D&D Post Game 1-22-18 Part 1

Adventurers:

Kromden- Dwarf fighter

Tendious- Human Cleric of Tempus

Garriegh “Gary”- Human Cleric of the Storm (dude worships Thor kind of…)

Paleus- ½ Elf warlock

Fenris- Wood Elf ranger

It is here that the party returns to meet with the Bullywugs…..  (Previous game link here)

• The wood elf ranger, Fenris, finally catches up with the party as they return to inform Yidrassyl and his bullywug ilk of their completed task. They have removed the Durbluk tribe from the ruins and have rescued (well locked him in a room full of goblin commoners to kill, play and feast upon) Calcryx the bullywug black dragon “pet.”
• The news of Durbluk’s and his followers demise makes the frog man quite happy. The additional news of the rescue of Calcryx just drives the point home that this party is all about helping the denizens of this ruin and possibly the entire swamp!
• Yidrassyl gifts the party with the key to the locked dragon door and offers them a small pittance of gold to boot. The party races off to see what is behind the dragon carved door!

• What they find first is a room full of five pedestals upon which four of them sit piles of broken glass. The fifth pedestal has a basketball sized glass ball sitting upon it. There is a faint blue grey light pulsing within it. Paleus moves to investigate this orb while the rest of the party mucks about in the room. As he approaches the orb seems to almost beckon him. He is compelled to touch it and when he does his mind is blown open! He sees the rise and fall of a dragon priest. He rituals and use of these orbs. He sees the decline of this stronghold. He gains knowledge in the use of this orb. He knows there is more power within it, but does not know how to attain it just yet. He pulls his hands back from the orb and sees that just seconds have passed since he touched the sphere. He quickly picks it up and the sphere quickly shrinks in size to that of a hand sized ball. He stashes it in his cloak and returns to the party. Strangely, no one else in the room is aware of what just happened or that there was even an orb there. It seems they were too busy preparing to open a door on the far wall.

• They open the door to what appears to be an elaborate burial chamber. A large sealed coffin sits at the far end of the room. A giant dragon sculpture rears up behind the coffin looking to strike at anyone in front of it. The two walls leading up to the coffin have three alcoves per side. Each alcove houses and armored skeleton wearing a chromatic dragon head helmet. At the foot of each skeleton lies the dried humanoid husk adorned in ancient purple robes. Roughly twenty feet before the coffin is a 10’ x10’x10’ pit that is full of vicious spikes. That seems a little strange but there is no time for discussion as the skeleton sin the alcove have animated and begun to attack the party. Seconds later the humanoid husks stand and reveal themselves as long dead dragonborn, each matching color for the evil chromatic dragons.
• The clerics pull their holy symbols and attempt to banish these undead creatures. Yet, as they exerted their holy might……a stronger, darker and more evil power rebuked their power. The undead creatures continued forward unfazed an continued to assault the party.

• Several minutes later and the undead were substantially dead once again. Now the party moved on to check the coffin. What follows next is a comedy of errors.
• Everyone sans the warlock just attempts to jump the 10’ wide pit of spikes….and they all fell into it.
• The warlock retrieves his new found magical orb and access it’s powers. He is led to the nearby wall and shown a small loose brick. He moves the brick and a portion of the wall slides up revealing a skinny hallway beyond. Paleus follows the hall which ends at a solid wall with another loose brick.
• He moves this brick and the wall in front of him slides open. He walks out near the coffin on the other side of the 10’ spike pit.
• The remaining party members eventually make it out of the pit with only a few minor puncture wounds. The group approaches the coffin and the menacing dragon statue.
• The coffin is stone and has five locks on the lid. Each lock has a small oval hole in the bottom. The dragon statue is made of granite and has a circular depression in its chest where something should fit. If only they had a thief……..
• The group soon remembers the five different gemstones they found in the dragon shrine room. Gemstones that were the color of the evil chromatic dragons! After several minutes they get the right stones in the correct locks. The locks click open. The lid can be removed!
• It takes three people to slid the lid open and reveal the body within.
• They find a juicy corpse wearing a chainmail shirt and simple tattered brown leather pants. The head is adorned with a silver helmet in the likeness of a black dragon. Across its chest is a silver mace. The head carved in the likeness of a roaring dragon. At his feet lies an apple core. A completely eaten yet still fresh looking white apple core.
• As the party investigates the coffin contents the dead body’s eyes flash green and it begins to rise.

