Steam Lords: Freeport Edition

Game 03: Swagfest

2011-09-12T15:10:00.000-07:00

Running this game was like starting all over again. I handed out the now-expected issue of The Shipping News, along with a "Player's Guide to the Eastern District" that I put together by extensive Copy + Paste from the Pirate's Guide to Freeport PDF. This is why I like to own both the PDF and print copy when possible. PDF always, print when possible. Print makes for easy reading, PDF makes for easy creation of player handouts.

The game picked up six years following the last game, with the players having a base of operations, having taken up residence at Zellara's former residence. They're squatters, and no one's interested in buying the property, even though it's now up for sale, having passed the years of escrow. Whenever someone comes around, Zellara scares them off, and so the place is known locally as being a haunted house. The Ghosts gang has to leave and enter at night, to maintain the illusion that the place is abandoned.

I started the game with a double-meditation to get into character. I'm a cinematic DM, and I run games like episodes of an ongoing television series. So I played "Southtown" by P.O.D., with the instructions to contemplate their characters' past six years. Near the end of the song, I gave a guided meditation of all the Ghosts except Ra'id (who had gone to prison) doing a heist - a smash and grab robbery. It goes bad, and guardsmen show up. I gave the impression of being trapped, and unable to find a way out, and ended it with Ra'id showing up silhouetted in a doorway, beckoning everyone to follow him.

I then played our Freeport opening credits theme, and allowed them to contemplate their characters in general.

The game proper began in the basement of the Ghost's house, where excavation is underway to build a basement. The game began with Hutch and Gar working on the basement. After the Ghosts took over 3 Lancet Street as their home, it became apparent it wasn't an ideal space for someone with Gar's line of work. The Alchemist's kit had to be taken down or set up at regular intervals, and stolen or smuggled goods sometimes jockeyed for space with the kitchen table. It became apparent at some point in the Ghosts' careers that a basement would be needed. To that end, floorboards were pried up, and digging began. It's taken six years for a few reasons:

1) They're teenagers. What teens do you know are that motivated to do back-breaking labor, even if it will ultimately benefit them?
2) They hit a very large rock and had to dig it out.
3) They hit clay and it slowed them down.
4) Everyone but Lucky and Tuck got too big to get into the crawlspace until they'd excavated further.
5) They can't remove the dirt very quickly without attracting attention (noise of excavation + piles of dirt just outside renders the Haunted House idea moot pretty quickly)

The hole is now big enough for a few bodies to dig, and Hutch is in there, throwing all of his considerable weight into the shovel falls. Hutch's shovel strikes stone: he strikes harder. A sound of stone grating on stone, and then silence, followed by a loud splash. The scent of effluvia: someone brings a lantern. Tuckery is lowered through the opening, the lantern illuminates a branch of Freeport's sewers, and with Gar shouting something about sewer gas, the halfling brawler is hastily pulled up. An alternate light source will be needed for further investigation, but in the meantime, there is a party to attend.

One of the things I love about my players is how much they've embraced playing the Ghosts as young men. Older and wiser heads would have put off a day of bacchanals and debauchery to properly close up the hole. The youths simply slap a loose board over it, and head out the door to deliver Gar's firework commission to the island they'll be launched from. Ra'id secures a ride with Dimetrios, a well known boatman on the Docks. The delivery goes smoothly, and all the characters are given a close up view of Drac's Folly, the lighthouse so much of the city's funds have been poured into. They notice missing stones on several of the levels, as though they are waiting for more masonry, but have continued building despite these gaps. Before they can quite the island, Ra'id finds himself face-to-face with Torsten Roth for the first time since he's been out of the Tombs. Ra'id counters Roth's snide dismissal of the Ghosts by asking "How is Dalloway's son doing?" to which Roth is somewhat perplexed and possibly shaken.

NOTE: In actual play, Shane/Ra'id had mistaken Roth for Walter Dalloway's father. Ra'id murdered Roth the night before. In later discussion with George/Gar, he suggested we employ a "reshoot" house rule, that players can yell "CUT!" for a scene where they blew something their character would clearly have known. We covered for it at the time, but have since employed the reshoot approach to making the narrative consistent.

At this point, I inserted a "cut" scene, since Taylor/Hutch had elected not to accompany the other players to the island, and had been waiting their return very patiently. To reward him, and set up Swagfest, we gamed a conversation between Hutch and Finn, the crime boss of the Eastern District. Finn has invited Hutch and the Ghosts to join the Eastern District - to indicate their acceptance of the offer, their job during Swagfest was to protect Captain Jacob Lydon from assassination: Lydon owes Finn money, and is a likely candidate for Captain's Council. Finn wants Lydon to be in his debt, and know it. So the Ghosts are to do two things: protect him from other assailants, and then win the Rat's Race at Swagfest, so they can shake Lydon's hand with a specially treated glove. The glove would administer a poison Finn has the antidote for, permitting him to "rescue" Lydon and emphasize his relationship with the crimelord halfling.

Swagfest was originally a web enhancement from Green Ronin's "Focus on Freeport" series, called "Holiday in the Sun." The main modification I made to the adventure was to jettison the Aranea’s lair filled with cocooned festival-goers at the very end. My players know I'm moving along plot lines, and I don't want to stick random beasties in the game just for a bit of combat.

Swagfest is a Freeport festival, one of those excuses to party based in the history of a place. As stated in the adventure, Swagfest is "one of the city’s most important holidays. Celebrating the Great Raid of Sea Lords Drac and Francisco, in which the fleet of Freeport terrorized the maritime nations for three months and brought back loads of booty, Swagfest is a day long party that shuts the city down with revelry." The characters were made aware of two events, One Eyed Jack's Stand and The Rat's Run via this game's issue of The Shipping News.

