I feel like we've just met a vegan elf

Ah, I was wrong. This is actually where we tried to get the big ox god’s head up the big hole in the ground. The god is dying and the head needs to get back to where it was taken from. We finally put it on a cart and dragged out of the city.

We get rides from barbarians with ginormous creatures. Two hours later we get to a clearing with a big ox corpse in the presence of elves, and save the god.

The next morning, Elsiosi barges into Murmei’s bedroom. He tells her off. Valgai throws her out (for barging in like that), then invites her back in when she's suitably apologised. She comes bearing a letter from Mother, summoning Murmei to Ravenia. Elsiosi also wants to give Murmei tea to cure the abomination problem that he doesn’t actually have - he's just wearing a belt.

Valgai announces he's planning on retiring and heading back across the mountains. The rest of us convince him to maybe come with us first to Ravenia so Murmei and Deadorna can tell Mother to shove it.

Just prepare the loot list for next week

We go on adventures with a mare cat! There's a village in the forest. Will they sell us a chicken? Elindra ends up giving them one of her daggers in return. One of the villagers has a symbol for the Punisher god? But he's forbidden - on pain of death! - to worship? The village is a bit whack. Giant trees, giant bears outside the village ... and a sleeping lindworm?! We tactically retreat.

A Mother Marsh says someone needs to owe her a favour if she's to guide the part across the marsh, unless we want her grumpy. Elindra does this, thinking she can do some convince-a-roo with the help of Xanatha later. We manage to safely cross the swamp.

The 6-year-old boy we met earlier shows up, and wants Murmei to eat some sort of nut to show he's not evil. Murmei eventually eats the nut, because he's not evil, FFS.

We were attacked by things we should've run away from.

There's an axe. There's a grove. There's an old elf? We eventually go to a cultist building and kill cultists. My notes vary greatly in their, ahem, detail. *cough*

Oh, what's a noble ball?

So Mother Dearest has arrived, and there's a ball to celebrate and everything. Two thirds of the party used said ball to scout from the rafters or from the floor, trying to find clues about the owl mask guy.

The remaining third was introduced to the two options of potential spouses. One was a merchant's daughter and thought adventuring was beneath a noble, plus she was terribly boring. The other was an alchemist and right up Murmei's alley, because she also didn't mind nobles adventuring.

Soooo ... end result: owl mask guy wasn't found, and Murmei's now head over heels in love with what is obviously Miss Trappy McTrapface. Fortunately the other two party members decided to be suspicious of Miss Too Glaringly Perfect, 21 and still unwed.

This is how Game of Thrones started

Exploring the burned remains of the cultist hideout, Elindra found a chest. A chest which she cut open and found some letters relating to the Blight Council. It's complicated.

She later went clothes-shopping with Valgai, who pretended to be her dad, because surely we all need to look our best if we're to have an audience with Baked Alaska Nightpitch, the ruler of Thistle Hold? Murmei and Nightpitch seemed to ever so slightly bond over not being keen on Murmei's mum arriving. She apparently wants Nightpitch to organise a ball.

We also made inquiries into who the burned-down building belonged to, and it turns out it's a noble in Ravinia - a.k.a. the duchy (or whatever) that the House Vesuvion estate is in, and Murmei's dad often goes to the capital city. So this is all connected??? Scheming nobles, cultists, Davokar, and everything else?

In a bid to avoid his mum's insistance on him getting married, Murmei had the brilliant plan that he and Elindra could get hitched (in name only) because if he's already married when his mother shows up, she can't insist on him marrying someone he doesn't even know. Elindra wasn't as keen on the idea, despite the fact she'd automatically become quite rich, but on the other hand, as Valgai kindly pointed out, marrying a Changeling would probably result in Murmei being disowned anyway ...

I only have a small retcon this week

We continue toward civilisation. Murmei got a papercut from the old map - the meaning of this has yet to be revealed, but might become important later - when we do the sidequest the troll gave us instead of the main quest.

As we were making our way through the forest, we saw a big snake-type creature coiled around a tree branch, but it completely failed to spot us - somehow - so we decided to leave it alone. It's the type of creature that will pick off people one by one so it can eat in peace, and we didn't much like the thought of being eaten, frankly. Besides, if it hasn't noticed us ... let's just move along.

