September ‘24 In Review

The kid started pre-k this month. Amazingly it took 2.5 weeks before he brought home the first cold. Then it was another week before I came down with it. I also finally started on my Halloween projects for the year. This year it’s an upcycled pallet wood coffin, and a PVC giant spider.  So far I’ve got the coffin lid and bottom made, and now need to make the walls. Currently there’s a pile of disassembled pallet wood piled in my garage that needs the nails pulled out of it before I can do that step, and a pile of about a dozen more pallets stacked outside the garage for future projects. The spider hasn’t even started, but I have gotten the parts for it. We’ll see if I can get it all done over the next 4 weeks.

Gaming
My work game continues. The party has been stomping around the swamp, and going back to the caves. They’ve discovered that the goblins have moved out of their caves, which kinda freaked them out. It’s great seeing new players seeing how their actions impact the world.

The Necessary Evil campaign has continued, and our…. Protagonists have infiltrated a secret lab to acquire a teleport device and also to humiliate the guy in charge. Predictably we all forgot about the main objective and focused on the fun of humiliating the worse guy... and the lair self destruct has been turned on! 

Our months-long adventure to the temple of the blue lord in our Stonehell/Rappan game has concluded with a massive tidal wave washing away a large chunk of the land around the temple, including the nearby village… and possibly the city 3 days walk away.  Now that we’re safely back home, the party is looking to head back into Stonehell, but not right away. The spellcasters needed to make some items, and the fighter types want to get in some training and carousing.  Ever have a session that could have been a couple of emails/chats?


Miniatures
I feel like I’ve been saying “It hasn’t been a super productive month” a lot in this section. By raw numbers it is true. On the other hand, when I look at the shelf of 2024 completed minis, it’s getting fuller and fuller. Plus I’m working on a bunch of minis that will be complete next month. I did go a little crazy, and decided it was time to add an LED to my first mini, and also sculpt a big old pile of skulls for a demon to stand on, and somehow got both of those finished. I think October and November will have some fun stuff coming though.

Media
Star Trek Prodigy season 2 rewatch
Star Trek DS9 Past Tense parts 1 + 2 (So depressing…)
Star Trek V (Better than I remembered)
Agatha All Along (SO GOOD)
Dungeon Crawler Carl

Goals for October
Finish the giant spider and coffin before Halloween
Try to get at least 2 session reports written per week.

Rappan Athuk: Sticky in the garden

Session 257 was played on 6/9/24

Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)
Borumar, ½ Orc Thief (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter (Lanse)
Morgana, wizard (Rob)
Koltic, Cleric 7 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)

The mimic has Blotto tight, and he can’t bring his fishing pole(arm) to bear Nick charges in, critting on the beast. Aroon hits it hard with his blade, while Jameth falls right onto the best, getting himself stuck. Dropping his (now stuck) spear, Nick pulls out his ax and crits again! Aroon drops his sword, takes a step back and pulls out his crossbow, sinking a bolt, followed by Lor’Koth doing the same. Morgana sinks a dagger into it, and Borumar crits with his bow, ending the life of the mimic. They pull their companions and their weapons free. Blotto pees on the body of the mimic.

Checking around the garden, they’re attacked by carnations. Being just annoying flowers, and not binding mimics, they’re quickly cut down, and Morgana collects seeds to plant at her manor.

Returning to the fountain room, the party rests, staying out of reach of the weird. The next morning Koltic purifies the fountain, and they collect the 2 gems.

Going back over the island, and beyond the garden, they come to a passage that heads out to a cliffside balcony… with a dragonne and its babies. Everyone agrees that they can come back to that later. Continuing into the temple’s inner areas they pass a crack in the worked stone of the hallway that smells of moldy cheese. Blotto rolls a stone into the crack. Someone (something?) rolls it back out. The party agrees that again, not something that needs to be dealt with now.

Deeper in the corridor expands, and the walls are covered in frescoes of sea life. They head west into a side corridor, and find a dusty dormitory with a nice collection of reference books that Morgana snags, and a crystal decanter of endless water! The party pauses here before exploring more.

