Busy moving and Gathering

Sorry for the lack of updates in the last week or so. I have been busy arranging my move back to the Midlands, packing up books and furniture, as well as arranging the house ready for when I get back and our new arrival shows up in a couple of months time!

This has meant that not only have I not had chance to write my usual blog posts, I have also not had the chance to play much, either table-top roleplaying or Magic: the Gathering. However, with moving back at the end of next week, and being able to meet up with my gaming group more regularly I should soon have plenty of things to write about.

Coming up this weekend is the Lorien Trust's Gathering (not to be confused with MtG). This is the biggest event in the LT's calendar and I for one am really looking forward to getting back to Erdreja, along with the rest of the VKP. It looks like we may have a fifth member for this event which is great news (fingers crossed there Anna!), and our glorious leader Scrat should hopefully be full of both keen and command this event. On top of the usual excitement for a LARP event, I am extra excited as this will be the first time I have ever gone to an event having spent OSPs (the systems experience points) on my character. I should go from an adequate healer to one who is much more useful at both healing and holding my own in battle, and repairing hits to body and armour alike. If I can find some nifty new bits to add to my kit that will be even better!

The VKP.... on a dry day! Octavian is hiding behind our glorious leader, Scrat...

One of the issues we have with LARPing weekend events is the ever present threat of bad weather. However we are pretty lucky as a group, as we are only about 15 miles from the site so if things get too rough we can retire to our home town and get dry. This leaves us with what to do whilst the inclement weather gets it's self gone. The obvious answer? More gaming of course! Last time around, we got one day rained off so went home and played a session of Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil in Pathfinder; this time around I have a back up plan which consists of us going old school. My recent purchase of Twilight 2000 from RPG Now has meant we have a bit of a build up in enthusiasm for playing it, so if we get bad weather then I hope to get some characters rolled up and start exploring the landscape of post-WWIII Poland. Along with that I am sure there will be plenty of hands of MtG to test some of my decks with, and general beer to be drunk, friends to be chatted with and all the other fun LARP brings with it.

A Deck in Progress

Its been a little while since I have posted about Magic: the Gathering, so I thought I would share a deck that I have in progress currently. Unfortunately, my opportunities to play have somewhat dried up of late. My workmate has drifted out of playing, and the last few weekends have been rather busy so have not had chance to drop in to Nebula Custom Gaming to get a game in. Hopefully I can rectify this at the weekend, and soon I will be moving back to the Midlands so that I can get down and game in the evenings.

Centaur Healer: this deck's work-horse (pun intended).

Anyway, on to the deck. This deck is a green-white deck, built in response to the increasingly poor win ratio I was having against my work mate's Red Deck Wins deck. I simply couldn't out-damage that deck with my Minotaurs, so I decided to change tack and go for something that would slow him down so much that he would run out of steam. For this I decided to use a tactic that is seen as somewhat sub-optimal in MtG: gaining life. Normally it's not great, but against a deck expending large numbers of cards for direct damage it can really mess up their flow, and if played right can give you serious card advantage. The deck list looks like this:

Lands (x23)
------
4 x Selesnya Guildgate
10 x Forest
9 x Plains

Creatures (x22)
---------
4 x Centaur Healer
4 x Kalonian Tusker
4 x Lagonna-Band Trailblazer
2 x Hundred-Handed One
2 x Crocanura
3 x Briarpack Alpha
2 x Renowned Weaver
1 x Karametra's Acolyte

Planeswalkers (x1)
--------------
1 x Ajani, Mentor of Heroes

Spells (x12)
------
2 x Alive//Well
3 x Giant Growth
2 x Unflinching Courage
2 x Heroes Reunion
3 x Feral Invocation

Artifacts (x3)
---------

2 x Selesnya Keyrune
1 x Godsend

Sideboard
----------
2 x Oblivion Ring
2 x Call of the Conclave
3 x Hopeful Eidolon
2 x Guardian of the Gateless
4 x Plummet
1 x Archetype of Endurance
1 x Nyx-Fleece Ram

Before opportunities to play dried up at work, this list was holding it's own against the Red Deck Wins, sucking the speed out of the game and allowing enough blocking both in the air and on the ground (thanks to creatures with Reach like Crocanura and Hundred-Handed One). The Sideboard was developed to increase the deck's potency against aerial threats with Plummet & Guardian of the Gateless, and it has more Lifegain in the form of Nyx-Fleece Ram and Hopeful Eidolon.

