I hate the Google + but Crit Pigeons are great!!!

Hello all!!!
*glances at the barren waste land my blog has become.*

I actually haven't been posting because of my Nexus. For some reason Google decided to hijack my device and download every picture I've ever posted on my few blogs onto it, without the option to erase anything. Not only that but it took one of my pictures and threw in a David Hasselhoff photobomb and then posted it for me on my Google + page. Which I had to have in order to keep my Youtube account, not because I wanted the damn thing.
I'm looking at the Wordpress. Because I'm sure somewhere in the fine print of the Terms and Conditions I skimmed then agreed to all of the above is perfectly their right to do. It makes me angry so I'm going to go elsewhere.

As such there will not be a little doodle for the awesomely bizarre scene that exploded on our Mutants and Masterminds game a few nights ago.

Lord and Lady Silver were over at Sir Will's place, along with Jex and I, we're playing a bastard Kamen Rider/ classic american comic book game.
The Riders Volt, Nova, and my Bio literally come crashing down in Superville as their crazy time space satellite, a tardis mini of sorts, hit a trap set by their old organization on the timeline that corresponds to out superhero game's characters Jex's Steven Scaggs aka: Arachnoshot, Will's incredibly unlucky NPC Rocker whose nonsuper name is continuously forgotten, and my completely out of place Aurora Brown aka: Briar Rose.
At this point we have a hideout that is in a pocket dimension. After Volt and Nova Robocop their selves all over Rocker's poor 1982 A-team special type van they show up on our doorstep.
I think I wrote a previous post about their antagonism with our little super trio, but it's been so long I'll refresheth thy memories. (or would it be "thine memories"?)
Prior to this our team was basically beat up by the Kamen Rider duo. They even burned down our headquarters and tortured Rocker on their minitardis station. So when they come rolling in our Characters are none too happy to see them. At all.
The Supers end up letting the Robo Time Cops into our pocket hideaway when a veritable army of other Kamen Rider types get beamed basically on top of everyone's heads. This is where it gets weird.
You know how most characters slash and burn their way through these kinds of scenes. We had that; Nova was piston punching faces, Volt nat 20'd the guys surrounding her partner with her lightning, and Rocker decided to flailing crowd surf. Jex's Arachnoshot is off in a dark corner trying to hack the enemy satellite. All very cool, all varying degrees of awesome.

Then there is Aurora. I did not make her for the environment that she now finds herself in. She is quite literally a superfied disney princess with a light sprinkling of witchblade. I thought it would be fun.... don't judge me. lol
Yeah she has her sword, she could probably slice a path into the ranks, but she's just not that effective against mobs. So what does she do? She's in the middle of a city. Most of her powers involve plants and animals... animals... like pigeons.
I'm pretty sure Will was very, very, confused when Aurora informed us that she was going to go talk to the pigeons. It was a cute thought. Maybe I could get some of the guys flat footed so the others could clean up more easily. No one could have guessed how effective it would actually be. I think we all thought that at the very least we'd all get a good laugh over a massive poop bombing.

Will rolled for the army of pigeons when they were up, a couple rounds after the actions that initiated their gathering, and got a Crit. With half a chuckle he rolled the enemies resistance/defense/damage soak I can't remember the term but it's basically a counter roll. The enemies came up a natural 1.
Will kind of stared at the die for a moment before snorting and describing the black mass of fat gray birds that swooped down on the enemies like a plague of locusts. For a moment there was little but feathers and confusion. When the moment passed those enemies unlucky enough to be caught were either very dead or covered in poo. They had quite literally been decimated. The only places free of bird crap were neat little circles around the PCs that were about 6 feet in diameter.
Crit Pigeons.

That my friends is what happens when minions crit other minions.

I'm drawing a few comics from the night. It was fun and worth quite a few laughs. But I won't be posting them here. It'll probably take a little while but I'm looking at Tumblr and Wordpress. Haven't decided which will better handle my intricacies/ make it easier for me to post instead of procrastinate... and not mess with my pictures or post for me or... *deep breath* just no more google.

May the Crits be ever in your favor. (^_^)

Solo Adventures Are Dumb

I write to you from the nether realms of crappy airport free WiFi. What? Forgot about this blog you say?! Never!
Actually that's totally true, because I found my life to be dull when it came to gaming recently. That and adulthood has thoroughly sucked the joy straight from my eyeballs.

