The Fortress of Mad King Bitterstone

Long ago, Seamus Bitterstone was a proud and just dwarven king. He was well-loved by his clan, and artisans from across the land came to have their wares displayed in his Hall of Excellence. The Bitterstone fortress was located under a great hill, and boasted a network of mines which tunneled deep into the earth. It was in these mines that King Bitterstone's madness began.

After receiving a beautiful onyx and ruby statue into the Hall of Excellence, King Bitterstone's temperament began to change. At first he began wandering the halls, then demanding to lead the mining expeditions. His clan was joyous at first – the greatest dwarven kings always led from the front, whether in battle or mining. But soon the King started claiming the most precious metals and gemstones for himself, instead for for the clan as was traditional. Where were some murmurs of dissent, but no dwarf is short of a lust for wealth.

Then, the King laid claim to all the crafted works in the Hall of Excellence. This had long been a place for the crafters to display their works for a time, before selling them or putting them to work. It was a great honor to be accepted into the Hall, and guaranteed a craftsman's recognition by his peers. The King betrayed this reputation and denied all requests to return his newly acquired treasures. Several mages had created massive Golems to be displayed, and Bitterstone activated these machines and set them upon any who attempted to enter the Hall.

Over the years, he grew paranoid and convinced that everyone was jealous of his wealth. He closed the fortress to all those outside his clan, though by this point few wanted to visit. Eventually, he killed or exiled all the members of his clan as well. With his final breath, it is said, Mad King Bitterstone collapsed the entrance to his great Fortress, forever ensuring the sanctity of his treasures.

In time, the Mad King faded from the memories of the people, and the location of his great fortress was lost. Many explorers and treasure hunters search the wind-swept hills and rocky crags to the north, where the fortress is believed to exist. If one found even a fragment of the hoard gathered by King Bitterstone, it would make them rich beyond imagination.

(I'm going to be designing The Fortress of Mad King Bitterstone as a low level dungeon for Castles and Crusades, using the Engineering Dungeons book I just got. Stay tuned for the layout and description!)

Update on the Magic Cube

So I made my list and looked through my cards as best I could. I'm searching the gatherer database now to see if there are any reprints I can use.

Great news: I've got the full set of Guildpact!

Good news: I've got almost a complete set of commons for 2 more of the sets. Here's the list of the few cards I need to complete the following sets:

INVASION


Chromatic Sphere (Art.)
Llanowar Knight (G/W)
Yavimaya Barbarian (G/R)
Recoil (U/B)
Vodalian Zombie (U/B)
Galina's Knight (U/W)
Cremate (B)
Firescreamer (B)
Protective Sphere (W)
Strength of Unity (W)

PLANESHIFT


Steel Leaf Paladin (G/W)
Horned Kavu (G/R)
Hull Breach (G/R)
Cavern Harpy (U/B)
Malicious Advice (U/B)
Daring Leap (W/U)
Silver Drake (W/U)
Mire Drake (R)
Shriek of Dread (B)
Aurora Griffin (W)

I know I have some of these around somewhere. I guess I'll have to look through my cards... again. I'll wait a little while first.

Oh, if you're in Portland, reader, and would like to give me some of these cards, I'd be happy to meet you at the FLGS of your choice!

Pauper Cube - Rebirth

Looking at Gamestorm 2012 planed events, I saw some Magic drafts that I totally want in on. And that got me thinking about my pauper cube.

I decided long ago that I didn't want to design the cube like some had, I wanted it to be as much like a WotC designed set as possible. So I'd just buy one of each common from a block or two, and that would be my cube. I also decided on Ravnica block and Invasion block. They're not the cheapest sets to get, but since it's only commons and I have most of them it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

At this point, I was torn - I want to do the pauper cube to save money. Like, I don't want to spend any at all if I can help it. But at the same time, I want to have a good experience without that lame feeling when you just throw a bunch of cards together.*

So I gave up on it then, putting off buying the sets on eBay until I don't know what. But now I'm thinking about it and I realize I have most of the cards I want in the cube. I just have to do the legwork to track them down.

So I'm making a list of all the commons in the Ravnica block and the Invasion block, and I'm going to keep them with my magic cards. Whenever I feel like it, I'll sort through some and if I find one on the list, I'll check it off and put it in a special box just for the cube. I don't want to get obsessed over this, especially since I don't really know anyone who actively wants to play magic. But I want the cube around, maybe just to sit on the board game shelf. I'd be able to go "Does anyone want to draft the cube?" when people are looking for something to do.

