The Star Cairns 28-33
14/08/23 14:43
The stakes continue to rise as the heroes head to their 4th Star Cairn, featuring extra-planar phenomena, avoiding desert raiders and dealing with rampaging golems as they go. Generally known to us as The Planar Cairn this one managed to top even the 3rd Cairn and its Beholder master for nail-biting moments as we moved out of the early levels and into what felt like more of a mid-level game. The second half of the adventure finds us back in my beloved Greyhawk City intriguing with the group’s contacts and trying to discover who it is that wants them dead so badly.
AD&D 2e continued to support us allowing allowing all sorts of fun and odd activities within the scope of its detailed rules, reminding me of how much I still like this version of D&D even if I don’t use it regularly these days.
Featuring…
Simon as Andrea - Ranger
Andy as Astra - MU/Thief
Andy as Avon - MU/Thief
Malcolm as Hemegretham - Fighter
Dave as Alvin - MU/Cleric
Karim as Raven - MU/Fighter
Alex as Zeppo - Cleric
Jan as Joe - Fighter
AD&D 2e continued to support us allowing allowing all sorts of fun and odd activities within the scope of its detailed rules, reminding me of how much I still like this version of D&D even if I don’t use it regularly these days.
Featuring…
Simon as Andrea - Ranger
Andy as Astra - MU/Thief
Andy as Avon - MU/Thief
Malcolm as Hemegretham - Fighter
Dave as Alvin - MU/Cleric
Karim as Raven - MU/Fighter
Alex as Zeppo - Cleric
Jan as Joe - Fighter
The Star Cairns 18-27
18/06/23 12:24
The exploration of the 3rd Star Cairn was a highly memorable run of sessions featuring everything from PC death to romance and intrigue to total war. I often hear the exhortation from recent games designers to be a fan of the characters as if it is a new or original idea but back in 2000 I was certainly a fan of this entertaining group as they bravely, stupidly, amusingly, tragically and outrageously tackled the challenges of the formidable 3rd Star Cairn.
I think these sessions hold the record for the sheer number of emails flying back and forth between players during the week as the players were engaged out of session quite significantly. The whole thing was a challenge for the group and I had my hands full trying to keep up with them during the crazily swinging turns of events. It was a lot of fun to play and hopefully remains exciting to read and is also a reminder of designer, Sean Reynold’s fantastic work creating these locations. It has taken quite a while to ensure the edited copies are plot consistent across the 10 sessions and now I am delighted to share them as we relive the events played out in the spring and summer of 2000.
Featuring…
Simon as Andrea - Ranger
Andy as Astra - MU/Thief
Malcolm as Hemegretham - Fighter
Dave as Alvin - MU/Cleric
Karim as Raven - MU/Fighter
Alex as Zeppo - Cleric
Jan as Columbus - Cleric
Jan as Joe - Fighter
I think these sessions hold the record for the sheer number of emails flying back and forth between players during the week as the players were engaged out of session quite significantly. The whole thing was a challenge for the group and I had my hands full trying to keep up with them during the crazily swinging turns of events. It was a lot of fun to play and hopefully remains exciting to read and is also a reminder of designer, Sean Reynold’s fantastic work creating these locations. It has taken quite a while to ensure the edited copies are plot consistent across the 10 sessions and now I am delighted to share them as we relive the events played out in the spring and summer of 2000.
Featuring…
Simon as Andrea - Ranger
Andy as Astra - MU/Thief
Malcolm as Hemegretham - Fighter
Dave as Alvin - MU/Cleric
Karim as Raven - MU/Fighter
Alex as Zeppo - Cleric
Jan as Columbus - Cleric
Jan as Joe - Fighter
Winter's Daughter
17/06/23 19:45
The first of our new series of games using the Old School Essentials (OSE) ruleset published by Necrotic Gnome and also the first that we have played using an online Virtual Tabletop (VTT). I'd been playing in a few online convention games during 2020 and with the pandemic in 2021 the pace really picked up so I managed to gain a lot of experience playing in this medium, enough to convince me that it would be a possibility if I could settle on a particular VTT and get myself organised enough to run some games. Foundry turned out to be that VTT for a number of reasons but a big one is that I can run it as a node.js service for no additional cost beyond the initial purchase on my existing internet server.
We played Winter's Daughter, an introductory adventure suitable for a beginning party with two Rangers, a Fighter and Druid testing themselves in the Tomb of Sir Chyde. Proving themselves up to the test and now a level higher they will continue onto The Incandescent Grottoes as their next adventure.
