http://rpgalaska.com/blog.php RPGAlaska is a site for Alaska gamers all gamers welcome! en Wed, 08 Feb 2012 03:46:38 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.rpgalaska.com/tangerine/misc/rss.jpg http://rpgalaska.com/blog.php http://rpgalaska.com/blog.php?b=13 Wed, 23 Feb 2011 21:21:28 GMT To tell the truth I am not really sure what a blog is, so I decided to try posting to mine in an effort to understand it. I mean, how is it any... To tell the truth I am not really sure what a blog is, so I decided to try posting to mine in an effort to understand it. I mean, how is it any different than a guest book or a message board? Aside from perhaps being able to post pictures. Anyway...

I first bought the Dungeons and Dragons Basic Boxed Set in 1979 and played voraciously for many years, beginning in 8th grade. There have been years, even perhaps a decade where I didn't play any D&D outside of computer games. I loved the old Goldbox SSI games, and thrived on the AOL community surrounding the original Neverwinter Nights. Fond memmories.

I am in the field of aviation and have been for more than 15 years. I used to love to kickback on my weekends with a few buddies and a fridge full of beer, and whack orcs and goblins around for fun. But, I haven't played in a few years.

I recently decided I'd like to get back into D&D, and I bought my latest boxed set, the 4e red box, at Wal Mart a few weeks ago. Posted a few messages to the forum at this website, and sent out a few private messages, looking for a group to get in with, or to start my own.

I play WoW on the Bloodhoof server.

Thanks for reading.

I hope to seeya in the caverns and labrynths and glacial crevasses of the imagination! ]]> Hydra http://rpgalaska.com/blog.php?b=13 http://rpgalaska.com/blog.php?b=10 Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:23:52 GMT so, here i am, just found out about this place from a bud at Bosco's. Been looking around for some D&D people, maybe some World of Warcraft players, and RP groups. Yeah, i also play xbox360 and other things. outside of the gaming world i am an Athletic club attendant at a local four star hotel. Im a writer, and film maker.

so i guess thats my intro to your world, and now im gonna dive in head first. ]]> Talon Medron http://rpgalaska.com/blog.php?b=10 http://rpgalaska.com/blog.php?b=9 Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:50:35 GMT My Sims 3 page. http://www.thesims3.com/mypage/dmaxwell My Sims 3 page.

http://www.thesims3.com/mypage/dmaxwell ]]> dak http://rpgalaska.com/blog.php?b=9 http://rpgalaska.com/blog.php?b=8 Mon, 11 May 2009 02:56:06 GMT The rest of our journey to Silverymoon was uneventful, but our arrival in the elven city was not. Our initial approach to the gate went as expected,... The rest of our journey to Silverymoon was uneventful, but our arrival in the elven city was not. Our initial approach to the gate went as expected, but then, one of the guards looked closely at Perrin and Wallashane and shouted "Arrest them," taking the rest of us into custody as accomplices in a crime that could not have committed.

Our reputation for brave deeds had reached Silverymoon, so they agreed to give us a fair and speedy trial. We were locked into cells that were nicer accomodations than expected.

We managed to rest and the next morning, after a generous breakfast, we were led into a courtroom with 7 councilman. Our friends stood accused of murder of a member of the city council, which they could not have been guilty of since we were physically in Loudwater at the time.

However, a short time before Sherg and I met up with the party, our friends encountered a mirror that created duplicates of Perrin, Wallashane and Gallidan. Luckily for us, the duplicates had the same outlook on life as our friends - if they had been copies of a wicked bent, then we truly would have been in trouble. With that said, Perrin and Wallashane are not the most savory of our party, and desperation could still drive their dopplegangers to extremes. It is a testament to Gallidan's better nature that his copy was not similarly accused.

As we stood before the tribunal, it became clear to me that the majority of the councilmen were interested only in seeing justice done, but a minority in the court sought revenge because of their relationships with the deceased.

The biggest hindrance was that Wallashane had apparently had a far more objectionable past than we had imagined. She explained that, while she had indeed once been someone with a strongly evil disposition, she had since sought to change her ways, starting with a conversion to the worship of Silvanus.

One of the judges who was more interested in revenge than justice seized this opportunity to try and catch Wallashane in a lie.

"Young lady," he intoned, "I'll have you know that I myself am a priest of Silvanus."

