The Superior Force

In through the out door.

2012-01-26T23:23:00.000-08:00

Let's see if we can start to bring this up to date.

There has been some disunity in the party of late. As a ref, I could have encouraged a more unified party composition, clan, or temple affiliations..perhaps. But I didn't. So we have two followers of change, and one of stability, all with very different world views. Having brought some level of closure to the story arc concerning the property rights of to the cave, which has been at times dubbed "The Abundant Womb of Hrihayal", the parties common interests have ebbed.

They decided that it was now important to determine who holds title on the land with the back entry to the caves, so they went out to the site, and then climbed to the approximate location where the chimney exited the cave system. They spent the evening of arrival looking, but found nothing. Well, not nothing. Mriga found several small blue insects, known for healing properties, and not common to the area. This led him to also find a small, very old, very rusted, iron insignia, possibly dating back to the age of the dragon riders. It caused a bit of discussion.

That night, Suni suggested they all break open the wine, to celebrate being out camping again, but Sanjesh thought that this was a bit suspicious, as she had never suggested that she enjoyed the camping that much. He believed there might be skullduggery afoot, but, in keeping with his temples precepts that one doesn't pass up pleasure, he allowed the guards to imbibe. Which they did. What happened after dark could lead to spoilers, so,
Spoiler
Alert
Instructions.. Mouse over this text.. from here to the word end. The text is in white, so I think this will work..

For Sanjesh's part, he tasked a slave to keep an eye on Suni for the night.

For Suni's part, she had slipped a mickey into the wine. And the guards got woozey. And tended to fall asleep, on duty. But she also noticed that she was being watched, so she took the slave for her pleasure, and drugged the slave as well.

Sneaking past the sleeping guard, she went to the chimney.. oh, she had found it earlier, but not informed the others. Suni had instructions from her temple. They had sent a team to do an recon mission into the caves, and they had not returned. She was supposed to destroy the evidence, and, if possible, determine what had happened. First she decided to climb down and take a look around.

At the bottom of the chimney she felt a very strong flow of other planar energies. It was centered on the Stele, which, it appeared, was shifted slightly off it's base. There were smudges on the cave floor, and nearby rocks that indicated what had happened to the recon party, who had exceeded their authority , with disastrous results. And she felt she was being watched.

Suni exited, cleaned up any evidence, roused the guard on duty, and sent him to find his relief, and went to bed with precious little time to sleep.

end spoiler.. for now..

The next day Sanjesh advised his guard to go hunting, and that they would only eat what they caught, as a penalty for drinking too much on duty. The group set out again to find the chimney, and, by noon, had found it. They also found an abandoned campsite, a ways away, low enough to see the fires of their own cave site, but far enough from the chimney that they may not have been related. The chimney, for its part, seemed undisturbed and sat in amoung the ruins of a very old, and quite simple foundation, as noted by Sanjesh, whose comes from a clan of builders. Suni expressed and interest in climbing down, and, based upon her agility, she was allowed to do so.
Spoiler
Alert
Instructions.. Mouse over this text.. from here to the word end. The text is in white,

Then a stranger approached her. The stranger from Tumissa, though he shimmered, as if ethereal. He explained that he wasn't really there, just a projection, made possible by the brooch she had been given to trigger communications. She asked if he could see what she was up to through the brooch, and he said that, yes, he could, though he usually didn't bother. (Suni, as you can imagine, was none to pleased with this information.)

He informed her that these findings: increase in interplanar energy, the remnants of the earlier group, all increased his belief that the object he sought was, indeed, in the cave. And that it would be quite large. He also told her that she was not safe in the cave alone, and things were watching. He wasn't sure what they were, but he was sure they were there.

End spoiler

Suni exited and reported that things were all normal in the cave, and the party packed up and returned to the base camp.

Because there have been a few adventures since my last update, I will take them in small chunks. Expect more in a few days.

Going on a short Hiatus in theTekumel Game..

2012-01-25T23:08:00.000-08:00

Probably only a couple weeks. What this means is that I have a couple weeks to bring the empire up to date on what has been happening. I may also have time to reference a 40fnordK game or two that I have played. And perhaps get back to work on the Microscope project. And I may find time to take some pics of the minor (and I do mean minor) progress I have made with the Hlutgru figures I have acquired. But, let's not get ahead of myself.

This post I can easily check an item off that list. I have said before, I am not a huge fan of the GfnordW game mechanic, but, it is the popular minis game locally, and, not as terrible as I originally thought. Well, at least it lets me push lead around the table. I have played two games recently, both against my old nemisis, the Tafnordu, and their general.. some call him Tim?

I have been beaten both times, but, I am improving. I am not going to do battle reports here, as I have already done them elsewhere. If you haven't read them, I am shocked.. and can only assume Google has failed.. But I can help.

Game one..
some bling

Game two..

Some more bling
The battles are described at the link, for those inclined to such. I am still debating if this is the place for my GfnordW shame. My opponent and I are trying to pull together a tourney of 40fnordK to support our FLGS. Need to do some work on that. No idea where we are gonna get prizes..

I picked up a deal via Mantic. Always a sucker for a grab bag, Mantic was selling their folio bag with a pile of random sprues for.. oh.. should have paid attention.. but an ok price. I have been itching to buy some undead for Mrur, and decided to buy a sprue or two and get the bag, hoping for a windfall. It was about 50 shipped. Got like 80 elves, and two elvish ballista, 60 or so undead..mostly skellies, a dozen dwarfs and maybe two dozen Orcs. I am ok with this, as the elves and undead can be tekumel-ized.

I have a draft of the campaign update started. Should be up soon. Possibly friday evening?

Ucon post 3.

2011-11-16T22:53:00.001-08:00

Well, things got busy, and I haven't had a chance to finish this. So I will do so now.

In Dra, we eventually discovered that the purpose of the day was to get past all the things that might distract us from our purpose as priests of Dra, prior to formal indcution ceremonies. Several of the acolytes spent time carousing, and gambling. The Hlaka with the broken wing got healed. I scolded him for wanting to be healed, to which he replied by dropping a rock on my foot. I tried hard not to care. It was good training.

Th game ended earlier than expected, in part, because, as good acolytes we couldn't bring ourselves to get all worked up when some Moogs showed up, dissed dra, and challenged us to field a champion to defend him. We figured that if Dra didn't care, neither should we... over all, it gave me deeper insights into Dra, even if we got a little light hearted in our interpretations.

After Dra , lunch (an excellent food truck meal... I know, sounds like a contradiction, but it's true..) we were clansmen who had just had our contract for guarding the tombs outside Thraya stolen by .. see what happens when I don't take notes.. ok, not going to go look it up.. we'll just say a lower class clan..A high Clan tomb had been robbed, and sundries.. yada yada..

Now, we weren't normally the tomb guards. Higher lineage clan brothers did that. But, smelling something rotten, aside from the Nakome body pits, one clan elder outfitted us to go investigate, and try to put things right. What we learned was more disturbing than if we had learned of a plot against our clan. The charges were true. Our tomb guards had been negligent. And there was also a plot against us.. clever ref.. So we spent way too much time trying to figure out how to get the plotters, before we finally figured out that we also had to make up for the negligence. My plan to seek reinforcements from Shedra in the Tsuru'úm never got off the ground. But it turned out we had a friend in Sarku.. so it did, eventually work out.

Then Sleep..

Morning led to my session of Microscope, a game of History creation. We tackled the Three States of the Triangle. I was impressed that we actually kept the game moving at a good clip, and made two full circuits for the position of Lens. I have a lot of work to do to make that all into a single document.. We tried to record the session, but I don't know if that worked out yet. It was on Geo's Iphone.. using an app intended for doing quick notes..

Again Lunch, and a delayed start, and off to save Lord Churasan, an adventure I had once read, and is published in Fight On, an old school revival magazine. Fortunately, I had an imperial Psychic for a character, and my job was, to a large extent, just to add appropriate color. Outranked by everyone, I was the one guy who sensed the potential dangers that lay ahead, and I was continually stalling to prevent what I knew was going to be the death of us all. I was wrong, of course. Proved only to be the death of me.. and one other, but she had kinda been aiming at that end.. sooo... really, just me..

Long drive home, which we broke up over two days, with a stop at the Last Square (we had stopped at Noble Knight on the way down.)

The Tekumel Project sent a pile of figures to the Con, and they were much enjoyed, but, U-Con it appears, is not a big group of minis people. The Shen were distributed generally, to both Tekumelani and Nakome and every one spent time looking at the figs, but most don't use them for game sessions, being more of the Storytelling style of players/refs. In fact, Aside from the paint and take table(which also hosted a fair pile of shen), I don't think I saw any miniatures games being held at the con.. (I understand there were a few.. but I never saw them.). As a result, after people took what they felt they wanted, everyone agreed that I, being a miniatures guy, should get any not claimed. Which I feel mildly guilty about.. But everyone seemed happy.. So my goal will be to get several painted up by a friend who has more skill than I do, and get pics for promo purposes. And then to find venues to take figs and get them in front of people who will be more likely to become Customers..Possibly back to U'con as well, and host a game..

One thing I bought at The Last Square was a copy of 5150, which uses the same rules system as Band of Joyous Heroes will use. This will give me a chance to familiarize myself with that system as while that system is being finished...

And Dra does not care.

2011-11-12T11:20:00.001-08:00

This AM, four of us took part in a session.. game... board meeting.. using the system "In a Wicked Age". Using the Oracles, we started working on a City for Tekumel, detailed enough to be useful, generic enough to be dropped into any campaign in most any part of the Tsolyani empire. With a bit of work, it should become available to everyone.. or that was the Goal, of course. For now, I will only say, There are ancient secrets and modern rivalries, and an Annual Rooftop Garden Competition..

Now, we are wannabe temple acolytes for Dra, stranded, for unknown reasons, in the woods, 2 hours from the temple. We are having a lot of trouble getting home. I came up with the theory that, given that the sun rises over the front Gate, in the morning, walking towards the sun would move you away from the temple, walking with the sun at your back, would lead one back.. So long as it was morning. In the afternoon, this would lead you to the back gate, of course..

I am not too bright.. But, by chance, it has worked.. ( This has been an exceptionally silly adventure, remind me of paranoia at its most absurd..)

Our farm boy, turned acolyte has made it back to the Temple, for lunch, and returned. The rest just got past the wall. My view is that some of us aren't going to pass this test. Some people seem to care a bit too much.

We found a scroll with "See other side" written on both sides. Our current theory is that this means we must try wanting, before we don't want. We are not in 100% agreement on this.

I am not actually expecting this party to make it back before our ceremony..

You are not Forgotten

2011-11-06T20:45:00.000-08:00

We are meeting for Games now. We have only done a tiny bit of Tekumel, however. We time warped 3 months or so into the future, as the players engaged in some Clan and Temple obligations, and maybe a little study or recreation. Then they went to the Caves to look in on how things were going. I will leave the details for a dedicated campaign post. That is not this.. or this is not that...

Last week we played a game of Microscope, a game by Lame Age, that is about creating histories. There were problems, but the experience, I hope, will improve my event at U-con. Next weekend I will be running this game as a tool to expand upon a possible history of the Three States of the Triangle. I am nervous. Both because the Game is actually a bit tricky, and because I don't feel qualified to build tekumel history. I am hoping the players do.

Update, on my draft..

I am now at Ucon.. gave up my seat at the first game session to another who was pre registered for it, but, whose ticket for the event was lost in the shuffle. I am effectively Auditing the game, sitting in the back, prepping for Microscope. The adventure is the follow up for one done a few years back, apparently.. members of the Clan Broken Reed are resolving internal clan personality conflicts while trying to address a dishonorable attack on the clans persons and reputation..

We have already gathered for the annual event, Joyful Sitting Among Friends.. in which we got a look at a box full of miniatures generously donated by Howard Fielding and the Tekumel Project, several figures of Shen, Hlutgru and H'laka will go to the paint and take table, to introduce non tekumellani to the line. Several will go to Tekumel track people. I will be getting some, to bring to a painter friend, for a really class treatment. Pics will go up, and will be sent back to Howard for his site and use as promo pics.

no pics yet. Not sure I will have any, but i will try to do kinda live updates over the weekend..

Wrapping up the Catch up...

2011-10-13T15:48:00.000-07:00

Back in butrus, the party split up for their respective temples, clan houses. Arrangements were made to meet with the local recruiter for the Legion of Tangled Root Eaters, for whom they had papers with instructions for clearing up the transfer of lands. This was at the Palace of Glorious War. They were mildly surprised to learn that, while the Legions officers had left them cooling their heels in Tumissa - something they had attributed to typical Tsolyani bureaucracy - the legion had sent a runner to Butrus with instructions for the office to have a scout view the land, to determine what all the fuss was about. The legion had decided that, though there was potential there for prophet, the whole thing looked to be a pot of trouble looking to boil. Certainly it would demand resources they could not afford to redirect during these times of international intrigues. They would be happy to facilitate any process that, in fact, kept them out of it.

A meet with the Clan mistress of the Plume of White, an octogenarian, and a bit traditional, led to scheduling a meeting where all parties could fill out proper papers and authorizations and properly transfer all claims to the Temple of Hrihayel on a day that would be auspicious for such and action.

That meant a couple more days wait. I think during this time they recieved a report from the cave site, which indicated things were going well, generally, though some workers lost, when the refugees who had come in after the Mrur attacks on the local villages were found to be performing sacrifices in the caves during their shift work. The administrator they left felt this might lead to a general lack of discipline, and, who knows what else.. So he dismissed all the refugees and sent them back to their homes.

At the last minute, on the day for transferring the property, Sanjesh decided that it might be good form to dress out his 20 Guards and give the Clan Mistress of Plume of White a ceremonial retinue, in addition to her normal attendants. The march and ritual (civil) went smoothly, and after escorting her back, the game went into hiatus.

I did let them know that this simple act, had, according to reliable sources, prevent some nefarious actions that may or may not have been instigated by the Ito clan from taking place. I had hoped to end the season with a big fight and a cliff hanger, but I couldn't see the opposition as being so crass as to send a large group against the Plume of White in the middle of the city.

An attempt at elucidation of the non players..

2011-10-13T15:46:00.000-07:00

There are other things that happened in this narrative that I have kept secret, some from you, dear reader, some from the party, some from parts of the party. I don't want to include them here, as my players do read this.. which I think is good. But it is sad that the other readers can't.. so, here are some spoilers..
Spoiler
Alert
Instructions.. Mouse over this text.. from here to the word end. The text is in white, so I think this will work..

Most of my secrets so far involve Suni, who, being a preistess of Grugánu: Knower of Spells, Black Sword of Doom, and Reader of the Incantations of the Dark, is prone to them.

First, in Tumissa, she was approached by a stranger the first night when returning to her temple, and told that he represents a party interested in an item they think might be in the caves.. And that they might offer assistance in return for considerations if that object is found. He didn't know what kind of assistance she might need, so he gave her a brooch, which she could wear, as a signal that she would like to contact them, and request aid. He then stepped back into the shadows and, quite literally, disappeared..

Second, Quite a while back, Suni passed the information on the chimney egress from the caves back to her temple. They sent a team to do their own investigations into the Stele and the big round room. They have not reported back. We shall learn more of them soon.

Third, not all the villagers who were lost were actually sacrificed. A few are gone missing in the caves..We MAY learn more about them later..

Probably enough for now. All I can think of anyway...

End spoiler

crash boom bah ha ha ha..

2011-10-01T22:12:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I managed to get together with some friends and play Wreckage, as a minis game. Nice units, modified for the purpose (or similar games) by Stan Johansen Miniatures. First some pics of the combatants..

These four were my opposition. All classic American Heavy Metal, Up Armored and loaded for Bear.

These poor suckers brought cars to a Bike Fight. I chose the bike because I own an Ural..and sidecars rock. Oh, I started a bit poorly. Learning the mechanic for the first time I kinda got stuck in my corner. But I had all kinds of Acceleration and Maneuverability, despite my hack loaded with a pyromaniac ganger..

I cruise Past the badly damaged tank.

A left turn brings it in line with my rear firing flamer

Honestly, getting stuck just worked in my favor. The objective was to collect fuel barrels, and my opponents went at it right off. Which brought them into shooting/ramming range of each other right off. So, they were all pretty chewed up, all european WWII, when I came out of the corner all fresh and strong..

But, I still have to say, my final two turns were beautiful. a Three shot sequence. I had a flamer, a card that allowed me to us it forward or backward and land mines. Never figured out a good way to use land mines.


when this beast moves in to pick up the fuel.. I U turn and fire again..

Killing the last remaining opponent. I took home all the fuel, took no damage.. I feel pretty good about that, even if I have to admit, those early mistakes were critically good fortune..

As this post is heavily Bling.. and substance light.. I want to throw up a couple pics and see what people think of an idea. I have recently missed a number of Tekumel Figs on Ebay. Several Non Humans were scattered across several larger lots of mostly old Ral Partha, and the lots just went to high, which is too bad, because I really needed the Pachi Lei and the Pe Choi. A few weeks ago I missed a Sro. But, I understand the Sro wasn't that well done in the first place. So, I am at Micheal's crafts, thinking about this, and other things Tekumel, and look at their toys - which includes several Dragons I have considered getting as cheap figs for my (Long on Hold) Mageknight/Hott project. And this time, I looked at this and saw THIS

THIS

this

Now, How hard you think this might actually be. Just ad a set of arms up there.. cut and splice and we might have a readily available Sro proxy.

Back to Butrús

2011-09-12T17:16:00.000-07:00

Well, with an agreement in hand the party decided to set out forButrús again, but, they were now concerned about their shadow. Whenthey left town they encountered a guard on the Sákbe roads whosimply would not accept their papers. It appeared they were beingintentionally delayed. Never ones to plow through what they can goaround, they began to look for a means to travel on the second tierof the roads. They sought a Patron who, by virtue of their clanstatus alone, would intimidate Road Guards and keep them honest. Mriga found one through his temple and that Grey Robed Priest.

The Party was taken on as guards for a high ranking Priest ofThúmis ( a different priest, one from a higher clan, and with higherstatus in the Temple). He was travelling south anyway, and feltthat having a party of soldiers (well, Hriháyal guards are soldiers,in some sense) would be wise, considering the threat of Mu'ugalavyiantroops encroaching in the Chákas. As a high noble he took his partyup onto the second tier of the Sákbe road, and, again as a highnoble, no one much said boo about it. They were advised that travelcould be dangerous.

They pressed on without much delay for the first third of thejourney, where they reached a guard tower who reported that notraffic was advised beyond that point. There was a confirmed reportsof Mu'ug troops on the road the night before, and a dispatch had beensent to Tumíssa to bring a cohort or two of the Tangled root eatersto investigate. But owing to their patrons status, the road guardsdared not actually forbid travel. When it appeared likely the troopwould continue despite the warning, the guards offered to augmenttheir parties defenses with an extra ten men. At least some of thesemen were, apparently, members of the Ito clan, though that is notuncommon on the Sákbe roads near Butrús..

Not trusting the offer, the party elected to press on alone. Atapproximately the mid point between the two cities they foundTsolyáni bodies, merchants, outside the guard tower, which waslocked. There were also bodies of a couple road guards, As best asthey could tell, the merchants had either arrived late, or leftearly, and been ambushed on the road. The guard had responded, andalso died. It was probably not the whole caravan, some of whom mayhave escaped and were probably the ones referred to as confirmedreports. And the Sákbe guard tower gates were locked on the secondtier.

Climbing down to the lower tier, they found the gates open, butthe stairs to the second tier of the Tower locked. And the far gateon the second tier was also locked. Since they were all barred fromthe inside, it implied that there was someone there, but no oneanswered. So they decided to breach a bit of protocol, and climb upto the third tier and look around. On the lovely mosaic tiles of theRoyal top tier, they saw a blood trail, that led to the guard housedoor. Which was locked.
Now, that was too much to ignore, so Mriga decided to try usinglevitation to manipulate the locks – really just cross bars – toget inside. However, all he achieved was a ringing head ache, as theguard houses all have some level of magical warding against suchchicanery. Live and learn. At the top of the Guard house is a watchtower, and someone suggested that there had to be one last door intothe structure there. So Suni scaled the guard house and found a doorunlocked. Inside she found an imperial messenger, dead from a woundby a Mu'ugalavyian' crossbow. He had managed to retreat to safety,but was not able to survive his wounds.

The party wisely wrapped the body, without too much snooping, andprepared to leave, when they heard foot pads running from a distance,growing louder. Going out, they saw another imperial messenger, approaching.He slowed when he saw them, wary. They shouted that there wereMu'ugs on the road, as he drew near. They saw him evaluate thegroup, and then, double his speed as he headed to Tumíssa.

Arriving in Butrús, they turned the body of the messenger over tothe local officer of the AOL. There were lots of question, but, itappeared nothing had been disturbed on the body, and so, they werereleased, but advised they may be sought for further questioning.

oddling thoughts

2011-08-31T23:51:00.000-07:00

Random Tékumel related thoughts thathave crossed my mind in the past 36 hours

some how the first half of this post was cut..

here is is, restored

I am still working on the campaignupdates, between INTERNET distractions. Writing them offline helpsget a draft out, but, I need this puter to get Tsolyáni spellcheckers. There is, for those who are unaware, a Tsolyáni dictionaryfor word processors available on in the Yahoo group files.Unfortunately, it was created for MS word in or before 2005 and won'timport easily into the current Open Office. I have been manuallyadding words as I have needed them, and occasionally go off on thenet to research an easier way.. without success. Which, by the magicof the Internet, often leads me to waste several hours on Ebay or FB,or reading blogs. Amazing time machine the Internet. All that ledme to an blog post on Hill Cantons about RPG narratives and what makes emgood, bad, indifferent, justifiable, or offenses against nature. Holdthat thought..

There is a new Blog devoted to Tékumelnews on the web, called the Skein of Destiny.

It is a group blog, and it was thespawn of a yahoo group discussion that began when the admin of Skeinoffered to run a newsletter. I countered that a group blog couldreduce the individual work load, and he and I, without consultation,both created a blog for that purpose. Only he actually put somearticles up.. which makes his much more interesting to read. Noreason to compete, but now I have the makings of a Tékumel blog, andno real mission. These two paragraphs are related..