Anywho, I've been on a two week long solo campaign in real life. I like to call it "hopping mad".
You see, interweb pal, I'm trying my damnedest to see my dude Sir Jex. His company was ordered too freaking far away from me this passed September and I've started going through withdrawals. I'm trying to get on a military transport that also takes passengers. We call these flights 'hops'. All if them are short notice, vague, and frankly quite stupid if you aren't active duty.

So I surfed on a cot for two weeks with a friend before I decided to set out and make this damned flight thing happen! I struck out bravely on my own with no one around to laugh at my failures, or get in my way; which was nice. But then I realized that adventuring is no fun when you're solo. There's no one to laugh at your aweful jokes or keep you from half killing yourself while carrying a mountain of laundry or killing the people giving you contradictory information just to make everything more vague and indeciferable. And I don't care what you animal lovers claim, my dog is not very good company. She's freaking cute, but seh's a poor substitute for a real companion.

I just drove 8 hours, in the dark, alone, on a single sleep cycle (1.5 hours). There were many fun signs, crazy buildings, and interesting (read: horrid) exit ramps that threatened to eat our gimpy car. I got inspired to draw some crazy stuff, got to play my first episode in a fate system RPG, hell I designed my own bloody planet. Somehow it didn't mean squat without Jex around.
I need my freaking partner in crime.
Being stranded in an airport in the Capital of the U.S. just isn't as thrilling if there's no one to share it with.
Solo Adventures are Dumb, and nowhere near as adventuresome when the rest of your party is on the other side of the contenant, or the other side of the world.... Where's good teleportation scroll when you need it, eh?

What I'm going to do.

I'm going to start a comic panel for this blog.
Watch, it may not be very regular, it will happen. It may not be awesome or wonderful or anything like the Oatmeal, but it will be fun a the very least.

Stay tuned. Both of you. (^_^)

Learning a New System is a Pain

I don't know if any of you have had to deal with learning a new system after getting comfortably couch shaped in your current games.
Lucky for me I was introduced to White Wolf and D&D at about the same time, and while it was 4E not 3.5 I really feel that it kept me open for other systems.

Not so Geronimo.

Learning another system is like learning another language. I'm not kidding. I had an easier time picking up German than trying to make a character in Mutants and Masterminds. The point buy system makes sense, really it does, but damnit if it isn't hard to use. Make a super hero. Cool. Here are your points. Awesome. Now everything you get with those points costs a different amount. I can handle that. But your attributes are 2 for 1 and your skill points, you have to buy those they're not based on level and those are 4 for 1, oh and if you don't put points in 'drive' you can never Ever drive Anything for any reason. Did I mention that we're going to split the 'perception' bit of the skill list into 'search' and 'notice' yeah they're both Will based stats, they're basically the same thing but eh, we've got to make your imaginary heroes more human somehow right? How do you feel about having to buy DR, well we call it Toughness. Awesome, it's expensive as hell.
Oh by the way, you don't have hit points. This is more white wolfy in that respect. Also we're going to give you a toughness score of a low number like 5 and expect you to know what you need to roll on a D20 to save from damage. SAVE FROM DAMAGE?!

Oh my God.

Not only that but Wizards of the Coast are dicks and copy-write EVERYTHING. You can't just call something a minor action and leave it at that. NOooohoho. Everyone who ever writes a D20 system book has to change the lingo. Which is fine, until it's 1 am and your brain starts moving a little slower. Suddenly a 'swift action' makes no sense or your mouth betrays you and spouts something in D&D vernacular that confuses the GM. Or if you forget what one of the words, a distant synonym no one uses in everyday speech, actually means.

*deep breath*

On the up side, M&M is actually kind of fun.
On the really steep down side, there's not really an encounter generator. There are nowhere near enough quantifiable bits to help a new GM work out an 'issue' in their little comic book world.
Also, the encounter straight from the back of the book is STUUUUUPID.
Not stupid like, oh man that story line was lame, or what have you. Stupid as in the DM purposefully killed your character because you were new. Or maybe I'm not as great at character creation as I though I was.

