sun browned neck. "Yeah yeah, we're coming. First things first and all that crap."
"Don't worry, we'll get to the bottom of this." Arrd said winningly.
Mara tried to smile, but it looked like more of a snarl. "Good. Because I'm not serving no stupid make believe king. Damned purple sash crap, stupid gnome cities, stupid no Wage..." The mumbles continued as the woman clicked and clanked after the energetic Halfling.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
The Pscion
"..." Illuminated violet eyes stare through the one who'd addressed the woman with short dark hair twisted on the back of her head into a psudo mohawk that nearly falls over one eye. Her skin, too, looks as if a dim light shines beneath it with a lilac hue. She raises one slender arm, points a delicate looking finger at the big burly man and flicks her wrist. The man follows the movement straight into the wall where he falls all over the coat rack and himself.
She says nothing. Her face is graceful and poisted as her bearing, like the face of some godess statue in a temple, tall and lean she moves to make her way back to her table where an odd collection of people watch with morbid fascination.
"Why you little!" The man struggles with his sword.
The woman snorts as if bored with the entire scenario. "Pathetic, you can't get close enough to hit me with that pig sticker." Her skin pulses slightly brighter as she speaks to the bulky man entangled in stranger's cloaks.
His face falls and he makes a half hearted attack.
Touching the crystal ball hanging in the chainmail net on her belt she holds up her hand as if telling a bar tender that she's had enough drink. No emotion flickers through her half lidded eyes as he flies out the door and into the street in a crumpled heap of moans and curses.
Unconcerned eyes turn to the fellows at the table the man had come from. "To answer your query I am Zii Azrifel, where I am from you can guess, where I am going is none of your concern; and no one can get in my way." Something flashed in her eyes for a moment before she glanced back to the table where a human teenager, a dragon borne, and a gith sat nonchalantly.
No one saw the ghost of a smile that touched the forever neutral line of her purple lips.
She says nothing. Her face is graceful and poisted as her bearing, like the face of some godess statue in a temple, tall and lean she moves to make her way back to her table where an odd collection of people watch with morbid fascination.
"Why you little!" The man struggles with his sword.
The woman snorts as if bored with the entire scenario. "Pathetic, you can't get close enough to hit me with that pig sticker." Her skin pulses slightly brighter as she speaks to the bulky man entangled in stranger's cloaks.
His face falls and he makes a half hearted attack.
Touching the crystal ball hanging in the chainmail net on her belt she holds up her hand as if telling a bar tender that she's had enough drink. No emotion flickers through her half lidded eyes as he flies out the door and into the street in a crumpled heap of moans and curses.
Unconcerned eyes turn to the fellows at the table the man had come from. "To answer your query I am Zii Azrifel, where I am from you can guess, where I am going is none of your concern; and no one can get in my way." Something flashed in her eyes for a moment before she glanced back to the table where a human teenager, a dragon borne, and a gith sat nonchalantly.
No one saw the ghost of a smile that touched the forever neutral line of her purple lips.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
The Ranger
My name is Cynica Arsina-Trissade...
"The things that hunt me are none of your conscern, but if you must know trouble follows me. I've been called many things; disaster incarnate, dark lady luck, bad side of the coin, whatever it's of no matter to me what frightened fools shout while avoiding my shadow. I tend to ride the wave just ahead of bad tidings and those with plans of their own, or simplistic ideals, haunt my path time and again. Really, there's no need to worry. Betwixt my arrows and my steel they shouldn't hinder our progress." Her eyes, green and luminescent, sparkle just a bit with a confidence earned. Dark tendrils of hair, broken by thorns and blades, touch the light tan of her face. One would not consider her half elf just by looking at her, the points of her ears were too rounded, her grace was well hidden behind the musculature of her body and the green black leather of her armor. But those eyes, they gave her away, bright and glorious even in the half light of the tavern.
A long sword swung on one hip, a gladious strapped to her lower back, and a short bow hung across a quiver on her back. One could tell they were as much a part of her as her arm, even more so than the thick braid of black hair that hung over her left shoulder. "Besides," she continued before the blonde man dressed in the high fashion of Central could say anything in return. "you need me. An army though you are, you can't deny that fact." She winked at the red head standing to one side in her red battle skirt and chainmail before downing her ale in one long swig. "So... Who are we screwing over this time?"
"The things that hunt me are none of your conscern, but if you must know trouble follows me. I've been called many things; disaster incarnate, dark lady luck, bad side of the coin, whatever it's of no matter to me what frightened fools shout while avoiding my shadow. I tend to ride the wave just ahead of bad tidings and those with plans of their own, or simplistic ideals, haunt my path time and again. Really, there's no need to worry. Betwixt my arrows and my steel they shouldn't hinder our progress." Her eyes, green and luminescent, sparkle just a bit with a confidence earned. Dark tendrils of hair, broken by thorns and blades, touch the light tan of her face. One would not consider her half elf just by looking at her, the points of her ears were too rounded, her grace was well hidden behind the musculature of her body and the green black leather of her armor. But those eyes, they gave her away, bright and glorious even in the half light of the tavern.
A long sword swung on one hip, a gladious strapped to her lower back, and a short bow hung across a quiver on her back. One could tell they were as much a part of her as her arm, even more so than the thick braid of black hair that hung over her left shoulder. "Besides," she continued before the blonde man dressed in the high fashion of Central could say anything in return. "you need me. An army though you are, you can't deny that fact." She winked at the red head standing to one side in her red battle skirt and chainmail before downing her ale in one long swig. "So... Who are we screwing over this time?"
Sunday, July 24, 2011
The Desert of Silence
I stand here in this desert, completed art in hand but no scanner with which to transfer it to the internet.
There is no role playing here. Only the monsters that pull separate adventurers in order to prey upon their minds till they are numb drones.
This desert is too quiet, too still, where are the dorito crumbs and discarded beverage cans? I can hear no guffawing laughter nor does the wind carry promise of relief from this waste that has overtaken the NerdKingdom.
Sir Jex and I may have to start a colony soon. I'm sure I could help him dig a well that could banish this fell wind and quench the parched ground. Soon, I hope, we'll make a journey into the wastes and find others not unlike ourselves to rebuild the NerdKingdom, maybe even beyond it's former glory.
We've lost Will, Mad Matt, and aDaM to the currents of college, work, and *gasp* relationships. And now Jex and I are moving to a different corner of the NerdKingdom, one as uncharted as the last. But there is always hope.... I hope.
There is no role playing here. Only the monsters that pull separate adventurers in order to prey upon their minds till they are numb drones.
This desert is too quiet, too still, where are the dorito crumbs and discarded beverage cans? I can hear no guffawing laughter nor does the wind carry promise of relief from this waste that has overtaken the NerdKingdom.
Sir Jex and I may have to start a colony soon. I'm sure I could help him dig a well that could banish this fell wind and quench the parched ground. Soon, I hope, we'll make a journey into the wastes and find others not unlike ourselves to rebuild the NerdKingdom, maybe even beyond it's former glory.
We've lost Will, Mad Matt, and aDaM to the currents of college, work, and *gasp* relationships. And now Jex and I are moving to a different corner of the NerdKingdom, one as uncharted as the last. But there is always hope.... I hope.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
The Epic of the Sheildless continues
Jex has a habit of making the PC's squirm along with they're players. Lots and lots of squirming. First we start off being timed to run away from an ARMY of dragon born and their war hound/lizard/ish things. We get stopped by wild boar, crocodiles, rivers, and so forth. Did I mention we were being timed? THEN we hear girls calling for help and our knight (actually fighter, but he was playing 'knight in shining armor'), also called Verdant of the azure blade, has to go rescue them. We're having a hard enough time rescuing ourselves. Zii and he get into a huge argument, but they end up going to see what the commotion was about. Turns out... it was a trap. Yeah.
After that there's the endless caves of ARGH! that's not really what they're called, but that's what the players wanted to call them. We found an NPC that got us across a busted arrow trap (the dude's a tank named Aeramus) at the price of finding a magic sword. Ran into occultist cyclops and nearly got dragged semi-willingly into a demon temple to a dead god that may or maynot have something to do with Tacit's life. Then to top off the nice runaround-from-hell sundae add a black dragon in his layer... with lots and lots of acid water... yeah. After that the dragon we thought we just killed comes back after our NPC healer Eratar bites the dust along with spider cult goblins and a drow priestess.... deep breath... our party nearly got wiped out. We literally survived by the skin of our teeth.
As per-usual all I can say is: "well... it was the farthest thing from boring ever."
Also I'm going to change up the posting style of this blog to a more story-esque form. It'll be easier for me to write and in the end more enjoyable for the couple of people still following.
After that there's the endless caves of ARGH! that's not really what they're called, but that's what the players wanted to call them. We found an NPC that got us across a busted arrow trap (the dude's a tank named Aeramus) at the price of finding a magic sword. Ran into occultist cyclops and nearly got dragged semi-willingly into a demon temple to a dead god that may or maynot have something to do with Tacit's life. Then to top off the nice runaround-from-hell sundae add a black dragon in his layer... with lots and lots of acid water... yeah. After that the dragon we thought we just killed comes back after our NPC healer Eratar bites the dust along with spider cult goblins and a drow priestess.... deep breath... our party nearly got wiped out. We literally survived by the skin of our teeth.
As per-usual all I can say is: "well... it was the farthest thing from boring ever."
