Under the Dome was a bit different to this

We got to a town currently covered in a massive dome. Our friends are inside, and we need to get inside to talk to them. Unfortunately they're also besieged by a bunch of gnolls or related monsters. There was a big artefact, which Denethor eventually crashed his precious airship-not-a-warship into, and somehow we ended up killing Gruumsh, despite siege engines being teleported just as we were about to hit them.

It was a big battle, though, so we didn't "say" much. Hence why the session after is also included.

Fun fact: Blogger has updated and is very confusing now and you can't backdate posts. Blegh. Thankfully, the option to revert back was there so I didn't have to go through the rigmarole of migrating the whole thing to WordPress.

I love it when a plan falls apart

We got the attack victims back to the little ramshackle town from whence they came. Turned out they used to live in an abandoned city nearby, Tilverton, which had fallen victim to darkness like 150 years previously. Not that this was a deterrent for us.

We went into the city with the muffin top of darkness and slew a bunch of nasty creatures, and did a fly-by to grab an amulet off a Cthulhian type creature. This made the muffin top go away, along with all the nasty critters, so the townspeople could have their city back.

We're big damn heroes now. Severely injured heroes, in two out of three cases, but heroes nonetheless.

Opening the portal is less epic and poetic than I imagined

Innuendo aside, we went to clean up the abandoned town of Angels. The cleanup was successful. We also found some Shifters who realised that they could open the portal without having to kill people. Soooo ... they opened the portal, avoided activating some very nasty runes, and we went through ...

Scenery was a little less epic than pictured, although we recognised it from visions, dreams and such. Now we just need to find the missing people and get them back through the portal without waking up Nxla ...

It’s a very entertaining scene

The party respectfully relieved the slain cultists of their earthly possessions before moving on down to Womford.

When investigating the village, they came across villagers who wanted to be left alone, a number of ruffians, and a jolly sea captain who had some interesting books to sell. Later that night, Kyla entertained the people from the ships which gave the other party members time to search one of the keelboats for clues. It seemed very likely that at least one of the boats was water cult-related.

After all the sailors having gone to bed drunk, an attack was made. The crew summarily slaughtered, the party tried to interrogate the captain ... by promising that Aial would do very bad things to him indeed. Then they stole the boat and headed upriver, horses and all.

One die-roll at a time, we will kill everyone in the room

As we settled down with a couple of freshly baked Bakewell tarts and fudge and tins of candy and a box of After Eights (you think we're kidding), a Scottish Dwarf was rolled up in preparation for Rifts, and we were well excited by the prospect of playing that game again in the new year, as you can see by the quotes below.

In D&D, we went further into Wave Echo Cave and got to a room where we then spent the rest of the session killing things. (You think we're kidding.)

Having dispatched a number of bugbears, spiders, a doppelganger and a couple of wizards, we found a room in which we in turn found Nundro Rockseeker - the last of Hematite's missing cousins. Alive, luckily.

And then we got XP and lived happily ever after, having not died. (Except for Rhogar, rest in piece, dragon brother.) Will we return to D&D again? We might, you know, but it'll have to wait until the new year.

Bacon-flavoured breakfast ale needs to be a thing

We are now in the final dungeon, a big cave system called the Wave Echo Cave, because we're still trying to find Gundren's missing brothers. So far, we've met an ochre jelly and assorted map-making.

We left this session being attacked by some ghouls. Two out of five characters are paralysed ...

What does a critical hit do these days?

We continued our foray into the woods. Or, rather, into the cave we found last time. There were goblins inside that cave, and a big brutal bugbear.

We're happy to report that the cave is no longer infested with such vermin - because in D&D, ethnic cleansing is not only not frowned upon, it's positively encouraged!

After the first session, which we will henceforth refer to as the pilot episode, series one started out with some changes to the cast, so here's the smashing new line-up:

• Hematite Frostbeard, dwarf cleric
• Karak-Dag, human fighter
• Malinda Hornraven, dragonblooded human sorceror
• Rhogar Shieldbiter, dragonborn barbarian
• Tan Elin, half-elf monk

Find the storekeeper, save the world

We finished off the last of the battle. Jayson's laser rifle misfired and blew away a part of a building. Before it collapsed, Gorbash saved the woman and child who we could see were in the building. Both him and Jayson then broke into song to calm them down. The remaining Rakshasa had already run away at this point.

While Gorbash went to flirt have a chat with Ixchal, the rest of the group took the recently made homeless mother and child back to the Blackstone Juggernaut headquarters, where they were assured they would be perfectly safe - and the mum could even get a job.

As Baradhi had a look through the (unexpected) eyes of Sister Anna, there were clues. Perhaps Rita the Babe was a bit more powerful in the wizarding department than we had expected. Back at her shop, we encountered another group of mercenaries - difference was their (stupidly paid) mission wasn't to find her, it was to kill her, but a bargain was struck: we find her and cash in, then they can take over and cash in their job and everyone's happy.

We closed the session having explored the magical runes protecting the tables in the shop and even found our way into the cellar ... and there was a gate. OMINOUS!!

I only ever wanted to be an engineer

This weekend was the next ChimeraCon, and the game I ended up playing in (and therefore could document) was using the first edition of Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play and set in Elizabethan London - or "the Smoke" as it was referred.

The party was a group of country bumpkins travelling to the big city, and ended up getting caught in a conflict between the Masons and the Templars, and a group of Psions who said King Arthur was returning.

He was, as it turned out, along with some of his friends. We got knighted by Mordred.

The game ran over all four sessions, but we only played in sessions one and four. Good way of staying alive, if you ask us!