Make Gond Great Again

Our main characters had a look in the angels' armoury, where Elani found a foresty-looking crown behind a hidden wall. She decided to take it with her, as it basically looked like it was made for her. It turned out to be an artefact called the Fey Crown, which changes its main Word and therefore powers depending on the season - or surroundings. Denethor would LOVE to find out how to make one, but it's currently wayyyyy beyond his pay grade.

Our secondary characters were on the road to Yhaunn, where they got stopped by a toll road. There was some kerfuffle happening (we may or may not have had something to do with causing it), and made their way to the town and up to a church that seemed to emanate the whole weirdness bit. Oh, and we spoke to red-haired lady who said she wasn't the bad guy we thought she was, and actually, we sort of have common goals. We find that rather suspicious, as it happens ... especially as the GM made us note down how many times we've failde Spirit saves while in Sembia ...

That face doesn't inspire confidence

We're trying to get back to Thistlehold. First, we went and told the goblins what had happened, and they were very grateful that the spider had taken the Creeping Darkness with it. They weren't so keen on their hideout having partially collapsed when the sinkhole collapsed a bit further, although that wasn't actually our fault and we don't know what happened. We were lucky not to fall in ourselves, basically. No one was hurt, though, and that's the main thing.

The journey back was uneventful, up until the point where a big boulder with a sword sticking out of it was spotted. Turned out to be a massive arch troll, and Murmei was delighted. Those things are exceedingly rare, don't you know? It's also kind of rare to survive an encounter with them, but it didn't stop the young lad from striking up a conversation.

Because Murmei has awesome diplomacy skills (stop looking at me like that, he totally does!) the carts and oxen managed to get away a bit, and the troll, Uhux, was convinced to let Valgai ("who is big and strong and really good at stuff like that, honest") remove the sword from his shoulder.

The troll was so grateful to not have a poisoned sword in his shoulder that he gave the party a quest, to find where his friends had got to. They were going to Erdengald (Murmei stopped listening to what that was as soon as "great knowledge" was mentioned) but hadn't been heard from since.

Uhux even gave the party a map, and went to pat Murmei on the head, at which Elindra decided the troll was attacking her friend ("friend" here being used in the loosest of terms) and we very nearly had a diplomatic incident, i.e. Elindra would have been insta-killed, and possibly got the other two wiped as well. But as luck (helped along with some XP losses and temporary corruption) would have it, we were free to go on our merry way. With a magic artefact sword! We could also brag about having met and survived an arch troll! Win!

Stop rolling 20! This isn’t D&D!

We made it to Thistle Hold! Finally Elindra and Valgai can hand Murmei off to Master Vernam and not have to hear his inane prattle! Unfortunately, things were not that simple, because of course they weren't.

On the way there we were ran into by a peasant girl who was being chased by some thugs claiming to be witch hunters. As they were shouting something about being witch hunters and "stop that girl" and such, she was apprehended by Elindra, who happens to be a witch hunter. As things turned out, the girl wasn't a witch, because of course she wasn't. (It was like the 1600s all over again.)

At Master Vernam's we were greeted by a servant woman, who had only just come back home and found a most gruesome scene in her master's study. It seems the Flayer running around in town had got to him too. OR HAD S/HE? The skin next to the body seemed to belong to someone entirely different - are we looking for a sorcerer who uses other people's skin as a disguise? But why have they taken Master Vernam, and seemingly want to frame the elves for the murders?

This is the strangest GM-ing I've ever done

Further (mis?)adventures of a bunch of Victorian superheroes ... basically because during our regular Monday session there was just the three of us and we played the crap out of Joking Hazard and didn't take notes.

Even bad guys have a bad feeling about this

On the way to Bespin, Kon felt woozy. She just about managed to say as much to Nole (who smelled something funny) before they both passed out. Fortunately, Doc got his rebreather on in time - Sarge not so much - so that he and Declan the engineer could figure out what was wrong. Turns out the Nabooan flowers in Sarge's cabin were some sort of pollen factories and that was polluting the air - air that was already in short supply because we had a few more people on board than we normally would.

All flowers, including the ones adorning the cockpit, were put in the cargo hold, pollen sucked in, air sucked out ... airlock opened. People started coming to, and in Kon's case, when she realised how bare the cockpit looked and her flowers were outside the window ... she was not a happy bunny.

