The Pink Dice Chronicles

So the party started into the Sword Mountains, leaving Waterdeep behind and following their "new" guide Marlowe and keeping a watchful eye on the map they picked up in the city.  Up into the mountains, Felix, the rogue, spots two goblins and says 'hi'.  They run off.  The group continues on, and with the cavalier out in front on his horse, the rogue is too late in spotting the trap.  A sonic trap goes off all around them. Then goblins appear... lots of goblins.  72 goblins.  Goblins with crossbows.  Goblin shaman casters.  Goblin dog riders.  Goblin spearmen.  Goblin infantry with swords.  They were crawling out of holes in the ground.  They were appearing on the cliffs and rocks above. (To simplify tracking of 72 goblins, I had them attack mostly in groups, and I gave them only 1 hp.  If you hit, you kill.  On the board, they were represented by goblin miniatures with a die next to them keeping track of the numbe...

The party continued their exploration of the Zelbinion.  The party found rum rations, rations, and a load of black powder.  In the brig a medium water elemental attacked just after they escaped from a wraith.  One room had forty dead bodies in it.  Another had 4 broken cages, a break in the floor into the hold below, and seven more dead bodies. On the lower level, the group awakened two more elementals, a large water elemental and a medium fire elemental.  The battle was still underway at the end of the session.

For Halloween, I hosted a special event of "Expedition to Castle Ravenloft" at my home for 6 select gamers from my groups and family.  Unfortunately, one of the players bailed at the last minute, but a party of 5 was sufficient to get going.  There was a plethora of food and drink (no Pinatas).  I tried out the prototype build of my new 'gaming extension table'.   The party spent over 3 hours building characters.  We used HeroLab for some and had to fight it a bit on the spell-less ranger build.  The group consisted of: Zephyr, a Kitsune Rogue / Druid Sam the axebeak J, a blind Oread Fighter / Cleric Kratos, a spell-less ranger Lloyd, a wolf Orflex, a half-orc barbarian who flex into a rage anytime anyone messed with his juice Berth, an Aasimar inquisitor During one of our breaks.  From left:  My sweetie, my GM assistant, the ranger, and the inqusitor. (What's up with black T-shirts and blue jeans -- nearly everyone was wearin...

I had a lot of time over the summer to stay inside while avoid allergens and heat and air quality ozone action day alerts.  Cruising around the net brought me to a blog talking about an old school map -- I think it was drawn by Gary Gygax.  The image conjured up a lot of memories from when I was a kid and I would spend hours drawing maps on notebook and graph paper.  I'd even make my own graph paper so I could make maps. So I started drawing, and drawing, and drawing.  It was just a simple dollar store mechanical pencil on a tablet of graph paper, but the layouts just flowed.  Tombs, halls, secret doors, hidden rooms all were fit masterfully together into mazes and puzzles on 8 1/2 by 11 sheets.  Beholder tunnels appeared attached to caves.  Pencil shading filled in the negative space.  A large multi-level temple took form.   Unfortunately, the more a made, the more faded my first drawings became.  Pencil smudg...

Ally gets turned in by Jaycoff the junk salesman and she outruns the guard out of the city. Ally and Felix sit in the bushes and drink till they pass out. Ally and Felic hide in a caravan to get back into the city. Ally and Felix steal a wagon and have to abandon it and nearly get caught. Riiver and Corrail visit Don as he his broken out and dressed as a woman to escape. Gnomes hide Don in Jaycoffs. Don learns that Lord's assets arebing liquidated so he can escape. Don tries to build a rune and fires a lightning bolt which draws attention of Corrail and River.  They scare off gnomes and reunite with Don. Party gets back together. Visit to Max Trip to cellar in western ruins.

The Shadowrunner, having escaped the army attacking Candlekeep, headed north towards Baldur's gate and then onward past Dragonspear Castle to Daggerford.  A stop in Baldur's Gate got them stocked up for the journey.  Along the way they had some interesting adventures. They met Bimley, lead human in a caravan of 3 caravan wagons packed with potion bottles.  He haggled with them for quite a while, trying to coax them into buy various vintages of potions... invisibility potions, barkskin potions (which the crew bought 10 of), and potions of gnomish contraptions.  The rogue, of course, attempted to talk the seller into trying an invisibility potion, but Bimley was too keen for such an obvious breach of seller's etiquette.  Instead he called forth a tall lanky elf from his crew name who attested, "It makes you turn invisible." The also happened across a wagon of stone headed for Baldur's Gate for routine repairs. Traveling along the road they also happened...