Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Fuck Trump (part 2)

The response to my post on Sunday “Fuck Trump” about how RPG.net and Ravelry banned posts showing support for Trump was… well, there was only one response. A special little snowflake felt the need to try to comment on it.

Twice.

3 hours apart.

But I’ve got comment moderation turned on because of all the spam bots that would otherwise flood my blog. So poor triggered Brian’s attempts to spew bile failed.

So he emailed me. Because of course he did. He had to be sure that this "libtard" knew that my blog was "marginally interesting" until that post.

Brian Fiscus, I hope you see this.

Fuck you.
Fuck Trump supporters.
Fuck anyone who approves of children being kept in cages.
Fuck white supremacists, neo-nazis, neo-confederates, the KKK, gun nuts, and anyone who supports them.


Now, I'm gonna try to limit my politics here, and get back to the gaming material.



And now for your Joesky Tax

What do the goblins want?
1. Bug Juice, the good stuff...
2. The dwarf's boot laces
3. Something to add to their collection of shiny things
4. A pet
5. Picture books
6. Black leather outfits
7. Colorful wrestling masks
8. Something that goes "BOOM!"
9. A new home
10. A new god
11. A new boss
12. Lunch

Sunday, June 23, 2019

Sunday Inspirational Image: Fuck Trump

Both RPG.net and Ravelry have instituted anti-Trump support policies.


I can't think of anything more inspirational than this to share today.

Fuck yeah. Fuck Trump. And fuck anyone who supports this administration.

Friday, June 21, 2019

Cover Reveal! Steel Empires Book 5: Steel Shadows

One of my favorite book series (by one of my favorite people) is coming out with Book 5 on August 8th, and yesterday was the cover reveal!




About the Book
The shadows are talking and they won’t take no for an answer. Victory has returned safely to present-day Limani, sure that nothing so strange as time travel can ever happen to her again. Until the shadows begin speaking to her. And it turns out she’s not the only one.

Along with her sire Asaron and daywalker Mikelos, Victory will travel to a realm outside anything she could ever imagine. A previously unknown, ancient enemy threatens to tear apart the fabric of the world, and everything Victory thought she knew about magic will be completely rewritten.

In this unfamiliar world, accompanied by long-lost companions, Victory must find her way home once more. But if the shadows have manipulated her life all along, will she have a home to return to? Or will the darkness consume Limani as well?

About the Artist
Bradley Sharp was born in 1977 in Oxfordshire, UK. From a young age he filled many sketch books, so it only made sense to study Graphic Communication at Nene University, where he received a BA Honors degree in 1997.

But the real world called Sharp away from academics, so he traveled around the globe a couple of times, working as a graphic designer. Now he makes a living by designing magazine spreads, but freelances with vector illustrations, allowing him to create something far-removed from what he does in his nine-to-five job.

Sharp finds vector to be an easy tool and believes anyone can use it. “I’d say my artwork is nothing more than glorified doodling. I like the logical inconsistencies of surrealism and find inspiration from many places such as music or the science fiction genre. Dog Star’s novels lend themselves well to my style. I look forward to working with DSB in the future, and hope fans will like the imagery as much as they enjoy the words.” Find Sharp’s work online at http://www.bradsharp.co.uk.

Pre-Order Your Hardcopy
Barnes & Noble (currently offering 30% off!)
Amazon
From the publisher

About the Author
By day, J. L. Gribble is a professional medical editor. By night, she does freelance fiction editing in all genres, along with reading, playing video games, and occasionally even writing. Her debut novel, STEEL VICTORY, was her thesis novel for Seton Hill University's Writing Popular Fiction graduate program in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Previously, she was one of the co-editors for FAR WORLDS, a speculative fiction anthology. She lives in Ellicott City, Maryland, with her husband and three vocal Siamese cats. Find her online (www.jlgribble.com), on Facebook (www.facebook.com/jlgribblewriter), and on Twitter and Instagram (@hannaedits). She is currently working on more tales set in the world of Limani.

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Stonehell: Dragons and Tears

Session 100 was played on 6/8


Koltic, Cleric 6 (Chris)
Jurda, wizard 1 (henchman)
Robin the Bard (0 level human)
Kili, Dwarf Cleric 6 (Matt)
Freya, Fighter 3 (Jen)
Lex the Cheeseman, Fighter 5 (Henchman)
Borumar, ½ Orc Thief 5 (Josh)

Having recovered from their encounter with the carrion crawlers, the party returned to the delve, and once again encounter fire beetles! 7 of them this time. There must be a major infestation in the area. The beatles are tough and hungry, and Jurda and Sir Robin the bard are dragged down by them, and only Jurda is able to be healed in time.

