[Started 1.5 hours late and as a result, didn't have Ari onboard (was told that the player may be dropping out), and ran longer to compensate. Sadly, the LGS was effectively out of the session, busy with work, but popped in to see how things were progressing. Hopefully he'll be very busy next Friday, making sales.
--I purchased The Early Years Star Fleet Battles rules module in the hopes of organising a Prime Directive/SFB (or Klingon Armada) game set in the same period as Enterprise (Bakula) in their Delphic Expanse campaign. It seems like a great sandbox for that setting.]
LONGish... >>>
Considering the size of the Yaeshani 'dragon', the party evacuated the marsh area and in the process discovered that the lizardman, Sharru, was pointing out shelled molluscs he identified, through the outwardly-viewing invisible craft, as natural explosives of moderate strength. Ashta used the ship's TeleKinesis function to retrieve a dozen or so, and felt them in her hand as part of the feedback process, and placed them in an external hold.
--They then proceeded to the sheer cliff face with the carved dwellings, as the girls' Aetherwake, and microparticulate trail indicated they had travelled inland.
As they approached, a lifeboat from the old Yaeshani craft beached on the vegetation-choked shore caught their brief attention, its former occupants' skeletons mostly covered in a silvery-looking metal untarnished by the years. They chose to ignore that and followed the trail, launching one of the probes to scout ahead, and watching a hologram of the spherical view from the camera. I had them attempt Control CTs to avoid illness from the unusual display as they moved the probe in odd directions and at one point sent it rocketing toward orbit at well over Mach. Heh.
After a bit, the vegetation immediately fell away to reveal a desert plain of off-white loam dotted with what appeared to be naturally-occurring quartz crystals, and soon thereafter, the probe caught sight of footprints, although they veered from the wake-trail a bit. A few minutes later, on the horizon, a wagon with a cage came into view.
--Battle stations was sounded and the probe was cloaked by a cyclic-flicker of telekinetic effect, effectively making the thing invisible to human visual perception, then the probe was sent in to recon.
Three outriders, two wagon riders, and the strange bird-horse-lizard steeds were observed, as was Ahni, Tybylt's first daughter (the shadowy one), apparently well-enough, but unable to escape the crystalline bars of the cage.
--A 'fight' ensues using the ship's power beamed through the uncloaked probe, which shears off the portion of one steed forward of the saddle. Etc.
A few of the party deploy from the vessel and begin to personally engage the new enemy, resulting in a dead one, three escaped, and one captured via Tybylt's 'Rope of Awesome' as the player refers to it, 'unfortunately' doing 4d4+4 in damage to him as a dingy grey luminescence was discharged; the creatures revealed to be a humanish form made up of a somewhat chaotic mixture of elemental Positive and Negative Lightning.
-=[It begins to rain]=-
--A brief conversation with the captured individual reveals that to these folks, the party are interlopers, and the individual offers to act as envoy for the release of the other two girls, already captured. The creature explains that they are highly individualistic, with little to no importance placed upon others' safety, thus making it unlikely to utilise him in exchange. Ahni explains that they had fallen into a net buried in the loam, and it too was embedded with this crystalline material, making it much more difficult to escape -- and unable to bring either of her sisters.
---Left without much choice, Tybylt releases the creature to go on his way.
Sharru is spotted by the probe, slithering into the crystalline city via the loam flows in the rain, and due to that, the probe is lowered below the sheet of fog that obscured the down-tiered/terraced city, whereupon they see live images of a three-way fight that then turns into a 2:1 kill, apparently of the messenger. Interestingly, one of the lightning creatures appeared to be a 'converted' Abbekqorru.
We held it there.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Wearing an Eye-patch-
Whether it is debris I cannot extricate, my having scratched the inner lid or eyeball itself, or conjunctivitis, my eye is messed-up and I am wearing an eye-patch.
--Apart from the limited arc of vision, I'm pretty much diggin' on it.
Arr!
Game on!
--Apart from the limited arc of vision, I'm pretty much diggin' on it.
Arr!
Game on!
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
[Playtest Campaign] 13th November-
The coastal survey of the island completed, the group set to shore in the Aelbaan craft.
