Game Review - Mythic Part II

Adventuring   

Mythic encourages using a movie paradigm for setting up adventures, where you define the set up for a 'scene' and it's conclusion, the run what's in between.  Travel or time between scenes is ignored as there is little to no action happening with the characters.  This is extremely different from the way I've been gaming since 1977, to the point where it qualifies as a new and exciting idea.

Inside of the scene you can resolve the action with Mythic another system or a combination of both systems.

Chaos

Mythic defines the Chaos Factor as a mechanism to add randomness to a scene or to the action.  By default the Chaos Factor starts at five on a scale of 1-9.  Mythic Variations provides suggested starting Chaos Factors by the genre that you are playing.  The Chaos Factor may come into play at the beginning of a scene or whenever you ask a question on the Fate Chart and roll doubles.

Mythic in Action  (with apologies to Robert Asprin)

The setup:  As I said in my previous post I had wanted to do some solo play to flesh out my campaign setting.  I had already started this from a literary perspective with Teuta - Honor among Thieves, now I'll do it with Mythic.

Lists
There are three main lists to maintain in the game, PCs, NPCs and Threads.  Threads are the goals of the characters, they may be individual or group.  And you track the Chaos Factor, increasing it as things spin out of the PCs control and decreasing it as they get a handle on the situation.

For PCs I have a standard adventuring party of four, and I'm using 1e for the game system.

Tueta Restio – (f) Thief Level I. Daughter of a rope maker and a low level member of a thieves guild, whose head has just been assassinated

Lucius Octavius Rufus – Magic User level 1. Son of a prominent Roman plebian family, he is a student at the Stoa [The academy at Apollonia].

Maedus – Fighter I. Barroom brawler and a known associate of Lucius Rufus.

Sumakos – Druid 1. Aspirant of Pan. Another hades-raising associate of Lucius Rufus, delights in urinating on the temple of Apollo.

For NPCs, besides those mentioned in the Teuta prelude linked above, I included almost everyone I mentioned in Who's got their back?  Most of those don't have any relation with this party - yet.  But as I said I want to develop the gae background.

I also came up with four Threads.
(1) Teuta wants to get out of town rather than work for the new Guildmaster
(2) She would like revenge on her old master's killers
(3) Lucius has found directions to an old, theoretically abandoned keep (B1. In Search of the Unknown)
(4) The priests of the temple of Apollo want to find the guy who's pissing on the walls at night


Action!
Scene 1 - Get out of town.
  Starting right after the prelude, Teuta needs to get her friends and leave town.  The action will start with her going to an inn to meet them and ends when they get out the gate.That's it, that's all the planning a scene needs.  Now we use the Fate Chart to ask questions and determine the details of the action.

Whoops, first we roll against the Chaos Factor.  I rolled a 10, the CF is 5 - no effect.

Q. Is the new guild master looking for her?  This is an 'Odds' question and it's 'Likely' that he is, so we'll roll against the right hand column of the Fate Chart.  Setting the Difficulty Rank, well it's an unopposed action, so it's 'Average'.  Cross referencing it on the chart it's 85% likely that he is looking for her.  I rolled a 31, yes he is.

Q. Does he find her?  Another odds question, it's unlikely that a small band can find any particular individual in a small city at night.  However this is an opposed check, against her 'Hide in Shadows' skill, which I'm using as a proxy for her ability to skulk about town.  A first level thief has only 10% in Hide in Shadows, that's 'Weak'.  The cross reference this time is 75% chance that she's found.  I rolled a 33 - that's a double and it's below the Chaos Factor.  A Random Event has occurred.

On the Event Focus table it comes up as a Remote Event, not something directly concerning the action in this scene.  I decide that it effects one of the NPCs and randomly selected one of the town councilors.  The first thing that comes to mind is that there's been an assassination attempt and the alarm is beginning to sound.

Back to the action.  The roll wasn't an Exceptional Yes, so I decided that she's been found by a low level member of the rival gang.  (Imitating Batman) To the NPC Generator!  It's Alkemachos, with his white hair and pock marked face.

