Mini Setting - The Continent Of Crimhuk - The Festival Of Fools

The city of Yahleui, is known for its longstanding festival, the "Festival Of Fools".   So much so that the city has also been dubbed "The City Of Fools".  The festival takes place every 3 months to celebrate the changing of the seasons.  The entire populace dresses up as Jester's/Fools for the celebration.

The festival dates back many years, at one point there was a Jester in the court of the king, who found himself madly in love with the Queen.  He would meet her whenever he could, steal kisses on the run.  The tryst did not last long however, the king's guard found out and the Jester was sentenced to death.  His body was hung from the tallest tower of the castle for a week straight.

The festival is in celebration of love, and the anti establishment.  As the political landscape of Yahleui has changed over the years.  There is no longer a king or monarchy.  The city is ruled by a tribunal of the merchant's guild, and the people are for the most part free to do what they will.
Any hero's entering the city during the festival will look quite out of place if they are not dressed up in a jester's costume.  Thankfully most merchants will sell hats & garb to dress up.

During the festival crime also rises, as it is quite difficult to accuse a would be thief who is dressed up exactly like everyone else!

A very large stuffed Jester will always hang for a week straight at the gates of the city, in memory of the unknown jester who started the whole festival.  The tower he hung from has since been destroyed, along with the rest of the original castle.  Some say that there are ruins beneath it, filled with treasure that was never recovered.

Table Of Events. 
Whilst wandering thru the city during the festival you may come across one of the following events. 

1.  A gaggle of Jester's break out in song, about love lost.
2.  A contest for the best and funniest Jester takes place within a crowded square.
3.  A gang of Jester's have just finished robbing a local merchant stall, they make a break for it.
4.  2 guards from the Merchant's guild are trying to politely move a beggar, who is refusing to leave his spot.  All of which are dressed as Jester's
5.  A large group of children are playing a game of "kick ball".
6.  A puppet show detailing the account of the Jester is taking place in a market stall.

More information on the city of Yahleui is forthcoming.

For more information on Crimhuk and the map click here -http://3toadstools.blogspot.ca/2016/01/mini-setting-conitnent-of-crimhuk.html

Out Of The Abyss - Session 3 Report

We left the last session after having saw this giant creature come out of a lake in the fish dudes town (Slobadabob i believe).  A few of the PC's were suffering from madness, one of which had to scream at the top of her lungs.  (and had a sore throat for days after the fact!).   My druid turned himself into a rat and was scurrying around while the other PC's were out of their minds.  Basically mass chaos.  Finally they came to their senses, and we made a bum rush to get the hell outta there, as apparently this vile demon was the prince of demons...

and we are running....

ooooh a treasure chest, let's stop.  

Alright we got the treasure, and....

we are running. 

Fast forward a few days, we've made it back to where we took the wrong turn in the first place.  The plan so far is to get to blingdenstone. 

Once again we take a wrong turn, and ended up in a dwarven settlement.  Zagnap (my druid is thinking) WOOT! Gauntlygrm.  Which is apparently another objective.  

Nope... in the dark we see that these dwarves are very grey.  

The monk that is with us, is basically a wrestler with a major alcohol abuse problem, so after a brief discussion we are off to the "Bald Bitch" tavern in Duergar city.  We get to the tavern, all goes well, its fairly crowded with a few different races.  The monk decides that everyone needs a drink, including the fungi NPC that is with us.  He goes and brokers a deal with the bar owner for a large pan with water in it.  25 GP's and a necklace later, he comes back with the pan for the fungi dude.  To which Mr. Fungi says "I just get my nutrients from the world around me, I don't need anything specific".  Ah shit.   

So turning lemons into lemonade, the monk comes up with a genius plan of calling the pan "the pan of glory", complete with a long back story about dwarves and drinking from the pan before battle, etc.  Of course this is used thru out the rest of the adventure, with a lot of laughs along the way.  

That's a good case in point of whatever the players do say yes! it leads to some silliness. 

A bar brawl broke out and we hauled ass out of the city.  Even though Zagnap had considered freeing a few of the slaves. 

Back to the underdark....

