BFRPG Adventure Log 2: Entering Morgansfort and the return to The Old Island Fortress.

In the last Adventurelog (playing BFRPG) the dwarven cleric Alloy Mc'Copertin was leaving the Old Island Fortress with his comrade Fospherous Copperblade's body, gear and 5 giants hexs of honey strapped to his pony. Followed by a female kobold who believe the two of them to now be mates.

They travel along the old road, west at first and then north and quickly arrived at Morgansfort. Walking into the 10 foot wide passage through the gate house their reception was less then friendly. The guards were slightly taken aback but not fearful of the lonely kobold next to the dwarf but
without the ability to communicate in common they eventually submitted to being searched and having their weapons temporarily confiscated.

Their coins were counted and they had less then 5 gold pieces on them, none the less 1 gold was taken as tax and the rest crimped with an inked pressing tool to mark them as legal current tender.

They were then escorted by two gaurds into the keep, east and then north around past the stable straight to the warehouse, where they were shown their weapons being stored, the cost of which would be covered by their over payment of tax rather then haggled with more.

Then they were led back to the stables where the gaurds argued with the family running it for a bit. After some time and a bit of wandering their eyes around the common area they were led to the traders. Alloy had still failed to communicate much and mistook the trader as another warehouse. However, eventually it was established that the trade would purchase the honeycombs.

The price of the honey combs in South Town (the unnamed town from JN1 The Chaotic Caves.) is listed in the overland keyed location 7 at 40-50 gp each. Morgansfort doesn't receive much of a supply of honey or sweets and the trader would have payed 50 but after time wasted dealing with the guards, the dwarf and the pony he decided to pay only 40 each resulting in 200 GP being handed over to the dwarf.

Alloy separated them into two bags, figuring the honey was as much the kobolds as his he handed her a bag. This of course completely shocked the female kobold as she had never had more then 1 gp in her hand before.

Exiting the trader and not knowing where to go they saw the nearest faded sign to the north depicted dried herbs. So they entered wondering if food was sold there but found a friendly women who eventually had her daughter make them tea and  she sat with them for awhile, realizing they had no idea she was an apothecary.

Alloy and the kobold eventually were asked to leave without much trouble and upon exiting noticed a nicer looking sign across the way with an image of a beer mug. So they walked past the sign with a moon and into the tavern.

Six people sat around a table as two young waitress served wine and beer. They are reacted unfriendly toward the newcomers, Alloy smiled at them but choose to sit at the bar. He placed a gold coin on the bar, the kobold copying but with only 1 copper coin.

Each of them were given a hearty meal and mug of ale. After some time the dwarf got weary of bad looks and decided to try and make friends. He gestured at a serving tray and showed six of his fingers and then slid of six gold coins. Having over payed and been given six beers he carried them to the table and handed them out amongst the men. all of which disliked his show boating as they took.

Alloy eventually realized his plane failed he stormed out into the night, surprising no gaurds were around. He stormed into the stable and untied his pony and saddled it up. The stablemaster's son awoke in the loft and jumped down but shouting at the dwarf had no effect and was his pony but he decided to briefly call for the guard. Again the night patrol had a either not come around yet or already passed. (rolls were failing badly for them)

The kobold hissed at the human shutting him up. Alloy then led his pony over to the warehouse which was locked from the inside with between 1-4 workers asleep in there assuming none were at the tavern or hidden somewhere gambling.

Upon trying the door and finding it stuff Alloy shoved his shoulder into ( 1 in 6 chance to force a door open and rolling a 1, well the lock probably wasn't amazing anyway) the warehouse was dark but the dwarf didn't need a light. He began loading up his weapons.

A single worker awoke with a start and saw small creatures moving about the warehouse then heard a flick and was hit in the chest with a gold coin. (failed his moral save and couldn't entirely see what was happening)

Nothing was stolen save for one spear that the kobold took.

Exiting the warehouse a roll was again made for the watch, another had been made while inside. Still no gaurds around but extra rolls were made for the adjacent tower, no guards were looking.

Upon reaching the front gate with a fully loaded pony and confidently walking out the front gaurds raised the get just high enough for the two to duck under and be on their way.

The kobold and Alloy traveled along the old road that night uneventfully, rowed across the calm waters to the Old Island Fort. Entered without any random encounters greeted the kobolds now guarding the honey room and then went along past entering the Kobold lair and sharing some of their coin from the sell of honey they laid down for night, comfortably away from the annoying humans.

In all likely hood the kobold clan will end up being hired as mercenaries or Alloy may also find himself involved in a clan war against neighboring goblins he is yet to learn about.

BFRPG Adventure Log 1: Entering The Old Island Fortress; Dwarves and Kobolds.

Having recently purchased print copies a handful of books for Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game (the core rule book, Field Guide, Morgans Fort and The Chaotic Caves) all for about 20 bucks on Amazon despite being available for free to download  on their website, we decided to stop our latest attempts at home brewed campaigns and try out this game and mostly if not completely play by the book.
We rolled up about eight characters in total almost of which could have been considered hopeless but two characters were chosen to keep. A third player did not finish her character but it would have been an Elven Magic-user/Thief.

The two characters were a Dwarven Cleric and a Dwarven Fighter, for us this was a very unusual group, especially for the player with the Dwarven Fighter who usually plays neither of those things.

The player with the Fighter choose the name Fospherous Copperblade. As the DM I thought this was entertaining and different from her usual choices and felt like in the mood to allow it whcih led to the Cleric being named Alloy Mc'Copertin.

The characters were made last week actually and with a short amount of time attempting to roll up the elf before she decided not to play, combined with us not having a lot of time available tonight we decided to head straight for the Old Island Fortress.

The players had been given three options with the assumption they were traveling with a guarded caravan. They could arrive at Morgan's Fort (Which we keep calling Morgan's Keep or The Keep) or they could split up at the fork on the old road or continue south into th forest and eventually arrive at.. ? South Town (the named town in JN1 The Chaotic Caves.)

