No Experience Preferred

More Playing time...

2012-01-07T10:14:00.000-08:00

Well, we played in August, 2011, and then had a chance to play after Christmas in 2011. I have yet to post any of the notes from those game sessions, which were both REALLY FUN.

I will try to post it all up after my prelims, in February.

A Long, long, time ago....

2011-06-04T14:02:00.001-07:00

We played this game. Actually, the last time we played was January, but I think we played two more times since the last time I posted up here. You see, since then, I have went into overdrive with my Ph.D. work, and yadda yadda yadda, cry for me Argentina.

Anyway, Mike, Molly, Carl, Katie, and I got together over Memorial Day Weekend. Joe and Susan couldn't attend because of Joe's work schedule and my events schedule. So, instead of playing the crystal quest, we played a Gamma World game. It was very fun, and we played pretty much for two days or so on it, and got from knowing absolutely nothing to knowing that the moonbase we were currently on had not seen a living human in at least 1200 years, and that in less than 75 hours, the power was going to fail permanently. Our party consisted of a pure strain human, an altered human, a fox/human hybrid, and an AI device that was first a portable computer and now lives inside the complex's mainframe.

More when we finish it, and I promise to complete the telling of Rabbo and friends in the Mires of the Sinking Kind when it is over.

Happy New Years!

2011-01-01T17:51:00.001-08:00

We gathered together this December 31st and January 1st to play a game of D&D. We continued with the quest in the mires, and at present, have recovered the green box, and also have reconstituted Moriamus. We found Sym the Satyr in a prison. The party fought hordes of kobolds, and Rabbo fought and killed the avatar of Kuglemach.

We have had two new party members join, Areaus and Emilie, a half-elf ranger and an elven cleric. They may or may not be permanent, but we had a lot of fun with 8! people playing around the table and two NPC's along for the ride. In addition, it was nice to meet Molly's friends, Hailey and Kayla.

It was brought to everybody's attention that we played last new years as well. I guess this makes it a tradition.

I still do not have time to update the blog, but I did give all the old notes back to Mike. I hope he will continue to write up the old notes and information.

Long Time Coming...

2010-11-16T20:03:00.000-08:00

That's what she said. Okay, we played again in October, but as the principle scribe for this...this....whatever this is, I can only tell you that I have simply not had the time to update the blog. Details will be forthcoming, but suffice it to say that we cleared out several more rooms, and had some really cool fights with some....surprise! KOBOLDS! This time we faced an avatar of Kuglemach, or however the hell you spell it, and survived, but, not without casualties. You'll have to stay tuned to find out more....

(As soon as my semester is over, I expect we will play again, and I intend to devote some time to getting this story down on paper. Bear with me.) :D

Elfland #4: We cleared out two whole rooms!

2010-07-10T09:44:00.000-07:00

I will post the game notes as soon as I get a chance. Until then, here are some photos from our most recent excursion up to Susan's house:

Game 3 in Elfland: I sure haven't seem very many elves here yet....

2010-05-30T21:12:00.000-07:00

Everybody minus Joey got together this holiday weekend and played Mike's game. We had a great time. As usual, we didn't get started until after 1, but we made up for it by 12 hours of fun. I'll post more here in the next day or two.

KOBOLDS!!!!

FLYING KOBOLDS!!!

Systems Failure---Spreading the Word, pt. 2

2010-02-20T09:32:00.000-08:00

This was originally a module designed to be played over the course a of long evening or weekend, but we needed to break it into two sessions, which still went long! For me, it was a good lesson in pacing and module design, knowing what kind of encounters could be done in one sitting, versus more of a campaign or story mode.

I don't want to print the entire module here, but what I will do is list the parts of the module which those events corresponded to and then give a commentary on the events that occurred.

First, the set up: In this game, we have an alternate NOW, in which BUGS took over the world in 1999 and 2000. It has taken 10 years for what few remnants of humanity who were not killed or enslaved to build enough strength to begin to strike back in earnest. There are several regional and local powers, and one or two national powers. There is NORAD, which is actually the remains of the U.S. government, there are various local and area militias, like the Carbondale Pork District, and there appear to be one or two shadow groups....which are less shadowy after this module.

The people playing are playing themselves, although the versions of themselves have been changed by a world gone BUG. There is alien technology, hybrid technology, mental and physical mutants, and plenty of nutjob people to contend with. So, Carl plays Carl, Molly plays Molly, Joey plays Joey, you get the picture. They each have their own backstories skills and problems.
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This Systems Failure adventure begins with a group of adventurers from the Blackrock underground mining community, a satellite of the Carbondale, Illinois militia group called the Carbondale Pork District (CPD). Although this location is unique, you could easily adapt it to your own game or campaign setting (the idea of a local militia expanding its power is not a new one). Or, you could use the framework presented here for your own group located in Blackrock as refugees, or perhaps you were travelers, who were passing through and were “escorted” by Blackrock security sweeps to the mine, where you have either temporary refuge, or depending on the quality of your character, temporary imprisonment. The citizens of Blackrock (approximately 500 inexperienced but well-armed, men, women, and children) will defend their community to the death. Let’s assume that the players did not come to Blackrock to kill or steal from the inhabitants, because otherwise, this might be a very short adventure!

The founding members of the CPD were friends who were part of a competitive barbecue team, and CPD was their name. To them, it felt right to call their new post-apocalyptic militia the same thing. The CPD were also part of a network of eggheads, researchers, and free thinkers who took refuge during the initial bugging of the Carbondale area in the steam tubes which run under the entire University. Only a few members of the CPD, and the community leaders of what came to be called “Carbonhell” know the full extent of the steam tube network. After commandeering the weapons at the National Guard Armory, and destroying a fairly impressive cadre of BUGS and zombies, the CPD slowly expanded its circle of influence and protection, clearing out all of the BUG influence in the topside community. Although the topside community operates independently of the CPD, they are very well aware that their “hidden defenders” have saved them more than once. Although they have impressive firepower (a few howitzers, tanks, several large vehicles, a store of gasoline and diesel, weapons including .50 calibers, small arms, ammunition, body armor and the like) it is just as likely that the CPD has escaped the retribution of the BUGS because they still are too small, remote, and insignificant a thorn to remove. For now.

Over the years, the members of the CPD have expanded their underground network of communities in old coal mines. Members of these communities have been called “coal rats” or “albinos” by the “topsiders.” In some areas, the two communities do not co-exist well. The topsiders are seen as stubborn and as a security risk, (they obviously announce their presence to BUG or zombie patrols) while the coal rats are seen as cowards and part of a “new underground order.”

In some areas of human habitation, there is only an underground community, for safety and security, but also because of the remoteness of the mine, and/or the complete extermination or capture of the original human population. In a few places in southern Illinois, there still exist topside communities that have no underground counterpart, usually protected forts or very remote towns, that were simply too small and rural to be considered a target by BUGS, or are desperate attempts by topsiders to maintain a foothold of a civil society in what would otherwise be a wasteland. They are slowly dwindling away due to continual raids by roving bands of thugs and gangs of splatterpunks. There does exist a higher than expected number of survivalists who stake lonely claims to their properties, and have been living out of underground tornado shelters for years.

The CPD has worked hard at establishing a cooperative relationship with some topsider communities in which they have an underground presence. Researchers from Carbonhell have developed a number of technologies which improve mining techniques, to mine the coal left in these mines, and steam technology, to use steam as an alternative to direct electrical power to run everything from refrigerators to steam and air compressor cars. Because the CPD has been able to advance some technologies and preserve others, and because they can produce coal for topsider communities to burn for fuel, they have developed good trading relationships with many topsider towns. Topsiders still can grow more food and particularly more livestock and horses than the CPD can. However, every field they till is a big sign which reads, “BUGS, there are industrious humans here!” It’s a double-edged sword, that until the hydroponics gardens that are currently under development are perfected, is a necessary risk.

CPD needs to transport steam boiler tractors, supplies, and new technical personnel to topsider communities in Sparta, Illinois, and to the underground community called Gateway, located in the old Gateway mine east of Sparta, and also to O’Fallon, Illinois, and to Silver Creek, the abandoned mine located just east of O’Fallon.
Scott Furtwengler, one of the original members of the CPD, sends a message via courier to the leaders of Blackrock. He would like four volunteers, with technical, mechanical, and ideally, combat experience or training, to join and protect the convoy heading towards Sparta and O’Fallon.

Characters: Molly, Carl, Joey, Mike, Susan, and Joe. NPCs: Scott Furtwengler, T.J. McFly, Crazy Charlie, Jethro Toledo, Colonel Irons, Benedict, and Sweetness.

Joe, Joey, and T.J. McFly are sent by the CPD to recruit.

Blackrock Council

That evening, everyone is called to the central square in Blackrock, a large, mined out room near the center of the mine. Natural gas lamps provide lighting and a steam powered pump provides air circulation. The hall is paved, the walls are stucco, and concrete and stone benches form a circle around a central stage. This, essentially, is the town hall of Blackrock.

When the players arrive at the central square, the courier, T.J. McFly, Joe, and Joey are standing on the center stage with most of Blackrock’s town council. Big Mike, an egghead, Susan, a greasemonkey, Jackson, a hydropnics expert, Arc, head of security, and Martha, the mayor, form a semi circle around T.J. T.J. is probably no more than 18 years old, but is obviously battle hardened. He wears hard armor, and has a military .45 on his hip, an M-16 across his back, and a bandolier with fragment grenades and rounds for his weapons. He smells different than the members of the players’ community, and the players recall that smell after searching their memories---horse. He smells like a horse, a commodity that Blackrock does not have. [if the players inquire further, they can find out from the crowd that there are five horses currently being stabled in the topside “façade”). The mayor raises her hands, and calls the town meeting to order. She introduces T.J. to the crowd, and assures everyone that T.J. and the CPD have received a warm welcome from Blackrock.

T.J. cleared his voice: “Citizens of Blackrock. Scott Furtwengler and the CPD wish to thank you for your work in the community of Blackrock. Big Mike’s latest invention just might give us an edge against the BUGS, and we appreciate that. But I am here for another important reason. We need volunteers to help escort a convoy to two mining towns north and west of here, to Gateway by Sparta, and Silver Creek by O’Fallon. The trek will take us awfully close to Scott Air Force base, which is bugged, and not as close, but still, too close for comfort, to East St. Louis, or the big BUG house, as we call it. There is also a zombie presence the closer we get to St. Louis. The mission will be dangerous, it involves risk, but it is essential to the continued growth of the CPD. We have solicited for at least four volunteers from each of our mining towns. Who will stand up and be counted?”

[GM, if the players hesitate, roll percentile dice. 01-50, four random townspeople stand before the player characters do, 51-00, two stand up] T.J. will ask those standing to state their names and their professions, and their combat experience, or any experience with BUGS or zombies. They will have none. T.J. says, “People, no offense, but is this the best you can do? We need your warriors, your thinkers, your fixers, your wackos and your exterminators if we intend to get the convoy where it needs to go. The CPD, but more importantly, humanity, depends on you now. Who will stand up?” If the player characters do not volunteer at this point, then T.J. will shake his head, “Well, I guess this is how it goes. Expect a strong response from the CPD. We stand together, or you fall alone.” T.J. will leave unless the party volunteers. If no one volunteers at this point, GM, you can excuse the players and go watch a movie. Have a great night! If the players do stand up, T.J. will ask them their qualifications, and will approve. Depending on the party, Big Mike and Susan may volunteer, and if they do, they will be allowed to travel with the party. T.J. asks if anyone has riding experience. [If players do not have riding experience, and have no other means of travel, then players can start to learn basic riding as a secondary skill from their experience on the trail with T.J.] Other means of travel will be permitted; the only restriction that T.J. has is that people keep up, because time is of the essence. After T.J. approves, he asks the mayor to see to it that these individuals are outfitted with weapons and any armor the town can spare. The party needs to be prepared to leave by daybreak. At this time the GM should prepare a variety of items, including some light body armor, a variety of weapons to choose from, a compass, mess kits, rations, gasoline and/or fuel alcohol, and the like.

Daybreak

In the morning, after breakfast, the party assembles by the topside façade. Big Mike is “supervising” the addition of a piece of hardware to Susan’s “Moonbuggy.” They are arguing. Susan insists on taking her Moonbuggy. Other characters may ride with her or ride horses.

What Big Mike is doing is asking Susan to install one of his electric isolators, a new device which essentially is a BUG trap for small electronic devices, like the solar generator which is part of the Moonbuggy. It is a prototype model, and Susan is none too happy about someone else suggesting a modification to her buggy, but in the end, will grudgingly figure out a way to make it fit.

T.J. will ask “what this thing runs on,” and how much noise or exhaust it emits, and will ask if it is one of theirs (meaning the CPD’s). Susan will get indignant about this and say that it is not one of the CPD’s, but the air system was based on a car she saw Scott driving a few years ago. T.J. is a little leary of even connecting the solar array because of the small chance that a passing BUG might find an opportunity to infiltrate the system.

Whoever wants to ride with her can, and whoever wants to ride a horse can. [If the party member is not proficient in horsemanship or riding, he or she will suffer 1D10 points of temporary injury from bruising and bouncing around all day. If the character rides for more than one day, he or she will endure 1D6 more points of temporary damage, but by the third day, will have regained half back, and half back again each day after that, until he or she has less than two points left, which heal on the last day. If the temporary injury and riding are not continuous, the temporary damage will persist between each day of riding, until more than two days have past. Then damage will heal at the prescribed rate.]

As players travel, the average speed across the hilly terrain south of route 148 is about three to four miles an hour. As the terrain levels, north of 148 and closer to Carbondale, average speed will climb to approximately 10 to 12 miles an hour. It will take four to five hours, depending on encounters to travel the first 12 miles, and one to two hours to travel the next 12. Roll two encounters in deep southern Illinois territory, and roll one more north of 148.

The notable encounters that the party ran across:

As they move forward, they hear a voice through a megaphone say, “Stand down, or the horses get it!” If players look carefully, they see a barrel of a large gun sticking out of a small slit in the side of a hill. If players don’t lower weapons, he will fire a warning shot and issue the command again. If players comply, players will see a hidden door in the side of the hill open, and Crazy Charlie will come out, in full military surplus gear, carrying two 9 mm pistols, 2 9mm sub machine guns, a bandolier of grenades and ammo, nightvision goggles on top of his head, and two Bowie knives strapped to each thigh. “You are trespassing on Hill Charlie. Let me look at your noses,” he commands. Once he is clear that the players do not work for the BUGS, he asks if Uncle Sam sent them, and then finally asks who sent them. Players can respond that they are on a mission, but two of his skills, in interrogation and communication means that he has a 90% base chance of detecting a lie. Once he is convinced of the player’s intentions, he has no interest in them, but he will ask if they have encountered any BUGS or zombies. He is afraid that a killer bee is after him! If players kill him, or earn his trust and betray him, there is a veritable armory of goods to ransack, up to the GM’s loose discretion. However, players from Blackrock will appreciate the value of a slightly paranoid gun nut living in a bunker just a few miles away.

In this encounter, the players successfully earned his trust, and began to barter with him. He traded his nightvision goggles (which were broken) for some moonshine. He told them what he really wanted was some chewing gum. They promised that if they found some, they would get back to him.

Chickens...

Yes, here is a great example of why role-playing games are so fun. There is absolutely no way I could have predicted that the players first encounter with some chickens would take the next hour, or be so funny. They come across wild chickens. They decided to try to herd them and catch them. They can't. They decide to try to hit them with rocks (see, cuz, they don't want to waste the bullets...). Then, Carl, who like others, has some mental powers, though they have not been "officially" revealed, took control of a chicken and caused it to march into Mike's waiting hands like a robot. Chickens...

The players see a man on a horse in front of them. He is injured. He is Jethro Toledo, a freelance exterminator, (10th level) who just had a nasty run-in with some zombies. He will tell the party that he works for the Harrisburg Irregulars, a small militia group that works independently of the CPD in this area of the world. They hired him to do long range scouting and patrols, and he was ambushed by a group of zombies in a jeep earlier. He killed all of the zombies, but not before they were able to call for help. He doesn't know how long ago the encounter occurred (he has lost a lot of blood). The players have 1D10 minutes to help Jethro and to set up some kind of counterattack. If Jethro doesn’t get first aid help now, he will pass out. If he doesn’t get professional help, he will die sometime in the next 8 hours (1D8). If he stays conscious, he will tell them he has a hideout not far from here, and try to give them directions to it. As the players tend his wounds, they see the dust cloud and hear the chug of a truck engine (see encounter 4, 12 zombies in a truck). If the players are near Jethro and he does die, he has a dying wish, that someone please deliver a letter and a locket back to his wife and baby girl in Ohio.

Jethro thought he was going to die so he gave the letter and locket to Joey, who promised to deliver the note and the locket to his wife and baby girl in Ohio. Jethro was stabilized, although he lost consciousness.

In the distance, the players see what looks like a military jeep. This is the patrol that Jethro surprised. They can hear what sounds like a large diesel truck approaching. In the truck there are 12 zombies, with two .50 caliber machine guns. If players kill the zombies without a call on the radio, players have 1D4 hours before they zombies are missed, to loot the jeep. There are many typical valuables on the jeep, including simply taking the jeep, and are worth the potential risk to get.

The players were warned by Jethro Toledo, so were able to prepare an ambush, in which they used a small radio controlled truck to deliver a homemade bomb under the truck. They delivered a concerted attack, blew up the bomb, and looted the zombies. They were able to scavenge the Jeep, if I remember correctly.

If the players reach Carbondale, the going gets easy. T.J. never lets his guard down, but he does loosen up a bit in his saddle as he passes familiar checkpoints. Players make it to campus without incident. Jethro is taken to an infirmary. He has lost a lot of blood, but looks like he may recover.

Scott welcomes the party like old friends, and invites them to his personal study, and bids you to wait there while he speaks with T.J. Ask each of the players to roll a 20-sider [a roll against Charisma, which Mike or Susan must succeed]. Twenty minutes later, when he returns, he may have some questions for the party, but in general, is very happy to see everyone. He is amazed at how much weight Big Mike has lost! He asks everyone to join him for a beer and some barbecue. Everyone who does gains back 2 additional hit points that night resting. There is no area the players can explore. Every area is locked and presently guarded. They are guests, but they are not citizens of Carbonhell. If a player questions why they are carefully supervised, Scott will point this fact out to them. In the event that players attempt to explore despite his friendly warning, Scott or one of the Security personnel will escort you outside of the Carbondale boundaries, and instruct you not to return, on penalty of imprisonment or death.

Based on Scott’s reaction to the party, and their responses to his questions he may confide in Big Mike or Susan later on that evening at dinner. If he does, he will say this: “I’m glad that I have friends here that I can trust. There are some among the leaders of Carbonhell that feel that our outreach missions put us at too much risk, but I ask you, would you to even be here if we didn’t reach out and start the mining communities?” Of course Mike and Susan and any of the residents of Blackrock owe their safety to the program of underground expansion and continued research to the CPD. “In order to continue to justify our expansion, I have had to promise the political leaders of Carbonhell that the CPD intends to increase our communities’ offensive and defensive capabilities. The only way I know how to do that is by infiltrating Scott Air Force base, which you will be close to when you stop by Silver Creek. Scott AFB is overrun by BUGS and zombies. It will have to be a stealth mission. If you are caught, you will likely be beyond my help. I can’t force you to do this for me, but I am asking. I need people I can trust, who don’t owe an allegiance to the mayor or some other politician. You won’t hurt my feelings if you say no, but if you say yes, I think that we increase our chances that anything we get will be used rightly. What do you say?”

If the players say “Yes,” then Scott will give them a mission briefing and plans to Scott Air Force base, and will give you contact and location information for one Colonel Irons, a tough old bird who Scott knew from his hometown in Highland, Illinois, who he knows still lives in a secret bunker not far from the base. It is through this contact that Scott has the intel that he has. This person has access to some key areas of the base which the BUGS or zombies may not have been able to access, or might not know exists. Scott will tell the players that Colonel Irons has been in access tunnels recently below the base that show absolutely no traces of BUGS or zombies. The colonel has told Scott that there is some “pretty weird shit stashed at the base that people haven’t seen for 60 years,” if Scott knew what he meant.

If the players ask how Scott has this kind of information, or how he has any word of the far flung world, Scott will take an opportunity to tell the players that he has recently instituted a “Pony Express” throughout the southern Illinois area, which will be expanding to Blackrock shortly. On the way to Sparta, they will make at least one stop to relieve one of the Express riders.

The next morning, Scott will have a mission briefing, and give you the map to Sparta/Gateway and forward to O’Fallon/Silver Creek. [GM, have players roll a D20 check against INT]. If the players notice that Scott has access to mapquest maps and what looks like recently printed directions, he will tell them that “apparently, we build satellites to last,” and the CPD has a secure room, with a secure hardline, with a secure satellite connection. Scott knows that “we can’t continue to depend on them for much longer,” and that the CPD has been storehousing maps for future reference while they still can.

The players’ job is to help safeguard two large flatbed wagons which include parts for two steam tractors, one for Sparta and one for O’Fallon, and several air-powered tools for the mining communities of Gateway and Silver Creek. There are also pallets of clothes, dried and canned foods, and some weapons and ammunition.
The players will be part of a convoy including two flatbed wagons pulled by two teams of four horses, Susan’s Moonbuggy, a gas-powered jeep with a mounted .50 caliber, four wagon drivers/horsemen, 16 other volunteers from different mine communities, T.J., and 6 other CPD militiamen. Joey was one of those volunteers from the Ziegler/Royalton mining community, for example.

Checkpoint Jim

The plans are to take the convoy to checkpoint Jim, one of the first outposts of the newly established Pony Express. Checkpoint Jim is located northwest of Carbondale, at the red star located just west of the junction of route 7 and 151. This is approximately 17 miles away, but will take most of the day to cross the hilly terrain that surrounds Kincaid Lake. The wagons’ top speed are between 10 and 15 miles per hour, even on clear paved road. Most of these road are not clear, and have had 9 years to decay. There are several miles in which the convoy can follow a paved road, [but their chances of being seen by someone or something raises by 15% for every 15 minutes they spend on a paved road from a base of 15%.] The plan is to take the paved road to Murphysboro, go off road northwest of town, pick route 7 up about 7 miles outside of town, and then take it for approximately 10 miles to Checkpoint Jim. Depending on the route, and whether roads are taken, there may or may not be several encounters. However, until the caravan reaches Murphysboro, the only encounters will be by CPD patrols. From the town on, however, there are likely to be curious, and possibly hostile, encounters.

In Murphsyboro, depending on how quickly the party makes it through town, there will be at least one encounter. As soon as the party crosses route 127, roll on Table 2, Town Encounters, and then wait until the party passes by the Hardee’s on the right (a half a mile ahead) to let the encounter unfold.

An old timer remembered a hidden shelter off of Fourth Street, and thinks that it must still be pristine. He will try to avoid you, but is too slow to be missed. As you approach, he says, “I ain’t got nothing, and I ain’t lookin’ for nothing, either.” It’s up to the players to investigate. If they investigate, (say by surreptiously following the old man) they will see him lift an old, well-hidden cellar door. Inside, there are a few things of value to the man, but not really to the players. If they approach the old man in the cellar, there is a 50% chance he will have a heart attack on the spot. If he does, there is a 70% chance that he will die, no matter what first aid is administered.

The players chose not to follow the old man, thus averting the whole heart attack thing.

T.J. and other CPD militia will recognize the graffiti of the Murphysboro Appleknockers, a red, spray-painted apple with a nasty green worm through its heart. T.J. says, “Oh great. I thought we ran these clowns out of town.” If asked, he will relate to the party the history of animosity between Red Delicious, the leader of the Appleknockers, and the CPD. Last year, the CPD thought that they had finally ended the threat of Red Delicious, a punk gangster, who ruled his little burg with an iron fist. He had waylaid one too many caravans of CPD cargo. During a midnight raid, the CPD struck in force at the courthouse, where he kept “court,” and killed him. Or so they thought. This graffiti is fresh, however. Perhaps he isn’t as dead as they hoped, or possibly another punk picked up his mantle?

[Red Delicious is dead, but a couple of local thugs have began to use his symbol, to terrorize the few citizens who live in the area, who still scavenge through the ruins of the town for salvage. There is a 20% chance/turn that one of the thugs will spot the caravan, and will attempt to set up an ambush on 17th Street, from behind the Dairy Queen. Keep track of the number of turns the party is in town. If they are spotted, there is a base chance for anyone with tracking skills or Military Basic to spot the attackers. This skill check will be made with a -30% modifier because of cover. If an attacker is detected, then the attackers will get no surprise bonuses at the DQ. It is also possible that the party might try to outflank the attackers, and surprise them! If the attackers detect the party, but are not detected, they will get one free surprise attack on the party as they approach the DQ. Then, normal melee will ensue.]

The players do detect that someone is watching them, and are not surprised by the trap that awaits, but they still continue right up to the line that was drawn on the street which was the place where the appleknockers were prepared to fight.

If the Appleknockers have time to set up their ambush, there will be 6 thugs inside the DQ, 2 behind it and to the side with Sweetness, and two thugs on the second floors of the buildings on either side of the street. There is a faint line from a dragged foot in the intersection. When the party crosses this line, the snipers will fire, and since they will be slightly behind the party, they may succeed in turning the party around. If the party turns, then all of the thugs in the DQ will start firing. If the thugs do not succeed in turning or panicking the party, they will open fire from the DQ, still getting a surprise attack, unless a party member is scanning the DQ during the firefight. It is possible that the party may notice the faint line in the road. Do a check +5 below INT to see if a player notices it and thinks this may be a trap. If they already suspect an ambush, someone in the party or an NPC will notice the line.

Sweetness has been using the DQ as his HQ (he thought that was funny), and if the party searches the building, in addition to any gear on the splatterpunks, they will find assorted medical supplies, including alcohol, gauze, wraps, a temporary hardcast pack for an arm, morphine, and valium. They will also find forceps, metzenbaum scissors, scalpels, several needles and sterile thread for stitching wounds.

The party handles this threat fairly easily, killing the gang and freeing the citizens from the tyranny of the appleknockers. They collect their spoils and move on.

Outside of town, they continue on. [GM, be nice. If the party barely survived the town, then don’t hammer them into the ground with encounters. It will be bad enough, soon enough. However, if they passed through unscathed, make them roll some dice!] Once per hour, roll a D6. On a 1-5, there is an encounter on Table 3. On a 6, there is no encounter except for the beauty of nature as a bald eagle flies in the distance, or a beautiful stream whispers by, or you could choose to allow an encounter off of Table 1-1.

Ahead, the party hears some loud noises. A work brigade of approximately 100 zombie construction workers are rebuilding a damaged bridge. There are several earth moving machines working. On the other side of the bridge, there is also an Abrams M1A1 tank, a Bradley fighting vehicle, two troop transport trucks and a greyhound bus. Clearly the BUGS are wanting to build easy access back into southern Illinois. T.J. and other CPD militia are practically drooling over the tank, but they are also afraid of so much new BUG activity so close to home. If given the choice, they will try to ambush and fight, and have a detail drive the tank back home. However, the party decides to avoid the fight, and the move on, undetected.

The party makes it to Checkpoint Jim. However, something has happened. Checkpoint Jim is deserted, although horses are found. The party deduces that perhaps BUGS found the people, but did not discover the cave where the checkpoint is hidden. Normally, I would have read "If there are enough CPD militia to trade out, then 6 militia will trade places with 6 of the Pony Express riders. The Pony Express riders urge the group to camp for the night, even if they made it to Checkpoint Jim early and easily. They tell the party that there has been a lot of BUG activity, and this is a relatively safe place to camp for the evening, because their camp is still well hidden." But, in this case, I let everyone in general the cave was undisturbed. Several of the militia decide to stay to restock the checkpoint, and other decide to stay to ride horses back to Carbondale tomorrow. As is the standard operating procedure for the CPD, there is a concealed cave entrance just off of the road, which opens up into a large hall, big enough for the small vehicles, the horses, and all of the men. If the party decides to rest in the cave, there will be no encounters through the night. If they stay outside, then a D6 needs to be rolled every four hours. On a 1-3, roll results on Table 1-2 (30%) or Table 3 (70%). The party rests.

In the morning, early, the party can start again. Depending on the density of encounters, T.J. might suggest that traveling off road might be slower, but safer. Off-road travel will still get them to Gateway before nightfall. If the party travels off-road for the remainder of the trek to Gateway, then roll once an hour for encounters on Table 1-2 (40%) or Table 3 (60%) only on a result of 1-3 on a D6. If the party stays on road, then they could possibly make it to Gateway before noon, but will roll encounters once an hour on Table 1-2 (20%) or Table 3 (80%) on a 1-5 on a D6.

On the way to Gateway, the party sees two groups of BUGS, each approximately the same size. In each group,there are several Assassin BUGS and maybe also some Army Ants. It is hard to tell. [6 Assassin BUGS per group and 2D8 Army Ants per group] In between the groups are 8 zombies with a large flatbed truck. On the truck is a huge diesel power generator. The two groups of Assassin BUGS are jockeying for position to apparently see “who goes first.” It is clear that the situation is not stable. Soon after the machine is turned on, the two groups begin to fight viciously, and the players can see and hear screeching and clicking, and watch as the Army Ants tear each other to pieces, and the Assassin BUG groups viciously bite, tear, and shoot each other with their energy weapons. At the end of the fight, there are 1D6 Assassin BUGS and four zombies left (four were unintentionally killed in the melee). The Assassin BUGS circle around the generator, and connect their legs and mouths directly onto the generator. The party can choose to ambush, avoid, or hide.

Smartly, they wait until most of the two groups had killed themselves and some of the zombies. Carl decides to sneak up close and use his mind powers to attack one of the BUGS, but the BUG resists, and amazingly, Carl is spotted, and the BUG hits Carl with bio-energy, and then the party began to fire with the 50 caliber. Some of BUGS seem to teleport to the jeep, and one lands right in front of the 50 caliber and gets turned into a pinata full of red hots. Each of the BUGS are dispatched, and Carl telekinetically lifts one of the surviving zombies up in the air, and as the zombie attempts to radio out, Carl drops him to his death. The players can't tell whether he got the call off. Carl is injured in the fight, but uses most of the rest of his psionic powers to heal himself.

Gateway

As the party approaches Gateway and the town of Sparta, black smoke and fire can be seen belching into the sky. Even in the distance, the party can see people running wildly around forming bucket brigades to try and stop the burning of several structures. As the party comes closer, two figures approach quickly on horseback, wearing the now familiar symbol of the CPD on their arms.

The Mayor, Felicia Darden, is accompanied by her man-at-arms, a mercenary named Benedict. He looks exactly like a person might expect: Hard, vicious, and dependable, as long as he is paid. As the Mayor approaches, Benedict has his hands comfortably on two Ithica model shotguns (with pistol grips). The Mayor says, “CPD. WTF?” T.J. responds with the correct code back. “CPD. FTW!!” Benedict takes his hands away from his shotguns. Once the protocol is followed through, Felicia practically bursts into hysterics. “We were hit, from above, on the ground, by hundreds of BUGS! All at once, from who knows where! There were at least three killer bees, a couple of Bombardier Beetles, a few Assassin BUGS, and several hundred ANTS. We killed dozens, but not before about half of the town was laid waste. My son…he knew if he….he knew if he killed a killer bee…” she trailed off.

Benedict finished, “He might disorient the ants. But it killed him. I took out two of the killer bees with a TOW missile launcher, and set several of the Ants on fire from some Molotov cocktails, but unfortunately, they didn’t die right away, and set half the town on fire.”

Felicia continued, “Easily half of the Army Ant force, along with one of the killer bees stormed Gateway.”

T,J, then asked, “Did they follow protocol?”

“Yes,” said the Mayor. “The second tier sentries waited until the force had breached the mine guard posts, fought and killed the sentries, and passed into the mine. Then, they used acetylene torches to weld shut and seal the steel-plate doors to the mine. All ventilation and sewage shafts were also welded shut. There are no hardlines in the mine, and no way in or out of this tomb. Even if the BUGS convert to energy, they can’t pass through bedrock or steel.”

The players have a decision to make. To either drop off the supplies and possibly spare some volunteers to help the town, but continue on with their mission, to send back a message to the CPD and await further instructions, or to attempt to rescue the citizens of Gateway. “T.J. asks the party, “Well, what do you want to do?”

If the players’ vote is to leave, T.J. will ask for permission to communicate with Carbonhell before the party commits to a decision. If they party asks how he intends to communicate, he will tell them he has two methods. First, he is carrying a satellite phone. He has kept it hidden, but Scott insisted he take it, particularly if he got in trouble further north. At this, T.J. will look at the party knowingly. Second, if the party doesn’t want to risk using the satellite phone or he can't get through, he has parts to a motorcycle he can assemble on one of the wagons. He will assemble it and be back in Carbonhell, with luck, in a couple of hours. It can go off road, and has a much higher top speed than any of the current vehicles the party is using. His preference, considering the situation, is to use the satellite phone. If he uses the satellite phone, there is a 1% cumulative chance, every minute it is on, that a straggler ant will be close enough to infiltrate the device. If it infiltrates the device, it will cause it to cease functioning, and will not leave until it is forced to.

After T.J. makes a connection with Scott, he hands the phone off to one of the party members, and asks them to brief Scott on their situation, while he offers assistance to survivors, and begins to unload appropriate supplies for triage and medical support for the injured.

Scott will ask the party for a detailed description of what has happened since they left. As he listens to the party, he says, “I was afraid of this. BUG activity has increased against all militia strongholds. The change was long in coming, but I think the BUGS have decided to mount their own guerilla war.” If Scott has not yet approached the party, or if he earlier approached Mike and Susan and they declined, he asks about their willingness to help T.J. with a secret, separate mission. If they say yes now, go over details of the Scott Air Force Base mission, with added details about the reconnasaince aspect of the mission. If they say no, he says that perhaps the party should wait in Sparta for reinforcements, and drive one of the wagons back home.

Scott will also ask the party, if they are willing, while reinforcements are on the way, to try to rescue any of the citizens of Gateway. If the party says yes, then prepare for a BUG hunt! If the party says no, again, Scott will ask the party to render what aid they can, and keep out of the way when the fighting begins. Of course, if the citizens of Gateway have to wait for reinforcements, there might not be anything worth fighting for left. It will take approximately 4 hours after Scott receives the message for a group to be assembled, and make a forced march to Sparta. Forty mounted CPD militia will make it there first, followed by 200 armed footsoldiers.

If T.J. must ride the motorcycle back, (say, if the satellite phone is disabled, or the party convinces him to keep from using it) it will take T.J. 1D4 x10 minutes to assemble the bike, and 1D4 hours to make it back, if he makes it back. As he prepares to go, he pleads with the party to mount a rescue for the trapped citizens. They can either choose to do so or not. If T.J. makes it back to Carbonhell, it will take a minimum of 4 hours after T.J. arrives for the rescue party to be assembled and reach Sparta.

The party can bow out at any time, but what is the fun in that? If they do, the other volunteers will remind them that these pioneers are just like they are, and wouldn’t the party want help if their homes were attacked?

The party is okay with TJ using the phone. There are no encounters because of it. The party decides to help the community of Gateway, and we commence to a BUG Hunt, ala Aliens. Joey decides to stay topside and help return the generator that the BUGS stole from Sparta. [Actually, Joey had fallen asleep, and it was late, so we decided that this was the best solution to keep game continuity]

Gateway To Hell

If the party decides to mount a rescue, then they will be joined by the surviving CPD militia on the wagons, T.J. (if he is there), five of the volunteers from other communities, five volunteers from Sparta, (three of whom are actually citizens of Gateway) and Benedict, at the direction of the Mayor. He glances in disdain at the rag tag group mounting a counter-offensive. The Mayor says, “I’ll make it worth your while.” [If T.J. used the phone, then keep a careful count of hours. Reinforcements will arrive in 4 hours. Set up a D4 counter on the table. Don’t tell the players what it is for. :D If T.J. did not use the phone, and is riding the motorcycle, then instead of rolling encounters, roll one percentile. T.J. has a 75% chance of making it back to Carbonhell alive, and in a timely manner. If he makes it, reinforcements will arrive in 4 +1D3 hours. Make your counter a 6 or 8 sider.] The Mayor will relate that the doors have been sealed now for almost two hours. The BUGS decimated their town and killed hundreds in less than 15 minutes.

Two welders with cutting torches will join the party at the steel doors of Gateway. Everybody is outfitted with weapons, ammo, chemical lights, and what scraps of armor can be assembled. The force makes its way down from the surface mine operation along a gentle slope, which years ago, a chain and gear driven elevator car took men down by the dozens. The elevator car had been removed, and now people walked up or down the slope to get to the mine entrance, 150 feet below ground. Benedict or T.J. will oversee the formation of the force at the gate. T.J. or Benedict will suggest that once inside, the force break into several commando groups, fanning out from the main entrance, and covering the entire mine. One of the citizens of Gateway is assigned to go with each group as a guide. The player characters and one Gateway citizen will form one group. It is possible that a hundred BUGS or more are waiting right on the other side. The welders cut the doors, and move quickly out of the way. Ask the players what they are doing. Do some fake rolls. Build the tension.

[Gateway is a huge room and pillar mine which has was mined for nearly a century, and still had active veins when the BUGS invaded in 1999. It has had eight years of construction for living inside. It is a maze. This is a situation in which it is just not feasible to map while they move. The citizens from Gateway assigned to each party will help keep the parties moving and will reduce the chance that BUGS will be missed or might be able to double back and ambush the parties. If the Gateway citizen is separated from a party or is killed, the chance that the party will get lost will go from 0% to 75% chance, and the chance that BUGS will be able to sneak in behind a party goes from 25% to 85%.]

The steel door falls forward with a clang. There are no BUGS waiting on the other side, even though their obvious scratch marks are on the inside of the door. Gateway is dark. All power is off, but even in the doorway, the party can see that several hard lines have been cut or disconnected. Several small electric devices, like a radio, lie broken on the ground. The parties walk in, and as the last one crosses the threshold, the Mayor says, “Seal it up.” Some citizens lift up the door, and the welders seal it behind the parties. Once it is sealed, it takes a few moments for player’s eyes to adjust. Players can choose one of three directions. Benedict says, “I go alone. And whatever the hell you homesteaders do, don’t shoot me or each other. These chemical lights only glow so much. Oh, yeah, be careful, and I’ll see you down by the long wall.” [Unless players have night vision goggles, or night vision pisionics, everyone attacks at a – 6]

[The GM says] “This part of the mine is like a small town. Walls have been whitewashed, floors are paved, and “streets” have names. Even in the dim light, one can see the town is clean, bright-colored, and very new looking. The “streets” are long, and between 20 and 40 feet wide. The stretch much farther than what your dim light affords you to see. The large pillars of rock and coal have been painted, some to look like houses, or murals of open air scenes. Some are convincingly real, with forced perspective. Clearly, there are some artists in town. Or, at least, there were.” [Please see Map 5-1 for mine entrance] From where the party stands, signs show that First Avenue is down the street to the right, Second Avenue is straight ahead, while Third and Fourth Avenue are down a long road/hall to your left. Benedict quickly is lost in the shadows as he stealthily moves toward First Avenue. Roll a random encounter each turn. Random encounters for the main entrance map are on Table 4. The GM should continue to describe the scene: “As you walk slowly down the corridor, you begin to see signs of fighting; blood on the white-washed walls, bodies burned by electricity or shredded like pulled pork. In some places, you see stacks of BUG corpses, blown to pieces by multiple close shotgun blasts. Bluish-green ichor stains the streets. Houses have their doors torn off of their hinges, and walls burst open like a microwaved egg. Sometimes, you swear you hear the clicking of the BUGS, but can’t locate a source.”