Here is where I'd like to thank Sir F.W-illiam for the fun game we played. Honest to Gott im Himmel the outrage of the characters in no way reflected the feelings of the players. It's not your fault Captain Thunder sounded like a huge dick, it's also not your fault that my character hates b.s. even if it was well meant. She freaking talks to plants, her patience with the human race is very thin. Thanks brah. (^_^)
I will make that panel, you can count on it.

From Flannery, with love in the Demon Wastes

Off we fly toward another Eye. But I cannot be bothered with these things at the moment. All the lovely alchemical tidbits I found and liberated from that vile bastard of a wizard's clutches needed love and attention. That I fully intended to give them. Yet, I missed so much! Our warforged, who I have decided to call "Waffles" instead of W.F., somehow had babies.... don't ask me! I wasn't there! I don't know how this happened or why! And gods be blasted if I would rather have been there to document this strange event than with my eyes glued to magnifying glass and chemical compositions.
It's sulpherous!
Something splatted into our ship and Thunk the idiotic druid from the pit of morons decided to reincarnate it. To be fair I was actually quite impressed with his confidence and go-to attitude. However, wiping your finger across a goo covered deck, sniffing said goo on said finger, then declaring: "I wonder what this was." Before reincarnating it is actually quite stupid. Quite. If it were an Irfreet or Dragon or Roc or any other infantile creature we'd have more trouble and damage than our curiosity was worth.
Luck held out for the brainless bean bottle; the man, who is now a Dwarf thanks to the strange realm of divine magical quirks, was a wizard by the name of Clive Icarus. He is also an idiot and told of spells that could revolutionize travel, blaming some one for taking out the landing portion of the spell that had killed him when he, I'm most certain, was the one who forgot to put it in the spell to begin with. Idiot. It's probably his face that makes him stupid. When one is as symmetrical of look as he one can afford to be daft. Well he's Slash's problem now, not mine. And gods help him if the half orc ever loses her reign on him... I will turn his blood to acid in his veins if he gets in our way. Hehe.

We find ourselves in the Demon Wastes. A scarred and torched land worthy of such an unpleasant name. Though I'm beginning to wonder about our employers. What do they hope to accomplish by gathering these Eyes of the Tirant, little more than beholder eye stalks turned wand, and should they prove dastardly in intention how could we hope to overcome such strange power? I suppose those are thoughts for later.

No one knows what they are doing. In a dungeon such as the one we just departed there needs to be a clear line of thought, reason, perhaps even a touch of logic. But no, a perfectly round hole in the wall sends Slash and Won into fits. Slash is certain that we should be wary of a Beholder and Won.... well I honestly don't know what Won thinks. He's on a different plane of existence from the rest of the universe. He pulls me into the tunnel and wants me to make acid. Then he wants me to light his torch, hold a rope, throw a sun rod down the perfectly smooth, odd, tunnel that's 10 feet off the ground. As fascinating as it is I know that there are orbs of annihilation floating near by, and they are just as perfectly round as this tunnel. My curiosity is quite capable of being overridden by my self preservation. When Won asked me to throw oil of impact down the tunnel I couldn't help but scream "NO!" and leave him there to kill himself. I used Thunk's giant bear face to climb out of the tunnel before Won did something stupid enough to kill himself and me if I were too close.

Unsmelted silver abounds, ready to be hauled away, probably gathered by the gnome and the lizard man called 'Sam', though being absorbed in fairly important research and development of my own I can't imagine why they would do such a thing, or why the were here in the first place.
Thunk thinks the silver is Tuna. Which is fine as long as he allows me to measure  how much he eats so I can figure the ratio for turning one's skin blue.
While I'm measuring the silver and dreaming of the alchemical possibilities Slash opens a door and nearly burns herself to death. Afterwards Thunk practically throws himself down the stairs on the other side. I'm flabbergast that he's alive still. Not long after he disappears there's a thundering crack of sound followed by unearthly screams. I do not doubt that he's tripped another trap.
With some care, but mostly haste, the rest of us follow after the stupid, stupid, druid. On our way the screams stop. A long hall opens into a small room filled with doors, and shreds of some fungal substance covered in goo. Spent runes mar the wall opposite the door. So the crack was lightning; I deduce by the smell of ozone in the room. Surprisingly enough the cat form druid is whole; singed, bleeding from his ears, but whole. All the doors are locked with magic locks. From the way Slash is laying into one of the doors with an axe and not getting anywhere I believe they're probably bespelled in many more ways. Self healing, force wall... wait... force wall?
We all watch in stupified horror as the doors hinges are depinned, the door removed by a gnome, and then replaced while he laughs at us from the other side. Thunk goes at the wall of force and only manages to slam into it and slide down leaving a blood trail and a screeching noise that makes me cringe.
It's time to think around the box.
While everyone is blustering, well mostly Bitterbrew is blustering, I decide to blow up the wall around the door... I will never admit that Won, the strange korean monk, gave me the idea when he started to attack the stone around his door rather than his door.
My companions seem to be getting wiser. They clear out of the little room when they notice that I'm laying explosives.With a bang and a cloud of dust the wall gives way to a simple room. It looks like it may have been Sam's room. A sword and a bow are flung to the floor under a weapon rack my explosion managed to mangle slightly, those might be worth something. Beside it is what looks like a scraping pit. A simple bed and dresser and another door. Thunk announces that "Medusa's live here!"
Bord I go to see if I can reverse engineer the magic on any of the other doors.