Gains: decanter of endless water
Kills:
Losses:

Rappan Athuk: Weird things in the water

 Session 256 was played on 6/2/24

Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)
Borumar, ½ Orc Thief (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter (Lanse)
Morgana, wizard (Rob)
Koltic, Cleric 7 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)

After the ringing in their ears stopped from the exploding blast spores, the party continued deeper into the sea caves, finding another dry branch. Borumar scouted ahead, and found a small cave full of mushrooms… including shreikers. Rather than mess with them, the party moved on.

In a larger cave, where the torchlight couldn’t reach the end, they spied a bridge linking an island in the caves with a hole in the wall. On the island were some sea lions. The party chased them off. Landed on the island, and headed up the bridge, planning to return and check out the other bridge linking the island to the other side of the cave. A square chamber with a large ornate fountain at the far end was at the end of the bridge. The fountain depicted a massive sea serpent… with emerald eyes. No way this isn’t a trap, but Nick went to pry them out, disturbing the water weird in the fountain. Nick avoids getting grappled (and drowned) by it, and everyone gets out of its reach. Koltic says he can take care of it later.

Crossing back over the bridge to the island, and then over to the other bridge, the party finds a flower garden. Blotto goes sniffing around, picks a planter to pee on, and discovers the hard way that it was a mimic.

Gains:
Kills:
Losses:

Rappan Athuk: Into The Blue Lord's Temple

Session 255 was played on 5/26/24

Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)
Borumar, ½ Orc Thief (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter (Lanse)
Morgana, wizard (Rob)
Gimble, wizard (Scott)
Koltic, Cleric 7 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)

Back on the road, and heading to the temple of the blue lord. The first day out of town was quiet, THe party made camp. It was a dark and froggy night, but the frogs kept to themselves.

The second day was gray, dreary, and wet. The party arrived in an abandoned hamlet in the late afternoon. A note nailed to a door says “If you can make a go of it, it’s yours.” Only one spot was showing any signs of life, the inn. The party, unsettled by the other abandoned buildings, checks it out. The large inn was bright and warm and empty but for the old innkeeper. He welcomed the party, and with little prompting told his tale, how the hamlet was once a very prosperous spot thanks to the nearby temple, and all the pilgrims who came to see it. But not too long ago there was the earthquake, and after disease, and death, and strange fish beings coming up from the ocean. Now it’s just him and his ailing wife… everyone else has left. Koltic visited the wife, and sadly there wasn’t much he could do for her.

While the tale left the party with a chill, the warm food, strong drinks, and roaring fire helped put them at ease, at least for the night. Koltic tossed and turned, and woke in the predawn hours overcome with a feeling of dread.

The party has a quick breakfast, gears up, and heads out, following the innkeeper’s directions. There are plenty of boats to choose from, so the party splits up into 3 of the large row boats, and sets off along the cliff.

They come to a pair of sea caves, and begin to explore. They pause when the magic lights go out. Lighting some torches, Morgana lets loose with a fireball… that sputters out. Then something hits the boats from below! Fishmen! 8’ tall, with bubble helmets, they swarm the boats. The party quickly finds some semi-solid land to beach the boats on so that they can focus on fighting rather than drowning. It turns out that fighting on a sandbar isn’t all that much better than fighting on a boat, but at least the fishpeople were more interested in fighting the party than smashing the boats. The biggest one has a fancy opal necklace. And the cool tridents and 2 handed sword would make great trophies.

They return to the boats, and go deeper into the caves. In a side passage, they spy 3 floating orbs drifting toward the party. Nick thinks they’re blast spores, and not beholders, and tells everyone to shoot at them before they get too close. Thankfully, Nick was right.

Gains: opal necklace
Kills: 10 fishmen, 3 blast spores
Losses:

Review: Star Thugs

More and more I find myself much more interested in interesting settings than in new rules systems. I'm generally happy with the OSR and related rules systems. They do what I like, in ways I like, but that doesn't stop me from looking at other rules systems to steal ideas from.

