A Life Full of Adventure

Characters Maximillian Morningglory , Halfling Vampire Hunter Udrin Sor-Valdir  - High Elf Wizard Ludovic Hasselhoff  - Human Entertainer/Boat Captain Durak Braksson  - Dwarf Tegort  - Ogre bodyguard Abelhardt Mullberger  - Journeyman Apprentice Mordrin Skorkinson , Giant Slayer. Fickuld - Young Camp Follower Maximillian was deep in thought over the violence and chaos of Grimdold Und, yet hiding his feelings by tending the Brettonian captives. This chaos, this evil in the land was huge, while the halfling was...not. How long could he stare evil in the face? How long could he hide behind an ogre who seemed determined to get himself killed? (Not to mention how long could he feed the ogre, who ate even more than the halfling?) He had barely managed to intervene between the ogre and the suicidal dwarf more than once on the trip to Suderberg. Was there a place for Maximillian in the world outside the Moot? Was there a way to fight chaos without the ...

There's another Crystal nearby! On the way to town, the party spotted a long-forgotten cache of orc trinkets buried in a mount. There was some jewelry, a dwarven plate with a map on it, and a couple notes from the Bloodaxe alliance detailing the existence of another crystal nearby. The party kept this information and headed to town. In town they sold their hostage for some coin, replenished their travelling stores, and recruited a new Wizard after the previous one left the group. The new Wizard attuned himself to the Crystal of Fire and found one of it's powers: the Fire Ball spell. Having just come down through the mountains, and having a rather familiar knowledge of the area, the party decided to take the easy road back to the location marked on the plate/map. (They skipped the Twisted Lands and the Forest detailed in the book on the journey to the next location.)  Heading into the mountains toward an old "stunty 'ole," they came upon an area litt...

(Our alias names are in quotation marks to begin.) "Jax" and "Baptiste" were preparing for an excursion to Dantooine as part of "Baptiste's" personal quest as well as making a side trip to the scrapyards of Ord Mantell. While they were out "Amaza" was running the shop in the Jundland wastes, while "Boz" was minding the storefront in Mos Espa. While Jax and Baptiste were finding success in their missions, Amaza was finding herself spending a little too much time solely in the company of droids. With Boz not answering the comm at the town house, She decided to investigate. Finding the house in a state of disarray, Amaza struck out in search of Boz.  Amaza found a strange sight on the streets of Mos Espa, stormtroopers. In the custody of the empire was a Trandoshan being led away in cuffs for creating a disturbance. When the moment presented itself, the Trandoshan made his move, and was assisted by Amaza. Within moments the...

Our heroes have their business up and running. After cleaning out the debris from the hanger section of the new base of operations, time was spent purchasing the necessities for keeping things livable. Our padawan has taken the first steps of her training. Once word gets out, business should increase. In the meantime, parts are slowly being acquired for the first space fighters to be built. The future seems bright for our heroes, but the shadow of the empire is long. Only time will tell. It was a long session of making new identities/aliases for ourselves, getting our workflow established, and just restarting our game plan. We came out with a much better idea of what we wanted out of our characters...at least for now.

We find our heroes after a difficult raid against a secret imperial installation. As rebel commanders realize that military style raids are not this group's forte, a new plan is devised. Upgrades were made to the Golden Goose, seed money handed over, and a new unrelated base of operations on Tatooine provided. After the creation of new IDs, the party set out to establish themselves in their new business, salvage and repair.  The crew of the Golden Goose investigated the town house that had been provided to them and decided to explore a former rebel base in the Jundland wastes that had been destroyed. After a little difficulty finding the front door, the former base was explored. While the womp rats weren't happy about guests, the resident Krayt dragon was even less so, having been rudely awoken from it's slumber by a grenade inserted into it's nostril. Two pearls were retrieved from the innards of the dragon, their value yet to be determined.  A tatooine bus...