As the party explores the ruins of Gateway, if they enter a door to a shop or building, or enter a specific area, like the Scullery, besides the random encounters, there is a 40% chance that they will encounter 1D4 Army Ants. Once any party encounters any BUGS, and there is loud noise or shots fired, this will alert BUGS to the party’s presence. In 1D8 rounds, 1D10 x 10 Army Ants, 4 Assassin Beetles, and one Killer Bee (if still alive) will begin to converge on the party’s position. If there are multiple encounters making noise, the BUGS will be confused and may separate to attempt to attack all the contacts. If there is general melee and other parties can locate the party fighting, they will converge in 1D6 rounds. Sound bounces around everywhere and is very disorienting. If some other party is fighting, unless one of the characters has a specific skill of caving or underground orientation, it will take 1D6 rounds to converge on the sound. Once BUGS are engaged, each round, check to see if BUGS have successfully circled around the party for a sneak attack. Also, if there are any available machines, BUGS will escape into them if pressed.

If the large force of BUGS is alerted, this accounts for approximately one half of the force still underground. One half of the force has the rest of Gateway’s citizens trapped in a large storage area. However, the noise and commotion caused by the party, and the obvious lessening of the BUG forces give the citizens the courage they need to strike! They begin a counter-offensive, and are able to herd the BUGS back toward the main entrance, where they will get bottlenecked at the connecting passage between the main room and the long wall room. If they party is not already there, as they finish their own battle with BUGS, they will encounter the second wave, and hear the shots and shouts of humans, too! [the GM must remember that the killer bee, if not yet dead, will be leading this group and will fight to the death. Also, any Assassin Beetles left will try to blend in and hide or mimic a human to separate out a party member in melee]. After the BUGS are bottlenecked, any party member standing in the line of fire, stands a small chance (1%) of being hit by friendly fire. [There are a total of 157 Army Ants, 6 Assassin Beetles, and 1 Killer Bee in the mine. Before the final battle with the Ants is over, for any of the NPC’s there is a 35% chance that they have been killed by BUGS or friendly fire.]

The party makes a stand about three blocks in, after not falling for a trick by an Assassin BUG, and leaving a group of kids welded behind a door. After an explosion, the remainder of the BUGS converge on their position, and the other group one section down from them make their stand. They kill approximately 88 BUGS between them. Susan is nearly killed. Molly nearly dies. No one escapes injury.

As the players complete the mop up, unless they have a watch, or unless they have a special skill at estimating time, they really do not know what time it is. They are spending their time going house by house, finding survivors, and eliminating any straggler BUG. [Based on the time, it may be that players are greeted to the cavalry topside. If so, they will see Scott Furtwengler leading his force to meet the party. It may be that the players finished before he arrived, but after the players collapse from their wounds and effort, they awake to find Scott from the CPD looking over them]. Players will mop up, seek medical attention, or simply rest after the fight.

If party members are hurt, then the Sawbones with the CPD will set bones, administer medication, tend to wounds, etc. If there are players that can’t travel, or are too wounded to continue, Scott will tell them that the mission to Silver Creek is on hold until a scouting party makes it back from a long-range recon, which may take days, anyway.

That night, as a makeshift triage unit is working on injured people, Scott asks for any players who are able to attend a memorial service for all of those who fell in battle.

Regroup

When the party are all well enough to travel, (whether that is right away, or whether that is two weeks later) Scott will call a war council. Scott informs the group that now more than ever, supplies must get to Silver Creek. Word has reached Scott of larger scale attacks in their area. A much larger force of BUGS and zombies marched straight down interstate 64, burning most of Belleville, Mascoutah, and O’Fallon in the process. Scattered resistance was crushed. It is likely that thousands of surviving free-thinkers were captured and taken to BUG Central in East St. Louis. The folks at Silver Creek were able to save many hundreds of people, sheltered inside Silver Creek, and as of their last transmission, were able to still keep secret the entrance to the mine. Years ago, they built their own entrance, complete with a steam-powered lift, and left the original mine entrance as a decoy, using explosives to block the original tunnels in. To anyone who did not know any better, the mine looked abandoned.

Furtwengler thanks the surviving volunteers from the wagon train, and tells them that they will be accompanied back home by the CPD. Even though the mission may turn into a military mission, he asks the players to continue and get supplies to Silver Creek. If they have not already agreed to the Scott Air Force Base mission, at some point, privately, he implores them, one last time, to help him.

Silver Creek

The next morning, the party, plus T.J. (if alive) will join 2 wagon drivers, 6 CPD irregulars, four horses, and one of the wagons loaded with supplies, weapons, and gear for Silver Creek. If the party has the Moonbuggy, Scott will offer to outfit it with one of their .50 calibers. It will come with 5000 rounds. It will be ready as the party leaves.

Roll for encounters each hour on Table 5. Off the road, there is a 50% chance of an encounter; on the road, there is a 90% chance. Off road, use Table 5-1. On the road, use Table 5-2.

Depending on encounters, the party should be able to make good time to Silver Creek. It is approximately 45 miles away. The terrain flattens out, and even though there is much more BUG activity, large grain fields maintained by zombies add a lot of cover over open country. If the party needs to rest, or is injured, they will make a scheduled stop at Checkpoint Dave, halfway between Sparta and O’Fallon, another Pony Express stop. It is approximately 22 miles away. Players should get there within four hours.

As the party approaches, they see smoke and obvious signs of a fire fight. Checkpoint Dave has been destroyed. The horses have survived with minimal injuries, but all of the people there have been badly burned or ripped to pieces. If the party inspects the site, they will find that the cave used by the CPD was not discovered. Inside, they will find a fully stocked Pony Express station except there are no riders left. Three of the CPD militia will volunteer to stay to man Checkpoint Dave, and one volunteers to ride back to Sparta to resupply the garrison. After a brief rest, unless there are injuries among the party, the CPD will want to move forward again.

As the party continues, roll for encounters each hour on Table 5. Off the road, there is a 50% chance of an encounter; on the road, there is a 90% chance. Off road, use Table 5-1. On the road, use Table 5-2. Depending on encounters, it should take approximately four hours to reach the outskirts of O’Fallon.

The players have four encounters. The first is with a NORAD troop transport and soldiers, who encourage them to turn around, but they artfully avoid a firefight. Later, the party finds the wreck of the NORAD soldiers' van, destroyed, empty, and on fire. They are able to salvage some cool "Bug Juice" weapons and some BUG traps. Next, they encounter a psycho, who does his best to trick the party into letting him travel with them, all the while planning their horrible, sexual murders. However, the empaths in the party sense his thoughts, and realize he is a freak, and someone splits his head open. Lastly, on their way to the I-64 interchange, the players see lights in an old church, and on closer inspection, see a sign that looks like a BUG, and realizes that it is the home of some cultists---the Priory of the Arthropod. They decide to avoid it for the time being.

As the players approach the I-64 interchange, T.J. or the CPD militia man in charge will order a rest in a secluded spot not far from the cloverleaf. If it is not yet dark, the CPD soldier will say, “We wait here until dark,” and conceal the wagon. If it is dark, the CPD militia will ask you to wait, and tell you that only the militia may know the way to the mine entrance. They will be back shortly. Within the hour, the party hears some noises right by the wagon. It is the soldiers, returning. First they tell the party that the mine is secure, and that nearly 400 citizens were saved from what used to be the free citizens of O’Fallon. They tell the party that the BUG traffic on I-64 is intense. No one among them had ever seen so many BUGS. Power had been restored along the highway, and the lightpoles reminded them of old times, even though they saw several BUGS zapping in and out of junction boxes beside the poles. The soldiers say that there is an underpass a couple of miles east of their current position that they want to drive the wagon up to, and then approach the mine from the other side of the interstate. They ask that the party remains at this position. [At this point, the side mission to Scott Air Force Base begins, unless the party decided not to engage in the mission. Since T.J. is alive and the party is completing the Scott Air Force Base mission, as soon as the soldiers leave, he will debrief the party. The party needs to find the rendevous with Colonel Irons. The map is their only clue to his location.

Great Scott!

[GM---ever since the party stopped, they have been under surveillance by Colonel Irons, code name,“Ironman.”] He will make a call like an owl, and will be answered back. Before they look for too long, they hear the call of an owl. It repeats. If it is not answered, then a few moments later, a red dot will appear on the forehead of one of the players, and they will hear a simple command: “Identify yourselves.” The red dot is a laser sight. If any player does anything other than comply, he will fire. If he hits, he will likely kill the player. [GM: If Colonel Irons doesn’t hear the signal back, his first instinct will be to kill all of the players, because he suspects that they are compromised by brain grubs. However, he knows the CPD militia did make it to and back from the mine, and that they attempted to hide from the BUG presence on the highway, so he is not sure. He will attempt to make contact, but will not hesitate to kill them all if he is not sure of their loyalties. Also, from this point on, in the text, I am going to assume that T.J. is there, and not continue to make references to whether he is there or not.

Irons will tell you that he has recently been inside the Air Base, through tunnels that very, very few people know exist, and believes that there are some places in the Air Base the BUGs have not infiltrated, and there are some weapons, supplies, and a few “special items” that he wants in Furtwengler’s hands as soon as possible. He doesn’t trust the Government morons to fight their way out of this bug-infested picnic, and believes that what is left of the U.S. government would only waste any opportunities they might find here.

[GM: Colonel Irons was also one of the few people who knew anything about the real Majestic 12, and the “artifacts” that have been housed at Scott Air Force Base for nearly 70 years (since, ahem, the Roswell incident). There are two magnetic monopole drives, an antigravity weapon, a particle force beam weapon, and the retro-engineered projects that were created from this technology, which includes a force field generator, an antigravity platform, a Gauss gun, two variations on the rail gun concept, and a “force point generator,” which produces a mass imploding miniature black hole, but were mothballed in the 1990’s due to severe budget cuts. In 1999, there were only a half a dozen Air force personnel still alive in the country who knew about most of the projects housed underground at Scott Air Force Base. Irons is one of them. None of the current zombies at the base, nor any of the BUGS are aware of the existence of the deep underground passages or rooms. Irons has waited until now, when the time was right, and a party of trusted individuals were assembled to make one raid to remove these devices, and as much of the other weaponry as could be removed at one time. Irons has his own plans, which will be to lead the party to the gear, load up everything that they can carry (and the antigravity platform can hold) and then in order to assure that they will make it out unhindered, he plans to attempt to steal one of the VTOL aircraft, or something else if he can get his hands on it, and attempt to reach NORAD or Area 51 before the BUGS get him or his plane.

Under The Ant Hill

Irons will lead the party to a hidden sealed hatch, located less than 500 yards from the fencing of the airfield. He has studied the guard rotation, and knows exactly when to make his move. He signals the party to move. Instruct everyone to roll a D20, under DEX, to avoid making noise. There will be no detection and everyone will be able to make it inside the hatch unless a player fails a roll. If a player fails, he will fall in a loud heap, tripping over a root, and it will be clear the noise was heard. At this point, Irons will command the players to “Get in the damn hatch!” and he will close it after them. Before it closes, Irons gives them a control unit of some kind, that had been strapped to his arm. He hands it to whoever is closest in the party. The party will see him shouldering his sniper rifle, and he will take one last look at you and say, “Majestic.” The hatch closes.

This is exactly what happens! Mike's character fails his DEX roll, then Carl fails his DEX roll and all the zombies are alerted to their presence. So, Irons gives them his controller, and leads the zombies away. Classic!

[GM: Again, at this point, assume that Irons is with the party. But, if he is not, he will expertly lead the zombies who heard the noise away from the hatch, and will attempt to either make it back to his own bunker, unseen, or will commit to his plan of taking a VTOL and baiting as many BUGS and soldiers to follow him as is possible. There is a 50% chance either way for his actions. If he chooses to go to the base, once in the hangar, he has a 50% chance to see the hangar in which 1947-C, the saucer recovered from Roswell, New Mexico, still exists, unguarded. If he notices, he will change his plans and choose to attempt to fly the saucer, even though he knows it is missing one of its magnetic monopole drives.]

After the hatch closes, any NPC’s will break chemical lights, and encourage the party to do so as well. The hatch is the top of an access tunnel, which goes 100 feet straight down. Players should roll once under their DEX to make it down the long ladder with no incident.

Ahh, the simple DEX roll. Which Mike fails. As he slips down the ladder, T.J. gets his leg caught in the ladder, and as he is pushed down and backward, his shin splinters and he is nearly killed from the shock of the compound fracture. The party is able to get him down, and they do their best to seal the wound, and then they morphine him up, and prop him up in the room at the bottom of the ladder.

At the bottom of the tunnel, they emerge into a large clean room, 20 feet wide, 40 feet long, with a ceiling nearly 20 feet high. At the opposite end of the room, the players can see that there is a large, manually locked sliding door. Irons will tell you that this is the way out on the way back. There is a tunnel on the other side which gradually rises and leads to a well-hidden exit approximately 15 miles away, running somewhat parallel to Interstate 64. There is only one other door in this room, an ellipsoidal concrete and steel passage, approximately 12 feet wide and 10 feet high at the apex.

This lighted passage runs parallel to one of the runways and service roads on the surface. After a long distance, the players come to a sealed door. A light is blinking above it. There is a keypad and a speaker next to the door. None of the symbols on the key pad look familiar to the players. The players must enter in the numeric code [only Irons knows this] or if Irons is not there, then the password “majestic” will unlock the arm controller he gave to the party. Then the party can look through his files and find the proper entrance sequence for the door. The door will not open any other way. [If the party is struggling to figure out what to do, have each roll a D20 INT check, -3 if a player has computer background, for insight into a voice password to unlock the arm controller] The door opens with a soft whoosh of a seal being broken. What does the party do?

Hopefully, they will go in. Above several doors in this area, the word “Majestic” is stenciled. There are 12 rooms in this wing. [GM: see Map 6 for Majestic 12].

Room 1, Medical Bay 1. In the medical bay, as the doors open, the stale smell or rot hits the players like a right hook. There are several dead, decomposed humans on some tables. Notes on the tables tell the story of captured soldiers, who had unusual purple marks under their noses, who were obviously compromised by alien “grubs.” Attempts to kill the aliens also killed the hosts. Dissection showed subtle changes in organs and regenerative capabilities of the host bodies. There are grub specimens in liquid filled tubes on the back wall of this room. They are dead. A grease monkey or others with scavenging skills might find other items of usefulness in here, at the GM’s discretion.

Room 2, Medical Bay 2. In this medical bay, which is identical to the first one, there are also specimens of some kind in large fluid-filled tubes. There is no mistaking three small alien bodies floating, dead. There are no notes, or any other tools out, but there are two laptops on one of the lab benches. The laptops are encrypted, and contain detailed notes on the physiology and anatomy of the three alien corpses. [They also contain detailed information on the recovered alien technology and the retro-engineered devices which have been developed in this facility.] No other mundane items of value are in here. There are some locked cabinets and drawers, but without explosives, it is beyond the players’ capabilities to open these drawers. In the back of this room, is a device that looks like a table. It is approximately 4 feet wide, and 8 feet long, but is over a foot thick, and clearly a device of some kind. [If Irons is there, he will tell the party that this is an antigravity platform, the only one of its kind, and is exactly what the party is looking for, among other things. If Irons is not here, then the party will discover it if they look through the room for more than one round. Any one with computer experience will be able to identify the keypad for accessing functions for the device. In the armband controller, there is the password for the device. See the end of the module for stats on the antigravity platform.] If the platform is activated, it will slowly rise to between three and four feet high. Players will notice right away that it moves like it is weightless, but has no motor. Once activated, it will be able to carry a maximum of 2.5 tons for 12 hours. Any object under the weight limit placed on the platform will not affect the mass or inertia of the platform. It will still move as if weightless. There are no other items of interest in this room.

Room 3, Mess hall. This is a large open hall with seating for about 50. The mess hall was left in disarray. trays, and long since rotted or dessicated food sits on many tables. In the kitchen, most items in the large refrigerators have went bad, even though the refrigerators still work. In the walk-in freezer, there are sides of beef, pre-packaged patties, chops and many other types of meat and frozen vegetables. This area has remained at minus 20 degrees for 10 years. Most of the food is still edible, but freezer burned. It is frozen solid, and will last for some time out of the freezer. The dry goods pantry is a gold mine. Some canned food is still good, but others like peanut butter and some sealed cans, have gone bad. Some food, like honey, is as good today as it was when it was stored away. There are cans of coffee, and several large bags and industrial-size cans of items like corn that were irradiated and have a shelf-life of many years. This food is still good.

There are also a fine assortment of pots, pans, dishes, and silverware, if any were so inclined to investigate. If the players check, there is running, clean water, a modern convenience that most have not had in years.

Room 4, Officer’s quarters. This suite of 4 rooms is clearly the officers’ living quarters. Most rooms are sparsely decorated. There are some personal effects in each room. One of the rooms was once Colonel Irons’ room. Closer inspections will find three officers’ sidearms (.45 caliber handguns) and full clips.

Room 5, Staff quarters. This room essentially is the lobby for the underground hotel which housed soldiers and scientific staff who worked down here. There are 20 sleeping rooms, each large enough to accommodate 2 people comfortably. In any particular room, there aren’t any key items to find, but there are personal effects, pictures, razors, video game consoles (super-advanced, like the original Playstation), books, pornography, and the like.

Room 6, Showers and bathrooms. Room 6 comes directly off of the “lobby” of the hotel of room 5, but also has access to public restroom facilities from the main hall of Majestic. There are no encounters or items of value in here. Players notice a tile on the shower floor is loose. If the shower room floor tiles are removed, players can see a place in the floor which had concrete poured later than the rest of the floor.

Room 7, Armory. Room 7 requires a specific command sequence to open the door, and either Irons has this, or it is in the arm controller. Once inside, there are three large caged rooms, with well-organized shelves of different kinds of weapons. In cage 1, there are handguns, clips, ammunition, holsters, sights, and cleaning kits for weapons. There are also small projectile weapons, such as gas and smoke grenades, and fragmentation grenades.

There are: 12 Colt .45 pistols, and 2000 bullets. There are 60 loaded magazines in boxes. There are 6 ASP 9mm pistols, with 500 bullets and 12 loaded magazines. There are three .44 magnums, with 120 rounds in boxes. There are also 6 Stun/Flash Grenades: This type of grenade is designed to confuse and disorient terrorists or criminals who are holding hostages in confined places. The grenade makes a loud exploding boom and a bright flash (and some smoke) which startles and blinds the terrorists. Many stun/flash grenades, like the M459 'Starflash,' provide a brilliant shower of white-hot sparklettes for enhanced effect. Covers a 6 m (20 foot area). Victims are — 8 to strike, parry, and dodge, - 1 initiative and lose one melee attack/action for the next 1D4 melee rounds. 24 CS/Tear Gas: This type of chemical gas is often used for riot control. The grenade releases a cloud or vapor that reacts with the eyes and skin of all who are exposed to its chemical agents. Typically, the gas causes the eyes to burn/sting and water profusely, causing great discomfort and make seeing difficult. It also burns the throat and nasal passages, causing coughing and difficulty breathing, as well as irritating exposed skin. Only a gas mask can completely protect a person from CS/Tear gas type attacks. The effects last for 3D4 minutes after leaving the tear gas filled area. Area of Effect: 7.6 m (25 ft) radius, enough to fill a large room. The gas is most effective in small, confined indoor areas/rooms. It is not as effective outdoors where the wind can carry the gas away. Victims are —10 to strike, parry, and dodge, — 3 initiative and lose one melee attack/action for the next 1D6+ 1 melee rounds.

There are 36 Smoke Grenades: P. V. 1, releases a cloud that covers an approximate 6 m (20 ft) radius; used for troop cover and crowd dispersement/riot control. Obscures vision in and through the smoke cloud and causes minor difficulty breathing. Infrared optic systems cannot see into or through smoke. Those in the cloud are — 5 to strike, parry, and dodge and — 1 on initiative. Attackers firing into/through the cloud are shooting completely wild! Aimed shots or controlled bursts are impossible (the shooter cannot see the target)! There are two Browning SA Pneumatic Grenade Launchers. This weapon is a low-velocity gun designed to be used either free standing or mounted on a light vehicle. It is equipped to fire any 48mm grenade, including M5 tear gas, stun and smoke grenades. Caliber: 48mm, Overall Length: 810mm, Weight of Launcher: 3.5 kg without feed system, Rate of Fire: 15 rounds per minute, Blast Diameter: varies with type of grenade, Damage: varies with type of grenade; riot control, Approx. Effective Range: Launcher: 150 m (492 ft). There are 24 MECAR Disorienting Grenades. This projectile is made to be used as a shoulder-fired rifle grenade to penetrate light structures such as doors, windows and so on. It can also be used to disorient, shock and stun human targets by the use of intense illumination and sound. Length: 321mm, Weight: 360 grams, Approx. Effective Range: 150 m (492 ft) when fired from a 5.56mm or 7.62mm rifle with a 22mm diameter muzzle or adaptor. Note: P.V. 4, Damage (5) 4D6. There are 1200 M67 Delay Fragmentation Hand Grenades. The M67 is one of the standard grenades in service with the US Army. It is a small, round grenade well suited for being thrown. Length: 89.7mm, Diameter: 63.5mm, Weight: 71 grams, Delay: 4 to 5 seconds, Number of Fragments: 600+ , Blast Diameter: 12 m (40 ft), Damage: 2D4x 10, Range: Thrown: 40 m (131 ft). There are 200 An-M14 TH3 Incendiary Hand Grenades. This grenade is used primarily to provide a source for intense heat to destroy equipment. It generates heat up to 2200 Centigrade and burns for 30 to 45 seconds. The grenade is normally thrown but can be fired from a rifle by using a special M2 series projection adaptor. Length: 145mm, Diameter: 63.5mm, Weight: 42 grams, Delay: 2 seconds, Number of Fragments: N/A, Radius of Effect: 3 m (10 ft), Damage: 3D4x 10, Range: Thrown: 25 m (81 ft). There are 24 holsters, 6 pistol mounted sights, and 6 weapons cleaning kits.

In cage 2, there are machine guns, shotguns, clips, ammunition, carrying cases and straps, scopes, and cleaning kits for weapons. There are: 36 AR-10 Assault Rifles. Cartridge: 7.62mmx51, Damage: 5D6, P.V.: 6, Feed: 10 round mag., Weight: 4.1 kg, Barrel Length: 508mm (1029mm), Muzzle Velocity: 845 m/s, Rate of Fire: (cyclic) 700 rounds/min., Approx. Effective Range: 550 m (1804 ft). There are 2500 rounds in boxes. There are 16 MWG 90 round magazines for the AR-10. There are 6 Pancor Jackhammer Mark 3A2’s. Cartridge: 12 Gauge, Damage: 4D6 buck, 5D6 most conventional slugs, 6D6 for rocket assisted and special rounds, P.V.: 5 for most, P. V. 6 for rocket assisted, glaser and armor piercing, Feed: 10 shot rotating cylinder, Weight: 4.57kg, Barrel Length: 525mm (787mm), Cyclic Rate of Fire: 240 rounds/rnin. Note: The casing for this shotgun is made almost entirely of a highimpact plastic called Rynite SST and fiberglass! The internal workings are steel. A fairly inexpensive sound suppressor is being developed for this weapon. The suppressor can be discarded after a limited life. It is designed to allow such payloads as armor piercing, flechettes, fragmentation loads, canister loadings, chemical rounds, and rocket-assisted projectiles, as well as conventional loads. There are 1200 12 gauge slugs in boxes. There are 16 Remington M870 Mark 1 U.S. Marine Corps Shotguns. Cartridge: 12 Gauge, Damage: 5D6, P.V.: 5, Type: Slide action, Feed: 7 shot tubular mag., Weight: 3.6 kg, Barrel Length: 533mm (1060mm). There are two scopes, a dozen cases for guns, 6 large hard cases for ammunition, and four cleaning kits.

In cage three, there are heavy machine guns, rpgs, missile launchers, and grenade launchers. There are suits of ceramic and plastic armor. There are 4 7.62mm M60 General Purpose Machine Guns. Cartridge: 7.62mm x 51, Feed: disintegrating belt link, Weight: 10.51 kg, Barrel Length: 560mm (1105mm), Muzzle Velocity: 855 m/s, Approx. Effective Range: 1000 m (3280ft; bipod) or 1800 m (5905 ft; on tripod), Rate of Fire: (cyclic) 550 rounds per minute, P.V.: 6, Damage: 6D6. There are 6 boxes with three belts each, 300 rounds per belt. There is one .30 Caliber Model 1919 A4 Browning Machine Gun Cartridge: .30 Ml or M2, Feed: 250 round belt, Weight: 14.06 kg., Barrel Length: 610mm (1044mm), Muzzle Velocity: 860 m/s, Approx. Effective Range: 1000 m (3280 ft), Rate of Fire: (cyclic) 400-500 rounds per minute, P.V.: 5, Damage: 5D6. There are no rounds for this weapon. There are two .50 Caliber Browning Heavy Machine Guns. Cartridge: .50 M2 Ball (12.7 xmu), Feed: 250 round belt. Weight: 39.1 kg., Barrel Length: 1143mm (1653mm), Muzzle Velocity: 810 m/s, Approx. Effective Range: 6000 m (19,685 ft), Rate of Fire: (cyclic) 450-600 rounds per minute, P.V.: 7 + , Damage: 1D6 x 10 + 10. There are four 40mm MM-1 Multiple Grenade Launchers. This is a high-powered grenade launcher which can be operated by a single man at a high rate of speed. The MM-1 is a revolver type weapon which can be easily and quickly reloaded with any US and foreign 40mm grenade (up to 101 mm/4 inches in length). Furthermore, it is extremely reliable and as easy to maintain as a service revolver. It is useful in any number of tactical situations and can be an especially effective addition as emergency firepower for boats, helicopters, and tank crews. Caliber: 40mm, Length of Launcher: 635mm, Weight: 5.7 kg, Feed: 12 shot cylinder, spring-assisted, Sustained Rate of Fire: Approx. 30 rounds per minute (cyclic: 144 rds/m), Velocity: 76 m/s, Blast Diameter: 6 m (20 feet), Damage: 1D6 x 10, Maximum Effective Range: 350 m (1148 ft). Note: It can also fire smoke, inert batons, illumination grenades, HE, flame, fragmentation, shape charge (HEAT), CS/chemical gas, and stun/ flash grenades. There 36 loaded magazines for these weapons.

There are 2 40mm Mark 19 Mod 3Automatic Grenade Launchers. The Mark 19 is actually a machine gun which fires 40mm grenades! The system was developed by the Navy for use on river patrols in Vietnam. It can be used with a tripod or mounted on a vehicle (jeep, truck, tank, boat, helicopter, etc.). The ammunition used is a unique belt system in that the belt links stay with the cartridge case and are ejected after firing. It can be fired manually or by remote control using an electrical solenoid. It is an excellent weapon to use against both personnel and light armored vehicles. It is used by all US Military Forces. Caliber: 40mm of virtually any variety, Length of Launcher: 1028mm, Height: 206 mm, Weight: 34 kg, Feed: 20 or 50 round belt, Sustained Rate of Fire: 325-375 rounds per minute, Velocity: 240 m/s, Blast Diameter: 6 m (20 feet), Damage: 1D6 x 10, Approx. Effective Range: 1600 m (5249 ft). Mountings: Turret, pedestal or tripod. Note: It can also fire smoke, illumination grenades, HE, AP, flame, fragmentation, shape charge (HEAT), CS/chemical gas, and stun/flash grenades. There are 4 50 round belts for these weapons. There are 16 AAI Close Assault Weapon System (CAWS). This shotgun type weapon was developed for use by the Navy for quick fire, close combat situations. Its recoil is slightly less than an M-16 rifle, which makes it easy to control in burst fire. The ammunition for this weapon was specially developed and is slightly larger than a normal 12-gauge cartridge, ensuring that it will not be used in sporting-type weapons. However, it is possible to use a commercial 12-gauge shell in the CAWS unit. The anti-personnel cartridge is loaded with eight flechettes, each weighing one gram. The accuracy of this round is so good that all eight flechettes will strike within a 4 meter (13 ft) circle at 150 m (492 ft) range. At this range the flechettes will penetrate 76mm of pine or 3mm of light steel! Caliber: 12 gauge special and commercial 12 gauge, Length: 984mm, Weight: 4.08 kg, Feed: 12 round box magazine, Velocity: 240 m/s, Blast Diameter: 6 m (20 feet), Damage: lD6x 10, Approx. Effective Range: 150 m (492 ft). Note: It can also fire smoke, illumination grenades, HE, AP, fragmentation, CS/chemical gas, and stun/flash grenades. There are 24 12 round box magazines of antipersonnel cartridges. There are 2 140mm Brunswick RAW HE Rockets. RAW is an acronym for "Rifleman's Assault Weapon." This weapon could be considered an extension of the concept of rifle launched grenades, however, it is a different concept in terms of size and effectiveness. The RAW was developed for urban warfare. Many times infantrymen engaged in close combat in cities are faced with the problem of an enemy who is cloistered in a building and completely protected. What was needed was something to create sizeable holes in masonry and concrete, this is what the RAW does. It has a larger than normal charge of explosives and is able to be accurately placed and exploded. Caliber: 85mm, Weight: 2.72 kg, Length: 305 mm, Feed: Single-shot, Rate of Fire: 4-6 per minute, Penetration: 100mm, Blast Diameter: 1.5 m (5 feet), Damage: Frag. 1D4X 10, HE 1D6 X 10, HEAT 2D4 X 10, Approx. Effective Range: 300 m (984 ft). Possible Payloads: HE, smoke, flame, chemical, fragmentation, shape charge (HEAT), AP, smoke and stun. There are three boxes of 16 each 85 mm shells.

There are 4 SMAW’s. The SMAW (Shoulder Launched Multi-purpose Assault Weapon) is designed to destroy hardened emplacements or light vehicles. It is a two-part weapon: a launch unit including the firing mechanism and optical sight, and reloadable 9mm spotting rifle used in the British LAW 80. The rocket is supplied prepacked in a sealed tube which is attached to the launcher and discarded after firing. Caliber: 83mm, Weight: 13.4 kg (launcher ready to fire), Length: 826mm, Launch Velocity: 220 m/s, Feed: Single-shot, Rate of Fire: 4 rounds per minute, Penetration: 300 mm, Blast Diameter: 15 m (50 feet), Damage: Frag. 3D4xlO, HE 4D4 X 10, HEAT 1D4 x 100, Approx. Effective Range: 500 m (1640 ft). Note: It can also fire smoke and illuminating rounds. There are 4 cases with 4 sealed tubes each in them. There are 12 suits of full combat hard armor. Class IVB/C (P.V. 1-6, rifles & All Special Rounds) Resistant to rounds with a penetration value of up to P.V. 6, as well as many rifle rounds and ALL special rounds for handguns (including armor piercing, hollow point, explosive, Glaser, THV and ATE, even if the special round bonuses gives it a P.V. of seven or higher). 5.56mm X 45mm 7.62mm x 39 7.62mm x 51 NATO US .30 Carbine FMJ Impact Damage: Cartridges with a P.V. of 1 or 2 do one point of damage. Bullets with a P.V. of 3 or 4 do two points of damage from the force of impact. Bullets with a P.V. of 5 or 6 and special rounds do 1D4 damage from the force of impact. Higher caliber, and rifle rounds not listed will penetrate the armor and inflict 75% of their damage and full shock. Shock: Bullets with a P.V. of 1 or 2 have no noticeable effect on the wearer of the armor. P.V. of 3 to 4 will cause a stinging impact, as if getting punched in the chest. This causes momentary shock that lasts for about four seconds and the character loses one of his attacks/actions for that combat/melee round. Shotgun blasts, special rounds, and bullets with a P.V. of 5 and 6 feel like getting kicked in the chest. The character will be knocked off his feet. The momentary shock from impact lasts about 30 seconds or two full combat/melee rounds. This armor will impart an AC of 15 against other not projective attacks.

If players spend more than one round in cage 3, have them roll under their WIS. If a player rolls under his or her WIS score, the player will notice light scratch marks on the floor that seem to lead behind the wall with ceramic armor on it. [There is a hidden door here, which requires a specific password from Irons or his arm controller, and behind it lies cage 4, in which is housed two prototype alien hybrid rail guns, and one Gauss gun. There are also 10 clips for each weapon. See the description of these weapons at the end of the module.]

Room 8, Lab 1. Requires password. Upon entry, players will see a large, clean, metallic, but sparse room with an unusual device in the center of the room. It is on a steel table. It is spherical, on a support stand, and is approximately 2 feet in diameter. The main globe gives off a slight bluish light. [Lab 1 is dedicated to a retro-engineered device which is a force field generator. It weighs approximately 380 pounds and will take two or three people to attempt to manhandle it onto the antigravity platform. Any one with computer skills will be able to access the interface for this device, but the specifc command keys are not known, even by Colonel Irons, though he does know what it is. The key commands are in one of the laptops that were in the first medical lab.] Any player attempting to lift the device on his or her own, roll a D20 +5 against STR to determine success. It is unwieldly. If more than one player attempts to lift together, roll D20 unmodified for each against STR. Besides this device, there is nothing else of value in here.
Room 9, Lab 2. Requires password. In this lab, which is long and narrow, there are two work benches and workstations at each end. Suspended chest high at each end are two long and thin metallic tubes. They appear to be floating in air. They look alien, and are definitely made from a material that is unlike anything the players have seen before. Monitoring devices are giving continuous read outs. A command prompt is flashing at each ends’ workstations. Unless the command keys are entered, a sharp and continuous electrical jolt will shock anyone who attempts to touch the cylindrical objects. [The objects are two alien magnetic monopoles. See description at the end of the module.] If players do something stupid, like shoot them or cause structural harm to either device, then they can trigger a failure of the containment system, which can result in a 100 megaton explosion. Whoops!

Room 10, Lab 3. Requires password. In this lab, long and narrow lab, players will notice what appears to be a firing range, with sensors built into the walls, floors, and ceilings, and velocity monitoring equipment (speed guns) along the walls, ceiling, and floor. There are some dents in what looks like very strong steel panels. At the end of the room closest to the door is a workstation, and on the bench is a fairly small, silvery-grey weapon, that looks like it might fit over the shoulder of a small person, almost like a tiny bazooka. [This is an antigravity gun, and it looks like a children’s sized weapon because it was made for the little alien guys in the med lab. Please see the end of the module for the description of the antigravity gun.] Along one of the walls close to the entrance is a large silver tube, with what appears to be an open man-sized sliding hatch. It does not appear to be functioning, and even Irons does not know what it is. [It is a matter transmission device, which was installed a year after Irons retired. He does not know what it is. It will only function when its partner device is also powered on. Its partner device is not on this base.]

Room 11-A, Lab 4. This is another long laboratory, which almost looks like a firing range. Down the length of the lab, there are movable steel walls, and several large metallic and concrete “targets.” Some of them have neat holes drilled through them. At the entrance of the lab, there is a workstation desk and some unlocked metal cabinets along the wall. In the metal cabinets, there are some lab coats, and some contamination suits. [In the back of the corner cabinet, if the players are stating they are looking for anything else, they will discover a small keypad with blinking lights and a speaker panel. This is the control for the secret access panel for the relays that will be important in a few minutes! Without the proper code, which Irons does not have, it will not open. Forcible entry will trip the failsafe. Don’t bait the party by giving a hint that something is there. Proceed with the next description.] The party sees a strange, alien-looking mounted turret. There are some controls which have obviously been retrofitted to it. [This is a particle force beam weapon. It weighs approximately 430 pounds, and will take at least three people to lift it carefully onto the platform. There are no instructions for operation, but the retrofitted controls are a standard joystick and fire button. Please see the end of the module for complete description.]

About halfway down the lab, on the right-hand side, the players can see a large door with a glowing blue light around it. This door requires a password. It is the entrance to room 11-B, Lab 4. As players enter the doors, once the party is in, the doors behind them shut and a red light above the door flashes. An automated voice says, “Decontamination protocol in effect,” and a fine mist sprays down from the ceiling, and exhaust fans in the floor create airflow through the bottom of this entrance chamber. After this occurs, a green light above the door on the other side of this room flashes, and the voice says, “Decontamination complete,” and the other door slides open.

This lab looks similar to 11-A, except the weapon at this end of the room is obviously man-made, probably retro-engineered like some of the other devices you have found so far. It sits on a pedestal, and is about the size of a .50 caliber machine gun. It looks built to be slung over the shoulder and aimed at the hip with both hands. It weighs approximately 28 pounds, so is deceptively light. As soon as it is touched, a small screen lights up on its side, which reads, “Charged.” Above the word is an LED which looks like a power indicator. On the work station behind the weapon, in a desk drawer are some notes on the “Force Point Generator,” or FPG, as the prototype is referred to. The notes essentially describe the features and problems associated with the gun [these features and problems are described in full in the description of the weapon in the back of the module.]

Room 12, Control Room. This room requires a password to enter. [Either irons will have it or it will be in the armband controller.] This appears to be some kind of mission control room. There are temperature controls, reactor controls and several monitors for each room [even in hidden or undiscovered rooms] in Majestic. There are dozens of monitors recording activity in the Air Force Base above as well. The party can see several aircraft in a hangar. In most areas, there are dozens or hundreds of BUGS, and hundreds of zombies. In one room, there is a Lightning Bug, with a dozen killer bees. They appear to be looking at monitors and pointing to different areas, unaware that they themselves are being watched. There is a monitor of what looks like a lab very similar to the previous lab rooms you were in. There are several other hangars. In one area, the party can see what looks like a flying saucer. It appears to be floating. [Let that sink in for a moment!]They also see Irons, pinned down, looking like he is going to try to get the saucer.

[GM: Again, if Irons is not here, then as players investigate rooms, they may “accidently” trip a failsafe at the doorway of 11-B {code was changed after Irons left} which causes a self-destruct sequence to start, if you so choose, or when they are in room 12, their intrusion sets off the sentries over in the Gruen Lake facility.] If the party investigates, they find, on the monitor that looked like it was focused on one of the labs, what now looks like a very active lab, with several people moving around. They don't have the telltale purple stain below their noses. This clearly isn't a video feed from here. [Roll a D20 under INT. If the players look closely, one may notice a clock set to mountain time.] While the party is looking, they watch someone stop in front of the monitor. They hear sound from the speaker panel next to the monitor: "Majestic, this is Gruen Lake Research Facility (GLRF). Copy." There is a red button under the com panel. If the players press it, they can communicate to their counterparts at GLRF. If they tell their story, particularly the part about Colonel Irons telling them to get out because in about 20 minutes, the base will be destroyed, the GLRF will ask them to hold for a moment. [At this point, announce to the players that a military alarm starts to go off, and a soft female voice reports, “T-minus 20 minutes until reactor core implosion” Then, set a TIMER on the table clicking down, with exactly 20 minutes of time before it expires. GM, you must make your rolls and say your parts quickly here, to build the suspense of real time decision making!] In less than a minute, a man in black fatigues will appear in the monitor: He says, with no introduction, “Please listen carefully, because we do not have time to waste. We can not allow the reactor under Scott AFB to go critical. You will not be far enough away in 20 minutes, and we do not have time to initialize the matter transmission device in Majestic 10 to get you out. There are three fail-safe switches that must be turned off and then back on simultaneously to stop the reactor from going critical once the self-destruct sequence has been initiated. If you do not break and make contact simultaneously, then the whole series must be set back to ‘on’ and you must try again. Please, we're running out of time.” If there is argument, the man in black says, “Listen, you don't get it. The reactor is a miniature black hole, held in place by three magnetic monopoles. Most of its mass exists in several dimensions beyond our own. If the monopoles fail, before the black hole evaporates, it will take a spoonful of Earth back with it, about seven miles wide. We don't want that. For Christ's sake, the removal of that much mass will change our orbit! And now, you have one less minute to do this job. Please.”