On Bespin the plan was to have Kon pose as a gas buyer, but that turned into a scheme to import plants to Bespin in order to fund the Rebellion. Always good to have contingency plans!

When we got back to the ship, because things were starting to feel rather shifty in Cloud City, the ship wouldn't start. Apparently the fuel had been siphoned off and the pump had been enthusiastically disabled. In fact, power went off on the platform. There was an encounter with a translation droid (the evil silver ones, not the nice golden ones like C-3PO) and it was found that the problem was with the city's central core. Let's go be heroes and save the day, it's great PR for the New Alliance!

Yeah, except there was a Purge Trooper about (BUT NOT FOR LONG!), and when we got to the core, there were more of them and they were shooting at Stormtroopers and Bespin security guards. One firefight later and the Purge Troopers were pining for the fjords, Sarge was blinded and Doc shot in the back trying to help. Doc got better, Sarge will have to work more on his Third Eye or something like that, yadda yadda, Force powers.

Also: the reason for the core acting weird is because they've recently installed a droid brain to run the place, and they must have got the brain from some guy called Abbe Normal ...

And now we learn that weird means friend

Last week's Star Wars session was cancelled due to illness, but fortunately, I kept a quote log of our recent Skype game, so here's that to tie you over until we're back in space.

In this session, the group went to Baldur's Gate and tried to flog some uncut gems, with the cunning use of haggling. Well, other stuff happened as well, such as saying hello to Fagin and his street urchins.

I’m making my own rules

Having come across reviews of the Princes of the Apocalypse campaign, the GM (i.e. me, who has never really run a pre-written adventure before) was happy to conclude that feeling like a shit GM was less about actually being a shit GM and a lot more to do with a poorly edited and very confusingly laid out adventure book where the reason you can't find something is because it's spread out all over the place, and not necessarily in chronological or alphabetical order, or any other kind of order you would expect.

Anyway. The characters continued the partying at Feathergale Spire. Aial decided to check out the commander's private quarters while no one was looking, and then set it on fire to hide evidence. The order lost all of their initiates in the ensuing fire ... but of course the party wasn't present at the time the fire went off. Kyla, who earned a gold star with the order for killing the manticore last session, was taken aside and got the "hello, my name is Elder Knight and I would like to share with you this most amazing cult" talk. She later helped out with healing the wounded to show that yes, she's definitely initiate material. (As if.)

After a night when the party was randomly attacked by jackalweres (why they're not called "werejackals" we have no idea), the party headed down the road toward Womford. Stopping for a bio break, they came across some water themed soldiers that were suitably skewered by Lo-Kag and then turned into kebabs by Schnicktick.

You know, it's like there's some sort of elemental theme going on here ...

Door Murderer - Scourge of the Side Quests!

We finished up in the caves/tunnels/dungeons and decided to burn assorted weaponry in a room. How the weapons would manage to melt in an enclosed room with limited oxygen supply ... well, never mind.

In the cellar under the Redbrand mansion, we found the wife and children of a man who had been murdered. We tried to be reassuring and sympathetic, but it perhaps didn't pan out very well.

At any rate, we got rid of (in an Al Pacino way) most of the Redbrands, strongly suggested others might want to skip town and never return, and took a few as prisoners. Said prisoners were then hastily juged by the person we saved from that other cave, who assumed control of the town and Mayor Spineless didn't mind this at all, and executed.

Pats on the backs all 'round.

You can't buy beer with frog ornaments

Taking the injured What's-his-face with us, the party finally reached the town of Phandalin, where rumours abound. (They have to, it's D&D law or something. Just like all dwarves have a Scottish accent.)

There were tales of the Redbrands, a gang of thugs saying they're "keeping people safe", and there was something about a banshee called Agatha, and basically, we went around town doing quest pick-ups. There were a whole bunch of 'em in the local tavern. (Please consider giving an honest review on Ye Olde Trippe Advisory!)

Gundren the missing dwarf is apparently with something or someone called the Black Spider. Meanwhile, his two brothers have also gone missing, so now the party cleric has three missing cousins instead of just one. Yay?

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

Does a person count as a flammable object?

Because we were - and this is going to sound a bit weird - one player up and one player down, and the new 5th Ed Player's Handbook was out, we got to re-spec our characters any way we liked.