Thunk and the others go through the secondary door in the small suite. I imagine it was quite a sight, before Slash started feathering her hoard by cutting down the crystal beads that hung from the ceiling. Vaguely I remember Thunk yelling something like: "Beads of Delayed FireBall?! I GOT DIS!" but seeing as how he can't tell Silver from Tuna it's easy to ignore anything he shouts at the loudest decibel possible.
I can easily imagine how they found the ice giant demi-god.
Thunk rushed in with his overconfident idiocy. Probably threw the door open with a triumphant "Ha ha!" then froze in his tracks at the sight of the massive form in front of him. We all remember the Oni. Slash more than the rest of us seeing as how she was literally decapitated for an instant before Bitterbrew's magic took effect. He's a blustery pimple of a being, but the stocky squalor face is a damned decent healer.
The giant must've thrown his mace at the poor door while Thunk was trying to shut it, otherwise I don't think he would've turned Direbear to face the thing. The booming voice announcing "Not Again." was hard to miss. I was told later that the giant had spoken to the fire elemental sealed inside Thunk's spine and it had power over it.
Of course I was called in by the time Bitterbrew was making groundless threats. "Better be clarifying yourself or I'll go through yer eye!" In his grouchy brogue. Thunk is conflicted, from the looks of him he's been well healed. Taking it for granted I took over command and told Bitterbrew to shut his face, half the ship is mine, and the giant will owe us something for letting him out of his prison. By the symbol on the ceiling and the wax solidifying around the door jam that wreaked of burning blood I could deduce as much. The dwarf butted out and the giant used his strange powers to make the gnome everyone hated for reasons beyond me get the Eye we were searching for. Nice, sweet, simple.
The giant gave Slash a coin the size of a dinner plate with his name scrawled on it in lovely dwarven lettering. "Ulric Skyson" whether or not we'll have to pay for letting him free will be attended to when the matter arises. For now whatever was drawing power from him with a blood seal has been stunted energy and I feel confident about that for some reason.
A classic argument starts up as soon as we get to the top of the stairs. No one knows how to work the boom, people are arguing about how to call the ship to our location, Ulric tells us we don't have much time since he's going to make sure there's nothing left of his prison. Again I save the others from their less than adequate wit and work the boom myself while Bitterbrew signals our capable captain.
Our Gnoll, 2 Ears, killed Sam the Lizard man. I'm pretty sure I'll smell rot before the body is done with. Poor Sam.
As we streak away we hear Ulric booming and angry voice. "I'm making a point. I WILL NEVER BE IMPRISONED AGAIN!!!!" With a shattering of ice crystals throwing a rainbow explosion into the air the place was gone. Leaving the Demon Wastes the ship took a balista bolt to it's hull. The 'doorf' is bent out of shape about it. But it's minor. I have other things to busy myself with. Other, more important things.

