Mathematical!

Monday, March 19th, 2012 11:48 am
dev_chieftain: (totallyrad)
So we watched almost all of Adventure Time over the weekend, and we're totally hooked. It's awesome for all the obvious reasons, though my favorite are the occasional moments of 'actually, there's quite a lot of backstory you'll never know' that immediately get slapped away with more crazy randomness. Why not, right?

My weekend was spent alternately working from home, and trying to squeeze in some fun times and relaxation here and there. I did get to chat with my brother on the phone, which was nice; and it rained here, while it was snowing up there, so we were both pretty content with the weather. (It sounded sucky, honestly! He had the day off but his housemates were all out! Booo!)

I hear that Emma has broken up with her boyfriend, which sounds really rough and like maybe ice cream and movie nights are needed. I am determined to make the Steampunk London game super fun as a result! Well, okay, I was already thus determined, but now I'm double-determined!

I'm thinking I might want the players to be detectives, since I keep drafting up mysterious goings-on for them to investigate. But I like the idea of coming away with a fishmonger, a hatter and a penniless poet for players instead, so I think I want to encourage creativity rather than suggest a profession.

Also, Kali's doing a 30-days-of-cool-ladies meme. I kind of wanted to participate, but I also just can't focus that well on a meme for thirty days in a row.

Tonight, we have to go grocery shopping, and we're hoping to finish up the Sword and Shield module with Whistler and Dame Varnell. Should be exciting! Though I suppose it won't take too long, either.

Oh yeah! Summary of Friday! I worked late and was late to the game as a result-- just really exhausted and a little out of it still-- but the gist of things is this. Calderax piloted our ship safely to dock in the Wheel, where we had to deal with thugs after Doc and the Captain, Mac Macadilly (or possibly Macadillydilly), who apparently were the sole survivors of the crew, who owed on the insurance of the ship. So we offered to let Doc adventure with us to help him pay off the money with a 1/7th share of the treasure we'd made in the process.

Merys and Joceyln decided to take things right to the desk of the collecting agency, protesting the alacrity with which the goons had come after doc and suggesting that there be some offer of leniency on the loan so that people who hadn't been making very much money to begin with wouldn't be crippled and crushed for nothing. The president of the company, presumably overwhelmed by the pair of them, acceded, giving Doc and Mac a six-month grace period. We did turn in one of the decanters of endless water to the Adventurer's Guild, and when Aigua inquired as to the nature of the guild's desire to possess the items, was met with stoic silence by the Guild's stoically silent member, and silly nonsense from their cheery bard. Suspicious!

Merys and the bard coordinated their lists of items-to-find, and she asked him for all the leads he might have currently on where to look for the items. It turned out that there were dimensional shackles being used to keep a demon imprisoned in a swamp. Aigua didn't want to go, but Calderax's sword had heard of the demon and suggested it would be wise to banish him to another dimension. There was also a humorous moment where one of the items on the list, soul gems, came up; the bard explained that a tiefling had been making them, but apparently his apprentice had killed him, so those might be tricky to find. (At this point, Calderax totally unsubtly excused himself from the room).

There was the question of how to get Zetsian royal blood. Merys was deeply interested in trying to get the blood from Erith, who wanted no part of that, thanks! In any case, we were mostly made up to go to the swamp, since Calderax had an idea of where the spot they needed might be. They went to inform Captain Mac that they'd be helping him out and found him in a local tavern. Here, the proprietor turned out to be Erith's ex-lord, from the days before Zets had fallen. He spoke with her for a while, embarrassed to have been found out in his much diminished state. Captain Mac, who was wildly drunk, ended up getting a free room, which the bartender had offered Erith. She accepted for Captain Mac's sake, giving him a place to stay.