The players will either decide to do the job, or run like hell. Obviously, they can not outrun the implosion on foot---they would have to run at top speed for three and a half miles at the minimum. Some of the soldiers might be able to, and if anyone has running as a skill, they might be able to. Players could use the antigravity sled and the antigravity weapon to move very quickly, if they could figure out how to use them.

If they decide to shut down the reactor, then the man in black says, “Thank God. Go back to Majestic 11-A and on the back wall of the cabinet in the corner, you will find a keypad. Type in this code. 49gfnd9043 and then say, ‘Narnia.’ Now Go!” As the players leave, have them roll under their WIS. If one makes the roll, they can see Irons in one of the monitors, firing a weapon, pinned behind some crates in the hangar with the flying saucer.

Room 11-A will require a password to get in. In room 11-A, the players see the cabinet in the corner. There is a keypad in the back of the cabinet. Once they enter in the code and say the word, a seam appears on the otherwise seamless wall, and a large panel, with three large toggles is revealed. To the right of the third toggle, is a digital counter, which as of right now, shows [current time on the timer] minutes, seconds, and milliseconds in a countdown.

Each player who flips a switch must roll under his or her strength to flip the toggle. Then, the player has a base 10% chance of flipping it at the proper time with the other two players. If any player fails a roll, the switches must be reset and attempted again. After each attempt, the players become better at it, and increase their chances of flipping simultaneously by 10%. After the third attempt, the switches move more freely, and do not require a strength check. Players will have time for as many attempts as they can orchestrate in real time.

If the players succeed, then in room 11, a monitor at the workstation will flip on, and the players will hear and/or see the man in black. He will say, “Congratulations. You just saved the world. Unfortunately, you have about two minutes to get out of the Majestic area. It seems Colonel Irons succeeded in getting 1947-C in the air, [or the Osprey, or the Warthog, depending on his choices] and some Army Ants have taken an interest in the hatch he came up from [or, the hangar directly above you]. We will seal Majestic from the inside, flood it with expanding structural foam, and leave it until we can secure the base from our side.” Players must gather up the artifacts, the retro-engineered gear, and any other devices they are taking NOW. It will take almost two full minutes to manually seal the entry door to Majestic.

If the players fail at resetting the switches, at exactly 00:00:07, the countdown stops, a monitor above the workstation flips on, and the players will see and/or hear the man in black. He will say, “We were able to establish a link to the failsafe over-ride circuit, and “tricked” it into accepting that three timed pulses we sent via a phone modem were the switches being reset. Unfortunately, in doing so, we compromised the area. Bugs definitely know you are down here. You have about two minutes to get out of the Majestic area. We will seal Majestic from the inside, flood it with expanding structural foam, and leave it until we can secure the base from our side.” Players must gather up the artifacts, the retro-engineered gear, and any other devices they are taking now. It will take almost two full minutes to manually seal the entry door to Majestic. Again, they may see Irons in 1947-C or in a military aircraft. However, now they will also have to contend with 4D10 Army Ants two Assassin Bugs, and one killer bee that have made their way down into Room 11-A! [Have players roll INT + 8. A successful check will allow a player to recognize that the BUGS are not using any of the hardlines down here to travel. Again, GM’s this is because the power in this facility comes from the alien technology, and is of a type that is abhorrent to the bugs. They can’t eat it, can’t travel in it, and it actually causes them pain to be near it. All Ants in the facility will attack with a -5 to their rolls.]

If the players can not get the door to the Majestic area shut before they hear the hiss of expanding foam, they have to run for it down the hall. They can outrun it at their maximum speed. However, if a player does trip or fall, and is caught up in the foam, the player may not have time to recover. If the player is engulfed in foam, if he or she spreads out, he or she can ride it like a wave. Once they reach the entrance room at the end of the tunnel, they will have only a few foam-free moments to get the locked panel doors open. If they get trapped in foam, any physical skill check is done at a -80%. It doesn’t mean that a character can’t do the action, but it might take much longer. A player trapped in foam will suffocate in 2D6 rounds. After a player is in foam for longer than 12 rounds, the foam hardens like a brick. It will melt when a specific solvent is applied at a specific temperature.

This time, Carl fails his roll, trips, and the party can't get the door to Majestic 12 shut! They are able to outrun the structural foam, but only by the skin of their teeth! On the way back down the hallway, one of the party notices a previously hidden door. The party attempts to use some explosives to blow it open, and they appear to succeed, but they decide that now is the time to go.

As players make it down the long exit tunnel, if Susan is there, and/or if T.J. is there, then one of them will remember that the party left a wagon and possibly the Moonbuggy back by the base. Susan will not want to leave the Moonbuggy. It is her baby! Players will have to decide if they are going back to the rendevous point.

Loading Up

If the party decides to retrieve the Moonbuggy, wagon, horses and CPD team, then they will find topside looks much different. First, although the GM should roll for encounters, there will be no BUG encounters. The skies above Scott Air Force base are on fire! It is still dark, but players can hear several VTOL jets and other planes are circling the base, and every so often, from somewhere else in the sky, a bolt of what looks like lightning strikes one of the planes and it bursts into flames. Buildings on the base are on fire, and the thunder of explosions can be heard and felt even a few miles away. As the players approach their rendevous point, they will find the rest of the mission’s personnel are waiting for them.

The soldiers at the camp will relate a wild, hard-to believe story that just a little bit ago, a flying saucer rose up above the tree line from the base, and then beams of energy shot everything that moved. There were huge explosions at the fuel dumps and along the runways. Every jet that tried to take off was shot down. They could see several killer bees attempting to engage the saucer, but they couldn’t enter the saucer in energy form, and were shot out of the sky. Several bombardier beetles hurled energy bombs as the saucer veered close to the ground, but they didn’t seem to have any effect. Even a Lightning BUG converted to energy and engaged the saucer for few moments, but after a huge aerial explosion, the saucer glided across the sky, and the Lightning BUG was nowhere to be seen. After that, they saw hundreds of streaks of energy converging on the base and other hardlined areas as BUGS from all over the area were retreating! At some point during their story, they will notice that you are pushing a 4 x 8 platform that floats, and will accept that perhaps you could believe their story.

The players will catch a glimpse of the saucer, and after a few more explosions, it will seem to disappear to the west. The players must load the wagon with their gear. If they do not, in 12 hours, the platform will enter an automatic recharge period and will not work. The only thing left is to deliver the goods back to the CPD. GM, roll encounters as the players return. There will be no BUG encounters on the way home.

Spreading The Word

As the players make it back to Carbondale, they are met on the road by CPD cavalry. Hundreds of citizens gather out of doors unafraid, for the first time in years. Word has spread that a major blow was delivered to the BUGS in O’Fallon, and that they have drawn back from all southern Illinois territories with the exception of BUG TOWN in East St. Louis. Scott Furtwengler ordered a cavalry unit and a heavy weapons unit to escort your wagon back to a secure location (the truck loading docks on the side of the Neckers Building on the campus of SIU). Scott will ask to take possession of the “special items.” He will be willing to negotiate with certain items, particularly if the party is interested in future missions.

Future Hooks

During the mission, Carl has a vision of his mother. He wants to lead a small group with heavy weapons to liberate the East. St. Louis BUGTOWN and get his mother back.

Personnel at the GLRF are interested in getting what they consider their hardware back to their secure facility. They will come looking for their goods. Unbeknownst to the players, the devices have tracking devices built into them, which acts like homing beacons.

This action did not escape the notice of NORAD, who are very willing to negotiate with the new power in southern Illinois. The come as soon as they can, bearing gifts. It is possible that Carl will sense the presence of his father.

Colonel Irons will not forget his friends, particularly Scott, but also the party. This saucer is 1947-C. 1947 A and B exist in two other locations. He needs pilots to form a new air force. Any takers?

The party wants to solve the mystery of Metropolis, which was bombed out of existence shortly after Mike and Susan left it. Why were the BUGs intent on irradiating people, and how were certain psionic talents induced in these people? What was the ultimate goal of this “experiment?”

The GLRF find the players several weeks after all the hoopla has died down about the event at O’Fallon. Several men in black approach the party with a mission: Re-open Majestic 12, and salvage a weapon which might send all the BUGs back where they came from! Or, re-open Majestic 12 to complete a simple task: travel back in time and prevent the BUG invasion from ever happening.

Whatever the players decide, they are likely to enjoy their new found powers in a world fraught with Systems Failure!

The end didn't quite happen like the module. The players had to get T.J. out, and they took the long hallway out. At the end, (not 15 miles, but just a few) they see the carnage in the sky. At this point, the party retrieves their Moonbuggy, and decide that they are going to go back to the treasure trove. That is where the adventure ended. The next one, (if there is a next one) will take place at some further chapter in their lives....

Systems Failure---Spreading the Word

2010-01-16T18:00:00.000-08:00

I recently found a neat old game called Systems Failure, which asks the kind of goofy question, "What if the computer 'bugs' we feared would cripple systems during the Y2K scare weren't just computer glitches, but were actually otherworldly or other-dimensional insect-like creatures that used the momentary weakness in our computer systems to infiltrate and attack our world?" That's a pretty long and schlocky B-movie concept for a game, but it looked really fun. It took one part alien invasion, one part modern apocalypse, one part Mad Max, and one part horror/survival and formed them into a crazy fun concept.

I had the urge to run a game for some time. Originally, I wanted to run an ultra-high level D&D game, just so we could exercise our D&D muscles doing things that our regular characters never could, like go up against a demon on its home plane, for example. So, I worked on that game for awhile. Then, I found Systems Failure, and decided, that I wanted to run a game that would be unique. The characters would actually be based on the people who played. So, Susan would play Susan, just 10 years after surviving the Y2K attack, in a world where the human population falls into one of three categories: "bugged" zombies under the control of BUGS, cattle, waiting to be bugged or forced into manual labor, and a few pockets of free-thinking humans, at various stages of civilization. About half to three-quarters of all people have been killed over the last decade.

So, I wrote a back story, which I will include next in its entirety, to introduce Mike, Susan, Molly, and Carl into the adventure. Before we began to play, Joe and Joey would also be added into the story, but their story doesn't begin until the module I wrote begins. Without further ado, here is the backstory for "Systems Failure."

The End Of The World As They Knew It

It was December 31st, 1999, the “end of the world,” “Y2K,” which anyone with any sense knew was not going to be squat! The worst that would happen would be minor problems with some minor systems not recognizing what year it was.
Mike, Susan, and their three-year old daughter, Molly, from Mt. Vernon, joined their friends Roger, Lara, and their three-year old, Carl, for a fun, family-friendly New Year’s celebration at their friends’ house in Metropolis. The weather had been unusually warm, and despite it being the dead of winter, a mild and uneventful trip down for the Rodgers clan left them looking forward to ringing in the balmy new year with the Pugh’s. Once they arrived, and hugs were spread around, the kids dove into a mountain of toys in Carl’s room and Mike asked to use the computer, to check some bulletin boards and Y2K chatrooms he had been reading on and off over the last year. Lara and Susan chatted and after some initial discussion about dinner, Roger realized that they were out of beer, and decided to make a run up to Huck’s a few blocks away before food would be ready.
As Roger drove away, Mike noticed that there was a hell of a lot more traffic on the BBS than in this quiet neighborhood! But, that was to be expected today. There were thousands, perhaps millions, of users lapping up all the Y2K hype. In between the reports of people partying like it was 1999, Mike caught the odd bits of news, from New Zealand, and other places, in which power systems seemed to be having major unexpected problems. Despite what the experts said, there were reports that the lights were going out. Impossibly, in some places which were 100% Y2K compliant, power systems, banking systems, and entire grids were failing. At first, Mike thought it was a hoax, and was laughing along with the throng on the BBS. He called Susan and the others to take a look at what was happening. Lara turned on the TV to CNN, which was reporting widespread systems failures across the globe, with entire countries failing in seconds. Quickly, pictures from the steppes of Asia, from Australia, and from Central Europe showed similar scenes of systems failures and chaos. Rioters burned, looters sacked, people prayed. Then, at 6:15 p.m., just after dark, the power went out in Metropolis. Susan commented, “It’s not even Y2K here yet.”
Everyone gathered in the living room. Lara lit some candles, and the parents attempted to calm their kids---“It’s like a slumber party, Carl! Let’s get your blankets.” Lara found a battery radio, which still had some juice, and turned it to WKMS, the local public station, and for the first time in their lives, the annoying test signal which had always broadcast the first Tuesday of every month, was broadcasting now, for real:
“…the Emergency Broadcast System. This is not a test. Please stay in your homes and listen for further instructions. Repeating: WKMS, signal transmitter 2851, from Murray Kentucky, received authorization to employ the Emergency Broadcast System….” A few moments later, a steady southern drawl came from the radio, amidst increasing static.
“This is Matt Roberts, from WKMS. A bulletin from the Emergency Broadcast System indicates widespread power failure throughout the United States and the world. Even power systems that had been isolated seem to have been affected. We are currently running off of generator power at the station and will do so until we can no longer broadcast. We have news that National Guard Units have been called up in the Paducah area. There are unsubstantiated reports of gunfire at USEC outside of Paducah.”
As the reporter continued, Mike asked, “What’s USEC?”
“United States Enrichment Corporation,” said Lara, apprehensively.
“I don’t know what that is.”
“They enrich uranium.”
“Oh,” said Mike.
“Shit,” added Susan.
They turned their attentions back to the radio: “...reports from police of strange lights and gunfire at Honeywell, in Metropolis…”
“I’m guessing uranium, too, right?” asked Mike to no one in particular.
“Uranium hexafluoride,” Lara replied. “Radioactive gas which is a key step in enriching uranium.” A year prior, a spill out at the plant had caused the evacuation of this end of town. Lara was all too familiar with the industrial giant next door.
For Susan, this didn’t make sense. “Are they trying to imply that terrorists are doing this? Nuclear terrorists getting uranium? How could terrorists engineer a worldwide power collapse and infiltrate two little nobody towns among how many other more important or more strategic targets, and strike all at the same time?” “This isn’t right.”
Mike asked Lara, “How far away is Honeywell?”
“Only about two miles.”
Mike was sweating. “Do you have a gun?”
Carl looked up at his Mom, smiling. “Pow! I have a gun!”
Lara practically jumped out of her skin. “Carl, damn it, not now!” she yelled. His expression changed as he ran into his room. “God damn it,” Lara fretted, “Where is Roger?”
Mike said, “I’m going to go look outside.”
Outside, Mike saw people on their porches, peering curiously about. In the Lindsey Addition, which had been underpowered by an aging transformer up the block, power went out several times a year, so for some, the darkness was no surprise, but others were clearly enjoying the new year’s outage. There were some folks whooping it up, some drinking on the lawn, and several cars chugging up and down the streets. However, Mike noticed up the block, the old transformer, just out of sight, emitting large blue arcs of power, and he saw strange shadows dancing on the walls of houses up the street across from it. Then, as he moved out in the street to get a clearer view, he saw the owners of the shadows. He breathed heavier, and wanted to run, but his eyes simply could not move from the spot, and since his eyes wouldn’t move, his body stopped trying. He felt he should make some kind of noise, but couldn’t. A vise-like pain entered his chest, and his left hand began to tingle. “This can’t be happening,” he finally exhaled, an acknowledgment of what he saw but couldn’t believe, and the heart attack that suffocated him like a python. He stumbled backward, and lurched across the yard. He crashed against the door of the house, and crumpled inside.
“Oh my God,” gasped Susan, who was surprised by Mike’s abrupt entrance. Mike looked grey.
“Aspirin,” said Lara, recognizing the signs of a heart attack. She raced to get some Bayer out of the medicine cabinet.
Mike rasped, “Must..go..now.”
“Oh God, we will baby, we will. I’m getting the keys now,” Susan fumbled, shouted “fuck” as she rifled through her bag, and commanded Molly to go to the car which she dutifully did.
Lara quickly administered the aspirin to Mike. She said to Susan, “Go. I’ll call the hospital. It’s two blocks over, off of 45. Can’t miss it.”
Mike struggled to stand as Lara and Susan tried to shoulder his weight and carried him to the car. Mike whispered, “All…must…go…”
Lara replied, “No Mike, I’ve got to stay. Roger isn’t home yet.”
Mike wobbled on his feet, but stood up on his own, clutching at his chest. “Then hide,” he said, as they trundled to the car and he tumbled into the passenger seat.
Lara could see Mike inside the car, pointing up the street, and Susan backing up the car, turning, and going the opposite way. Lara looked up the street, and what she saw two blocks away made her stomach churn. It was…wrong. Mike was right. She needed to hide. She needed to get Carl. She wished Roger were home, and then briefly, she knew why he wasn’t. They were coming from up the street. Huck’s was up the street. She ran back in the house, and frantically searched for both Carl and their shotgun. She found the shotgun, but her desperate whispers for Carl to come out were met with silence. “Carl, please,” she pleaded, with tears streaming down her face, “Mommy’s sorry for yelling earlier. We have to go. Please come out.”
There was a guttural noise from outside the house, like a growl, a screech, like a power saw cutting corrugated tin, and then some clicking on the driveway. Lara began loading shells into the gun. She dropped one. The noise got louder and a large shadow passed in front of the picture window. Four shells were in. There was a scrape on the front door. It wasn’t locked. It was hardly pulled closed. She leveled the barrels. “Carl,” she whispered, “Don’t come out now, no matter what. Hide. Hide for a whole day. Mommy loves you.” The door burst open wide and Lara’s scream could be heard over the blaze of the 20 gauge.
Susan made it to the hospital. As she drove by oblivious revelers, she saw glimpses of other things like the things she left in the street; the things she left in front of the house; the things she saw in the rear view mirror as they drove away. She felt sick, but at the same time, she was watching the life flow out of Mike. He seemed carefree, and was looking at Susan as if he was exactly where he wanted to be. Molly began to cry in the back seat. She said, “What are those things?”
“I don’t know, honey.”
“They look like big ants.”
“Yes, they do,” said Susan, but inwardly added, ‘except they’re nine fucking feet tall, and shoot electricity out a hole above their heads!’ Susan shook, despite an iron grip on the steering wheel.
Molly said, “Those are some freaky bugs, Mom!”
Susan blurted, “They sure freak the fuck out of me,” at which Mike took a moment and chuckled, in spite of his own internal debate about whether he should go towards the light.
Susan gunned the car to the emergency room entrance, stopped it up on the curb, ran around to the other side of the car, and frantically dragged Mike through the doors. Mike said calmly, “Hey, I think the aspirin helped.”
“Shut up.” She looked around the ER, which looked like a trauma center: burned people, shot people, and people who look like they had been filleted, lined the walls. “Help! My husband’s having a heart attack! I need help now!”
Two hours later, it was over. Mike now had a permanent reminder on his chest of just what a rib spreader does. But during that time, the world changed. Susan watched as the entrances to the hospital were boarded, and then blockaded. She saw several police and armed citizens fire at dozens of enormous ant-like creatures. She heard many things that didn’t seem to register at the time, but later, would begin to fit together. She wondered later why the hospital still had power, and then she remembered hearing that they had their own generators. Armed men were shouting, and one insisted that all hardlines to the building had to be cut. A hospital staff person said something about their old generator stand-by circuit had already bypassed the mains. Not long after Mike’s surgery started, there was a large explosion on the roof. Apparently, a helicopter had crashed. A policeman reiterated that all lines, including phone lines, had to be cut. A loud, squelching two-way radio announced that Honeywell had been hit, it was on fire, and a large spill was moving across the area. Things got quiet for awhile, and despite Y2K, heart attacks, monsters, and radiation, Susan slept. She fell asleep in the chair in the recovery room where Mike would be when she woke up.
While Susan slept, Molly kept herself close to her mom. Once, a shadow passed in front of the door to their room. She knew it was an ant. She wanted to scream, but couldn’t. She wanted to run, but was frozen. She couldn’t even move her eyes to see her mom. She tensed the muscles of her jaws so tightly that she heard a “pop,” and then felt a funny tickle at the back of her head. Little bursts of light were twinkling in front of her eyes as the ant turned, stooped, and looked directly through the window of the door into their darkened room. “Go away,” Molly hissed at the thing, as she imagined that she was invisible. The thing hesitated for a moment, and mechanically turned and clicked down the hallway, but apparently didn’t see Susan or her. Later, there were bursts of gunfire, and shouts of “I said cut everything!” and then there was silence again.
Over the next two weeks, Mike recovered. Across the nation, the power grid was being restored, but marshal law had been instituted, and a curfew was imposed from dusk until dawn. The hospital, now a local National Guard Center, had also instituted its own security policies. No one was to be let in or out, without official approval. Not that Susan wanted to go anywhere. There was power, there was food, and since the first night, there had been no more reports of BUGS. The major networks were back on, and to Susan’s surprise, she heard commentators talking about alleged incidents of large animal attacks, fueling speculation that whatever some people thought had happened was probably the result of “Y2K hysteria” and not the result of some “alien invasion” or “monster bugs.” However, anyone still alive in the hospital knew otherwise.
The incredulity of the news anchors changed relatively quickly, however. Photos and videos were mailed in. Conspicuous by their absence were neighborhoods of people, thousands, or perhaps, nationwide, millions, of people missing. Although some power systems were coming back online, no one could address reports that almost all of the military hardware at our disposal was destroyed overnight. There were rumors of planes flying without pilots, automated weapons turning against U.S. forces, and nuclear weapons first authorized by the President, and then failing to launch. Soon, news agencies didn’t report about what did or didn’t happen. They just wanted to know where so many people had went, and why some areas of the country, like St. Louis, Detroit, New York City, and others, were still silent. Reports came through the news that if you tried to drive in to one of those areas, your vehicles’ electrical systems would shut down. If you got out and walked the rest of the way in, you were not seen again. Stories of “escapees” from Manhattan and other urban areas were almost too hard to believe. There was anarchy in the streets, with gangs and thugs looting everything, and people killing each other if they had the weapons to do so. There were also reports of giant bug-like creatures, more than just ants. There were some reports of huge holding areas where thousands of people had congregated, and were standing, docile. Pictures from a news helicopter broadcast what had to be a quarter of a million people, standing shoulder to shoulder, quietly, in Yankee Stadium. It defied the senses.
While Susan, Mike, and Molly were at the hospital, several new doctors came to see Mike. Besides checking the incision, and continuing his physical therapy, the doctors insisted that Susan and Molly also should have some tests to see if they were “alright.” Immediately, Susan suspected that these doctors weren’t really doctors, or at least not MD’s, and speculated that they were here to make sure no one in the hospital was “infected” with some kind of alien or monster virus or dna. These doctors ran everyone in the hospital through blood tests, a radiation removal bath, and gave out iodine tablets over the next several days. An obvious and strange mark that each of these “doctors” shared was a purplish bruise under their noses. Once, when Molly was staring at the bruise on one of the doctors, he said with a smile, “Do you want one of these?” and he pointed to the mark. Molly shook her head ‘no.” The doctor then looked at Susan and Mike. “This is the result of the radiation treatment we had to take before we came in to assist the staff here at the hospital.” They didn’t believe him, and apparently, he didn’t care.
Susan noticed that after the first week, there were fewer and fewer people in the hospital. The new doctors had said that an evacuation was ordered, and lower risk patients were being moved out to a more secure location. As soon as Mike was stronger, he would be moved as well.
Mike regained his strength quickly, more quickly than his “doctors” suspected. In fact, since a blockage was removed, he felt stronger and more energetic than he had in years. Through physical therapy and diet, he had already shed 22 pounds. Over a dinner of chicken broth with actual bits of chicken, Mike put his hand over his mouth and said quietly to Susan and Molly, “I don’t think the other patients are being evacuated to more secure locations. Maybe some have, but over the last week, over half of all patients and their families are gone, and all of the doctors have been replaced. I have only heard two helicopters and a three vehicles leave this area. Do you think 200 people could fit in two helicopters and three cars?”
Susan and Molly got a little closer to Mike, and he casually gestured to Susan to put her hand over her mouth, and she did. She asked, “Well, then what is happening?”
“I’m not sure, but I think some people are being taken away, while others…..are not.”
“Who’s doing the taking?”
“It’s gotta be government types. Who else has the money or helicopters?”
“What if there is something going on? What do we do about it?”
“All I know is that I do not want to be on the last helicopter out, nor do I want to be excluded from the last helicopter out. I think I would rather be gone before they knew I was gone.”
“What are you going to do, walk out?” Susan thought that the bones in Mike’s chest had not yet strongly knit themselves back together. “You can barely walk up and down the hallway without grimacing in pain and breathing hard.”
“That’s exactly what I want them to see. Why else do you think we are still here? Those dumbasses look at me and say, ‘Fat guy had a heart attack. No wonder it’s taking him so long to heal---look how big he is!’ which is just the way I like it. I am ready to move right now, Susan, but I think I can milk it for another day or two. I need for you and Molly to look around the hospital and find a way out.”
“What then? How are we going to get home? We haven’t seen our folks, they have got to be worried sick. What about Roger, Lara, and Carl? We don’t have a car…”
“Susan, we’ll figure it out. Now, we just need to get out of the hospital.”
Susan and Molly started their reconnoiter of the hospital, and noticed that it was deathly still. Every “official” person they saw had purple bruises under their noses, and the few patients they saw in rooms really were too weak to move. In a deserted hallway, Susan took a moment to look at a chart on the end of one poor unfortunate man’s bed. The man was sleeping fitfully. On the chart, besides several notes regarding status, were two words that seemed out of place. The first was “irradiated,” and the second was “ideal.” The sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach dropped away entirely. Time was running out.
In the cafeteria, there were 11 other people that looked like her---ragged, family members who were in the hospital when it was closed and when, she surmised, uranium hexafluoride and who knows what else washed over them all. There were too many staff around to make more than eye contact with these scattered remnants, but eye contact was enough. They too, sensed an end was coming. What escaped the notice of the staff, and Susan feared, the other survivors, was an unguarded and unblocked door in the back of the kitchen by the trash bins.
That night, Susan carefully planned with Mike. With few words, Susan told Mike it was time to go. She said, “Things are looking up. It looked beautiful outside today. I wish I could see the stars tonight.”
“We should just look out the window,” Mike said. “I’m just not ready to move. My incision still hurts terribly,” Mike continued, while he gave Susan a wink. Mike had been busy that day, too. He had accessed the back panel of the large monitoring machine in his room, and had hacked the program for the heart monitor. He pointed to it, and the clock. He held up nine fingers. It was 8:31 p.m. Susan sat back and waited with Molly.
At 9:00 p.m. sharp, an orderly, looking more and more disorderly over time, walked in. “Here is your medication,” he said woodenly. He handed Mike a cup, which Mike dutifully put to his mouth and pretended to swallow with a drink of water.
“Thank you,” Mike said, breathlessly.
The orderly said, “We think that tomorrow the doctors will release you and you will be going home. How does that sound?”
“Wonderful. Please tell the doctors I appreciate their care. Tell me,” Mike asked, following a hunch, “Did you see those pictures of all those people in Yankee Stadium?”
“Yes.”
“How are they ever going to play football in there again with all those people trampling the grass?”
“Ha. Good question. Now get some sleep.” The orderly left. Mike leaned over and spit out the pills he had been given into a napkin, and gestured to Molly to take the paper and flush it in the toilet, which she did.
Mike looked at Susan, and nodded. “Football in Yankee stadium?” his eyes said to her.
A few moments after the door closed, Susan went to it quietly, looked out of the window, and waited until the hallway was clear. She signaled to Mike that it was, and Mike quickly sat up. Earlier in the day, he had taken several rolls of athletic tape, and taped them around his bandage on his chest, in case he coughed or strained the muscles in his chest. He couldn’t risk breaking open his incision, or breaking a bone loose, because despite his strength, he wasn’t healed, and probably wouldn’t be for several more weeks. He turned the monitor around, popped the back panel off, and quickly typed in a code which started a training program. He took off the electrical leads monitoring his heart, and as he crossed his fingers, he hoped that if the monitoring station down the hall saw anything it was only a momentary blip on their screens. Mike, Susan, and Molly waited nervously in the room for one, then two minutes, and decided everything must be okay.
Susan had taken part of her day to sketch out their path back to the cafeteria, and had estimated how long it should take to get there. In three minutes, they should be free.
_______________________________

Carl was in his bunk bed, on the far side of the mattress, against the wall, where his little frame could fit and no one could see him. He didn’t want to see his Mom right then, or maybe ever. Things were weird. People were acting strangely, and his Dad was gone. His Uncle Mike went outside, and then a few minutes later, there was a crash, and lots of yelling, and Mike was lying on the ground. Everybody left, and for a moment, Carl was alone in the house, and thought that maybe he should come out. But then, Mom burst back in through the door, and whispered for him to come out. She seemed scared, and that made Carl scared, too, and he thought that maybe he shouldn’t go to her. Then, he changed his mind. As he was ready to move, she told him to stay and hide for a whole day. Before he could respond, some thing, like an ant, but so big it had to duck not to hit the ceiling, pushed the door open, and he heard the loudest noise, the “crack” of the shotgun, that he had ever heard in his life. His Mom was yelling, the thing was screeching and clicking, and there was another loud bang. The thing dropped to the ground, and bluish green liquid splattered the carpet.
Carl saw, but couldn’t find the noise to speak, when an arc of electricity jumped out of the wall socket by the front door, and five more things like the one his Mom had just shot seemed to appear out of nowhere. He thought they filled the room like a big bag of jiffypop popcorn, and he watched as they crowded around his mom. She fired two more times, and one of the bugs raised an arm and hit her. She fell to the ground, bleeding from her mouth. He was too scared to move, even though he wanted to help his Mom. One ant grabbed her, and hoisted her over its arm, and walked out of the door. Another looked into the kitchen from the living room, while another peered its head into Carl’s room and the spare bedroom. Carl tried not to breathe, his face behind a wall of stuffed animals on the side of the bed where he had been hiding. The creature stepped in the room, thumped the bed frame, and knocked over some legos on the floor. The hiding place served Carl well.
________________________________________

For all the suspense of preparing to leave, leaving had actually been easy. The hallways were deserted, and though the sound of every step felt like a betrayal, no one came down the hall. They made it to the steps, and walked two flights down. Susan scouted ahead, and found the cafeteria empty. She retrieved Mike and Molly, and carefully they threaded their way through the maze of chairs and tables in the cafeteria hall. Once, Mike bumped a chair, and the ‘honk’ of the legs against the tile floor sounded like an alarm, but no one came. About that time, the rapid “thrup” of a rotor announced a helicopter’s approach the hospital. Perhaps the hall had been deserted because the staff were busy preparing for whatever had to be received or shipped on the roof.
The kitchen was beckoning. The side door beckoned to them. They reached the door, but as they prepared to cross the threshold to freedom, they were surprised to notice that Molly was no longer at Susan’s side. In instant panic, Susan’s eyes burned as she wildly looked around, and thumped Mike solidly on the arm, who had not yet noticed Molly’s absence. Molly was just there a second ago! Mike looked at where Molly should have been. “How could this happen?” they both thought. Mike frantically scanned the room, and Susan was nearly ready to shout, when they found Molly near the pantry, grabbing some Little Debby cakes.
“Yummy!” she said. Mike held up a finger to his lips, heaving a sigh of relief. Susan quickly ran to embrace her, and whispered a scolding and hugged her daughter at the same time. Tears came unbidden as she thought of how many monster movies she had watched, and said to Molly, “You never wander off alone, you hear?” While Susan gathered up Molly, Mike found a couple of trash bags by the trash cans, and proceeded to hurriedly fill the bags up with snacks and food. He smiled and gave Molly the “thumbs up” sign” for giving him a good idea. He went to the cooler, and gestured for Susan to grab a flat of bottled water, which she did. Then, they opened the outside door. There was some resistance. Mike and Susan both pushed, and the door slowly moved. They forced their way through the opening.
Outside, trash had not been picked up for days. Food, garbage, medical waste, and the remains of patients were piled up in front of and around the door and the receiving platform on which they were standing. The smell hung in the air like smoke. The copper tang of blood soaked bandages mixed with rot and rubbing alcohol turning their stomachs. Several neighborhood dogs, startled by their exit from the building, growled and eyed them, but left them alone. Away from the perimeter of the hospital, there weren’t any other lights they could see. Quickly, they realized that their car was on the other side of the hospital, and probably was part of the barricade in the front. They hugged the side of the building, and made a desperate dash to some trees east of the hospital. In the course of the run, Mike felt a pain across his chest, but said nothing. There was a ditch on the other side of the trees in which they hunkered down, covered by shadow, gathering their wits. A wave of exhaustion and relief swept over them. For the first time in a long time, they smiled. They breathed normally, and Mike finally said, “Ow.” However, he indicated that he was okay. He firmly believed that this was the kind of pain he would rather have, than what might have been in store for him tonight or tomorrow in the hospital. From this vantage point, they could see a military helicopter, a big one, like a Chinook, with its rotors still spinning on the roof of the hospital. There was no other activity they could see or hear in town.
“We have to move, and soon,” Susan said. Mike agreed, and they decided on walking to the Pugh’s to see if somehow they were okay, and also because they knew of no other way to easily get a vehicle. They knew the Pugh’s kept their extra keys on a key peg board on the inside door of one of their kitchen cabinets. There were no sounds except the whirr of the helicopter in the distance, and the occasional barking dog. Two weeks had erased almost all signs of humanity from Metropolis. If there were survivors, none were advertising their presence. As they walked, hiding in the shadows of bushes, garages, and cars, they noticed that almost every house they walked by had a black “x” painted on their doors. Some had a red “x” painted on their doors. They crossed over the railroad tracks, and as they crested the raised tracks, they could see the Pugh’s home. There was a red “x” on the door.
______________________________

Carl heard noise at the door. He remembered, not too long ago, there had been noises at the door. The first time had been the day after his mom was attacked. That day, he heard a van pull up outside, and he was too curious not to stay up in his bed any longer. Besides, he had to go pee. He ran into the living room, then stopped, seeing all the bluish green dried blood on the floor. He stepped around it, and launched himself to the couch by the picture window, forgetting his bladder for a moment. Outside, a group of men who looked just like his army men, were approaching the house. They had guns. They didn’t move very quickly, or like soldiers, he thought, and one of them had a spray paint can in his hand. Carl didn’t like the looks of them. He slid down off of the couch and rolled underneath it. The men approached the door, opened it, and came inside. One man said, “One survivor encountered, female. She shot two of the *screechkrickeeeech*” or, at least he made some noise to that effect. Carl couldn’t make out the word. The soldier continued, “County records indicate two others at this residence, a male and a juvenile, but there was no evidence that they were here at the time of the incursion.”
Another said, “Check the residence, mark as ‘direct encounter,’ and move on.” The soldiers fanned out, looked around, and then gathered back by the door. Carl faintly heard the rattle of marble in the spray can as the soldiers marked the door; then the soldiers left.
____________________________________

When Mike walked up to the door, he didn’t know what to expect. He hoped there was someone inside, but the “x” looked too ominous, like the “x” on a can of Black Flag, except this time, it was the bugs who were spraying us.
He slowly opened the door, and looked around. Susan and Molly also came in, noticing the stain on the floor, and the empty shell casings. “Lara?” Mike called, louder than he wanted, “Carl?” They moved around the house, in the dark. The only light came in from the moonlit sky shining in the picture window, enough to illuminate the carpet, but not much else. However, Susan noticed signs of life. Cabinets were open, and empty food containers, like cereal and pull tab cans of Spaghettio's were on the floor. It had gotten colder, too, over the first weeks of the year, much more like winter, and they could see that blankets had been gathered up in two or three places. Someone had definitely been here in the last few days, but they couldn’t tell if it were the Pugh’s or someone else.
Carl couldn’t bear it any longer. They sure looked like Uncle Mike and Aunt Susan to him, but Mike in particular, he noted, just wasn’t ‘fat’ anymore. But it looked like them, and they were calling him, and they said his Mom’s name. He came out of his bundle of blankets and clothes in his closet and shouted, “Uncle Mike!” and gave him a bear hug, at knee level. They quickly hugged each other all around, and Susan was able to get most of Carl’s story from him.
“They took Mom,” he said, “but every night I have had dreams about her. She’s okay. They gave her something that makes her brain sleepy. Dad’s okay too. He’s up in the sky.”
They were afraid that they were going to have to convince Carl to leave his house, but Carl made the suggestion first. “Let’s get out of here before the bugs or the bad guys come back.” They packed suitcases for clothes and there were some toys that Carl wouldn’t part with. Mike found a 12 gauge shotgun, shells, and a .357 magnum in the closet. “Jesus, Roger,” he said, as he gathered up all of the ammunition and an additional .22 pistol. “Susan,” he asked, “Did you have any idea that Roger owned four guns?” Mike included the broken remains of a 20 gauge on the living room floor in his count.
“Who said they were Roger’s?” Susan knew that Lara had been an avid French and Indian War re-enactor, and was very comfortable around weapons. Mike looked to the back of the master bedroom closet, and found two muzzle-loading rifles, one a reproduction, and one an original Charletville. He found a bowling ball bag full of gunpowder, slugs, and cartouches, or paper cartridges, for the weapons. He also found a powder horn, some flint, cleaning supplies, and a bayonet for the old gun. At first, he was going to leave them, but Susan said that more guns were better than fewer guns, a point which Mike found hard to argue. They used two large duffel bags to empty the kitchen cabinets of food, and loaded up as much soda and bottled water as was left in the house. They scrounged up batteries, blankets, candles, tools, cleaning supplies, and almost everything they could get their hands on that met their criteria: ‘Can we make it ourselves?’ and if the answer was ‘No,’ they loaded it in a bag if it could fit and it they could get it quickly. Mike got the van keys off the cabinet door, and said, “Let’s go.”
Thankfully, the van was full of gas, and it took only a few agonizingly long minutes to load it. Mike started up the van, and tuned the radio to the same public station they had listened to a few days, and a whole lifetime, ago. A very different monotonous voice with no southern accent greeted them as they listened. “….to WKMS. Civil order is being re-established by National Guard forces. Curfew is enforced from dusk until dawn. Violators of curfew will be shot. No looting or civil disobedience will be tolerated by authorities. If you are in need of assistance, and are without power or phone, please wait until morning and report to your local disaster center for help. In Paducah, report to the convention center. In Mayfield, report to the high school. In Brookport…” and so on. “In Metropolis, report to the hospital.”
Mike flipped through the dial. Most of the rest of the fm band was static. The am band was mostly static too, except for a station near the end of the dial. “Radio-Free America. Don’t believe the lies. Don’t believe the government. Don’t believe the bugs! Beware of the purple moustache! If they don’t sound right, if they don’t move right, and if they don’t get the joke, then they probably ain’t human anymore! Find a hole, get some guns, and pray they leave before they find you. Don’t trust anyone you haven’t been in direct continual personal contact with. Cut your hardlines! Beware of anything with an electrical system. Bugs can live inside them. This is Radio Free America, bug-free America!” The message repeated.
The van was already running. Mike and Susan looked at each other. If a bug lived in the electrical system, wouldn’t it have already come out and got them? They decided to chance it, and slowly backed up out of the driveway, with their lights off. Across the railroad tracks, lights from the top of the hospital began to brighten. The helicopter was leaving, and a siren of some kind began to wail. Mike and Susan had a decision to make: freeze, or run? They decided to run.
_______________________________