Also I'm going to change up the posting style of this blog to a more story-esque form. It'll be easier for me to write and in the end more enjoyable for the couple of people still following.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Nerd Cafe
So I had this great idea.
I'm totally going to pawn off the idea of a nerd cafe onto someone.
In Japan they have maid cafes, cat cafes, and other interesting novelty places to eat.
In America we have... sports bars? Hooters (does that count as a sports bar)? Oh! Rainforest Cafe!
I even know the best place for it, right next to every convention center in every large city across America. Even the Trekkies and Comic Heads would go there (I think).
It's going to be called "Dee 20's" or "the Hargonian Grill" maybe just "Cafe le Nerd" I haven't decided yet; but the food is going to be awesome and very wittily named.
*Ahem*
We have the Full Plate special of the day, the chalk board with be on a full size shiny suit of armor's chest plate.
For the kids we'll have a 'halfling menu' Consisting of all the foods kids like to eat (like say: ravioli) only with super cool names and possibly died fun colors. Common what kid wouldn't go crazy for blue mac-n-cheese or a tie die corndog?
I'm going to draw up a menu (after I find a good free photo studio download) and it'll be more detailed and awesome since I'll have time to remember all the food names (like Will's Orc War Shake, a cinnamon caramel milk shake with dark chocolate on top or fudge on the bottom).
And everything will be decorated in nerdtastic style. I've already decided on huge bone (or crystal depending on who you talk to) D10 for salt and pepper shakers. I even thought it'd be fun to have a "Luck Roll" special: Roll a D20 to see what meal you get for a flat price (something like $7.50).
If anyone has any awesome ideas they want to volunteer for free let me hear 'em! I love getting feedback and am interested in what other mind sets come up with.
I'm totally going to pawn off the idea of a nerd cafe onto someone.
In Japan they have maid cafes, cat cafes, and other interesting novelty places to eat.
In America we have... sports bars? Hooters (does that count as a sports bar)? Oh! Rainforest Cafe!
I even know the best place for it, right next to every convention center in every large city across America. Even the Trekkies and Comic Heads would go there (I think).
It's going to be called "Dee 20's" or "the Hargonian Grill" maybe just "Cafe le Nerd" I haven't decided yet; but the food is going to be awesome and very wittily named.
*Ahem*
We have the Full Plate special of the day, the chalk board with be on a full size shiny suit of armor's chest plate.
For the kids we'll have a 'halfling menu' Consisting of all the foods kids like to eat (like say: ravioli) only with super cool names and possibly died fun colors. Common what kid wouldn't go crazy for blue mac-n-cheese or a tie die corndog?
I'm going to draw up a menu (after I find a good free photo studio download) and it'll be more detailed and awesome since I'll have time to remember all the food names (like Will's Orc War Shake, a cinnamon caramel milk shake with dark chocolate on top or fudge on the bottom).
And everything will be decorated in nerdtastic style. I've already decided on huge bone (or crystal depending on who you talk to) D10 for salt and pepper shakers. I even thought it'd be fun to have a "Luck Roll" special: Roll a D20 to see what meal you get for a flat price (something like $7.50).
If anyone has any awesome ideas they want to volunteer for free let me hear 'em! I love getting feedback and am interested in what other mind sets come up with.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Hostile Territory
Geno's soul is being held hostage till the Sheildless can obtain the last item for the weird chaos thing that popped out of his sword a couple weeks ago. That item is in a place of 'untold' danger; the bahazaine crater. Where our dragon borne friend Kragon is from, where he can't go back to but took us to anyways to help out our friend.
Without event we hiked up and down mountains, Kragon holding a burning stick that would keep all the baddies off of us the entire way.
At long last we found ourselves in front of the BloodTalon clan's fortress thing. Kragon goes up and knocks on the door, gets knocked out, and dragged into the fortress while a whole legion of dragons and draco hounds (like rancor dogs) come pouring out. The rest of the team stared wide eyed and warred with themselves and each other over going in to the fray and saving Kragon or running. The incense stops burning and there's a bone chilling howl right before a hawk sized wyvern find us and starts spewing fire into the air to alert the dragons of our position.
Yeah we ran.
Ran straight into a herd of wild boar. Ran straight into the thick sticky mud of a river filled with crocodiles. Ran towards the more familiar parts of the jungle and maybe back to White Cliff to get the help of Tacit's aunt.
Then Verdant heard some women calling for help and had to run off and be hero. Idiot. Zii told him not to go, Kragon was their first priority after staying alive, but Mr. Knight-in-dented-armor had to go and save the day.
Turns out Zii was right. They were evil man eating dryads. The party got wrapped up in thorny vines and nearly killed till Eratar (who was the Sheriff from Dead's End in our campaign with Shawn and Missy) shows up and does his minotaurly awesome head bashing.
With a little persuasion, and Tacit's cute 16 year old puppy eyes, Eratar is going to help us find and rescue Kragon. Sweet.
Now we just have to come up with a plan.
Without event we hiked up and down mountains, Kragon holding a burning stick that would keep all the baddies off of us the entire way.
At long last we found ourselves in front of the BloodTalon clan's fortress thing. Kragon goes up and knocks on the door, gets knocked out, and dragged into the fortress while a whole legion of dragons and draco hounds (like rancor dogs) come pouring out. The rest of the team stared wide eyed and warred with themselves and each other over going in to the fray and saving Kragon or running. The incense stops burning and there's a bone chilling howl right before a hawk sized wyvern find us and starts spewing fire into the air to alert the dragons of our position.
Yeah we ran.
Ran straight into a herd of wild boar. Ran straight into the thick sticky mud of a river filled with crocodiles. Ran towards the more familiar parts of the jungle and maybe back to White Cliff to get the help of Tacit's aunt.
Then Verdant heard some women calling for help and had to run off and be hero. Idiot. Zii told him not to go, Kragon was their first priority after staying alive, but Mr. Knight-in-dented-armor had to go and save the day.
Turns out Zii was right. They were evil man eating dryads. The party got wrapped up in thorny vines and nearly killed till Eratar (who was the Sheriff from Dead's End in our campaign with Shawn and Missy) shows up and does his minotaurly awesome head bashing.
With a little persuasion, and Tacit's cute 16 year old puppy eyes, Eratar is going to help us find and rescue Kragon. Sweet.
Now we just have to come up with a plan.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Remelema ding dong
To torture our Characters I tossed them into the kind of the plot that means a lot of running back and forth to get the job done. Most places they had to visit made them come back... one place was full of screaming fan boys and girls that swarmed the Githzerai and Dragonborn in our party. There was an entire Drow Village under the city that was their goal... you know little things. (I loved seeing the look on Will and Jex's face when they saw the picture I drew of the drow village. The look of 'OH NOES!' after the 'oh yeahs'*koolaide man style of course* that the secret tunnel had brought on was definitely giggleworthy)
I tried to incorporate a lot of elements that we haven't had a lot of in role playing thus far. Notes and letters could be found if the bodies of the baddies got searched. One of them had to be decoded. There were little keys that interactions with the NPC's would give away for special items like shiny magic armor.
I even set up some stuff so that the characters didn't have to fight some of the bad guys and could actually win them to their side. (they kinda won over the giant lighting snake, Naga for the veteran players, to their side and got some information that they otherwise wouldn't have)
I feel good about the traps they had to disarm; who doesn't love flying pendulums of death? About the river they had to cross and the cliff they had to climb.
The NPC's created themselves nicely. Ebon the half drow informant of the iron unicorns and her whimsical attitude and love of drama. Lyria the all business, sweet, librarian with a backbone. Irkim my drow paladin (yeah you heard right). The emo Wizard prodigy that never got a name but has enough personality to feel 'real'.
Yup I feel really good about how it all turned out. Will and Jex said it felt like they were really adventuring, not just running around smashing faces and finding random loot.
I gotta love Verdant and his Thievery check mojo. "I see the pattern!" "This picture looks like Arathorn's face!" "I like blue... it has to be the blue button." And did I mention that Verdant's lilt of tone turns into a big black lady at a pentecostal type service? Oh yes. Oh lordy. Oh dear someone is going to kill me for this comment, but it's true! XD! And funny.
So yeah, my chapter turned out pretty well. Some time soon I'll be posting a new comic and a filler pic I finished coloring today. (Microsoft Paint is the devil!)
Till the next time.
I tried to incorporate a lot of elements that we haven't had a lot of in role playing thus far. Notes and letters could be found if the bodies of the baddies got searched. One of them had to be decoded. There were little keys that interactions with the NPC's would give away for special items like shiny magic armor.
I even set up some stuff so that the characters didn't have to fight some of the bad guys and could actually win them to their side. (they kinda won over the giant lighting snake, Naga for the veteran players, to their side and got some information that they otherwise wouldn't have)
I feel good about the traps they had to disarm; who doesn't love flying pendulums of death? About the river they had to cross and the cliff they had to climb.
The NPC's created themselves nicely. Ebon the half drow informant of the iron unicorns and her whimsical attitude and love of drama. Lyria the all business, sweet, librarian with a backbone. Irkim my drow paladin (yeah you heard right). The emo Wizard prodigy that never got a name but has enough personality to feel 'real'.
Yup I feel really good about how it all turned out. Will and Jex said it felt like they were really adventuring, not just running around smashing faces and finding random loot.