SLIME PITS!  So we basically run into this huge slime pit, and all of a sudden there is a voice in our head.  It appears to be a mind flayer.  Zagnap is basically like "ah shiiiit!"  However after a fairly long conversation, it appears that he's not as evil as we figured.  He's a member of the "society of brilliance".  Honestly sounds like a bunch of egotistical types.  Zagnap discusses the possibility of joining the order.  

We come across this HUGE webbed cavern.  Two random surfer dudes named Spiderbait (clue) and yuck yuck (Possibly?), are hanging out in the webs and as they said "Surfin the web".  So they show us how to get across and basically surf around.  Once again we are still trying to get to the deep gnome city.   Seriously these guys were funny, they were basically Bill & Ted.  

So our bard sees this treasure chest in the web, and he walks up and touches it.  

and you totally know what happens after that. 

Yup a Mimic!  A fight ensues.  I should point out at this point we have lost all of our NPC followers somewhere in the webs so its just us 4 PC's trying to take this thing down.  Everyone is pretty much stuck to the damn thing.  Ravana our awesome fighter finally took the Mimic down with her pair of rapiers.  

I should mention that our bard is awesome!  He plays a bunch of instruments and sings in real life.  So every single time he needed to provide bardic inspiration, he would actually sing a few lines of a song about what exactly was happening at the time.  For example "Ravana, we need you to destroy the mimic with your rapiers of death!"  Kind of thing.  He got inspiration all the time hahaha.

It's time to get the hell out of these webs!  We decide to keep moving.  Remember that surfer dude's name?  Oh yah Spiderbait!  Should have known shouldn't we? 

5 or 6 spiders show up in the web.  There's been much discussion about burning the webs at this point.  However the fall, would kill us.  Gravity and terminal velocity. 

A fight ensues.  Thankfully Zagnap gets a decent initiative and is able to cast Moonbeam before the rest of the hero's rush into Melee combat.  Hopefully they have learned their lesson on this tactic!  

Our bard is near dead, Zagnap is near dead.  We are making death saving throws left and right.  Finally a few of our NPC's come to our rescue.  Running down the web towards the spider hoard.  I was lucky! (Zagnap) I managed to roll 3 success in a row.  (As a player I like this mechanic, its a bit different than old school obviously, but it puts you on the edge of your seat, kinda of like watching game 7 of the Stanley cup playoffs).  Thankfully I have a 20 that rolls quite high most of the time, its usually my DM dice, but I ported it over to my PC for this campaign.  

The bard barely wakes up, he's on death's door.  So is Zagnap, he makes his final success, excellent he's stable.  Next round of combat, a spider see's the prone deep gnome prey.... LUNCH!  Before anyone gets a chance to help the spider pop's off Zagnap's head like opening a pillsbury dough.  The monk distraught and pissed off finds new resolve, the spider's get there just deserts.  

The rest of the PC's decide to haul Zagnaps body to Blingdenstone for a proper burial (sans head).  I start playing on of the NPC's a Orc named Runt, who's basically a stupid bully. 

We get to what appears to be the gates of Blingdenstone, however the entrance is on a ledge way the hell up, and some one has left the ladder rolled up.  Cue Monk who decides to spider man his way up there.  (Ravana just pointed out to me, that her PC is technically the female dread pirate roberts so she should have also given this a go, but didn't speak up loudly enough at the time, seriously its in the movie).  

SUCCESS! We believe we have finally made it to the Deep gnome city, which I'm quite excited about.  

We pack up our things and have a fairly entertaining round of "Cards against humanity" and call it a night.  

I'm rolling up a deep gnome cleric for our next session.  

RIP Zagnap Rustleglomph, Druid 3rd level (just barely), parts unknown underdark.  

He made good wine.

Thanks to Ravana (my wife) for helping me with the timeline of the events, my brain didn't have the sequence correct.  