Flight is better than fight in some cases, she'll try climbing a wall to escape.  With an 85% chance, she rolls a 3, let's see how he does chasing her.  He rolls a 2, even better since I'm treating him as a zero level man at arms, so I'm using the Fate Chart instead of a skill check.  It's a critical success for him, so he didn't just climb up after her, he caught by the ankle halfway up the wall and pulled her down into the alley before she got away.

Fight time, he wins initiative and hits with his club for five points.  Lights out and this scene is over!
Instead of meeting at the tavern, she'll start the next scene as a captive.

And Cut!

The last part of the scene is updating lists and the Chaos Factor.  I have a new NPC, Alkemachos, and I think everyone would agree that this scene ended up way out of control, so the Chaos Factor is going up to six.

 

After running through that, I like it.  I like it so much I'm going to use it in conjunction with whatever rules I'm DMing under.  It provides a flexible structure and surprising twists that give me just enough detail to run with.

Game Review - Mythic Part I

Well half of a review.  I'm going to look at Mythic as a tool for solo play.  I really hadn't heard about Mythic as a system until I ran into an intriguing post over at Tabletop Diversions.  Where he his playing out a solo game.  My interest in solo gaming is based on my once a month or less group's schedule (I'll be the one missing this month, so no Alesmiter Expedition writeup) and as I'm scheduled to take over as DM, I wanted to try solo questing as a means to flesh out the NPCs and the campaign setting.

Blue River, Costa Rica

  As I had some vacation coming up, I picked up the PDF bundle over at RPG Drivethru put it on my tablet and headed for the tropics.  Intending to read that and Clark Ashton Smith during the course of a week of sun, beach and jungle and do a lot of cribbage playing and a little blogging.  Everything but the blogging happened, although I did make lots of notes that are showing up as short Beastiary blogs.

Enough preamble, on to the review!

 Mythic, by Tim Pigeon, is a self contained system advertising the ability to be used for any genre, stand alone or with any other RPG or combination of RPGs.  It's a reasonably slim 146 pages, including covers.  But that's a bit misleading, after taking out charts, examples of play and the copious illustrations, the rules only comprise about half it's length.  And two thirds of those deal with character creation and advancement.

Character creation, which I admit to only skimming, is a point buy system, with the players adding arbitrary strengths and weaknesses as they seem appropriate.  To me, that seems easy to use for power gaming, only give your character strengths.  But I really have no intention of using the character rules.

I have to say that it's a very sparse system, the basic concept is that everything can be given relative ranks.  Relative to what, well Tim says relative to 'average' - which to someone with a background in Six Sigma and a lot of experience in computers doesn't really define it.  Essentially the ranks are an dimensionless scale distributed around a point.  If the scale is distributed symmetrically around the point, then it can be said to be relative to the average. However there is no hard and fast requirement to have a scale distributed evenly around a point - in fact most measurement scaless in RPGs start from 0 or 1, even those such as character abilities which we roll up on a 3d6 bell curve are really open ended linear scales.

That's all a bit of a quibble, as it doesn't affect gameplay.  In fact, Mythic's scales allow you to compare  percentile and 3d6 distributions head to head by using the conversions that have been helpfully provided.  These impose a dimension on each rank in the scale.   Now these aren't mathematically accurate comparisons as a Mythic score of 'Awesome' equates to a 3d6 score of 18 or a percentile score of 96-100,  while in reality you have a not quite one half of one percent chance of rolling an 18 (1 in 216).  Fudging the numbers this way doesn't bother me, it's a game mechanic and it's internally consistent .

Mythic also ranks the odds of an event occurring on a similar scale, this time ranging from 'Impossible' to 'Has to be'

When you really need them the most, million-to-one chances ALWAYS crop up.  Well known fact. - Sgt Colon.  Guards! Guards! , Terry Pratchett

Treasury - Tools of Klephtis

Image linked from The Adventuring Archives blog

Klephtis was the senior Guild Master in Apollonia - until he was assassinated one night.  His custom made set of thieves tools were never found afterwards.  One of his apprentices claimed to have been allowed to use them once and described them as "being made of divers material, keys of gold and crystal, saws of purest adamant and pliers made of quicksilver that could reach into the smallest lock and around corners".  But all know what sort of braggarts and liars thieves are when in their cups.  