Resolved, we headed out for the swamp on our airship, and were startled when a druid-Orc arrived to warn us off if we were going to try to set the demon free. Aigua and Calderax bespoke it, asking it if perhaps they could kill and banish the demon. Would that be okay? He agreed, and we landed the ship, avoiding a Froghemoth that the Orc warned us about in the swamp, before walking into the subterranean temple where the demon had been bound for several centuries. We tried talking to it to find out why it'd been bound there (we knew it had something to do with a paladin not wanting the demon to share certain secrets with its kindred when it returned to hell), but it was having none of that. So, we entered into battle with it. Erith almost singlehandedly defeated the beast, aided by Merys, Joceyln and Calderax (Aigua somewhat ineffectively threw bones at it); with its dying breath, it told us of a secret to do with a man serving close at the Goddess's right hand, who had discovered a secret to immortality and was not in fact dead as many would believe. Then he disappeared, leaving the shackles behind for the taking!
dev_chieftain: (Devpony)
What a weekend! Let's see if I can remember it all.

Friday - So right after work, I headed on over to Derek's place Friday for the first session of Dustin's Pathfinder game. We were still getting some details worked out, including names for some of the characters.

Here's the play by play: )

Saturday - We were determined to go see John Carter of Mars, and we did! It was great fun and I totally recommend it to anybody who has the cash on hand to go see a movie, and the desire to have a good time.

My background is that I'd read one of the books many years ago, but forgotten the title for a while. )

I definitely want to recommend this movie as highly as possible to as many people as possible. I'll give you a spoilery list of reasons why if you want; but here I'm just trying to get people who might not have been thinking about it to give the film a go. Take it from me, I really don't like going to the movie theater lately. Being forced to sit with other people just doesn't appeal! But I was happy to go to the theater for this film, and didn't even mind paying 10$ to see it. It's fun, actiony, and it's got heart. If you like adventure, give it a shot!

Additionally, if you'd like to read these books and don't want to head down to your local library, Edgar Rice Burroughs's books are available on Project Gutenberg (even in ebook format, it looks like, for those who don't like reading the .html on their computer screen):

A Princess of Mars

The Gods of Mars

Warlord of Mars

Sunday - A lazy day; we had acquired the night before a copy of Ralph Bakshi's Wizards, as much because Danny was curious as for any other reason. We watched it after we'd been to the grocery store, and dissected it as thoroughly as we could.

Wizards I would not recommend, unless you are an enthusiast of animation and want to see something a little weird and unusual. Unlike Thief and the Cobbler, it's not much to look at. Bakshi's budget was low and to some degree, I think he liked the look of certain things that to me just look weird. What I had supposed was half-finished rotoscoping in his Lord of the Rings movies was apparently part of the completed project that is Wizards; the movement of the characters has a certain weirdness that sometimes you can point at and say 'I see what he's going for here' and sometimes you can watch and go 'what the hell is the internal structure of this thing, and how is it even moving?'

Seriously, the film was interesting but it dropped the ball on most of the things I found genuinely intriguing about it, and glossed over the good vs. evil thing in that most generic fantasy of ways, which was crappy. )

Anyway, after that, we fetched us a Dustin and settled down to do the most awesome thing ever: a two-person module in basic D&D! Basic's fun because it's easy to roll up a character. The module's about a jousting tournament, so I made a thief who's squire to Dustin's awesome fighter. They are:

Dame Francesca Varnell, the elderly errant knight and proponent of good and just conduct. She much enjoys adventure, and helping others. She has a streak of gray but is otherwise quite vigorous and looks to be in great shape for her age.

And her squire is Farin "Whistler" Attar (whom the lady Varnell calls 'Adder', naturally, mispronouncing his last name). A young would-be thief, he has somehow ended up serving as the Lady's squire and follows her around. He is missing one of his front teeth and has a knife scar along his left cheek. Aside from being scruffy and somewhat scrawny, he is otherwise unremarkable in appearance.

We had a raucous good time together! Having received a mysterious invitation to the castle of the Black Knight, Dame Varnell seized on the opportunity to investigate the place. She had good reason to want to look, as a local maiden named Gertie had been recently kidnapped in a raid presumably by the Black Knight, and taken to his castle.