The New World

They drove out of town in silence and in darkness, taking back roads, and saw few signs of human life. Cars littered the interstate, and most small towns were abandoned. Those that weren’t were ruled by local thugs. Over a period of a year, Mike, Susan, Molly and Carl made their way around the southern part of the state, narrowly missing roving gangs, purple-bruised soldiers and other purple-bruised civilians, and on more than one occasion, hiding from BUGS. Unfortunately, none of Mike or Susan’s immediate family were in Mt. Vernon when they made it there. Time and again, they consolidated gear and weapons, and kept as much stuff as they thought they could use. Over time, they became experts at driving at night in the dark, and laying low during the day. Almost every night, Carl had increasingly vivid dreams, in which he claimed to see his mom, and sometimes his dad, too. He was convinced that they were alive, and that his mom was in danger, in one of those “camps” that existed in the big cities. Dad was harder to pinpoint. Sometimes he was in the air, sometimes in a mountain. It didn’t always make sense.
In May of 2001, after living more or less on the move, criss-crossing southern Illinois, which was actually more free than most other parts of the country, Mike and Susan decided they needed to find a more permanent place to live. It was clear that the chaos and anarchy and BUG menace was not going away, and they wouldn’t simply be able to wait it out for things to turn back to normal. They set out for Carbondale, a town in which they knew a “free” settlement still existed, in hopes of finding some information, supplies, and maybe even a home.
As they crossed route 13 on Crab Orchard Lake, they noticed, too late to turn around, what looked like a gate across the road. It looked solid, and Mike didn’t think he could make a break for it without a fight. If this road were held by hostiles, they were in trouble. Camouflaged, hard to see at first from the highway, were two duckblinds on either side of the road, from which he caught the glint of .50 caliber machine gun barrels. A man in armor, with an M-16 pointed in their direction approached. Mike’s hand comfortably rested on his 12 gauge. He said out of the corner of his mouth to Susan and the kids, “Get ready.”
As they got close enough to establish eye contact, Mike could see there was no purple stain under the soldier’s nose. He did not want to kill a “normal” person, but sometimes, “normal” people had acted more barbarously than the BUGS. As the soldier approached, he said clearly, “Let me see your face,” and as Mike peered out through the window slowly, an incredulous smile crossed the soldier’s face: “Mike? Is that you? It’s me, Scott Furtwengler!” None of them could believe their luck, and were genuinely happy that dear friends once thought gone were still here. Scott looked in the van, and noted that although Carl was there, Lara and Roger were not. He grasped what must have happened, which was a pain he had seen many times over the last year and a half.
Scott was the head of a local militia called the Carbondale Pork District. Emblazoned on on a patch on his sleeve, the outline of a pig containing the letters “CPD” announced his allegiance. The words “Makin’ Bacon” were scrawled on the barrel of his gun. About a year ago, he and several other Carbondale residents who initially went underground decided to storm the National Guard Armory, and after a brief fight with about 25 “zombies” (what he called those people who had purple moustaches) they scored enough weapons, ammunition, explosives and heavy vehicles to withstand almost any attack. They set up roadblocks and checkpoints on all major roads coming in and out of Carbondale, and slowly, they had widened their circle of protection. This month, they moved the east checkpoint out to Crab Orchard Lake, which explained to Mike why he hadn’t run across a roadblock here before, even though he had driven route 13 on more than one occasion over the last year. Scott invited them to a meeting tonight, on the campus of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, or actually, under SIU’s campus, in the steam tunnels which ran underground and connected many of the buildings. Mike and Susan agreed, and they were escorted to a secure facility, what used to be the Wal-Mart in Carbondale. A temporary shelter turned semi-permanent home for over 1000 people, the Wal-Mart provided hot food, clean water, and children, Molly and Carl’s ages! This was the first time in nearly a year that they saw children playing without fear. It revitalized their spirits.
That evening, Scott came out to pick them up. He drove up in an air compressor powered car, with absolutely no electrical parts or systems in it. “Some eggheads at the University came up with it. Cool, huh?” A young kid, probably no more than 13 or 14, manned a mounted .50 caliber machine gun on the back. “Hop in,” Scott said, nodding to the back of the open air vehicle.
He drove them to campus, and parked his air car in a hidden spot in campus woods. A group of men in camouflage covered it in a forest green tarp. Scott led the group to an access hatch for the steam tunnels which run under the campus.
Some areas of the steam tunnels were accessible to staff at the university before the BUGS, but some areas hadn’t been opened in so long, that people had forgotten they were there. Scott and several of his militia used the tunnels from the beginning, and found nearly every building had a “secret” entrance, and over time, he had explored many of these previously forgotten areas. He led them to one of those areas, a large, auditorium-sized room, lit by solar-powered battery lights.
Scott introduced Mike, Susan, Molly, and Carl to a large group of friendly and some familiar faces (both Mike and Susan had attended SIU) who were apparently waiting on Scott to begin an informal meeting of some kind. Scott’s nod to his four guests was enough approval for the group. The group began to discuss the next phase in a new major push of the CPD. The CPD was training people to seed new operations in the surrounding areas, safeguarding people, and training soldiers to fight. The BUGS had left southern Illinois alone because frankly, there was very little power infrastructure there. After a variety of viewpoints had been heard, Mike raised his hand, and Scott pointed towards him. Mike asked, “Scott, why was there such a big presence down in Metropolis, then?”
Scott nodded towards Mike and said, “Well, our information is sketchy, and we hope you can fill in some details, because I understand you were there, but apparently the BUGS hit major power productions centers as well as major population centers. It is obvious they had studied us for some time, because they nearly simultaneously hit installations all over the globe. They hit USEC and Honeywell down by Metropolis. They also hit the hydroelectric facilities upriver from Paducah. My guess is that the BUGS had a special purpose down there which required the radioactive material from USEC and Honeywell, but we don’t know what. Not long after they hit those installations, the towns were nearly bled dry of humanity. Some people were taken to zombie camps, but others were taken somewhere else. BUGS controlled several pieces of military hardware that came in and out of there, but after a few weeks, the place was hit hard by free American hardware. The rumor is that they were forces flying straight out of Colorado Springs, at NORAD. Anyhow, bombs were dropped so large there that they changed the course of the Ohio River. It's possible the place was nuked, but we have not been able to confirm this. There are some high levels of radiation there, but that might be coming from USEC and Honewell.”
Scot then continued to talk about the mission of the Pork District. The next phase of their expansion was to use the abandoned coal mines in the area to hide a human population, cover the community’s use of power and conceal any experiments the community may conduct. The community would be autonomous, but could depend on help from the CPD if necessary. He needed a core group of people willing to relocate, willing to risk their lives, to embark on this bold plan to rebuild, one underground community at a time. Mike and Susan now knew why Scott had been so happy to see them. They didn’t need to be asked. They stepped forward.
Their new world was very different from the old world. The new world was located in an abandoned coal mine two miles southeast of Creal Springs, in the middle of hill country. An initial population of about 35 lived underground, tended well-hidden gardens, and collected every artifact they could possibly use in a larger and larger circle of influence. This was the community that Mike and Susan helped found, in the years after they reunited with Carl.
___________________________

Blackrock

Their new home was christened “Blackrock.” As of 2009, 10 years after the BUGS, 9 years after they took Scott up on his offer, there were over 500 people living in a self-sustaining community. There were kids, a school, a market, active trading, scavenging runs, and absolutely nothing of the sort visible on the surface. A façade of what looked like a drifter’s camp was maintained on the surface, to serve as cover to any passersby or BUGS that might get suspicious of the occasional plume of smoke. Gardens grew, but they were artfully disguised so that a BUG or zombie patrol would not notice they were cultivated. There were a variety of natural features which aided their seclusion: there were cliffs and creeks, all of which made approach by stealth difficult; there were loose rocks, so on the very rare occasion that any unwanted guest came too close, their demise could look natural; and lastly, they were small and of no practical value to anyone, including other people. Several in the group were content to live a new way of life, in which humans were no longer the top of the food chain. However, it had been Mike’s and Susan’s desire since their horrible experiences early in the invasion, to fight back, in some way. It was clearly Molly’s and Carl’s inclinations too. In fact, at some point in the next few years, there would be no stopping them if they wanted to leave to fight.
Work began immediately on mining coal for fuel, and finding a way to burn it without attracting too much attention. Power systems based on steam technology seemed the most efficient, and some of it, deep in the mine, was used to begin to power some electrical systems. At first these experiments were small, and many tests were run to determine if the emf signature could be read above ground, and despite a risk, the use of electricity continued. No BUG could get to their dedicated lines, unless it got physically close to the mine entrance, and community leaders figured if BUGS were at the mine entrance, then they were done for, anyway.
Another project, to dig underground and link Blackrock to Carbonhell, Hell’s Patio, Deathrock, and the Dark, all the cheery names for underground settlements initially seeded by the CPD, had begun in earnest. An extension of the mine, northwest towards Carbondale, had resulted in 5 miles of tunnels, or approximately a mile every 2 years or so. The sedimentary rock was relatively soft, and along the way, they had encountered some natural cave areas.
The new life had taken its toll, however. As Mike became one of the technical administrators of the community, and spent more and more time working on restoring certain computer systems, and writing software that might protect electronic systems from BUG hacking, he and Susan grew in two different directions. Susan found the ways to make older things work. She depended and trusted less and less on the things that needed a high level of technology to work, or on those things that had to be interconnected to function. They didn’t know how to meet each other halfway, anymore, and one day, they realized, that they had stopped doing so for awhile. While Susan made sure that a windmill 11 miles away was still lifting fresh water to the surface, Mike was a quarter mile underground, trying to build a BUG trap, a coiled loop of electrical wire with switches which, though small, might loop around itself forever. Carl had become an odd young man, preferring longer and longer hunting and scavenging trips on his own. Molly also preferred her own company, or sometimes Carl’s, although when Carl did talk to someone, he usually bounced around so much it was hard to listen for very long. Every once in awhile, they wondered separately and together, what life would have been like had the BUGS not appeared. Would Roger still have worked at the University? Would Carl have had a baby sister or two? Would Mike and Susan have split? Would Molly have been an only child? Those moments of reflection and regret passed quickly. There was no time for sentimentality in their world now. Wondering about what might have been gets you killed, or worse.
____________________________________

Game 2 In The Return To Elfland....

2010-01-16T17:42:00.001-08:00

A new party member joins, Raziel, the half-elf. Once the dust clears and we take stock of each other, Rabbo and the others give him the short short version of what is going on, and gives him the option to walk away. He decides to stay.

We set up a plan to drag a bramble along the path. It will dangling from a rope from the broom. In what came to be an interminably detailed accounting of how big the bramble would be, or how effective it could be, we were attacked again by kobolds.

About 200 kobolds attack, some summoning elementals. Ethan again uses wall of fire effeciently. Eyar is set upon by a swarm of bats. After enough damage is done, the kobolds scatter. We regroup, and heal up. Raziel was killed after the initial attack, and was brought back. Ethan fireballs an area as the kobolds return. After another fireball, the wand of fire turns to dust. According to plan, we pack up all the players in the portable hole. We decide to go to a variety of places around the map, and then go to the Mires. The first place we plan to go is where our elf-friends are. Rabble dimension walks, and he encounters a problem. Something is moving him. Rabbo maintains control, but tries to drop out of the dimension walk but can't. We notice that he is moving in a spiral and we decide to ride the spiral. He fails and gets sucked in closer to the ethereal palne and sees a spiral inverted at the center of which is a large spider, who is attempting but not succeeding in closing a hole.

Rabbo drops out of the dimension walk. We end up in a tree in Elfland, west of the capitol. We set up a plan, and Validor goes exploring. He trips a falling trap and dies. Raziel and Eyar go to search for him, and Topaz recons. From the portable hole, Rabbo gets out the barrel of healing, keoghtum's, the necklaceo of adaption, the rod of absorption, and bracers AC 14. Rabbo doles out 35 points of healing to Ivy, 40 points to Ethan and has 36 left. Eyar, Raziel, and Validor are all caught in a trap, but it was an illusion. We desbelieve, and gather up our stuff after we got some darts fired at us. The darts were not illusion, but likely kobolds alerted to our presence.

We all get back in the portable hole and Topaz flies off with us.

We find a defensible cliff, and take watch. Within two hours, we are attacked by white kobolds. Rabbo goes after the chanters, kills them, and the party kills most of them. We find 3 gp, and a scroll with 6 spells: Kobold chant; Cause moderate wounds REV 2D8+1; prevent nausea, REV; striking,tracker, putrify food and drink.

Rabbo takes the last watch flying, and we end up in the dawn hours a mile from the Mires. We see the 3 towers and decide to walk thorugh the bog to them. Rabbo's arrow of direction says to go the middle tower.

We encoutner a camp of approximately 100 kobolds. Ivy gets hit with a flaming arrow, Raziel hit with a needle. We fight and kill lots. Eyar and Jerik teleport and kill several magic using kobolds. Ethan tries to hit a kobold, misses and hits and kills Raziel. We kill hundreds of kobolds. We make it to the tower, and then we decided to take a break.

A Long Time...

2010-01-03T21:40:00.001-08:00

...since the last post. Since then, we have played Adventures in Elfland one more time, and also played the first of two installments of my alternate present apocalyptic game, Systems Failure. When I get some time, I will post notes to the Crystal Quest, and then also post notes from the module, "Spreading the Word" in the game, Systems Failure.

What I Did On Vacation In Elfland...

2009-10-24T18:08:00.000-07:00

Our story picks up on the first day of the New Year, 1/1/1309. As the party is eating breakfast, another story unfolds in the Forgotten Realms. Validor Silkein, an Elven thief, in the mold of Robin Hood, responds to an advertisement posted in town: "Adventurers Wanted: No Experience Preferred." He makes his through the tavern to a backroom in which our familiar friend, Ranger Orkill, asks him if he is ready. Validor ponders the question for a moment, and then says that he is. Orkill pulls out a cube, presses a side, and a hole opens up and Validor falls through.

After he falls from the "little black spot on the sun, today," he falls directly in the courtyard. Very quickly, the party questions him, and prepares him for the next part of the quest the party is currently on. Rabbo gives him an opportunity to refuse, and the party decides to "cut him in" on the magical booty they are about to divvy up.

As the party gets ready, they ask the school if they can create some scrolls for them. They can. The scrolls include a variety of M-U spells, including: Protection From Evil, 10ft. radius x1, Locate Object, x3, Protection From Evil x5. they also made clerical scrolls including: Locate Object x2, Silence 15ft. x1, Dispel Magic x1, Charm Person x1, Chant x1, Protection From Evil x3, Command x3, and Cure Light Wounds X2.

Here is a list of all the players and the magical treasures they carry:

Ivy: Vampiric Paladin Ring, Potion of Invisibility, +3 shield, Scroll, Word of Recall, Scroll, Raise Dead x3, Chalice of Holy Water, Vial of Continual Light, Helm of Good Seeing, Rod of Smiting, Staff of Curing, Plate, +2, Boots of Speed, Ring of Regeneration (4/turn), Blue Crystal Rod of Resurrection, Rod of Sanctuary, Gauntlets of Ogre Power (18/00), +5 Mace of Disruption, Keoghtum's Ointment (5 applications), and a Pearl of Wisdom.

Ethan: Bracers of Defence (AC 17), Pearl of Power, Passwall Chalk (3 uses), Potion of Levitation, Vial of Continual Light, ring of Regeneration (1/round--affects non-magical items), Blue Dragon Staff, Gloves of Knocking, Special Patchwork Robe, Helm of Comprehending Languages and Reading Magic, Scarab of Protection (+1) Ring of Magic Resistance (10%), Staff of the Magi, Broom of Flying, Girdle of Hill Giant Strength, Slippers of Spider Climbing, 3 ioun Stones (1: 20, up to 4th level, 2: 70, up to 8th, 3: 30, up to 8th), Keoghtum's Ointment (5 applications), and a Wand of Fire.

Rabbo: 2 +4 Stars of Hurling, Two-Handed Sword (+3 +6 "Undead Slayer"), 1 M-22 automatic rifle, 50 rounds, Ring of Regeneration (4/turn), Ring of Protection (+6), Bracers (AC 20), Boots of Striding and Springing, 4 burnt Ioun Stones, 1 Luckstone, Helm of Telepathy, Gauntlets of Dexterity, Portable Hole #1, Amulet Vs. Undead, 3 grenades, Arrow of Direction, Keoghtum's Ointment (5 applications).

Eyar: Figurine of Wondrous Power (Lion), Girdle of Frost Giant Strength, Wings of Flying, the intelligent sword Jerik, Ring of Regeneration (4/turn), Ring of Protection +6 (with 3 Ethereal charges), Plate Armor of Etherealness +4, +5 shield, +3 Defender, Keoghtum's Ointment (5 applications), and Zardon's Pouch of Wonder.

Validor: Ring of Regeneration (2/turn), Scarab of Protection (+1), Robe of Protection (+2), 1 Ioun Stone (sustain without air), Lens of Detection, Dust of Illusion (1 pinch), Bracers (AC 16), Vial of Continuous Light, +2 Longsword, Keoghtum's Ointment (5 applications).

The party divided up the treasures and stored several items in the portable hole #1, but kept the rest of the items at the keep. The items in portable hole #1 include:

Portable Hole: 111 healing Draughts, 1 jar of Keoghtum's Ointment (5 applications), Pitcher of Nourishment, Platter of Nourishment, Silver Mug of Noursihment, Decanter of Endless Water, Elixer of Health, Elixer of Life, Fork of Wonder, Staff of the Void, (previously whapped the Anything Ring and the Anything Wand), Mace of Disruption, Bracers (AC 14), Necklace of Adaption, Rod of Absorption (32 potential, 25 stored), 20 clips for the M-22, blowgun (+1), Colt .45 x2, holster, x2, 196 rounds, .22 pistol x2, 50 rounds, and Quall's Feather Token.

While the party is at the keep and the school, they plan on what to do. In general, they outline these objectives. First, get the cube, green box, and crystals. Second, save the Fairie Queen if possible. Third, help out the Elves, if possible. Fourth, get out alive, if possible. They use the map at the school to focus in on several trouble spots on the map. The elves who they first met are fighting in the southwest. Other elves are fighting in the northwest. The party debated going to Centaur Isle, going to the Mires of the Sinking Kind directly, or trying to create some kind of diversion. As the party talked, folks at the school told them about the existence of Halfing Isle. They party uses the map to focus in on Halfling Isle. It is close to the Mires of the Sinking Kind, and it is possible that some halflings still live there. The party can see smoke coming from some halfling houses there.

At this point, the party is given a variety of points of view from the school about what is the best way to serve the Fairie Queen, and what would be the best way to get into the Mires and get their stuff. In fact, the teachers at the school ask them to consider that getting their stuff in the Mires might be much less important than other things they could do to turn the tide of battle for Elfland. Finally, Rabbo asked for party suggestions, and decided to go to Halfling Isle.

The party steps through the school's magic mirror, and appears on a path. All along the path, the countryside is overgrown with thorns. It is approximately 7 am. The party uses the Arrow of Direction to check for the nearest Hobbit hole. The party goes that way. As the party walks, a large rock is in the path in front of them. both Ivy and Ethan check: it is magical, within the sphere of protection. There is another type of magic which they could not identify as well. Ethan uses Dispel Magic and removes the magic from the rock. The party approaches the first hobbit house. It has been burning for awhile. Validor searched it and found a nice hobbit cheese press.

Moving on, Ivy trips a wire, and a siren goes off. The party is ambushed by sling stones. Almost everyone is hit by stones. Ivy and Moonface are critically injured. Ethan flies up on his broom. Topaz is in the air. Rabbo gets our the ointment and heals the dog and Ivy. Eyar and Validor start to hack a path through the thorns to reach any of the stone throwers. Ethan sees a green flying shape approaching, and calls for Topaz. As it approaches, it is a greenish, lizardlike gnome-sized winged creature. Ethan fires a fireball from the Wand of Fire. He hits it but nearly catches himself in the area of affect. Topaz also kills one. The party regroups, and moves forward.

The party checks the next hobbit houses. Validor finds a silver mirror. From the air, Ethan sees a small encampment ahead. The party moves towards it. Rabbo cuts a path through the thorns and sees a small camp. It is empty. He kicks over a lean to, and in the straw of the floor, he sees a small scroll tube. Ivy opens the scroll tube, and it has a map in it, which is obviously magic. It appears to show them what is asked for. They test it by asking the map a location question for the closest crystal, and the map shows them the location of the Mires. The party knows that the crystals are in the Neo-Otyugh muckpile.

As the party continues, they are hit with stones again. This time, Ethan's skull is crushed and he dies. Rabbo gathers him up and the party runs. They use magic to heal up as they run. The path they follow gets thinner, but they follow the map, given the question of the location of the nearest live hobbit besides Ivy. As the party moves forward, they encounter a pit trap. Rabbo jumps over it, and trips another pit trap. Rabbo falls and is down six hp. Ivy fall and is down 10. Each member of the party makes his or her way across, and slowly approach a clearing in which the map shows that some hobbits are at. In the clearing, the party hears the chant, "Kurtulmak," and sees over 100 kobolds chanting and dancing. Ethan gets healed up from his critical injury, and is back up on his broom. He sees the group of kobolds, and shoots a fireball at them. He is then hit by a barrage of slingstones. One cirtically injures him again, and he falls to the ground. Ethan kills 73 kobolds with the fireball. Validor fires his arrows and kills several. Rabbo kills several. Then, the party runs again. The party gathers up Ethan and Ivy gets ready to cast dispel magic. The hobbits appear to be in a pit at the far side of the clearing. As they approach, they see a small stone or shiny object thrown up out of the pit. The party looks down, but can't see in, and can't hear anything from the pit either. They decide that there must be a continual darkness and silence cast in the pit, and assume that the hobbits trapped in the pit threw up the stone to get the party's attention.

The object thrown up was glass. Rabbo throws a rope down into the pit. Another glass glove is thrown up, and this one explodes in steam and hurts everyone. Validor is injured badly, and is healed by Keoghtum's Ointment. Ivy casts dispel magic down in the pit. Ivy then casts 2 cure light wounds, and Rabbo uses Koeoghtums' to heal Ethan. four kobold spellcasters hit Ethan with acid and missles. Rabbo jumps in the pit and kills one kobold spellcaster, Eyar jumps in and kills one also. They find a kobold book.

Rabbo tells Topaz to get in the air and find the two kobold spellcasters but he can't see them. Also, the map shows that the hobbits that were in the pit were now miles away and off of Halfing Isle. The party is getting fed up with the map. It is clear from the map that the kobolds are moving towards another clearing at the other end of the road the party first landed on. But, the party has little faith now in the map, or at least in their reading of the map. They heal and regroup. They make their way back to their starting point. Then they move down the path towards the possible location of the other kobolds. As they move forward, they trip another trap!! This one is a piano wire trap. Ivy and Moonface are caught in the trap, and before they can be helped, the wire cuts one of each of their feet off!

Rabbo and Eyar give Ivy the cube Moonface is next to her. They take several types of healing. Ivy hits timestop, and heals her own foot through regeneration, and did her best to reattach the dog's foot, but it would not take. However, over the time they are in time stop, the dog heals completely with a stump. Ivy and the dog walk out of timestop. Ivy has the cube in her hand.

Healing is immediately applied to the rest of the party, but the party is attacked by dozens of koblds. Rabbo is hit, Shardenzar is hit, and Ivy casts Chant, which counteracts the effects of the kobold's chant invoking Kurtulmak. Ethan casts fireball again and kills many more kobolds. In front and behind the group, small fire, water, and earth elementals rise up out of the ground. Ethan fires another fireball. Rabbo kills two fire elementals, Eyar kills one. Ethan kills a total of 14 of the lizard flyers with a fireball, and an inventive use of a wall of fire in the air. Rabbo kills two water elementals, and then the kobolds attack! Three grapple with Rabbo, while Rabbo kills two earth elementals. Shardenzar kills 3 kobolds. Rabbo kills three kobolds, Ethan kills o0ne more flyer, Eyar kills several kobolds, as well as Ivy. Validor kills one and hits one of the fire elementals. Rabbo kills another fire elemental.

Any other kobolds are killed or run off. The map shows that two kobolds are still in the space up ahead. After swearing to bitch slap several members of the school for their "advice," Rabbo decides that enough is enough. They will raise this place to the ground, kill everything they find, and then spread some destruction in as many places as they can, as quickly as they can. Rabbo formulates a plan, but discretion was the better part of valor, and we decided to quit playing for now.

Susan's Character...

2009-09-05T18:49:00.001-07:00

After getting props for Mike's figure in our yet to be played alternate now apocalypse game, I decided that I should put a picture up of Susan's character. Hopefully, this will entice her to play!

Let the Games Conclude....

2009-08-26T16:10:00.000-07:00

This summer, Mike, Molly, Carl, and I got together again to play D&D. We hoped Susan could make it, but a prior engagement kept her from attending. We decided to continue with the festival games instead of beginning the drow ass-kicking that a trip to Elfland would facilitate.

During the festival games, we played a triathalon style game, which Rabbo won. We played chess. We played some drinking games, in which Ethan tried to swallow a jug of white lightning, promptly threw up and passed out. We ended the night by playing a game of Noxie's Sphere, in which each character controlled an illusionary monster. In the arena, Molly played a beholder, Mike played an ancient red dragon, I played an iron golem, and Carl played a tarrasque. Molly was disappointed that she got such a small monster. In about five turns, after she turned me to stone, she disintegrated the tarrasque and death rayed the dragon. She won!

The coolest part of the game was when we played chess. We didn't actually play chess; we calculated the percentage of success with each roll against intelligence and wisdom, and scored points based on the degrees of success, which is exactly how you should role play a chess game. It was inventive and fun.

On another note, we discussed playing my current-time apocalypse game in which each of us play characters that are based on us. I have completed the figure Mike's character. Here are a couple of pictures:

Unintentional Motion....

2009-08-05T16:08:00.000-07:00

A few posts ago, our DM suggested that Rabbo set some big things in motion, unintentionally. We found out what it was last game. The big thing he set in motion was requiring Ethan to pay a penance to Yondalla for Ivy. It took the form of the New Year's end party, essentially a week's worth of holidays. The big festival day was in honor of Yondalla, and Yondalla noticed. Yondalla then appeared to Ivy in a vision and gave her some godly gifts. Pretty cool for a little halfling.

It's a Festival!

2009-08-05T16:00:00.000-07:00

This game started, technically, before the last one ended. We backtracked, set the calendar to the “right” day, and decided to have fun playing through the carnival games at the keep. Ethan takes time to spend his time and money to put on a terrific festival as his penance to Yondalla. He spends all of his party treasure. Rabbo donates his share of party treasure to help finance the event, and consecrates his sacrifice (almost 2000 gold!) to Bes.

The morning after the big “haul,” Ethan is roused by the sound of a huge roar. He woke Rabbo. They take a few moments to dress and then bound outside. Once outside, they see an odd-looking dragon-like creature, swooping around inside the dome. It is grey to red in color, wingless, and has six legs. They notice that three cooks are preparing food this morning, and don’t seem to be bothered by the dragon at all. Of course, it is a construct, and is part of the opening ceremony to the festival. Frooveezy, one of the keep’s personnel, takes us around the grounds of the fair. We go by the raffle booth. Rabbo buys 10 gold in tickets to be given among the poor kids in the dome. The party participated in a variety of games. Rabbo participated in a number of games to help relate to the common folks at the keep, and “challenged a group of children to a game of Troll’s Bridge. Everybody enjoyed that. Rabbo fought the trained cave bear and beat it, to the delight of the crowd. In every event, he attempted to show his strength, speed, and agility, but also was humble when he lost or didn’t hit a target. Ethan won Tower of Castilo, and fought three bears, but got owned by two of them. Ivy got drunk by 6 a.m., got beat by the trained bears like she was Goldilocks, climbed the temperature ladder, and got prizes from the tree with her sling.

In fact, it was around the tree that a curious event, as described below by our DM, happened:

“As Ivy moved about the base of the tree trying to find the best shot, a smile spread across her face. This was fun. This was special. This was something from her people, and the big folk were enjoying it just as countless generations of manikin had in the past. There was laughter in the air and excitement everywhere, but something was just not right.

At first Ivy thought that maybe dirt has landed in her eyes, but as she blinked it away it only got worse. The rays of the sun were beaming through the dome, and here in the woods the light was scattered by small branches and augmented by limitless motes of dust. As she looked and blinked, the ribbons, tokens, bags and colored sticks hanging from the tree stopped seeming to be the prizes that they were and began to resemble much more ominous things. The sticks seemed more like limp, slender, frail bodies hanging lifeless in the tree. The small bags appeared to move as if something were trapped and dieing inside. As the tokens spun they bounced about very much like tiny beings in the death throes of being strangled. And although she knew they were ribbons, Ivy could only see small weightless wings fluttering lifeless in the breeze.

The projectile flies into the tree and hits its mark. With a series of thuds the prize falls to earth and lands just at the base of the tree. It is a small silver shield with a golden, diamond crusted “Y” on the front.

As Ivy reached out to take the shield, another hand pulled it away just before it was in the cleric’s grasp. Ivy looked up and saw a strong, young woman, proud and determined of bearing, dressed in green, yellow and brown and armed with only a short sword and small shield. Despite the fact that her large hairy feet clearly made her out to be a half-ling, she stood at least twelve inches taller than the little cleric herself. The stranger slung her own shield around her back and began examining the prize she had just picked up. In her hands the silver and gold shield was nothing more than painted wood with glitter sprinkled on it. Somehow, it seemed much smaller now.

“Pretty,” she said with a smile. “But not much protection.” Her voice was intense, yet somehow warm and inviting. Ivy noticed that the woman’s voice was all she was hearing. The little cleric looked around and realized the two of them were alone next to the tree. Everyone else was gone. She opened her mouth to ask a question, but stopped when she looked back. The light of the sun was shining behind her and the effect lit up an aura around the woman that could not be expressed in mortal terms. When the stranger smiled, buds sprouted on trees and plants. As she shifted her wait, dead leaves under her feet became green with life. And as she traced the Y on the toy shield with her finger, sap began to bleed from the painted wood. That’s when Ivy knew exactly who this was.

“Close your mouth child, you look silly standing there like that. You’re here to listen, do you understand.” As she spoke, her gaze drifted into the great tree. “Then again, having over a thousand big folk praise your name all day long is something to listen to. You definitely acquired my attention.” Ivy closed her mouth and immediately assumed a prayer position.

“Enough of that. Arise my daughter. I am already here and we have precious little time.” Yondalla, principal god of the manikin ran her hands over the bark of the great tree. “This is a very good tree,” she said. “I can see why it was chosen for the game. This is fine woodland you have here. Young, but sturdy and well kept. Naturally I prefer a nice field or meadow, as is our kin, but this is a very nice wood.” As her goddess scanned the area, Ivy was filled with a sense of trepidation she had never known before, but as Yondalla’s eyes fixed with hers, the little cleric felt a sense of infinite warmth and protection.

“Now to work,” said the goddess. “As you know, I am not keen on disturbing the plans of other powers. What they do with their holes and gardens is their business. But if those plans affect my kinder, then it is my business. I’ve looked over this little world of yours and it’s quite strange. I don’t think I’d have anything to do with it if it didn’t have several fields of the kin living here. But it does and one of them has had far too much trouble. Had we known, Arvoreen would have gone himself, but it’s too late. You will soon be going into the area and I want you to represent us and resolve the situation. I have faith in you and to help I am giving you three gifts.” Yondalla raised her hand and from her first three fingers arose three glowing balls of light.

“The first gift is the gift of choice. You may choose one of three special quest spells above and beyond your normal complement.” With a wave all three balls flew into the little half-lings head. Ivy felt a little dizzy and began blinking a lot, but the effect passed quickly. “But choose wisely. They can only be used once and they act as signposts for the direction of your journey.”

“The second gift is the gift of advice. Take with you all of your magic items. Leave nothing behind. Let the big folk do as they may, but you have nothing to fear from the unknown at this time and you never know what help you may need.” Yondalla then held the toy shield in front of Ivy. It was now so small that it fit between two of her fingers.

“The third gift is the gift of faith.” The small shield began to glow with a golden light. Yondalla placed it in the little cleric’s hand and wrapped her fingers around it. As her fist closed, the light was so bright that Ivy could no longer see the tiny shield, but there was no heat or pain whatsoever. “Keep it safe,” Yondalla said. “Keep it close to your heart. Keep it to the very end when all other hope is lost. Then, and only then, will it serve you best.” Ivy wrapped her other hand around her closed fist and brought them both to her chest. Yondalla smiled warmly and once again looked around that area.

“Yes, these are very fine trees. They should serve you well.” The goddess looked at Ivy once more, but with a softer, gentler gaze. She put her hands on the little cleric’s cheeks and turned her head back and forth. “You’ve changed; it suites you. Change is good for you. I approve. But no matter how much you change, little one, remember to stay who you are here.” The goddess placed a hand on the cleric’s chest, just above the heart. “And here,” she whispered as she leaned down and kissed Ivy on the head.”

After the event, Ivy shared this experience with us, and we did our best to figure it out. She had been given three quest spells by her god, and it would be up to Ivy to choose one suited to the party’s next adventure, which will be to go neck deep in drow. After this, we had stayed up late enough, and quit.

It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Wrestles A Bear....

2009-06-24T13:31:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, our intrepid group sans one :( got together, and played a little D&D. Here is a picture.

The text from our fun and games will follow shortly.

We were THIS close....

2009-05-23T20:47:00.001-07:00

After some frantic phone calls and emails, we had worked out a time to get back together and play, and then, my daughter Maggie has to go and get tonsilitis. Way to go Maggie.

Ah well, easy come, easy go. We will get together sometime this summer, and then watch out! Rabbo is itching to split some drow skulls.

In the Interim (Spring 2009) Elucidate the Plan...

2009-03-18T20:27:00.000-07:00

I thought my idea was just gonna be cool and vague enough for you to go, "Okay, let me roll this----Rog, you win. Game over. Congratulations."

What the hell did Rabbo unintentionally set in motion? I was there, I don't remember setting anything in motion unintentionally. Did Rabbo shit in someone's petunias? If so, I could see how that could turn to the good eventually.

I didn't mean to indicate that a tournament would be like the arena, as in "it doesn't matter what happens here," but as in "it will be fun to do some things that might not be expected to end our lives if we screw up a little bit." I understand that Rabbo couldn't whip out the stars and lop some poor bastard's head off cuz he gets knocked off a horse in a joust. Well, he could, but there might be some repercussions for that!

To answer your questions and concerns:

A. The note says something like but not necessarily exactly the same as what I will write next! :D So, in any of the really vague or wrong parts, just change them to do what I want to happen. Thanks!

In elvish and common: "Queen of the Fairies: Friends of Driel at the Invisible School and the Crystal Keep wish to help you. Here is some food, water, potions of healing and health, a way out of your prison, and possibly a way to communicate, (we will be watching) if you are able. Please use these gifts if you can. We need your strength, and your people need your strength, now more than ever."

A.1: I only want to include "friends of Driel" as a way to authenticate the message for the Queen, unless calling ourselves "friends of Driel" will piss her off for some reason---so, I would ask Eyar if doing that would be a good idea. Otherwise, I will simply identify myself.

B. I have rethought this idea. We don't have to send the remaining ink, or quill and paper. We can send her a bunch of stuff using the ink, with a couple of magical ways to escape, and leave it at that. The school still gets to research the remaining ink and quill, and she gets a message and a means of survival/escape. Here is the problem, though. If she wanted to escape, she probably could have already, or if she is being barred from escape, our magical solutions are probably less powerful than hers, and would probably fail. Rabbo received one God Question way back which indicated that she wasn't necessarily being held against her will. Our recent vision of our future made it seem that she still had possession of her wand. Which means she is might be choosing to stay in prison for a reason. Perhaps her captors are threatening her or her people in some way which makes staying in captivity a better alternative for her. Perhaps it's one of those situations like the ruby slippers---even the queen of spiders can't touch the fairie wand as long as the fairie queen lives, but she can't can't kill the fairie queen while the wand is in her possession, either. Fairie queen wishes to spare her people outright slaughter and buys them time by agreeing to be held, but allowing her people to run. Fairie queen knows that we will do everything we can to keep her alive. Fairie queen might actually be waiting there to HELP US when the time comes against the queen of the spiders. See, DM, I have thought this through...

BUT, if we can't meet the strength of magic with strength of magic, perhaps we can do something small, which will extend her life, or something small, which may give her a means of escape that could thwart the spider queen's plans.

C and D. I was thinking about using what we have to supply her with approximately 100 HP of healing, one potion of health, and a scroll or scrolls with several spells, which I am going to have to ask for the school's help with (i.e., asking any and all who might know more than me the nature of fairie magic), perhaps a polymorph potion, gaseous form, and/or speed potion, perhaps spells like protection from evil, teleport, dispel magic, wind walk, I frankly am not sure, and would ask for help before I came up with a final list of stuff to include. So, I am not sure about this, and want the school's and Eyar's and anybody else's help with that. I'm just the idea guy here. You can't expect me to figure out how to make this work, can you? I'm not sure how much cost the school will incur, since we have most of that stuff in our booty. But, we will make what we need, and pay the Deans IN BLOOD! or coins, whichever they prefer....

E. Yes, I knew when I wrote that I was going to get some shit. Yes, Fairie Chow was what I was thinking. No, what I was thinking was either some food that we know is native to the area, or some other food which we can reasonably expect to be edible by her---honey, nectar, water, sweetbread, and a big haunch of unicorn, or head of centaur. Well, everything except the last one or two. The point is, make it holy, make it pure, make it natural, make it vegetarian, and we should be okay. Along with that, we should include some fresh grass and maybe a flower, something pretty, to keep her spirits up.

F and G. Screw the instructions on using the magic mail. Follow the new idea outlined in point B above. Do not include a means to magic mail back. The potential problem with using magic mail with instructions is that if it fell into the wrong hands, then the enemy would have instructions on how to gift wrap a big ball of shit right to our doorstep, and I don't want that.

In the Interim (Spring 2009) Regarding Postage

2009-03-18T02:02:00.000-07:00

I want to throw a monkey wrench in the gears, however. First, I have an idea which should work, which I want to run by you like we did several months back, when we were corresponding between games. Ethan's magic mail has two uses left. I suggest that since we know where the Fairie Queen is, we send her a note, including the remaining magic ink, with the quill and additional paper. Include in that note, potions of healing, potions of health, a scroll of protection, recall, or teleportation, fairie food and blessed water. We give her instructions on how to use the magic mail, and ask her to either use what we have given her to escape, or to send us instructions on what do to help her. If she were desperate enough, she could even use the magic mail to mail herself and/or the wand to any place she could address. I think we should act on the Fairie Queen's situation with all haste. After the last questions we asked, it was clear she was only hanging on by a thread. I don't think we would wait until after a party to do this, if it will work. I would use all of my luck to influence any probability that when we send it, she is alone.

