Showing posts with label d and d. Show all posts
Showing posts with label d and d. Show all posts

Thursday, January 31, 2013

WORD OF THE DAY! 1/31/13.

necromancy [nek-roh-man-see]
noun
1. A method of divination, in other words fortune-telling, through the use of communication with the dead, ghosts, etc.
2. Magic, sorcery, witchcraft, etc.
3. Magic used to resurrect and manipulate the dead, death, and things related to death.

EX. What's cooler than a necromancer? A necromouser!

Monday, December 31, 2012

TABLETOP TALES. WORD OF THE DAY! 12/31/12.

bumble [buhm-buhl]
noun
1. An awkward blunder.
verb
2. To bungler or blunder awkwardly; muddle.
3. To stumble or stagger.
4. To speak in a low, stuttering, halting manner; to mumble.
5. To do something clumsily; to botch.

EX. My first Dungeons and Dragons character was an Advanced D & D Dwarf Cleric of Moradin that I named Bumble Bootsbane. I introduced the rest of his story back in Musical Monday. 11/14/11 and have never really gotten around to giving you guys more of his story. As part of celebrating my birthday, which is 12/31, I am going to also share with you some more details about a character that is an extension of myself; also, the thing about Bumble is that he isn't really a bumbler. In fact, compared to his companions, including an elf king and a couple of paladins, Bumble manages to get himself out of trouble more often than not by using his head and his heart.

I think the first moment where Bumble Boostbane shined was the first time that he and his closest companion Vilnius met an elf (whom he would discover was the uncle of the then Prince Zaurian) in the woods.

Now, if you wanna know anything about dwarves, you should know that they like caves and mountains. They don't particularly like trees or forests. In forests, there are too many eyes always watching. And Bumble certainly felt as if he was being watched by hundreds of little eyes, as he and Vilnius walked through the misty mountains (in real life it was a dim and cloudy January or February day), and they kept spotting these slim figures running between the trees. Eventually, they came upon an entire village of hundreds of these figures, elves, and they asked the travelers to climb into a nearby tree. Vilnius didn't want to go. Bumble told him he would go and told him to wait. Bumble climbed into the tree, against his better judgement, and hoped Moradin would carry him through.

And it was okay. He was talking to an old looking elf who asked him what he was doing. Bumble explained that they were on an a mission from the King Donovan to help fight the forces of the Black City. The elf seemed to warm to the respectful tone and courage of the humble dwarf. After they talked, he gave Bumble the gift of a magic ring, and sent the two young fellows on with his blessing... a blessing that actually paid off when the elves returned and quickly became the most loyal friends of the two and they became embroiled in the politics of the realm.

Luckily, Bumble is a master of diplomacy....despite his Charisma of 11.

Monday, April 16, 2012

WORD OF THE DAY! 4/16/12.

sucker punch [suhk-er-puhnch]
noun
1. A sudden or surprise punch, strike, or atttack.
2. A surprise maneuver.
verb
3. To strike someone, without warning, with an unexpected blow.

Ex. Few sucker punches are more brutal than the instinctual reaction of a nerd, in this case female, defending her favorite hobby from being spoiled by the empty commentary of an ignorant know-nothing.

Check out more of Super Mutant Magic Academy, a school of magic and mutant powers, for a hilarious dose of nerd humor, magical mishaps, and mutant angst.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

MIXED BAG. TABLETOP TALES. #3 FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC: THE BUDDY COP CAMPAIGN PT. 2 Unicorns and Zombies

TABLETOP TALES PRESENTS
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC: THE BUDDY COP CAMPAIGN PT. 2 Unicorns and Zombies
Special Thanks to Terry Pratchett
 Make sure to read PT. 1 First.

#3 FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC: THE BUDDY COP CAMPAIGN PT. 1 Introduction

Our story begins with the two characters, Carrot (played by Chris Baker) and Vik (played by Nick Mawby) sitting at their desks at Central, the main police station of the Watch. Carrot is in the bull pen and is carefully working on his reports, ever diligent and thorough. Meanwhile, Vik's boots are propped up on his deck, and he sits in his private office, taking a long nap, a dog-end of cigar hanging from his lip. They have the station to themselves as  the other two guards on duty are busy walking the streets. Suddenly, a goblin clerk runs into the station, alerting Carrot to an emergency in the Garden District.

Carrot drags Vik up and out from behind his desk to go to the Garden District. Vik is a little ragged from a day of boozing it up in his office. Carrot has to keep stopping so Vik can piss or vomit out the alcohol drunking him up. Vik assured Carrot that it wouldn't be a big deal. Probably just a break-in. After all, the Garden District is the home of the Eladrin aristocrats that made their home in the city for a life of urban leisure. When they arrived to the scene of the crime, Vik wishes he had just stayed in his office.

