Kingmaker

Michael,

I find myself in a very, very bad spot and I don’t know if this will reach you.

It all began badly and swiftly got worse. We emerged onto the lowlands of this cavern – a pasture for rothe, herded by some kobold slaves. We attempted to make contact but they ran off and – you won’t believe it – alerted their goblin overseers, at which point you have to ask: do these people really deserve any better than to be slaves?

Anyway. A couple of goblins came to investigate. I concealed us with an illusion, then we attacked. But we didn’t kill them quickly enough. One was injured and got away, and meanwhile we were hit by a group of six archers (Nice bit of tactics. Goblins, unfortunately, are not stupid.)

Proceeding further into the cavern, we eventually found a Kobold who was not a stupid coward. Quite aged (for a Kobold), and too infirm to bolt and run. Explaining that we were here to – you know – liberate them (well, His Lordship and Giacomo did that. I think they have me pegged as an albino drow) he told us that their leader (that is, of the kobolds) was an older female that lived in caverns under the goblin settlement, and that we’d have to speak to her.

Of course, this cavern is divided in two by a massive rift that goes down the gods only know how far – well down into the underdark – and this leader is on the other side, over a heavily guarded bridge. Oh – and there’s some stairs leading up to what I believe are chambers that once housed a red dragon some time ago, whom the kobolds still venerate. Anything could be living up there now.

The goblins were systematically sweeping the cavern for us. We decided that rather than attempt the bridge, Rainen could ferry us across. I gave clumsy dwarf a Reduce Person and he, His Lordship, and Giacomo all made it across without mishap.

Then our luck ran out. As Rainen was taking Rainor across, they were spotted, and presumably a drow cast Farie Fire on them. They flew up the dragon stairs.

And so we are split in three. Rainor and Rainen will be fine – they’ll wait for the spell to wear off and then assay the flight again. Jope and Giacomo are no doubt pleading their case to this kobold matriarch. Meanwhile, I am stuck on the wrong side of a rift that – on the right side – is no doubt swarming with drow. If I do get across, avoid the drow, the goblins, and get below to the kobold residences, they absolutely will not trust an albino drow that they do not recognise.

It’s … it’s not looking good.

So, Dave is off for two months and we are left with a cliffhanger. Fun times.

Kingmaker – not

We are doing Jope’s quest, at the moment, and Andrew was down with food poisoning. So instead the guys let me run them through the Paizo organised play module which I will be running for real and for true on Wednesday.

The idea is that I ought to have enough gear to simply run the game with drop-in players.

• I was missing:
  •  something to wipe the mat with
  • minis for characters
  • spare character sheets
• The water-soluble pens don’t work very well on con-tact, although they are fine of the regular vinyl.
• There’s no substitute for just pencli, paper, and eraser

The guys blitzed the module – perhaps too easily, but they are very experienced players. Actually – some characters were dropped unconscious, so it wasn’t that easy. I handwaved one or two things (handed out a free cure light to everyone at one point).

I missed one or two important things. I won’t forget them wednesday … but only because I have played it once already. I won’t get this sort of dry run wit the rest of the games. There’s no easy fix – I just need to do the job better, is all.

Was a bit railroad-y. Organised play is a trifle soulless, not sure it’s really my thing. Not a lot of scope for role-play or originality – run the encounters, do the faction quests, and fill in the campaign sheet at the end.

We’ll see how it goes.

Kingmaker – Giacomo’s notes-for-epic

Have forgotten what those jumping things were. I was very frightened when I escaped this way, but now with Jope and everyone is no problem. But now we are here – up there is where I escaped down the garbage chute. There are carrion-crawlers up there, but Jope lent Rainor his ring of not-being-paralyzed, so is all right. Everyone is very grim and fierce and has scary-face, because there are drow.

Yeah, I missed a week.

At long last far journey underground through forgotten cave and lightless river, past guards fearsome arrived Jope at drow-fortress, kobold-friend at kobold-bane and prison. Lithe Rainor did ascend through secret ways and beheld farm and fortress, place of captivity. Then did each ascend, grim and ready for war. Ancient hate hard on face of dwarf and elf, enmity bitter, for drow above did make dwelling. Beware thou, noble Jope! Beside the strides hate older than man, eager for war and havok.

The writer/translator of Beowulf was a big fan of alliteration:

Now each was to the other
All loathly while living; his body sore bided
The monster; was manifest now on his shoulder
The unceasing wound, sprang the sinews asunder,
The bone-lockers bursted.