Enchanted Forest

Enchanted Forest, from Ravensburger Games

Armistice Eve Wings of Glory

I finally got to play some games with my new WoG material! I invited friends over for a game on Armistice Eve.  Four of them were able to show up; none of them had ever played before, although a couple of them had played X-Wing Miniatures.

I have a big piece of scrap MDF flooring that I’ve been painting with ancient cans of house paint and some old bottles of cheap craft acrylic.  My goal is to make it look like a generic section of Belgian countryside from overhead.  It’s still a work in progress, but I think it looks decent enough to use.  It’s about 71 x 41 inches (180 x 104 cm).

First, I just told the three of my friends who had arrived to pick out some planes for a basic dogfight.  We started with an Alabatros D. Va and a Fokker D. VII vs. an Se5a and a SPAD XIII.  The dogfight wheeled around the table; my brain wheeled around as I tried to explain and keep track of the special damage rules; and my friends exhibited admirable patience as I clumsily tried to clarify rules points. 

My fourth friend arrived, and picked out the Fokker Dr. I and threw it into the fray. The SPAD was the first to go, after a Boom card was drawn, leaving the lone Se5a against the three
Central Powers planes.  The friend who picked the Fokker Dr. I, just the round before, quickly changed sides—what everyone had thought was a Fokker turned out to actually be a Sopwith Camel!

The dogfight moved sort of like a whirlwind from one side of the board to the other.  In just a few more rounds, the Albatros and the Camel both plummeted to earth, full of holes.  Finally, the Se5a got in some final shots on the Fokker D. VII before it could turn around, leaving the Se5a as the last plane in the air.

A couple of friends had to leave at that point, but the two remaining were enthusiastic about another match.  I quickly came up with a simple scenario:  An Airco dh. 4 with a SPAD XIII escort returning home from a bombing mission, waylaid by two Albatros D. VA.s.   The dh. 4 and the SPAD started on one end of the play area, with the goal of flying off the far end to escape.  The Albatroses started 2/3s of the way down the board, near the Entente aircraft. (I flew both the Airco dh. 4 and the SPAD, and they each took an Alabatros).

The distance was closed pretty quickly, with the SPAD racing ahead to meet the attackers.  All aircraft took fire.  The dh. 4 tried to zigzag to keep out of firing arcs, and to let its rear gunner fire, but the two-seater’s B guns were doing minimal damage to the attackers.  The SPAD’s intentions were to repeatedly zip through combat, do an Immelman, and then return; however, twice inside of two rounds I chose the wrong maneuver cards (once playing a stall instead of an Immelman, and once playing a sideslip instead of a turn).  The result was that for several rounds the SPAD was too far downstream from the action to be of any use.

The Albatroses had been distracted by the SPAD, but soon realized that their larger prey was moving to escape, and was leaving them behind.  They pursued the Airco dh. 4, but lost a round of firing as they tried to catch up.  After they caught up, the dh. 4’s rear gun jammed, and then the dh. 4 was set ablaze by the German aircraft’s guns.  The day-bomber’s damage was stacking up, but escape was at hand!  The next round, the dh. 4 made it off the board with 14 points of damage taken out of 17—but there was still one flame token on the plane.  In the interest of fairness and story, I drew one more damage card to see if the plane could make it safely home—and drew a 0!

The SPAD neared that edge of the board, and was game for attempting to take down one of the Germans.  However, after another exchange of fire, the SPAD’s guns jammed.  The pilot then decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and flew off the board at the start of the next maneuver selection phase.

The two Albatros D. Va.s were left frustrated with their empty hunting bags—but were still intact enough that any new prey that blundered in their direction would be in danger.

That was the end.  It was a fun night of shooting, with a few beers thrown in.  I am eager to play again.

Ticket to Ride

A couple of months ago I realized I had spent almost no money over the previous year on my primary hobby, games, so I felt like it was OK to spend a little money I had saved up.  I ordered a Wings of Glory WW1 Rules and Accessories Pack with a starter set of four airplanes.  This would go with the two planes I bought about 18 months ago to use while playing with Aaron, who already had the rules and some planes.

I was excited when it all came in the mail, and happily read the rule book.

Not long after that, just a few weeks ago, my old friend Kelly posted on Facebook that he was going to sell his Wings of War (same thing as Wings of Glory, just an earlier edition) planes, and asked if any of his friends were interested.  I jumped at that.  I didn’t even know he had the game.  He offered me a very good price, but even so, I told him it would be a little while before I had the money.  He said that was no problem.