I think a future goal would be for me to actually have a group of friends who hang out and play games. Then I can try to solve the problem of what to play.

Three Settings

So, I've designed three general settings for RPG campaigns over the years.

Attariil is an island nation, at peace internally and with the four surrounding islands. We played in a 6 month long 4e campaign there, and I think it was pretty cool. Travel time was very short, due to me not working out distances or having random encounters. I was disappointed at how small it became after letting the PCs traipse all over without regard to the distance. And then I ruined the campaign with the stupid war house rules. But I digress.

Second we have Northreach - a frontier outpost on the northern edge of civilization. Travel to the outpost was only possible through a dangerous canyon that was completely impassable for half the year. The outpost was created to spread the domain of Baron Vedron of Kor, a large city to the south. The PCs who played in that campaign got to explore the Icepeak mountains and fight a young white dragon. That game only lasted a month or two, as I was trying to make peace with 4e but couldn't force myself to keep running encounter after encounter. I made a stable of interesting NPCs for the characters to interact and bond with, but I don't know how successful that ended up being.

Third is the Guardian Forest where lived many tribes of Guardians, people who borrowed power from the earth and defended their forest from invasions. This setting never saw play because I've been tuning it endlessly for the past 10 years. Important and unchanging facts about this setting were the nature-worshiping Guardians, ancestral spirits who walk the forest and share wisdom with the living, and an evil empire ruled by the victim of a psychic menace.

So now I'm thinking each of these three places could be parts of the same game world! Attariil stays in the ocean near the other four kingdoms (mainlanders might call these the Five Kingdom Islands collectively, much to the chagrin of the Attariin people.)

There's lots more work I can do to tie the three setting together, like making the empire from the Guardian Forest the ones that sent the Northreach expedition. (ok, that's about the extent of it.) But I also get a large area of the empire that would be the main area for any campaigns. It'd be feudal and divisive, so that there'd be plenty of chance for war.

Quake 1 RPG intro

You sit in the briefing room at the NORAD complex deep underneath Cheyenne Mountain. Around you are 30 or so members of the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines. Decorated veterans all, most with scars and all with a determined set to their faces. You were chosen for this mission because you are the best. But until now, you aren't even sure what the mission is.

A grizzled man bursts into the room, a burned down cigar clenched in his teeth. His hair is close-cropped and white, and his right eye is hidden underneath a massive burn scar. He stomps his way to the front of the room and eyes you all critically. With a grunt, he turns on a projector that displays a grotesque image of mutilated bodies and blood.

"1900 hours yesterday, violent attacks occurred in several cities across the world." The projector clicks to a macabre scene at a fast food restaurant, "Memphis," another image, this one of human bodies clogging a canal, "Amsterdam," The windows of an airplane terminal, splattered with blood and gore "Buenos Aires." Click. An intricate rune painted on a brick wall. "At each location, variations of this symbol are drawn in blood, and strange scorch marks are found on the ground nearby.

"The only surviving witnesses are locked away in nuthouses. They say the attackers arrived in a flash of light, that they had horns and claws and shot venomous thorns and bolts of lightning. It might seem like crap, but our top scientists have been working on the theory that these are invaders from another dimension." The grizzled man waves his arms in a placating gesture. "Now hold on - I know it sounds crazy. But they've worked out a way for us to fight back. I'll let the brains explain it."

A frail looking man with tufts of hair sticking out from behind his ears enters the room and stands in front of the projector. "Thank you, Sergeant. Now, I know alternate dimensions probably sounds crazy to the lot of you. But I tell you there is much merit to the idea. These very attacks seem to prove my theory! But, I get ahead of myself. You all know the difference between two and three dimensions, correct? If not, try covering one eye and looking around. It's hard to tell distance and placement, yes? This is because you're only seeing in two dimensions. To see a third, your eyes gather two different pictures and compare them in your brain. Now, it's been theorized that a fourth dimension, time, also exists. We cannot perceive time except in how we can see its effects. Now, imagine there are 5 or 6 dimensions. Imagine a thousand! What is in them? We have no way to perceive them, no way to interact with them. They could, in fact, house completely different life forms, completely alien to our sensibilities. I hypothesize that there could even be types of matter--"

"OK, Professor, get to the point." The grizzled sergeant grunts from the back of the room.

