Weekend Gaming: New Blood and Would-be Queens

Huge gaming weekend this past weekend.

Friday night my youngest son ran his game of D&D ever for three of his friends.  It went great and the kids sounded like they had a great time.  One even showed up with a homemade character sheet with his character ready to go.  I guess his dad had helped him put it all together.

Sunday we played an extra long session of our 5e game.  The boys had just finished the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl and were headed to their next adventure when they saw a girl, potentially a snow elf, running across the tundra chased by Winter Wolves.  This was the start of the first mini-adventure "The Frost Giant Jarl's Daughter".

The adventure is obviously based on the Conan story, The Frost Giant's Daughter.  But there were other influences as well.   The first encounter was with the wolves.  Winter wolves are actually pretty tough in D&D5.  Next I had them run into the skeletons of long dead Frost Giants.  I didn't have minis for that, but I do have my collection of old AD&D toys.

They worked out well.  I included them as my homage to this famous Dragon magazine cover.

They chased the girl to a cave where they found her behind a wall of ice.  They were attacked by the brothers of the Frost Giant's Daughter then.

For this part I adopted a little bit of 4e as mentioned in this post.  This made the frost giants a little tougher and gave them some interesting and unique powers.

Finally, after defeating the brothers, the girl reveals herself to be the Frost Giant Jarl's daughter, and now the new ruler of the Frost Giants. I guess she was a Countess.

The adventure takes place right after G2 (I am calling it G2.5, but I guess G2.45 is a better code).  The party must cross a glacier to get to the next point in the series.

I went to 4e for help on crafting the encounters; a group of Winter Wolves, Frost Giant Skeletons and finally her two four Frost Giant brothers.  The Jarl's Daughter is a Frost Giant Ice Shaper from 4e.  She has/had ice powers and was the one that crafted the ice wall.

The adventure could end in two ways (well three if you count the PCs getting killed, but that was not a design goal). Either the brothers are all killed and the daughter entreats with the PCs to come to a truce or the PCs kill everyone.  The Daughter is quite powerful and I'd prefer the PCs not having to fight her.

I am thinking of working up the adventure for downloading.  The idea is to "be playable after any adventure dealing with Frost Giants but before moving on to Fire Giants".  This works with G2 and G3 and the Storm King's Thunder adventures.

After we did that the Order of the Platinum Dragon moved on to discover a Cloud Giant Castle full of Mountain, Fog, and Firbolg giants.  Basically all the AD&D Monster Manual II and Fiend Folio Giants.

Here the bastard daughter of the Storm Giant King and a Cloud Giant witch has taken control of a cloud giant castle and is dealing with the drow.  I based her on the 4e Eldritch Giant and made her a Cloud Giant warlock with a Primordial pact.  Her pact is with the Elder Elemental Eye.

For this adventure, I combined a number of "Cloud Giant" related adventures.

Again, both of these mini-adventures come from my misreading of "Storm King's Thunder" as "Storm King's Daughter".

Going through the Storm King's Thunder, Saga of the Giants, and Curse of the Cloud Giant Queen. I noticed a lot of similarities. Not that this is a big deal really; all the adventures are drawing on the same source materials. Namely the classic G series and the mythology in D&D about Cloud Giants.

The adventure in the Storm King's Thunder is nice and tight and I loved the masks.  The Curse of the Cloud Giant Queen has a great dungeon and some ideas as well. The Saga of the Giants' Cloud Giant Castle is also a nice adventure.

Reading them all over I got the idea of a floating castle in the clouds, ruled by a Cloud Giant Queen. I have always, always wanted to do a floating castle! She is supplying materials to the Frost and Fire Giants below.  Plus the Drow getting the Cloud and Storm Giants would be a huge coup.

The PCs were able to get in and defeat the imposter Cloud Giant Queen and free the Storm Giant King.  The Fog Giants gained control of the Castle again to get it back into the hands of Cloud Giants.  I decided that not all giants chafe under the yoke of larger giants; fog giants are happy to serve the cloud giants.

