On Top of the World: Session 1 & 2

Long time no see, but lets see if we can get this back on track.

We've just started a new campaign in my current poison of choice Dungeons & Dragons 4th ed. Having scrabbled around a couple of times coming from level 1 (including an extremely brief stint actually playing as a Modron Fighter) I decided I wanted to run a game at Paragon Tier.

For Those of you going 'Para-wha!?' let me explain.

4th Edition is split into 3 tiers of play, 1st to 10th level is heroic tier where you fight goblins and humans and generally faily natural stuff. Next us is Paragon tier from 11th to 20th level where you'll spend alot of time beating up really Harry Housen shit like cyclopses, demons, hydras and the interesting dragons. Essentially Paragon is where you fight big monsters and smite their ruin on the mountain side. Abover this from level 21 to level 30 is Epic tier where you graduate from the school of monsters bashing and start crunching your way through greater demons, elder dragons and occasionally demon princes and gods.

We were part way through our Planar game when I pitched the idea for running a Harry Housen wilderness journey 'Into the frozen north!' and everyone loved it so much that we almost immediately dropped the campaign we were doing so that I could run this one.

I'm a little bitter that since buying the core books on release day I have thus far managed to play only once. Still, looking on the bright side this was a great opportunity to use some of the cooler magic items and monsters on offer and to unleash all manner of nastiness on the party.

Now I'm a bit of a pain for writing things down so I decided to try something with this campaign and adlibbed the first session. I wrote down all the encounters and some basic guidelines to keep things moving but everything else I made up on the fly, just letting my imagination inspire me whenever a question was asked. Thus far its worked quite well and it's helped that a stint playing Dark Heresy seems to have given everyone a bit of impetus to roleplay rather than just move their minis around the battle-mat. Our party then looks something like this:

Dave- Katarakis, the garrulous (and often grumpy) Draganborn Paladin of Bahamut.

Gareth- Caradoc Burrows, Halfling Paladin of the Raven Queen (Aka the Halfling Tank)

Amanda- Skurmesh Anklebiter, Last of the Anklebiters, Dwarf Warlord

Rachel- Du'nn'o Me'name, Eladrin Rogue 'Hassassin' of the Raven Queen

Gareth's Halfling Paladin took me aback when I saw it turn up (and the only mini we had that got close to looking appropriate was the plastic citadel Samwise, which lessens the overall effect) but as you will see its actually quite strong.

Our heroes gathered at the northernmost Dwarven citadel of Farpont, a distant spire of rock (172ft 3in because they always want to know) upon which sits a great temple to Moradin within which the foremost heroes of the Hearthlands now sit around a great octagonal table. They were summoned by Caradoc Burrows an aging Paladin of the Raven Queen to answer his call to arms and he details an audacious plot to travel into the north to seal the Gods Gate and put an end to the threat of an invasion by the gods.

I was shocked, they were roleplaying. Katarakis was garrulous, Skurmesh was possibly drunken and quite hilarious and even Caradoc, played by our resident munchkin, was having a good turn detailing his fears and his reasons for this final jaunt into the north. They interacted well with my NPCs they didn't try to loot anyone who stab someone up just because they were bored. I was pleased.

The party, having spent two days preparing probed King Raminos' Alchemist; Caspian, for information and he advised them upon three known routes into the mountains. The party elected not to go over the mountains (no cyclopses and hill giants for me) and not to go through the Ashfall Forest (Caradoc wisely deciding that nopthing good could come from a place where is rained ash from the sky constantly; they annoyingly missed my Beholder and Basilisk) instead they elected to 'pull a Frodo' and headed through the Neminoan Barrows beneath the mountain.

'It's a barrows, with two paladins undead dont stand a chance!'

I had intended for them to then enjoy a skills challenge, something I'd never really got to do running Keep on the Shadowfell. Now I'd heard that some DM's aren't big fans of the way Skills Challenges work but I was determined to find out for myself and so decided they should wander the wilderness for a while and how well they did would determine whether they found their chosen path or strayed into one of the other ones.

It was at this point, having had the game run far too smoothly that Gareth threw a huge gold-plated spanner into the workings of my mental process: 'Does this place have a library?'

Bugger, I hadn't considered that they might not just womble off into the wilderness and might actually research the location of these fabled barrows. In the past I might have said no but I wanted the players to shape the world with their questions and actions and so taking a bit of advice from the Dungeon Masters Guide I said yes. I retooled my skills challenge and let the players decide what there characters would do in a library that sprung up full of tightly packed shelves with brass bound tomes, dwarven librarians sleeping on some small stacks pipes still in mouths and low slung passageways in what evolved into an almost labyrinthine library. The haracters eventually found their map after Katarakis leafed through a tome and found it quite by accident.

Finally the party was off.

Borrowing horses from the Thane of Farpont, an old ally in their past exploits our heroes rode out to the Neminoan Barrow and found it in the shadow of the northen mountains a long path into darkness overgrown with moss and tall grass. The party were cautious, almost annoyingly so; but I won't blame them since they've met me before*.