I gotta love Verdant and his Thievery check mojo. "I see the pattern!" "This picture looks like Arathorn's face!" "I like blue... it has to be the blue button." And did I mention that Verdant's lilt of tone turns into a big black lady at a pentecostal type service? Oh yes. Oh lordy. Oh dear someone is going to kill me for this comment, but it's true! XD! And funny.
So yeah, my chapter turned out pretty well. Some time soon I'll be posting a new comic and a filler pic I finished coloring today. (Microsoft Paint is the devil!)
Till the next time.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Nerdkingdom Ho! Not Hoe... ho.... er... I mean...
So another jewel in the crown of the Nerdkingdom is that of sexist comments. It could be anything from Synova calling the fire breathing Bueno Dragon his Bizach, or one of the girl characters asking what size skirt to by the paladin as he worries about his fantasmical hair.
The jewel shone brightly at our last get together this passed Sunday evening.
I can't even remember how it started; but I can assume it was innocent enough with a few jabs here and there at femininity (<-- who invented that word?! It's stupid hard to spell!). Ha! I got it! The girls (3 out of 13 of the characters) ended up getting teamed up in the labyrinth. We killed the bad guys faster; My Ranger slicing, Celestia the Warlock blasting, and Arael doing some buffs and blasts with her divine powers. Well we got cocky and started a verbal spar against the guys who weren't hitting their bad guys very hard or very well. When we got to the end and this HUGE ASS fat red dragon roars at us after a bolder sealed us into the underground aztec looking temple it got out of hand.
Arael: We have to team up against this guy!
Jex: Yeah, why don't you girls team up and make me a Sandwich.
DadaM: *fist bump Jex*
Matt: *Nodding and laughing* Awe yeah.
Will and Brandon: *Laughing discretely*
Sara (arael's player), Carrie (celestia's player), and Me: *mouths agape gasping in horror and a hint of indignation*
Sara: Rem you need to get him under control. *pokes Matt in the face* He's a bad example.
Me: *thinks: Ha! like I have any control over my husband*
And the men chuckled while the women sputtered for longer than was really necessary.
Yay D&D, yay.
The jewel shone brightly at our last get together this passed Sunday evening.
I can't even remember how it started; but I can assume it was innocent enough with a few jabs here and there at femininity (<-- who invented that word?! It's stupid hard to spell!). Ha! I got it! The girls (3 out of 13 of the characters) ended up getting teamed up in the labyrinth. We killed the bad guys faster; My Ranger slicing, Celestia the Warlock blasting, and Arael doing some buffs and blasts with her divine powers. Well we got cocky and started a verbal spar against the guys who weren't hitting their bad guys very hard or very well. When we got to the end and this HUGE ASS fat red dragon roars at us after a bolder sealed us into the underground aztec looking temple it got out of hand.
Arael: We have to team up against this guy!
Jex: Yeah, why don't you girls team up and make me a Sandwich.
DadaM: *fist bump Jex*
Matt: *Nodding and laughing* Awe yeah.
Will and Brandon: *Laughing discretely*
Sara (arael's player), Carrie (celestia's player), and Me: *mouths agape gasping in horror and a hint of indignation*
Sara: Rem you need to get him under control. *pokes Matt in the face* He's a bad example.
Me: *thinks: Ha! like I have any control over my husband*
And the men chuckled while the women sputtered for longer than was really necessary.
Yay D&D, yay.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Comic #3
Here's the new Brave Company Comic I finished!
As you might be able to tell I took a little bit more time and care on this one that the previous ones. I'm still having issues with coloring the comics, if anyone has a program better than paint that's either a free download (without spyware) or that they don't mind letting me upload to my laptop that'd be awesome!
As you might be able to tell I took a little bit more time and care on this one that the previous ones. I'm still having issues with coloring the comics, if anyone has a program better than paint that's either a free download (without spyware) or that they don't mind letting me upload to my laptop that'd be awesome!
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Oh Chapter my Chapter
I'm going to be DMing soon. A single chapter in Jex's tail of yarny epicness. I have one thing I have to work in and an item he has to choose to throw in the mix. Easy enough. I'm really excited for my NPC's though I'm not sure how it'll turn out so I'm going to have to actually build them as characters in case Verdant or Kragen decides to try and kill them.
But it's going to be fun at the very least. I feel really sorry for Lelia (Laelie, the frozen receptionist from Will's chapter we just finished) I'm going to have to make her life just a little more difficult.
I'm working on a few props, the next comic for the main campaign is almost finished (found out I have a hard time drawing dwarves of revenant persuasion), and have run into writer's block! Yay! lol
Anywho, that's about all I can tell you guys without giving too much away to Will.
Roll a D6 everybody. XD!
But it's going to be fun at the very least. I feel really sorry for Lelia (Laelie, the frozen receptionist from Will's chapter we just finished) I'm going to have to make her life just a little more difficult.
I'm working on a few props, the next comic for the main campaign is almost finished (found out I have a hard time drawing dwarves of revenant persuasion), and have run into writer's block! Yay! lol
Anywho, that's about all I can tell you guys without giving too much away to Will.
Roll a D6 everybody. XD!
Saturday, May 7, 2011
The battle for the most epicosity
For those of you who've played a Dark Sun dungeon you'll know how rough it is. Both of my characters will now forever HATE the desert.
So, my husband, Sir Jex of the Shifting Hand, found a level 1-3 Dark Sun campaign in one of the Dungeon Magazines online. We've never done a preconstruct so in the spirit of trying new things we started what will be known as the Desert Crawl. It was tough but fun, especially once we leveled up to 2 and a second defender rolled into the group, courtesy of my brother in law Sir Will the Blockade.
The Final Battle rolls around and we know, almost for a fact, that we are going to die. Jex gave our group a 5% chance of living through it; not winning, just surviving. It went something like this:
We're only a few hours out from the trade city of Tir. All the skiffs are intact, no crew has been lost yet. Even with getting by some of the battles by the skin of our teeth, we've done well. Only one last crest to climb over and we're home free.
Over that hill comes three bad ass looking assassins riding beaked and clawed 10 foot tall dinosaurs that Jex nicknamed 'riding crocks'.
There's a big speech about how he's going to take all our hard earned treasure for himself and crush us into the sand. You know the kind of monologue Dr. Doom would be proud of. Then they charge.
Verdant, Will's big bad scottsman brawler, runs in like Leroy Jenkins and takes on the assassin who seems to be the leader. The riding crock claws the crap out of him. The lead assassin leaps from his dino to a nearby 10foot tall rock and shoots the crap out of Verdant with his crossbow.
Gino, Jex's character that Will plays during battle, runs in behind him to try and keep him from getting owned. All the assassins start leaping from their dinos and letting them run around to eat us!
It's at this point I think that we're going to die.
Tacit, my little teeny bopper chaos sorceress, gets cornered by a dino. We've encountered these things before. Tacit is scared of them. So I play true to the role and have her screaming and flailing like the little 16 year old she is. Jex is really great about roleplay mid-battle. "Tacit's screaming scares the riding crock so it attacks her instead of Zii. It's also screaming in terror back at Tacit."
Kragen, Jex's dragon man, helps the girls out of the corner they get pinned into with the riding crock-dino and between the three of them the dino dies.
Jex thought: okay this is good, a little reward for their effort before their slaughtered.
Verdant is dead, Gino is nearly dead, Kragon who's the only one who can heal is finally free to go help, Zii is going to die soon, Tacit is on top of a rock screaming at the top of her lungs while the assassins run around like whirlwinds slicking the crap out of the boys and Zii gets half eaten by a dino-crock.
In a last ditch effort to survive the conscious members of the party formulate a plan to strike a blow at the well oiled killing machine that is the trio of assassins. Kragon is going to use is acid breath on them to 'soften them up' so that Tacit can blast them to hell and Zii can keep what's left from hitting them back.
Okay. No one thought it would work as beautifully at it did. Kragon hit everyone, including the dying Gino, with the dragon breath which gave the girls an extra 5 damage to all their attacks. Tacit rolled a 20, and criticaled with her daily power (that we call the Glitter Blaster because that how I first described it) that did six D6 (six sided Dice) +6 damage, and she had feats that brought the +6 up to a +10. She then spent her action point and hit with another power, made of multicolored bolts of lightning, that she can keep attacking with as long as she keeps rolling evens and hitting. And hit, and rolled the highest number on the dice that she could. LUCKY! +10 and +10 more because of Kragon's acid attack. In one turn Tacit dealt out over 60 points of damage, even bosses don't just walk away from that. And with the power that let her keep hitting she hit the other two assassins and the riding dino for at least 10 points of damage each. It was a beautiful thing.
The Lead assassin died before he started a turn with less than half his hit points. Zii then hit the other assassin and riding crock that had ripped into Gino despite his Jacky Chan dodging. The assassin died, Kragen brought back Verdant who went running off after the other dino. Then he brought back Gino who killed the remaining riding crock and assassin.
Between all the boys the battle ended like this: "Verdant sticks his sword deep into the riding crock's thigh, keeping it from moving any closer to Zii, who for some reason is pulsing purple in rhythm with her heartbeat. A flash of lighting zips by him for an instant as Gino tries to lightning lure the beast and fails. Kragen runs toward Gino and jumps off the gith and goes sailing through the air beside Verdant. 'This end's now!!!' He roars as he sticks the creature in the neck, slides down, guts the riding crock and slices off a leg as he wobbles to the ground. With a screech the dino goes down nearly landing on top of the dragonborne. 'Alright... I'm done.' Kragon groans. Verdant sticks his sword into the sand as he takes a knee, blood is still leaking from his many wounds. Gino sighs gratefully and sits in the sand with a huff. Zii doesn't bother with formality and falls like a toppled statue into the dunes beside the muddy water. Tacit is the only one with energy enough to celebrate their unlikely victory."