My PC Maximillian Morningglory , Halfling Vampire Hunter Magnus  the Pony My companions Udrin Sor-Valdir  - High Elf Wizard Ludovic Hasselhoff  - Human Entertainer Durak Braksson  - Dwarf NPCs Tegort  - Ogre bodyguard Abelhardt Mullberger  - Journeyman Apprentice Fickuld - Young Camp Follower ( Previous update ) The party battled in the halls of Grimdold Und. The large, evil elf sent his minions to deal with the party in a most violent manner.   Maximillian wielded his repeating crossbow expertly and felled two druchii and a daemonette. Tegort blocked reinforcements from an entire corridor just by standing in it. The minions were all killed, but not before the evil elf ushered his prisoners out of the back of the room. It was found that a daemonette killed young Fickuld while Abelhardt watched helplessly. Session 42 The evil elf and his prisoners escaped down a hole we found out back of the previous room. Maximillian scouted out t...

There was another question in the WFRP 2e G+ Community about getting players into the Warhammer setting when they haven't read the books. I agree with a few other comments stating it is rather a blessing to have players who haven't read the entire cannon of the world you're playing in. For him to give them the Warhammer atmosphere, I suggested this: A short background [for] each character could set the mood. Then you can add more background information with each sitting: what's going on locally, provincially, Empire-wise that people would be talking about. Portray the setting with each NPC they interact with. They are cautious, distrustful, scraping to survive. And why? There are nobles, lawyers, and merchants trying to take their money. Cultists, mutants, and beastmen trying to take their lives. Make sure your scenes are framed in a WFRP view in your head before you paint them for the players. How do you present the Warhammer world to players who know nothing about...

In Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, fate points separate your character from all the other people inhabiting the game world. When something tragic happens to the character, you can spend a point, indicating that your character had dodged fate and lived to face another day. With this in mind, I think fate points should be something special and epic that happens, not just a generic "the attack misses you; your turn." In the past, we've had experiences where a character uses a fate point so that the blow that kills them never lands, just to have the GM kill them on the next attack. I feel that cheats the idea. When a player uses a fate point, I like to have something occur that changes the whole tide of the battle. Losing characters suddenly find themselves winning the fight due to a very improbable occurrence. Characters crushed by a rock slide instead find that rocks fell everywhere around them, miraculously sparing them. It might take a moment to stop and think, but the mo...

My PC Maximillian Morningglory , Halfling Vampire Hunter Magnus  the Pony My companions Udrin Sor-Valdir  - High Elf Wizard Ludovic Hasselhoff  - Human Entertainer (Absent) Durak Braksson  - Dwarf NPCs Tegort  - Ogre bodyguard Abelhardt Mullberger  - Journeyman Apprentice Fickuld - Young Camp Follower ( Previous update ) We attacked the front gate. True to Mullberger's vision, we had no problem navigating through the remainder of the barrows, and the necromantic dwarf wights did not bother us in the least. There were four evil elves and a twisted female daemon of some sort (I will have to look more into these things when the time permits) guarding the gate. It seems the battle prowess of elves is overstated, as I'm not sure any of us were even injured getting into the keep. I was going to kill another daemon, but Udrin banished her back to the infernal realms. Sometimes he's a killjoy. Behind unlocked iron doors stretched an extremely ...

Is it just me, or are the best random encounters not truly random? In our WFRP 2e game, the party was merrily tacking upriver just trying to get from one location to another. Out of nowhere, in the middle of the night, the boat was attacked by skaven. It seemed like the attack was completely random, and we almost lost my ogre bodyguard and the ship ran aground as nobody manned the rudder. From our point of view, the GM rolled "Skaven" on a random encounter chart. However, a sitting or two later we found out that a passenger on board was carrying warpstone, unbeknownst to everyone else. Therefore attack was in no way random, and we were able to look back and have an "ah-ha" moment. It was oddly disjointed, but not completely inappropriate, when the skaven attacked. This is the feel for many random encounters rolled by GMs. However, linking it back to the warpstone shows just how planned the encounter was. It was actually a clue to the bigger mystery. It was pos...

We had some talk recently in the G+ Warhammer Community about whether we focus on the journey or the destination in our RPGs. These questions are never as polar as they seem. I brought up a few points: Is the GM running a location-based adventure? Did they or the party want the extra part of the adventure that comes with the journey? What medium are you playing in? For location-based adventures, many GMs admit to just hand-waving the travel portion. It seems best if that is agreed upon by the entire group. Our WFRP 2e GM said he often just uses a "time passes, you arrive" approach. I think a GM should read the attitude of the group (which our GM has done perfectly and is why I can't tell if it's his choice or ours when "time passes, you arrive" happens). If the GM tries it and a player asks "wait...did anything exciting happen on the trip," or "there was stuff I wanted to do on the way," then it is probably a good idea to play the t...

