Parhoon Naval Yards

Grupo Martes: 17 January

2012-01-30T01:00:00.000+01:00

We used to evening to train for the 2012 Qualifier for the German Team Championship in Boardgaming. We played Kingsburg. I won! I filled up the first two columns. Once I had the crane, I built out the defensive and the religious rows. I wasted my +3 King's push in the first combat. I had seen that a 2 Goblin was coming, but forgot by the time we were supposed to reveal how much help we were to get from the King.

The Case of the Murdered Beer Baroness of Höxter

2012-01-27T01:00:00.000+01:00

Arnulf (Claudia), Janine (Thilo), and Georg (Kathrin)

This year's murder mystery was Familie Seebrück (The Seebrück Family) from Kupferberg Kreativ. We waited until the night of the event to divide up roles. Typically we have done this ahead of time. As luck would have it, we discovered that we had 10 roles, 6 female and 4 male. But, we had 6 men and 4 women participating. I made the suggestion that we all gender switch and take roles of the opposite sex. This was agreed to quickly. And we divided up the roles. Since we play this game in German, gender has a strong influence on language. We spent a few rounds with, "he, I mean she, said that his, I mean her..." We got used to it.

Hildegard (Peter), Jeanette (Stephan), and Johanes (Lena)

Let me introduce the players:

Arnulf Seebrück - father and owner of the Seebrück brewery (Claudia)
Adelheid - Arnulf's wife (Me)
Hildegard - Arnulf's spinster sister (Peter)
Georg - Arnulf's eldest son and heir apparent (Kathrin)
Johanes - Arnulf's second son (Lena)
Jeannette - Johnes's wife (Stephan)
Paulina - Arnulf's daughter and youngest (Michael)
Jens - Johanes and Jeanette's son (Andrea)
Janine - the hired help (Thilo)
Kate - a young American woman, who just happened to drop by (Roland)

The situation was thus: The Seebrücks of Paderborn had a long standing feud with the Italian family next door. That family had a brewery as well. Finally things went too far. The oldest daughter and current head of the family, Giovanna, was found dead yesterday evening. In response they took hostage Johanes's and Jeanette's daughter and delivered a ransom note demanding that we, the Seebrücks, hand over the one responsible, at which point, justice would be served.

Johanes (Lena), Paulina (Michael), and Jens (Andrea)

Unfortunately, I have let too much time pass between the event and writing this play report, that I have now gone fuzzy on a number of the details. Before I get into the details I still remember and reveal anything that might be considered a spoiler, I'll give my review. We found the mystery entertaining. There were certainly enough doubt in the stories to make spotting the murderer unobvious. There were a couple things that we found illogical. Also, some of the characters did not really seem to fit and did not really have all that much to do. Though I appreciate the difficulty of coming up with a story that always actively involves all ten characters. The constant misspellings were also a nagging reminder that the mystery was lacking a certain polish. (Though I must say that I am the pot calling the kettle black. I often rush these posts out without really checking the spelling through like I should.) Half of us managed to pick out whodunnit. We found it entertaining enough that we will continue with the sequel next year. That is an endorsement of the work by Kupferberg Kreativ. I'll nitpick in the spoiler part of this post.

SPOILER ALERT!

Johanes can't understand why Arnulf continues to let Georg help run the company.

Don't read further if you think you might play this mystery. I assume many in my audience won't merely from the fact that this is primarily English-speaking blog and the mystery is offered in German. You have been warned.

Arnulf and Janine watch Johanes's reation to the SMS found on Giovanna's cell.

Giovanna was in everybody's face. She was sleeping with Johanes and at the same time playing cougar with his son Jens. She was blackmailing Paulina tempting Georg and offering Arnulf a new product with, which he could revive the struggling fortunes of the Seebrück Brewery. She even ran over Hildegard's cat. That is where the story got weird. No one saw Giovanna run over the cat. We figured out that Hildegard had been thinking of killing herself and she had ordered a suicide kit from Switzerland. We also knew that Hildegard had sent a package. So we correctly surmised that Hildegard had injected poisons into chocolates found near Giovanna's body. (Giovanna had died without any obvious wound or trauma.) This led three of us to guess it was Hildegard. However, no one knew Hildegard's motive. We also new that Giovanna was bulimic. It was not Hildegard.

Kate (Roland) is alone in a strange country.

The other weird one was Kate. It turns out that Adelheid had a child while she was Au pair in America. She was already betrothed to Arnulf, so she gave up Kate for adoption before moving back. As far as we know Adelheid never told anyone and never found out what happened to her child. Some how, without any explanation, Giovanna figured out that Kate was Adelheid's daughter and sent her a letter in America. Maybe she is good with a Ouija board. So Kate just shows up in time for current events and asks for a job. Kate meets with Giovanna, who tells Kate the truth. So what could Kate or Adelheid's motive be? Search me? Adelheid at least hates the neighbors and I played her up as a real racist. Adelheid tried to burn down their house and was even accused in court. So she had a motive, but no opportunity.

So ruling out the poison though, we had trouble figuring out how else she could have died. Jeanette got jealous and clocked her in the temple, knocking her out, shortly before the murderer got there. She thought she had killed her, up until Stephan realized that other players had seen Giovanna after Jeanette had. Miraculously, there was no apparent bruising.

The best motive was Paulina. She was being blackmailed to the tune of €250,000. It turns out she was doping her horse and Giovanna found out. That gave Paulina access to syringes, leading credence to the poison theory. Two people voted for her, just on the strength of the motive. It seemed though that the murder weapon and opportunity were lacking in her case.

Georg invested 250,000€ in a penny stock in online trading.

Georg and Arnulf were running the company into ruin. Georg was speculating wildly on the stock market. Arnulf just could not make ends meet. Giovanna offered to sell him a recipe for a beer powder to which you just add water. When she would not take a promise to pay and demanded cash, Arnulf lost his head. Arnulf strangled her with a scarf. The scarf was found at the scene of the crime. Most of us could not believe that strangling, even with a scarf, would leave some signs on Giovanna's body. Our only explanation was that no police had been summoned so no coroner had been present to determine a cause of death. The scarf had been found near Giovanna's body and the motive was strong enough that half of us chose Arnulf. That is where the game ends. Whatever happens as a result, Arnulf survives to take part in the sequel.

Christmas with Phil and Andrea

2012-01-24T01:00:00.000+01:00

Nope. I am not going to have a blog post about raclette and fondue. This post is about what we played on Christmas Eve and Christmas; albeit a short one. This is a gaming blog after all.

I taught Phil and Andrea how to play Fairy Tale. Since the game is of Japanese origin, I thought that might add an extra spice. Typical for the game, it is quite confusing at the beginning. You do not really know what you are supposed to do or what cards to keep. They caught on quickly enough.

Game 1: Me 47, Kati 44, Andrea 25, Phil 24 (experience pays)
Game 2: Phil 52, Kati 32, Andrea 29, Me 24 (but experience is not a guarantee of success)
Game 3: Me 41, Kati 42, Phil 41, Andrea 22 (Kati shows her consistency)
Game 4: Me 50, Andrea 39, Phil 31, Kati 31 (Andrea displaces Kati)

I think though they enjoyed Serengeti the most during their stay. We squeezed in three more games between wrapping and unwrapping presents, visiting the Finkenklause and Speyer.

Game 1: Me 26, Andrea 14, Kati 11, Phil 5 (I am unstoppable!!!!)
Game 2: Andrea 20, Kati 16, Me 13, Phil 9 (until now. way to go Andrea!)
Game 3: Andrea 18, Kati 13*, Me 13, Phil 5 (Andrea is unstoppable!)

Grupo Martes: 3 January

2012-01-21T01:00:00.000+01:00

We had a large group this night. The men played El Grande, while the women played Die Tore der Welt (World Without End). El Grande is apparently an old classic Euro game from 1995. It was one of the first area control games. You have three rounds of play before scoring. You score the game three times. Each round you choose one of your twelve initiative cards. Highest goes first. This card also determines how many caballeros (horsemen) you can bring to your court from the countryside. The higher the card, the fewer the caballeros. According to your initiative you take your turn. You choose one of the five special action cards. The special action cards give you some power to do something extra in the game. For example, you score certain provinces early or you can add more men to the board or you can shove the other players' caballeros around. The special action cards also determine how many caballeros you can place on the board from your court. There are five cards and they allow one to five caballeros.

So the idea is to get the most caballeros into each territory. Different territories are worth different amounts, four to seven victory points. Second and third place get fewer points. You can boost your score by moving the king there. He simultaneously prevents anyone from messing with that territory. Your headquarters also gives you a bonus if you have the most in the territory. Another little trick is you can place caballeros in Majorca in an opaque container. On the scoring round, you first score Majorca after revealing how many caballeros from each player are there, then everyone can move their caballeros from Majorca to a territory of their choice. The choice is also made in secret and revealed simultaneously.

I won by hitting Granada twice with the king and my headquarters, giving me 10 points each time. I also managed to score Granada two other times gaining 8 points each. This put me ahead. I was also successful at controlling Majorca, and then scoring again after moving my caballeros to another territory. This was good practice for February when we play the 2012 Qualifier for the German Team Championships in Boardgaming.

Grupo Martes: 27 December

2012-01-18T22:41:00.000+01:00

My brother joins Grupo Martes for a night.

I brought my brother to our Tuesday night game night. He was impressed with the number of games to choose from. Frankly I am as well.

We started the evening with Kalimambo. I won! I managed to avoid the elephant poop the best. Kathryn had a particularly rough time of it. She was hit and hit hard, repeatedly, by the rhino.

For King of Tokyo, our hosts were gracious enough to put on the Godzilla soundtrack I had loaned them. Kathryn came back from Kalimambo and won.

We started a round of Dog. Dog is basically team Parcheesi. You have two teams of three and you are trying to get all your guys into your home base. At the start of each round, the dealer passes out 5 cards. The cards are what you use to move instead of dice. You then pass one card to your teammate to the left. This enables you to pass your teammates the important start card. Most cards just allow you to move. There are a few special cards. One where you have seven moves that you can divide between all your guys. There is one that lets you move four forward or four backward as you like. There is even one where you can change places with someone else's piece. You capture by landing on top of your opponent and send him back to the start. You must move exactly into the goal spaces. That seven card sure comes in handy for that. The game is pure strategy, no tribunes to convince, no spaceships to steer. But I like the team play aspect very much. We did not finish, but given the chance I would play it again.

Dog (as if you could not tell)

Where is Nerick? Part 2

2012-01-08T10:46:00.000+01:00

Dramatis Personae:

Arya, elf druid (and her companion familiar Marcher, a wolf)
Deidre, halfling rogue
James (pronounced HHHA-mís in a crypto-Spanish accent), human bard
Jann, human fighter
Londaryn, elf sorcerer
Rhugar, dwarf cleric

What happened last time: Where is Nerick Part 1.

With Okinar’s information, the party starts the search for Nerick. Their first investigations bring them to some people who knew Nerick. His wife still lives in an old shack in the slums. However, she does not seem to count on Nerick’s return – a new lover already moved into the shack, and both do not seem to wish him to return very much. However, after the party agreed to help Nerick’s wife to get back her job as a waitress at the Black Lion inn, she tells them a bit more about him and his party. They also were – very much like our own well known heroes – adventurers seeking treasures and whatever else they could find. Both the captain of the guard Germad and the wizard Certinfil were with Nerick on their latest adventure. When inquiring in the inn, where Nerick’s wife used to work, another acquaintance of Nerick tells the party that he recently met him. However when greeting Nerick and trying to talk to him, he did not even receive an answer.

After visiting Germad, the party learns that Nerick’s group was quite successful during their quests, but then during their fight with a golem, Nerick reverted to his werewolf form and disappeared. At that time, Nerick already had been bitten by a werewolf and periodically turned into a problem with claws and jaws. Certifil and Germad were the only survivors of the encounter. They tracked him down and left him his share of the treasure and a note.

While discussing the first results in an inn, Deidre’s fingers start acting on their own initiative and do some pickpocketing. Unfortunately, these actions are observed by a local representative of the Thieves’ Guild. He takes Deidre to a quiet corner and informs her about the local customs for thieves. She decides to follow the etiquette and presents herself at the local administrative center for thieves. The fee for joining the Guild is 150 gold pieces. As she hopes getting some information, she decides joining the Guild. And indeed: Some members of the Guild have seen suspicious activities around the places of both Germad and Certinfil. At the wizard’s place, a person resembling the description of Nerick has been seen sneaking around, carrying a heavy sack.

After telling the others of her party about this, they decide to return to Germad’s place the next day – only to find him slaughtered. While waiting for the City Guard to register the issue, they manage to search the place a bit. A diary written by Germad provides some information on a shiny crystal. Germad thought hard about sharing the gem with Certimfil or keeping it for Nerick. He felt guilty about abandoning Nerick in the wilderness. In the end, Germad kept the crystal and – according to the diary – donated it to the Municipal Museum of Callidyrr.

Rhugar returns from a meeting with other dwarves. He met the female dwarf Birgit who is a historian of high reputation. She asked Rhugar whether the party wouldn’t want to find the “Ship of the Night” for her. But obviously, this will be a quest for another time …

For further questioning, the City Guard asks Jann to go with them. The other four party members decide to visit the Municipal Museum that is located close to the temple district. The entrance to the museum is a large wooden door with two wings and two side entrances. An announcement shows a painting of a jewels with bright light shining to all directions: “New exhibition: The Glowing Jewel! Free entry.” They go inside. On the left side, some reptilians are shown, on the right side, a stuffed browny and a head made from wax with a helmet is presented. In the museum’s central room, the jewel is displayed. Londaryn uses his magical abilities to determine that a necromantic magic is inhabiting it: It is a “Magic Jar” – a container for someone’s soul. It allows a body switch. A mage who had his soul enclosed into the jewel can switch from the jewel to someone’s body.

A man in a robe is guarding the gem. Rhugar inquires after the exhibit. However, he receives no answer but the information that Germad brought it. James informs him of Germad’s death. The museum guard just replies: “Well, this will increase the public interest in the stone!” James asks: “Was there anyone taking special interest in the jewel?” The man in the robe replies: “Now that you’re asking – yes, indeed, there was someone looking at it for a long time last night. I heard him murmuring something like ‘tonight … getting smells’ – whatever that means.” The description of the visitor is similar to Nerick's description. Deidre manages to convince the man in the robe to allow her checking whether someone had manipulated the cabinet in which the jewel is displayed. But: “No, there was no one touching this cabinet other than you.” With her appraisal skill, she quickly can estimate that the jewel is worth a lot. It doesn’t seem to be damaged and is not secured by a trap.

The party goes to Certimfil’s place. Maybe the sorcerer has more information that might help. His house is located at the other side of the river. When approaching it, people can be heard screaming inside. Deidre wants to sneak silently to have a look through the window, but suddenly the door bursts open and an elf emerges: “Someone has stolen my property!” This must be Certimfil. “Someone has stolen my spell books! And I paid the Guild!” James haggles a bit, and finally Certimfil agrees on a reward of 3,000 gold pieces in case they can return him the books. It is not quite clear whether the thief was there just recently or even the day before – Certimfil just returned home and was away during the night.

Deidre starts searching for tracks, and amazingly figures out together that some human was walking to the landing place. Meanwhile, James talks to Certimfil and explains the search for Nerick. The sorcerer really is quite angry about Nerick, and also about Germad. The latter was trying to give Nerick a second chance, despite his curse of being a werewolf.

As it seems that the tracks might continue on the other bank of the river, the party rows back in the boat they used to get to Certimfil’s place. Arya’s, who just returned from her meditations, uses her sharp elven eyes spy a track leading into town. After instructing Marcher accordingly, both of them are able to track it despite the many people crossing paths. Through the slums and heading towards the temple district, they suddenly realize that it leads to the Municipal Museum. When standing in front of the large building, they see that a side door is leaning open. No time to lose – is the jewel already taken?! “Let’s go inside!” Without taking any care, they go through. A rattling noise catches Deidre’s attention. She is walking in the back and notices a movement. A metal snake is attacking. With a Flame Strike of Arya, the beast quickly dissolves into metal shards. When entering the great hall, the party sees the old man in robes lying dead in a corner. Another humanoid is standing next to the cabinet and holds the glowing jewel in his hand. He casts a Magic Missile and throws it at Arya.

James draws his rapier – just enhanced by a lightning effect during the most recent shopping tour – and successfully manages to intimidate the opponent with a Dazzling Display. Rhugar casts a Hold Person spell: Hit! The bad guy now is controlled by the dwarven priest who attacks with his axe. This does not cause any damage. What to do? Deidre tries a Sneak Attack. She lands a hit. James decides bonding him with his filament rope. Londaryn starts a magic analysis. His Glasses of True Seeing are a tremendous help for this purpose. Various magical auras are around. Rhugar takes the glowing jewel into his possession. Deidre starts searching the room. Arya examines their prisoner. He is still alive, but unconscious. Rhugar feels a strange power overcoming him, but the others do not notice.

A short discussion arouses. What should they do? Some of the party members are opting for the coup de gras: Better kill this person before he can do real bad magical damage! However, Deidre tries to warn the others: “Remember that Magic Jar thing! What if someone is inside the jewel and tries to get out? Wouldn’t that creature try a body switch?!” But too late: James already draws his rapier and cuts the throat of the bad guy. Suddenly, Rhugar’s body disappears. The dwarf only can see through a red transparent mass now – is he trapped inside the jewel?! Londaryn searches the dead bodies, but does not reveal anything helpful.After some moments of not knowing what on earth they should do, the party remembers how they came here: By following the tracks. So why not trying to find the tracks that lead here? Wasn’t there some place where the trail split? It's true: After some time, they reach a sort of bifurcation – a track coming from the left joining the path to the Museum. Further backtracking leads back into a shack located in a quite run-down part of town. The party enters. Easily, Deidre locates a trap door under a mattress. It leads into a damp and stinking tunnel. From here, they are brought into a natural cave smelling like a cess pool.

No wonder – on the Northern wall, a pipe is emerging from the wall issuing a steady stream of sewage into the cave. Londaryn casts Cat’s Grace onto Deidre. Equipped with her magical Cloak of the Bat, she does not even need to touch the nasty substance on the floor. And that’s a piece of luck – the disgusting liquid stands four feet deep here, the Halfling wouldn’t even be able to stand in it! Among the other party members, also Arya who turns herself into a bat and Londaryn who casts a Spider Climb onto himself can move without inconveniences. And James remembers that he carries around his shoes that have a permanent Spider Club spell on them.

However, Marcher is attacked by two humans with pale flesh. Might these be undead?! Deidre passes them and lands on the pipe. Her Sneak Attack nearly finishes off one of the attackers. But this did not prevent James from being paralyzed. Two more attackers emerge – from where? No one can tell … Arya asks her Mother Nature to send her a shark from another plane. Another reinforcement comes from Londaryn who conjures a Celestial Hippogriff. A water elemental is summoned by Arya, and Londaryn shoots fire arrows at the opponents. This gives Deidre enough time to land another Sneak Attack. Shaking of his paralysis, James manages to finish off two attackers with his spell of Thunderous Drums.
Finally, the last Ghast – for this is what they really are – has been beaten. Immediately, the party continues their way through the tunnel. They do not want to lose precious time on their search for Rhugar – or at least of an answer to what this is all about. At the end of the tunnel, the two elves easily detect a secret door …

To be continued …

Where is Nerick?

2012-01-07T01:00:00.000+01:00

Dramatis Personae:

Arya, elf druid (and her companion familiar Marcher, a wolf)
Deidre, halfling rogue
James (pronounced HHHA-mís in a crypto-Spanish accent), human bard
Jann, human fighter
Londaryn, elf sorcerer
Rhugar, dwarf cleric

Londaryn has checked in with his neighbor, who took care of his shop in his absence. Everything seems to be in order. After a good night's rest, a messenger arrives with his long desired audience with the Mage's Council of Caer Callidyrr. Only Londaryn's name is on the invitation, but he does not hesitate to invite his new-found companions. They have begun to take in the sites of the "big city". Londaryn is not that impressed, yet the white towers of Calidyrr do have a certain majesty to them, despite the fact that they have not been well maintained these past few years.

On the appointed day, they troop up the hill to the palace grounds. The invitation gain them entry and they are directed to an unassuming tower among its larger companions. To those experience with the arcane, it is immediately obvious that the guards are not warriors, but minor mages themselves. Once beyond the doors, Jann's jaw drops at the opulence before them. The marble is polished to a mirror finish. The finest tapestries adorn the walls. It is also apparent that the inside of the tower is much too large to fit in the frame of the tower they just entered.

While waiting for their turn, Londaryn recognizes one of his fellow merchants exiting the audience chamber, looking decidedly pale. Londaryn is called. He leads his companions into a darkened room. Mages sit at high desks arranged around the chamber, half-cloaked in shadows. The page announces to a Hobbit scribe in priestly attire, "Londaryn. Alchemist and Sorcerer."

"Londaryn. Welcome back. What have you to report?" Before Londaryn can answer, James steps in front of Londaryn. "Thank you for your welcome. We have had a hard and difficult journey. Surely tales of our exploits and adventures have arrived here before us." A minor scuffle breaks out as Londaryn and James vie for the limelight. "I thank you lords. I am glad to report that we were successful in restoring trade with the Sea Elves as well as rid their realm of the scourge of an Aboleth." James adds, "Yes, it was very difficult! Obviously beyond the scope of our original contract and worthy of recompense! It's not every day that you restore peace between warring Sea Elves and Merfolk!"

Another voice out of the dark barks, "But what took you so long! You should have returned weeks ago!" Londaryn continued, "Alas, we were shipwrecked upon Cragrapid Island. There the wizards Vladzir and Natisha tried to destroy us in a perverted game. This delayed our journey." James pipes in, "And on Gwynneth, there was that temple, where OWOWOW!" Deidre and Jann both stomped on James' feet sending him dancing to the back of the party. Jann half whispered and half growled, "We aren't supposed to talk about that!"

Asgorad, the First Mage of the Council seemed happy with the result. The companions were each rewarded 5000 gold pieces for their part with the option to keep the magic rings safeguarded by Londaryn. James tried to get the mages of the council to offer further magic items for sale. They refused, indicating that the Mages Council was not a street bazaar. With writ in hand, the companions drew their reward from the treasury and spent the next few days shopping in Caer Callidyrr.

Not many days later, the party was relaxing in the garden of a tavern. Rhugar was off with some Dwarves he had just met. Arya was meditating at the Moonwell in the Druid Grove. The Hobbit scribe arrived, carried in a sedan chair by eight burly Human slaves. "Ah! Here you are! I am Okinar, a priest of Urogalan. I have need of adventurers such as yourselves." It turns out that Okinar had been approached a fellow by the name of Nerick. Nerick was suffering from lycanthropy. He is a werewolf. Okinar had been planning to lift Nerick's curse when Nerick went wild and fled his temple, causing damage and injuring some of the staff. Well Okinar wanted the companions help finding Nerick so he could complete the removal of his curse. All Okinar had to offer was 800 gold pieces. 800 gold pieces a person was a little thin, according to James. "No, for all of you, 800 gold pieces total." James was not pleased, but Deidre enthusiastically supported helping the Hobbit. Eventually they agree to help Okinar. The only additional information Okinar can offer, is that Nerick is a powerfully built man of 190 pounds and 30 years of age. He has short graying, black hair and a noticeable scar over his left eye. He appear quite fit and might be an athlete, a soldier, or a guardsman.

