dungeon doll

 [IN WHICH THE PARTY DISCOVER THE SECOND LEVEL, AND ORLYN TORCHBEARER DIES IN THE DARKNESS] We played Vampire Queen yesterday, only like 150 days after I actually ran the last session. Felt really good to be back. I've officially broken this blog's weird curse of never having more then 4 session logs for one campaign. We also found some of the dungeon's cats! The whimsy of their presence here is honestly one of the things that endeared me to  Vampire Queen  as something I might want to run, so I was delighted to have that come up. Without further ago: The Party Cinnamon. Fighter. Platemail and shield, flail. Powder/Pollen . Cribswap (Lunar/Solar); chainmail, sword and shield or light crossbow. Tomelo the Fierce (Dwarf) and Diino (Cleric), expert rust monster killers, armed with a flint spear and wooden cudgel respectively. Recent Additions Kai.  A dumb hunky Fighter with expensive taste. Chainmail, shortbow, spear. Orlyn Torchlighter.  A Fighter, spurred on ...

Some fruits that grow in dungeons. A dungeon fruit which is exposed to sunlight withers and contorts, becoming permanently inert and stonelike. While in this state, they can still be identified by those versed in plant-lore. ***  Angelberries: Grow on bushes which flower from rotting corpses, on pale plants which curl whimsically. These berries are a warm orange-gold colour. Their flavor is bitter, and confers upon the eater one memory from the corpse which sprung them. Dragontongue:   Grow in exposed volcanic soil, deep within the earth. A bush will have 1d6+2. Dragontongues are long, coiling peppers, with an orange-red coloration. Consumption burns, turning saliva scalding hot, and inflicting 1d6 points of damage. However, after this, the eater finds themself magically imbued for 2d6 turns, becoming immune to mundane fire, and resisting magical fire as if under the effects of a  Potion of Fire Resistance. Oaken Milkfruit: Grow where the roots of an oak tree punc...

 [IN WHICH OUR COMPANY TRADE BLOOD FOR GEMS] I actually ran this session on January 11th but life has been pretty much non-stop between then and now. I still wanted to post this for posterity. I really liked running this game and might pick it up now that I have more spare time again. Without further ago: The Party Giblet.  A feathery halfling; leather armour, shortbow and dagger. Cinnamon. Fighter; chainmail and shield, flail. Powder/Pollen . Cribswap (Lunar/Solar); chainmail, sword and shield or light crossbow. Tomelo the Fierce (Dwarf) and Diino (Cleric), expert rust monster killers, armed with a flint spear and wooden cudgel respectively. The Delve  Powder is in her lunar aspect, she prepared  Hold Portal .  The party return to where they fought the rust monster, with Powder uncovering another secret door there. The group listen at the door, hear nothing, attempt to force it and fail. Opening the door snaps a wire, triggering a crossbow and setting off an...

[IN WHICH OUR COMPANY SLAY A RUST MONSTER AND DO BATTLE WITH THE MUPPET-THINGS IN THE WALLS] We return to the Palace of the Vampire Queen: alice's rust monster The Party Giblet.  A feathery halfling; leather armour, shortbow and dagger. Cinnamon. Fighter; chainmail and shield, flail. Powder/Pollen . Cribswap (Lunar/Solar); chainmail, sword and shield or light crossbow. Recent Additions Jeordi-of-the-Orange.  Fighter 3. Rescued from the dungeon during Session 1 . Tomelo the Fierce (Dwarf) and Diino (Cleric), allegedly experienced in killing rust monsters, armed with a flint spear and wooden cudgel respectively. The Delve  Powder is in her lunar aspect, she prepared  Hold Portal .  The party return to the dungeon, having hired on Tomelo and Diino, and accompanied by Jeordi, repaying a favor. The party make for the network of secret rooms where the rust monster had previously been encountered. Tomelo and Diino strip their armour, and direct Cinnamon to break ...

I guess this is a thing I do now! I played through Shadow of the Colossus over the winter break. I used to play it as a kid, but I could never get past the 7th colossus. I find it much easier now. It kind of felt like a victory lap. It’s such a beautiful game, and maybe everything I want out of fantasy. The blog has been nice! My attention jumps around a lot, and sometimes I take breaks from rpgs, but I think this year I proved to myself that I will keep coming back to the blog. I also like the continuity maintaining the blog gives my projects. I often start things and don’t finish them, and so having a place to put mostly-polished ideas where they aren’t just rotting in a text document has been helpful. I might end up migrating, which would probably suck, but may be for the best. I find Blogger kind of frustrating, but I’m not totally sold on other options. My RSS feed also might be kinda bricked, since my posts don’t seem to show up in people’s blogrolls for a couple hours, which is...

unified resolution systems are a big thing in modern rpg design. generally, the question i see a lot comes down to this: "why have multiple different [dice] tools for different things when you could have one system that handles everything." i used to feel this way, but since od&d has become my preferred system to a pretty strong degree, i've kind of changed my mind on it. why use multiple tools when you could just have one system? because sometimes different tools are better suited to different jobs. as i see it, od&d has three basic tools: binary checks: roll 1d6 and compare to an x-in-6 chance to check if shit happens, otherwise shit doesn't happen. usually, the chance of shit happening is a 2-in-6. use this for things you check constantly, and only want to "work" sometimes (forcing doors, listening at doors, finding secret doors, wandering monsters). your stats don't really effect how good you are at putting your ear against a door. spe...

[IN WHICH THE DWARF LEYOL IS SLAIN BY A GELATINOUS CUBE]   Got to run more Palace of the Vampire Queen, with a slightly shorter session this weekend. I've been loving playing one-on-one, its been a really great change of pace! While Vampire Queen  (1976) was written post Greyhawk (1975), and expects its use, we have been playing with flat od&d, only converting stats backwards as needed. This also means we are using od&d's XP for monsters slain, which is far more generous then in Greyhawk. I think this has been working well, since treasures on the first floor are rather sparse.