Given that so much of this cloud giant adventure was really a mis-mash of other people's work, I won't work that one up into anything to be used by others.

So now the Order has defeated Hill, Stone, Frost and Cloud giant enemies. They have faced Storm, Mountain, Fog, Firbolg, Ettin and Cyclops giants.  All that is left are Fire.

Next time we meet at the table it is G3 Halls of the Fire Giant King!

Will the Frost Giant Queen or even the Cloud Giant Queen return in my War of the Witch Queens? They were a witch and a warlock respectively.  Who knows.

More Hero Forge Minis, Part 2

About a month ago I posted pictures of my new +Hero Forge Minis.   Since then I got in contact with +Epic Die Studio and they were looking forward to painting some Hero Forge minis. Plus they were nearby, so it looked like it was going to be good match.

I was wrong.

It was a GREAT match!

Here are the unpainted minis:

And here they are again after Epic Die Studio did his magic.

Love the design on the shield.  Great for a warrior of Bahamut

Skylla!

Taryn and Mojo

Taryn, my Pathfinder cover girl.

If you live in the Chicago area they are totally worth checking out.
I am beyond pleased with these.  Can't wait to do some more.

Plays Well With Others: D&D 4th Edition and D&D 5th Edition

Wait...what?
Seriously though hear me out on this one.

Long time readers will know of my enjoyment of 4e when it first came out.  I felt there was a good game here, even if it was not 100% D&D-like-we-knew-it.   Well it was pretty much derided by any old school gamer and those that did like it, loved it with a passion.

Well yesterday +Thomas Denmark over at Original Edition Fantasy/Rules posted a video about how to incorporate elements of 4e into your 5e game.
https://originaleditionfantasy.blogspot.com/2017/02/dr-strange-edition-or-how-i-learned-to.html

Here is the video he shared.


It's an hour long, but the YouTuber Matthew Colville is so earnest about this that it is fun to watch.  BTW he has a lot of other D&D videos as well. The guy is obviously a gaming evangelist so his enthusiasm is contagious.  So much so that this morning before getting everyone awake I dove into my 4e monster manuals.

It seems that Colville is onto something here.

I have mentioned before that there a number of 4e innovations I would like to adopt in my games.  Among these are some of the conditions, in particular bloodied, and the minion rules.

But today I want to talk Giants.

My group is working their way through a modified and expanded version of the G series.  They finished G1, "G4" (the R.C. Pinnell Stone Giant adventure) and G2.  Next they are going to do a mish-mash Cloud/Fog/Storm Giant one before going on to G3 and the Fire Giants.  But before that they are going to do a one shot based on the old Conan story, "The Frost Giant's Daughter".  My adventure will be called "The Frost Giant Jarl's Daughter" though roughly the same plot.

I will be 100% honest here. I was never a big fan of giants for most of my D&D adventuring days.  That is until 4e helped turn them into something else.  In 4e (and possibly before, I might have missed it)  Giants became the products of Primordials and Elemental forces.  They were not just "bigger orcs" but something else.  I really liked the 4e versions of giants that included not only giants, but also titans.  So you could have a Frost Giant and a Frost Titan.  The Titans were larger and more tied to their elemental natures.

In the G4 module I did a bit of this with the main Stone Giant being replaced by a 4e style Earth Titan.

In The Frost Giant Jarl's Daughter I am going to take Colville's advice and run the giants with more of the 4e elements than I had previously.  A lot more in fact.

The adventure takes place right after G2 (I am calling it G2.5, but I guess G2.45 is a better code).  The party must cross a glacier to get to the next point in the series.   However, along the way, they will be taunted by the apparition of a beautiful girl.  Now I need to be careful here.  I have an elf woman that has been following them all the way from the A series. They think she is a thief, but in reality she is a spy from another group that wants the same things the party wants.  I don't want to run into the cliche of a beautiful woman actually being something else.