Enter the Demon Council

2012-01-04T08:52:00.000+01:00

Deadana - a Gnomish warrior, whose fighting prowess is only matched by her capacity to eat.
Lars - a Dwarven priest of dry wit, he taunts his enemies from behind impregnable defenses
Philia - a determined, mercurial Elven priestess, skilled with bow and spell
Sir Robert - an Orcish barbarian with a strong moral compass
Tespin - a deep Gnomish rogue, unseen and deadly to the hated Drow
Thorir - an Elven wizard practiced in dark arts
Sir William - a shinning paladin, glib of tongue and misunderstood by his companions

As the spider-shaped stone golem moved aside its legs, the party observed that the Demon Council was already in session. Tespin breathed a sigh of relief. In answer to the puzzled looks of the others, he said, "I was afraid we would enter an empty hall with a lone Drow pushing a broom and telling us, 'What? The Demon Council? That was yesterday.'" Instead the party saw a wide assortment of demons and their allies. A richly plumed Vrock, a powerfully muscled many-eyed demon, a huge frost giant, three enormous black-furred minotaurs, and several taller creatures that were demon princes or their aspects. One was a two-headed reptilian with a halo of fire, standing on a raised platform and speaking to a small crowd, including several gnoll-headed humanoids and a creature resembling a three-headed scorpion.

A mezzanine level overlooked the enormous council hall. The pillars that held it up glistened with iridescent white. A black marble throne at least 15 feet wide stood on the mezzanine. Two female Drow stood before the throne on the mezzanine, watching creatures walking up and down the stairs. There were Succubi on the upper level, as well as a woman who seamed permanently hidden by a veil of white shimmering light.

A screech came from the main level and then a flurry of wings that was over in a moment. The richly plumed Vrock stood over two dead male Drow. Two other Vrocks stood by him gloating.

Sir William took charge of the situation, and marched straight through the milling Vrocks. Lumegier, Ambassador of Pazuzu shook his claw at Sir William and the others, stating, next time, they will not get off so easy. They weaved their way through the hall, trying not to get too close to Obox-oh or Unscharje the Oculus demon. They passed too close to the corrupted advanced hyenas, so the hyenas attacked. Rekla, Yeenoghu's consort demanded an apology for disturbing their pets. Sir William answered with her sword. In the mean time, Lumegier and his companions began dancing the Dance of Ruin. The Frost Giant Kulli, Ambassador for Kostchtchie, backed off from the Vrock dance, knowing he would suffer the affects. The party realized what was going on as well, and moved out of range of the dance.

Sir William cast Daylight on his shield, attracting the attention of Eccozt, Treason, and Lolth's Fury, who were guarding the throne. While the party made short work of Yeenoghu's party, except for Kheldin, a Gnoll witch. She took on a demonic form and flew with her life from the hall. Baphomet and the accompanying Minotaurs cheered on Yeenoghu's downfall. Eccozt demanded that Sir William extinguish his light. When he did not comply, Treason cast a deeper darkness to cancel it out. Next the Drow joined the battle while Tespin and Sir William climbed the pedastel to attack Demogorgon. While Thorir and Deadana fought off the Drow, Obox-oh approached Philia. He said, "Anciant am I, ancient and worthy of your fealty. Swear allegiance to me and I will tell you...everything about the secret Abyss." Looking up from the remains of Demogorgon at the insect like monstrosity of Obox-oh looming over Philia, Sir William assumed she was in danger. He leaped into battle with the strange demon.

Seeing the Drow killed one after another, the Beblith Porther alerted the Envoy and the Hammer of Lolth and climbed down to the mezzanine. First it immobilized Thorir with his web. When Thorir teleported away, he turned on Tespin. Philia and Sir William finished with Obox-oh and went to help Thorir and Tespin. Yeenoghu, regenerated briefly before being put down again. Baphomet, Kulli, Lamegier, and Pale Night had seen that Lolth's Council was no more. They left the hall with their retinue by the most expedient means at their disposal.

The Envoy and the Hammer appeared. The Envoy was wielding the Black Star in a new shape; a long spear in the shape of a spider's leg. Sir William and Deadana engaged Lolth's aspects. Thorir caused the mezzanine to turn to mud, sending the Envoy and Hammer sprawling.

The Party have engaged Lolth in her demon council.

To be continued...

A Game of Thrones: The Card Game

2012-01-01T20:47:00.000+01:00

For Christmas my family gave me A Game of Thrones: The Card Game. I became interested in the game after reading the review on Drake's Flames. I can't say that I have finished a complete game. I have started one four-player session and three two-player sessions so far. I have not had the time to play a game completely through. So far I find the preconstructed decks interesting to play. The feel more coherent than the decks you get with Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game. I still have not really found the flow of the game. The goal is to score 15 power points. During your turn you can make up to three challenges for military, intrigue, and power. With military you are trying to kill off the other player's characters. Characters are what let you make challenges in the first place. If a character has one of the challenge symbols, it can attack or defend against that type of challenge. With intrigue you are trying to whittle down the opponents deck. With power, you are trying to steal your opponents power directly. This seems the most obvious type of attack to carry out. If you make challenges that your opponent can't defend against, you get a bonus power chip.

My last session that I played with Kati, I played House Targaryen, while Kati played House Stark. Initially Kati was able to get a few hits on me. She was more able to put characters into play. I concentrated on putting locations into play. Suddenly I had 7 or 8 gold per turn. I thought I was in real trouble when Kati put out Hodor. Up until then, I had been using attachments to damage and kill her characters. To destroy Hodor, I used a plot to force her to destroy her own character. Kati then got out the Army of the North, a strength 11 character. I had many locations and a lot of wealth. I played three or four characters. Had she attacked, I could have blocked her character and sacrificed Vicerys. He has the ability to enable me to save him and put him back in my hand. His cost of one makes him a sacrifice I can make repeatedly. Since the Army of the North was the only character she had, I could use Khal Drogo's stealth ability to exclude the army as a defender and make and unopposed attack, forcing her to choose a character to kill. At this point I clearly had control of the game and with 12 power, we decided to call it in my favor. I suspect that stark needs to do its damage early on and get characters into the game. I won't know for sure until I get a better look at the House Stark cards.

Grupo Martes: 13 December

2011-12-29T22:33:00.000+01:00

We wanted to play a strategy game. Peter brought out Principato. As the ruling noble of an Italian city-state, I have three rounds to score as many points as possible.

Peter has built three catapults.

I built three statues.

In each turn you have two actions. Your actions might be one of the following:

Exchange a card from the cards available with one of the two before you
Exercise one of the action cards before you (you can repeat actions)
Put a wildcard (purple) token in your church

The action cards let you do stuff like, take income from a tax collector or have your pastures or workshops produce, or build more pastures/workshops or farms/banks. Pastures produce green tokens which you store in farms. The workshops produce yellow tokens which you store in banks. Some actions enable you to hire mercenaries or build catapults. You need these for when war breaks out, at least four times a game. Those with the highest military get bonus points. Other actions enable you to create works of art, such as books, sculptures, and paintings. All these actions either get you token or cost you tokens. So you need to develop an economy of sorts. Just how big that economy has to be is the crux of the whole game.

In addition to the regular victory points, each player gets two secret ways of scoring victory points. I got victory points for building farms and pastures, so I did my level best to do that. In fact, I built all the farms and pastures that were physically possible to build. It turns out, that the cost benefit does not pay in my opinion. It costs you a heck of a lot of time and tokens to build all those farms and pastures and the return just does not ensure victory. The real scoring in the game is to be done with the works of art. The victory points per investment in tokens results in a much better rate of return.

The game flow is entertaining. You seek the best actions to take to get you the most stuff and ultimately victory points. In a four-player game, we spent a lot of time seeing what cards were available and hoping the ones we wanted were still there when it came around to our turn. The players before you can and do deliberately leave you junk, forcing you to rethink your strategy or make the best of what you have. In addition, the last card in the row is tossed after every turn, but a new one is uncovered. While entertaining, I found there were too many cards in the deck. A bad shuffle means the cards you really want emerge either too early or too late.

Michael and I fell victim to spending too much time building powerful economies. Kathrin and Peter had must more modest production chains. They invested heavily in artworks. They also showed that a modest investment in military brings significant gain. They both monopolized the catapults. I bought a few mercenaries, but I had to keep paying them to keep them around.

I would probably try this game again, but I think a purchase is out of the question.

Phil and Andrea: 23 December

2011-12-27T07:23:00.000+01:00

Phil and Andrea are here for a visit!

We showed them Serengeti. They really took a shine to this game. Our first hand, they were just learning how to play: Phil 4, Andrea 13, Kathryn 20, Me 20. I beat Kathryn because I had more cards than she did 9 to 11. They learned quickly, because Andrea won the next hand: Phil 6, Andrea 22, Kathryn 16, Me 10. Then Phil went on to win the next hand: Phil 27, Andrea 18, Kathryn --, Me 13. Unfortunately, I was playing the game wrong. If no one has a card to collect the bid, the bid is divided evenly among the other players. I had taught them that the money goes into the back. With my variant, the back tends to stay liquid, encouraging people to pass and collect their two coins. Later in the week, playing according to the rules, the bank is quickly emptied out.

I also showed Phil how to play Keltis - the card game. He also noted how much this game is like Lost Cities. Since he was only learning, of course I won.

Afterward, I had to help with preparations for the holiday, so Andrea and Phil went on to play Trans Europa with Kathryn. When I joined back in Kathryn was beating us rather consistently.

Grupo Martes: 6 December

2011-12-25T23:15:00.000+01:00

We played two newcomers this evening. The first was Kalimambo. You are an explorer, wandering the undiscovered jungles of a distant land, seeking the Kalimambo. He/she/it moves unnoticed among you and the other explorers. As with all Euro games, it is about victory points. You have a track around the board with the occasional elephant poop. In addition to the explorer token for each player, you have one for the Kalimambo and one for a crocodile. All the players lay out a card 0-11 secretly. All reveal. A random card is revealed for the Kalimambo. The player with the highest number moves the number of spaces according to the number on the card played. When tied, the player closest to the back of the line moves.

If the space you are headed for is occupied by the Kalimambo or another player, you simply move to the next available space.
If the space you are headed for has an elephant poop, you get minus points.
If the Kalimambo moves to a space with an elephant poop, the player who played the lowest card, gets the minus points.

The crocodile always starts the turn immediately behind the last player in line. Whenever the last player moves, the crocodile moves up directly behind the next player. That player receives minus points equal to the number of spaces the crocodile moved. If the crocodile moves up behind the Kalimambo, the player of the lowest card gets the minus points. After everyone runs out of cards, you add up your minus points and see who won.

I found this game more interesting than Get Bit, which is basically the same thing. The subject of this game is much more lighthearted. Maybe that was just my victory talking.

King of Tokyo was our next game. While playing this, I was soon whistling the Godzilla theme. That already speaks well for the game.

You have a monster with no fame, but life points and a couple energy chips. On your turn, you have three chances to roll six dice. You score life, fame, energy, or attack damage. Life is used to heal any life points you lost in previous rounds. Unless you are in Tokyo. (I think the Self-Defense Forces prevent your monster from healing.) Fame is needed to win. You need 20 points to take the title, "King of Tokyo". With energy you can buy or activate special abilities. There are always a few available to choose from. If you do not like the abilities available, you can spend two energy to get a whole new set to choose from. I had the ability super jump, for example. With that I could avoid one damage by jumping out of the way. It cost me one energy to activate, though. The attack damage you scored was distributed based on whether you were in or out of Tokyo. In Tokyo, you damage all monsters currently outside. If you were outside Tokyo, you damage all monsters in Tokyo. Monsters in Tokyo can opt to leave any time they take damage. The monster that dealt the damage has the option of taking the other's place in Tokyo. Only one monster can be in Tokyo, unless you have more than four players, then two monsters can be in Tokyo. Every turn you are in Tokyo, you get bonus victory points.

The game is lighthearted and fast. I definitely want to try it again. I suspect though that there are balance problems at the lower extremes for numbers of players; two or five. We had five players. That meant the two in Tokyo were dealing damage to the three outside. We could not damage them fast enough to drive them out. Lena became King of Tokyo.

Berlin

2011-12-22T23:15:00.000+01:00

We went on a weekend trip to Berlin for our 20th Wedding Anniversary. We had a six hour train ride there and back plus the time to kill in restaurants. That meant we had a little time to play...

Die Sternen stehen richtig, we played on the train ride there. I was lucky enough to get a GOO out because Andrea arranged the stars just right. I sacrificed a minion (Günstling) to get two pushes. One push I converted into two more pushes. The other I converted into a flip, then two flips.

On Friday, we played three hands of Keltis - the Card Game on the train. I consistently scored one more point that Andrea. On Saturday, we played another set of hands. Andrea started beating me 2:1.

Keltis in the Thai Restaraunt

We first got out Jaipur on Sunday. I won the first game, Andrea the second. The use of camels is very important in the game. You can quickly grab up a bunch of cards, even if they are relatively low value rugs. This forces your opponent to either take the camels and get you new cards to choose from or choose an individual card. You then have the option to pick up a good card revealed by your opponent or turn in your rugs for a bonus chip. If your opponent took camels and revealed a lot of good cards, exchange your rugs for the better goods.

Demonweb: By Invitation Only

2011-12-20T15:02:00.000+01:00

Deadana - a Gnomish warrior, whose fighting prowess is only matched by her capacity to eat.
Lars - a Dwarven priest of dry wit, he taunts his enemies from behind impregnable defenses
Philia - a determined, mercurical Elven priestess, skilled with bow and spell
Sir Robert - an Orcish barbarian with a strong moral compass
Tespin - a deep Gnomish rogue, unseen and deadly to the hated Drow
Thorir - an Elven wizard practiced in dark arts
Sir William - a shinning paladin, glib of tongue and misunderstood by his companions

Sir William has leaped to the top of the wall to engage Eclavdra in personal combat. (See how he got there: The Fane of Eclavdra.) He slashed her with the Star of Light, his +1 Holy Sword. Eclavdra tried to inflict Sir William with a greater curse, but failed. Bob and Thorir burst through the door to engage the Drow that had come to reinforce the temple. The arcane archer and priestess among them managed to poison Deadana. Philia used a wind wall to dissipate the swarm that turned on her killing her summoned celestial dog after Tespin was overwhelmed.

Sir William slashed Eclavdra again. She responded by casting a harm upon him. Suddenly Sir William was near death. Lars called his Griffon to him leaped upon its back and flew up to Sir William, healing him just in time. Angered, Eclavdra cast a blasphemy. Sir William and Lars fell to the ground paralyzed, while two Yochlols, Handmaidens of Lolth appeared next to Eclavdra and more Drow came out of a secret door at the base of her tower. Eclavdra leered triumphantly down upon the remaining heros. "No one enters the Demonweb of Lolth uninvited!"

The situation looked grim. Philia, blind, she searched her pockets and withdrew the invitation to the Demon Council. "I have an invitation right here! For all of us!" Eclavdra shrieked in rage. "STOP!" The Drow put up their weapons. Bob could not help sticking his sword through the chest of a priestess before stepping back. "Let me see that," ordered Eclavdra. Thorir used his telekinesis to transport the invitation to Eclavdra's hand. Philia added, " You have attacked the envoys of Orcus, here to participate in Lolth's council." Eclavdra examined the document, which literally dripped evil, before tossing it aside. "My apologies," Eclavdra purred, "Accidents happen. You may leave now. Ingelli! Show them out!" Eclavdra disappeared back into her tower.

Eclavdra Eilservs
Monster Manual 3 (2010) Eva Widermann

One of the Drow priestesses stepped before the party as they gathered themselves together. Thorir helped Philia retrieve the invitation. "I am Ingelli. I am here to show you out." Philia protested. They needed a place to rest. Ingelli answered that though they regretted the misunderstanding and the inconvenience caused, the priestesses of the Fane were under no obligation to render assistance. The ambassadors were free to find what shelter they could in the Demonweb. Meanwhile the Drow behind her were removing the dead and attempting to clean up the damage. Ingelli escorted the party to the entrance of the Fane and closed the door behind them. The party decided to rest to regain their spells and learn cure blindness for Philia.

The party was preparing to continue on after resting, when the door to the Fane slammed open. Eclavdra stepped out. "I have decided to escort you and speed you through the Demonweb to your destination. I wish to observe how you pass the Black Gate." The party argued back and forth, whether they should accept and what Eclavdra's motivations could be. They accepted. Eclavdra lead them off down one of the tunnels. They marched for what felt like miles. They came to a part of the tunnel where the walkway was broken. Eclavdra summoned demonic spiders to rebuild the web. She lead them past a sporebat lair. She lead them to the Silver Door. Sir William destroyed a number of undead, cowering, unseen, in their holes.

Finally they arrived at the Black Gate. A huge demon, Kashtigur, stood guard. Thorir withdrew a scroll from his robe and safely read the password in the Black Speech. Satisfied, the demon stood aside and the door opened. Eclavdra closed her mouth and went to move forward. Philia said that they no longer needed her escort. At that Eclavdra's lip went straight, she turned on her heels, and walked off.

Beyond the Black Gate, the party was confronted by two Drow warlocks, Ruthenoc and Saz'zt. The accepted the invitation from Lolth, presented by Philia and directed the party down the left corridor. When asked what lay to the right, they answered Displacer Beasts. The party asked if they could trust them. The warlocks answered that their orders were to direct the ambassadorial parties to the left. Lars decided that they had gone on long enough without rest. He summoned a hero's feast and they dined with the two Drow. Fortunately, Tespin was not around, otherwise one of the Drow warlocks might have been served a knife in his back for dessert.

After the meal, the party followed the instructions of Ruthenoc and Saz'zt. They descended further into the darkness. Philia and Thorir discovered a secret door in the passage. This lead to a chamber where two Drow and two demons were arguing. The argument was whether the council should be called Lolth's Council or Graz'zt's Council. The party showed their invitation so the demons just ignored them. They found another secret door at the back of the chamber and descended further. Finally they came to a large chamber. A huge stone spider-shaped golem guarded the entrance to the council chamber. Philia showed their invitation and the golem moved its legs aside.

To be continued...

The Fane of Eclavdra

2011-11-20T19:10:00.000+01:00

Deadana - a Gnomish warrior, whose fighting prowess is only matched by her capacity to eat.
Lars - a Dwarven priest of dry wit, he taunts his enemies from behind impregnable defenses
Philia - a determined, mercurical Elven priestess, skilled with bow and spell
Sir Robert - an Orcish barbarian with a strong moral compass
Tespin - a deep Gnomish rogue, unseen and deadly to the hated Drow
Thorir - an Elven wizard practiced in dark arts
Sir William - a shinning paladin, glib of tongue and misunderstood by his companions

They party assembled at the Styx Oarsman after returning from the Abyss. (What has gone before.) They reported to Rule-of-Three that they had successfully met with the Ambassador of Orcus. Too bad they had to slay him in the process. They enjoyed one last meal (their last meal?) at the Styx Oarsman. Sir William declared that he was ready for the final sacrifice. He would give his soul to make sure the mission would succeed. The Maralith barkeep then came by with the bill. She said that she would accept a human soul as payment instead of remuneration and smiled at Sir William.

After a good meal and some rest, the party set out for the Fane of Lolth. The Fane of Lolth contains a gate that would allow them to enter the Demonweb. At the gate to the flying bridge across the Pitchy Flow, the female gate guards blocked their way. Sir William put his considerable diplomatic skill to use and convinced the commander, Jylis, that their mission was of utmost importance and that they required an escort to the Fane of Lolth. Jylis ordered 10 Drow to provide escort and lead them across herself.

The Drow took them past the villas of the noble families of Erelhei-Cinlu and into the narrow gap leading to the Fane of Lolth. The traveled past many a disgusting bas-relief, undoubtedly carved by a Dwarven slave. They passed through temples and eventually reached the Fane of Lolth. Their they were stopped by one of the priestesses. Sir William needed only to hold up the invitation from Lolth herself, steaming and dripping evil blackness, and the priestess did her best to speed them on their way. They passed through a portal and into the Demonweb in the Abyss.

The part found themselves in a tunnel made of spider silk, thicker than others in some places. When one looked closer at the silk it seemed to be woven from the tortured souls. The tunnel stretched through the endless gloom suspended in space. Beyond the tunnel they could make out other strands stretching through the infinite darkness. At once they came upon an invisible door, made of some hard metal. They could see the tunnel stretch on beyond. Using Lars' keen senses, he could make out the holy symbol of Lolth, Demon Queen of Spiders. Between himself and Lars, they determined that without the key, they could only open the door by painting Lolth's holy symbol with the lifeblood on a sentient being. All eyes once again turned to Sir William. Lars remembered that they still had a resurrection spell on one of his scrolls from Mousurrian. Sir William called upon the powers of his god and grew to 10 feet tall. Overflowing with holy might he began hammering away at the invisible barrier with his magic sword. Sparks and burning chunks of metal blazed around him as he hammered away at the barrier. After almost two minutes, the barrier collapsed under his onslaught.

They journeyed on for what seemed miles. The tunnel seemed to be heading for a giant rock suspended in space. They arrived at the face of the rock to be confronted with a secret door, from the unsecret side. Tespin listened at the door and heard Drow talking about the proper way to hold ceremonies. Sir William nonchalantly opened the door and entered. The party found a small keep inside the rock, like a castle inside an egg. They had opened the door onto a richly decorated courtyard. He began interviewing one of the Drow priestess. He soon found out that they were in the Fane of Eclavdra. "Eclavdra! What luck!", though Sir William. He immediately demanded that Eclavdra show herself and suffer punishment for her crimes, namely, having her head removed by his sword. Eclavdra did indeed put in an appearance, hitting Sir William with a maximized Flame Strike and a quickened Destruction spell. Sir William made his way toward Eclavdra while the others dealt with the other priestesses and their guards. Philia was blinded by one of the priestess. She summoned a celestial riding dog to help her see. Tespin fought the first few Drow that were by the door, but then he was being stalked by a swarm of 10,000 spiders. They kept crawling all over him, sickening him. Lars summoned a Griffon to distract Eclavdra, while he and Deadana dealt with some of the Drow. Sir William grew to giant size and leaped up the wall to face Eclavdra in personal combat.

Battling Drow in the Fane of Eclavdra

To be continued...

Grupo Martes: 15 November

2011-11-17T07:41:00.000+01:00

Rolling Bones is a game where you roll dice depicting the parts of a skeleton. 3 each for left leg, right leg, left arm, and right arm makes 12. Six dice for head, rib cage, spinal column, pelvis, gravestone, and a hat. You roll all 18 dice at once and try to put your skeleton together. If you do not make it on the first roll, you must give up a die to roll again. Want to keep rolling? You must give up two dice and so on. You get 5 points for completing the torso and each limb. You get one point for each additional part attached to your skeleton. You cannot end your turn unless you have rolled a tombstone in that round.

Peter putting it together.

Oh the foot bone is connected to the leg bone,
And the leg bone is connected to the thigh bone,
And the thigh bone is connected to the hip bone,
Now hear the word of the Lord!
Them bones, them bones, them dry bones,
Them bones, them bones, them dry bones,
Them bones, them bones, them dry bones,
Now hear the word of the Lord!

Right Leg and Torso Complete

We each took a turn rolling the dice and scoring. The game is really quite fiddly. Telling arms from legs takes careful looking. A more obvious coding technique would have been helpful.

Next up was Ostfriesesches Schafe-Schubsen (East Frisian Sheep Shoving). Immediately on opening the box, I found an advertisement for the German gaming magazine Spielerei. I think the game designer should be annoyed with whoever decided to include this advertisement. The advertisement shows a man tossing aside games and saying, "I could have saved myself the money." This is not the message I want my players to get when they open the box of my game.

Mixed Messages

Each player gets a card numbered 0-9. You play the cards in a row, like 8-6, which is read as 86. You move your sheep ahead on the board. Each board has 100-spaces. So you move 86 spaces forward. If you play the lowest number, you lose one of your two life preservers. If you land in a pond, you lose a life preserver. If you land on another sheep, you push the sheep forward one. If you land off the board, you are out of the game. If you are asked to give up a life preserver and you do not have any more, you are out of the game.

Lena choosing her numbers.

Once you move the last sheep off the board, the last player to move shoves it ahead. Low on cards? You get to pick up your played cards again, once you have 3 or fewer left in your hand.

Sheeps advancing across the Frisian landscape.

Peter won this game. I came in a close second, when Kathrin suddenly ran out of life preservers. When there are only two players left, the game ends with the person second farthest forward winning the game. This game is rather too close to Get Bit for my liking. In that sense I agree with Spielerei.