I picked up Star Thugs at a used book store for cheap. Cover price is $17.95, and I'm pretty sure I paid $5. The PDF is currently $6.40  It's an interesting game, mechanically, drawing a lot of inspiration from collectable trading card games, with actions tapping your characters when they do their things. Each player runs their own ship, and its entire crew. The captain is the player's main character, but when it comes to actions, having a larger and more diverse crew means you can do more.Plus you can, though various means, have additional ships under your command. Because everyone is running their own ships and crew, this seems like it could get kind of cumbersome to RP everyone. In some ways this feels more like a board game, or a CCG than a traditional RPG.

Resolution mechanics are on the simple side, with a single 1d12 roll rolling equal to or above the target difficulty. If you have a skill in whatever it is you're trying, and you roll equal to or under that skill, you get to roll again and add both together to try to hit the target number.

The setting of Star Thugs is our own galaxy, and set today. There's a solid chunk of the book that describes the local sectors around Earth. Major planets/systems get write-ups of varying length. Like many sci-fi games, planets are generally looked at as homogeneous entities. It's hard to avoid when each one only gets a couple paragraphs. It also feels like a lot of these planets and systems were based on a 14 year old boy's ideas.

This just feels unnecessary. 

Overall I enjoyed reading this book, but it does have a couple of flaws that really bugged me the longer it went on. The book is almost entirely written with an in universe narrator. While I enjoy some of that, I much prefer it when those in universe bits are flavoring, rather than the meat of the book. I also kinda hate the layout. The font is a little on the small and cramped side, and the non-spaceship art is all uniformly bad (see above).

Where Star Thugs really shines though is their random tables for character background and random mission generation. These few pages alone might be worth the (highly discounted) cost of entry.

Rappan Athuk: Getting Ready to meet the blue lord

Session 254 was played on 5/19/24

Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)
Borumar, ½ Orc Thief (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter (Lanse)
Morgana, wizard (Rob)
Gimble, wizard (Scott)
Koltic, Cleric 7 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)

Feeling supremely refreshed, they spend more time poking about town, checking in with the local temple to learn more about what’s happened at the temple of the blue lord. The local pantheon consists of 9 gods (and a forgotten one), including the blue lord. Sadly the temple doesn’t have much more info than what Kelman already provided.

At the local provisioners, they are pleasantly surprised to find a selection of potions for sale, including a dozen healing potions, invisibility, growth, a potion and scroll of water breathing, and a scroll of resist elements. The party buys up the lot, as well as a new wagon, 2 horses, and some lanterns and torches (you never know when the magic will fail again)

Gains:
Kills:
Losses:

Rappan Athuk: Spa Day!

Session 253 was played on 5/15/24

Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)
Borumar, ½ Orc Thief (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter (Lanse)
Morgana, wizard (Rob)
Koltic, Cleric 7 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)

Blotto takes the head of the roc, ropes and stakes it in the water to allow the sea life to clean the skull for him.

Breaking camp, and getting ready to activate the elephant, they spot a trade caravan heading their way, and going eastward, the direction they’re headed. They hitch a ride to the nearest town.

Once in town they take full advantage of being somewhere civilized, and have a spa day. They learn a bit about the town, the local area, the temple, and the big dragon they encountered. 

Nick decides he needs to upgrade the bathing facilities in his castle ASAP, up to and including having Morgana make him a magic tub.

Gains:
Kills:
Losses:

Blood Demons

"Do you hear that grunting?" 

"Who's working out in a dungeon?"

 Looking through the doorway, the party sees a wide circular chamber that stretches down at least 60 feet, with a winding stairway wrapping around the wall. Down below, half a dozen buff red demons were busy flexing, stretching, doing one armed pushups, squats, box jumps and jump rope with a chain...  

"According to the map, we have to go down there." Allianora grumbles

"I hate gym demons" Rathgar moans. 

"Who doesn't." Feris says. "Ice storm?"