He then proceeded to ask her questions about the worship of Silvanus which, while she struggled with it, she was able to answer. At first, I thought the tactic to be unfair, as a lay worshipper cannot be expected to match knowledge with a priest, but his questions were relatively straightforward queries that a worshipper of Silvanus would know.

After much deliberation, the council decided that they were willing to give us benefit of the doubt, but that they may bring the charges back up in the future.

Perrin struck on the idea of visiting the taverns and inns in the town that he himself would be likely to frequent, in the expectation that his duplicate would have similar tastes. Not trusting Perrin to stay out of trouble on his own, Sherg and I decided to join him.

We visited several taverns before getting lucky, an inn called "The Shadowy Footstep" that specialized in catering to Halfling travelers, whose barkeep knew Perrin. By questioning the barkeep, Perrin discovered that hid other had met with an Eladrin frequently... so frequently that the barkeep kept a special bottle of an expensive Eladrin brandy on hand. Perrin purchased the last bottle the barkeep had, and then rented the same room his opposite had taken.

Perrin went upstairs to search it, but unfortunately the ceiling of the room was to Halfling dimensions, and Sherg and I were forced to stand outside the room looking in through the window. Perrin proceeded to search the room, but was having no luck. I peeked over the sill of the window, just able to see into the room. I suggested he check between the mattress and the bedframe, and sure enough he found an envelope there containing 10 pieces of gold and a note addressed to Perrin, saying something about his escaping the author's first trap.

Not wanting to actually stay in a room where an enemy could find him, we headed out. We visited a few of the other less reputable taverns in town, and struck paydirt again.

"Oi! You're friends with that crazy Genasi witch!" the barkeep shouted at Perrin as we walked in. "You're not welcome here!"

After calming the man down by explaining that we were trying to track down exactly what had happened, he explained that she seemed to take great pleasure in setting fires and cursing his customers. We asked if we could investigate her room, and he said that it was fine with him provided the current tenants did not object. Though they seemed slightly put out, they agreed to allow us a short search. It took mere moments to find another envelope hidden in the bed, exactly where the last was found. This one was written in a language that none of us knew, but we suspected Wallashane may since the last note was written in a language that only Perrin knew. It was time to meet back up with our friends.

We headed to the temple of Silvanus to meet the rest of our party arrived. We handed the note to Wallashane and she confirmed that not only was it a similar not to that Perrin had received, but this one had been written by her doppleganger - as it was written in her own handwriting.

At this point, Kayleth suggested we take a break from our investigations and heroics as our coffers were running thin - it is hard to fund good deeds purely on good intentions. She had tracked down a Dwarf who was a dragonslayer. He told her of a young White Dragon not far north of Silverymoon that we may be able to dispatch.

We rented rooms in a luxury inn for the evening, and the next day we restocked on supplies and rode summoned steeds north to meet the challenge of the dragon.

We were able to make excellent time and arrived at the base of the glacier where the dragon had made its home by early afternoon. Perrin, being the best climber, went up first and tied off a rope to make it easier for the rest of us. There was a cave carved into the ice, which was well lit from light shining through the glacier.

Proceeding to follow the tunnel, we came into a mostly round room that was approximately 50 feet in diameter. There were several orcs and other barbaric humanoids frozen in blocks of ice, as well as what looked to be the skeleton of a dragon that was used as the basis for an ice sculpture.

Kayleth mentioned that the Dwarven dragonslayer had mentioned our dragon having slew two of his siblings, and upon close inspection it was indeed clear that the bones used in the statue were indeed from two different dragon skeletons.

The room had two other tunnels leading off of it, and we proceeded to step gingerly through the room, heading for the left tunnel. As we got fully into the room, the blocks of ice shattered and the creatures inside were revealed as some horrible ice-based undead. The statue of the dragon also sprung to life, a frozen dracolich. We could feel the cold radiating off the creatures.

Perrin took charge of the situation, and went charging at the dracolich. As he passed near the creatures, the cold that radiated from them started to cause ice to collect on his skin and hair, and it was obvious that extended exposure would be deadly. Ice crystals were quickly forming on every exposed part of Perrin's body, and his skin started to pale as the cold started to chill him deeper and deeper.

Kayleth moved to stand between the chillborn zombies and called down the blessings of her god, throwing three of the four zombies down the hallways on the opposite wall from where we entered.