So, can we say we do that, and then work on the repercussions after the fun and games for the party?

Big monkey wrench! OK, I would say it is doable... as long as Ethan goes along with it. The School will need his approval for they were really looking forward to analyzing the Ink and Quill and trying to reproduce it. Without a sample it can still be done, but it will take a MUCH longer time and maybe some big bucks. My first thought was that you cant mail the quill, but then I thought that you just fill out a shipping label or wrapping paper and then put the quill in the package and wrap it up! Fine. One package with needing to know....

A. A note. What does the note say?

B. The remaining ink and quill and additional paper.

C. Potions of healing, potions of health. How many and what strength?

D. A scroll of protection, recall, or teleportation. Which? Any dean would be happy to make it as cost.

E. Fairy food and blessed water. What do you suggest, Fairy chow? What and how much? If you want to get into some specific kind of sustenance, it could take some time to research. We are talking about a group of people who have rarely been contacted in the past 1000 years.

F. Instructions on how to use the magic mail. Fine.

G. Ask her to either use what we have given her to escape, or to send us instructions on what do to help her. OK, but the later would include supplying a return address. It may or may not be a big deal, but I just wanted to mention it.

So OK, get all that data to me and we can say that it is done the night before the festival. And so it was written.... "As the party waited for any response, they used the celebration to distract their worried minds."

Gleaming the Cube....(Or, the big payback)

2009-02-22T16:17:00.000-08:00

January 10th, 2009

Game time: 12/27/1308

We gather up magical and cash booty and some non-magical special items, and run out of there as fast as we can. On the way, we heal up Moonface. Without incident, we make it back to the prison. Using gloves of knocking, we make it to the hallway. We gather up bones from two identifiable members of the Wild Youth Expedition party members. Half of the party rests and sleeps and we are attacked by giant rats! One bites Shardenzar, misses, Ethan hits one. Rabbo yells to wake up the party and hits one rat. More rats come in and Moonface is bitten. Rabbo kills one, Shardenzar misses, the dog blinks, Topaz hits with a critical and kills one. Ivy hits and kills one. Rabbo kills another rat. Moonface kills one. Ivy hits another. Eyar kills the last one. We rest the other half of the party. We travel through the rat holes and get to the kitchen. We see a maid, but then the illusion fades. In the laundry room, another maid is seen and then fades in disbelief. In the hallway, the illusory guard fades. We go into a parlor and Rabbo sees a robe on a chair. Ivy and Ethan detect magic, and detect strong magic in the creation sphere in the school of alteration. Ethan tries it on, and we see it is a patchwork robe, with 24 patches. In the next room, there is a faint glow of magic from the nightstand. Ethan casts the spell again, and this time, he loses the spell, and all shut doors and drawers open. We find a piece of chalk radiating moderate magic.

Enough time has passed for Rabbo to regain his 5 God questions. Here they are: 1. Exactly where are the remains of the wild youth expedition that we have not yet found? In the stable. 2. How many charges are left in the gloves of knocking? 4 more this week. 3. Does the party currently carry any cursed items? Yes. 4. Which items in whose possession? Rainbow swirly potion. 5. Is our magical mail being received by the school? Yes.

Shardenzar asks if we could try to locate the remains of the Wild Youth Expedition. We know two last remains are in the prison and in the stable. We decide to get a piece of each of their remains. First we go to the prison and recover Motoon. In his cell are several animated skeletons. Ethan uses knock gloves to open a secret door. “Knock” open the prison door. Shardenzar kills 1, Ivy turns 6, Eyar kills 1, Topaz kills 3, Ethan fires 4 magic missile spells in the melee and kills 5, Rabbo kills 4, and Ivy kills 4. We gather up the bones of Motoon. Then, we make it over to the stables and begin to search. Ethan uses detect magic. Topaz flies and looks around and sees several other stalls. In one stall, we find a Pegasus, on a hunger strike, nearly dead. We try to talk to it, to calm it, but it won’t believe us. It does believe the lawful good Ethan. Ethan gets it food and water. Now, we use the robe of Useful Items and one of its empty patches to get the Pegasus and its food. It is translated into the robe. We find a skeleton in the back of a stall. Most of the equipment is rusty and falling apart, but there is a shiny ring. Ivy puts it on. Ivy is now wearing two of the rings we found. We exit the courtyard and use a knock spell to open the main gates. We leave through the gates, and as we do, there is a huge rumble, and the castle starts to collapse. Rabbo yells, “Run!” and we all start running back to our exit/entry point. Rabbo uses psionics to avoid a negative probability of falling through the clouds on several party members. We make it back approximately to our exit/entry point, and Ethan gets out the magic ink and paper, and we quickly write a note----we need the gate open NOW!!!---and address it to the Flamehand at the Invisible School. Rabbo has just enough points left to influence one more probability and helps Eyar and Ethan, but can not influence his own luck and Rabbo begins to fall through the clouds. As Rabbo falls, the Well of Many Worlds opens up at his feet, and as he falls past, he shouts, “I found the gate!” Eyar dives for the gate and is able to grab Rabbo. Everyone makes it through. After which, among the players, there were general hoots and hell yeahs all around!

Here is a run down of party treasure:

First of all, 40,000 in gold, gems and treasures means that our short term and probable long term financial issues are settled.

28 doses of vial #8 (longevity and speed 5 years younger, 30 rounds of speed), 55 doses of vial #7, 40 doses of vial #4 (polymorph self/vampire control---no idea of length), 26 doses of #2 (xtra healing and diminution 50% height for 3 turns, and 25 hit points back), 28 doses of #1 (xtra healing (3d8 +3)), 9 doses of gaseous form/invisibility (invisible for 20 rounds, gaseous form 8 turns), and 42 doses of the oil of permanency.

Ring of Wild Magic/Spell Memory---Ethan (not much info about its peculiar traits)
Ring of the Vampire Paladin---Ivy (ring of vampiric regeneration, ½ damage pooled for healing spells/regeneration)
Mystery Ring, made of brass---left with school---could not identify
Small shield, +3---Ivy
Rod of Passage---Rabbo (allows wielder: 1.astral travel for up to 5 people; 2. Dimension door; 3. Passwall; 4. Phase door; 5. Teleport without error; 1 charge to activate all 5 functions; 43 charges)
Chalice of Holy Water---Ivy (turns regular water into Holy Water)
Rod of Smiting---Ivy (+3 weapon, 1 d8 +3, 47 charges; against golems x2; 20 or better destroys and drains 1 charge; against outer planes creatures: 1 charge x3 damage)
Staff of Curing---Ivy (clerics only---Cure disease, blindness, cure wounds (3d8) 1/day/person, 22 charges)
Brazier of Controlling Fire Elementals—left at school
Scarab---left with school---unknown powers
14 arrows---left at school----+2
Platter, pitcher, and mug of nourishment---Rabbo (pitcher: water, herbal tea, wine, 3/day, but must clean after use; platter: complete meal of beef, lamb, turkey, or pheasant with trimmings for 4 1/day, must clean after use; Mug: mead, beer, all 6/day, clean after use to function)
Blue Dragon Staff---Ethan (couldn’t divine anything about it)
Helmet of “Good” Seeing---Ivy, (for cleric/paladin of good alignment)
Magical Quill and Ink (Ethan’s Fabulous Pen and Ink)
Special Ring of Regeneration
Cursed Potion---left at school
Robe of Useful Items (patchwork robe w/ 24 “special” patches)---Ethan
15 scroll tubes*
Gloves of knocking---Ethan (6/week)
Spell Memory Ring (wild magic)
Bracers of AC 3---Ethan
Scroll (3 speak with dead spells)
Passwall Chalk---Ethan (passwall---400 cubic feet material 3” of chalk)
Pink Potion
Potion of superheroism---gave to Peter (temporary increase in level for 5d6 rounds)
Bastard Sword, +1---left at the school
Plans for the “Dragonfly”

*in the scrolltubes:
1. Sleep, Web, Rope Trick, Fly, Mordenkainen’s Celerity, Wall of Force
2. Flaming sphere
3. Alamier’s fundamental Breakdown, Slow
4. Haste, Locate Creature, Airy Water, Lorloveim’s shadowy Transformation
5. charm Monster, Minor Spell turning, Seeming, Demi Shadow Magic, Shape Change, Temporal Stasis, reverse, Gate
6. Confusion, Wish (used 1/13/1309)
7. Evard’s Black Tentacles
8. Phantasmal Killer, Contact Other Plane, Contact Other Plane, Otiluke’s Freezing Sphere, Guards and Wards, Vanish, Meteor Swarm
9. Priest’s Spell: Invisibility to animals, Barkskin, water Breathing, Could of Putrification, Blessed Abundance
10. Priest Spell: Modify Memory, Tongues, True Seeing, reversed, Transmute Mud to Rock, Windwalk, Confusion, symbol
11. Priest’s Spell: Thought broadcast, Raise Dead, Antimagic Shell, Stonetell, Gravity Variation, word of Recall, Sunray
12-15. All spell relating to the creation and development of a Spelljammer helm.

At the end of this installment, we met or achieved several objectives: We got the oil of permanence, we retrieved the remains of the wild youth expedition, we freed and saved the Pegasus, and we freed Gorson from hell. We settled up experience, and many in the party went up their maximum amount, while Rabbo and Eyar both went up a level!!!!(first time in 20 years. I was kind of excited!).

1/13/1309

Ethan completes his penance to Ivy which corresponds to the New Year’s Holiday. Here is an update on our other projects:

Road Project: The Huts are happy to work on roads, willing to allow a tax to help build roads

Alexander to Immer: On foot, approximately 25 days, not back yet

Peter to Muetar: On foot, with guns, diplomatic mission, not back yet.

Adam Kelly: Horses and guns to Shuccasm, not back yet.

The school is working on road spells; potions is working on xtra xtra healing potions; they are working on rings of regeneration; and are also working on lore and history.

Ethan is working carefully to tend to and heal up Gus the Pegasus. The Dean of the school and the party is ready to try the potion mixing and red cube fixing.

We begin the preparation. The DM gave us this story to describe what happens next:

-----------------------------
The cube fell to the bottom of the beaker with a splashy thunk… and sat there.
“Now what?” asked Rabbo.
“Now we wait,” said the dean of potions. He placed a large cork in the top of the beaker, draped the whole thing in a blue silk cloth and placed it on a high shelf.
“What do you mean ‘We wait’?”
The other members of the party looked around puzzled.
“I mean we wait.” The dean went to his desk and began putting personal items into a small chest. “We have to wait for the reaction to finish reacting with the magic of the cube before anything else will happen.”
“How long will that take?” asked Ethan Arch.
“Oh,” said the dean looking up. “Eternity.”
“What!” shouted Rabbo.
“Look,” The dean closed his chest, locked it and placed it under his arm. “We have to wait for the cube to go to eternity before the permanent oil of time travel brings the contents back. Until then there really isn’t anything we can do.”
“But you said it would open the cube NOW!”
“Now doesn’t really exist right now.” The dean went over to a coat rack and removed a robe and pointy hat. “We are living in a false reality. When the cube reaches eternity and comes back… all of this,” The dean waved his hand. “...will be redone in a new time line. Until then, we wait.”
“Are you going somewhere?” asked Ivy.
“Well,” said the dean putting on his hat. “Most of the school is already gone. Some went into permanent stasis, some killed them selves, and most are just leaving. Me, I want to spend a few decades on a beach somewhere living as a hermit. When else am I going to get the chance? To hell with this world; dedication to the craft be damned!” A huge smile crossed the dean’s face as he shook his fist mockingly.
“Now wait just a god damned min…” Rabbo fumed. With a wave of his hand and a few uttered syllables, the dean vanished in a puff of smoke.

Ivy Boargo emerged from the smoke. Sweat, condensation and blood held her hair flat against her head. She hurried down the tunnel and dropped her pack against cave wall next to the cell door. Grabbing the bars in the little window she pulled herself up to look in.
“Is she there?” yelled a voice from the smoky tunnel. The sound of battle rang loudly. The look on Ivy’s face grew sad and depressed. She lowered herself down.
“Is she IN THERE?” screamed another voice. Ivy took a deep breath and rested her head against the wooden door.
“Is she in there?” said Eyar sternly as she now came running down the smoky tunnel. Ivy shook her head slowly.
“We’re too late,” she said to the Amazon. “She’s dead.”
“What?” Eyar looked though the little window at the cell inside. She too was moved by what she saw. Shoving the halfling aside the woman grabbed the bars on the door, braced her foot against the cave wall and heaved. Wood creaked loudly and the entire door exploded from its hinges. Eyar rushed in and Ivy stood in the doorway as the Amazon crouched beside the dried husk body dressed in the lightest of silks, stained with mud, blood and bile and chained to the wall in an unforgiving way. The wand was still clutched in her dead, desiccated hand. Eyar reached out to take it. As her fingers touched the wand, it turned to dust.

As the dust fell, Ethan Arch cheered. Then the branches fell, then the leaves.
“Don’t give away our position,” snapped Rabbo. The fighter hurried to inspect the bodies and see that they were all dead.
“I can’t help it,” said the young wizard. “I love these scrolls.”
“Yeah, well you wouldn’t love them so much if I wasn’t here to help you luck out when reading them.” Rabbo was satisfied and motioned for the girls and MU to continue moving. “Buy the way, until I get a chance to rest I’m low on mind power and won’t be able to help you out all that much so don’t use any more scrolls, all right?” Suddenly several Drow archers leap out and begin firing at the party. Ethan cheered again and began casting his magic missile spell over and over again. With each casting the ring on his finger flashed a bright red. The Drow began running and the young wizard cast his spell one more time. Suddenly a large cloudy vortex opened just in front of the young man. A huge set of claws reached out and grabbed Ethan by the face. Rabbo ran to attack the claws. A pit fiend devil emerges and with one swipe ripped Rabbo’s arm from it socket.
“Not again!” the warrior screamed. The pit fiend retreated to the vortex taking Ethan with him. The vortex disappeared as the girls reached Rabbo and began to bind his wounds. “They’re gone,” he said. “They’re gone.”

“What do you mean they’re all gone?” asked Rabbo. He walked back and forth across the meeting room rubbing his bandaged stump.
“That’s just it,” said Eyar. “The entire school is gone! The buildings are there but they are totally empty. The only thing we could find was this.” Ivy brought out a large beaker wrapped in a blue silk cloth.
“Great. How the hell is THAT supposed to help us? How am I going to get my arm back without the schools help?”

“I’ll do what I can Rabbo, but you have to sit still.” Ivy looked over the contraption and undid the buckles. Rabbo half flung the prosthetic into the sand.
“Remind me to punch both the engineer and the blacksmith when we get home,”
“I have one more healing left if you need it.”
“Save it for now, unless you need it Eyar.” The Amazon sat down hard on the sand dune across from the others.
“I don’t think you should touch me,” she said panting. As with all of them, her body ran wet with sweat and her skin was beginning to turn pink. “I found some goo on the back of my arm. I think one of those bastards infected me.”
“The ointment we found at the Hippogriff ruin should take care of that. I have a jar in my pack.” As the halfling cleric rose to retrieve her things, a column of fire descended from the heavens above. Before her friends could react, three more descended.

“Three! Three? Are you sure?” asked Adam Kelly.
“Yes. The Drow, the kobolds and the leapers all have their gods working on this plane and we’ve gotten our butts kicked by all of them so far.”
“Well I hate to add bad new when you both are trying to heal up and all, but we just got a message in from Immer.”
“Both? Only one of us is healing now major.”
“That bad?”
“The healers are doing what they can, but without a cleric or some magic healing…”
“There is the tree of life, sir.”
“We tried it. It slows the rot, but won’t stop it. Not as long as that god is in this plane. What’s the word from Immer?”
“Undead, sir. Attacking out of the pass from Zorn.”
“Undead? What kind?”

Skeletons fell by the dozens. Rabbo swung his weapon in long arcs and bones went flying. Soon the skeleton worriers worked their way to the front, but when they did hit, or he fumbled his weapon, Rabbo uses his mind powers to lessen the severity of the situation. Still, he kept just enough in reserve to dimension walk his way out when he needed. And now was just about the time he needed. He turned to walk and was confronted by a spider of gigantic proportions. It was a hideous beast of such ugliness and evil that no words can do it justice. With a gleam in its eyes, combat was initiated and concluded in less than a second. Rabbo fell to his knees, bleeding from his eyes and ears, a look of utter stupefaction on his face. The spider ignored the undead attacking her and raised the warrior to her face. For is instant her head assumed a human form and smiled. Then the fangs plunged into Rabbo’s chest and neck and the blood began to flow.

This time the bandages could not stop the blood. Eyar ignored it. She stood, looking out the mirror as the barrier was breached and the Invisible school was charged. She saw it begin to burn. Then with her arm that looked more like a bleeding, puss filled mummy, she reached out and touched the crystal the disconnected the mirrors. Now she knew it was over. Now she knew it was done. Now she knew Rabbo would not be coming back. Now she knew she could fight no longer. She lowered her arm and fell.

She fell onto a patch of lava rock and balanced on the brink. The sounds of the efreetii screaming were only barely drowned out by the sound of bone digging through the stone and crystal. The ground shook again from another blast, but Eyar’s stone ears could not hear it. She tottered on the brink one last time before sliding off the edge and falling into the molten rock. The stony image of Eyar floated on the surface for a few seconds, and then began to sink.

Everything began to sink. Into the darkness it went. Smaller and smaller it became. When the aperture was small enough, the Black Hand reached out and placed the golden cap over the celestial gate. With his black index finger he pushed the gold chain that hung there, causing it to wobble. He smiled.

Smiled as they fell before him. The last vestige of resistance. Zealots of a diseased god. A god now stripped of power. A shell. A nothing. Despite all they had they fell. You cannot infect the dead. They fell and when they fell they rose. They rose for him.

They rose and stood around the altar, each holding their elemental gift. The day had come and everything was falling into place. One by one, the liches placed their gifts upon the altar. As each gift arrived, the greystaff grew in power. When all four had placed their gifts, they backed away, leaving only him at the altar. Then he produced his gift. He placed the baby on the altar and greystaff’s power grew to levels unheard of in this place. He recited the arcane words. He made the grandiose gestures. He produced the hoof of Orcus. With it he ended his offering’s life. As the blood spilled upon the altar, a pillar of pure energy so strong as to take on life itself erupted from the altar. It split through the plane and into all known realities. It transcended the ethereal, inner and astral and made straight for the heart of the outer planes. There, due to its placement in the grand scheme of things, it began to create. He extended his black hand and reached into the pillar of energy.
“I WILL HAVE WHAT IS MINE!”
With a power immeasurable, he ripped a cord of energy from the pillar and threw is to the ground. It moved like a dying snake with its head cut off and slowly came to a halt. The repercussions were felt all along the pillar. That which was being created bent to the will of the designer.
“IT WILL BE AS I SAY!”
He reached in and again ripped out another cord of pure energy. It too writhed on the ground as the first began to putrefy. Again the vibrations were felt in all planes along the pillar to the point of creation.
“ALL SHALL BOW UNTO ME!”
Again he reached into the great pillar, but this time he pulled the cord out of the flow and snapped its end. Held fast as the death spasms heaved through the pillar. The violent movement slowed and at last a shimmer could be seen in the broken cord. He pulled slack from the pillar and sat the end of the cord on the ground. Through the cord all could see the new plane being created to his will. A new plane of power; a new plane of death; it would be a new plane that would oversee and dominate all others. Not an inner plane, nor an outer plane, but an over plane. He removed a ring from his finger and placed it in the hoof of Orcas. He tossed the hoof into the fetid mass of dead energy cords. He began laughing and stepped through the end of the cord. The undead followed. When all was gone, the pillar vanished. The other plane was created. This one was now set adrift. Free.

Free to watch this place rot. Life could no longer thrive here. Death no longer had any meaning here. Magic barely even worked here. This was a null place and Orcas sat atop the mountains, flexing his wings, and watching everything go. In time he too would go. But that would be a very long time.

A very long time it is. A very long time it was. Very little is left but time; time and this useless space. Space that is tied to nothing, bound to nothing, meaning nothing, and containing almost nothing. A fleck of gemstone here, a mote of metal there, are all floating through the void. Alone, except for a small red cube. In time, it will be the only thing here. But the will be a very long time.

A very long time it is. A very long time it was. But the cube continued to float.
POOF!

---------------------------

Then the red field around the cube fades, and there is a recognizable pop, and briefly we see the undead Felix top hat, red eyes, finger poised next to the cube, and then, there was the familiar “pop” out, and a hole in space where Felix stood, with the cube on the ground.

We try to access the hole to pop out, but can’t. Finally, Rabbo remembers to command pop out to give him the portable hole and a black cloth appears and the hole in space collapses. We take the portable hole and cube to the courtyard. Rabbo makes a sacrifice to Bes. We meet Flamehand.

We open the portable hole and find: 229 gp; 500 platinum; 20 clips for the M-22; 2 daggers; a shortsword; 3 gold discs; a wooden stake with a burned hole in the end, with the word Pandora written on it; 53 pieces of gems and jewelry; 3 healing draughts; a sling and 20 bullets; 1 throwing star; 5 applications of Keoughtom’s ointment; a letter from the King of Immer.

Rabbo asks the school to work on an endless clip for the M-22. Eyar takes the Keoughtom’s ointment; Rabbo takes the portable hole, vampire stake, and 3 healing draughts. We open the fortress side of the cube, and a big, run down, falling apart tower is in front of us.

Rabbo asks his next god questions. 1. Where is my other throwing star? In pop out. 2. In what place exactly, in the mires are the crystals, cube and green box? The neo-Otyugh muckpile, the guardpost, and the dark queen’s work shop. 3. Which is in which place? Same order. 4. What is the physical distance between the cube, green box, and crystals? 350 feet and 350 feet. 5. Is the Fairie Queen still alive? Yes, barely.

We had a sobering moment. It looked like we wouldn’t be able to access anything more out of pop out, because Felix’s old cube did not have a fortress with access to pop out in it. We were pissed off, but in the end, decided to make do with what we had. We set up some pre-planning that we really needed to do all along. For example, we need to plan on having the M-U’s have these spells ready for us---Locate Object, Protection From Evil, Continual Light, Invisibility, Improved Invisibility, on a scroll, several times, Stoneskin, Alternate Reality, Teleport and/or teleport without error, Far Reaching. Our cleric(s) should have: Bless, Command, Protection From Evil, Random Causality, Probability Control, Sanctuary, Chant, Charm Person, Hold Person, Silence, Dispel magic, Locate Object, Summon Insects, Imbue with Spell Ability, and Word of Recall. Just so we can get multiple plusses and saves in battle. How many times had 1 single roll or 1 number made the difference?

We discuss several options for moving forward, including a small way magicked up party to infiltrate the Mires and get back the things we want: the Fairie Queen, the cube, the crystals, and the green box, and then Flamehand suggests that we use a wish on the scroll we found to redo a very small event---how we accessed pop-out. Flamehand is generally against wishes, but this is such a specific event, that he thinks using one might work. And, we happen to have one that can be used at no cost to the school.

We discussed what we might say to access pop-out better, and came up with this: “I wish Rabbo had accessed pop-out to retrieve all items in pop-out instead of just the portable hole.” Before the Dean of Scrolls said it, we cleaned out the Dean’s office, and left Rabbo and the Dean of Scrolls there. The wish was made. Now as it occurs, we don’t actually remember that we didn’t ask for the items from pop-out poorly. We remember asking for all items from pop-out, in a way like a computer code back door, meaning, that through the wish, Rabbo was given the proper access code to get everything out of pop-out, but doesn’t really remember what he said. In fact, nobody exactly remembers any of the reality in which we accessed pop-out poorly. We just remember that as we were getting ready to access pop-out, Rabbo blurted out this unusual string of words/symbols, and everything in pop out spewed out on the floor of the Dean’s office. Everything else we learned from questions, etc. all still happened exactly the way it had before.

This is the stuff that appears from the Felix-sized hole:

Portable Hole #1: 229 gp; 500 platinum; 20 clips for the M-22; 2 daggers; a shortsword; 3 gold discs; a wooden stake with a burned hole in the end, with the word Pandora written on it; 53 pieces of gems and jewelry; 3 healing draughts; a sling and 20 bullets; 1 throwing star; 5 applications of Keoughtom’s ointment; a letter from the King of Immer.

Portable Hole #2: Armor of Etherealness, +4, 45% MR; plate, +1; Plate +2; Bracers, AC 0; Bracers, AC 4; Gauntlets of Dexterity; Gauntlets of Ogre Power; (18/00); Helm of Comprehending Languages and Reading Magic; Helm of Telepathy; Scarab of Protection, +1, x2: Shield, +1; Shield, +5; 2 handed sword, +3 +6 undead slayer; blowgun, +1, 40 bolts, +1; colt .45 w/holster, 196 rounds; dagger, +1; 3 hand grenades; Light crossbow, +3 +4, or blue crystal; longsword, +1 +2; Longsword, +2; Longsword, +2 +3 luckblade, +8 on _________; Longsword, +3 Defender; Longsword, “Jerik;” M-22 50 rounds, X2; Mace of Disruption; Blue crystal Mace of Disruption, +5; .22 pistol X2, 50 rounds; Scythe, +1; Spear, +2; Star of Hurling, +4; Fork of Wonder; Ring of 10% magic resistance; ring of Protection +6 with 3 ethereal charges; ring of Protection, +6; ring of regeneration, 2 HP/turn, X2; Ring of Regeneration, 4 HP/Turn, X3; ring of Regeneration, X3; Rod of Absorption-32 potential, 25 stored; Rod of Resurrection, blue crystal; Rod Sanctuary; Staff of the Magi; Staff of the Void; Wand of Fire; Amulet Vs. Undead; Arrow of Direction; Boots of Speed; Boots of Striding and Springing; Broom of Flying; Decanter of Endless Water; Dust of Illusion, 1 pinch; Elixir of health; Elixir of Life; Figurine of Wondrous Power, 1 lion; Girdle of Frost Giant Strength; Girdle of Hill Giant Strength; ioun Stones, burnt, X4; Ioun Stone, spells 20 lvls; Ioun Stone Spells 30 X2; 1 Ioun Stone (sustain without air); Keoughtom’s ointment 5 jars, 5 applications each; Lens of Detection; Luckstone +25% on luck rolls, +1 on all saves; Necklace of Adaption; Pearl of Power; Pearl of wisdom; Potion of Superheroism; Quall’s Feather token (basket); Slipper of Spider Climbing; wings of Flying; Zardon’s Pouch of Wonders.

We did not pull out: the Anything Ring, the Anything Wand, the cloak of displacement, and the rope of entanglement. Portable hole #2 also included 35,080 gold; and a total outfit of mundane effects for a magic user. Lost in a cube somewhere are 3 hydrogen and 3 atomic energy cells; crystal papers; and a medic robot.

At this time, we had had enough, and called it a day.

In the Halls of the Giants....

2008-10-26T19:24:00.001-07:00

October 3, 2008.
Game Time: 12/26/1308

We are in a dry cellar. At the back of the cellar, we find a tunnel, 6 feet wide and approximately 3 feet tall. As we set a walking order, and start down the tunnel, we are attacked by giant ants again!!! In the fight, Ivy and Ethan get their chance to swing and kill some ants. As the party engages the ants, Ethan casts a sleep spell, and several of the ants sleep. When he casts sleep a second time, his spell misfires and puts the whole party to sleep. He has lost the spell in his mind as well (that is, the ring did not replenish the spell automatically). Ethan decides to fight the sleeping ants himself, while the rest of us slept! After killing a couple, an ant scores a critical hit against him, and in desperation, Ethan finally wakes Rabbo up. After Rabbo wakes up, he smashes approximately 10 ants. Through the fight, Ethan killed 4, Ivy killed 4, Eyar killed 1, the blink dogs fight, and Topaz killed 1 too.

After the fight, Ethan uses his healing potion to heal up, and to heal the others. Then, we take a moment to test his ring. Ethan relearns the sleep spell, casts it, and the ring replenished it in his mind with no ill effects. As we suspected, the ring replenishes spells, with a small chance for a negative or random effect.

We travel through a long tunnel into a large cavern. At the east end, there is a glow emanating from a statue of an angelic looking woman, wielding a two-handed sword, held high above her head. On her head was a brass helmet, with a large ruby in the center of the front.
Ethan casts and loses Detect Magic. So the ring seems to be failing more often. Ivy detects magic, and detects strong magic from the statue. Rabbo used some of his luck alteration skill to help Ivy determine the magic type. The object emanated greater divination/alteration/guardian magic. Ethan took the time to relearn the spell, and this time Rabbo had to alter luck again, and Ethan reads very strongdivination/guardian magic. However, as he casts the spell, some other unusual effect happens. He lost the spell from memory, but his quill and ink now radiate magic, glow, and the magic is from the enchantment/charm schools of magic. We try to test the quill and ink. Ethan writes some nonsense and some direct questions on a parchment, like “Chocolate lemons like pink elephants,” but also “Where is the oil of permanency?” “show me where it is,” and “I like gold.”

When he puts the quill down, the paper folds itself into an envelope, and inside it is the message he wrote. He opens it up, but when he is done, it closes itself back up. He addresses the letter to Ivy. Poof, in a split second, it is gone, and Ivy finds it in her backpack. We realize that this allows us to send remote messages, so we decide to send a message to the school. “We’re okay, close to discovering oil of permanency. Gorson’s dead, Ivy says hi!” We address it to Flame Hand at the Invisible School of Thuamaturgy. Off it goes.

In about a half hour to an hour, we search the whole cavern. As Rabbo and Ivy approach the statue, we hear a whistle of wind and Rabbo sends the dogs and Topaz to investigate. One of the dogs is attacked by this mist-like creature. We run in that direction. Ethan decides to move toward the statue. The mist-thing critically strikes the dog. Rabbo swings his two handed sword, hits, and hits again as the thing dissipates. Ivy casts flame blade, then heals the dogs. Ivy gives some healing potion to the dogs.

While we are engaged at the other end of the cavern, Ethan approached the statue. The statue swings and hits Ethan as he climbs it. It is obvious that he is hurt badly. We rush down to the statue, and then warily approach the statue for the fight. Eyar tries to push the statue over, and gets hit, from an almost impossibly fast swing of the sword. Rabbo tries to push it and is also hit hard. Rabbo tries to yank off the helmet, but missed with a 22! Rabbo tries again, misses, and is hit again by the statue. In the fight, one of the blink dogs is cut in half. Eventually, we back off, and notice the gem in the helmet shines when the cleric approaches. Ivy reaches up and is able to remove the helmet. She tries to put it on, and sees for a moment that when it is on, things seem more vivid. She takes it off and puts it back on. The effect returns. We experiment to see if the helmet does things---apparently it does---such as see alignment, and also see clearly. After the fight, we try to heal the dog, but to no avail. It is dead and gone. We decide to try to send the dog back with the quill and ink. We realize through the helmet that the statue was an illusion. We disbelieve it and it is no longer. the message system seems to work, and has a weight limit of about 120 pounds (Ursa’s weight).

Rabbo drinks one jug of healing. Back up. We rest, recuperate, heal and study spells for about 45 minutes. We decide to go back down to the other end of the cavern, where we were first attacked, and we follow the small passageway. While we are in the tunnel, we are attacked by a gelatinous cube, squashed in the long, low hallway. Eyar and Ivy were close to the front, and when the final blow was landed, it collapsed in a splash of goo and they were covered (and paralyzed). Rabbo and Shardenzar remember the pitcher, plate, and platter. with the pitcher and the mug, we produce enough beer and wine to clean the hallway, and get up to the girls. The pitcher produces 2 jugs of water, 1 of wine, and the mug produces 6 beers. The platter produces a full meal for 4 people. Inside the goo, Ethan finds 7 copper, 1 silver, 2 platinum, and 3 gold, while mopping up the grey goo on the floor with a ripped part of his bedroll.

We continue to investigate a small side passage. Inside there appears to be a well made staff on the far wall of a room which opens up at the end of this side passage. Ivy goes in first, because her size makes it easy for her. As soon as she enters, she is attacked by a white ooze. We hear the commotion, and Rabbo pulls her back (with a rope). Rabbo kills the ooze, but not before it ruins Ivy’s elfin chain armor and shield. She’s unconscious.

We go back into the room, check to make sure it’s safe, and Ivy recovers. She detects magic on the staff. The wood is blue and polished, straight, very magical, with a finely crafted blue dragon head at its top. Rabbo spends 30 + psionic points to influence luck and we determine through Ivy and Ethan the type of magic: Alteration/Evocation, Alteration and Weather.

After we rest, we further explore a cavern, and see that it slowly becomes worked stone. We follow it to a point at which a huge door is locked, and there is no way for us to open it, nor is there a way around or through. So we go back, and go down another passage, from which earlier, we saw a dim light. There is the remains of a temple, with a large wing male figure on an alter. Rabbo again influences chance and the spell casters are able to see that the statue is very strong magic, of the Divination and Alteration types. The altar and statue emanate Good. With the helmet, Ivy can tell it is real and not an illusion. Ivy prays to get a spell back, and Ethan, Moonface, and Shardenzar approach. Ethan crosses the altar and is fine. Ivy decides to approach and the statue comes to life and says, “DO YOU SEEK REDEMPTION?” She says, “No,” at which point she is smacked hard by the statue. She says, “Yes!” and a golden light bathes her and her alignment changes (to a good alignment).

Ivy and Ethan see a chalice, golden, which is engraved with figures in prostrate. Ivy takes it, and we go on down the hallway and open what is clear to us the back of a secret door, into a group of prison cells. Topaz flys into the corridor and checks out the cells.

#6 has what appears to be the remains of a human magic user. When inspecting her skeletal remains, her hat a clothes fall apart, but her gloves look brand-new. Rabbo decides to put them in his back pack, but Ethan wants to try them on. He does, and can take them off. Rabbo says to Ethan, “It is pointless at present to attempt to identify the gloves. They could be anything, but unless they are gloves of super giant strength, they aren’t going to be much good opening the locked door we found while we explored that other hallway.” Ethan said, “They might be gloves of knocking, or something like that.” Rabbo responded, “Highly unlikely.” (This detail is written down now to enhance the irony of our situation in a few moments). In another cell, there are animated skeletons, and in another cell, another dead magic user, with a scroll tube. When we attempt to open it, magic mouth appears and says, “Fellow student, I have spell trapped the tube. Speak the name of our institution to remove the spell before opening.” So, we say, “The Invisible School of Thuamaturgy,” and the scroll tube opens. Inside is a note which reads as follows:

"Please see that this note (The last testament of the Wild Youth expedition) is taken to the board of the ISOT as an explanation of our attempt and final fate. We, the third year students Ishmar, Galdring and Motoon, along with freshmen Thadric and 'The Pulse' joined Brother Bloodmar on his quest to fine Gorson Longtree.

We sought to asses his progress and possibly begin bartering for potion recipes that could be developed along non-evil lines. We have found no sign of him and believe him to be dead, killed for his potion knowledge by a would be 'super' giant living on this cloudscape. It is unclear if this giant is naturally his size or if having access to Gorson's supposed permanency potion that he has somehow made himself this size, but he is undoubtedly the largest recorded being outside of the gods or demigods. The giant seems to have an advanced skill in creation, but it is unknown if this is true or just something augmented by the permanency potion we believe he keeps in a vial tied around his neck. Only too late did we discover that his giant servants are nothing more than illusions. I now believe that he is the only intelligent living thing on this vermin filled chunk of solid fluff.

We lost track of the freshmen in the open courtyard of this place. I can only hope they made it back by themselves. Brother Bloodmar was eaten by a giant cat right in front of us and the rest of us have been imprisoned. Having now disbelieved his servants, they can no longer bring me food or water and I believe I will soon die of thirst. Galdring did her best to free us using her Gloves of knocking, but when she was recaptured they must have killed her or removed the gloves for it has been over a week and she has not returned. I believe Motoon may have gone mad. I can sometimes hear him in the cell near mine, praying and chanting almost constantly. I believe he will last the longest being able to create his own food and water. I do not envy his fate.
With Gorson gone I believe that the well of many worlds should now be destroyed so as not to allow the giant access into our world. Please forgive us our ignorance.

Ishmar,
The Wild Youth Group."

Added at the end of the note in a much shaker hand:
"many times heard giant going past to end ---- into cell for hours. not know what interests him there."

So, the gloves are gloves of knocking, in a highly unlikely chain of events. We walk back down the hallway, and make our way back to the iron door that barred our path before. Ethan raps his gloved knuckles against the door, and like magic, it opens. As it opens, we are confronted with a 72 foot tall, flesh-colored giant! We attack, sending the blink dog and Topaz up to look ofr or get the vial around his neck. Rabbo and Eyar attack, stabbing his feet, and we yell to the halfing to hide. Eyar is hit and is killed in one blow. After some fierce fighting, Ivy steps around the corner of the iron door, tells us that the creature is an illusion, and afte a few more swings, we all realize that this huge creature is an illusion. We heal up, use Ethan’s ring to restore Eyar, and walk down the hall. We find the “treasure” room. It is too quick, too easy, and we quickly determine that this is a false treasure room. However, as we enter this room, some of us are charmed by a magical noise. Over the span of a few minutes, we all are able to resist the effects. Not only does Ivy see, but we discover that there is an illusory wall, behind which is the real treasury, and also, behind which is a haggard-looking 72 foot tall flesh colored giant. Rabbo instructs everyone to hide and rest up, relearn spells, etc. The plan is to either wait him out, and see if he leaves the treasury, or to surprise him, and try to bring him down. Eventually, we will get the oil or permanency, if it still exists, while he is sleeping or dead.

After some time of waiting, we look back in on him, and he hasn’t moved an inch. In fact, he appears transfixed by something on his desk, an odd contraption. We decide to come in. We had to leave the blink dog in our hiding spot, because he was still charmed by the noise. As we begin to explore the real treasury, which appears to be loaded to the hilt with coin and magic, we get a better look at the device on the desk: it is a calliope. As it turns, mesmerizing gold and silver light emanates from it, and haunting, charming music also comes from it. The giant is transfixed. Shardenzar casts levitate on Rabbo, so that Rabbo can investigate the desk, and hopefully get the oil vial. As Rabbo investigates, he sees that the oil vial is no longer around the giant’s neck, but is empty and on the desk, in front of the calliope. It seems that the giant filled the calliope’s oil reservoir with the oil of permanency, and lit the wick at coming out of one side of the reservoir. On the other side of the reservoir, there is a cap and the place to add the oil. Before Rabbo tries to fill up one of his empty jugs, he looks around the desk. He finds 21 nice gems in cubby holes in the desk.

Down below, Eyar finds a bag with 16,000 giant sized silver pieces, a scarab, a staff, a pink potion, and a red, white, and blue potion, Shardenzar finds a rod, 14 arrows, a brazier, candlebra, and a sword, Topaz finds a comb, Ivy finds a rod, potion, a small shield, and a ring, Ethan finds bracers, and as a group, they find 15 scroll tubes, approximately poster sized. They also found several non magical items, including an ivory statue, and a beautiful cane. Also, found 1000 gold and 700 platinum.