In game terms possessing the tools gives a thief +20% to Find Traps, but oddly no bonus to remove or disable them.  And a +15% bonus to Open Locks.

Beastiary - Black Rider

An unclean umbral spirit that lends it's senses and intelligence to the unquiet dead.  The Black Rider is a demonic spirit who acted as a guide and adviser to a noble or other potentate in life.  As part of the pact where the ruler gained the familiar, the ruler swore to be guided "as long as flesh and bone shall endure", quite literally until dissolution of the corpse.

The spirit rides the head, shoulders or highest remaining piece of it's steeds anatomy guiding the undead's movements and attacks.  The undead gains exceptional intelligence and will use the spirit's saving throws if better than it's own.     The host undead also becomes capable of moving as fast as a human, if it's current speed is less than that and can take full actions every turn.

Inspiration - The Abominations of Yondo

Beastiary - Cactus Vipers

Pale green ophidians with lidless, pupil-less eyes of ocher, they dwell in, under and among cactus in deserts bordering the most desolate of wastes.  They have an array of keen senses, sight, heat and tremorsense that prevent them from ever being surprised.  While they won't pursue travelers, they will quickly strike any who venture within reach.  At night they will gather around the traveler, basking in his body heat during the chill of the night.  Invariably, they let the sleeper awaken and realize their horrific predicament before sinking their fangs.  Their poison is extremely virulent and the causes the most wracking pains during death.
All agree that the viper's only redeeming feature is that it is more merciful than what awaits the traveler in the wastes.

Inspiration: The Abominations of Yondo

Treasures - Breastplate of Diomedes

This +5 breastplate is embossed with a charging boar and was forged out of solid gold by Hephasteus himself.  Additionally, any armor check penalties are reduced by 2 and the armor provides the wearer with limited protection from critical hits.  Critical hits only occur on the roll of a natural 20, regardless of threat range or feats, and even if confirmed, there is a 50% chance that it is reduced to normal damage

Blogging from an Undisclosed Location

6:00 am watching and listening to the Pacific. This isn't a new post it's a ' neuva entrada'.  Google knows all.  Yes, I know about never saying you're out of town in social media, but my habitation is still occupied and with luck it will still be standing when I return. In the mean time, I'm reading Clark Ashton Smith and I'll be posting pieces inspired from his writings. The beastiary entries will not have stats as I left my references behind also writing html tables on a tablet is too much like work.

Beastiary - Ophies Amphipterotoi

Winged serpents, described by Herodotus as the guardians of the frankincense.  These snakes feature one or two pairs of feathery wings and a poisonous bite.

The snakes are at home in warm desert climates, but may be found anywhere, even crossing the sea during their spring migration.

Certain birds, notably the Black Ibis, will flock together to fight these monstrosities in vast aerial combats at that time.  The ground under these battles becomes littered with the carcasses and skeletons of the vanquished.  And are often sought out by aspiring necromancers as a source of guardian undead.

Ophies Amphipterotoi are usually small, but a swarm may include tiny, medium and even large specimens.

Combat An Ophies Amphipterotoi has a poisonous bite attack, large specimens also gain a constrict attack.


Statistics by game system.

3rd Edition / Pathfinder

Size Small  [Large] Hit Dice 1d8 (4 hp) [3d8 (13hp)] Initiative +3 (Dex) Speed 15 feet/60 feet Flying AC 17 (+1 Size, +3 Dex, +3 natural) [17, +3 Dex, +4 Natural] Attacks Bite +4 melee Damage Bite poison [Bite 1d4 and poison] Face/Reach 5ft /5ft Special Attacks Poison [Improved Grab, Constrict 1d8+2] Special Qualities Scent Saves F2, R5, W1 [F3, R6, W2] Abilities St 6 [16], Dex 17, Con 11, IQ 1, Wis 12, Cha2 Skills Balance +4, Hide +8, Listen +8 Move Silently (Flying) +6, Spot +6 Feats Weapon Finesse (Bite) Climate/Terrain Warm land Organization Single or Swarm (2-12) Challenge Rating 1 [2] Alignment Neutral Advancement 3-5 HD (Large)

