So like 100 year ago back in 2009, W. Scott Grant released a Tunnels & Trolls solo for the Wizard Type called Final Exam. Well this year, because him and I were two of the whole sixteen ppl that showed up to GenCon last year AND I am producing T&T compatible stuff again because of Thessaly Chance-Tracy, we decided that Peryton Publishing would re-release it.
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| https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/392516/Final-Exam |
It was a short session, but we actually covered everything in my notes for the sitting. So when JerryTel pulled up the USA VS. Panama World Cup Qualifier, I just had to end the game until our next time. Now that I have been able to read my campaign outline, I am glad that did.
So as you already now from the last entry, the newly graduated Wizards Jazon, Zel, and Max Kitsh had arrived at the village of Starach. This village is at the bottom of the small mountain where the Stargazers' College Starry Tower was atop. The group's objective was at least a full day's travel and it was late afternoon as their small caravan pulled in.
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| This actually did not happen at all |
"Perhaps we should keep going." My NPC Grock said not too loud.
Realizing that Brock pretty much always has bad ideas, Max came forward looking very in charge, like a Boyar some might say. This prompted the Boyar of the village to come forward. Gergori Starachovich, he liked to be called Gary, also owned the local tavern and inn. This meant that literally the party went inside. Throughout the course of the evening, they learned that while the village was still sending up supplies and whatnot every so often, the Starry Tower seemed rather subdued. Even the guy in charge of paying for the groceries was a little off.
So the group got rooms after the feasting and drinking. With a LUCK save it was determined that Jazen was the only PC that didn't drink the water. In the middle of the night, an eerie gonging sound started filling the area. Max and Zel felt themselves under the control of something and started stumbling outside. Zel was able to resist but was very physically spent after doing so.
Max found himself among all the town's inhabitants standing outside and staring at the tower. With each gong a silvery light illuminated higher and higher up it. In the sky around the tower two zipping lights circled it. The Wizard then made an IQ save and taught himself our campaign's version of magic resistance.
Fizz Wizz
WIZ Cost: Variable
Range: Self
Duration: One Spell
Power Up: Y
Description: This second level spell allows the caster to resist when someone else cast a spell on them. The Player decides how many WZ points they will resist with. With a successful SR and enough points spent to overcome the other caster's WZ being spent, the person is not effected by that spell.
When the whole tower was lit, there was a large pop of sorts. One of the lights flittering around shot directly upwards. The other shot towards the town, just over the rooftops. It was of course a saucer-shaped object about the size of a small house, Everyone, except Jazen and Zel lost one Wizardry point permanently. Then everybody shambled back to bed.
Next morning everyone was a little groggy but had forgotten about what happend the night before. Max took aside Gregori and basically psychoanalyzed him and helped him remember. JerryTel was in one good roleplaying mood. After the big Russian guy stopped crying, the group came up with a plan to get to the Tower innocuously by delivering supplies a couple days early.
Then Jerry turned on the USA versus Panama soccer game and I had to go and watch it myself.
So the gang assembled tonight and we got down to some FRPG nitty-gritty this evening. Though we had a brief session it was a rather productive one. Besides having some narrative fun, three of us are refining our usage of T&T rules while the fourth is seeing what the hubbub is all about.
Our three mages gathered; Max Kitch (really it's not kitsch) the human from a Boyar family, Jazen, our gorgeous furry from a leading pride of his Kin, and the alluring Zeluria from the elven family that runs a lot of lumber and agriculture in and around the city of Moonash. Along with their warrior escort, led by the dashing, if a bit dim, Grock the Warrior, the group is making their way to the Star Tower temple in the Lower Nels. They have been commissioned by the Astrology School of their Wizards Guild.
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| The PCs are going to the dot just above the mountains |
The delvers have moved westward away from the Boz River making their way into the cold highlands of Hill Country. Using a Tunnelhack matrix set for this campaign, their travels had definitely made a wrong turn. they walked past a perfect spot for an ambush. Sure enough everybody missed their perception checks so nobody saw the three Gakk, four-armed green Martians, up in the outcrops around them. But as the Hack roll was really bad, the four bandit-warriors weren't there for them. They were more concerned about what was in the cave at the end of the passage that the players had just ambled up to.