Québec is a typical Eurogame. You have two actions you can take. You can place your architect on a tile and place three blocks on your hand or you can place blocks from your hand on one of the tiles. Placing blocks on tiles triggers an action according to where the tile is placed. The tiles have four colors: yellow, purple, red and blue. The colors do have meaning. Purple represents the church. Red represents English-French relations. The color have different kinds of activities associated with them. The yellow activities tend to move blocks around. Blue tends to give you victory points. Red places extra blocks in the four corners representing the four colors. Sound confusing? It really isn't.

You are trying to get victory points. There are two ways of getting them, really. First, you want people to invest on the tiles, where you have placed your architect. They do this by placing blocks on it. Up to three people can do so. So you place your architect on a tile that you think players will find attractive. You can score the tile any time you like, but you get more points for the tile for each time someone invested in your tile. No investments, no points. 1 investment, 1 point. 2 investments, 3 points. 3 investments, 6 points.

What do other get for investing in your tile? Two things. First, they get to execute an action associated with the tile. Maybe they get bonus victory points or get to put more blocks on their hand. There are lots of different actions. Second, when you score the tile, their blocks get put in the corner representing the color of the tile. The game is divided into four phases. At the end of each phase, you add up the number of blocks for each player in each corner and add those points to the players' scores. The blocks then get returned to the players. The player with the most blocks in a color get 50% more points, to a maximum of 5 points. So the most you can score is 10 blocks + 50% equals 15 points. At the end of the game you score the tiles

Not the most attractive of game boards.

I was surprised to see Peter, Lena, and Michael express their dislike of this game. I find it very similar to many other games, where you have more actions that you want to do than you are capable of doing in a given turn. They found the game flat. Perhaps I did not mind it so much, because I scored 125 points. My biggest complaint is that the game is ugly. The round tiles scattered around the board only lead to a gaudy display of color. It might have been better to arrange the tiles in a more orderly fashion and abandon the round tiles for square one. Also lost were the depictions of the Canadian buildings on the back side of the tiles. They were ignored. A less cluttered board might let the player take notice of them.

Agile Software Engineering and 20 Down

2011-11-16T22:01:00.001+01:00

My scrum team is doing Agile Software Engineering (ASE) training. As part of this training we are doing 3 one-day sprints to implement a program in ABAP to play 20 Down (20 ab). In this game you deal each player two cards from a Skat deck. The start play, left of the dealer chooses trump. The dealer then deals each player three more cards. You play a series of tricks. The winner of the trick takes the lead. You have to follow suit whenever possible. The highest card takes the trick, with trump, well, trumping. Before the game, you must decide if 10 will be played high or low. If high, it is valued between the ace and and the king: A, 10, K, Q, J, 9, 8, 7. If low, it is valued between the jack and nine as usual: A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7.

A Skat Deck with the SAP logo

Each player starts with 20 points. For each trick you take, reduce your score by one. If you take no tricks, you gain five bonus points. The winner is the first to hit 0 or less. We played a few practice rounds with five players. We quickly discovered that if things go badly, the game can go on forever. You gain points faster than you lose them. After a few short hands I had 47 points. People play this game for money. You put in money per point. Perhaps the winner takes the pot.

Grupo Martes: 1 November

2011-11-15T19:13:00.000+01:00

We started the evening with a card game, The City, while waiting for Michael to arrive. I like this card game. It is typical of a number of card games these days, like Race for the Galaxy, where you pay for new cards by spending cards out of your hand. Everyone starts with six cards in their hand and discards down to four. Players then all select a card to play and all reveal at the same time. Players then pay for the card they played by discarding from their hand. You then draw based on the number of $ in your tableau. In the picture below, I drew two cards. One for the business district and one for the car in the business district. You also collect any victory points your tableau gives you. Usually, eight turns is all it takes to pass the victory points needed to win. I forget what the threshold is.

This is definitely a game I would consider buying. The topic is accessible enough to appeal to most audiences and the mechanic is easy enough to consume. Thumbs up for me.

Every city needs an interchange.

Next we got out Dungeon Fighter. Michael came back from Essen singing praises for Dungeon Fighter. This is a tongue in cheek look at the dungeon crawler. You move a token through a small dungeon map fighting monsters you encounter. You take turns fighting the monster by rolling the die onto the target. The target indicates how much damage you do. Basic rolling requires you to bounce the die off the table before it hits the target. Some monsters or special weapons require more finesse. You might have to roll it off your nose or head the die onto the table, or toss the die from beneath the table edge. You might think that the antics required to perform these feats might set you giggling. I am sure that in many circumstances it would, but on that night, it just did not hit me. It was amusing, but nothing I laughed out loud at.

You get a set number of dice. Once you go through your dice, the monster damages everyone. You can buy extra dice and weapons at the dungeon store, which you'll come across every few rooms. Unfortunately, there is no option for healing. Once you take a hit, you lose a third of your hit points permanently and one of your three special abilities. After three hits, you are out of the game.

Stefan dropping the die off his nose.

No hit for Stefan. Instead the monster damages him.

Michael take aim.

Next we played Get Bit. Everyone has cards numbered one to six. Each turn you play one of your cards face down. All reveal at the same time. First you check the ones. If you played a one alone, your swimmer moves to the front of the line. If someone else played your card, you stay where you are. Next you check the twos and so on until the sixes have been played. Now you see who is the last in line. Devil takes the hindmost. The shark takes a bite out of the last player. The last player loses a limb and moves to the front of the line. All the other players set aside the card they played. Only the last player gets to keep his or her card in their hand. Once you have played all your cards, you can pick them all up again. This game goes until there is only one swimmer left.

Shark! Yellow is already missing a leg.

Green is out of the game.

White was too slow.

The game is cute and the components are amusing, but it is not engaging enough for me to want to play again. If you are going to have such a macabre theme, then lets see some blood or something. As it is, it is too dry and PC to make a lasting impression.

Grupo Martes: 25 October

2011-11-14T18:10:00.000+01:00

Tonight we started with Kingdom Builder. Kingdom Builder is the latest game from Donald X. Vaccarino of Dominion fame. In this game you have a bunch of houses to place. At the start, you can only place two houses per turn. You draw a card that represents one of the five or so terrain types. You must then place on that terrain. If you have houses that already exist adjacent to the drawn terrain type, you must place there before you place elsewhere. You play until one player runs out of houses.

To add variation, there are a number of different game boards to choose from. You also get three random additional victory conditions. For example, in our game, you got extra points for having the most houses in a quadrant or points for your longest row of houses. There is always the standard rule of three points for houses next to a city.

There are a number of other special locations that grant additional abilities. For example, a ship. This enables you to move one of your houses onto an adjacent water hex. Another one enabled you to add an extra house to a pasture.

I find the game relatively quick and easy to play. It is one that I can imagine sitting down to with a group of gamers and non-gamers on an evening where we do not have anything else planned. Obviously that is not a strong endorsement of the game, nor should it be interpreted as one. I find the game entertaining, but not attractive; both in the sense of a strong desire to play and the somewhat garish board. This game is clearly in a similar category to Carcassone. If you love Carcassone and still want to play it, you'll like this game.

Flowers, desert, forest, pastures, and water cover the board; ugh.

Lena, Miriam, Michael, and Udo.

I cannot remember who won. Michael and Miriam played together, but I think Udo won. I just remember coming in second.

The Endgame

Afterwards we played Santiago de Cuba. This is a simplified version of Cuba, which came out in 2007. I never played Cuba, but I am told it is a long complex game. The game reminded me of an even older classic with a Carribean theme, Puerto Rico. As in Puerto Rico, you are interested in gathering resources such as tobacco, sugar, rum, and fruit and shipping them overseas.

In Santiago de Cuba, each player moves the old brown car another step on the track. You then get two actions. In the first action you act on the person you are parked in front of. Pedro gives you two bales of tobacco, for example. If you do not want to stop in front of Pedro, you can spend a Peso and drive on to Martinez, who gives you three Pesos. For your second action you look at the color flower the person has. The buildings are grouped according to these colors; three to a color. You may choose one and mark it with your marker. This prevents the others from using that building until you move your marker. (There is also a way to buy the building so that you get victory points every time someone uses the building, but I forget how to do that.)

The old jalopy parked in front of Martinez. Three Pesos please.

Pedro looking manly with those bales of tobacco. Huba huba!

When the car makes it around to the harbor, it is time to load the ship. The dice were rolled the last time the ship came around, and it shows the demand for goods. The players take turns loading their goods onto the boat, collecting victory points. Key is to make sure you get your goods on the boat, before the others do. So if you are the only one with cigars, load your fruit on and satisfy the demand, so that your opponent cannot load his fruit.

The Harbor in Santiago de Cuba

To ensure replayability, you shuffle the buildings and personas at the start of each game, so the people and buildings are always in a different order.

I found this an enjoyable game. It takes a bit longer to play than Empire Builder and is simple enough. I think this is a welcome simplification compared to Cuba. Still I do not think this is a game I would choose to buy. I find the play order a little too rigid and predictable. I commented to a friend that I think the game needs a mechanic to keep me from always landing on Jose. He pointed out, that is what spending Pesos is for. I had to grudgingly admit he was right. The mechanic is there. I just did not see it. Still, the car goes around the harbor a little too quickly for my liking. Adding Pesos just makes it go even faster.

Have not posted in a while

2011-11-13T18:48:00.001+01:00

Sorry I have not been posting lately. When real life has not be taking away my attention, my limited time on the computer has been absorbed with Lord of the Rings Online. Yes, I play MMORPGS, too. I obviously have too much time on my hands.

Prondo in the Misty Mountains

Well, I have continued to play other games, I am just delinquent in posting. I have a Call of Cthulhu session and a Dungeons and Dragons session to report on. I also have two Tuesday night boarding gaming sessions. Assuming I am not lost in Middle Earth, they should begin appearing over the next week.

I did take the time to enter the Lord of the Rings Pumpkin Carving Contest. Although my entry did not win, I was listed as an also-ran.

Sauron's All-Seeing Eye

I see you!

Serengeti at Mosch Mosch

2011-11-13T17:59:00.001+01:00

We went out to eat at Mosch Mosch. After finishing our meal, I got out Serengeti. After explaining the game, we could not convince Ursula to play, so just Andrea and Kathryn and I played. We managed to squeeze in two games. Given that it had been ages since Kathryn or Andrea had played, it is not surprising that I beat them soundly the first game. The second game I still won, but they had begun to grasp how to play. Good game.

Peter Learns ASL

2011-10-13T08:15:00.000+02:00

Five out of six of my Pathfinder players were unable to make it to our regular session. That just left Peter and me. Since I am planning on going to Alpfenfestung II at the end of the month, I had been thinking about ASL, so I decided to introduce Peter to the game. Now Peter is a dyed-in-the-wool Eurogamer. He admitted that he had tried "cosims" (conflict simulations), but never got very far. Too many rules. So Peter was a good sport and agreed to try it. I managed to explain the basics of ASL within an hour. We then sat down to play T16 Strayer's Strays.

Peter fortifies himself with a pils.

Strayer's Strays is an ideal learning scenario. There are no AFVs or artillery pieces. There are about a dozen units per side. Most important, it is only four turns long. The American must move his paratroopers across the narrow width of board 6. The Germans have 12 squads to prevent that. Strayer's Strays does have a bias toward the German player though as is shown by its ROAR report.

Peter's mistake was to attack on a broad front. This gave the maximum number of German units the opportunity to fire. I was thus able to catch him running across open ground, drawing the dreaded -2 modifier for hazardous movement. He would have done better to concentrate at a single point of attack. To use a term we borrowed from the Germans, to form a Schwerpunkt. You concentrate your forces on a single axis of attack, hopefully against the weakest point. My left flank would probably have been a good place to do that. Peter had enough forces that he would have a decent chance to push through, with the possible exception of up the middle. To be fair though, this was Peter's first game!

To make matters worse, the dice did not like Peter. He rolled a good number of 10s, 11s, and 12s. He was certainly the Boxcar King of the night. We only played for two turns, too. I on the other hand managed to activate his sniper with a snake-eyes. He even broke one of my units, which Peter subsequently surrounded and then massacred as they tried to surrender. Peter declared No Quarter. By the end of turn 1 though I had broken 2 of his 8 squads, and taken one squad and one of his two leaders prisoner. During his next turn, he was unable to rally any units, while I broke two more squads and wounded his other leader. At this point I called the game for him. Peter no longer had enough good order units to move across the board and did not have the capacity to rally his broken units in time. Peter's assault just evaporated in the face of fire.

The Final Shot: Paratroopers break in 6AA6

Nippon Rails

2011-10-09T22:14:00.001+02:00

On the weekend, we decided to get out Nippon Rails. This game from Mayfair works just like Euro Rails. You have three demand cards, each with 3 possible loads to deliver. You draw your track between mile posts and drive your loads to their destinations and get money and new demand cards.

At Start

We thought, Ursula, who has an interest in Japan, might learn something from the game. We managed to all start in different cities. Me in Kyushu, Kati in Osaka, Andrea in Tokyo, and Ursula in Sapporo. As usual, the inexperienced players tried to reach destinations that were beyond their starting budget. We were able to talk them down into making more reasonable start goals. The biggest problem with this game is the down time while the current player tries to figure out how to get the biggest payoff from the available destinations. I cracked walnuts, Andrea knitted, Kati surfed, and Ursula read a book. After 3-4 hours we were still not done. We decided to call it a game, just before Omi and Opi showed up to walk the dog. Kati was clearly leading. She was not in 4 cities yet, but she was almost into Sapporo and had a war chest of over 100 billion Yen. However, she had no clear deliveries. She was just getting ready to switch out her demand cards. I had maybe 20 billion and was connected to all four cities. In about 5 turns I would have had over a 100 billion. Andrea had built as far as Osaka, but was broke. Ursula had a large war chest but had just reached Tokyo. A fun game, but it takes too long.

Game End

Armies on Parade 2012

2011-10-08T19:57:00.000+02:00

I went down to my local Games Workshop store in Mannheim and put together a board with my Lord of the Rings Hobbit army. This is for Games Workshop's Army on Parade 2012, which kicked off today. Idea is that you put your army on a 2' x 2' board. Best board gets to present their board at Games Day.

499-Point Hobbit Army

My board is a little too small, being 20" x 20". It also does not have to be a legal army for a table top game, so I can add more figures. Looks like I have some work to do, but I still have 8 months. The gentlemen in Mannheim said they would be posting their picture of my board on their Facebook page.

Grupo Martes: 4 October

2011-10-05T22:52:00.000+02:00

This week we got out Hansa Teutonica, one of the possible games for the German Board Gaming Team Championship of 2012. In this game you are building trade routes between cities. You have a number of wooden cubes and a few round pieces. On your turn, you can use actions do the following:

Place a wooden token (round or cube)
Move a number of wooden tokens from one route to another
Get more wooden tokens from the bank
Score a completed trade route

My trade route to Minden (purple) was just waiting for me to use an action to score.

Each turn you have a set number of actions. You start with two. So this means you can place two wooden tokens. You can also replace someone else's token, but this costs you an additional token and the other player gets to place the token that was replaced, plus an additional token from the bank on an adjoining trade route as a free action.

The number of actions, the number of tokens you can move, the number of tokens you can get from the bank, as well as the privileges and trade route multipliers are all controlled by the extra board you have in front of you. As you score trade routes in certain cities, you can place an agent in the city from the token you had on the trade route. You can only place the agent if the token is of the matching shape, round or cube, and if you have the correct color privilege. You start with white. In stead of placing an agent in the city, you can use the option provided by certain cities, to move the token from your player card, into your token supply. There is a track for privileges. If you build into the trade route into Stade, you can instead take a token from the privilege track granting you access to more cities. There is one city for each of the tracks on your player card. Each track is 4-5 tokens long. As an added bonus, if you completely empty the track, you get 4 bonus points.

As with all German games, it is about victory points. The great thing about this game is that there are many many ways to score points. You get points for the number of connected cities in which you have trade agents. You get points for connecting cities across the map, East to West. You get points every time someone scores a trade route adjacent to one of your cities.

The city with the yellow and red tokens enables you to increase the number of actions you get per turn.

We all started going for actions. This gave Stefan, yellow, who was first into the city seven points. My colleagues accused me of being a cosim player, because I consistently drove people out. I soon got tired of fighting over the trade route after I got my third action. Invariably, someone would drop a token into the last spot you needed in a route, hoping you would drive them out and give them an extra token. I started to build an East-West route. I kept wanting to score trade routes to cities that granted privileges or more tokens from the bank or the ability to move more tokens (and also granted round tokens). Michael (red), Peter (blue), and Stefan and Lena kept dominating those trade routes. Michael got a pretty steady monopoly on his trade routes. He would start the turn scoring the completed routes and still have enough actions left to fill them up again.
Peter was the first person to go out ending the game. His lead and other points ensured his victory. I was surprised to see me end just one point behind him. Completing the East-West route and the large trade network gave me nearly 20 points. It helped me a lot that the others did not bother me too much. Michael, Stefan, and Lena were spread out behind us.

This is definitely a cool game with quite a number of options for winning the game. The question is finding the path to victory that has the least resistance. I definitely look forward to playing this one again.

Order of the Stick: The Shortening

2011-10-02T16:28:00.001+02:00

We tried out the expansion to the Order of the Stick: The Shortening. The Shortening does indeed do what it advertises; it does shorten the game. The Shortening suffers from the same problems that the original game suffers from, namely unclear rules. For instance, the Xykon card now shows his attack and defense to be 14-level. The old card showed it to be 14+level. Does this mean in the Shortening that Xykon is now weaker the deeper he is found in the dungeon? Seems pretty strange if you ask me. The starting rules for the variant In Medias Res were also unclear. It says, "In addition to eachplayer's starting Schticks, deal each player 3 Schticks at random..." Does this mean I start with all my starting Schticks or do I use the old rule and choose 3 of the starting Schticks?

Entering the Dungeon of Xykon

5 players was a pretty good test run I think. There are still a number of rules that I was not sure how to interpret. The quick reference cards are terrible. They pack so much information on one card that it is not readable. What we really need is a quick reference card that gives an overview of what you can do in a turn.

Typical of this game, some players were able to capitalize on their Schticks, while others felt somewhat helpless. Me as Roy I was able to get in a kill a number of monsters and soon had three more Schticks. Danny was somewhat overwhelmed by Elan, especially since he is particularly hard to play. Kathryn got along well with Durkon. Mark and Peter had a slow start with Varsuvius and Belkar respectively. After about an hour, we started rolling. After another half hour, we reached the end of our set play time and we decided to extend. This gave us a chance to have Xykon notice us. He noticed Durkon first. Kathryn was prepared for him and turned undead. She killed all his supporting undead, severely weakening him. Kathryn inflicted one more hit, followed by Peter's leaping attack with Belkar. I was then able to walk in and finish him off. Given my number of Schticks and killing Belkar, I was able to win the game. I was also the only player to complete any back stories.

Despite all the negative things I have to say about the game, we will certainly play it again. I just love the comic and that is reason enough to play it again. It is just darn silly and makes you laugh. As Peter said though, this is not a game that will come out onto the table every week.

Grupo Martes: 27 September

2011-09-27T22:23:00.000+02:00

Tonight we played Linq. In this party game, everyone gets a card. The cards are in pairs and list twelve words each. Plus there is a single question mark card. The cards are distributed secretly. The idea of the game is to find your partner. Your partner is the one who has the same colored card as you. If you get the question mark, your job is to try and get the others to pick you.

Each hand is played in two rounds. The dealer passes out the cards, then rolls a twelve-sided die. This indicates the word on the cards people are trying to match. The holder of the question mark card does not have any words on his or her card. He or she just gets to make things up. Now you go around the table and say a word related to the word on your card. The idea is that it is a good enough of a clue that your partner can guess that you have the same word, without the others making the same connection. Kathrin and I had "skyline". I said, "Boulevard." There are quite a few Skyline Boulevards where I come from. She said, "New York." That was enough of a clue that we both new we were partners. After the first clue, everyone writes down two names of people you think are partnered. Then everyone gives another clue and you write down another pair.

Now you reveal your cards and see who was partnered with who. If you and your partner guessed each other, you each get five points. Now you have to pay everyone else who guess that the two of your were partnered, one point. Anyone whose guess includes the holder of the question mark card has to pay that player a point. Then you do a new hand.

Michael won our game, followed by Peter, Lena, and me. Peter is not crazy about the game. I have to agree that it is not on the top of my list, but I would play it if we were all sitting around and someone said, "hey, let's play Linq."

Zelatar on 200 Gold Pieces a Day

2011-09-25T23:23:00.002+02:00

Deadana - a Gnomish warrior, whose fighting prowess is only matched by her capacity to eat.
Lars - a Dwarven priest of dry wit, he taunts his enemies from behind impregnable defenses
Philia - a determined, mercurical Elven priestess, skilled with bow and spell
Sir Robert - an Orcish barbarian with a strong moral compass
Tespin - a deep Gnomish rogue, unseen and deadly to the hated Drow
Thorir - an Elven wizard practiced in dark arts
Sir William - a shinning paladin, glib of tongue and misunderstood by his companions

When we last left our party of adventurers (see last post), they had just vanquished a Hezrou that had tried to enslave them as they stepped out of a portal into Rauwend, the 45th layer of the Abyss. They were seeking to meet Dawnat Sanp at an inn called the Black Sign, where he would give them a map to the Demonweb and a password to the Black Gate. Fortunately, one of the slaves they freed was a Tiefling, named Risis, who offered to guide the party in the city.

Risis explained to the party that the best way into the city was through the Viper Gate. The Viper Gate was guarded by a pair of Viper Trees. These trees attack any good being who attempt to enter the gate. Risis warned them, that if they were attacked, they should not react. They asked Risis if there was another way. Risis mentioned the Iron Gate, but this gate was guarded by two huge metal giants. The party decided on the Viper Gate.

The party approached the gate. It was a rusted construction of iron. A row of demonic heads was impaled on pikes along the top of the arch, surrounded by buzzing flies. Some of the eyes and tongues were still moving. The traffic in and out of the city included Hezrou, Rutterkins, and a number of other demons. They ignored the party except to shove past them. The gate was flanked by two white-barked trees. Dozens of Vrocks cawed and screeched from their roosts on the walls.

Risis led them to one side. Lars, Deadana, and Philia were all struck by the one tree. Philia was temporarily paralyzed by the venom of the snake-headed branches. Lars and Risis helped her through the gate. Thorir gave her a poison neutralizing potion. Lars cast a restoration on her. Soon Philia was up on her feet again.

Risis led the party to a tavern. The tavern was barely tolerable, but it was quiet. Risis insisted that he needed gold to act as their guide and to find the way to the Black Sign. He demanded 400 gold per day. Sir William started negotiating with him. During the discussion, Thorir slipped out and made himself appear to be a Tiefling. He began to ask Tieflings on the street if there was a better inn in the neighborhood and got a rude answer. Thorir returned to the inn and began to offer his services to the party to act as a guide. He undercut the prices demanded by Risis. Risis held firm at first, but ended up giving in. He accepted 200 gold per day, to be paid out by Tespin as Risis needed it. Tespin would accompany Risis on his expedition.

Risis spent the next two days leading Tespin around the city. He called on various being throughout Fog Town; that is the name of Zelatar on the plane of Rauwend. He offered bribes of gold or flesh. Eventually they went to visit a Drow by the name of Jeger. The entered Jeger's study in his town house. Jeger was polite to Risis as Risis ingratiated himself to him. Jeger showed Risis and Tespin, where the Black Sign was located on a map in the district of Dark Flame on the plane of Voorz'zt. At this point, Jeger seemed to notice Tespin for the first time. "I do not deal with your kind very often," he said with a sneer. "There is a first time for everything," answered Tespin. "I suggest you leave now," threatened Jeger. Tespin did not show the slightest fear, but rather defiance, as he and Risis backed out of Jeger's study.