I requested that he just hold them until I could pay him for them, but shortly after that I came home from work to find a box from him on my front porch.  He had gone ahead and mailed the planes to me, knowing that I would like to have them for a Veterans Day game I was planning.  What a super nice thing to do!  And I was thrilled to get them.  I love them.

And to top that off, just a few days after that, one of my co-workers just gave me two more planes.  He’d had them sitting on his desk, having bought them just to have models sitting in his cubicle, but had decided he wanted something larger.  He knew I was into the game, so he handed them to me.

It has been a biplane bonanza.

This is a photo of all my Wings of Glory planes.

Trolls and Twinkies

The Shadow Cat

She keeps us company while we run the shadows.

Two Shadowrun game nights - a recap.

Shadowrun recap of two separate game nights

Oct. 10, 2015 (Paul, Aaron, and I were the only ones able to make it to this game night.)

Well, a couple of days later we got a call from our fixer asking if we wanted to meet a potential employer at a nice café in Bellevue. Sure, we said.

Gumball the rigger picked up Bingo in a van, and we got to the café with Canoti.  Kryptek hacked into our commlinks and attended the meet virtually.  It was a busy lunch hour, and inside we found our Mr. Johnson.  He was a fashionably dressed Amerind.  After some discussion, we agreed to the terms:  he would pay our team 6500 nuyen each if we stole data from a traveling exhibit that had arrived at UW.

It appeared that this exhibit had something to do with ancient artifacts and display materials, but there was some sort of data associated with it that our Mr. Johnson wanted.  We had a week to get this done, he said.

Just as our Johnson got up to leave, we heard the squeal of tires out front.  Through the large plate glass window, we saw a van screech to a halt.  Two men with assault rifles hopped out and started firing up and down the street.  Canoti lept from his seat and made it to the front door, and Bingo was preparing to cast a spell, but before we could do anything else another figure popped up from the other side of the van and fired a missile launcher right into the restaurant window.

The resulting explosion blew the interior of the restaurant to bits.  Canoti, at the front door, was thrown out into the street, relatively unhurt.  Bingo the troll was knocked to the floor and injured, but not seriously.  But our rigger, Gumball, took the full force of the blast (a glitch was rolled; a point of Edge took that away, but it was still a bad deal—Gumball took a whopping 19 boxes of damage).

Bingo looked up to see our Mr. Johnson on his feet, unscathed—bit annoyed.  He simply said, “Now I’m angry,” and caused to van to explode into a fireball with a wave of his hand.  The three attackers were killed.  Then Mr. Johnson looked down at Bingo and said, “I expect to hear from you soon,” then disappeared.

The restaurant was scorched, partially on fire, and awash in blood and body parts.  He looked for Gumball and only found his arm.  Realizing they were in a badly compromised position (shadowrunners don’t fare well when they face police questioning at the scene of a big explosion in a nice part of town), Bingo and Canoti set out on foot to escape the area. (Bingo, regarding Gumball: “Well, there goes my ride home.”)

As we fled on foot, Kryptek – who was trying to piece together from us what happened—hacked into Gumball’s van and had it come after us to pick us up, which it did.  While this was occurring, we became aware of another event over local news feeds: the 34^th-36^th floors of Colton Towers (which we had infiltrated two nights before) were engulfed in flames, a spectacle that was a news story worldwide.  The cause was unknown.

Oct. 30, 2015

All players were present, though David and Karen were attending remotely.

The van was approaching a Knight Errant roadblock, but Kryptek was able to spoof a fake transponder for the van that made it appear as a cleared security vehicle.  It passed the KE officers as they were exiting their cars.

A bit later, though, the van’s sensors picked up a rotor drone following us.  Kryptek confirmed it had orders to make a positive ID on our van.  She was able to send it some fake instructions to return to wherever it came from, and we hastily left the area.

We got to Gumball’s well-to-do condo building, meeting Agave there.  Kryptek faked passcodes for us and handled the security cameras to hide our entry.  We got into, took a bunch of running gear, and left again.

That evening, Canoti hired an investigator (Paul’s new character, actually) to find out what the connection was between the rocket attack and the Colton Towers fire.  We don’t know if MCT was trying to kill us for revenge for the tower infiltration, or if the attackers were trying to kill our Mr. Johnson, or if the last run and this run are somehow connected, or whether the tower fire and the missile attack are unconnected (although the Seattle news is linking them both as terror attacks.)