I maneuvered to use a burst of thunder to force the last zombie away from us so we could focus on the dracolich, but the force of my blast was insufficient. At the same time, Gallidan moved to block the left tunnel so the zombies down that hall wouldn't be able to return to us and Sherg moved forward to attack the dracolich.

By this time, Perrin was in trouble as the cold had seeped into his bones, and Kayleth was similarly suffering from the extreme cold. I had managed to stay out of range of the majority of the cold, but as we were all bunched up at the front of the dracolich, it roared and let loose with a scathing blast of cold and bone shards.

This was more than Perrin and Kayleth could take, and they both fell immediately unconscious, at great risk of death if we didn't wrap this fight up quickly. I tried to push the chillborn zombie away from us with another burst of thunder and this time was more successful than I could have hoped for, as he exploded into broken bits of ice and frozen flesh as he landed in a heap down the right corridor.

Things grew more and more hectic as we tried frantically to save our friends. The dracolich, having dropped Perrin, saw me and was able to see the threat of a great spellcaster - he moved around my fallen friends and headed toward me. He snapped at me with tooth and claw, which I barely avoided.

Sherg reached down and used the blessing of Bahamut to lay his hands on Perrin, bringing him back from the brink of death. He then rushed forward to the dracolich and used a maneuver that gave glory to Bahamut, who saw fit to also heal Kayleth enough to bring her back to consciousness.

While Perrin and Kayleth pulled themselves back together, Sherg, Wallashane and myself lay into the dracolich, which finally fell under our combined efforts.

Meanwhile, Galladin had slain the the chillborn zombies he had been contending with, and the last one broke out of his daze from Kayleth's earlier rebuke, rushing forward just in time for Perrin to go running at it with fury in his eyes and a shout in his voice. He slammed his hammer into the head of the zombie, snapping it off at the neck and sending the head bouncing down the corridor.

We all collapsed where we stood as we fought to regain our breath. The fight had nearly killed two of us, and we were lucky to be alive. ]]> cliff http://rpgalaska.com/blog.php?b=8 http://rpgalaska.com/blog.php?b=7 Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:50:40 GMT I summoned some spectral mounts to aid us in our charge against the camp, as they are considerably faster than regular horses, and then we waited... I summoned some spectral mounts to aid us in our charge against the camp, as they are considerably faster than regular horses, and then we waited while Kayleth made her way toward the corral containing the prisoners.

When she got within 10 feet, we began our charge. We were noticed when we were still a fair distance away from the camp, but with the speed of our steeds, I was able to get within range of my spells before the camp had truly had time to respond to the alarm.

Walashane dismounted near me, and as the rest of the party went charging into the camp, the two of us started to unleash mighty arcane energies. I started by trying to put the giant to sleep, but he resisted the charm - though the camp cook who was standing next to him, cooking in the gargantuan fire, was not so luck and pitched forward into the fire as he fell asleep. Next, I threw a magical web at him, but unfortunately too little of it hit him to contain him, though it did cover the tent in the immediate area.

The camp started to buzz with activity as the rest of the Gnolls started to step out of their tents and make their way toward my friends. At the same time, Kayleth was fighting to try and break through the corral to free the prisoners, but was having little luck.

Some Gnoll archers started to run toward Walashane and I, stopping long enough to loose an arrow in our direction every few seconds, hurting us both slightly. At the same time, the Hill Giant was maneuvering around, trying to get at us - or, more specifically, me... he saw what I tried to do and felt greatly threatened by me. He started picking up boulders and tossing them at us, and THIS caused considerable harm as the great stones fell on us both.

Around the same time, a Gnoll that was much larger than any Gnoll had the right to be let loose a bellow that could be heard for miles, tearing through his tent as he leapt up and started running for Kayleth. I could just make out glowing lines on his skins, some kind of tribal tattoos - but also somehow magical.

He came face to face with Perrin, who was quickly joined by Gallidan and Sherg. The Gnoll was wielding a gigantic Halberd, and with great sweeps of it he was injuring all three of my friends at once.

I started to throw every spell in my arsenal at the Gnoll archers that were rushing us, at the same time starting to grow concerned about the toll the Giant's boulders were taking. I created a blizzard on the archers, but it was too close to my friends fighting the huge Gnoll, who with a sweep of his Halberd knocked all my friends into the freezing cold.

