Game Summary (+Audio): January 19, 2013

This was an eventful session. For recordings of a large portion of the game listen below, but I will summarize nevertheless.

Having conquered the ruins of the Gnomish city and being painted in the feral men's ritual warrior ink, the heroes are given directions to the lair o the Elven Outcasts, some elves rumored to practice dark magics, including the reversal of any spell. For the players this means the reversal of enchantments so that they may be learned and duplicated, giving the players each a duplicate of the Cloaks of Water Breathing they are told they will need.

So they travel and the Outcasts are pretty accommodating. "Sure we'll copy your cloak, just bring us some books from this old empty elf library." Which is not entirely unguarded.

So following about a week's travel they head to the library and get very excited. There are lots of books, but also these Miyuzaki-esque skittering baskets.

But luckily the heroes are thorough and, finding an orb in the observatory, Decanus aces his INT check such that he gains command of the spider-baskets, erases the order to kill anyone who tries to leave with books, and commands the baskets to bring to the players lots and lots of books. (The library table from Vornheim was helpful beyond mention)
So they get the magic books for the Outcasts, and also a whole pile of tomes for the Hobbits (in various languages), and Tet finds a book about Glatimor, the first enchanted weapon, and becomes obsessed.
(His search yields knowledge that the sword was forged for Herrik, the hero of this war against an undead horde who rallied together the human peoples and would afterward become the first king of the Triumvirate. Herrik's sword arm was chopped off in battle, and it is said that his castle was build on the very spot where Glatimor fell.)
Also there are some old old maps of old old cities that no one has heard of.

Back to the Outcasts, cloaks duplicated, Locke's mask enchanted as a favor for more magical tomes, and a troll gets Command: Sleep'ed and killed somewhere in there.

They go back to the elves and Edryn confirms their guess that the next Well is at the bottom of an evil lake. They ask to be teleported back to the Hobbit Hills, and so they are.

They take a bunch of books, found a library financed by loads of treasure, survey the militia's operations, and hang out talking to people and doing their best to improve their favorite place.

Tet goes into town to see if he can convince the town guard to sell back the items taken from the party at the attack on Fort Obora. The items will be auctioned at the end of the season if they have not been already. Tet accidentally ends up on a date with a gay arena fighter.

Skeleton 6 (Untested)

I have yet to play test this, but here is the draft of Skeleton 6 in its entirety:

Stats
Roll 1d6 for each. Health=1d6+FIT rolled each level.

• FIT- a measure of strength and bodily health and durability.
• DEX- reflexes, balance, and coordination
• MND- knowledge as well as problem-solving skills

Classes

• Fighter- can use all weapons and armor, and shields
• Thief- can use light weapons and light armor. Skills include Stealth (wherein a DEX check can be made to pick pockets, and a successful attack does 4x damage), Pick Locks (DEX check), and Traps (MND to detect, DEX to disarm)
• Mage- no armor, and only small weapons for 1d2 damage. Can cast a number of spells equal to lvl+MND, chosen daily.

Combat
AC=Armor+lvl+DEX

Light Armor: +2
Heavy Armor +4

Attacks are checks vs AC. Melee is FIT check, ranged is DEX. Result equal to AC hits.

Light Weapons 1d3
Normal Weapons 1d6
Heavy Weapons 2d6

Checks
STAT+lvl+1d6

Difficulty(Number to beat)=6+lvl

Skeleton 6 (Ideas)

I've embarked upon a mission to create for myself (and whomever may wish to use it) a light ruleset absolutely optimal for impromptu and improvised gameplay.

I call the work-in-progress "Skeleton 6", for reasons apparent in its goals:

• The game must be as simple as possible, for easy memorization and play with minimal baggage in books, paper, etc.
• The game will use only d6s, for their availability and to avoid the necessity for dice bags and further reduce supplies needed.
• The mechanics will simply be a skeleton, adaptable to a variety of settings and additions and open to modification by each DM for his own purposes.
• Ideally, the mechanics should in themselves express the tone and style of the world -in this case mine-

My influences include Microlite20 and Carcosa's "Dice Conventions" and simplified class and magic systems.


Here's what I have so far:

Game Summary: January 5, 2013

Happy New Year!

So last game the party finally met the elves.
Sharing what information they had about the Wells of Vessa, they were allowed an audience with the Lady of the Mithril Crown, the mistress of the elven lands.

Sitting council was the mysterious and long-lived Edryn, encountered earlier in the game at his castle of sand, who was able to vouch for the party.

Conclusion of the meeting:

• Edryn knows the location of the next Well
• Party is not yet strong enough
• Lady of the Mithril Crown knows about some old Gnomish cities (gnomes are extinct) where there are some magic items that could help
• Those cities are full of Gauns (from Vance's The Dying Earth, except I made them extraplanar teleporters who leech your life)
• There will only be one of the magical cloaks, but some outcast elves nearby practice dark magic, which means the reversal of any spell including enchantments, by which means they can learn how to make more. They may comply, but for a price as yet unknown.
• Then Edryn will tell them where the Well is

So they went off to do some of that.

The elves had a wild man captured to lead them to the Gnomish city.

The city of the Gnomish stone-shapers has been largely looted and all that is left is just a big stone labyrinth filled with gauns. Fifty wild man warriors were waiting outside to make the place into their own new fortress since lots of zombies have been all over the area.
The gate was sealed, hence the waiting wild men, but with the help of some grappling hooks, battle ensued. What was over one hundred gauns became zero gauns and some weird loot they horded, and what was fifty feral men unfortunately became five.

The party found a ring that camouflages them with their surroundings
and a cloak that sticks to them with fins and gills when wet.

Gauns collect weird things, so they also have a few hundred spoons they hope to sell back in town.

I Cannot Express How Much I Love Tables

An automation of Zak Smith's Soup to Nuts Random Villain Generator, which is lucky because my printer didn't have enough ink to print the whole lengthy thing.

Rival Adventuring Parties

Random Criminals

What are the Wandering Monsters Doing?