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1st Edition

Adventurer, Conqueror, King

Frequency Rare No Appearing 1 or 2-12 Armor Class 7 [3 ACKS] Move 4"/24" Fly  [ 90'(30')/ Fly 180' (60') ACKS] Hit Dice 2 [5 Large] % in Lair Nil Treasure Type None No of Attacks 1 [2 Large] Damage/Attack 1d4 Poison [/Constrict 2d8 large] Special Attacks Poison Special Defense None Magic Resistance Standard Intelligence Semi- Alignment Neutral Size Small [Large] Psionic Ability Nil

---

Chivalry & Sorcery

Body 3 [10 large] Weight 3-9 [150 large] Move 30/300 Armor 0 % Hit +10% % Dodge -05% Attack Mode 1xWDF MSS 1 Strike + Poison 1xWDF MGS 1 Strike + Poison: 15% Bash +Constrict 2 dice) Experience 75

.

---

Runequest 2e

STR 1d6 [26+6 large] (3-4) [(13) large] Move 4/12 CON 2d6+6  (13) Hit Point Average 11 SIZ 1d6 (3-4) Treasure Factor 6 INT Nil Nil Defense +05% POW 1d6+6 (9-10) DEX 3d6 (10-11) CHA Nil Nil Bite SR10 Attack 25% Damage 1d4 + Wyvern Venom Potency 4 Constrict SR10 Attack 15% Damage  2d8 [Large]

---

  Warhammmer Fantasy Role Playing 1e

M

WS

BS

S

T

W

I

A

Dex

Ld

Int

Cl

WP

Fel

3

33

0

1 [3 large]

2 [3 large]

3 [5 large]

30 [60 large]

1

-

24

6

30

30

-

Ophies Amphipterotoi fly as Hoverers,.  Large Ophies Amphipterotoi inject two doses of Snake Venom in a bite, others inject a single dose

Pimp a Game - Chivalry & Sorcery

Chivalry & Sorcery was the first RPG I ever purchased, at least it's the earliest I can still find. Metamorphosis Alpha being in some box in the basement - I hope .  Shortly after beginning to play RPGs, I went to a game store - I think in Superior WI, looking to purchase one for myself.  They had several D&D booklets, but I was attracted by the introduction that advertised it was a ' the  most complete rule booklet ever published.'
​
Looking back on it, I can appreciate how different C&S is from D&D.  It approached role playing from a perspective that makes 'Gygaxian naturalism' look like like a high school play. 
It is firmly set in European medieval fantasy, your character rolled for their position in society, you could end up as anything from an unacknowledged bastard of a peasant to the king (about a 1/400,000 chance, but better than buying a lottery ticket).  The writers boasted that in their campaign they had a set of tables which would place a character to within a few miles of a given town in France and let them know who their overlord was.

