Announcement: Otherness, Session 7

Otherness: Session 7 will be played this upcoming Sunday, August 30, from 12-4 at The Source Comics and Games. This is a Free Campaign, which means anyone can show up and play at any point. I already have five confirmed players, which is great, and even better 'cause it includes my little brother, with whom I haven't gamed since 1990 or 91. And I believe we played Rifts...

Adventurers will once again be braving the subterranean halls of GRISTLEHELM. It seems unlikely that all of them will be leaving intact...

On a side note, we're switching over to using the Holmes Blue Book as the rules-base of our campaign, along with a good dose of Greyhawk and Fight On! articles. This can be laid at Will's feet, since he printed out a nifty bookletized form of the said rules for me, which caused me to actually read them all the way through and realize how just how tasty they really are...

GRISTLEHELM

I guess they were busy at The Source last time we played---usually we get some sort of plasitic stand-up with flashy 3e heroes exposing their thighs to hold our table. In the end, though, this is more appropriately old school...

Our last session, played I believe three weeks ago this Sunday, was a first: they took a run at the first full dungeon I've created since high school! Called GRISTLEHELM, it's the underground coilings of House Gristlehelm, the scions of whom were rumored to be werewolves. The last Lord Gristlehelm and his wicked brood were driven below, presumably to perish, and their castle thrown down. The ruins now are peaceful, twined with flowering ivy and birdsong. However, any who look for it can still find the thick wooden door with the spiral stairs leading down into darkness, the golden Gristlehelm wolf head snarling in a flaking scarlet field at its dark, scarred center. Some say the door was sealed with silver and magic. If so, such is no longer the case. The door ratchets open for any wishing to enter...

We had a medium-sized group this time: Will, of course, playing Melvin the Fighting Man, accompanied by his hireling Alan One-Hit; T.J. playing Punka the Fighting Man; Trevor playing Narpet the Magic User; and my son Max playing Fireskull the Skeleton Fighting Man. That's right---a new character race in Otherness. Skeletons may be Fighting Men, Magic Users or Clerics of gods of death (obviously!) They only take one point of damage from arrows, but take an additional die of damage from fire. They're also vulnerable to being Turned by good clerics or commanded by evil ones. Otherwise, they're just like you and me... This all sprung from Max buying and painting a set of undead miniatures in his own expressionistic fashion. He's made several characters now, all directly based on particular miniatures. Two of them (Bloodarex and Mudskel) have even stormed the Ruined Monastery before it was ruined, but that's another post...

A Few Interesting Things

I find I'm still using the General Conflict table from my abortive Judges Guidelines. I mean, I could do something similar with only one die, but I like the curve of two. I actually tried another iteration of these rules with Max one day and, though it worked better, still left me going "meh." I can't say I'm done with tinkering (and lately I've been thinking pretty seriously about switching over to the Holmes rules---that lies on your shoulders, Will!), but the general ODD rules are just so wonderfully SIMPLE...

I'd been perusing my pdf copy of Fight On! 5, and so floated the idea of using Paul Vermeren's Dungeon Motivations. They bit, and I ain't never going back. This is now de riguer for delvers in Otherness. Our results:

• Trying to impress a love interest
• Chronic underestimator of danger
• Has terrifying dreams commanding the character to awaken a sleeping god (Max got that one...)
• Crazy old uncle has filled PC's head with glamorous nonsense about dungeon crawling
• And (drum roll please) an actual score of 100, made by a drop-in player who was simply wating for his group to get there: A deity in disguise, visiting the dungeon as a sightseer. He had made a magic user named Exi Dor (ya get it?) and, when his group showed up, Loki (that's who he really was, you see) quipped "Well, I think you've got it from here" and vanished... Perfect.

I'm missing one there, so if one of you is reading this, please fill me in.

Oh, and btw, Wuukys, from the same FO! issue, are now a totally playable Otherness race...

Some Highlights

• In the freakin' entryway, the characters found a loose stone with treasure hidden behind it. Lucky bastards!
• They found a room, painted all gold, with a big crack in the floor that disgorged a giant ant. They killed it and left quickly.
• An ambush by a group of kobolds forced them to leave the dungeon, rest for a few days, and return. It wasn't until later that I remembered that both Melvin and Fireskull, as 2nd level fighting men, should've both gotten multiple attacks against their .5 HD foes... Oh well. Of course, they didn't remember, either...
• Stumbling upon an evil cleric and his orcish henchmen, they killed the orcs and Narpet charmed the cleric. Since this was apparently once a wine-cellar, they also decided to drink some of the wine. A random roll found it to be extremely intoxicating...
• Now that the cleric (Octague) was Narpet's best friend, he showed them them the way he'd gotten in, which led through a room featuring a warm, algae-scummed pool with a demonic statue cavorting in the middle of it.
• Octague led them to a large room filled with old chains, hobbles and muzzles, including the skeleton of dire wolf. Large double doors to the west were ignored, and instead they followed the cleric out the doors to the east, up through a worked cave mouth and into the woods outside. In hollow were many rusted cages, which was all they had time to see before getting bum rushed by a sparrow-headed birdbear (see Fight On! 4).A quick melee saw the charmed cleric actually kill the beast, rolling a natural 20. Go figure.
• Melvin just made 3rd level: now officially the highest level character in the game! See what showin' up gets you?