Eventually we got going down a long corridor onto which graven images of a god from the beyond Sholonoth the Unnamable were carved representing a journey from life to death and Du'nn'o scouted ahead using her low light vision to discover a chamber in which two skeletal figures stood with some hunched, bloated creature. For the first time ever the party got to launch an ambush instead of being on the back foot and set about their foes with gusto.

Du'nn'o was particularly deadly in the opening rounds and the party spent most of the battle getting her combat advantage to get the most mileage from her frankly rediculous +3d8 sneak attack bonus. Skurmesh was batterred repreatedly by four armed monstrosities that only eventually his by rolling a critical; which Katarakis instantly dismissed by channelling the will of Bahamut.

Caradoc didn't fare quite so well.

The hulking figure seemed to take exception to the champion of the Raven Queen and spent the entire battle enveloping him within black tendrils and imprisoning him in a zone of darkness within his exposed ribcage. This was the Soul Devourer which my party seemed to have some difficulty getting to grips with. That said Caradoc is built as a redirect Paladin, he has four different ways of redirecting an attack onto himself to spare his party members. With a Constitution of 19 and an AC of 28 he's quite difficult to hit and can only get tougher as I found out later.

It took some time for the party to slay the monsters but for their troubles they recieved an ancient ring of dwarven design (which wound up in the hands of Caradoc; not the Dwarf) and got to venture deeper into the Barrow.

The next session saw the party venture deeper into what I've dubbed 'The Undermanse' and came out of the passageway onto a platform with a string of Lord of the Rings quotes. In the darkness the party could see only echoes caught in torchlight of distant buildings; until we remembered that Skurmesh is a dwarf and so has Darkvision. Skurmesh saw distant towers of irregular shapes and relaying it Katarakis and Caradoc managed to work out that they were arranged in a formation that spoke of some sinister mathematics. Hanging from the ceiling of the hollowed mountain were great stalegmites (stalegtites?) between which walkways of stone had been constructed.

The party took a staircase and headed down, stopping only to examine the decayed remnants of a mural which had crumbled into dust of many colours including an 'unnatural' pink which offends Katarakis for reasons he cannot explain. Skurmesh decides to taste the chalk to try and discern its make up and finds it tangy and metallic, although not in a manner like blood. D&D veterans might childe Skurmesh for doing this and rightly so; I decided to give Skurmesh a disease the next time he woke up partly as a warning (It ended up being the non-fatal Cackle Fever) and partly because I wanted to see how they worked; forgetting that Caradoc knew Cure Disease.

The party continued on until they reached a brazier which lit as they approached casting a sickly yellow light; though no device or magic seemed to have activated it. In the distance to the north Skurmesh sees something move in one of the towers and despite Katarakis' grumbling the party head east into a series of passageways and walked for many hours; eventually becoming weary.

They found a room after some searching that was irregular in shape (they didn't ask me how many sides it had, but lets say 17), it had one entryway and spigots of wood were laid about. At one end growing out of the wall was a thick boughed tree that seemed to be made from the stone itself and loomed over the room. On its greyed stony branches buds that glowed with black light hung and the party decided (and their respective rolls confirmed) that this was no tree they'd ever seen.

The party rested for several hours Caradoc shirking his guard duties since Du'nn'o only requires four hours meditation and it was during her watch that she heard the singing, a voice high pitched and distant that at first seemed to echo from outside before coming closer and finally resting in the room with them. A golden light came brom the trunk of the tree and Caradoc identified the singing as being Supernal the language of the gods.

Fortunately Caradoc knows Supernal (along with Common and Halfling) and so heard the voice speaking of plains of forests and trees and of marching at the head of armies and of the slaying of its enemies. Caradoc interrogated it and it answered in more strains of past heroes and of a longing to march once more at the heads of armies and speaking of the breaking down of walls. Katarakis, growing impatiant (and still sulking over the party's decision to not head north and 'crack some heads'), decided the best course of action was to heat the stone with his breath and then hit it with his hammer to release whatever was inside; however at the last moment Caradoc plunged his hand into the tree and pulled out a sword of golden steel which cast a glow about them.

Katarakis went back to sulk in a corner over not getting to hit something.

In the morn, or at least when the party woke up in their twilight underworld, they pressed on and the path began to head north until they came upon a path that opened upon a ledge. Du'nn'o crept forwards and spied a being coweled in a dark robe; which might have been significant had the figure not been stood next to a HYDRA. The figure disappeared into a dimension door and the party prepared themselves for battle.

Now the Hydra is a Solo Brute a level above the characters and can do a ton of attacks per turn; which I expected to put it in relatively good stead and having seen how long encounters usually take my party I decided to adjust its Hit Points down. This was a good idea but not for the reason I thought it would be.