Tespin told Risis to show him to the Black Sign. Risis insisted that this was problematic. Risis then took Tespin to the Great Green Oven near the Grandmother Fortuna. Grandmother Fortuna is a pillar of severed heads. It seems fortune tellers are beheaded and added to the pillar. The pillar sometimes speaks. At the oven, Risis explained that they had to travel through the oven to reach Dark Flame. Tespin asked if there was another way to Dark Flame. Risis explained that there surely was, but that to find a suitable portal would take time. Not wanting to brave the flames, Tespin decided that they would return to the others and enter the oven together.

The party returned with Tespin and Risis to the Great Green Oven. After speaking with Risis and examination by Lars, they deduced that they would be burned by the flames, but no lasting harm would come to them. Thorir made it interesting by casting a Freezing Sphere in to the oven before jumping in himself. There was an explosion of steam and the party entered the flames. They exited an oven of purple flames on the Viper Boulevard. At one end, they could see the illuminated towers of the Argent Palace, beneath a blue sun. Yup, a blue sun.

Risis led them down a few houses to the Black Sign. The inn had what appeared to be a common room on the street. A gate led to an interior courtyard. There seemed to be some kind of rooftop garden. Risis said that he would wait next door. Perhaps they would need his services when they were done with their business here. The party entered the common room.

The room appeared ordinary at first. There was a well-stocked bar, fresh meat cooing on a grill, and a fire pit. There were three Tieflings in black tabards with white embroidered hearts. One tending the bar, another waiting tables, the third attending to a Lamia noble. The Lamia had him in her coils, and did not seem keen to let him go anytime soon. Lars stepped up to the bar.

"Got anything for Dwarves?" he asked.

The Tiefling looked at him and said, "Sir, I am sorry, but your kind is more often served here rather than serviced."

Lars was not amused. Diadana and Thorir decided to try something apricot. At least that is what the color reminded them of. Sir William ordered wine. He got something green. The taste was not bad, but it felt like it was trying to crawl back up his throat. He offered to play a game with the bar tender. Sir William would drink, the bar tender would answer a question. Sir William asked about a guest, named Dawnat Sanp. The bar tender said that if Dawnat Sanp was a guest at the Black Sign, he could not possibly answer any questions about him. The guests at the Black Sign valued their privacy. He would lose his job if he just gave away that kind of information. And living is so expensive that he could not afford that. After serveral more such hints, Sir William finally made use of his considerable diplomatic skill and put 100 platinum pieces on the counter.

"Ahh! Dawnat Sanp! He is an undead Naga and ambassador from the demon lord Orcus. He has been here about a week, only accepting envoys from the Argent Palace. You'll find him upstairs behind door number 3. The adventurers slipped out the back of the common room and into the courtyard. They climbed the stairs the Tiefling had indicated. As they walked down to door number 3, they noticed the carnivorous plants adorning the rooftop garden. Fortunately they were cut back from the walkway.

Sir William knocked at door number 3.

"I told you--no visitors."

"It's us!"

"You have the password?"

They looked at each other and began to sweat. Tespin remembered what Rule-of-Three said.

"Life is fleeting, but death endures."

A Mane servant opened thte door. Before them was a huge skeletal cobra with glowing eyes. Tespin wondered if the glowing might be jewels embedded in his skull. All but Sir William entered the room with the undead Naga, swaying to and fro. Sir William thought to isolate himself from such evil.

"You may have my help, if you promise to use it against the Spider Queen."

Lars answered, "Why else would we be here?"

That seemed to satisfy Dawnat Sanp. He gave them a map to the Demonweb. He warned the party that the Demonweb shifts over time. He then told them the password to the Black Gate in Dark Speech. The word was so vile and offensive to the parties ears, that Lars, Deadana, and Thorir reacted with violence. Thorir blasted Dawnat Sanp with a Disintegrate spell. It had little effect on the envoy. Deadana battered the creature with her frost brand. Lars called upon the aspect of the Sun and held forth his holy symbol, turning Dawnat Sanp; reducing him to a pile of dust.

Sir William burst into the room, sword drawn. Tespin cried, "What have we done?!" The Mane servant was now cowering behind the door.

Just then, there came a scream from an open window. As Succubus hovering outside yelled, "They have killed the Mouth of Orcus." She then fled. Sir William blasted her with a Searing Light, before she disappeared behind a building.

In response to her calls, Lamias and Demons began to pour out of buildings. They heard their cries, "Those mortals have spoken with the Mouth of Orcus, enemy of Graz'zt and the butcher of Allagash! Seize them in the name of the Dark Prince!" They quickly gather up what they can find, including a invitation for Lolth. Thorir cast Dimension Door to transport them down to the street. Risis ran up to them asking, "What did you do?" They quickly explained that they need to get back to Erlhei-Cinlu. Risis did not know where that was, but he knew that the Night Hag, Condorra, at the River Styx knew how to call the Ferryman, and he could get them anywhere. Thorir cast a Mass Invisibility, and they ran for the wall. There was no open gate at the wall. Thorir again used his powers to levitate the party over the wall. As they looked back over the city, they saw Lamias and Demons crawling all over the city like an ant hill.

As pursuit seemed to fall behind and the invisibility spell failed, they passed a small Rutterkin sitting on a fence along the road outside the city. It pointed and laughed at the party, shouting, "The giants will bring you back and put your heads on pikes! You'll pay the price for opposing Graz'zt's power and glory. The giants will---!" The small demon was knocked off its perch by a much larger Vrock, who turned to the party and said, " The giants are hunters. You are their prey. Run, fools. Run to the Styx and drown yourselves."

As the party neared they river, they heard the sound of a howl; a howl of a hundred damed souls. The hunters were closing in. They discovered the Night Hag, Condorra, on the shore of the River Styx. Deadana stuck her foot in the water and her foot fell asleep. Sir William asked Condorra to get them the Ferryman. She agreed if they pay her a soul. At this point two Abyssal Giants and a huge undead Hound appeared in the distance. Risis said that they were all going to die. The hound began to charge. Sir William asked if there was any other way. Condorra says that a night with her shinning one might do. Sir William turned pale. As he recovered his composure, he asked if there was a more private place where they could... Condorra begins to laugh evilly. She had never thought that the paladin would give in so easily. She did not want to sleep with the likes of him. Angered, Sir William pointed at the giants and the hound and asked if one of their souls would do. Smiling, Condorra said yes.

The hound was almost upon them. The giants stay 300 feet back and began throwing stones. While the party fought the hound, one of the boulders landed near Philia and exploded. The shards of rock ripped into Risis, killing him. Condorra bent over his body and said, "This will do nicely." She thrust a finger into Risis's eye a pulled forth a wriggling creature. She then called out into the river. Soon they could see a boat heading toward them. The party killed the hound. As the Ferryman neared the shore, Sir William charged over to Condorra and yelled, "That soul was not meant for you." Sir William then slew Condorra. As the Ferryman landed, the party headed for the boat, dodging the stones that landed among them. When all were aboard, the Ferryman asked for his fee: 100 gp per person or a soul. Sir William pointed at Condorra's body and asked if her soul would do. The Ferryman nodded and thrust his finger into the Night Hag's eye socket, pulling a wriggling creature forth.

The boat sped away from the shore at incredible speed, though the boat caused no wake upon the water. The shore was hidden in the fog. After what seemed like hours, they pulled up to a landing. The Ferryman indicated that they should depart. As the party left the boat, he said, "I'll see you later." His boat then disappeared into the fog. They walked up the dock, surrounded in thick fog and stepped down a short stairway and found themselves on a street in Erlhei-Cinlu not far from the Styx Oarsman. There was no sign of the stairway they had just descended.

An Omen of the Gods - Part 4 and Final

2011-09-21T22:17:00.000+02:00

The party: Arya with her wolf Marcher, Deidre, James, Londaryn, Rhugar.
Back from the Nereids: Jann (contemplating on whether or not to write a report on what happened back there …).
Their current location: The Citadel of the Cyclops at Mount Cylene.
Their destination: Fulfill the omen of the goddess Chaunteir and follow the bees.
What happened last time: See here at Parhoon Naval Yards: An Omen of the Gods - Part 3.

Sleepy, Happy, and Nauseous

The situation looks quite complicated. After having freed Hermes from the Cyclops’ bronze chest, the party is surrounded by dozens and dozens of satyrs. Silenus on his donkey shouts: “Take hold of Hermes! If these guys here try to get into your way: Kill them!”

In the cave with the Nereids, Jann saw the unusually large satyr group moving towards the Citadel. The sheer number disquieted him – and thus broke the Nereid enchantment. He followed the creatures and now is in the corridor with hords of satyrs between him and his friends! The only thing he heard was: “… Kill them!” – of course, he doesn’t hesitate and swings his longsword to attack the nearest satyr. With a flick, one of the satyr’s horns is sliced off.

Jann the Mad!

Without noticing Jann’s assault, James tries to calm down the situation and addresses Silenus: “Look, shouldn’t we agree on how to solve this peacefully while having a good sip of wine?!” This seems to make a good impression: “Wine? There is always some time for a good wine!” The bard puts all his effort into his diplomatic skill and starts the negotiations. These can’t even be disturbed by Jann rushing into the hall with all the satyrs, asking: “Hey, who is this?”, pointing at Hermes who quietly replies: “I am Hermes, son of Zeus! But we should hurry up. The brothers Otus and Ephilatus will be back soon!” With this, he addressed the whole party.

Let’s listen to James and Silenus for a moment. “What do you propose?” asks Silenus. “Well, you are a god, and gods have lots of power. What is there that you can desire in the first place?” James wonders. “Apollo has promised three prophetical answers and three magical arrows for the person to return the cows that have been concealed by Hermes!” explains Silenus. James decides to propose: “So, let’s convince Hermes to tell you where the cows are – and the reward will be yours!” Hermes doesn’t seem to be convinved: “No, that’s too much! I have to make amends for the damage I caused to Apollo!”

From outside, some noise can be heard: “Otus, I think someone is here …!” – “Oh, oh, now it is getting complicated”, Silenus moans, “the Cyclops are returning.” – “Well, let’s turn a blind eye on them …!” James may be quite unlucky with his attempts to cast the bards’ spell “Tasha’s Hideous Laughter”, but with this joke, he obviously touches the satyrs who nearly start rolling on the floor laughing. Bad luck for the bard that his foes are from another species, usually.

Rhugar and Arya start running out of the hall. Hermes intercepts them at the door and instructs them: “Try to find the ring that you threw out of the window after opening the chest!” – and within an instant, he is back at James: “Try to persuade Silenus that I will compensate him for Apollo’s reward! But please, try to negotiate a bit in my favor …” James is a tough opponent in negotiations: “Silenus, how about one prophetical question and one magical arrow?” – the offers and requests are going to and fro. Silenus is getting drunk and hardly understandable with his babble, but finally, he makes an offer that seems feasible: “Let’s make it two and a half favors instead of the prophetical answers, and magical items instead of the arrows, with an interest of 2% per rotation of the star Sirius…” – while James still tries to remember whether the Sirius is rotating at all, Hermes is appearing quickly and signs the contract. Happily, Silenus and all his satyrs start moving to the citadel’s gates and out towards the road of Mount Cylene.

Outside, Rhugar and Arya (and Marcher, of course), are attacked by a giant spider! The beast entangles Arya with a net. The spider jumps at Arya and bites her. But Arya’s constitution easily deals with the poison at the animal’s fangs – no harm done! Rhugar swings his axe and severly hits the monster by cutting one of the eight legs of: ”Harhar, take this! Another seven blows, and you will need a wheelchair to get to your lair, by Moradin!” Arya casts “Handle Animal” and thus tells Marcher to attack the arachnid. Sinking his teeth into the spider’s main body, he kills it! Calling the Hobbit to assist them with their search for the ring, the three of them quickly succeed. It is Arya with her Elven eyes who spots a glint of gold. In the same instant, Hermes is back with them and puts the ring into the bag of silver cloth that he took off the sphinx’s neck. He instructs the party: “We need to find the Cyclop brothers so that I can settle my accounts with them. Listen, you need to distract them without being caught! I will prepare a trap in the kitchen let you know as soon as I am ready.”

The party starts looking for the Cyclops and moves into one of the corridors. Soon enough, the Cyclops have spotted them. They must be 6 meters high! “You have released Hermes! Otos, kill them!” Hermes quickly casts a spell and whispers, pointing along the corridor: “Ok, now run into that direction and try to lure them away!” – and disappears. Londaryn just managed to classify Hermes’s spell by his spellcraft skill. It seems that Hermes has slowed down the Cyclops. Now, they only manage to move 20 feet per round – that’s just the same speed than the dwarf and the hobbit can manage!

Running along the corridor with the Cyclops at their heels, Arya suddenly realizes that there is only one Cyclops left. She stops and tries to throw a spell into his face – but unfortunately this brings her into the giant’s range. He swings his axe while the spell hits him across his chest. The damage only seems to enrage him. With even more vehemence, he tries to hit Arya with his axe and almost brings her off her feet. That’s a dangerous opponent! Being faster than the giant, she manages to run out of his range.

From the corridor, the party reaches the garden and heads to the gate. Hermes awaits them here and announces: “You have done well! I will take over from here.” He tries to get the Cyclops’ attention. Shouting at them and teasing them, he dances into the kitchen, while the Cyclops following. Inside the kitchen, dire rats attack the Cyclops. Hermes is incredibly fast and manages to be outside the kitchen at the very same moment when the Cyclops have entered. Hermes throws the Ring of Silence into the kitchen and locks the door. To be just on the safe side, he binds the door handles with the very rope that had kept him in the bronze chest: “Haha, the rope is magical. It will only Unbound if someone says the command word. Which is quite tricky in a surrounding that has been calmed by a Ring of Silence …” – with a murmur that is later identified by Londaryn as an Illusion spell, Hermes summons a nine-headed Hydra, as a small surprise for the two brothers, should they be able to get out soon.

Hermes is very grateful and says many thanks. He promises to send a reward to the party within one day after they returned to their own world. With this, he departs in his usual hurry.

Rhugar casts a healing spell on Arya, and the party rides back to the temple. One day and one night later, they arrive. To fulfill the prophecy, they still have to “restore the temple and make a suitable offering.” But what might be a suitable offering? They remember the gift of the Beekeeper. As the whole thing is about bees: Shouldn’t the honey be a “suitable offering”? After all, the honey is worth quite some gold pieces, should they bring it and try to sell it in Moray! Arya prepares an incense of some of her herbs and also lays down the silver cutlery she received from Deidre some time ago.

The temple sits atop four stone tiers, each smaller than the one below, so that four high steps lead down from the temple level. The roof of the temple is supported by large columns spaced around the edge of the top tier, forming unwalled collonades. Interior walls create a front and back porch, a small outer sanctuary, and a dim windowless inner sanctuary with a plain stone altar. The temple has been abandoned for a considerable time, but remains in good repair. The walls and floors are dirty, and some kind of animal once made its lair in the outer sanctuary. There are leaves and branches strewn about, and a couple of birds' nests sit among the carvings at the front of the roof. Repairs should be easy, but tedious.

To mend the broken parts of the temple and clean up, James summons five “Unseen Servants”. These can obey simple commands, and during their lifespan of seven hours, they manage to bring the temple back to normal. Arya even manages to persuade the birds that are nesting at the temple roof to move to another place. Both Arya and Londaryn cast their “Mend” spells, and Rhugar inspects the stone masonry. This gives Deidre and Jann some time to enjoy a good second and third breakfast and have a pleasant nap …

With all this finished, the party decides to give it a try. They step inside the Greek temple – and descend back at the Chalevot temple where their adventure into the mythological other world started. “I will miss the dwarf in skirts”, sighs Arya, with all their cloths returned to the normal state. Vrainos and the old woman are awaiting them. The old woman smiles: “I am very happy with what you accomplished. I am offering you good fortune!” She turns and steps back into the temple. Vrainos gives a warning: “Good fortune is not offered without condition: Do not use it in a greedy manner, or it may turn against you!” Every member of the party has received two hero points. Vrainos blesses the party and wishes them a good journey. The cook Dulus, who did not join the party on their Greek adventure, prepares a yummy soufflé before departing.

After finishing his meal, James grabs into his pocket and finds a small token. Two serpents are coiled around a banner with two wings. He shows it around, and everybody else also checks their pockets and finds an own copy. When touching it, the owner empathically feels that in case of mortal peril he or she should touch this token, and Hermes will send help.

Another two or three days after their departure, they reach King’s Bay and find a vessel that can bring them to the capital on the island of Alaron. King’s Bay is a small town smelling of fish with two dozens of fisher boats, many buildings in which smoked fish is prepared and maybe 100 small houses. The inn “Silver Salmon” is the only lodging place, but it seems okay. Once on the sea, it takes a couple of days to get to Alaron. In the town of Llewellyn, the party disembarks and continues on horses that are summoned once more by Londaryn. After another week of travel on horseback, the party reaches Callidyrr. For entering the city, every person needs to buy a citizenship for five gold pieces. As a local resident, Londaryn of course already is registered as citizen, but all the others have to pay.

Close to Londaryn’s alchemist shop, the other five (plus the cook, of course!) find quarters in a tavern. Londaryn applies for an appointment with the Mage Council’s spokesman Asgorad.

End of Greek adventure, but what will happen next time in Callidyrr? Stay tuned!

Four Hobbit Lords

2011-09-19T01:00:00.000+02:00

I finished painting the four Hobbits, Merry, Pippin, Frodo, and Sam from the Scourging of the Shire. Sam and Pippin's ponies I tried to do a Palomino and a Haflinger. The Haflinger did not turn out well. I tried to paint the underbelly a lighter color. Nor did I get the mane right. Frodo and Merry's ponies were not meant to be specific breeds.

I gave Frodo and Sam Elven cloaks. Pippin's appears to be an Elven cloak, too. It is clasped with a leaf from Lothlorien. However, I wanted him to wear the black of the Guard of Gondor. I was unsure how to do his pants. I did not want too much black so just painted them white. The eyes did not really turn out well on any of them. Merry also has an odd smile, but it some how fits his character. I painted Sharky and Grimma some time ago, so now the Scourging of the Shire is complete. I wanted to finish the Hobbits to complete my 500 point Hobbit army. Well, I only needed Merry, actually. I also wanted practice painting horses.

Sam, Pippin, Frodo, and Merry; Ponies Right

Sam, Pippin, Frodo, and Merry; Ponies Left

Sam and Frodo to the Fore

Label Analysis 2011

2011-09-18T11:09:00.001+02:00

It has been about a year since I last analyzed the labels of this blog. I hope to make this an annual activity. Since I did not keep the statistics from last year, I can only measure the changes from this year to the sum of all previous years.

The number of labels has grown from 330 to 408. I went a step further and divided the labels into types: event, game, module, other and person. Here are some of the changes in game and person.

Game
The 10 games that occur most often in this blog are as follows:

Dungeons and Dragons (89)
Group Solitaire ASL (25)
ASL (22)
Arkham Horror (16) passed 6 Nimmt and Dominion
6 Nimmt (14) traded places with Dominion
Dominion (14)
Race for the Galaxy (14)
Roll Though the Ages (10)
Ohne Furcht und Adel (9)
Hearts (8)

Had I waited a month, up and coming Pathfinder would have made the list. This year we switched my local Dungeons and Dragons group to Pathfinder. Kathrin and Mark have been doing a marvelous job of writing the entries for me. The only other movement in the list has been Arkham Horror, passing 6 Nimmt and Dominion.

Person

The 10 (well 11) people who occur most often in this blog are as follows:

Kathryn (168)
Karthrin (143)
Peter (136)
Michael tU (95)
Ursula (89)
Andrea (82)
Liz (53)
Marco (53)
Werner (50)
Mark (48)
Martina (48)

It is no wonder that my family members appear in this list: Kathryn, Ursula, and Andrea. Kathrin, Peter, and Michael tU are part of my Tuesday night gaming group, which is also drawn from for our team in the German Team Board Gaming Championships, Grupo Martes (Group Tuesday). They also play in my Pathfinder group. Liz, Marco, Werner, and Martina are part of the D&D group that I play in and was also one the reasons I started this blog. Missing from that list are Dirk, Wolf, Carina, and Pierre. Carina and Pierre left our D&D group, while Dirk and Wolf had demands from family and career. Mark is new in the top ten, but given that he is in our Pathfinder group and runs a Call of Cthulhu campaign, I expect he will remain in this list.

Trouble on the Border

2011-09-15T07:00:00.000+02:00

Kathryn and I played the next scenario from the Scourging of the Shire. She took the hobbits again. She had 2 hobbit bowmen and 3 hobbit militia to hold off my 10 ruffians. I had to exit 6 of my ruffians off the Tookland edge of the playing area. To help her she had 24 booby traps. I took counters from Keltis the Oracle to represent them. She had 4 pits, 4 snares, 4 trip lines, and 12 dummies. Anytime I moved within an inch of the counters, I set them off.

The Setup (Tookland at Bottom)

I did a pretty good job of setting off the booby traps. Unfortunately for Kathryn, the traps were not very effective. I also believe she needed to set them up more densely to create some kind of kill zone. She was effective at predicting the path I would take. I rarely encountered dummies.

The Ruffians Discover the First Pit

Same Band of Ruffians

What the Hobbit Saw: View From My Periscope

It took a while for us the close. I mostly gave up bow shots for movement. Kathryn got a few shots in, but usually missed or did not hurt me. Her militia was too weak to stand up to my mass of forces. I engaged them in 2:1 and 3:1. My superior Fight skill meant I usually won. In 2-3 turns her militia was dead. Kathryn finally got in two kills with her bowmen before I charged them. I killed one of my own with a bow shot that went wild. Then I simply overwhelmed her bowmen with my ruffians.

The Militia Tries to Hold Off the Invaders

The Militia are Overrun

An Omen of the Gods - Part 3

2011-09-14T12:54:00.000+02:00

The party: Arya with her wolf Marcher, Deidre, James, Londaryn, Rhugar.
This time missing: Jann (where is he? Read the report!).
Their current location: A cave at the foothills of Mount Cylene on the way to the Cyclops.
Their destination: Fulfill the omen of the goddess Chaunteir and follow the bees.
What happened last time: See here at Parhoon Naval Yards: An Omen of the Gods - Part 2.

On the way to the “Single Eye”, the party is resting in a cave that provides safe shelter. Well, whatever you call safe … for Jann, an adventure of a different type is distracting him. Two Nereids live in the cave. This creature is a relative to the Fairy, lives in the water and is extraordinary beautiful. While they are usually quite dangerous, these two Nereids just lead Jann away, fascinated by his weaponry and his tales of his home islands. The others give up – no chance that Jann will be with them now. Let’s return on the way back and pick him up!

With their numbers reduced by one, the party continues the travel. As time is a pressing matter, Londaryn again summons the horses. Lycus, the Beekeeper’s brother-in-law, leads them through the forests at the southern foothills of Mount Cylene. The trees provide camouflage against the Stymphalian birds. All riders also wear their masks as a protection against the bad smells of the birds.

At a river, Lycus stops. Here, he will find the herbs he is looking for. After half an hour of meditation and another half hour of search, he finishes his task. He provides additional explanation on how to get to the Cyclops and eventually starts his journey back home. From here, the plains of the Cyclops can be reached within 1-2 hours.

After some elevenses with apples and other goodies the party starts in the opposite direction. Only a short time later, some Stymphalian birds attack. Londaryn casts a fireball, Deidre loosens an arrow from her shortbow. Those beasts are tough! One attacks Marcher and hurts him seriously. Both James and Deidre are nauseated. Rhugar charges with a “Cleave Attack” and manages to hack one bird to pieces, but unfortunately only lands a scratch on another. This is finished off by Arya’s bolt of lightning. The next spell by Londaryn only enlightens the surroundings – his “Scorching Rays” do not hit their target. James gets over his bad stomach and starts singing about good food. Maybe this is cheering up Deidre as well? The party won’t find out about the finer points in James’ song – with another “Scorching Ray”, Londaryn finishes the last bird, and the bad smell is dissolving in an exciting display of colors.Back on their horses, they keep following the ascending path. After some time, it turns towards North, just as Lycus described. Londaryn overlooks the landscape. Below, the ruin of the old village is seen. Further away, two giants are sitting close to the swamps. It is hard to recognize whether they are Cyclops. While advancing to the Citadel of the Cyclops, Londaryn keeps an eye on the giants. The latter started moving in our direction.