It was just too much fun to run my own dungeon. I'm hopeful we'll head back down next time. We have only barely scratched the surface of GRISTLEHELM...

The Debut of Exis Hammerfist

Our last session, played back in the middle of May(!), was a big deal for me---my five-and-a-half-year old son Max played his first real game of D&D! The picture on the left is the miniature he chose for Exis his dwarven Fighting Man, and the dice he bought before we left the game store. Not that he needed new dice---he rolled four natural 20s. But more on that in a bit...

Another reason this session was a big deal was, of course, the descent into Level 2 of Xylarthen's infamous Tower. We had an unusually small group for such a serious undertaking. Will was playing Melvin, now 2nd level (I'll talk about that in a bit, too), R.M. was playing Kohenim the cleric, his son Max was playing Redwood the elven Fighting Man, and my son Max was playing the aforementioned Exis, also 2nd level. Melvin acquired the services of two thugs, um, I mean hirelings, named Alan and Zech. They chose the stairway in the former guardroom, aperoom, what have you, and down they went.

A Couple of Tangents

A while ago, Will mentioned to me his idea for xp's, that maybe it's not a bad idea to think of them as being given to the player as opposed to the character. He expanded on it in a post here. Actually, that whole thread was full of fiber, as it were. Go read it. Anyhow, after thinking about it a bit, I agreed with him. Especially given the "play once/month, Free Campaign" model we've got going on here, it seemed fair, especially to players like Will, who show up a lot. So, I grandfathered in the experience he'd built up with his other characters (there have been soooo many, after all...), and lo, Melvin was well into 2nd level.

Max's character I started off at 2nd level. I mean, c'mon, he's five...

As for Melvin's hirelings, I generated them using Robert Lionheart's excellent "Random Hireling Generator" from Knockspell 1. This is a great magazine, and a worthy colleague of Fight On! I bought the pdf of issue 1, but it's another that I'll eventually start collecting in hardcopy as well. Go read and buy!

Some Highlights

• More giant weasels. I don't know what it was about Xylarthen and weasels,I'm pretty sure someone's gotten hurt everytime they've mixed it up with these large, mean, smelly rodents...
• In one room a door was opened, which disgorged a hideously cackling skeleton doing a good impression of the Grim Reaper. He laid about with his scythe until Kohenim turned him, at which point he leapt back through the door and slammed it shut. Perhaps judiciously, the party decided to leave it shut.
• In another room, while searching, they heard sounds outside a door they hadn't yet opened. It became clear it was a group of kobolds. The door was yanked open, revealing an exploratory horde of somewhere close to 10 of the little blighters. Negotiations began, until Exis became impatient. Striding up to the hobgoblin leader, he punched him solidly in the head, dropping the doglizard in his tracks. Needless to say, the rest panicked and ran. The backstage of this was Max saying, "I'm gonna punch him in the face." Pan to group of players looking confusedly. Says I, "Are you sure?" Max: "Yeah!" "Okay," says I, "Roll that 20-sider." Pan to a natural 20. Wide-shot: Whole table cheering a grinning 5-year old. Too cool.
• In yet another room, some cheeky hobgoblins demanded a toll to pass through the room. Again, negotiations were in hand when Exis decided he'd had enough. Another punch in the face. Another natural 20. Naturally the hobgoblins tossed out their toll-box and took off.
• Eventually, the kobolds were cornered and dispatched. Another nine hobgoblins were encountered, a fierce battle ensued, and Redwood the Elf was slain. The wounded party decamped with his body, and thereby mostly survived their first foray into the deeper levels of the Tower.

We play again today, and hopefully there won't be anymore long hiatuses (is that a word?)

Max has just rejected going over to a friend's house in favor of coming with me, so I think another gamer has been born... :)

Announcement: Otherness, Session 6

The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Actually, as a few of you know, I got a "real" job in the middle of May, and it's taken awhile for things to shake out in my Real Life schedule. Thank you for your collective patience!

Otherness: Session 6 is happening, no surprise, at The Source Comics and Games from 12-4 this Sunday, 7.19. We shall, I imagine be heading back down into Level Two of Xylarthen's infamous Tower, perhaps to kick around some more humanoids, perhaps to DIE. :)

Alternatively, I've finished the first level of my very own dungeon, the first full dungeon I've made since high school. It's called GRISTLEHELM, and it'll kick the asses of any wussy players who dare to risk the "lives" of their precious little characters in its hideous depths.

I dare you not to be there.

I will also, I promise, post a recap of Session 5 before then...

The Erol Otus Art Challenge, or OMG!

I submitted an illustration to this contest right under the wire of the deadline and, lo and behold, I placed in the Honorable Mention category! I cannot possibly communicate how thrilled I am by this!

The announcement itself can be found here. My entry is 6th from the top. And, like you'll be able to stop yourself, but be sure to peruse all the other entries---it's simply astounding how much great artwork is being cranked out around the Old School Renaissance.