"Oh, yes. I'm sorry, Sergeant. The point is, that we have found a way to follow these strange beings back to their dimension. Using our own understanding of quantum physics combined with the arcane knowledge represented by these symbols, we've hacked together a device that can send over people and objects to the attackers' dimension. We're calling it a Slipgate."

The Sergeant pushes back from leaning against the wall, and heads back to the front of the room. "That's where our sorry asses come in. We jump in with guns blazing, kill every one of those fuckers, and blow their dimension to bits. Poindexter here's coming with us, to figure a way to send us back. But if you decide to go, know that it's probably a one-way ticket. There's things we can't even imagine out there, and I for one won't rest until they're all dead."

"Yes, well," interrupts the scientist, "We can't rule out an incredible but alien intelligence, perhaps unknowingly causing damage to our dimension. I hope we can try to ask questions first, and shoot second. But the probability of violent greetings are in indeed high, this is the very reason we've asked you all here.'

'You'll be loaded to the teeth, carrying as much ammo and supplies as you can. It seems the slipgate can't transfer anything big, so we don't get tanks or choppers. We'll sweep through the place, taking out as many of the fuckers we can, then Poindexter will set up a slipgate on the other side and we'll head back. You can make gear requests to the quartermaster, he's been ordered to give you whatever you want."

"And one last thing. We tested the damn gate, we sent watermelons and shit over, but we don't knwo what the trip will be like. Could be we all make it over dead, or frozen, or in little pieces. But those thigns made it over here, and we can't just sit around. Now who wants to kick some ass?"

I fail at Dread :)

So I ran my Halloween game at Mom's last night. I had 5 players - Tommy, Jessie, Mark, Amanda, and Cameron. I sprung the questionnaires on them right before the game, and that had some people flustered. But then we slowly got into the adventure. Some people had to go, but the almost everyone was pretty engrossed in the story until the very end. I say I fail at Dread not because I ran a bad game, but because I basically ran a sci-fi one-shot with jenga instead of dice :)

I was running "Beneath a Metal Sky," one of the examples from the back of the book. I was warned on RPG.net that this was the hardest of the scenarios, but I trudged ahead with it, spending the past few weeks going over the scant information published in the book and building on it in my head. One of the most useful building blocks I created was a deckplan of the ISS Auerbach. Because I had committed this to memory, I was able to visualize and explain where the locations were in relation to each other.

Another thing I worked hard at was picking the right music. I had originally wanted to use the Alien soundtrack, which was creepy enough, but it had ups and downs, crescendos that may be awkward if they played at a dull moment in the game. I decided to use the background music from Quake 1, written by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. That worked beautifully. Creepy and droning, it was able to fade in the background and make everythign jsut a little more creepy.

Best moment of the game was when the characters found out what the creatures were. Mark's character, the Captain, took one down with a few excellently placed pistol shots. They examine it to find that it's merely a slightly-altered human with absolutely no skin. Exposed muscles are covered in dried blood. When the doctor starts to investigate, the corpse explodes into a swarm of tiny, four-legged beetles. Thankfully no one was hurt. (Drat!) The bugs had hollowed out the former crew member and were driving him around. Both Cameron and Mark said that this was legitimately creepy. Go Team Chris!

There were some other creepy parts towards the beginning, but the game turned into one big run & gun after the first creature fell. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Next Halloween, I'm planning to run something more game-y.

Guardian Spirit Short Story

The forest was screaming. Jarlek could hear it - he'd been able to hear the forest as a young boy, much younger than the others in his village. He heard the whispers through the tress, showing him paths to wonder, warning him against danger, and teaching him the ways of the ancients. The voice of the forest was always gentle, calm and peaceful. But now it was screaming.

Jarlek rushed from bough to bough, leaping like a frantic beast. He landed in a crouch on a tree branch, dark skinned hands and feet grasping the solid tree before propelling him forward to the next. Anything that could disturb the forest like this would be dangerous, but all Jarlek could think about was the cries of his beloved forest. He would find the source of the forest's pain. And whoever was doing this would pay.