I had been considering making myTékumel blog a group blog, for the purpose of game session reports.Anyone running or playing in a campaign could, if they desired,become a contrib, and log their campaign sessions as they saw them. Ijust thought perhaps an additional feature might be to link it to adrop-box for the posters to put Maps, or pics or such.. though dropbox may not be a good choice.. .. probably shouldn't brainstorm andblog at the same time..

At any rate, what are your opinions? Iam especially interested in the views of potential contributers.. asthey would be crucial. Readers, as with all things blog, areoptional.

I will probably cross post thisquestion in a few places..

The Dictionary, mentioned above, andthe blue room archives, and a few other bits of readily availabledata on the net, might make good fodder for a collective effort tobegin to build a Tékumel Wiki. I am trying to go through properchannels to achieve a Tékumel Wiki, and I understand that such abeast is a frightening prospect for those who wish to control the IPrights.. so this is tricky ground to negotiate. This is not a newthought, it has crossed my mind before, and is beginning to wear apath..

My plan/pipe dream to make a PenómGazateer got a minor boost in that I have invented a new beasty thatI think will fit well into the Swamps and the Underworlds. Have totry it on my players sometime soon..

“The unsecured path”.. I won'tprovide stats, as I believe strongly that the path forward is asystem-less Tékumel .. But the creature is an intelligentplant/fungus that grows floats in the swamps. Each individual pod isabout 5-8 inches in diameter, though not specifically round. Theycluster in dense communities making a firm floating surface that cancover miles of open, stagnant water.

But saying too much now might spoil thefun.. I will tell more about this in a future post.

I am toying with trying to create a setof rules for Den Den. The paucity of information on the game isdaunting. The only thing I am sure of is that the players cansometimes change one piece for another, and the game is supposedly anabstraction of the complex political world of Tékumel. I amthinking, currently, that, unlike most games known to our readers,players tokens won't be designated by color. And players providetheir own tokens for a game, rather than both or all tokens comingfrom one source. The tokens are standardized in some manner, butcustomizable. Much as we see lots of different renditions of thecommon chess set. Pieces are defined by some simple attributes(several sizes, perhaps, and several colors for each set) but theyare also customized, possibly with clan markings, or templemarkings.. that have no impact on the game except to identify thepiece as belonging to one player.

All the above was actually just adistraction from my original reason for creating this post..

Got together with some old friends theother night and played a few classic board games..

First up was Raj, a card/tile biddinggame I had never played before. Picked up a copy at a thrift store,and it looked like something I could import to Tékumel .. (hence allthe digression above..). It was compelling, and played quickly, butwas really just a way to kill time until all the players arrived.

Next a game of Circus Maximus. Adeparture from our traditional fair, actually. We usually playDune..I have bling.. We were doing a quick race, 1.5 Laps. The pic isfrom just before the first corner. In the next turn I entered thecorner a bit hot, and rolled badly, flipping my chariot. I spent therest of my career and life as a charioteer being dragged around thecourse. Geo flipped one turn later, but cut himself free. Then Jerryran him over. Mark won, but Jerry was the crowd favorite..

Then we played Dune, but, Chip had toleave – some lame gotta work tomorrow excuse – and the FLGS wasclosing.. so it was going to be abbreviated. Jerry outsmarted all ofus and time itself by pulling a win on turn three while we all triedto figure out if we could get one more turn in before our deadline. Since we still had time, we played out one more turn, and, at thedesignated hour of 1045, low and behold Jerry still had control ofthe most cities.. Cudos to Emperor Jerry for pulling off two wins infour turns.. He shall not be invited back..(I kid.. I kid..)

wow.. mustn't post free hand after midnight.. This think is littered with typos and edit errors.. ed.

Still More from the Campaign

2011-08-28T18:09:00.001-07:00

I am beginning to understand why I have been avoiding this. A lot happened in the last few adventures, though their wasn't a great deal of activity.

The next day they all paid a visit to the temporary billets of the Tangled root eaters, and made an attempt to gain audience with the Kerdu, G-Gum-Shoggu, or other officer who could make their claim to the land outside Butrús stronger. Their basic story was noted by the officer of the watch, and he promised to move it on to his superiors. They should wait for a reply. So they cooled their heels, did some more sight seeing, and discovered they were being followed. They set a trap, but must have spooked the tail, because it disappeared.

Eventually, they gained audience with the Quartermaster, who had been authorized to deal with the matter. They made their case,

Point 1, the tangled root eaters, a most honourable and devoted legion of the Empire had, with good faith, transferred title of the land in question to the Plume of White clan, and this arrangement had been seen by both as noble and in the best interests of each party and the empire. But for the bumbling of a low level scribe, that would be the end of the story, and none of the parties has ever shown sign to regret the decision.

Point 2, The party bringing the objection (the Ito Clan) to the long established transfer, though, undoubtedly doing so only in the interest of protecting the Petal Thrones deep devotion to perfection in all things of Tsolyánu, and most certainly abhorring, as the Emperor must, any flaw that might stain the imperial record-keeping.. can be assumed to have no other interests in the property in question.

Point 3, Any outcome contrary to the long running understanding can only reflect negatively upon the Empire, the Palace of the Realm, The clans involved, and the Tangled root eaters, for they have allowed this error not only to occur, but to fester, which can only lead to doubt in the standing of all claims of title, and from thence, in the edicts of the empire.. doubts which the AOL would, reasonably, be expected to erase, and probably with blood.

Point 4, Abolition of the long running understanding would would be inconvenient for all involved, as the Clan of Plume of White would probably expect recompense, to include interests, going back a approximately 1000 years, and the Tangled Root eaters would be saddled with land they no longer found useful to their mission. The expenses for the Tangled root eaters would be especially inconvenient, during a time of war, when monies might more readily be spent on armour, and training.

What the players didn't know, but would learn, is that some of the delay that had given them so much free time in Tumíssa was to allow the TRE to send a scout to investigate the property before a final decision. The Quartermaster and the Tirrikámu had learned enough to be very suspicious of the potential hazards that might be associated with laying claim to the unnatural caverns. They chose not be be distracted in war time with a place where the dead walk, without even the calling of Sárku.. to assist them. Better to leave that, in fact, to the temples to sort out.

So they authorized the deal that our party was suggesting. They would have an officer in Butrús with authority, meet with representatives of the Clan of Plume of White, and the temple of Hriháyal, and the former two would both sign over rights to the later, so that no matter the outcome of any challenge, the final owner would be the Temple, and it would all be completed before Avanthár would have any reason to be upset by the errors in paperwork. The will of the Emperor would thus be done.

The learned one other thing from all this. The bureaucrat whose name was associated with this error had, despite his considerable rise in rank, a reputation for similar, minute errors in paperwork that created the potential for challenges to long standing documents.

note: if any one is new to the story, and wants to go back and find the beginning, I have tagged all the narrative posts as campaign..

Back to our featured presentation

2011-08-27T14:48:00.000-07:00

Well, time to start drafting that update..

I am thunderstruck when I realize the last post on the campaign was in March. It ended as this.

They heard rumours of Mu'ugalavyá scouts and small skirmishes being fought in Do Cháka, up near Tumíssa. The Bulk of the Legion of Tangled Root eaters, a Páchi Lei legion, was currently up in Tumíssa, operating the defenses against said Mu'ugalavian incursions. As players are wont to do, they took an end run around my Jájgi plot line, and decided to approach the Legion, to sort simply replicated the original purchase agreement, or make a deal to purchase the land directly, if the courts should determine that they still owned it.

I have drafted enough already to break this into two or three posts, and am nearly caught up with the narrative, so without further ado..

...The players outfitted a small excursion to Tumíssa. And figured they would do some business on the side, in part as a cover for the real mission. That didn't actually keep anyone from following, as their opposition in this affair is both numerous and dedicated. Due to my neglecting to bring my maps, I over estimated the travel time from Butrús to Tumíssa. I explained this away by heavy traffic and heavy security, what with the harvest season starting, and Mu'ugs in the Chákas. There were some casual encounters along the way, but things were mostly quiet.. again, due to heavy traffic and heavy security. They did meet a Priest of Qón who was crawling.. as a means of mentally preparing to fight demons.. to Tumíssa. He was a dedicated demon fighter.. and an Ascetic, and a bit of a crazy, by the parties reckoning. Still, he invited them to his temple to research the Goddess of the river.. and possibly related matters. The party figured he might take a month to get there, at his current speed.

On to Tumíssa. , They traveled as a Merchant Caravan transporting fine papers from Mriga's Clan for sale in the big city, and Sánjesh brought his Hriháyal Guard for protection. Once in the city they did a bit of touristing, finding two places of great interest. The first was the Hall of Cool Air.. Which Mriga returned to repeatedly. The other was the Avenue of Stele, where they found another stele which seemed markedly similar to the one in the cave. It had been unearthed during the construction of the Lushman canal, and, as they had learned from other sources, that event appears to have coincided with an earlier renaissance in worship of the Goddess of the Turín river. Sánjesh stopped by his temple to try to toady a bit with Mis hiRakádi, and her entourage, but Mis was in a state of seclusion in preparation for the Ritual of Ecstatically Traveling to the Isles and Back again. He did find her protégé Kaiyor, and she invited the party to a the special holiday festival that were in store for the evening. Mriga nervously bowed out, returning to his own temple to do research, But Suni and Mriga attended. As it happened, the festival was a feast, more than an orgy, which brought in all the most exotic foods that could be had at the beginning of harvest, for the gluttony of the temple faithful. (It was noted by Suni, that there might be a correlation between the nature of the festival, and the rather severe diet I had place upon myself about a week prior... suni is wise, I suspect, as I was rather obsessed with food at the time..) The party goers (well Suni, I think) ordered a plate to go to be delivered to the studious Mriga... who had discovered that the Priest of Thumis from chapter 2 was doing research in the facility on the Stele they had all discovered in the caves..

The next day they all paid a visit to the temporary billets of the Tangled root eaters, and made an attempt to gain audience with the Kerdu, G-Gum-Shoggu, or other person who could make their claim to the land outside Butrús stronger. Their basic story was noted by the officer of the watch, and he promised to move it on to his superiors. They should wait for a reply. So they cooled their heels, did some more sight seeing, and discovered they were being followed. They set a trap, but must have spooked the tail, because they disappeared.

lately..

2011-08-14T21:57:00.000-07:00

My blogging is weak, from lack of exercise. I promised an update on the Empire of the Petal Throne campaign, and haven't delivered. There is a reason, not a good one, but a reason. We didn't actually manage to get together that week that I planned to confer with the players and make sure my info was accurate and complete. And we haven't managed to get together since. Early summer vacations spread us across several states, and – I think – a couple continents. There was a brief period, I think, when we were all in town, then Geo went to MI to visit his brother. And there is is to this day.. with a broken engine. Not really an excuse for my not posting... something.. anything... even stupid things... As a result, my readers – if any of you still view yourselves as such – I am behind..

I am writing this post offline, which, now that I try it, may prove to be the system I use in the future. I can do this when I have time, and no I net connection, and copy and paste it. This avoids the common distractions of the Web, FB, G+, BootCamp, Ebay, Email, etc. As I write, I am at my friendly local Game Store waiting to see if anyone shows up looking for a pick up game of 4ofnordK. The place is quiet, though someone with an Army just came in after being waylayed by a Dog, which resulted in some broken models, a minor limp and a foul mood. I have been busy with my IfnordG army, compulsively buying, adequately painting, and now, for the first time in my Gamey Career, basing the figs. (as it turned out.. I forgot my Company Command Squad at home, so, I ended up leaving when I finished this draft)

I have come up with some fluff to account for the variety of figures I use. I will be fielding the 703^rd Segmentum Obscura Regiment of Detachments. I hit on the idea while reading Sharpe's Eagle, one of the Napoleonic high adventures of Captain (as of this book) Richard Sharpe. Early in the book, a pompous general, with no experience, gets his regiment badly massacred. As a result, the survivors are formed up with other depleted units into a combined regiment, with no real identity. My plan is to pull any unit effectively destroyed in a battle, to be replaced by another unit of similar value. I plan on heavy use of range, as IG that get into assault tend not to survive. This mechanic will serve to keep me honest in troop use, I think, as it means pushing units into a meat grinder guarantees I won't have them next fight.

Units will come back, of course, Can't afford to buy figures forever. I may build a random chart for replacements. I will never use a colour guard, as a regiment of detachments would have no colours. Locally, I will play mostly against SpaceFnordMarine, as that is the most commonly fielded force. I have chosen never to field a commissar against SpaceFnordMarine. Fluff wise, fighting SfnordM makes no sense anyway.. figure it only happens when Mil Intel wishes to keep the SfnordM in training, and a Regiment of Detachments would be a good sacrificial goat.

But, I have been spending an inordinate amount of time on 40FnordK lately. There is a certain attraction to the build process, but the game is, so far, less than compelling. I miss the More nuanced world of Tekumel. I will be devoting more time to that for a while. There are interesting things happening in that world as well. More later..

editors note. It appears that in publication, pictures have been truncated.. please click on the pic to see the whole thing. We will try to learn how to address this in the future..
decided to add a bit of bling. Introducing the current 703^rd Segmentum Obscura Regiment of Detachments

the above is a typical infantry squad.. two squads combined, 20 men with missle launchers and grenades launchers. Currently have two of these.

This unit is a Veteran Demolision team. Minitures are Pig Iron Kolony Militia. On the right we see two heavy lasers proxied in for multifnordmeltas. Can have up to 3, so I have another few soldiers en-route.

This is a typical Platoon Command Squad. The soldier on the left has a flamer. On the right we see a VoxfnordCaster. Currently two of these, and another unfinished that will be have a heavy weapon. Their function is command and control.

The last two photos are of hvy weapons teams. There are both GW and Pig Iron in the mix. I can take no credit for the upper three, as they shipped in all finished from the Eba nebulaay..

A decision, for the short term

2011-05-21T22:12:00.001-07:00

After all, is any decision final. This blog will be my only blog for the time being. I am way behind on it, so starting another will only divert my attention. It will cover all things Gamey in my world.. So, this will be a start to bring things up to date..

First, on the Glorious precipice of the Empire of the Petal Throne, my players are all done with school. We will meet again in on Monday, mostly for book keeping and planning the way forward, because over the next month or so, we will all be off on vacations, in sequential order, meaning we will not all be available at the same time for a bit. Hate to jump into a campaign arc and then have a one month lapse. They are a bit ahead of the narrative on this blog, and I will begin in earnest to correct that tomorrow. I am going to draft that post, then bring it to the group meet, to see if I left out any juicy bits. It should be up mid week.

Geo and I got together and puttered around with a game mechanic called Microscope.., which I learned about from Risus Monkeys' blog. We decided to undertake a Tekumel pre-event history. The game begins with the players setting an opening and closing event for a timeline. We started with discovery of Tekumel, and ended with the stars going out. Then you take a couple turns putting in some broad time phases, and start zooming in on events within those phases. .

The game looks like it would work better with a group, larger than two. Still, we muddled through a S'su attack on an terraforming operation that led to a new mythical location refered to as the "City in Amber". I could see this being taken out at a con like U-con, by Tekumelani and used to fill in possible histories of the vast periods of history that are only hinted at in the game. (oooh.. just noticed they have established the dates for U-con this year. Can't say I am thrilled about the drive in Nov, but it looks doable right now... wonder how it lines up for Aethervox activities..) Risus also suggested this game might work well with a website called corkboard.. And we may take what we have done so far there, and invite others to join..

And the last Tekumel based report for this post is the acquisition of some old EPT figs from Ebay. There was a guy selling a pack of figs, which led me to look at his other auctions. In some random lots I found a nice set of Vimuhla worshippers. Not an expert, but I think think they are from the Legion of Red Devastation, a few swordsmen, and a pair of priests.. I have seen the priest figure often before, as it is the same one used to represent Chirine... On his blog he has been prepping some figs for a game event in North Texas, that looks really interesting.. and appears to be full.. Oh, and a few old shen missing the tails.. but that seems fixable.. I also acquired a few random figures that are proxy-able.

On the 40fnordk front, I have been puttering on painting myImperial Guard army. So I will share a bit of bling here.. I think.

This is the Commander, for the time being. Don't really love this figure. Skull mask, and dancing pose.. but, twill serve..
next down here are a couple of my Sentinels. Hope to eventually complete three squads, two scout one armoured..

These are the mounts I will use for Rough riders. They turned out really well, I think. The one in the back, with the black saddle came to me with a paint scheme completed. I used approximation to achieve the same on the other six. These were fun to paint, as I could try a lot of experimentation with the colors, and didn't have to stay "in the lines.."

And the next two are samples of troops. 40fnordK is a pretty figure intense game, and IG perhaps more than most armies. My earlier post explained how I initially acquired these Steel legion figures in the upper picture. But, despite their high value, they don't add up to a hill of beans when building a 40fnordK army. It gave me the mandatory HQ unit and infantry Platoons, which adds up to one to one and a half of the mandatory troop choices.

Steel legion figs are spensive, so when someone posted the Pig Iron figures in the lower pic for sale on TMP, I decided they could make a nice second infantry platoon troop choice. And the price was pretty good.. though I don't recall what it was. And some came painted. That buy inspired the color scheme.

Problem is, they didn't have figures for Sgts (who carry hand guns and swords and such.. stupid 40fnordk rules sets..) or the Platoon Command Squad. I got twenty figs like these, half painted, which really only accounts for the troop figs. I purchased some NCO's from Pig Iron (well, technically The WarStore.. who will be the Sgts for both the infantry plts and the Platoon Command Squad PCS) leader. Then I realized that I needed four more infantry for the PCS and it wouldn't hurt to have some heavy weapons in the mix.. So now I have some of those on order. All of which adds up..

Then came Tax time.. and it appears my tax situation changed a lot last year, cause now I am broke.. so mini purchases are on hold for a bit. going to have to figure out a way to fund new purchases, though I probably have enough for a decent 40fnordk army, I see the Tekumel Project is putting out oodles of tempting products..

At the moment, those are my two major gaming fronts.. I have some odd projects on the back burners. A host of terrain making materials cluttering up my geek space.. and a currently dormant Mage Knight Hordes of the Things Project. It would be much easier to get caught up if only I could put caffeine back on the menu..

Wither, Hence?*

2011-05-01T23:03:00.001-07:00

It has been, arguably, more than a day or two. I apologize. The Tekumel Campaign has been on hiatus as players were being swamped with their college commitments. This was good, as I needed to recharge a bit as well. I am not, by nature, good at maintaining focus, as many things tend to take my interest. Ooooooh.. shiny.... Unfortunately, it also led me to feel no pressure to get campaign to pixel. We were not planning to meet again until mid may, or so, which should leave plenty of time to post a couple sessions worth and bring everything up to date. I work well under pressure. Without pressure.. well.. I drift. Does that make me a follower, rather than a leader? Don't know.

I have also been toying with the affections of a another game universe. She means nothing to me, but, she is popular, and has some attractive qualities. Her most attractive quality, unfortunately, is that she is popular. We are talking, of course, of that trollop of a game universe, 40Fnordk. I have been painting and building an IG army, because I see the opportunities to bring Tekumel to the table locally as being limited. Don't get me wrong, I love the RPG, but, sometimes I just want a little fling on a table.

Anyway, This has led me to reconsider the nature of this Blog. Most of my followers are here for the Tekumel, and don't give a hoot about the GW, I suspect. The blog was originally supposed to record all my gaming, but, all my gaming has tended toward Tekumel, in large part because last year was devoted to that. But as you can see by the side bar, the year before I had declared several different interests. So.. followers.. dear readers.. if you are still with me... should I stay on Tekumel track here, or just blog on anything Gamey that suits me at the moment... The latter may lead to more posts.. and more bling.. but.. if you are primarily interested in the Empire, that may not be a plus.. But my non miniatures focused RPG leaves me with almost no bling....

Another alternative might be to start an second Blog, devoted to Tekumel. I had considered this before, and then considered making it a team blog, for any person running a campaign. That might prove confusing, or it might prove cool... or both... I suppose they aren't exclusive.. At any rate, The Superior Force is not a very Tekumalani sorta name..

In other news, Chirine and the Aethervox Gamers did the Dave Arneson Memorial again, and I missed it. There are a pile of new Tekumel blogs out and about, but if you are here for tekumel, you have probably already seen them, as this is a very tardy posting.. (if not, I will try to make a list...or at least point to a blogger who has done so..).

I really need to spend time trying to find sources for bling on these posts as well.

Oh, and Hot Elf Chick..

* A pun.. is that bling?

Playing catch up

2011-03-10T12:06:00.001-08:00

Well, last month I failed to make a post. For unexplained reasons, the month blew by. We did play, and I will try to bring this up to date. This first post is several weeks overdue and will be sparse on details, I am afraid.

With the midnight ritual droning on, the party began to explore again. They returned to the halls near the library, and found the ranking priests offices, and quarters. They entered and found another copy of the book, an older copy, which they pilfered. And eventually found another exit but it led down, not to the sewers, but to the Tsu'urum. It was locked, and chained. They left Suni to pick the lock, and went back into hiding, and awaited a report of success. She was successful, though it took a while, but she made did not alarm anyone in the process. She made a furtive effort to explore below on her own, but she had no lighting. She returned for the group, and they escaped to the level of the red hat Ditlána of Xkcd. They emptied into a chamber of Thúmis, with, apparently, only one exit. And, to their surprise, it appeared to be guarded, or at least light could be seen, and footsteps heard. (Here I will say that I was unprepared for this eventuality. I had not expected them to go this way, so I went to Dave's Mapper, and started mapping randomly. They knew they needed to find a way up to the sewers, or perhaps to underworld temples to one of their Gods, preferably Hriháyal or Grokking.. And these were both Northish. Trapped in this room, they searched for secrets, and found a hidden exit North. Ksárul must be favoring them.