Having split off at the fork and arrived at the shores of the islands uneventfully the located the abandoned boats an rowed across to the Old Island Fortress. Although the Dwarven Clerics pony complied with getting into a large rowboat it refused to enter the ruins.

Slowly they check every single stair on the way down into dungeon an despite having dark vision decided to light a torch and choose to have the cleric lag behind by 10 ten feet. The fighter circled the first room peering down the east corridor and seeing a door, noting what it was made of and how strong it looked then around to the south and peering down along the wall.

A passage to the west and a door to east, both fighters failed to hear the ominous humm. Then circling to the west and seeing this corridor split north and south but also continuing into darkness,

Finally they discuss their options but this alerts some creatures near by and growling is heard to the west. The fighter quickly hurls away the torch and presses against the wall. The torch hit the ceiling and then the doorway to the east bouncing back into the center of the room brightly lighting the two dwarves.

Still they press against the wall and wait. Nothing comes and the growling stops. The fighter fetches the torch and throws it again to the east, intentionally landing it by the wooden door lighting it on fire and the hurries to down the southern passage the Cleric trailing 10 feet behind.

Neither are heavy enough to alone set off the pit trap they pass over, one by one failing to notice it despite being dwarves. Both also unaware of the 2d6 (10) kobolds that had wandered into the room behind the now burning door.

The kobold aware of the nearby layout rush 5 of them past their lair grabbing some reinforcements and heading west and around to the north now turning the corner just as a dwarf suddenly turns the corner.

Both parties being prepared for an encounter a surprise check indicates neither side is caught off guard. The kobolds are relived to see a single dwarf as he is no group of enemy goblins or party of human adventurers (reaction check friendly)

However the humm has now grown into a buzz as a the giant bees exit the broken door that is now behind the dwarf who is primary concern with guarding against the sudden appearance of an army of kobolds higher the he can count in hurry. (int 8)

Initiative is rolled, two bees exit and sting the dwarven fighter who is dropped to -4 hp. (The player began counting negatives without even being asked to.) Save vs poison on the first sting is a success but not on the second. Two rounds of 1d6 damage as poison curses through the dying dwarfs veins.

Originally not intending to use negative hit points I asked the player to make a save vs death(ray) and she succeeds and will be stable for 10 rounds. But that was 10 rounds due to damage not poison, so poison damage is later rolled for round 2, 1d6 (5) the player tallies her sheet and announces -9 hitpoints.

uring this time the Kobolds decided the bee's are out of the hive and distracted, succeeding a moral save they decided to attack and rush in with their spears, hoping to pincer them against the door and not let to many out at once.

The first two move up and one stabs at the first giant bee and kills it, the second kobold injuring the second bee. Another bee exit's as the Cleric Dwarf having succeeded his own moral check is uncertain what to do and hesitates, backing away means entering torch light but his companions body is surrounded by kobolds.

The next two kobolds drop the two bee's in the corridor and a third kobold positions himself in front of the door ready. A single kobold gets the idea to try to save the dwarf but is uncertain how to at best he can try to stop some bleeding or drag him out of the fray.

However by round three despite the Cleric joining in and the kobolds finishing off the remaining two bee's easily the Dwarven Fighter rolls again for poison damage. Six... The player announces -15 hp. This was the planned on rule anyway but having taken even more damage below zero and everyone agreeing it makes sense that poison was still in the Dwarfs system even if otherwise stable, I decided to allow one last save vs death(ray). Failure.

The Cleric follows a few kobolds who take the Dwarfs body to their lair. Checking on his companion he confirms the Fighter is dead. The kobolds celebrate by sharing honey all around and cutting up the hexs of golden food. The Dwarven cleric looks over his companion body and decides to take it back up north to Morgan's Fort.

Sorting through the fallen dwarfs belongings he finds 4 gold pieces and decides the longsword and silver dagger are useless to him since he is a cleric. He offers 1 coin and the silver dagger to who ever looks like the strongest or most in charge kobold.

This is mis interpreted however. All though low on potential mates the kobolds find they are no longer trapped in a single corner and have new escape route from the complex. The bee's are no longer a threat and they have plenty of food. With the addition of a silver dagger which they wonder if it might be magical they decided this dwarf would be a valuable ally. So they give him in exchange a young kobold women as wife or mate. The Dwarf does not know this as he only speaks dwarf.

The player who lost a fighter had decided it would be fun to be kobold and could jump right back into the game and so this was the decided outcome.

The kobolds award the dwarf a further 1d6 giant hexs of honey (5) an help him carry everything out to his pony and strap it all on with rope. Then Alloy Mc'Copertin heads out into the evening followed by a random kobold who believes them mated.

Next post will be about their arrival at Morgan's Fort and return to the Old Island Fortress.

Knight (Custom Class)

The second class for my Custom Players Handbook is the Knight.

A few complaint's I have seen about fighters and knights is a lack of versatility and the overall weakness at higher levels. Keeping that in mind I designed this class quite differently than standard.

This is not a specialized weapon expert nor is this a mounted knight (even though a mounted knight is more historically accurate.)

Instead of getting powerful spells like a wizard or lots of choice like a fighter, this knight gets lots of  preselected feats and abilities. Faced with fighting many different situations the traveling man at arms has developed these many different talents and only slightly specializes with a sword and shield.

Boosted by a higher Hit Die more Skills and later Spell Resistance I hope that he will come across as a powerful warrior who doesn't need tons of planning before play and stays tough at higher levels. Of course, it hasn't been playtested at all at this point so I look forward to feedback.  

Knight

Alignment: Lawful (Good, Neutral or Evil)

Hit Die: d12

Skill Points: 4 + Int modifier

Minimum Str & Int: 13

Proficiency:

Good Base Attack

Two Saving Throws (Three if Attribute based.)

