O2 Blade of Vengeance Session 2: Act 2—Hermit

by on September 13, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: O2 Blade of Vengeance

[Previous chapter: Act 1]

Well, we don’t have a standard time yet, though late Saturday evenings are looking likely. A couple weeks back, I was not feeling to well at that point, and last week, Smudge was buried in exploring as Vue as a new computer animation platform for her. But we finally got a second session last night; onwards!

[Warning! Many module spoilers ahead! See the end to skip.]

The next morning, Erystelle cast Detect Magic and looked through the items looted from various hobgoblins, goblins and ogres the previous day. The swords and shields of the hobgoblin leader and his bodyguard all showed magical, and Erystelle decided to replace his normal shield with the hobgoblin leader’s. Also, so did the shortbow he got off the leader, but that was no surprise, as he recognized it as having been his mother’s shortbow +2. The 12 arrows in his mother’s quiver also glowed, but he’s not entirely sure what they are.

By the time that was done, Druinder had gotten supplies together for an expedition back to Doneryll with himself, and two of his gnome helpers riding the spare horses recovered yesterday. The remaining gnome and one of Erystelle’s dogs stayed to hold down Druinder’s home, and allow Tarcil to recover (the wardog, who had taken quite a beating in the fighting).

On the trip down, Druinder handed Erystelle his ring of protection +1, figuring that any fighting is going to have to rely on Erystelle anyway. Thinking things over, he also advised him that the best course of action was probably to see a human hermit who has been studying the lore of the area for many years. If anyone knows more about Gallanor Nightflame, it would be him. Also, the best route there would take him through a halfling village, Oakendale. With the destruction of the dwarf and human settlements, as well as Doneryll, they may be the next target—if they haven’t been attacked already.

Once back at Doneryll, the known dead were gathered, and Erystelle searched the rest of the area. The stables were a total loss, and there were two more corpses inside—his grandmother and grandfather. The trail the hobgoblins had cut to get to Doneryll was easy to follow, and started near the stables. Amongst the wolf and hobgoblin tracks were blood and signs of something being dragged, which ended with a pair of elven bodies… two of his brothers. All told, only two members of the entire household are missing, and Erystelle is steadfast in believing they must still be alive. The trail of the raiders soon after stopped at a tributary of the Greenflow.

After proper mourning and cremation of the dead, a very somber party made it’s way back to Druinder’s the next day.

The day after, Erystelle set out with his two war dogs for Oakendale, going over the bridge across the Greenflow near Druinder’s and heading east. During the morning, a raven was paying too much attention to Erystelle, who is all too aware of the normal role of ravens in folklore, and was not happy. He sent a warning shot near the raven who merely retreated to the next tree down the path. Erystelle warned him off, “Tell your master! If he is friend; I have questions. If he’s a foe I’m going to kick his ass!” The raven responded by telling him, “Seek the hooded one in the cave of blue,” and flew off.

Erystelle was nonplussed. He’s already headed to see the hermit.

Later on, the trail crossed a tributary of the Greenflow and turned north, when he another encounter. At a sudden thump on the rear of his horse, Erystelle turned around to find himself face-to-face with a small wild man, with a manic expression and twigs and leaves sticking out of his hair. He laughed and leaped away, disappearing into the trees. A quick search revealed that he’d taken Erystelle’s dagger +1. A search discovered nothing. The dogs found a scent leading to a tree, and nothing more. Offers from Erystelle for a gem (sparklies!) in return for the dagger got no response.

About an hour later, Erystelle arrived at Oakendale, a pleasant, sleepy (and intact!) halfling village on the bank of a tributary of the Greenflow. The proprietor of the inn (Bella) came out to greet him with food and ale as he rode into the village. Erystelle went in, and quieted the other patron’s questions about news by asking for the Mayor to come over so he could tell it once. Seeing the grim look on his face, one of the patrons rushed out, to return a few minutes later with the Mayor (still in his dressing gown with a vest thrown over it). Erystelle went over the entire story, including the destruction of the human and dwarven settlements in the area, and the fact that a red dragon is probably involved.