Cait's Campaign vol 1.5

Without a thought the ragtag group of strangers turned from the dog pile and went to the few merchants still sniveling in their stalls. Water and wine skins were filled. Bags were packed with hard tack and various dried not-so-delicate delicacies.
For some reason neither human could account for the Gnome purchased a badger. A Badger. Little more than a shared glance and a few hand signals communicated the need and desire to move on to the docks. "Might as well." Thought Mara to herself. "A bleeding badger." Pfft.
Flitting between shadows the Gnome lead the way. His keen eyes caught a glint in the fading light of the day. In an instant he was there with his hand gingerly on the object. A delighted light touched his eyes, though no emotion moved the lines of his face, as he pulled out a worn bag full of gold. 20 pieces to be exact. Slyly the grey being slipped it into his own belongings without the tiniest clink.
However, elf-sight being superb in the dimming half light, Lorien caught sight of the Gnome's discovery and began peeking behind barrels and chalantly kicking up other objects that littered the street.
Taking note from the bipedal members of the party Barbarrel, the Druid's large floppy eared riding dog, sniffed around. He returned to his master, tail wagging and head high with doggy pride, with a cracked vial full of alchemical goodness. As the Druid poured the contents carefully into a sound vial the human's remained unconcerned. Neither of them made any comment on the discoveries, nor did they even glance in as discrete search of their own. Perhaps humans were just prone to being indifferent or cynical, mayhaps they were simply just wanting to get on with the job.
Mara couldn't help but hope the potion the Druid picked up wouldn't backfire on them when they least could handle the repercussions. Subconsciously her right hand touched the wrapped, and slightly off, form of her left hand before she continued down the road.

Brine, fish, and smokes of many kind grew stronger as they came closer to the docs. When the glint of the gibbous moon, half formed and awkward, on the water could be seen on violent ripples a sound pierced the air. A warbling, wet, cry of anger and challenge. In a practical, and comfortable, movement Mara had her shield off her back and her sword drawn. The Elfmaid, Lorien, wrenched her bow to the ready while the Ranger, Druid, and Gnome whispered into battle stance.
The creatures that burst from the shallows were short, scaly, and smelled of ocean crap; which is worse than regular crap. Lorien sucked in a lungful of tainted air to sing a crisp ballad of a hero long past. The sounds fill the adventurer's limbs with strength, the words spark a fire in their hearts.
The scaly creatures advance on them as if railing against the tune that still hung in the air like a ghost. Mara easily takes point, holding her shield arm at the ready while the sword makes a single, eager, twirl in her left hand before coming up in a vicious upward arc. The metal hits the first creature in the chest, surprising it to a halt, before continuing straight into it's companion's neck. Muck colored liquid bursts from the almost neatly severed neck before the disjoined parts crash in a single twitch.
For a moment the other scalys pause. Whether unsure of their opponent, or frightened by the sight of the malicious look in the armored woman's eyes, is anyone's guess. After that moment has passed a single scaly rushes in passed the steel woman and straight into Barbarrel's waiting maw. With a shake the large dog effectively breaks the creature and drops it on the ground.
Out of the sand bursts the Gnome, much to Mara's shock and irritation as she's sprayed with the irritatingly fine particles. He skewers one of the two remaining ocean scalys on his rapier with suck force that the tip of the weapon pings melodiously off the stones laid into the street.
Taking a half step back the lone blue scaled creature makes a piercing cry, warbling and shrill, the kind of cry that demands help. Within half a breath four more creatures run squishily from behind a dilapidated old shack to help their comrade.

Wind whips around the Druid's small stature and a crocodile springs up out of the ground. A mouth full of teeth and a smile as vicious as the look in the Gnome's eyes. The ocean scaly's fall in quick succession.
When out of nowhere this old man runs up swinging his cane and shouting unintelligible babble punctuated by the kind colorful curses that can only be grown near or on the sea. Interestingly enough the Lizard like beings actually run away from the flailing old man. As they turn to take a hasty leave the moon light gleams just right to reveal a brand. The brand is a crown around an ovular shape that spouts a large tongue of flame at the top and a smaller flame from the bottom.