When I felt I could take no more punishment, I used a spell that helped me to escape and moved over toward where Kayleth was freeing the prisoners so that she could give me some divine aid. Walashane soon joined me, as he was also starting to feel the fury of the fight, and the archers turned to catch up with us in our new location.

I saw my friends emerge one by one from the blizzard. Perrin and Sherg returned to fighting who was obviously the Gnoll Leader, while Gallidan took a step around that fight using some sort of magic, and started to battle the remaining Gnolls on the other side of their leader, bottling them up as best he could.

Several of the prisoners had been working their way out of the enclosure and escaping, but the biggest of the prisoners was considerably braver, he grabbed some axes from some nearby fallen Gnolls and rushed at the archers.

As he rushed toward them, I threw a wall of thunder at the archers, but the Giant had turned and was starting to bear down on us in our new location. Not wanting to stay so close to the Giant, I teleported by Gallidan to have the protection of the powerful warrior, and to help him to defeat the enemies he was fighting.

Around this time, I saw the giant fall, but could not see the cause. Shortly thereafter, I heard Perrin let out a scream of rage, and saw the leader of the Gnolls fall. The battle had finally started to turn our way, and I started to use what little magic I had left to me to take down the Gnolls Gallidan was fighting. Walashane teleported next to me and started to attack the remaining Gnolls as well.

After the fight was over, I learned that the Giant was actually held by some kind of spell that the Gnoll leader had cast over him. Starting to think about previous fights, specifically with the dragon and the dark lady, a motif of piercings on monsters that are serving others... we will need to pay closer attention to piercings in the future, it appears to be a way to create powerful enchantments to cause someone to fight for you that is favored by our enemies.

As we rested, we found a bag on the leader's body that seemed to be larger on the inside than out. We tipped the bag over, and vast amounts of things poured out, including a huge quantity of coins, pieces of art, and several items that appeared magical.

The prisoners we had freed were primarily from Appleton, including the brave commoner who took up the axe to aid us. We decided to give the coins to the town to help them rebuild.

(Note: The first Saturday of each month, our DM is running a game of Amber rather than our regular D&D campaign. I'm not a huge fan of diceless systems, so I won't be participating in this game, but the short of it is that there won't be an entry next week.) ]]> cliff http://rpgalaska.com/blog.php?b=7 http://rpgalaska.com/blog.php?b=6 Mon, 20 Apr 2009 05:57:13 GMT When the day of the party arrived, those of us who were invited to the dress party donned our costumes and made our way to the ball. Meanwhile,... When the day of the party arrived, those of us who were invited to the dress party donned our costumes and made our way to the ball. Meanwhile, Perrin (who was not invited due to some bad feelings with the Lady Moonfire) went to the gaming tables that were set up for those not attending the dress gala.

While I must attest to not having a good understanding of a lot of the reasoning behind social rituals, I do understand the need to at least pay them service to not upset the people who do care for such things and could perceive the least slight as a major incident. As such, I used some simple magic to conjure a few masks for Sherg and myself - him as me and my own mask as him. In an attempt to integrate myself with my new community, I performed some simple magic tricks to entertain the crowd which seemed to go over well.

Eventually, dinner arrived and the Lady announced the purpose for which she had called this party, her betrothal to my old employer, the Tiefling Dragdarocks. I was somewhat surprised by the reaction of many of the folks at the party, as I thought it obvious that they were in love with each other, or at the very least that the Lady was in love with Dragdarocks... perhaps my ignorance of social rituals helps to make underlying meaning a little easier for me to see.

After dinner, I was approached by another wizard going by the name Curuver, who asked me if I was going to replace him as "the wizard about town." I pondered this question for a moment, and found the only answer to that question was "Yes." He then shrouded us in silence and explained some of the reason he had been guarding the town.

An ancient king had created a spell to attempt to steal the powers of a god - and he succeeded... in stealing the powers of the God of Magic at the time. Unfortunately for him, in that split moment before the power had transferred, his spell was broken and the God was able to strike back and turned the king to stone. His body broke and fell to earth in pieces, landing in the Direwood (which is close to Loudwater). The king was not actually dead, and could theoretically return to life in the right circumstances.

The wizard, working with the Winter's Court of the Feywild, put protections around the Direwood to keep him from returning. The freezing of Dragdarock's tower was part of this protection, which was weakened when my friends broke the spell on the tower, freeing Sherg, Dragdarock, and myself. While the danger is not immediate, it is still something that will need watching and he has asked me to keep an eye on things while he journeys to other parts of the world that need his attention. He asked me to meet him in the morning for breakfast so he could give me a device to help me summon him in case of great danger.