We attempt to mail off 6 giant sized gold pieces, and discover the limitations of the quill and ink. It can transport 1 gold piece.

The cap on the calliope oil reservoir requires strength to open. Rabbo gets it open without disrupting the calliope. However, in the process of dipping his jug into the oil, he thumps the side of the reservoir, and disrupts the calliope for a moment, and the giant stirs.

The giant says, “Uhhhhhhhh…” and brings a hand up to point at Rabbo. the party down below notice this, and Ivy casts a command word. “Die,” she says, which will cause the target to sleep. The giant slumped over, asleep. Rabbo takes the opportunity to get more potion out, and once again, in the process, only gets a small amount out and disrupts the calliope again. The giant is still asleep, but while Rabbo waits for the calliope to start again, he falls under its spell.
About this time, Ethan, with his Blue dragon staff, (which we assumed was a staff of Blue Dragons, which might have powers like lightning bolt, create or destroy water, etc.) fired a lightning bolt out at the giant, and hit it squarely. When the lightning bolt hits, the giant wakes up. Despite protests of the party, and insults like, “what the hell were you thinking? He was asleep!!!” ther was no time to stop him from firing the bolt. As soon as Shardenzar saw this, he fired his lightning bolt, too. Several more times lightning bolts were fired, Ivy put the electrified bastard to sleep once again, only for the giant to be fried by lightning bolts, and after several rounds of fierce electrical exchanges, and the giant, disoriented, and being hit by two lightning bolts every few seconds, missed his attempts to step on Eyar, who was stabbing him in the foot. Ivy wonders where Rabbo is (like, why haven’t we seen Rabbo jumping through the air and gnawing this guy’s giant ear off), and Shardenzar takes a moment to cast levitate on Ethan, who says he will go up to check it out. Topaz uses his breath weapon, and also tries to hit, but just can’t do any damage. While lightning bolts still fly, Ethan makes it to the desk top, and sees Rabbo transfixed by the calliope. As Ethan gets closer, he sees that Rabbo did not get very much of the oil. He gets a full jug, and then knocks over the calliope. When it tumbles over, the oil inside the reservoir spills out, and catches fire. Rabbo awakens, takes stock, dips his sword in flaming oil, and takes a flying leap at the giant’s chest, and hits him hard. There are several more lightning bolt exhanges, several more bloody hits from Rabbo and Eyar, and after over 500 hit points of damage, the giant keels over and dies!

After that, even though the desk was on fire, and we had yet to assess how much stuff we could strap on and carry out of here, we decided to take a break.

Into the Castle and Through The Kitchen...

2008-08-07T20:05:00.000-07:00

To the caverns of the cloud giants we go...

July 2008

Game Day: 12/24/1308

Here is a rough sketch of the tower we are in:

There was nothing else we could find in the southern room. The blink dogs tell us that the smell a chemical smell coming from the room behind the large door. All of us attempt to open the door, individually, and even Rabbo and Eyar fail. However, we all attempt together, and end up breaking a rivet along the bottom of the door, which allowed a small crack in the wood to be exploited. We could see through, and could squeeze through the opening.

Looking through the crack, we see a big table. There are shelves along the walls. On the shelves there are at least 40 bottles and flasks. Ethan and Ivy both cast Detect Magic, and they begin to scan around the room, trying to identify any magical items. Topaz flies up to the table to look around. Topaz sees beakers, flasks, and general lab equipment. Ivy and Ethan detect 8 magically emanating flasks.

Potion #1: moderate, Ivy detects it’s within the sphere of healing

#2: strong, Ivy detects sphere of healing/chaos

#3: normal, Ethan and Ivy detect sphere of summoning, school of conjuration

#4: overwhelming, Rabbo spends 113 psionic points to influence Ethan and Ivy’s “luck,” and detects the sphere of summoning/chaos, school of conjuration, summoning, and alteration

#5: normal, couldn’t detect school or sphere

#6: normal, couldn’t detect school or sphere

#7: overwhelming, Ivy detects sphere of elemental/chaos

#8: strong, Ivy detects sphere of necromancy/chaos

Rabbo climbs up and uncorks #4 and lowers his continual light vial in the potion bottle (remember, everything is 12 times normal size) and gets a sample. He lowers down #4, #2, #1, almost drops #7, and #8 slips and falls a few feet at the very end of its descent. The stopper pops off of #8, and the potion spills everywhere. In particular, it spills on Ethan, Ivy, Eyar, and Shardenzar. Even though only a tiny amount spills in Eyar’s open mouth, it was enough to have a strong effect. As they are doused, the bottle starts to tip over, but Ethan and Ivy together are able to keep it from dumping completely out. After one taste, Eyar feels a strong urge to drink more, and even though we counsel against it, she decides to drink more. After she drinks, she acts as if she is under the effects of a haste spell, and also a potion of youth (longevity), because she speeds up in her speech and action, and also reverts to approximately a girl of 14 years of age. Fortunately for Eyar, she was an early bloomer, so she nearly has her adult stature, figure, and strength. As the change occurs, Rabbo commands Shardenzar to cast dispel magic; however, he can’t do it right away. He first has to read it out of Ethan’s spell book, and then has to memorize it. Then, he casts it. Although the haste effect was removed, Eyar remains approximately 14 years old. We gather the following samples:

1 vial of #8, 2 vials of #7, 2 vials of #4, 1 vial of #2, and 1 vial of #1. Then we also filled up our continual light vials: Rabbo: #4; Ethan: #7; Ivy: #1, Eyar: #8, and Shardenzar: #2.

While this is happening, Rabbo drinks his potion of flying and carefully puts the bottles back up on the shelves, and tried to make it look like nothing was disturbed. The potion that was spilled (and was almost empty) was clear, so with luck, no one will notice that is was spilled.

We climb up steps, and about halfway up, we hear the door downstairs open (on the first floor) and can hear someone walking around down there. Ethan studies for his Friend spell and we wait quietly. The door closes, and we move forward. We make it to the top of the next landing. There is a ladder going 120 feet straight up to a trap door in the ceiling above us.

Rabbo drinks about half a potion of levitation and floats up to the trap door, using the ladder as a guide. He opens the trap door and takes a quick look around the tower room. Next to the door is a large crank with a loop of chain which runs to and through the ceiling. Rabbo sees a crude telescope and a table with a large strange looking ship, and a stack of building supplies. Along the walls of this room are many strange carvings that glow. This room is large and open, and there are papers on the table.

The papers on the desk are charts, marking monthly events. They are for navigation in three dimensions.

Everybody else makes it up by levitation, flying, blinking, or potions of gaseous form. Ivy floats over to the table with the odd-looking ship. The strange looking ship looks like this:

The little tools on the table seem odd----the hammers have normal sized heads, but really long handles that get big (giant-sized) at the end.

Ethan and Shardenzar go to the table with the papers on it. Ethan casts comprehend languages and can recognize that these papers are for navigation through the plane of air, and are specific for this ship. In fact, the papers include blueprints for this ship. The ship is called a dragonfly, and is referred to as a spelljammer ship. Reference is made to a spelljammer helmsman and a helm. After inspecting the room, we decide to enter the ship.

12/25/1308

Once onboard, Rabbo does an object reading, and gets the impression that the boat is a model, very accurate, painstakingly detailed, but from the giant who built it’s perspective, a model only. This doesn’t mean that it also can’t be a functional airship, just that the giant built it as a model. The magic users try to concentrate and see if they can “feel” anything magically to power the ship, but they don’t. While we rest, Ethan and Shardenzar are casting the spells to read and copy the plans for the spelljammer. Rabbo influences their luck at reading and copying when necessary. While this is happening, Rabbo also slowly turns the wheel attached to the chains in the ceiling. Slowly, the roof begins to open. It is obvious we are in an observatory, and the glowing markings on the walls noted earlier mark constellations. After the spelljammer Dragonfly plans are copied, they rest.

12/26/1308

At 1 am, Ivy hears a trumpet sound. The party looks out the weird ship’s bridge window, but do not see anything. We decide after everyone is rested, we will wait until dark, and then attempt to leave the tower and get back on the castle grounds. Sometime later in the night, we see rats climbing down the tower chains, but they don’t disturb us. We wait, get rested, healed, and around midnight of 12/26, Ethan had been dying to use featherfall to fall down the tower, and in the course of being a little silly, hits upon a great idea to get us all down. Ethan casts featherfall on each of us. Recall that Ethan is wearing a ring which allows him to immediately recall and recast a memorized spell. This greatly quickens our pace out of the tower.

When the party makes it back out of the rat hole by the front door of the tower, it is bright out. Clearly, light and darkness work in a different cycle here. The party thought they had planned out the best time to move, but in the end, it didn’t matter much (at least in regards to traveling under the cover of night).

We are back out in the big courtyard/garden. As we make our way northwest, Topaz scouts out our surroundings. However, we are still ambushed and surprised by a huge kitty cat (approximately 12 times normal size). It seems a little surprised too, and tries to attack. Ivy casts speak with animals, and tries to get it not to attack us, but in the course of her scolding the kitty, it changes its mind, and isn’t as cowed by us as much as she begins to think we might be tasty like the rats we were trying to persuade her with. The cat decides to attack, but fumbles, and is stunned for a couple of rounds. Ivy grabs it by the ear, and harshly scolds it, saying, “Bad kitty!” The cat seems perturbed and a little frightened, and as it is coming out of being stunned, looks like it is going to attack. Rabbo takes a hold of the cat’s ear, and in an attempt to pull its head to the ground and subdue the cat, rips its ear off, and is covered with blood (scored a critical hit). The cat freaks out, but before it realized the mortality of its wound, Rabbo delivers two blows to the center of its forehead and sadly, kills the poor bastard. This was a hell of a feat, considering the cat was a 10 hit die monster!

We try to leave the cat in a lifelike pose, in case the guard in the tower happens to see it. The party continues to head northwest, and comes to a huge fountain, 120 feet across. We decide not to investigate. At the northwest corner of the yard, we spy a rat hole which leads into a building.

(picture of the castle, from Topaz’ recon and the party’s mapping)

We enter the building through the rat hole. It is a huge hall, like a ballroom for gala events, but it is currently empty, except for three dust mops dusting the floor. As soon as we step on the floor, the dust mops make their way menacingly towards us. It is clear they mean to attack. Besides being dust mops, there are invisible servants ready to choke the life out of us! One starts to choke Eyar, and Ethan hits it. One gets its hands on Rabbo’s neck. Ivy is also attacked and takes small damage. Eyar goes from bad to worse, and is stunned (took a critical hit). Ethan hits again. Rabbo hits the one on him for massive damage. Eyar is still losing hit points, and is being strangled. Rabbo fumbles, and the creature gets out of his grasp. Topaz tries to strike and also fumbles. Rabbo kills one. Ivy hits the one on her. Rabbo hits that one and kills it. Eyar has now been strangled for five rounds. Rabbo makes it over to her and kills that one, too. We take a few moments and heal everybody up. We look around, and see another rat hole towards the northwest corner.

We go in, and are in a room with a long, large table with many chairs. There is art on the walls which depicts hunting scenes from across the planes. There is a door on the far end. We find another rat hole and enter into the kitchen. The kitchen is a large room with two great tables, pots and pans, ovens, etc. Ivy finds rat holes leading to other rooms. We investigate a pantry, in which goods are stored in holes made from cloud stuff. We investigate a privy, and a laundry room also. Earlier, when we said that nightfall didn’t give us the cover of darkness, it did give us the advantage of sneaking around when almost all of the denizens of the castle were sleeping.

We find another rat hole, and peek through into a corridor. At one end, we see a guard posted by the southernmost door. At that point, Shardenzar says, “You know, I forgot, but I can turn invisible at will,” (due to his part faerie heritage) and Rabbo cocks his head and whispers, “I’m going to poke your eyes out. Turning invisible at will is one of those, oh I don’t know, extremely important and useful things I really ought to know about before we go adventuring about.” But, instead of trying to sneak up on the giant (which is about impossible) we go back through the rat hole, and find another rat hole to follow.

We decide to go back through to the kitchen, bypassing a sleeping room with three female giants. We tried to get out through the kitchen door, but couldn’t. We decide to go back to the pantry, and as we search, Ivy finds another rat hole which we follow. It opens up into the large root cellar. In the back of the root cellar, we find another rat hole which leads to the caverns.

Then, we took a break.

2008-05-20T10:19:00.000-07:00

Current Game: 12/15/1308

At the Invisible School, we are told that the school has embraced a variety of magical skills and teachings that in years past, they would not have. For example, they are taking advantage of practitioners of “wild magic,” who have learned some ways to speed up spell recovery for magic users and clerics. So, over this week, while we are planning strategy and setting some political, infrastructure, and diplomatic missions in motion, Ethan and Ivy are taught how to study for spells at the rate of 10 minutes per level.

The school is set to work for us on several projects.

History and Lore: The locations and powers of known crystals.

Spells: An improved or specific spell to create roads.

The school also answered some questions we had about the Eaters of Wisdom. The Eaters of Wisdom were the fighting unit of the Invisible School, and would travel around the countryside in their War Wagon in the old day, after the Cataclysm. They were teachers and fighters, and generally gathered as much magical knowledge as they could. However, over time, likely caused by BH, the EOW were soon branded as “witches,” and along with all things magical, were banned or ran out of most places they attempted to reach. Over time, the mission changed, and the EOW faded away. Malfor, from the previous party, resurrected the EOW after long research into their history. He fixed the War Wagon, and this time around, silently, quietly, found surviving magic and surviving magic-users who practiced underground. Malfor did more in the last 20 years to re-establish the EOW than anyone had in hundreds of years. In a bold move, Malfor took the War Wagon and his EOW into Zorn. That was a few months ago.

While we had some time, Rabbo asked some God questions to pass information on to the School about the EOW.

12/18/1308

1. Are the EOW in trouble? Not currently.

2. Is Malfor alive or dead? Not quite either.

3. Where are they? In the Nightmare Mountains, NE of the Mouth Pass.

4. Do the Faeries from Elfland still have a stronghold? No.

5. How much oil of permanency does Garson Longtree have? Enough to cover his bones.

We set our party: Rabbo, Eyar, Ivy, Ethan, Shardinzar (a magic user from the School), Topaz, the dragon (still small) and two blink dogs (progeny of Polaris) Ursa and Moonface.

The School gives each of us a variety of things:
Mundane items: Everyone is pretty much outfitted with non-magical weapons, armor, supplies, etc.

Ethan: Several scrolls (knock, 2 locate objects spells), 2 jugs of healing draughts (25 hp value each), potion of levitation, access to his full complement of first level spells.

Ivy: allowed to borrow a +5 warhammer by a cleric at the school, 2 jugs of healing draughts (25 hp value each), 3 scrolls (raise dead).

Eyar: sword (magical?), 2 jugs of healing draughts (25 hp value each), potion of Invulnerability, potion of gaseous form, scroll (protection from air elementals)

Rabbo: + 1 Whip (coated the tip in a potent sleeping poison), 2 jugs of healing draughts (25 hp value each), and arquebus and some poof oil, potion of flying, scroll (protection from cold), some oil of fumbling.

Other stuff: Shardinzar also was given some magical items, most notably some scrolls. We were all given phials with Continual Light placed on the contents.

After setting Alexander, Adam Kelly, and Peter on diplomatic/military missions to Immer, Shucassam, and Muetar, respectively, we decide to try to find Gorson and get some oil of permanency.

We begin the current adventure on 12/23/1308. In case we need to call on him, we remember the name of Shababadoo, the Ki-Rin, whom the old party rescued many years ago.

First we open the Well of Many Worlds. Hundreds of years ago, Gorson had permanently set it to open to this particular cloudscape world. We determine that time moves at the same rate in the cloudscape world as it does in ours. As the talk of our younger party members stayed in the gutter, we have our quote of the game early on: “Assume the fecal position!” which we do as we cross over into the cloudscape world. There are lots of clouds all over the place, making terrain and other features. Light shines across a beautiful blue sky, but not light from a sun that we can see.

As we pass through the Well, we see a mountainous region, made of clouds, to the West. There is a smaller hill to the East, to the North, a valley, and to the South, the end of a valley which we are currently in. Walking is easy, but the cloud we are on is kind of squishy. We decide to climb the hill to the East, to get a better vantage point, We see there is an edge to the cloud we are on. We walk towards it, but as we get closer, we begin to sink in the cloud we are walking on. We walk back to the top of the hill, and from there, we see a shadow cast by something out of sight (from behind the foot of the mountain at the bottom of the valley). As we approach the bend, we notice a white stone tower in the distance, but because all the terrain looks similar, it is difficult to ascertain the scale, other than it is big and looks fairly far away.

We walk towards it. As we walk, we see it is a massive building, with a tall tower, a long wall, and a shorter tower. Part of the castle is built directly into the mountainside. After walking for approximately four or five hours, we can get a sense of scale: The wall is 2000 feet across, the tower is about 1000 feet wide at the base. The wall is approximately 350 feet tall, and the tower is about 700 feet tall. The doors, which we can now make out in the wall, are about 100 feet tall. They are closed. We are about a mile and a half away. The scale, we learn later, is 12 times our size. Everything we will encounter is 12 times our size.

As we walk closer, Rabbo notices a faint path, then loses it, Ethan notices it, then Eyar, and eventually, we follow it around the huge tower, and see the path lead to a hole in the cloud which appears to go under the wall behind the tower. It looks to Rabbo like it is probably a rat tunnel. We walk in the tunnel, and notice the smell of rats. No surprise here, we have a GIANT RAT FIGHT!

In the course of the fight, Ethan and Ivy jostle each other to get to the front so they can get in on the action. Ivy gets knocked down by Ethan, and Ethan also bumps one of the blink dogs as he was getting ready to blink (which throws off his concentration, and allows him to be attacked as he materializes by a rat). Ivy takes her turn to hit Ethan, and actually hurts him in the process. Eyar fights and kills rats, so does Ethan, and others. Rabbo is bringing up the rear and keeps his eyes open for rats from behind, which come, and he skewers them. Rabbo kills two, Ethan kills one, injures several, Eyar kills two, Ivy wounds one. The blink dogs, Eyar, and Ethan are hurt. All but Ethan are healed via healing draughts.

After the fight, Rabbo and Eyar lay down the law. No bullshit in-fighting among the party while we fight. It jeopardizes everyone. So, Rabbo requires that Ivy spend a spell to heal Ethan from her damage, and requires that Ethan fulfill Ivy’s god’s holy ritual when we get back to the School (he must throw a party and revel in her god’s honor). If either of them jeopardizes the rest of us again, Rabbo will knock em out and leave them.

While searching the lair of the rats, Rabbo finds a beautifully embroidered pillow and a finely carved ivory snuffbox (human sized, and giant-sized, respectively). Rabbo tries an object reading on the objects, but doesn’t get useful information from them. Party notices that the cloudscape of the tunnel they are in gives way to dirt, and then the tunnel opens up into a steep deep ditch, covered in grass several feet deep. We ask Topaz to fly up to the top of the ditch and look around. He comes back, happy, and reports that he sees a huge field of huge flowers. While we are getting organized, Ivy looks around and finds a brass ring, with an embossed hand on it. The ring is very magical, and the magic from it emanates from the sphere of thought. Rabbo does an object reading, and discovers that this ring was once worn by a student of the Invisible School.

Ivy tries to put the ring on and can’t. Ethan puts it on and it blinks red. Suddenly, his spells seem clearer to him. It is possible that this is a magic-user specific item.

Rabbo carries Ethan’s rope. We climb, (Rabbo pulls) everyone out of the ditch. We are in a huge field of flowers, inside the castle walls. The huge tower is still our destination. We can see it, even though most of our view is blocked by flowers and grass. Along the way, we come up to a dirt path approximately 20 feet across. We decide to stay in the grass and still move toward the tower. Eventually, we come across a black effervescent pool, which stinks of refuse, garbage, so kind of rotting and sickly sweet, too. It is somewhat magical. We decide to skirt its edge, as it is between the tower and us. On the way, we are attacked by 23 GIANT ANTS!

Shardinzar roles out a fireball and toasts most of them. Ethan kills one in an attempted spell, but hit it with his hands while gesturing, and killed it!

As we approach the door to the tower, it opens, and a 25-foot tall woman comes out, in an apron with cloth. Her skin has a slightly bluish tinge to it. We all hide, except for Ethan and Shardinzar, who were kind of taken aback at the sight. The giant looks at them, but luckily, they ducked before she really took note of the two. We run to the door after she passes. As we get close, we notice a small hole worn in the wood and stone next to the edge of the door. Another rat hole. We take it, and are in the room.

The room itself is huge, more than a few hundred yards across, and is over 120 feet tall. It appears to be a storage area for gardening supplies. While we investigate, we find a large crate, that we can squeeze in which provides cover. It is now approximately 6 pm, and we notice that it is still bright sunlight out. We decide to camp for the night. During that evening, Rabbo asks his next set of God questions:

1. Where in this castle is the oil of permanency? In the Treasury.

2. In which part of the castle is the Treasury located? In the caverns.

3. From where do we gain access to the caverns? Through the root cellar or prison cell.

4. Where is Gorson or his remains? In the study.

5. Where is the study? In the second level of the tower.

The next morning, we decide to climb, have Rabbo and Eyar pull everyone to the top of the stairs. When we reach the platform on the second level, we are attacked by GIANT ANTS!

Ethan hits ants with magic missile, and discovers that even though he cast the spell, it stayed memorized in his head, and he could cast it right away. Rabbo notices that there is an element of probability at work, and also sees that every time Ethan casts a spell, the right flashes red. Ethan and Ivy both kill ants. Once the fight is over, we talk about the ring, and then Ethan reads the knock spell. The 100-foot tall door opens. The room is not occupied. It is a study, with a bed, desk, and books in a large bookcase. We each explore different areas, with the dragon and the blink dogs flying or blinking around the room to look higher than we can. Moonface blinks to the desktop and barks. Topaz tells us that Moonface hears something from inside the roll top desk. Topaz ties off the rope on the desktop, and we all climb or are hauled up the desk. While there, both Ivy and Ethan cast detect magic. Magic is detected in a drawer and inside the roll top desk. The magic in the roll top desk is of the necromantic variety. First, in the drawer, Rabbo muscles the drawer open, and finds a large silver plate, pitcher, and mug. When he touches them, they shrink down to regular human size. He stows them in his backpack.

Back up on the desk, Eyar and Rabbo open the roll top. Inside, we see inkpots, a scroll tube, and a chained skeleton in a cage with eyes and a tongue, pulling at its chain. We take a moment to look at the scroll---it contains three speak with dead spells.

We figure that this sad skeleton is Gorson, but Ivy reads the scroll and asks:

Who are you? To which it replies: Gorson.
Why are you here? Betrayed.
How do you get to the Treasury? Release.
Are we in danger from your betrayer? Please.
If we release you, will you betray us? Mercy.
Where is your captor? Death.

Rabbo snaps off the hand of Gorson, but then figures it out---the only thing that this fragment of Gorson can possibly want is to be released from this horrible fate. Rabbo asks Ivy to try and turn Gorson. Ivy tries, but cannot. Rabbo asks if we have a dispel magic between us, and Shardinzar says that he has a scroll. We decide to let Ethan read it. Ethan reads it, and the magic holding this pathetic creature together dissipates, and Gorson is released from 800 years of hell.

Then, something special happens. In what appears to be outside of time, a shining beam of light appears around Ethan, and we hear a voice: “To release this poor creature which has been suffering for so long, the God of Mercy will grant you a wish, a wish for you.” Ethan tries to use the wish to solve the money problems at the keep, and the voice says, “True to your nature, you tired to give your wish to another’s use, but this wish is for you. Make it personal.” So, Ethan decides to wish for a special ring of regeneration. It works as a regular ring of regeneration, which will regenerate a whole person even from a fragment of bone, but this ring will also regenerate damaged non-magical items in his possession.

At this point, we took a break.

In the Interim (Spring 2008) Regarding Todo Lists

2008-05-05T10:52:00.000-07:00

I appreciate the list of STUFF to do and SHIT to do. As far as the stuff to do: since time is of the essence in the matter of Immer, we should send a diplomatic delegation led by Alexander (with and appropriate retinue of soldiers and staff) through the mirror, to the school, from the school as quickly as possible to the kingdom of Immer. Call in Immer's debt to us, if possible, and explain the situation. "Now is the time for beings of conscience to come together and help others against the rising tide of evil," or some shit like that. Also, helping the Elves helps themselves. Do they really want to be a kingdom sandwiched between a land of goblins on one side and drow and kobolds on the other? It would just be a matter of time before they were fighting two wars on two very long borders. By giving the elves safe haven, they give themselves a rear guard. So, the trick on the part of Immer will be to make the elves feel like its the Immerites asking for the help, (but all the while knowing it was the other way around...) In the course of making this happen, we also need to suggest that we begin a diplomatic mission to Immer to normalize trade relations, and would invite them to do the same in our kingdom. So, before we begin this crazy plan, I need to know a good estimate of time to get our diplomatic mission up to Immer's King.

Also, we can send another diplomatic mission to Muetar, led by Adam Kelly to pitch the idea of a road for trade and for our mutual safety. Muetar is facing possible threats up North from three areas, as far as I can see--drow and kobold to the Northwest, goblins to the North, and a certain evil bastard in a tower to the Northeast. It is just a matter of time before those powers move. Before that happens, a road will enable us to both become stronger economically, and to trade goods which we will both benefit from. And once it happens, a road will enable us to move aid and help our neighbor to the north. Also, if the lepers overcome Shucassam, we will be facing the same threat to the south as they do from the north. It is in both of our interests to build a road. We also would like to establish a diplomatic mission in their country and invite them to do the same with us.

We should send a diplomatic mission to Shucassam, seeking an audience with the ruling family to establish a diplomatic presence, and to offer help to our neighbor to the south. Perhaps Peter can lead this mission.

Also, we need to develop a coat of arms or a seal or symbol that is immediately recognizable as coming from our kingdom. I think a simple graphic which features the sword of law, the united crystals, and the tree emblazoned with light would do it. We need to get a jeweler working on the that, and create signets that all of our "royal" and diplomatic staff can wear. Also, banners, flags, etc., pronto.

Now, the SHIT to do:

Given the right amount of time, we can plan how to get a small party or an individual to the location we need in Elfland. I don't want to make the mission too complex, but I have some ideas about that, but it will depend on some god questions. Such as: Is Centaur Island overrun and the faries scattered? Is there a stronghold left of elven/fairy power: where is it? Are the green box, cube and crystals together? Meaning, are they in close proximity to each other? If the answer is yes, then I will use a variety of questions to find out how they are guarded or protected. I will attempt to ascertain the location, the way I used to with god questions and dimension walking. We will need some help from the school, like some potions of invisibility, for example, and also some healing potions. Maybe even a mid-level M-U who feels like dying. Also, I want to find out more information about the Queen, like is she close to our stuff, how is she bound, is she bound, would she leave if we came to get her? If we can ascertain this kind of information, then it might be that we could stage a rescue mission (for our stuff and for the queen) and at the same time, have part of the party attempt to contact the Faeries on Centaur Island or wherever the fairy stronghold might be (if one exists). Then, we could coordinate getting the queen and her subjects to safety. Besides me blowing these questions, we might also want to encourage the school to perform some scrying for us to help answer some of these questions, too, and also see if there are any clerics who might be able to find out this information. I am convinced if we have to fight either on the way in or out of the mires, we will die. We absolutely have to sneak in, grab our shit, and go. Ideally, we grab all three things. Ideally, we also grab the queen. Not ideally, we grab the cube. Then the green box. Then the crystals. Then the queen.

After that is done, I want to use god questions to locate little Alex, and murder him in his sleep:D

If we can get our old cube back, we won't need to go through any of the plans to untimestop the other cube. However, we should still commit to finding Gorson, and securing some potions and other shit he might be "willing" to part with.

Also, there is a closet of forbidden things? A closet of forbidden things? I need to know, what else is in that closet? Perhaps there are some things like this well of many worlds that were once forbidden, but now may be a fucking okay. Is there a pantry of evil dry goods? I am earnestly asking the Deans of the school to let us know what they've got, good or bad. Now is not the time for secrets.

Also, as the "stars" fell out of the sky, did any of them survive impact? We might be able to salvage shit from them still. Also, another time, I want to talk to you about the map itself---all of the lakes look like craters. If they are, then eventually we should investigate what is at the bottom of them. The plane itself is created----artificial. This we know. We need to find out who created it. Perhaps Alexander knows some of these answers.

**********************

Stuff todo:

1. A diplomatic mission to Immer, led by Alexander, leaving from the school and returning there, would take:

A. On foot (Light Infantry or Handgunners only), dropped outside city and walking back: 22 days back.

B. On horseback (any type of troop), moving to Immer and back: 17 days to and 17 days back, but they would be able to carry much more supplies and gear.

C. Plus add on 1-4 days for diplomacy regarding the elves and 4d10 days for a trade agreement. The time needed in no way influences the out come. They may agree in one day or need weeks to be talked into it and just as well throw you out when you get there as opposed to humoring you for a month then asking you to leave. You just wont know, but signs are good.

2. A diplomatic mission to Muetar, led by Kelly would take:

A. Leaving from the school, utilizing the Yando Rivermen where possible and returning to keep on foot (Light Infantry or Handgunners only):

I. Dropped outside Beolon on the Downs (non-capital): 10 days back.

II. Dropped outside Pennol on the Lake (capital): 28 days back.

B. Leaving from the keep, utilizing the Yando Rivermen where possible and returning to keep on horseback (any type of troop and they would be able to carry much more supplies and gear)):

I. To Beolon on the Downs (non-capital): 8 days there, 8 days back.

II. To Pennol on the Lake (capital): 23 there, 23 days back.

C. Plus add 4d10 days for a roadwork and trade agreement. The time needed in no way influences the out come. If a positive outcome is achieved, but not at the capital, the agreement must still be shipped off and approved by the Monarchy and an unknown amount of time will be added. Also, Muetar may not take kindly to troops magically appearing within their borders via the school.

3. A diplomatic mission to Muetar, led by Peter would take:

A. Leaving from the school and returning to keep on foot (Light Infantry or Handgunners only): 27 days back.

B. Leaving from the keep and returning to keep on horseback (any type of troop and they would be able to carry much more supplies and gear)): 22 days there, 22 days back.

C. Same as Cs above, but lets add a cleric to this bunch so they can create their own water.

D. What type of help offered will need to decided before setting out.

Note: There are currently only 30 horses available at the keep.

4. Coat or arms. Sounds good, lets OK it with all the other players just to be sure. As for development, that will need either cash or credit of some sort.

Now the Shit todo list:

1. Planning for Elfland is good. As you seem to need many questions answered (the school is willing to help if it can, just ask), this will take some time since you only get 5 a week. In the meanwhile, the school will urge you to go for the potion of permanency first. If it can be obtained, the cube has a GOOD possibility of being opened and you get your crap back. It would be MOST wise to enter the depths of Drowland when you are loaded for bear. Remember, 1 in 4 Drow are spellcasters. A merger of the two plans seems to be needed. Ask what questions you can for this limited time, go through the well for a short time, come back and ask more questions. Although we cant do it in this forum, do make up a list of questions and have it ready next time we play. We will deal with it first and calculate time based on other activities until you get more question.

2. Little Alex's murder. No problem there, except you will be advised that there are more pressing problems at the current time. Like the lepers.

3. Call me silly, but finding a MU that is maybe crazy and probably evil and trying to get some potions off him seems a little easier than trying to sneak behind enemy lines of a Drow/Kobol army. True, if you get the old cube back you wont need to untimestop the other, but if you untimestop this one it will make it a HELL of a lot easier to get the other old stuff back! Naked in the trenches so you can go shopping loaded for bear.... OR... Barter naked so you can suit up and take on the underdark. Really. One does seem better than the other doesn't it?

4. The closet of forbidden things is mainly filled with stuff better left out of the hands of men. Most of the stuff is cursed and unusable, but some may not be. All inventory records have been lost, as well as all past caretakers. The school is currently doing some research into the contents. There is a new vision at the school and NOTHING is being viewed in the same light. But then again, its just not wise to hand out a ring of contrariness or Gauntlets of fumbling. As things are discovered you will be informed as needed. Note: Jerik we housed here for several hundred years. As a MU slayer, you can understand why.

5. Very few of the "stars" survived impact in a state of crystallization Most disintegrated Those that held together were not usable for anything other than pretty crystals. The lakes look that way because they were formed during the cataclysm when the land virtually flipped over and mountains became seas and seas became oceans... bla, bla, bla. And unfortunately Ambassador Alexander is but a physical shell used by the god of the same name. Now that the god is virtually no more, the shell knows little more than you do on what went on before his creation.

In the Interim (Spring 2008) Regarding Government

2008-04-28T03:49:00.000-07:00

Also, although I appreciate that no one does anything for free, I don't know why we are operating in such an open/free market society here. I would think we would want to strike trade/bartering agreements with our friends or potential friends. We don't have a lot of cash, but we do have muscle and experience to trade for the magical things we need from the school, for example. We don't have lots of capital but we gave hundreds (perhaps thousands by now) a FREE place to live...This is worth fealty....not to get too medieval, but we provide land and governance, and subjects provide goods, services, and when needed, manpower to do the jobs that need to be done. This isn't paid for, anymore than the land we gave for their use was paid for by them. Workers provide labor, risk their own capital, and kings get rich by taxing workers' incomes or goods and services. Kings didn't have to pay for the services of the local weaver. We can switch to a pay system, but if we're paying everybody, then it makes sense that we, the state, would allow private ownership of land; private owners need to buy it from us, and the we should tax their property, tax improvements to property....etc. We should be licensing professionals to work, charge for the use of resources like water, charge citizens for the protection we give (a dome which cost us dearly in lives, levels and treasures lost), etc....if everything is for a fee, then why aren't we charging?.

It may be that we are transitioning from one form of governance to another. If so, then we need to talk about policy in more depth. For example, maybe we could offer property deeds to those citizens who help us build the road system. We might get 200 or 2000 or 20000 volunteers. People do crazy shit for the chance at owning their own property. Regardless, instead of paying for an M-U to cast out regular mud to stone, or other spells which eventually makes a road, this should be something we should approach as, "this is a way that you can help make our kingdom self-sustaining, and in return, we become the force that can actually meet BH on the battle field and win." Hurray, no more protective domes, no more hordes of undead smashing and killing everything. Or, do this for us, and we will perform an equal service for you, no strings afterwards on either of us.

Why such an open/free market system? Several reasons.
1. That's what's in the DM and PLAYERS handbook
2. I think that's what logically develops given the situation. This situation is a Lawful Good Figurehead Monarch left unchecked for 20 years ruling over a band of Neutral Good gypsies with a strong "we are all family," "in the end we're all the same," "work hard for a fair price" work ethic.
3. It's easy, it works and I like numbers.

Oh sure, there is plenty of trading/bartering going on with friends/potential friends. The Huts and Keepers trade openly for differing foodstuffs (meats vs. produce), textiles & services. The school is currently operating as a free clinic and always willing to send over a few druids for crop dusting or veterinary assistance, and we give them very little. After a long run, many of the Yando Rivermen will ferry goods from the Huts over to Castle Lapspell for nothing more than free drinks and a soft bed to sleep it off in. Meutar itself every so often looks the other way and lets a few carts cross the border and head to the city Beolon on the Downs. That is whenever they are changing troops and you get a military escort both to and from the city. Here again there is no real cash exchange going on. We are trading our out of season foods and spices for our TOTAL metal requirements. We have no metal mines and our blacksmiths are dependent on those few trading shipments to bring back our requirements for repairs/upkeep & creation of new weapons (bullets for one).

The school is always willing to trade for your muscle and experience. Their current request is proof of that. But you did NOT give The Wandering People a free place to live. What you gave them was a SAFE place to live where they could turn your dead, barren, scrubland into the fertile breadbasket it is today. A place where they can toil all day and pay you taxes for the privilege to do it. And fealty has been pledged. The people are grateful, happy and content with their lot in life, largely based on the system as is. You provide the land, to the most part the people are self governing (but this is slipping away and there is a growing respect for the court system) and they do provide goods, services and when needed manpower. But this IS paid for, one way or another. Workers provide labor, there is no risk, and you guys hope to get rich by taxing a person just for living in the kingdom (whatever the age). In your example, the king can pay the local weaver by allowinf the weaver advertising that HE is "The Weaver to the King," and therefor can charge a little more from townsfolk. If the king however put the weaver in the tower and asked him to weave SOLELY for the king, what would the poor weaver do come tax time? In our current system, the king pays a fair price for hard work allowing the weaver in the tower to pay his taxes at tax time, and also buy a beer or two so the bartender can also pay his taxes and buy beer from the brewer who can now pay as well.... all the way back to the farmer who grew the hops on YOUR land and paid his taxes to do it.

You can allow private ownership right now if you want. The problem is most of the people under the dome wont go for it. Remember they are less than one full generation away from wandering around the world in wagons. Wandering for several centuries taught them that when you settle down and get land, sooner or later some other guy will bring an army in and claim it for his own and force you to pack up and move on. Its not that they don't trust you guy to protected them, its just that today these particular people don't really want to own land. Now some of the scum who have moved in from the huts will jump at the idea, but they are few and far. You can try selling land at the Huts, but those people are already under the impression they own their land. Now you can try taxing that land and the land improvements and licensing professionals and charging for water, gas and dome, but if all that is included in living under the dome (or in the kingdom) then wouldn't it just be easier to raise the tax you already have? That would be simpler. Sure, if you raise it too high you might get a revolt or at least a bunch or people starting to wander again, but if you do it right (say with a charismatic speech and a pretty paper announcement tacked up on the job board) you would probably get some sympathy.

"In my day, this was all shit and scrub grass!
You kids ought to be glad you have land to work on.
You only need to pay a little more taxes to build a road.
You could be LIVIN' IN A WAGON, DOWN BY THE RIVER!!!"

If you want to change the government then we will need to discuss policy in more detail. But for now the people are VERY happy, and happy people will bend over backward for their monarch. Like now, everyone knows how important roads are. If asked nicely, your workers would start working on credit if... oh say... free food was supplied. Knowing this the school would be happy to supply, free of charge, a couple of clerics to cast "Create food and water" spells to feed them all very well. AND, you could probably get a cook or two to go out and turn the clerics (described as rather bland) food into something special. Compare gruel to all you can eat stew (or chili or soup or gumbo or pizza in a cup or....) and see how fast people sign up to build that road.

In the Interim (Spring 2008) Regarding Roadwork #2

2008-04-25T02:56:00.000-07:00

First question: Why can't we use concrete to pour roads, or to cement together quarried stone or to form our own stone from our abundance of sand? Concrete, basic quicklime, has been around for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks used it, the Romans used it, people in Thailand and Vietnam probably used it. We're more familiar with the Eqyptians NOT using it, but they had the luxury of tens of thousands of disposable backs to break in service of the pharoah. Portland cement, the stuff we're used to, is a recent invention, but basic concrete, quicklime paste, is really old, and really durable. Using quarried stone and quicklime/cement, or concrete made of lime and sand, I think we could greatly speed up construction, lower costs, increase the number of unskilled laborers, and get a strong, hard road done in a relatively short amount of time. Also, in places where rainfall is low, a hard packed dirt road is just as good as a stone road. So, like any project, we would probably want to build different roads in different places. Wider stone close to our cities, gravel or brick roads further out, to hard packed dirt in the outlands.
--------------------------------
I do think that offering some kind of Homestead Act would help finance the labor of the road building project. Also, you can bond to raise funds (go into debt) and then expect to pay off the debt by increased tax revenues generated by increased amounts of trade, and/or by tolls on the road. As far as that goes, why don't we see if we can employ the dwarves to build the road in exchange for a lease on the roads, in which they get a toll from citizens who use the roads? That might work too.