In metagame terms: Kragen had nothing but his at-will powers and 6 hit points, Verdant the same with 8 hit points, Gino lucked out with one utility power and 7 hit points plus 5 bubble points (what we call temporary hit points). Zii had spent everything and had 2 hit points. Tacit had 13 hit points.
For all of that Jex said we earned Brass Monkeys (Sprite and Sherbet) and all kinds of gold. Will demanded I play the Final Fantasy victory sound I have on my phone because "damnit we deserve fan fair!"
These are the moments in playing table top games that make them fun and feel worthwhile.
So, my husband, Sir Jex of the Shifting Hand, found a level 1-3 Dark Sun campaign in one of the Dungeon Magazines online. We've never done a preconstruct so in the spirit of trying new things we started what will be known as the Desert Crawl. It was tough but fun, especially once we leveled up to 2 and a second defender rolled into the group, courtesy of my brother in law Sir Will the Blockade.
The Final Battle rolls around and we know, almost for a fact, that we are going to die. Jex gave our group a 5% chance of living through it; not winning, just surviving. It went something like this:
We're only a few hours out from the trade city of Tir. All the skiffs are intact, no crew has been lost yet. Even with getting by some of the battles by the skin of our teeth, we've done well. Only one last crest to climb over and we're home free.
Over that hill comes three bad ass looking assassins riding beaked and clawed 10 foot tall dinosaurs that Jex nicknamed 'riding crocks'.
There's a big speech about how he's going to take all our hard earned treasure for himself and crush us into the sand. You know the kind of monologue Dr. Doom would be proud of. Then they charge.
Verdant, Will's big bad scottsman brawler, runs in like Leroy Jenkins and takes on the assassin who seems to be the leader. The riding crock claws the crap out of him. The lead assassin leaps from his dino to a nearby 10foot tall rock and shoots the crap out of Verdant with his crossbow.
Gino, Jex's character that Will plays during battle, runs in behind him to try and keep him from getting owned. All the assassins start leaping from their dinos and letting them run around to eat us!
It's at this point I think that we're going to die.
Tacit, my little teeny bopper chaos sorceress, gets cornered by a dino. We've encountered these things before. Tacit is scared of them. So I play true to the role and have her screaming and flailing like the little 16 year old she is. Jex is really great about roleplay mid-battle. "Tacit's screaming scares the riding crock so it attacks her instead of Zii. It's also screaming in terror back at Tacit."
Kragen, Jex's dragon man, helps the girls out of the corner they get pinned into with the riding crock-dino and between the three of them the dino dies.
Jex thought: okay this is good, a little reward for their effort before their slaughtered.
Verdant is dead, Gino is nearly dead, Kragon who's the only one who can heal is finally free to go help, Zii is going to die soon, Tacit is on top of a rock screaming at the top of her lungs while the assassins run around like whirlwinds slicking the crap out of the boys and Zii gets half eaten by a dino-crock.
In a last ditch effort to survive the conscious members of the party formulate a plan to strike a blow at the well oiled killing machine that is the trio of assassins. Kragon is going to use is acid breath on them to 'soften them up' so that Tacit can blast them to hell and Zii can keep what's left from hitting them back.
Okay. No one thought it would work as beautifully at it did. Kragon hit everyone, including the dying Gino, with the dragon breath which gave the girls an extra 5 damage to all their attacks. Tacit rolled a 20, and criticaled with her daily power (that we call the Glitter Blaster because that how I first described it) that did six D6 (six sided Dice) +6 damage, and she had feats that brought the +6 up to a +10. She then spent her action point and hit with another power, made of multicolored bolts of lightning, that she can keep attacking with as long as she keeps rolling evens and hitting. And hit, and rolled the highest number on the dice that she could. LUCKY! +10 and +10 more because of Kragon's acid attack. In one turn Tacit dealt out over 60 points of damage, even bosses don't just walk away from that. And with the power that let her keep hitting she hit the other two assassins and the riding dino for at least 10 points of damage each. It was a beautiful thing.
The Lead assassin died before he started a turn with less than half his hit points. Zii then hit the other assassin and riding crock that had ripped into Gino despite his Jacky Chan dodging. The assassin died, Kragen brought back Verdant who went running off after the other dino. Then he brought back Gino who killed the remaining riding crock and assassin.
Between all the boys the battle ended like this: "Verdant sticks his sword deep into the riding crock's thigh, keeping it from moving any closer to Zii, who for some reason is pulsing purple in rhythm with her heartbeat. A flash of lighting zips by him for an instant as Gino tries to lightning lure the beast and fails. Kragen runs toward Gino and jumps off the gith and goes sailing through the air beside Verdant. 'This end's now!!!' He roars as he sticks the creature in the neck, slides down, guts the riding crock and slices off a leg as he wobbles to the ground. With a screech the dino goes down nearly landing on top of the dragonborne. 'Alright... I'm done.' Kragon groans. Verdant sticks his sword into the sand as he takes a knee, blood is still leaking from his many wounds. Gino sighs gratefully and sits in the sand with a huff. Zii doesn't bother with formality and falls like a toppled statue into the dunes beside the muddy water. Tacit is the only one with energy enough to celebrate their unlikely victory."
In metagame terms: Kragen had nothing but his at-will powers and 6 hit points, Verdant the same with 8 hit points, Gino lucked out with one utility power and 7 hit points plus 5 bubble points (what we call temporary hit points). Zii had spent everything and had 2 hit points. Tacit had 13 hit points.
For all of that Jex said we earned Brass Monkeys (Sprite and Sherbet) and all kinds of gold. Will demanded I play the Final Fantasy victory sound I have on my phone because "damnit we deserve fan fair!"
These are the moments in playing table top games that make them fun and feel worthwhile.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Brave Story 2
It's taking me a little longer than I'd hoped to get comics out. Not because of artist block, but mostly just lack of materials and some details that I just can't quite remember. Like what Synova looks like and who was in what scouting party.
So I've been working on cheap alternatives for coloring that show up well on Will's scanner's resolution. Enjoy.
So I've been working on cheap alternatives for coloring that show up well on Will's scanner's resolution. Enjoy.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
We should have known from the start!!!
Hmmmm Well this'll do till I can get the bugs worked out. Click on the image to see it enlarged.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
A new road
Since I'm figuring out I'm waaaay better a story telling than I will ever be at Journalism this Noob Tale is going to take a different path than when I first started out.
I'm going to draw.
No, don't run away. I promise it won't suck that badly, especially if Sir Matt is kind enough to let me use his photoshop program from time to time to help me color (because I'm not very good at it if I can't use crayons. XD!
So as I was saying, I'm going to draw memorable things from the campaigns that I'm in right now. I should have the first one up in a few days. Maybe It can be a weekly thing provided I have a scanner available for my use.
Hoping not so much to change things as to overturn them~ Remerly
I'm going to draw.
No, don't run away. I promise it won't suck that badly, especially if Sir Matt is kind enough to let me use his photoshop program from time to time to help me color (because I'm not very good at it if I can't use crayons. XD!
So as I was saying, I'm going to draw memorable things from the campaigns that I'm in right now. I should have the first one up in a few days. Maybe It can be a weekly thing provided I have a scanner available for my use.
Hoping not so much to change things as to overturn them~ Remerly
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
And Tacit Strikes Again!
I have a striker, her name is Tacit, she's 16 and girly and odd. Even when she's saying things like "let's cut off their heads and throw them in a bag to take with us, as evidence." she's still super cute and innocent.
Well our adventurous adventurers found themselves in an Oasis, surrounded by baddies. Not only did my Sorceress not take any damage, she also ran up to both the enemy casters and dealt them something in the neighborhood of 19 damage with her morning star (and she's a level 2). She's a striker in every way, she just can't take a bloody hit!
Anyways I get a little too into playing Tacit sometimes (not crazily or anything, but like anyone really into drama would tell you I 'become' the character for a little bit). So when she got a double critical I got excited and played her as I imagined her. Dropping her dainty umbrella to pull out her huge mace and run screaming around a sand dune to smash the enemy party's healer in the face! As Matt would say: "She was a vicious ball of screaming hate holding a mace."
Oh I haven't told you nonexistant readers about Matt's campaign yet. Let me just say that the way Matt does things holds my attention and excitement way better than the way Adam does. Maybe we just roll in the same general direction, but I digress.
Jex and I are probably going to be playing every day because, well, going from being very busy to having ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do is hard on him. I have the internet and am very good at busying myself (hooray for bookworm artists and their antisocial tendencies) so I could care less. But I have to keep the man occupied or suffer his despondency.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Random Encounter: From Dungeon Magazine
In all my minute experience with D&D I've never played a prefabricated dungeon. We've played in Adam's version of Faerune (or however it's spelled). Jesse has a world of his own. I made up an island. So, far we've all thought out the encounters and story line ourselves. We made up the badguys and good guys, the NPC's that you run into are guests from our imagination to guide or distract the players from what the 'grand scheme' is.
Jex pulled out a level 1 prefabricated dungeon today. Mostly because there's not much to do at Leon's. And let me tell you... it's different.