So that's what we did, and as that didn't take all night but we didn't think to bring a game with us or something, we decided to have an early one for a change and then resume the adventure next session.

On the plus side, our new player is now in play. :D

Introducing Father Christmas with +5 vorpal slay bells

Last week, the Ref had to cancel at the last minute, so we ended up playing the boardgame Eldritch Horror. And, of course, we tend to be a bit too engrossed in playing the boardgame to write things down. Also, we tend to talk about things that aren't particularly funny when written down, such as who should move where and do what.

Instead, have the penultimate instalment of Jurisfiction: Meanwhile in Narnia! In this bit, the agents meet Father Christmas ... and then shoot him with a tranquiliser dart, strip him bare and put Louis in the Santa suit. Oh, if only Aslan would hurry up and get here ...

Can I take your Sanity?

For this session, we did two things: levelled up our Rifts characters, followed by a game of Mansions of Madness, one of the expansions. The GM had had a bad day, so he was definitely in the mood to inflict pain on us - but first, getting us into a false sense of security by being nice.

We got the clues, were doing okay, and when the character with the silver tablet was making a run for the exit, hell broke loose ... quite literally. And then we all failed horribly and the GM won. It was a fun session. :D

Is Mansions of Madness like Cluedo for Satanists?

As we had to fill a session with something due to being a player short, we decided to try the Cthulhu boardgame Mansions of Madness - a relative of Elder Signs and Arkham Horror. Three investigators went to an old mansion, where axe murderers abound!

... We didn't succeed. The GM won. Oh well.

Dances with zombies?

After having successfully obtained the zombie boardgame Zpocalypse off Kickstarter, we decided to play it, as we're still a player short, and therefore want to wait until starting Delta Green back up.

In Zpocalypse, the zombie apocalypse has happened and you're trying to not get swarmed by zombies (we did), or get our brains eaten (we did), but y'know, survive and kill them all (we didn't). We didn't even survive the first night.

As we played, though, we realised how we should have been playing it from the beginning, so if we play it again, we're probably going to try that instead and see how we could hopefully become a bit more resilient.

Although, it should be pointed out, at least half of these quotes were snagged from the adjacent Mutants & Masterminds table. *cough* We love you?

Well, that didn't pan out

You guessed it, we're still dungeon crawling our way through the Devil's Tower. We sneaked upstairs, fought a Madonna squad of monsters (they were re-enacting Vogue, we swear!), nearly blowing ourselves up in the process and then sneaked on through a maze. There were traps in that maze.

Slick and Reynard found a blade trap and tried to figure out how to jam it, but they were taking too long, so Sam decided to sneak off in another direction to do some investigating. There, he came across some bat men (well, they dropped on him from the ceiling, specifically), forcing the rest of the party nearby into attack mode.

Gunney used his newly found ray gun to help and blew off one of Sam's legs ... and then his guts, completely by mistake. Trying to use potions to bring him back to life, it didn't work out so well. Sam came back as a living dead (nearly a barf zombie - we really got our hopes up for a bit there) and clawed Gunney's guts out. Slick had to finish him off with a Greek Fire potion.

So now, we've lost two characters and thereby 40% of the party ... We're gonna cause Armageddon, aren't we?

Let’s not use blowing stuff up as a way to get upstairs

Still dungeon crawling our way through the Devil's Tower, we managed to make our way to the cave containing a way upstairs. Soon after that, we found the next staircase we wanted to go up ... but we also found a hidden door, and what do roleplayers to when they find a locked door? They try to break it down. Slick didn't manage it and Sam's new alien super-claw broke the locking mechanism so Mary couldn't pick the lock, so we had the brilliant idea to let Reynard blow the door off its hinges.

The roof caved in, blocking our way to the staircase. Oh, what a surprise.

So instead, we had to take the long way around (fortunately, Gunney's pace has improved - this whole Armageddon-preventing trip must be rejuvenating), being chased by an acidic, black blob that causes temporary paralysis and which doesn't even taste very good. Unlike the bug-like creatures who attacked us in our sleep, who, when cooked, taste a bit like chicken. With Slick in the party, a whole new world of culinary delights have really opened up for us. This week, he surprised us all by actually managing to make cheese and cucumber sandwiches WITHOUT people in them!

Also, there's a new word on the block: scrota, a portmanteau of "scrotum quota". Best not to ask, eh?