My 9th Level Thief On The Morality of Dungeons & Dragons

Yeah, the Lotus Monks gave us soup and detected as Lawful but in The Blighted Lands of Yeso, what is the Law?

The law is 50,000 starving refugees, poison rivers, naga cults, families selling their daughters for rice and I find out these monks have a treasure room that'd make Pope Alexander VI blush? Yeah I backstabbed them. And the wizard webbed them, and Paul killed the Muscle Lich Monk with a +3 spear just to get the diamond in his heart.

We killed them like we killed the Necromancer of the Horned Tower and the vampires of Wessex and the Cult of Anubis and the Sorcerer of Bone Hill and Baron Strahd von Zarovich (twice) and the Hill Giant King. And we took their stuff. How could you not? That's why you kill kings. They have a monopoly on stuff.

Call me a thief? Ok, well I am a thief, name level, thank you very much and it took over an Orcus worth of xp to get there. Call me an imperialist? Fuck you, I'm Robin Hood.

I get xp for stealing what the rich have--but not for keeping it. Not for making investments, loansharking, building plantations, or bribing myself into a position of power, I just get it for taking it from the 1%. After killing them for being bastards.

If the children of your world take a life lesson from that: good.

Is there a single more honorable profession, in these days of grim toil and gruesome inequity, than thief? Is there any fate for an emperor more just than to be Murdered and any act more necessary for the improvement of humanity than to Take His Stuff?

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to collect some donations for the lower Snail Quarter orphans' hospital.

Are you a homeless orphan? Click to enlarge and follow the arrow

-
-
-

GodEyeHate

So it all started when Patrick looked on the map and said "Well we should go to (the heretofore neglected) Abu Zin Zeer--it's a port, they'll probably have some idea which way the elves took the Eye of Vorn"...

So to Abu Zin Zeer they went. They were to have a meeting with the thieves' guild next session to discuss getting into the high end of the city, where Lord Gormengeth and his sticking-out-like-a-sore-thumb white elves were last seen heading with their suspicious 25-foot wide crate.

-

But a funny thing happened on the way to the next session... namely a game of Slow War, wherein Dr Noisms, playing eastern interloper Liangyu Hui in that domain-scale wargame, hired one 10th-level and 2 5th level assassins to kill the Warlord of Abu Zin Zeer. I rolled on the AD&D assassination tables and they all failed miserably.

And then Noisms sailed his fleet into the harbor.

And the pharaoh did, too

And Michael sent the Red King's vampire troops in there through a mirror to seize the city.

-

So your humble narrator and GM figures that in the timeline of the game, all this Slow War stuff happens after the D&D session the players are currently in, giving them time to do their thing and, if they fuck Abu Zin Zeer up so bad it makes the Slow War events impossible, then, ok, alternate universe.

-

The players are, however, having horrible nightmares of things to come.

_

Now the players meet with the thieves' guild, who, naturally, have a shadowy figure sent by Liangyu Hui offering to aid the PCs getting up to the palace in exchange for them slaying the Warlord. Makes perfect sense and thank you Noisms for the vicarious plot assist. Players take a 5000gp downpayment. 

_

The PCs then devise a wonderful, elaborate plan: druid turns into an exotic bird, is delivered by the fighter as a gift from his army to the Warlord's. They roll well on charisma and the Warlord invites them into the palace.

_

However.... this all takes a day. So it's beginning to overlap the first day of the Slow War timeline. I roll to see when Noisms first assassination attempt takes place...7 AM. 

So, right after the party starts, one of the harem girls (a hijra) leaps toward with a wavy blade to decapitate the Warlord. Despite or perhaps because of the fact that this random NPC is about to do his job for him, the party fighter gets initiative and lops off the hijra's hand.

So, Noisms, that's why assassination attempt #1 failed. If you were wondering.

As for why the other 2 failed? Well, it's complicated...

Taking a look at the disposition of the palace...

They concocted a plan for heisting the 20' diameter eye of the Grim Grey God of Iron And Rain whose essentials should be obvious to anyone with even a passing familiarity with Marble Madness...

...a plan which, if successful, would surely ensure them a large and well-appointed home in D&D-PC Valhalla.

After a lot of chaos in the palace and kinda-mapping and crawling around on roofs, the confident high level players use Detect Magic to locate the room the Eye's in and use Stone Shape to peel open the wall from the outside.

And then they saw what the elves had done to the Eye of Vorn...

God's Eye Triple Beholder MechGolem.

To make a long story short:

Three spend most of the fight unconscious.

One now made of stone.

One dead.

One palace totalled.

Everyone in the city runs.

And that, Liangyu Hui, Most August Desert Troll And Oligarch of Silaish Vo, Blessed Of The Burning Sea, Challenger of the Necropharaoh, Bringer of Murder By Sea, is why your assassination attempts failed.

-

I guess next week we find out how the players escaped the city just before it was overrun by vampires...