Weapon Groups Heavy Blades, Spears & Lances

Light, Medium & Heavy Armor & Shields

Level	Abilities
1	Fitted Armor,
2	Shield Expert, Improved Initiative +4
3	Sword Play, Endurance
4	Power Attack, Cleave
5	Mobility, Spring Attack
6	Improved Bull Rush, Improved Over Run
7	Leadership, Call to Arms
8	Hold the Line, Throw Anything
9	Blind-Fight, Run
10	Spell Resistance 1 per every 2 levels
11	Improved Fitted Armor
12	Improved Shield Bash
13	Weapon Play, Die Hard
14	Great Cleave, Exertion
15	Combat Expertise, Whirlwind Attack
16	Move Aside
17	Indomitable Will +4 vs Enchantments
18	Dangerous Reach
19	Improved Initiative +8
20	Great Fortitude, Lightning Reflexes, Iron will, Leadership x2

Fitted Armor: With any armor that is the right size for its wearer, you can spend time adjusting and fitting the armor properly resulting in ½ check penalty, or guiding a squire to do. This takes 1 minute for light armor 2 minutes for medium armor and 4 minutes for heavy armor. At 6^th level the check penalty is completely eliminated.

Shield Expert: x2 AC bonus from your shield

Sword Play: When Fighting with a sword you are proficient in you automatically count as having the feats; Improved Disarm, Improved Feint, Improved Trip, Improved Sunder and Quick Draw and Combat Reflexes. This applies to any weapon you are proficient in at level 13.

Call to Arms: As a standard action you can shout and rally all allies within 10ft per level. Granting them an additional save against fear effects with a +4 bonus vs fear for 1 round per level.

Hold The Line: Make an attack of opportunity against a charging foe.

Throw Anything: Any Melee weapon can be thrown with a range increment of 10ft at no penalty.

Exertion: Lose up to 1 hp per base attack and deal +1 damage per hp lost this way. Stacks with power attack.

Move Aside: Walk right through enemy squares with no skill check spending one attack of opportunity to negate two attacks of opportunity from opponents.

Dangerous Reach: Make an attack of opportunity against anyone who engages you in melee without flanking you. Stacks with Hold the Line and reach weapons.

Patronage: As a soldier in the military, a sellsword, or servant to a noble, most knights will receive large gifts of money or land. Each time you gain a feat at levels; 1, 3, 5, 7, & 9, you may choose to forgo the feat or extra training and instead spend time earning your patronage and receive 2000gp x your level and 3000gp x your level at levels 11, 13, 15, & 18. (This should be above normal wealth by level progression.)

The DM may allow you to spend feats gained in other ways on patronage if he feels it's fair.

Assassin (Custom Class)

I am putting together a custom players handbook for basically a 3rd edition D&D game and this is the first class that I created for it. 

Unlike similar classes, this assassin is not pigeon holed into using poison or a specific weapon or even being forced to hide in shadows or watch their victim. Instead, almost every ability is set up to allow him to simply strike. In or out of combat noticed or not noticed, sneaking or not sneaking the Assassin will score a critical hit after critical hit killing you for good. 

Assassin

Alignment: Any

Hit Die: d8

Skill Points: 4 + Int modifier

Proficiency:

Average Base Attack

One Good Saving Throw (Two if Attribute based.)

Two Weapon Groups

Light Armor and Shields

Level	Ability
1	Weapon Finesse, Vital Strike +1
2	Alertness
3	Vital Strike +2
4	Skill Focus Bluff +3
5	Vital Strike +3
6	Evasion
7	Vital Strike +4
8	Stealth Kill
9	Vital Strike +5
10	Quite Kill
11	Vital Strike +6, Extra Critical Damage Die
12	Improved Alertness
13	Vital Strike +7
14	Improved Evasion
15	Vital Strike +8
16	Amblyopia
17	Vital Strike +9
18	Coup de Grace
19	Vital Strike +10
20	Angle of Death

Vital Strike: Increase critical hit range by 1 per bonus and deal one extra damage per damage die during a critical hit. This is during any finesse weapon based attack. (If using multipliers for critical hits then multiply this as well.)

Do not add the bonus from Vital Strike onto dice added from sneak attacks or death attacks.

A flaming burst dagger deals 1d4 weapon dmg + 1d6 fire dmg
+ 1d10 burst dmg on a crit. It criticals on 19-20 for x2

With Vital Strike 4 it would crit on 16-20 dealing (1d4+4)x2 +1d6 +1d10+4

This one would work as it is a finesse weapon.

(IDK maybe I should cut the 1d10+4 but it sounds fun)

Enable to judge if this is two weak or not we need to keep in mind
a similar level rouge would be adding +4d6 to any hit critical or not if he is flanking.
Using the Multiple dice crit method it would deal
2d4+8(two dice +4 each) + 1d6 + 1d10+4

Alertness: Gain+2 on perception checks such as listen and spot even while sleeping.

Evasion: Anytime you succeed a Dex based saving throw and take half damage or miss damage, instead take zero damage. Only if not helpless and wearing armor you are proficient in. If you already have Evasion you automatically gain Improved Evasion instead.

Improved Alertness: Retain your Dex bonus to AC even if caught flat-footed. You still lose your bonus to AC if immobilized or helpless.

Improved Evasion: You only take half damage on a failed Dex based Saving Throw.

Stealth Kill: While not being directly observed you can make a Sleight of Hand or Stealth check (whichever is more appropriate) opposed by Perception checks from those in line-of-sight to prevent them from identifying him as the attacker.

Quite Kill: Upon killing a target in melee with a finesse weapon or with a quiet ranged weapon that uses dexterity to hit at one-half range, the kill is silent and may go unnoticed if not being directly observed. This includes making discrete wounds so those nearby might not even notice that the target is dead for a few moments.