The issue also included plot hooks in the form of advertisements and an article on a missing priest from the temple of Abadar: I messed up here, in my haste using the original text from The Freeport Trilogy, so that it says The Temple of Knowledge. But I'm trying to weave in the element of keys from some ad-libbed moments with the PCs, so it should have read "temple of Abadar."

To simulate the chaos and noise of a party like the one in "Holiday in the Sun," I cranked up my soundtrack, which was comprised of the following songs:
1. Throw Them Overboard - Abney Park
2. The Derelict - Abney Park
3. Aether Shanty - Abney Park
4. The Gaelic Reels - Carter Burwell, from the soundtrack to Rob Roy
5. The Blunt Reels - Capercaillie, from the soundtrack to Rob Roy
6. Lowlands Low - Bryan Ferry, from Rogue's Gallery
7. Rolling Sea - Eliza Carthy, from Rogue's Gallery
8. Boney was a Warrior - Jack Shit, from Rogue's Gallery
9. Good Ship Venus - Loudon Wainwright III, from Rogue's Gallery
10. Jericho - Subway to Sally
11. Mit Dans is all die Werit genesen by Corvus Corax
12. Gaudalier by Corvus Corax
13. Goigs de la Nostra Dona by Corvus Corax
14. Estuans Intrinsecus by Corvus Corax
15. Venus Vina Musica by Corvus Corax
16. Urmawi by Corvus Corax
17. Scotus by Corvus Corax
18. Villemann og Magnhild by In Extremo

I imagine Abney Park as the standard Pirate band, followed by a few "open mic" artists, with Subway to Sally, Corvus Corax, and In Extremo as a half-orc band. I got the idea to use Corvus Corax for this back when I was doing the steampunk Middle-Earth campaign. It works really well, and my decision to turn the music up forced us all to shout like one has to at a live event. If you're wondering where amplification comes from in a medieval/pirate setting, you need to revisit the Bard spells. A world of magic could produce music like this.

I then set the Ghosts loose in the party: they made perception rolls to check out who might be seeking to kill Captain Lydon: anything less than a full success, and I passed them one of the NPC cards of a pretty girl. These are young men, after all! This lead to some contacts made: Hutch met a belly dancer who works as a tavern maid at Kafe Ilkin, and Ra'id met Lexi, a courtesan at the Serenity House. Ra'id also spotted his ex, Vikki Tarjay across the crowd, but there was no altercation. Gar thought he saw a woman who was a dead ringer for his mother, and Tuck bumped into his girlfriend, Lilly. Lucky and Mokey had assumed a rooftop position to watch for trouble from above.

Both Hutch and Tuckery participated in One-Eyed Jack's stand, which Tuckery won by a small margin. Dimetrios was the competition in this event, having beaten all but Tuckery's score.

It was after that event that the assassin strikes. A cloaked and masked figure with a crossbow attempts to shoot Lydon. Hutch forces Lydon to the ground, while Mokey and Lucky give pursuit across the rooftops.

And here's where I made my big mistake.

I had grabbed the rooftop chase from The Edge of Anarchy, the same Paizo adventure-path-book I took the plot-points for "Game 02: Lamm's Little Lambs" from. I won't give away the details, but it's an expansion on the chase rules from the Pathfinder Game Master's Guide. It works great, but my explanation was rushed, and for whatever reason, I had placed all the PCs on the roof. This was a bad idea for several reasons, namely that not all these PCs belong on a rooftop. It was a less than stellar moment, but thankfully it all worked out more or less. I think it would have been better had I kept it to Mokey and Lucky and allowed the other players to game their own scenarios. Ah well. C'est la vie. Mokey ended up shooting the runner with his pistol, and so the Ghosts were able to turn the would-be-assassin over to Finn. Again, this was an error. I think Hutch wanted to interrogate the assassin, but I was railroading the game along, falling back into old habits that are based in goal-oriented-gaming. It was late, I was tired, and I wanted/needed to get more of the story out of the way before the next session. I think the only reason the chase ultimately worked was my kick-ass choice for chase music. Again, I included some anachronistic pop: "Trip Like I Do" by Filter, as remixed by Crystal Method. I then switched to "I'm Not Driving Anymore" by Rob Dougan and "24 Ghosts III" by Nine Inch Nails. Both worked nicely as chase music, though again, I wouldn't have used them outside this Freeport campaign. For whatever reason, these non-epic pieces are really working for this gritty crime story.

I've learned my lesson from that experience though, and had I to do it over again, would have cut the game short to pick it up for Part 2 of Swagfest.

However, at the time, we just soldiered on, with the finale being the Rat's Race, which Ra'id ran in. It was a touch and go affair a few times: Ra'id nearly got beaten out of the race, literally. The violence of the racers nearly crushed a child at the start, and only Tuckery's fast reflexes saved the boy, much to Lily's appreciation. Finally, when the rat entered Scurvytown, he made his way ahead of the other contestants, to follow the rat into an abandoned building. In the original adventure, this is where he'd have met the Aranea, but instead, Ra'id discovered a trap door with stairs leading down. He retrieves the rat, who strangely won't go any further beyond the stairs, and wins the race. The Ghosts deliver the hand-shake, and the poison. I finished with a "cut scene," wherein Ra'id discovers that the double-headed snake amulet is missing - stolen, from the Ghost's home.

My other regret in not extending this story to two sessions was the absence of Gar's excellent fireworks, which I included in the next issue of The Shipping News. I think it would also have been a chance to expand on character relations, which will continue to be a key in the upcoming games. Nevertheless, it was a good time, and decent "restart" of sorts to our campaign.