-

-

-

Trying To Remember All The Things That Happened

When last we saw our heroines and that guy Adam, a demilich had taken a book from them and they were mad about it.

YOU CANNOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF GOATMEN ARE NOT CONSULTED

So then they headed across many hexes and fought a mind flayer on a crawling skull...

....and met a slaad/toad demon who, all things considered, could've been worse.

An invisible assassin followed them and allllmost killed them all while they were playing a boardgame, but Ulorin Vex's unnamed thief had stepped out to loot some innocent goblins and came back just in time to save the party's Silenced, Webbed, Sleep-poisoned cleric and wizard from certain death.

Good job, UV

It was one of those "ok, if you win initiative, you might be able to take her out--she only has 2 hit points left, if I win initiative she'll Magic Missile you and you all die" kind of days. (That is: the best kind of day.) And they won and the party lived.

Next session they spent a long time trawling the wreckage of an old caravan presided over by a junk dealer who had some accent I can't remember...

...they found something. I can't remember what. Man, I suck at recaps, right? Oh wait, I think it was a vortex grenade. Which means I need to write a random table for that.

They then talked to some dwarves about trying to kill Ferox the God Dragon. The dwarves were like Ok, you're crazy.

Then the players hauled off and randomly encountered some Unquiet Worms which are like worms that wear the skins of sorcerers with all the murder that implies. There was a repeat of last week's Total Party Kill Narrowly Averted By Sneaky Rogue event.

Then I went to New York and ran a clean-up mission on the Broodmother Sky Fortress playtest I ran a few months ago in the doomed made-up middle eastern city of Nizahd which was also a mission to find Good King Thrawl of Vornheim* . 50% party kill.

Meanwhile the online party ended up fighting snakemen in a library because they were like "We're sure these snakemen aren't related to the snakemen 10 miles away that we helped genocide" so I was all -roll- -roll- oh actually they totally are.

Then they got out and a crow was about to tell them something but it was 4am and I was tired so I didn't tell them yet...



_
*Easter egg for Vornheim fans: Why did Good King Thrawl go missing? John left his character sheet at Roger's house.
-
-

Battle of Hex 1911. Day 1.

Trent aka Sir Manning wrote this Actual Play Report/Plea For Aid after our last Cobalt Reach game...

Stuff in black by him, stuff in blue by me.

----

COBALT REACH Travel.. Tip? Battle... thing?

Ok we have definitely got ourselves into a fight.Someone help us next week, please.__________________

Besieging a Chaos Gnoll fort. ~50 Gnolls, Each one at least 4HD, and at least 2 Witches and 2 Superbadass warriors... Commanded by the exemplary GM,+Zak Smith.The PC force is Sir Manning's Warband (~130, primarily Amazons, with some goblins, elves, drow, panthermen and beastmen, mostly 1HD) allied with some Goblins of Gaxen Kane (~120 1HD Goblins).

(Recruited one unit at a time over the last few months and bought off with favors, gold, and promises of victory. -Z)

First round starts.... unexpectedly. +Chris H Kootenai has a Druidic bolt of Lightning reflected upon him through foul magics.... Damaging him most cruelly, annihilating +Scrap Princess's fabulous cat-fish looking man, Phaddius and Koot's Battlefrog.... A Fortune turned foul, indeed!

(This refers to the fact that Chris had earlier in the day consulted the Astrologer's Consortium and randomly rolled the fortune "One you hope to surprise will be expecting you and one you love will be set on fire". What witch wouldn't use those stars? -Z)

25 Gnolls charge forth from the fort! The jungle shakes with their roar, as their hooves churn the strange jungle earth. The vile, inscrutable creatures are met in the open with Bolts, Arrows, Bola, A Fireball (from +Ian Burns' Morgan) and a well placed Entangle. Despite this, many gnolls reach our line, where a fierce battle rages. Sir Manning duels their Extremely Strong leaderbeast, and Koot Druid-shifts into a bear to confront a sublieutenant. The beasts are strong and fast, delivering heavy blows with terrible weapons. Manning remains calm and defends as well as able, and Kootenai strikes home with ursine claws.

After a furious minute, Manning is on the back foot. Koot too is looking rough. Morgan raises his hands and draws power from strange places, before putting the largest beast down with a horrible Phantasmal Killer 

(Terrifying spell). 

Manning siezes the opportunity, removing and then flourishing the foul LeaderGnoll's head.

(Nice.)

Some inspiring words and roars of victory force the surviving Gnolls to flee to their keep. The sublieutenant goes down in retreat, from a well placed Magic Missile, and several more beasts are trapped and slain from Amazon Bolas and Spears. A fortunate victory with minimal losses, team Manning, though PC resources are low.

