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It's a shot in the dark but I'll make it
Ah Sunday, I have not missed you. I woke up at about 5, but decided that I refused to get out of bed until my alarm went off. (Mind you, once it did, I refused to get up for a few minutes after, too.) It's kind of a grey, dreary day, and I'm not really feeling this being vertical thing. Horizontal is obviously superior.
I did next to nothing yesterday. The only reason I got dressed was to run up to Safeway to get my Ambien prescription. Aside from that, we did nothing. I spent the day fucking around online and playing with various D&D modules until our game at 4. The nice thing about having so many games running is that I don't have to be bored. There's always something I can reread and prep. The next game is on next Saturday, we're starting the Lost Mine of Phandelver. It seems like a pretty straightforward module, easy to run, easy to play, with plenty of plot hooks that get dropped in the early parts of the game. It's very much the type of D&D I'm familiar with, a sort of swashbuckling adventure.
It's very much how I've run Frostmaiden, though that was set up more to be a survival game, where people are horrible. Instead, the characters have dismantled two governments that were practicing human sacrifice and generally made the setting a better place to live. None of that was expected by the module, of course. They expected the players to go along with the sacrifices, I guess? What's the saying? No plan survives contact with the enemy? It should be no plan survives contact with PCs (player characters).
Now, I'm prepping for gothic horror, which should be fun. I've been reading all the Curse of Strahd stuff on Reddit, and I'm finding that a lot of DMs are using this as an excuse to be shitty to their players. It's meant to be a tough game, and character death is definitely a possibility, especially depending on where the players go first. It's a very open sandbox, and some encounters are definitely more dangerous for lower level players. There's just a lot of hype around this game, so I hope I do it justice. My players are really excited for it, and I don't want to let them down.
If it seems like my journal is all TTPRG all the time these days, it's because my life is all TTRPG all the time. It's good for my mental health to have things to focus on aside from what a shitshow the world is right now. I may have overdone it a little bit, but that's okay. It gives me more shit to do during the week. Every morning, one of the first things I do is go to my Roll20 home page and look at the counters for all my games. It makes me happy to watch them tick down.
Yesterday was MotW, where our hunters were searching for the Varangian Guard home base. Off of a scrying from last session, they narrowed it down to two buildings and a handful of companies that recently took up residence in those buildings. As they went to do some surveillance, they saw a Guard member coming from the direction of those buildings, his battleaxe strapped to his back. They followed as he drove his motorcycle into the suburbs, and prepared to break into a lovely home. The hunters trapped him, and he ranted about going to kill the beast, and woke up the family. There was a faint aura of magic coming from the second story of the home, but the husband didn't seem to have a clue. The wife came out sobbing that there was something wrong with the baby.
They ascertained that the baby had been acting strange since returning from the local carnival the day before. A quick look showed that the baby was indeed a changeling.
After a quick stop to try to beat information out of the captured Guard that proved mostly unsuccessful, they headed to Jazzles Carnival of Wonders, which was found in the mall parking lot. They found a variety of fey manning the booths, both ones from the Summer Court (Which the hunters are allied with) and the Winter Court (which wants them dead.) They spoke with a member of the Summer Court, Bob the Faerie, who told them that the carnival came under new ownership not that long ago, and the new owner, a troll named Kurzol is kind of an asshole. The previous owners were a pair of fey from opposing courts who fell in love and wanted the carnival to be a safe place for all fey. Kurzol favors the Winter Fae, and their paychecks have been short more than once. Bob pointed them at the troll manning the haunted house.
An empathy check on the troll showed that she was nervous and sad. Eventually, she admitted that in Winter Court tradition, Kurzol had taken her baby to be raised in the mortal world, and stolen the human babies to be raised as slaves by Winter. The human babies are hidden in a back room of the haunted house.
Trusting the two mama trolls to keep the babies safe, they go to confront Kurzol! Five minutes later, there's two dead trolls, and the carnival will be under Trollgar, the mama troll's auspices. The babies are returned to their parents via some impressive trickery, and the trolls reunited with their little trolls. The carnival moves onto the next town, and the hunters go back to figuring out their next step with the Varangian Guard.