Only shortly after that, the Citadel is appearing on the other side of the pass, sitting on a shelf. Supposedly, it is offering a great view into all directions. A large gate leads into the Citadel. Judging by its size, the inhabitants here must have thrice the size of a human. Arya decides to transform into a small bird for scouting.

The whole building is rectangular and very large. A garden is at the northern side. Arya in her bird shape flies into the building. She enters a former sleeping room with four doors that looks as if it was emptied long time ago. From there, she reaches a great hall and advances through a corridor where some rats are scurrying to and fro. Passing a kitchen and another sleeping room with a disarranged skeleton and a war hammer on the floor, she continues to investigate the small adjacent building. Evidently, some animals such as dogs have been kept here. The garden is not in a very good shape and hasn’t seen the caring hands of a gardener for some time.

Meanwhile, Rhugar is spotting a satyr that tries to hide. James sings a song and thus tries to lure the satyr to the party. Deidre tries to sneak closer to the satyr. Suddenly, five satyrs jump and run away. Even the “Message” spell of Londaryn, trying to persuade them to stay and talk to the party, doesn’t stop them – one of the satyrs just answers: “I may not talk to you!” – “We know Silenus. Did he forbid you to talk to us?” Londaryn asks. Without any further reply, the satyr runs away. While Londaryn, Deidre, and James are busy with the satyrs, Rhugar keeps an eye on the giants: They are getting ever closer!From the other side of the main building, Arya, transfigured into a bird, enters the building once more. She sees more sleeping rooms. In the third one she finds two large pillars and giant Gyno Sphinx sitting on a bronze chest with her front paws. That looks promising! Arya decides to return and tell the others as quickly as possible.

The others listen eagerly to Arya’s report. They remember the hint by the villagers: Couldn’t the Cyclops symbolize the bees? If so, the party needs to open exactly this bronze chest – BEFORE the Cyclops reach the Citadel! Time is precious now. The party doesn’t lose another second and advances into the building. Thanks to Arya’s scouting, they reach the sphinx’s room without delay.

They find the sphinx with a bag consisting of a cloth of silver around her neck. She has the upper body of a human woman and the legs of a lion. Two large wings are folded neatly at her side. Her size might be comparable to a horse. James addresses the sphinx: “Might we please have a look into the chest?” – “For that, you will have to solve a riddle for me. I LOVE riddles! Tell me what is this: When I come, light fails. Apollo blinks, and Artemis rules.” – The party starts a heated discussion. Apollo also is called the god of light – while one of Artemis’ symbols is the moon. While James tries to slow down things a bit in order to have more time to consider and calculate risks of a wrong solution, the others don’t really listen to him and decide to try “Night” as the solution. After all, the night is casting out the sun, and the moon is shining at night.

However: WRONG! The sphinx attacks Rhugar. All four paws attack and land three hits. Rhugar almost is put off his feet by this severe blow! Arya summons a monster. A tiger from another dimension is appearing to help the party. Deidre tries to hide in the shadows, but the sphinx’s eyes are too sharp. What to do? The halfling decides do use one of her precious +3 arrows – after all, the sphinx might be a magical creature. Will a common arrow do any damage?

The battle is lasting round after round. Further creatures are summoned. At the side of the tiger, two leopards appear and attack the sphinx with their claws and jaws. Eventually, the sphinx has received too many hits and sinks to the floor. Following her natural instincts, the first thing Deidre does is jumping to the chest and tests her lock picking skills. Within no time, the chest opens. A man is inside, ropes bind him together. A magical silence creeps into the room. The man tries to articulate something. James quickly gets the meaning: “Take the ring and throw it away!” – and really: The man has a ring at his neck. James grabs it and throws it out of the window.

“I am Hermes, son of Zeus. I have to pay a debt to the Cyclops, that’s why they are holding me as a captive. It would be very nice of you to help me paying my debt! I have a cunning plan – are you ready for some game of hide and seek?” – At this very moment, the door jumps open and Silenus with all his satyrs enters. It seems as if he wants to capture Hermes for himself!

To be continued …

Rotten Egg Gulch

2011-09-11T08:05:00.000+02:00

Declan McManus: A wandering circus master with occult knowledge. Think of Johnnie Depp as the Mad Hatter in the 1920s.
Oscar O'Malley: A high school PE and industrial arts teacher at Arkham High School with lingering memories of the Great War.
Theodore: Rich, young and adventurous; our young man about town has just graduated from Harvard University.

McManus and "Teddy"

Continued from William Randolph Hearst is Not So Bad for a Capitalist.

But first a message from Declan to O'Malley....

We left our heroes in Los Angeles. The Heppelwhite Foundation was most pleased with the recent funding provided by Mr. Hearst. McManus and O'Malley received invitations to celebrate Thanksgiving with the Foundation in Arkham. The Foundation was willing to pay the travel expense. McManus booked 1st Class of course. O'Malley, being more thrifty, chose to book 2nd Class.

It was the Saturday before Thanksgiving. McManus and O'Malley were watching the porters in Central Station, load McManus's motorcycle onto the train. A young dapper fellow joined them. His porters were wheeling a much larger crate. "Hey there," said O'Malley, "What's in the box?" "My private plane," answered the young man.

Later on the train, O'Malley got to know his compartment mates. He shared a discrete flask with Jake the salesman. McManus was talking to the young man they had met on the platform with the plane. Theodore was a recent Harvard grad. He was travelling East to meet with some of his school chums. Theodore appeared to be disgustingly wealthy. O'Malley came by to tell McManus that he and his salesman friend had discovered a ladies' underwear salesman on the train. There were going to go look at his catalog. McManus declined.

The train was crossing the deserts of Nevada, when the train started slowing down. The passengers were beginning to get restless, wondering what was going on. O'Malley saw the conductor go by. He did not get a real answer from the man. The train went through a switch and began heading off into some kind of siding. It looked like they were stopping in some kind of ghost town. When the conductor went by 1st Class, Theodore chose to follow him. When they got to the engine, Theodore overhead that there had been an avalanche in Colorado. Their train had been ordered to clear the line. The conductor explained that this forced them to stop in some place called Rotten Egg Gulch.

Actually the place was properly known as Argus. It was only because of the sulfurous smell that the town picked up the moniker, "Rotten Egg Gulch".

Mark points out the more salient features of Argus, Nevada.

The hills above Argus were bare and dry. Stretching before the town was a huge salt pan from a dry lake bed. There was dust swirling off the lake bed from the workers and tractors out in the heat, scraping minerals off the ground. A factory belching steam and smoke towered over barracks where the mostly Hispanic workers toiled. The town of Argus appeared to boast some nice houses as well. Most obvious were the saloons. Some of the passengers were shocked to see them open on a Sunday. O'Malley was shocked to see the laborers working on a Sunday.

Union Pacific arranges for the passengers to stay at the Argus Hotel. Theodore and McManus take a room together. O'Malley bunks with his salesman friend. Dinner is being offered at the community hall. The Argus Mineral Company has set up the hall as a temporary restaurant for the benefit of the score of train passengers stranded in Argus.

On their way over O'Malley stops to talk to some of the locals trading scrip outside the company store. He meets Jose Antonio Pachejo. They are worked hard by the Argus Mineral Company, but the pay is good. Unfortunately, the work is dangerous, too. McManus sees this first hand. He rushes over to help a Hispanic worker who collapses in a coughing fit. Soon a handsome middle-aged woman joins him. An officious looking man and his four henchmen come over and hassle Dr. Anderson for looking after "spics". She roundly curses Newt Booth with such vehemence that even McManus's ears burn.

She explains that Booth is the law in this town. He works for the company and the company owns the town. McManus goes with Dr. Susan Anderson, M.D. to the infirmary. Two other patients are being waited on by Dr. Suzy. They suffer from arsenic poisoning. The company is harvesting potash and boric acid from the lake bed. During the War, the company did a booming business. Now it is a little more difficult. O'Malley gets a similar story from Jose. McManus and Dr. Suzy agree to meet under more pleasant circumstances in the morning.

McManus meets O'Malley back at the hotel. O'Malley manages to convince the UP conductor to scare them up a bottle of whiskey. Theodore come back from a less than satisfactory dinner. It is late evening as the three men sit on the upstairs veranda. There is a commotion when a wagon careens into town. Someone named "Mule Skinner" is dying. The last thing he says is "Feed the vaults of Zinn!" He dies of a heart attack, there on the spot in the infirmary. It turns out the Hispanic worker who collapsed that evening did not survive the night either. Mr. Low, the undertaker, will arrange for the burial of Mr. "Mule Skinner" Wilcox. McManus insists on paying for the burial of the Hispanic fellow. By the time the commotion is done, it is nearly morning. Dr. Suzy invites the men to breakfast.

Three events happen that Monday:

A train passes the town going West. Obviously a train that had made it through Colorado before the avalanche hit.
A train with a large crane passes the town going East. Obviously going to clear the pass.
Lee Bartlett, a vice president of the Argus Mineral Company, invites the train passengers to go skeet shooting above the graveyard.

The men enjoy the distraction, making bets about who can shoot the clay pigeons first. In an idle moment, O'Malley spots a sign in the distance that reads, "Dangerous! No Tresspassing!" After asking about the sign, they learn that Mule Skinner lived up that way. The men decide to take a walk up that way. Once beyond the sign, they discover the source of the warning. O'Malley breaks through a crust and falls into boiling sulfurous mud. His feet are scalded and blistered. They get O'Malley back into town and to the infirmary. Dr. Suzy decides to keep him overnight. McManus and Theodore spend the evening playing cards.

At 2 A.M. the undertaker runs by the hotel, yelling, "They're hungry!" When McManus and Theodore catch up to Low, he has collapsed. By the time Dr. Suzy and O'Malley get there, he is dead. Dr. Suzy diagnoses a heart attack. McManus and Theodore head off to the Undertaker's place. O'Malley hobbles off to the hotel, picks up his bat, and goes after them.

McManus and Theodore arrive at the darkened house that serves as both funeral home and home for Mr. Low. The two pause at the front door.

McManus says, "Have you ever seen anything strange before?"

"You mean, like your face?"

McManus raps Theodore lightly on the forehead with his cane. "No, I mean supernatural. There are some weird things in the world and I want you to be prepared for it."

They are interrupted by the sound of a door banging at the back of the house. "You go around! I'll go straight through!" Shotgun out, Theodore dashes around the house, to find the back door slamming open and closed in the wind. He almost runs into McManus, when he steps inside. They are in the funeral parlor. In the dark, they can make out six caskets up on saw horses.

"How was your steak at the restaurant, by the way?" asks McManus. Theodore gives him a dirty look in response.

They find a lantern and start to look around. Six caskets. No bodies. Everything covered in dust. Everything unused....for a long time. They wonder what Low did with the bodies.

O'Malley arrives and they take a look out back. O'Malley finds some recent wagon tracks. They follow the tracks up to the place where he was hurt yesterday. There is an old sanitorium up there. People used to bath in the hot volcanic waters that came flowing down from the hills. The trail goes on up a narrow canyon full of the sulfurous water. The wagon went up a spur of the canyon. They lose the trail when it moves onto granite, but there is only one way to go.

At the end of the mountain trail, they find a miner's hut and a wagon drawn up in front of a dark hole in the side of the mountain. O'Malley checks out the wagon. There are a lot of confused tracks leading from the wagon to the mine.

McManus kicks in the door of the miner's shack. Theodore follows McManus inside. McManus finds a diary: the Memoir of William Wilcox. While he is paging through Theodore finds a small trap door in the floor. Inside he finds a cache with three small bags. The bags are exceedingly heavy for their size. It is gold! A full 15 pounds of gold in dust and nuggets! "What did you find?" "Nothing really," says Theodore as he tries to surreptitiously slip the heavy pouches into his pockets.

McManus reads:

1870s came west - 20 years of hard work and depression
1890-91 made it to Rotten Egg Gulch. The volcanic waters means minerals
April 3rd 1893 decides to dig tunnel through the mountain to shorten the trip to town
1918: I have found the great secret of the mountain, not for naught. I have discovered the source of my dreams. Those that live here will help me.

The rest is very strange. I strode through the streets of Othar, my robes flapped around. McManus comments, "O'Malley should recognize this." I have sailed on the barges of Dailathleen. The perfumed fronds waving above my head. McManus says, "This guy found the mouth to hell."

McManus finds a ledger. There are regular monthly entries starting in 1918. They all read like, Thadius Low- 3 for 2 lbs. McManus says, "They are disposing of bodies about the same time as the diary goes crazy." Wilcox kept the ledger until his death.

Theodore grabs another lantern and the two men go outside to meet O'Malley. O'Malley has been watching the tunnel. It is just starting to get light. They decide to enter the tunnel. It is solid granite in places. The tunnel was half dug and half blasted. After a 100 meters, the tunnel widens around a shaft that drops straight down. There is a winch and basket at the top of the shaft and a metal ladder worked into the wall. They move around the shaft and continue down the tunnel. After 100 more meters, the tunnel narrows way down. They come to the end. Other than a small chamber, they find nothing of interest.

They go back to the shaft and start going down the ladder. Theodore hears chirping. "Must be bats," says O'Malley. They pass a ledge which has another tunnel. They continue down. At the bottom they find a natural cavern. The creep through the dark, following McManus. They find a bunch of mining tools in a side chamber. They grab another lantern and oil. In another chamber, they find crates of old dynamite. The dynamite is so old, the nitroglycerin has begun to sweat out.

McManus discovers the dynamite.

Beyond they find a man made tunnel. The tunnel goes a long way. They are not sure how far they have gone, just that they must be through the mountain by now. They come to a fork. Declan hears a soft moaning. "Must be the wind," says O'Malley. McManus and Theodore go down the left fork. They come to a wide chimney that both descends and rises into the mountain. At the top they can just make out a speck of daylight. Their skin begins to crawl when they realize that the chimney was carved with chisels from below. O'Malley took the other fork and joined them at the chimney. He is unaffected by the sight. He had seen worse in the War.

They continue past the chimney. The tunnel splits again. Chirping comes from left tunnel. They follow the sound and walk into a charnel house. The room is full of dismembered half-eaten bodies. The reek of death fills their nostrils as their minds fill with horror. Three humanoid creatures squat among the ruins of human bodies. They pause from their meal and charge McManus. McManus and Theodore blast away with shotguns and rifles. The noise is deafening. The ghouls absorb more damage than a human being could take. They kill one and then another. The third bites and latches on to Theodore's leg as three more enter the cavern from the opposite end. Teddy sticks a rifle barrel into the thing's back and kills it. The three men then run for the exit. They stop at the chimney as another creature emerges. It is different from their pursuers. Theodore loses more sanity as he fears to face a ghast.

Fortunately the ghouls and ghast are more interested in fighting each other. They begin to tear into each other, while McManus and Theodore blast away at the pile of inhuman creatures. The ghast dies and falls into the hole. The surviving ghouls climb down with amazing speed after it.

The men explore the remains of the tunnel system. They find a pit of liquid sulfur. In the ghoul lair, they find one of the ghouls has survived the gun battle. It speaks! It wants to go home. Theodore sends it home with another deafening shotgun blast.

The men make their way back to the dynamite and set a long fuse. The climb out of the mine, pausing only to examine the side tunnel halfway up to the upper mine. As they leave the mine, a roar and a cloud of dust follow them out. They walk back down the trail figuring they might make it back to Dr. Suzy's for lunch.

Maggot Farm

2011-09-05T15:17:00.000+02:00

Kathryn has been getting into Lord of the Rings again. She wanted to try out the table-top game again, so I set up the scenario Maggot Farm. Maggot's three dogs, Greif, Fang, and Wolf (sorry I have the German edition of the scenario, so I am using their names) are left to patrol the farm, while three of Sharky's ruffians try to sneak into Hobbiton.

The board was not quite the right size: 20" by 40". What the Ruffians lost in width, they gained in the shortness of the board. Kathryn could not decide who to be, so she diced it. She was Farmber Maggot.

Ruffians move on. Turn 1

The dogs could not move on their own until the ruffians were discovered. This happened about when I got to the halfway point. I had a couple chances to shoot at the dogs, but I decided not to risk alerting them to my presence.

Just before discovery, circa turn 3

Running from the dogs

Sharky sure trained my guys in hurdles. I was able to jump fences no problem. I was able to move after jumping the fence twice. Kathryn failed to jump fences three times! This gave me a head start on getting off the board.

Kathryn shows some frustration

Running for Hobbiton

Farmer Maggot finally appeared after I ran two guys off the board.

Farmer Maggot Shows Up

Fang tries to hold me at the fence

I had two guys that could make it off. One was stopped by Farmer Maggot, though Kathryn had to use a point of Might to go before me. Even so, Maggot failed to wound the ruffian. Fang tried to stop my other guy, but failed to wound me. Since I had won the initiative, I just ran off the board.

Kathryn was just plain diced. It was a small scenario, so every dice roll counts. I got my initiative when I needed it. More importantly, I was able to jump fences with impunity. Maybe next time Farmer Maggot will leave the gate open for the dogs.

Finishing the Demon Queen of Spiders

2011-09-04T01:03:00.000+02:00

For the most part I am done with the demon queen. The next two photos show her with the first layers on after the primary coat.

Base Layers Front

Base Layers Back

I was really unsure what to do with the back and the horn like features found there. I toyed with trying to put on demonic runes, but did not feel my artistic skill was up to the challenge. I sought to put on a stripe pattern, hoping that the purple would "glow" a little. It is not quite there. I also agonized a lot about how to do the joints and underside. I did not want to leave the whole underside flat black. I ended up taking Scorched Earth, adding Chaos Black, and dry-brushing the joints and underside. Later I went back and cleaned up the legs where they meet the base.

Side-View with Worshiping Follower

From the side you can see how the stripes turned out. Not great, but OK.

I want you!

Close up of Torso

I am still debating working on the jewelry more. I have only gone over in Bolt Gun. I did her necklace over with Mithril Silver, but I am not really happy with the result. For now I have left the result. I'll have to decide before clear-coating her.

Paint Night

2011-09-01T07:05:00.000+02:00

Last night I met with Michael to help him paint some figures he ordered for Londaryn and Tespin. He also bought a few creatures for his summoned monsters. Kathryn felt like painting, too. She painted one of the Wood Elves I had been converting to Drow.

Hard at Work

Michael had a lot of work to do with cleaning the flash, gluing the figures to bases, and then priming the figures. He may not have gotten as far as he expected in actual painting. We'll have to arrange another session. The mold used for some of his figures was not so good. His wolf you can see the seam distinctly when you look at it from the right angle or examine the base closely.

Londaryn Begins to Take Shape

Kathryn's Elf Almost Complete

The night before I had started on my human team from the Blood Bowl base set. Oringally I had planned on doing them black and red, but at the last minute decided on something flashier. Enter the Skeedaddle Sea Hawks! I have no idea where I am going to paint numbers on them. Maybe I'll leave the numbers off.

Blitzer, Blocker, and Thrower

Catcher Waves Hello

Grupo Martes: 30 August

2011-08-31T06:50:00.000+02:00

In honor of the new HBO series, Game of Thrones, we got out the Game of Thrones Board Game from Fantasy Flight. Well, at least Lena humored Kathryn and me. Lena had not played before, so she had troubled distinguishing the different order tokens. I find icons used for the order tokens poorly chosen. March is depicted with an axe, raids with a burning torch, and support with a mailed, clenched fist. All three of these can be interpreted as an attack of some sort. I think more abstract symbols might have served better. Lena caught the gist of the game quickly enough though.

We had a peacful start. Kathryn as Lannister and Lena as Barathenon dived the South into East and West. I settled in in the North as far as the Twins. We had divided up everything pretty much evenly. We had all reached our maximum armies. The only point where I had taken a lead was that early in the game I had done a couple consolidate power orders in the second turn. This was followed by a Game of Thrones event. I had 4 power tokens to Lena's 1 to Kathryn's 0. Thus I outbid Lena for the Iron Throne and then took the Sword and the Raven by declaring myself the winner of any ties. This remained the case for much of the rest of the game. Later I lost control of the Sword to Kathryn. This prompted Kathryn and Lena to unite against me.

Lena eventually moved up to the Mountains of the Moon. Rather than lose to her knights there, I used a ship and captured the Eyrie. I thought myself clever. Lena just turned her knights around and attack the Eyrie. Not having anywhere to retreat, I lost 3 soldiers. Unfortunately for me, there never was another mustering, so I was never able to make up the loss. I put an army in her backfield, capturing Crackclaw Point and then Kings Landing. Kathryn pushed me out of both cities (with Lena's consent), giving her the cities and strongholds she needed to win the game.

Friday Afternoon

2011-08-27T07:00:00.000+02:00

After lunch we were waiting around. My niece Kristina looked bored so I whipped out Geistertreppe. I had forgotten how to play so it was a little hard to explain. It really is a simple game though. I was playing rather randomly. I soon forgot where my own meeple was. I managed to move one of the non-playing meeples across the finish line first and then my own. I should have kept better track and let her win. It's my evil competitive streak.

Over the course of the rest of the afternoon, we squeezed in several hands of 6 Nimmt. I showed Dave how to play, but then had to stop and help make lunch. Dave and Kathryn kept playing. Dave won the first hand and then lost the next two to Kathryn. Later after a trip to the public swimming pool in Walldorf, we sat down and played two hands with Kim, Kathryn, Dave, and Andrea. I lost horribly the first hand. I continued to draw points and probably would have continued to be the top loser despite the haul of points Kim took in the next hand.

Painting Diedre

2011-08-24T21:24:00.000+02:00

The only female hobbit figure I have is Lobelia Sackville-Baggins. Since this figure, armed with an umbrella, is not really appropriate for Kathrin's rogue, Diedre, I had been substituting with another figure. Wanting a better figure, I ordered this one and painted it. I initially started photographing each color, but I admit I lost patience and skipped colors at the end. Every color had a highlight color.

Prime it black

Dwarf Flesh

Catchan Green

Snakebite Leather

Boltgun Metal

One of them Brown Colors

Snot Green

It's done!

Based with Static Grass

Part 2 Spider Demon Queen

2011-08-23T10:00:00.001+02:00

I was able to continue my Demon Queen of Spiders project. I decided that the abdomen was going to be too heavy to rely on just the epoxy alone. With a pair of wire cutters, I cut a small section of sewing pin, about a quarter inch. Then I took my hand drill and drilled a small hole in the thorax and abdomen of the model. I covered both ends with epoxy, inserted the needle and put the two pieces together.

Hole Drilled in the Thorax

Model Complete! Accompanied by a Drow

Next a beveled the edges of my wooden base. I added a layer of glue and poured on three kinds of flocking. I had some fine sand. Because the sand is too regular I also used some flocking from a model railroad set. Though I thought the sand could represent the road of crystal shards described in D3 The Vault of the Drow. Finally I took chunks of cork to represent larger rocks. For now I tried using white glue to hold her into place.

Next followed the base coat. I prefer to use black since it is easier to paint. Unfortunately the white glue did not hold. Her front feet came off the base. I will have to epoxy later.

Base-Coated Front

Base-Coated Back

Fresh Air Poisoning

2011-08-23T08:17:00.000+02:00

Last weekend we drove up to Anke and Ralf's. The weather was supposed to be hot, but nice. Rather than go outside and risk Frischluftvergiftung (fresh air poisoning), we decided to stay in and play a few games.

Ten Ten suffering from Fresh Air Poisoning

We taught them Time's Up. Ralf, Andrea, and Kathryn consistently out-scored Anke, Ursula and me two to one. We had a few laughs with names like Whitney Houston. Ursula pantomimed a rocket taking off and "Oh no!" crashing back to Earth. "Houston, we have a problem." We also thought that Nadja Auermann was a singer only to find out that she is a super model. I personally picked out J.R.R. Tolkien, but never had the opportunity to guess him except once. Again Ursula pantomiming, putting on a ring.