Kootenai demands another Lightning Bolt leap out of the heavens, after Morgan dispels the Witch's barriers. She survives the tremendous blast, taking a crossbow bolt from Manning for good measure.... Gesturing menacingly, the creature descends farther into the keep, beyond sight. From within, she summons a Foul Shelled Troll to rush poor Kootenai, determined to end the torrent of electricity. Hurriedly, the thing is intercepted by Sir Manning, 3 Beastmen and some swift Panthermen, who bear down on it with broad weapons and scything claws.A fierce battle ensues, as the main forces exchange arrows across the field. Manning is knocked down and unconscious as the troll unleashes terrible blows, but is dragged to safety by the lovely and enigmatic Olgreth. Manning's loyal beasts continue to drive their weapons into the thing, as Kootenai's summoned Insect Swarm keeps it at bay.

(Also terrifying.)

Manning regains his feet, praise Vorn, to do battle again. A second sally of Gnolls spew forth from the gate, headed in the direction of the critical Troll Battle. Manning gives orders for infantry to intercept the push at the treeline, whilst death flies from the forest into their advance.

(Also, the trolls eyes roll out of his head, hit the ground, sprout spider legs and begin walking around on their own...)

The game ends with the battle in the balance...We estimate 5% losses for Sir Manning, and 35% losses for the Gnolls. It has cost us in HP and magic, and we ache over what the Witches have still to throw at us._________________________

Just ignore the telephone pole

(This is how it'll work:

Ok, so assuming you don't do anything especially tactically intelligent/relevant and just went ahead and ordered a charge on the battlements, a full on combat would be resolved something like this:

(superior gnoll losses have been accounted for in the smaller "model" versions of the combats)
(also: keep in mind gnolls have cover (+2 AC) and high ground (+2 to hit))
________

UNIT 1

White Elf Warriors: 13 (7 have Bows)
vs
3 gnolls (in cover behind battlements)
which will be resolved as
5 White elves
vs
1 gnoll

UNIT 2

Drow Elves: 7 (With Bows, inc 2 Scouts/Thieves)
vs.
2 gnolls

UNIT 3

Trent's Goblins: 19 (Crossbows + Flails)
vs.
4 gnolls
which will be resolved as
6 goblins
vs.
1 gnoll

Warpig: 1 (I guess the Goblin Lieutenant has it)
(assume this is strategically irrelevant)

UNIT 4

Yellow Pterodactyl Tribe Amazons (w/bolas):50
vs.
12 gnolls
which will be resolved mechanically as
6 Yellow amazons
vs
1 gnolls

UNIT 5

Red Pterodactyl Tribe Amazons (with crossbows) 26
vs.
6 gnolls
which will be resolved as
5 red amazons
vs.
1 gnolls

UNIT 6

Green Amazon: 1
Blue Amazon (Cleric): 1
(All Amazons have various Jon Blanche Weapons, 50% have Bolas & Crossbows.)
Beastmen (2hd) : 3 (Two Handed Swords, Morning Stars)
vs.
2 gnolls

UNIT 7

BlueBlack Panthermen: 9 (4 x 2HD, 1 x 3HDftr, 1 x 3HD Ranger, 2 x 4HDFtr, 1 x 5HD Ftr)
vs
2 gnolls
Which will be resolved as
5 panthermen
vs.
1 gnoll

UNIT 8

Gaxen Forces:
Goblins: 113. 13 are on garrison duty back at the fort, 100 came with you.

...so that's 100 goblins
vs.
23 gnolls
which will be resolved as
5 goblins
vs
1 gnolls

plus

PCs (3-6)
vs.
Witches, Bosses, special troops (# unknown)
...

I suggest that you assign, for convenience sake, a number of units (1-2) to each player (not necessarily PC) to control. 

....

Essentially from now on, mathwise, every time a PC kills an ordinary gnoll, you can add 4hd worth of troops to your side in any unit you want.

If one of your units gets so big that the estimated model combat beneath is no longer inaccurate in your favor, you add a unit to the estimate.

Like: lets say Scrap kills a regular gnoll in personal combat.

You may then add 4 amazons to unit 5, making the total 31 red amazons vs 6 gnolls.

This means the 5-to-1 estimate is no longer accurate, it favors the gnolls. So the estimate is revised to 6 to 1.

You don't actually get more troops, of course, you just jigger the numbers more in your favor.

...

Also, you can pull in NPC troops to help with the leaders, you just get less xp at the end and the number are less in your favor.

_________________________

Will Kootenai's next bolt strike true? Can the incessant stream of stormy death continue to force the Gnolls from their bastion?Will the Troll go down before it destroys either Sir Manning or the valiant Kootenai? Will the Infantry reach the Gnoll's push in time? Or will Sir Manning be overrun?What cruel tricks have the Witches still remaining? Can the fort be taken, or are the foul magics too strong?

Join us next time, all ye PCs of significant/high level with ideally lots of magic or attacks or some way to fucking save our asses and would fit into Zaks game, because god dammit we can win this fight but I'm out of HP and both Chris and I are out of spells.

Check with me, opportunity is limited.

(Game is midnight on the cusp of Monday and Tuesday, Pacific time, if you want in.)

ps I love this game. We are constantly on the precipice of annihilation...