I love all my games, but MotW and Frostmaiden are my favorites, and it's a good weekend when I get to play both.
Okay, guess it's time to consider getting ready for work. Everyone have a nice Sunday!
I did next to nothing yesterday. The only reason I got dressed was to run up to Safeway to get my Ambien prescription. Aside from that, we did nothing. I spent the day fucking around online and playing with various D&D modules until our game at 4. The nice thing about having so many games running is that I don't have to be bored. There's always something I can reread and prep. The next game is on next Saturday, we're starting the Lost Mine of Phandelver. It seems like a pretty straightforward module, easy to run, easy to play, with plenty of plot hooks that get dropped in the early parts of the game. It's very much the type of D&D I'm familiar with, a sort of swashbuckling adventure.
It's very much how I've run Frostmaiden, though that was set up more to be a survival game, where people are horrible. Instead, the characters have dismantled two governments that were practicing human sacrifice and generally made the setting a better place to live. None of that was expected by the module, of course. They expected the players to go along with the sacrifices, I guess? What's the saying? No plan survives contact with the enemy? It should be no plan survives contact with PCs (player characters).
Now, I'm prepping for gothic horror, which should be fun. I've been reading all the Curse of Strahd stuff on Reddit, and I'm finding that a lot of DMs are using this as an excuse to be shitty to their players. It's meant to be a tough game, and character death is definitely a possibility, especially depending on where the players go first. It's a very open sandbox, and some encounters are definitely more dangerous for lower level players. There's just a lot of hype around this game, so I hope I do it justice. My players are really excited for it, and I don't want to let them down.
If it seems like my journal is all TTPRG all the time these days, it's because my life is all TTRPG all the time. It's good for my mental health to have things to focus on aside from what a shitshow the world is right now. I may have overdone it a little bit, but that's okay. It gives me more shit to do during the week. Every morning, one of the first things I do is go to my Roll20 home page and look at the counters for all my games. It makes me happy to watch them tick down.
Yesterday was MotW, where our hunters were searching for the Varangian Guard home base. Off of a scrying from last session, they narrowed it down to two buildings and a handful of companies that recently took up residence in those buildings. As they went to do some surveillance, they saw a Guard member coming from the direction of those buildings, his battleaxe strapped to his back. They followed as he drove his motorcycle into the suburbs, and prepared to break into a lovely home. The hunters trapped him, and he ranted about going to kill the beast, and woke up the family. There was a faint aura of magic coming from the second story of the home, but the husband didn't seem to have a clue. The wife came out sobbing that there was something wrong with the baby.
They ascertained that the baby had been acting strange since returning from the local carnival the day before. A quick look showed that the baby was indeed a changeling.
After a quick stop to try to beat information out of the captured Guard that proved mostly unsuccessful, they headed to Jazzles Carnival of Wonders, which was found in the mall parking lot. They found a variety of fey manning the booths, both ones from the Summer Court (Which the hunters are allied with) and the Winter Court (which wants them dead.) They spoke with a member of the Summer Court, Bob the Faerie, who told them that the carnival came under new ownership not that long ago, and the new owner, a troll named Kurzol is kind of an asshole. The previous owners were a pair of fey from opposing courts who fell in love and wanted the carnival to be a safe place for all fey. Kurzol favors the Winter Fae, and their paychecks have been short more than once. Bob pointed them at the troll manning the haunted house.
An empathy check on the troll showed that she was nervous and sad. Eventually, she admitted that in Winter Court tradition, Kurzol had taken her baby to be raised in the mortal world, and stolen the human babies to be raised as slaves by Winter. The human babies are hidden in a back room of the haunted house.
Trusting the two mama trolls to keep the babies safe, they go to confront Kurzol! Five minutes later, there's two dead trolls, and the carnival will be under Trollgar, the mama troll's auspices. The babies are returned to their parents via some impressive trickery, and the trolls reunited with their little trolls. The carnival moves onto the next town, and the hunters go back to figuring out their next step with the Varangian Guard.
I love all my games, but MotW and Frostmaiden are my favorites, and it's a good weekend when I get to play both.
Okay, guess it's time to consider getting ready for work. Everyone have a nice Sunday!