Thursday, March 28, 2013

Blog word count


http://timc.idv.tw/wordcloud/en/

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Oskara Xiann

Oskara, a Twi'lek Bounty Hunter, is one of the pre-gen characters of the Star Wars Edge of the Empire RPG game.

"Oskara was always quick, clever and lucky enough to stay ahead of the press gangs... but her sister Makara was not. When Makara was nabbed by Aqualish thugs, Oskara had to act fast to keep her sister out of the mines. She offered her own unique services to the gang leader instead, claiming to be an experienced bounty hunter. Suprisingly, her first job for the gang went well and Oskara soon thrived under the tutelage of a veteran bounty hunter named Gyax. She was called on to perform more and more duties for the spice mining gang, and as long as she did well Makara was safe.

But then Oskara was "loaned out" to a Hutt gangster on Tatooine named Teemo. And things started to come undone. Teemo paid her quite well, but in the course of her bounty-hunting work for the Hutt she uncovered a plot against the Ryll-mining gang on Ryloth. The Hutt was going to seize their territory... and there would be no more guarantees of safety for Makara. Oskara decided to team up with Teemo's favorite gladiator, a Wookiee named Lowhhrick, and one of his best pilots, a human named Pash. Alongside her new companions Oskara has sent a warning to her compatriots on Rhylo and is now fleenig Teemo's revenge.

Oskara seems jaded and cynical at first, having seen much of the worst the galaxy has to offer at a young age. She is careful not to get too attached to anyone or anything. She is a professional bounty hunter and takes a serious approach to her work. focusing on results rather than any emotional considerations."

BRAWN 2 AGILITY 4 INTELLECT 2 CUNNING 2 WILLPOWER 2 PRESENCE 3

EDIT: I decided her to have Xiann as last name; a commonly given name meaning, "spider" in the Twi'leki language.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

I always wanted to play the Star Wars D6 RPG but never got the chance, so when +Adam Muszkiewicz announced this game, I immediately jumped in. I didn't know what EotE was, so I walked into the hangout convinced I was going to play SW D6. Really. :)

Then when the mechanics were explained I thought/said, "Hey, this is much like _Hollowpoint_!" which I guess was the first thing I played via hangout ever. I liked it so much that I even bought the rules. 

Now back to SW. And then, when everyone got their characters ready, the intro was played. I was like "Geez, I'm gonna be in Star Wars movie!" 

From the available pre-gen characters I chose to play Oskara, a Twi'lek bounty hunter. The shooting-piloting-sneakiness combo was too good to miss. I got the chance to do a lot of shooting with a blaster carbine (killing gamorreans and storm troopers) and a laser canon from a YT-1300 (destroying TIE fighters). Also some sneaking guiding the group through the alleys of Mos Shuuta. Hope to do some piloting next time.

The rest of the group escaping from "Mouse Shita" like Bear said were:

+Bear Wojtek  - Pash, Human Smuggler
+Wayne Snyder - Lowhhrick, Wookie Hired Gun (Gladiator)
+Nathaniel Hull - 41-VEX, Droid Colonist (Medic)
+Larry Moore  - Mathus, Human Technician

Thanks to Adam and the rest of the guys, it was a great game. I'm looking forward the next session!

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Attack of the Frawgs - Session #2

Last Monday we played the second and final session of the DCC module Attack of the Frawgs. 

The characters spent the night in the brewery at the shores of the Dead Goblin Lake. They had to restrain the intoxicated ones, including the brewer, to prevent them from running into the woods haunted by horrible hallucinations. The night passed without any incident, though nobody really had much rest. In the morning they questioned the brewer about what happened, but the poor man couldn't say much. For him it was only a bad night with worse dreams, product of having too many samples from his newest brew. He asked the party to keep this to themselves, since he had a reputation to keep, and shared what food and good beer he had.

Since +Bear Wojtek couldn't make it, we decided his funnel would return to the town of Sagewood, with the bodies of the dwarven rat-catcher and dead trapper. After they left, the rest gathered to decide the next step. The elven navigator climbed to the second floor of the brewery and, with his spyglass, checked the northern shore of the lake. Meanwhile the minstrel recalled a tale about a cave behind the waterfall, but the noble and the barrister argued it was not a tale. The barrister said that the previous owner of those lands, a quarrelsome one according to the noble, was sued by someone who had an accident there, for not having that area properly signposted about its dangers.