Along the way there will be three 4e crafted encounters; a group of Winter Wolves, Frost Giant Skeletons and finally her two Frost Giant brothers.  The Jarl's Daughter is a Frost Giant Ice Shaper from 4e; or maybe the Frost Titan, have not decided yet.  So she is going to have some very nasty tricks up her sleeve.

If this works well then I am planning on doing this more in the Fire Giant's adventure.

A bit of personal history.  Back in the earliest days of my gaming when I was going through these adventures myself I found a 60mm metal mini of a knight in bronze armor.  To me it looked just like the picture of the Fire Giant from the Expert set.

I wanted my DM to use it as an advanced Fire Giant Knight.  Someone that would come out to challenge the players.  Given that the art above also has a passing resemblance to Brian Blessed in his younger days (think Flash Gorden era) he would be very bombastic. Well on the day we did G3 I forgot the mini.
Somewhere over the last 35 years I lost the mini.  I remember his leg broke off and I was very disapointed that my Fire Knight never made it to battle.  Well thankfully I have the internet and I found a replacement.

That's the Fire Giant Queen and next her is the Schleich Dragon Knight Hero.  He is not perfect, but he is really, really, really close.  I can use the Fire Titan stats for him and give him all sorts of kick ass powers, like Hurl Lava and Burning Wave.

The Cloud Giant queen, who is in reality the bastard daughter of the Storm Giant King and a Cloud Giant Sorceress, will be recast as a 4e Eldritch Giant.

D&D5 has long been touted as the edition to unite all editions.  I have seen that certainly in terms of Basic and 1st through 3rd.  There are some remnants from 4rh here, but we could do with some more.  4th Edition, despite it's issues, had a lot of really cool innovations and I'd hate to see those lost.

Witch & Witchcraft Reading Challenge: Huntress

"I don't need a killer. I need a Hunter."
- The Faerie Queen to Kaede

A fairy-tale retold.  Warring Fae Queens. A world plunged into an endless, lightless winter.  Two powerful (even if they don't know it yet) female leads. Romance. Betrayal. World changing events? It's like author Malinda Lo was reading my Christmas list!
But seriously.  Huntress is a prequel to Lo's fantastic Ash, a retelling of the Cinderella story.  In this case we learn of the history of the King's Huntress and how she came to be.  Though Kaede is not the Huntress of Ash, not is she a Huntress yet, but it is no spoiler that she will be.  If she survives this tale first.

The story focuses on two 17 year girls, Kaede and Taisin.  Both are in the academy of sages. Kaede is from a well to do family, her father is the Chancellor to the King. She is not a great student and really has no magical talent to speak of.  She is good at throwing knives and picks up the bow through out this tale.  Her father wants to marry her off to a Lord in the south to strengthen ties, but Kaede, who prefers other girls, wants nothing to do with that.  In truth, she wouldn't want it if her father offered to marry her off to a noble Lady either.  Taisin, on the other hand, is from a poorer family, but she already has the Sight and is capable of other magics. It is Taisin's vision and an invitation from the Faerie Queen that bring them together and place them on the road north to Taninli, City of the Sidhe.
The world is currently into its third year of a seemingly endless winter; or rather the summers are poor, there is no light and things are getting worse.
Kaede, Taisin along with the Prince and some his guards must brave to road to the Faerie Queen's land to find out what is going on and how to stop it.
We also must learn what Taisin's visions of Kaede mean and if there is anything she can do to change them.

Like I said, this book is overflowing with the things I love.  Long time readers here will immediately see the parallels between this story and my own "Come Endless Darkness" campaign here.  There are lots of really, really good ideas for my games from this book.
Are their witches? Of course there are!  One could consider Taisin a witch.  That label certainly fits her better than "Wizard" or "Oracle".  There are also named Green Witches in the form of Mona later in the book.  Also, Ash tells us of a Green Witch that cast spells to protect the Huntress.  If this is a prequel to Ash, then how do we know that the Green Witch so mentioned wasn't Taisin herself?

