We are a few hours from seeing the end of 2015.
All in all not a bad year. I got in a lot of great gaming, not a lot of variety of gaming, but a lot.
I played a lot of 5e and I even got to play some rather than just DMing.
One of my favorite features here were my Class Struggles posts. Originally I only thought about doing about 15 of them, but it grew into something more. Looking forward to doing more of those in 2016.
After 258 posts and nearly 5 years I think it might be time to retire Zatannurday. It has been a good run but I don't I have added anything new to it for a while. I have a few posts left I want to do on it, but I think I will replace it with something new in Feburary.
I have a few more Skylla posts I would like to do. I also have some posts on running horror games I would like to get out as well.
There are few games I would like to try this next year and some adventures.
My son has gotten pretty good at running 5e so maybe I will get in more playing too.
Hope you all have a great new year's eve and a happy new year!
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Class Struggles: The 5e Witch Project
It really has a lot going for it and feels like a D&D Greatest Hits. But what it is lacking is a real witch class.
Well...I am not getting ready to write one to be honest. I have plenty on my plate, but that doesn't mean I can't try to make something witch-like.
So something I have done with pretty much every other version of D&D I have played, most recently with 4e. That was fun, but ultimately...well we know how that all turned out.
With 5e it has been a bit of different story. For this experiment, I took five character concepts I have been playing around with for different things and thought this might be fun.
So in each case I built a by-the-book character of each of the main magic-using classes (and one extra, but I will get to that), cleric, druid, sorcerer, warlock, and wizard. I used a variety of the backgrounds, feats, skill choices, and spells to create witch-like characters.
So far I have finished the warlock, the cleric, and druid. I am working on the wizard and the sorcerer next. I also built a paladin using the Oath of the Ancients, to build a witch-knight like character.
I am particularily fond of the Acolyte and Sage backgrounds for the characters. I typically give Acolyte to the Arcane characters and Sage to the Divine, but not always. It helps give them some background that I think would make them fell more "witchy".
Magic Initiate and Ritual Caster are also good feats to choose. Typically something different than they already are. My Warlock for example has Ritual Caster (Wizard) and Magic Initiate (Cleric).
Lastly are the spells. There are a lot of great witch-like spells in the new PHB, much more so than say 4e had. But there is still room for improvement. There are plenty of spells in my Basic Witch book that could be converted and even improved under 5e. "Bewitch" is one of the first examples that comes to mind.
Pretty much everything else I can cover in role-playing. The Cleric and Druid were tested out last week while my son ran Hoard of the Dragon Queen (or "Hoard of the Demon Dragon" as he was running it). The Warlock has been coming in off and on while I have been running.
The real test for me will be the wizard and sorcerer. For 4e the Wizard made the best "witch" for the concept I wanted to play and the Sorcerer did the same for 3e. Interestingly enough the Cleric was the best 2e witch and the Druid the best 1e one. Again...at least for concepts I was doing at the time.
Again, I am not ready to write a 5e witch class, nor am I even convinced I need to, but the experiments will continue.
Monday, December 28, 2015
Christmas Gaming
It's been busy time this Christmas. So far I have gotten a lot of gaming in.
We went to my in-laws to see my wife's sister and her kids and my kids brought out D&D. I got hit with some allergies and could not run, but my oldest decided to run some games. He got both of my nephews to play some D&D 5. They had a great time. So great in fact that I went out got them some dice, minis, a Starter Set and the Basic Rules.
We went back out to visit and Liam ended up running Hoard of the Dragon Queen. Instead of Tiamat he used his own creation, Aži Dahāka. It went fantastic. Really fantastic.
Even their other cousin and her boyfriend joined in for a couple of sessions.
They had such great time that the brand new Xbox One went largely ignored. Not to bad really.
So I got 4 new people into gaming this holiday. How did you do?
We went to my in-laws to see my wife's sister and her kids and my kids brought out D&D. I got hit with some allergies and could not run, but my oldest decided to run some games. He got both of my nephews to play some D&D 5. They had a great time. So great in fact that I went out got them some dice, minis, a Starter Set and the Basic Rules.
We went back out to visit and Liam ended up running Hoard of the Dragon Queen. Instead of Tiamat he used his own creation, Aži Dahāka. It went fantastic. Really fantastic.
Even their other cousin and her boyfriend joined in for a couple of sessions.
They had such great time that the brand new Xbox One went largely ignored. Not to bad really.
So I got 4 new people into gaming this holiday. How did you do?
Saturday, December 26, 2015
Zatannurday: Pinterest
There has been an applet on the side of my blog for some time now to see things I am pinning real time. But here is the collection of all my Zatanna related pins.
Follow Timothy's board Zatanna on Pinterest.
Enjoy!
Friday, December 25, 2015
Friday Night Videos: Christmas Music
Here here some of my favorite Christmas songs.
Thursday, December 24, 2015
Happy Holidays!