After five pages of rules for determining Social Class and Influence, there are fifteen pages about Knighthood in the Feudal setting, covering topics ranging from High and Low Justice, through Jousting, Heraldic Arms, Orders of Knighthood and Courtly Love.  Then you have nineteen pages of miniatures rules for army campaigns. In comparison it treats Clerics and Thieves in just over four pages.  I have occasionally wondered if Gygax's rant about Social Class and Rank in the 1e DMG was inspired by this game. 
​
 The mechanics of play are also unique for the time, and some conventions I haven't ever seen again.
It used a straight d20 roll for characteristics, instead of a multi-die bell curve.  It also had a fair amount of math, as you calculated secondary characteristics, such as Charisma and Personal Combat Ability off of your primary characteristics.  Alignment was also linear, ranging from Saintly (Wisdom automatically 15+ and character automatically takes Holy Orders) to Diabolic ("...so fiendishly demoniacal that even the Dark One is ashamed of his excesses at times.")
​
The combat rules enforced armor class modification to hit, and damage was based off of a Weapon Damage Factor which multiplied was multiplied by a value in the Personal Combat Factor table.  It also featured the concept of losing 'fatigue' vs hit points and location specific critical hits.  One dwarven character was known for almost always rolling a groin hit with his crossbow, whenever he scored a critical.  One of the unique concepts was the 'Bash', certain weapons (and shields) were able to knock your opponent back when they struck.  Nor was combat movement abstract, you chose specific movements each round, which cross referenced against you're opponent's maneuvers adjusted your chance to hit.
​
Clerics and Thieves were almost after thoughts with only two or three pages being devoted to each.  Alignment was a linear scale, from Angelic to Diabolic.  Clerics had a limited number of miracles they could perform, although many could also cast "Magick" spells.
​
Magic was a Vancian system, however you needed to learn the spell, which involved casting it many times until you had learned it completely before you really wanted to try casting it in combat.  The concept was that every object as well as spells had a "Basic Magick Resistance" which needed to be overcome before you could enchant them or cast the spell.  The "BMR" was reduced by successful casting, learning a spell meant that you had reduced the BMR to 0 with a 100% chance of casting.  Failure of course raised the BMR, eventually to the point where you could never learn the spell.  When rolling up a magic user, you also rolled to see what type of magic user the character was.  Magic users were grouped into different schools from 'Primitive Talents' to ''Mystics'.  Primitive Talents, such as elves were basically multi-class characters, who cast spells as well as pursuing other careers.
​
Experience was awarded for different actions for each class.  Fighters gained the most from typical dungeon crawling, while a magic user really needed to be holed up learning new spells in order to advance.  Thieves and Dwarves earned XP from treasure at 1GP = 1XP, while Magic Users only receive 1XP for 10 GP.

Advancement was similar to D&D , you accrued experience and at certain amounts you received bonuses to hit points, fatigue and Personal Combat Factor.  

Interestingly, the book included tables of NPC statistics of different types at every level from 1 to 20 - they were grouped as Typical No-Fighters, Average Fighting Men, Average Knights, Superior Knights and Mighty Knights.  I ran the numbers once and there was no way for a player characetr to be quite as good as a Mighty Knight.  So there was always an NPC that could show a PC the errors of their ways,

The beastiary included gave detailed coverage to Dragons, including the Questing  Beast (whose tracks you would encounter, but never the creature) and the Blatant Beast (who demanded poetry and tales).  Social Monsters, goblinoids, giants and several kinds of trolls had tables giving their stats at different levels.  The rest of the monsters were skeleton stat blocks.

There were several suplements published including one for Vikings that expanded the setting later, but the expansion still placed the character in a specific society and milieu.

We played AD&D mostly in college, but when several of us were stationed in the Norfolk area afterwards we switched to C&S.  Overall I enjoyed playing the game and I still use the section on Designing the Feudal Nation when designing campaign settings.  For difficulty it rates a 100 on the Dead Orc Scale, on par with AD&D.

Submitted for the RPG Blog Alliance February Blog Carnival at Arcane Shield.

Dieties & Demigods - Now & Then

When WotC released PDFs of many of the original AD&D source books a few weeks ago I picked up a copy of the 'original' DDG.  Last weekend, I borrowed my DMs hard copy that he's had since it was originally published.

DDG vs DDG

Both of the manuals use the wonderful Erol Outus cover of two clerics fighting it out under the avatars of their deities.  Both have identical title pages, stating that they are copyright 1980 TSR Games.  Indeed there isn't much to say that's different ... except that Mike's has a few extra pages.

Yes, he proudly owns the real first edition DDG with the Cthulhu and Melnibonean Mythos entries.

Oddly, TSR did not label the revision as a second printing, even though they renumbered the pages and would have had to reset the type for the table in Appendix 3 and the Index.  And I doubt that Lake Geneva was a hot bed of early adopters of computerized printing at that time.  Especially as SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) wasn't developed until six years after the DDG was published.