Grokk bravely put himself in front of the two wizards, Zeluria and Max and the gakks as best he could. Zell, Z-girl's nickname, initiated peace with the would-be ambushers, who were holding up flintlock rifles, in the the party's general direction, by using her vast vocabulary of their language. According to her Luck Roll, her vocabulary was just enough to order a beer and ask where the bathroom was, So the sorceress held up her hand to sign and speak the word, "Beer?" to them. One of the gakk's then fired its rifle.
It was Jazen that was looking in the right direction to see what was being fired at. Unfortunately for the three swordarms, they were paying attention to the gakks and not seeing the Gug, yes, the Lovecraftian kind, emerging from the cave just behind them. The different kind of four-armed creature knocked two of them back and scooped up the third. The third, in this case, guard's name was Tue, by the way. The fired flintlock's bullet went wide of the mark slamming the rock wall behind the horrible creature.
The Ambush over, we had fun doing combat T&T 7th edition style. You know, with Sequence and all that. That sequence is Ambush, Magic/Missile (Speed goes first), Hand-to-Hand, then Spite.
Max K being the speediest, decided his Wizard being the conniving sort would want to be tactical about the situation so he cast Know Your Foe. But as he is young and inexperienced, he forgot about the range of the spell. I didn't make him expend WZ (Wizardry) maybe I am getting too soft. Zel, went for good old Take That You Fiend, the Player declaring that her PC's spell resembled a swarm of wasp-sized fairies carrying razor-sharp swords, and we coined the phrase "Razor-Pixies." Meanwhile, Jazen bravely rolled out of the carriage. All three of the Gakk's fired their rifles again, only one hit its target, which that target barely noticed. Once again, the other two swordarms, with their captain Grock this time, engaged in hand-to-hand with the Gug, and taking the brunt of its damage. Poor Tue was used effectively as a flesh club, but his Armor was holding up even if it was increasing the Monster's damage points, I ruled. The creature itself rolled no Sixes so there was no Spite to randomly spread around the group.
In the next round, Max did his own TTYF, which JerryTel described as "basic Sith lightning", but Zel changed up tactics and did a Hold That Pose. The Gug suddenly stopped what it was doing, which was about to slam Tue into Max. Jazen held his action. Then the gakk's fired their volley again. One gakk Crit Failed its shot and got Tue in the forehead. Jazen did a Call Fire not having to worry about friendly fire, pun unintended, anymore. That wrapped up the fight.
While Zel, Grock, and Max shared the universal peace drink of Beer, namely some of the Party's beer reserves, with the three gakks, Jazen and the two remaining swordarms examined the entrance to the cave. Along its mouth there was a smooth area, like a pillar carved into the earthen rock. Strange hieroglyphs adorned it. Something about dark and eyes, but Curtis missed his IQ SR, so he did not learn the spell Cat Eyes.
The gakks noticed it was getting dark and were not shy about showing that they were afraid to stay near the cave any longer. Jazen wanted to make camp there, just knowing there was something interesting about the place. Max and Zel overruled him and the group got their horses and donkeys moving out of the cul de sac.
The night would not be too restful. Even far away from the cave, unearthly howls could be heard and lights glowing into the clouds above the dark rocks around them. Zel and Max would insist that they were safe and if not they'd just handle it when the trouble came to them-- they need to get some rest (Make a CN SR) to get back their WZ spent earlier. The shadrakar and the swordarms would spend the night keeping watch.
In the morning, Max and Zel would once again overrule Jazen and insist that their little troupe get on the road. The group would meet many bands of gakk now and though they did not speak a word of trade, the word "Beer" would be bandied about until a peace cup could be had. One hunting party of gakk, even traded fresh provisions with our delvers for some of their beer.
After six, maybe seven days, the PCs have arrived at the village of Starach, which is below the small mountain where the Star Tower looms.
Quotes from the Game
"Razor-Pixies" Robin and Me
"Beer." Curtis, "It's the Rosetta Stone of drinks"
Jerry, "My Character has a Teddy Bear. It's Vlad the Impaler."
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| And so begins the Arshoon Saga |
So Arshoon is an island area in the farther north portions of my T&T world of Elder. It is about the size of Texas and has the climate of southern Alaska. Inspired by the image above, I have been working my Sphere Romance (space fantasy) elements as well as my pseudo 1500-1600 AD historical fantasy elements. The world has three moons. The European-based cultures call them Big Cheese, Cat, and Mouse. Cat is actually a Mars-sized world looked in a lagging orbit with Elder but far enough away to look like a moon. It's call Marzoon by its inhabitants.