There are some very good reasons why you cant use concrete to pour the roads.

1. I didn't think of it.

2. I thought of it earlier, but forgot about it.

3. Other.

As to the history of concrete... Per inventors.about.com

Concrete is a material used in building construction, consisting of a hard, chemically inert particulate substance, known as an aggregate (usually made from different types of sand and gravel), that is bonded together by cement and water.
The Assyrians and Babylonians used clay as the bonding substance or cement. The Egyptians used lime and gypsum cement. In 1756, British engineer, John Smeaton made the first modern concrete (hydraulic cement) by adding pebbles as a coarse aggregate and mixing powered brick into the cement. In 1824, English inventor, Joseph Aspdin invented Portland Cement, which has remained the dominant cement used in concrete production. Joseph Aspdin created the first true artificial cement by burning ground limestone and clay together. The burning process changed the chemical properties of the materials and Joseph Aspdin created a stronger cement than what using plain crushed limestone would produce.
The other major part of concrete besides the cement is the aggregate. Aggregates include sand, crushed stone, gravel, slag, ashes, burned shale, and burned clay. Fine aggregate (fine refers to the size of aggregate) is used in making concrete slabs and smooth surfaces. Coarse aggregate is used for massive structures or sections of cement.
Concrete that includes imbedded metal (usually steel) is called reinforced concrete or ferroconcrete. Reinforced concrete was invented (1849) by Joseph Monier, who received a patent in 1867. Joseph Monier was a Parisian gardener who made garden pots and tubs of concrete reinforced with an iron mesh. Reinforced concrete combines the tensile or bendable strength of metal and the compressional strength of concrete to withstand heavy loads. Joseph Monier exhibited his invention at the Paris Exposition of 1867. Besides his pots and tubs, Joseph Monier promoted reinforced concrete for use in railway ties, pipes, floors, arches, and bridges.

So there. Nyaaah.

Seriously, I'm really glad you brought this up. I have always thought that, technologically, you guys are somewhere between Ancient Egypt and the fall of Rome. WAY pre renaissance, but not exactly the dark ages either. Each country is a little different, but all of the human countries are WAY beyond the Assyrians and Babylonians. In the last roadwork posting I didn't go into too much detail, but just assumed that you realized Plan A was a stone road and the stone would be cemented together. Plan B was to use homemade bricks, but where I kept thinking "mud and clay" I never really said. I think that making concrete bricks works just as well and we need not change any of the numbers there. The mortar used to fasten them together would BE cement. Look back on your list of workers you have in town. I believe there is at least 1 limeburner. He would be the one to supply products to the stoneworkers guild and get paid from their profits, so he was not included in the calculation. I didn't want to go too deep, but I have always been under the assumption that you guys are using cement and concrete. As for pouring an entire road of concrete, I don't think THAT'S a very good idea. This is still low tech concrete here. It would crumble like peanut brittle with the constant heating and cooling of the sun and seasons. Segmented bricks and stones allow the road to breath somewhat and you get less (not none but less) breakage due to weathering.

Now, as to breaking up the road types... feel free to break up the numbers any way you want them. Just let me know where you want what kind of road and their lengths and I will calc the time and cost (or check your numbers if you want too) and then we will set up a table for determining upkeep. How much and how often, that sort of thing.

Now as for financing the road... I don't know about the homestead act. There are problems with giving some of your people land. I will explain this fully when I post about government and free trade market. As to bonding, feel free. That is just some more STUFF to do. You guys have scribes, they can make you paper money that is good for paying off debt.

As to dwarf labor. You will need to ask them. Dwarves aren't usually found outside of their kingdoms, but if you got them, they would run rings around YOUR masons!

I still want to stress Plan F, asking the school. Researching new spells can take around 1 week per level of new spell. If it works, then you may need to only bond one establishment rather than your population who will more than likely use any marker you give them to pay their next taxes. Also, if they can get some of that new oil everyone is chatting about... hmmm... how does a "Wheel of Road Creation" sound? But then again the school is busy and they cant do everything. We need to limit what the school can do for you while your out getting shit done. Lets say one thing for each area of research; potions, spells, items, history/lor. Let me know if you think of anything else.

In the Interim (Spring 2008) Regarding The Cube

2008-04-24T02:55:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about our timestopped cube. I think there are possibly several solutions that are within our grasp. First, it may be possible that a 3rd level dispel magic spell may dispel this spell-like effect. In the handbook, it says that the dispel magic effect won't affect artifacts or relics, but might affect some of their spell-like powers. I think it is possible that the highest level m-u's at the school can and should attempt to dispel the magic effect of timestop, several, several times. Sure they may have to roll a 20, considering the m-u level differences, but given enough time, it will happen.

Next, if that doesn't work, they might try an anti-magic shell, (6th level) which will cancel all spells and spell like effects within the shell. Again, it is subject to DM's discretion whether a particular spell-like can be canceled or not.

Next, a limited wish, very specifically worded, could cancel the timestop effect. Essentially, the limited wish power fits the nature of our task well---we need a very small, very specific element of reality changed---we need simply stop the timestop function. If indeed the cube is treated like an artifact, and is untouched by dispel magic or anti-magic shell, then it becomes more likely that a limited wish would be a good bet---by design, they can only be used to change small things effectively, or to changed durations, or or or.

However, if that doesn't work, then a couple of 9th level spells probably will: Wish, or timestop. Wish, obviously, can permanently reset elements of reality. Timestop, cast on the timestopped cube, I think, will have the effect of allowing the cube to actually reach infinity and deactivate. Timestop inside would be cancelled by timestop outside. Again, if the cube is an artifact, then I think it would survive any major effects.

Although I keep talking about the cube as if its an artifact, I am under the impression that the cube is not an artifact for several reasons: One, it was affected by magical fields, when other bonafide artifacts, such as the Wand of Orcus, was not; Two, previously, cubes have been damaged and/or destroyed by relatively normal means. Artifacts are usually tougher than that. Cubes have been misused and not functioned correctly. Artifacts usually do their thing regardless.

Cubes seem like very powerful devices, but not artifacts. Even if they are artifacts, then it appears that their spell-like effects can be affected by magic. If so, then I think that Dispel Magic should actually do the trick. Rabbo will lend his considerable luck to improving an m-u's ability to successfully cast dispel magic at the die roll needed to dispel. I think we should try that next game.

------------

Also, we need a simple way to bring the cube back to its original size. I'm sure Bes would not stick us with a miniature cube, miniature boat, etc. I am appealing to your rational nature---allowing us access to the Cube, and all the stuff in pop-out is not a "gimme" in this game. Without magic, without access to magic, when we fight even low level magical creatures, we are likely to get our asses handed to us. I can't imagine going on a solo mission to rescue the queen or retrieve the green box/crystals/cube without magic rings, ioun stones, my cloak and weapons. In fact, without a high level cleric, or several potions, scrolls, or wands, I don't want to go outside and take a leak! I don't want to sound like a punk, but I thought we would have access to that stuff.

First, as to weather the cube is an artifact or not. That is a judgment call for you players. It could be, or it could just be a really strong item. It was affected by magical fields, but this is its native plane. Things can work differently on the native planes. The cube was damaged and artifacts are usually tougher. But what about the Machine of Lum The Mad? The Rod of Seven Parts? Dragon Orbs can be shattered. The Ivory Chain of Pao has a 5% per day chance of breaking. True, the cube has malfunctioned at times, but hey! It's damaged! What do you expect? Also, most artifacts have some kind of curse associated with them that can take effect and cause some kind of chaos during play. ...like malfunctioning??? As DM I really cant say at this point as to if it is or is not. I know, I just don't want to tell you. But lets do examine how me might fix the cube at the school.

OK. As discussed some time ago, the timestop function of the cube is NOT like the spell timestop. The cube literally creates a pocket of time outside the normal flow of time and that pocket remains until the time inside of it (and everything else) goes to infinity. The creation is the magic. The pocket is what is created. Here is the problem. When magically reversed, the cube created a pocket of time outside the normal flow of time that didn't flow at all. That pocket will remain until time outside of it (and everything else) goes to infinity. How do we free the cube?

Dispel magic - No. There would have been a chance to dispel the created pocket of time shortly after it was created. Now it is firmly affixed within our reality and can't be dispelled any more that a blade of grass. The pocket itself is not magical nor a spell-like power, but if tested the cube inside (as well as some of Felix's crap) would radiate magic.

Anti-magic shell - No. Same thing The pocket is not magical nor a spell-like power.

A limited wish spell - You would think so. One problem is that MOST MUs shy away from casting this spell as it ages them a full year. Not to worry, the school could be talked into it easily. The problem is that although the spell is designed to change things like "duration," we are dealing with INFINITY here. I think THAT by its very nature negates the "limited" aspect of this. We could easily wish away the entire pocket, but we want the stuff inside. No, this is a MUCH harder problem.

A Wish spell - Now were getting some where. Yes, this could do it. It would age the MU 5 years and more than likely kill him in the process, but it could be done. Creating a pocket of eternity around the cube, or how ever you want to wish this it's all about the same, would prove so stressful on time, space and the frail form of the MU's body he would literally need to give it his all. As this means the loss of an 18+ MU (and probably one of the last remaining deans), lets call this plan B.

Timestop spell - Maybe. The Timestop spell does create the pocket of time we need, but it only exists for its own 1-3 rounds before expiring. It needs to remain forever. Enter the 8th level spell "Permanency". This spell is a MUST for making magic items and crafting charges and such. It also makes some spell effects permanent. The casting time is 2 rounds. That gives us a 66.66% chance of casting the Timestop and then possibly making it permanent. It does lower the MU's constitution by 1 for each casting, but that a hell of a lot better than killing the poor sap as in 4 above. Stepping out of the timestop area would also negate the spell, so the old boy would also need a teleport spell. That would get him out and leave the rest of the spell for the cube. Now, Permanency spells may not always be permanent either. Sometimes they give out after a few thousand years. That's just a drop in the bucket for eternity. SO maybe we can boost that up with the limited wish spell. It MIGHT work. MIGHT! IF permanency works on timestop and IF the MU can get the second spell off in time and IF the limited wish can keep the permanency going for eternity. There's also the problem of getting the cube to NOT touch the side of the timestop spell before eternity is reached. The air and ground atoms will in time float away and touch the sides, but we need to keep the little pain in the ass from doing the same when the ground goes away. So now we need a levitate spell, another permanency and another limited wish. So far that 1 9th level spell, 2 8th, 2 7th, 1 5th and 1 2nd. Our 18 level dean can do it, but he will lose 2 points constitution and age 2 years (not to mention get some sort of metal or citation or grant from the school). That is IF the permanency works on the levitate and IF the limited wish works on the second permanency. THAT'S 5 IFS! And no, Rabbo cannot help. All the other spells will need to be cast within the timestop area, and that only effects the MU. So this is a big maybe, but well worth investigating BEFORE we stampede to a full wish spell in plan B. Lets call this plan A.2

What is plan A? Glad you asked! One of our up and coming Abjurers at the school was studying in alchemy class and began wondering if Moriamus's potion of time travel might be of some use here. She hoped that by converting the potion into an oil, that the new "Oil of Time Travel" might be put on the cube and when it reached infinity and "opened" the now pocket of real time would be send back to our present when the oil was places on the cube. This idea was eventually dropped when it was decided that the oil would need to remain active on the cube permanently, and the permanency spell does not work on potions or oils. The class was instructed to continue their studies and help find a way to improve on plan A.2, but the young woman was not dismayed. Her first class at the school was under Moriamus and the young woman was positive that Potions could solve all of our problems, cheaply and effectively. She secretly entered the restricted area of the library and began researching ways to make potions and oils permanent. What she discovered was Gorson Longtree.

Gorson was a member of the School during the days of the old Eaters of Wisdom. He was the youngest person to head the potions department in the school's history and his ambition knew no bounds. It was he that discovered that Unicorn horn makes a cheaper and easier to make potion of healing. He eagerness to explore new and alternate ingredients eventually led to the school insisting on him taking a sabbatical. He was furious, but agreed. When he returned a year later he claimed to have a slew of new recipes and ideas for improving potions. When he claimed the a better potion of longevity could be made from living elfin fetal tissue and extracting marrow from the foot bones of halfling children made an improved growth potion, the school was appalled. It was when he suggested breeding elves and halfling specifically for research that he was deemed insane, striped of his title and asked to leave. He produced a well of many worlds and opened it. "You fools," he said. "You have no idea what your small minds are giving up. I have created an oil of permanency!" He then produced a potion and began rubbing it over the well. "When you are ready to apologize and seek my forgiveness, this well will now permanently open to the same place." He entered the well and was seen walking away into a cloudscape world. The well was closed and placed in the closet of forbidden things.

So our young Abjurer, risking disciplinary action, brought this to the attention of her teachers. The possibility was discussed and the Dean himself opened the closet of forbidden things. The well was removed along with a note saying that a small group of students used the well 200 years ago and never came back. The well was opened. It did indeed lead to a cloudscape world. If this "Oil of Permanency" does exist and a quantity can be brought back to the school, it could solve MANY problems. Not just with the cube, but also with the production of magical items.

Plan A: Mixing potions is never wise, but with luck a new special effect can be achieved. If we coat the cube in this oil of permanency and drop it into a beaker of Potion of time travel, it is possible (with Robbo's help) for a reaction to occur around the cube and achieve on a limited basis the "Permanent Oil of Time Travel," There may be other effects to deal with, but in the schools opinion, the advantages outweigh the dangers. Once the cube is back, its just a matter of some growth potions or enlarge spells and a few more coatings of the new oil and the cube will be back to size.

So here is the deal. If the party agrees to go through the well and retrieve some of this Oil of Permanency (At least 2 doses but hopefully more for the school), the school will agree to perform plan A free of charge. As well as supply you with what ever they can for the trip. If no oil can be brought back, the school will still perform plans A.2 & B for free.

In the Interim (Spring 2008) Regarding New Characters & Missions

2008-04-23T00:51:00.000-07:00

Also, gamewise, we might want to consider creating some new characters to play some of the other concurrent adventures that could be happening that don't necessarily involve the higher level members of the group. For example, if it is important that Rabbo and group go to Immer, but it is also important for another group to go the crater, and important for another group to visit the king of the dwarves, then we can split time up and run different groups.
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Perhaps once we get a few diplomatic missions rolling, we can discuss what missions we can actually undertake with a chance of success, given our limitations. Perhaps people at the school could help supply us with a list of those kinds of things. Personally, I would love to go up against the Lepers, but not without disease protections, magical weapons, perhaps some high powered clerics or lots of potions to cure disease...that's if this leprosy is actually real leprosy, and not some magical effect caused by the leper god....

I think I could probably get in and out with the green box, crystals, cube, on a "secret" mission, by myself, or with Eyar, and or with a cleric....using god questions and psionics, I think I could construct a plan to sneak in and grab stuff. Maybe not.....either way, that wouldn't be much fun for the whole group. So, let me know what plans of action the learned people at the school suggest, or what the stewards of the Crystal Keep suggest.

As far as new characters go, I don't have any real problem with that. But what I would NOT want to do was try to keep track of two adventures going on at the same time. Per your example, if Rabbo and Eyar feel they need to go deal the king of Immer, you guys can roll up new characters and head out to find crystals with the kids. This would give them a chance to get up in levels to match you biggies, but the Rabbo/Eyar stuff would not be something we would play or get experience for.

There are things that need done that do not require the adventuring party (lets call this getting stuff done). Some things do require the adventuring party (lets call this getting shit done). I really don't want to run more than one "getting shit done" game within the same time frame. It would be simple enough to say that when Rabbo smashes the evil temple statue he unleashes the godlike plague of Super-yeast on the world, and then see how this effects any and all NPCs that are out there getting STUFF done. But its totally different when you have already finished getting shit done somewhere else and it SHOULD HAVE been effected. It would be like... last game way all "Hey Aphrodite! Can we have your huge tube of Vagasil?" "No Problem," she says. "It's not like there's a godlike plague of super-yeast going on." Now we gotta go back and redo all that.

Remember, you have a perfectly good ambassador at home. Feel free to send him and any other non-player out to do your bidding. Adam Kelly and a squad of men (with the new poof guns) just might make a REALLY good impression on the leaders of the military state of Muetar. Alexander is MORE than capable of negotiating passage/housing for the elves. Now the crystals at the crater in Rombune... There is where you sent some non-players to get some shit done and it didn't work. That's a problem. You don't always know if its stuff or shit that needs to get done. A good rule of thumb is, if it seems to be stuff, treat it like stuff until it turns to shit.

Example of apparent stuff that needs done
(no particular order):
Dealing with Immer
Dealing with Muetar
Dealing with Pon
Dealing with Shucassam
Roadwork
Census of and taxing the scum
Possible expansion outside the dome

Example of apparent shit that needs done
(* indicates most important):
Dealing with the cube*
Dealing with Elfland*
Dealing with lepers*
Dealing with crater (this ones 20 years old)
Finding EOW
Finding, rescuing, resurrecting old NPCs
Little Alex
Finding more crystals

Probably, the lepers are the least of the most important. The disease they carry can be both magical and non-magical. They are only now approaching the borders of Shucassam, so there is time here. But we really should get someone down there to talk to Shucassam so we just don't leave them hanging. It is an army of lepers so it would be best to have protection and weapons of magic before going in. Same with Elfland. The Schools suggestion of a small adventuring party was ALL of you guys. YOUR party and what ever non-player/s you wanted to take. It would definitely be better to go with magic stuff, so the most important shit to get done is the cube.

That I cover in another post.

In the Interim (Spring 2008) Regarding Roadwork

2008-04-20T04:27:00.000-07:00

Also, we must begin working on a road system, first to and from the Huts, and next, to and from the border of Shucassam and Muetar. We need to negotiate with those countries, and also with Pon, to join roads together for our mutual benefit. Muetar may be surrounded, and a little nervous of us, but they control large amounts of river water resources. We have to be able to work together, maybe capitalizing on our friendship with the Yando rivermen.

Negotiating with other countries is a must. Muetar does control vast riverways, but the military would LOVE a road system. Most of their roads just lead to more river docks. New roads would help make friends with them a lot (especially if you paid for it), and yes the Yando rivermen have ALWAYS put in good words for you. Negotiating with them would be fairly painless. You have had next to no contact with Pon. Little is known about how they would feel about a road system. But as a kingdom thieves, don't you think they would like a secret backdoor getaway? Shucassam is another story. They have little use for roads as they are always getting covered over by the sands. They rely on tried and true trade routs. But still, roads could be built as far as the sands and trade routs can be adjusted or added or trading posts can be built. This can all be worked out. For now, Shucassam has more pressing matters and has politely asked for any and all help regarding their leaper problem. At this point, they are rather afraid of being invaded. The Keep has sent no reply as of yet.

The big problem with the road project is money. How do we afford it? We currently have just enough money to keep the keep afloat for 1 more year. Assuming that we start taxing the scum soon, or the party brings in a large infusion of cash with their next adventure, there are several ways to do the road thing.

Road Project A: Stone Roadway. Just like the Romans did, you could get a bunch of stone and make a road. This may be the most costly, but would need little if any upkeep for several years. For this you would need an Engineer (you have the only one in the kindom, a master, on retainer at the keep. This might be a good time for him to take on a few Apprentices), stone masons (a mason can oversee unskilled labor in the quarrying process as well as construction), bricklayers (they too can oversee construction, but not quarrying), unskilled labor, and a quarry or supply of stone. The Banished Lands has crappy stone. Mostly sedimentary. It can be used but would need yearly upkeep. For the good granite and stuff you will need to deal with a country that has mountains. Closest are Shucassam or Pon.

Time/Cose: Rules say a mason can build a road (using a wall laying down) 1' thick by 10' wide by 5' long in one day. (Lets make our road half as thick and twice as long or .5x10x10). We will say the same build rate for bricklayers and assume that Apprentices work at the same rate, but for half cost but can NOT oversee others. Lets also say the unskilled labor can work at half that rate, 1 man can quarry enough stone for one days labor and any master can only oversee 10 laborers at a time.

So, since the distance to the Huts is 6 x108 miles = 648 miles = 3,421,440 feet = 342,144 worker days

We currently have 5 master stone masons(4gp/month) and 5 Apprentices(2gp/month) = 50 labors (1gp/month) +5 = guys quarrying (80gp/month). We currently have 10 master bricklayers(4gp/month) and 5 Apprentices(2gp/month) = 100 labors (1gp/month)+5 = 55 workers(150gp/month). Total cost = 230gp / month.

342,114 worker days / 55 workers = 6221 days = 17 years. Not too bad for 161 guys.
Total cost = 230*12*17= 46,920 gp.

Road Project B: Brick roads. This would be like project A, but instead of stone we use our own homemade brick. Upkeep on the road would be yearly, same as local stone, and quite a bit more costly. Manpower would be the same, but bricks can be made in one-third the time as quarrying, building rate is twice as fast and unskilled labor can move at full rate.

So, with 4 master bricklayers = 40 brickmakers. That leaves 6 master bricklayers and 5 master stone masons over seeing 110 laborers + 10 Apprentices = 120 mason types.

342,114 worker days/2 / 120 workers = 1426 days = 4 years. Better.
Total cost = 230*12*4 = 11,040 gp.

Road Project C: Hard packed dirt roads. This could be done relatively cheaply with skilled/unskilled labor, but has the drawback of needing almost constant upkeep of one kind or another. The build rate is 8 times that of stone and the engineer can oversee 10 skilled workers (2gp / month) to oversee 100 unskilled.

342,114 worker days/8 / 100 workers = 428 days = a little over 1 year.
Total cost = 120*14 = 1,680 gp.

Road Project D: Magic Mud to Rock roads. The end result here would be the same as using our local soft stone (except this one could be dispelled). 1 9th level MU can change a 180 cube of mud to rock. So, if we have a working crew churning up mud and making it flat, the MU can change it into a rock road. Lets say that making mud is the same as hard packed dirt and 1 man can make a 1x10x80 patch in one day. That's 1x10x10 and hour. We would need 180 men making mud to fully use the MUs ability. As in C above, we only have 100 laborers without bringing in more Masters. So lets bring in 8 master Bricklayers who know all about mud and can help the engineer with the skilled laborers. The spell takes 1 hour to memorize and cast, so the MU could cast it 8 times a work day.

3,421,440 feet/180 feet/spell / 8 spells/day = 2376 days = 6.5 years.
Total labor cost = (180 + 20 + 32) * 12 * 6.5= 18,096 gp.
Magic cost = 500 * 8 * 2376 = 9,504,000!!! Even with a discount THIS SUCKS!

Road Project E: Magic Wall of Stone roads. The spell requires that the stone created be connected to existing stone. That makes this idea impractical and sometimes impossible.

Road Project F: Magic Wall of Iron roads. The end result here would ba a 1 inch thick, 10 foot road that only needed repair every few decades (except, again, this one could be dispelled). 1 9th level MU can create a length of 10 foot road 405 feet long. The spell takes 1 hour to memorize and cast, so the MU could cast it 8 times a work day. We would need a small work crew with horses or mules out there to help level off and possibly dig out bumps and fill in ditches and whatever. I would think that 40 men under 4 overseers would do. We could also get the keeps blacksmith to fashion clamps to hold the iron tiles together.

3,421,440 feet/405 feet/spell / 8 spells/day = 1056 days = almost 3 years.
Total labor cost = (8+40) * 12 * 3= 1,728 gp.
Magic cost = 500 * 8 * 1056 = 4,224,000!!!

Road Project F: Ask the ISOT. The school is always willing to research new spells for you guys. "Create Road" or "Transmute Field to Road" sound good. They will need time and sometimes money to research new spells. But if it works.... you KNOW if would help.

In the Interim (Spring 2008) Regarding Elfland

2008-04-20T04:17:00.000-07:00

We have to communicate with the Elves ASAP. If we can't turn the tide of their battle, then we have to offer them asylum, or arrange for their safe passage to other lands, such as Immer, or to the protected grounds of the Invisible School.

Communication possibilities are as follows:
1. scouts (sent out from School as it would be faster) would still not know how to find what elves to talk to. Remember, you talked to a gorilla type group on the fringe that was out of touch with any main body or army. Scouts on foot would need weeks to get there and those sent magically could be put down behind enemy lines with no idea where to go and again who to talk to.
2. Magic communication again has the problem of who to contact_Normally it is the Elves (Fairy Queen) that contact the school, but this time they didn't or couldn't.
3. The school suggests that contact be made by a small stealthy "Adventuring" party that can be sent in close to or AT the Mires (Enemy HQ). From there it might be able to find out where the elfin stronghold (if any) may be. It is almost certain that prisoners have been taken there as well as the green box and crystals.
4. Plan B is to send the same type of party in #3 to Centaur Isle, home of the fairies. This is where the party made contact last time. But the school is concerned that that lack of contact from the Fairy Queen may mean that the fairies have been overrun and scattered. If this is so, then the party will need to make the trek to the Mires on their own.

As to Immer, well they have been kinda your buddies since you saved their king and never called in their IOU marker. I think that king may now be dead, but with any luck his son will know the stories and honor the debt without the paperwork. Chances are very high that your ambassador Alexander can get them to at least allow refugees to travel through the kingdom unmolested. As for housing them, that may be a little harder but you do have the "lowly Immerites helping the great and wonderful elves" factor on your side. That was sarcasm if you couldn't tell. Another problem may be the all encompassing pride of the elves. They just may rather fight to the death than leave their beloved forest.

In the Interim (Spring 2008) Regarding The School

2008-04-17T02:25:00.000-07:00

Next, I think one of the things we should do if we are not already, is apprentice kids from the Crystal Keep and from the Huts to become M-U's at the Invisible School. Also, if the school isn't thinking like this, they need to be thinking as if they are preparing for war. It would be better to have 1000 M-U's who can each cast a couple of magic missles than an untrained mob who might be able to pick up clubs or pitchforks. And in the course of actively teaching new students, we'll find some who are really adept (new NPC's).

We should begin to utilize the school's pool of resources (simple spells on objects, charms, potions, continual light coins, etc) and create high demand items (black market or not, depending) to bring in money. In exchange for the service they provide, the school's apprentices get practice, and we provide protection and the adventuring muscle to advance the cause.

Not to worry. The School has ALL the new apprentices it can handle right now. (Thanks to the Eaters of Wisdom (eow)) The loss and destruction that occurred 15 years ago is just now being fully overcome and the school feels that now it is really back on its feet. They have ALWAYS been prepared for war. Before and now the school has, I think, 1000 troops ready. (Its Hard to see on the map, but I think the school has a 5 on it. That's a troop of 500 there and a similar value in the general hexes around the School.) But due to the loss, the troops are less experienced. The Keepers have helped out as much as they could and the end result is that the School is MUCH more helpful to you guys, but there is just not as much that they can do as they use to. As far as new NPCs FROM the school... not likely. The higher level guys are still training the lower level ones and the lower level ones are busy learning and training. The school is still pretty hard up. They will supply you with as much as they can (which aint much) including a buttload of hirelings. Hell, they will even let you have them on credit, but you gotta pay.

As to the school and items... Well right now the most important thing the school is focusing on is training in spellcasting. Yes, there are some simple items being created (scrolls and potions mainly) but not items so much. As you know, most items need the 'Enchant an item' spell and possibly the 'Permanency' spell as well. That requires a 12th and 16th level MU and they are in short supply and great demand right now. Not to mention that those spells can and DO drain constitution points... so, most item production has been put on hold. In the past the school could utilize the mirror to "change" magic items to fit what was needed. Now most of the Deans are gone and it simply cant be done. As for smaller items, the eow did try passing out trinkets when they did their trading and locating of underground movements. The problem is there is very little demand. Those people who would use such items still live in fear of being burned at the stake for even owning them. Small things are being made and stockpiled for later use. If you have any ideas on what to make other than scrolls and potions, let them know. They will look into it and again credit you if you guy can move any of it. Otherwise it will stay in storage until we get enough powerful wizards to activate the mirror again and start massing into REAL items.

In game terms, the school has had it's average level cut in half. This effects its army as well as its ability to do stuff for you. But unlike when you first met them, they are more than willing if they can. Basically, they are right behind ya buddy!

Special Note: Regarding continual light coins -- they are NOT permanent. The item that a continual light spell is cast on does eventually get used up. It may take hundreds or thousands of years depending on the material, but it does go away. Also, before he was killed, Toomonga declared a religious holiday to commemorate the merging of Alexander and his wife and the destruction of the Wand of Orcus. It took him and the glass blowers almost a year, but they did manage to create 300 glass vials filled with a continual light spell. These vials are worn around the neck on thin leather straps during the day of celebration, and hung on the tree of life that night. So, in one of the wearhouses you got a big box of all that. Not sure where the holiday fits on the calendar. Need to check the old notes for that time.

Fall of 1987...Back to SIU after summer break!

2008-04-15T18:49:00.000-07:00

The party is at the Invisible School of Thuamaturgy. The school is being sabotaged. The reflector is broken. We have to find the Faerie Queen in less than a month because she has a magic wand that can fix the reflector. We find out that Salem’s in cahoots with BH. The Oracle Skull is gone in permanent pop-out. Salem was the one that slashed Muad’ib up in Timestop. Moriamus, the magic user joins the party. We fly to Elfland. On the way, we notice that celestial music is coming from the Cube in the pouch of Destin. The Fortress side is glowing. We uncork the Fortress, and Rabbo comes out of the doors. He now has dice for eyes. Onward to the Elf City. we decide to go to the Lost Library for information about the locale of the Faerie Queen. Gargoyles are flying toward us. We do Sanctuary and land on an island in the lake. Rabbo has Cube now. We are trying to hide from the gargoyles on the island. Net drops on Rabbo, then Eyar 1. Taygo speaks to the centaur that has the net. Moriamus sets out to prove our magic to the centaur. Centaurs release Eyar and Rabbo. They take us to a place of safety---the centaur city, and small village called Stronghold. They offer to help. They take us to the old man in the forest. The old man says, “Black Hand,” to show us that the black cloud of gargoyles isn’t much of a threat in this protected place. The old man says the Queen has been captured and been taken to the underworld by the undead that Taygo unleashed in the Elvin Woods. Trees advance. We retreat. Go back to the centaurs. A satyr named Sim comes to lead us to the Queen. Satyr charms Driel and Eyar 1. Prince Thea is the Keepr of the Vol. The Underworld is in the Mires of the Sinking Kind. We see sparkles in a tree. M of some sort are attacking Destin. They are dragging him up the tree. Gets loose. We decide to check for crystals in the tree. Point Northeast. Rabbo gets message about the nearest crystal. A squirrel has the closest crystal---“he keeps it with his nuts.” It’s about a day’s carpet ride away. One hex right and below the Sacred Stones. We continue on to the Mires. We arrive. As the muck deepens, we decide to fly to the Sunken Towers. We go down in the first tower. Muck is getting deeper. A slithery thing drops on Taygo (giant constrictor). Rabbo kills giant snake. One jumps on Fred, and he kills it. Taygo steps on a skull in the muck. It is elven. Destin finds a hand with a ring on it, and finds the binding of a magic book. We decide to dump the book. The ring is magic. Rabbo finds the remains of 1 human and four elves, a wand, a scroll (transmute mud to rock) and a scroll tube. We go back up after finding no way into the Underworld here. We plan on looking into the next of the three towers. //

Rabbo kills Salem. Salem had the mark of BH on the back of his head. He could hear only out of the back of his head. We resurrect him. Driel says “black hand” while telling an update of events… Gargoyles attack. We run down into Tower 2. fly down the center of the tower. The entire place is covered in webs. We’re stuck! Work loose. We trip a magic mouth alarm. Rabbo decides to take Salem back to the School. This next part in the notes gets chaotic, because it sounds like two battles are going on at once---Rabbo and Salem teleport back to the school. Rest of party goes down on the stairs. Golems attack Rabbo and Salem at first. There are creatures at the bottom of the tower, according to Destin. Salem gets his dragon out, and a golem injures the dragon and it turns back into a figurine. Moriamus dispels web. Destin falls but catches himself. Meanwhile, Rabbo punches a big golem and takes him down 30 hp; We think that there are kobolds at the bottom of the tower. Salem fireballs golems. It seems that BH only affects Salem when he is asleep or unconscious. One golem grows from the fireball, while one seems unstable. Salem casts lightning bolt at them, but they grow again. Back in the tower, the stairs begin to collapse because there were rigged. Moriamus drops to neg. 3; Driel is at 0 hp (and is also invisible!) Eyar kills a bunch of kobolds. Rabbo and Salem pop back. Salem decides to go back to the school to get his dragon. Rabbo gets Taygo and flies down the center of the tower. Salem hasn’t popped back yet. He’ll have to wait about five rounds. Fred sucked up by floor, kobolds coming out everywhere. Salem back, but he doesn’t know exactly the length of his absence. Salem gets Driel back up by using his Keoghtum’s Ointment to heal her wounds. Eyar is up by Driel. There is a hole in the center of the tower. Rabbo, Taygo, and Salem go in. It’s a cave. Fred goes in too. Then the rest of us follow. We are in a corridor in an underground city. We discuss Taygo’s dream of Loth. We’re going through a mist. Beyond the mist is a real bad smell (methane). Salem blows the mist away. A wall appears at the end of the hall. Pass wall through wall. We can’t get all the way through. Fred scouts an area down a ladder and gets fireballed. We go into a cavern because we’re being sealed in. come to and cross a rope bridge cautiously. Destin hears a bell in the distance (behind a rock). Bridge collapses with Taygo, Rabbo, and Destin scouting it. The bell quit right before. Rabbo gets out the carpet and they fly down to examine the river below. Salem with them on his broom. Bridge was trapped. Rest of the party goes down on a carpet. Moriamus goes down on broom with Salem. We explore cave. Find an “up” corridor, and go up it. Find trail reptillian. Umber Hulk. Taygo light spells it in the eyes, but misses! Fred kills it. Salem takes a tusk. We go on and encounter 2 more umber hulks. This time in the fight, Fred fumbles his weapon!