Amblyopia: (EX) Rolling Bluff vs Perception allows you to simply appear like you belong where ever you are at even in an enemy stronghold or hidden in a crowd without the need for a disguise. Essentially allowing you to hide in plain sight.

Coup de Grace: If in one hit you bring an unsuspecting target to wounded or bloodied status (one-half hp) he is instead killed.

Angel of Death: (SU) Cha vs Will; Targets you kill at your choice cannot be resurrected.

As you can tell his style is to strike unexpectedly but will you train him to be a spy who disguises himself and gathers information to get in or a rogue who uses sneaking and hiding to come out of the shadows and attack? Or perhaps a bandit with a bow or crossbow who sits in a tree aiming for your vital organs?

Funny Story. To me anyway,

    Originally I was going to share part of this as a passing comment on my patreon account but decided that it was too long so I cut it while thinking "But I kinda want to share this story." Then I remembered what Anthony Hargis said in a comment,

"Do what makes you happy. I haven't had a gaming group in years. If that's all I wanted to write about, I'd really have nothing to say. Write what you feel, you'll be happier for it and your blog will be all the better for it too."

I took this mean blog about whatever I want to so I decided to bring the Story over here,

     So at the moment I am switching computers again after recently having had my macbook power cable burn out for the idk 3rd-5th time something like that. But I did get another computer running just this last week and so now I am using that,

     How I got the computer started when my wife was leaving to go shopping and called me outside and told me there was a shopping cart in the dumpster down the street. She could see it sticking out of the dumpster from our yard. I figured buying a cart like that can cost between 1-3 hundred dollars last I knew so no harm in checking it out. Turned out to be a shorter one with two baskets and a bottom shelf all metal but the kind of style you might see at a dollar store. All the company logo's had been removed by who ever likely stole it but since it was in the trash why not take it out.

     That's when I saw underneath it was a busted up looking computer. Since we were down to one barely functioning laptop that can't run most games without overheating even using 2-3 fans and its internal cooling fan. I decided to take a look at this dumpster computer.

     One second my wife is driving by in the car thinking I'm pulling a cart out of a dumpster, the next second I have jumped inside the dumpster and am shouting "Yes! Yes!"

     I could tell from the sticker on the case that it was a windows vista computer and based on how nice the outside metal and plastic was I could tell it was likely new enough to be dual core. Not only that but the case had been opened and the removable panel was missing, telling me two things."

    One; someone tried to repair it and threw it away. Meaning it wasn't thrown out just from being to old. Two; I could see two ram chips, a dvd drive, a hard drive, power supply, cooling fan, motherboard. This would be worth taking just for the parts alone.

     After having sailed across the sea with my victorious bounty of pirate treasure. I was now in my living room with my old broken vista computer I always thought I could fix and this new one I had acquired.

    Using a CD I got form college with windows 7 on it and about an hour of fighting with the new computer I got it to boot with a new operating system. Unfortunately the product key on my CD seems to no longer be valid so I am left with windows saying it is not genuine until I buy a new key, but now that I could look at the computer properties it indeed was dual core, and 64 bit with 2 GB of RAM.

     So from my broken computer I pulled out two 1.5 GB RAM sticks and the old hard drive and dvd drive and added the ram to the new computer, mounted and connected the hard drive and lazily left the dvd drive lying around.

     Booting back up the new computer it was now running smoothly and showing 5 GB of RAM and an unknown device which is likely the hard drive I need to find a way to make work. Maybe it needs drivers or something something about a IDE switch needing to be set to slave idk.

     But this desktop was running great, turned out it has no real capability to play 3d games, hopefully a graphics card can be added, but with 5 GB of RAM and no over heating problems it was amzing to be able to surf the internet while installing steam and running slim drivers and even netflix worked very well. Oh yeah, we did have an old windows XP desktop we inherited but it takes it 5 mins to load chrome and can't play netflix at all.

     Also from the dumpster a nice looking keyboard, not sticky or anything, but a quarter of the keys don't seam to register. No mouse, but it did come with a nice monitor with built in speakers so all I had to down was track down an old audio cable and now I have a desktop with sound. The XP desktop's speakers weren't working for some reason.

     So there is my family excited to be having some good luck and now we have two working computers and a crumby shopping cart when my wife decides to go do her homework on her laptop. I had been using it to play The Binding of Isaac so she logs me out and logs into her account but nothing seams to be working. She can't launch chrome or firefox and eventually realizes nothing will run.

     So she does her home work on our new dumpster computer while I power off her lap top and find it now won't boot back up, startup repairs gets stuck on a black screen, booting windows gets stuck on the starting windows screen and booting from my CD goes to a black screen with a curser.

     Safe mode doesn't work, low resolution mode doesn't work. Idk, I guess something is broken with the graphics driver based on my google research but anyway it's not working at all and only one or two days after I finally got the motivation to get back to working on my making video games.

     So for better or worse we are back to only one working computer and although it is working faster and nicer then the laptop it has a non valid copy of windows and can't play 3d video games.

     Kinda funny, Kinda sucky, Long Post.

If you read clear to here then cheers mate.

heromedel (Blue Jester needs new computer, badly)

Retro-Pixel Castles: Game Review

An interesting game I got on Steam awhile back ago and still find my self occasionally interested in. Despite the generic name the designer is making a game not quite like most games that I would consider it similar to.

It is fairly simple in some ways, you basically command a group of settlers to work and build a settlement while also worrying about food, resources and eventual attacks from monsters such as zombies and skeletons.

But unlike most settlement games this one allows you to use your godly powers to scoop up settlers and/or resources and take them to another part of a much larger map. I find this makes the game more immersive as each settler provides you with power and the fruits of his work as well as gaining levels and think skill types are being added to the game.

So I could take my people from map to map building new homes and having new children and defending from enemies until the monsters became overwhelming and then scoop up as many of people as I could and head out to new land with my higher level settlers doing better each time.