The LGS owner and player of the Yaesh (horse-)Archer was in rare form, as was his roomie, the player of the silent and largely non-reactive Ari (the other WI Vrun lesser noble), except joking that they ought to kill Cici as well. This owing to their dislike of Delver/Cici's player.
--Beyond this, whether genuine or more artifice, they both claimed ignorance as to the mission to travel to the island to cultivate the fae-pods, instead claiming that Tybalt had said that the submarine they had no foreknowledge of was their reason for the mission. At best this was due to the LGS owner's duties at the shop on Fridays.
---The best part is that they read this blog: Take a bow, fellas.
Anyway, Tybalt's player was more plugged-in and we did our best to game on, including an investigation of a two+ century-old shipwreck of a Yaesh warlord's expedition apparently travelling via a rumoured all-water route from the heart of Yaeshan, through eastern Vrun, and along the northern edge of the Durn continent, to enter the Ocean of Storms and wreck some time later laden with both Yaesh treasures, but also those of Qhattan, and unknown cultures. A chest glowing in high-density arcane emissions is later opened facing a tree, which becomes carven with Yaesh script describing something oddly similar to the Demon of the East and something else about massive change and perhaps a bit of doom, too.
--Other goodies found, besides.
The 'girls', Tybalt's fae-daughters, have gone missing on the island.
The saving of Mela by ponyboy from a big catfish-thing also occurred.
A lizardy person, perhaps a 'druid', used body language to ask to escape the island with them, and was OK'd by Tybalt.
Tybalt soon-after popped over the treeline to see what was making all of that racket in the woods: a very long, sinewy, brightly scaled, wingless, bearded, serpentine creature with four legs, and a head the size of an adult bear, gliding/undulating above the ground toward them.
"Cliffhang."
The LGS owner and player of the Yaesh (horse-)Archer was in rare form, as was his roomie, the player of the silent and largely non-reactive Ari (the other WI Vrun lesser noble), except joking that they ought to kill Cici as well. This owing to their dislike of Delver/Cici's player.
--Beyond this, whether genuine or more artifice, they both claimed ignorance as to the mission to travel to the island to cultivate the fae-pods, instead claiming that Tybalt had said that the submarine they had no foreknowledge of was their reason for the mission. At best this was due to the LGS owner's duties at the shop on Fridays.
---The best part is that they read this blog: Take a bow, fellas.
Anyway, Tybalt's player was more plugged-in and we did our best to game on, including an investigation of a two+ century-old shipwreck of a Yaesh warlord's expedition apparently travelling via a rumoured all-water route from the heart of Yaeshan, through eastern Vrun, and along the northern edge of the Durn continent, to enter the Ocean of Storms and wreck some time later laden with both Yaesh treasures, but also those of Qhattan, and unknown cultures. A chest glowing in high-density arcane emissions is later opened facing a tree, which becomes carven with Yaesh script describing something oddly similar to the Demon of the East and something else about massive change and perhaps a bit of doom, too.
--Other goodies found, besides.
The 'girls', Tybalt's fae-daughters, have gone missing on the island.
The saving of Mela by ponyboy from a big catfish-thing also occurred.
A lizardy person, perhaps a 'druid', used body language to ask to escape the island with them, and was OK'd by Tybalt.
Tybalt soon-after popped over the treeline to see what was making all of that racket in the woods: a very long, sinewy, brightly scaled, wingless, bearded, serpentine creature with four legs, and a head the size of an adult bear, gliding/undulating above the ground toward them.
"Cliffhang."
Monday, November 16, 2009
[Blogs][Gaming] Stuff I've been playing...-
Except for my bat-fix over at Ancient Vaults, I have caught-up on my blog reading to a degree i can live with.
--Sorry about the relative silence. My mom and I agree that we now have about 1/3rd-less mental energy than we had prior to my father's death. I hope you folks don't mind, but I am devoting much of the remaining 2/3rds to UWoM.
I will say, though, that I have been playing the snot out of the WARCOSM ASSAULT playtest rules for Brett Bernstein of Precis Intermedia Games, and in reaction, tried one of my all-time faves, LASERBURN to compare the wounding mechanisms and durability of troopers.
--Prognosis: Sci-Fi minis games need to take a few lessons from low-level RPGs -- these generic troopers are ridiculously tough in comparison to fantasy pansies...