After a few breaths and quizzical expressions the crazy old man introduces himself as Malcom. He's a drunk but he seems sober enough at the moment; excluding his earlier behavior. Lorien is keen on following the old man, though no one else is. Mara accompanies the naive elfmaid only because she knows with certainty that people like the elf need something strong near by at all times. Otherwise bad crap happens.
As pleasantly as she would if she were entertaining a noble Lorien asks about the journey Malcom will be taking them on the dawn.
The gruff old man hurrumphs that he: "Don't make much a habit o' goin'. Damn swarvy currents, blasted lot, changing all the bloody time. No' to mention Neira's Path. Thrice and Forths damned ghost current i'is. Carries them soul o'th Adine turn' to Naga." He shudders at the image he alone can see.
Malcom is the captain of the 'Last Drop'.
"Clever." Mara thinks dryly to herself, but stills her tongue lest she risk the half drunk's ire. Can't have a wry swing taking out a little elf eye.
Malcom offers for the voyagers to spend the night in his shanty. A few refuse, a few accept, and come dawn the 6 of them, 8 including the quadrupeds, set out on the sea.

Cait's Campaign Vol 1

The Port of Cina. A rich beautiful port, with all the best produce, seafood, and a marketplace filled with colorful wares ranging from the ridiculously decadent and gawdy to the simple and durable.
It's too bad for the wanderers perusing the wares that they are close to broke. Asking around four beings gather before the Artifact dealer's stall. It's one of the few stalls able to be locked tight instead of the open tent like stalls that surround it.
A human man and woman tower over a little elf-maid, a gnome, and a halfling with his riding dog. Their attire gives them away. The human man is a ranger, he smells of the woods even over the salty stench of the harbor air, if that wasn't enough he wears a bow and a cloak that shimmers of forest camouflage. The human woman stands a scant bit shorter than the man. Her body covered in armor and a shield on her back. She clinks as she shifts from foot to foot, her spear and sword tapping against one another in the bell like 'ting' of well forged metals. The gnome is grey, very grey, and dressed as one who prefers fleetfootedness and silence. The halfling reeks of druidic influence from the sandals on his feet to the twigs in his hair and his dog, though frightening has the air of one wiser than he should be. The elf-maid is dressed in the lovely colored clothing preferred by her race and musicians. Her spun gold hair tangles over her bow like gilding on a chair. Such a gathering of strangers is not odd in Cina, for many come here to book passage on ships or to continue to adventures elswhere.

Noctis, it was the name the other merchants had spoken. The man is fat, balding, and obviously drunk. If one could not smell the alcohol the flush on his face and the fluid of his motions would be evidence enough. Despite his despot look the wares around him are impressive to say the least. Buisness must be doing well because the fat merchant offers 2,900 gold up front and anything we want from his wares if they make it back alive. Or at least that's what those gathered could make out through Noctis' slurring.

The task seems simple enough. Travel to the Isle of Morrow and collect the Crone's egg. A large gem of legend that holds prisoner the evil god Forosei. A cannibal of a diety that completely, and literally, devoured the Nadeen people. Some anonymous benefactor has paid handsomely for it's recovery. Mara, the woman in armor, thinks it reeks of ill-fate. But she needs money and Cina turned out to be a dead end anyway. If anything wrong comes of it they could burn that bridge when they came to it. Maybe.

With coin in their pockets and task in their hands the group quickly splits up to buy supplies for the trip. It shouldn't take more than a few days, but anything can happen on the sea. The name of the contact at the harbor is Malcom.
Out of nowhere there's screaming and people stampeding away from snarls and yips. Seems the pack of mongrels that roam the alleys at night have decided to come out and play.
As the sea of people rush passed and the dogs move to intercept Mara takes point and Bryarbahn sent his dog ahead. Both the riding dog and the fighter clash with the mongrels and stop their advance with snapping jaws and shield.
Lorien, the elf-maid, runs to the sand dune by the wind tent and fumbles with her bow. Earamir, the ranger, breaks off to the right sand barrier and shoots a clean arrow into the haunch of one of the mongrels. Bryarbahn lets loose a stone from his sling causing one of the beasts to howl angrily.
With a swift sweep of her spear Mara takes one mongrel in the throat and digs the end of the spear into the dog gnawing on her shield.
The elfmaid strings an arrow and it whistles between two mongrels sticking fast between cobble stones. The Druid's sling gets tangled in his sleeve and the stray stone makes a puff in the sand dune.
Running up beside Lorien, Eramir releases an arrow that sticks fast between a mongrel's ribs. With a bellow Mara cleaves straight through one of the two living mongrels and into the cobble stone.
With a flourish of sand and blades the gnome pops out of the dune like a jack in the box, strangely silent, and ends the last mongrel without blinking.