The Nyx-Fleece Ram: who doesn't need a sideboarded sheep?

The deck looks (so far) like it has enough creatures to form a decent attack, and the curve works well enough that I usually get something defensive (like Lagonna-Band Trailblazer) out early enough to keep myself alive and then build up a respectable force before sweeping in and causing damage (at least, that's the theory). However, without more play testing this is still very much in the development stage. Hopefully, getting down to Nebula more, and also being closer to my brothers will mean I get more chance to test this out soon.

Apologies and Apocalypse

Well I was hoping to have another post up about my Numenera game but it looks like real life happened a little bit this week. Two of my players could not make it in time to play the session so it looks like I will have to hang on a week until I get the next session off the ground. Mind you, that does allow me to get the plot better refined and allow me to plan out what I have in store for the characters a little better, so that's no bad thing.

On a slightly different note, one of the things that really attracted me to Numenera when Monte Cook first described it on the Kickstarter was the fact it was, in part, a post-apocalyptic game. This is a genre I have always enjoyed but never had enough of a chance to run games in. Back when I first started running games twenty years ago, I ran Twilight 2000 by GDW. This was a pretty straight forward scenario (not necessarily a straight-forward game mind) that was set after the world has slid into nuclear war one step at a time in World War 3, and the survivors are left wondering what to do come the year 2000, in the immediate aftermath. I have no idea now if I was running the game right (I suspect I wasn't) but it always captured my imagination, and set me wanting more post-apocalypse in my gaming.

Twilight 2000: no sparkly vampires in sight, but so very 80's in its art.

Fast forward a few years and D20 Modern comes out. This was a game I got hold of as soon as I heard about it (pretty soon after its release) and set about collecting almost everything that got released for it. One of the supplements was D20 Apocalypse: well this was exactly my cup of tea so I snapped it up, only to realise I needed D20 Future to get the best out of it. Later, when at university I finally got hold of a copy of D20 Future (in around 2010) and started to think I might finally be able to get that post-apocalyptic game I have always wanted off the ground. As of this date (31 July 2014) I am still waiting to get going! For what ever reason I have never managed to get enough players interested at the same time, whilst also not having something else running to really get this game going. I have had to satisfy myself playing Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas instead, but console games are a pale imitation of a good rpg (no matter how enjoyable they are to play) in my opinion.

D20 Apocalypse: I still want to use this! One day, one day....

So all this brings me back to Numenera: now I have another system, but with it's own setting, that I could use to satisfy my post apocalyptic craving. Whilst it does have that ability I think, I think I still want something that is more immediate in its apocalypse, something that has that Fallout, Book of Eli, Mad Max feel about it. This has set me thinking that perhaps I could look at a Cypher system hack in which I could get the game I want. It is certainly something I am thinking about...

A mixed blogging week

So whilst I was away on holiday I had all sorts of productive plans for things I would plan and write for this blog. However it looks like events conspired against me! I had planned to write up my plans for a Sliver EDH deck, but alas I had the cards I wanted delivered to the incorrect address so didn't receive them in time to take them away with me. However it does mean I should get to collect them this evening from my post box.

Since I could not work on my Sliver deck, I decided to try and do a write up about my work in progress decks. I sat down at the table, with the sun shining and a cool drink, only to find that there power cable for my laptop was irreparably damaged! This meant that I couldn't write up what I had intended to write, due to the lack of power. I only managed to replace the cable yesterday upon my return from Wales. Once again, at least this gives me some ammunition for things to write this week and next!

I did get to do two relevant things on my week vacation though: first off I spent some of the time writing up ideas for my ongoing Numenera game. The location where we based proved quite inspiring for game writing, as did the amount of reading for leisure that I did through out the week. This means I have a (hopefully) fun location for my players to explore in the Ninth World for the coming sessions. I hope that I can get a rough copy of the location drawn up and some description posted for a future article. The second thing I managed this week was to find the only shop in Pembrokeshire that is in the Wizards of the Coast Magic: the Gathering network. This proved useful as it was my brother's 31st birthday this past weekend (Happy birthday Ian :D )and it meant I could get him a present on time, selecting one of the Magic 2015 Intro Packs, Hit the Ground Running. So far we haven;t had chance for a game with this Blue-Green deck but I am looking forward to playing against it, and I am glad to have given Ian something new to build against (his Depths of Power based deck from M13 was devastating). The new deck included a Stormtide Leviathan, so he was happy, as this was used to such good effect in Depths of Power.