D&D Post Game 12-15-18

Adventurers:

Kromden- dwarf fighter

Tendious- Human Cleric of Tempus

Garriegh “Gary”- Human Cleric of the Storm (dude worships Thor kind of…)

Paleus- Elf warlock

The party enters the ruined fortress/citadel/castle looking for the last two cultists.

HIGHLIGHTS/EVENTS

• Searching the first few rooms the dwarf finds a giant toad who does its best to swallow him whole. The rest of the party is assaulted by angry smaller toads.
• Also in the room beneath the toad’s location is a female arm still in a purple robe sleeve and one of the cultist holy symbols.
• They party finds a giant door carved in the likeness of an angry dragon. It is locked and no party member can pick the lock.
• They discover a room full of six animated skeletons adorned with helms in the likeness of the five chromatic dragons. They also wield shields with dragon carvings on them that match their helms. The sixth skeleton has no helm or armor. The room also has a small altar covered in dragoon carvings.
• The skeletons attack! The holy men cannot seem to exert their will upon the undead to turn them away. It is like a dark presence is thwarting them.

• After the melee the party finds loot! In One Also in the room is a silver holy symbol that appears to be for Tiamat worship, a small pouch of five gems (diamond, emerald, ruby, onyx and sapphire) and a small onyx whistle in the shape of a sleeping dragon.
• Tendious the Tempus priest, is intolerant of other religions. He smashes the Tiamat symbol really really good because well it isn’t Tempus and everything besides Tempus is drek (Tendious is even skeptical of the thunder god worshipping priest in the party)! This could be detrimental in the future….  
• Soon the party discovers a room in shambles a large broken cage and a frightened bullywug. It seems the bullywug was charged with guarding and caring for the creature called as Calcryx. The creature that was missing from the cage. The bullywug, Meepol, said it was their pet black dragon and that a nearby clan of goblins had stolen Calcryx. He pleads for the party’s help. The agree and Meeple leads them to his clan leader  where they can get more information about this citadel, Calcryx, the goblins and the remaining missing cultist.

• Party meets with bullywug leader Yidrassyl. They get info about Durbluk goblin tribe, the “pet” black dragon Calcryx, and the lack of info about the last cultist. They offer to help the frog men, because they are better than goblins.

• As they search for the Durbluk tribe they find a strange dragon fountain that will activate when a scrawled draconic phrase is read. Luckily and surprisingly the warlock can read and speak dragonic. He activates the fountain that spews forth a red viscous and flammable liquid. They leave it be and move along. L
• Here the party splits!
• Paleus, Tendiuos go toward goblin tribe via a hallway full of goblin archers.
• Kromden and Gary make their way deeper into the citadel where they find a dead human in a spiked pit. It appears to be the last town cultist. They climb down, but don’t find his wacky cult amulet. They were going to use that as proof of his death. These two double back and try to find the warlock and cleric.
• After a bit of exploration and little discovery....the party meets back up and begin to clean out the west side of the citadel as it is full of goblins and their “fun” traps.

D&D Pre-Game 12-15 and 12-22

Adventurers:

Kromden- Dwarf fighter

Tendious- Human Cleric of Tempus

Garriegh “Gary”- Human Cleric of the Storm (dude worships Thor kind of…)

Paleus- Elf warlock

A day or so after the successful demolishing of the creepy Cult in the town of Drakka, our party of heroes was still resting after those events. It was then that they received word that three of the remaining five cultists had been caught. The local constable and his deputies tracked down three new arrivals to town. Three new arrivals that just so happened to be in possession of multi-tentacle medallions and purple robes. Hearing this a few party members go to investigate. They find the three men named cultist are all in prison and unconscious. It seems the constable and his men had to rough them up a bit during their arrest. Once they wake they will be interrogated and tried as per the local laws. The party is told that there is a 100 gold crown bounty for the missing shop keep and his wife. Well 200 crowns was nothing to sneeze at and the party went about trying to find a lead to the whereabouts of the missing husband and wife cultists.