Bingo is pretty upset.  Gumball was a good friend.  Just the previous night they had been at a nightclub together, and Gumball and he had discussed the possibility of Bingo setting up a medicine lodge at his condo.  Bingo is sad, and pretty ticked off.  Anyone who seems culpable in the bloody missile attack that killed Gumball (and at least 20 bystanders) will be a target for Bingo’s magical wrath.

Shadowrun recap, 9-5-2015

Recap

[In which our heroes hope that a music prank that was embarrassingly passé in 2015 is retro-hip now that it’s 2074]

After some discussion, we decided to attempt our infiltration of the office tower’s secret 34^th floor MCT research lab, using a pared-down team of shadow experts: Canoti, Kryptek, and Bingo (me).

Kryptek, using the info our team beat out of the captured decker, reconnoitered the first floor and found the secret elevator that had been installed by the former occupants, Shiawase Corporation.  He found it hidden in a maintenance closet, and also found it to be still operational.

Kryptek stole a van and used it to get us into the building parking garage.

 We made it to the elevator uneventfully, and ascended to the 34^th floor.  It was a small maglev elevator, and seemed to struggle a little with our weight, but quietly lifted us to our destination.  We found a wall panel and popped it out, finding ourselves in another utility room. Matrix-wise, this place was dead quiet, sealed off from the rest of the world.

Using our floor plans, we just hopped into the hallway and went to the security room. Kryptek quickly sprang the lock somehow; the door opened to reveal a single guard turning from a bank of monitors, some of which were showing us enter the room. Before he could react, Canoti knocked him out with a narcojet round.

We all went into the room.  We put the guard into a supply locker (which held a small arsenal, and which we raided) while Kryptek decked into the system.  She found our target room: a VR lab which also held the only other person on the 34^th floor.  This other person was a woman who was virtually operating some form of off-site fabrication equipment.  Also of note: Kryptek discovered that, indeed, the 33^rd and 35^th floors were MCT “zero-in, zero-out” kill zones, with 35 heavily armed guards on each floor. Yikes.

While Kryptek ran local matrix overwatch, Canoti and Bingo hurried to the VR lab and opened the door.  The woman turned and fired a laser pistol at us, barely missing. Bingo cast manabolt and Canoti used some hand weapon (I don’t know what) and knocked her out, but not before she was able to send a virtual command to her off-site machinery, causing it to go haywire and alerting MCT to a problem.

Kryptek fielded a call from corporate security and played for time, saying that no, “Agent White” was still working and there were no apparent problems.  After a moment, though, she stole the required data, uploaded the files we were required to upload, wiped the security recordings, and also inserted some old 1980s pop song by Someone-or-Other Springfield to give security something to listen to while we booked it.

With our pay data, as well as stolen weapons and gear, we made our quiet escape the same way we came in.  We stole another van in the parking garage and left the scene.

Our client paid us a little extra for providing a video still of “Agent White.”

Playing Cosmic Encounter

RPG gaming group

I missed a roleplaying game session with friends last Friday night. I don't regret it; I had a nice date night with Kim. But it's one of the few game nights I have missed.

I have been playing RPGs with the same core group of friends for years. Some people have dropped out and new people have joined, but we've had what I consider the same gaming group since about 1988. The newest member of our group has been with us for 15 years.

I lived half way across the country for 2 ½ years, and of course missed out on our game nights then. Except for that period of time, I think I have missed only six or seven game nights over the past 26 years.

That track record isn't as impressive if you consider that our gaming is actually fairly intermittent. When we started, we played every 1-2 weeks, but that has declined. Over the past decade we have probably averaged about once every six weeks, not counting the occasional hiatuses from gaming that spanned months as game masters got tired and took a break.

I have a few old photos of our game nights…someplace. I have been trying to find my trove of old photos for a while now.

I'd also like to compile a list of all the people who have gamed with us; there have been quite a few people who played with us for a while and moved on.

Shadowrun session: Astral reconnaissance, then a firefight

All of our players were able to be present for a Shadowrun session last Saturday (May 30). Such a rare treat for no one to be absent!

Our team was hired to infiltrate the 34th floor of a 60-storey office building in downtown Seattle, steal some computer data from a closed system, and leave a message in its place.

On the face of it, the 34^th floor belongs to an insurance/law firm.  However, our employer clued us in that that’s just a cover:  It’s actually a secret remote computer lab for Mitsuhama Computer Technologies.