The Mayor was visibly shaking by the time he was done, and had filled his pipe two or three times without lighting it. He promised to lend what support he could, and to call out the militia.

After the crowd dispersed some, Erystelle asked Bella about the wild man. She called him the Sharugh—he’s considered the luck of the village, and occasionally repairs small items around the village. She leaves food and ale out for him every night. Directed back to the Mayor as someone more knowledgeable, he told Erystelle that he seemed to live on nearby Hookam Hill and suggested making an offering of food to him there.

The next day, Erystelle visited Hookam Hill, and set out some food. The Sharugh approached cautiously, but eventually gobbled down the food and then ran off and came back with the dagger and a brass lantern. Then his expression cleared, and he said:

So long, so long. The years pass swiftly but I go on. It was said that one would come looking for a way to other lands. Mark well these words:

‘Before me lies the silver moon
And stars encircle my brow,
Let the hidden way be open soon.
Galannor Nightflame hear me now!’

Forget not these words, lest your task go unfulfilled.

The lantern was odd. It has no oil, nor anyplace to put oil. Around the rim are a couple words in magical script.

Erystelle continued on north, following directions gotten earlier in Oakendale to the hermit’s cave. As he drew near in the late afternoon, he saw smoke curling up in the distance. After the last time, Erystelle immediately kicked Starbrow into a trot.

Sure enough, he arrived to find smoke pouring out of the entrance to the cave, what had been a tidy little garden trampled, and a dead hobgoblin at the entrance to the cave. A quick examination showed no other bodies, and much of the contents of the cave destroyed, with the bedding (and other things) burning. Among the scattered belongings, were a few damaged books. Only one seemed to be of immediate interest, but only the last page was partially intact. Of the two paragraphs there, the second one was obviously the verse the Sharugh had quoted. The first paragraph is nearly unreadable.

Investigation showed tracks leading further northeast. At the other end of the track was an encampment of hobgoblins, where an ogre—a very upset ogre was yelling at them about something. After killing one, he turned them out of camp and started herding them towards the cave, where they started beating the bushes desperately looking for something. Erystelle, observing all of this from cover has decided it’s time to capture one, and find out what’s going on.

With combat imminent, we called it there for the night.

Oh, and the hermit’s cave was not blue.

[End spoilerific section.]

DMs notes: Well, a couple of hours and a lot of role-playing, and hardly a die to be seen. We’re well and truly on our way with the plot, though the main ‘directed’ part is over, and now the more difficult part begins.

I was pretty relaxed this time. I’m more sure of myself on this part, and some of the anxiety last time was for the module not to come off as a pure combat fest. I didn’t play up the Sharugh as much I might like, but he’s not the sort that I have an easy time with, and really, he should speak in rhyme, which is well outside my abilities.

We talked some Friday night, and are hoping to get a small group together, maybe every other Saturday once this adventure is done. We’ve both got a couple ideas of what to run, and will see what people think of them.

Some of Smudge’s dice are missing, so we went dice shopping Sunday afternoon to find replacements. We managed to re-fill one set, and she got a new full set of some nice, if smaller, dice. I got myself a couple as well, since I haven’t needed anything but d6s and d% from early on, so my 4s, 8s, 12s and 20s are all crumbling early 80s TSR dice.

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A Short History of GURPS

by on September 6, 2010 at 10:00 pm
Posted In: GURPS

The first two versions of GURPS came in a box with four booklets. These were “Characters”, “Adventuring”, a pair of adventures (one solo, and one GM), and the “Charts and Tables” booklet. It had been in development for several years, and as the culmination of an effort to do a ‘generic’ system it was very interesting.

First (and Second) Edition Basic Set could create any sort of human character you might want…. Well, as long as he lived in a medieval world. The set made no bones about the fact that it was designed with a historical-style European medieval milieu in mind. Doing every possible thing in one package is a tall order, so the system was intended to be modular. Fantasy would bring in magic, Space would add skills and equipment and rules for the future among the stars, and so on. So the ‘universal’ system was only universal by extension. But it was a good foundation, and the ability to ‘add on’ further abilities was pretty obvious.