Ralf in Shock and Awe

We finished with a round of Ticket To Ride. Ursula sat this round out. Ralf placed far ahead of the rest of us. Kathryn's relentless green line and 8 destination cards put her in second. I managed to go out first, but took third despite my near monopoly on Pittsburgh. Andrea had a good showing for her first game. She took 7 destinations, but lost major points on a train to Miami. Anke had one of her worst games ever, she said and finished last.

Everyone started in the East

While the Game was Still Friendly

The Wine-Colored Light of Erlhei-Cinlu Part 2

2011-08-22T00:01:00.000+02:00

[What went before...]

Erlhei-Cinclu
Before the party left the customs tower of Divolg, the High Bailiff, he managed to sell them a black paste to cover some of the holy symbols on the armors of Lars and Sir William. He explained that some denizens of the city might become offended by such graffiti and cause a disturbance. With a letter of introduction in hand, the party set of for Erhei Cinclu. The walked a couple miles though the alien landscape of the Vault of the Drow. Between groves of giant fungus, they saw the occasional fungus farm, where slaves were busy tending the crops. In front of them rose the walls of the Drow city. It had high black walls. They could see Drow patrolling the walls. The Drow at the gates paid them little heed, seeing that they wore the fluorescent green cloaks of visitors.

Passing through the gates. The city streets were crowded with beings of all sorts. The main ways of the ancient and depraved city were crowded with as unlikely a mixture of creatures as can be imagined. Green-cloaked Illithids and Kuo-Toans rubbed shoulders with Drow. Ghasts and ghouls roamed freely. Occasionally, one would see a Shadow or Vampire. Bugbears and trodlodytes were common as were other various servants and slaves of the Drow: Dwarves, Goblins, Half-Orcs, Orcs, and Humans. All were pale from dwelling int he sunless Vault. Trolls slinked by evil looking men wearing the green garb. None were disturbed to pass a lesser Demon or Succubus, a Night Hag or Mezzodaemon. The crowds parted hurridly for noble Drow riding Nightmares or the more powerful Demons or Nycadaemons. But those Drow with pack lizards had to slowly force their way through the traffic. Beggars of all sorts were seen and Half-Drow thieves, pimps, and harlots were common as the enslaved Human and Elven prostitutes displayed before certain establishments.

The alien and strangely disturbing buildings of Erlhei-Cinlu crowded together in a welter which confused any not born and bred to the place. Its crooked, narrow streets and alley were dimly illuminated by signs scribed in phosphorescent chemicals and occasional lichen growths or fire beetle cages. Not even the Drow knew what horrors lurked in the sewers beneath, but the rooftops were home to many sorts of spiders of all sizes.

After some searching, the party finally arrive at the House of the Ghost Spider. Philia knocked upon the door. A Half-Orc doorman appeared and grunted. She said wanted to visit Grazzat and handed the doorman the letter. The doorman grunted, took the letter, and closed the door. After a short wait, the doorman reappeared, grunted, and waved them in. He led them to an upstairs apartment.

Grazzat was waiting for the party in a finely furnished parlor. He welcomed any friends of his good friend Divolg and offered them a drink and a small refreshment. Philia explained that she was a visitor to the city and that she desperately needed to visit the far side of the river. Grazzat explained that this was an unusual request and that he would do this as a favor to his friend Divolg, plus a price that was yet to be determined. He had some contacts on the far side of the river, but he needed to understand what it was that the group wished to do on the far side. That way he would know what kind of help to arrange. Philia, with occasional support from Sir William, explained that they needed to meet with a certain priestess in the Fane of Lolth and that the less he knew about the business, the better it would be for him. Grazzat said that, few, other than the priestesses of Lolth, ever returned from her Fane. What they were suggesting was highly dangerous and very difficult. He was not sure it could be done. He would be willing to check with his contacts and see what he could arrange. During this conversation, Thorir employed his Medallion of Thoughts and concentrated on Grazzat. Grazzat seemed interested in helping the party. He was expecting a handsome profit. Yet he was also honestly frightened that he would learn too much and somehow be implicated in this suicidal adventure. Grazzat asked the party where he could contact the party when he had more information. Sir William said that he would contact Grazzat with a Sending once per day to check on his status. The interview was at an end. The Half-Orc escorted the party out.

Once again on the street, the party debated their progress and what their next steps should be. Tespin felt a tug at his sleeve. A street urchin handed him a note and ran off. The note was from someone called Rule-Of-Three. He was at the Styx Oarsman. He needed to speak to the adventurers. It was of desperate importance to their quest. Now the party was really intrigued. Who was this guy and how did he know that they were in the city. Since the Styx Oarsman was recommended by Divolg anyway, the party set off to find it.

The party found its way to the Styx Oarsman without too much trouble. The Oarsman was noisy. The encountered three squawking Vrocks stumbling out of the open archway of the entrance. Inside they saw barbed devils playing at cards, a beautiful human woman confidently serving goblets of wine to monsters, and a motley collection of customers. The bartender had six arms. It was not the type of inn the party was used to. Thorir sauntered up to the barwoman and asked for a drink with six ingredients. He wanted to see all six arms in action. He asked her, a Marilith, where Rule-of-Three was. She looked coldly at Thorir and said, "Do I look like a servant to you? Do I look like your personal guide? No? Then stop treating me like one before I eat your entrails. The Oarsman is for private business: no low, no Rule-of-Three answers, shut your trap and get out." Out of the silent and staring crowd appeared a Githzerai scholar. "Did someone mention my name, call me out, summon me? They call me, I call myself, the world knows I am Rule-of-Three." He scattered a few coins around and everything returned to normal. "New in town?" he asked. Rule-of-Three escorted them to a private booth.

The party introduced themselves and asked about the note that Rule-of-Three had sent them. Rule-of-Three became quite animated and excited. "At last! The prophecy had said that you would come. The fate of your world, in fact many worlds depends on the success of your quest."

Sir William interrupted, "I find that interesting, yet very worrying at the same time."

Rule-of-Three continued, "I know what it is that you would seek. The star. The star is in the Demonweb of Lolth as is she that stole it. Eclavdra is no longer in the Vault. A mere clone lives with her husband on their estate. The real Eclavdra, after her failed grab at power returned to the Fane of Lolth and repented. She now serves Lolth in the Demonweb as well. However, this is all just a feint on Lolths part. She is seeking to expand her power in all the planes."

"Just what is it that you expect us to do," asked Philia.

Rule-of-Three said, "The reason, the excuse, the cause for why I spend my days at the Oarsman is that one hears things here that are difficult to learn anywhere else. Rumors say that there is a creature, construct, or servitor of Orcus named Dawnat Sanp. This thing serves the Prince of Undeath and it has offered me, through intermediaries, three things to help us. Three, because it knows me: The time of this Demon Council, a map of the Demonweb itself, and a key to its lower reaches, the way to pass the Black Gate. A strange ally, but an ally all the same."

The old Githzerai looked them in the eyes and added, "The prophecy clearly set you on this path. The Queen of Spiders must be hunted in her own web, and Sanp has the weapons you must use. He waits for you in the city of Zelatar, at the Sign of the Black Heart."

The party erupted into argument, "Where is Zelatar? It is stretches across 3 planes of the Abyss. It is ruled by Graz'zt, a Demon Prince. The city is inhabited by Vrocks, Lamias, and Rutterkins. How do we get there? How do we get back? Lars and Philia can cast Plane Shift. Do we dare face Lolth in the Abyss itself?" Philia and Sir William argued back and forth about whether this quest was really necessary and whether these people could be trusted. Rule-of-Three said that he had a portal that can get the party to Zelatar, Sir William tried to determine if Rule-of-Three was evil without effect. Rule-of-Three mentioned that such actions are not polite acts in a place like the Styx Oarsman. Philia wondered what purpose it would serve to storm in on the Demon Council in Lolth's Demonweb, other than to get them all killed. Sir William pointed out, that if Lolth is truly organizing the Demons of the Abyss, if a group of mortal adventurer show up at a council in her territory, it will be a great sign of weakness on her part. That alone could be enough to break up the council. Rule-of-Three agreed. Eventually the party agreed to take on the quest. The party rested and prepared for their journey.

Journey to Zelatar
When they had prepared, Rule-of-Three took them to one of the rooms and began drawing magic circles on the floor and walls. He then opened a gate. The party stepped through the portal. The appeared among a cluster of stones outside the walls of an enormous city on a windy, foggy plain; the sky threatened to rain. Between the stones, the party could see a stream of prisoners and travelers tramping along a road a short distance away. The could see a silvery palace shining with a bright glare, rising above the city. Then a croaking voice caught their attention.

"You came through a portal. Wonderful! You are now my slaves. If you do not resist, I will not brand you." With that, the Demon leaped into the midst of the party. The Herzou offered cash to the nearby Armanites, if they help him round up the party members. The Herzou attacked, but his attack was short lived. The party felled the Herzou in a single round of combat. The Armanites turned away and pretended not to see the one-sided fight. Tespin began to free the Herzou's prioners at the side of the road. One of them was a Tiefling named Risis. Out of gratitude, he offered to guide the party through the city. Tespin agreed.

The story continues here.

The Wine-Colored Light of Erlhei-Cinlu Part 1

2011-08-18T23:51:00.000+02:00

After defeating the Drow at the gate, the party began to search though the remains. They found records of those who passed through the gate. Apparently they had also recently captured a human warrior. More interesting were the jeweled goblets and scroll of magic spells. Even more exciting were the magical Wings of Flying that the Drow wizard had been wearing.

Reunited
As Thorir was picking through the wreckage left behind by his Rock to Mud spell, he heard a groaning from a particularly large pile of mud and debris. "A found a live one!" called Thorir. "KIll it!" yelled Lars and Philia. "Wait, no, it seems somehow familiar to me," answered Thorir. Thorir stood over what a was a large figure smothered in mud. It groaned again. "It does not look...or sound like a Drow," said Thorir. He had found a prone form covered in mud. He began to clear away some of the dirt. The figure was wearing a suit of full plate. Thorir uncovered a familiar symbol embossed on the armor. Thorir stood up. "Willy? Is that you," questioned Thorir. The figure attempted to feebly without success. "Thorir?" it groaned. "Hey!" Thorir called to the others, "You won't believe this! I found Willy!" Sir William managed to raise his armored hand through the muck. "Thorir. Help me up."

The party managed to get Sir William Congreave back on his feet and into one of the tuns used by the Drow for drinking water. While getting the mud out of his armor, Sir William explained how he had gotten there. It seems that Sir William after returning to the Order of Light went in search of his companions. Sir William had journey far and wide having many adventures on his own. However, he had lost track of the party once they had entered the realm of the Drow. He began to despair of ever finding them again. Well a paladin of Heironeus cannot despair. He did what all good paladins do. He got down on his knees and prayed to his Lord and Protector. "Lord, I know my companions are on a quest of enormous importance. If, with my life or my death, can help them complete their quest, I would do so without a moments hesitation. Please, help me find my companions to that I can help bring about Your will in this world." Sir William stood up, replaced his helm, and had just begun to continue his journey, when he stepped into a hole. Sir William fell into this hole and began sliding. Sir William slid down a narrow tube in the Earth; a muddy wet tube at that. Sir William kept on sliding. After what seemed to be an hour, Sir William figured that it must have been divine providence and stopped fighting his descent. Sir William had no way of tracking the time, but he must have slid for two whole days; yes, two whole days. He exited the tube into a cavern and fell with a great crash at the foot of a Drow patrol. Battered and bruised and with his armor full of caked compressed mud, Sir William could offer no resistance as the patrol immobilized him with a poisoned dart and carried him to the barracks for interrogation. By the will of Heironeus, Sir William had found his companions again.

Sir William asked what had happened since the party had been separated. Thorir and Philia explained how the party had entered the Underdark from the caverns beneath the Hall of the Fire Giants. There after a side trip to Snow Flake the dragon, the party encountered a Drow watchpost and defeated it. They went on to cross an underground river and fought and defeated the Koa Toan ferryman Thoobship. Thorir explained in great detail how he alone had saved the party from a pack of powerful ghouls. Lars added that it would be nice if the mage would do something next time, rather than run away, turn invisible, and wait for the group to become paralyzed before coming to the aid of the party. They then visited the Shrine of Blibdoolpoolp. Finally, they arrived at the Drow guard post where they found Willy.

Sir William then interviewed the Deep Gnome. Tespin introduced himself. (Tespin: "May I call you Willy?" Sir William: "I suppose, if you must." Lars: "Well, where is the fun in that?") He explained that he had joined to party hoping for the chance to revenge himself on the Drow. The Drow had caused much grief to his family and he meant to return the grief three-fold. At the mention of family, Deadana interrupted to explain to Sir William how Tespin and she were not related, despite their common gnomeness. Tespin was so kind as to help Sir William get dressed again finding a returning one or two items that must have slipped out of Sir William's pockets.

Journey to Black Tower
The party rested and recovered from their wounds suffered at the hands of the Drow. When they were ready to continue on, Lars ducked his head and charged the stone wall he had conjured during their attack on the guard post. What the others had not known was that the stone wall was only a fraction of an inch think. Lars was willing to suffer a bonk on the head for the theatrical effect.

The party traveled for hours along the straight tunnel. They saw as the tunnel opened up into a cavern and were astonished. Before them was a cavern so large, they could not see the end nor the ceiling. They could see what appeared to be stars and a wine-colored moon glowing in the sky. It was a tremendous mineral formation in the ceiling of the cavern, hundreds of feet above them. For Tespin and Lars, it was a fairy-tale landscape of hundreds of colors. The various molds, rusts, and fungi provided the color. These colors were reflected in the many crystal formations dotting the landscape. They could appreciate why the Drow had chosen live here. For the rest, the landscape was more alien and muted. They path was of crushed white crystal that led from a narrow canyon out onto a plain. At the end of the canyon was a low mesa topped with a dark squat tower.

Tespin scouted ahead of the party. He reached the crossroads at the foot of the mesa before the others. He signaled the others and continued on toward the tower, trying to remain out of sight. He was about halfway up the ramp of the mesa to the tower, when the party reached the crossroads. At that, two riders emerged from the tower. It was two Drow riding Nightmares that sped past him. Tespin signaled his friends and turned back to follow the Drow. The Drow reigned their mounts some 50 feet from the party and called to them. The party was welcome to the Vault of the Drow and were ordered to report to the tower before continuing on. When questioned by Sir William, they responded that to continue on a non-Drow was punishable by death. Seeing no way around it, the party climbed the slope to the black tower overlooking the crossroads.

The tower was wider than it was tall, being some 50 feet in diameter. They could make out guards walking the top of the tower, carrying strange crossbows, that made a metallic sliding sound as the guards moved. The tower had many arrow slits. The murder holes in the entrance tunnel caused a little trepidation among the adventurers. The heavy oak door was closed, but a portal was open, allowing them entry. High Bailiff Divolg sat behind a long table with 8 guards flanking him. "Name," he asked without looking up. "Sir William Congreave, Fridolin Pumukel, Philia (with a P-H), Schuach Tulisman ("That's a long name for a Dwarf."), Deadana Qwitschney, Lespin." "Reason for visit?" "Tourism". The Bailiff then asked to see their passes. Lars remembered that he had collected 4 medallions with a Drow face on one side and a spider on the other at the guard post. He also a two more from an earlier encounter, not to mention the odd mace symbol with Despana on the back or the gold spider pin. Lars dug out the medallions and presented them. Divolg then began to explain that he was required to have the legal code of Erlhei-Cinlu read to visitors before entering the city. For a small fee he could have the shortened version presented. The party opted for the long version, despite the claim it would take 40 hours to recite completely.

Divolg smiled despite the loss of income. He had the guards bring down the new recruits. Divolg explained to the party that his soldiers must learn the code by rote, as he pulled out a rather mean looking whip. Two troopers removed the shirt from the trainee as he began to recite the laws of the city. For every mistake Divolg lashed the recruit until he could recite no more. Then a new recruit was brought forward. Thorir asked if he could give the whip a try. Divolg allowed him. When Thorir did not show proper enthusiasm for the use of the whip, he took the whip away a threatened to whip him.

The party learned a lot about Erlhei-Cinlu while listening to the legal code. First and foremost, Drow were the masters of the city. One was not to speak to a Drow unless spoken to first. One was not even supposed to look up at a female Drow. The far side of the river was off limits to all but those of the noble houses and their express guests. The Fane of Lolth also on the farside of the river was only open to those with the express permission of the priesthood. On the near side of the river, one could travel freely as long as one wore the bright green cloak. Even then, a Drow could slay most anyone without fear of reprisal. On this side of the river there were merchant clans of the Drow. The spiders of the city were not to be harassed or harmed. The penalty for most transgressions was some variant of torture followed by a painful death. The lucky ones were sent to the arena for the length of their relatively short lives.

Sir William used his incredible diplomatic skills to get more information out of Divolg. They learned that there were about 7000 Drow in the city and twice that number of other races. Philia leaned up against Divolg and expressed interest in having a tour of the city and especially the holy places on the far side of the river. Divolg licked his lips. No one really wanted to know what he was thinking. After some consideration, he wrote a letter of introduction to his friend Grazzat at the House of the Ghost Spider. Divolg would seek Philia out at the Styx Oarsman, once his shift at the tower was done. That would be in a few weeks. Philia laid her hand on him and said that that would be just fine. The party took the letter of introduction, pulled on their fluorescent green cloaks and headed for the city.

To be continued...[Part 2]

My Latest Project

2011-08-14T23:14:00.000+02:00

Not to give too much foreshadowing to the D&D campaign that I am running, but I just ordered Shaerileth, Spider Demoness from Reaper Miniatures. Actually I am sure my players have an idea what is coming. I still have to write up the play report, but they know they have to enter Lolth's Demonweb.

I have never done a miniature as complex as this one. The abdomen is split into two halves. So I first glued the two halves together and filed it smooth. Then I attached the torso to the forepart of the spider.

Abdomen Top

Abdomen Bottom

Assembling the legs was a real challenge. Each leg came as a separate part. So after detaching each of the 8 legs from the sprue and filing away the flash, I had to figure out how to epoxy all those legs. My first idea was to hold four legs in four spring-loaded clips. The torso made it difficult to get it in a position that I could hold still long enough for the epoxy to dry. I also did not know how I would get the legs into a position, where I could tell which legs would be touching the ground after gluing the legs into place. I finally hit on the idea of pushing the legs into Styrofoam. I have a whole shelf full of the stuff, much the to chagrin of my wife. I pushed the legs in and arranged the ends to meet where I would expect them to meet the thorax. The Styrofoam was thin enough that the legs that were meant to touch the base, I pushed all the way through. I then epoxied the leg joints and held the torso and thorax onto the legs.

Partially assembled Shaerileth next to Sharky for size comparrison.

Closeup of leg joints front

Closeup of leg joints side

Closeup of leg joints bottom

Closeup of leg joints rear. Joint for thorax-abdomen.

Closeup of face. Notice hole in skin below left eye.

Next I began constructing a base. Since the figure takes up about a 3x3 space on my Battlemat, I took some balsa wood that has been sitting around in my cellar for like 5 years and cut a double layer to match. I glued the two layers cross-grained to give it some stability. Once it dries, I'll bevel the edges like the Games Workshop bases.

Bases (Sorry they are blurry.)

While I was at it. I had bought a female halfling rogue figure for Kathrin's Diedre. I mounted her on a round base for priming. It is another Reaper miniature, Melantha.

Deidre and Sharky

Closeup of Deidre

Visit from Michael and Elke

2011-08-11T23:35:00.000+02:00

Over the weekend, Elke and her son, Michael, came to visit. We managed to squeeze in a few games.

Andrea, Kathryn, Elke, Michael and I played a round of Manimals. Andrea won with 9 points. Kathryn and I tied for second with 7 each. This was understandable since Michael and Elke had never seen the game before.

Later that night, me, Kathryn, and Elke teamed up against Michael, Ursula and Andrea in a round of Times Up. Playing through 48 cards took a long time, so we never made it past the first round.

Sunday I showed Michael Race for the Galaxy. He caught on very quickly.

Finally, Kathryn and I played a round of Settlers of Catan with Michael. Michael had never played before, but he had lots of stone. So he converted his settlements to cities right away. I forgot to build a section of road, so Michael stole the longest road prize and won the game.

Play Time

2011-08-05T10:00:00.000+02:00

The girls actually decided to play games with me tonight.

Kathryn and Ursula forced to make way for the ghost.

We played a round of Wer War's. I managed to switch it to the difficult mode. We made good progress at first, but soon our luck turned against us. The ghost kept blocking our way. We would have lost but for two strokes of luck. While trapped by the ghost in the tower, I used the magic option there and turned the clock back an hour. By then it was 4 o'clock and we still had six suspects. I debated just opening the witches chest, since the witch is by default guilty. The second stroke of luck was the fact that it was indeed the witch. We had two keys and had narrowed it down to the witch and the princess. Unfortunately the ghost blocked the dining room preventing us from accessing the princess's chest. So Ursula tried the witch's chest and it was right! We solved the case at 5:20.

A blurry photo of Manimals.

Next we played Manimals. In this game you lay out 40 animal cards. Then, starting with the oldest player (me), you turn over one of the cards. This card displays an attribute of the animal, such as, lives in mountains or hibernates or has fur or swims or is a vertebrate or some such characteristic. The players now all grab, with one hand only, all the animal cards that he or she thinks share this one characteristic. Once everyone has all the cards they want, you check which ones were correct by checking out the back of the card. If you got one wrong, you have to put back one you got right, too. Everyone then adds up the cards they have left over. The player with the most cards keeps two cards. The player with the second most cards keeps one card. The rest go back out and three more cards are added to the 40 on the table. You do this seven times and then see who collected the most cards. Kathryn was the clear winner with 9 cards.

An Omen of the Gods - Part 2

2011-08-04T10:00:00.001+02:00

The party: Arya with her wolf Marcher, Deidre, James, Jann, Londaryn, Rhugar.
Their current location: The village of Arelyd.
Their destination: Fulfill the omen of the goddess Chaunteir and follow the bees.
What happened last time: See here at Parhoon Naval Yards: An Omen of the Gods.

In Arelyd, the inquiries bring some more information. Jann asks for the meaning of serpents and wings. Well, the villagers’ answer to consult an oracle is not necessarily helpful, as evidently, no oracle was around for many years.

Following the instructions of Keileon, the party rides along the riverside. Londaryn again summons horses (and ponies) to speed up the voyage. After some time, a small group approaches. Sitting on a donkey that is hardly visible under the heavy body, a man that could not be called anything other than FAT is getting nearer, holding a full wineskin. A couple of satyrs dance around him. Londaryn quickly recognizes the magic that surrounds this person. Could this be a god?

Arya has learnt something about satyrs some time ago. She informs the others: Satyrs have some magical abilities. They have a strong liking for music. Of course, this encourages the bard to approach and talk to the satyrs. But first, the man on the donkey introduces himself as Silenus. James quickly invents a story of a dream that lead the group to follow the bees. After all, the party was warned never to let anyone know about the goddess and her omen.

While Silenus could not provide any information on bees, he emphasizes the danger of the Stymphalian swamps – and offers the company of one of his satyrs called Phoneus. The latter will stay with the group until the path leads uphill away from the river. For some reason or the other, the hobbit Deidre seems to be in a hurry and keeps asking to resume the travel. During the journey, the party talks to Phoneus. He describes his master Selinus as a god and calls him his master.

Around midday, Arya’s eyes spot a movement in one of the trees. When approaching, the party sees a giant owl. Its height reaches easily more than one and a half meters. While everyone still wonders seeing an owl during the bright day, Rhugar simply addresses it: “Hi, owl!” Well, this does not do the trick and earns him only some stern looks. But also Arya’s spell “Speak with animals” does not bring any further information. However, the owl keeps following the party at some distance.