That settled the matter and the party decided to explore that area. They took the long route following the trappers' path around the lake. The short route, through dense wooded hills, was discarded when the elven forester spoke of dangerous creatures from the Black Corruption lands wandering the area. On their way, they came across three fiendish crabs feeding on the corpse of a trapped gicastor, but stayed away from them. Upon reaching the northern shore, thanks to the elven forester, they managed to avoid a couple of gicastor's traps. Now the party had 4 traps!

Then they found an inlet where the water stank, and dead fish and birds floated on the sludge, along with the corpse of some kind of humanoid. The radish farmer tried to use one of the traps, attached to a a length of chain, to fish the corpse from the viscous mire. He failed and the sludge splashed on him burning his skin. The  poor thing was already dead when he fell on the trap. It sprung and closed its mandibles on his corpse, spilling his guts in the water. Gruesome sight.

After that, the elven forester picked up a trail of large webbed footprints in the muddy shore. They led to the waterfall and the cave beyond. The elf tied a rope around his waist and started climbing the slippery rocks. His eyes were adjusting to the lack of light, when a croaking sound came from the cave and a big humanoid figured, wielding a seashell mace, towered over him. Meanwhile the parsnip farmer started to climb but slipped, couldn't keep his balance and fell, splitting his head on the rocks. The rest of the party make it to the top while a smaller frawg a makeshift spear joined the fight. This scrimmage ended with the big frawg fleeing into the cave badly wounded and the smaller one and the urchin dead.

+Adam Muszkiewicz summed what followed very well:

"I'm playing through +Stephen Newton's module Attack of the Frawgs and up until this moment, the weirdest thing was giant beavers. Then, all of the sudden, things got really strange, and very DCC!"

The party lit some torches and pushed into the cave where they we attacked by two hopping frawgs, while the wounded one stood by a female creature that was laying mucous covered eggs in the back of the cavern. When she saw the attackers, she bleated a deafening screech and started to lay the eggs into a stream. The party split with some fighting the hoppers and some closing on the spawning creature and her guard. Some even dived into the stream to prevent the eggs reach the lake. After a bloody fight all the foul creatures were defeated , but the dwarven miner, the noble and the rope maker died in the fight.

The survivors make it back to Sagewood without further incidents, where they were received as heroes and spent the night in the local tavern telling the curious about their recent adventure.

As treasure they found, "a leather satchel ornately decorated with the embroidery of a kraken raising from the sea. It was designed with loops to carefully carry  3 long thin objects about the size and shape of candles.", a pouch with an iron key (brewery), a periapt, another scales and several eggs. They sold the scales, the periapt and the eggs to a cleric and sage, and the traps to a dealer.

Every surviving characters got enough XP to make it to 1st level:

+Adam Muszkiewicz (Dwarven miner, Parsnip farmer, Elven Forrester, Minstrel)
+Justin Williams (Dwarven herder, Elven Navigator, Noble, Radish farmer)
+Tim Mulry (Elven Barrister, Urchin (f), Ostler, Rope maker)

Oh, and btw I've also got The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk to run!

Friday, March 15, 2013

Metal Gods of Ur-Haddad - Last Session


+Wayne Snyder summed up last night session pretty well:

"I was feeling pretty kick ass last night when I maxed out the rolls for Jerkal the Blazin's Flaming hands spell last night. Twice! Dude was a virtual walking flame thrower. Awesome. Only to be completely side lined later in the same turn when The Wizard Formerly Known As Ian cast Sleep and his mighty dice had him sleep every enemy in the room (5) who wasn't already asleep from his previous Sleep spells. The blood fueled sci-fi and sorcery birthing chamber of the hideous serpent men was looking like serpent man sorcerer sleep over party and we calmly walked through poking holes in the sleeping snake men like it was nothing. Ian is the sleep master. When it's good, it's so good, and when it's bad, he's in a magical coma for a week."

The Wizard Formerly Known As Ian cast 5 Sleep spells in a row, sending into a deep slumber between 2 and 4 serpent men each time. And grew five inches of hair too! That streak granted him the nickname of "The Sandman".