As soon as we entered the castle, the drawbridge began to rise, effectively trapping us within the keep. Whistler, leading Dame Varnell's horse, grew nervous.

Whistler: Are you sure this is a good idea, Lady Varnell? Because I don't think we're gonna be able to get out of here!
Dame Varnell: Oh, well, it would do us no good to leave before we've located Gertrude, Attar, you know that.
Whistler: But the gate--!
Dame Varnell: It's almost certainly a trap, after all.
Whistler: Why couldn't you have said that before we got here?
Dame Varnell: Don't be ridiculous! We must take care of Gertrude, in any case.
Whistler: You know, there's a reason nobody else wants to find her. She's mean.
Dame Varnell: Attar! That's no way to speak about a lady.

I will write up a bunch more, but for now there's work to do. Suffice it to say, we had a blast!

Edit: Hey! A more uplifting article about handling internet arguments in a way that turns them back into discussions. Very nice piece!
dev_chieftain: (Devpony)
Did I mention that D&D is awesome lately? Well, it is. Just so you know.

Updates in the tabletop world:
Tonight is Pathfinder! Still finalizing Aigua's design. I can't decide if I want her to have long hair or short hair! The cast:

INQUISITOR - Brandtford Waynewright, AKA 'Red', the man driven by revenge for his wife, who was murdered by a serial killer.

MAGUS - ???, AKA 'Goldilocks', a younger man abandoned or orphaned in his childhood and left to a mysterious tiefling to raise. When his mentor was suddenly murdered, a magic sword bespoke him and goaded him into taking it into his hand. It has helped him ever since.

NINJA - Merys, AKA 'Merry', a cheerful, up-beat killah ninja lady of great talent with tricky things like locks, or killing people what needs to die.

SAMURAI - ???, AKA 'Elfnigma', the only non-human of the party. A half-elven samurai who rides astride a winged horse. He or she is quiet and thoughtful.

SUMMONER - Jocelyn, AKA 'Meridian', the exiled leader of a now-destroyed battalion troop of summoners. She is privy to a great deal of information she has been sworn to keep secret, on pain of death; everyone she ever knew was killed to cover up the secret that is her burden. Her last remaining companion is the otherwordly creature she summons using her magicks, a dragon that she can trust with her life.

MONK - Aigua, AKA 'Butterfingers', the ex-bodyguard who has come to eschew weaponry. After being used as a pawn by nobility in the past, she came to value freedom, honesty, and the simple things in life. She's rowdy, easily amused, and she loves making boots. Just as well, since she's always wearing hers down.

Steampunk London update: 2 of 4 players confirmed; sending out / sent out requests for other two players to see if they'll be available for the projected timeframe. Tentative first session date: March 25, unless this conflicts for players.

AD&D update: I know I already mentioned our hijinks on Tuesday, but I'm totally looking forward to this coming Tuesday because we are crawling a dungeon! I should scan in my maps of the previous dungeony stuff, and of this one, for people to see. Mapping dungeons is definitely something I really enjoy as a player!
dev_chieftain: (Default)
1. Danny's brother noted him yesterday asking him for advice about DMing D&D, which was just about the coolest thing ever. I know it might not seem like much to those of you who yawn and roll your eyes whenever I talk about D&D, but it's pretty damn awesome to have someone who's just getting into tabletop say to you, personally, "Oh my gosh...this game is really cool! Please teach me everything you can about it!" I've gotten that feeling a couple of times when DMing for events at the local gamestore, and it is a VERY warm fuzzy feeling. This is so cool!

2. Dustin's going to be running a pathfinder game on Fridays, so I'm trying to decide what kind of character to play. The setting is a floating-islands-over-ravaged-planet type, with a central goddess that people never really see, but frequently worship; the floating islands were created by mages to save life, since they're higher than the endlessly hungry monsters that ate the world beneath.