As the college semester commences, you can expect less and less from me. Major bummer, dude.

We begin with our heroes finishing their basic training. Beka gave our heroes their first assignment: locate rebel hero Zan Wilhelm. Zan was scouting a sector of space that contained the planet of Gobindi for possible new rebel bases.  Having been temporary assigned two X-wings, the group arrived in the Gobindi system and scanning was started for debris. Wreckage was soon found in orbit of Gobindi, but no escape pod. Two TIE fighters were encountered and shot down in orbit of the planet. Further scanning found the pod on the surface of the planet.  The pod appeared intact, but the pilot was missing. Tracks showed that Zan had been captured and placed on board a repulsor lift vehicle. Scans led our heroes to a secret imperial base.  There a quick battle with the remaining two TIE fighters on the base got our heroes two more kills. Landing in the compound, our heroes attempted to steal the Imperial shuttle that was on the landing pad, but the doors wouldn't open....

My PC Maximillian Morningglory , Halfling Vampire Hunter Magnus  the Pony My companions Udrin Sor-Valdir  - High Elf Wizard Ludovic Hasselhoff  - Human Entertainer (Absent) Durak Braksson  - Dwarf NPCs Tegort  - Ogre bodyguard Abelhardt Mullberger  - Journeyman Apprentice Fickuld - Young Camp Follower ( Previous update ) Two days travel brought us to the outskirts of the barrens in the Howling Hills. Sleep was rough. The howling is rather persistent. Indistinct voices call out as you try to fall asleep. I'm pretty sure it was undead. Udrin told me I have an overactive imagination. Dark clouds were rolling in when we heard fighting up ahead. We were pretty far away, but there were figures on horseback fighting shorter figures on the ground. Nobody wanted to get in the middle of a fight, so we moved cautiously forward until we could get a better look. Tegort was the first to identify a shape. He said the figures on the ground were dwarves risen...

Dwimmermount is located in a long-forgotten area of the Warhammer world. For all that, however, its name and reputation is known. For hundreds—maybe thousands—of years, Dwimmermount served as a fortress for a succession of empires. It fell two centuries ago, when a rebel uprising culminated in a mysterious cataclysm that sealed the dungeon off from the outside world. When rumors trickled back to the Empire that the magically-sealed gates of Dwimmermount were now open, the Emperor wasted no time authorizing an expedition. It is understood that the dungeon contains riches, but more importantly it contains information about the Old Ones...and possibly the creation of the races. Many ships full of supplies and crew set forth from the Sea of Claws to Lustria's Mangrove Coast. Those who were only good for, or interested only in, sailing remained on the coast creating a small settlement to watch over the ships. Hundreds more struck west, with nothing to look forward to but weeks of to...

This is a placeholder/personal reminder regarding the Catalyst Games 25 free Shadowrun missions . Happy running!

My PC Mordrin Skorkinson , Giant Slayer. My companions: Farnoth , Elf Spy ( Previous story ) Farnoth, still deep in cover on the druchii black ark, recovered Mordrin from under the body of a dead wyvern. The dwarf was crushed and bleeding badly from the skull. Also a segment of his ribs rose and fell paradoxically with the rest of the dwarf's chest.  Farnoth spirited Mordrin to a druchii barber-surgeon aboard the ark who owed him a favor. The surgeon patched the hole in Mordrin's head with an ugly slab of druchii metal, pointed in ways that the Witch Elves covet. The surgeon used the same type of metal to drill into Mordrin's broken ribs. He then attached the outer portion of the plate to the set of unbroken ribs above and below the wound. This stabilized the dwarf's flail segment. After the dwarf was stabilized, Farnoth's contact flipped on the pair, and Mordrin was handed over to the druchii leaders for torture. Farnoth escaped immediate capt...

Any powerful and neutral (or evil) character in the Old World will likely have an assassin working for them. While Allyssa is capable of neutralizing her own enemies, her person is usually needed someone else. For this reason, she has an assassin in her employ. While an elf would be the best for the job, Allyssa wanted someone a little less conspicuous. She chose a young human, saw to his upkeep and his training, and has him do her dirty work. He's not normally found in her home in Hobbly , but stays at whatever larger city he is near when his job is done. Allyssa can communicate with him via her magic necklaces . She also sends messages via courier. At other times she may pay him a personal visit.