The scream got louder and louder, and Jarlek strained against it to keep his grip on a branch. He failed, and dropped ten feet to the ground. As he sat up, the screaming stopped. He saw a strange figure in a white and gold robe turn from a great scale-bark tree to come towards him - the figure's finger was smoking, like a smoldering stick. Past the figure Jarlek could see strange symbols burned into the tree. As he watched they began healing, grey ash turning back to healthy bark. His eyes widened even more, and the figure stopped his advance to look back, and sighed.

"Now I shall have to start all over. But first, foolish primate, you will know the mark of Empire." As he said this, the figure lifted its hood to reveal a middle-aged man with expressionless eyes. Upon his forehead was a strange symbol, burned in place just as the marks in the tree. The smoldering blackness spread from the man's fingertip to the rest of his hand, and he stretched that gnarled, smoking claw toward Jarlek's face. A symbol similar to the one on the man's head glowed fiery red on the man's palm. Realization suddenly dawned on the youth, and he tried to scramble back on all fours. His limbs seemed to be frozen - he couldn't move, only stare at the dead-faced man with the burning hand..

Just then, Jarlek heard a voice to his left. "Move, boy! This man is nothing to you, a slave of someone far away. You are here, in the Ancient Forest! You have the power of your ancestors all around you. Move!" At this shout, Jarlek's head darted to the left, where stood one of the guardian spirits of the forest. A translucent figure, dressed in the leathers of a hunter in the forest. His wild white hair and beard framed his dark face like a lion's mane. Jarlek's mind drifted to the elder who taught the names and faces of the ancestral spirits. This was Korenak, a defender of the forest, he remembered. And then he recalled his predicament. The youth was up in a flash, running through the forest as fast as the spirits' guidance could take him.

Jarlek stopped a few minutes later to catch his breath. What had happened? Whoever that man was, he was hurting the forest. The forest was life for the Guardians, the tribes who lived here for centuries, and drew on the life within for their magic. This dead-faced figure had to be stopped. And though he may have some sort of magic of his own, he was no match for the might of the Ancient Forest embodied. Jarlek knew the rites to channel the power into himself, though he hadn't used them since his naming day ritual. He stood with his back against a great oak, breathing heavily and trying to recall the words to the ritual. Then Korenak appeared.

Jarlek dropped to his knees, hands over one another in front of him. "All honor to you, Great Ancestor!" the youth squeaked. This time, at least, he would observe traditions.

The spirit absently waved the greeting away. "Enough of that, boy," it said, looking back in the direction of the dead-faced man. "you've got heavier rocks to haul. You're from the, what, Raven's Feather tribe?" The spirit looked toward him, and Jarlek felt insignificant. This man had served the forest for centuries, protecting it in death as he had in life. He had a commanding presence even in death. As one of the Ancestor Spirits, he had incredible powers, and could grant them to living Guardians he deemed worthy of the honor. Many young warriors dreamed of becoming the Chosen of the Spirits, wielding the might of the Ancient Forest against outside forces. Maybe he appeared to Jarlek to-

"Don't even think about it," Korenak laughed, guessing easily the route the boy's thoughts had taken. "You're good, don't get me wrong. Eyes sharp enough to see me clearly and good ears to hear the forest's signal. But you've got years of training ahead of you before I just hand over any powers." The youth's cheeks turned red, bright against his dark skin. The spirit reached down to ruffle Jarlek's hair, though all he felt was a slight warm wind. "Don't worry, you've a part to play, boy. Your tribe, it's the Raven's Feathers, right?" the spirit asked again.

"Yes, Great Ancestor" Jarlek manage to meekly reply.

"Then run to them. Find an old man by the name of Tor Blacknail. Tell him the old fox sent you. Explain everything. the calls of the forest, the hooded man, everything. Lead him back to the screaming tree. And if you don't find that blank-faced man, dead on the ground, tell him I did all I could." Before the youth could even protest, the spirit of Korenak, ancient defender of the forest, had faded away. Jarlek hesitated for a moment more, then took off through the forest, climbing a tree and leaping from branch to branch back to his village.

As he leaped, the young guardian's mind raced. Tor Blacknail was an old shaman, estranged from the rest of the tribe and living on his own. Jarlek had seen his hut many times, and been warned away from visiting. Sometimes he and the other boys would throw a stone at it and run - The one who threw last was the bravest. Jarlek had been taught to stay away from the mad old shaman, but he'd been given a command by one of the great ancestor spirits! He knew there was no shirking this responsibility. Suddenly, the cries of the forest began again. He had to bring Tor Blacknail as fast as possible!