The system itself is point-based, where characters are ‘built’ with a budget to insure that everyone in a party is roughly equally competent, and the player gets the character he wants instead of the one the dice give him. In 1986 this was not a new idea, but it was not yet a popular one, and GURPS had what I believe is the first ‘skill-centric’ point system. The system was dedicated to cutting back on the number of ‘knobs’ to fiddle with: there are four attributes, Strength (ST), Dexterity (DX), Intelligence (IQ), and Health (HT). There are a few other secondary statistics, but these, unlike, say, in Champions, cannot be modified (for instance, Hit Points are equal to HT). Advantages provide a bunch of different abilities that can be useful, while Disadvantages give the player more points to work with in return for limiting the character in play either physically or mentally. And then there’s the skill list. As a skill-centric game, the list is quite long, and paying for them is slightly complicated. You spend points for skills, and the more you spend, the higher your skill is. However, all of this is relative the base attribute of the skill, and the costs depend on whether it is a physical skill or a mental skill and how difficult of a skill it is. The good news is that the costs are easily summarized in a pair of small tables, and once calculated during character creation does not cause any problems during play.

The combat system is very detailed, sticking with the Steve Jackson tradition of one-second turns tracking everything that goes on. Instead of the abstracted 10-second exchange of blows seen in D&D, every swing and parry is accounted for. One second seemed a bit fast to me at first, though thinking back to my (limited) experience with boffer-LARPing, I realized it was about right. Characters roll to attack, and if they succeed, the target can roll to defend, if he is aware of the attack, and is free to do something (dodge, parry, block). Also, the possibility of attacks being ‘glanced off’ tough armor or shields was included as passive defense (PD), which added to all defense rolls (and allows rolls when there is no active defense). The efforts to streamline the system save it here: other than damage, all rolls are 3d6 skill checks. Defense (not technically a skill) operates the same way—and so does lock-picking. The way to resolve things is simple, leaving the clutter to what is being resolved. For any muscle-powered weapon, damage is based off of strength. In general, if you want a good detailed melee combat system, any version of GURPS will do it very well.

By the time the system was two years old, the supplements had been rolling out, and it was decided to include as much of the ‘basics’ from other genres into the main rules as possible. It was also decided to put everything into one 256-page book, as getting rid of the box allowed SJG to lower the price. A basic magic system and psionics system were included, and the skill list greatly expanded to include contemporary skills and a few SF-based ones.

I’ve always preferred ‘done in one’ RPGs, where everything needed to play comes in one book, and GURPS 3E did that very well. As long as you wanted to do fantasy with light magic, or something contemporary, Basic Set was all that was really needed. That isn’t to say it had everything you might ever want, even within those strictures; there will always be ‘one more thing’ in any situation. And of course, the system as a whole went far beyond it’s core competencies: Supers, Magic (lots of Magic), Space, Psionics all added lots of rules on their own, and there were new things included in every book, no matter how mundane the subject. And many of these new advantages or skills were generally useful; the fact that they had to be published in multiple places was a continuing problem.

The solution to this was GURPS Basic Set Third Edition – Revised in 1995, which took out the GM adventure “Caravan to Ein Arris” and replaced it with pages of more advantages, disadvantages, and skills. The following year, Compendium I and II were released, which gathered together all the published elements of GURPS that were not entirely unique to one setting or genre. The two were very well done, and became standard reference for later books.

For me, the two Compendiums shook my interest in GURPS. They were obviously needed, and cool in a certain sense. But it showcased an amount of rules bloat I was not comfortable with. Compendium II I was particularly unhappy with; it was the GM’s half of the set, and I considered much of the material in there to be less important or not well done (there is something like three different simple ‘mass combat’ systems in the book, and I don’t care for any of them).