(Me too.)

_

-

-

-

The Seeking Orbs

Here is what your character knows about Seeking Orbs:

• Each one is a small glass sphere about the size of a golf ball that appears to contain a dwarf universe.
• They are indestructible and unalterable so far as you know.
• So long as it is in your possession, an Orb cannot be lost. It will stay on your person or in your gear no matter what.
• It gives you a bonus of 1 to every roll (like: ability checks, to hit, damage, saves, etc) except initiative.
• You can only keep it for one session. At the end of the session you will be compelled to give it to another PC that participated in that session (not any creature, specifically a PC). It's the rules.
• You cannot possess a single Orb more than once, however if an Orb dissolves (see below) you may possess another when the new one comes around.
• You cannot possess an orb and "not use it". You get it, it works for you in the next game you play, then you pass it along to someone else who played with you at the end of that session.
• You cannot give it to someone else mid session unless you leave the session. If you do that, they only get to use it until the end of the session.
• An Orb may be possessed by more than one PC belonging to the same player, but not consecutively.
• An Orb cannot be countered by magic-suppressing effects.
• If a Seeking Orb comes into your possession, please make a comment here after the session  saying who you passed it to at the end of the session and (if you like) any exploits made possible by the Orb.
• Only one Seeking Orb can exist at any given time.
• The first Orb appears in my (Vornheim) campaign.
• Anyone who comes into possession of the Orb should be directed to this page.
• The Orbs are designated The First Orb, The Second Orb, etc.

Here is what your character does not know about the Seeking Orb, but you do:

• Although this can in no way be detected, the Seeking Orb is a creation of the Gods of Disorder, designed to deliver fresh seeds of conflict to nexuses of drama, heroism and violence.
• If it should come to pass that, at the end of a session, there are no eligible candidates to possess an Orb (i.e. everyone in that session has already had it once) then the orb dissolves and a fantastically destructive demon lord is released into whatever gameworld that session took place in.
• The GM who is running that session is free to determine the nature of the demon lord, the exact place it appears (it need not be near the site of the Orb's dissolution, but must be accessible to adventurers), and its goals. However: it must be a massively powerful creature worth at least enough experience points to take a fighter from 5th to 6th level or enough xp to take the highest level PC who plays in that setting from their current level to the next--whichever of those figures is higher.
• The demon lord can be a traditional creature such as Orcus, Demogorgon, or Lolth, or a creature of the GM's own creation. If new demon lords are not germane to the campaign where the Orb meets its fate, the GM may instead elect to use or invent a devil, Tarrasque, kaiju, evil monarch  or some other new and massive threat to life and propriety, so long as the creature is both accessible to PCs and worth the proper amount of xp.
• The precise nature of the creature and its schemes could be related in some ways to the adventures the Orb has had on its way to your game. For example, its minions could be clones of all the PCs who possessed the Orb before.
• Once an Orb dissolves, a new one will instantly be generated somewhere else, and will soon be released into circulation in some campaign somewhere.
• GMs who have had a demon lord released in their campaigns via Orb may opt to coordinate the actions of the various fiends in some sort of collaborative multiversal apocalyptic scenario of their own design and reward PCs who participate in resolving it appropriately.

.

.

.

A Song Of Pterodactyls and Radiation

So there's the group here in Los Angeles, trying to find the Antikythera Mechanism.

And, on-line, there's the Kangarat-Insominiac Murder Society (Australians, New Zealanders, and Americans who do not sleep).

The LA group wanders the Cobalt Reach, west of the Blue Dragon's fortress.

The Kangarat-Insomniac Murder Society is hired by a goblin king to find them and kill them.

Except it's D&D, so no-one finds anything.

The LA group finds and then abandons the juggernaut-fortress of the Star Witch.

It crashes into a lake near a citadel of serpentmen and a goblin village.

Now, this next bit is hard to summarize. But...Ok, the Kangarats meet a the warband of chaos worshippers, run away from it, join it in attacking the serpentmen, win the battle, then betray and kill the leader of the warband, then flee, then have adventures, then come back and use some random poison from another GMs game to shoot the new warband leader, a fat goblin with jewel eyes, and it backfires and turns him into a demilich.

The LA group traces the wreckage of the juggernaut. Rolls into to some ratmen from the warband scavenging the wreckage.

Then like all the goblins and minotaurs and trolls and goatmen from the miniature shelf show up. Things get tense.

Luckily there's a new party member, Ulorin Vex....

...and she took points in diplomacy...

...so they manage to convince the freaks to take them to their leader.

Their leader is a skull in a box. Namely: the demilich that the Kangarats created.

Mandy wants access to the serpentmen library in the fortress that the demilich's warband took over. The demilich wants the Book of Vile Darkness that Mandy randomly rolled in like her second adventure ever.

So they made a deal: Baron Vorgus, Demilich of Cobalt Reach, agreed to give Mandy access to his library, Mandy agreed to give him the book then secretly come back later and kill him and take it.