In some ways it's a little freeing. Jex can play with me at the same time even though there's not really a "DM" it makes it more of a two player game than the traditional set up.
The different mostly comes in the form of the monsters you fight and how the DM reacts to it. Jex didn't sit down and memorize the prefab, so there's lots of cheezy dialog that get's thrown in, a few flash backs and fast forwards. A lot of things like rolls to avoid encounters and such that aren't as obvious when the DM has laid everything out themselves (yay facial expressions!).
Today, our adventuresome little group comprised of a 15 year old human sorceress, a deva psion, a dragon-born warlord, and a gith (can't remember if it's yanki or zerai) sword mage nearly got slaughtered in the desert by a swarm of beetles. Ew.
It was fun. For the most part. Till everyone dropped but the girls who only had an AC of 13 & 14. lol But we survived!
Jex pulled out a level 1 prefabricated dungeon today. Mostly because there's not much to do at Leon's. And let me tell you... it's different.
In some ways it's a little freeing. Jex can play with me at the same time even though there's not really a "DM" it makes it more of a two player game than the traditional set up.
The different mostly comes in the form of the monsters you fight and how the DM reacts to it. Jex didn't sit down and memorize the prefab, so there's lots of cheezy dialog that get's thrown in, a few flash backs and fast forwards. A lot of things like rolls to avoid encounters and such that aren't as obvious when the DM has laid everything out themselves (yay facial expressions!).
Today, our adventuresome little group comprised of a 15 year old human sorceress, a deva psion, a dragon-born warlord, and a gith (can't remember if it's yanki or zerai) sword mage nearly got slaughtered in the desert by a swarm of beetles. Ew.
It was fun. For the most part. Till everyone dropped but the girls who only had an AC of 13 & 14. lol But we survived!
Monday, March 14, 2011
Oh beloved DM.... I don't want your job!
Yes, I have decided that I absolutely, positively, HATE being the DM. Not only is my husband going around messing up my plot line, my line of thought, and how I set up my encounters so that I have to have everything eight sessions in advance, plus alternate and sub sessions, if I want to even have hope that his party won't decide to do something I'm unprepared for.
A lot of detail went into my world (without overwhelming me). And that's not enough.
Jex: I climb into the junk.
Rem: You see more broken bits of building.
Jex: I know but what is it?
Rem: *rolls eyes and thinks "I just told you!!!") Roll a streetwise check.
Jex: 25! *smug smile*
Rem: *Damn!* Okay there's a table that once had pottery on it you can tell by the fragments, the rotted out cross beam is like so (draws on the board)there's some scrapes of clothes, decimated chairs and what looks to have been a set up similar to the other side of the room. You can tell from here that the collapse here is what caused the floor to sink in outside the door.
Jex: What kind of pottery is it?
Rem: GAH!!!!!!! The regular kind!!!!!
I had clothing styles for the corpses they found. I had hidden keys that are going to go in little places scattered throughout the island. NOW he's going to every door handle in the area they've already stripped bare trying out ALL THE KEYS ON EVERYTHING. In a fit of Godmodding I declared that the keys are obviously too small for any key holes you find. He still tried. So I erased the keyholes all together.
Jex: I check this door.
Rem: No keyhole.
Jex: And this one?
Rem: None of the other doors seem to have their handles.
We haven't played again in like... a week or so... and I still don't want to. I don't care anymore. He can never find out why all those god statues were smashed now. I quit!
((not really, I'm probably going to have to finish the campaign now, but it's most likely going to be really really half assed now.))
A lot of detail went into my world (without overwhelming me). And that's not enough.
Jex: I climb into the junk.
Rem: You see more broken bits of building.
Jex: I know but what is it?
Rem: *rolls eyes and thinks "I just told you!!!") Roll a streetwise check.
Jex: 25! *smug smile*
Rem: *Damn!* Okay there's a table that once had pottery on it you can tell by the fragments, the rotted out cross beam is like so (draws on the board)there's some scrapes of clothes, decimated chairs and what looks to have been a set up similar to the other side of the room. You can tell from here that the collapse here is what caused the floor to sink in outside the door.
Jex: What kind of pottery is it?
Rem: GAH!!!!!!! The regular kind!!!!!
I had clothing styles for the corpses they found. I had hidden keys that are going to go in little places scattered throughout the island. NOW he's going to every door handle in the area they've already stripped bare trying out ALL THE KEYS ON EVERYTHING. In a fit of Godmodding I declared that the keys are obviously too small for any key holes you find. He still tried. So I erased the keyholes all together.
Jex: I check this door.
Rem: No keyhole.
Jex: And this one?
Rem: None of the other doors seem to have their handles.
We haven't played again in like... a week or so... and I still don't want to. I don't care anymore. He can never find out why all those god statues were smashed now. I quit!
((not really, I'm probably going to have to finish the campaign now, but it's most likely going to be really really half assed now.))
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Stop... Hammer Time!
DMing is easier and harder than I thought it would be.
No really. There are a lot more things that I was able to just 'pull out my butt' that I didn't think I'd be able to.
I love adventure tools.
Like when I was describing the ship wreck and Jesse asked: "So there are life boats."
Rem: "Well yeah there are life boats. Their filled with unsavory sorts that were the people that took you captive in the first place."
Jesse: *thoughtful look, moves his defender's piece* "Crushank grabs hold of the boat."
Rem: "Athletics check." ... he passes. "OK, you now have a hold of the boat and three angry pirates are now going to attack you." *quickly looks up a level one pirate that is a fair amount of nasty*
Jesse then proceeded to get very frustrated very quickly. There was a storm raging, I wasn't about to let him forget that. The waves got choppy, people fighting on the boat got tossed off the boat before they could attack. Rain increased, making it harder to see; luckily he didn't have much in the way of ranged characters or else he would've been pissed I gave the baddies partial cover.
They get to the island shrouded in mist. Make camp. End first session.
Second session wasn't much better. Jesse gave me some guidelines to use while picking bad guys. Maybe he wasn't serious but I wanted to make this campaign a little more of a desperate type. It's a hostile island, with hostile people, you have to fight to survive, and if you can find and put the clues together that I scattered around the Island Ruins and the one safe place I set up you could be the first to come face to face with the gods in a hundred years! Exciting right? Well maybe a little too exciting.
The characters found the ruins of an old port on the beach and found the used basement doors. They were like: Hey! Lets check it out!
I threw a few minions and a fairly annoying Kobold at them. They made quick work of the minion giant rats. I made Jesse laugh when I described the rat master's attack as him picking up one of the larger rats that were at his feet and throwing it at his Defender as one would throw a cat at some one. It all went down hill from there.
I guess a level 4 soldier type bad guy is a little much for four level ones. I don't know where I got this weird idea that if you add everyone's level together they could fight a monster of that level. On further inspection of this though I found it to be ludicrous and not based on anything factual. Four level 2's would have had a better go. With a +9 to every attack that hit fortitude and a +11 to anything melee I didn't have to roll very high to hit them. They managed to kill him tho' barely. Mostly because in trying to keep track of everything I'd forgotten about the aura around the rat master until the last few rounds.
I'm the DM... it's my job to try and kill them... lol Within reason.
Now I'm working on a more detailed maps of the areas. I've rethought the 'hostile people' aspect and am currently building 2 more safe places on the island to give Jesse a break. Maybe next time it'll be a better balance of challenge and fun.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Abandonment
Nope... Didn't abandon it!
Okay well maybe a little.
So, forever ago we went Rabbit hunting in "The World of Darkness" as Werewolves. I must say I really liked the D-10 system if only for the fact that I LOVE COLORS! So rolling 10 dice in variations of shade sparkle and font was probably more fun for me than anyone will think is sane.
The story, though simple, was super fun. 'You four, go get your rabbit and bring it to the giant armored bear'. Not only did we get our rabbit, we got their rabbit, the entire Den of Rabbits, AND my character saved a technology spirit that now lives in her goggles and made Shawn's character's tazer turn into a bloody lazer cannon. She's also super awesome ninjatastic with her shuriken, by the by. (Sorry I'm really happy with my character and just want to brag a little.)
Eric did an awesome job helping out my noobishness and answering my desperate questions. It was fun. I'm not used to not having a battle board but that wasn't as big of a hindrance as I thought it'd be. Actually it helped me not metagame as much as I found I want to while playing DD4e. Now I wish I'd gotten over my fear of making my mother upset and played Vampire with the guy from church, whose name I can't remember.
NOW, I'm going to make up my own little world. And I stress the word 'little'. Jesse's making me DM and I'm really freaking out. However, it's just him and me so I think it'll be okay. Maybe later I can pull Will in and then after that I might be confident enough to invite another person, maybe it can turn into a family game with my inlaws. lol
In any case I'll be sure to record my first ever DM panic attack for your reading pleasure while it's fresh in my memory.
I really want to make up a catch phrase with the word 'roll' in it... but I fear it will be dorky and cliche. XD!
Roll this way? Keep it Rolling? May 20's haunt your dice? .... bah, I'll work on it.
Okay well maybe a little.
So, forever ago we went Rabbit hunting in "The World of Darkness" as Werewolves. I must say I really liked the D-10 system if only for the fact that I LOVE COLORS! So rolling 10 dice in variations of shade sparkle and font was probably more fun for me than anyone will think is sane.