The only snag I really hit was that eventually my settlement got too big for my computer to handle and everything slowed way down. However the designer is still hard at work improving the games features and performance. I recently spoke with him over steam and it seams he has plans to remove some of the load off the CPU to the GPU by something something particle physics. That sounds nice.

But no really this is a fun game and the designer seams capable and personable. It's currently 10 dollars on steam, I don't remember if I got it on sale or not but I have played it for 16 hours and could easily see me putting in another 16.

Also there isn't really castles just fun to build walls around your various settlement buildns. It would be more aptly described as Non-Retro Pixel Rouge-Lite Settlement Sim. just sayin.


Graphics: Can't comment as they were changed in the update right after I took a break from playing.

Sound: Seemed fine to me enjoyable catchy music and no issues.

Gameplay: Great, this what I'll will be going back for someday.

Performances: I'd say 4/5 stars here I have heard of mostly only minor issues other the cpu heavy performance which the designer is aware of and working on. (Early Access and all)

Over All Score: 16 hours of fun for 10 bucks or less easily and will likely put in another 16 or more. So although it may not be the next CK2 or Terraria for me it has lots of potential and I think it could teach some other designers about innovation and game play.

Final Decision: Buy it. Hell if you got the money don't even wait for a sale just go ahead and support the developer and maybe ask him to start plans on one day making a sequel.

Link to it's website.

Thought's on Blogging

When I first made this blog it was originally intended to be about role-playing games, mostly pen and paper games but also by extension video games and projects I was working on. However it's primary success (at least back in the day) seemed to be doing reviews. Ah, there was time when I spoke directly to other authors and game designers and they were happy to be featured on my blog. I largely stopped blogging when my gaming group split up and to this day I don't have strong group of people to game with.

However it wasn't my adventure logs and gaming ideas that spurred the most interest, although those are very fun to write about.

So I think I may attempt to get back into blogging but this time instead of being worried about D&D posts or the like I will go back to writing about what ever I feel like, perhaps with an emphasis on game reviews.

One of the best decisions I made was naming the blog after my username and not naming it after it's implied content. As such I can change the direction of the blog as much as I see fit, hopefully not too much though.

But first just to clarify my own thoughts I want to go over a few things. First, I admit I tend to jump from project to project sometimes to quickly and not always finishing what I intended. Second, I do sometimes get to caught up in wanting to make things perfect or focusing to much on success. But it is despite or because of those reasons that I am surprisingly happy with this blog. At this point it has survived many abandoned projects and waves of popularity and spans of emptiness, yet I still find myself coming back.

I don't think I could ever delete this blog or completely abandon it. Not without at least having a much better replacement. I am amazed having amassed the amount of posts and traffic that I did at the time whether it is seen as alot or alittle in the vastness of the internet, I am just happy to have contributed something.

So thank you to my readers and thank you to my fellow bloggers who showed an interest in working together and also thank you to the RPGBA who I just think are awesome to know is there especially in times when not much else is going on in my viewership.

One last thing, I'm not currently planning on sharing my short stories or fiction writing on this blog as I think I will begin making better use of my writing blog for that.

More Recent video of my Gothic Vampire Game

I didn't realize I had already made these videos public. Please excuse the sound quality though I wasn't using a head set.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljp-jmrlTms

You can also look at some of the art assets on this other post

Help Support my work by becoming a patron

Patreon

I created an account on Patreon and best of all I already got my first patron.

This helps to support my creative works such as this plog, rpg posts, game design ect. And also to help me support BIG (Basic Income Guarantee). Since this is a gaming blog I probably won't talk alot about that here but I plan to do whatever I can to Support that.

So check out my profile here and if you like my work or want to help out then consider becoming a patron. Thanks :)

New Game Project: Gothic Vampire

I recently started a new video game project that I hope to actually publish and thus am keeping it fairly simple but this time I am trying to make it alot more artistic.

It's theme is gothic and thus I hoping to keep the game play slow paced enough to feel right but that part could be difficult because it also meant to be simple like an aracde game. Which of course are usually fast paced.

Here are a few of the art assets and soon I hope to share some videos.

A screenshot just is not going to do it justice as it doesn't show any of the action.

As of now movement is working, as is turning into bat form, firing small bats. collision against walls and the coffin, as well as one easter egg.

An interesting book I am helping spread the word about.

It is a fantasy book about creature that grows up in a cathedral. Classic hunchback / Frankensteinish story but nicely written and Gothic.Called, The Creature of Belmont.  It is short however about 2500 words with some a few nice illustrations.

I like the characters and the protagonist. The generally tone of it all.

Check it out on amazon and read the sample by clicking on the image on the amazon page.

If you happen to buy it don't forget to leave a review. It's brand new so you may be the first. It's only $2.99 on kindle or any app that reads kindle files. That's literately the cheapest they come.









     You can find it here or on the link above.

RQ Solo Adv log 6 (Gerg gets trapped)

This is part 6 of my solo RuneQuest adventure log. Part 1 can be found here.

Each time I play and Gerg goes into the dungeon I completly expect him to die. This adventure, Scorpion Hall, is written so that every time you return, supposedly with a new adventurer, you run into increasingly difficult scorpion hunters.

This time I fought hunter number four and he spotted me first. However he only landed one blow, hitting Gerg's left leg and disabling it.

Gerg however was able to land two blows the first removing the scorpions right rear leg and the second dealing more then twice as much damage as the scorpions right arm could take.

Even with the scorpion having more then twice the chance to hit and casting bladesharp and protect on himself.

So after patching himself up Gerg went back into the castle. Choosing to go past where he killed the Giant Lizard he went into the next room and found some stairs.

But not before being surprise attacked by a Spider Demon who miraculously missed both biting Gerg and shooting him with web.

This time Gerg struck before casting any spells, planning to throw up a wall of light but instead killed the spider on first strike.