"Yeah, lets not get into their reach if we can avoid it." Nimble says, looking down at the bulging muscles

Blood Demons

Armor Class: 6
Hit Dice: 4* (M)
Move: 120' (40')
Attacks: 2 claws/ 1 gore or special
Damage: 2d4+1/2d4+1/1d6+1 or special
Number Appearing: 1d6 (1d6)
Save As: F8
Morale: 11
Treasure Type:
Intelligence: 7
Alignment: Chaotic
XP Value: 175

Monster Type: Demon, lesser (rare)

Blood demons are the gym bros of the demon world. While they love the chaos and destruction that they can cause, they also enjoy psychological intimidation that their impressive physical forms can instill, and will mock anyone and anything that is less physically developed than them. Because they're so energetic, unless properly restricted by the summoning spells, they will continue to cause mayhem and destruction until banished or destroyed. 

In combat, the demons will attempt to intimidate their opponents and flex and pose to show off their physique. Anyone viewing this must make a save vs spells or be in stunned for 1d3+1 rounds. While stunned they will suffer a -2 to all attacks, AC, and saves. This effect can only be done once per day per opponent. 

Like all lesser demons, they can be turned as undead (as mummies) and have the bonus demon strenth of +1 to damage (included above), and are immune to sleep and charm spells, and are immune to fire. 

Terrain: any

---

These demons are from the Reaper Miniatures Blood Demons set, and were painted with the following reaper paints: Red Liner, Asmodius Red, Seoni Scarlet, Sunrise Orange, Dragon Copper, Carbon Grey, and Skeleton Bone

The Big 15!

15 years.

It's longer than I spent in public school. It's longer than my marriage. It's as long as I had Lucy and Alice for each. Few things in my life are as constant. Maybe only my love of Star Trek and RPGs has lasted longer.

I've got lots more of everything that's come before, plus some new things coming down the line that should be ready in time for Halloween. To all you faithful readers, thanks for coming along on this journey. I'm not done yet!

Rappan Athuk: A Roc and a wet place

Session 252 was played on 5/5/24

Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)
Borumar, ½ Orc Thief (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter (Lanse)
Morgana, wizard (Rob)
Gimble, wizard (Scott)
Koltic, Cleric 7 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)

At the water's edge, they pull out the boat box, and struggle to remember the activation word. Eventually they get it in the water, and while trying to remember, say “boat” and it becomes a boat. Amazingly/Depressingly Blotto is the only member of the party with any experience with sailing, and it falls to him to direct the rest of them in getting the boat moving in the right direction.

About 4 hours after hitting the water, a giant roc is seen approaching. Crossbows and fireballs are readied, and loosed as the bird closes in. The roc is a little put off by the assault, and misses its attack on the boat. More bolts, a lightning bolt, and Blotto’s new paralyzing fishing pole arm get tossed at the roc. The fishing line hits and the roc fails its save, and drops into the water, eventually drowning. Botto ropes the corpse and they drag it on their way.

3 hours later Blotto feels some tugging on the line. Sharks are feasting on the corpse of the roc. Blotto manages to paralyze one shark, sending it to the bottom of the ocean.

5 hours later they finally make it to the far shore, and drag the boat and the corpse of the roc into the shallows. The body of the roc has been gutted, but some shark teeth are recovered from the corpse. Morgana takes some feathers.

Setting up a late camp, they attract the attention of a pack of wolves. Not wanting to bother, they chuck roc meat at them until they go away.

Gains: roc corpse
Kills: roc
Losses:

Star Trek Day 2024

Happy Star Trek Day 2024! 

 

The last few years we've gotten some amazing panels and events for Star Trek Day (today). This year, sadly, all we're getting is this video and the Lower Decks season 5 trailer. 

It isn't nothing, but it doesn't feel like much, especially given how much is and will be ending this year. Discovery aired its final season. Prodigy got sold off to Netflix, and there's no word on any more seasons. Picard is over (last year). And this is the final season of Lower Decks. 

Yes, there's still a lot to look forward to. Strange New Worlds is doing a fine job carrying the Trek banner, and we've got the Section 31 film and Starfleet Academy coming up... but... I want more. I want more Prodigy and Lower Decks specifically. While everyone fawns over SNW, the animated stuff (and DISCO) were doing way more interesting things with Trek, and I want more of that. I'd also love more Short Treks. That's another avenue to explore the Trek-verse without needing to green-light a whole new series for every idea.