In-Between Games 01: Six Long Years

2011-08-11T15:22:00.000-07:00

Between games two and three, the PCs aged six years, and for those who hadn't, grew out of adolescence into either young adulthood, or adulthood proper, bringing them up to full stats. However, to simulate the years' happenings, I used the "Random Events Chart" (REC) from my last post. Here are the results in narrative form.

Ra'id Telour (now 16 years old):

Shane requested to make a number of diplomacy rolls to make contacts around the city, and I wove those into his six results from the REC:
1. Had a good, but short, relationship with a girl. Details to follow! Give me any thoughts on any of these to help me flesh them out.
2. Killed a major player in Freeport - again, details to follow. Was this an accident (bar fight gone wrong?) or assassination?
3. Minor contact with Freeport individual (any contacts in particular you're looking for?)
4-5 Did time for major crime (stole one very "rich" item), and ended up in the Tombs, Freeport's landbound prison.
6. Made influential friend, who pulled strings and got you out of the Tombs, which is where you've just arrived from when the next game begins.

Shane rolled a one, a fumble, to contact Torsten Roth, but wasn't aware of his failure at the time. Later, Ra'id remembered him saying, “There used to be standards in this district (Merchant District), you know. Now they just let anybody in. Oh, don’t take offense. Let’s just pretend I wasn’t talking about you and get back to business.”

Torsten Roth (male human journeyman) is forty-five, well-dressed, and one of the richest men in Freeport. He is head of both the Guild of Merchants and the powerful Roth merchant family (with interests in mining, fine wines, and exotic goods). He’s also an annoying, self-aggrandizing, condescending snob who thinks most people (including his fellow guild members) are beneath him. He has plenty of money, but what he wants more is political power—power that could make him even richer. He publicly supports Milton Drac in the hopes of being elected to the Captains’ Council. Ra'id suspects Roth was caught up in the events that got him incarcerated in the Tombs, but can't be sure.

He then had a moderate success in contacting Vikki Tarjay, which I made his short and good relationship. Vikki got Ra'id into the Joy Boys, a gang of rich kids interested in raising hell. The Joy Boys are a gang—more of a club—of spoiled rich kids, the bored lesser scions of wealthy merchants and noble families. While they pretended to be criminals, they aren't much more than thugs. They beat up merchants, rob the working class, and get into bar brawls for fun, not because they needed the money. Vikki stopped dating Ra'od once she realized he wasn't part of the merchant class.

His third roll was another fumble, for Walter Dalloway, Walter Dalloway is a typical member of the Rakeshames, and Vikki's on-and-off boyfriend (Ra'id was a rebound). The dissolute fourth son of a large banking family, Walter feels little pressure from his family to enter the family business, marry well, or do well at his studies. He's spending his teens drinking, whoring, and learning aristocratic swordsmanship, and yearns to do something with those skills—something unpleasant. Handsome, well-dressed, and remarkably free of manners, Walter was the one who got Ra'id put in jail by requiring the Azhar to pass a test of initiation (a way to get in despite not being of the Merchant class (at least, not Freeport merchants)). The test was to steal an item from High Priest of the Temple of Abadar, Thuron Abacot. When Ra'id broke into the High Priest's chambers (hoping to get Vikki back), he grabbed the first thing he could find. He brought it back to Walter, and went home thinking he was in with the Joy Boys, and all was well. In the middle of the night, the Watch came for him, and he was taken straight to the Tombs, without trial. There were mentions of the word of a major player in town against yours, and both Torsten Roth and William Dalloway (Walter's father) against Ra'id's. While the details are still fuzzy, Ra'id was clearly set up.

The rest of Shane's rolls were moderate to good. Here are the results, again, woven into the REC results:
Ra'id almost made friends Jessapine Holimon. Tall, ethereally beautiful, and as tenacious as a pit bull, Jessapine Holimon has worked hard for years to reach her current level of success (unlike a certain rich-born guildmaster). She is the most successful importer and retailer of women’s clothing in Freeport, and the daughters of the guild leaders wouldn’t purchase their gowns from anyone else in town. Jessapine is quite influential within the guild, and she is convinced Torsten Roth is leading it on the road to ruin.

Shane requested two-weapon combo for Ra'id, so he had to have a teacher. Ra'id trained with Rex Nash (clearly not his real name), a half-elven swashbuckler and well-known womanizer/wealthy rake who resides on a double masted schooner called "The Waveroller." The boat is parked at the Merchant District Marina. He shares the space with a series of beautiful women of all races, as well as his servant, a female Drow (Ra'id naively suspects she is a lesbian, as she is indifferent to Nash's charms) named Nanji, who is a skilled martial artist and excellent bartender.

The last roll incorporated the influential friend roll from the REC, and introduced the Tombs, Freeport's prison:

The Tombs are Freeport's jail: The main prison in Freeport is located inside the Fortress of Justice and is known throughout the city as the Tombs. They’ll tell you the building got its nickname because it was based on an elaborate mausoleum from the Jungle Lands, but the denizens of the underworld know differently. Many criminals who end up in the Tombs are never heard from again. building is solid brick. There’s a main floor above ground, with bars on all the windows, and reinforced walls that are three feet thick. The roof of the building is shaped like a ziggurat—it has no real reason for its appearance except to look massive and foreboding. The first floor is the headquarters for the jailer and guards. There’s also a mess hall, kitchen, larder, and chapel to the God of Penitence. Small groups of prisoners are taken here daily to hear sermons, sing hymns, and pray for forgiveness.