As they rounded the corner into the Garden District they discovered a massive sink hole had opened up in the street, the front of one house caved in, and wreckage all about. At the crime scene, the other two guards were trying to keep the piece, putting up police tape and trying to get information from the witnesses. Carrot makes a quick deduction when he sees a large foot print.

"Giants in the city?"

Just as the Chief Samson arrives, they learn from witnesses that Fomorians, giant dwellers of the underground, had burst from the street and kidnapped several Eladrin. The Chief looks like he is about to have another heart attack over the concept of giant's bursting from under the city and kidnapping wealthy elves, so Carrot immediately volunteers to go down and retrieve the eladrin before they come to harm. Vik doesn't want to go but, with a little persuasion AKA a threatening look from the Chief, he follows Carrot down the hole.

It didn't take long for the two cops to run into a pair of Fomorian beasties, but with their skill and tough guile they made quick work of the beasts. Finding a pair of unconscious Eladrin, the elven maidens thank the cops, and tell the cops that they saw more Eladrin getting driven down into the caves. Carrot and Vik soon find a large cavern where an Eladrin, Samaria, riding a summoned unicorn are defending themselves against a pair of Fomorians. They help her fight off the big, ugly, purple giants and the Eladrin explains that she believes that the Fomorians have dark plans and that, being a retired knight, she leaped out of bed at the first sound of the explosive entrance of the giants and chased them down the hole. Now, with an eladrin knight and a talking unicorn at hand, they make their way down the caves until they find a dank bog in a large cavern and a grisly discovery.

The water runs red with slaughtered Eladrin and standing at the far end of the cave is a figure in a blue and gold hooded robe. Turning to meet them, the figure's hood slides down, and reveals the familiar face of a rather prominent Eladrin by the name of Alazar (can't remember his name so there's one for the purpose of this retelling). He tells them its too late for them and that they won't be leaving. Casting some dark magic, he raises the Eladrin corpses as undead, and they raise to attack our heroes. The Eladrin knight dashes forward on her steed to charge the magic user, while the cops fight the zombies. The magic user stabs Samaria through the heart but, seeing the cops making short work of the undead, makes his escape. The talking unicorn, wounded, tells them that they should immediately go to the Court of the Stars.

They follow the unicorn down to a group of caves populated by Eladrin. He asks them to stay the night as witnesses so they can accuses Alazar of his dark deeds.

To be continued...

To read my other Tabletop Tales, click the links below.

#1 YAMA HACHIYAMA

#2 THE STORY BOOK CAMPAIGN: THE LIZARD OF LOLZ Pt. 1

#2 THE STORY BOOK CAMPAIGN: THE LIZARD OF LOZ Pt. 2


Sunday, January 22, 2012

MIXED BAG. TABLETOP TALES. #3 FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC: THE BUDDY COP CAMPAIGN PT. 1

TABLETOP TALES PRESENTS
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC: THE BUDDY COP CAMPAIGN PT. 1 Introduction
I love Dungeons and Dragons. I have been playing, more or less, once a week for over two years and I don't ever plan to stop playing. Most of the times I've played Dungeons and Dragons, I have been the Dungeon Master. For those who don't know, a Dungeon Master is the guy who is in charge of telling the story, determining what monsters and characters the other players come across and, in essence, is the god of the world the players explore. As an author, it gives me a chance to flex my creative muscles.

 Yet, while Dungeons and Dragons can breed a lot of original ideas, it doesn't hurt to fall back on familiar ideas, tropes and characters inspired by works of sci-fi fantasy. I find myself borrowing/parodying from all masters of the imagination; from L. Frank Baum to Walt Disney to Jim Henson and on. Yet, if there is on author that has had an effect on my dungeon mastering, story-telling and humor it is Terry Pratchett.




Terry Pratchett is my favorite author. Out of all the worlds I've visited in my reading, Discworld is the one I want to revisit again and again. Despite the fact that Terry Pratchett is a great satirist, poking fun and adapting everything from Hamlet to Conan the Barbarian, he is also the creator of some of the most endearing characters I've ever read. Somehow he managed to take the best parts of so many iconic characters, inject them with his own personal wit and insights, and create a world of characters that shine.
There are two things I learned from reading his work: anything is possible through the power of imagination (sound cliche, but it takes quite a lot of nonsense to make one believe in what most people consider to be nonsense) and the power of fantasy. He is a defender of fantasy, the oldest genre of fiction, and its power to bend reality around a story. I try to bend my fantasy world, The Wold, around every story I create. Perhaps no campaign has ever been a better example of this concept and a better homage to Pratchett's works than my 2010 campaign that, as of today, will be forever remember as FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC as a reference to the Ankh-Morpork's City Watch's motto (which cannot be translated to "Make my day, punk!" That would just be silly.))