If I extend the concept a bit further the idea of a Huntress is similar enough to my Witch Guardians in practice, if not form.  Malinda Lo is drawing on some deep mythological concepts here and breathing new life into them. It's one of the reasons I could not put this book down.
In fact, I could not but help think back to the otherwise dreadful "Snow White and the Huntsman" and wonder how a "Snow White and the Huntress" would fare in Ms. Lo's more than capable hands.

Using this Story in a Game
Without giving too much away the line of Huntresses starts here.  The Huntress would be charged with protecting the lands between the human and sidhe worlds.

2017 Witch & Witchcraft Reading Challenge
Books Read so far: 6
Level: Maiden
Witches in this book: Taisin, Mona and the Faerie Queens.
Are they Good Witches or Bad Witches: Everyone does good as they see it, even if it doesn't look that way to others.
Best RPG to Emulate it: Any form of D&D will do. Must have a good witch class and a Feywild.
Use in WotWQ: So many ideas. First and foremost there is the obvious ideas for "Come Endless Darkness", the effects on the people and the land.  For War of the Witch Queens there is the answer of why my Witch Queens would want to involve mortals in their affairs.  Easy, they can't act directly against each other.

Personally, I would be shocked if Kaede didn't make a guest appearance in my games someday.  In Pathfinder she would easily be dual classed witch/ranger.  She started out as a witch (or maybe a cleric, oracle or something) and then became a Ranger.
In Blue Rose she would start out as an Adept and then move on to Warrior/Expert.
In fact, I think she might have to appear with an army of Sidhe warriors just in time to save the characters from undead before they get into Death's Ride.  If I do 5e, then she would have the Sage background, one or two levels of wizard (with limited spell choice) and maybe 13 levels of Ranger.  OR this would give me a good excuse to try out an Oath of the Ancients Paladin or the new Hexblade Warlock for 5e.

New Releases Tuesday: AD&D 1 in print

Last week saw the release of the AD&D 1st Edition Core books in POD at DrivethruRPG.

Monster Manual
Players Handbook
Dungeon Masters Guide

This is a pretty big deal really.  This means for the first time ever 1st Edition will remain perpetually in print.

Today even more 1st Edition goodness was released.

A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity
A3 Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords
H4 The Throne of Bloodstone

Soon every adventure of my "Come Endless Darkness" campaign will see print.

Looking at H4 it is only $12 for a POD version.  No idea if it has the giant fold out map (I highly doubt it), but you get the PDF with it and can printout the map on multiple pages if you need.

Throne of Bloodstone has always gone for top dollar on eBay.  I am not sure what this will do to the aftermarket since there are many that will want that map.  I do know that in many cases when PDFs of TSR/WotC products first came up the aftermarket took a hit.

I still have have a copy of H4.  I had a couple in fact adn sold one a while back for 30 bucks.

I played Throne back in the day. Soon after it came out in fact.  It is a killer module and it took us all summer to complete it but it was worth it. I played it the first summer I was back from college. So in between working two jobs I tried to squeeze as much gaming in as I could.

I would love to use this as the capstone to my Come Endless Darkness game, but I need to figure out how to get the characters there.

Sad Weekend Gaming

So in terrible news, JonBunny; my oldest son's pet rabbit, died this weekend.  He jumped off my son's bed, landed wrong and broke his back.  He ended up being paralyzed in his lower half.  I guess this is a known issue with this breed of bunny.  My son is (and all of us are) devastated.
We really miss that little ball of fur.

I did the only thing I could do.  I ran a marathon session yester of D&D to keep their minds off of what happened.

The Order of the Platinum Dragon went to the lower level of the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl.  They managed to free the daughter of the Storm King and defeat the remaining frost giant guards to get to the Jarl himself.   I got rid of his wife for a few reasons. She was just going to be another encounter; and not a very interesting one at that. I replaced her with a frost giant senechal who was also an ice powered warlock. Also I was going to have the Jarl attempt some weird ass forced marriage alliance with the daughter of the Storm King, so he needed to be single, or at least available politically. Also I don't have a female frost giant mini.