After catching their breath, the party heads back down to the windy halls of level 5. The well armored party is amazingly able to surprise a squad of heavily armored troops. Jurda uses her scroll of Sleep and knocks 3 out of 4 of them out. Kili, Koltic, and Freya charge in and slay the last one standing, then kill 2 of the sleeping ones, strip and tie up the last one. They wake him up, and then question him, but he refuses to say anything but his name, Malforth Dovia, since they’ll just kill him anyway.

Kili offers to give him back his armor, weapon, and the coin and gem he had on him, and to lead him out of the dungeon for info. Somehow he’s persuasive enough, and he talks. He reveals he’s a recently hired mercenary for the elemental temple that just started up a new chapter a couple levels down.

True to his word, Malforth is untied, redressed in his armor, and given back his items. They lead him out, through a swarm of giant rats, and walk with him back to town.

In town, they sell of the extra armor, Freya upgrades her equipment and buys a couple of healing potions. She then goes looking for a hireling, and finds… Malforth. He’s okay with potentially going up against his former employer, so she hires him.

As the party is about to head out, a half orc comes up to Kili with A-A-Ron, who introduces Borumar. With that, they head back to the Delve.

As they near the cave entrance they see something circling overhead…

A Dragon!

Kili, Lex, and Lucrecia book it toward the cave. Borumar, Koltic, Freya, Malforth, and Jurda all stay out to watch the majestic creature… as it swooped down toward them. Too late to make it to the cave, the dragon’s acid breath splashed over them. Borumar wasn’t in the direct line, and was only somewhat burnt. He pulled out a cloth of gold tapestry to try to wipe off Freya, but the dragon saw the gold, and swooped back around. Dropping the cloth, he and Koltic ran, leaving the rest to the dragon. The survivors hid in the cave until the dragon had finished it’s meal, collected it’s treasure and flown off. Then they returned to town, a little worse for wear.

Gains: 500gp gem, some gold coins
Kills: 7 fire beatles, 3 veterans, 8 giant rats
Losses: Freya, Jurda, Robin, Malforth

Saturday, June 15, 2019

Tuesday, June 11, 2019

Stonehell: Tentacles are never good things!

Session 99 was played on 6/1


Koltic, Cleric 5 (Chris)
Jurda, wizard 1 (henchman)
Robin the Bard (0 level human)
Kili, Dwarf Cleric 5 (Matt)
Freya, Fighter 1 (Jen)
Lex the Cheeseman, Fighter 5 (Henchman)
Lucrecia Thief 4 (Henchman)

While Eiric and Brie spent time doing arcane research, Koltic and Kili got bored, and decided to head back to the side dungeon on their own. Lex and Lucrecia decide to join in on the fun, On the way they encounter a young warrior named Freya also on her way to the dungeon, and the priests allow her to tag along as long as she pulls her weight.

At the entrance to the dungeon the party finds a couple of large fire beetles munching on something. Or maybe someone. The beatles are aggressive, and there doesn’t seem to be any way around them, so they fight, slaying the vermin fairly easily.

In a side cave is a massive rats nest of sticks and bones, and other detritus… and also rats. Kili decides to burn it, rather than trying to fight the rats, which causes a massive amount of smoke, but does kill the rats. Because of the limited air in the cave, and the smoke it takes a while for the nest to burn, so the party waits just outside the cave.

Seeing the smoke in the distance, a group of bandits decides to investigate, and seeing the small party, they attack with their bows. The party takes refuge inside the cave mouth, just out of sight of the bandits. Once the smoke clears, Kili checks out the rats nest, and finds a small trove of copper coins. He stashes them aside as they’re rather heavy.

Taking the stairs down to the second level the party pokes around in the old goblin rooms, now empty. The fire beatle pen is piled up with old junk, but also at the bottom of the pile a hidden locked coffer of gold. Calling this good enough they head back to town, and split their finds.

Kili spends some time praying to Cthulu, while Freya throws a big animal costume party that devolves into a massive furry orgy that interrupts Eiric’s research (adding another day).

Once everyone is recovered from the hangovers, they decide to go back to the caves. Making their way down to the 3rd level, they explore the crypts. The flooded crypt has several large flies buzzing around, and when they smell the party come over to investigate. Sadly “investigate” seems to mean projectile vomiting, followed by biting. Lex gets the worst of it, but the priests promise to cure anything that infects him.