Continuing down the stairs he decided to stick the east as much as he could but saw some boxes and a bucket of tallow.

When I decided he would search the room the adventure informed me the door slams and locks behind him and without giving me any choice decides my adventurer digs through some rubble.

I found thus annoying because I would have liked to attempt to bash through the door.

After digging through the rubble Gerg find a scorpion guard waiting for him.

He was big and had two trails and a poleaxe. Being in a narrow hall Gerg was suppose to be at a penalty to hit, though he had a spear.

The scorpion casted disruption and Gerg now only having 10 pow, instead of his previous 16, still managed to resist the magic.

The scorpion man then charged forward with his poleaxe, fumbling and dropping his weapon. Finally Gerg's turn, he stabs with his spear and scores a hit. Directly on the creatures head. Rolling regular damage a bonus from his high strength, Gerg once again kills his enemy in one hit.

This surprises me because his skill is only around 50% and even less to parry.

But besides some damage to his leg and buckler from the first fight Gerg is relatively untouched.

He left the scorpions weapons there and returned to try and dig out a door he saw earlier. This one was jammed and despite his high strength, Gerg was unable to own it.

Planning to keep to the east Gerg choose a diffrent path. Not going further then one or two rooms later he found a stash of 20 gold Wheels and a gem. (Worth 850 Silver Lunars).

Now trapped underground but doing surprisingly well he continued in about the same direction. After going through a door he discovered some stairs going up and upon climbing them he found himself back in the spider room.

At this point I have made no attempt to map the place. After returning to the courtyard I was unsure if the description mentioned the way out. So Gerg picked around a few more rooms one smelled very bad and he also found 25 copper.

Finally he left Scorpion Hall.

After calculating his loot and trying to double check the conversions, it looks to me like he pulled out 12,900 copper pennies worth of loot.

I guess he will be increasing his life style.

Click here to read part one

Click here to read the previous log.

Part seven will be posted next week

Comments can be posted below or on google+

RQ Solo Adv Log 5 (Gerg learns to enchant)

This is part 5 of my solo RuneQuest adventure log. Part 1 can be found here.


After returning to town wounded from fighting another hunter and a giant lizard, Gerg has realized each time he returns the scorpion hunters are better prepared for him.

He previously learned an armor enchantment spell but had no training or experince in ceremony or enchanting rituals.

He asked his shaman friend to prepare to teach him another spell while he hires someone to train him in town.

First returning to his old trainer and increasing his ability to fight with spear and buckler only slightly, then spent some time learning to listen and track.

He also spent about three months studing ceremony and enchanting as well as painting or dyeing so he could makes his own runes on leather armor.

During this time the shaman he befriended found a spirit that would raise his Strength spell. (I am doing all the spells random so I cannot just pick and choose what I feel would be most powerful.)

Finally he was ready to try enchanting. I wasn't sure if failing a cermony check meant you had to proced with no bonus or if you could abort and try the cermony again, since once you try the final enchantment roll a failure means you lose the power you were going to put into the enchantment.

So I tried to comprimise by rolling nearly individualy for each hour or more of ceremoney. This may have been too easy as it gauranteed at least some bonus. But his skills were still a bit low.

He successfully enchanted his buckler with 3 more points of armor and each arm of his leather armor about 5 points of armor each.

He failed once on his right arm as well as on the head and chest of his armor. Each of these was done as a seperate ritual taking over a week. In all costing him 6 Pow.

I may have handled some of the rolls incorrectly but in the end he got about half done what he wanted.

In RQ 3e it says ritual skills never gain exp from use but only through research. Im not sure I agree with that.

After a week of rest and then recalculating his skill levels due to the power change and his new spell, he would set back out for Scorpion Hall.

Up to this point more then half of his 11k copper pennies were still left so I subtracted another thousand assuming they went toward enchanting and training supplies, new clothes, equipment repairs and other expenses. Maybe in the future he will just increase his cost of living to a higher category.

Click here to read part one

Click here to read the previous log entry

Click here to read part 6

RQ solo adv log 4 (Gerg and his new spell)

This is part 4 of my solo RuneQuest adventure log. Part 1 can be found here.

Having returned to town from Scorpion Hall, Gerg Droffats spent an entire year in game living in the city and paying for taining.

First hiring somone to teach him to read Imperial. He found the scroll was instructions on how to fight with a scimitar.

He spent some time studying out before settling it and then hired someone to teach him to fight better with his spear and buckler.

Later moving on to learning how to hide and sneak hoping to not get found so easily by the scorpion hunters as before. Then he bought himself armor which he quickly realized he could not sneak around in without even more training.

After some time he resorted to building up his physical strengh from an 8 to a 10.

He also spent some of this time seeking out and befriending a shaman. Over the course of the year he learned three new spells. Vigor, lightwall and ignite.

The last spell appearing to be weak and useless.

After spending more then twice as much time away from Scorpion Hall then he meant to, Gerg finally set out to return.

Sailing his boat back to the same spot as before he attempted to sneak to the castle. He nearly slammed right into a huge scorpion hunter with a pole axe.

The hunter had better reach and hit hard quickly knocking Gerg to ground. Despite his new Vigor spell Gerg found him self being cripled and brought nearly to death in only 2-3 hits.

After having landed only one or two minor blow Gerg tried to back away and did the obly thing he could think of. He had to remove the poleaxe from the equation.

He casted ignite on the pole axe's handle. Rolling to beat the scorpions power Gerg succeded and the scorpion dropped the weapon.

This time the hunter backed away to heal and Gerg crawling foward once again on the ground desperate to kill and not be eaten he lands yet again another critical blow to a scorpion hunters chest.

His buckler was damage and he was hurting but after patching himself up he collected the hunters weapons and took them to his boat and the went back to Scorpion Hall.

This time choosing the entrance to his left (I think) and entering.