They then wandered aimlessly, finding old clan houses, and clan house temples. They managed, by pure luck, to avoid a number of hastily justified encounters, simply by choosing the right exit from areas. They nearly stumbled on some items that had surprised me. But, it was surprisingly uneventful until they found a Clan House for a Clan that follow Sárku. There they disturbed the Mrúr Guards. Here they used a wedge like object to jam a door, and fled. This led them to a ladder, which led them to the surface, in the slave pits of a slaver clan, just north of the north wall. Here they found an Ahoggyá slave keeper, who found their predicament amusing. And took a liking to them. So, he made a deal with them to ransom the group in exchange for slaves, and Sanjesh went to purchase some while the rest remained hostage. The Ahoggyá held up his bargain, and when the slaves were delivered, the party was released.

They took the books to Mriga's clan, paper-makers, and scribes, and set the resources of the clan to work copying and comparing them. That was the end of the game session, and the next week was largely book keeping, as the players waited for the copies, and did research.

They were notified by the temple of Hriháyal that the purchase agreement for the land was being contested by the Ito Clan, who had unearthed a 1000 year old flaw in the title paperwork. Ito's had dispatched a messenger to Avanthár as well. They learned that the current owners of the land, the Plume of White, had purchased it from the Tangled Root Eaters at that time, and they had received it as a land grant at their formation, approximately 1400 years ago. They also learned that, the bureaucrat who had made the error was believed to still be roaming about, having earned the prestigious status of Jájgi. It was suggested that they try to find him, and clear up the error.

They heard rumors of Mu'ugalavyá scouts and small skirmishes being fought in Do Cháka, up near Tumíssa. The Bulk of the Legion of Tangled Root eaters, a Páchi Lei legion, was currently up in Tumíssa, operating the defenses against said Mu'ugalavian incursions. As players are wont to do, they took an end run around my Jájgi plot line, and decided to approach the Legion, to sort simply replicated the original purchase agreement, or make a deal to purchase the land directly, if the courts should determine that they still owned it.

Jan Project update

2011-01-22T10:14:00.000-08:00

Well, the ref screen has not moved much. I have printed a few charts, still collecting others. Trying to decide what data I want at my fingertips and what I can live with looking up. Titles, Clans, an abbreviated History. But how abbreviated. It would be nice if my clan chart showed temple affiliations, and it would be nice to have a temple chart with clan affiliations. Andw the two are not redundant, really. We played last night (campaign update in the works) and the group was in the underworld, and managed to get themselves into the lower levels, which I was mapping as we wet using Dave's Mapper.. And I found myself saying, " The space you've entered it an excavated Clan house of one of the clans that follows Thumis.. " It would have been nice to look at a chart and pick a clan. I know the data is in the Mitlanyal, but, looking it up takes time, and I havent' got the memory anymore to get it all in my head at once.

Daves Mapper is nice, and I quickly had the party going in circles. I was using it via an Ipod touch, which was interesting, but left me no good way to record the spaces they went into for possible future reference. I saved most of the individual tiles they travelled through, and they weren't mapping, relying on dust footprints to back track, should they find the need. Everytime I rolled an encounter, they skipped a few doors and made a bee line for their destination.. I probably could have been better prepared..

But we ate well, as Mriga, and Suni cooked some very tekumeliani fare.. We are going to add occasional dinners to the regular routine... So there goes any serious plan to lose weight, I suspect..

I have found a bit of time to paint, or, at least do what passes for painting in my world. I am painting some Romans to proxy as Tomb Guard.

The colors are washed out in real life as well. Not sure how to fix that, except possibly spend money on quality paints. Not sure what color to paint the plumes. Currently, the chest armor is brown for Sarku, and the kilt and shoulders red for Vimuhla, being soldiers and all. The shin guard will be copper,as will the breast plate or perhaps just the plate trim. The Plums I haven't decided yet, though Blue for the Empire seems likely. Still need to come up with some awesome shields. Opinions welcome.. Be kind... but honest..

addenda

Well, I didn't have access to a printer, so I didn't make any progress on the screen, but I did have my paints, and I worked on the tomb guard a bit.. improved. still hack quality, but, improved. Had purchased a brighter red, so the kilt pops a bit more. Added copper and touched up some things. Plumes in Red and Blue..

Stuck in a box

2011-01-11T20:53:00.001-08:00

Backing up a moment, Our heroes convinced the Swamp Folk to assist them to get into the sewers inside the walls again. The Swamp Folk agreed to take them down into the restricted level of the Tsu'urum to lead them under the walls. They knew of an old Clan house there of the Great Stone Clan, which contained a labyrinth, which led, among other places, to a passage. The party would have to travel in darkness, so as not to attract what might reside in the labyrinth. But the Swamp folk, who are sensitive to “wrongness”, knew a way through the labyrinth, and would guide them.

So, hand in hand, they all made their way, quickly and silently as possible, through the maze, with their non human guides leading and taking the rear. Suni toyed with the idea of detecting foes, but, decided not to risk attracting attention with a spell, even a psychic one. The came out, and were given directions to a room that would lead back up into the sewer levels, and were left to their task. They were advised not to try to take this way back out.

Once back in the sewers, they moved downstream until they found a junction, just above the SW gates, leading to the river. They split into groups, to try to avoid looking conspicuous, but, somehow, they managed to attract the guards notice. Still, the guards let them pass without question – there was nothing technically illegal about being in the sewers, even if their arrival from that direction seemed odd. Technically, the guards were there to keep people out, not interfere with people who were already inside. So the party moved back upstream to the north, and eventually found the sewers that should put them below the Temple of Avánthe from the Red Hat Ditlána of the mid 1700s. And with much searching, they found the trigger to open a wall, and go in.

They found themselves in a supply room, off two converging halls, with the sound of chanting coming from each hallway. The halls were empty, and they knew it was getting on in the day. They assumed that rituals were in session and they decided to take advantage of this to look around. Down the right hallway they found three doors, two apparently private quarters, one a communal quarters, and a dead end, leading to UN-excavated space. Down the left they found Lavatories, and an office. Both directions seemed to flank the main ritual hall with doors that probably led inside.

Further left they found the smell of cooking, and, accidentally ran into slaves carrying Hot water to ritual baths, but the slaves were too busy to take notice of which priests were in the hall way. They found a side passage that led to administrative rooms and, in that section found the library. It took a little time to figure out the organization, but they did locate the book “A history of the flood of 643 and the appearance and disappearance of the Irriguous Dead”. They purloined it, and a few random others, and beat back to the storage room. Unfortunately, they still had not found the mechanism to open the door from the inside. And the ritual ended, so they hid back in the stair well. Slaves brought ritual paraphernalia into storage, and left and the halls outside became much more active. Another thorough search of the room, and still no mechanism. It was late, and eventually, the halls quieted down again. The midnight ritual to bring back the light began, with a skeleton crew of junior priests and priestesses, and the ranking members retired. A quick journey into the hallways found “Silence, I slumber”, Méshqu plaques on various doors. And time ran out for the session...

More from the desk,

2011-01-07T22:12:00.000-08:00

Though we played last week, this post is not a campaign post. My apologies. I had the latest update mostly written, but I can't find it, so I will start again tomorrow. I had planned this post for after that, but, due to the delay in that, I decided to write and post this.. which is my January Project plan.

I debated what to do first, and my first inclination was to do something with my growing pile of lead. The mass is becoming a gravitational force in my geek room. But, my campaign is not focused, as yet, on minis. Probably won't be. Occasionally I hope to break out the 28s for a skirmish, and eventually maybe the 6mm for a campaign. But, Essentially, we are meeting round the table for improvisational readers theater. So, my focus for January is to get my campaign info in better order, and first up is a Ref screen with charts. The idea is not new. Most game mechanics have some kind of Ref screen available. I bought the one SJG produces for GURPS in PDF, but it needs work to customize it for my campaign. And it, obviously, only addresses game mechanics.

Honestly, I tend to run on a slightly crunchier version of the roll a die system that the Professor uses. The official game math only comes out occasionally. Roll 3d6, low is good, works 90% of the time. But the combat portion of the screen is complete now.

What I really need, however, is a Tekumel cheats screen. I find that I am still often forced to stop play while I research part of the Timeline, or the name of a Legion. The world is rich, and detailed, and my mind is not so supple anymore. So I am working on a screen that shows Temples, and Clans, and History timelines, and such.. I hope to post pictures when done.

I did not go down to the New Years Games in the cities, and I regret that. I was scheduled to work NY day, and the weather was not great, with rain leading to ice. Sounds like a good time was had by those braver than I. No guts, no Glory, as they say.

I found a blog with a very different Tekumel slant. The author is working on some very ancient Tekumel History. Pre history.. pre bethorm (pocket plane). Humanspace.. Well, look for yourselves. It is a very intriguing concept. Geo, you were thinking of running something?

Tis the Season

2011-01-01T14:45:00.000-08:00

Well, last year I managed 24 posts. On average 2 per month, though some months had more and some less. It is up from the year before, and more focused, as is appropriate for my Year of Tekumel. So with the first of the year it is the season for making plans and resolutions for the new year.

Tekumel activities will continue. The campaign has had a number of canceled games of late, but that is not due to lack of interest. Work and school schedules have conspired against us at times. That probably can't be helped, after all, none of us has the luxury of a high school life anymore. But Mriga and Suni have found employment locally, which was a concern.

I hope to bump the blog posts up, shooting for 36 for this year. That seems doable, if I simply keep up on the campaign, and trivial if I also record other game activities. For example, I don't think I have mentioned here my recent ACW game with Chip and friends. Forgot to bring a camera, so there wasn't much to report. I have also not blogged about recent mins purchases, and I could certainly have said more about UCON. I will also try to add some more Bling. I have plenty of figs to paint, and terrain to build, so that should help.. And there may be a top secret project about which I can leak some info.....

This year will still focus on Tekumel, but will include other gaming. However, I, like many gamers, am easily distracted. So this rule will apply. Each month I will set a goal for myself, and I can't do non-Tekumel projects until the month's tekumel project is done. This will probably involve completing a few projects that I have half done right now.. and breaking down some unpainted figures into project groups.

I think better with Pen and Paper than keyboard, so details will probably come after some time away from the screen. I need to think about the Butrus underworld as well. More later..

Into the underworld

2010-12-23T22:01:00.000-08:00

Well, The party was given instructions to find a clan house for a Pé Chói liquor trader in the foreign quarter. Given a primer on Vintner clans from the eastern empire, they were expected to make passable conversation with the clan elder and then ask to see the Brandy store rooms. A code phrase was given, they they were to give to the keeper of casks and this would get them access to the underworld. All went according to plan. They were left alone, to try the brew they had requested, and when they picked up the bottle, the cellar wall slid silently open. Down steep spiral stairs, and they found themselves with a very small bottle of a vintage called Orange Silken Treacle, in a sub-cellar beneath the foreign quarter. They found no obvious way out, but Suni looked for a place to set the bottle again. Once located and used as expected, (and balanced to offset a small portion of the bottle they had tasted (it wasn't actually very good, in their opinion – overly sweet, heady, syrupy)), another door opened into the sewers.

The sewers under Butrús are actually fairly well populated by her “sub” citizenry. They were fortunate enough to not open the door onto a party of people, or others, having failed to find the peephole that would tell them the coast is clear. The sewers are two levels down into the Tsu'urum, and serve as the main streets for the upper two levels, which are used and they are home to Nakomé, poor lineages of low foreigners, and the idle, lost, or dispossessed youth of the city. At least the areas they were in for the moment were considered part of the city, if only the foreign quarter, and patrolled. They stood out, as the interlopers that they were. But they went unmolested towards the main lines. When they reached the first gates, under the great walls of the city, they were told to contact a specific guard, when he was alone, present him with a token from the temple Hriháyal, and he would let them out. But when they arrived they found 6 guards at the gate, at the far end of a large chamber where several sewer lines met, and which served as a bit of a sewer life market place. As they waited to see what would happen next, they were approached by a young entrepreneur who, suspecting they were after the wealthy lower levels, offered to help them procure proper papers for access.

The sewers mark the lowest level of the Tsu'urum that were accessible to the masses of Brutus without specific authorization from the city government. A mere couple hundred years ago, Butrús had suffered an unpleasant level of uninvited attention from below. Whole families had disappeared from invasions that came from their own sub-cellars. Rumors of Shunned ones and Ssú raced through the streets and troops were sent down to secure the Tsu'urum. They chose the level of the sewers, which had been saved through the past two Ditlána, as the line of demarcation. Access below would be strictly controlled, under penalty of impalement, or worse, I suppose if some force less friendly than the city or tomb guard caught you. Above the Sewers were two Ditlána of underworld, in more active use by the Temples and clans who valued their traditional sites for rituals and observances.

As they spoke with this man, they noticed that four of the guards at the gate had taken notice of the group. The dealer, eager to avoid “Imperial entanglements”, offered a to take them to a safer site. They agreed to hire him as a guide, if he could lose the guards. Back up the sewers they all went, their new guide stopping, occasionally, to negotiate, (and allow the guards to catch up, to maintain a negotiation advantage..). It became clear to Mriga that he was also trying to make sure the party was lost, so he made mental notes of the route. Eventually they came to terms of two K per day, assuming they all survived, and considerably less if they all died.. and their new guide led them to a clan house that hid them while the guards passed. They then doubled back to the “plaza” and the guide negotiated passage through the gates, saving the party the necessity of using their token, which might now allow them to exit later by this gate. Good move..

The party passed under the City walls and out side the current city to what was, several Ditlána ago, the sewers under the old foreign quarter. Here they found evidence of whole clans, and Nakomé, whose social status was in question because of the current hostilities with Yán Kór, and a few social groups who are less social to the humans above. Specifically, they were aware of Pygmy Folk, Ahoggyá, and a clan group of Swamp Folk. They initially avoided contact with these groups. The directions they had been given were based upon re entry to the city at the SE sewer gates. But the SE gate was now guarded by a dozen guards, far more then they had been told to expect. The party had come down with only two bearer slaves, so the odds, should they try to force their way past, would be 4 to one against. They began to seek an alternative.

Though Suni had reason to believe the Pygmy folk would know of alternative entry points, Sánjesh and Mriga felt they would not be trust worthy, and might be hostile. They elected to send their new guide to speak to the Swamp Folk first, as they seemed most likely to be warm to humans. They offered simply a gift of one bottle of Orange Silken Treacle, and the chance to socialize and gossip with some outsiders. Surprisingly, this worked. They were invited in, and spent some time gossiping with the Swamp folk, They learned that the guards in this portion of the Sewers and at the gates were more numerous and more active as a result of rumors of Mu'ugalavyian activities in the Chákas. The Party told them a small amount about the Mrúr activities, and the subject of the Goddess of the Turín river came up, as Sánjesh thought perhaps, being water dwellers, they might have insights or know legends. The party learned that the last known manifestations of the Goddess were a up in the area of the Lushman Canal project, and the Swamp folk had heard of these drowned undead, and several of the strange “bounties” that they had encountered emanating from the caves (mushrooms, Étla, etc) had been noted at that time. This was 2000 years ago, and the dates coincided with the alleged authorship of the book they were seeking. As it turned out, no one much liked the Orange Silken Treacle..

It was agree that the swamp folk would show the group a way into the Sewers under the city.

Chnéhl, the final episode

2010-12-22T19:33:00.000-08:00

Our Heroes set out in pursuit of the Chnéhl. They opted to push hard during daylight, but not to press on at night, both because of the inherent risk, and because it would hamper tracking efforts. They are fortunate that the escaping Chnéhl decided to slow down once they put some Tsán betwixt themselves and their hunters, because, if they had simply pressed the advantage, they were faster than the party by a significant enough margin that the delays of tracking would have allowed them to escape. But it quickly became apparent that the Chnéhl did not have a plan for exactly where they were going, and they lacked the skills to disappear stealthily into the forest.

Day after day the party closed the gap. I can't say this was extremely exciting, but the drudge of daily tracking tests was probably realistic. It didn't become exciting until they they closed the gap to an hour or two separation. It was at that time that they discovered they were in the territory of a pack of Feral Rényu, and the forest became alive with yipping calls back and forth, as the critters tracked them, while they tracked the Chnéhl. This was the Chnéhl's end game, but our heroes were having none of it. They decided that, if the Rényu attacked, they would deal with it, but if not, they would give them no reason to do so.

They focused, single minded, upon the Chnéhl, and closed to within sight, sending the resting Chnéhl running, Bigfoot-esque through the undergrowth. A couple of well placed, drugged arrows took down the first, and Sánjesh, ordered three spear men to stand guard. Luck was with them, and a moment later, perhaps 50 yards hence, they dropped the second one. (Their animal handlers advised them that this was certainly good fortune, because if they had split up, the chance that the Rényu would attack one group or the other would have gone up substantially.)

Some applied healing skills, and drugs, and they had recaptured Mis's valued ritual subjects. They were kept heavily drugged for the trip home, as the Slaves, really, a bit over burdened by the task, carted the glorious prizes back. They decided to retrace their route, rather than risk a random encounter in uncharted forest, while heavily burdened. The trip back was laborious, but uneventful, until they got back above the tree line on Silver mountain. From their they could see the remaining smoke trails rising from the river village that had rescued Sánjesh and company during the unprecedented summer flooding so long ago. Our heroes quickly surmised that the Semétl of Mrúr were probably afoot again. They made as quickly as possible for the Camp at the Cave entrance.

Upon arriving they found more refugees were streaming in. Fewer, and mostly children, capable of outrunning the Mrúr, who had, this time, killed everything they could catch. The river village had been less defensible in many ways, sitting between the river and steep banks. The Mrúr had entered from two sides. The young man who had accompanied Sánjesh and the Hriháyal guards during the initial search for Mis did survive, though he feared he might well be an orphan as the village was, to the best of his knowledge, his entire clan. He reported that the village had taken strongly to the new practices of the goddess of the river, adding them to their worship of Belkhánu, and believing, perhaps, that their might be more to their lives than simple escape into an honorable death, in time.

After a rest, the great Chnéhl were loaded, along with what was left of harvests from the cave, and the party, onto a Chlén cart for a long, slow, and hopefully relaxing trip into Butrús. Signs of occupation had begun to return to the village by the Sákbe Road gate, and the guards were complaining about extra duties, now that there were reports of rogue Semétl of Mrúr, along with the wet ones.

In Butrús Sánjesh received his promotion to Tirrikámu, though he was not given a command, as yet. This was in part because there was none to be had, and, in part, because his independent operations might prove more profitable. The party collected and divided the bounty, paid off the labor, sold the Gerednyá, and other critters they had acquired along the way, visited their temples and clans, and took a break. Well, they used the time to better themselves.

Suni gave most of her earnings to her clan, and went to study with her temple. This will give her better access to clan resources, when the time comes. Mriga kept his personal wealth, as this venture had not been funded by his clan. He also went to his temple to study. The temple of Grugánu was taken by his tales, and he has been tasked to record what he can of the cave, which has tentatively been title “The Silver Womb of Hriháyal” as his labor of reverence for his advancement to second circle. Sánjesh was assigned training for his new rank with the Temple guard. Mis packed up her entourage and her Chnéhl and headed for Tumíssa, to complete her variation on the ritual of the 32^nd Unspeakable act. I can not tell you how that went, however. But before she left, she gave the party a few pointers and instructions on how to access the underworld of Butrús, and, if they were lucky, obtain the book they had been seeking in the temple of Avánthe about a few weeks before.

post management post

2010-11-30T21:30:00.000-08:00

This a non campaign post.

First order of business is to point out that I have posted several posts today. Three campaign updates and this. For unknown reasons, the campaign updates are out of order. They are numbered, so read them in order, if you want to have a sense of chronology, and don't if you just want to save time and read top to bottom.

Sanjesh (geo) and I went to Ucon, and had a good time, though the drive home was a burden after three days gaming after an overnight drive out. We were fortunate to get back awake, and a few hours prior to Geo's axle coming apart. We will prepare better should we make the journey again, and we do hope to do so. Ann Arbor seems a nice town, it would be pleasant to explore an eatery or two besides Denny's.

Been painting a bit, but not a lot. Still, a little is at least progress. Missed an opportunity to buy a Sró dragon on Ebay, and I will kick myself for that for a bit, but I did just order the Qól and Hlutrgú from the Tekumel Club. A few figs were given away at the con, but I never heard who got them.

Also bought some 6mm figs a bit ago to make massed armies for Tékumel warfare. Talking to someone on the Tékumel minis who has used rapid prototyping to build some proxies in 25mm with the hopes of scaling down his meshes for doing the same in 6mm. Don't suppose any of my readers is a 3d graphic designer?

Quick campaign update pt 3

2010-11-29T21:55:00.000-08:00

Now our heroes had decided that the whole Chnéhl adventure was getting both dangerous, and frustrating. Suni had nearly been killed twice, and their targets had eluded them several times. They climbed back to the lair. The Beast handlers believed that the Chnéhl might have abandoned the area, but they found no sign to support the theory. They had brought along two of the mountain Hmélu to use to drug their prey, but the plan this time was to use zoic domination on heavily drugged animals and walk them right up into the cave. It was a matter of dosing them correctly to keep them alive just long enough to get them into position. The set up a defensive perimeter at the high camp late in the evening. But the night was not quiet.

During the first watch the party was attacked by Shánu'u, the giant distant cousins of the Hláka. They struck from above, and attempted, primarily to separate the party from the Hmélu. Overall, it didn't go well for the Shánu'u, losing nearly half their number, but they injured a few of the parties guards, and made off with one Hmélu. One Shánu'u was captured. In the morning the party decided to follow through with the plan with the remaining Hmélu.

The Hmélu, drugged and ensorcelled, made it to just outside the cave, where some young Chnéhl cautiously approached to investigate. They prodded it with sticks a couple times, then bashed it once or twice, celebrated their hunt and dragged the poor creature inside. Our heroes waited an appropriate time for the drugs to do their work. Then they cautiously approached the lair.

Exploring the lair they found the young Chnéhl had all succumbed to the drug, and the mothers were, if not unconscious, incapacitated. But they did not find the alpha males. Searching they found a larder, and a back exit. Now, it seemed reasonable that, under normal conditions, the Alpha males would have been the first to eat, so they deduced that they had not been in the cave. No idea where they might have been. The high camp was currently only occupied by the slaves. But the Chnéhl normally won't attack a group larger than themselves, and there should only be two, while the slaves numbered ten. Our party decided to wait in the lair and hope the Alpha males returned. In the morning, they did.

