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In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit...

At last!

Season of the Witch (2011)

Baby's asleep. Let's watch a movie.

We didn't care if it has a low rate on IMDB and the trailer looked promising enough so we gave it a chance. It is an entertaining movie with everything a D&D adventure has to have.

The party is composed by two knights (veterans from the Crusades), a warrior, a priest, a thief and an altar boy who wants to be a knight. Their quest is to take a girl, allegedly a witch, to a remote monastery in the mountains for trial. Fiendish wolves attack them in the misty woods on its way. The party kills a few but has to escape from the rest. Upon arriving to the monastery, they must fight the animated plague-dead monks to get a relic. After defeating the undeads the party fights a demon with sword, holy water and divine magic.

I won't spoil it by telling how it ends or who lives or dies. Gotta go, baby's crying!

The day I became a dad

Now finally at home and with some time to write, I proudly anounce that my son Ivan was born by C-section on March 23rd. Mom and baby are in good health, and we're all very happy (though a bit tired and sleepy :>).

I guess my DMing of the Blackmoor and Maure Castle games will be on pause for some time (not too long I hope), as well as my participation on the Millenium's End game. I'll try to keep up with the Google Wave game though. ;-)

Maure Castle session 4 & 5

By some alignement of the palnets we managed to play on two consecutives weekends. We played on Friday 4th which I found it was a nice way to remember E.G.G. on the third anniversary of his death. Moreover because Maure Castle was one of the places he used to visit as a player. We also played on Friday 11th.

I'm just updating the blog because I've been busy with work and with all the preparations for the baby due to come next week! :-)

In the fist session the group continued exploring the Chamber of Antiquities after the effects of a Symbol of Fear on Quinath the fighter/mage were gone. Behind two granite doors, that were magically opened by using a baton of grey granite, they discovered a room full of shelves with almost 100 pairs of varied footwear in type, shape and materials. Detect magic showed nothing. They were about to leave when Kamar the kensai wondered if that footwear allowed to pass through the M-styled symbols without suffering their effects. Everyone else mocked him and dismissed the idea, but he insisted and took a pair that best fit him.

After exploring several more rooms, they reached one with four curiass on their stands and a door. The door was locked so Kamar bashed it, but with the impulse he entered the other room. The walls, floor and ceiling of that room were chaotically painted and produced some unknown efect that he managed to resist. After leaving that room he told the others that maybe those armor were intended to be worn in order to enter the room safely. Again everyone dismissed the idea but this time they just took them and continued exploring.

While the rest were discussing about the amor and the room, Inowe the monk left to explore other rooms. She reached a door ajar and carefully opened it. What was once a storeroom was now just a pile of broken crates and boxes. From another door, also ajar, across the room a hordling attacked Inowe. It almost killed the monk if not for the quick reaction of the rest. The creature came from what once was a laboratory, now completely wrecked. The exploration continued from room to room until they found hidden in a wardrobe another baton, this one made of emerald. With that they left the castle.

But after leaving Kamar tried the found footwear with the magic Symbols only to found he was correct! At the end of the session I decided to award Kamar's player extra XPs for the idea. Denar and Quinath reached level 15.

The next session was a short one. It was more a farewell reunion for Kamar's player who is going abroad for some time but will still be playing via Skype. The game stared with the party navigating the dungeons on their way out. They came across a couple of fiendish morghs. One was turned by Denar the cleric and the other, after paralyzing Inowe, was killed by Kamar. After that they rached the surface safely and, while travelling across the hills to Quinath tower, they found a strange flying creature (a rast) that was mercilesly killed by Quinath with a lighning bolt. The session ended with the party reaching Quinath tower safely.

Until next session!