In terms of pure improvisational story-telling and role-playing, few of my campaigns have ever been as successful as the Buddy Cop campaign. I don't remember how it all got started, but it began unlike any other story I've ran. First of all, there were only two player characters and both were originally created as an homage to two of Terry Pratchett's characters, Carrot Ironfounderson and Angua. I made the characters on a lark.

First, up we got Carrot Ironfounderson. Pratchett's Carrot is the perfect model that we would all hope a cop would be; honest, diligent, trustworthy, kind and generous etc. An orphan raised by dwarves, he came to the city to become a watchman after he discovered he was human, and has quickly become one of the most well-known and liked figures in the city of Ankh-Morpork. He is considered the "most linear thinker" in Discworld, and is so naive that he doesn't even realize that he has been living above a brothel for several years, but one must not confuse being "simple" with being "stupid". Carrot is a great detective, a great problem solver, and if someone crosses his honest nature will find themselves in trouble fast. In my campaign, he was played by my friend Chris Baker who, despite never reading a single Pratchett novel, plays Carrot just as Pratchett intended. I handed him the character, which I made a paragon paladin, and he gave one of the most likeable role-playing performances I've seen from a gamer. Chris managed to play a goody-good character that was hardly boring and hardly incapable of solving problems. When it came to making the other character, it easy to say that things got a little bit more complicated.

The other character I made turned out to be a composite of two Terry Pratchett characters. Initially, I made a longtooth shifter dual-blade ranger based on a female character. The character was based on Angua, a werewolf cop who joined the force after escaping the land of Uberwold. Only problem with using her in my campaign? I needed another male character instead of a female. The solution was to combine Angua with the main watchmen character of Ankh-Morpork, Samuel Vimes. The end result was a gruff werewolf cop by the name of Viktor "Vik" Von Uberwold, the old drunkard bad cop to Carrot's goody-two-shoes cop. Vik was played by my friend Nick Mawby. Nick is great at playing characters that are anti-heroes, villains, and cowards. He played Vik as an old beatcop in the body of a young werewolf. His character often acted on instinct and he uses his werewolf powers to take care of business. The end result came out like an insane mix of Wolverine, Dirty Harry, and McGruff the Crime Dog.

How well did these two different characters interact and how did the adventure play out? Well, you'll have to check back later this week with Part 2: UNICORNS & ZOMBIES


To read my other Tabletop Tales, click the links below.

#1 YAMA HACHIYAMA

#2 THE STORY BOOK CAMPAIGN: THE LIZARD OF LOLZ Pt. 1

#2 THE STORY BOOK CAMPAIGN: THE LIZARD OF LOZ Pt. 2

Sunday, December 4, 2011

MIXED BAG. TABLETOP TALES! #2 STORY-BOOK CAMPAIGN Pt.2

TABLETOP TALES PRESENTS:
STORY BOOK CAMPAIGN: THE LIZARD OF LOLZ Pt.2
DONKEYS WILL FALL



Re-INTRODUCTION

As I said in the aforementioned blog entry linked above, I love Dungeons and Dragons. I have been playing, more or less, once a week every week for the last couple of years and I have no plan of ever stopping. All the time I have spent playing tabletop boardgames and pen-and-paper role-playing games with my friends have been some of the best times of my life. I don't think there is any harm in divulging yourself in a fantasy for a few hours a week. The fact that I get to provide that fantasy is one of my proudest and most beloved things about being me.

For the majority of time I have played, I have been the Dungeon Master. For those of you who don't know, the Dungeon Master (or DM for short) is responsible for creating the game world, populating them with characters and monsters, telling the story, determining the adventure, and, for all intensive purposes is the god of the game world. As an author, this gives me the greatest chance to improvise fantastic world, creatures and scenarios in a way that is, above all else, entertaining.

Today's article is a continuation of the story linked above. So I recommend you read that article first before reading this one. Here goes.



The Lizard of LOLZ: Donkeys Will Fall

After watching their companion, Chris the Thief Prince, get sucked into the magical book, Dulin the son of the Chief of the Golden Lion Tribe and Justin the son of a gnome tinkerer considered their options. After a moment of debate, they leaped in. After a moment of falling through the technicolor stratisphere, a couple of rainbows and the fluffiest clouds imaginable they found themselves on terra firma again.But they weren't in Kievo anymore.