A single slave head rolled in through the cave entrance. I don't who, but someone suggested responding in kind, and the party killed and decapitated one of the females. Her head was tossed out. Another slave head rolled in, and then nothing. More waiting. Eventually, our heroes came out, to find that the Alpha males had left. The tracks lead off around the mountain, counter clockwise. They found one more slaves head, in the bushes, simply discarded.

And that brings us to this week's game, I think. I may have missed something, but I hope not. Their plan is to press on after the Chnéhl and bring this to an end.

Quick Campaign Update Pt 1

2010-11-29T21:32:00.000-08:00

Our heroes spent the next day deciding what to do with the captured Chnéhl. They considered releasing a couple of the smaller males in order to keep the local family group alive, in an effort at herd management. They had them all drugged, for easy compliance, and trundled all but two off on a Chlén cart to collect bounties from Mis. They then went off into the local woods to look at the traps they set up. Then they discovered the tracks. The Chnéhl they had captured were not the largest Chnéhl in the area during the fight. It appeared that two other Chnéhl had sat in the woods and watched. Had they simply realized the attack was doomed, or had they actually used our heroes to eliminate their potential rivals.

Our heroes decided to make another attempt on the Chnéhl. They climbed up to the area of the Chnéhl lair looking for Mountain Hmélu, which they planned to drug, in the hopes that the Chnéhl would catch the weakened beasts, eat them, and, thus also be drugged. In the first attempt they found a group of Hmélu just off the lairs entrances. (The Chnéhl lair has three obvious entrances, in close proximity..). They spent a good deal of time trying to close on the Hmélu close enough to get a shot off. Despite her perfect balance, Suni couldn't seem to make a stealth roll, and repeatedly startled the flock. She had the weapon with the shortest range, and Mriga, who is not adept at this kind of thing, controlled one of the Beast handlers with an Atle Atle, and the longest range. So he moved to a decent range, and waited, aiming, for several turns while Suni struggled on a slope of loose gravel. In the mean time, Sanjesh had noticed some of the Chnéhl females watching from the cave mouths. Finally the Hmélu had enough and bolted, so Suni quit trying to be sneaking and gave chase. Mriga, who had been aiming forever, found his foot asleep, and tumbled backwards when he went to throw, firing wide. Suni managed to tag one with a well tossed dagger, but she didn't really have time to savor the moment, because she found that she had come to close to the lair. The two big Chnéhl roared forth from the lair and attacked her, and, nearly killed her in the next few moments. But the others leapt up to attack, and, again badly outnumbered, the Chnéhl wisely fled back into the lair. Our heroes scooped up Suni and retreated to their high camp. They prepared for what they expected to be a night on Defense, but the Chnéhl never came down.

The next day they went up, hoping perhaps the Chnéhl had taken the Hmélu and thus been too stuperous to press the attack. They saw no sign of the Chnéhl, and tracked the blooded Hmélu along the mountain side. Eventually they found the flock, and the wounded Hmélu down. Stringing out their slaves as herders, and moving up the flanks and ahead, the party managed to capture, if I recall, the entire flock. They also discovered that the downed Hmélu was dead, but it had attracted some local fauna. Curled up near the carcass were two lskjdlfj that had succumbed to the drugs in its system. The party used nets and sticks to bundle them up and cart them off as well. All in all, an excellent hunt.

Quick campaign update pt 2

2010-11-29T20:38:00.000-08:00

I don't recall what prompted the group to drop that thread for a couple days and go back into the caves. I suspect I tempted them, as they discovered from the workers who were going down, that there was a form of grass growing on the cave floor. Entry added mystery on mystery, as they also discovered the cave had developed a weather pattern all it's own, with a minor monsoon season every 20-30 hours, and thunder and lightening. The eco-system was cycling at an accelerated rate, with a full crop of grass and such growing, withering and regrowing each day. The players packed up an entry team and made their way upstream, investigating the apparent source of the daily weather cycle.

Again, they found themselves up in the area of the Stele and the temple like room. Here they were attacked by Dlaqó, who were quickly run off when one of the Beast handlers used Zoic Domination to control the leader and he was hacked to death. The carcass, they decided, would just attract other critters, so they dumped it down the deep hole across the way. (Remember that hole.. did I mention it? The players have expressed the belief that it is the pathway created by a HUGE Aqáà?. This made our more conservative player a bit nervous about attracting much worse than more Dlaqó.) They also found a chimney, and Suni scuttled up it, past Hu bat guano, and an apparent hu bat nesting site directly out to the surface. She noted the location, which was outside the area that Mis had agreed to purchase, and came back down. That was significant, because, in theory, they no longer controlled all access to the tunnels.

The next morning the Suni and Sanjesh took ropes and went down the Aqáà hole. At the bottom they found a shallow water feature and a large, round room, filled with a slightly unnaturally persistent darkness. They found a large room, with 6 large doors, More or less equally spaced and three small doors clustered up on a dias. They had no tools for opening the doors, but one small door was slightly ajar, and they could see a white tiled room on the other side. They could not get it open. They also found three platforms on the dias, and pried one up. It created sparks, and a bit of ozone. The others were trod upon and they lit up. Then they heard a low grating rumble, and the sound of water draining down an opening. They also found that the water was quickly emptied of thousands of small frogs up onto the dias where they stood. Sanjesh caught one, to take out for further study. When the climbed off the diase, the water on the floor had gone down, and the sludge was a bit thicker. They made their way back to the ropes and climbed out.

Sometime on the exit Sanjesh discovered his frog had escaped.

OCP The autumn of my year of Tekumel

2010-10-21T17:41:00.000-07:00

OCP or Off Campaign Post.

Well, I am going to U-con to, among other things, sit joyously among friends. Registered, with time set aside for the trip, but still no place to stay. Geo might join me, but that is not yet set in stone, and I have offered an invite to a gamer in Milwaukee, since I will be traveling by there, and it wouldn't be too inconvenient to pick up a rider. Also not confirmed. At any rate, it seems a proper tribute to my year of Tekumel. I will continue with Tekumel after the years end, and my campaign will continue, but I may spend a bit of time on other things as well after the first. Probably not much though. I no longer have free time..

I spent some time sorting figures, but my attempt to inventory them got lost quickly. I have acquired a lot of figures over the past year, nearly all proxies, but a collection of the new Eureka and a fair number of old Non humans as well. Painting is even farther behind than attempts to inventory. I have puttered a bit on building some terrain, but not a lot.

I have started re reading Flamesong, after reading Sharpe's Rifles, and the first two Gor books. I really enjoyed Sharpe's Rifles, and see some ideas I will crib. Napoleonic politics is not that far from Tsolyani politics in some ways.. Gor is ok, easy to read, despite awkward writing. I am reading Gor to learn a bit about the world so I can explore the Gor Grid. I want to make a Virtual Tekumel, and they have done a lot with their virtual Gor. Good artists borrow, great artists steal, as they say.

It had been my plan to try to make a Penom gazateer during NaNoWriMo but I think it will have to wait. November is looking to be a complicated month, what with U-Con. I know that I would get little to no writing done during those days. I had also hoped to put up a stand alone OpenSim Grid, and bring it with to U-Con as a demonstration of the potential. It is late October, and I doubt I can do that either, though I have found a computer on craigslist capable of the task, I am not sure I am, at least not in the time remaining.

This pic is from Second Life, but it demonstrates the potential, I think..

When Life Hands you Étla

2010-10-15T06:32:00.000-07:00

I seem unable to create a proper sense of danger in my players.

Faced with a writhing mass of Étla, they retreated to the surface, then used the Chnéhl cage as a filter to keep the largest at bay (actually, the largest couldn't manage the stairs). They then set about capturing the smaller ones that came up and made crab of dinner. Like the water, the Étla carried a drug effect, a mild hallucinogenic, euphoric effect. Someone came up with a plan to make money. They set up a simple processing facility, and smoked all the Étla they could manage to capture. Suni took this to Butrús to find a market. En-route, she came to the village at the Sákbe road gates and witnessed a crowd, piously taking in the instructions of a small cluster of dead children.. Concerning, but not enough to keep her from finding a vendor in Butrús who gave her a big contract for all the wunder-crab she could deliver. With the money from the initial batch, she hired more guards, a Chnéhl specialist, and bought a few more slaves. She also contracted a Chlén cart to come to the camp. None of this was what I had in mind when I envisioned a writhing mass of Étla rising from the cave floor..

The Étla processing attracted meat eaters, so they moved the processing farther from the camp. As the harvest declined, Dlákolel came in force and raided the processing site. The Slaves were brought back to camp, the processing abandoned, and the focus became, once again, fortifying the camp. They left the Chnéhl expert and others to oversee this, and Mriga, Suni, and one Beast handler took 10 guards and 10 slaves into the cave to free Sanjesh. The vast majority of the remaining Étla had long since run out of food. The remaining Étla foraged among their carcasses, and the cave reeked. Slaves swept away the remains, and Guards drove off whatever seemed bold enough to approach. They found Sanjesh, a pink Étla free zone, and hit him with a charge from their excellent ruby eye. They lost one slave on the way back to a Haqél that was, surprisingly, in the river. They also encountered Hú bats near the entrance. It has become a ritual now for the players to eat every thing that they find in the caves, so they caught a Hú bat. It was only {meh..}

Leaving the caves, Sanjesh returned to Butrús to see Mis, the Hriháyal high priestess. This was due to a mis communication, but it worked out well. First, Sanjesh got the reward that Mis had hinted would come his way. Several times. He also told her about Mriga and Suni's attempts to get into the library of Avánthe, and Mis suggested that they probably needed to go into the underworld. She offered to help get them in. He was also promoted, with the recommendation of his boss, and the support of Mis.

Back at the Camp, Mriga, Suni and the Chnéhl experts went off in search of Chnéhl. They found a trio, not the ones they sought, but ones from the local group. Someone used a sleep spell, and then the beast handler used zoic domination to control one Chnéhl. They escorted it down to camp. It was the idea of the Chnéhl expert that, owing to the strong community bond of the Chnéhl, the others would come to its aid. They finished fortifications, set a few traps, finished pits, and waited.

The next session was a miniatures battle. Our heroes, vs a large group of Chnéhl . The heroes were pretty well defended, with several pit traps, a low thrush wall, and various traps in the woods. The Chnéhl approached at dusk, but triggered a trap, and then waited until nearly dawn to attack. This is easier to tell with a few pics, so, I have some eye candy. Note that Chnéhl miniatures are not real common. I tried to find a decent proxy, but on short notice, I ended up using a bunch oft mage knight figures of werewolves, and bears and such.. It worked, but I am still trying to find a decent Chnéhl proxy

The Chnéhl approached fairly cautiously, until they got to the wall. They knew quickly that they were out numbered, and showed a surprising sophistication in attempting to capture Suni, rather than drive deep into the camp. They lost a leader into a pit trap, and that was a major hindrance throughout. They finally managed to grab Suni, and pass her over the wall to the other leader, but it was too late. The beast handler took a contingent and blocked their way back to the woods. The leader and his companions wrestled Suni to the ground, and placed a maw on her throat, but didn't bite down, in a move intended to cause her to surrender. They appeared to be attempting to barter. But Suni, if you will recall from way back, has bloodlust and overconfidence, and was having non of it. She managed to to wrestle out her dagger, and stab the beast. Surprisingly, she managed too enough damage to stun it, and this allowed her to press the attack. I don't recall if anyone else joined in, but, she did win, though she only barely survived. The remaining upright Chnéhl attempted to flee, but fell into a pit trap. I think the players captured 7 or 9 Chnéhl. Including the leaders.

Finally, something written

2010-10-13T21:29:00.000-07:00

Glorious readers, with abject apologies, I prostrate and flagellate myself before you. I have been ruinously remiss in keeping this blog up to date. There is much to tell. So much, that I am sure to miss bits here and there.

When Last we left our party they had fought with the priestess of the Blue Lady and won. They then recovered her from the underground river, and she was suffering the hallucinogenic quality of the water. When she was revived, they interrogated her. She was recalcitrant, but realistic, and offered up information that seemed to not surrender her mission. She maintained that the attack was self defense, as the party had locked them into the caverns. Starving, and out of water, they were sure that they would not be allowed to live if they did not have a hostage.

The party maintained that they were just controlling access to the caves that they had found, and would have let the leave, had they asked. As a gesture of goodwill, she offered to have the temple provide an excellent ruby eye to release Sanjesh. In return, she asked for permission to look for her two lost guards, and leave. Our heroes agreed. The party left a slave to watch the stairs and provide fresh food and water for the priestess. I think that is who alerted them to the undead. It arose from out of the river, and began to (horrors) lecture them on the proper method for sacrifices. Some in the party could understand its speech, others could not. I don't recall who was who.. At any rate, the tried tossing a net over it. And it crumpled back into a much more natural pile of corpse. They identified the corpse as the Avánthe guard who had fallen in the river during the fight that left Sanjesh in stasis.

They exited and left the cage off the entrance so the priestess could leave at will, propping the cage so that she could drop it over the hole when she was out. The party left of Butrús, both to obtain the eye, and to research and resupply. In Butrús, they discovered Mis was hosting a party, in part to honor her rescuers, and in part because she can. The crew got invitations, though she was disappointed to learn that Sanjesh had not returned with the party. She had received and understood the message suggesting the temple acquire the land. That was another function of the party.

The land in which the cavern mouth sits belongs, currently, to the Plume of White, a clan locally dominated by Chegárra worshipers, and none to wealthy. With the war raging against Yan Kor, and their members joining legions and posting to far off lands, Mis figured they might be open to the idea of selling some land to finance the effort. The members of the Four greater black clans were also hoping to buy the land. They arrived at the party as well. The Group was given the task of keeping the Black Clan representatives busy so that Mis could cut a deal with the Plume of White.

There was the ordinary hob nobbing and such, but the action got interesting when Suni found the pit fighting rings and people started gambling. Wine and a few powders were flowing freely, and pretty soon Suni was signed up in the early competitions. Nothing lethal. But, as a complete unknown, she garnered a good deal of speculative betting. I don't recall the individual fights, but Suni eventually bested the lot, with help form her ring manager and personal healer Mriga. At the end of the night, Suni had an open offer for contracted bodyguard work, and Mis had an agreement to purchase (assuming all clerical paperwork was processed and accepted in Avanthár) the land in question for the temple of Hriháyal to open a small retreat for wayward girls. Mis also offered the party a contract for both the Chnéhl she had lost, and any others they could capture, with a hefty bounty, and some up front funding.

They spent most of the week in town, figuring Sanjesh was pretty safe, being in inter dimensional stasis and all. Suni got word from her temple that she could probably learn more about the Goddess of the Turin River if she could acquire a book from the library's of the temple of Avánthe entitled “A history of the flood of 643 and the appearance and disappearance of the Irriguous Dead”. It was probably held, they told her, in the second level below the temple. She took this to mean the basements and sub-basements. She recruited Mriga to go fetch the book.

A dutiful friend, and convinced that his temples alignment with stability and close ties between Avánthe and Thúmis would make him a better candidate, Mriga agreed. He entered the temple, toting a blue statue he scrounged from an unkempt storage room in his own temple, and made offerings, then slipped below grade. Down into the kitchens, and the coolness of the dorms. He could not find a Library. Eventually, he simply asked someone where he might find a book on past floods. He was directed to up and over to the temple of a lesser followed aspect. I think he fetched another offering, and tried again. He found the scholastic libraries this time, and, having some success with this approach before, he decided to simply ask again. The librarian looked in his records and told him they had no such book. Mriga returned empty handed.

But Suni was not about to give up that easily. If I recall, she bought an offering from the temple vendors and made her way down to the library. What she didn't know was what the Librarian had actually found when he looked in his records. The book had been tagged as heterodoxy, and moved to the secret libraries in the Tsu'urum. Mriga's request had been relayed to the temple guard, as was protocol, and initially just written off as random request for the book by a scholar who had seen it referenced some where. But when Suni asked for the book as well, the librarian suspected something was up. He had her wait, and told her he would get the book. Then he got the guards. She found herself outnumbered and didn't put up a fight. They escorted her to a small cell block and told her to wait. The book was valuable, and this was the only way she would be allowed to see it. Then they got the the fifth circle head of the order for preservation of the purity of the Ladies aspects, who came to interrogate her.

Now, she had not done anything wrong, and Suni was pretty sure that if they meant to kill her they probably would have done so. But she was also pretty sure they weren't interested in seeing her simply walk out. They asked why she wanted the book, and she told them it was for a fictitious scholar, who sounded to me a lot like Mriga. They sent queries to determine the validity of the story. The temple wasn't sure they could simply kill her and be done with the issue. There were suggestions that people might miss her and since they might be forced to release her, they were hesitant to harm her. She pushed the idea that her clan would demand Shámtla, and eventually they asked on what grounds? “Holding me against my will she replied. “We aren't holding you”, they replied, “you are waiting for a book.”. And with that, she decided to quit waiting, and they were forced to let her go, as their other option was to hold her against her will, and they weren't sure if this was worth the path that might eventually follow.

Mriga encouraged the party to leave town. They returned to the caverns and found that the Avánthe priestess had left, with or without her lost comrades they did not know. They entered caves to find and free Sanjesh, but suddenly discovered the floor seething with Étla. From large to small, and representing varieties from all around the empire and beyond.

Check in soon, there should be more.. (not like last time..)

Inactive blogger

2010-08-28T19:22:00.000-07:00

While the campaign appears to be stagnant, it is only an illusion. I am now three sessions behind on posting here, which is a really bad place to be, as each session adds more labor to getting caught up. I have made an outline, and I hope to write a single post to cover it all soon, perhaps tomorrow. I can't do it without the spell check I have been slowly teaching Tsolyani, which means I have to do it on my desktop. Which means I have to stay out of second life for a bit.

Actually, I have been avoiding SL more and more since I discovered OpenSim, which, I think, is the answer to the biggest problem of trying to build a Tekumel VR - price. OpenSim is a opensource VR project, closely paralleling SL. The big difference is that anyone can host a Sim. And even link it to other Sims. The Gore community has built a fairly extensive Sim, and have 3000 members, if I understand correctly. Their own little World of Weirdcraft. I joined that Sim, with the idea of learning what they have done in world, but, I am not sure Gore is my cuppa... I have never been able to force my way through any of the books. I will try again though..

I have been going into OSgrid to start working on Builds for a possible VR tekumel. I wanted to start simple, and so I am beginning with the Sakbe Roads. Though big, they aren't a terribly complex structure. In SL I was either limited to the existing Megaprims (which were built during a glitch in the software - prims there are normally restricted to 10 X 10 meters) or have massive prim counts. Opens Sim has no such restriction. I built a 135 meter long 3/4 scale section of wall over the past week. I can see this will be a big project, and may carry me into retirement. I hope to have a demoable setting ready prior to UCON, so that I can recruit interested parties.. And I need to fly the whole idea past whoever might be able to get me approval from the Professor. I doubt the Tekumel community is as large as the Gore community (which boggles my mind..) but I still think it could support a multi region Sim for RP, and socializing.

non campaign bits

2010-07-23T15:01:00.000-07:00

This is a maintenance post. First, I transposed the names of Sajesh and Mriga several times in the past two posts. They are, I hope, all correct now. I don't blame you if you were confused..

Next, I spent some money at Old Glory, before my Old Glory army membership lapsed. Got a few more Ghost miniature elves, some Philistines, and some Ancient Egyptians all for Tekumel. Got some Pirates with firearms as well, cause I have enough pirates to make a decent pirate skirmish and I can use a number of the Numidians and such that will serve in Tekumel as natives in games on that front.. So, 12 bucks on non tekumelani items seemed not unreasonable. I am finding it hard to justify any more lead purchases this year, because I am not getting much painted.. Though I have gotten a couple house projects nearly done.. perhaps when it gets cold again..

I have a shameful secret to share now. I started playing in Second Life. Originally to help a friend with his SL night club, but, honestly, I am finding it kinda interesting.. I have requested membership in a Tekumel Group in SL, and, if the creator ever gets back to me, I could see a long term goal to create a sim area just for Tekumel RP..

Don't drink the Bong Water

2010-07-21T16:14:00.001-07:00

This is the second of two posts in short order. If the action seems to jump here, you probably need to read the post below first..

Loaded for Zrné, the party went down into the caves.. The beast handlers stayed outside, to direct the slaves and progress on the encampments defenses and potential for Chnéhl trapping. So, it was Mriga, Suni, Sanjesh, two priests of Thúmis and about ten slaves. Wit added light, they could see what looked to be a body on the ground, across the river, behind a stone column. It was discussed to send a slave across to investigate, but, all the slaves denied any knowledge of how to swim..

The ground was slippery again, because of the mushrooms, which were everywhere. They had learned from experience that the hallucinogenic quality was not absorbed by skin, but had transferred to the underground river, so drinking from it was out of the question. They traveled up stream, but the land bridge they used before now looked treacherous with mushrooms. They decided to go upstream and look for another crossing.

Later that day, they heard howling upstream. They pressed on, always closing on the intermittent noises. Eventually, they found a lost slave, from the Avánthe expedition, stoned on mushrooms. She attacked Suni, but was quickly taken down, restrained, and given real food. When she recovered her senses and got over her fear, she told the party that the Aridáni had released them to fend for themselves when they had found the ladder gone from the cave entrance. She did not know how long ago that had been. The party claimed her as their slave.

They made camp. Sometime in the night, Mriga heard voices, come and go, not far away, but muffled. It was brief. In the morning they investigated, and determined it to be an acoustical anomaly. They found that upstream the caves system splintered into many branches, each a separate source of the river. It was wet, but they found a fordable spot that kept their mouths safely above the water, and eventually move down stream. On the second night, Mriga was again on duty when he heard something. This time it was real, and close, as another lost slave attacked him. Others came to his rescue, and again, the slave was quickly subdued, restrained and fed. She confirmed the story of the first slave. By this time they had come to the cache site that Sanjesh and party had stored all the spare provisions in their first entry. It had been raided, but had mostly consisted of a few spare torches, so no great loss.