Our heroes find themselves on Centares, a planet being ecologically devastated by the Empire. They get caught in the crowd as a riot breaks out in front of the imperial governor's mansion. They were offered shelter and accepted it from a then unknown rebel operative named Beka Hath. Beka asked the group to deliver a holo- recording to one Zel Rider on Ord Mantell using a freighter docked in slot 39 at the local starport. Four Stormtroopers were eliminated on the way to the ship. The ship took flight and it's profile was scanned by a star destroyer before it departed Centares. Minor wounds were patched up in flight, and a helpful droid, R4-D9 was found on board. Ord Mantell was a slightly less troublesome planet. A clandestine meeting with Zel Rider, another rebel operative yielded a reward of 3000 credits for the delivery of the holo-recording of the massacre at Centares. When it dawned upon our heroes that their identities were known to the empire and implicated them in the mu...

I am finally, officially starting a Dwimmermount conversion to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Since I run 1/2 to 1 level a year at the local conventions, I'm in no hurry. Right now I'm just converting some background: Starting Knowledge About Dwimmermount for the players. Also, I've placed it on the map of Lustria. Starting Knowledge What follows is a run-down of the knowledge that an adventurer might expect to know about Dwimmermount prior to exploring it. This information is shared by academics in the expedition on the way to the mountain. Dwimmermount is located deep in the interior of Lustria, west of the ruins of Oyxl, which is west of the Mangrove Coast. Dwimmermount was excavated from the tallest mountain in the southern Spine of Sotek and is reputed to have at least half a dozen levels, if not double that number. The dungeon was the site for the most important magical research of past eras, including investigations into time, space, and the Old One...

I feel like making a vampire* my next long-term big, bad, evil guy (BBEG). I'd start out very slow (and sly), becoming a clever force to be reckoned with before the party ever finds out he (or she!) is a vampire. This got me wondering, who is your favorite BBEG? Were they clever? Brutal? Friend turned enemy? Who is your favorite and why? *Sorry I lost you there. Perhaps, with the plans I have it would be OK?

Suburbia was pitched to me as a board game version of SimCity. As such, I was not prepared for the game I ended up playing. I ended up being the most poor, least popular borough of town. Each round you buy a hex to add on to your developing area. They are residential, commercial, industrial, or civic hexes. Each hex costs money, but it may give you reputation or income. Choosing the right hexes to get the optimum results can delay each turn, especially with 3 players who haven't played before. The correlation to SimCity is a loose one. I spend many, many hours of my life playing different versions of that computer game. I can see myself getting interested in this game, knowing what the different upcoming hexes are and how they work together. However, I don't think this board game would ever replace my love for the computer game.

My PC Maximillian Morningglory , Halfling Vampire Hunter Magnus the Pony My companions Udrin Sor-Valdir - High Elf Wizard Ludovic Hasselhoff - Human Entertainer Durak Braksson - Dwarf NPCs Tegort - Ogre bodyguard Sir Ortolf Eiche ("Ike") - Magister and Wizard Lord of the Azyr Wind Abelhardt Mullberger - Journeyman Apprentice Oswin Pellensteiner - Conscripted Boatman The Bianca - Ludovic's river barge. ( Previous update ) "Udrin, don't you think we should call Ike out on his warpstone use? I mean...that's kind of a chaos-lover thing to do, and I'm opposed to such horrific people. I'd feel perfectly fine walking up to him and demanding his surrender. Well...with Tegort...and you...and maybe Ludovic. Do you think we could get Durak to come with us? What about the town watch?" Durak agreed that warpstone should not be played with and that we should confront the Magister before it spreads. However, Udrin was only concerned...