Because TSR pulled and re-issued the publication we've lost a good many wonderful line drawings by the early illustrators of the genre, like  Otus, Dee, Sullivan and Trampier.  That may be the greater loss than two sections of a book that could have been entitled 'How to Kill Heros and  Deities in One Easy Lesson'.

By 3rd Edition the DDG only contained Greek, Norse and Egyptian pantheons, along with the 'official' D&D pantheon.  However, some of the Finnish pantheon from the 1st Edition were recycled as deities in Forgotten Realms - Ilmatar, Mielikki, and Loviatar.

Nor do these editions contain any of the pantheon created for Gygax's original campaign, even though St Cuthbert, and I believe Pholtus, had been well established by 1980.

I'm glad I picked it up as there are some ideas for monsters and magic items in there that I haven't seen elsewhere - especially as I know Mike won't part with his.  As he puts it - "it's important to buy early'.  That sounds like a good slogan for a Kickstarter.

I'll leave you with the classic Erol Otus illustration of Theleb K'aarna from the Melnibonean Mythos.

Sixth Expedition

Thunk wasn't feeling well today, it must have been the spare ribs.  But Hahdan the wizard said he felt up to going in with us.

Slick did his usual pagan ritual in front of the door, he said he heard voices - at least in his own head.  But he opened it himself, I think because he could hide behind it while he did.  Drunk and I charged in, there were six lippy elves in there, wearing armor.  I thought about letting one of them live, but two of them hit Drunk - that made him mad.  So he hit one back and cleaved the other.  He was really mad, because he did the same thing to the next two.   And then he killed the one in front of me.  Slick killed the last one who had a bendy sword like Slick's, but it was shiny too.  No one wanted it.

We went into a couple of other rooms, with Slick performing the rituals.  The second time he found a pit trap.  - Drunk pulled him out  He found three more halflings, I said we didn't need any more cooks.  Slick said halflings are usually thieves, at least they make all the meetings.  They asked if they could tag along with us while we left, we said sure and went deeper into the dungeon.

We found a secretish door and went through.  There were four kobolds and a dire weasel waiting inside for Drunk.  Drunk killed the kobolds, the weasel bit me while I put it in a bag.  It got chewed it's way out of the bag and bit me again.  Slick brained it with a morningstar.

Slick found another pit trap by the next door, but he didn't fall in this time, I guess his religion only requires him to fall in the first one.  There was a big lizard guy behind the door.  I told him to fall down and he did.  Slick poked him with his bendy sword, not the new bendy sword.  He jumped over, but he didn't jump high enough, it bit his foot.  That what these kids get for not wearing good old fashioned chainmail.  Hahdan keeps splashing things with little acid balls.  Slick killed the lizard guy.

I was wondering why do elves always come in a six pack?  And is there such a thing as a lite-elf?

I asked the halflings if they knew any good jokes - they didn't.

We found a couple more secret door, but nothing interesting except for six hobgoblins.  I charged in, with Drunk behind me.  He  killed one, I killed one and then he killed the next two.

Nothing left to kill, so we went back to town, took the halflings out of the dungeons with us.  We split all the gold we had found.

Met a really weird human(?) woman at a bar.  She talked funny and beardless women don't do anything for me.  She asked me to give something to a guy named Zafar and find a another guy named Sestus.  Why not, she had at least be been buying the booze.  She said we should go to another bar called the Unlucky Sailor.  My uncle told me sailors are like cowboys, they ride in big wooden horses.

We went there and the bar was closed, so we opened it, there were a couple of guys in there with four big rats and a whole bunch of little rats.  One of the guys was beating up the other guys, and there were some people tied up against the wall.

Right a way, Drunk killed two rats and Slick pinned one to the floor with a dart.  He's getting pretty good with those things.  I threw a flask of alchemist fire at the bunch of rats, but missed.  Hahdan cast Flaming Sphere and torched the guy who was beating up the other guy.  Then moved it on top of the rat bunch that was chewing on Slick.