Stormtide Leviathan: horrible blue so and so!

There was one new(ish) thing that I started on whilst I was away. Back in 2004 when Vampire the Requiem was released by White Wolf as a replacement for Vampire: the Masquerade, I acquired a copy of the core rulebook along with the World of Darkness book required to run the game. Over the years I have slowly gotten my hands on a few more of the books, but have not once in 10 years ever run the game (although I have played a couple of one offs using the system). Last year, on a whim, I got New Orleans: City of the Damned second hand, but hadn't gotten round to reading it. With my laptop out of action, and needing my RPG fix, I started reading this whilst I was away, and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. In a discussion with my player group we came to the conclusion that it might not be a bad idea to try Requiem finally. This means that I have added it to the roster of stuff I want to run in the future, and when we finish/pause the Temple of Elemental Evil campaign, I might look at running Requiem. For now I have added it to my list of topics in the tags, and hope I can get more written about the game soon.

My latest read and a new (old) topic for the blog.

Magic 2015

Well its the release day for the latest Magic: the Gathering core set today. I already have a pre-order in place for some of the cards that I found interesting (Sliver Hivelord I am looking at you), but more than anything I am looking forward to getting some boosters and seeing what I get!

The Sliver Hivelord, centre piece for my first Sliver Commander  deck.

I have wanted to get a long to a pre-release for a Magic set but never managed to make it yet, real life keeps getting in the way. It doesn't help that I live away from home during the week, so vanishing for a day at the weekend can be a little unfair on my wife I feel, but hopefully, very soon, that will no longer be an issue as I am moving home to Walsall. What this means is that I can hopefully get myself along to see a pre-release and give a go to playing some Limited, which is a format of Magic that I have never yet experienced, and would love to give a go to. I am looking to see if I can rope my brother in to attending the pre-release for the next block so that we can both get a chance at drafting and playing in a tournament environment for the first time.

The Magic 2015 promo image, featuring the newly changed Garruk.

In the meantime it's time to start looking at my decks and figuring out what I need to remove that has rotated out of Standard, and what i can put in to replace those cards that have gone. I have a week's holiday away with family next week, so I am hoping that I can use some of the time to look at my decks and see what changes need to be made. My holiday should also give me time to catch up on the session write ups for my Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil campaign, ready for the next session. I am looking forward to getting the campaign log up to date before I forget vital details of what has gone on! The final plan for my spare time, games wise, is to build my Sliver Commander deck, which will be focused around my newly acquired Sliver Hivelord. That should be enough to keep me going for a week away, and I should be able to present the decklist for my Sliver deck once I am back.

The Nightmare Switch: part 4

In the first light of the morning, the companions left the cave behind them and resumed their pursuit of the creators of the tracks, heading westward toward distant hills. Cannis was leading the others, and they made excellent time through out what was an otherwise uneventful day. As the light began to fade in the early evening, the party came upon a small series of small low hills, forming the start of the hill range they had spied earlier in the day. The trail they were following led into a narrow valley between two of these hills. Sharp eyes and smart thinking quickly brought a sentry to their attention, positioned just below the brow of the nearest hill, and indicated a small column of smoke rising from the valley floor. It looked like they had caught up with their track-makers! It was decided that they should stealthily make their way across the desert floor, passed the valley entrance and attempt to climb the low hill to the west of the camp; this would allow them a better vantage point over the camp and also allow them avoid the sentry on the eastern hill.

It took an hour or more of careful movement across the desert, avoiding the sentry's gaze, before they made their way up the side of the hill and crouching down amongst the broken boulders and scant foliage over-looking their quarry's camp. The sight that met them when they looked closer was not what they expected. Instead of a small band of Aeon Priests, it was in fact a larger group of abhumans, Margyr to be precise. The bestial abhumans had set up a camp and looked like they were preparing their evening meal (which looked a lot like two human legs...). What is more, they had a number of items laid out on a blanket which appeared to be the band's loot, and one of those items looked to be size and shape of the missing cylinder. The leader of the group was huge example of a Margyr, twice the size of the rest and bellowing orders to the rest. The companions quickly discussed what they could do to get hold of the cylinder. The cooking legs pretty much ruled out diplomacy, and so taking it by force seemed to be the best option they had, using their cyphers to even up the numbers somewhat.