Whatever the future may hold, both for Trek specifically, and for the world at large, I remain hopeful. And what is the core message of Star Trek if not that? Have hope. We can do better, we can be better.

Live Long and Prosper.

Rappan Athuk: Are we the baddies?

Session 251 was played on 4/28/24

Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)
Borumar, ½ Orc Thief (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter (Lanse)
Morgana, wizard (Rob)
Koltic, Cleric 7 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)

While the dragon had taken the donkeys, the slightly wobbly and a little broken cart remained. Borumar’s pack elephant statue was drafted into service, and tied to the cart. It looked ridiculous, but it worked, and Morgana didn’t have to walk.

The young bugbear’s name turned out to be Zur. She wasn’t super chatty.

After a bit on the road, they barely spotted someone following. Morgana cast invisibility on Nick and he and  Borumar snuck off into the brush to wait to see who was following. After a short wait, 7 bugbears came into sight. Nick and Borumar decided to deal with them together. Borumar started by backstabbing the biggest looking one, and getting in a really really good hit.

The leader took the hit, and snarled in pain, but didn’t drop. Borumar pulled his daggers out and stuck them back in. Nick appeared in the middle of the group, stabbing another with his spear, and then again, dropping his target. Borumar’s bugbear also dropped.

“You messed with Borumar, and you shouldn’t have done that” the half orc snarls at the remaining bugbears. They break and run, one yelling over their shoulder “he just wanted his daughter back!”

Borumar and Nick have a “are we the baddies” moment, and then settle on “The bugbears weren’t good people, we did the right thing”Borumar stashes the fancy blood stained leather armor from the leader and the pocket change in the bag of holding, and they catch up to the group.

Eventually they make camp and during Jameth & Borumar’s watch, Zur slips away. They both see it, and neither says anything.

The next day is without incident, and they make it to the water, camping once more, before tacking that challenge.

Gains: leather +2, 40gp
Kills: bugbear chieftain, and bugbear
Losses: moral/ethical high ground?

Rappan Athuk: Dragon Fire, Dragon Egg

Session 250 was played on 4/21/24


Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)
Borumar, ½ Orc Thief (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter (Lanse)
Morgana, wizard (Rob)
Koltic, Cleric 7 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)

“Who speaks for this ragtag bunch?” The dragon hisses.

The party looks back and forth between each other, and Borumar half raises his hand.

“Know this, there will be no settlers, no colonizers here!” She takes a deep breath and everyone runs. The heat of her breath, even as the party wasn’t the target of it, was overwhelming. “Begone, before I take more than this from your pathetic existence.” She says taking the donkeys and cart that were Morgana’s, and teleporting away.

The ruins were no more, and it would be an age before anything again ever grows upon the now glassy hilltop. The party takes a few minutes to change pants, and let the hilltop cool a bit. Checking around to see if there’s anything left to find, they discover a small cave mouth on the far side of the hill. Down some rough stairs they find what looks like an old burial site. Behind a closed door a voice calls out in goblin “it’s locked and trapped, stay out!” Blotto chats with the voice a bit. Eventually they agree to open the door, revealing a lone young bugbear female guarding a pair of chests.

The one with the gold is a welcome find, the warm chest with a silvery dragon egg was a highly unexpected discovery! Morgana was thrilled, and called it before anyone else could express an interest in it.

The young bugbear grudgingly agrees to follow the party. Deeper in the mound, behind another door are more chests, but these contain wooden, iron, and bronze coins, and a couple sets of plate armor with matching swords and shields, and a total of 4 rings.

Collecting their loot, and their… prisoner? They leave the still warm hill and head for the river. The kobolds have fled, apparently following their new dragon god. We couldn’t really blame them.

Gains: 5333gp, 4 rings, 2 suits of armor
Kills:
Losses: 18 kobolds, cart and donkeys