.

Some things I like about the game lately:

It Preps Itself

Whatever Team Makeout does is the background for what Team Kangarat has to deal with the next week, whatever Team Kangarat does is the background for what Team Makeout has to deal with the week after that.

Crazy High Level Warhammer Shit

Team Makeout's still running 1st and 2nd level PCs over in Rappan Athuk, so we get our crawlcrawlcrunchCRYrun! fix over there. Everything in Cobalt Reach has poison fangs or is thrice cursed or can see the astral plane or whatnot. And there's radiation.

Feels nice to pull the stops out, especially after all the time the party's spent getting there.

Scheming

Everyone's sneaking around and trying to cut deals and trying to play the factions against each other and the Kangarats are trying to build an army and Team Makeout is trying to make alliances with goblins and it's got all those Themes that people who write games with Themes in them try to get when they're not yelling at each other about consulting ninjas and all it took was smart players and a constant threat of immediate incineration.

It's all Game of Thrones, only with murder instead of soap. And Mandy has bigger tits than Daenerys.

It's All One Game

Scrap ran a game where Trent killed me and leveled up so he is now high enough level to lead an army in my game to take back the city that was lost in the game that the LA group lost last year because he was Quested with a quest after rolling on the table that Jeff made for his game and now he needs help from the assassins of the order of assassins that Zach W is part of but Zach W isn't an elf from my game any more he's a human because he got reincarnated using the potion from Ian's game which we had to use on him because he got pummeled by a half-giant wizard from the other Ian's game who I tried to kill with poison from Reynaldo's game that the half-giant helped me get and.......yeah.

.
.
.

Some Reasons You Did Not Die Beneath Hex 1709

Dear Monday group,

Ok, one of you did die, but he was first level and he hit that gong, so what did we expect? But the rest of you survived.  Here are a few of the reasons--some you already know and some you may not:

-When you summoned the two-headed spellscarred wartroll, Mandy's was listening in to the hangout and was like "I wanna fight that troll" and brought her 10th level cleric in to help you.

-In theory, old school initiative is a 50-50 proposition. In practice, hours went by before I won one.

-That troll rolled a 2 to save vs that carrion crawler.

-Ian cast Dispel Magic on that archway and then rolled high. If he hadn't, you would've been sealed in the dungeon.

-Your elf scouts kept succeeding in their morale checks. If they hadn't stuck around and found that mutagenic sacrifice pit then the Tentacled Lurker would have been released within the hour.

-Scrap did not roll "Demon Lord" for her chaos mutation while suspended over the mutagenic sacrifice pit.

-Chris sealed the pit over with Stone Shape. That'll take a while to undo.

-Ian turned into a ferret or whatever before casting that fireball.

-Trent:

1. Used his fortune to make "the one he fears" (Annihilus Neroxx) into someone who had already been fighting for 20 rounds

2. Hid

3. Took the maximum crit/fumble gamble.

4. ...and rolled a natural 20.
_
_
_
Deep within the pit, the warband has found the remains of its shattered leader...

...let's hope your luck holds.
-
-

This Week In Improbable Murder

Thursday:

Area PCs Drop Mule Corpse Onto Band Of Ascending Gnolls, Level
Narrow Shaft, Simulated Physics Suspected In Sextuple Teraticide

Friday:

Paraplegic Goblin, Level 1, Swallowed By Dragon, Survives By Polymorphing Into House Halfway Down
Dragon Slain, Heirs Impoverished

Saturday:

Area Wizard Bitten By Toad, Stops Living
Druid Claims Responsibility From Beneath Porch

An unnamed 12th level wizard fell to a single-hit-die toad this afternoon outside his one-story home in the Forbidden City with his apprentice, also deceased. The toad was reportedly an agent of a hiding druid-- "Well in round one I cast Entangle on the wizard's bugbear bodyguards but he just undid it," said the druid, unwilling to reveal his name to reporters, "So then but in round two the bugbears charged toward everyone obvious while the wizard put up an antimagic globe. So I sent a toad in there because why not? I mean, I love animals and they love me but, seriously, 12th level wizard? Anyway he failed his save vs poison so he's dead now. I got his bracers."

Sunday: 

Area Lich Falls Victim To Metal Hook On Rope

"There's a mindless 12 hit die thing that looks kinda like this-

...allied with a lich," local Baron Blixa Apfelsaft explained "After a useless round where it managed to kill my dog (which had recently been reincarnated as a wolverine, but that's anyway whatever), I threw a grappling hook at the lich, threw the other end of the rope into the rotating-blade golem and that was pretty much that. One hit from some magic arrow Malice picked up somewhere did the rest."

"Afterwards we were all like 'Wait? That was a lich?' and the GM was all 'Yyyyup'"

"The wolverine got reincarnated as an ogre mage later that day. That was a whole thing."