Of course, this was at the start of a long dry-spell of RPGs for me, so it did not matter too much, and did not drive me into the arms of any other system, as I wasn’t using any system at that point. (As it was, it did help drive my interest in BESM.)

In 2004, GURPS 4th Edition was released. I was back into gaming, but not into RPGs, so my reaction was somewhat academic. There were a number of changes, which raised mixed feelings for me. I’ve recently gotten the new edition, and am generally happy.

The Basic Set is now two books, Characters and Campaigns, breaking the ‘done in one’ structure I prefer. However, the goal is to have as much of the entire system contained in the Basic Set as possible, so that it is no longer ‘universal—by extension’. Also, almost everything needed to play is still in the first book, including a very simple version of the combat system. Certainly, it can be ‘faked’ with the free GURPS Lite and the first book without any trouble for an inventive GM.

The system has changed. Third Edition was really just First Edition with more stuff and a few tweaks. Nothing really basic to the system changed. This time, a number of things have.

A) The costs of attributes has changed. Originally, GURPS tried to enforce a ‘bell curve’ by making higher attribute scores cost progressively more. Now it’s all flat. Also, GURPS considered all attributes equal—that is, they had the same cost. Now, DX and IQ cost twice as much as ST and HT. This last is understandable, DX and IQ determine almost every skill score there is; raise one of them, and about half your skills go up a level. The flat costs are a streamlining measure, and one that initially upset me, but now that I’ve had six years to get over it, I find I don’t mind the change. Whether it will cause any problematic changes in attribute scores still needs to be seen. So far, it seems like the extra cost for modest DX or IQ changes has a much greater effect.

B) Hit Points are based off of ST instead of HT. Fatigue is based off of HT instead of ST. This was a popular house rule even before it was published in Compendium I as a optional rule. The original idea is that fatigue is a reduction of strength caused by exertion, and that the healthier you are, the harder you are to kill. I had bought into that, and did not ever see any real need to use the optional rule. I changed my mind when I looked at it from the standpoint that a bigger creature will have higher strength (but may still become fatigued at the same rate) and more hit points (but not necessarily be any healthier). Also, it makes sense for a healthier person to take longer to become winded (lose all/most fatigue).

C) All the secondary attributes can now be changed on their own. This was something that slowly cropped up over the course of Third Edition, and was given as an optional rule in Compendium I. This was desperately needed. In many cases, it should be held to a minimum for human characters, but some tweaking will help some character concepts, and it helps with non-human characters a lot, since the base values are figured on human norms.

D) Relative size is directly addressed in character creation. This is another place where Third Edition desperately needed improvement, and I can only regret that Fourth Edition doesn’t go quite far enough. Size Modifier has always been in the system, it is the bonus for aiming at/trying to spot a large object, or the penalty for a small one. Now, it is a secondary characteristic for all characters (humans, outside exceptional circumstances, are +0, of course). It doesn’t have that big a defined game effect, and the problems of scaling equipment up/down is glossed over, but the concept is there in the core rules. Finally.

E) Skill costs are simplified. Physical skills were more difficult to learn at a high level than mental skills. Now they share the same progression chart. Also, the ability to take a bunch of little skills has been limited; it was possible to put a 1/2 point into a skill, now the minimum is 1.

F) Passive Defense is gone. There’s a good article out there showing how PD could cause some strange math. So, it has been decided that if a blow ‘glanced off’ armor, you’ll see it when the armor’s normal Damage Resistance stops all the damage from a low damage roll (instead of that being possible as well as the defense roll…). Also, shields still provide PD, but now it is called ‘Defense Bonus’. Considering that shields are specialized defensive equipment, it makes sense.

G) Auto-fire has changed. While the melee combat always felt very good, I never felt ranged combat was nearly as smooth. Most of this really comes down to the way fully automatic weapons worked. First, it involved a separate table that determined how many shots in a burst hit depending on the number of shots in the burst, and how much the roll was made by. The problem was that this table only went up to four shots, and a separate attack roll was needed for each set of four shots. Considering that machine guns that fire 20 shots per second (that’s five attack rolls for four round bursts) are common today, this was not good. The new system simply compares how much the roll was made by to the gun’s recoil number, one hit per multiple of RCL the roll was made by, up to the number of shots fired. (There’s still problems there, but it is an improvement.)