The prison cells are located on two levels underground. There are sixty cells on each floor, each cell approximately eight feet by six feet. Each can hold three prisoners, but most hold several more. The walls of the cells are constructed of large, stone blocks. Prisoners are fed twice a day with meals slipped through the small slots at the bottom of the cell doors. Some popular menu items—gruel, boiled bones, stale bread crusts, and fish head soup. Meals are served with a small cup of dirty water. Many prisoners go hungry, and some have even died of starvation. Other ways to die inside the Tombs include death by venomous vermin, food poisoning, succumbing to disease, and being murdered by your fellow cellmates. Prisoners kill each other over food, scraps of clothing, insults, vendettas, and grudges—or sometimes for no reason at all.

The Tombs hold a motley assortment of criminals, from vile rapists, raving murderers, to political prisoners that have somehow fallen through the cracks to spend their remaining days languishing in the bowels of Freeport’s terrifying prison.

While incarcerated, Ra'id met one of the Tombs’ oldest residents, Marius Edgel, who has survived in this inhospitable prison for almost a decade. At the peak of his career as a notorious crime lord, he managed upwards of a dozen operations, including smuggling, extortion, larceny, and even murder. In particular, Marius managed a small circle of assassins in Freeport and on the Continent, and several high profile assassinations fell squarely on his shoulders. The Continent’s efforts to extradite the man had all failed since Freeport had no intention of turning over one of their citizens, so a team of killers came for Marius instead. After thwarting eight attempts on his life, Marius realized he could not continue to run his business on the “outside,” so he voluntarily turned himself in. Allies in the legal system made sure that his time in the Tombs was for show, and he was free to come and go as he pleased. In the ten years he’s been a prisoner, Marius has actually spent less than a year in the Tombs. Much of his time is spent in a state of semi-retirement at his house in Libertyville, which was the connection to Ra'id. When he discovered the Azhar's connection with Evil Eye Fleagle, he had Ra'id moved to his private cell. When Marius returns to Freeport, he visits his posh offices in the Tombs, where he manages various businesses. His filthy cell is just a front. A cunningly concealed door against the back wall leads to a comfortable apartment that has tunnel access into a house in the Merchant District. Once Marius checked out things with his contacts, he discovered the nature of Ra'id's frame up, which was mainly Walter Dalloway's doing, out of jealousy for Vikki's attentions.

Although he’s nearly sixty, Marius is in great shape. He has short brown hair and brown eyes. Marius arranged for Ra'id to go free: Ra'id went to a bar Watler Dalloway frequents, and murdered him.

Gar Irontooth (now 15 years old)

Both Shane and George are very involved players, so George's Half-orc Alchemist provided me with a lot of back-and-forth emails. These were focused more on the mechanics of the alchemist class, and what kind of money Gar could make in six years. Geo is a math professor, and excels at Excel. He sent along a spreadsheet, demonstrating the rolls made, which ones went poorly, and how much money he could have made, which ended up being 2110 gold - in serious excess of a second level coffer! Enter the danger of having characters get six years to sit around and effectively do whatever the hell they want. Luckily, Gar was going to school at the Freeport Institute for many of these years, so I was able to sink the money into tuition and books. I solved this problem with Shane/Ra'id's merchant dealings by making him pay for sword-fighting lessons with Rex Nash. Furthermore, I had to consider that not every thing Gar makes was necessarily sold at the price he hoped for, if it sold at all. That's one of the realistic aspects I think an urban setting should entail. Since everything is available, that awesome shit you stole from the dungeon won't sell immediately. It might not sell at all, and potentially, if it does, it might belong to someone powerful. Likewise, the market might not be interested in new potions. After all, Gar isn't the only alchemy act in town. (If anyone is interested in seeing how we resolved Gar's gaming mechanics, let me know and I'll post the conversation between George and I).

In the 6 year gap, Gar studied and engaged in alchemy to support himself financially, support the gang with alchemical items, and so establish both an above board alchemical trade and an illicit drug trade. He obtained alchemical items for himself by producing two batches of the item when a customer orders it, keeping one, and selling the other to the customer to recoup the cost.

Here are Gar's REC results:

1. Due to your life in school, Gar is often bored, finding school lacking the colour of his underworld connections.
2. Discovered ruins on a school field trip, and has only confided in Hutch regarding this discovery.
3. Was convicted of drug dealing in connection with Aporcus Beadle's expulsion from the Freeport Institute. Thankfully, all the Institute demanded of you was a fine of 100 gp. Gar paid this without trouble, as per the discussion regarding Alchemy's big bucks. He had been dealing with Beadle since their first meeting, and continued to provide him with both drugs and poison.
4. A second conviction of drug dealing, also in connection to Beadle, got Gar a flogging, which nearly killed him.
5. The resulting illness from your public flogging resulted in a stat deterioration of his strength by 1.
6. In the wake of Gar's flogging, he was kicked out of the Institute, but Delinda Knorbertaal took pity on him and gave him a job at Knorbertaal's Herbs. Her health has been failing for awhile, and Gar is worried about her. Beadle still lives with his aunt, but he's usually out trying to score a hit. Gar stopped dealing with him after your second infraction, as you suspect it's his stupidity that keeps getting you caught. Delinda gives Gar a discount on items in the store, and he has access to the providers directly through ordering, so Gar gets his supplies for Alchemy at even lower prices (I felt like I was cutting my own throat letting George get his supplies so cheap, but seriously - this is how retail works!). Instead of 1/3, I went with 1/4 the price.