For the most part the campaign is going to be straight cheese T&T sword and sorcery, but there will be space fantasy as well.
As of right now, and for the remainder of the campaign, which will get the Wizard PCs up to 7th level XP-wise, everyone is a newly minted sorcerer from the Wizards Guild of the city of Moonash. Robin is playing a an elf, which I made a "halfling" because true elves haven't been seen for about a millennia, same Stats as a regular Elf per the rules. Jerry is playing the conniving Wizard from a notorious family that has betrayed almost every other big named family in Moonash, but always betrayed them for the winners of whatever conflict. Curtis is playing one of the alien Kin, a species from his D&D campaigns called Shadrakar, from Marzoon which were actually some of the first settlers of Arshoom centuries ago but treated as newcomers by the humans dominating the land.
This week we had hi-jinks at their graduation ceremony, before they were recruited to investigate some problems at a Star Gazers' faction of the Guild sanctuary in the mountains known as the Nels. Then I made the gang do Gygax-crunchy provision buying and planning to bring back that 11-14 y/o feeling that we used to get playing RPGs back in the 1880s. We got to a breaking point when the players started to notice that what could only be described as a flying saucer was following them...
To be continued.
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| The other inspiration for Arshoon |
Stumbled across some notes from 2014 which started a ripple that has stuck around in my works since then. Parts of this locale just very well may appear in some published material. I mostly have mentioned the setting during a few Wobble campaigns and another universe slipping thing that keep on the back burner called "Ork Quest" as of right now.
The other day a leader of the Old School whateveR, John Tarnowski, told me that I have an inferiority complex. He also called me a troll. which considering the title of this blog and my interpretation of the term "troll" differs from him and his ilk thinks is MUCH DIFFERENT in definition. I mean they have perfected their definition back during the Mens' Rights movement way back when. But, yes I tell people when I disagree with their espoused beliefs.
To explain the context, I was responding to his list of gamers that should be included in a progrom when his rightwing, and now openly, after a decade of denying it, anti-Tranny supporters in a cyber-encased faction take over the role playing industry. He basically promised that things would come to fruition if the Tabletop Gamers that did not subscribe to his point of view would just go away. What I actually got upset at was his implication that tall, skinny elves had a lot of historical basis outside of JRR Tolkien's Elf-Punk of the 50s, but he probably isn't well read enough to know that. His spiel is about about sales.
Well overall, I outsell him. He might not just know the math because he and few others don't actually understand the industry of Tabletop Role-playing Gaming (TTRPG). He thinks that if he is published by someone else that his works has a stamp of quality because other those people might not be just lazy. He doesn't look beyond the fact that he is really doing mostly self-publishing as a way to makes ends meet and then getting some other publishing firm to get his self-proclaimed big products out. Over a few months, they too will be profitable. All of our works in the TTRPG Cottage industry are profitable in the end, but outside of DTRPG metrics, it is who is buying them. Personally, I can sell 25$ (Canadian) on DTRPG. Meanwhile my long term fans still buy the PDF/printed products from Amazon for 100Eu and a group of GMs from Lulu will total about 300$ (AMERICAN). That is the reason my art, my writers, my editors, and whatnot tends to be original and very fresh.
One cover on _Star Adventurers_ does not make affluence. Sorry good D20 to Star Wars take but the art is lacking. You cannot afford any real art. I get it.
Overall yet again. I like the guy. He is some orthodox D20 Russian trying to sell to the RPG Finn in me his dominance when I see his failings empirically. As many scandals that he can latch on to or conjure (which he doesn't do too often), he produces product. I like products coming out. Still the bullshit leaves a bad smell in the air.
Then another day another GM guy and I were talking. I say GM because he is in his 20s and is not insulted to be called a "game master" and not the more imposing DUNGEON MASTER. I enjoy his enthusiastic thrill about roleplaying in general and he apparently appreciates the quick thoughts I have on the angles he sells to players. As usual, I had to speak fluent D&D language, basically like a Finn speaking to a Russian, while constantly identifying myself as a non-D&D TTRPGer. We go into some great depth in our RPG game theory and approaches mostly because our work schedules keep us from playing at the same table at the same time, but oh the joy of discussing RPG and fantasy.
That new guy has some thoughts on a published work.
He states that he is not happy with WotC dumbing things down. He does not, though, accuse everyone of ideological crimes.