On more familiar ground they moved up to the goal, at least for the priest of Thúmis, the mysterious writing near where they had found Mis. En route, they found tracks for a another slave, but decided to leave his fate to the weaver of skeins. If they stumbled upon him, they would deal with it. The writing was, our Priest believed, from the time of the Dragon Kings. He could not decipher it, but it appeared to be technical data, and a caution or warning. His theory is that it was a guide for other explorers.. They spent the night there, and decided they could afford one more day in this location before turning back. They went to more carefully explore the cavern in which Mis had actually been found, and discovered a Stele, again, perhaps, from the time of the dragon kings. They also discovered that the stone columns had a very orderly and, dare say, architectural regularity, and that the far end was stepped, perhaps as a dias..

Mriga assisted with taking rubbings and writing notes on the stele, while Sanjesh and Suni, again a bit impulsively, started exploring again. They took a couple slaves, and torches and lined up lights on the dias and at the writing, and moved on in a straight line past the curtain walls, and, interestingly, towards the mild winds that had been noted earlier. Eventually, they found a large hole that went nearly straight down, with a distinct cool draft coming up. They considered it might be a trail from an Aqáà, but if it were it was huge, maybe 30 or 40 feet in diameter.. Still, if it was, they weren't going to out run it now, anyway, so, they tied off a rope, sent a slave to tell others, and Suni scuttled down the hole. At 75 feet she was out of rope, but not out of hole. Sanjesh dropped a torch, which fell past here at least another 100 feet before striking something, and shooting off out of site. They didn't have enough rope, or enough supplies to make a real attempt to explore this. So they came back up. Just as Mriga came running to try to stop them from doing something crazy.. So that all worked out..

Running low on supplies, and having accomplished their goals for this trip, they went back down. They didn't feel they had time to go up stream to cross again, so Suni lead roped her way across the land bridge. And was beset upon on the other side by two Aridáni. They made the mistake of thinking she would surrender, like a sane person. She was, after all, unarmed, and outnumbered. But she was also Suni, and not a pushover, so she began to wrestle with one for a spear, which she got, then promptly used it as a quarterstaff and knocked one out. That Aridáni fell into the water.

In the mean time, Sanjesh, scampered across the land bridge on the ropes she had placed. Upon entering the scene he heard a third person say don't. Again, a sane person.. oh, never mind, he did. Sword drawn, he dove into the fray. A click and a blinding pink light, and he was frozen in time and space. But Suni had already dispatched the other Aridáni, and was now swinging randomly for the voice. Another click, and a fizzert, and a slight smell or smoke, followed by a curse. I don't recall what distracted Suni, but the Priestess of Avánthe used the opportunity to dive into the water and make a break for it. She figured she was out numbered and out gunned, and wasn't Suni.. mores the pity, cause rational thought in an irrational situation can get you in trouble. Suni went after her. Suni had the presence of mind not to open her mouth. The priestess did not. After that, it was just catching up and restraining her. And that was where we left it..

I am proud to announce this was session 10, of my campaign. I think it is going well.

Squatters Rites

2010-07-21T15:14:00.001-07:00

Well, we are two game nights behind on the blog, once again.. Must be more diligent.. The first one was short, as I failed to coordinate everyone ahead of time. I will try to sum up..

After leaving the cluster of temple offering sites the party move back to their high ground camp site. Coming into the area the encountered slaves cutting trees, and eventually found that the black clan hunting party had camped in their site. “Ola,” they said, “We found it empty, and wondered what had become of you.” Well, not quite empty. They had found an Okhíba, bellowing in the Chnéhl trap, which they had killed, to quiet it down. It was being prepared for dinner. Would they like to join? At first the party was annoyed, but, when it was pointed out that, upon their first meeting at the lower, now abandoned camp, the black clans had said this would be the general area in which they would be hunting, and Our heroes had, in fact, been the ones who moved up the hill. A surreptitious check indicated that the cave entrance had not been disturbed. Our heroes decided to wait it out. The Black clan only intended to stay one more day. But they also intended to buy the land, which they said proved to be good hunting.

Feasting that night, and discussion of the lost Chnéhl, indicated that a small clan of the beasts was living up the mountainside. So, the Black Clan agreed to take them up to the area on their final days hunt. Tracks, nothing the size of their prey, were found. But, it did present the possibility that these two, highly aggressive males, might try to take over this clan of Chnéhl. That could prove a problem..

The Black clan left the next morning, and Sanjesh sent his three Hriháyal guards to inform Mis of what they had learned, with a loosely coded message, advising she or the temple make an attempt to buy the land first. Then, the campsite to themselves again, they set to work making a more permanent stair into the caves.

In the process they discovered that the caves were now rife with Mushrooms, everywhere the water had made the rocks wet. Sanjesh, being a devotee of Hriháyal, and Suni, being a bit impulsive, ignored the more restrained Mriga and had some with dinner. As our reader can probably predict, hilarity ensued. The mushrooms were hallucinogenic, and with a hint of paranoid aggression and a piquant aftertaste. Quick thinking, and naturally a bit paranoid, Sanjesh tried to corral the two, successfully getting Sajesh into the Chnéhl trap and secure. The more lithe Suni was off into the dark, dark woods. The party, well, Mriga, and others, pursued. It was a long chase, but Suni has perfect balance, and was hard to track. And once into the dark, honestly, the Beas handlers had little incentive. Mriga did eventually find her, hanging in a tree, believing herself a Biridlú, wrapped in what was left of her blanket. She was coming down, and more manageable. They wrestled her back to the camp, where the slaves had been poking Sanjesh with sticks, while he was stoned in his cage.. Still, no one got hurt, worse than cuts and bruises.

CSI Butrús

2010-06-24T20:09:00.000-07:00

The party made their way to the fishing village, but at a pace to look for signs and such of the quarry leaving the trail. When they reached it, they found a village in mourning. Belkhánu had seen fit to drown the child, they said. His body had been found. Mriga, used his status as a healer of Keténgku to gain access and examine the body. {sinister drum roll} It showed signs of ritual binding {/sinister drum roll} They informed the elders, and told them about the corpse from the barge. The elders were, understandably, concerned, and told them of legends of the walking drowned, which were used as tales to scare children, and keep them away from dangerous places. The body was found in a snag of deadwood just downstream, so the party decided to go upstream and look for any clues. (They really need a Rényu for the party..who talks funny, and likes snacks..) They found nothing, and returned in the evening while much of the village was off for the funerary services. They were treated well, that evening, and in the morning they headed back towards the Guardhouse village.

Except that leaving town an old woman approached and warned them to “Beware the Goddess of the Turin”. Which sent them back to the elders. Who denied any knowledge of such a deity. And shifted perhaps a bit nervously. Or not. Hard to tell. Perhaps they were simply offended that someone would suggest such a thing.. On the way back they were pushing hard. In part, because they had covered the ground, in part because Sanjesh was running low on his supply of his favorite wine. They were delayed only shortly when they heard noises near the Ford across the Berjádu river. Sneaking in, they found a Dlákolel feeding on the carcass of an animal. They soon discovered that there were more in the area, and one might be a mother. They backed out. The Dlákolel did not follow.

When they reached the Guard Tower village, they learned a little basic hetrodoxical history of the Goddess of the Turin. The Goddess inspired a blood cult many eons ago. Rumors of the drowned rising from the river. It was suppressed by the temple of Vimúhla. Occasional worshipers were found, but the threat seemed to have passed a long time ago. Despite this, occasionally small clusters have been found and rooted out. Not recently, as far an anyone is aware..

The group decided to travel back to their current campsite in the morn, by way of the mountainside temple shrines that make Silver Mountain a pilgramige for many in the area. It seemed a good idea to approach several priests from several differing temples on the subject. Let's see if I can keep straight what all they learned and where..

Sanjesh approached Lady Hriháyal's priestesses, and learned that there are many scholars who claim that the Goddess of the Turin is a variation on an imported temple from Salarvyá.

Mriga approached the Priest of Lord Keténgku, but like his master, Lord Thúmis, Keténgku instill the discipline of research upon his followers. They said they would send for what information could be had, rather than possibly spread false information..

Suni, approached the priests for the shrine of her God, Lord Grugánu, who explained that the Goddess of the Turin is reputed to be a blood aspect of Lady Avánthe.

This theory prompted the group to send Mriga to speak with the priestesses of lady in Blue, who, were mildy put out, and proclaimed any such rumor to be the work of those who would sully their temples reputation.

With all this in the back of their minds, they set out along the mountainside, towards camp.

And Stay Down!!!

2010-06-22T22:53:00.000-07:00

It has been a two sessions since I last updated the blog. A lot has happened for our little party, and, honestly, doing a single write up has proven daunting. I may take this in smaller bites.

Last time we left off Suni had volunteered to enter the hole and investigate the groaning sound. She was joined by Sanjesh, with the understanding that they would not leave the vicinity of the bottom of the ladder. There was some delay, and they found only tracks in the mud from the collapse. Appeared to come up from the river, to the bottom of the hole and head back to the river. They were humanoid, but as if the human had been dragging themselves on their bellies. The legs did not appear to function. The river had subsided. Suni, ever impulsive, had called out. Surprisingly, someone replied..

Suni: Any one there?
Reply (female):Who wants to know?
Sanjesh: We are the way out..
Reply: silence..

So they went back up and pulled up the ladder. The rest of the night was quiet. In the morning Hrun took several guards and 10 slaves to town for supplies. Hrun had decided to leave the operation to Sanjesh, and get his own tuckus back to the comforts of Butrús.. Sanjesh decided to spend some time looking for Chnéhl signs in the vicinity (with the Beast handlers doing the same thing..) . They didn’t find any. When he returned he was met by a delegation from the Village by the Sákbe Road Tower. They were angry, and, in a subservient manner (being lower cast) demanded the party deal with the Chnéhl with all haste. Three children had gone missing in the past few days. They couldn’t prove it was the Chnéhl, of course, but it seemed a likely suspect to the village.

The entire operation moved to the village, leaving the camp open. At the village they interviewed the elders and found the children were last seen by the river, quite a way from the forest edge. Other children who knew the lost ones denied any interaction with strangers, and had not seen the Chnéhl The next morning the party split in two, one investigating the site of the disappearances, and one going back to the original campsite to look for Chnéhl signs, or other evidence. Both found tracks.

At the original campsite, they found tracks from several adults and one child. They came from the area down hill towards the Turin and headed towards the Guard Tower. They followed.

At the rivers edge they found human tracks, formed up into a marching column, headed downstream along the Berjádu. Once out of the village, they moved up to the trail, and were lost amongst the general wear and tear of a heavily used path. The tracks had a military air about them and, based upon the depth of the prints, the makers were either heavy, or burdened.

The party reformed, and in the evening, they decided to follow the trail along the Berjádu towards the Turin. In the morning, they met the boy who had accompanied them from the fishing village on the Turin after they had found shelter for the Guard who had been attacked by the Ghár. We gave him a name, as he is beginning to look like an important character to the plot. Hruku. He was with some adults from the fishing village, and they had also come to report the loss of a child, and they also suspected the Chnéhl.

So, they took a portion of the group.. The players, the Beast handlers, three Hriháyal Guards and 10 slaves, and set out along the Berjádu. Suni, with her exceptional balance, traveled the rocky rivers edge keeping pace with the group. Her job was to look for signs that their quarry had gone into, or across the river. When they reached the ford, they decided to cross and investigate, and, as they were close, to go down to the wreck of the barge again. Suni, Sanjesh and Mriga made this trip, leaving the rest at the Ford.

Now things got a little weird. First, they found the corpse of one of the drowned Hriháyal guards from the Barge, dead on the beach, near the wreck. That hadn’t been there on the last trip. More eerily, the only tracks leading to its resting place appeared to have been made – by the corpse itself. So, a bit of traditional stick poking, and satisfied it wasn’t going to move again, they decided to burn it. Sanjesh entered the Barge and heard a skittering chattering sound. He backed out. In a fit of glorious self preservation, they left.

Back across the Ford, they headed to the con-flux of the two rivers, and made camp. The night was quite, until last shift, when they heard a growing rustling in the trees. If I recall, Mriga was on watch, and he quietly woke the rest. The noise continued to grow. Gotta Love Suni. She threw a rock at the trees, but apparently missed everything. With torches in hand, they crept up, until they could see the source. Hu bats. Hundreds, perhaps thousands. The beast handlers informed them that, despite their numbers, they were “probably” not a threat. They were gathering to return to their caves. At first light they all took off, with a thunderous roar, and headed up toward silver mountain.

Fresh Fish

2010-05-26T23:32:00.000-07:00

Geo has found some new players for my campaign. Mic and Jo, a delightful couple, young by my standards of age, but tolerant of my doddering and rambling. We spent most of this eve – a special session as I work tomorrow – creating characters and briefing them on the world.

Over in the Yahoo group there has been a discussion as to how one handles players who either can't or won't buy into the worlds culture. This is always a fear for me with introducing Tekumel to new players. It was the first game I played, so I didn't have an expectation of dwarves and paladins that many young gamers acquire from “other” RPGs. Transferring from our common ethos to that of Narnia is not so difficult for most. But being thrust into a world where your good neighbor might also practice ritual human sacrifice is a bit disconcerting for most people I should think.

So, our new characters are

Mriga is a Priest of Keténgku, with a strong grounding in the healing arts, both magical and mundane. He was raised at the Monastery of the Grey Cloak, (which, in my Tekumel, and I think reasonably) has a Keténgku wing. I will have to find him a copy of Man of Gold... He has a strong sense of loyalty to the Monastery, perhaps moreso than to his Clan, Victorious Globe.

Suni, a warrior priestess of Grugánu, cohort to Ksárul, with an emphasis – so far – on Warrior. She is a member of one of the Black Trinity Clans *Black Moon, if I recall, but I don't have the sheet in front of me) which should create a different dynamic, should the Black Clan hunting party appear in the area again. She wields a Quarter Staff very nearly expertly, and has perfect balance. She also has blood lust and a short temper.

With the addition of these players, it would probably be imprudent to continue to refer to Geo's character as the “Hero”, so by way of Introduction..

Sanjesh, a Temple Guard with Hriháyal, and, until recently, the focus of our narrative. He is a member of the Green Kirtle, with High Lineage. Attractive, with a singers voice, and an up and coming talent with a sword. He is the very model of a Hriháyal Major General.

Once characters were complete we brought everyone up to date. My brain was getting fried, and I was ill prepared for extensive adventuring, but we played for a bit, above ground. First, a long discussion ensued about alternative ways to catch a Chnéhl. Traditional hunting technique would be to try to use the slaves as beaters and drive the Chnéhl towards the hunters. But this didn't bode so well if the goal was to capture, rather than kill. Someone hit upon the idea of using pit traps. So, slaves were put to work making a wall around the new camp, digging pits and preparing torches for a possible entry into the caves. Sanjesh, Suni and the Beast handler took our bait out for a walk, to spread the scent around.

No Chnéhl, but they did spot a Kuni bird, which, at Sanjesh bidding, the Beastmaster subdued with Zoic Domination, and held in a tree while Suni climbed up and captured it.

When they got back to camp, the beast handler had a chance to look more closely at the Kuni, and found it banded, and property of the Black Monolith Clan. So, it may have been associated with the hunting party – though no one saw a kuni with the party – or there may have been another party in the area, or, perhaps it simply escaped or was somehow lost. There was talk of interrogating the bird, but, since they couldn't be sure if it didn't talk that it was just not trained to talk, they decided against it, for the time being. They also decided against letting it go.

There was also a discussion of possible reasons that the Chnéhl had yet to take the bait. (Part of the truth is that the dice didn't work in their favor, but) someone suggested that perhaps they could sense that things weren't right. It was during the layout of the tents that someone realized that the tent that housed the fake Mis was down hill from the rest, which would be improper, if it weren't actually housing a slave girl. No one knew if the Chnéhl were smart enough to notice that kind of social faux Pas, but it was also noted that, perhaps because the Rényu, or perhaps Kaiyor, Mis's protégé, or even her ever present bodyguard was missing, the Chnéhl were simply not buying it. Or perhaps the lack of active rituals and ceremonies to Hriháyal. Well, they couldn't do much about the missing people, and it had been a long week in the woods. So the Hriháyal contingent decided it was time for some fleshy rites. Nothing quite so powerful a scent as the cumulative odor of a dozen sweaty bodies doing the holy bump and grind. The newcomers were invited but did not take part.

Mriga took first watch, and late into it, or perhaps early second watch, I forget, the slaves in the trap tent came running out, again insisting that there was Chnéhl in the tent. When pressed, they admitted they didn't see anything, but heard something in the hole. Sanjesh investigated as a crowd of naked sweaty Hriháyal worshipers (and slaves) crowded in with a somewhat discomfited Thúmis and friends behind him. Silence. Then a groaning, moaning noise. Not specifically Chnéhl like, but not categorically un Chnéhl like. Perhaps injured Team Avánthe. Perhaps team Avánthe trying to trick them into putting the ladder back. Perhaps something completely different. A torch dropped down the whole failed to shed light on the subject. Finally, Suni volunteered to go in.

And that is where we left off for the eve. Overall, it went well. Thrown into a very non D&D like environment, and subjected to one of the more radically unorthodox social customs of that environment, our recruits stood fast, and, hardly blushed. I am pleased. I think they have what it takes to buy into the world, and explore it for what it is, rather than try to make it something with which they are more comfortable.

La, the traffic on the weekends...

2010-05-23T22:24:00.000-07:00

We didn't game this week, but we did the week prior, and I am one week late in the posts. So first the game..

Our Hero and party spent another very dull night hoping to trap our escaped Chnéhl. It was annoyingly quite. The next morn they decided to try to control the camps perimeter with an improvised Baily, and decided to march into town to round up some additional slaves, or labor. They all went, leaving the camp open with the hope the Chnéhl might take the opportunity to explore it, and get themselves caught.

While in the village they met a small party of four strapping young men from the Four greater Black Clans – Black Fear, Black Water, Black Moon, and Black Flame - Their Pachi Lei Guide and their 20 slaves. The four told them they would be hunting in the area, and asked about game. Our Hero explained about the Chnéhl, and asked they keep a distance, and both parties agreed that it would be best if the hunters were well aware of the location of the parties campsite, so no accidents occurred. With new slaves in tow and the hunting party along side, they returned to the camp and the traps were – of course – still empty. The hunting party moved on up the mountain side. The camp site had simple wooden palisades on one third it's circumference by sunset. That night, they had some action on the perimeter, but it turned out to be a few Kurukú who had become curious about the camp.

So, the next morning they decided the bait smelled too much like a slave, and the camp site might be too threatening, so our hero took the girl and one of the beast handlers down to the river to wash her up.

When they reached the trail along the river that leads up to the Sákbe roads, they bumped into a party from the temple of Avánthe, a priestess and a few Aridáni Temple guard. They were a bit taciturn, but that didn't seem unusual considering the nature of the temple and its relationship to Hriháyal. Still, a bit of chit chat, and our hero learned that this group was headed out to survey damage and offer help to the locals. What else could one expect of Avánthe anyway..

After bathing the slave they headed back, and quickly found that the Good ladies of Avánthe are not above lying. Rather than continue down the trail along the riverbank, they had cut in and followed the path that our heroes party had taken out. They appeared to headed straight for the camp. But they never actually entered the camp, instead, circumnavigated it and continued on, up the mountain side. Suspicion started to settle in. It didn't take long for them to conclude that someone who returned to Butrús had leaked the information about the new cave entrance. A plan was hastily hatched, to pack up everything and move the camp to the mouth of the cave, and sit on it. That way they could try to control access to the cave, and still try to catch the Chnéhl. Only problem was they didn't have enough slaves to move the cage and all the tents and provisions. So the rest of the day was spent preparing for the move while a small party ran back to the village to get more hands.

Pickens for slaves were slim (the Black Clans had bought up most available) and so they hired some locals for strong backs and set out. They didn't even try to attract the Chnéhl that night, as the camp now numbered around 30 persons. The next morning they made their way slowly through the jungle and up the side of Silver Mountain, with a growing caravan of labor and gear. But as they were setting out another party arrived. This consisted of Two Priests of Thúmis and their guards. They were forthright. They wanted to explore the caves that the party had found and felt it might serve both parties to join forces. Seems word was spreading quickly amoung the temples (as the rescue of a High Priestess is good gossip) and it was not unreasonable to expect the area to get a lot of attention in short order. It would only be a matter of time before the government got wind of it, and they would certainly send troops to “secure it” in the name of the Petal Throne.

When they arrived at the cave entrance they determined that someone had already been there, and entered. From the size of the camp they guessed it was the Team Avánthe. No sign of the Black Clans. Now it is time to remind our reader that the entrance to the cave was a sink hole, and a rather steep, slippery and deep one at that. So,they built one tent directly over the hole, (and placed the cage inside).

But that was not quite the end of the evenings session. They sent the day labor home, and set watch to catch the Chnéhl. Early in the first watch our hero, who was in bed, as he prefers the last watch, was awoken by a scream. The slave girl had come running out of the tent hysterical. She insisted the Chnéhl was in the tent. Swords drawn, our hero entered, finding nothing. He went back to the hole but could see nothing. He figured if it was Team Avánthe, there would be lights or at least the smell of torches recently doused, but it was black. But to be sure our hero tried to pull up the ladder, on the reasonable assumption that it really didn't matter who was first in the hole, but who was first out. “There is no Concordat in the Tsu'urum.” It was heavy. Really heavy. Then there was the sound of movement, and the ladder was light again. And with that we called it a night.

Left to their own devices

2010-05-05T21:56:00.000-07:00

This weeks game was truncated by a beguiling siren who talked us into taking a break to play Dominion*.. (I think). So only a bit happened after some initial book keeping.

The High Priestess Mis took her Tirrikámu, her Rényu, her protégé, and halve the temple guards, plus some slaves and a palanquin she picked up on site, and headed off to Butrús for recovery. She left our hero and the remaining Temple Guards to recover the Chnéhl. They had been seeding the area with drops of perfume to keep the beasts local, and they hired some local artisans to build some bamboo cages. Fortunately, they tested the cages with a couple of strong guards, and found them wanting. But Mis sent down two animal handlers from Butrús temple (figure that this would be a common enough skill in the temple of Hriháyal considering the necessities of certain rituals..) and they brought some appropriate cages. I figure one knows Zoic Domination at U4. A Specialist in the Priesthood.