---So, I'll finally write-up my suggestions for WA, and write up the house-rule(s) we've cooked-up for LASERBURN, namely, that if one falls down due to a wound, one is out of the fight, period. This makes leg-wounds much more efficient, as they ought. No more, |Ow!, thud, > dust self off <, shoot, get shot, ow!|-stuff. Nope.
WARCOSM led to me breaking out my Star Fleet Battles Basic and Advanced boxed sets, the Prime Directive RPG, Marines, and Campaign Builder's Guide, then, to purchasing Klingon Armada.
--Golly, I'd forgotten how much fun Kzinti drone-carriers are! :D Mreow!
--Sorry about the relative silence. My mom and I agree that we now have about 1/3rd-less mental energy than we had prior to my father's death. I hope you folks don't mind, but I am devoting much of the remaining 2/3rds to UWoM.
I will say, though, that I have been playing the snot out of the WARCOSM ASSAULT playtest rules for Brett Bernstein of Precis Intermedia Games, and in reaction, tried one of my all-time faves, LASERBURN to compare the wounding mechanisms and durability of troopers.
--Prognosis: Sci-Fi minis games need to take a few lessons from low-level RPGs -- these generic troopers are ridiculously tough in comparison to fantasy pansies...
---So, I'll finally write-up my suggestions for WA, and write up the house-rule(s) we've cooked-up for LASERBURN, namely, that if one falls down due to a wound, one is out of the fight, period. This makes leg-wounds much more efficient, as they ought. No more, |Ow!, thud, > dust self off <, shoot, get shot, ow!|-stuff. Nope.
WARCOSM led to me breaking out my Star Fleet Battles Basic and Advanced boxed sets, the Prime Directive RPG, Marines, and Campaign Builder's Guide, then, to purchasing Klingon Armada.
--Golly, I'd forgotten how much fun Kzinti drone-carriers are! :D Mreow!
Friday, November 13, 2009
[RPG] Re-Working Character Generation-
I have been neglecting my blog reading responsibilities due to an intense work-period on UWoM, which, through chart rolls and interactive tasks, determines much of the second-tier crunch, including the Imperial Ancestry and how it applies to the character.
I hope to have more tangible stuff to show soon.
Best,
I hope to have more tangible stuff to show soon.
Best,
Monday, November 9, 2009
[Playtest Campaign] Friday, November 6th-
Let me back-track a bit:
When Delver passed through the screen, Tybalt executed a Jaunt, but was suspended in a 'buffer' of a nebulous milky-white light where he had the conversation with the voice.
I took Delver's player outside and explained that dying now would satisfy the bargain presented to Tybalt, that it would avert a danger that if he were present would be dire enough to cut the Threads of the rest of the party, and that the found non-magical sword (not detailed in the previous post) would house his entity until the blade were used to slay an, at least, human-sized creature from which he would reconstitute his body. This process was necessary for his eventual manifestation of his Avatar, an Aelbaan species meta-power.
--He agreed.
I was greeted by Tybalt's player who then whispered that he was beginning to study Delver's character for 3 Rounds, as per 'waylay.'
Delver consumed his entire Dynamic Pool to telepathically call out to his compatriots to kill him for the above stated reason, and most of them obliged him.
--Their purses were heavier by d100 Platinum (ultra-rare).
The rest of the group then watched as Ashta took control of the craft.
They took the craft downstream as a whirlpool began to form (they chose not to investigate the source), and after a day of travelling, ran afoul of a giant aquatic variety of a Grell-like thing from which they fled down another opening and entered another section of the craft, clearly dedicated to dark practises. This area sloped upward and after they discovered how to operate the crackling 'electro-riser,' they eventually left it behind in the narrowing corridor carven with figures and reliefs too darkly mesmerising to detail here.
--Eventually, they blasted through the doors of a temple and came to rest.
Alighting, they entered the temple replete with additional figures, pillars, implements, and a low and high altar. A swarm of two-dimensional, light-absorbing, flying things flew out from among the toppled pillars and buckled ceiling and floors, but the damage was only spooky to one character. Ashta gave a polite order to Mela to begin the mummification process upon Delver's cadaver, which eventually would yield 1 cup of dust from 1 gallon of slurried sediment. Shadow creatures, illusions, and/or Dryvv speak with them and then Lord Shadow deigns to manifest, asking for a sacrifice.