Slowly exploring inward he came accross a giant lizard. Gerg casted light wall hoping to blind it and tried to use his scimitar in one hand to parry while thrusting with his spear.

The battle was quick but left Gerg even more injured and now with his scimitar and buckler damaged.

This time with no treasure he was forced to leave. At first with the plan in his boat, but after realizing it would take a month for his body too recover he decided to go back to town.

Click here to read part one

Click here to read the previous log.

Click here to read part 5

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How Dwarf Trees are used for Fairy Cities.

This was originaly a comment I left on Jason Bricks discussion about a fantasy version of Dwarf Trees.The basic premise is, what appears to be a small tree above ground is actually a huge underground tree.
I decided I would post one of my responses here as I find it interesting and wanted to save it, since I will likely use it in later campaigns.

You can view the original discussion here. Which contains more fun ideas about The Dwarf's Trees.


When dwarf trees ( or The Dwarf's Trees as some people call them) grow in a circle cultivated by fairies, the underground cone of wood that is formed becomes almost completely impenetrable due to their tough nature and the fairy magic.

One of the few ways into an underground fairy circle, which is alot like a tiny city, is to first destroy the magic of the above ground circle of foliage. Which can itself be very difficult. Its like taking on an ant colony of fairy folk.

The above ground circle may appear to be between 7 to 13 trees only 12 to 15 feet tall sometimes even appearing smaller like sprawling bushes of branches. But underneath is a cone of dwarf tree trunks going hundreds of feet down with the trees interlocking making it wider then a human house or even larger.

 It is unknown exactly how many fairy folk, gnomes or other of their kin can live inside an underground fairy circle. But it has been seen that over populated fairy cities sometimes hollow out old parts of the trunk and 15 foot thick branches to make room for more fairy residences.

Sometimes the mischief caused by such a fairy city stretches hundreds of miles away from the source.

Some fairy mounds, as the traditional fairy citys are called, is actually a circle of dwarf trees who's branches have been buried over and grass and flowers grown right on top disguising the circle as a knoll or foot hill.

This may be further evidence that dwarf trees may be able to survive without sun light.

RQ Solo Adv Log 3 (Gerg gets rich)

This is part 3 of my solo RuneQuest adventure log. Part 1 can be found here.

After a week or two of resting and eating mainly salted fish, Droffats Gerg decides to once again head toward Scorpion Hall.

This time he is away from his boat when the second scorpion hunter finds him.  I don't remember how this battle played out exactly but the hunter was using a large sword and kept missing when he tried to sting with his tail.

Gerg got hit in two or three diffrent areas, largely surviving thanks to his buckler and the hunters inability to parry. Then spent some time badaging himself up.

 In both battles he collected some of the scorpions weapons and either kept them or dropped them off at his boat.

Finally Gerg was able to enter the castle. The inner court yard had several entrances and some rubble. Of course Gerg must investigate the rubble.

This nearly gets him spit on by a hissing snake. He backs off and spots two or three. He readied his spear aiming for one of them then covered his eyes with his buckler and charged.

It took him sometime doing this to find and kill what turned out to be 4 or 5 snakes and some with diffrent venomes. He also found himself immune to one of the venomes that burned his skin while another snake spit acid at his face severly damaging his buckler.

Barely phased by this fight but smelling like a skunk sprayed him he searches the rumble. Finding a large bag of coins, a scroll and a potion.

I dont know for cetain the exchange rate between the editions but trying to look it up and calculate it, I determined he found over 11k copper pennies worth of coins.

Uncertain if Gerg can read Imperial I decided it was about time for him to return to town.

Having never actually stepped a foot in scopion hall Gerg has had a fairly successful adventure.

Click here to read part one

Click here to read the previous log.

Click here to read the next log

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RQ Solo Adv Log 2 (Gerg)

This is part 3 of my solo RuneQuest adventure log. Part 1 can be found here.

My next character is a barbarian fishermen named Droffats Gerg. Gerg began play with a boat and about 140 cp worth of salted fish. He also had a bunch of rope and other bulky items.

So I decided maybe he could sail down a stream to get within a couple hours walk of Scorpion Hall.

The first scorpion hunter spoted him still on his boat. Gerg decides to drift closer while he casts Strength to increase his damage.

Laying flat to use the boats sides for cover he drifts closer to the Hunter who lobs a stone up and over the boat side hitting gerg in the chest.

The pain from the wound hurt enough to make to were Gerg could only crawl. Something like 5 out of 5 damage taken. Gerg started with no armor.

He may be disabled but if he doesn't fight the scorpion hunter will eat him. So he grabs his spear and flops out of the boat.

The hunter bares down on him but misses with his battle axe despite having the advatge of a bonus to hit.

Gerg thrusts his spear into the hunters leg with minimal effect but the scorpions blow hitting his left arm is also minimal.

Gerg thrusts again this time upward and gets a critical. Dealing 1d8+1 dmg + 1d4 from strength rolled twice and then maximised, I don't know if the 1d4 counts twice but it was either 23 or 27 dmg. Surprisingly the scorpion is dead and Gerg is not.

Gerg is bleeding though and not trained in first aid but with luck once again on his side he makes the skill check. With the bleeding stopped and his arm feeling better he crawls back into the shallow water and flops into his boat.

After applying first aid to his chests. Probably using rope as a makeshift brace for a bruised or broken rib he decides to stay away from scorpion hall for now and instead trys to conceal his boat and rest rather then traveling back to town

Not being trained in conceal he once again makes a lucky roll succesfully hiding himself from any more wandering hunters.

Click here to read part one

Click here to read part three

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RQ Solo Adv Log 1 Nerrip

For when my wife is at work and non one is over I started a solo adventure using RuneQuest 3rd edition. I belive the adventure is 2nd edition. Scorpion Hall.

My first character (Nerrip Evets) was a barbarian farmer. He had access to a heal spell and a chance for divine intervention. 