Eyar, Rabbo, and Salem pop out. Test for crystal. Muad’ib pops in. Taygo scouts ahead. Finds room. Umber hulk in the room. Salem in. Fred, Muad’ib, Driel, Salem, Moriamus, and later, Destin venture into the tunnel. Taygo attacks monster, and “It’s pissed!” Fred kills it. Taygo cuts the umber hulk open and inside, it is sparkling. Salem is sparkling perhaps because he drank some of the water? Moriamus casts a detect magic spell and discovers the whole room is very magical. Destin is glowing because he stuck his face in the water. Salem dispels magic. We go on. Moriamus dispels Salem’s sparkles, and Salem dispels Destin’s glow. More magical water comes up from a spring. Get boat from Cube. Half of the party are on the boat, half on carpets, and the magic users are on the broom. Destin and Muad’ib are in boat. Taygo, Fred and Driel are on the carpet. Hear weird sound from behind. We come to a huge water-filled room with very tall ceiling. We go up about 200 feet and the ceiling is not yet in sight. We go up 200 feet more. We see the broken rope bridge again. We go to the other side. We find a cavern in a hall (rampart). There is a drow elf at the base of the spiral stairs. Salem turns invisible and goes down on his broom to check it out. There is another staircase and an elf. One elf almost webs Salem. He lightning bolts her. As she dies, an alarm sounds. Another elf comes to fight. Driel throws a silence spelled coin to keep her from spellcasting. Three armored dudes are coming down the rampart. They are stopped by Salem’s wall of ice spell. Destin fights an elf. Taygo tries to jump on her. Destin kills elf. Another magic user shows up and flame walls Moriamus, Fred, Driel, Muad’ib on the carpet. The carpet is okay. Taygo tosses coin of silence near the new elf. Taygo, Destin and Muad’ib attack elf. Destin killed another. More elves come up the stairs. Salem casts a web on an elf, and Taygo kills it. Driel pillages dead elf. Moriamus went down stairs earlier! Then Salem, then Taygo. Destin, with his ring of free action also goes down the webbed stairs. Destin kills another elf. Driel pillages other elf. A fireball comes from the webbed stairs. Go down other stairs, 200 feet to a library. Moriamus goes to a spinning, crystal ball in the center. Moriamus walks in the ball. Beams of light start hitting the books from the crystal. Taygo goes up to the ball, but there is nothing. Salem goes up to it, becomes visible, and looks in. There seems to be a path leading to BH. Salem saw Moriamus being tortured and BH enjoying it. Salem puts an ice wall around the crystal. Driel, with her helm, checks out the books. Stairs are sealed off, approx. 100 feet. Help book, pg. one and three. Next book. Alter Reality book in back pack. Moriamus and librarian book. She’s been trapped by Salem, but the school will help. Someone is with her. Moriamus helps us find book on Lori in the religion section. Directs us to six volumes about Alexander. Taygo takes these books. Driel looks into crystal (a reference device) and finds six Lori language books. Back into crystal. Five clerical spell books. Tomes Shelves open to secret passage. Salem and Driel find another room. Appears to be an alchemist’s lab. We poke around. Driel becomes a ferret. Destin gets Driel. Taygo becomes a white mouse. Muad’ib turns into a snake. Salem tries to dispel, and Driel returns to normal, but Taygo and Muad’ib are still animals. Salem’s limbs fall off! He dispels magic. We cross room, go through the door and look into a cavern. /

A new magic user pops in (Lawful Neutral). Driel has the Help book. We come to more mist. Ultravision debate. Eyars and Driel pass out in the mist. Fred and the new magic user grab them. Find rubble covering and blocking the stairway. We pass by the wall. Rabbo goes ethereal, and then Fred faints in the mist with the rest of the party. Taygo realizes that his dream is coming true. There is a spider in the mist. The lesser god of the kobolds is here, underground, like in Taygo’s dream. Salem goes to Taygo. Taygo is trying to kill the oncoming spider alone as in his dream. No one else can see the spider. Rabbo pulls Taygo away, but the spider follows him. Taygo tires to disbelieve. Taygo attacks the spider again! Taygo becomes a Fighter Again! Destin is being weird. Fireball shoots down the other hall. Salem absorbs it. Rabbo and Salem go to kill the magic users. Spider is getting bigger and its turning to stone. Kobold god is after Taygo. Destin is rubbing his groin on the ground? Taygo is now at -1 hp. Destin thought he was a slug because of random potion in the lab at the library. We are all in the cave. Driel heals Taygo. All in web except Taygo. Drow elf. Destin has a knife dipped in potion, comes back from elf and stabs himself! Drow elf does fireball. Rabbo disbelieves web. Fred and Driel can’t disbelieve web. Three more elves are coming. Possibly more illusions. Find room (Salem and the new magic user. Drow in room. Lightning hits people still in the hall. Salem casts a forget spell at a big drow. Drow elves are casting spells into black glass column. We attack. Fred gets dumb idea and pours a water breathing potion down Eyar’s throat. Salem webs the elves. Destin with his ring of free action, goes through the webs and kills the elves. Salem casts a shatter spell on the column of black glass. We heal the Eyars with an elixir of life. Rabbo kills Drow Queen. //

Eyar and Driel pop in late. Heal Rabbo and Taygo. Cube doesn’t work. The black column shatters. Dragon came up. Fred kills dragon, then falls into the pit. Fred dies. Salem gets Fred. We use timestop TWICE to heal Fred all the way up. Went down a passage, and found a concealed door. Led to a room with a throne and a bunch of drow elves. We kill a bunch. Salem flies over a force field and sits on the throne. Flame strike on Salem! Taygo has changed alignment to Lawful Neutral after reading the Alexander book. Salem hears swishes, but can’t see anything with his robe of eyes. We are thinking they are elementals. Salem falls to ground because Rabbo fires at the swishes with no effect. Destin goes up and wacks Salem on the head with a rod. Destin is knocked over by a swish. Salem dispelled on the swishes. Destin hits himself on the head with the rod. Sparks fly out and he’s down. Driel removes curse on Destin’s rod. Salem trades for Destin’s rod. Driel detects evil, and the rod is very evil. Salem points the rod at the throne. Driel performs remove curse on Salem. Salem puts the rod in his bag. He says that the wand wanted him to kill Rabbo. It made Destin hit Salem on the head. Salem tosses it down the pit. Salem and Driel save from a spell. Taygo scouts. Drow statue behind a barrier. Thunderbolt inside. Phase spider with drow rider. Drow statue stabs Fred. They kill her, and go down the hall. //

Thanos, magic user. Driel gets Rod of Absorption back from Taygo and green box back from Rabbo. Taygo uses last of healing drought. Fred tires to break a wall of force Destin found. Driel heals Fred’s wounds. Destin tries to dispel wall with a rod that up until now had only detected magic. His unknown ring glows blue and fades. Driel tries to dispel the wall three times. Rabbo and Thanos fo ethereal with Salem in the Orcus Garden in the Castle. Pop back. We’re attacked by archers. Salem gets ready to take Eyar and Driel ethereal. We go to the other side of wall of force. Fred down from a poison arrow. Other Eyar and monk taken ethereal. Drow are the archers. Coming down toward Taygo in the opposite hall from the wall of force. Salem fireballs drows and kills them. We are now all ethereal. Driel slows poison and heals Fred. Fred gets up! Destin walks into darkness-Driel’s coin no longer gives off light. We’re in a cave, and see drow and kobolds eating. We go back and try a different direction. We see drow bodies. We see 4 live drow talking. Illusionist fires wand of wonder. Something happens to Rabbo. Salem knows that he’s absorbed it somehow, but should not have. Drows have noticed us yet. Taygo attacks. After Taygo, Eyar, and Driel charge, the drows figure it out. The party decides to run toward a hall next to the drow. Rabbo seems to know where to go. Taygo runs past drow. We’re still ethereal. Salem hears a high pitched squeal from behind. He goes back to look. It’s a mouse running toward us. The mouse is squeaking Salem’s name. It’s a familiar. Salem can see and hear through the mouse’s eyes and ears. We’re all still ethereal. Muad’ib pops in and is ethereal, too (because the crystals are also ethereal) Rabbo says to go right at the next fork. Thanos zaps Salem with the random Zowie wand to recharge Salem’s staff. We see a room with several drow down the hall. Room seems to be a torture room. We decide to go in waving weapons to scare. We see some doors. We pick door on the left. Hall with doors. Taygo and Rabbo stick head through doors. Rabbo sees woman with burnt off legs. She’s been tortured. She’s milk white and her hair is silver. Taygo see the same thing. Rabbo and Taygo go in the room. They get their attention. Rabbo’s motioning to go away. She’s carrying a wand. Taygo is motioning to chains with her wand. Salem takes Taygo and Rabbo to the prime material plane. The Faerie Queen says that Rabbo and Taygo can’t save her. A female must take the wand and become the Queen of the Faeries. She must remain Queen of the Faeries until death. Destin fucks with a major fat drow. Salem goes ethereal to get Driel. She goes with into the Faerie Queen’s cell. Driel is back on the prime material. The Dark Queen of the Drow wants the wand. She wants Driel to be the next Faerie Queen. Must not let mortals touch the wand. Must protect and live for the Faeries. This responsibility may interfere with being a cleric. Driel becomes the Queen. Never forget the magic of our race---in human form, be always fair and kind, brave and bold, and soon the two will mesh. There is a bluish explosion, and the old Faerie Queen turns into a spot of vapor. We go ethereal. Salem gets Driel and Taygo to the school. Now in the prime material. Rabbo, still in the dungeon, fires at drow elves and kills a bunch. Rabbo tells everyone to go to the school. Driel and Taygo and Salem walk towards the school. Everyone on the ethereal plane goes towards the school. Rabbo dimension walks to the school. Muad’ib, Fred, Thanos, Destin, and Eyar 2 all are now out of the underground. Eyar 1 is still missing, stuck there for awhile. Back at the school, good ol’ golems. Salem tries to teleport us to the school. That group ends up on a large crater below, with a cave behind. We hear booming laughter. It’s an efreeti. Efreeti has statue of Eyar. We leave. Back at the school. IN THE TOWERS: In the underground city. Monk lights fire and disappears. Fred, Muad’ib, Thanos, and Eyar 2 head for the Invisible School of Thuamaturgy. Fred disappeared. Driel asks wand its powers. It restores her health completely. Driel says “destroy golem,” and it glows warmly and makes her feel perturbed. It does the same thing when she asks it to defend here and her friends. Salem flies with Driel over the golems and Taygo stays to fight (When Salem slept last game, he was bound tightly, and nothing bad happened). Driel asks to be let in the school, and feels embarrassed. She is not really acting like the Queen of the Faeries. Destin is in a strange white castle. Someone speaks to him telepathically. He tells it he’s a god. It chuckles. It’s captured by the cloud king. It says it will help Destin if he frees him. So Destin does. It’s a Ki-rin. He hops on and they fly off. It flies him to the school. Driel heals Taygo with the wand. Her skin is pale and her hair is turning lighter. Can’t turn a golem with the wand. Driel tries to command golem. Beams come out of the wand and the golem falls over. So far, it heals and directs commands. Driel is changing in the Faerie Queen. Back to Destin. he finds Fred and saves him. Ki-rin tells Destin that Rabbo’s not in range and Eyar is also not in range. They are either south of Troll wood or east of the forest of Lurking. Driel commands the golems to halt, but only one falls. Driel invokes the spiritual hammer through the wand. The wand gives her a weird feeling. She says Halt again. The wand gets angry when Driel commands the golems to die, but misses the mark and kills some grass. Next try, the grass stands upright, and the now halted golems stop quaking. Taygo kills golem. Destin with help from the Ki-rin find and tows Eyar 1, Muad’ib, and Thanos. Wand of Rulership?? Tell Golems to fight approaching golems. All are killed except one under Driel’s command. The Ki-rin gets us all to the prime material, on top of the shield and leaves us. Rabbo made a right turn at Albequerque and got lost dimension walking. Ki-rin pops off to get Rabbo. Rabbo brings him to the top of the shield. School finally lets us in. Flame hand has Salem taken off to be cured.

At the invisible School. Eyar 1 is still missing. We turn over some of the books to the folks at the school: book 1: Index to the other 5; book 2: Defines the Religion (and changes alignment of those who read it); Book 3: discusses law and order of the universe (sacred text); book 4: Discusses the life and rights of all living things; book 5: on fighting skills; book 6: (most powerful) on the duties of Alexander’s clerics. When Taygo read those books, it changed his alignment, increased his experience, and changed his class to fighter/cleric. Meeting at the school. Salem is hovering 5 feet off the ground in a glowing red cube. He is an almost exact replica of Salem which has a second subconscious that takes over whenever he is asleep. We can never leave him alone, or turn our back on him. BH isn’t watching directly, but is spying. Wand won’t do anything evil. It’s chaotic good, of some kind but unknown intelligence. Wand serves the Queen. We’ll need to check with Faeries to find out more about the wand. Driel hasn’t changed any more since she entered the school. This change could cause problems with her religion. Golems are coming and going, possibly through gate. Lich was controlling them. We had something to do with their arrival. Salem is a spy for BH. The Salem construct has something from the original. We intend to try to get the medic to fix him. Rabbo asks about letting us in and knowing about Eyar 1. Our stuff has been energized by the school’s magic. Entrance spell. When all our items are in 50 feet of the dome opening. If something is missing or not in our plane, it will open, but if he’s restrained or unconscious. School agrees to give Eyar 2 a location device to find Eyar 1. Barter. Weird rifle is gone from the fortress. Rabbo still has hippogriff coin. Hilt, maces, weird gun, balls, gone from the fortress. Salem’s blue dragon is now a black dragon. Possible BH effect. Taygo set up worship place in the Invisible School. Eyar 2 gets Jerik. Party stuff: Carpets, to Driel and Taygo. Sword of Law is at the Lori temple teaching religion. We get the medic out. Compare old and new Salem. Brain waves operate differently. Untested shock wave therapy on Salem. Didn’t work. Rabbo gets genie through the crystal to get an original bone from Salem. The genie says, “One does not exist.” Gods of destiny and leaders of fate at Temple of Kings. We need to see them if we expect to get Salem back. //

The guys go out to fight golems (Fred, Destin, Rabbo, Taygo, and Maud’ib) Driel is taken to a big room (the council of wands) to fix the reflector. It is an artifact. Driel does many experiments with the wand. First, she grew a daisy from an elm seed, and then willed it to change into a rose. She talked to the daisy and to a ferret. She commanded a dead cat to live, but the wand only felt sorrow. Tried to will a shape change. No go. Tried to talk with a warg, but the wand only felt hatred and sorrow, but no response from the wolf. Tried to change the warg’s alignment to good, no go. She smashed a vase, and commanded it to mend, sorrow, misunderstanding. She pictured the vase coming back together, and there was a short burst of faerie dust, and as she touched the pieces, they danced up on each other, and came together, but with many cracks. Tried to think of it without the cracks and touched it, (misunderstanding, sorrow and wanting). She told a piece to move away, it jumped and danced to Driel. Driel thinks about each crack melting into each other, and touches---nothing. It won’t hold water. She asks wand to show her what it wants and needs, and faerie dust came out, it glowed slightly, and pulled her towards a door. The council follows. Goes to a local tavern. People there are drinking and listening to music. Wand feels excitement and expectation. She sings to the wand, sings “King of Pain” There is a blast of light and sorrow, hurt, unbelief. Suddenly, it gets darker. BH is attacking. Guys fight golems. All are attracted to Rabbo. After Taygo casts invisibility to undead. No, some converge on Taygo also. A BIG one comes and attacks Rabbo. Thanos sends five shadows after the big golem and they converge on his arm, which turns black, although it still seems to be under the golem’s control. Rabbo kills the big golem and shadows disappear. Sun dims out! Eclipse. Back to Tavern, Driel sings opposite King of pain but the wand sends mixture of emotions, great fear depression, and confusion. Black amorphous cloud like creatures with silver linings and sparkles are flying and moaning up in the sky. Driel tires another rhyme and the wand feels happy. Rabbo gets carpet out. The sun is back to normal. Wails and moans sound more painful and they start falling. Driel makes a rhyme to get rid of the golems and passes out with faerie dust all over her body. When she wakes up she’s Neutral Good. The golems fade and go away. Small black holes have appeared in the sky and the black things are going through them. The mages take Driel to the infirmary. The guys arrive back inside. Salem swallowed a crystal that puts him the red cube every time he enters the shield. Sword requests a meeting with Taygo. Driel has milk-white skin, golden bronze hair, and liver eyes with green flakes. Driel wakes up and wand feels sorrow, fatigue, and hunger. Driel prays, and receives a vision. Her path is forked. One path leads to the Elysium Fields, in which Ishtar resides, and the box on that path said, “Wand.” The other path led to Elfland with a box that said “All else.” The boxes are like toll boxes. She feels out of touch, with the party, feels lonely, doubting her religion, humans annoy her. Taygo goes to talk with the Sword of Law. He was told not to return to the temple until he redeems himself. Everyone goes to fix the mirror. They take us to the basement to a huge lecture hall. Sit down and flamehand draws back a curtain. There is a huge mirror, 50 by 50 ovaloid, around the sides inlaid with very sparkly gems. 30 ft cracks go up one side. Driel says rhyme. With Rabbo’s help. After she touches it, it fires, but all of the gems fade. Upstairs, there is pandemonium. The screen is down. The wand feels uselessness, hunger, sorrow, loneliness. Flamehand gives Rabbo small mirror, and stones (small pebbles). Rabbo timestops and asks where their stuff is. Flamehand says that the reflector feeds on the gems, and the reflector must have been dying, it hadn’t been using as many gems. Massive energy used to repair the mirror and possibly starved the gems. Mirror and pebble are ways to contact the wagons

Rabbo tries to call a genie to help us with the reflector. It works. Noble Genie appears and grants Rabbo’s wish. “Permanently recharge reflector.” Supplies full complement of gems and information about location of most powerful gems on the plane. Mirror is now fixed. School’s okay. Crater of the Punishing Star near Rombune is the location of the gems. Large meteor made a crater during the cataclysm. near Paros (iron, precious gems and industrials. Rabbo uses crystal knowledge and lucky guess to find its location. Temple of the Kings may be able to cure Salem. Crystal information: small hut, closest to school, rolling hills at the source of a little river. Above Tatafat, source of the river Ebbing. We go to kill golems that are inside the school. Gave back the communication pebble and lense. 7 small golems and one big one are tearing down buildings and attacking people. Lich shows up ethereal with Rabbo, we don’t see it. Rabbo pops back to prime material, and the lich doesn’t follow. It’s a minor Death. Skeletons show up. Salem pops in. Fred kills big goelm. Rabbo attacks Minor Death. Killed it. Rabbo goes ethereal. Drops crystals and Cube. Senses psionic presence deep in ethereal. Lich. Rabbo attacks with psionics---kills it. There’s still a presence only weaker. It attacks. There seemed to be a bunch of psionics grouping in the ethereal. Destin picks up cube and crystals. Two fighters (paladins) and 3 magic users show up from the school to help us. Fred killed little golem. Something we are unaware of happened to Rabbo on the ethereal plane. Paladin heals Driel. Eyar kills golem. Destin kills golem. Driel kills golem. There is nothing on the ethereal plane now. We leave through the top. The school detected an ethereal gate that opened while the shield was down, and closed before the fight was over. We are headed out for the closest crystal. Get $ out of bucknard’s purse and put in green box. We arrive at the hut. Destin goes up and knocks. Jerik uses its clairaudience. Man sleeping inside, so Destin creeps in. Jerik, locate object. Eyar finds bag with 4 gold 3 gems and the crystal (#46). There are empty bottles and the place smells like 503 Hayes after a party. A boulder hits Salem. A dwarf giant shows up with another boulder in his hand! 12 foot tall dwarf, black skin, fire red hair, etc. Salem is killed after fireballing the dwarf-giant and the dwarf giant tosses the second boulder at him. Driel Driel neutralizes poison on drink and wakes him. Rabbo asks his name, Henry. He keeps puking. He’s a wine maker. He does some stuff when we tell him about the giant. Fred killed the giant. Fills up a bucket with river water and changes it to wine 9 Maybe the influence of the crystal or Demeter, his god). Can occasionally make ale. Giant wanted wine or maybe ale. Destin joins crystal. It emanates white light and then goes back to normal. Apparently no effect on Destin. The school taught the winemaker how to turn water into wine. We’re off to Stubstaff Keep. Before we leave, we do the arrow thing again. “In a cave in a coffin filled with evil.” Next crystal info. Due east from the mouth of the Ebbing river.//

As we open this game, Eyar, Destin and Salem are in pop out. We’re off to Stubstaff Keep. Thanos learns how to fly the carpet. Driel misses “Eve’s Curse” and is worried. It’s been one month and one week since the incident with the satyr. Taygo is staring transfixed into the sun. Thanos shakes him and he comes out of it, but he knows something. The sword has spoken to him. To save himself he must find Toomonga, in the Village of the Yando rivermen. Muad’ib remembers him from before, when he was part of the party before the current party. Toomonga is a cleric. So, we decide to stop and look for him when we get there. Muad’ib notices that there’s a big black shape blotting out the sky. It puts off not heat (Maud’ib uses his infravision). It’s going west. Thanos, Mauad’ib, and Rabbo go to check it out. Driel, Fred, and Taygo go on to agreed landing point. It begins to come down so they go up. It dives, generates lots of wind, looks like a big cigar. It lanced Rabbo with an incredible burst of negative energy which knocked him down 3 levels! It is void of psionics. It seems to be from up close, just a giant glob of blackness. Thanos lightning bolts it and it dives. Can’t see it anymore. they land and search for it. They decide to go on and meet Driel, Dred, and Taygo. Rabbo takes the green box, gives Driel the Cube, and goes to the river Ebbing by dimension walk to get the cleric to restore his levels. Driel’s wand feels like it is dying. Driel thinks it may need to go back to Elfland. About five hours after Rabbo leaves, something (undead dragon) grabs the carpet with Muad’ib and Thanos. Thanos lightning bolts it after it bites the carpet. Taygo can’t turn it. So, Driel, Taygo and Fred turn around to come around behind it. It comes at us and it hits Fred with a black lance (breath weapon) and Fred falls off the carpet. Driel goes invisible and continues around. It spits a lightning bolt at Thanos and he dies. Muad’ib’s (he’s now 5th level) carpet is unraveling. He dives to catch Fred. Dragon flies off to the West. The dragon disappears about a ¼ mile away from us. Muad’ib’s carpet shreds as he grabs Fred and they all fall. Driel and Taygo goes to catch them. They catch Fred and Maud’ib. Fred has black eyes. Taygo catches Thanos. Taygo flies carpet. Driel doinks Thanos. Fred is tied up by Taygo and Muad’ib. He’s dead, but wakes up and groans. He’s undead. Driel tries to turn him with no luck. Fred breaks ropes and stands up. Thanos lightning bolts Fred and he falls off the carpet. We land. Fred is up. Driel rolls up the carpet. Thanos lightning bolts him again. He falls in the portable hole and we close it. We take carpet and fly to meeting point.//

Back to Rabbo: Arrives at hut and goes in and wakes up cleric. He pukes. He can’t help, he’s only third level, so Rabbo was going on to Port Lork. //

Back to party: We arrive at the meeting place. We open the portable hole, but had forgotten that we had one partially used potion of healing which had broken open and partially dissolved Fred into a puddle of goo. Rabbo arrives back, still down. Dragon is here again. Taygo does invisibility to undead spell. No one is afraid. Thanos fireballs it and Rabbo opens up the portable hole and jumps in. Dragon goes for Taygo and he light spells its eyes, but it didn’t work. Driel blesses decanter. The dragon breathes frost on the party as it passes. Thanos and Driel are down. Driel is still invisible. The dragon circles and lands. Rabbo kills the undead Fred. Muad’ib glances a bolt off the dragon. Rabbo closes the portable hole. Muad’ib hits it with a small crossbow bolt on the neck. Rabbo decides to eat. It black lances Muad’ib. He’s dead. It black lances Taygo. Rabbo doesn’t see the dragon. Taygo is now a 0 level cleric and 2nd level fighter. Muad’ib is a 0 level fighter and now has black eyes. Taygo runs up to it. Rabbo kills Muad’ib (undead?) Taygo attacks dragon, and the dragon completely muffs his attack. Taygo attacks again, and finally Taygo kills the dragon as it was attempting to take off. As it falls to earth, it lands on Driel. Taygo tries to get Rabbo to see the undead dragon. He finally sees it. They get healing stuff and raise Driel. Driel tries to cure insanity on Rabbo. Muad’ib is undead and comes toward us. Rabbo attacks. Rabbo takes cube and gives Driel the green box. Dinked Thanos again. A light spell shows up behind the dragon’s eyes. Everyone but Taygo goes in timestop. Taygo is staring at the dragon. We try to call Galbreth’s rod of resurrection through the green box. It causes Driel pain to hold it. Driel sets it down. Taygo seems mesmerized like when he was looking into the sun and when Rabbo shakes him he has the same message, then the light spell goes out. Taygo takes the rod of resurrection. He touches Fred and there’s a poof and a bright light and black vapor comes out and the rod disintegrates. Fred is fine except that he freaks when he sees the dragon. It dissolves when Driel pours water on it. Rabbo tries to dominate Fred to get him away from the dragon. He does. Driel creates water over the dragon and then blesses the area and the dragon says, “One of many” and then dissolves. Rabbo tires to activate timestop and it doesn’t work. We throw Muad’ib’s body in the portable hole with healing potions and head out to find Toomonga. Because of lance, Fred is at 0 level. We are walking to the Yando rivermen’s village. It’s a population of about 250, at most, very small village. Huts up on stilts, with ropes hanging down. As we approach, about a hundred people all run around us. They are excited to see us and lead us to Toomonga. Everyone shuts up as we approach a certain hut. An old guy comes up, he looks thoughtful when he smiles. Everyone cheers when he says, “Let the visitors be welcome!” He drops a rope to the hut and Taygo asks if we should all climb up. We all climb up after Taygo gives a signal. He pulled up the rope and goes in his hut. His altar seems to indicate that he is a sun worshiper. He’s always thinking. He asks Taygo why he came. Taygo and Rabbo try to explain. He takes out a gourd and light comes out, Taygo takes out his holy symbol. Tells us not to speak rivertalk. Toomonga makes Driel and Thanos go outside because the need no healing. He restores everyone. We go out and party and Toomonga and Taygo talk. Rabbo, Driel, Muad’ib and Thanos trip! We take off for Stubstaff Keep. After extracting a promise from all of us not to hinder Taygo, he gives us a crystal (#78). It increased Taygo’s charisma. Crystal info: An old craggen wood (desert like brush forest) in a spider sac in a spider web high in the trees---in the Thorn Flats, 4 hexes from Yando, SE. /

New character, Random, from the land of Amber (he is Neutral Evil) pops in. We set out for Stubstaff. 5 days travel. 350 (copper, elec, and platinum). Taygo has another vision at dawn. “After the fall of the Knight, the tree of life will restore all. To restore the tree of life, claim the staff and night will end forever, the circle of stone holds the…/ Thanos does invisibility, 10 ft radius with the zowie wand on the carpet. /Toomonga, with the walking stick of Alexander, Driel and Destin go to scout the keep and Salem pops in. The gates are not intact. Catapult in each tower. Ballista. Lots of oil around. 10 five story dorm type buildings. big white object lots of men laying down. Piles of dead people near the gate. We go and get some large sticks and the area smells back ???(its in the notes!) We go back to report. Another day passes. We camp and plan to attack at dawn. Rabbo sacrifices boots of striding and springing. “Now is the time of the neverending night. I have spoken, you will remember. The life of the night comes from the staff and the power of the night. The night must fall before dawn arrives and after the fall of the night…” this is the extent of Taygo’s vision at dusk. Destin called a giant eagle. He’ll stick around until dawn. Driel call portable hole through the box. Sam “penis breath” Eagle. Protection from Undead scrolls read by Thanos and Detection of Magic from Driel. Salem flies up and opens portcullis. Everything is magical, at least as Driel sees it. Thanos casts detect illusion, but there is not illusion. The place is very cold and smell bad!!!. Destin pulls one of the mysterious dead guys outside and detects magic. It can’t be dispelled. We enter Stubstaff Keep. We go through the gate. The keep is made of black granite. Through doors of black marble, with white marble skulls with pits of fire. We see old gross black tree. Detect magic again, same result! Rabbo object reads on a dead major guy, who leaves the impression that he had a lot of anger for having his meal disturbed. Then, “alarm sounding, not a drill; confused about explosion; which general is in charge and where is he?” try to get something about his death. Skull: white marble; ditch down from jaw with flames. Room inside skull room: 2 pots of oil, slots in floor, boxes, a couple full quivers of arrows, 10 dead guys, magical aura, glass bottles, and rags, a trap door with steps down. Salem takes two glass bottles. Random finds the shit house (one of the small huts). Rabbo uses psionics to find out the location of the Black knight. He is on the ethereal plane. Rabbo uses psionics to determine the quickest route to the staff. The tree is frightening Toomonga. Rabbo uses timestop on the Cube to regenerate his psionics. “Route to staff: Underground and Under Skull.” Skull jaw comes down when Destin cut some ropes and quenches fire, and we see the passage. We go into skull. Smells like petroleum. Rabbo uses psionics again for route. Underground, and forward. See throne in room we come to. Investigate door. Salem opens door. There are dead generals. Find some helpful papers on running the keep. Rabbos uses psionics: Which door? //

When Toomonga gives holy symbol and light comes out of it and touches Eyar, she is granted special knowledge of the Keep. The lich that was on the ethereal plane the last time Rabbo was fighting at the Keep killed everyone. He has made the magic user and cleric here a minor lich. The Black Knight has been following Rabbo on the ethereal plane. The knight is at first level. He goes into a circular room to rejuvenate. 3 feet into the wall in circular room. If we destroy knight liches will return and 200 dead bodies will rise. Call wand of zowie out of the Box. Head for circular room to find the staff. Eyar “locates object” using Jerik, but the staff is proofed against location. Rabbo uses psionics. We enter kitchen and Eyar and Jerik look for trap door in the corner. Rabbo checks a door on the south wall of the kitchen. Seems to be another dining area. Eyar finds secret door in the new room hall leading to throne. Same throne as thief and monk examined before. We go down stairs. Food storage. Taygo goes down north door, Muad’ib checks east door. Taygo finds a large room with 3 doors and the North wall and one on the east, one on the west, and a Lich! Taygo closes the door. Muad’ib finds a room with one door on the west, two on the east, and shelves with scrolls. We get ready to attack the lich. Protection from Evil cast on Driel and Fred. Rabbo busts door open. Protection from Evil on Eyar by Driel. Salem teleports in invisibly. Fred runs in and then Eyar behind him. Lich does blade barrier on Fred and in front and Eyar. Eyar goes through and so does Fred. Eyar is paralyzed, so is Rabbo and Fred. Destin is dead because of word. Rabbo tries to dominate the lich and can’t. Fred is deaf because of word. Driel does silence on coin but can’t get it through the blade barrier. Salem teleports out in to the food storage room. Muad’ib runs in. Fred kills lich.? A door opens and a duplicate lich comes out and attacks Fred. Fred disappears. Taygo dispels Driels’ spells and lich spells. Muad’ib attacks the lich. Resurrect Destin. Eyar teleports and attacks lich. In a puffof dust, the lich disappears and rematerializes in the door way. He touches Muad’ib and he is reduced to 0 hit points. Taygo can’t turn it. Toomonga attempts to turn the lich. Rabbo hits the lich with one of his stars and kills it. We rifle through the lich’s stuff and find a ring (_________). Toomonga dispels Salem’s paralyzation. As soon as Destin took the ring off the lich, it disintegrates. When Destin tries on the ring we respect him more. It is a ring which enhances charisma (cha: 18). Salem passwall’s floor 13 times. Nothing. Room where the lich was killed is a bed chamber. Head butler’s quarters. Rabbo finds another room with a guy and two girls dead in an intimate situation. Eyar finds a way down. Through a hall, find stairway down. Find a big room. Destin jumps in smelly stuff and starts to dissolve. Acid. Salem checked out altar and is now running around like a mad man. Salem jumps in a small pit, and comes up on his broom, covered in shit. Driel gives an elixir of life to Destin. Salem makes shit angels. Heal Destin with healing draughts. Salem dinks him with the staff of curing. He falls on the altar. He knocked over some figurines. A Cyclops covered in goo comes out of the acid pit. It’s Spollys??? Salem thought of him just before he appeared. Rabbo was mesmerized by the altar, Driel pushes him over. Salem lightning bolts Spollys and it grows about one foot. Rabbo attacks Driel, and she hits him with a staff. Salem looks at the altar and goes nuts again. Driel blesses the altar. And then, Driel gave Rabbo a blow job renounced her Faith, and became a streetwalker. Taygo smashing figurines. Spollys figure shrinks. Taygo gives Salem ½ elixir of health. Taygo and Toomonga consecrate the altar. Toomonga cleans everyone off with create water. Find a lounge with three doors. second door: Two dead people fucking. North wall door: torture room. SW Door, same as the SE. Secret door in torture room. Poison trap sprung by Driel. Salved and Keoghtum’s Ointment. Room is in range! Destin trips lightning glyph and dies. Salem trips additional glyph and is unconscious. Toomonga raises dead on Destin. Driel finds and gets Salem up. We continue on following Jerik to circular room. Black things fly around us---two on Salem, 2 on Driel, and one on Muad’ib. Come to tapestry and Salem flame walls it. Find room that is on fire. Driel and Toomonga pass out from smoke. Find another secret door with Jerik. Toomonga and Driel come around. Toomonga does precipitate. Eyar in the circular room poison dagger. Destin dodges another. Salem pops behind him and distracts him. Salem is down. Driel does hold person on Black Knight but he dispels it. Clerics attempt to combine and try it again on the Black Knight. The Black Knight attacks Destin and knocks him out. Toomonga holds the Black Knight. Rabbo shoots him dead, but the Knight’s ethereal intelligent armor takes him to the ethereal plane. Toomonga begins to cast locate object. Eyar heals Salem, and Rabbo goes ethereal. Black Knight is still held. Salem takes Muad’ib ethereal, but on the way, pops to Zards and decapitates Muadib and leaves his head at the tower. Rabbo removes helmet and rips his head off, and tears him to bits from the inside out. Salem disintegrates armor with the wand of zowie. We all come back to the prime material. Toomonga regenerates the Black Knight. Taygo finds and claims the staff and kills the Knight. Taygo’s holy symbol is glowing again. Toomonga helps Muad’ib and Rabbo checks for BH marks, but he is okay. Taygo puts the Staff back. Heal up and take off to battle liches. Find secret doors that are a quick way up. Rabbo goes ethereal and sees lich. Comes back and begins to prep for the lich fight. Driel gives silence coin to Rabbo. Monk, Rabbo, Taygo, Eyar, and Toomonga go to meet the Lich of Fire. Muad’ib and Driel cover the party’s back. Salem joins forces with the liches in the zombie fight. Salem teleports to behind the party, out of the silence, and casts fireball; Rabbo dies. Destin’s okay, Taygo’s fine, Eyar hurt bad, Driel and Muad’ib at half damage. Toomonga heals Rabbo. Eyar goes into room where Destin is fighting lich. Driel and Muad’ib charge Salem who has been held by Taygo. Muad’ib kills Salem. Eyar hits lich (zombie wish) Other lich shows up. Eyar kills another lich. Wish for duplicate ethereal of mirror at school and Rabbo goes into timestop to get psionics back, gets crystals, then before we get the chance Flamehand shows up and steps through the mirror. Sends shardenzar, who is part nymph, to be liason. Toomonga does a glyph on each of the entrances. We bring Salem back. Salem touches glyph and is teleported to outside the keep. The Crystal Keep! Divided into 10 shares.//

Remember That Time.... or Too Much of a Good Thing

2008-04-15T01:45:00.000-07:00

From an Email got from Rabbo's Player:

As I was fondly recalling an old game to a student at ___ the other day, I recounted the game on the Isle of Fright during which Rabbo was pretty much responsible for a nuclear detonation. At which point, the student said, "Geez, you probably killed several million people. That's gotta be tons of experience." And I said, "Hey, I think you're right!" Now, to be fair, I probably should have said something about it then, but since I didn't, I think 1 experience point for every dead person/mutant/creature would be fair :D

Responsible? DEFINITELY! For INDIRECTLY killing millions. As I recall the detonation was the result of Rabbo trying to remove Hi-Tech equipment from a futuristic nuclear-powered assault tank. He managed to remove the cooling rods from the reactor and couldn't get them back in so he just dimension walked about three miles away and let it go. You got experience for killing the tank, the army men, getting the medical robot, Adam Kelly, all the guns, ammo, grandees, land mines, air to ground missiles, mortar shells, mortars, and all that other cool stuff that you could fit in your backpacks and later helped vaporized most of the party when the red dragon breathed fire on it. The killing of several million people was just a byproduct of an accident. You may have sunk the 9 ball, but this aint no slop D&D.

Nice try though. :)

The Dungeon Master

The Beginning....Kind of......

2008-04-11T19:03:00.000-07:00

Well, I have been threatening to post some of the notes from way back in 1987, when we first were playing. Back then, we might have had an awesome fight with giant golems, in which 11 of the party members nearly died, and it took two rolls of double zeros for one person to squeak through and save everybody the next game. However, in the notes, it looked like this: "Fought giant golems; all but Rabbo died."

Notes From The Campaign
(written by multiple sources over several years)

THE CUBE: The cube is an ancient artifact of the lost race of the Lori. Only the high priests and the emperors of the Lori possessed them. The major function of the Cube is the gate function (____________). With this function, the Lori roamed the plane. The second function of the Cube is fortress (____________________). The Lori used this function to provide shelter when they traveled. The emperor Cubes were rumored to have flying vehicles that carried them through the skies and heavens. The third function of the Cube provided water transportation to the Lori: a boat for rivers, streams and lakes, a ship for oceans and seas (____________). The fourth function protected the Lori from extreme temperatures (_______________). The fifth function of the Cube controlled a barrier through which nothing magic, matter or energy can pass (______________). The sixth function was never mentioned in legend. It creates a pocket in time (similar to the spell “timestop”) (_______________).

Players notes:

These notes are pieced together from many different players over the years. In some places, there are obvious gaps, but that’s the nature of the game. The notes begin somewhere after the adventure on the Isle of Fright. In terms of the game, this means that about 80% of the game occurred before any notes were taken. Oh well.

(This first part probably takes place in the late spring of 1987. )

Taygo and Salem say “Black Hand.” Eyar 1 and 2 and Driel fly off. Everyone else gates with the Wand of Zowie. Skon flies off. Eyar and Driel hear screams and go back. Turn 2 skeletons. Eyar’s holy symbol dissipates giant skeleton. Resurrect Fred. Party gates and we’re back close to the Haunts of the Lepers. Lost Marvin. Rabbo lost 2 psionic disciplines and went up in strength (cloud giant). He got his psionics back permanently (except for the 2 completely lost disciplines). Moving in the desert. Harry killed by Skon and Salem.

Attack by desert barbarians while following arrow to a camp in search of a chunk of the crystal. Naromi, Salem, and Driel go invisible and barbarians shoot arrows at party-fight ensues. Scared barbarians with Cause Fear spell. Blinded barbarian that was attacking Muad’ib. Cure Salem. With a Wall of Ice, Naromi kills many barbarians. Blinded 2 more barbarians. Resurrected Eyar. *See* Alexander at the Altar of the Grey Staff. We find out that BH is closing the celestial sphere to cut off any direct help from gods except through with spells. Alexander tells us to go to the Spires of the Sun and help the Order of the Hippogriffs. Avoid barbarians until at the Sacred Stones. Juulute Wolfheart is the heir to the King of the Barbarians. Avoid the Haunts of the lepers until we are strong enough to defeat their diseased god. Taygo must perform a penance for letting Salem kill the goblin in the Hermit’s Hut (*crystal #89). There is an argument between Taygo and Rabbo, and Rabbo leaves. Party gets the fortress out of the Cube, and the party discusses Rabbo’s destiny. The Invisible School of Thuamaturgy intervenes, with Rabbo. We cure him. *Blink dog shows up, seems to like Taygo. We joined 2 crystals (#89 + ____). Meet monks in the desert. Offer to Bless Taygo and Driel for being “Holies.” There is a Fire Strike and Taygo and Driel are killed. Rabbo tosses stars while three more of the party dies in the fire. Raboo hits two more monks. We remember that Driel is carrying a rug! Monks die. Everyone but Fred and Maud’ib carry leprosy. Magic users pray/study at the Invisible School of Thuamaturgy. The party is off to the Spires of the Sun. /

We meet up with the Order of the Hippogriffs. Talk to the leader of the Order of the Hippogriffs. (Taygo?) has a conference with the Oracle Device. The rest of us attend a banquet in our honor. Rabbo gets a medallion from a big hippogriff. Crystal #22 is there. The medallion calls the order for help twice only. Once, if in dire need, a small troop will answer the call. One last time, for the final battle. All the parties’ ailments are healed in a special room. Rabbo gets his arm back for real. Driel joins crystal, it recharges rod of resurrection, but it also does something else that we are not sure about) and also resurrects Polaris! The room raised Polaris because he went into the room without need. We talk about Ranger Orkill, the “twit.” Driel’s rod is not glowing and didn’t go down charges. Inscription on statue in special room carved by R.O. = “God of Stone and Wood.” *Run across some toll collectors. find some cash. Assassin kills Maud’ib and Galbreth. Driel resurrects Galbreth. Galbreth resurrects Maud’ib. Get papers out of the wagon of the toll collectors. Stubstaff keep to the castle of the Lorn. Cursed guy. Get in without much problem. He offers food. Poison. Hell breaks loose. Rabbo dies in the ethereal plane. Comes back. Become allies with immortal. Find another crystal. Galbreth joins crystal, which detects good (#83). Salem tries to cast polymorph other on the Black Knight and he goes ethereal. The shit hits the fan. Driel popped out for one adventure.
///

///
Back! Golems and gargoyles are attacking the Invisible School of Thuamaturgy. Lich comes out of door in fortress. Driel goes down. Naromi turned to stone by lich. We gate. All dead, but Gonzales and Eyar 1. Rabbo’s body has BH’s mark on his forehead.

We gated with the Fortress out---first time we used two Cube functions at once. Party pillages Salem’s body. Got notes from Rabbo. New player shows up. Taygo puts coin on Rabbo’s chest and Rabbo’s body goes up in flame. No evidence of fire. Taygo’s two-headed coin now has one head and a tail: It’s Rabbo’s head on one side, and a funeral pyre on the flipside. At the castle: Muad’ib explodes, and Fred is hurt, from possibly a spell? (it’s a glyph) Everyone is moved to the ethereal plane to avoid the glyph (glyph of vacuum) We move to a room with strange arches: One of fire, sand, rain, and fog. There we find a map of the world, with flags on several places, such as Elfland, the Invisible School, and the Tower of Zards. The place is surrounded with gems. Skon moves the flags from the school to the isle. Eyar touches gems and the lights come on. Driel pours holy water and Taygo casts Bless on the map. We put map in portable hole. There is some fear that we will damage it, but it is okay. There are many rods, wands, etc., in cabinets by monk. Taygo is aged telekinetically by a rod of absorption in the cabinet until he dies! Driel takes Taygo’s stuff and a bone from his finger. Animate Taygo. Salem---pass wall. BH shows up. Fred fights (in one blow, is down 172 points!) We all jump in. Hall with moans. Salem is deaf from a glyph. Into a new room. Driel’s got the Cube and Taygo’s Mace of Disruption. Searching what seems to be a lab. Gargoyle’s attack. We run. Another lab with books, dead animals, and a pentagram. Vampires, and zombies. Taygo is back from a ring of regeneration. Rabbo finds gate. Leads back to bedroom! Get stuff, and go back to the gate and leave. The Invisible School of Thuamaturgy. //

Heal everyone. Muad’ib is carved up in Timestop. Go to school. Ask Poison about the Timestop incident. BH is not involved. Attack by golems at the Invisible School of Thuamaturgy. After golem fight, everyone dies. Salem puts us in fortress. Try to get into the school. No problem doing so. George possessed by BH’s minion. Polaris dead. left George in the ethereal plane. /