Hutch (now 19 years old)

Taylor was still struggling with how to play Hutch, until we discussed playing him as a sort of mix between Bernie Mac in Ocean's Eleven crossed with Samuel L. Jackson. It's spruced up Taylor's gaming considerably. Here are Hutch's results from the REC:

1. Hutch attempted to befriend Ethie, after his initial bad first impression. As it turns out, Ethie is genuinely glad to see Hutch is still alive when he goes back to Strebeck's, and discerns the quality of his character.
2. Hutch experienced a few months of utter boredom and ennui while living off the earnings from the first game - this prompted him to go looking for a job.
3. Contracted a cold that didn't go away for three months, but was never very serious.
4. Ethie offered him a job working as a dishwasher at Strebeck's. Hutch was promoted to providing muscle as a bouncer in later years as he grew up. (Hutch has a bit of Troll blood back in his family, and stands 6"8 and 250 lbs).
5. Convicted of assault and battery - was given a fine of 50 gp: I gave Tay the choice of paying the fine and subtracting it from his money, or enduring a flogging. Hutch took the beating, and recovered. He has plans for his funds...
6. The Ghosts, via Hutch, were offered membership in The Syndicate, under the halfling crimelord, Finn.

Lucky

Mikey kicked things off with an email inquiring about the status of his mother, as he felt this would directly affect his decisions about whether to become a, for lack of a better word, "Cleric" of Luck (and yes, he chose the Luck Domain). While Lucky is not a Cleric per se, he is a devotee of Olladra, an Eberron deity. I took Olladra over Pathfinder's Callistria, because it didn't seem right that a hobbit/goblin would have anything to do with a deity as Elven as Callistria. Olladra made more sense in both mine and Mikey's mind, since one of her forms is a halfling woman. Lucky came to this decision through his studies at the Freeport Institute. The Pirate's Guide says that the Institute occasionally takes in people of lower classes, and it fit with Lucky's goals. Again, we're trying to create a sort of Cleric who isn't Clergy. As Mikey put it, "I am going to play it so subtle. As roguey a cleric as possible. No lavish prayers (his faith is internal, prayers silent). A private faith. The most pious he'll get is his nightly hour spent quietly on the roofs, thinking. The others probably don't even know exactly what's up. And no one would call him a priest, except possibly a mentor of his at the institute."

Here are the results of Lucky's REC rolls:

1.You were accepted to study at the Freeport Institute through a special scholarship deal you suspect Finn had some hand in. The fact you could pay your own tuition didn't hurt. This is where you got your interest in probability/luck theory (like chaos theory in a fantasy world!).
2.Your mother had a very good year with an investment deal she had paid money into, and was able to retire from work at the brothel. She now lives in a small apartment in the Eastern District
3. You were given a set of throwing knives by your mom. They have terrible balance, but you carry them for sentimental reasons, and as a last resort. They look really badass, which is a good thing. -1 in combat, but +1 to intimidate.
4. You helped solve a minor crime in your neighborhood, which involved going to someone's house with clubs, bats, and saps, and telling the perp to leave Freeport and never do what they did (threaten a young girl a few doors down) ever again.
5. You broke your arm in rooftop running and were laid up for awhile.
6. You were given your own set of thieves tools by your mom, but they aren't very good. You use them for sentimental reasons, even though they don't provide you with a bonus. You're wondering about asking Gar to give them some boost.

Mikey informed me, right before the third game, that Lucky commissioned a masterwork crossbow with the words "Good" and "Luck" on either side of the lathe (crosspiece).

Tuck
Blaine isn't a big fan of gaming in-between games, so his six years was a straightforward process without much back-and-forth.

1. Got in a relationship with a girl, and it stuck. I asked Blaine, "Does she clean Tuck up, or is she just a tavern wench or prostitute?" He went with tavern wench, a halfling girl named Lily, who does her best to clean him up. Blaine gave a very cool "reveal" of this to the other players, in-character-voice, repeating the phrase, "We're just doing our best" several times.

2. Discovered some ruins outside the city while drunk one night and it started raining. You slept just down the first flight of stairs, but were slow to enter further. This happened a week ago.

3. Lost a few months in one of the years drinking heavily and doing very little of substance. You went gambling to generate drinking money, and currently owe the house 50 Lords (gp). You're looking for a job to cover that cost, as it was a few months back, and Finn is threatening to take it out of you with a few thugs.

4. You stole a very expensive item a few years back. You may choose one +1 weapon to add to your arsenal.

5. You made friends with Poppy Bragg, head of the Longshoremen's Union, who keep the docks a safe place. He hires you as muscle on an ongoing basis.

6. One night when you were wandering drunk, you're relatively convinced you found the doorway to that realm Sophie Steadman told the story about. Terrified, you've never gone back, but you know exactly where the portal is, up in Drac's End.

Mokey

Jeff is also not much of an "in-between" gamer, but like Blaine, he did a great job of incorporating his six years into game play.

1. You bumped into Sophie Steadman (the storyteller) two years after you left Cleaves. She had changed her name to Trinia Sabor because Simon Midwich (the leader of the Fork and Knives) had been following her around. You struck up a relationship, which became a romance. You've been with Trinia since.

2. You pulled off a major theft, and are now the owner of a visiting pirate's +1 Dragon flintlock gun, masterwork. It's a very impressive weapon, and since the pirate left town, you're free to brandish it on a belt you keep slung across your chest.

3. You pulled off a second major heist, adding a Gorgon Rifle to your armaments. You'll still be awkward with the weapons unless you choose to pursue firearms as your preferred weapon (you have to choose either archery or two weapon fighting as your level two feat, but given that you're in Freeport and you're an urban ranger, I'll open it up to include firearms as well). If you're totally nonplussed with this and wish to stick to your archery, I'll change those items. (Jeff chose to run with the firearms, which worked out well in the third game.)

4. You laid low in the wake of those two heists, as you didn't want to generate too much heat in your direction. You were sick with the flu.