Here are what I'm considering playing:

Gnome Bard - Mahi

Description: Extremely dark complexion; dark eyes, and blue-and-indigo hair. She is whimsical in her choice of speech, often rhyming intentionally or being alliterative more than one is naturally inclined to do.

Sea-Singer! (Sort of)

Obsessed with the written and spoken word. Her prized possessions are dictionaries, quills, ink, the accoutrements of writing. She is not the kind of bard who always sings, but she is totally the kind of bard who has limerick-offs with anyone who dares challenge her. Bookmaking, from tanning the hide for the cover to writing the contents of the book in question, is her deepest passion. She loves writing down everything-- even the things people would rather she didn't-- in her books. Prior to her current obsession, Mahi was into rapier-fighting, and she still duels with people regularly for sport (though not to kill). She has no concept of ownership over anything except books-- she would never take someone's books, or tools to make them, without asking or paying first. However, to her food, clothes, houses, money, horses, whatever-- that's all pretty much free for all. Mahi would probably be chaotic good. Possibly chaotic neutral in some situations.

She has long experience traveling. She is likely to abandon a ship if it lingers in the same place for too long.

Human Monk - Aigua

Description: Dark-haired, with sea-green eyes and a darker complexion. She is stocky and muscular, tanned from many years' travel, but not notably short or tall for a human. Friendly, with a tendency to be loud and rambunctious.

Monk of the Empty Hand!

Once a palace guard for royalty, Aigua used to serve as a matter of course, loyally, faithfully, until one day she was inexplicably called to trial for plotting the assassination of the very people she protected. Through her farce of a trial, she was able to see that she had been selected to avert suspicions from a nobleman of the house that was seeking to perform the very assassination she was now taking blame for. She was unable to convince the nobility of her innocence, stripped of her rank, armor and weapons, and cast into prison for several years. The assassination later occurred as the woman orchestrating it had planned, and, gloating, that woman came to taunt Aigua in her cell.

She released Aigua, as apology for using her in the plot to create greater trust between herself and the now-dead lady-warrior that had previously headed the house. Aigua made an attempt to kill her, but years of imprisonment had made her weak, and her opponent was a Witch. Amused by the attempt, she decided to curse Aigua with silence, put upon her a charm that forced her to serve whomever should hold the accompanying charm, and sent her as a house servant to a political ally. Aigua was thus forced to serve around the house of an innocent, but somewhat airheaded gentleman on a faraway island for some years.

By chance, the gentleman for whom Aigua worked befriended a wizard who, unfamiliar with woman of her complexion, considered her very beautiful. After detecting the spells upon her, he offered to remove them in exchange for her romantic affections. She refused, repulsed by the offer, but they became friends because of it, when he realized that she was quite capable of reading and writing, and could communicate with him in that way. She related her story to him, revealing the foul play of the woman who'd sold her to the man for whom she currently worked, and he brought the woman to justice with the power of the ruling nobility that backed him. When they offered to remove her curses as payment for her service in bringing the woman to justice, she agreed.

Having befriended the wizard, and having no particular ill-will to her erstwhile Lord of the house, she began to travel with the wizard. Reclaiming the full use of her voice took a lot of practice, but having been forcibly silenced for so long, she had quite a bit to say. The wizard's ultimately lawful intentions made him dear to her as a close friend, and they policed the land as best they could together, seeking out injustice or duplicity and exposing it. Though she'd once worn armor and fought with a sword, she abstained from returning to the use of them, abhoring weaponry in favor of simply using whatever came to hand.

After many years of successfully working with her friend, they parted ways, partially because she wished to keep traveling and he to settle down, and partially because they did not see eye to eye on what justice or law meant.

I kind of have a half-baked idea that the party is a bunch of airship pirates and they decided to pillage a town she happened to be in, picked her up among the rest of the people and stuff they were stealing, and then she just Could Not Be Bothered With This Shit and decided to join their crew. They were so surprised they didn't stop her.