Everyone looks like they are going up a level after this.
After this the Order will head to the Storm Giants for aid, but little do they know that an evil Cloud Giant Queen has taken over the Storm King's Castle in Castle of the Cloud Giant Queen.

I also rewatched Galaxy Quest for some ideas on my Star Trek game.

Weekend Gaming: Return to the Land of Ice and Snow

This weekend had a massive amount of gaming.  The Order of the Platinum Dragon continued their foray into the lands of the Frost Giants to discover more of their plans.

Long the way they had to fight ice trolls, yetis, winter wolves the size of elephants and white dragons.

The party took more damage in the last two days than they did in the last adventure total.  They have taken to sniping at their foes using the rogues to sneak attack and assassinate where they can.  The recently discovered Hammer of Thunderbolts has proved to be an excellent aid in fighting the giants from afar.

They also have rescued a Storm Giant princess (daughter of the "Storm King") that has given me an "in" to add a rogue band of evil cloud giants.

The G series lives up to my memories and to the hype as one of the best adventures printed in the classic era.  We are having a blast.  Can't wait to see what happens next!

Castle of the Cloud Giant Queen

I just need to give her a name.
Procella sounds good.

Lots of things conspired against gaming this weekend including lots of homework, getting bags of clothes ready for charity, more homework...

In any case, I Was able to read through some of Storm King's Thunder, Saga of the Giants, and Curse of the Cloud Giant Queen. I noticed a lot of similarities. Not that this is a big deal really; all the adventures are drawing on the same source materials. Namely the classic G series and the mythology in D&D about Cloud Giants.

So as my wont, I decided to start merging these adventures.  The adventure in the SKT is nice and tight and I loved the masks.  The Curse of the Cloud Giant Queen has a great dungeon and some ideas as well. Saga of the Giant's Cloud Giant Castle is also a nice adventure.

Reading them all over I got the idea of a floating castle in the clouds, ruled by a Cloud Giant Queen. I have always, always wanted to do a floating castle! She is supplying materials to the Frost and Fire Giants below.  But why?  Well obviously she wants control.  But how does she fit into the GDQ series?

Well I had originally misread Storm King's Thunder as Storm King's Daughter.  What if this Cloud Giant Queen was really a half-Cloud, half-Storm giant?  She marries the current Cloud Giant king and usurps the throne from the rightful heir (a daughter or a son, I am thinking daughter).  To extend her power base she is dealing with the drow (and thus Lolth) to control the Cloud, Fog, and Storm giants.

Castle of the Cloud Giants vs. The Cloud Giant Castle?  Why not both?!

It will extend the Giants part of the campaign. But that is fine really.

+Justin Isaac mentioned that there has been a creeping of the sizes of Giants over the years.
He is not kidding.  While working on my adventure this weekend I pulled out my Fire Giant Kings.

Here they are in reverse chronological order.

King Snurre Ironbelly is the puniest one of the bunch!

Or...I can do some giants...

Well. My son's game fell through due to illness of half the players (schools are Petri dishes...).  So it looks like we might be doing our Come Endless Darkness game this weekend.  Which means going after some Frost Giants.

I wanted to finish up the G series at Gen Con, but we only got through G1(hill giants) and the unofficial G4 (stone giants).    On the plus side it has allowed me some time to consult some other references.

Storm Giants really didn't fit into my original idea, but I am going to give these a read and see what they have to offer.

Monstrous Mondays: 5E Monster Books

I LOVE Monster books. Always have.  One of the first, if not THE first, book I ever saw for an RPG was the AD&D Monster Manual.  My love for these books has never waned.

So of course, I am going to grab the new Monster books for 5e!

I am rather pleased with both of these, but Tome of Beasts from Kobold Press edges out in terms of things I want to use.  There are just a lot of really great monsters in this book.
Including some I will use in my current Come Endless Darkness game and some for the War of the Witch Queens.

They have their own version of Camazotz which I am dying to use.

I have not compared these stats to the ones I worked up a while back,  But I think I will use these new ones since the players did not kill Camazotz the first time.