It turned out Kafar was the guy getting beaten up.  I gave him the note, it felt like I was back in Mining School passing notes when the foredwarf wasn't looking.  He said we needed to find a wooden horse called the Prancing Prince.  I asked how we would know the horse's name, and he said it would have a statute of a human dancing in front of it.  And that it would be in the water.

We let the others go the last guy was an auctioneer.  He was so lippy that I'm pretty sure he must have been an an elf or at least raised by them.

My uncle was wrong, the thing sailors ride are called 'ships' and they look like human houses turned upside down with trees planted in them.  Slick used his wand and went invisible, he came back and said they he heard voices at the bottom of the ship.  So we all went down, Slick went down the last stair invisibly, but they must have heard him, because two half orcs hit him.  I threw a thunderstone down the stairs.  Drunk charged down and hit one, killing him.  The other one started punching Drunk with his fists - silly half orc.  I charged down and hit it, then Slick popped back into sight and poached it.  We took a shiny compass off of one of the bodies. 

There were a bunch of people down there who said they wanted to leave, so we led them upstairs.

When we got almost all of the way up, we heard somebody at the top shouting, she didn't sound happy.  There were six humans and two zombies on top.  We charged out, Drunk killed a sailor and Slick hit one with a dart.  Then Drunk said he couldn't see - the shouty human must have cast a spell, because his helmet wasn't over his eyes and I had drank out of the same barrel.  I pushed him at one of the other sailors, the I decided to go for a run, I ran off the ship and then back on.  While I was gone, Slick made one of the sailors at the back of the ship jump into the water.  Hahdan got behind Drunk and told him where to hit.I went up one side of the ship, while Slick was shooting at the shouty human from the back and Drunk and Hahdan went up the left side of the ship.  Two sailors attacked me, I killed them while the zobies were attacking Drunk.  Drunk re-killed one, Hahdan killed the shouty human with a fire bolt and then I re-killed the last zombie.  We found a map to a Cooper's Warehouse and a note about a cult called 'Nature's Cataclysm' - sounds elvish. 

We had to find a priest to take the blindness off of Drunk and get us healed up before we went to the warehouse.  He said extra charges applied for late night service, in other words he wanted a of gold for getting out of bed.

We found a trapdoor in the top of the warehouse, there were three humans and three rats in it.  Slick dropped in, Drunk hurt himself when he dropped in, but killed two rats.  I think he may have landed on one of them.  Hahdan threw in a thunderstone, One of the humans hit Slick,.  I hurt myself dropping in, but I hit the last rat.  Hahdan levitated down - showoff wizards.  Slick, Drunk and I each killed a human.  They looked like they were some  of those elvish wannabes who wander around over our mine and mumble about balance and circle of life.  I helped fix one of their stones once.  They don't bathe very often.

I opened he only door out of the room and was hit by a blade trap.  Slick broke the trap and we went down the hall.  There was a big room at the other end, at first I thought there were three humans in it, but then  I realized there were two huecuvas and one of the stinky druids.  The huecuvas smelled better.  One of the huecuvas attacked me.  Slick stabbed the other, then I did Hanseath's Rage against the one that hit me.  Drunk got mad and hit the stinky druid.  Slick re-killed the one huecuva, Drunk killed the druid and I rekilled the last huecuva. 

There were some people in cells down there, we let them go but Sestus wasn't one of them.  The stinky druid had an amulet that Hahdan and Drunk wanted.

Creative Writing

  I've found over the last week and a half that I only have so much time and energy for creative writing.  In this case it's meant a brief hiatus in blogging as I worked on another project, to wit I was asked to fill in this coming Sunday while the pastor catches her breath before Lent.  So I've had to come up with a coherent 15-20 minutes of talking, an exercise somewhat more onerous than a two hundred word post. 

I deserved getting tapped for filling in as I had shot my mouth off to her about reading Augustine's complete works, she figured it would give me plenty of ideas.

The main reason I bring it up in this forum is that my talk ended up not being related to reading Augustine but was inspired by this post by Mike over at Really Bad Eggs.

Now to catch up on some emails and get the Sixth Expedition write up posted.