After the flies are dead, Kili tries to figure out how to empty the water. Lucrecia gets bored, and just taps her way over to the sarcophagus. The water was only ankle deep. Sadly for all their effort, it was empty. Circling back around, they take the other stairs back up to level 2, and then to level 1, and come to a closed door. A hobgoblin with burn scars talks to them through the door. Mostly he wants to be left alone now that everyone else is gone.

Back down to level 4, they explore a hallway, then a room with tentacled monster eating 4 human bodies. They miss the second monster on the ceiling. And the tentacles paralyze whoever they hit. Freya is hit first. Kili slams the first monster with a critical hit, but is then hit by the second monster. Lucrecia, then Robin and Koltic are hit. Lex swats tentacles away with both his sword and shield, the last man standing. He falls back as the monster advances. Long seconds that feel like hours tick away as tentacle after tentacle tries to touch one bit of exposed flesh.

3 rounds Lex fended off the tentacles alone, while failing to score a single hit.

Finally he saw an opening, and jammed his sword right through the monster’s maw! A while later, the paralyzed members of the party regained use of their bodies, and they fled the dungeon, slightly richer from the loot off of the monsters’ previous victims.

Gains: 4980gp in various coinage.
Kills: 2 Carrion Crawlers, bunch of giant rats, fire beatles, robber flies
Losses:

Monday, June 3, 2019

Bucket (of dice) List

Way back in august of 2011 I started a blog post, which I never posted. Don't know why I never posted it, cause it's a perfectly good post. Why is it important that I share that I wrote this 8 years ago? Keep reading and find out!


I got the idea for this list Norman of Troll and Flame who got it from John Four of roleplayingtips.com

I don’t know a single DM who has run every module that they want to. Whether it’s the newest thing, or an old gem, they’ve just never gotten the chance. In spite of DMing a lot of D+D, and using a fair number of modules, there is still a lot I want to do yet...

This list is in no particular order, and is not limited to any specific edition or company. If I want to run it, I want to run it! I have however limited myself to modules for D+D or one of it’s clones/neo-clones/simulacrums/bastard children/etc..

B2 Keep on the Boarderlands*
Return to the Keep on the Boarderlands*
Red Hand of Doom
Tome of Horrors
Death Frost Doom
Stonehell
Dyson’s Delve
Vornheim**
Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
Castle Amber

I actually thought that this would be a longer list, but since I did limit it to adventures that I haven’t run, rather than adventures that I want to run again... but that’s another post!

*I’d love to run these two back to back with the same group, playing the kids/heirs of the first group.
**Ok, not an adventure exactly, and I don’t own it, but that’s not the point.



Since I wrote this, I now need to update it.

B2 Keep on the Boarderlands*
Return to the Keep on the Boarderlands*
Red Hand of Doom
Tome of Horrors
Death Frost Doom
Stonehell
Dyson’s Delve
Vornheim**

Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
Castle Amber

I've now run 3 off my list, and played in a modified version of B2! But of course there are a few things I want to add to the list.

Ghosts of Saltmarsh
Barrowmaze

Would it be cheating to add a few of my own adventures? Cause I've written a few, and haven't gotten to playtest many of them.

What's your list look like?

Saturday, June 1, 2019

May in Review

Gaming
I introduced a side dungeon (one of several that are out there) and man am I jazzed about running this game. Especially as my players are bloody DITHERING about taking on the mummy lord I introduced MONTHS AGO. Like, it’s nice to see them just taking on the bad guys and nasty monsters, negotiating with the intelligent goblins (rather than just mowing them down), and just acting like the higher level adventurers they are.

Curse of Strahd is cruising along. Feeling a little railroad-y but the effort our DM is putting into it is both impressive and a little boggling. We play for about 3 hours a week, and she ends up doing 12+ hours of prep a week. Wow...I’m horribly behind on session write ups, so I think I’ll do a catchup of some sort, then jump back in.

Miniatures
There hasn’t been a lot of time to work on things, but I snuck a little time to work on my gnolls. They’ve probably got another 2 hours or so of work before they’re done.


Media

Books
CPA Ninja study guide

Movies/TV Watched
The Good Fight (chunk of season 2)
Wine Country
Three Wives 1 Husband
Willow
Avengers
Always Be My Maybe

Goals
CPA...
And maybe finish the gnolls