H) Enhancements and Limitations are parts of the core system. These are ideas that were created by GURPS Supers. Instead of having a big list of every single advantage and disadvantage in every single form it could take, there is a shorter (but still very long) list that can be consistently modified to generate the particular effect wanted. This wasn’t necessary with a lot of the down-to-earth abilities originally used in GURPS, but as it went further afield it was necessary. This really adds a lot to the flexibility of the system, but it does add complexity—bring a calculator. A nice side effect is the idea of self-control numbers. These adjust the cost of mental disadvantages depending on just how likely the character is to succumb to it. Now you can easily have a character who is a little bit Overconfident, without having to define a new, lower-point version of the disadvantage.

I) Almost everything is in the core system. It sure seems like everything is here, but if it was, books like Powers would not need to exist. But, this version of Basic Set truly feels universal. There are a few off-the-wall things that always bamboozled me in Third Edition. Most of them are pretty obvious to do in Fourth Edition, which shows that it is much more flexible than before.

The complexity of Fourth Edition is decidedly up from Third Edition. However, it at least so far feels like everything is better integrated, as actual rules, not just as text. So, I’d say it is noticeably less complex than Third Edition + Compendiums was. I’d also say the scope of what it can handle is up from what Third Edition + Compendiums could do. I hope I can get a chance to find out for certain soon.

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The Red Revolution

by on September 6, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Had the gang over yesterday for a six-player game of Russian Civil War. We’ve played it twice before, but today was the first six-player day, and I think we were all agreed that it should do well with the extra chaos of the last player.

We were right. The game played very well with six players. Unusually, the initial random allotment was pretty even for everyone. Everyone had about 3-4 White leaders and 6-7 Red, and two or three Politburo markers. The main exception was that Zjonni got Lenin and Trotsky, the two main Red leaders, and a total of four Politburo markers (including the two bonus ones he got for the leaders).

Dave also had the best two White leaders, and initiated the only trades before play began, to trade away all his Red leaders and one of his Politburo markers for more White leaders. I was the first to trade (all but one of my White leaders), and I think Zjonni picked up the remainder.

The first player randomization draw was odd: FFFCFB Patch got to go first four times in six turns.

The game started oddly enough, with the dice rolling high on the CRT for quite a while. (All 5s and 6s for the first couple player turns.) Also, I quickly drew three of the ‘Out’ markers, sending the Japanese, British and… one other Interventionist force out of the game before much could happen to them (and long before the control markers for them could be drawn). Patch ended up with control of a number of Nationalist factions. Dave got lucky and consolidated his hold in the south (where the White army is strong to begin with) by drawing the Trans-Caucasus control marker on turn 2.

By turn 3, the unified nature of the White Army was making itself felt. Things had begun well for the Revolution, but attrition had taken its toll, and Dave had some very powerful armies put together. Zjonni lost Lenin on turn 2 in an Exchange with White forces in the upper Cossack region. Dave also got control of the Finnish Nationalists, whose 18-point force occupied Petrograd (which puts Red replacements in jeopardy). On turn 3, I occupied Petrograd with a strong force. I couldn’t defeat the Finns, but it would allow Red replacements unless he defeated me at low odds. On turn 5, the Finns attacked, and got an Exchange, wiping us both out. Jason sent a force into Finland to ensure they did not come back.

In the south, things came apart for Dave as the game moved into it’s later stages and lots of assassin markers were available. Concerted, repeated attacks with assassins wiped out much of the White leadership, and left the White forces much more vulnerable. Assassination went thick and furious. Patch spent some time with his sixth turn, trying to see if he could be the only one with any leaders left at the end of the turn. He couldn’t do it, but there wasn’t much left at the end of turn 6. Dave had been completely wiped out, and I had been wiped out by the end of turn 4.