5. Tovac offered you a position as a deputy of the guard in Drac's End. (Which Jeff accepted for Mokey - the way he sees it, he polices Drac's End, but works with Finn's Syndicate in the Eastern District because there is no law enforcement there taking care of business.)

6. You lost a lot of money gambling recently, and currently owe the house 300 Lords. You're looking hard for a job that pays very well.

There it is! Six Long Years, on the record! I recommend one roll/month or year, depending on how long the "break" is. I had six years to do, so I went with one roll per year, because there was no way I was doing 72.

Random Events Chart

2011-08-11T15:20:00.000-07:00

I said I wouldn't be writing until after the next game, but I wanted to share the process by which we facilitated the jump of six years. As I've mentioned before at the blog, we used to be hardcore Rolemaster players. While many of the complications of Rolemaster have been jettisoned, I occasionally consult tables that were extremely useful to me over the years. One of those tables is the Random Events Chart from Rolemaster Companion IV.

Unlike many random events charts in RPGs, the Rolemaster version was dedicated to small events, not big world events, although Rolemaster Companion 7 contained such a chart. The one I used was intended for "generating events when a PC or group of PCs rest or retire for a period of time." As with all things Rolemaster, it uses percentile dice, and a roll of 01-05 results in an open ended negative "fumble" roll (re-roll and subtract the result from your initial roll), and a roll of 95-00 results in a open ended positive "critical" roll (re-roll and add the result to your initial roll).

I went through my books, tracked it down, and used it with some modifications for our six year jump, making one roll for each year. Here is my adjusted version, scaled for a criminal element urban campaign in Freeport (all apologies to the copyright holder, but I'm hoping my modifications exempt me from an act of copyright infringement - also, this table is too cool to languish in torrent PDF hell):

-100-<: Jailed in the Hulks - permanent: once you go in, you don't come out
-99-98: Run afoul of/hunted by evil deity
-97-95: Run afoul of/hunted by major evil cult
-94-92: Cursed/branded/marked
-91-89: Death of friend/close relative
-88-86: Make major enemy
-85-83: Lose major magic item
-82-80: Lose major amount of money
-79-77: Major wound--stat deterioration STR, DEX, and/or CHA based on location
-76-74: Major mental illness (use rules for insanity)
-73-71: Major illness -- stat deterioration
-70-67: Convicted of major crime
   -66 : Roll again, add/subtract 66 and take both results
-65-63: Friend/relative convicted of major crime (should not be another PC)
-62-60: Academic/training/experimental error
-59-57: Thrown out of guild/society
-65/54: Run afoul of minor evil cult
-53-51: Minor accident/injury
-50-48: Lose minor magic item
-47-44: Lose minor amount of money
-43-40: Accident/injury to friend/relative
-39-36: Out with society
-35-32: Involved in local Disaster
-31-28: Minor illness
-27-24: Lose a job
-23-20: Run afoul of authorities (was originally bandits/thieves, but my players are the bandits and thieves)
-19-16: Lose mundane item
-15-12: Convicted of minor crime or misdemeanor
-11-08: Went hungry/starved
-07-04: Political goof/out of favor
-03-00: Beat up by local toughs/bouncers/muggers
01-04: Social faux pas
05-25: Life is boring/uneventful
26-35: Offered guild/societal membership
36-45: Short, troubled relationship
46-55: Short, positive relationship
56-60: Accused of, but not convicted of minor crime
61-65: Discovered/explored ancient ruins/abandoned house/warehouse
   66:   Roll again, add/subtract 66 and use both results.
67-71: Mundane award/recognition (this is important for our game, as we're about to include reputation points, as in the Iron Kingdoms line)
72-76: Long, troubled relationship
77-81: Long, positive relationship
82-86: Make minor influential friend/contact
87-91: Friend/relative successful
92-96: Gain job opportunity
97-101: Travel to another country
102-106: Good health: (increase one physical stat by 1)
107-111: In good with society
112-116: Gain normal item
117-121: Gain normal monetary sum (For my players, successful heist!)
122-126: Marked by a deity
127-131: View different realm or plane
132-136: Slay major monster/menace
137-141: Save important personage
142-146: Make major friend/contact/ally
147-151: Gain a rich item
152-156: Gain rich monetary sum (a big strike! According to Iron Kingdoms, this may mean you can't practice your wrongdoing in the place you pulled this off in ever again.)
157-161: Offered admittance to a special/secret society
162-171: Influenced/quested by a deity
172-176: Accused of, but not convicted of, major crime
177-181: Major award/recognition/title
182-186: Prevented local disaster
187-189: Travel to different realm/plane
190-192: Gain artifact
193-195: Gain very rich monetary sum
196-197: Meet deity
198-199: Befriended by deity
    200:    Deified

There you go! Hope it helps y'all in your gaming. I recommend one roll per year or month, depending on how long your break is. I went with years, because there was no way I was going to do 72 rolls.

Game 02: Lamm's Little Lambs

2011-07-13T13:33:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned last post, I'm mixing a number of sourcebooks as adventure hooks. Last game, one of the hooks I threw was the beginning of Edge of Anarchy, the first book in the Curse of the Crimson Throne series from Paizo. The full adventure path of Curse of the Crimson Throne doesn't work perfectly for my urban Freeport PCs, so I've adjusted certain adventure points in the series to suit my needs.I've also included the map image from the inside of the Pirate's Guide to Freeport, which I found online. I recommend getting the map from Green Ronin, as it's always awesome to point to a location for PCs. I reference our wall map regularly, and once you start reading this post, you'll see why.