Having defeated the serpent men and destroyed their wicked breeding machine, the party, instead of leaving the place (Chuck and Jerkal were paralyzed, and Vayne badly wounded), decided to keep exploring for more treasure. That's when Wizard Formerly Known As Ian ran out of luck or lost the favour of the Metal Gods. He fumbled a Sleep spell and fell into a coma. With the serpent men closing in the group grabbed their out-of-action comrades and ran the hell out of the Mysterious Temple of the Serpent God

We sailed all the way back from Samsara to Ur-Haddad avoiding a huge storm. Upon arrival, we handed the Eyes of the Serpent to Amor Ba'Gish, the wizard who employed (and poisoned) us, along with the chest  full of platinum bars we were supposed to give Balas Forktongue (who we found dead, tortured and killed by the Serpent kin) as payment for the Eyes. After receiving the antidote and a succulent reward we headed to celebrate, with the promise of more jobs from the wizard.

Thursday, March 14, 2013

25.000 visits!

What can I say? Just thanks for taking the time to drop by this humble corner of the web. :)

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Brom

Brom the Ranger started as a 3rd level NPC in my LL/AEC sandbox campaign in Blackmoor (Greyhawk) now on hold. He was a guide for the party during the firsts sessions and then, when they grew more powerful, he returned to his homeland.

He must be in his late 20's or early 30's, but you can't exactly tell because of his weathered skin. He keeps his beard short and carries his long oily black hair in a plait. He wars a leather armor with studded shoulders and carries a longsword, a longbow and a hunting spear.

That was it until +Gabriel Harley set up a FLAILSNAILS LL/AEC game for 3rd level characters, set in his world called Evenoria. It was his first game via Google+ Hangouts and everything went really well. I enjoyed it a lot and am looking forward to the next session.

The rest of the adventuring party were:
You can read the session recap here.

STR 16 DEX 18 CON 12 INT 12 WIS 12 CHA 11

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Attack of the Frawgs - Session #1

Last year I won the DCC module Attack of the Frawgs on a contest by Tenkar's Tavern and I promised to DM it on a G+ hangout sometime. And that time came yesterday. Since some guys from the Metal Gods of Ur-Haddad game were on Spring Break, and didn't want to wait a whole week to play again, I jumped in and put this game up. It's been some time since I last ran a game and it was my first time running a DCC one, so I must confess I was a bit nervous.

"Your day began with typical banality and after twelve hours of hard labour you were settling in for a quiet dinner of stewed pork and ale at The Brave Trapper Inn. Many locals were enjoying each other's company as well as their meals [when] Torfist crashed through the door and everything changed. "We've been attacked!" Torfist cried as he staggered in bloody and disheveled."

And so an "angry mob with torches and pitchforks" went into the night to find what happened.

+Adam Muszkiewicz (Dwarven miner, Parsnip farmer, Elven Forrester, Minstrel)

+Bear Wojtek (Elven forrester (f), Dwarven rat-catcher (f), Beadle, Weaver (f))

+Justin Williams (Dwarven herder, Elven Navigator, Noble, Radish farmer)

 +Tim Mulry (Elven Barrister, Urchin (f), Stablehand, Rope maker)

The group was a balanced mix of experienced DCC players (Adam and Bear), and completely new ones to the rules (Justin and Tim).

After about 3 hours of gaming we did almost 2/3 of the adventure with only the dwarven rat-catcher killed by a gicastor (bear-sized beaver), the dwarven herder limping after stepping into a gicastor trap and the weaver tripping balls after drinking tainted water.

So far they killed a gicastor and two freshwater crab fiends. They found a coil 50' of of rope ("Loot by the foot!"), two gicastor traps (someone suggested to join them with a chain and make a crazy nunchaku), a pair of climbing boots, 6 clubs, 4 daggers, 2 hand axes and a sling. Also found the body of a dead trapper, the local brewer hallucinating in the brewery and a strange scale hidden there.

Thanks guys for joining the game and see you next Monday for the grand finale!

P.S. Thanks to +Stephen Newton for writing the adventure.

Monday, March 04, 2013

Read An RPG Book In Public Week


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