The party was starting to wind down, so I decided to end with a strong finish and cast a magic trick I had seen others do before, and I cut Sherg in half. While I was impressed with the illusion, apparently it is a social faux pas to include an accurate amount of blood in the illusion. I will need to remember that the next time I attempt to perform that trick, the crowd was very upset.

The next morning, I had breakfast with the wizard and he gave me a ring which he said could be used once to summon him if there is great danger of the ancient king's return.

That afternoon, we were called to meet with Lord Quester, where he revealed that he had not been completely honest with us during our infiltration of the camp a week earlier... apparently, the item he had been trying to return to save his life was the phylactery of a lich. This did not sit well with Sherg or myself, as the undead are an abomination, but it was hard to deny that he was correct when he said the group from the North invading our lands would have been an even greater threat if they had had control of a lich powerful enough to be a Lord of Waterdeep. I forgave him, as did Sherg.

Not wanting to dally much longer, we gathered our supplies and started on our journey north to Silverymoon to find aid against the invaders so that we might be able to meet them with an army at our backs.

Four days into our journey, we saw smoke in the distance and came upon the devastated village of Appleton. We searched for survivors, and found some of the children who had been hidden by their parents in root cellars and other hiding places. The eldest child was able to reveal to us that the destruction was wrought by a giant and a small army of Gnolls.

About half of the children had relatives living in nearby villages, so with as much haste as we could muster we took the children to their relatives and convinced them to also take in the orphans, which they did gladly as it was a strong community. We then set off in pursuit of the giant, whose tracks were easy enough to follow.

A few days later, we saw what looked to be a much larger conflagration in the distance and rushed forward, fearing to find another village in ruins. Instead, we found a gigantic bonfire made up of a small copse of trees with the giant resting at his "campfire." Getting a good look at him, we were able to identify him as a Hill Giant.

There were also approximately 12 large tents, which should be enough to hold approximately a hundred Gnolls, and a corral that appeared to hold most of the people we had thought dead - apparently, they had instead been captured to be sold as slaves, or worse.

The time being midday, and not all of us being able to see in the dark, we decided we would have the most advantage from an immediate attack. We planned for the majority of us to keep the giant busy (and perhaps even kill him, which would surely hurt the morale of the Gnolls) while Kayleth would sneak over and free the prisoners from their corral - arming those that would fight with makeshift clubs made from breaking the corral and whatever other strong, heavy pieces of would that would do.

We girder ourselves for the fight, and... realized it was getting really late in the real world and that we'd have to leave this session with a cliffhanger. ]]> cliff http://rpgalaska.com/blog.php?b=6 http://rpgalaska.com/blog.php?b=5 Sun, 12 Apr 2009 09:59:13 GMT After we set up camp, but before we actually fell asleep, we took some time to talk with the human and dwarf that we helped rescue from Lord Kell's camp. One of them was Kaylah's father, and the other was a dwarf who once served Lord Kell.

During the course of the conversation, we learned that Lord Kell does not actually serve the white dragon Amattura, but instead is an agent of the Netheril, who for some reason are extending their ambitions into the Gray Vale. The camp is actually building a permanent keep, to what end we do not know. It was obvious destroying the camp is something that will require a military endeavor rather than just a handful of adventurers, so we planned in the morning to start warning the lords of the area of this risk on our journey back to Loudwater - where we will discuss this with the Lady Moonfire.

We set up our watch rotation, I cast additional wards to warn us of any danger, and we lay down to take our rest for the night.

Somewhere part way through the night, we heard a shout of pain from the camp which I was later to learn was the dwarf suffering from an enchantment of ice that placed an emblem of frost into his chest. Around the same time, my wards went off with a piercing noise, and the camp sprung to action.

Unfortunately, none of us had time to put on our armor, except for the Eladrin who was already awake, so we were at a severe disadvantage. We heard the flapping of wings coming from the north and rustling of something landing, so I cast a spell to light up the area immediately north of the camp and we saw a white dragon with a dark lady upon its back. As it landed a short distance from the camp, we saw other shadow creatures taking up position to either side of the dragon.