The game began with a few housekeeping items, and the realization we were missing Tuckery/Blaine, the halfling drunken brute (Barbarian archetype) who was going to make contact with Mickey Beestinger, leader of the gang Tuck belongs to, the Stingers. This was to get extra muscle. Without Blaine present, I made the quick adjustment that he'd already gone to make contact, and ended up needing to go along on a job with the Stingers. To keep the assistance Mickey would have given, I had a note delivered to Cleaves, telling the PCs to go to Strebeck's Beer Hall in the Eastern District, where they would meet their contact, Ethie.

The PCs then went about a few "day in the life of" moments that were all aimed at getting them prepped to carry out their first job as a crew: to kill Gaedren Lamm, an old thief who runs a crew of orphan pickpockets, and treats them poorly in the bargain. Hutch, a 13-year-old Survivor, and self-appointed leader of the group, accepted this job from Zellara, a fortune-teller who lives near the boundary between Scurvytown and the Docks. Mokey, and 11-year-old Urban Ranger had been along to accept the job, and both were very impressed with the gold coins Zellara had given them as an advance on the job. As they flashed their "Lords" (the Freeport coinage is Lords (gp), Skulls (sp), and Slash (bp) - we're using the Gamemastery coins to have actual coins on the table. Highly recommended - there's nothing like a coin for a prop), Lucky, our 20-year-old gobling rogue, scoffed that it wasn't enough money for killing a man, and challenged whether any of these kids had actually killed someone. There was some great banter and bluster in this scene, with my players adopting brilliant character voices, arguing in a manner reminiscent of the kids in Stand by Me or more recently, Super 8. Finally though, they agreed to do the job, with certain conditions and cautions from Lucky.

Everyone dispersed to their odd-jobs they are farmed out from the orphanage for. Ra'id, our 12-year-old Azhar rogue (this new Freeport/Pathfinder race are related to efreeti in some way) went to his job at Omar Nkota's Fang and Claw, a seller of exotic beasts. There, he located a few tools and secreted them on his person for use in the evening's work: a hammer, a crowbar, and a chain. All of these, along with nearly all the gear, are distributed to players using Paizo's Gamemastery Item Cards. If I had more time, I'd be happy to make my own custom cards, but as a father, husband, graduate student, and full time post-secondary instructor, there ain't enough time in the day. These cards are life-savers. To those, we've added all the Gamemastery Face Cards from the Gamemastery decks, which I'm slowly but surely assigning to Freeport denizens, occasionally printing off custom cards of individuals who are either not ongoing NPCs, or who have no corresponding card in the Paizo decks.

While Ra'id worked at Fang and Claw, Lucky was trying to procure items for the group's 9-year-old half-orc alchemist, Gar Irontooth, who wanted to make a poison for the assassination of Gaedren Lamm. I had distributed a front page of The Shipping News, Freeport's newspaper at the beginning of the game. The only complaint I have with The Pirate's Guide to Freeport: A City Setting for Fantasy Roleplaying is that it doesn't have separate sections for PCs and DMs. This is good for the DM, since everything is organized for their benefit, but precocious players who love reading Player's Handbooks are left with nothing. So as a solution, I'm doling out exposition via The Shipping News. You'll note I have an ad for a herbalist's shop on the front page, run by a woman Gar met in the last game. Now, Lucky has contact with Delinda Knorbertaal, and so we make repeat contacts, firmly embedding the NPC in the player's minds. Anyone familiar with the adventure in the back of the Freeport Companion: Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Edition: A Sourcebook for the Freeport Campain Setting will know that Delinda plays a major role. I wanted the characters to have a connection before unfolding those events.

As a rabbit trail, it's fascinating to read adventure modules and adventure paths with the idea that the characters are ignoble and denizens, rather than visiting wanderers and altruistic heroes. It really changes the dynamic, but makes certain moments far more interesting, since you don't have to spout a lot of clunky exposition about who they're talking to: if it's a first meeting, there will likely be more, and if it's a second or third, you're building on those initial meetings, doling out information bit-by-bit.

Lucky failed at getting all the ingredients for Gar's poison: Delinda was suspicious and refuses to sell him everything. He is left needing to find salt-peter, which is likely found at an armory. In this case, at Otto's Baldrics and Blades in the heart of Scurvytown. Lucky's plan is simple, and aimed at keeping some of the money left over from the Lord given to him by Mokey to procure the supplies for the poison. Gar wants to steal some knives, since Mokey had said to get him knives in addition to the poison components. Gar reasons if he can get the knives and salt peter for free, he's up a few skulls.

Meanwhile, Gar has been sorting books at Finnegan's Books, when Delinda Knorbertaal enters (yeah, there are some minor timeline issues here, but I imagined her closing up shop after Lucky left, and accompanying her godson/nephew, Aporcus Beadle, to the book shop). Delinda brought Gar matches as a gift, encouraging him to try and figure out the compounds needed to make these fire-strikers. After she went in search of a new book, Beadle, youthful loser he is, asks: "Hey kid, can you make snake weed?" Gar arranges to make the snake weed, a drug, for Beadle, if the older boy brings him the raw ingredients.

Ra'id and Lucky come by Finnegan's Books and pick up Gar from work, as the noonday sun climbs over Freeport. The friends take a rickshaw across the city to Otto's Blades and Baldrics, making their plan as they go. At the same time, Hutch and Mokey are getting lunch with Oskar Broadhammer, their foreman on odd jobs in the docks district. They'd spent the morning working at The Shipping News, hanging out with newsboy Curbside. Hutch suggests Strebeck's Beer Hall as a place for food, since it's not far from The Shipping News, and Oskar obliges. Once there, Hutch makes contact with Ethlyn Strebeck, who is aghast at Hutch's age: Tuckery has left weapons in a bag behind the counter, and while she is remiss to hand them over, she finally does, muttering about the depths the city is sinking to. Apparently Tuckery and the Stingers, along with other gangs, are massing for some big event in Drac's End that evening.