They manage to find information from the local leather workers/hunters in town. This pair of elves had recently seen the shopkeeper and his wife running through the swamp while carrying a lot of extra baggage. They tried to approach them, but it only seemed to spook them and drive them deeper into the swamp. The mention they were last seen running toward the ruins of an old citadel on the outskirts of the deep swamp ruins. They offer to take the party to this area. The group gears up and jumps aboard the elves’ large swamp boat (a glorified barge) and off they go into the swamps.

A day later and they arrive near the ruins the shopkeeper and wife. The elves tell them that is where  they we headed. The party inquires to the ruins and the elves just say they stay away due to an “unnatural” feeling they get from the remains of the stone structure.

It was then that from a large patch of tall swamp grass three lizard men adorned in bone armor adorned with blue and yellow feathers, approaches the boat. The elves explain that they know this tribe and to just stay on the boat while they parlay with them. Several minutes later the elves return and tell the party the local tribe is on the hunt for a traitor they refer to as Red Feather. You know due to his head gear having red feathers (lizard men am I right?). Anyway they are hunting for him as he has taken their scared black rock and betrayed the tribal laws. They are offering rewards for his capture or demise.

The party makes  their last minute preparations. The elven hunters tell them they will return to this spot in each afternoon for the next three days to bring the party back to town. After that they will have to work their way back on their own. The four adventurers bid them farewell and make their way toward the semi-sunken and grown over ruins of this long empty citadel. As they approach they notice the trees have begun to rot and warp. Also amongst the foliage are dozens of bent and twisted saplings with pale leaves and strange white buds. It was plant life no one in the party had ever seen before. They chalked it up to wyrd swamp plants and made their way to the ruined citadel on the hunt for the two surviving cultists and the 200 crown reward.

Off to the squared circle in the sky.

If you are a person of  a certain age and demographic then Mean Gene Okerlund was THE voice of the World Wrestling Federation.

It was ringside commentary as the straight man to Bobby “The Brain” Heenan.

If there is an afterlife, then these two are running commentary for the rest of us!

It was announcing wrestlers to the ring.
For me, it was the pre- and post-match interviews that really made Gene Okerlund stand out. Having to deal with the insanity of the Ultimate Warrior, the rants by Macho Man, the bigger than life energy of Hulk Hogan, the machismo of “Ravishing” Rick Rude, being in the shadow of Andre “The Giant”, the arrogance of Stone Cold Steve Austin or Degeneration X, the rants of Rowdy Roddy Piper or the  sheer silliness of tag teams like Big Boss Man and Akeem and gods know how many more wrestlers. Possibly everyone that ever wrestled over the last 3+ decades has been interviewed by “Mean” Gene.

The consummate good guy, sometimes clues and consummate straight man.

2019?!?!?!

Well another successful orbit around the sun.

What am I going to do with 2019?

Well some easily attainable goals is what!

 GOALS

• Get back to painting some miniatures. I have a small back log of stuff to paint that really needs to get done.
• Get more games of DUST 1947 played. The guys I play with are going through house selling and new house building. It has stopped our tabletop gaming flat.
• Stay away from Red Dead Redemption 2. I know it is awesome; but I need to avoid, what will probably be, an amazingly fun time suck game.
• Walk away from the Hours Hersey series. I have stuck through 40+ books for some idiot reason. I know the series is ending soon and start a new series just about the siege of Terra. I need to walk away since I have dumped so much time reading a diminishing return series that was once great, but has turned to drek in the last dozen or so books.
• I need to stay away from whatever this Siege of Terra series will be about. Seriously it should be three or four books long. That would be enough to cover the battle and final Horus vs. Emperor showdown. Sadly it will not be this, but a myriad of books to drag out for gods know how long.
• Get back to hiking. The last part of 2018 was a blur and we had little time to get back to walking in nature.
• Here is an easy short term goal! Stay away from the hype of Bird Box. Right now everyone is pushing this for some reason. Has everyone forgotten The Happening? Has nobody seen A Quite Place? Isn’t that just what Bird Box is but with a sight and not sound?
• As always play more games of the table or board variety.

These should be easily attainable goals for this coming year.