The dark lady told us that she only wanted the dwarf, if we handed him over, she would let us go. My dear friend Sherg, being of a mind similar to mine own, announces that we would not hand someone over to such obvious danger and called down a blessing on the entire party.

The warlock and myself started to move toward the flanks of the camp in order to get clearer shots of the enemy and to avoid being in the line of fire if the dragon decided to breath its frosty breath at our party. Walashane let fly with her eldritch blast, killing one of the shadow creatures on the right, as I cast a web into the middle of the shadow creatures on the left, snaring half of them as well as the dragon.

Kaylah, through some divine dweomer, pulled the dark lady from her dragon mount into the middle of the camp, where the majority of our party awaited. At the same time, the dragon struggled to free itself from the web and several of the shadow creatures started approaching our camp to attack us.

Our brave Eladrin friend went running to the dragon to keep it occupied while the majority of the party battled the dark lady, so I moved to support him with every spell in my arsenal - throwing out a blizzard that doesn't harm the dragon (a white dragon being a frost dragon), but taking out the remainder of the shadow creatures that were caught in my web, then unloading with everything else available to me. The dragon, meanwhile, had been attacking Galadn in a frenzy of blows that would have brought him down if not for the quick ministrations of our healer.

At the same time, the party fighting the lady in the camp seemed to be having some success, at which point the lady uses some sort of teleporation spell to grab the dwarf she was after in the first place and then teleport out. The dragon took to the air and landed amongst our camp to breath frost, bringing Perrin to death's door and Sherg close to it. Galadan came running down to get the dragon's attention again as I rushed around to try and keep the dragon from killing our severely injured friends. Kaylah managed to bring Perrin back, but Sherg suffered effects from the aura of cold that radiated from the dragon, bringing him down. Galadan, Walashane and I continued to punish the white dragon, who finally decided she has had enough and fled the battle.

Perrin reached down to Sherg and, as he did with me the day before, accused Sherg of being weak and told him that his injuries weren't as bad as they looked, at which point Sherg regained consciousness. I think Perrin must have some special power to heal that is not obvious, but it is odd the turn it takes - to his mind, we're just being lazy and playing up a flesh wound, and somehow his mind makes it so.

After we'd had some time to calm down from the attack, with it still being the middle of the night, we settled back down to rest.

Come morning, we then started the journey back to Loudwater, stopping along the way to warn the various lords of the danger the land finds itself in. Once we returned to the town, we warned the Lady Moonfire. She told us it would be difficult to raise an army able to defeat the interlopers from the northlands, and that she definitely believes she is going to need our help in this endeavor.

She then invited us to an event of some sort for the next day that apparently involves formal dress - an idea whose purpose is a mystery to me, but one that I will follow rather than risk angering any of the nobility.

Who plans a party when danger looms so near? ]]> cliff http://rpgalaska.com/blog.php?b=5 http://rpgalaska.com/blog.php?b=4 Sun, 05 Apr 2009 09:44:13 GMT While Galadan, the Eladrin warrior touched by the arcane, and I copied the rituals that our Tiefling benefactor had allowed us, a family friend of... While Galadan, the Eladrin warrior touched by the arcane, and I copied the rituals that our Tiefling benefactor had allowed us, a family friend of Kaylah, the half-elf Cleric, came stumbling into town on a horse that was almost as beat up as himself. After taking some time to heal and present his problem to Kaylah, she agreed to present the problem to the rest of us to see if we were interested in assisting him to solve his problems.

After we had all gathered to hear the proposal of her friend, Lord Questor, he began to tell us the tale of his parents' spotty past as con artists when they chose the wrong mark - a wizard who was also one of the Lords of Waterdeep. After realizing the depth of their mistake, they immediately fled Waterdeep.

Many years later, in the present day, Lord Questor came into possession of a magical trinket belonging to this wizard that his family angered so, and rather than try to make things worse, he instead arranged to return the item to its owner. However, as he journeyed forth to give the item to an agent of the wizard he was instead set upon by servants of one of the enemies of this wizard, an adult White Dragon by the name of Amattura. These foul creatures stole the trinket and beat Lord Questor severely before he could eventually make his escape. Needless to say, the agents of the wizard were unpleased, and they gave him 30 days to return the missing item.