Going to be out for a bit. Hope to be back in time for Friday Night Vidoes.
In the meantime. Have a great holiday!
In the meantime. Have a great holiday!
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
I Dream of Worlds
One of the reasons the Hobbit struck a chord with me was not the adventure, though that is true, but because I share Bilbo's love of maps. I love maps, especially old ones. I have walked the fog cloaked streets of Victorian London. I have gone on gondolas in waterways of Glantri. I have walked across fields in the Flannaes. I have also talked about all these before.
There are still some lands that I look at and they just scream at me to visit them.
Pangea Ultima / Dying Earth / Zothique
I want to play a game at the end of time. The sun lies huge and red in sky. The moon, if still there, has broken up. The night sky is filled with stars as the Andromeda Galaxy collides with our own. Society is crumbles and the human race is in decay.
I loved the Zothique stories of Clark Ashton Smith and there is just so much I could do with this.
I also love the idea of the continents of the Earth have moved via plate tectonics to new positions. So there is only one great land mass.
I had already thought that the Earth in 150 million years looks a lot like the Hybora from REH's Conan. It seems like to me to such a logical fit. Hell. I might even use some of the less squicky bits from Carcosa; mostly because it captures the mood so well.
I also have to admit I loved the Elric stories, the Books of Magic comics and the Doctor Who episodes that all take place at the end of time.
There is one little issue though. Clark Ashton Smith's own Hyperborea was very much in the past. But not to worry. I have a way to scratch that itch too.
Doggerland
I will admit I am fascinated by Doggerland. I talked about it a while back as a quasi-mythical; Middle-Earth. It also fills that ancient land niche that Hyborea tried to convey. I am not sure if my interest is enough to translate it into a gameable world. Afterall, Doggerland at it's largest was 16,000 BC and was flooded by 7,000 BC. It would be another 1000 years till humans learned how to brew beer! Though there are some Atlantis parrells that could be played with here.
Maybe while humans were still running around whacking each other with sticks, or the weapon of mass destruction of the time, the stone axe, there were elves or something else in magnificent cities of glass and steel or even of unknown metals ruling the lands.
In truth this reminds me a lot of Jason Vey's "Wasted Lands" idea.
Maybe I'll through the lot into a blender and hit frappé.
Maybe...maybe at the end of time reality breaks down and it allows the Old Ones to return and people of ancient forgotten lands and times are pulled in. So I can have Picts, Vikings, Romans and Dinosaurs with ancient forgotten necromancies. Maybe all the characters (PCs that is) of the past are drawn here. Something like Tanelorn or even "Lost".
And there is this quote that keeps running around in my head after hearing it on the season finale of Doctor Who, "At the end of everything, one must expect the company of immortals.".
There are still some lands that I look at and they just scream at me to visit them.
Pangea Ultima / Dying Earth / Zothique
I want to play a game at the end of time. The sun lies huge and red in sky. The moon, if still there, has broken up. The night sky is filled with stars as the Andromeda Galaxy collides with our own. Society is crumbles and the human race is in decay.
 |
| Wouldn't this make for a great night sky. |
I also love the idea of the continents of the Earth have moved via plate tectonics to new positions. So there is only one great land mass.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangaea_Ultima
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novopangaea
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amasia_(continent)
I had already thought that the Earth in 150 million years looks a lot like the Hybora from REH's Conan. It seems like to me to such a logical fit. Hell. I might even use some of the less squicky bits from Carcosa; mostly because it captures the mood so well.
I also have to admit I loved the Elric stories, the Books of Magic comics and the Doctor Who episodes that all take place at the end of time.
There is one little issue though. Clark Ashton Smith's own Hyperborea was very much in the past. But not to worry. I have a way to scratch that itch too.
Doggerland
I will admit I am fascinated by Doggerland. I talked about it a while back as a quasi-mythical; Middle-Earth. It also fills that ancient land niche that Hyborea tried to convey. I am not sure if my interest is enough to translate it into a gameable world. Afterall, Doggerland at it's largest was 16,000 BC and was flooded by 7,000 BC. It would be another 1000 years till humans learned how to brew beer! Though there are some Atlantis parrells that could be played with here.
Maybe while humans were still running around whacking each other with sticks, or the weapon of mass destruction of the time, the stone axe, there were elves or something else in magnificent cities of glass and steel or even of unknown metals ruling the lands.
In truth this reminds me a lot of Jason Vey's "Wasted Lands" idea.
Maybe I'll through the lot into a blender and hit frappé.
Maybe...maybe at the end of time reality breaks down and it allows the Old Ones to return and people of ancient forgotten lands and times are pulled in. So I can have Picts, Vikings, Romans and Dinosaurs with ancient forgotten necromancies. Maybe all the characters (PCs that is) of the past are drawn here. Something like Tanelorn or even "Lost".
And there is this quote that keeps running around in my head after hearing it on the season finale of Doctor Who, "At the end of everything, one must expect the company of immortals.".
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