Mark made the final move, and managed to grab the Gold and the Czar for himself. There was plenty of White troops available, but no White leaders. Considering the lack of all leaders, the Politburo easily passed a resolution to end the game.

The scoring came as a real surprise:

Player Red White
Jason 27 7
Dave 2 19
Mark 36 10
Rindis 29 18
Zjonni 18 0
Patch 36 25

In three games, this is our first Red Victory (relax, Stalin died on turn 1). Mark and Patch shared a victory at 36 Red points. Patch had the points for a White win as well; he’d been very effective in killing off Red leaders at the end of the game. I had a decent showing only because I still had credit for killing 18 points of Finns (on defense).

School is about to start up, so we aren’t expecting to see Zjonni next time. We’re not sure what to do for a 5-player game yet (though Blackbeard is likely).

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Barbaricum

by on August 29, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Writing

[Repeated from a post on RPG Geek, as I’ve been meaning to explore the concept further.]

What further accounts we have are fabulous: as that the Hellusians and Oxiones have the countenances and aspect of men, with the bodies and limbs of savage beasts. This, as a thing about which I have no certain information, I shall leave untouched.
—Tacitus, Germania

One of the beliefs in the ancient world was that civilization made the man. Those peoples removed from civilization were not only barbarians, but as they became further removed from the civilized world, they became more savage and alien and bestial, until just past the limits of the known world, the men took on the appearance of beasts.

An idea I’ve been kicking around since last winter is a fantasy world where ‘civilization makes the man’ is true—at least in some respect. It’s the basis of what I hope to be an upcoming campaign world, and this post is as much to start forcing me into doing something about it as anything else.

The general idea for the setting is a fantasy world taking a lot of cues from Earth around the 6th Century. That is, I want to borrow a lot from history without feeling the need to do a lot of research to get it right. 🙂 Two of the first things I need to do is start coming up with new names for all the historical analogs so they can start taking on their own character, and working out the geography. The part I’m really working with in my head is the equivalent to Western Europe.

No one, not even the scholars of the Empire, know where people come from. ‘People’ come in all sorts of forms. But it is known that the more ‘civilized’ a people are, the more they look the same. Moreover, a people that becomes more settled, more advanced, in technology, philosophy, and any of a number of other things, in time begin to look more… ‘human’, where as less advanced peoples continue to resemble the animals from whence they presumably sprang [which is to say, they’re furries].

The Empire was founded by a people who had only recently become ‘human’ themselves, and early on adopted a citizenship requirements that looked for these traits. As the Empire spread, and the system became entrenched, various peoples were accorded rights within the Empire based on where on a scale of ‘human’ and ‘animal’ traits they fall.

The glory days of the Empire are long past, and today many lands are no longer administered directly by the Empire, though various invading tribes maintain the forms of the Empire, even though none of them would have the ius homii [human/ruling rights] under the Empire’s rule.

Peoples such as the [Romans] are fully human (though that’s only been true for about 800 years), while long-term subjects of the Empire such as the [Gauls] more resemble an anime-style furry—animal ears and tail and little else. Peoples from outside the barbaricum are more traditional furries, with all sorts of mixes with digitigrade legs and long muzzles (which tend to be the first to go), and then all sorts of shadings in between for more transitional peoples. [It is possible that various centaur-like creatures also exist, but I haven’t made up my mind on that.]

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O2 Blade of Vengeance Session 1: Act 1

by on August 22, 2010 at 10:00 pm
Posted In: O2 Blade of Vengeance

I’ve been kind of meaning to get back into RPGs for many years. Even when I wasn’t paying attention to much else, a few important books stayed out of storage, and I bought most of the GURPS Traveller line. When RPGGeek came out of beta a year ago, that temporarily went into overdrive.

One of the problems is that the logistics angle of getting more than two-three people (including me) into the same room at the same time on a regular basis is a problem (I’m burning most of the available points for that on wargaming meetings, and that is still more important to me). But Smudge has some free time, and needs to get away from the computer more, and I have a couple modules built for one DM and one player. Sadly, while I had plenty of free time in December, I didn’t get around to using it.