Monday:

Area Cleric Unexpectedly Becomes Vampire, Slays Ally Running With Giant Brain
Giant Manscorpion Also Slain, Incident "Confusing" Claim Authorities

Reborn Proto-God Extensively Harassed By Roving Adventurers
Elf Also Dies, Players Disappointed At Lackluster xp Haul

Trentacle Kangrat, Age Unknown, Antipodea: "Well we made him run away, that counts for something, right?"

Tuesday:

Disturbing Twist In Underhive Murder
Experts And Players Baffled

Nyxotte the Denier, cleric of Azag-Thoth, frustrated by a statue of the Buddha unnervingly lacking in any secret doors and worth 0 gp and terrified by the sight of a swarm of fireflies, tried to swim across a silt-larded river in the Underhive beneath Sigil. Something doing 16 points of damage on a bite pulled him under, killing him instantly.

Xorth the Insinuator, cleric of Lolth, appeared seconds later, appalled to find her archenemy dead, but delighted to loot his firearms and don his sacred mask, "I will infiltrate the deviant Unchurch of Azag-Thoth and...you do realize, scribe, that should you print this your life is forfeit?" said the freshly-minted 3d6-in-order elf.

Where Do You Get 25,000 xp?

After watching a legless goblin kill a dragon, watching a toad kill a 12th level wizard and a year and a half of implementing miscellaneous death-avoidance and object-acquisitions strategies, my FLAILSNAILS PC, Baron Blixa, has found himself with 45,876 xp--making him a Sharper (level 7 thief) according to the Advanced Dungeons & amp;Dragons xp charts.

Still, being an ambitious soul, he yet longs to be a Magsman (level 8) with the stunning 49% chance to Hide in Shadows and 25% chance to Hear Noise all that implies. Meaning he'll need about 25,000 more xp.

So what are some targets worth 25,000 xp?
-According to James Raggi, the Keep on the Borderlands (not the Caves of Chaos, the keep itself) is worth 26,965.50 gp
-Assassinating Tittivilus, a Duke of Hell, will get Blixa 29,000 xp and his fellow dukes Hutijin or Amon will get him 30,000
-The 4th level of the original Blackmoor dungeon has 23,000gp in room 14 alone
- Heward's Mystical Organ and The Rod Of Seven Parts not only sound like titles of D&D-themed pornographic films but both retail for 25,000gp
-Killing every single bat in the Hartman Mine in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (1xp/bat) will net 25,000 xp
-The Tarrasque is worth 37,500
-Slaughtering any Elemental Prince of Evil will get you there
-Infyrana, the Dragon at the end of Dragon Mountain, is worth 30,000 gp and her hoard is worth even more.
-Primus, lord of all Modrons will get the party 32,500
-What else?

Grand Opening of Baron Blixa Von Vampirjager's House of Overland & Dungeon Cartography

It was Superbowl Sunday and there were gargoyles.

The halfling immediately ran into the dining room and Blixa naturally ran after, climbed the wall, and hid above the doorway on overwatch with a net.

Most of the gargoyles went after all the guys with hit points still in the hallway, but one was dumb enough to chase the halfling.

So he got netted, hit the floor, and the halfling shoved cake in his face, blinding him.

Blixa spends the next round dousing the downed devil in marbles and caltrops, so he tries to get out of the net and immediately falls down again and the halfling curbstomps him into a caltrop.

He is now competing for "most humiliated gargoyle in Ravenloft" with the one in the other room getting killed by the gnome's 3 badger companions (badgers get three attacks per round).

Malice the assassin drags a few wounded henchmen into the Death and Cake room and runs back out to join the fight.

We climb into position with crossbows and tell the henchmen to smear cake and entrails on the floor in case any more gargoyles come in.

One does, he slips, gets shot with two crossbows at once, escapes the cake, slips on the marbles and dies face first on poised hireling spears.

It was all smooth sailing for several rooms then until Strahd showed up and fireballed us all, killing 3 PCs, all the henchmen and Abelincolnvampirehunter the talking dog.

Which, for Blixa, hiding on the ceiling--7 hp and a saving throw away from death--was kinda triggering. Because he keeps buying dogs and vampire keep killing them.

The assassin steals a trick that my girlfriend made up 4 years ago--tossing a holy-water soaked net at Strahd--then he and the cleric incinerate him when he goes gaseous with a flaming sword and that flame strike scroll that was hidden in the dungeon respectively.

So the mighty vampire is dead in 2 rounds, the noble Abelincolnvampire hunter is reincarnated with some goo from the Vats of Mazarin (as...roll roll....a wolverine) and Barovia has a few new Barons.

________

And Blixa looks upon his pelf...

...the long years,  the many adventures, the fallen companions, the Deck of Many Things, the miscellany of carefully packed potions, the 34,159 xp... and where has it got him?

Check the AD&D thief xp table...

6th level.

Filcher.

...still.

All that and still 7,000 x.p. from Sharper.

On the other hand, amidst all this calamity and death, Blixa does have 66,476.50 gp to solace him.