He traveled as hard as he possibly could, working himself and his horse to within an inch of their lives, to return to Loudwater. He wished for us to help invade the camp of the raiders who had stolen the trinket in order to help create a diversion while he attempted to steal back the trinket. He gave us some further background on the dragon, who has a twin sibling named Aruttama - a rarity amongst dragons. These two, along with a Red Dragon named Taleshak, are attempting to establish some sort of Dragon Kingdom in this land to the north. The dragon is not expected to be present during our raid.

The plan presented was that Lord Questor would grant us a magical disguise to resemble members of the camp so that we can slip in and sow discord while he makes after his own mission. He offered us each a gemstone worth a thousand pieces of gold if we agree to assist him. While I am not ruled by greed, I see no reason not to embark on this journey, so I agree when my friends state their intent to go.

We traveled by phantom steed in order to make best time, courtesy Galadan, and arrived at our target in less than 2 days time. The camp had been fortified much more than is appropriate for the time that Questor was gone, some sort of magic was obviously involved. Wooden fortifications were in place, with stone going up in places and a moat that was dug - this was obviously not intended to be a temporary camp.

He disguised my good friend Sherg, the Dragonborn Paladin, as a Dragonborn of a different appearance, our Genesi Warlock, Walashane, and myself as Gnolls, Galadan and Kaylah as Humans, and Perrin Stoutheart, our insane Halfling Warlord, as a gnome. We left the ghost steeds a fair distance from the camp, and proceeded on foot.

Upon reaching the gate, Lord Questor went west to pursue his own goal, while we headed east with the plan being to wreak as much mayhem as possible to distract the camp from the theft. As we made our way east, deeper into the camp, we came upon a huge smithy being manned by a giant of some kind, though I did not recognize exactly what race of giant it is.

Seeing a huge stack of firewood outside the smithy intended as fuel for the giant's work, we decided that fire would make a good diversion. At the same time, we noticed a nearby tavern had been established to give the creatures living in the camp something to divert them in their spare time. We decided to send Sherg and Galadan to the Tavern to attempt to start a brawl amongst the drunken patrons - surely, with the mixed races of this camp, tensions would be high and brawls a common enough occurrence at the drinking establishment. Once the tavern has been distracted, we then planned to start fires and let the chaos begin.

As they were heading toward the tavern, the giant working the smithy noticed us and approached. He spotted our Halfling friend disguised as the gnome, and much to our chagrin recognized the form that Lord Questor had borrowed to bestow upon Perrin... the only gnome in the camp, one Lord Kell, a person of some import. The giant believed that Perrin had come to inspect his work, a bluff that Perrin was well up to playing.

While he kept the giant occupied, we heard noises coming from the tavern, indicating that Galadan and Sherg were successful in causing trouble there. As they came tumbling out the front door of the tavern, a chair crashed into Sherg's back as they fled. Unfortunately, the rest of the camp seemed to largely be ignoring the brawl, so I created some additional crowd noises at the tavern to indicate that it was a particularly robust brawl, one that they may want to observe. Finally, folks started to head toward the tavern to observe or participate.

This was my cue, so I created an illusion of a gust of wind blowing some sparks from the forge onto the pile of wood, and I caused the pile of wood to start to catch fire with a simple prestidigitation. I then moved over to the tavern and proceeded to use the same spell to light fire to whatever targets presented themselves as being dry enough to be set fire to... especially the thatched roof of the tavern itself.

Perrin then ordered the giant to help put the tavern fire out, and the great oaf in his eagerness to please this person he took to be his commander, grabbed the cooling barrel from the smithy and headed toward the tavern - but instead of grabbing the barrel of water, he instead grabbed the barrel of oil. He threw the contents of the barrel onto the roof of the tavern, and for a moment, the fire was extinguished... but then it came back much stronger and the tavern started to fill with the screams of its occupants as they tried to escape.

While all this was going on, I had summoned a mage hand to toss the burning pieces of wood that had been caught near the smithy onto whatever handy targets I could - mostly the tents belonging to the creatures of the camp.

As we all came back together, we decided that this was probably a good time to move to a different part of the camp. As we made our way generally toward the gate through which we had entered, the crowd suddenly parted and we saw two ogres standing in front of a gnome... the only gnome in the camp, Lord Kell himself.

Perrin yelled "Imposter," and we took this as our cue to attack Lord Kell.

