They Keep Killing Aleena, Back to Basic Part 3

This last weekend the kids finished up their foray into the Moat House near the Villiage of Hommlet.
Secrets were uncovered, but more mystery was also discovered.  Lareth the Beautiful, Dark Hope of Chaos was killed.  He did manage to break his Staff of Striking releasing the last 38 charges in a final strike that left everyone unconscious until the ranger Elmo arrived to return them to the Inn of the Welcome Wench.

Bargle, however, managed to escape, taking Cynder with him.
He also killed the cleric, Aleena.

When the characters woke up they were back in the present days with their memories intact.

Next up is a bit of break for these characters, but I hear there are some troubles nearby with some giants.

Midsummer Monstrous Monday: Fire Nymph

Today is the first day of summer, also known as Midsummer.

I know I was planning to do a review today, but a few things conspired against me. Work is really busy, plus today is midsummer and the RPG Blog Carnival this month is about faeries and the faerie realm. Also, my game over the weekend dealt with the disappearance of a character. This character's backstory is tied to today's monster.

Back in the early d20 days the Tome of Horrors hit the shelves and it had a number of old monsters updated for the then 3.0 d20 system and a few new ones as well.  The Fire Nymph was one of those new ones, but also struck me as something that should have been created earlier. Nymphs are fae creatures that also have elemental properties. Plus we have water nymphs, tree nymphs, air nymphs, earth nymphs, fire seemed to be the only one missing.

Since then the Tome of Horrors has been updated, converted to Pathfinder (and here) and to Swords & Wizardry.

What we don't have yet is a 5th edition version.

Fire Nymph

This creature appears as a very attractive and beautiful female with long, flowing fiery-red hair. Her eyes are pale blue and her skin is lightly colored with a cinnamon hint to it.

A fire nymph is a very beautiful creature that dwells on the Plane of Fire. It is akin to the nymph and dryad, though its origins obviously lie elsewhere. Fire nymphs rarely visit the Material Plane, though mages are known to request their company on occasion. A fire nymph is most easily summoned on Midsummers' Eve where they can walk about and interact with mortals and other fey. A fire nymph usually wears translucent robes of white or ash.

Summoning a fire nymph is relatively easy, but not without dangers.  The nymphs' passionate nature causes her to move from one emotional extreme to the next very quickly. When a fire nymph is angry her hair will burst into flames.

Also due to their passionate nature there are many gifted pyromancers that claim to be the offspring of a wizard and a fire nymph.

Fire Nyphs are also known as Pyroeads in some arcane circles.
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Still working on creating 5e monsters.

Happy Midsummer!

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

Kickstart Your Weekend: Spellbook Gaming Boxes Recap

Every so often I like to report on a successful Kickstarter project.  So today I want to share one I got this week, The Spellbook Gaming Boxes from Elder Wood.

I talked about them back in October and I got the boxes I ordered this week on my birthday no less!

The" books" came in a velvet bag, which was a nice touch.

I got one for myself and another for my oldest son.  My youngest didn't want one.

They are a little smaller than I thought they might be, but going back looking over everything they are exactly the size advertised.   Actually, I am rather pleased with the size.

My son filled his with his favorite minis, pencil and his metal dice.

I put in my favorite minis for my witch and the dice I use for Ravenloft and Castles & Crusades.

I think I'll get some dice special for this that I can use for that character too.  Sounds like some good Gen Con shopping!

Nice little latch on it to keep everything in place.

I kinda wish I got something on the spine, but that is fine.

The back looks good too.

I have to say I am very pleased with these and I think I would like to have another one.  They feel really sturdy, but I would not through them into a book bag.  I would use it to carry a figure or two with dice to a game or as a display piece in my game room.

No idea when they are making them for the general public yet though.

Star Trek RPGs

Every so often I get the desire to run a short Star Trek-like game.  Assemble a new crew on a new ship and have some adventures.  This goes all the way back to days of playing Star Frontiers.

I might do a couple of one-offs this summer. Not sure yet really. A natural choice, of course, would be Starships & Spacemen but I am still partial to White Star.  I also like the idea of maybe doing my Black Star game.  Maybe mixing in some Realms of Crawling Chaos and Mutant Future for that Cthulhu in Space feel.

But what has really gotten me in the mood is Pintrest.
Weird I know, but I am totally addicted to "pinning" pictures of Starships.

This one grabbed my attention so much that I just HAVE to use it somehow.






It is a "kit-bash" of the Ambassador-class Enterprise C and NSEA Protector.