The story, though simple, was super fun. 'You four, go get your rabbit and bring it to the giant armored bear'. Not only did we get our rabbit, we got their rabbit, the entire Den of Rabbits, AND my character saved a technology spirit that now lives in her goggles and made Shawn's character's tazer turn into a bloody lazer cannon. She's also super awesome ninjatastic with her shuriken, by the by. (Sorry I'm really happy with my character and just want to brag a little.)
Eric did an awesome job helping out my noobishness and answering my desperate questions. It was fun. I'm not used to not having a battle board but that wasn't as big of a hindrance as I thought it'd be. Actually it helped me not metagame as much as I found I want to while playing DD4e. Now I wish I'd gotten over my fear of making my mother upset and played Vampire with the guy from church, whose name I can't remember.
NOW, I'm going to make up my own little world. And I stress the word 'little'. Jesse's making me DM and I'm really freaking out. However, it's just him and me so I think it'll be okay. Maybe later I can pull Will in and then after that I might be confident enough to invite another person, maybe it can turn into a family game with my inlaws. lol
In any case I'll be sure to record my first ever DM panic attack for your reading pleasure while it's fresh in my memory.
I really want to make up a catch phrase with the word 'roll' in it... but I fear it will be dorky and cliche. XD!
Roll this way? Keep it Rolling? May 20's haunt your dice? .... bah, I'll work on it.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Werewolf: episode 1 Wakey Wakey
World of Darkness is very different from DD4e (I can hear the more experienced RPGers laughing at me already); no really going from a D20 system to 10 D10 and rolling a different number of D10 based on the dots you have in the skills required for whatever it is you want your character to do is kind of like Culture Shock. Luckily it's easy enough to get the hang of after a few runs.
A few nights ago (?) Eric had Jex and I do a trial run. My character isn't much in the way of combat so she rolled to hide and got an exceptional success (5 die landed on numbers from 8-10), and then sat back and YouTubed while the big huge Scottish Guy and a very Handsome other guy fought with a Gang member in some random back ally.
Tonight we got into the story. I'm going to tell you about the characters though because they are my favorite part. Shaun's character goes by the name of Jacob, is a charmer, he's hot, good with words, and flirts with everything that is humanoid. Missy's character is shy and really likes spiritual things, and seems to know something the other characters don't, either that or he has a crush on the old one eyed werewolf who was explaining things to us, and has a name that sounds like a cable company. Jex's character is a big Scottish guy named O'Connel who is very difficult by nature, big, and tactless. My character is supposed to be Icelandic-American computer nerd named Thorhilur (Tori because no one can pronounce it right), who's in love with remote controlled everything, Inuyasha, and being ninja-esque. She's also pitiful and is emotionally on edge since the 'first change.' She screamed, and shook, and held her breath, and pleaded a lot tonight.
The story is simple, since Jex and I will only get to be around for one or two, maybe 3 if we're lucky, more sessions. All 4 of us changed at the same time, super good Omen. The Pure (our arch nemesi) also have an Omen of 4 (which in Japan is super bad luck). To see which is the real Omen we have to go into the spirit world and perform a test for this huge armored bear spirit with steak knife claws. Oh did I mention Missy's shy guy glows and swirls when he's in the spirit world... yeah.
On the next episode: Be bewy bewy quiet. We'we hunting wabbits.
Salty Dogs: Vol III The Final Chapter
In preparation of moving Jex has tried to get our DD4e campaign to a good stopping point. So we've had two really good, long, sessions with Missy and Shaun recently. Hopefully tonight or tomorrow we'll get to play World of Darkness... but I won't get my hopes up.
Here's the ending to our little story.
The dice were against us! They were! Rolling everything under a four during an entire encounter is proof enough for me. I started counting on failing and only using my one invigorating fighter power (crushing surge) so that I could get what we've dubbed "bubble points" (they're temporary life points/hit points).
The story though is actually pretty sweet.
While Mara is dragging the NPC Zeni across the dirt road of Dead's End the Bard Aard (Shaun) is freaking out, the Halfling we met in town (Missy) isn't quite sure what to do, so she starts locking the doors on Zeni's side of the town so that maybe she'll have to go to the Sheriff's office. Well then Aard tells Mara telepathically to 'trust him' and attacks her, pushing her 5 spaces away and breaking her hold on Zeni. He tries to play good cop bad cop but it doesn't work. Mara's pissed but she decides to try the whole diplomacy thing. Mara and Zeni have the same personality according to Aard the Shard Bard so when Mara almost talked Zeni to their side (mara has a -1 to diplomacy btw) everyone was really surprised. But that fell through. We kept going back and forth between trying to be diplomatic and trying to knock the crap out of the NPC. Zeni was so bent on beating Mara even once the encounter was kind of over and she found the door was locked she chased her and stabbed her in the back.
In response Mara stomps across the street the flings open the door to the armor shop, which connects to the general store who's door was locked. There on the other side stood Casey in all her 3 foot tall glory. Heavily armored Mara was more than enough to conceal the little Rogue. Mara told Casey to run before turning and flinging her arm at the open portal. "There! Go through and unlock your freaking door, it's not like there's people clamoring to buy your shiz. Leave me the hell alone!"
Zeni stomps passed her and says: "If I see anything amiss I'm coming after you."
"Whatever." Mara huffs and starts to walk away.
Well, the Bard had used his 'shard swarm' teleporting power to get into the general store (and Shaun's so good at NOT metagaming that he kept his knowledge that the fight was over between Mara and Zeni out of his character's head) and in an attempt at drawing attention away from Mara he breaks the window. Upon hearing the window break Mara face palms and Zeni comes after her.
Luckily, Casey and another NPC who looks like he could be Mara's brother, Telecor, are able to get Zeni off of Mara, who at this point is literally at 1Hit Point. After everyone decided to beat the crap out of Zeni she went down fairly easily. They brought her into the Sheriff's office and were like, BLEH!
Clide, the deputy that's been keeping the towns people from dying of the plague, asks the group if they'd be trusted with a secret. My character is like "no." Hooray for Shaun's Bard being all persuasive and stuff. In the end they all go down and the Sheriff is all chained up in a cell. He asks the group to be deputies and they're like "sure, why not." Except for Mara, who does NOT want to stay there and is like "Meh, let me sleep on it." They get locked in the cells and talk it over a little and then decide that it'd be a good thing to do. Hearing a noise Casey unlocks the cells and they all go searching for the noise, but don't find it.
The next morning they wake to the Sheriff (who's a big minotaur) all chained up with an apparatus in front of him that has 4 ropes, a frame, all attached to a sword. Clide tells us that all we have to do to be Deputies is kill the Sheriff. Everyone's like "Okay." Except Mara, who doesn't like it because the Sheriff is asleep. She tells everyone that she'll kill him if his eyes are open, but she's not an assassin. Clide won't wake him up. Mara won't kill the Sheriff if he's out like a light. So, she says. "Fine, the rest of you kill him, Clide lock me up down here till this stupid plague finishes me off. Whatever. But I won't kill a sleeping man!"
This is not good enough for Clide. Who then locks us all up and leaves. Then Shaden shows up and is all like "you guys are stupid. You should've killed the Sheriff. blah blah, i'm a dick, blah."
Aard 'victim of the faewild's Casey and Mara so that we surround Shaden and we try to kill him. But he goes all shadowy on us and gets away. Another smoke bomb gets dropped in and Mara can't get the trap door open even though she cracks the wood.
When they awake with an even nastier headache than before, a progressed plague, yay -4 to all rolls; no one is happy and all the locks are jammed so Casey can't work her magic. Out of nowhere the armless asian man from the infirmary shows up and gives us hall packages of nasty bread and water while saying: "I'm sorry my friends to see you so down, perhaps what I have to give you will lift you out of your sorrows. I'm sorry the only silverware I could find was a butter knife." When he leaves and everyone opens their pouches Mara's like "Yes! yes Yeeeesss! * Maniacal laughter*" Inside there's a crude, thick, kind of metal bar/flat head screw driver. And Mara knows exactly what to do with it. She excitedly tells the Bard (who was expecting magic levitation bread or something) to use it to get the pins out of the jail door so they can escape.
The Sheriff wakes up and asks what's going on. The Bard, who loves a melodrama, tells him. The Sheriff, with the aid of his creepy spirit falcon, gets us out then we all go searching for Clide. We find one of the missing guys in the rubble of the lower end of town. Keep searching, then find Clide fighting with the nasty tempered bar keep. Aard just loves his 'victim of the faewild' ability and teleports Casey and Mara to either side of him. But Clide gets away, not before Jex can throw in 'I shot the Sheriff, but I didn't shoot the deputy' to call Shaden to the fray out of nowhere.
We pummel Shaden, take a quick breather because in the process of pummelling him we used up most of our special powers and lost one of our party. After taking Telecor to the infirmary Jex called 'the low beds' we take off after Clide in a surprisingly tactical manner, considering our group's history of 'let's kill it!'
Casey is being all sneaky sneaky in the dark. Mara is trying to be. Everyone gets to an upper room above the stalls and Mara uncovers her Sun Rod. THERE! Right next to her is Clide he starts to say something like "finally you fools have~" and Mara is like "Gah!" and hits him in the face with the Sun Rod. Being as how Sun Rod's turn on and off via tapping the light goes out and everyone's confused. The Sheriff throws his Sun Rod in a corner, yay, now we can see.
Then we fight Clide, who not only likes to hit Mara and only Mara, but also has a whirlwind vortex of fail around him that keeps us from doing much damage.