But we got started today on the old Expert ‘one-on-one’ module O2, which is much more plot-driven than the puzzle-driven O1. This involved a bunch of hunting through rulebooks for the last few days to find that one elusive rule that would be needed once the adventure got started.

Neither of us has played D&D in ages. In fact, I think the last time would be a memorable session when she ran X12: Skarda’s Mirror around ’88. Skarda got away, we were all hot to go after him; sadly the sequel never came about.

Anyway, things went fairly well mechanically. The main problem is that the level-7 elf the adventure is built around has a lot of options. Remembering those options, which are necessary, can be a problem for a beginner. I managed a TPK (okay, so one death = one party here) in the nastiest battle of the opening. We restored a ‘saved game’ and tried again.

Smudge was definitely having fun, which was good. I was having a lot of anxiety. Running something for the first time in forever, worrying about how it’s going, what should be next, have I forgotten something (yes, twice, I hate having to go back and mention something I’ve forgotten). All the dreams of knowing just what to do go up in smoke when I open my mouth. @_@

Spoilers start here, by the way.

So, Erystelle came home to Doneryll from years of adventuring to find it in flames, his family slaughtered, and goblins and hobgoblins everywhere. He ran off the outer guards on the road, killed the two ogres at the bridge across the Greenflow to his home and found the corpses of two of his younger siblings. Working towards Doneryll, he came across the scene of what had obviously been a great fight, with several members of family lying dead amidst the corpses of several goblins and hobgoblins. The apparent leader of the hobgoblins and his bodyguards were also there and started to move off without noticing him, and he attacked from behind, sending in his wardogs, and firing at the leader with his bow. The dogs kept the bodyguard busy while the leader charged to get inside bow range. One of the dogs was killed and the bodyguard charged forward to aid his leader. A couple of strong blows later, and our hero was dead.

The apparent leader of the hobgoblins and his bodyguards were also there and started to move off without noticing him, and he attacked from behind, sending in his wardogs as Erystelle fired off a lightning bolt aimed to catch the leader and one of the bodyguard. It was a powerful bolt, and both hobgoblins immediately died from it. The remaining hobgoblin charged, only to be cut down.

Looking over the scene, Erystelle found the remains of a letter from his great-uncle Druinder warning that something was up, with both a human and dwarven settlement destroyed recently. Between it, and the evidence on the ground, it was fairly obvious there was a red dragon involved. Erystelle moved off towards where the stables were, only to run into a group patrolling around the edge of the clearing. Five hobgoblins and two goblins on wolves. Sleep took care of all but one goblin and the wolves, who fought at first, but quickly took off. One wolf stayed and was killed, but the other and the goblin got away with a magic missile not enough to down the escaping wolf.

Continuing to the stables (which were also on fire), Erystelle found the goblin arguing with a pair of hobgoblins about a 10-foot-tall murderous elf roaming about. A quick fight saw all of them dead, and the mounts they had been holding for the leader and his guard not spooked enough to immediately bolt. A look through the saddlebags turned up a fair amount of treasure—this is where most of the loot that the hobgoblins had gathered had been put.

It seemed like that was probably the last of the monsters in the clearing, and it was getting to be late, so Erystelle decided to head immediately to Druinder’s for help and rest. Arriving late at night, he roused the household, and gave an abbreviated account of the day. Druinder recalled the legend of Gallanor Nightflame, an elvish hero who single-handedly killed the red dragon Gorkalk nearly 2000 years ago, and who was promised to return when needed again.

We ended the day there. Other events were scheduled, and act 1 (my immediate goal) is done. Now for the much more varied act two, which will start with a return to Doneryll to properly take care of the dead. I certainly needed a break, since the constant worry of ‘does she like it’ was getting to me. I need to remember how to relax and let it flow as the GM, I’m reacting more like I’m doing public speaking, except that that doesn’t quite hit me like this any more.

Oh, and Erystelle is turning out to be something of an ass.

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