On the first attempt they baited the cages with Hmélu. Hmm. Can't find that word with proper accenting to add to my Tekumel Dictionary at the moment..** At any rate, the Chnéhl didn't take the bait. The second attempt they hid the cages inside tents, and placed a slave, dolloped up in a bit of Mis' Personal perfume. This brought the Chnéhl to the edge of the camp, but they didn't make entrance. They did appear to make an attempt to outflank the guard on duty, however.

This is when our distraction arrived. It is also when I realized one of the reasons that running a solo player is so tough. He has no one to bounce ideas off but NPC's. That leaves the ref having to balance between giving too little and too much guidance over and over. And it certainly gives me problems with presenting just plumb bad ideas, which players manage to create organically. I may need to have Geo bring that Mythic Game next time, if I don't find any more players with free time.. who'ld have thought that would be so difficult.

On the Dominion front, I handily won the first game, and was robbed of victory in the second, just barely falling 4th out of four. It is a pleasant little game, which changes up the rules every game via a mechanic of using different sets of cards. Mildly Crack like, in that they will keep putting out new decks, it does not suffer the insanity of the Collectible Card game market. You buy a box, it has several “decks” which can be mixed an matched with to play games and additional boxes do the same. They are all free standing games, but the decks can be interchanged. Since the cards establish a lot of the rules details, each game is a bit unique, and replayability is high. Still, I doubt I will buy it.

Speaking of spending money, I picked up some GFNORDW bits and some figs via Ebay, at reasonable prices. Some are even painted, and will fall right in line for some Sárku temple guards. Others perhaps Hnálla, or Thúmis. I also bought some pre cast hirst arts bits that I hope to make into a modular cave set. All further purchases are on hiatus, because I ran my checking account pretty thin when I paid for some work on my Truck.

There will be no game tomorrow, as I will be at work..

* yes, dominion
** found it..

The Old In and Out..

2010-04-26T19:14:00.001-07:00

Well, in fact, this weeks adventure was fairly low key, until the end. The party (still only one player) went into the sink hole and found limestone caverns that were cut away by the annual monsoon flooding. An underground river flowed towards the Turín, and upward into the mountain. Did I mention the Mountain? Probably not. The sinkhole is at the base of the Silver Mountain, as outlined in the Butrús Gazetteer. The mountain is known to be riddled with these caverns, but a new, unexplored cavern is a nice find, since it is said that the a wizard once made his home in the mountain. The party made their way along the underground rivers edge and lost one guard who fell in and was swept away. They found a natural bridge and then traveled downstream to a branching tunnel, that climbed upward and towards more solid ground. They found a fork in that tunnel and took the center.. which surprised me a bit, but, they were following the nose of the Rényu. By this time they were starting to ration their torches. They discovered a large cavern, and eventually found Mis hiRakádi, a high priestess of the temple of Hriháyal , unconscious, nearly dead. She had run out of food, and water, and torches days before. Fortunately, the caves are quite wet, due to the recent rains. She may have had a day or so left.

They also found a bit of writing, in the tunnels leading to the large cavern. It was clearly an old and unknown script, but not of truly ancient origin. Only marginally damaged by new deposits. Know one there could read them, but they tried to memorize the “Look” so they could describe it to people who might know.

They used spears and packs to fashion a litter, and bore Mis back to the entrance. There they encountered the Chnéhl. Two of them ambushed our hero as he was the first out, but he fought defensively and the Tirrikámu (J'grem hiQorretú) from the Priestess Barge joined him, to even out the odds. Both our hero and the Chnéhl he was fighting managed to deliver serious blows, but each did just under the threshold needed to cause a shock result. As more guards poured forth from the hole, the Chnéhl chose the safer path and fled. No one pursued. The party slept there, on guard, and then moved to the Sákbe road tower the next day. For his injuries and bravery, our hero garnered a bit of ritual attention from Mis, but, not a lot. Neither was in great shape at that point. And there we left them, with hopes of bringing more characters in at the Sákbe road tower next week.

Help, Lassie, come quick

2010-04-11T19:01:00.000-07:00

Well, game two, one player, but a second interested party showed up as we wrapped up. I didn't give them much notice, so my apologies. This week I will be off to school on game day, and it would have been a work night anyway, so..

Our hero, Guard of the Temple Hriháyal, and party progressed upstream on the Berjádu to the Sákbe road tower that bridges the river. On the way they found the recent remains of two unknown Hriháyal guards, dead of injuries from a beast, and exposure. When they reached the Tower the Tirrikámu of the Sákbe roads for the area informed them that, yes, they knew about the dead Temple guards. They had been informed by another detachment from Butrús that the Priestess' barge was missing, and they had been sending scouts down the river. They had already rescued a priestess, found unconscious with the dead Guards, and she was resting comfortably in the guards room, in between her efforts to reward her rescuers. When they asked for an audience, they were told she probably would not be available til morning.

Next Morning our party learns that the rescued priestess is barely an acolyte, but a protégé of the High Priestess they are seeking. They are told that the Barge was trying desperately to make it the last few bends to the village and safety when the oars on one side started to snap. The Craft heaved sidelong in the river, and caught on debris, and quickly started to swamp. Water coming over the gunnels swept several people into the water immediately. She does not know who made it off the boat.

It is decided that the group should proceed down the other side of the Berjádu, to find the overturned barge, and look for evidence of life. Along the way, our acolyte, an Salarvyáni girl liberated in the border wars and inducted into the temple of Hriháyal, learns first of the Chnéhl. She explains that there may be up to two, and that they were aboard the barge, part of the entourage, as it were, and a crucial part of a ritual our High Priestess planned in Tumíssa. They were exceptional specimens, bred for size and aggressiveness, and valuable. More so, if the High Priestess is recovered, but worth something to the Temple in any case.

Half way down she learns the amusing story of the singing Rényu, and offers up more information. The Rényu is Fefee, a pet, companion to the High Priestess. That Fefee lives is encouraging, to her, as the animal is very loyal. And, of course, another valuable critter to recover, and probably much easier than recapturing the Chnéhl. She estimates that it may be only a few weeks, however, before a captive Rényu becomes a Feral Rényu.

At the Barge, they manage to completely fail at uprighting the craft. So they punch a hole in the now inverted barge and explore, finding some dead rowing slaves, and a trunk of valuables that belong to the HP. They explore the area, and find another Temple Guard, a Tirrikámu for the HP. He is an older man, a retiree from the legions, and experienced in the wild. He says he has swept the area south, and sees no signs of survivors.

So the party returns to the Sákbe roads, where they are told by the Guards that the singing Rényu has been appearing every night, despite them throwing rocks at the cursed thing. It appears again, that night, and our hero and the Acolyte try to approach it. Every time they get close, it darts off into the woods. Every time they retreat, it comes forward and sings. They decide it is trying to lead them.

Everyone up, but kept a good distance back, and off into the woods to follow the Rényu. Travel is difficult, and slow, but by mid morn they find a sink hole, and the Rényu wants to go down. But it is steep and slick. The party ties up some crude ladders and goes in.

So, has it come to this. I once thought myself a pretty ingenious GM, but it was my player who laughed as he said, “What Lassie, Timmy's in the well?”. Not my most creative moment, I am afraid. Still this is hopefully building to something...

Rains swamp Butrus - Hero Gets wet

2010-04-01T20:06:00.000-07:00

Well, I had two people lined up, but only one showed. We started anyway. After a bit of character creation, we had a young Temple Guard of Hriháyal, a strapping young man who shows promise with a sword, no pun intended..

As it happened a freak rains storm across much of the Chakas, out of season, led to significant flooding along the Turín River. Which led to an alarming delay in the arrival of dignitaries from the Temple of Hriháyal in Úrmish . So a Tirrikámu of the Temple Guard hastily gathered together five guardsmen and set out to search the swollen banks down to the Berjádu River. Our hero volunteered.

Other than a good deal of what I call Mud foot ( A condition familiar to many who have traveled in muddy environments, wherein the mud slowly cakes to your boots until they way a few tonne each) the first few days were uneventful. Then a guard tried to use the rushing water of the Turin to clean his boots, and was swept in. The Tirrikámu, had the good sense to have all the guards tied off to one another, and this kept him from being swept away, but his trashing attracted the attention of a Ghár before his mates could pull him out. He had lost the use of both legs below the knee when he was finally on land.

Our hero and one other Guard set out down stream to try to locate a fishing village that was supposed to be in the area. By night fall they had struck a deal to assist the village with moving their boats further out of the rising tide, in exchange for help getting their wounded comrade down to the village and some basic medical care. In the morning they set out north with two village bearers and returned that afternoon. By night fall, they had a chance to sleep indoors and out of the rain, improving everyones spirits – even our legless guard, though probably not by much.

The next morning, with a village boy tagging along, the party headed south again, leaving the wounded with the villagers. They encountered tracks from two Chnéhl that appeared to come down to the riverbanks, travel upstream a bit, then return to the woods. Chnéhl are not completely unknown here, but rare, and this put the troop on alert. They began to sing Temple songs as the marched, so as not to startle any Chnéhl they might run across, based upon the same idea that people use to keep bears away. And, either it worked, or they didn't run into any more of the beasts. It did, however, attract something.

By evening they were all convinced they were being followed, but no one had any idea what it might be. What ever it was had kept a good distance, and avoided being seen. It didn't “feel” hostile. But they put on extra guards to be safe. (Which meant no one got a solid nights sleep.) Mid way through the night, they heard something singing their songs off in the woods. Our hero sang back, and all went silent. This, was both amusing and a bit creepy. They added another guard to the last shift.

By morning they were all cranky. The boy, however, offered a plausible explanation. Perhaps it was a Rényu. They are known to follow, and they are fairly bright, and they can speak, after a fashion. It didn't seem impossible, though it would indicate one very smart Rényu. It would have learned the song in one day. Whatever it was continued to follow them the next day, though it kept greater distance. Our hero began to leave bits of dried foodstuffs as they traveled. He was aware that Rényu can be domesticated, and are worth something. But the critter never got close again.

By the end of the day the weather had finally let up and they found the confluence of the Turín and Berjádu River s. They could see across it, to the south, was the small barge that would have been carrying the Priestess from Úrmish. It was on one side. No sign of anyone near by, and no way to cross at this point. The young village boy told them of a normally fordable point upstream, but it was still to flooded to be done safely. Further upstream they would encounter the Sákbe roads. If anyone had survived the wreck, they might well have tried to make the Sákbe road tower. So our party headed there next.

And that is when the staff at Dragon Port gave us the last call warning. Our hero managed to confirm that the follower was, in fact, a Rényu, just prior to our closing the books, but I left the subject of what they will learn at the Sákbe roads for next time. It also allows me a convenient hook for introducing a new character, if I can find another brave soul. And I have come up with some interesting ideas..

Players not Pawns.

2010-03-30T15:28:00.000-07:00

The first rule of putting together a new RPG campaign, and one that I had forgotten, is that one must collect players, not miniatures. It really doesn't take many. I figure 3-6 should make a good start. Three is really the sweet spot for RPGing, in my opinion. Over 6 can get cumbersome, though I have done it, with some success, back when I was in form. One player and a DM is a bit clunky, the player lacks anyone to play off, aside from the DM, and so, the DM gets tired more quickly. When you add a second player, the DM can compose his thoughts when the two interact. This is even more pronounced in a group of three players. Four and five are manageable, but, as we add players the tendency for the players to tag off on demanding the attention from the DM increases. There are still slack times when the DM can think about aspects not immediately pressing, but they get more rare.

At anyrate, these thoughts are prompted by my attempt to form a Group for my Tekumel campaign. I have a room at the FLGS for the 1st. I have one player. I put up a poster, but have had no emails. I have a growing short tonne of miniatures. Short tonne being a Euphemism, in case I have sensitive readers. I plan on launching on Thursday even if we only have me and Geo. I have no idea what we will do, or what system we will use.

A large part of the problem is that I am no longer a "figure" in the local gaming scene. There was a time, back in College, when I was president and founder of the campus club. Finding players then was easy. But most of the people I knew then are gone from here. And the online networking has not helped much (read "at all"). The Freeforum group has been overrun with spammers, and another forum seems to consist of players in a Pathfinder campaign. Few people my age have time for more than one campaign, I find. And Gaming is kind of a personal activity, so I think finding strangers to travel to strange new lands is, socially, a bit daunting. It would be much easier if I were pitching a more familiar world - something a bit..oh Tolkien.

Other news, I won an Ebay auction for Lou Zocchi's copy of Swords and Glory Volume 1, in Box with Maps. I am hoping it comes autographed. As the story goes, the seller is a friend of Lou's and gave him a heads up on the current market value of some Old School Goodness. Lou allowed him to sell two copies of SGV1, to test the waters. I got the game cheap, in my estimation. Much cheaper than online retailers are asking for copies. That surprised me, and I suspect it may disappoint Lou. Don't know what he was expecting, of course. Still, I am pleased, because Lou has been an icon in my world for a while. I would love to get the Professors autograph on it as well, but I am thinking that will be unlikely.

I have been painting some, but mostly low caste and slave figures. I have some Asar figures in the Que, but I am not sure what I will do with them, so I am delaying. I did realize that all these poor clansfolk could probably also stand in as natives when I get some pirates painted, in a year or so.. But I need to get painting if I am gonna get the Tek stuff that I have done by years end. I should set up a camera, and there might be a pic if you come back to this post in a day or two.

I have also begun discussions with the Tekumel Project to sponsor a Legion. Not cheap, but, if I can find the money, I am gonna do it. For the moment, I will keep details hush hush.. Wouldn't want the Red Hats to know.

On April 10th, I think, Chirine and his pals have organized the Dave Arneson Maritime Memorial event at the Source. I hope to be there. But the next week I will be gone to school for work, and I am not sure I want to travel right before hand.

Gut Shot

2010-03-08T21:49:00.001-08:00

DSCF2611.JPG
Originally uploaded by kokigami

Chip Hosted a Game of Gut Shot recently. He felt it necessary to look the part.. Texas Belt Buckle and all. The scenario was a train robbery/kidnapping. The terrain was provided by Chip and the miniatures by his friends.

Things began when when a group of bad guys, who felt they had been wronged by the railroads owners, blew the tracks at the end of Royal Gorge, a narrow rail pass running parallel and sometimes hanging over the Arkansas River in Colorado. A lot of the terrain was left unused, as the focus of the activities was the train. We simply placed cardboard "floors" on top of the cars to represent the insides. First contact was made when a bad guy mounted the train in the caboose (no snickering..) and found the Caboose Crewman smoking a roll your own, and the Assistant Engineer taking a nap. This lead to a close quarters fist fight cause no one had time to reload after an initial round of missed shots.

I seem to be having a problem with linking to Flickr images, so I am going to send you here to view the pictures..

Spending money, but not playing..

2010-01-30T21:52:00.000-08:00

This seems to be a perennial problem. Of course, when switching from my traditional bit of not playing all games to a focus on not playing tekumel, there will obviously be some need for purchases. I have been getting minis that either are, or will serve well, for tekumel. Four units of Tsolyani and three Yan Kor, from Tita's House of Games, when they had a Holiday sale at the end of the year. And some Ghost Miniatures Elves from Old Glory who, so far, are mustering out to be Temple Guards for Karakan and Belkanu (and probably their cohorts). I have even begun painting these. Further down we see some Priestesses of Dlamelish and her Cohort from Bronze Age Miniatures. Paint work is ongoing, but good enough for now.

Several times I have found nice figs on Ebay from a "buffy's mommy" who seems to have no end of old 70's figures. I have purchased a pile of bearers, some Amazons (Aridani), and Numidians, who will function as poorer clans men. I also have some Asar from crocodile games for generic guards. These from the Noble Chirine.

Most recently, on Ebay, I won a set of old PHD figures, non humans. This means I will have some Ahoggya, Shen, S'su, Pygmy Folk, and a host of Tinaliya. The competition was fierce, especially for the Ahoggya, everyones favorite from Tekumel, I suppose.

Much Painting ahead, I see.

I also purchased, from Tita's again, the army books for Tsolyanu, Yan Kor and Mu'ugalavya, and the Tsolyani Primer, which, it turns out, is a really sound basic course. Now I need to track down some people who have a pretty firm grasp of Tsolyani, who have time to do some recordings.. I think that training vids based upon this book could be a very good thing..

These purchases have put me over budget on gaming at the moment. And yet, I bought three copies of Junta when it was on Tanga for 9 bucks..

I also realized I only have a few months before my Old Glory Army membership lapses. So, I need to make a list of things to buy from them, and do a bulk purchase. I am also looking at sponsoring a legion via the Tekumel Project. All this, and I haven't gotten a game together yet.

In theory, I am scheduled to run a game this Thursday. I have one player, for sure. One I have invited who has not replied. I have done no advertising. I have an adventure idea, but it isn't for one person, really. What to do, what to do...

Twenty Ten, the Time of Tekumel

2010-01-01T21:12:00.000-08:00

It's all the rage, mentioning that this is a new year. Not one to buck the trend, so, I formally announce my Year of Tekumel. So, what, exactly, does this mean. Well for starters, Tekumel will be my primary focus for gaming. I don't know how this will work, as far as time is concerned. I figure it will be 80% of my new gaming budget*. I resolve to paint a Several Tek related miniatures for each non tek related miniature. And Most of my terrain projects will revolve around Tek usable items. I may even go so far as to create some original (derivative) Tekumel stuff.

This does not mean I will do no non tekumel stuff, of course. I still have projects that need tending to. But, Tekumel wi

Ideas along those lines include a Gazetteer for Penom. It would be modeled on the wonderful Butrus Gazetteer. Penom is oft the oft referenced, but seldom detailed armpit of Tsolyanu. I may also do -for my own benefit, but potentially useful to others - a series of educational powerpoints, or pod casts or something. This is all very ambitious.

I plan to spend some cash on this, though, for the moment, I don't know from whence it will come. Projects already in the works. I haven't updated the minis counts, but I do have a fair pile of both Official, and Proxy Tekumel figures now. I have plenty of Low class figures. A few and sundry potential temple guards and merchant guards, that need painting. And a box of goodies I bought from Tita's, that I haven't even opened, cause I need to figure a good way to organize them. I figure since I didn't open em, I can count the expense as a 2010 expense. They were about 200 dollars in figs, and that was taking advantage of a 50% off offer he made just prior to the Holidays.

On the terrain front, I have a fair number of conifers, from last year post christmas sales, and I have a nice wreath I will disassemble for creating shubbery, and maybe some exotics. I need to hit the thrift stores and such for more wreaths and such. Project for this week, when this stuff is still common, and cheap.

I also have a lot of Poly styrene packing, that I can convert up for temple fronts, and such, I think. I don't know what else to do with it, though some may be tasked for non tekumel terrain. Chirine showed me a trick for making quick and painless temple exteriors, so that will probably come up. And I am hoping to make some dungeon pieces. More on that as the plan develops.

And I plan to go to Ann Arbor this year. I think I will even take vacation for that up front.

Well, this was pretty rambling. Probably up too late last night. I will edit it later. Maybe add a bit. Later fans.

The Riot on the Avenue of Uplifting trade

2009-12-03T00:26:00.001-08:00

dscf2590.jpg
Originally uploaded by kokigami

On the 28th, Geo and I went to the Twin Cities to take part in the annual Tekumel miniatures event. I ended up running my own table, using the scenario I had created "The Riot on the Avenue of Uplifting trade". Rather than do another write up right now (it is getting late) I will, without further delay, direct you to the Flickr set that contains a narrated account of the fight. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the account given by Herechi of the Clan of Saffron light, who was there, but is known to be a bit of a zealot. Still, the pics are commented to coincide with his testimony to the Tomb Police on the subject.

2009-11-29T13:25:00.000-08:00

This is a quick post to say that, in response to GamFnordes WorkFnordshop (TM) C&D orders to everyone and their knickers (except me) to remove GaFnordmes WorFnordkshop (TM) IP from their sites, I have rendered a pre-emptive Games WorkshFnordopectomy (trademark mFnorde) on the site. You will find that all GamFnordes WorkFnordshop IP references have been neatly hidden from view via a little trick I learned from the IlluFnordminati (TM SJgames... and of course also TM the BavFnordarian IllumFnordinati, which might be the same thing)

More to Come

2009-11-14T21:31:00.000-08:00

This is a filler post, to some degree. I had planned to post about Recon, held in Anoka, hosted by MMGA. I did attend, and played a few games of SBH with Mike Z, who provided D&D pre paints in a battle between a Dragon bent on burning homes and a small band of dwarfs. It was a good scenario. Surprisingly complex. Unfortunately, I didn't bring a camera, and Mike has not responded to my request that he send me pics or links. So I have no bling to bring on that front.

I then was transported by Chirine (pronounced Cheer in nay) to his Tekumel haven, where he and his cohorts were preparing for the November game (scheduled for the Source on the 28th). His terrain in progress is fantastic. And I marvelled at the logistics of maintaining the vast collection of figures, props, and artifacts of Tekumel and M.A.R. Barker lore that he has amassed, while still trying to live in his home. In the past week I have put a good deal of effort into painting some figs I bought off Ebay for low clans folk, so I can add them to the Skirmish game in November. I have approximately 60 now that I would feel unashamed to field. They will add to the force of unaffiliated rioters. I will have pics of them soon.

Looking forward, Next year will be a year of Tekumel at the Superior Force. This year I spent a good deal of money on projects unrelated to Tekumel, money that could have gone to buying nice figs from the Eureka line. Soon Eureka will be adding Shen, Ahoggya, and other non humans. I plan to make a big purchase sometime in Jan or So. What this means, in practical terms, is that my spending and game time will be focused on Tekumel. Realistically, I plan to spend 80% of my gaming budget on Tekumel appropriate fair, with 20% reserved for other sundries I may need. My gaming time will probably be less focused. I have a reasonable force of Fnord, and lots of troops to build HOTT, and enough Samurai to do some skirmish in that genre. And, of course, there are the various board games that we play as family, and possibly some more generic SBH using Mage Knight figs not already assigned to a HOTT army. But, I plan to have a Tekumel RPG game going by spring, on a bi weekly basis.