Thurn and Taxis is, of all things, a postal-route building game set in Germany. The goal is to score the most points by making progressively longer postal routes (from 3 cities up to 7 cities). The first person to make a 7 city long postal route triggers the end game. You can also get points by having a post office in every town of a colored section of the board (I believe there are 7 or so). You can get points by having a post office in every color of the board, too. It was a relatively quick game that I found surprisingly fun. There are enough towns available to choose from each turn that it is relatively easy to build your postal route (maybe I got lucky; who knows). Each turn is draw-a-card, play-a-card, with one of four special actions you can do per turn. These switch the game up enough to give you plenty of player agency. Beware, when you think you have one more turn to go around the table before you win, an opponent may use a special action to cut your game short.

Vaervenshyael is an elf who has a lot of talent with a sword and a bad outlook on the world. She is tired of evil, injustice, and prejudice. She doesn't wait for established law to stick up for her or what she believe in. She would rather rely on the justice of her blade. Below are stats for this character during the height of her adventuring career. Beginning stats for the three different systems can be found  here . Duelist entry-level stats are here . Age : 69   Weight:  155  Height : 5'9"  Sex : F  Hair : Dark Brown  Eyes : Grey/Blue  Level : 9 Alignment:  G/CG  Description : Earring  Star Sign:  The Dancer Below are stats for WFRP 1e, WFRP 2e, and D&D 2e S&P. The Duelist  by  SBraithwaite WFRP 1e   Duelist (Complete Career) M  4  WS  80  BS  62  S  5  T  6  W  7  I  101*  A  2  Dex  41 ...

My PC Maximillian Morningglory , Halfling Vampire Hunter Magnus  the Pony My companions Udrin Sor-Valdir  - High Elf Wizard Ludovic Hasselhoff  - Human Entertainer Durak Braksson - Dwarf NPCs Tegort  - Ogre bodyguard Sir Ortolf Eiche ("Ike") - Magister and Wizard Lord of the Azyr Wind Abelhardt Mullberger  - Journeyman Apprentice Oswin Pellensteiner - Conscripted Boatman ( Previous update ) Maximillian defused the tense situation in the bar by being forthright and friendly with the priest of Sigmar. Udrin also remained calm and as non-threatening as he could manage. In the end, the priest asked Udrin to translate for their captured "elf wizard." Everyone in the party went with Udrin, but nobody could understand the conversation. The two were speaking a dialect of Elvish. The party watched as the conversation ended with light flashing out of Udrin's eyes and into the elf prisoner, who was thrown back against his cage. Udrin told the...

There are blogs I would visit frequently, but the white text on black background really messes with my eyes. I decided to not be hypocritical, and I changed my white text on brown background to what you see now. If there are any concerns with the new template, please let me know.

From BoardGameGeek: King’s Ransom is a 2-player strategy game pitting royal rivals against each other. Using the basic mechanics of chess, there’s an additional layer of strategy due to each card entering play hidden from the opposing player’s view. If you can set traps and lure your opponent into making mistakes, you might be able to snatch their King and ransom him for control of the kingdom! Turn Order: - Flip a face-down card so it is face up - Move a face-up card - Announce check, if applicable - Place a new card face down - Draw a card from your deck The cards are set up in a 3x6 rectangle. On your turn, you can place your new card face down anywhere on your 3x3 half of the rectangle. This is where I think the game could use a tweak. I'm not sure if the developers tried it with only being allowed to put new cards in your first two rows only , but I think that would help balance the game a bit. As it was, the game I played went pretty quickly because that third ro...

Vaervenshyael is an elf who has a lot of talent with a sword and a bad outlook on the world. She is tired of evil, injustice, and prejudice. She doesn't wait for established law to stick up for her or what she believe in. She would rather rely on the justice of her blade. Below are advanced stat for this character. Beginning stats for the three different systems can be found here . Age : 69   Weight:  155  Height : 5'9"  Sex : F  Hair : Dark Brown  Eyes : Grey/Blue  Level : 5 Alignment:  G/CG  Description : Earring  Star Sign:  The Dancer Below are stats for WFRP 1e, WFRP 2e, and D&D 2e S&P. The Duelist  by SBraithwaite WFRP 1e   Duellist (Minimum entry stats) M  4  WS  60  BS  32  S  5  T  3  W  6  I  91*  A  2  Dex  41  Ld  37  Int  49  Cl  69  WP  42  Fel  47...