Mini Setting - The Continent Of Crimhuk - The Lost Badlands

Northwest of the gorge river is the Lost badlands, a un-hospitable parcel of land.  The terrain is dotted with old ruins, and low growing vegetation.  The weather for the most part is cold, winds rage across the plain making it difficult to travel.  In years past the "elders" created large mining complexes beneath the tundra.  Some of them still exist today, but are not easily found.  Among the denizens of the tundra are giant polar bears, mammoths, mountain goats.  Tribes of roaming neanderthals dot the horizon.  They war with each other over resources and food.  Tales of an ancient burial mound to a great king are told in whispers throughout the badlands.  It has yet to have been discovered.  Most merchants will circumvent travel across the badlands, and stick to the coastline of Crimhuk.  However in some cases caravans will make the crossing to the south and the small city of Yahleui.  There are a few small settlements of humans along the gorge river & Crek lake.  Most of these settlements last only a few years before they are sacked by raiders from the northern forest of armta & beyond.

Adventure seeds. 

1.  Neanderthal's have raided and burnt a small village close to the Crek Lake.  The fires of the village can be seen for miles.

2.  A traveler has said that he has found an entrance to a lost mine.

3.  Traders are willing to pay gargantuan sums of gold for polar bear furs.

4.  Within a extremely desolate section of the lost badlands is a place of tranquility and peace from the outside world.

5.  Strange glowing greenish lights can be seen in the night sky almost every evening.  Folk say that it signals the coming of the Frost Devils.  It has happened before, and it brought destruction.

6.  A large black circle burnt into the ground has been found within the badlands.  The storyteller goes on to say that she saw a bird land on the circle and disappear!

7.  Large herds of Elk have been seen fleeing south of the badlands for warmer climes.  This is very far from normal.

8.  A vile warlord has been taking villagers hostage as slaves.  People fear for their safety at night.

9.  A small settlement is in need of a guard to secure the borderlands around the village.

10.  Strange floating objects have been seen in the night sky.  Bard's say that these have been seen before, but not for a long time.  Some believe this is the coming of the gods of old.  Monuments have been created in their honour and dot the landscape of the badlands.

Here is a link to the map - http://3toadstools.blogspot.ca/2016/01/mini-setting-conitnent-of-crimhuk.html

Mini Setting - The Continent Of Crimhuk

A little while ago I was playing around with http://inkarnate.com/ and came up with the following map.  As a writing exercise I am going to work on descriptions for everything labelled on the map.

So if you are interested I'll just keep tagging posts with "Crimhuk".

Here's the map.

HItchikin Adventure Plots

I've often waxed about the idea of running a one shot hitchhiker's guide game.  Here's 20 adventure plots.  It has been suggested that I give Rissus the anything RPG a go for this.

http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/risus.htm

1.  Adjudicate a Vogan poetry competition.

2.  Discover what happened to the universe's smartest computer.

3.  Write a friendly review of the restaurant at the end of the galaxy.

4.  The intergalatic fax machines are down! You will need to get a news report into a publishing company on ursa minor in less than 2 days!

5.  Obtain the rights to create a new version of earth's moon, consult with the magrathean's

6.  Zaphod has went missing once again, a witness states that he may have fallen into a black hole! Find him.

7.  The entire universe is all of a sudden really really thirsty.  Find out why.

8.  In an alternate universe where bulldozers have feelings, console the one that wanted to demolish Arthur's house.

9.  There is a grand shortage of babel fish in the universe.  Travel to megalith 19 to find out the reason behind it.

10.  The cue on Vogan is incredibly long,  it appears that a bunch of random strangers have decided to have their baby's in the line up.  Make your way to Vogon and help deliver children.

11.  Tea has been discovered on Canis Major, since you haven't had a nice cup of tea in years.  (well ever since the Earth was unfortunately exploded on purpose maliciously), its time to go find some!

12.  You've heard rumors that there is in fact a relative of Marvin's living on Scorpius 9.  The only problem is these rumors are written in a very old book, you may have to find a way to time travel.  Which really shouldn't be that hard for a human should it?

13.  It appears that the GREAT SNEEZE may in fact happen again, the second coming of the sneeze some say?

14.  God's final message to mankind has been replaced with a very large sign of a restaurant chain.  No one knows what became of the sign.

15.  The rise of a league of super strippers has become a major problem on the not entirely harmless, well quite in fact very harmless city of Han Dold.