I rather like it.
Credit to the ship goes here, http://www.mcfergeson.com/hobbycorner/2015/04/23/the-uss-mystic-a-kitbashed-starship-from-star-trek/

Since his ship is the NX-3000 Mystic, I could make mine the NCC-3120 USS Protector.

Hell. I even considered picking up the models on eBay to make my own, but my painting skills are terrible. I could never do it the justice it deserves.

Not to steal too much from Voyager or even Event Horizon, but my basic outline would be that while testing their new Warp-13 capable engines (shout out to the Omega-13 from Galaxy Quest) the USS Protector is transported ...somewhere... and in this section of space the stars are right and there are horrors.

I would add other technobable details like the curvature of the warp nacelles and how this ship uses triberyllium instead of trilithium in it's warp core.  Maybe it is a design upgrade the Federation got from the Thermians.  (All from Galaxy Quest).  So start off as a regular Trek-like game, and then BAM hit them with the horrors.   Hey, maybe the Theramins are evil. Who knows really.

Lots of ideas here.

Beasties, Birthdays and Bloodstones

Yesterday was my birthday!  Yeah!
But I forgot to get a Monstrous Monday post made. Boo!

I am planning to review "Beasties" the latest monster book from Thomas Denmark. So I'll save that for next week.  Afterall...it's not "Monstrous Tuesday".

In the meantime I was very, very happy to see that two of the four Bloodstone modules are now out.

H2 The Mines of Bloodstone and H4 The Throne of Bloodstone

I talked about these a few months back and it is great to see them in PDF form.  While I have the modules, I might grab these anyway so I can print them out and write on them.

It will be a lot of fun.

Back to Basics, Part 2

Yesterday the Order of the Platinum Dragon was called to the Council of Greyhawk to help figure out what to do about the sun.  Panic is setting in and the world searches for a solution.
Eventually, the great wizarding minds of the land come up with the idea to re-light Moradin's Forge. This is an asteroid that orbits the planet, but in the Dawn Time it was used by Moradin to create the Dwarves.  He then loaned it to the gods of the Elves (who created Gnomes) and the gods of the humans (who created Halflings).    He even let the gods of the Orcs use it, but they created monsters.  The Forge was then put out.

While this is going on the Order has been accused of opening the Temple of Elemental Evil and the murder of Aleena, something they have no memory of.  

We went back into their memories and uncovered their very first adventure. It was not B1 as they previously thought, but rather a visit to the Village of Hommlet where they met a cleric who wanted to know if they were adventurers like her.

We got about half-way through the Moathouse and the conspiracy theories are running rampant now.  The boys have pieced together every little detail they remember, including many I forgot!

For example, one character, who dropped out early on, is brought up.  "Where is Cynder?" refers to an elven elemental fire wizard that just stopped going with the group.  We totally forgot about her, well at least I did, until yesterday.

So far they have tied Lolth, Yeenoghu and Orcus together.  They remember the Tome of Strahd had a partial spell to block out the sun.  They remembered clues from when they went to Halfway.

For investigating the adventureI took some cues from the novelization of the "Temple of Elemental Evil" and had a goblin raid on the town and a fire at Rufus' and Burne's tower.  They never really engaged with Elmo, so I dropped him.

Frogs. With dirty little lips...

They battled the giant frogs, like everyone does.  They learned quickly that Basic D&D is much more deadly than D&D3 or 5.

Personally, I thought it was a blast.  Tables and charts that used to be second nature to me are now less familiar, but thanks to +Richard LeBlanc's GM screen and packet it was a breeze.
I will say it is one of the best GM's Screens I have used in a long time.  Much more useful than the D&D5 screen and on par with the AD&D1 screen.

Some things still need to happen.
- Aleena has to die. Sorry, but fixed point in time.
- Their memories need to be erased of this event.
- Cynder needs to disappear.
- The warlock, Croulie (that's how he spells it) also needs to be kidnapped by gnolls.  That one is easy.
- They still need to meet up Lareth and Bargel.  Lareth can be killed, Bargel is going to get away.
- Discover more about the "Elemental Eyes".

This is going to be great!

Back to Basics

So today this is happening.

The Council of Greyhawk is meeting to discuss the emergency of the Sun going out.  But in the process, Lady Ironwolf accuses the PCs of causing the death of her cousin Aleena and opening the Temple of Elemental Evil!  The PCs (and the Players!) have no memory of this.

What happened? How does it relate to the current crisis?

Won't know till later today!

Special shout out to +Richard LeBlanc.  His GM screen and sheets will get much use today.