In this session the party really came into its own; the two Paladins set about the beast with gusto; Katarakis making it vulnerable to radiant damage and Caradoc putting his new sword to good use and directing the beasts attacks against himself to force damage on it from Katarakis' divine challenge. Du'nn'o spent the entirety of the fight flanking it as the creature was boxed in between her and the ledge the two paladins were stood on. Meanwhile Skurmesh, despite falling on his face stood tall as a warlord using a clever combination of powers and feats to grant a string of standard actions to Katarakis who smote the beast with holy flame.

I'm glad I reduced the things health as the extra Hit Points could only have dragged the fight out with what was an underwhelming Solo. The Hydra was menacing when it was put on the table, but any party that can heal like mine can soak up the damage it does with ease and after that the Hydra doesn't have that many tricks. That said we were using Dave's converted citadel Hydra (out of a carnosaur no less) which is frankly quite beautiful so I'm glad we got to use it.

I was feeling generous at the end of this session so I handed out two more magic items: Aevis Sandals for Du'nn'o who can now fly, albeit briefly, and the Shield of God's Breath for Skurmesh which wards away arrows with a divine wind.

Katarakis then sulked about not getting any shiny stuff; I now have him down on my sheet as 'Katarakis the Grumpy'.

*I and some of my party had listened to the Podcast of Mike Krahulik, Jerry Holkins and Scott Kurtz taking on the Keep on the Shadowfell so I decided to mix it up a little. In the first room where the false floor put was I replaced it with a poison needle trap (Level 6 Blaster) which almost killed some of the party. Since then they have become suitably wary of a DM who thinks things aren't quite fatal enough.

WoAdWriMo

Jeff Rients has announced the Worldwide Adventure Writing Month a chance for all us budding adventure writers to drag out some ideas from the back of our minds and stretch our legs a little.

For myself, despite my attempts to write my own games system I am considering just running it under an already established system, in part because I hope that if I write it people might actually play the bloody thing. To this end I have a problem, which system to write for? The shortlist is:

Original Dungeons & Dragons- OD&D has been appealing to me recently. The system may be brutal by comparison to the more 'heroic' later editions but I am enamoured with the simplicity of it and the freedom that the DM has to interpret the attributes of characters and the adventure components in a way that is unique to the DM.

Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition- A decent system and the 4th ed Dungeon Master's Guide is very helpful to DMs trying to make their own adventures. The problem is that 4th edition is very much system based, having a resolution system with skills for completing roleplaying encounters; which I'm not entirely sure I like. However 4th Edition is what my players are rolling with now and I am intimately familiar with its intricacies.

FUDGE- A good, simple and free to own system, I like FUDGE but I'm not entirely sure I want to run it.

So what's the answer? Well; 4th edition it seems. It would fit seamlessly onto my groups current adventures; sliding onto the end of the Keep on the Shadowfell by returning the characters to a city in which they can sell their ill gotten loot and become embroiled with some intrigue and a city based adventure. And so...

... It begins with a dead man in a tavern. Slumped face down over the side of his bed, a vial in his hand and a women swears through quaking lips his name is Pacobel the clown, jester and retainer to the late king...

Can you run a murder-mystery in 4th ed? I'm about to find out

Marx and the Dragon

If the internet is to be believed fantasy worlds are awash with half-dragons whose mothers were raped by their fathers, leading them into a life of angst, vengence, promiscuity and super-powers... And it's all daddies fault! I could go on about how this is somewhat demeaning to women who have been raped and even moreso to those who have had a child from that union and at some point I will, but for now lets tackle something of a pet peev of mine: Dragons!

Admittedly since Dungeons & Dragons becames the rpg superpower du jour we've all felt a little obliged to have both dungeons and dragons in our campaigns. Indeed in my first DM'ing session I rushed gleefully to hunt down a dragon we could fight at level 1 as the boss of said dungeons. Dragons are, both in folklore and fantasy fiction, often symbols of incredible power. Heroes wear dragon-skin boots to protect theit little tootsies, dragon tongue is a powerful magical component, and dragons eyes can see into the future and will see a seer sell his daughter to the crew of the S.S. Whoresalot to possess them.

The problem I have with dragons is when they're treated as some kind of mystic force, as wise demi-gods of untold power; cast you eye at D&D's gold ancient-wyrm and tell me it's not a touch overpowered.I prefer my dragons more bestial than intelligent, I certainly dislike the possibility that they might go around raping comely wenches and sire a generation of gibbering anime fans. That said the dragon; a winged serpent; is an old christian allegory, though St George's dragon ate wenches rather than sexually assaulting them. Still there is an underlying sexuality there, but it's not my favourite way of looking at them.

As a boy I read The Hobbit, as you do when you're a boy, and Smaug sat on his mountain of gold resonated with me, he was greedy, clad with jewels and sleeping on gold and treasures innumerable, he was beyond greedy; he was the upper class. Marxism's never been my favourite philosophy but I do like to 'diss' capitalism; if only to prove I'm down with 'the kids'. So my dragons tend to be personifications of greed, money, food, jewels they'll take it all because they can; then sit in a dungeon and wait for some plucky hero to come and fight them because we all know; that's all dragons do.

Hmmmm... Needs some work...