We have 3 days to perpetrate the datasteal and deliver the goods.

Initial scouting showed the building to be full of a mix of companies, but our contacts tell us that a number of these are false fronts and that other megacorporations are in the building.  “Half the companies don’t even know the other half are there,” she told us.

My troll shaman, Bingo, did some preliminary astral reconnaissance and found the 34th floor to be sealed by an astral barrier.

We debated approaches, including various ideas about scaling the windows between floors, getting access to stairwell doors, kidnapping corporate drones and hacking their IDs, etc.

Bingo decided to go back for a closer look throughout the building, astrally.  He encountered nothing until he drifted up to the base of the barrier through the elevator shaft, when he was quickly jumped by a fire spirit.  Spirits are fast, especially in astral space, so before Bingo could really even react the spirit gave him a pretty hard wallop [7 boxes of damage, which left Bingo with 4, and imposed a hefty -3 condition modifier].  Bingo was there purely for scouting purposes and had no reason to fight, so blasted out of there as fast as he could.  The spirit and its summoner, presumably a mage, gave chase, but Bingo shook them in the chaos of downtown Seattle’s astral space and returned to his meat body, bruised and bloody.

I shrugged off the possibility that the mage would try to track him down.  First of all, that probably would not be a good use of corporate security resources under the circumstances; if the wage mages went looking for everyone who bumped up against their mana barriers, they’d be spending a lot of time sniffing throughout the world for the low-grade astral jockeys and mana sneaks who poke their snoots into other people’s business, and that is about 99.9% of astrally active creatures.  Magical dingdongs running into that magical barrier has to happen fairly regulary—once a week, at least, right?  I mean, if you include nosy spirits and whatnot.  Probably many of the corps in the building probe one another’s defenses from time to time.

Second of all, Bingo was hanging out at Agave’s apartment, so if heat came down, at least he wasn’t at home. Heh.

Our team’s rigger, Gumball, got Bingo set up with a street doc and the shaman was partially healed.  Bingo is now recuperating on a couch watching reruns of “The New New Adventures of Lassie” on the trid.  Meanwhile, the rest of the team has followed up a lead about a very much disliked computer decker who knows how to get into the building, and has done it before.  This decker has plenty of enemies, one of whom told us where he’d be and encouraged us to beat the info out of him.  He’s at a bar in the barrens, in an area known for strong anti-metahuman (and xenophobic) sentiment.  Since pretty much everyone on our team is metahuman, a furriner, or both, it was agreed that mayhem and mass violence was called for.

When we stopped for the night, everyone (except Bingo, who was still trying to heal up in case he had to go up against that fire spirit & mage again, but who actually feels really rotten about not being with his pals) was initiating a firefight at the bar.  They started by shooting rotodrones that were hovering above the building.  Agave hit the front door with a grenade, blowing in a window and destroying several motorcycles. [Karen, playing Agave, got quote of the night after she threw the grenade: “No glitch! I didn’t roll a glitch!”] One of the cars in front of the building opened a pop-up turret with machine guns and ventilated the front of Gumball’s truck, while Gumball’s steel lynx combat drone covered the back door of the bar.

That’s where we left off.

Now, speaking as a player, I spent some time wondering how powerful was the spirit that assaulted Bingo.  I am guessing Force 6, but maybe higher; could be 7 or 8.  If it was lower than 6, it must have rolled pretty well, but I guess it could have been Force 5.  The message I got was that the 34^th floor was a very dangerous place to poke around.

Also, open assault on the bar from the outside sounds like tons of fun (another reason for Bingo to be sad about his choice to sit on the couch), but seems like it has some strategic holes.  Things could turn out pretty bad; I can see other members of the team easily getting sidelined with extra bodily holes.  At the very least, those 5 boxes of damage already taken by Gumball’s truck will also be poking holes in our profit margin.

It will probably be at least 6 weeks before we can play again.

D&D game notes from September 2001

(9-2-01) On the first game night, the party explored Ensley Keep.  On the way their, goblins ambushed them with a pit trap in the trail.  Exploring the keep, the party destroyed a yellow musk creeper.

Inside the keep is where Darg picked up an iron fire grate; he carried it with him as a part of his equipment for a very long time, and used it various way, including, sometimes, as a fire grate.