He's near his end and says something like: "This isn't over." And jumps out the window only to be knocked flat by the creepy spirit bird.
Mara runs out to see if he's dead or not. She can't really tell until he says her name. She leans down to give him a few choice words before smashing his head in but he tells her about the cure for the plague and that he was really the one behind everything and gives her a message to tell the Sheriff. She says she'll fix everything for him. Suddenly he asks about a Scepter, if she's had any visions about one. When she says no he tells her not to touch it that he has a feeling it's... and the Sheriff's boot crushes his face and kills him.
Mara bolts up and is all indignant. "What the hell was that for, he was telling me stuff."
"We have no more need for his lies." The Sheriff replies.
Mara gets in his face and stabs him in the center of his chest with a finger. "You could use a little more mercy, and a lot more tact."
They all go to the Sheriff's office and Mara tells them about the cure. After a few misconceptions and a lot of character interaction Mara finally finishes the brew and drinks some.
It tastes like mint, then butt, then rancid butt, then back to a nice mint. Mara then takes some to Telecor, because her companions don't trust her alchemical skillz. The Sheriff is all like "meh, you're wasting your time." and Mara's all like "I didn't ask you!"
Everyone gets better, the bad tempered bar tender is suspicious, and now our little group can go one of twenty differing ways. Damn.
Mara goes back to the Sheriff and tells him what Clide said: "About acting on Faith despite all opposition." and it gets all emotional. Mara then leaves and proudly announces to the Bard that he should be proud of her because she made it through something emotional without making fart noises. All is well in Dead's End, and now, we have the world before us.
Sweet.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Salty Dogs: Vol II
Something actually happened last time we played!
Clide, one of the deputies asks us to get some of the plant life he uses to make medicine that slows the effects of the oozy black doom. The Bard got hit in the face with a Mushroom Bomb thing. The other deputy, Shaden, took us to the cave. We went in, we searched, we gathered, we fought an energy monster and got the crap blasted out of us by a cave in that smashed the crystal that spawned the hologramesque being. Then we got out and were shoved into a jail cart and smoke bombed till we passed out.
Yay us... thanks to everything we have migraines from hell and -2 to every roll.
So, we find out that the plague has only been around for a month. It started just after some adventurers left. No one seems to have given them much mind because no one really remembers them. Shaden is missing, but the horses and cart are still present. The Sheriff is sick now.
All this being said, it falls to us to go and ask a very uncooperative Tiefling woman to come talk to Clide.
She wasn't being very cooperative.
My character isn't a happy character on the best of days. Mara+Migraine= Death to all who cross her. Zeni, the Tiefling crossed her.
Now my Character is dragging an NPC across the town by her Horns, literally. I think she might die.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Salty Dogs: Vol I
Recently my husband has DM'ed his first 4th Ed. campaign with a couple of friends of ours. We're the Salty Dogs, or so the Dwarf decided without our consent when our characters first woke up.
It's been fun. We had a Castle Crashers-esque beginning running from a flaming dragon while water was washing through the Dwarven tunnels like giant stone plumbing.
My character attacked the cliff wall to try and slow the fall when they all got swept off the side of a cliff face. We saved an outlaw before we knew there was a law. Got attacked by birds. The Druid did it's creepy swarm thing. Ignite Blue! The Bard gave a rousing binary version of cutting words in a mechanic's riddle infested lab gone ammuck. The Druid died and turned into mulch, Clip and Clop got left behind with the war forged as the Bard and the Fighter escaped on a huge rocket powered version of Cloud's motorcycle from advent children.
Now we're trapped in a disease infested place very aptly named Dead's End. This slow experience, trying to get difficult, western type, strong silents to give us clues on how to get the 'sam hill' out of there isn't my Fighter's forte. Her Int is -1 and she's more of a 'beat you now, tell me later' kind of girl. The Bard isn't having much luck either, and pissed off one of the more forthcoming characters, even with a 35 on words of friendship. lol
((It's at about this point that my friends and others not really into the D&D universe become very confused.))
With as fun (or unfun as the desert bleh of a town has been) as this is I'm going to start another D20 system.
World of Darkness.
Shaun, Sparky!!!!, sat down with me and Jex last night and gave us a once over of the character sheet and basic principals.
Seems to me that World of Darkness is going to be more RP than Battle based. I don't foresee much in the way of what some would call a 'dungeon crawl'. So it's going to be a nifty new experience once the well spoken of Eric comes to grace Texas with his presence.
I'm going to be a WereWolf!
Oh and my husband has been toying around with the idea of me starting to DM a campaign maybe with the two of us or him and my Brother-in-law. I'm nervous about that.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
A Year Later
Duran checks the door for any traps.
There don't seem to be any.
Then he flings the door open and chases after the man in spiky red armor.
Alright roll a acrobatics check because there's an explosion. Actually everyone to this square here *points to grid on the white board where my character is standing* roll acrobatics checks.
Here is where it all boils down to whether or not your character is going to have a bad day. You beg the little 20 sided die in your hand to roll something better than the last couple of 5's you'd rolled earlier in the game. And it listens to you, giving you a whopping 6.
Now comes the math and the understanding of where to look for what on your character sheet. Finding my way around the character sheet was easy enough, it was the math that was killing me.
So I add the 3 from my little bit of acrobatics and come out with a 9. Not quite enough to doge the large bit of door frame Duran had esploded.
Your character takes *the DM rolls his dice and nods in a self satisfactory way with a slight 'hm'* 5 damage and is dazed.
Putting myself into my character's shoes is easy, figuring out what she would do in the situation is hard. Going with my gut instinct I just listen to the shouting as the other characters gang up on the poor soul, who had also had a bad roll of the die but couldn't break the 4th wall in time to ask for a redo.
When it comes to be my next turn I do my bit then the DM says: "Okay did you save?"
Did I save what?! I didn't know D&D had save points! What do they look like? Does the DM draw them on the map?!
Nope, wrong. You roll your dice to see if your character snaps out of the bleary fuzz induced by the chunk of wood that slammed into her skull.
Ooooh. *rolls the evil inanimate object* get's a 10. Yay! I saved!
Alright you all look up to see a man standing on a platform, kind of like a balcony but less ornate, he's in a bluish cloak, you can't make out more than the basic shape of his long face. Does anyone speak primordial?
I raise my hand.
The DM raises a curious eyebrow. A halfelf that speaks primordial?! (Yeah it was either that or draconic, I flipped a coin) With a shrug he points to me and says: "You hear him calling on the forces of nature to kill the intruders."
Oh lovely. Having my character inform the party that bad things are about to happen I pull out my calculator. Not really, I never had the foresight to bring a calculator. After carefully choosing my attack and getting into the best position I could with the 6 spaces I could move I roll the 20 sided ball of evil to hit the baddie. Hit! Okay so I roll the 8 sided dice for my first weapon, the 6 sided dice for my second weapon, another 6 sided dice for the mark I put on him, plus my strength which is 4, plus 1 for each weapon and my bracers. *BIG SIGH*
That comes out tooooooooo.... 17?
My husband leans over my shoulder: "21" Oh, 21!
Confused?
I was.
It's kind of like learning how to ride a bike. Now that I have the hang of it I understand most of the language and what to look for it's really fun and I can go a lot faster.
Sometimes I still have a faux pas or two when looking up an item or armor or feat (because there are 20gazillion feats that sound like they do the same thing but DON'T). But hey, the perks have so far outweighed the draw backs.
I like to play around in the world my friend has made with a character in better shape than I have been since I was 13. There I get to fling around a sword and kill stuff without getting arrested for disturbing the peace, and man slaughter. Deep down though I feel like I'm building a story with the people around the table. Each of us adding our own unique flavor to the plot and dialog. I love it.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Frustrations Galore
Prior to playing D&D I dabbled in some online forum RPG's with friends. Back when Gaia was still free and still full of cool people. So, in all my human wisdom and hardwiring I thought it'd work out just fine to use the same concept in a table top RPG.
One thing I seriously overlooked was the little things like Dice, Level restrictions, and turns. And it frustrated me to NO END. As things happened around my character I'd want to have her react, but it wasn't my turn. Other characters were yelling at her to do something (i.e. RUN!), but it wasn't my turn. I had this great idea and everything was perfect, but it wasn't my turn. AAAHHH! and just in case you missed it: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
On a forum RPG there isn't really much of a turn based system. Yeah you wait for other people to post to answer a question or react to a described attack, but when you post you can have your character respond to everything the other character did. Not so with D&D; unless you have an immediate reaction move, which at this point I didn't even know existed.
Rolling Dice: I'm not a god-modder. I make a character and stick to it. If they have a weakness it is a real debilitating weakness. If s/he dies, well then, they die and I can tuck them into one of my stories later. For me rolling dice killed the character at first. I mean how on earth can a play a character who's fairly accurate with a sword if I'm having a bad roll day and can't get above a 4?! (In Mr. Silver's words: "Punish this die.") So I spent a lot of time on the feats figuring out what to take to help Cynica be the 'accurate' character she was built to be. (I hate feats!)
Level Restrictions: So a level 2 character can do three things, unless you're human then you can do 4, suckah. This was very frustrating with a recent character in a new campaign. My character is older than the usual new character, mid 30's give or take. So I wanted her to be a quick study, you know all full of wisdom and stuff from just living life. This is not so, for there are no feats you can take to double the experience gained from an encounter; at least none that I have found.