And so, I hereby announce the opening of:

Baron Blixa Von Vampirjager's House of Overland & Dungeon Cartography 

What do we do here?

Sell maps and buy maps.  We buy maps--interior or exterior--of any place in the FLAILSNAILS universe your PC has gone and sell copies of any map we've acquired. For genuine gp redeemable for xp.

How much do you buy maps for?

• 10 gp per room
• 100gp per room with something interesting (treasure, secret door, trap, monster) that is/was once in it
• 300gp per complex encounter (with full description)
• ...and if it's real nice you might get a tip.

How much do you sell copies of these maps for?

Mere sp on the gp, my friend! Just ask before your next expedition to Vertique, Castle Amber, the Hill Cantons, Nightwick Abbey or anywhere else! No reasonable offer refused!

Fine print?

• Maps must be of places your PC has actually gone that were not GMed or written by me.
• They must represent at least one hour's worth of adventure.
• It need not be complete, but what is there must be drawn and keyed with enough detail and efficiency that I could use them if I needed to run my own players through that location if, say, I needed a last-minute map.
• Redrawn maps are acceptable.
• Both original and post-looting post-encounter contents should be listed.
• Maps may be of any place interesting: interior or exterior, published or home made.
• Figure out how much your map is worth yourself using the formula above, then tell me.

Can they be maps of places Blixa has been?

Sure, my own maps are pretty crap.




_

Dueling Campaigns

So there's this: Running an on-line campaign where the party's goal is to find and capture the party in your real-life campaign is both fun and educational.

When last we left the girls they were gingerly dealing with this maxxed-out dragon.

They grabbed some loot and went out into the hexjungle to find some means of dealing with the creature.

Which is always fun, right? You see a big bad and then the players, rather than turning it into one more disconnected episodic encounter, decide to move off and fight another day, keeping that looming threat in their mind. Like they're doing the foreshadowing for you.

So: back off into the irradiated jungles of Cobalt Reach.

Some very impressed goblins (we're at that neat point in the campaign, a few years in, where the players are 7-10th level and have some history and are obviously terrifying to everyone they meet) tell them their best bet for weapons is the rolling fortress of the Star Witch...

...which trundling monstrosity they then sneak aboard.

Then somebody's mom makes cookies and the session ends.

________
Meanwhile in Hollywood I agreed to run a game on-line last Monday.

"So y'all got a choice: take an assignment from the beleagured city of Vornheim, currently besieged by the undead and the goblin lords of Gaxen Kane, or take an assignment from the aforementioned Goblin Lords of Gaxen Kane"

Vote: Goblin Boss job it is.

I was kinda thinking it'd be nice if the on-line people helped save my city--after all, I got books to sell. But no, anyway...Goblin job.

The Goblin King has a grudge from a long time ago.

This goddamned pink-haired war witch and her warband not only humiliated him but reports from the southern frontier indicate they are contriving to discover some kind of mcguffin to save the doomed city.

So, the assignment for the online group: go hexcrawl around and find them.

_____
Now basically, in a sandbox, you have to have about a gazillion half-sketched ideas in every direction and then be prepared to build up on them when the party moves that way. It's a constant back and forth between planning and improvisation and, in the shuffle, some stuff can get lost: the PCs find a problem, half-solve it, have some fun, but then go "Fuck it" and move on 'cause there's D&D in every direction.

The great thing about having the second party chasing the first is that consequences of the party's actions (the engine of typical, structured dramas) suddenly spring up out of everywhere. Things have history and NPCs have allegiances without you even having to try.

So this second party starts looking for the girls: they find the tracks the rolling fortress has left through the jungle. They run into a herd of centigors who kidnap their totally redshirt wizard.

The first party sees this herd of centigors carrying the limp wizard in the next session and has to hide from it.

The second party finds where the rolling fortress clearly ran smack into that lake near Hex 2114 and was attacked by the warband of The Limbless Harlot (like that but, y'know, without the arms and legs). They have to do some forensic work to reconstruct the events.

The first party has abandoned the fortress and made off across the Reach to parts unknown, tangling with and taming an ocelot, and resting with some allied goblins.

The second party likewise makes an impression on some local goblins--the fact that Jez's goblin PC rolled as well as he could on his charisma plus strolled into town riding a man pretty much blew these hicks away--and also a citadel of creepy carrion-crawler god-worshipping serpent cultists who waste no time creepily tattooing party #2 and doubly charging them with the mystical task of finding the troublesome war witch and taking all the magic war witch stuff she probably just looted from the rolling fortress.

The War Witch herself is meanwhile sitting right next to me listening to all this on the laptop and occasionally commenting to Party #2 to the effect that she's noting their various levels and Armor classes. I put it down to prophetic dreams.

And, basically the point is all that thinking you do in a sandbox campaign when you go "Ok, there's a village-- why do they care? What do they want?" between and during sessions is largely done just by GMing the other game. Each party is creating the background action animating the other party's sandbox.