The game in progress over Google Hangouts

The initial assault on the abhumans was marked by the use of Nord's gravity detonation cypher, thrown into the middle of the group to try and think their ranks. When the dust settled from this, 5 of the Margyr had vanished and their huge leader was flat on his back, struggling to recover from the unexpected attack. Nord the proceeded to start firing arrows down on the leader as Cannis moved forward to engage a clutch of the abhumans who were advancing up the hill side to attack with their spears and axes. Six positioned himself so he could use his esoteries on the advancing throng but failed to get a blast off. Further problems were thrown up when the attacking abhumans were able to bring Cannis down (a 1 rolled on Cannis' speed defense, resulted in one of the spears tripping him... I love GM intrusion!). A thrown detonation cypher from the Margyr leader exploded at the feat of Nord and Six, but they were able to leap aside, avoiding any damage from it. Nord replied with a called shot to the giant's eye (a difficult shot, which Nord managed to get a 17 on the roll of and inflict a wicked wound upon his enemy), which dropped the leader, and eased the pressure on the companions. Cannis made light work of being prone, slashing and stabbing at the warriors in front of him and reaping damage upon them whilst they inflicted several wounds back on the redoubtable Glaive. Six managed to blast once or twice with Onslaught, but when he failed with one attempt (again rolling a 1!) the sentry from the far hill appeared behind him, having advanced whilst the party were distracted. Now alert to this danger, Six attempted to bring this sentry down but once again failed to hit with his mental blast; in addition he received a nasty wound in return from the sentry's axe. Nord seeing his friend in danger bull-rushed the sentry, knocking him aside and bruising him in the process. The following turn saw Nord dispatch the sentry with a thrust of his two bladed weapon, allowing the companions to focus on the warriors facing Cannis.

With their leader dead, the remaining Margyr were in a blood-lust fuelled rage, and pressed their attack heedless of the tide turning against them. Cannis was able to get back to his feet when his friends joined the fight, and with the numbers more or less even, the two Glaives and the Nano were able to use their superior training and abilities to overwhelm their opponents, dispatching them quickly before surveying the battlefield. By the end of the fight, all the abhumans lay dead, whilst the companions were cut and bruised but alive. Exhausted but exhilarated, the companions cast their eyes over their spoils, seeking that they had indeed recovered the missing cylinder, and also confirmed that the Aeon Priests had meta grisly end (their remains being some of that which was cooking over the fire). Nord decided that the skull of the leader would make a fine trophy, much to the consternation of his friends, and set about "recovering" it. Meanwhile, Six and Cannis discovered that the abhumans had an artifact in their possession, a pair of rods which when combined together created a blast of lightning. This was perfect for a Mechanical Nano who Rides the Lightning, and Cannis was happy to have the dangerous thing away from him! The abhumans also had 3 aneen which they used as pack animals, and the party decided to use them as mounts after a period of rest, so that they could return to the Faceted Dome and replace the burned out cylinder quickly.

By the following evening they were back in Redstone, having fixed the damaged machine in the dome, and hopeful that the nightmares would now stop. Upon telling the mayor of Redstone this, they were greeted with cautious optimism, which the following morning turned to stupendous joy after a night's undisturbed sleep. This joy was tempered somewhat by the news of the death of the Aeon Priest clave but was still worthy of celebration. Deymish was paid for his cargo by the mayor in thanks, and in turn the companions got their pay for being riverboat guards.

This brought about a close to my first Numenera adventure as a GM, which had taken a mere 2 sessions to run. However, it has now set in place ideas for a continuation for the three characters, as it the game was extremely enjoyable for all involved. Hopefully this means I will be able to write up some more sessions as and when they are run.

The Nightmare Switch: part 3

Last night my players and I reconvened to resume play in our new Numenera campaign. Last session finished with them entering the Faceted Dome and realising they needed to replace a part in the ancient machine they saw before them (you can read about it here (part 1) and here (part 2)). The game is played over Google Hangouts, as its difficult to get is all together regularly to play face to face (we live in three different parts of the country).

Gaming area all set up and ready to go!

The party started the session by exploring the interior of the dome. It was an unusual change from the dusty, dry, hot desert outside, with it's cool, humid atmosphere and it's frequent potted plants. Nord wondered if there were any storage compartments or bins which might contain a replacement for the burned out and damaged cylinder that was removed from the machine. The three companions rooted high and low in and around the machinery but were unable to find a replacement cylinder. They did however find a collection of cyphers and an oddity. After a brief discussion Six replaced one of his existing cyphers with a small glass rod that disintegrated metal when activated, figuring it would be more useful than the pill he gave up. With no luck on finding a replacement part, Cannis suggested that they pursue the tracks leading off westward to see if they can locate the Aeon priests from Redstone, and see if they knew anything about the part. After a short rest the party set off on foot across the scorching, arid land, following the tracks as they led off first west then southwest. By nightfall, they hadn't caught up with the creators of the tracks and so decided to take refuge in a nearby cave to rest for the evening.

With watches set and people bedding down, Nord Dar set about passing the time of his watch near the entrance to the cave, looking out on the night sky. His musings were disturbed, however, by the sight and sounds of the sand in the cave roiling and moving (GM Intrusion, which Nord's player happily accepted! This was also the first attempt by myself to add a creature of my own design into Numenera). From beneath the surface burst out a long, sinuous creature with two limbs that ended with scythe-like blades which fused synth, steel and bone. The two sleeping party members leapt to their feet and readied themselves for action: before any one started to fight Cannis roared that he could calm the creature (being trained in placating natural animals... a stretch calling this natural!). Staring at the monster, and making himself look big, Cannis shouted at the creature "back down!". For a split second it paused, checked by Cannis' booming voice in the confines of the cave, but then it launched itself at the Glaive, swinging it's scythe-blades. Cannis, being a nimble and lightly armoured sort, dived aside to dodge the blade (in doing so Cannis' player roared with delight, the dice coming up a natural 20!). This brush with death shook something loose in him, and with an un-natural howl he started to flicker and his outline shift, becoming a huge, slavering wolf-man hybrid! At this point battle commenced in earnest.

The creature in the cave

The players all rolled for initiative with all three players acting before the creature. A good start! First round actions were declared, with Nord shooting it with his bow, Cannis leaping on it and clawing it apart and Six attempting to Onslaught it with his Nano powers. This round of actions produced a spectacular amount of damage from Cannis as he applied effort to the damage and ripped a large part of the creatures armour free. Nord's arrow deflected off the creature's tough hide and Six.... well Six managed to fail spectacularly with his Onslaught, rolling a 1 and giving free GM intrusion. This was used to introduce a smaller version of the creature attacking them, which burrowed out of the sand behind Six and attacked him. The creature launched it's counter-attack, lashing out at both Nord and Cannis, missing Nord but slashing across Cannis, who simply ignored the pain and carried right on with his attack.

The second round produced another flurry of interesting actions. Cannis attempted to rip more of the creature apart to add to the devastation he got with his first strike, Nord switched attention to the small creature, and Six once again went more an Onslaught blast. Fortune did not favour Cannis, as he rolled a one for another GM intrusion: this one meant that although he ripped something off the creature he ended up with a face full of acidic ichor, burning himself for 4 points of damage. Nord grabbed the smaller creature by the neck, ignoring its bone-scythes and proceeded to snap its spine, ending the treat from it. Six had more poor luck, rolling badly and failing to blast the larger creature.

At the start of the third round, Cannis' outline flickered and shifted once again, going back to the man not the beast, who found himself naked, and on the back of a huge creature that was determined to kill him. He launched another attack on the creature, again aiming for the damaged area he had created on his first attack, but again rolled a 1! The third free GM intrusion in this fight generated a second juvenile creature which launched itself at Cannis, who dodges to avoid it. Nord then delivered an arrow to the adult creature inflicting damage upon it before Six finally activates his Onslaught and killed the main threat. All that was left now was for Cannis to dispatch the juvenile, which him promptly did with one blow from his fist!

With the companions exhausted from the fight, they simply pushed the bodies of their foes to the back of the cave, and brushed themselves off before returning to their beds, or watch posts. Cannis also found time to replace his torn clothing, much to the relief of his companions! When morning arrived, they set out from the cave again following the trail, hopeful that today would be the day they caught up, and put pay to the nightmares plaguing Redstone.