Then there came the description of the deed. I wanted to go all out like I had previously on the forum RPG's but decided to just kind of lay low with a little "She slashes with her long sword and slams the hilt of her short sword into his eye." Then I'd lean over and whisper to my husband something like: "Kobold's do have eyes, right?"
The describing I've learned greatly depends on the group you're playing with. Some players get super into it with their bards and actually try to sing. Others don't and only announce their attack roll, and go on from there.
But at the time I'd been told these great stories about how Valien's player actually sang and this and that. So I was really nervous about how to describe Cynica; I mean, honestly, how many ways can one fairly quickly describe slashing or stabbing before it becomes boring then the encounter turns into nothing but a series of numbers. I like visuals!
At any rate half my nerves were just being new to everything while everyone around me had played since the 9th or 10th grade.
So these were my learning curves. To this day I still have a few faux pas now and again. But I'm glad I did it, all my little mistakes taught me things. Like read an entire description of a magical item twice to make SURE it says what you think it says. *laughs*
One thing I seriously overlooked was the little things like Dice, Level restrictions, and turns. And it frustrated me to NO END. As things happened around my character I'd want to have her react, but it wasn't my turn. Other characters were yelling at her to do something (i.e. RUN!), but it wasn't my turn. I had this great idea and everything was perfect, but it wasn't my turn. AAAHHH! and just in case you missed it: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
On a forum RPG there isn't really much of a turn based system. Yeah you wait for other people to post to answer a question or react to a described attack, but when you post you can have your character respond to everything the other character did. Not so with D&D; unless you have an immediate reaction move, which at this point I didn't even know existed.
Rolling Dice: I'm not a god-modder. I make a character and stick to it. If they have a weakness it is a real debilitating weakness. If s/he dies, well then, they die and I can tuck them into one of my stories later. For me rolling dice killed the character at first. I mean how on earth can a play a character who's fairly accurate with a sword if I'm having a bad roll day and can't get above a 4?! (In Mr. Silver's words: "Punish this die.") So I spent a lot of time on the feats figuring out what to take to help Cynica be the 'accurate' character she was built to be. (I hate feats!)
Level Restrictions: So a level 2 character can do three things, unless you're human then you can do 4, suckah. This was very frustrating with a recent character in a new campaign. My character is older than the usual new character, mid 30's give or take. So I wanted her to be a quick study, you know all full of wisdom and stuff from just living life. This is not so, for there are no feats you can take to double the experience gained from an encounter; at least none that I have found.
Then there came the description of the deed. I wanted to go all out like I had previously on the forum RPG's but decided to just kind of lay low with a little "She slashes with her long sword and slams the hilt of her short sword into his eye." Then I'd lean over and whisper to my husband something like: "Kobold's do have eyes, right?"
The describing I've learned greatly depends on the group you're playing with. Some players get super into it with their bards and actually try to sing. Others don't and only announce their attack roll, and go on from there.
But at the time I'd been told these great stories about how Valien's player actually sang and this and that. So I was really nervous about how to describe Cynica; I mean, honestly, how many ways can one fairly quickly describe slashing or stabbing before it becomes boring then the encounter turns into nothing but a series of numbers. I like visuals!
At any rate half my nerves were just being new to everything while everyone around me had played since the 9th or 10th grade.
So these were my learning curves. To this day I still have a few faux pas now and again. But I'm glad I did it, all my little mistakes taught me things. Like read an entire description of a magical item twice to make SURE it says what you think it says. *laughs*
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Chapter One: Enter the Noob
Hey, my name is Rem and I'm new to the world of Table Top Games and gamer society in general.
And this is my story.
It all started early 2010, I'd just married my bestest friend and one true love Jex, met my in-laws for the second time ever, and was introduced to my man's highschool posse. The week before the fated night, whose date I can nerry remember, I'd sat down and tried my best to learn all the lingo required for character creation. Prior to this sit down with Adam (our DM) the only knowledge I had was my floundering through the D&D 3.5 players hand book. From that little jaunt all I remembered was there were too many numbers and "why on earth would anyone EVER consider making a wizard?!" Now I was knee deep in D8's versus 2 D4's and why which would be good in which instance, feats (ZOMBWTFM8!!!!), Nat 20's, initiative, who has higher Dex goes first, AC; I thought my little brain was going to pop and spew little 'OMG' shaped confetties. In the end I had a boss killer named Ko'ee that I was very proud of.
On that fateful night as I met the stragglers of the posse and a couple new faces something horrific happened: My character wasn't on Adam's laptop. In a fit of rage, confusion, and sheer panic I tried, with the help of my sweet Jex, to recreate my character in right around half an hour. Everyone assured me that I had time since everyone was printing out character sheets. I thought otherwise: How on earth can I recreate 6 hours of stuff I can barely remember?!
At long last I had a new character. A half elf like my first; a dual wielder, but a Ranger instead of a Fighter. Hoping against hope that I could some how get Ko'ee back I picked a random name and just kind of threw her together off the top of my head. Thus Cynica Trissade was born. Honestly I didn't think she'd turn out as well as she has, she's a little too much like me at times but hey you go with what you know when you have to come up with something on the fly.
Once the game started I was enchanted. I've always been one for playing pretend and swinging sticks at big imagined bad guys and monsters. Dungeons and Dragons for me was a way to continue doing that into adulthood. Imagining my character twirling around with her swords and interacting with the other characters brought back the adventuresome feeling I'd been missing since returning to America; where everything is either dull or expensive. Granted I was the slowest one there, I had to keep reading over my power cards and math is not my strong suit (I'm a language and art kind of girl, and yes I am aware that art is math based and no that doesn't help anything). I was pretty unsure of myself when it came to how to role play and how much to describe one's character's actions in game. There were some points where I felt like I was flopping around like an ungainly teenager who just hit a growth spurt the night before.
I'd overlooked the importance of Dex when it came to one's Armor Class, so my striker had a whopping 12 AC. Yeah. Me in all my newness couldn't figure out why the Warlock had a higher AC than my character. "I mean what the heck man, aren't Rangers supposed to be used to this kind of thing." Then came the epiphany that it wasn't your class that determined your AC it was your Dex and the other one paired with Dex (see, still a noob even after nearly a year). Luckily I have an awesome DM who let me go back and tweak Cynica till she worked better. Also luckily my first D&D campaign is 4th edition. If I'd tried to play that night with the 3.5 character creation method I would not be here and loving Table Top RPG's as I now do. 4th edition is really noob friendly and for that I will be forever grateful.
And this is my story.
It all started early 2010, I'd just married my bestest friend and one true love Jex, met my in-laws for the second time ever, and was introduced to my man's highschool posse. The week before the fated night, whose date I can nerry remember, I'd sat down and tried my best to learn all the lingo required for character creation. Prior to this sit down with Adam (our DM) the only knowledge I had was my floundering through the D&D 3.5 players hand book. From that little jaunt all I remembered was there were too many numbers and "why on earth would anyone EVER consider making a wizard?!" Now I was knee deep in D8's versus 2 D4's and why which would be good in which instance, feats (ZOMBWTFM8!!!!), Nat 20's, initiative, who has higher Dex goes first, AC; I thought my little brain was going to pop and spew little 'OMG' shaped confetties. In the end I had a boss killer named Ko'ee that I was very proud of.
On that fateful night as I met the stragglers of the posse and a couple new faces something horrific happened: My character wasn't on Adam's laptop. In a fit of rage, confusion, and sheer panic I tried, with the help of my sweet Jex, to recreate my character in right around half an hour. Everyone assured me that I had time since everyone was printing out character sheets. I thought otherwise: How on earth can I recreate 6 hours of stuff I can barely remember?!
At long last I had a new character. A half elf like my first; a dual wielder, but a Ranger instead of a Fighter. Hoping against hope that I could some how get Ko'ee back I picked a random name and just kind of threw her together off the top of my head. Thus Cynica Trissade was born. Honestly I didn't think she'd turn out as well as she has, she's a little too much like me at times but hey you go with what you know when you have to come up with something on the fly.
Once the game started I was enchanted. I've always been one for playing pretend and swinging sticks at big imagined bad guys and monsters. Dungeons and Dragons for me was a way to continue doing that into adulthood. Imagining my character twirling around with her swords and interacting with the other characters brought back the adventuresome feeling I'd been missing since returning to America; where everything is either dull or expensive. Granted I was the slowest one there, I had to keep reading over my power cards and math is not my strong suit (I'm a language and art kind of girl, and yes I am aware that art is math based and no that doesn't help anything). I was pretty unsure of myself when it came to how to role play and how much to describe one's character's actions in game. There were some points where I felt like I was flopping around like an ungainly teenager who just hit a growth spurt the night before.
I'd overlooked the importance of Dex when it came to one's Armor Class, so my striker had a whopping 12 AC. Yeah. Me in all my newness couldn't figure out why the Warlock had a higher AC than my character. "I mean what the heck man, aren't Rangers supposed to be used to this kind of thing." Then came the epiphany that it wasn't your class that determined your AC it was your Dex and the other one paired with Dex (see, still a noob even after nearly a year). Luckily I have an awesome DM who let me go back and tweak Cynica till she worked better. Also luckily my first D&D campaign is 4th edition. If I'd tried to play that night with the 3.5 character creation method I would not be here and loving Table Top RPG's as I now do. 4th edition is really noob friendly and for that I will be forever grateful.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)