My PC Maximillian Morningglory , Halfling Vampire Hunter Magnus  the Pony My companions Udrin Sor-Valdir  - High Elf Wizard Ludovic Hasselhoff  - Human Entertainer Durak Braksson - Dwarf NPCs Tegort  - Ogre bodyguard Sir Ortolf Eiche ("Ike") - Magister and Wizard Lord of the Azyr Wind Abelhardt Mullberger  - Journeyman Apprentice Oswin Pellensteiner - Conscripted Boatman ( Previous update ) (I was on vacation for sitting 36, but essentially Maximillian cleaned out the bilge, the crew got the ship riverworthy again, and we sailed upriver to Eldagsberg. There we had to stop because there was to be a witch burning in the morning.) The night in Eldagsen's one traveller's inn proves to be very interesting for each of you. The vodka, weak, pours cheaply and freely. Most staying in the inn are here to see the witch burn in the morning, it is the casual and oft raised to another minion of the Ruinous Powers brought to heel, by Sigm...

A week's physical vacation has turned into a longer virtual vacation as I recuperate. So you don't miss out any longer, here are some scenes from my time off:

I've already got some nice posts for the next Weekly Roundup, but the next installment will be delayed. Enjoy the internet!

We had Next pre-gens, we had the Next rules...and we had a DM who said he had read through them once but pretty much didn't remember any of them. We essentially played 3e, using 5e character sheets and the DM's home adventure he has run many times. I played a Gnome Druid with a charlatan background. I named him Greenleaf. I wasn't exactly sure how to merge druid and charlatan, so I mostly stuck with being a druid in a strange land. Here are some of my more druidic offerings: We were searching for the whereabouts of a girl presumed to be kidnapped. The party cleric when to inquire at the temple. Being of religious bent, Greenleaf went along too. After the cleric was in between topics with the head priest, Greenleaf suggested the stuffy church could do with some plants in some of the more open areas. The cleric was taken aback, thought about it, and then said he likes to keep the church free from allergens. He then went back to talking with the cleric. When they were done...

The board game Kingdoms can be played with 2 - 4 players. It's three rounds of strategy in building up points for yourself while trying to minimize the points of your opponent(s). You have your own keeps you can place on the board that multiply the points you earn by 1, 2, 3, or 4. Only the single multipliers return to your hand at the end of each round, so use the 2, 3, and 4s wisely. Other random tiles add, subtract, and multiply your points or block your opponent from points. What I like about the game is that it is a relatively simple strategy game that plays well with two players. However, it can be quite competitive. If your significant other doesn't like you blocking them from points or giving them negative points, you might not have as much fun with this.

The first game I played at PortCon Maine 2014 was Basic D&D. The game was player/character driven. My character, Hank, was a human priest with little personality to start. His whole concept was that he tries to subvert the evil queen by being kind and helping the oppressed populace. The party dwarf was enamored of his own beard to the point of acting like it was a sentient being. His charisma allowed him to attract followers to see his legendary beard. The places he went offered him free services for the pleasure of hosting his beard. He also had a horse, Bethany, and a bearded axe with bearded armor, fashioned after his own beard. The dwarf fell in our first battle, and my cleric was able to heal him due to a boon from his deity (the first level Basic cleric does not have healing spells). From that point on, the dwarf considered me to have saved his life. The dwarf had a hireling, a halfling torchbearer, who followed him around, held up his beard, took care of his pony, was ...

My PC Maximillian Morningglory , Halfling Vampire Hunter Magnus  the Pony My companions Udrin Sor-Valdir  - High Elf Wizard Ludovic Hasselhoff  - Human Entertainer Durak Braksson - Dwarf NPCs Tegort  - Ogre bodyguard Sir Ortolf Eiche ("Ike") - Magister and Wizard Lord of the Azyr Wind Abelhardt Mullberger  - Journeyman Apprentice Oswin Pellensteiner - Conscripted Boatman ( Previous update ) The barge was hastily rechristened " Bianca " after Ludovic's recent amore from Stimmigen. He, Tegort, Udrin, and Oswin were left to get the ship ready for sailing. Maximillian went after the absentminded wizards. The tavern was on fire. The funeral pyre to burn dark elves and other chaos spawn had spread. It was heading from the pyre to the tavern, in the direction of Ike's room. Maximillian and Mullberger rushed to find the magister. Ike was found and hurried out of harm's way. Passing back through the tavern gate, Maximillian found the prie...