Thank you, Calithena and Fight On!, for this opportunity.

Thank you, Erol, for a body of work that made me believe in the reality of fantasy.

White apes, gnolls, and the beckoning stairs...

This is the players' map so far for Under Xylarthen's Tower, Level One. With no immediately obvious other routes, at the end of the session it was decided that next time, they'd be heading downwards...but I'm getting ahead of myself. One cool thing about this map is that they've numbered all the rooms and, in a key (outside the picture), identified them by what they felt it was important to remember about each one. Awesome.

We had the largest party since the first session: Eight characters, two hirelings, and two charmed berserkers. Steve was a brand-new player, and R.M. brought along not only his son Max again, but his daugher Ruby. Steve made a Fighting Man named Mardias, Max brought an elf named Redwood, who functioned this Adventure as a Fighting Man, and Ruby brought a Magic User named Rose Petal. R.M. brought a Cleric named Kohenim (that's an in-joke for all you fellow Jews reading this...) The usual suspects rounded things off, with Will playing Melvin, Larry playing Nimfitz Niraxis (now 2nd level!), Trevor playing Narpet, and Sean playing Gorlim.

We also tried out my newly-minted Judge's Guidelines. I'll post my thoughts about this seperately, but the short version is: Meh. I couldn't keep track of the plusses and minuses people were getting, and it actually seemed to slow down combat, with one notable exception: When someone (I'm forgetting who at the moment) killed a white ape with a single arrow shot! I think I'll keep using the general  conflict resolution section, but otherwise we're going back to normal next time. In some ways I think I just needed to get it out of my system...

Some Highlights:

• Upon entering the dungeon, the party decided to check out the previously discovered secret ladder-shaft. However, upon listening at the southern hallway that leads to what I now think of as "The Room of Variable Death", Rose Petal heard some strange noises. Deciding to investigate, as they got closer, they all started to hear a banging, clanking and scraping of metal on stone, as well as an eerie screeching. Melvin busted down the door, uncovering a terrible white ape chained to a post newly-sunk into the middle of the room. As it rushed him, someone, I'm pretty sure it was Nimfitz's hireling Veri, shot it with an arrow. The first test of the new combat rules proved devastating for the blanched simian: It died instantly with a arrow sunk deep in its eyeball.
• Nifitz volunteered to climb down the ladder-shaft. Taking a torch, he descended into the dark. And kept descending. And kept descending. About the point where the flickering lights of the party were just a pinprick above him, he started hearing noises reminiscent of those made by the previously slain white ape, and the air in the shaft became foul. He finally saw the bottom of the ladder, which came out the open ceiling of a room. Suddenly a clawed hand attached to a shaggy, white-furred arm grabbed the ladder and shook it, while a hideous shrieking echoed up the shaft. It was obvious that there was more than one creature below. Nimfitz, decidedly unsuicidal, headed back up. The party, after some discussion, decided to leave well enough alone for the moment, reasoning that the long descent implied an entrance into significantly deeper levels...
• Returning to the room where they had previouly battled three orcish wights, they carefully checked out the door that the trio had apparently been guarding. It opened onto a stairway leading down into unusually cold darkness. This they left alone for now in favor of filling in the gaps on their map.
• While filling in these gaps, they found a smallish room containing nothing but a bronze statue of a heroically proportioned, nude man with a face of demonic aspect. It was pointing straight at the door, but missing the pointing hand. Many smart adventuring tricks were tried, but to no avail---the statue didn't move, come to life, or kill anyone. Not yet, anyway.
• Approaching a mapped room, they listened at its closed door and heard arguing. Busting in, they surprised an exploratory band of six gnolls. Combat ensued and dragged on for awhile, with neither side gaining much of an upper hand. Finally, Rose Petal stepped into the room, surveyed the stamping, yelling melee, and promptly put all the remaining combatants to sleep. Final fatalities included Reni, one of Nimfitz's hirelings, as well as both Shieldbiter brothers. The gnollish loot included a carefully wrapped sword which, when Melvin unsheathed it, glimmered in the dim light and seemed to fit nicely into his Lawfully-aligned hand...

We also used miniatures for the first time. I had a bunch, bought the last time we played, still unpainted, and Will brought his painted version of the same set. I had forgotten how  aesthetically pleasing it is to use painted miniatures. I need to get to work on my own! They were, of course, helpful for clarifying the one combat we had.

Overall, this session felt a bit like the calm before the storm of heading down to lower levels. I'm excited to see which descent they choose. It also reminded me that running a game with eight people is a lot more challenging than playing with just three or four...

Announcement: Otherness, Session 5

Otherness: Session 5 will take place this Sunday, May 17th, at The Source Comics and Games, from 12-4. This is a Free Campaign, so anyone can show up and play at any point, though if you feel certain you'll be there, I'd love to know ahead of time.

Having canvassed, perhaps, all of Level One, I imagine we'll be heading (deeper) Under Xylarthen's Tower. There are still many wights, and probably an army of zombies lead by Chaotic zealots. Anyone want to play a cleric?