It might sound like a crazy juggling act but in actuality it makes it all much easier--I know exactly what's going on in the whole area all the time because I just GMed it. If I had just written it all out it not only would it've been lonelier but harder to remember.

I suppose if group 2 ever does find group 1 I'll have to schedule a party so they can fight.

2012 in Game Stuff

Realized Secret Santicore was really good.
Speculated what 5e should look like.
Wrote a GM questionnaire, people answered it.
Saw my players fight ice monkeys.
Realized A Book of Beasts by TH White was really good.
Wrote an essay about people who love rules. Made people who love rules mad. Angry mail. Trolls.
Wrote random tables.
Told RPG companies to hire more women. At least one of them listened.
Played Dwimmermount with James Maliszewski. Fun.
Moebius died.
Thrown off Story-Games.com.
Got GMed by Satine. Twice.
Wrote a called shot mechanic.
Jeff stopped running his Wessex campaign. Everyone angry.
Wrote a superhero story game. It passed the time.
Wrote a Chill hack for Call of Cthulu consisting of one rule. It worked really well.
Wrote an essay about people who need rules. Made people who need rules mad. Angry mail. Trolls.
Got hired by WOTC. Angry mail. Trolls.
Explained that, no, really, I got hired by WOTC. Angry mail. Trolls.
Discovered blogger's Batmanalytic feature:

Wrote a story game using playing cards. Fun enough.

Had International Anklebiter Illustrator Day.

Got interviewed on some podcasts.

Half-bird ranger died in the home game.

Found an excellent RPG-thing carrying case at the antique mall in Medina, Ohio.

Realized the One Page Dungeons this year were really good.

Explained how 'GM Fiat' actually works. Angry mail. Trolls.

Wrote alternate fighters, rangers and thieves for old-style D&Ds.

Played Burning Wheel, had fun, wrote about it. Angry mail. Trolls.

Had an idea about a couple story-games and their connection to wargames. Angry mail. Trolls.

Interviewed author of one of those games. He said the idea made sense to him.

Interviewed authors of the old Marvel Superheroes game and the new one simultaneously.

Talked with people about Sword & Sorcery vs Anime Sci Fantasy. Angry mail. trolls.

Hello? Gammarauders?

Made that:

One year anniversary of ConstantCon.
Ran a lot of FASERIP games on-line. World partially saved. Northwest Russia annihilated.
Hired by LOTFP to write an Alice-In-Wonderland thing.
Realized that was going to be awesome.
Invented a PCs-in-the-middle-of-a-mass-battle mechanic (refining Pendragon).
Invented a PCs-crawling-on-big-monsters mechanic (refining Scrap Princess).
Party druid wrote an article about sexual harassment. Roundly lauded by people who'd previously claimed our game group appearing in the media was "bad for women".
Said Google + was becoming the best forum for talking about games. Angry mail. Trolls.
Wrote some notes on Dungeon World. Angry mail. Trolls.
Won a prize for game thing I wrote.
Went to video game conference about it. Got interviewed a lot.
Saved some FLAILSNAILS PCs from imprisonment in Castle Amber.
DMed for a college game design class.
Thoroughly enjoyed Dungeon Crawl Classics.
Played 4e for charity (again).
Made that:

Invented a sci fi storygame specifically designed to work in G+ hangouts. Passed the time.
Made the RPG Speedcyclopedia.
Hacked Deities and Demigods so you could use it at the table.
Hacked Carcosa so I could use it at my table.
Wrote about my favorite Adrian Smith picture.
Made a Random Villain Generator. Dave abulafia'd it.
Players faced a maximum age maximum size blue dragon. Survived.
Played Night's Black Agent's with Kenneth Hite. Fun.
Made up Murdermaze G+ game. Fun.
Made up Warlords of Vornheim G+ game. More fun.
Ran Cthulhu on Christmas.
Played in Vertique, Hill Cantons, Trash Planet, Cocanha, The Vats of Mazarin, The Malicrux Sector, HUSK, Aggravaina, Scrap Princess' game wherever that is, NGR Kazakhstan, Castle Nicodemus, The Caves of Myrddin, and Outland.
GMed my players from the Horrible Ice Monkey Cave across the sea to the Cobalt Reach and the Fortress of Ferox the Incinerator.
Saw the Goblin King of Gaxen Kane hire a gang of G+ FLAILSNAILERS to hunt down my home group.

Most fun game to GM: Mmmmm...maybe this one?

This one had its charm, too.

Most fun game to GM on G+: Warlords of Vornheim. (Session 1, Joe's maxed out FLAILSNAILS wizard gets killed by a catapult crit in round 1.) Close second to Chill of Cthulhu.

Most fun game to be a player in in real life: NBA with Kenneth Hite or 4e with Satine.

Most fun game to be a player in on G+: It's very close, but Jeff's Wessex games or the Murdermaze games Scrap and Joey ran. Though it's a reallll close run thing with a lot of other games.