(9-29-01)  The party, leaving the area and crossing the River Ibiar at the ford, is attacked by an ogre.  This was a difficult combat:  both dwarves in the party, Rak and Uta, were taken down with single hits.  I think they were aided by Sheriff Melcam, a ranger from the nearby village of Ravencall, who was a good guy who was suspicious of Duke Bucknell and had been keeping an eye on the area near the keep.

D&D game notes from 2001

An early draft of the background on Ensley Keep and nearby Venswort Hill.  Details changed some, but the basics remained: Ensley Keep was long-abandoned. Nearby Venswort Hill had an ancient dungeon ruin within it.  On the lowest level of the dungeon was a long-forgotten magic portal that opened up to a matching portal in a far-away land controlled by the evil empire of Memgaria.  The Memgarians found the matching gateway and came through it; explored the ruins; decided it would be an efficient way to launch an invasion of Caldos; made contact with the local Duke, Duke Bucknell of Rookvale (who was already an evil guy set against the Queen of Caldos), and put him in their employ; then got some powerful ogres and set them up as guardians of Venswort Hill's ruins until they could bring their invasion plans to fruition.

Copy of campaign background notes from 2003, regarding nobility and politics.

Note from the present:  All this stuff kept being revised as the campaign progressed. With many of my background notes, there are so many versions scribbled in notebooks or saved as old Word documents that now, ten years later, I don't know which version if any was the one I had finally settled on.  It's really just the details that changed, though, most of the time.

Of the cast of characters below, my favorite invention was probably Hithis Gallar, the lammasu who was secretly involved in the politics of Caldos.  From his isolated lair at the White Citadel, he had proxies controlling merchant companies and guilds, and fought against alliances of evil nobles.  He was only mentioned in passing to the PCs, who never came close to interacting with him.          

 During Muran Toth’s conflicts with the nobles, many were stripped of their titles (the titles became “attainted.”) Many of the lands that had been under the control of dukes and earls and other lords fell back to the monarch’s possession. Some were re-granted to rebellious nobles or their families, or to others, but with greatly reduced lands, and less control over towns and villages.

            After King Muran gained this new wealth of land and power, he started ceding it back to the commoners, village councils, individual landowners, and elected mayors. The nobles had been greatly weakened.

            Now the Thanes of Velland wish to reclaim the power that the nobility had years ago. To do so, they must:

1)      Weaken their most powerful armed opposition, the Queen.

2)      Retain or create some amount of popular support among the common folk, or at least keep them impartial.

3)      Forestall an invasion by Memgaria.

Duke Kelsath has assumed leadership of the Thanes of Velland, for he is one of

the most powerful nobles on Caldos.

Nobility and the Thanes of Velland

Villain motivations: Greed, revenge, lust, pride, psychotic obsession, hatred, conquest of resources, religious fanaticism

Duke Kelsath wants to be the High Thane of Caldos. He wishes to exercise direct control over Lemaria, and grant his allies control of the other three thaneships.

            Under the system that Kelsath wishes to institute, only humans may be nobles, and only men may hold the rank of Duke.

Titles on Caldos:                     Address                                   Holding

King/Queen                             Majesty                                   Kingdom

Prince/Princess                        Highness                                 Principality

Duke/Duchess                         Grace                                       Duchy

Earl/Countess                          Excellency                               County

Lord/Lady                               Lordship/Ladyship                  Manor

Knight                                     Sir/Dame                                 --

Prince and Princess are titles reserved for sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters of the monarch. Informally, it is sometimes used to refer to the son or daughter of a powerful noble.

Dukes and Duchesses are the generally the most powerful of the nobility, and hold the largest tracts of land (dukedoms). Their titles are hereditary.

Earls and Countesses are in the same category as Dukes and Duchesses, but the title is rarer. This title is old, dating back to the Omkessari Empire. Counts and Countesses were nobility from Omkessar who were granted titles on Caldos by the High Thane. After Caldos became a provincial kingdom within the Empire, the thanes were given the title of Duke to distinguish them from the Counts. The word “Earl” replaced “Count” over many years, derived from a term for a foreigner of high standing. In modern times, though, the distinction between Earl and Count is in name only.

Lords and Ladies are landed nobility. Their titles may have been granted by the monarch or by other nobles. On Caldos, high-ranking nobles may bestow the title of Lord or Lady upon a person of their choosing, but only with the consent of the monarch. (Power over the bestowing of titles is another reason for conflict between the Queen and the Thanes of Velland.) This station is hereditary. A Duke or Duchess (or Earl or Count) may take the title back from the family to whom they gave it only with the monarch’s permission.