They found themselves standing in the middle of a village of queer little huts made up to look like cartoonish mushrooms and flowers. They also heard the bleating groan of an overturned donkey nearby and under the donkey were a pair of legs sticking out with glowing red boots. The donkey groaned, "Oh shit. You must be the guys that knocked me out of the sky! Way to go!" They apologized and tried to help the donkey up but he was too large. 


As they stopped trying to help the talking donkey up, the townfolk, little goblins dressed in the most bizarre of clothing. The goblins called themselves the "Munchlins" and explained that our heroes had in fact killed the Wicked Biatch's sister, Nicole. They sung a song of celebration for the heroes in thanks. Unfortunately, the celebration was interrupted by the Wicked Biatch!


She was pissed to see her sister crushed under the donkey and started laying down the curses on our heroes when she is interrupted by the arrival of a glowing pink bubble of positive light. The Wicked Biatch retreated but promised to have her revenge. The pink bubble was a good witch, Pepto. 

After hearing of how our heroes need to return home, she tells them travel along the Yellow Brick Road to Emeraldopolis and the Lizard of LOLZ. She explained if anyone could help them out, it would be the Lizard. To help them on their quest, she tells Justin to take the Ruby Red Boots and put them on. When Justin put on the boots they were transformed. Justin found his skin become like iron, Dulin found himself covered in fur, and Chris found that his skin had taken on the quality of burlap. Perturbed, they quickly made their way down the road.

So, our heroes began their travels on the Yellow Brick Road. They soon found another group of goblins waiting in ambush on the sides of the road. The goblins came out and threatened them. They explained they were "Gobkins" and were enemies of the Munchlins. The heroes beat them up and left them on the road.

The next part of our story involves three mishap encounters with increasingly hilarious and desperate results. First, they came upon the River of Tears. The River was said to drown anyone who smiled. So, our first two heroes made it across relatively easy. After all, a cat-like man and a tin-covered man aren't going to enjoy getting wet. The last to cross was Chris, who laughed "That wasn't so hard!" just when he was about to get out and would've been swallowed up the river if the other heroes hadn't grabbed him and pulled him up just in time. Then, our heroes made their way to the Field of Dreams across from the city.


The field was strange and hazy. As our heroes crossed, Chris noticed a strange cotton candy like floss covering the flowers and reached down to try some. Poof! He fell down into the flowers, unconscious, and a giant spider made of crystal came skittering across the top of the field to sink its pincers into Chris. The other heroes reacted quickly and killed it. 

The final challenge between our heroes and the Lizard was a rope bridge known as the Bridge of Baby Laughter. With each step, on each plank, a giggle is let out. If the heroes looked down, the plank they stood on would fall out from under them, and, sure enough, Chris looked down. He probably would've fallen to his death if not a desperate prayer to his goddess, Ladiana AKA Lady Luck. He managed to grab a branch hanging out of the cliff face. The others managed to wrap a lasso over him and pull him out before he fell to his death.

They made their way up the hill and to the entrance to Emeraldopolis. They knocked on the door and the Doorman opened a little slot to talk to them. He told them to go away. After the worst day in his life, Chris the thief prince began to cry and sob. Seeing the tears, he managed to touch the Doorman's heart, and he let them in.

They were then led inside and down the hall to meet the Lizard. To almost no one's suprirse they were greeted by a giant green dragon. The dragon told them that he would help them under the condition that they each pass a special trial and defeat the Biatch. They agree. The dragon sends them each to a different room.The first test is for Chris the Thief to solve a puzzle in , the second test was for Dulin to pick a door, one with certain death and the other certain salvation. The final test was that Justin had to choose between his friends and escaping the book. Refusing to choose, Justin attacked the dragon, and it tumbled back revealing that it was in fact being controlled by the Door Man. The Door Man released the heroes and explained he was, in fact, the gnome book store owner's brother, Lolz. He wrote the book and tried to use a spell to make it like the Dimensional Books. It worked but then he got trapped inside. He explains that the only way to escape is by killing the Biatch.

They soon get their chance as she assaults Emeraldopolis with her flying monkeys. The heroes try and fight her off but it seems she is too powerful. They only stop her when Justin grabs her wand, swings it, and tries to call down lightning on her. Instead, another donkey falls from the sky and crushes her where she stands. Thankful for their assistance, Lolz admits he wants to stay in his kingdom, and tells them that they had what they needed all along to go home. After tapping the heels of the boots, three times, and saying the words, "There's no place like home!" The heroes soon found themselves back in the book shop, returned to normal, but Justin still had the boots and the broom of the Biatch.

Thus concluded the first story arc of the Story Book campaign. Thank you.