We are a new group to playing RPG's online but slowly picking up speed aided by OSE's clean and clear rulebooks and supporting VTT materials. The focus now is on playing as much as possible to get the flow of online play working well. I'm having fun and I think the players are too, they're coming back at least. :)
Featuring…
Simon as Angus - Human Ranger
Rachel as Fenella - Human Druid
Alex as Vlad - Human Fighter
Malcolm as Reme - Human Ranger
We played Winter's Daughter, an introductory adventure suitable for a beginning party with two Rangers, a Fighter and Druid testing themselves in the Tomb of Sir Chyde. Proving themselves up to the test and now a level higher they will continue onto The Incandescent Grottoes as their next adventure.
We are a new group to playing RPG's online but slowly picking up speed aided by OSE's clean and clear rulebooks and supporting VTT materials. The focus now is on playing as much as possible to get the flow of online play working well. I'm having fun and I think the players are too, they're coming back at least. :)
Featuring…
Simon as Angus - Human Ranger
Rachel as Fenella - Human Druid
Alex as Vlad - Human Fighter
Malcolm as Reme - Human Ranger
Invisible Stalker and The Trouble with In-Laws
09/05/23 12:54
A couple of between campaign shorts feature in this month’s update. Both Invisible Stalker and The Trouble with In-Laws are adventures from the pages of Dungeon magazine, a resource which I used a lot for exactly this kind of thing.
Invisible Stalker was a fun one-shot which for a change only took one session, while The Trouble with In-Laws, a more substantial outing originally titled “Mercy Mission” in order to conceal the plot from the players, went on for three sessions. In The Trouble with In-Laws the party demonstrates how not to be a detective as they ignore a huge array of clues and evidence yet somehow manage to stumble their way to the denoument. I enjoy running detective plots and especially city / town adventures but I found myself re-considering a little after this one. :)
The character of D’Ayve is actually Luura who will appear in the subsequent sessions, Dave was unable to attend the first session at short notice so this grumpy DM just plugged in a variant of his name for his character.
Featuring, in both adventures…
Simon as Larry - Human MU
Andy as Llewelyn - Human Cleric
Dave as Luura - Human MU (dressmaker)
Karim as Lello - Elven Cleric
Alex as LooLoo - Human Fighter
Malcolm as Len - Halfling Thief
Invisible Stalker was a fun one-shot which for a change only took one session, while The Trouble with In-Laws, a more substantial outing originally titled “Mercy Mission” in order to conceal the plot from the players, went on for three sessions. In The Trouble with In-Laws the party demonstrates how not to be a detective as they ignore a huge array of clues and evidence yet somehow manage to stumble their way to the denoument. I enjoy running detective plots and especially city / town adventures but I found myself re-considering a little after this one. :)
The character of D’Ayve is actually Luura who will appear in the subsequent sessions, Dave was unable to attend the first session at short notice so this grumpy DM just plugged in a variant of his name for his character.
Featuring, in both adventures…
Simon as Larry - Human MU
Andy as Llewelyn - Human Cleric
Dave as Luura - Human MU (dressmaker)
Karim as Lello - Elven Cleric
Alex as LooLoo - Human Fighter
Malcolm as Len - Halfling Thief
The Star Cairns 8-17
26/03/23 19:45
Having dealt with the bandit situation in their first cairn the group went on to discover the cairn of The Dedicated Student (sessions 8-17), further exploring the background and rationale of the cairns as they continued their investigations into the history of these enigmatic constructions. Sean Reynold's adventure continues to impress with its imagination and scope as a truly memorable NPC is introduced.
A third very much needed Cleric (Columbus) joins the group as Jan comes onboard for the first time.
Featuring…
Simon as Andrea - Ranger
Andy as Astra - MU/Thief
Malcolm as Hemegretham - Fighter
Dave as Alvin - MU/Cleric
Karim as Raven - MU/Fighter
Alex as Zeppo - Cleric
Jan as Columbus - Cleric
A third very much needed Cleric (Columbus) joins the group as Jan comes onboard for the first time.
Featuring…
Simon as Andrea - Ranger
Andy as Astra - MU/Thief
Malcolm as Hemegretham - Fighter
Dave as Alvin - MU/Cleric
Karim as Raven - MU/Fighter
Alex as Zeppo - Cleric
Jan as Columbus - Cleric