There is also a new Witch Queen featured in the book.

She is based, somewhat, and named after the Scottish witch Nicnevin.   I will have to do a conversion of her sometime soon.  Having someone that is the "Daughter of Scáthach" is just too cool to ignore really.

I am not ready for a review of these just yet. But stay tuned.

Don't forget to include the hashtag #MonsterMonday on Twitter or #MonsterMonday on Google+ when you post your own monsters!

Special thanks go out to +Justin Isaac for letting me know about this book and that it featured Camazotz.

Endless Darkness: The Road So Far

I have been talking online with a lot of people who are doing the same thing I am; running the Classic Modules from 1st Edition using the new D&D 5 rules.  So I thought I would post a summary and talk about where I am going next.

The Background
The characters all belong to a group known as the Order of the Platinum Dragon.  They are mostly made up of the children of the DragonSlayers (my 3.x game).  They began their adventure like so many others....or so they thought.

Here are the adventures in chronological order (links take you to the blog post where I talk about their game).

T1 Village of Hommlet (forgotten by the characters, played as a flashback)
B1 Into the Unknown
B2 Keep on the Borderlands
L1 The Secret of Bone Hill
X2 Castle Amber
I6 Ravenloft
C2 Ghost Tower of Inverness
A1-5 Slave Lords
C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan
G123, G4 Against the Giants  (where we are now)

Then we do:
D12, 3 Descent into the Depths of the Earth, Vault of the Drow
Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits
(Q2) Queen of Lies
CM2 Death's Ride
H4 Throne of Bloodstone

The adventure began in The Inn of the Welcome Wench (T1). Here they discover the main plot of the "Cult of Chaos", but a battle with Lareth the Beautiful and Bargel left their memories wiped and two of their party missing (the Warlock Croulie and the Pyromancer Cynder).  The remaining party delved into the Castle Quasqueton (B1) and it's dungeons where they discover one of the Chaos Stones.  This leads to a vision/memory of a long ago battle.  They travel to the nearby Keep (B2) where they take on some hirelings, Uno, Duo, Tres, Quatro and their leader Cinco ("played" by Danny Treo) to investigate the Caves of Chaos.  Here they discover a temple dedicated to ancient demon god and more on the Cult of Chaos.

They then traveled to the monastery on Bone Hill (L1) and a group of missing wizards. Again there is a rumor of the Cult of Chaos, but also the involvement of several "Hyena Men".
Following the trail of the Hyena Men, the party is sucked up in a mysterious fog, here they find themselves in a strange land (actually the past) and a strange Castle (X2). More knowledge is gained about the Dawn War and for the first time they hear the phrase "Beware the Endless Darkness".  Here they meet up with the "wizard" (actually a warlock) Skylla.  They travel the mists for a while till they come upon the Villiage of Barovia and the terrifying Castle Ravenloft (I6).   They stop Strahd and his plans to blot out the sun, but not before Skylla is taken away by an army of ghosts.

They meet up with another party and tackle the famed Ghost Tower of Inverness (C2).  They recover the Soul Gem and hear the phrase "Beware the Endless Darkness" again.

Leaving the Ghost Tower they hear rumors once again of the Hyena-Men (Gnolls and Gnoles) and a slaving operation. They have long suspected, but now get confirmation that Gnolls are servants of a Demon Lord (keep in mind my players don't have the wealth of history of D&D we all do). They also find out that the slaves are all being transported elsewhere by human agents.  They discover the Cult of Chaos is also behind this operation and the Drow, long forgotten, are also involved.  
The Order manages to destroy the slaver operation and even convince an Earth Dragon and Red Dragon to reawaken the dormant volcano to destroy the island.  Before leaving the island with rescued slaves the Earth Dragon (an actual dragon) tells them to "beware the coming darkness".

Returning the slaves to the Duchy of Urnst they see the Sun go completely black.