After some time, the party reaches the place where the path leads away from the river. Phoneus still stays with them, and all together they start moving uphill. Only a few minutes later, they see the first bees. But these aren’t ordinary bees – they have a size of almost half a human (or an entire halfling). The bees fly around some giant flowers – their red blossoms reach a diameter of more than 15cm. Beehives can be seen hanging in the trees. The path leads into a clearing. The trees that were standing here evidently were used to build the wooden palisades that protect the buildings in the center of the clearing. Someone steps forward and blocks the path, wearing a mask in the shape of an insect. More people approach and join the party. James addresses them and asks kindly: “Are you the beekeepers?” One of the masked persons replies and confirms: “Yes, I am the Beekeeper.” The breeze brings a bad smell. Remembering the warning of the Stymphalian birds, the party concludes that the swamps must be nearby.

Being invited by the masked beekeepers, everyone goes inside the nearest of the houses. The hosts explain that the swamp is getting closer each season. The birds increase their attacks and keep attacking the small village. They seem to be keen on human flesh. Unfortunately, no one can tell about the birds’ preference regarding dwarven, elven, or halfling flesh. Could the party members of these races feel safer than the humans?! Well, probably it is better not to test this too eagerly!

Inside, the humans take off their masks. These are constructed from bee’s wax and help to keep out the bad smells of the swamp. Now the family living in this house starts to tell their names. The attractive, brown haired woman is called Iole. Her husband simply is called “The Beekeeper”. Their eldest son Tereus is a spitting image of his father, while the youngest son Oeneus has the slender figure of his mother. Lycus is the Beekeeper’s brother-in-law. The others living in this house are servants who now approach with bread and fruits. However, there is no honey on the table.

Arya still is a bit suspicious about the family and uses her “Detect Poison” spell. But this attracts the attention of the surrounding persons. Luckily, James can quickly come up with some weird story about Arya’s difficult youth. Rhugar asks some questions about serpents – especially the winged variety. The party explains about the search for the container and the bees. The Beekeeper says: “We don’t know about any bronze containers. We used to live on the eastern part of the mountains. That was when my grandfather lived. We were forced to move here when the Cyclops and the birds got nearer. At our old place, the flowers were in full blossom, but they died and so both the bees and us moved here.”

Lycus considers: “Maybe this is all about symbols?! What could the bees stand for? They represent industry, creativity, and wealth. Of what does this remind you? Isn’t it the Cyclops? They are famous inventors!”

The party departs without further much ado. Lycus offers to go with them as he needs to collect some plants for counterspells against Polymorph spells. The plan is to find shelter in a cave and stay there over night. With many thanks to the beekeeper, the party takes leave – not without being equipped with masks for everybody to keep the stinking smells away. On the way to the next building where the masks are stored, it happens: The Stymphalian birds attack! Some 14 birds rush forward with their bronze feathers.

Londaryn casts a fireball spell. Two birds are brought down immediately. Jann gulps his Flying potion and shoots into the air. Arya succeeds in killing another two birds with her powerful Flame Strike. The bard waits a little before he strikes with his “Thundering Drums”. The birds approach, and some members of the party are affected by the terrible smell and are nauseated. One villager gets killed by the fierce birds – did he by chance wear a red tunic? No way to tell; the birds ravage him and tear him to pieces. Without taking much notice of his sickness, Rhugar attacks with a Soundburst.

The fight continues. The Beekeeper helps bringing down one bird after the other. Arya asks Mother Nature for help – and a flash of lightning electrifies more birds. James starts singing a song that helps forgetting the sickness. With all these joint forces, the birds stand no chance and are quickly killed. Immediately, the air does not smell that badly anymore. Jann still is up in the air and uses this ability to get an overview of the landscape. In the southeast, the swamps cover a large area. Other than that, he can’t see anything special.

Finally equipped with the masks, the party leaves. In order to speed up the journey, they use horses summoned magically by Londaryn. As with Lycus, they are now short of one horse, Deidre offers him to ride her pony and joins Rhugar on his. The Beekeeper shows his gratitude and offers a flask of Royal Jelly to the party. In addition, every member receives an own bottle with honey. Right before the departure, the Beekeeper casts a Divination from a scroll: “Seek the place of the Single Eye.” With this help, the group reaches the cave within 1,5 hours. It is located at the foothills. Safe shelter against the birds …

(to be continued)

Grupo Martes: 2 August

2011-08-03T13:13:00.000+02:00

On this night we started with 7 Wonders. It had been a long time since I had played. I was amazed how quickly I remembered how the game went. Not knowing what I was doing, I built lots and lots of resources. By the third age I had all the resources I could want and was able to build almost any building without paying for it. Peter and Michael ended up buying a lot from me, allowing me to end the game with more than 24 silver pieces. I was playing the B-side of the Hanging Gardens. That meant that after the second age, when I built the second phase of my wonder, I was able to build a seventh card every phase. Lena won the round due to strong victory points in blue cards. I finished in the middle with 48 points.

We played the game twice. (Kathrin complained that she never wins at this game and I wanted a chance to play without having to guess at what I was doing.) This time I tried to copy Lena's strategy to some extent. I played as many cards as I could that would still lead to me placing other buildings automatically, such as the Scriptorium leading to the Bibliothek (library). This paid off rather nicely as I scored 30 points in blue cards alone. I finished just behind Kathrin, who won the match. She scored even more points in silver than I had, with 27 silver pieces.

We finished the night with a round of Land Unter (Turn the Tide). In this game, each player is dealt a hand of 12 cards. This hand of cards will be played by each player in turn. After you finish the hand, it is passed to the left and you begin a new hand after adding up your score. The cards number 1-60. Each hand is worth a given number of points. You determine the value of the hands by looking at the cards. Cards 25-36 are worth 1 point each. Cards 37-48 and 13-24 are each with half a point. So last night, one hand was worth 8 points, while another was worth 3. For lack of a better name, there are also 24 land under cards. These cards are numbered 1-12, with two of each number appearing. For each trick, you turn over two land under cards. Then each player chooses a card from their hand. The highest card takes the lowest land under card. The second highest takes the highest land under card. These land under cards are placed before you. The player with the highest land under card must give up one of the points in their hand. Remember each hand has a set number of points. You then play for the next trick and distribute the land under cards again. If you get a new land under card, it replaces the one in front of you. So you are on the lookout to keep a low card in front of you. Once you have given up your last point, you are swimming. Lose again, and you are out of the hand and score -1 for the hand. Once a player goes under, the holder of the next highest land under card also has to lose a point. If you ever tie, both players lose a point. At the end of the hand, the player with the lowest land under Peter won this game easily. The deck with 8 points was interesting, because it had a bunch of middle cards and the 60. This meant, at the right time, you could ensure you get one of the two land under 1 cards in the hand. The hand I started with was easier to play with, because it had a lot of high and low cards. The others really like this game, though I am not really convinced.

Call of Cthulhu LCG, Mythos, and Magic

2011-08-02T10:01:00.000+02:00

I have had the basic set for the Call of Cthulhu Living Card Game from Fantasy Flight for some time now. I decided to indulge myself and buy some of the expansions that have been on the market for some time. If you have not been able to tell, I like the Cthulhu mythos, so I am attracted to games relating to it. I was very interested in the Mythos collectible card game from Chaosium. If you look at the rule book you will see me credited as one of the playtesters; my 15 minutes of fame. I happened to drop by the comic book shop in Hayward, California, just down the street from Chaosium world HQ and they were holding a playtest session. So when Mythos came out I bought into it. However, it was very hard to build interesting decks. The story requirements of the decks also made it difficult to just throw random cards together and get anything that was remotely playable. This was the huge strength of Magic: The Gathering. It was very easy to see possible deck builds and realize them on a relatively limited budget of cards. I bought an entire box of boosters for all three Mythos sets that came out and still find the basic set the easiest to play.

So Mythos died its death and Call of Cthulhu went through one or two incarnations before it finally reached its current living card game form, put out by Fantasy Flight. I have been satisfied with the basic set so far, but for each faction you only get one of each card. You cannot build a deck full of Deep Ones, because you only have four or five in the basic set. You need 50 cards minimum. So, as I said before, I decided to indulge myself and get some of the chapter packs. I got the following:

The Spawn of the Sleeper
The Horror Beneath the Surface
Twilight Horror
In Memory of Day
In the Dread of Night
Search for the Silver Key
Sleep of the Dead
Journey to Unknown Kadath
The Mountains of Madness Asylum Pack
Ancient Horrors Asylum Pack
Bag of Cthulhu

So we are talking about almost 500 cards here; plus the bag of Cthulhu. Doesn't everyone need a bag of Cthulhu? My first disappointment is that not all the cards come in threes. You get some singles in the sets. The pessimist in me says that those are probably the most useful cards. So with these cards I tried to build my first deck. I wanted to make it a night deck with the benefits for dreamers. If you know these sets, then you will see that I got all six sets from the Dreamlands cycle. That is my favorite Lovecraft genre. Most of the interesting cards were independents. There were some dreamers under the Cthulhu faction. Actually there were more in the Miskatonic faction, but I was avoiding that faction for now. So I ended up choosing independents, Cthulhu Deep Ones, and Ghouls from Shub-Niggurath. OK, it was my first attempt so it was a crappy deck. I was still disappointed that I had the feeling that I really did not have many cards to choose from. Just before writing this, I pulled out all the Deep Ones I have. I came up with 14 cards. OK, perhaps I have too many Dreamlands cards. To contrast, I once bought a set of Ravnica commons (just commons) for Magic: The Gathering and I was able to put together some decent decks with those cards alone.

Perhaps I just do not grok this game yet. I have a lot of trouble seeing the potential to exploit mechanics of the game. Eventually I will have to weigh putting Call of Cthulhu LCG on the shelf as yet another failed card game, or buy more cards.

Grupo Martes: 26 July

2011-08-01T10:00:00.000+02:00

First up was Time's Up. Oddly enough it was Peter, Kathryn, and Michael vs. Lena, Kathrin, and Michael. Too many Kathr(i/y)ns and Michaels; or not enough Lena and Peters. My team took the lead by six points in the first round. We broke even with the other team the next two rounds. They showed real stick-to-it-iveness, despite Peter's complaining that they would never make up the difference. Well, he was right, but the gap did not widen either. We had fun with the game. Kathryn showed the school paid off, by getting the others to get Erich Kästner by referring to Darwin. I'm sorry, but Erich Kästner was not on my radar. More my speed was indications of Lara Croft's prominent attributes to indicate Angelina Jolie.

We finished the evening with a round of Jäger der Nacht. Kathrin and Peter soon teamed up against Michael and Lena. It did not take long for them to reveal that they were respectively vampires and werewolves. That left Kathryn and I as mere humans. I was forced to reveal myself soon after, including my victory condition to gather four items. Michael had the opportunity to finish me off when I had three items, but it was more important to him to prevent Kathrin and Peter from winning. Just a werewolf thing I guess. Thus I was able to use one of my items to ignore the dice roll and travel to an area of my choice and steal one more item, ending the game. Kathryn and I both won. Kathryn only had to survive the conflict.

Anke and Ralf visit the Red Dragon Inn

2011-07-31T14:20:00.000+02:00

Anke and Ralf came to visit. They had not yet seen Zum Roten Drachen, so Kati and I played a round with the two of them. Kati took Zot the Wizard and I ended up with Dierdre the Priestess while Anke was the Fioanna the Volatile and Ralf was Gerki the Sneak. Anke and Ralf struggled a bit with the steep learning curve in the game. It takes a while before you really get the hang of this one. Since I knew Kati would be the most dangerous, especially since she had Zot, the generalist character, I concentrated on damaging her. Well I did not get too far. One "Dragon's Breath" after the other and I was pretty tipsy. It did not take too long before they pushed me over the top. I managed to become drunk and penniless in the same turn. Anke and Ralf recognized their disadvantage and tag-teamed Kati, knocking her out of the game before Ralf ran out of money, something that should not happen to Gerki, leaving Anke, completely surprised and victorious.

The Outpost

2011-07-30T18:46:00.000+02:00

Lars said, "I think we missed something." "What do you mean?" asked Tespin. "Where did he come from?" wondered Deadana. Lars answered, "That whole Kuo Toa shrine to Blibdoolpoolp. I think there could have been more to the shrine than we saw." "You know, I agree." said Thorir, thinking of the riches the palace might hide. The four adventurers turned back down the wide passageway into the gray-green light of the shrine.

Marco and Werner

"Lose something?" asked one of the dozen guards at the shrine. "We would like a tour of the palace," announced Lars. "You what? No. The palace is not a public hall for your perusal." answered the flabbergasted Kuo Toan. Thorir chimed in, "But we were so impressed with the Sea Mother. We would like to see more of her wonders." "And," adding Lars, "I found the workmanship of your stonemasons amazing. Dare I say it? It was nearly Dwarf-like in its quality, if not originality." "The accomplishments of your people are tremendous," said Thorir, "We would like to bask in the awe of the grandeur of your forefathers' work some more." "And I am hungry," admitted Deadana. Taken aback the guard reiterated that a tour of the palace was out of the question, but he was willing to summon one of the Monitors.

The Monitor approached. The party noticed the Monitor was unarmed. He (or she since the sex of the Kuo Toans is not obvious to the uninitiated) listened patiently to the requests and pandering of the party. He welcomed the party to stay as pilgrim and learn more of the Sea Mother. He gently fended off attempts at getting a guided tour. The Monitor led the party through an archway and up a stair to the pilgrim area. He led them to a room with a view over the plaza with the ziggurat. He explained that the party was welcome to keep their weapons and armor, but that it was frowned upon, as pilgrims to wear such gear in the shrine. At Deadana's request he explained that meals would be served in the common room down the hall at 1 bell, 3 bells, and 7 bells. He left before she could ask how many bells it was now. Tespin inferred from the Monitor's comments on the time, that there must be some sort of sleep period. That would be the perfect time for them to wander about the place. They began trying to recall how many Kuo Toans they had seen and how many could be living at the shrine. They had seen 70-100 of the fish-like creatures and guessed that the shrine could probably house hundreds, but not thousands. That ruled out a frontal assault.

Looking around the room, they noticed the door was wooden. That struck Tespin as rather extravagant. Wood is hard to come by in the Underdark. The door had no lock. They could neither lock anyone out, nor be locked in. Deadana inspect the sleeping palate, which consisted of a pile of seaweed in a wooden frame. Otherwise the room was rather spartan, having a few stools or benches and a table all carved from stone.

Soon they heard the sound of a bell ringing six times followed by the croaking and belching of Kuo Toans in the hall as they shuffled past their room. They could also see more of the creatures gathering in the plaza before the statue of Blibdoolpoolp. Lars and Thorir left the apartment to join the throng. Deadana and Tespin watched from their narrow window. They began to hear the sound of drums and chimes and Kuo Toans with instruments gathered in the plaza. Worshipers knelt in rows before the ziggurat. Thorir joined the end of one of the rows. A Monitor and several armed Kuo Toans stopped Lars. He was still wearing his armor and carrying his weapons. He briefly argued that his people never went without their gear, but the Monitor was quite insistent that such things were not allowed here. Lars returned to the apartment and joined Deadana and Tespin at the window.

The crowd was led in a chant by a priest. Thorir did his best to follow along and imitate the movements. At first the pace of the chanting was quite sedate. A roar from the behind the worshipers caused them to increase the pace and the volume of the chant. A pair of Kuo Toans were dragging an Orc toward the ziggurat in a net. The plaza filled with the chant of "BLIBDOOLPOOLP BLIBDOOLPOOLP," as the Kuo Toans and Thorir swung their arms in great circles. The chanting came to a crescendo as the Orc was dragged to the pool in front of the ziggurat. The water frothed as the creature was held under water by the two Kuo Toans. When the thrashing stopped there was a single cry of "BLIBDOOLPOOLP!" from the priest and the Kuo Toans erupted into cheers. The worshipers began queuing up at the altars of the shrine to give their offerings and receive a shell from the acolytes. Thorir took his turn. As he waded through the greenish water, he noticed the leeches swarming over the Orc corpse floating off to the side. The Kuo Toans paid the Orc no mind like some flotsam on the beach. The acolyte who presented Thorir with his shell, appeared to smile showing row upon row of awful teeth; or was that a smile?

Not long after Thorir returned from the ceremony, seven bells sounded. The party went to the common room to find a dozen other Kuo Toan pilgrims. A Monitor brought in plates of raw fish, seaweed, and other unidentifiable sea creatures. The pilgrims attacked the food with gusto. The party ate the offerings as well, some with more gusto than others. None of the Kuo Toans appeared to warm up to the group. They seemed to be avoiding the party members. The party also noted some of the illuminated texts glued to the walls, expounding on the wonders of the Sea Mother and her lessons.

When all appeared quiet, Tespin sneaked out of their apartment. The Deep Gnome was so stealthy, he could literally step into the shadow of the Monitor watching the hall, and still remain unnoticed. Not only did Tespin dash unseen and unheard across the courtyard with a dozen Kuo Toan guards, he also slipped past the eleven guards watching the steps of the palace. Inside the open archways, Tespin immediately spotted the six Kuo Toans keeping watch from behind the great pillars in the throne room. Tespin slipped quietly past and inspected the throne and statues of Blibdoolpoolp. He noted the fine pearl and coral decorations intricately carved. He slipped into the west wing of the palace to find a Kuo Toan sporting in a bath 80 feet long while two others watched him. Finding nothing else of interest here, Tespin slipped like a ghost into the east wing of the palace. There he found a private audience chamber overseen by a balcony. Tespin observed the mosaics on the wall and the fine stonework, but found nothing that caught his interest. The others did not even notice when Tespin reentered the apartment. Tespin had nothing particularly interesting to report back.

Martina

At first bell, the party joined the other pilgrims in the common room for a breakfast of raw fish, seaweed, and more of the same. This time one of the Kuo Toans dared to sit at the same table with the party. Afterwards the party repacked and bid the Kuo Toans farewell as they left the shrine, headed once more for the Drow city of Erlhei Cinlu.

As the party expected from their map, the passage they followed joined up with the tunnel at the other end of the empty space, leading to what appeared to be a watch post of the Drow. They are not disappointed. Tespin sneaked ahead. He found a large, square, carved cavern. It was about 120 feet to a side and the walls leaned to meet 150 feet above the floor. The passage that led to the Drow city was behind a 30 foot stone wall, pierced by a gate covered in spikes. Unseen, Tespin used his spider-climbing ability to get a look at the four Drow patrolling the wall and the other five behind the gate. There were barracks on either side of the gate, behind the wall. From the left side, he heard a couple dozen voices. From the other, he heard no more than an occaisional murmur. Tespin returned to the party, reporting what he had seen.

The party made a plan. Lars summoned four hippogriffs. While the party climbed onto their back, Thorir cast a mass invisibility spell. Unseen, Tespin, Thorir, and Deadana landed atop the wall. Lars landed in the courtyard and positioned himself in front of the door to the barracks on the left side. Tespin back-stabbed the fellow next to him and Deadana charged her opponent. Lars cast a wall of stone across the passageway and followed with a daylight spell, dazzling the Drow, while Thorir let loose a fireball. Surprised and blinded, the Drow sounded the alarm and began using their innate ability to cause darkness. The darkness was not enough to cancel out the daylight, but it did render the areas affected no lighter than they were before Lars cast the daylight. That is, dimly illuminated from glowing blue lichen and much more tolerable to their sensitive eyes.

Tespin climbed down from the wall onto the roof of the barracks on the right side and began sniping at Drow in the courtyard. Two Drow came out of the barracks on the right while other Drow were trying to get past Lars as more climbed from a trap door onto the roof of the barracks on the left side. Thorir let loose a prismatic spray, killing most of the Drow at the gate and causing their commander to go insane. Deadana fought her was down the battlement, while Lars's hippogriffs surrounded the last Drow on the battlement. The Drow on the roof were trying to shoot the hippogriffs down with hand crossbows, while the Drow on the battlement used his sword. The eight Drow trapped by Lars in the barracks tried to use their cross bows on Lars to little effect. Thorir then dropped the roof on them by casting a rock to mud spell.

Michael among the Drow

After almost 5 rounds of combat, the hippogriffs had all been killed and almost all of the Drow were dead. Suddenly, Lars was surrounded by a force cage. Lars was able to defeat the cage by casting a greater dispel magic. As a reward, he was hit by a disintegration spell, but Lars's magic resistance defeated it. Lars then cast an invisibility purge, revealing a Drow mage in the doorway of the right-hand barracks. It also removed Thorir's greater invisibility. The Drow then hit Thorir with a cone of cold. The blast nearly killed him. Thorir turned invisible and tried to get out of the line of fire. Deadana leapt from the wall. She was able to absorb some of the damage by rolling on impact. She then charged the mage, while Tespin spider-climbed from above and tried to back-stab him. The Drow mage could not fend off the concentrated attack and died.

An Omen of the Gods

2011-07-10T23:57:00.000+02:00

James (Peter), Rhugar (Michael), Arya (Kathryn), Londaryn (Michael)

Londaryn (Michael), Deidre (Kathrin), Jann (Mark, I mean Batman)

[Text by Kathrin]

The party still resides on the island with Natisha, the valiant captain and the remaining crew, the skillful cook Dulus and the goblin they freed. After a long night, the sun rises and the storm is over. However, everyone is still quite exhausted.

The party discusses whether they should first have good rest on the island or whether it is better to directly travel to town. The Broach of Begoing they found will help them to teleport there with the magic word “ZOT” which they know from Natisha. As all party members with magical abilities have spent most their spells, the vote goes for resting on the island. After a good night’s rest – and a splendid meal prepared by the faithful cook Dulus, assisted by the goblin – the time finally arrived to leave the island.

Who will be on the journey? As agreed, Natisha will join the party. But what to do with the goblin? He is really keen on getting off the island – but no way with Rhugar. After some back and forth, the party decides to give the goblin a magical ride by broach transportation and then send him away to follow his own destiny – in the opposite direction. With this decision, all gather around and stretch out to hold hands while Londaryn takes the Broach of Begoing and: “ZOT!” – an electrical feeling goes through everybody, and after a crackling noise they appear in a grove.

To the south, they see some smoke that evidently indicates some village or at least a hamlet. The distance seems to be no further than a walk of 20 minutes. Now is the time to go separate ways. The goblin is sent northwards, while the party departs to the south to reach the hamlet. After a pleasant walk without any further events, they reach it. It is surrounded by wooden palisades. Flocks of sheep surround the houses. Before approaching further, the adventurers start analyzing their location. Both the captain and Natisha are able to provide some information. They are in the kingdom of Corwell on the island of Gwynneth. With this information, James the bard has everything he needs. He starts with the history of this island and kingdom. Once upon a time, Kimrick Hugh united the islands and transferred the capital to Callidyrr. This is where Londaryn is from. While telling the story of Kimrick’s wife who was locked up in the highest room of the tallest tower of his castle that finally sank into the sea, the party is approached by a peasant who introduces himself as Randolf. This does not hinder the bard from finishing his tales with the latest facts on Corwell, currently ruled by King Bryon.

Being invited for a beer by James, Randolf leads them into the village. At this point, Natisha decides to take her farewell from the party. In the pub, some party members join James and Randolf, while Jann contemplates his alignment, sitting on the palisade wall. During the last days, he kept wondering why he always opts for being good. Is that really “Chaotic neutral”?!

In the pub, James starts playing some favorite tunes of the villagers. Of course, the information that a musician arrived attracts more and more people. Suddenly, the door opens with a bang. A large man with a sword on his back enters. Quickly, the party is informed by Randolf that this is the resident lord. He heard of the bard’s arrival, too. Despite of being already overcrowded, still even more people try to squeeze into the pub. Being paid with some gold and silver coins, James of course keeps singing – and spending his money on drinks for everyone. Rhugar takes the opportunity to gamble a little with quite some success. Everyone is having a good time and staying far into the night.