Personality wise she probably seems much more cheerful / loud / thoughtless than she actually is, and then drops into Okay, Now We Talk Quietly and Seriously when necessary.

Alchemist Dwarf- Vode

Description: Gray-brown haired, with dark eyes and fairly pale complexion. Not many freckles. Slender, with a tendency to frown and a dour demeanor.

Not much for exploration at all, given the choice. Vode grew up in the thick of a big city, working for the guard. She comes from a long line of Dwarven guardsfolk, but her own interests proved to be more scholarly than battle-driven. Where she and her family met and could agree, however, was alchemy: the service of providing the guard cover in battle through the use of bombs. While her favorite uses of alchemical works are extracts and mutagens, she learned to make bombs as well so that she'd get along better with her family.

Vode is completely out of her element on airships, preferring to stay within bustling city streets whenever possible. (Of course, bustling city streets and cities in general want little to do with alchemists unless they're helping the guard to fight off invaders and pirates and all.) She is wily and streetsmart, a fast-talker and deeply fond of games of chance.

Why did Vode join the party? She owed a massive gambling debt and so came aboard the ship to earn enough to pay the debt off. If she doesn't succeed in a year's time, they've threatened to harm her family (children? siblings?).

(If children probably should detail how that happened.)

Cavalier Halfling OR Dwarf - Tanli

Description: Dark complexion, black hair, long and smooth, with gray eyes and a tendency to smirk.

Order of the cockatrice Cavalier

Tanli grew up knowing she was skilled and wanting to show the world that this was so. She always worked extra hard to impress her teachers-- both her parents, who trained her in the arts of battle and strategy, and her masters, who then taught her the arts of history, etiquette, and chivalry. As the only daughter of a family of lowly guardsfolk, who worked around the town doing nice stuff for free and as often as not having trouble managing to put food on the table, Tanli was expected to join the town guard and likely follow in their footsteps. This was not good enough for Tanli, who felt that not only her parents but her entire home village deserved better in life-- as well as herself.

She set out to become famous, and bring back such wealth that people would come from far and wide to see the incredible artistry and beauty of her home. She set out to accomplish as many deeds of notoriety as possible, doing such things as snatching an arrow out of the air to save the life of a kindly priest of the Goddess; rescuing sailors who were falling into the depths of the world from an attacked airship; altering the course of another airship that nearly crashed into an unoccupied, barren floating island in midst of a storm; and other such deeds of bravery. (Indeed, Tanli is not known for challenging people to battle very often, it seems.)

She makes a point of offering her services to anyone who seems to need them, and while she always requires payment, she is never unfair about it. She carefully maintains her image as one who is noble, willing to right wrongs, and is deserving of reward. She may hope to someday serve the Goddess directly.

I mostly thought this would be fun because the idea of playing a dwarf or halfling cavalier sounded too cool to pass up. Dwarf works for the serious, Justice! side, but Halfling works for the ridiculously nice, I'm Super Friendly! side.

I might be willing to go another route than order of the Cockatrice, but I kind of like it. Order of the dragon is probably the best for the party though, so whatever.

Mounts: Either a wyvern or a kirin?

A wyvern mount might be kind of hard to explain, but I like the idea of Tanli having rescued the wyvern's nest of eggs or something from certain destruction, and the wyvern then choosing to befriend her as thanks. (Or something). A kirin is really easy to explain-- young kirin are specifically hotheaded enough to go around helping out cavaliers-- but it's up to Dustin whether either of those is ok.

If he says no, I'm pretty sure I want to ride a Giant Frog with a flying saddle on, since we'll be on an airship as far as I know. I don't know if there's such a thing as a flying saddle, but if there isn't, and my mount can't fly, I'd like to make one up. Giant Frogs are like the best mounts ever. Ribbit!


3. And most importantly, D&D is tonight! So here's what I'd already written up of last week's summary:

It's pretty long though! )
Page generated Sunday, June 8th, 2025 09:11 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios