Thunderheart Incorporated - The Heroes Begin

I haven't really talked much about the D&D game I have been running for just over a year now, so I've decided to post what has happened so far. 

EDIT: I am not going to continue to update this blog post, if you're interested in more information and the continuation of the story, check us out on Obsidian Portal.

First off, here are the characters and a little information about each one...

Gehn - Male, Dragonborn Paladin
He is the leader of the party, but only in name. He has a battle standard (daily, standard action) that grants +1 to all attack rolls to allies within 10 squares of the standard. To activate it he must slam it into the ground and shout "BRING ON THE THUNDER!" He likes to set Jelenneth on fire and has a "thing" for her. His catchphrase is "Cheeseburger!"

Jelenneth -Female, Eladrin Warlord
She has a special magical sword called Warlord's Ultimatum which grants 1d10 + 1d6 damage, crits on 20 and gives [max damage] + 1d10 + 1d6, esentially a free 2nd hit. She absolutely hates being set on fire but doesn't confront Gehn about it as it only happens during the heat of battle, perhaps it is just a coincidence, but she is ALWAYS inside the freakin' damage area when he uses his dragon breath attack.

OttO/tOOt - Male, Tiefling Druid
Goes by OttO when in Tiefling form and tOOt when in bear form. He has bad gas and is always pulling his pants down.

Methos  - Male, Half-elf Ranger
He never moves...ever. He loves spicy dragon-wings for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He recently put an ad in the local paper looking for single ladies and mentioned his "arrow".
Shameless plug: Methos is played by the drummer in my band and the inspiration for our new song "Twin Striker".  Check us out at http://www.Paperanvil.com

Bo Jangles -Male, Halfling Sorcerer
He is the true leader of the party and a real lady's man. He's ever suspicious and always looks out for himself. His catchphrase is "The men can call me Bo, but the ladies call me Jangles!" followed by shaking his hips back and forth.

Tutela - Male, Deva Avenger
He is currently missing in action.

Kron Thunderheart - Male, Dwarven Wizard
He is somewhere back in Waterdeep.
Note: Originally he was supposed to be a PC but even after the campaign has been going on over a year, the guy who specifically requested I create him a dwarven wizard has never shown up.

Here is the story so far...

Thunderheart Incorporated - The Heroes Begin

A Party Is Built
Kron Thunderheart started Thunderheart Incorporated Adventuring Company out of Waterdeep several years ago. He hired Gehn soon there after and most recently sent him to Silverymoon on a job. Gehn went into The Rotten Apple Tavern there in Silverymoon and announced "I need help." After a short interview process, he was joined by Methos, Tutela, and Jelenneth. The group headed east past Everlund, and over to meet Alistaire (human, wizard-that-never-finished-his-training) at his tower. Alistaire's brother Jacob was a member of the Everlund City Guard that was sent on a mission to start up relations with a new Dwarven settlement nearby. The guards had been gone for some time but the city wasn't willing to spare more for a search party. Alistaire thought the Orcs were involved and has been trying to rally the troops of the town to prepare for an Orc invasion. The party decided to head into town to see if they could get more information about the guards' whereabouts. They met up with the guard captain, who was ever willing to allow someone else to look for the missing men, but didn't think they were actually missing. He had assumed the trade negotiations with the Dwarves were just taking longer than expected and the guards would be back soon enough. When the party mentioned Alistaire's thoughts of the Orc invasion, the guard captain dismissed Alistaire and his claims calling him "an eccentric old fool." Once the party was given the location of the Dwarven settlement, they headed out.

Coppernaught's Hold
As the party approached the Dwarven settlement, they found a dead Dwarf with a letter in his pack. The letter stated the settlement had been attacked by a group of Kobolds and a Dragon, all of which were taking orders from an Orc. The party made quick work of the enemies, freed the Dwarves, and found an entrance to the Underdark [1st entrance found]. After a good night's rest (and fresh dragon-wings for Methos) they headed back to Alistaire's tower with Jacob and the other surviving members of the Everlund City Guard. With the letter from the dead Dwarf and the word of the members of the Everlund City Guard, Alistaire became even more adamant about stopping the pending Orc invasion. Alistaire told the party about a magical battle map that would show the location of all enemy forces in battle. He believed it could be used to not only convince the guard captain of the pending invasion, but help once the attack came. Alistaire's old teacher Araldil had it in his tower to the north east of Everlund. There was a knock at the door the next morning and Bo Jangles entered the scene. He was sent my Kron Thunderheart to deliver the Thunderheart Battle Standard and join the party. The party decided to escort the Everlund City Guards back to town and met with the guard captain. He was grateful for their help but still did not believe any concern about an Orc invasion was warranted. He asked if the party would be willing to work for hire on a few local problems he had been dealing with, to which the party agreed.

Whispering Willow Cemetery
The guard captain told them about some recent killings in the town where the victim had a certain message cut into their flesh. He offered the party a small amount of pay but said they could keep whatever loot they found. The party tracked the message back to an old continent-wide thieves guild and a curse that was put on the seven thief kings' graves. Once the cemetery was found, the party cleaned it out and headed back to town.


The Guild Hall
The guard captain rewarded them and offered to sell them the old blacksmith guild hall. He was looking to unload it cheap and the party would have a permanent base camp for their adventures in the area. The party agreed, cleared out the guild hall, made a deal with their neighbors - the wizards' guild - for a magical alarm system, and found several interesting magical devices in the storage area. They decided to head out and find the magical battle map.

Level 2 reached!

Goblins on the Hill
On the way to meet Araldil, the party was awakened by a group of Goblins barreling down the hill towards their camp. The party readied themselves for battle but were confused when the Goblins continued to run past them. It was quickly realized that the Goblins were running from a group of Hill Giants. The Hill Giants paid no attention to the party and were after a certain Goblin carrying a box. The party took down the Goblins and snatched the box to see what was so important to the Hill Giants. As the Hill Giants approached the party, Bo Jangles was able to bluff them into thinking the Goblin with the box had "run that-a-way!" and the party was spared. When attacking the Goblins, the party had decided to knock one of them unconscious to question once the Hill Giants were handled. The Goblin was rambling on about giving the "Devil's Box" to its Master and the party convinced it to take them to the Master's camp.

The Slave Pit
The Goblin led the party to what turned out to be a slave camp. The party decided to free the slaves before continuing on their journey. OttO, who was captured and chained with the other slaves, changed into his bear form and helped defeat the slaver guards. Walter Bellhaven, the leader of the slavers, got a few of his mercenaries but not before they were able to knock Tutela unconscious and kidnap him. The party tried to follow Walter and his gang into the cave system, but lost their trail pretty quickly as the caves led into the Underdark [2nd entrance found]. They then decided to escort the slaves back to their home village and OttO decided to join the group.

Gates of Dyadasti
Once at the fishing village, the town elders were greatful for the work the party had done but worried the slavers would come back in force. The party quickly devised a defense plan and was able to fend off the slavers' attack. Walter and part of his group did survive and get away, but not before revealing Tutela had escaped them. The party decided to continue on to Araldil's tower.


Aradil's Tower
Upon arriving at Aradil's tower, the party realized something must be wrong. The tower was overgrown, broken, and looked uninhabited. As they entered the tower they were attacked by all kinds of vines and plant creatures. Making their way through the various levels to the top, they found a witch and a huge plant beast. As it turns out, the witch was Aradil's other apprentice and she had commissioned the old blacksmith's guild in Everlund to create a special device that would help her turn Aradil back into a human. After delivering the device from the guild's storage, Aradil was transformed into his human self and offered the magical battle map as compensation along with several other items. He also told the party that the map only works partially without the ocular piece, which could only be found in Longtooth's Labrynth.

Level 3 reached!

Orc Encampment
The party decided to check the battle map and found that there was a small Orc scouting party between them and the labrynth. They attacked the Orcs with much ferocity, several coup-de-graces, and did not allow a single Orc to live.

Longtooth's Labyrinth
The party finally made it to the labyrinth, defeated the various enemies, and faced off against Longtooth. They found the ocular piece needed to make the battle map work fully. When they exited the labyrinth, they were met with a small Minotaur hunting party led by the huntress Buttersworth. She asked, "Does my brother Longtooth live?" The party, unsure of how she would react, lied and told her they paid him several gold to set them free. She then revealed her hunting party was there to slay him as their village had come under a curse, which they thought Longtooth had put on them. Once the party came clean about killing Longtooth, Buttersworth asked them to accompany her to the village and help stop whatever was going on there. Bo Jangles took a look at the battle map through the ocular and could see the placement of all the Orc troops. The majority were up in the Orcish lands to the north, but there were a few small bands peppering the area, one of which was at the same location as the Minotaur settlement. The party discussed this out of earshot of the hunting party and decided to go with them and stop the Orcs there, but did not want to tell Buttersworth the Orcs were the cause.

Minotaur Settlement
Upon entering the Minotaur settlement, the party saw that all the Minotaurs were worshipping their leader in a sort of trance. The party used their attacks that caused the enemies to be pulled to them to try and release one of the Minotaurs from the trance. This angered the leader and caused all the other Minotaurs to attack. Buttersworth and her hunting party are helping but have requested no Minotaurs be killed, just left unconscious.

The last session ended in the fray of battle.  We'll finish up with the Minotaurs tonight and all the PCs will gain another level!

Is Dungeons & Dragons Evil? - Part 1

Upon announcing that I'd be hosting a Dungeons & Dragons party, I was immediately looked down upon and told "Dungeons & Dragons is evil and leads to witchcraft and Satanic worship! Why would you do this?!?". I was shocked by this response and more so as it was presented by educated, well spoken, and generally open-minded people.

Dungeons & Dragons draws it's roots from wargames - the recreation of historical battles using little metal miniatures. In 1971, Gary Gygax created a new set of rules called Chainmail which allowed fantasy elements to be added to these massive miniature battles. Many games based on similar ideas still exist today, including Warhammer Fantasy, Lord Of The Rings Miniature Game, etc. Dave Arneson approached Gary Gygax in 1972 with the idea of having the players control only a single character instead of an entire army. As the D&D Dungeon Master's Manual describes it,

"This combination of rules, miniatures, and imaginination created a totally new entertainment experience, and in 1974 Gygax and Arneson published the first set of roleplaying game rules with TSR, Inc. - the Dungeons & Dragons game."

The Character You Play

To play Dungeons & Dragons, you first have to have a character. A character is a representative inside the fantasy world that you control. You say he jumps, he jumps. You say she attacks with an axe, she attacks with an axe. Characters live, eat, fight, hurt and even die in Dungeons & Dragons. So what about playing a character in D&D makes it evil? Let's look a few a parts of the character to see what we can discover.

Character Alignment

What is character alignment? According to the D&D Player's Handbook, character alignment is:

"...your character’s dedication to a set of moral principles... ...in a cosmic sense, it’s the team you believe in and fight for most strongly."

In the 4th edition of D&D, there are 5 different alignment possibilities:

• Lawful Good - "An ordered society protects us from evil."


• Good - "Protecting the weak from those who would dominate or kill them is just the right thing to do."


• Unaligned - "Just let me go about my business."


• Evil - "It is my right to claim what others possess."


• Chaotic Evil - "I don’t care what I have to do to get what I want."

These all sound like pretty simple definitions for each alignment and there are both options for good and evil. D&D does not force an evil alignment onto a player's character. In fact, the Player's Handbook states:

"If you choose an alignment for your character, you should pick either good or lawful good. Unless your DM is running a campaign in which all the characters are evil or chaotic evil, playing an evil or chaotic evil character disrupts an adventuring party and, frankly, makes all the other players angry at you."

Did I just read that right? The Player's Handbook actually tells players to not pick evil! It basically calls evil rude and socially unacceptable. Very interesting.



Stay tuned for part 2!

Dungeon Delves #1

In May of 2009, I started my current D&D campaign. I created some 3D terrian for the very first session and documented the work I did.  I had intended on posting on a wordpress blog each month with information about the campaign story, allowing the various players to post from their character's point of view. Well, things fell through with all of that, but I wanted to repost a few of my old posts from the old blog that never became anything. So, without further ado, I present: Dungeon Delves #1 (parts 1 and 2 combined in a single post).
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Well, I've begun working on some 3D terrain pieces for the first delve listed in the dungeon delves book. Take a look at my (admittedly slow) progress. These pictures are from my iPhone and auto-resized by wordpress, so I hope they turn out alright.

Ah...the unadulterated piece of foam. An empty canvas for the taking.



I started by marking off the 1" squares to help me keep perspective while cutting.



Next I started working on the corners. There's supposed to be a lot of rubble here in the end, so I roughed it up a bit and will add rubble-y pieces to it later.

 



Here's an overhead shot showing both corners.



Next, I either forgot I was taking pictures for this blog, or decided I didn't want to share my hole cutting secrets...because the next picture is from about an hour later. I cut out the center piece, made and glued stairs in and added the hole (entrance to the underground dungeon).



I still have quite a bit of refining to go but in the end I'm hoping to have something pretty close to this:



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I have to be honest, I was disappointed with the progress I showed in my last post...even though building the 3D terrain is all new to me and I am learning as I go. I feel much better and more encouraged by tonight's update! Woo hoo!

Ok, now the jubilation is out of the way, here's the update! If you recall from my previous post, I ended with this pieces:



As I was looking at it tonight I was thinking about the different places where an athletics check would apply. According to the Dungeon Delve book, there is a fence (obviously not on my terrain yet) that requires an athletics check if you hope to hop it. There is also another check if you jump down into the pit instead of taking the stairs. It is a 5 foot drop after all. Since my brain works in very literal way at times I would then - if strictly following the rules - need to require an athletics check to actually get the player's miniature onto the this terrain piece. Now I know, you're probably thinking "...that's stupid, it's just a prop for the game! Why ruin all the fun for the players with needless checks?!?!" Yeah yeah, I know...but like I said, my brain...

So, what to do? Well, supposing this terrain piece is truly raised 5 feet from "game table level" I need more terrain that has an incline to allow the players to walk up to the terrain level without any undue hinderances. To do this, I decided to cut me out another piece of foam:



I then measured it out into 2 inch pieces and cut it up.

 

So now I have 2 pieces that nicely fit around the main terrain piece (it is technically a corner piece). Then, using clay modeling tools on borrow from my wife, I shaved and cut and whittled and shaped the foam into a ramp.

 

 

That turned out rather nicely, don't you think? The 2nd ramp I did a little differently since they have to meet at a corner. it would be silly for these pieces not to match up!

 

The slant is at a steep enough angle to reach the main terrain piece but not too steep that the miniatures can't stand on it. My brain has been satisfied. :)

Now it's time for some detail. Obviously if I went through all the trouble to build little ramps, I don't want to leave these terrain pieces an ugly blue-ish green color. I really don't have a lot of painting materials right now, but any little bit will help so let's see what I have...



This will do nicely. Next I laid out some trusty local newspaper and began spraying down my pieces. A few light coats and things are turning out nicely. I also sprayed down some rubble pieces for the corners.

 

 



Let's see how it looks all together again!



Sweet! Now for MORE detail! It just so happens I have some special water-based glue spray and this....



BAM! I love this little grassy stuff. After a few layers of glue and grass and glue and grass, we now have...

 
 
 
 

I still need to find a nice cardstock to glue these terrain pieces onto and a green felt or something to serve as grass as the players approach the cave entrance.

Well, that was fun! With the addition of the rubble and trees, I think this turned out waaay better than I expected. Please let me know what you think here in the comments!

Mining Other Games For Props

I try very hard to keep the quality of my games at a high level for my players, not just in the story and encounters, but with the props and terrain I use as well. I have received compliments from each of my players about the various pieces I’ve used and would like to share my secret: most of my props are from other games. Originally, I started out making my own props and terrain, and although it was rewarding to be in control of every little detail of the pieces, I found it took entirely too much time to make them meet the quality I was expecting. At the next visit to my FLGS (friendly local game store), I walked through their Warhammer Fantasy/40k battle tables and saw all kinds of interesting terrain pieces and status markers. This prompted me to looked through the Warhammer and other tabletop gaming sections of the store and found all kinds of goodies.

fire explosion markers

As it turns out, the predominant damage type done by my group of players is fire – the Druid’s flame seed, the Sorcerer’s burning spray, the Dragonborn’s firery dragon breath, etc. – and the attacks usually have an area that is burning afterwards (or I, as the Dungeon Master, allow the surounds to catch fire as well and cause other problems across the battlemap). So when I saw the Gale Force Nine fire explosion markers, I knew I had found what I needed to bring my game to the next level. I also picked up the wall of fire markers for good measure and have used both extensively.

wall of fire markers

Further investigation throughout the store brought me to a section of terrain called Battlefield In A Box. These are high quality, prepainted terrain pieces normally used with various tabletop battle games like Flames of War. I ended up purchasing three different battlefield in a box kits, but have only used 1 so far.

gothic ruined walls

These are just my most recent purchases, but previously I came across a the JR Miniature website (and spent a little over my D&D budget at that time, heh). This purchase included river pieces, a bridge, some wall pieces, barrels, a blacksmith set, a tavern set, market accessories, and farm accessories! These pieces really brought my game into the next level of high quality for the players. (Note: Even though some of the JR Miniatures come prepainted, most of the little stuff does not. I still have a lot of painting to do with all those goodies.)

river, bridge, walls, barrels, and various other accessories

Before I got back into D&D and started using the 4th edition rules, my wife and I tried out The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game. It is a very interesting and fun game, especially if you enjoy the books and/or movies. My interest waned after a while as I started getting back into D&D, but I still have the old sets laying around. I went looking for the goblins to reuse them and came across the other terrian pieces of the LotR game. Of all of the terrain I own, I've reused the stone columns from the LotR game the most.

terrain items from LotR:SBG

Other games are just a few places Dungeon Masters can find terrain and props to use in their D&D games. What kind of terrain and props do you use? Where did you find them?

Science!

I came across an interesting article on Loremaster.com, written by Chris Sims (an editor and game designer known for work on Wizards of the Coast’s Duel Masters, Dungeons & Dragons, and Magic: The Gathering) and advertised by Matt James (freelance game designer, owner and operator of Loremaster.com) on Twitter. Chris' article addresses the problem of player characters consistently rolling low and missing their attacks and stirred up all kinds of ideas in the article's comments about how to battle it. Many of the comments consisted of house rules used by various Dungeon Masters, and a few included complex mathematical explanations of various possible dice rolls. With dice, it is all about numbers, possible outcomes, and the likelihood of each. I do not have a solution to the problems at hand, but would like to point out something I think some people may not have thought of: Science.

What about the science of how the dice are actually made? When I open up my dice bag and pull out a hand-full of d20s, no two are the same. Some have sharper edges, others are smooth, some have large numbers, others have small pips. Does the science of how the dice are made have an effect on the outcome of their rolls? In doing my research, I ran across a company called Game Science which seems to confirm most of my suspicions. According to the owner's 2 videos (part 1, part 2), dice are put through a tumbler up to 3 times to add color coatings and remove blemishes. He then took 20 d20s and made 2 stacks of 10 with the first group stacked with the 1s facing the 20s and the second group stacked with the 9s facing the 12s. One stack was 1/4 of an inch taller than the other! The process of running the dice through the tumbler caused them to actually be egg shaped.



Because the dice were shorter when stacked on the 9s and 12s, they will have a higher chance to roll a 9 or 12 than rolling a 1 or 20. This is due to the distribution of weight of the dice and the location of its center of gravity. He goes on to explain about casino dice having a specific weight and size (within a tolerance of 0.0005 of an inch). The edges of the casino dice have the sharp edge to keep it balanced and the center of gravity in the actual center of the die. How do the sharper edges change the way the dice roll though? Well, the more rounded dice tend to roll farther and longer because the smooth edges allow less friction from the surface they are being rolled on. The sharper edges cause more friction and stop the dice sooner. That along with the center of gravity being at the actual center of the die, leads to more randomized dice rolls.



I went in search of some Game Science dice and found them at my FLGS (friendly local game shop). I haven't used them extensively, but they do appear to give a more random outcome than my rounded d20s. To help randomize my rounded d20s, I've also started using a dice tower (or dice boot). It seems to do the trick as well, eventhough it isn't as fun as tossing the dice on the table.

In conclusion, I suggest you make up house rules to cover the problems however you choose, but also, be weary of the dice being used. If you're constantly rolling 1s, teach that d20 a lesson and put it in timeout. If you're more mathematically inclined, give each of your d20s 50 rolls and keep a log of how they land. You never know, you may have one that consistently rolls high and didn't even know it!