The sun is out and there is a council of the greatest mages (ie their characters from the 3.x game) in Greyhawk.  The plan is worked out to relight Moradin's Forge.  It's light and life giving heat will keep everyone alive till the sun can be put right.  In the meantime the world is besieged by monsters and undead.   The Council of Greyhawk scrys for any remaining sun-related magic items.  Even the Sunsword from Ravenloft is out. The party is sent to a jungle (C1) because an artifact is found there that is related to the sun.    The "artifact" is the dying Mystarian Sun God (Immortal) Ixion, whom the characters knew better as "Cinco".  He and his four brothers were all gods of the sun, they were killed by vampire god Camazotz.   Cinco/Ixion gives the character his heart, Camazotz was not able to get it in time, to use to relight Moradin's Forge.

With the world now on life-support, the Council sends groups of adventures all over the world to find out what is going on.  The Order of the Platinum Dragon is sent to investigate raids made by some giants...

They know they are fighting against the clock.  Moradin's Forge is a powerful artifact that the gods used to create life, but once it is lit any one can use it. Undead are swarming all over. New monsters and monstrosities are everywhere and the Priests of the Sun gods are powerless.

Chaos, it seems, is winning.

What happens next is now up to my players and their characters.

RPGaDAY2016: Day 10

What was the largest in-game surprise you have experienced?

Wow. I need to think about this one.

I think it would have been how well the flashback episodes worked with my kids.
I had done flashbacks during the run of the Dragon and the Phoenix campaign for Buffy, but it never felt like it did with my sons playing Come Endless Darkness for D&D 5.

I mean I knew it was going to work and work well, but I had no idea that the kids were going to enjoy it as much as they did.   It was so satisfying that I want to figure out ways to do it in other campaigns.

Anytime my players can surprise me with their cleverness is also a great time.

http://www.brigadecon.org/rpgaday2016/

Gen Con 2016 in Review

I am back from Gen Con.  As always we had a great time. I am on my lunch so I thought I would fire off an update.

Every night was devoted to the Against the Giants adventure. We didn't get as far as we wanted, we only got through G1 The Hill Giants and +Thork Hammer aka R.C. Pinnel's G4 The Stone Giants.

They encountered their first drow of House Eilservs from Erelhei-Cinlu.
Since I am running this all under D&D 5e I am making the Drow of House Eilservs all partially Warlocks of Tharizdun, whom they know as the Elder Elemental God.  The G4 module played into this rather nicely.

I bought some things of course.  Mostly stuck to Castles & Crusades books.

Can't wait to dip into Victorious!

Went to the ENnies.  I didn't win, which I will admit was disapointing.
I'll post more later on this.

I did get a chance to meet +Zak Sabbath, Stoya and Charlotte Stokely at the ENnies and that at least was cool.  Zak took home 3 of the 5 ENnies he was nominated for, that was also cool.  My son loved his speech thanking Satan.  My son threw up some horns for that.  I also got my copy of Maze of the Blue Medusa signed by Zak and Stokely.

Opted to play a lot of different types of games this year.  Played a great game of Castles & Crusades.
Played some Exploding Kittens (really fun) some Munchkin (also fun), got into a board game at the Mayfair group, but didn't really care for it.  Tried to find a board game we all liked, but no success there.

I got some more art for my game room from Wayne Reynolds.  I think I want to get one of those frames that holds three pictures at once.

Wonder how much he would charge to do some art of Larina....

I picked up a copy of Gettysburg for a friend.  Picked up some more dice. Signed up for the Star Trek playtest.  Was going to pick up Pathfinder Horror Adventures, but there wasn't really anything new in it for me.   I might grab it later at my FLGS.

Loved all the Cosplay.  My son went as Jacob from Assassin's Creed and found a like-minded friend.

There were tons of "Harley Quinn"s but also a lot of "Rey"s from Star Wars. I thought that was cool.

While the con is still dominated by middle-aged, bearded white guys I am seeing a lot more families and kids.  This is a great thing.

Ate and spent WAY too much.

Not sure if I can make it next year.  It is later in August and my kids' school starts before Gen Con.

All in all a great time.