16.  The planet Krikkit hasn't been seen for days, some have suggested that it might in fact be just taking a break.

17.  In a different series of events, baseball (which is not only America's favourite past time, but most of the galaxy as well) has been replaced with Curling as the official sport to watch.  The Scottish and the Argothalgians are quite excited by this prospect.

18.  There has been talk about the new "Restaurant at the beginning of the universe" being quite pitful as far as food selection goes.  Someone must write a review for the guide.

19.  A fleet of Garokflakids has been seen orbiting neon label 23, their ships are giant vacuums.  The populace is quite worried.  Although some of the population suffer from allergies and don't think this is that bad of a plan.

20.  The un-ending limbo competition has been halted because of the loss of the limbo stick.  A patron at the event went to get a gin & tonic at the bar, once he got back into line, he tripped over a rather nice looking alien from the planet SETI who then in turned fell into the limbo holders.  It appears the limbo stick is in fact in limbo.

Barbarians Of Lemuria!

So I just grabbed a copy of Barbarian's of Lemuria from my local FLGS for only $10 used!  I'm friggin stoked.  I'll be plowing thru the 100 page tonight, then I'll be devising some fun stuff for the players.  I've got this idea rolling around my head to incorporate a bunch of different modules & settings and I think that BoL might just be the epicness that need to get this happening.

Here is a list of awesome resources for BoL
http://www.strangestones.com/downloads/

Rambling about adventures.

The other night I wasn't able to sleep because I was thinking about Swords & Sorcery (I've been reading a lot of Conan), as well Fighting Fantasy & Thunderrift.  A few things I've come up with.

The next time I run a campaign I'd like to do the following.

*  Use Advanced Fighting Fantasy or Basic Fantasy, which is less mechanics.
*  Focus more on roleplaying & storytelling and less on "roll playing".
*  Very good aligned "heroic" type stories.

I'm caught between wanting to run Thunderrift or Allansia.

Thunderrift 

After reading Thunerrift, its a perfect campaign for a very LOTR type setting.  Elves, Dwarves and Humans and all the tensions that come along with it.  However I think in order to suit my needs I'd like to change the history a bit.  Within Thunderrift there was a great plague & evil that spread accross the lands.  (yadda yadda, Sauron).  Rather than run the module exactly, what I'd rather do is the following.   The council still exists, and the pacts made by all the good aligned races still exist.  However, another plague has swept thru thunderrift decimating the races of Dwarves & Elves.  Few exist, and live in deep pockets (underground or in forests).  The landscape of Thunderrift has changed, the towns that exist are more like bordertowns, were free people live and defend their territory.  Warlords have taken over much of the resources, and city's/towns.  They war against each other.  Whole tribes of barbarian clans have risen up in the aftermath, living off the land, and reverting to more barbaric ways.  Necromancers delve in the deep trying to bring back old gods.  The old dwarven cities are now overrun.  

The world is ripe for hero's.  

Alternatively, Allansia.

I'd like to run Port Blacksand again.  Probably by the book.  I remember fondly running it and having such a good time with the city itself.  As well the adventure within the book, if I remember correctly leaves lots of options for more adventures.

Another intriguing section of the map, very close to Port Blacksand is Fire Island.

Fire Island used to be a prison colony, guarded by a tribe of paid Lizard Men.^[1]

On the island there is a volcano, prison colony, a gold mine, jungles, swamps, a gorge and a river, all surrounded by sandy beaches.^[2]

The colony was founded in 192AC as a futile attempt by the good prince, Prince Olaf, to rid his land of undesirables. Fire Island was abandoned, the Lizard Men received no pay and therefore took over. One prison guard proclaimed himself King. This guard was actually a Lizard King anyway and as such well versed in the practice of voodoo and black magic.

Apart from a few escaped prisoners, other inhabitants of the island are Cave Woman, Headhunter (Fire Island)and sometimes a few pirates.^[3]

http://fightingfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Fire_Island

As well Silur Cha - The Lizard men city & the jungles surrounding the southern section of Allansia could make for some interesting adventuring. 

The desert of skulls could be a perfect dark sun type setting, with random barbarian tribes, maybe even the "lost city" adventure module included within it.  Hmmm....

You can get a copy of TITAN here - http://store.arion-games.com/Titan/p2182564_9849040.aspx