I would also like to offer a belated Happy Birthday to Professor Barker, here, though I know he will never see it. Tekumel has always been my inspiration in gaming. It is the reason I have always believed that the act of Gaming can rise to the level of fine art. A form of improvisational readers theater. Professor, be well.

Three games, well 2. 216 maybe

2009-10-29T01:08:00.000-07:00

The last bit of gaming I have managed in the past month (oh, for the Halcyon days of High School and College, when I could game rather than study, or, if I recall, eat..) was an intro to Song of Blades and Heroes. In less than a month, Chirine and his pals will be hosting a Tekumel event in the Cities. They are planning to battles, a large scale clash of Armies and a skirmish. The skirmish will use the simple mechanics of Song of Blades and Heroes. I designed the basic scenario*. SBH as it is called by its fans, is a pretty simple, fast, and kinda elegant system. It is not made for exactly what we are doing, however. I am still trying to create some mechanics for bits of it, as the Tekumel game we will be doing has several sides, and there will be a host of unaligned figures on the map. Also, many figs will not be trying, specifically, to kill their opponents. At least, not to begin the game. That can change.

So I thought it might be a good idea to try the game out. Seems the least I could do in the way of planning. The very least. George came over, and I created a couple warbands using the excellent WB generator (Javascript) that can be found on the SBH yahoo group. He took the Orcs and I took the Elves. We only got three turns into it before I had to leave. Bad planning on my part, but there was a concert (Argentinian Folk/Rock ) my wife wanted to see. Not much bling here. This was, after all, supposed to be a simple exercise in learning the mechanics. I took these pics so we could approximate where we left off, if we could get together on this one again. Or we may start over.

Turn one I tested my luck on a Q2 unit, rolling three dice and rolled two ones. That ended my turn one. George then decided to reposition his leader, and only got half way to safety. He brought a body gaurd, though, so, according to the rules for targeting, I had to shoot at the closest legit target. I moved my leader closer to my shooters on my left flank in order to improve their activation rolls, then moved them to shoot the vulnerable leader. So far, I had pierced one of his orcs with an arrow, and narrowly missed his Leader. He had the bulk of his troops strategically holed up in the woods. I can't shoot into the woods, but he can shoot out. I have some sneaks, though, who can't be targeted next to anything that qualifies as cover, so they were beginning to move up along the village huts on my right flank.

We were just getting the sense of flow by turn three. I can see the game can go pretty fast, but I am concerned about what will happen when we have 6 or 8 players. Hope to squeeze in extra games before then. Maybe do a big game, but I am not sure, locally, who to try to get into it.

Jump or Burn

2009-10-26T20:01:00.000-07:00

Two games, count em. This one was Hosted by Chip, with all minis provided by his friends, Tom, Dick and John. In this case, the other people have an awe inspiring collection of WWI aircraft, and assorted game aids. These people know how to host a show, and I should hit them up to travel to Recon (a local micro con run every other month in Anoka, MN by the MMGA.) The battle was a bombing run, with the valiant German airmen trying to protect the innocent ball bearing plants from the ruthless forces of the allies. Were they called the allies in WWI. Not well versed in this war's specifics, but I have always loved th Bi-Planes, and Tri-Planes. The rules were Piquets, Jump or Burn. This is a card driven system, and they use the same basic mechanics for their lines of land based games. Rumor once had it that they would make a fantasy game, but, I have not seen it as yet. At it is quick, and easy to play and learn.

I am not sure of what order the pics should be placed. It was, afterall, a dog fight, with planes moving all about. The big Bi Planes are the bombers, and they were assigned two ground targets. For simplicity, they only had to get within 8 inches and be traveling straight and level to make a successful bomb run. I apologize to the more learned, but I think the Allies had Sopwith and the Germans had Nieuports and Fokkers. I was German, in case you had not caught that. The blue Fokker in the foreground is me. Tom courageously led off on our side by speeding directly into the swarm of Allies protecting the bombers. He got off a good shot, but, in return, he caught a lot of lead, and went up in flames. He can be seen in this pic, billowing smoke, as he tries to get to the ground before the flames get to him.

As for me, I couldn't buy a decent die roll, loosing one dice off using a D12 to a D4. By the End of the second turn, my engines were dead, (this pic shows the two extremely lucky swinehunds who killed it - imagine the guns blazing..) and I was gliding. Still, I managed to position myself to get one last long shot at a bomber. (I missed, of course.) And that kind of thing plagued the Germans. In part because we didn't have a plan. We split up and the Allies could isolate us and target us with multiple planes at once. But also in part because we had some poor card draws. My wingman on the right at one point was forced to leave the battlefield, just because he didn't have a card that would let him turn, but had a pile of cards that forced him to advance.

Chip did sink one of their bombers (after it had successfully dropped its payload, I'm afraid), and we drove at least one fighter from the field. Everyone was starting to prep up reinforcement planes after that, but then their side sent our last man, Chip, I believe, spiralling into the earth. He didn't mind, as he was dead from a head shot. I survived, but couldn't chock up any kills, or even report a good showing. Still, any fight you walk away from.. eh...

The last pic here is their last Bomber, flying unimpeded to the second target. Oh, the poor innocent factory workers.

For the Imperium

2009-10-25T23:53:00.000-07:00

Well, first apologies to anyone reading the older posts. Seems we are having technical difficulties with Flickr. My friend, who has the pic referenced in the post " Another Battle another Blog enhancement" is trying to correct the problem. We just don't know what it is..

As mentioned in my last post, I have managed to squeeze a game or two in over the last month. The first was a 40FnordK battle against Tim "TauFnordman" at Gamer's Cove in Duluth. We played fast and loose, to introduce me to the rules concepts. Some nice gentleman loaned me a couple ChiFnordmera and a LeFnordman RFnorduss (ChFnordaos format, but not outrageously so). And I fielded my StFnordeel leFnordgions sans Paint. (Well, the painting has begun, but, as the base gray is nearly the same as the standard plastic used for modern 40FnordK, it is difficult to tell in the pics..) I don't have a lot of pics of this battle. It was the scenario where you take and hold objectives. They were spread out in the four corners, basically, with one kinda center. We both fielded approximately 700 points, as best as we counted. And I learned that TaFnordu have hooves.

The battle took about 5 hours, which surprised me, since the game is only 5-10 turns long. Ours in fact was at the low end of that. But, I was learning, and that slowed some things down. Lots of looking in manuals, etc. I fielded Two platoons on the left of a bunker at my side, and one on the right, and a Platoon Command Squad and a Company Command squad. Pretty much without upgrades, save power weapons for most who could carry them. I don't even know what the TFnordau fielded, by name, because Tim tends to get excited, and break into a Scottish Brogue. He had one figure he called the Dude, which, was not named after the Big Lebowski. He had some infantry types on my right flank, holed up in a ruins, and a big ship on my left, initially hidden behind a church. TaFnordu, apparently, have weapons that paint targets for guided missles, so, despite the fact that I couldn't hit him, his heavy floaty tank thing hit me, hard the first turn. My mechanized infantry basically went back to foot.

Then in turn two he fielded his reserves, some Mecha looking things, on my right flank, in my rear. Since they were close, my infantry assaulted. I know, everything I read says infantry should avoid assualts, and stay shooty, but I didn't have a thing that could impact his armor. Well, I did have one heavy weapons squad of three missle launchers. They had made a dent in his infantry, but didn't seem to do much againt the Mechas. Anyway, it tied up his Mecha's so he couldn't use them more effectively.

On my left flank, my troops jumped on the closest objective and hunkered down in the crater around it. This proved pretty effective, at least for keeping my people alive. Of course, we couldn't shoot back. He brought in some infantry in a personnel carrier, but he couldn't dislodge me. So he had to bring his heavy floaty tank in from the back side of the church. In the mean time, my units on the right flank did some damage to the Mecha, then routed, re assualted, and finally routed off the field. So, he controlled both objectives on my right by turn 4. And he had moved his Heavies in to kill my hunkered infantry. Things looked Grim. But, in doing so, he left the center objective and the objective behind the church open.

I knew he was gonna kill all my units in the crater on turn 5, and there was nothing to do about it. But I didn't have to let him control the objective. I moved my Company Command into the crater's edge, and a few of them survived the turn 5 battles. And I took my only free infantry platoon and strung them out in a line, just maintaining cohesion, between the central and far left flank objectives, technically controlling both. At the end of turn 5 we both controlled two objectives, and we were in dispute of one. But it was clear that in one more round, that one would be his. And then, I got lucky. In 40FnordK, for those who have never, some battles end randomly. On turn 5 we rolled a die, and the game ended. A tie. A bit surreal, really. by the end of turn six, if we had played it, he would have held three objectives. By turn seven, if the game were still going, he could probably have devasted most of my remaining units. So, to call the game a tie seems very "gamey", and a little unsatisfying. Still, overall, it was kinda fun, if somewhat confusing. The game is uses way too many dice, for my taste. But it has nice Bling Bling. Still undecided, despite my tendency to spend more money on the project. I know I need some tank busting power, if I am gonna play again and hope for better results.

There is one element of the game we didn't use, and I am sure it put me at a disadvantage. The IFnordG army uses Orders, as ways to enhance unit effects. It is the reason one normally wants to protect his command staff. I didn't use any. Zero. Orders like "BriFnordng it doFnordwn" which, if successfully ordered, makes a units weapons serve as Twin Linked (allowing rerolls for misses) might have allowed me to topple those Mecha, for example. Next game. Next game.

To Post, or Paint, or Purchase or Play

2009-10-17T23:36:00.000-07:00

Or otherwise spend my free time.. I have seriously cut back on my usual forum activities.. mostly non game, semi poli-sci and ethics debates (flame wars, insults, and the occasional reasoned rant) and managed to make some progress on a few home projects, tidied up some areas of the Geek Room, and even fit in a game or two.

First the confessions on purchases. Wargames Factory had a deal on Romans on 9.9.09 - a box of plastic Romans for 9.99. Seemed good but I don't have a use for 28mm Romans. Or do I. My recent foray into 4Fnord0k has taught me much about the virtue of kit bashing plastics. For example, I saw some really cool IFnordG made using WHFnordFB EmFnordpire troops and fitted with weapons to look a bit like WWI British Trench Tommies. So I started thinking. (That phrase, I suspect, can be found at the beginning of many misadventures..)

Before I finish that thought, I think I need to explain some other things. In November Chirine and the Aethervox group will be hosting a big Empire of the Petal Throne battle (actually two different battles) at the Source in the cities. I really like Tekumel, as an RPG world, and have decided next year to focus on it. I realized that, if I had spent the money I spent this year on other things, on Tekumel figs, I would have quite a nice little pile of Tekumel lead.

Back to the Sale. I start thinking about kitbashing WGF Romans. And I look at the WGF Numidians, and think, you know, I could swap out some heads, and bodies, and such.. maybe make some decent and varied gaurds, soldiers, and such for Tekumel. So I ordered a couple boxes of Romans cheap, one pack of Numidians at regular price (Cause I was already paying for shipping) and an extra sprue of Ancient Light Infantry bodies, cause I know I am gonna have lots of spare heads. This is an interesting aspect of the hobby I had never considered before, and I believe it is one reason for 4Fnord0K's phenom success. Most of us can't sculpt, but we can glue, and we can, with enough parts, approximate something like our own unique sculpts. Addictive.

So, from there I start looking at my options for my 4Fnord0K army. I need some Armor, but I have been debating looking for cheap models, using proxies, or building paper models based upon age old designs to be found on the web, from back before GFnordW supplied Armor models. Building paper models is kinda fiddly I find.. More on that, perhaps in another post.

So, on Bartertown this guy is selling these painted Warzone plastics. Simple, but nice figures in a Sci-fi versions of a WWI Tommy and a German in Picklehaube. And in Gas Masks. These fit my theme of SteFnordel legFnordion, even if they mean I may never field them in a tourney. I have no interest in Tournaments, so, who cares. He has some, but not enough, so I start scouring Ebay, and find that Prince August sells em in a pack of 80 (4 10 man squads of each type.) So, Purchase no. 2. Haven't done much towards painting my current steel legion, but, now I have an additional 80 40K figures in the paint pile. I am kinda kicking myself for passing up some SentFnordinels, on Ebay though. 9.99 each, and they went without bids. He has reposted them, but, now they have bidders.

And finally, I broke down and and bought a couple more of the MageKnight I felt I needed. They are specialty figs. Two Dragons, a Cyclops and the Giant with the Mounted Dwarves with Machine Guns. He has been holding up my Dwarf HotT army construction for a long time, and, I gotta say, I am very happy with that purchase. That is a cool sculpt, right out of the box. The Cyclops, I am still not sure about. Not a terrible model, but I am not sure how I will use him. An Orc God?

This all brings me to the title of the post.

Am I using shopping as a way to avoid the more time consuming and difficult parts of the hobby - building and painting, and even posting here. Or am I using it as a substitute for playing, which, though fun, is difficult to coordinate? I have managed a few games lately. I will start posting more often and shorter posts, in order to catch up.

40K for the UN Believer

2009-09-01T19:18:00.000-07:00

Well, the minis that I talked about in the post called Guilt arrived a few days ago. It has been fun trying to figure out what I got. The Terrain pieces are good. Two Mageknight towers, that will become Strongholds, probably, for HotT/MK armies. Keeps the theme going. A very nice arched bridge. About a dozen gladiators, and about 30 Roman Legionaires.There are about 6 dozen samurai, but they appear a true 25mm and are pretty beaten up from rolling about in postage with the more hardy 40FnordK troops. I may use them to creat some casualty figures for my nice samurai. And about 8 LOTR Orcs from GW. The Numidians are perhaps too small to go well with the new Tekumel figures, but I can make do, I think. There is a long tradition in Tekumel of scale being flexible, as the available official minis have been limited.
The big surprise was in the 40FnordK box. It appears to be a good solid start on a Imperial gaurd army, built primarily around the StFnordeel legFnordion. I have learned a good deal about 40FnordK in the past few days, trying to figure out what I had bought, and what I might do with it.

The vast majority of troops, as I said are steFnordel leFnordgion. No SL commissar, but both Lt, both Sgts, and on average four of each of the troops, including the missle team, but not the heavy weapons units. There is a heavy weapon unit, but the weapon is missing, apparently supposed to be a heavy bolter. Looks like I can get a plastic one cheap on Ebay, if I so choose. More on that in a moment. (edit, found the heavy bolter in the bottom of the box.. )

Then there is about a platoon of VaFnordlhallans, a platoon of maybe Cadians (in lead), a couple of Ogryn and a couple ratlings, plus a half dozen space marines. Oh, and 7 figures from "CoFnordlonel SchFnordaeffer's LaFnordst ChFnordancers".

Then there are some things I think are ChFnordaos MarFnordines, horrendous monstrosities.. But I don't know what they are exactly, plus some others. I have a bunch of pics on my Flickr stream, in a Superior Force set. If you can tell me what anything is, I would be obliged.

Now, I have to make a decision. What to do with the 40FnordK stuff.

Option one is to take up WHFnord40K, and build out the army from here. Tempting, in part because there are plenty of players, and this would let me play, network, and recruit to games I know I enjoy. Who knows, I might like 40FnordK, which is the risk. The game is bloody expensive, and not a good match for a compulsive buyer. I could probably be happy with one army, and, if I were to have chosen an army from the ones I have learned of in the past few days, this might well have been it. For what amounts to 45 bucks I am in. I figure only a few hundred more to make it complete. And of course , it adds to my lead pile. I would also have to spend a few bucks to get the rules. New, the main rules are about 60, the codex about 25. And I would probably need multiple codex. Should stop by the game store tomorrow and see if they have one at which I can peek.

Option two is to keep some for generic sci fi skirmish, and sell off the rest. This would be the semi - fi$cally responsible thing to do. Maybe. It might lead to a rash of purchases of other Scifi figs. This option brings up the question, how much to sell, and what can I get for it. And if I chose option one, I could still use them for Option two. I will certainly sell the random Chaos figs. Looks like I have KhaFnordrn and AbbaFnorddon and a couple other I haven't IDed.

Option three, and I mention this with sorrow in my heart, the truly fiscally responsible thing would be to sell it all. Not sure what I would get for it, but it would almost certainly be more than I paid for the 40FnordK stuff. It might be more than I paid for the lot.

Another Battle, and a Blog enhancement

2009-08-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

Well, George and I met again on the field of Battle with my two complete MK/HotT Armies, Orcs and Elves. I didn't have a camera, so this are courtesy of George, and we missed the opening deployment.

George was defending, a swamp he took from us in the last battle. His Knights and Riders deployed left flank, and his Shooters, Blades and Magician on right.

I pulled my Troll Artillery and replaced them with a Troll Warband, who served as my General as he was easy to spot. I formed a mass Battle line near the center with Shooters on both wings.

George had deployed plenty of terrain, with bad going two corners and center, a hill on my side left and a lake on his left.

His mounted units moved behind the lake and waited for a chance to hit my flanks. My line was going to prove to be too long as I tried to get passed the lake and I would eventually get muddled up in the Woods in the center.

One reason George deployed terrain so liberally is to force me into areas I would encounter his lurkers, Elvish archers. We had some rules questions when we got that far. Lurker deployment says lurkers must deploy with a front edge in close combat contact with an enemy that has just entered the terrain feature. The pictures below are staged a bit, as we recreated the event of Lurker first deployment.

His Bound came up, and his first pip was to bring on one lurker on my left. Pretend for a moment that the second lurker is not there. My understanding is that my unit then has to turn to face and he then spent another pip to deploy his second lurker on my new right flank. As seen in the second picture.

I got lucky rolls and managed to drive off the primary attacker, which left the flanking lurker deployed. Can someone tell me if we did this wrong?

The lurkers worked really well to bust up my groups and I spent a lot of pips over the next few turns trying to straighten out my lines. George redeployed the lurkers often (actually we were in error there as we didn't realize the cost for redeployment is incremental.. just one of the errors that we now know we committed.)
On Georges right flank my other shooters appear over the crest of the Hill. In retrospect, I am kinda wishing I had deployed all my shooters to one side and marched my warband down my left flank en-mass. Maybe next time..

The next pic is of his lurkers harrassing my shooters as they try to take control of the woods. I drove them off again, and managed to destroy one by breaking off two units of War band and attacking them from the rear.
But now my shooters were in the way of my Warband, who were fragmented and this was going to create problems that kept me from getting a good solid attack going. You can also see the battle field from the opposite direction in the one pic. George is a much better general than I am. He is patient. His troops hardly moved once he had them deployed. This was partially because he rolled a lot of low rolls, but, partially because he is better at defending. War band probably suits me.

I am having trouble with the editor, and pictures, so I am going to give the rest of the battle by narration only, as best as I recall it. The knights attacked my shooters who had moved to protect my right flank from the knights. This proved a stalemate, in large part because of error number two. His first attack was soundly repulsed despite the fact that he caught me in open ground. This surprised us both, but, ok, the shooters peppered the knights with in coming and drove them back before they hit. This emboldened me, so I sallied forth and focused all my fire on one knight. He recoiled, and then advanced to hit us, out in the open. Somehow I missed that this should destroy the shooters, and both sides just kept bouncing off one another.

Over on the other flank, I finally managed to get my warband in a row again and marched on his shooters. I was doing pretty well, pushing them back and subsequently his magician, until I lost the warband leading the way for my general. The way this happened was that George was using his Magician to drop magic on my general, and managed to force him to recoil, which left the front unit unsupported. Now my General was out on his own. Sporadic successes with other warband, and subsequent follow-ups left my line all akimbo again. Eventually a concentration of distant shooting and Magic forced my general into a retreat that caused him to trip over his own unit. From their I conceeded, as we had already stayed long enough for George to get a parking ticket.

There are more pics over at George's Flicker stream.

I have also added a gadget to the blog to keep me on track. The MK/HotT project is in red, as it is my current focus.

Alright, getting sore wrists. More later, I hope.

Guilt

2009-08-19T18:44:00.000-07:00

OK, over on Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog he was talking about statistics and the tendency to lose ground in the never ending battle between the unpainted lead and the painter. Now Tim is both more talented and more productive than I am. His blog is updated regularly with pretty pictures of both newly painted and based figures, and actual game sessions. The later often made even more beautiful by his lovely spouse, who actually humors him and plays. I am cheating and using prepaints, and I am not getting anywhere near the same levels of production or, obviously, quality. But one trait we share is a tendency to be distracted by

Squirrel....

distracted by opportunities to buy new shiny bits of metal. With his level of productivity he can probably be forgiven. He may one day catch up, and, if not, he will certainly increase his range of playable games. I, on the other hand, probably need an intervention.

To illustrate:
I am an avid thrift store shopper. 1 I have made great progress, and I mostly do not buy things I have no immediate use for, unless they seem unusually cool. I passed up a copy of Tumbl'in Dice at the local Good will the other day. I pat myself

SQUIRREL...

myself on the back. But, did you know there is a goodwill online. Addicts like me do. And it isn't like the things that sell there are necessarily thrifty. I mostly look at games. Last week Toledo Goodwill put up piles and piles of lead. Sold in X lb lots, mostly. Very little detail on what the lead was. But a box of War Gods of Ægyptus Asar stood out, and attracted my attention. On my foremost back burner, I have a dream of creating a decent set of Tekumel minis. Asar from this line make pretty good proxies for casual gaurds etc. And in another lot I found some Foundry Numidians. They could make good lower paid gaurds. And there were some Castle Parts from MageKnight. Ok, I figured if I could get these cheap, I would be doing OK. Buying them all would lower per unit shipping, and I would have a good set of generics for Tekumel Skirmish. I put a note in my calendar to look up the prices on the closing day.

Yesterday was closing day. Now, there were a lot of potentially great lots to be had on this sale. Most were simply listed by weight. A couple appeared to be 2 pounds of Greeks, of such. One lot was 7.5 pounds of - I think the phrase was Miniatures for a Rollplaying game. In the description they alluded that they "Might" be 40FnordK. Now I don't have any hankering to play 40FnordK, but 7.5 pounds of lead is a lot of figs. They were sitting around 20

Squirrel....

bucks. I had just bought a bag of OG pirates (I hadn't mentioned that indiscretion before, had I? Pretend I didn't now..) and the 30 or so in the bag were less than a pound.