Knights are landless nobility in direct service to a noble.  Knights swear allegiance to their lord, taking a vow to serve faithfully, even to give their lives. They typically reside with their Lord and act as guard-commanders, escorts, sages, court wizards, ambassadors, and business managers. One may find a Knight dressed in plate mail astride a horse, bearing a lance, but they may often be found searching nearby villages for undiscovered bardic talent, researching history in the library, or working on potions of healing to help in an anticipated skirmish with orc brigands.

In return for their loyalty and service, knights are given certain privileges. They typically have nice accommodations in their lord’s keep or manor; they pay less for food, lodging, and equipment on their lord’s land (usually about half-price), can enforce the law.

The monarch is permitted to retain no more than 20 knights; dukes, duchesses, earls, and countesses are permitted by law to retain no more than 10 knights without special dispensation from the monarch. Lords may retain 5. But this limitation on an armed force is circumvented by Lord’s Men.

[Knights might be obsolete on Caldos. They caused too many problems, and were done away with as part of King Muran’s reforms. The knights had run fairly rough-shod over rights, and were above the law in many ways.]

            Lord’s Men are, generally speaking, those armed individuals in the employ of a noble. There are restrictions on how many such individuals may be employed; the monarch does not want private armies that aren’t under the control of the crown.

            The numbers permitted by Queen’s Law are ten times the numbers listed for knights, above (200 for the Queen, 100 for a duke, 50 for a lord.) For the Queen, this is supplemented by a traditional regiment called the Royal Guard, which numbers 50.

Dukes, duchesses, earls, and countesses are permitted by law to retain no more than 10 knights without special dispensation from the monarch.

At the Throne of Caldos

-Queen Elessa Toth, monarch of Caldos.

      -Princess Andra Toth, younger sister of Queen Elessa.

                  -Sir Neldrath, Court Wizard.

Nobility

-Earl Hirsham of Bugwater

-Lord Gray of Ensley, living in Arlay.

-Duke Brasstwister of Zarad, Lord of Sleck and the only dwarven duke. He resides in Sleck. Loyal to the Queen.

-Duke Jeren of Menath, in Westhall. Loyal to Queen. At 20, he is the youngest Duke.

-Duchess Elayne of Greendale, loyal to Queen.

-Lord Hithis Gallar of the White Citadel. He is a lammasu and leader of the Knights of the White Citadel.

-Countess Shielessa of Edding, loyal to the Queen. She is elderly. Her younger brother, Lord Uthast, assists her and is expected to succeed her as Lord of Edding.

-Lord Kharmuth of Arlay. He has a manor just west of the city. Years ago he was held prisoner in a gladiatorial pit in Haran-Gar before escaping, and he has had many adventures. Recently he was killed in an assassination attempt on Queen Elessa, and his family is working on having him raised.

-Lord and Lady Trowen

-Lord Rootly of Boulderburrow, a Halfling.

-Lord Redbuckle of a Halfling

Thanes of Velland

                The Thanes of Velland are nobles working together, in secret, to depose the Queen and put one of their number on the throne. Several of the Thanes are priests of Hextor or have connections to that priesthood, and have a hatred of the Hieroneous-aligned Queen Elessa. The Priesthood of Hextor backs both the Thanes and the Memgarian Empire.

-Duke Kelsath of Ibiar. He wants to be High Thane (king), and to control all of Lemaria. He maintains he is a direct descendant of Velland. He recognizes that an invasion by Memgaria would be to no one’s benefit, and seeks to prevent it by becoming High Thane and allying himself with Memgaria. Primarily, however, he seeks the throne for his own benefit. He fairly drools over the mineral wealth he can demand tribute of from the dwarves of Sleck, and the taxes from the ports and the city of Arlay.

Duke Kelsath has only limited political control of the city of Ibiar—much of the power, by royal charter, is in the hands of the trade council and the mayor, Otis Oxmar. Behind the scenes, Hithis Gallar manipulates commerce and politics. Kelsath and Hithis Gallar are great enemies of one another. Gallar is admired for his wisdom and benevolence, though feared as well. Kelsath constantly seeks to undermine his influence, and spreads lies about the lammasu. He has tried to kill him on several occasions, though always with plausible deniability.

The Dukedom of Ibiar includes quite a lot of land around the city of Ibiar. Duke Kelsath of Ibiar is quite wealthy, and he has the backing of a number of other nobles. He is charismatic.