Sherg, Perrin and Galadan stood in front of Kaylah, myself and Walashane as the ogres waded toward them. I attempted to enchant our foes to sleep, and was able to cause the two ogres to become somewhat drowsy but they did not sleep. Kell himself blinked behind me and I could feel him reflect the enchantment back at me, but luckily I was highly resistant to my own magic.

Unfortuantely for me, the ogres had been taught to try to attack spellcasters first, and while our brave stalwarts stood between the ogres and myself, they were easily able to reach over the ranks of our defense and pummel me severely. I was gravely wounded, and fell and very nearly died. If it hadn't been for the rapid reaction of my friends, I surely would have died, but Sherg made a complicated maneuver that involved attacking the enemy and sending a healing surge my own way at the same time. Then, Perrin reached down and boosted my spirits, telling me that it wasn't really that bad, and I truly did feel my injuries recover.

I had lost track of the battle while I lay on the ground, but when I jumped up and back from the ogres to avoid a repeat of my previous experience, I noticed that the gnome seemed to have gone missing. I hit the ogres with the dark tendrils of another of my spells, and one of them immediately fell dead. The other was severely injured, and our brave front rank were able to combine their efforts to rapidly cut the other ogre down in size.

At this point, we heard an alarm sound from the western end of the camp and realized that we had probably overstayed our welcome. The people around us in the camp, upon hearing the alarm, scattered and got out of site so we took advantage of this to move as rapidly as we could to escape the camp. I admit that I made use of one of my own teleport spells as well as an enchantment to give me a rapid boost of running speed for a moment to flee the situation as rapidly as I could.

When we got back to the spot where we'd left our steeds, we found one to be missing and a bag tied to another, as well as an unconscious dwarf and human upon the ground. The bag contained 6 gems of incredible luster, our payment for the job that was obviously completed, so we tossed the unconscious forms who we took to be rescued captives from the camp, and made our way back to Loudwater. As we made our way as swiftly as possible, we heard the swooping of great wings as a great white dragon flew by overhead, thankfully not noticing us as we tried to stay under the trees to avoid her eye.

We traveled until the daylight waned, then broke and made camp. I set up wards to protect the camp, we established guards, and I sat to write in my journal before taking a well deserved rest. ]]> cliff http://rpgalaska.com/blog.php?b=4 http://rpgalaska.com/blog.php?b=3 Sat, 04 Apr 2009 22:55:34 GMT I'm not really one to keep a blog, but I'm using this as an adventure journal for the game I play in on Saturdays. My character is a 7th level Deva Wizard named Gubral. I'm a new player in an established group, so my first session was definitely not theirs. Here's my entry for last week's adventure.

I awoke from what I at first thought to be a new rebirth, but it turned out I had not died... but rather, I had been frozen by the enemies of my Tiefling employer. The chaotic sounds of battle were the first things to assault my senses as my body finished thawing from its cold sleep - a group of adventurers were fighting a spirit of winter, and their actions had freed us from our frozen prison.

The confusion of the situation had an impact on my effectiveness in the battle, but at least I was beside my stalward ally, the Dragonborn Paladin I had journeyed with for several years - his experience defending me from the ravages of battle while I ensorcelled our enemies was considerable, and I felt safer with him there. Luckily for all of us, our employer was also frozen with us, and he was not as confused when he thawed. He made short work of the elemental beast that had been ravaging our new found friends.

The Tiefling has allowed us access to his library to copy a selection of rituals, and has promised us further reward for costing us 27 years of our lives, although what is another 27 years when you've lived as long as I have?

It appears that we have decided to continue our journeys with these adventurers who inadvertently rescued us, at least for now. I haven't really had an opportunity to get to know them very well yet, but there appears to be a warrior who is slightly touched by the arcane, a Cleric (of what deity, I know not), a Warlock... and an insane Halfling who styles himself a Warlord and seems to be constantly compensating for something. ]]> cliff http://rpgalaska.com/blog.php?b=3 http://rpgalaska.com/blog.php?b=2 Sat, 21 Mar 2009 04:01:24 GMT Got a couple games that I play that are real time based games that don't require constant care. 8)

http://www.ikariam.com - I play on the Eta server

http://www.erepublik.com - If you want to play this one let me know, I will send you an invite that way I can get credit for finding a new player. 8)

http://katsuro.us - Shogun style, mainly pvp kind of web game

http://kingsage.com - Build a kingdom! ]]> dak http://rpgalaska.com/blog.php?b=2