Next morning, it is time to bid farewell to the captain and his remaining crew members. As the village is located only a short journey from the sea, they decide to go to the nearest harbor where they might get a ship that takes them back to Moray. The party however needs to go to Callidyrr. After all, they still didn’t completely fulfill their quest with the mer-people. The last task to finish is to return the message of the re-instated peace to the magicians. Well, they also will have to return the rings that allow breathing under water. For this purpose, they go east to reach King’s Bay to cross the Strait of Aaron to reach the island of Alaron. To ease their journey, Londaryn summons as many steeds as are needed to accommodate all party members.

Their first station is Corwell itself, which they reach after two days. Corwell is located at one of the best natural harbors of the island. It is surrounded by woods and swamps. Cair Corwell is situated on top of a cliff overlooking the town. It really seems impregnable. The party decides to look for an inn to rest for the night and ask the townspeople how to best get to Callidyrr. Two inns seem to offer acceptable rooms. While the party already checks in at “The Red Stag”, Deidre couldn’t resist following her profession and returns with some gold pieces “from nowhere” with which she invites the others for some drinks. Luckily, no one’s alignment has a “lawful” component …

While James joins another bard, Alicia, and starts a performance with her, Deidre and Arya go shopping. While Arya does not find a buyer for her hippogriff’s saddle, Deidre manages to purchase some arrows +1 for some of her loot like cutlery and other silver ornaments. Anyway, the halfling didn’t want to carry around all that metal– too much noise while sneaking.

After some inquiries, the party figures out that there are but two options: Either stay in Corwell and wait for a ship that is supposed to arrive in two weeks. Or travel to King’s Bay and hope for a connection from there. The adventurers decide to stay another two days at Corwell and then go to King’s Bay. This gives them the opportunity to finally divide the loot. Everyone receives 83 platinum coins, 136 gold pieces, one jewel worth another 100 gold pieces, 86 silver and 200 copper coins. James uses his share and presents two gloves with jewels as a gift to the bard Alicia.

On the morning of the third day, they depart on the road to King’s Bay that is very well maintained. The beautiful countryside assures a pleasant journey. Travel goes on without major events – until on the second morning, the party is traveling in the forested foothills of a high mountain range. To the north, the mountains sit like hunched-over giants, keeping pace with their line of march. They pass through a grove of trees, then see a flash of movement in the center of the clearing before them: A winged serpent bursts out of an abandoned beehive! As the sections of the hive are scattered, they glitter like fragments of bronze in the shafts of sunlight that filter through the trees. In a moment- too quickly to react- the winged serpent disappears among the trees. Arya with her knowledge of animals and nature feels: This serpent is from another dimension! And James the bard concurs.

"An omen of the gods!"

The voice comes from the trees on the left, where an old woman is seated on a large rock in the shade. She wears a rough, brown, hooded cloak that covers all except her face and sandaled feet. In her hands is a long, solid walking staff. While her face is wrinkled (but not unattractive) and wisps of white hair escape from under the cloak's hood, her feet are slim and youthful (and unaccountably clean), showing no signs of age.

The woman stands without using the staff for support. As a shaft of light touches her face, the party sees that her eyes are gray.

"You are uniquely favored, chosen by the gods, to undertake a fateful quest." She points across the clearing. "In that direction you will find the ancient temple of a lost oracle, tended now by a new and loyal priest. Tell that priest what you have seen here and ask the meaning of the omen. Neglect not to offer a suitable gift for the shrine, and heed well what you are told. Wise are those who attend the omens of the gods! Foolish are those who incur divine wrath through willful disregard!"

Abruptly, the old woman turns away and walks into the forest.

Of course, the adventurers can’t resist following these instructions and head towards the temple. The path leading there seems to be ancient and is overgrown with plants. It leads to a small valley situated between two hills and ending at a cliff. On the edge of the valley, an ancient building seems to have been exposed to the forces of nature for a long time. Stairs lead up to an entry with two large bronze doors. Suddenly, they open and an old man of indefinite age and with simple clothes emerges. He leans his broom against the door, walks to the staircase and welcomes the party: “This is Chaunteir’s Temple – goddess of nature, fertility and harvest.” James directly informs the party: This goddess is worshipped on the continent. The old man introduces himself as Vraios and explains that he was asked to re-open the temple about a month ago. The bard gives account of the meeting with the old woman. Rhugar offers a contribution of 100 gold pieces to the temple, while Arya presents two blue jewels.

Vraios ushers the party into the temple, leads them from the outer to the inner halls and indicates them to wait. There is not much light, but from what the adventurers can see, there are no rich ornaments and almost no furniture or decorations. Only the pillars have complex carvings. The doors to the inner part of the sanctuary are missing, but it seems that magic protections are in place. After returning from the sanctuary, Vraios wears a white robe with a golden border. A golden circlet with a transparent stone in the middle sits on top of his head. He doesn’t speak, but beckons towards the sanctuary. Small patches of light swirl around as if the sanctuary was bathed into the lights of stars. The roof rests on six large pillars. In the centre of the room, there is a throne on a large dais. After everyone is inside, he begins his prophecy....

"Now, before the eyes of the Goddess, tell me what you wish to know."

"Wings here symbolize mobility. You must move with dispatch upon your mission. Do not let yourselves be delayed or distracted under any circumstances. You have only days to succeed. Here, the symbolism of the abandoned hive is crucial: Your quest must be completed before the 'bees' return to claim the 'bronze hive' once more."

"Your quest begins at a lost shrine in the land of Arcadia in ancient times. Seek a bronze container and free the one within it, he whose symbol is a meeting of wings and serpents. This is your goal."

"In the realm of the Spirit, there is neither time nor space. Know, then: When you leave this temple, as you set foot on the upper step to descend, by the power of the Spirit and the power of the goddess who sends you, it will not be the steps of this temple you descend, but those of a lost and abandoned shrine in Arcadia. From there, fulfill your mission by seeking the place of the bees-always the bees! But take warning: Though you may speak of your mission to fulfill the omen, say to no one that a goddess has sent you. When your mission is completed, return to the abandoned Arcadian temple. Restore it and lay a suitable offering upon the altar. As your leave that temple, it will be the steps of this temple that you descend, and you will have returned to your own time and place. Here the rewards of the goddess will await you."

Vraios closes his eyes and looks tired. Londaryn inquires after the old woman they met earlier, but Vraios doesn’t know anything about her. The party decides to leave the temple. The horses are still there. The bard is the first one to step outside the temple. When setting foot on the staircase, he vanishes. All the others follow. When reassembling, they see that the temple and the surroundings have changed. They are now on top of a hill above the tree line. The temple is to the east. Maybe five miles away, a village can be seen. Even further away, the blue sky touches the sea. To the south, there are mountains and forest. The temple seems to have been left alone for quite some time, but it still is in a good condition. It is early morning.

A sound can be heard – evidently something like an axe working on wood. The party realizes that their clothes and weapons have changed. All iron has been replaced by bronze. Rhugar’s chainmail now is a bronze breastplate. Trousers have been converted into skirts. Rhugar is devastated: “A dwarf in skirts!” The party leaves and moves towards the sound of the axe. A donkey is bound to a tree close to the lumberjack and a camp is located a small distance away. After being asked about the bees, the lumberjack – named Arkilan – indicates a direction to the next hills where the beekeeper is supposed to live. He seems to be astonished: “What? You are not looking for Apollo’s cows?”

The village that could be seen from the temple is Arelyd. After a journey of about two hours, the party reaches a clearing, and hears bells that sound like an alarm. Arelyd is surrounded by palisades and a battlement parapet with archers standing on them. It seems that the people are afraid of the party and sounded the alarm after spotting them. The adventurers try to gesture that they come in peace and are spoken to by the villagers. Again, they ask for the beekeeper. The gate opens, and three men step outside. One of them carries a spear and a short sword. Another obviously is a blacksmith with his hammer. The third one holds a wineskin and offers drinks. Rhugar takes a sip: Cheap wine!

This man, Keileon, informs: "Yes, there is a beekeeper on Mt. Cyllene. If you're going that way, you can travel directly over the mountain, but it'll take you two and a half days, and the hazards are great. Also, there's the matter of getting past the bees that live on the mountain for miles around the beekeeper's place. If you circle west instead, following the Aroanius River around the western flank of the mountain, the trip will take you less than two days. The trail-only a hunter's track, really-isn't hard to follow. Its end is a cairn of stones showing the beginning of the mountain track that leads up to the beekeeper's home. This track too, is clear-if you know where it starts. It's the route we take when we go to trade for honey, and best of all, it avoids the stench of the Stymphalian Marsh that covers the mountain."

The smith Thendas adds: "Yes, stay clear of the Stymphalian marsh. The stench of it'll turn your stomach inside out. If that's not bad enough, there are the Stymphalian Birds. It's said, and I have this on good authority, that a plague of wolves to the south frightened the Birds into the marsh. Those must be mean wolves, for the Birds are ugly, smelly, killers with bronze beaks and claws. It's said they also have bronze wings that they use like shields. The're the source of the stench, which is so bad it's even driven a clan of cyclopes out of the citadel they built on the eastern part of Cyllene! Take my word, you want no part of the marsh or its Birds.

After a reminder, Keileon offers... "If you follow Aroanius, you will reach a stretch where the river turns almost due south. When it turns southwest again, with the foothills only six hundreds of paces away on your left, you are then forty-eight hundreds of paces north of the cairn. Here, the line of Cyllene's foothills is almost straight north-south. You'll find the cairn on your left, by the stump of a pine tree that was killed by lightning. The beginning of the trail up the mountain is due east of the cairn, between two small hills. The trail is well marked. So long as you stay on it, the bees won't bother you. But, for your lives, don't harm the bees!"

The villagers try selling some honey to the adventurers, as James tries to convince them that the party is busy performing a large test on different honeys in the area.

At parting, Keileon adds, "Watch yourselves. If the gods are about in the land, it's no time for good men to be careless."

Grupo Martes: 5 July

2011-07-10T08:22:00.000+02:00

In honor of the Women's World Cup in soccer, being hosted in Germany this summer, I requested that we play Millionen von Schwalben. I think it only fair that I explain the title and what it has to do with soccer. Translated, the title is Millions of Swallows. The term swallow, as in the bird, is the word for when a soccer player purposefully takes a fall in order to convince the referee that the other player has fouled him or her. The player is hoping to draw a penalty kick. Another terminology point I'd like to make; for the rest of this posting I will refer to soccer by its international name, football.

In Millionen von Schwalben, you start by picking 16 teams to play in the cup. According to the rules, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, and France must always be in the cup. Given that, I made the following choices to correspond to the current groupings in the Women's World Cup 2011:

Group A
Argentina (standing in for Canada)
England
Norway
Mexico

Group B
Brazil
Australia
Sweden
Columbia

Group C
France
USA
Faroe Islands (standing in for New Zealand)
Japan

Group D
Germany
Ghana (standing in for Equatorial Guinea)
China (standing in for North Korea)
Nigeria

The groupings do not match the actual groupings of the World Cup as the rules dictate that France, Germany, Brazil, and Argentina must be in separate groups. Nor did we have the list of groupings in front of use, so we just shuffled the rest. A further restriction on the groupings is that each of the four players could only have one team in each grouping. Before play begins, each player chooses four teams. You will play cards for your teams. I had Argentina, China, Faroe Islands, and Australia, for example.

Groups A and B and Results

Groups C and D and Results

The teams are each dealt a specific number of cards. These are kept separate with the teams throughout the matches. You cannot mix cards between the teams. There are three types of cards. Each team starts with a fixed set of the three types.

Green Cards are offensive cards with two sub types. The first sub type consists of shots on the goal rated 0 to 5. To get a goal, you must role a die and add your shot value to reach 7. Obviously a shot with the value of 0 will never reach the goal. You play this card to stay in the match. You must play an offensive card to remain in the game, that is, to be able to continue to make offensive plays. When you pass, you can no longer play offensive cards and you leave yourself open for any offensive cards the other player might have. Each card also has some flavor text. For the 0 this might be, "The forward dribbles down the sideline and kicks the ball into the stands." An example for a 4 from the game is translated as follows, "Excellent deep pass. Your forward shoot from a suspiciously offsides postion, 25 meteres. Offsides cards +1."

The second sub type consists of Schwalben (swallows; remember that term?). Here you are trying to draw a foul from the referee, so you can get a penalty kick. To draw the foul, you must role a die and add the foul value of the card and reach 7. At less than 7, the referee did not see the foul. At 7 or higher, you get a penalty kick at the goal, which counts as a 2 shot or 5 shot within the penalty box (16m or less). At 10 or higher, the referee shows a red card and discards a card from the hand of the opposing team. An example for a 1 from the game is translated as follows, "Surrounded by three players in the penalty box, your forward throws himself to the ground to draw the foul."

Blue cards are defensive cards. You use these cards to counter offensive cards played by your opponent. You can always play defensive cards, even if you have given up the offense for the game. These come in three sub types. The first is a foul. With this card you simply nullify your opponents shot. When you play this card, you roll the die and add the foul value. As with the Schwalbe, you are rolling to see if the referee saw the foul. If the referee see it, you opponent gets a penalty kick. An example text "Let them run into you. The defender cannot disappear into thin air."

The next subtype is offsides. Like the swallow, you are hoping the referee sees the offsides and nullifies the shot. You roll the die and add the offsides value. If the referee sees it, the shot is no good.

The last subtype is goalie. With this card, you are simply subtracting the goalie value from the shot. This is the only card you can play after the offensive player has rolled for a successful goal. With this card you can reduce their attack to less that the required 7 to score.

Red cards are special cards. Some teams have specific special cards assigned to them. The Germans have a card that gives you a Schwalbe, "Klinsi performs a swallow with a double back-flip." The Swedes have one that says, "After the match, (player name) goes on a photo shoot and earns the team owner 1 million." Other cards are just drawn at random and can be played by any team. Red cards differ from green and blue in that, they stay with the team, even after played. The green and blue cards are discarded after playing.

After each match, four cards are distributed to the teams. If the score was a tie, each team gets two. If one team won by one point, the winner gets three cards and the loser one. If the match was won by two or more points, the winner takes all the cards. The only other way to get cards, is that, at the start of each match, the home team gets to draw a card.

So, to summarize, each player chooses 4 teams and each team is assigned a predetermined number of cards. Once the teams have been chosen and the groupings decided, you get 100 million whatevers to bet on how far teams will go. You do not have to bet on your teams. You can bet on any team. Each team has a fixed cost to bet on them. The better teams are more expensive. Compare Brazil's 18 million to Faroe Island's 4 million. You can bet on the team making it to the quarter final (16 million reward), the final (36 million reward), or winning the cup (56 million reward). So you can see, it makes little sense to bet on Brazil making it to the quarter final. You paid 18 million to win 16. These bets are secret!

Our Score Sheets

Money is what this game is about. Whoever has the most at the end wins. You also get increasing amounts of money for making it to the various stages of the finals. What else can you do with money? You can bribe the referee. To explain that, I have to go into the play of the game some more.

So you have chosen the teams and the groupings and placed your bets. You now go through the tournament pitting teams against each other as you would in a World Cup. The groups each play 6 matches, scoring 3 points for a win, 1 for a tie, and 0 for a loss. The two teams with the highest scores move on to the quarter finals. For each match the team owners play the cards. One of the other two players is the referee. What is the referee for? If the foul roll adds up to 6, the referee can nudge it up 1 to a 7. See where the bribes come into play? The referee can also nudge it down or up by 1. Because the referees are also team owners, they have placed bets themselves. If you suspect that one of your opponents has bet against you, you can force a change in referees once per Cup. Referees can also call a free penalty kick, once per Cup.

So you play through the matches. The home team starts and must play an offensive card. The defender may play a defensive card, but does not have to. Then the visiting team can play an offensive card. You do this until neither team wants to play offensive cards any more. You then tally up the goals and assign points or advance the team on the board.

With all this setup, and little matches, the game takes a good part of the evening. However, it captures some of the silliness that happens in a world cup. My Australians held out against a powerful Brazil for a long time. How prescient it was that Japan beat Germany in the quarterfinals as happened last night in Wolfsburg. I did rather poorly. I can't remember who won; probably Peter. Only one of my teams made it to the quarter finals. This is definitely a great game to pull out once every two to four years when a Cup comes around.

Two Weeks in Hollern-Twielenfleth

2011-07-05T10:01:00.000+02:00

We went on a family vacation to Hollern-Twielenfleth, the largest fruit producing region in Northern Europe. Well, we played a few games...

June 12
Dominoes: They had a little game set at the vacation apartment. Ursula 15, Me 41, Kathryn 71

June 13
Dixit: We gave this game to the Erika and Martin and their two boys, Justin and Patrick. Martin pointed out that Dixit is Latin for he said. We played with 6 players. Ursula did not want to play and Erika and Martin played as a team. To play two complete rounds, we had to recycle cards. Patrick and Justin caught on well enough, but experience makes a difference. Andrea finished just ahead of Kathryn. Erika and Martin as a team beat me. Justin and Patrick finished just behind.

June 14
Dominoes: Ursula 53, Andrea 64, Me 112
Time's Up: We had some real weird people to guess in this game. I fair amount that I had never even heard of before. Still, we all did our best. Andrea and Kathryn teamed up and beat Ursula and me.

June 22 and later
Hearts: Kathryn's practice on the computer paid off. She won the round with 24 points. Ursula we had to re teach the game. She finished just behind me with 46 points to my 45. Andrea ended the game with 66 exactly. I did manage to shoot the moon once, then promptly ate 25 points in the next hand. Over the rest of the week we pulled out the cards at various restaurants. We never finished another game, but we had a few hands.

Grupo Martes: 7 June

2011-07-04T10:00:00.000+02:00

On this night we started with Jäger der Nacht (Shadow Hunters). In this game you are either a human, a werewolf, or a vampire. You get a card stating who you are and what your secret goal is. Additionally, werewolves and vampires seek to eliminate each other. If all the vampires die, then the werewolves win and vice versa. Each player takes their turn rolling the dice. Depending where you land determines what kind of actions you can take. Usually this means drawing one of the three kinds of cards. There are the omen cards. You read these and give them to another player. The card helps you determine what kind of creature they are. It might say, lose 3 life if you are a vampire. Of course the card is kept secret, but the player tells you what happens. Then there are equipment cards in two varieties: good and nasty. The good cards give you some benefit or equipment or weapon. The nasty cards give you either a more powerful weapon or something bad happens to you. Lena and Peter won. I died first, followed by Kathrin and Kati.

The next game, Rumpelplatz, was an odd, but a fun one. It is a game within a game. It consists of five games. In the first four you always have a choice between two games. You collect points during each game. The person with the most points at the end wins.

First was the fortune teller. There we each got cards with some kind of prediction, from good things to bad things; each worth plus points to minus points. You played a card face down to your neighbor and said what it was. You neighbor could believe you and take the card, revealing only if the card was actually worth more or less or just right. Your neighbor could disbelieve and pass it to the next player. You did this until all the cards were played and added up your points.

Next was the Geisterbahn or haunted house ride. Each player got a card indicating the symbols that you are afraid of. Then a series of cards are revealed and you have to scream, every time your symbols appear. Then everyone distributes chips to indicate who you think is afraid of what. This is harder than it sounds.

Do you remember that crane thing that you choose the prize and drop it in the slot? The game comes with a bunch of plastic gems in lots of colors. You dump them in a box and hold your hand over it without looking it. The other player has to make sounds indicating what direction you should move your hand and then drop it down to grab the nearest gem. Each gem is worth so many points.

Fourth was the Achterbahn, Magic Carpet, in this you choose a place on the ride and roll the number of dice indicated. If you roll anything but ones, you advance points according to the number of dice you rolled. For every one you loose a nausea point. Lose all your nausea points and you are done.

The game ends in a raffle. Based on your placing, you get to draw a number of gems from the bag. The more points you have, the more draws you get. The person who draws the pink gem wins instantly. The rest place by the number of points they have.

Kati drew the pink gem in the second to last draw. Peter finished second.

Shrine of Blibdoolpoolp

2011-07-03T22:55:00.000+02:00

Philia, Deadana, Lars, and Thorir journeyed on through the dark after the encounter with the strange ferryman, Thoobship and his now broken ferry.. Sir Robert and Tespin followed some distance behind to make sure that no one was following the party. The party was set upon by a vicious pack of ghouls. Though these ghouls were unlike any ghouls the party had encountered before. They were elevated ghouls, created by some powerful and foul magic. The party was surprised by the creatures which burst from the rubble lying to either side of the passageway. Philia and Deadana were paralyzed immediately. Thorir ran away and cast Greater Invisibility on himself and a quickened Fireball. Lars scolded Thorir for running away and then tried to turn the creatures and destroying only one. The creatures set upon the lone Dwarf, paralyzing Lars, too. Now only Thorir could fight the creatures.

Thorir cast Reverse Gravity sending the ghouls toward the ceiling. The spell only caused them to float some 25 feet above the tunnel floor. Two of the ghouls managed to grab on to the paralyzed Gnome and Dwarf. Thorir hit the floating ghouls with another quickened Fireball. The ghouls were as helpless and Philia, Deadana, and Lars. Thorir cast a quickened Spiderclimb, and blasted the ghouls with a Prismatic Spray. Now some of the ghouls were beginning to die from their injuries. The two ghouls hanging on to the party members began to use them to climb down to the ground. Thorir hit these two ghouls with a Disintigration spell and a Baleful Polymorph. One ghoul made it down and began to tear into Deadana. Thorir finished off that ghoul with a Magic Missile. Lars and Deadana had then recovered from the paralysis. There were only two ghouls remaining, floating in Thorir's anti-gravity field. Deadana finished one of the ghouls off, by holding her sword in the field and letting go. Lars killed the other with a thrown hammer. Philia recovered in time to heal Deadana. Lars healed Thorir and himself.

After resting, the party traveled several hours until they came to a fork in the tunnel. There the party had to choose between following the primary passage to the right or following the secondary passage to the left. The party chose to follow the path less travelled. They made this decision without noticing the Trosni Garnetgetter and his Svirfnebli that watched from the shadows. After traveling three more miles, the party rested. The next "day" was spent closing the number of miles between themselves and the large area marked on the map with the strange symbol. They passed one side tunnel, but held to their course. After resting yet again, they left their map for two miles, following the secondary passage, until they came to a T-intersection. They took the right turn assuming it would lead them to the area with the strange symbol.

The passage became lighter as eerie blue-green lichens appeared, glowing on the wall. The lichen was being consumed by large, luminescent, gray slugs. The tunnel was obviously better worked and better maintained. At last they came to what appeared to be a street underground with slit-like windows in the walls to either side and the occasional doorway or stairs. Some 120 feet down this street they could make out two rows of guards blocking the street. These guards appeared to be Kuo Toa, an evil aquatic race of the Underdark. Thorir turned himself invisible and walked down the street to take a look. Thorir was surprised when one of the guards pointed him out. Thorir waved and he waved back. Thorir then struck up a conversation with the guard. The guard told him that he was entering a holy area for their goddess, Blibdoolpoolp. He and his friends should instead go through the archway he pointed out and enter from the main entrance.

Thorir returned to his friends and told him what he had learned. They agreed to go as the guard indicated. They entered the archway and climbed a stairs to be greeted by another Kuo Toa. He greeted the party and asked where they were going. The party said the main entrance and the Kuo Toa indicated the corridor. The party moved down the corridor past many doors and were greeted by another Kuo Toa. This Kuo Toa sent them on down another flight of stairs to a large plaza. The plaza had a sunken pool with a tiered-pyramid topped with a large statue of Blibdoolpoolp. Using their knowledge of religion, the party descended to the pool, jumped across and tossed the appropriate money into the offering plates. They each collected a shell and a crab. Philia was the only one to fall in the green murky water surrounding the pyramid. The party went around the pyramid and pool to the other side of the plaza. There they encountered another group of guards guarding the exit. They demanded the shell and crab, which the party handed over. Beyond the guards, the party faced a disturbing looking palace, with another troop of guards on the steps. The street went left and right in front of the palace. The party went left and passed one more checkpoint before leaving the well lit area of the shrine.