Moving along, we came across some elves. Elindra talked to them, making sure to name-drop some winter elves we had befriended previously. This made them decide among themselves that we weren't worth the bother killing, so we didn't have to fight them either.

The guide proved so observant we didn't notice we were nearing a cairn until we were almost on top of it. It rumbled and a hole opened up, with a couple of undead coming out of it - the type that would indicate a necromage might be in the vicinity - so we decided to give it a wide berth.

In fact, we made it all the way back to Thistlehold without murdering anything. So, true to form, Elindra decided to change that, by murderising some people that had "our" house under surveillance ...

We beat the plot

We took a different route back to civilisation, Murmei's "great aunt Sandra" a.k.a. the Night Lady in tow. Elindra, out scouting, came across a patrol of Templars, so led them on a wild goose chase while Valgai, Murmei and "great aunt Sandra" sneaked past.

Night Lady delivered to her fanclub, and we proceeded further to Yndaros. Crossing a big river we were subjected to very thorough immigration controls (that's where the latex comment comes in), but managed to get through and boarded the rope ferry.

The Templars caught up with us, but by that time we had already made it to the other side. We managed to burn the rope, halting their progress for what might be a few days, and met up with more of the fanclub. Full payment received, we went shopping, as we were still a bit away from our final destination - Thistle Hold.

Can we just call it Kill Bill-ing?

Our journeys across the Titan mountain range continue! When out looking for stuff, we came across a group of Jakaars (Jakkars? Whatevs) and what looked to be some kind of big bad wolf, but was in fact a shapeshifted elf. They were most definitely hunting our travelling companions Balen and Ludo, who SWORE (because of course they did) they had done nothing wrong.

A group of elves later came to camp to point a finger at them, and go "J'ACCUSE!" and wanted to take them away and kill them, because reasons involving being corrupted. We later pressed them on this, and whaddaya know? Balen hulked out into an abomination. His demise was swift.

And we made it across the mountain range with the help of said elves, and we as a group went "what, that's IT?!" and made the GM promise we'd continue with the next adventure next session, because three sessions is nothing when you're trying out a new system!

We parasited the parasite god

After Elani's meeting with the orcs to find out what they were doing with their troops, we found ourselves having joined forces with them. We fought with cinematic flair, superhero landings, dragons, crackling electricity on swords and everything.

Umberlee (the baddie) and her friends, including a big demon, were found inside a mountain. There was a big fight, someone might have got away, but all the rest of them were killed. The demon turned out to not be a demon, but a parasite god, and when the corpse exploded ... a lot of celestial energy was freed.

The issue was what to do with said energy. Elani took half and gave half to a follower. Gunda took half for Tempus and half for a follower, but as Tempus couldn't have that half it went to her instead. Denethor, having received a dire warning about "not taking what wasn't yours" (which he mentioned to Elani, who didn't care if it referred to this or not, but failed to pass on the message to Gunda) gave it all to his followers. So I think we ended up with four exarchs and a new Godbound or something like that. Which was nice.

The dire warning was in fact to not touch the celestial shards we knocked out of the demon/parasite god. Had we done so, we would have ended up insta-killed and perma-dead. There were bodies of gods strewn about the cave, so that's something we're going to have to get back to at a later date ... seeing as how those gods did in fact include our own preferred deities ...

We are the best-looking party ever

Moving deeper into Coalition State ...

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

Objects in the rear-view mirror may explode quicker than you think

We started where we left off last session rather than doing the entire scene again from scratch.

While Ugrub was held at gunpoint by the remaining survivor from the van, Dru got out of the car and planted explosives under the van and then telling everyone to get the hell out, as there was only a six-second fuse. Ugrub still got shot but managed to run off, with Dru running after him and Teddy hiding in an alley in the other direction. Phage managed to drive off, but surprisingly, so did the van. Phage stomped on the brakes of her car and the speeding van blew up a bit further down the street, causing a gridlock all over downtown.

She then picked up Harold, a.k.a. the guy we were supposed to convert, and drove him home. Because she suspected him of not telling her the whole truth and nothing but the truth, she shot him in the leg and then wanted Dru to talk her through patching him up over the phone.

The rest of the gang re-grouped, with Ugrub patched up, and walked for a bit until they managed to flag down a taxi to go to the gated community where Harold lived. As Phage got there first, she threatened Harold's wife Marie, because she wasn't panicked enough that a stranger had come home with her husband bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound to the leg.

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!