I decided he was a viking, as I went with an axe and a viking round shield for his primary weapons.

My first runequest encounter ever. A scorpion hunter spots Nerrip in the forest. Nerrip was prepared to throw a javelin but the hunters first sling bullet injures his left arm.

He drops his shield and is now worried about entering melee without it but still moves closer and throws. Misses.

Another sling bullet comes and hits his leg. He draws his axe but decides to heal. The first heal attempt works and moves closer. Planning to heal again then enter melee.

Another sling bullet, he is struck in the abdominal with a lot of damage. My first runequest character dead without even landing a blow.

At this point I decided the stories of lethality of this game are true. Normally I never erase a character or throw away the sheet. But this time I figure its only a solo game and may lose a lot of characters.

So I jot down a quick note about his death then take a big eraser and erase everything. Only then do I remember he could have had a chance for divine intervention.

Click here to read part 2

Rambling about Knowledge.

This was originally written on facebook and was not meant as a blog post but I thought it was a thought worth saving.


I never thought of this before but...
If some one is very well versed in Literature and Especially the history of literature then that person would be considered very sophisticated or cultured.

A similar thing might be said about people into movies especially as they go into historically significant movies or maybe study foreign or indie films.

Yet I would guess that my vast knowledge of video games and roleplaying games including the history and development or even influences of practicably every gaming medium out there (I even have a few specialized areas of interest.) would be more likely to be seen as childish or a waste of time.

For example if I were to begin quoting Gary Gygax or stating the exact date D&D was published. Information that is publicly available I have actually been told that it is evidence that I am "Socially Awkward." yes this is a quote they are her words not mine.

Would we tell someone quoting Shakespeare or Walt Whitman or maybe someone who knew loads of information about John Wayne or Walt Disney, that they are socially awkward.

What I am saying is cant gamers or grognards be considered sophisticated if they actually have a deep and meaningful understanding of their hobby and it's roots. I am often jealous of people who can quote of books and authors, but maybe I shouldn't be.

What if someone like Patrick Stewart had quoted resources from roleplaying while on TV. If someone could quote Steve Jobs or Nolan Bushnell does that not show a similar intelligence as quoting Mark Twain.

I don't know anything about most celebrities but I bet I could give fairly in depth information about people that most of my friends list wouldn't recognize their names.

People like; Ed Greenwood, Hideo Kojima, Monte Cook, Charles Darrow these are people I would enjoy discussing because their names mean something to me. Unfortunately they mean nothing to most of the people I know where as I have no idea who that Kim Cardassian girl is.

But more to the point I know very little about things like moby dick or Schindler's List but I'm sure If I did I would be seen as mature and intellectual, instead of as a nerd or fanboy.

((This isn't necessarily a problem in my life but it does seam to be an oddity in my opinion.))

Themed Dungeon Dressing

	Mine	Cave	Arcane	Ruins	Dungeon
Wood Door	Timber Supports Archway or just a wood door	Roots	Polished Maple Door	Planked Door	Wooden Portcullis
-- Locked	Door and Keyhole	Overgrown	Alarm Spell	Barred	Lever on other side
-- Stuck	Cave In	Petrified	Hold Portal Effect	Rusty Hinges	Rusty Gears
-- Trapped	Tripe Wire drops rocks	Pit	Animated	Spikes or Darts	Tile drops Portcullis on you
Iron Door	Vault Door	Boulder	Reinforced Oak Door	Sliding Hatch	Jail Door
-- Locked	Combination Lock	Cave In	Wizard Lock	Mechanical Lever	Key Hole
-- Stuck	Rusted Turn Crank	Jammed in place or Transmuted Stone	Open/Close effect Re-shuts door	Rusted Gears	Rusted in Place Could be bars or hinges
-- Trapped	Gas Trap	Slime	Spell such as Magic Missile Or Fireball	Animated Dead	Chute to another cell
Small Chamber	Alcove, Break room or storage area.	Partial Cavern	Sitting Room, Bedroom or closet	Partially collapsed room	Cell or break room
Medium Chamber	Ore deposit, Loading zone or barracks	Cavern or serious of Caverns	Library, arena, Master Bedroom, Dining Hall,  Treasure room,  or workshop such as Apothecaries or Artificers	Storage room or old room with decayed furniture maybe bugs rodents or bones	Torture Room, Barracks, cafeteria or waste/body disposal
Large Chamber	Cavern or Rail Station, With Support beams	Serious of caverns and drops offs or underground stream or lake possibly a lair for creatures or a large monster	Cafeteria, Menagerie,  Statue room, garden, Music Hall,	Series of rooms with collapsed walls, ancient temple or throne room,  crypt or burial chamber such as for mummification or ceremonies	Execution chamber or common room for many prisoners to be locked to benched or walls
Passage Way	Tunnels with or without rails usually with support possible natural caverns	Tunnels usually natural and varying heights and depths	Hallway, possibly with pillars or statues. Sometimes chairs and small tables.	Sometimes hallways other times just holes in the wall or crumbled rooms.	Cramped or dark halls torch scones maybe skulls
Archway	Timber Supports	An odd shaped passage or crawl way	Carved Archway of stone or fine maple usually with many patterns possibly faces	Collapsed door or wall, possible a ventilation shaft	Door frame or bars on both sides
Stairs	Dug steps or a rope ladder	Sudden cliffs or drop offs	Spiral stairs or an elevator system	Damage floors or ceilings, old stairs sometimes a sudden collapse or a pile or rumble to climb up or down	Stone stairs, possibly chutes or pits
Secret Door	Concealed or caved in	Strange twists and turns make a passage almost unnoticeable	Illusion or finely crafted secret door such as a sliding wall or rotating bookshelf	Collapsed wall covers a door or passage, or an old sliding door.	Usually concealed construction or masonry such as an emergency escape route or hidden armory.