-Duke Vummard Bucknell of Rookvale, in Longbridge, is a Thane of Velland. He is working primarily on behalf of Memgaria, and is himself a priest of Hextor, though this is not known by the other Thanes of Velland.

-Lord Wiland of ________ is the younger brother of Duke Alvarios of Wudaer, and similarly wants revenge.

-Duke Alvarios of Wudaer. A Thane of Velland, he is motivated by greed and a desire to destroy the House of Toth. Elessa’s father killed Duke Alvarios’s father at the Battle of Greendale, and Alvarios wants revenge.

-Lord Gustan

-Lady Moffrey, sister of Duke Bucknell of Rookvale

Conflict Overview 6-26-03

                The reforms introduced by Queen Elessa’s father led to stronger individual rights and liberties for the commoners, and a weakening of the nobles—including the monarch. This made it more possible for powerful nobles to challenge the monarch militarily, which is now the case.

            Before Muran Toth’s reforms, the monarchy was very centralized. Nobility had less say in governing their lands, paid overly large annual tributes to the king, and were severely limited in the number of knights/armed men they could retain. The nobility had little direct say in the running of the kingdom. Between the authoritarian monarch and the weak nobles, the commoners were often at the whims of the government in regard to justice and taxes.

            There was occasional rebellion among the nobles, often with the aim of overthrowing the monarch and installing a new one.

            During King Muran’s reign, and with the urging of Lord Gray, the monarchy was reformed. Nobles were given more control over their lands and people, and the people in turn were given a more effective means of addressing grievances, petitioning, appealing decisions, and governing their own villages and towns. In fact, many towns and villages were granted charters freeing them from noble rule.

            The king could no longer live in such opulence, and had to become more of a businessman. Muran Toth bought into many merchant businesses.

            There arose a power stuggle, varying in intensity over time, between the king and loyal nobles and the nobility that wished to have the throne, were jealous of more prosperous lands and lords, had old grievances against the House of Toth, or sought to blame others for the troubles in their own area. Also, importantly, the priesthood of Hextor sought power on Caldos. Many of the nobles had for years been receptive to the message of Hextor’s priests. Priests of Hextor were made unwelcome in much of southern Caldos, but in the lands of the north and west, they often operated in collusion with the nobles.

9-25-03

            Working on a finished version of the conflict on Caldos:

            The early years of King Muran’s rein saw quite a lot of civil strife on Caldos, climaxing in the Battle of Greendale 32 years ago. That fight saw the deaths or imprisonment of King Muran’s chief rivals.

            During Muran Toth’s conflicts with the nobles, many were stripped of their titles (the titles became “attainted.”) Many of the lands that had been under the control of dukes and earls and other lords fell back to the monarch’s possession. Some were re-granted to rebellious nobles or their families, or to others, but with greatly reduced lands, and less control over towns and villages.

            After King Muran gained this new wealth of land and power, he started ceding it back to the commoners, village councils, individual landowners, and elected mayors. The nobles had been greatly weakened.

            The reforms introduced by Queen Elessa’s father led to stronger individual rights and liberties for the commoners, and a weakening of the nobles—including the monarch. This made it more possible for powerful nobles to challenge the monarch militarily, which is now the case.

Shadowrun 3-21-2015

I played Shadowrun on Saturday. It was a small group (the GM plus three players) due to two absences.

Quotes of the night:

“Bring them down softly! Softly! SOFTLY!”  -- Gumball the rigger.

Spoken by Gumball in regard to three rotodrones that were attacking us.  He wanted us to take them intact so that he could use them himself.  However, in the first round of combat, Agave (our weapons specialist) hit one square on the nose with her grenade launcher, Bingo (my troll dog shaman) blew one up with a ball lightning spell, and Bingo’s force 6 air spirit crumpled the third into a tin foil ball using its “engulf” ability.

“I hop back on my Duracell and take off.” – Paul, playing Gumball the rigger.  We were using an AAA battery as a stand-in for his motorcycle among our table-top miniatures.

Shadowrun with brownies. Also, Blue Moon beer (not pictured)

Not dead yet

This blog is so sad. I apologize to the very few people—if any—who care.

At any rate, I still have the intention of putting up all the game notes from my dead D&D campaign.

In addition, I might now start using it for other game stuff that I feel like geekily broadcasting but want to keep segregated from everything else.