So first I bid on the Asar. I take the lead for about 12 bucks. That is more than I usually like to pay, but far less than the Asar (a 10 pack) normally sell for, and there is also a 10 pack of their Greeks (Spartans?). OK, feeling lucky, I bid on the Numdians, and take the lead there. There are 5 blisters, with a fairly dense number of figs in each. Currently Foundry sells the Numdians in a 70 fig army pack

Squirrel...

army pack, so I could tell what their standard packing ratio was. I figure I should get about 40. Price 17 bucks. That seems a good deal. So, I go for the towers.. and take the lead bid at 5. Coolness. I start pushing my luck. I bid on some others, but can't take the lead. I start feeling skunked. I bid on the 7.5 pounds of maybe 40FnordK, cause it is cheap cheap cheap

Squirrel..

And I get a lead on that. Then some competitor comes along and outbids me. Now it is personal. Mind you, I don't really care about 40FnordK. But they are still cheap. Thrift disorder starts in, and I start looking for a better deal on a bunch of lead amongst these auctions, but it is hard to beat the 7.5 lbs of uncut Pb sitting out there. I bid on an Oriental Terraform Bridge, and take the lead at 10. OK, not terrible. I have a beautiful array of Samurai waiting for a place to play. This will go well with that, and can proxy into Tekumel nicely. I also take the lead in a lot of 1 lb of what I think are gladiators. GLADIATORS... I hadn't even been considering GLADIATORS. ( I justify it now. Gladiators might, possibly be proxied into a Hirilakte Arena. (this is a key indicator of my compulsion, I think. I hear Alcoholics use this kind of rationalization.) Still Gladiators could be fun, and I am ahead at 11 bucks. The Pb is coursing through me. But there are 10 minutes to wait. The bidding high won't last through that kind of

Squirrel...

temptation. I have time to place another bid. I go back and look at the Mega pile. It is a suitcase full of heroin to a dime bag junkie. I think the competition was at 32 bucks. What the hell, I will bid up a bit, and see. Most likely he has a proxy bid much higher. I bid 35. He doesn't. I am in the lead. Mind you I could care less about 40FnordK. And I have no idea what army, or armies, these bad boys come from. They are lead, my need is lead. It may ruin my home, my family, perhaps my job. But it is lead, and it is cheap.

So, about 100 dollars later (shipped), I have a pile of new lead on the way. The real irony; the Asar, my primary target, the thing that got me started in all this, fell victim to a more disciplined sniper during my lead lust 40FnordK shame. I still got the Numidians.. some Gladiators, some towers, a bridge and who knows for what besotted purpose 7.5 pounds of 40FnordK.2

1 Thrift store shopper is just a polite way of saying clinical hoarder.
2. Maybe. they could be something quite different. Won't know for a few days.

Finally, the din of battle

2009-07-31T20:39:00.000-07:00

I finally got troops to the table. A classic Orc vs Elf battle. I was Orcs and George was Elves. I didn't have a stronghold for the elves, so I defended. Terrain included a lake, a swamp and some woods. He opted to enter through the rough, which made sense, leaving me on a big open plain with a lake. Not great planning on my part. I definitely need to make some nice terrain here soon.
I set up with my 5 units of Warband on my left flank, and shooters, Arty, and riders on the right. The lake protected me in the middle. Geo set up with his riders and knights on on my right and his shooters on the left with his blades (including his general) in the center. He also had two units of lurkers, off board. My thought was to use the riders to cover the much larger area open on my right, but I am an orc of little patience.

When the elves moved up and parked in the swamp, I rushed out to fight them. Too long just building armies, I guess, though I tend towards this mistake. I am a notoriously poor defender. I did recognize the potential threat on my right flank, and move up just far enough to use the lake as an anchor. But I knew this area was in danger anyway, as knights quick kill warband. Now, we probably made several rules violations along the way. For example, we see Geos Magician in the swamp, but I don't think we were adding the rough going penalty to his bespelling attacks. He managed to hit my General, but only got a recoil, which broke my line. We stalemated here for a while, while I tried to move my Arty up to reach his magician, and move my riders round the flank. Geo was plagued with ones for pip rolls, which kept him from trouncing my sorry butt. And for some reason, I don't have any shots after this one. But I can tell you what happened. First I got lucky and my artillery dropped a rock on his magician, driving him into the murky depths of the swamp. Then his shooter came in for a close combat and killed my artillery. That put us on even footing again on that flank, and we returned to a stale mate. Geo finally rolled a 5 and had the pips to move his Cav up on my left flank. I got lucky and killed a knight, but his other knight killed my a double ranked warband, and turned to roll up the flank. That put me at 11 points dead. He must have also killed a rider, because, the next turn we realized my army was demoralized, but, even if that weren't so, he had a clear shot at my stronghold and would have taken it in another turn or two.

Still, a fun game, held at our FLGS which got a few lookers on at times. People seemed intrigued, but not captivated.

Three months, a few days progress

2009-07-27T22:32:00.000-07:00

Three months.. My goodness. In my defense, we did take a two week vacation in there. I do have some photos, and progress to show. I have found the second edge of the huge Mage Knight Purchase that I made. Sorting, classifying, and deciding what to do has been a bear. It is funny, that when I only had about 50 figures, I just grouped them and found 3 reasonable armies. Now, I have choices, and that means I have to weigh options against one another.

The Orcs are pretty well done, with 26 AP made, but they lack variety, being all Warband and Shooters with a couple Riders. I am working on a Cleric, and maybe a Magician and a Hero.

I am Diligently working on the Elves. They have a few units I hope to Flock this evening. They have more variety, with some Blades,

Shooters, a Magician, Riders and Knights. I am working on a Dragon and some Lurkers.
The lurkers are Woodland Snipers, and I have a pile of them. They are not bad sculpts, but a bit awkward, as they are preparing to shoot while retreating. And I may touch up the paint, and diversify the hair color a bit. I also have a another unit of Blades in the works, but, I really need more Shooters. Elves are Shooters by tradition. I have a few selected at Troll and Toad that I will probably buy, just to make a proper Shooter heavy Elvish force.

A couple of other pics of units for armies in the works just to fill the post out a bit. The Centaurs will be Knights in an army of Hybrid Critters. Minotaurs, Satyrs, etc. There are a surprising number of these kinds of figs in my piles of MK. The biggest disappointment is finding that many of the varied Centaur units made for MK are midget sized, completely out of scale for the rest of the line. They might work well for a 15mm or 20mm army, but MK is a big 28mm.

Finally some random Knights and Blades from proposed Human and Amazonian Armies. Got a lot of work to do. Should spend less time arguing with people on the internets. Not gonna change their minds anyway.

2009-04-24T18:59:00.000-07:00

no posts for a month, and a broken promise of pictures. I am a failure at this whole blog thing. Real life has been interfering a bit. I was trying to buy a spare house, and we had a death in the family, and such, but, I still could have put up pictures.

On the other hand, I do have some news. My shopping impulse got the best of me and I bought a pile of Mage knight figs. 800. I have been sorting and classifying for HOTT purposes. I should have taken a pic of the table overflowing..

I have also been working on the Dwarf army. Trying to decide on unit types, really. I have Dwarven Fusers, and a couple thunder gunners who will be shooters. I had originally planned on putting mixed melee weapons together for Warband, but, the Orcs are currently warband, and the trolls are leaning towards warband. And, dammit, do I really need more warband? I considered redoing the orcs as Hordes, but I would need more of them. That might be a long term option.

I am also trying to keep enough figs free to base for Song of Blades and Heroes or TFT. I know that I am building my HOTT armies way too large, but the impulse to have spare units for the kind of game I would like to run is strong.

Let me talk, then, a little about my ideas for a HOTT campaign. The rule book has a system, but it is very formal, and kinda dull. First it assumes that all armies deployed are the same size (24 points). But in reality, Commanders deploy forces in variable sizes, so I would like to let the commanders in my campaign do this. Of course, concentrating too many forces in one spot leaves you hinterlands exposed, but that is a risk one might take, if the reward were right.

I was also thinking of adding rules for spying on other armies. A commander could deploy certain units - Heroes, Magicians, Paladins, and Sneakers, into enemy controlled areas for recon missions. If there were enemy units in the area, they would dice to see if they could learn anything. I haven't determined the odds yet, but sneakers and magicians would excel at this, and Paladins and Heroes would we be the weakest. It might also work to use SOBH to play out these encounters, if the spies were discovered.

Another tweak might be to add in supply lines and scavenging. Each area might have a maximum capacity for "living off the land". This is all very nebulous so far. I should probably take pencil to paper and sort it out. I still sort best with pencil and paper.. Old school

Time Marches on, but, as yet my armies do not.

2009-03-18T21:20:00.001-07:00

First post of March. Not much to say. Haven't gotten my figs to the table. Friend G is going out of town on Fri/Sat, so probably not then. Did play an abbreviated game of Arkham Horror, and joined G and a friend of his in a brief FRP session of Call of Cthulhu. Playing an Anglican priest, and having a good time judging sinners, but, not sure how I am going to fit this into my schedule. I am already falling way behind on my Chanter Practice.. skipped class tonight cause I just wasn't prepared. Not a good sign. Wish my eyes didn't hurt all the time..

Ok, I am going to put up some new pics by the end of the weekend, and I did buy the fixins for a nice little Dwarf army.. and some figs to enhance the Trolls and the Orcs a bit..

Call me Beleaguered.

My weekend plans are flocked

2009-02-27T20:55:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow, 12 hours from now, I will not be playing Fields of Glory at Recon in the the cities. Recon is a quarterly miniatures 'micro con' held by the MMGA* every few months. George and I went a few months back and played some DBM with a fine gentleman down in the cities. He has moved on now; to Field of Glory. In the interim I bought two armies for 15 mm FOG/DBM. Ostrogoths and Romans - a fine match. I had hoped to go down this weekend and take part in a FOG tourney (as a total NOOB) and get my ass kicked up and down the table top. But, today I got hit with OT at work. A mixed blessing, because it means all the things I had planned to do today, I didn't. And therefore I won't be going tonight or tomorrow. I will, however, get a little extra on my next check, so that will help. FOG appears to be on the move in the twin cities. I will probably get more chances to go down and learn to lose gracefully.

Instead, I have put some effort into getting my HOTT armies to table. I still have plenty of figs to base, but I also have enough bad guys and good guys to field some armies - though less strictly themed than I originally envisioned. Basically, for the moment, it will simply be forces of light and forces of darkness.. Orcs allies vs Elves and allies. I won't offer an opinion on which is the force of darkness, as the reader probably has his or her own opinions. Tonight I did a quick and dirty flocking off all my based Elves and allies.They look ok. I used a wet paint flocking technique, using a very wisconsinesque (iron rich mud) brown paint I picked up free at the local haz waste recovery place. I made several trips there last summer to get rid of a few things - more trips than were strictly necessary mind you - each time coming home with a few of their recycled paint cans in various earth and water tones. These are set aside for making scenery, battle mats, etc. Paint applied to base, base dipped in a mixed flock while paint is still wet and Viola! grass on a muddy field.

Tomorrow I hope to do the Orcs and allies. Most of the troops that are close to table ready are core army types. Blades, Spears, Riders, Knights, Warband. The only unusual units are the Magician and the Troll Artillery (I neglected to mention them in the last post, but they were pictured). That's ok for now, I suppose. I also popped one of the elf riders off the base, so that all my rider units have two figs and all my knights will have three, for standardization. It also allows me to make another Elven rider unit, as I still had one in the lab.

* the MMGA website is woefully out of date, but they have an active yahoo group.. if you want to join it, and can't find a link, drop me a note, I will modify this footnote to include one.. for now, I am a bit ty ty.. and rambling on as well oh, bother, it was easier just to add the link..

amazing the typos you see after you post these things. There are still quite a few, but the worst are gone.

Pictures...

2009-02-22T22:07:00.000-08:00

Well, I finally have some progress to report on the HotT project, and pics to prove the point. The pics aren't all great, I need to set up a system for consistent, focused images..

An Elf Mage, Two Elf blades, Elf Riders, Knights and Shooters.

I will try to figure out what figs I used for each, at some point. I know the Blades with three elves were cloud warriors.. the shooters are combination of master archers and High Elven archers, the blades with four figs are High Elven warriors. I think the mage is Master Cyrus, and some apprentice adepts or some such.. At some point I will make a chart, maybe. Not mission critical, I guess..I also have a pile of Orcs based...

6 stands of war band, and 2 shooters. And a fair number of figs ready for basing.

if any of my legion fans knows of a tutorial on formatting the page when I put pics into it, I would love to get a link..

Screw it, done is better than perfect

2009-02-08T18:32:00.000-08:00

I have been delaying the inevitable decision to give up on the removable basing for my Mage Knight HOTT armies. I am better off just mounting the figures to fixed bases, than taking more time trying to figure out a way to have my cake and eat it too. That said, I will begin this task this week. But I also must work on cleaning the geek room and its geek lab. That may be a project for tomorrow.

I loaned my digital camera to a friend who was taking a class, so pictures may be delayed indefinitely, or I may borrow one from my wife or kid. Right now the background for any pics I took would embarrass my family, and bring social services to clean my house.

I have also succumbed to my ebay compulsion, and purchased more mage knight figures. This time they are packaged as sets built around factions, which, I hope, means some consistency of theme. The pics on the auction were poor, but, if I am lucky, this should represent a nearly complete Elf and Orc army.

I did get Ubuntu online, and, in fact, got a new computer (2.4 G with a 40G hard drive and larger monitor for 45 bucks) to run it on. It has a dual monitor vid card, and I have an old LCD projector I plan to mount in my geek room for RPG purposes. My long term goal is to use the older P3 computer into a wiki server to manage my life, and all that data I have piled up.

I am probably going to start selling some of my board games. This feels like drowning my children, but, I have some projects that are going to demand some funds. A part time job might also be an option.. the horror..

just an update

2009-01-21T21:23:00.001-08:00

To keep my hand in, I suppose. I have been fighting with getting Ubuntu on an old puter and wireless for my Geek room. Finally succeeded yesterday, so that is nice. Now I have to find a spare hard drive, cause I can see I am gonna run out of space pretty quick on the 13 gig that was in this one. My thanks to whichever neighbor leaves an open network available, as it was very helpful in the process. When I needed to look up some step I could connect to open wireless networks and go online to look up the problems I was having with our WEP network. Personally, I would rather our wireless network were open, but wireless security is an issue for my wife, so we are WEPed.

On the topic of small victories, I also succeeded with the DIY table saw project, at least marginally. By cutting a steel plate that then sits on the tabletop, and restricts the blades lateral movement, I am managing to cut reasonable HOTT bases. They aren't perfect rectangles, but they will work. There is a problem with Heat, and the subsequent risk of fire. I stop often,and cool the plate and blade with a damp cloth. I will post some pics of this.

Otherwise on the HOTT project, I was notified yesterday that the second pack of Mage Knight figs I bought on Ebay has finally been shipped. I payed for it on the 12th, so this is a bit annoying. I have pretty much finalized my needs for figures, and I am waiting on this order to see what I am short before I contact a dealer in CA who, if I'm lucky, can supply me with everything in one shot - that's assuming his prices are reasonable..

I have been a bit distracted of late by an email I received out of the blue from a gamer we will call, for the moment, Spoon. He is a transplant to the area from a more civilized gamer Haven in the southern part of the state, and, as it turns out, he has a hankering to play some samurai games. He has his own collection of 28mm samurai. So we have been kinda chatting via email about what game system to use for Samurai Skirmish. We have talked about Lord of the Rings, and Songs of Blades and Heroes. I once ran an event using Savage Worlds Showdown, but it seemed too static. Song of Blades looks fun, but perhaps a bit too simplistic for rich genre of Samurai. I am waiting to see a copy of the LOTR rules, and looking at some freebies online.

If I find one that really impresses me I will link it in here somewhere..

Home made table saw.. FAIL

2009-01-11T20:36:00.000-08:00

I don't have room, or finances to buy a table saw. So, I have seen on the inter tubes where some enterprising DIYer built his own with a circular power saw through a board, inverted. My circular saw is battery operated, so I figured I would get better mileage out of a power jig saw. I mounted it to the underside of a cheap work bench I picked up some time ago from the Big Box Hardware store. Problem is, it won't cut a straight line, which is the reason for having a table saw. The blade has enough flex that it rides out as I push the board through, making a nice arc, if that's what I wanted. It's not, of course. This is a Game related fail, as I had intended this to be a convenient way to make bases for my HOTT armies. But the results aren't good enough for this purpose.

On a related note, I have been using the Wiz Kids Mage Knight figure Gallery to create army roster image maps. Basically, selecting figs I need to acquire to build each army. Last night I built one for a Dwarf army. It was nice. It was gone this AM, because I neglected to save the file. Not a good day for the gaming projects..

2009-01-07T01:35:00.000-08:00

Well, took some time during breaks to think about project priorities. I am thinking I should balance gaming with real life, so I will limit myself to one project at a time, gaming wise, while I select two projects from real life. Eventually, I am hoping to get down to one project in real life. But this Blog isn't about real life, and I doubt that is why anyone might read it.

So, next I got down to the task of choosing a gaming project. This was easy, really. I have invested a fair chunk in the Mage Knight Hordes of the Things project already, and it is the easiest to do. I sorted the 104 figures I bought on Ebay the other day, and can scratch out 4 armies. There are some issues on some figs that need attending, like some broken weapons, and some paint touch up. I need to make many Bases, and then figure out a good way to attach them. If I figure out a way to make them detatchable, I can use them for other things. Some of the figures are quite nice, really. Heroscapers seem to use them a lot. I have a fair pile of Heroscape stuff in my Board Games piles. And I have a friend whose child is a budding game geek in OK who might be interested in any I have left over.

Currently I am thinking of trying to use the snaps that seamstresses sew onto clothing. I will stop at the fabric store tomorrow after Bagpipes and look at options.

I am also looking at the Mage Knight galleries to see what is available to either flesh out the armies I have in the works, or create some new ones. The armies I have assembled from my current supply are

The Trolls
Wood Spirits
Elves/Centaur
Human Empire

I will post some pics as they start looking like HOTT armies and not piles of Mage Knight figures. I could see splitting the Elves/Centaur into two armies if I can track down appropriate figures to bulk up both halves. I would also love to build a Dwarf, Necro, and Orc/Gob army. Mage Knight has a fair number of Steam Punk figures as well, and an all Mech army is feasable. Mounted Units will be a challenge, I think. They will certainly add to the costs.

Enough for now. Staying up late thinking about these things is one reason I don't get them done during the day.

First Entry

2009-01-04T23:52:00.000-08:00

Well, I hope that I have not claimed a perfectly good Blog name in vain. This will be my first blog, probably my only blog, but, hopefully, not a short lived blog. Not sure why I suddenly felt the need to blog. It's not like I think others are going to want to read this.

This will be, primarily, a gaming blog. I am hoping to increase my gaming this year. By gaming, I mean Board, Miniature and RPG games. Computer games don't interest me. Most are really just mazes. A few are high tech lego sets. Most computer games are solitaire ventures, and even MMORPG's appear socially stunted. I like games because I like social interations. I am borderline between extrovert and introvert, and I find miniatures to be a perfect combination of solitary construction and social gaming.

My gaming interest are diverse. I have been described as a fart in a wind storm, and I admit there is some truth to that analogy. It would be easier to list the Genres that do not interest me than those that do. For now I am going to try to limit my focus and keep my focus. At that, I am pretty unfocused. A list of current "projects*".

1/72 Samurai for either Killer Katanas or perhaps HotT. I have a start on painting these, but the project stalled a bit when I got distracted by constructing terrain.

25/28 mm Samurai for skirmish games. I am ahead of the game on this as I bought my minis painted, but I haven't settled on a rule set. I will try to put pics up at some point. The paint work is beautiful. I would really like to show them off.

6mm O.G.R.E./G.E.V. minis. I now have a pretty good selection, but haven't begun painting them. OGRE/GEV miniature rules have just become available in PDF format from SJG. I may also use them with Dirtside or some other set. But I am pretty nostaligic, and like OGRE/GEV as a board game and want to have the same experience with little lead bits.

15mm ancients. I bought two painted DBM armies - Romans and Ostrogoths - to play DBM or DBMM or FOG or some such. The only impediment is finding interested parties and getting my GeekRoom finished.

25/28 + mm Hordes of the Things armies. Village Games in Anoka ( a bit too far off to visit regularly) set up some nice HOTT armies using D&D prepaints on slightly outsized bases. My friend George and I went down and tried them out, in order to learn a bit about HOTT. The idea seemed a natural. I am doing the same with Mage Knight figures. MK is cheaper at the moment. I bought 104 figs for 30 bucks shipped. They look like they will make me just short of 4 armies. I hope to use these figs to evangelize the Warhammer players locally. Perhaps to establish a good neighbored competition between our local game store (Dragon Port Games) and Village Games. I also purchased 5 copies of HOTT from the Keep in England (cheap, near wholesale, because they are relocating) which I plan to use as promotional material. I am currently cutting bases.

1/32 NUTS by Two Hour Wargames. I am a scotsman at heart, and cheap by nature. I bought NUTS and thought, why not use cheap plastic army men. I have a couple tubs of them I picked up last Christmas for a buck a tub. I am thinking of basing them and trying to host a game on our local Beach next summer. That is low priority right now.

Then I have RPG interests

Tekumel - a very old school setting from M.A.R. Barker. Probably the first published game world. It has a killer learning curve. M.A.R. Barker was a professor (retired) of linguistics at the University of MN. He was the faculty advisor for the gaming group that hosted many of the people who first created D&D. I know Arneson was tied in there somewhere. I was still in High school, perhaps Junior High, but I first gamed with people who came out of that environment. Tekumel is rich world, with a complex social order and history. If interested, peruse the link.

and of course, there are a host of board games that would suck me in if I could find some players.

But the big project is the Geek Room. It is an impediment to all my other projects and I will be posting on that in my next post I think. It is the Geek version of a Man Cave, I suppose. But I feel guilty working on the Geek Room when I have other home projects hanging out there.

That is the bulk of the minis interests at the moment. I realize the need to simplify my life if I want to get any of this done. I am hoping this blog will help me to prioritize some of it. So it may wander away from the topic of gaming. Often.