--Tybalt, the Shadow-blooded (also exploring shadow-mysteries), was attentive and they finally settled upon Delver's mummified body (minus the stuffing which constituted the 'dust' reduction), which pleased the Elemental Lord. Tybalt's reward was a potion that would allow for limited planar travel, so long as the start and finish were in shadow, and that the elemental plane of Shadow were the conduit. He also learnt additional shadowy stuff.
With that over, the group left in the vehicle and encountered a stretch of lava tube that was encrusted with fungi that cast beautiful light in the Dark- and Ultravisual spectra, as well as a lesser show in visible light. Samples were taken and critters caught for specimen. They pressed on and saw daylight and a storm over the open seas beyond the island from which they emerged --clearly a different island from the one they had entered the underworld.
--They performed an initial survey of the coast, using the Aelbaan vessel's sensors and recording suite. They noted ancient dwellings in the sheer cliff face overgrown with vines and runners. three-quarters the way 'round the island (larger than the previous -- and believed to be the pod-island) they could see signs of great upset in the jungles and forest as trees were tossed-about while some great battle of beasts was waged out of sight.
We held it there.
When Delver passed through the screen, Tybalt executed a Jaunt, but was suspended in a 'buffer' of a nebulous milky-white light where he had the conversation with the voice.
I took Delver's player outside and explained that dying now would satisfy the bargain presented to Tybalt, that it would avert a danger that if he were present would be dire enough to cut the Threads of the rest of the party, and that the found non-magical sword (not detailed in the previous post) would house his entity until the blade were used to slay an, at least, human-sized creature from which he would reconstitute his body. This process was necessary for his eventual manifestation of his Avatar, an Aelbaan species meta-power.
--He agreed.
I was greeted by Tybalt's player who then whispered that he was beginning to study Delver's character for 3 Rounds, as per 'waylay.'
Delver consumed his entire Dynamic Pool to telepathically call out to his compatriots to kill him for the above stated reason, and most of them obliged him.
--Their purses were heavier by d100 Platinum (ultra-rare).
The rest of the group then watched as Ashta took control of the craft.
They took the craft downstream as a whirlpool began to form (they chose not to investigate the source), and after a day of travelling, ran afoul of a giant aquatic variety of a Grell-like thing from which they fled down another opening and entered another section of the craft, clearly dedicated to dark practises. This area sloped upward and after they discovered how to operate the crackling 'electro-riser,' they eventually left it behind in the narrowing corridor carven with figures and reliefs too darkly mesmerising to detail here.
--Eventually, they blasted through the doors of a temple and came to rest.
Alighting, they entered the temple replete with additional figures, pillars, implements, and a low and high altar. A swarm of two-dimensional, light-absorbing, flying things flew out from among the toppled pillars and buckled ceiling and floors, but the damage was only spooky to one character. Ashta gave a polite order to Mela to begin the mummification process upon Delver's cadaver, which eventually would yield 1 cup of dust from 1 gallon of slurried sediment. Shadow creatures, illusions, and/or Dryvv speak with them and then Lord Shadow deigns to manifest, asking for a sacrifice.
--Tybalt, the Shadow-blooded (also exploring shadow-mysteries), was attentive and they finally settled upon Delver's mummified body (minus the stuffing which constituted the 'dust' reduction), which pleased the Elemental Lord. Tybalt's reward was a potion that would allow for limited planar travel, so long as the start and finish were in shadow, and that the elemental plane of Shadow were the conduit. He also learnt additional shadowy stuff.
With that over, the group left in the vehicle and encountered a stretch of lava tube that was encrusted with fungi that cast beautiful light in the Dark- and Ultravisual spectra, as well as a lesser show in visible light. Samples were taken and critters caught for specimen. They pressed on and saw daylight and a storm over the open seas beyond the island from which they emerged --clearly a different island from the one they had entered the underworld.
--They performed an initial survey of the coast, using the Aelbaan vessel's sensors and recording suite. They noted ancient dwellings in the sheer cliff face overgrown with vines and runners. three-quarters the way 'round the island (larger than the previous -- and believed to be the pod-island) they could see signs of great upset in the jungles and forest as trees were tossed-about while some great battle of beasts was waged out of sight.
We held it there.
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