Gar, Ra'id, and Lucky arrive at Otto's Baldric's and Blades. After casing the joint for some good hardware, Lucky exits, the signal for Ra'id to distract Otto while Gar throws a stink bomb. Gar's stink bombs are potent devices - a failed Fort save results in nausea. While Ra'id and Gar hold their noses, Otto Parsam, former adventurer and normally very formidable opponent rolls a one on his Fort save. I'm a fan of the "fumble" from my Rolemaster days, and went with projectile vomiting, diarrhea, and an allergic reaction. Otto ends up in the street, reeking of puke and shit and trying to breathe properly, while Gar and Ra'id loot the shop: a Reflex save was needed by them - any number above the success resulting in a grabbed item. Gar ended up with the Salt Peter and a punching dagger, while Ra'id grabbed a Star Knife. The boys were witness to the depravity of the town guard under Boss Tillinghast, as two guards in the street reply "fuck it" to pursuing the thieves or helping Otto.

The PCs are reunited at a prearranged rendezvous point in an alley in Scurvytown, where they reveal their weapons. Tuckery's gift bag to Hutch and Mokey contains two kukri knives, a dagger, a club, two hoods, two masks, and some war paint for disguise. While the boys are distributing the weapons, two men step into the alley and call to Mokey: they turn out to be Tanko and Tovac, two good cops in a bad city. Aleksander Tovac (pronounced To-Whack, "Like what it's going to feel like when I hit you with the sap") is the brains, a Sherlock Holmes in the making; Tanko Sandek is the muscle. I use a Polish accent for Tovac, and a Cuban one for Tanko, which quickly endeared my PCs to these guardsmen. Tovac asks Mokey to keep his eyes peeled: the guards are looking into yet another bloody death in Drac's End by some manner of beast, and reveal there have been more, but there isn't much left usually. A foot, a hand, sometimes just a bloody smear. They are mystified, but assure the gang it isn't Omar's beasts. Sadly, the gangs of Freeport seem to think it is, which is why they're massing - to assault Fang and Claw.

Shane as Ra'id was brilliant here, showing genuine concern for Omar. Tanko assuaged these fears, reminding Ra'id of the height of the compound wall at Fang and Claw, as well as of the nature of the animals inside, Omar's own experience at staying alive, and the trained guards he employs. "And what are you going to do about it? What are two cops going to do about it?" Tanko asks. It would have been a mint diversion in a game with some powered heroes, but as you'll see, these kids weren't much of a match for low level fighters, let alone a hundred or so gang-members bent on a lynching.

The group scouts out Lamm's hideout, a fishery south of Scurvytown. Lamm squats in abandoned buildings like this one. Observing likely hiding places and entrances, the group waits until nightfall, consequently witnessing a gorgeous sunset over the ocean. Once night falls, the group steals into the fishery by stealth. It was pretty brilliant, albeit frustrating, as I'd blown up the fishery map from the adventure path and made it into a battlemap (another digression - why can't Paizo release these as printable PDFs? The map folios would be far better, and worth my money if they included battlemaps of the encounters in the adventure path books). All that work for the upper floor was for naught, as the PCs beelined for the lower floor. This was, again, the result of having a character with connections: Hutch had worked for Lamm previously, and so had some idea of his habits and strategies.

I won't go into details as those have spoilers for the Edge of Anarchy adventure path, but suffice to say stealth was successful, and Lamm met a bloody end. I had the killers make Will saves or sick up from the realization they'd just killed a man. The old man's screams woke his compatriots, particularly a half-orc named Giggles, named for what he does when he's in a killing mood. Apparently my maniacal giggle, combined with the threat of a flail and an acrobatic jump that brought them face to face with this killer was the right mix, as my players confessed a bit of PC terror towards Giggles. Again, it's funny to see how much the dynamic changes when PCs have no means, and little means of procuring better means. You can hire them for a gold coin, and really threaten them with a CR2 orc.

The gang escapes through a bedroom window, having killed Lamm, stolen a footlocker and a hatbox, and evaded Giggles. Their evasion is short lived, as Scurvytown guards, greedy for what's in the footlocker and certain of being able to kill a bunch of kids and a gobling, give chase. The situation got grim quickly, as Lucky and Hutch were stabbed and cut. The others turned to help them, only to see a massive orc step out of the night shadows and dispatch the guards summarily. "Is Gar safe?" is the only thing the mystery orc asks before trotting off into the night. The group nods mutely, returning to Gar, who is safe, standing guard over the footlocker and hatbox.

With the characters beaten and bedraggled, I switched the soundtrack drastically from tracks from The Illusionist, The Social Network, and Inception, playing Jay-Z's "Hard Knock Life." I never use pop songs as gaming soundtrack, especially rap, but our players have given the game a definite gangsta feel, so it was appropriate under the circumstances. A late night visit to a pawn's shop nets the group 200gp apiece, some 150gp each short of the deserved price of the items in the footlocker (the joys of being a DM in a crooked town!). Drunk with wealth, the group holes up at Strebecks, having been warned by Tovac not to bother trying to get back to Cleaves with all the gangs looking to assault Fang and Claw.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Looking in the hat box, they find a head, but assume it is some friend of Zellara's, and go to bring her the bad news. When they arrive at her home, they find it empty, and clearly abandoned for some time. The smell of incense, so strong in Hutch and Mokey's last visit, is absent. Only their previous footprints decorate the dusty floor. There is the sudden epiphany as the group puts "black hair" on the head in the box and the image of Zellara on the Paizo face card together. Hutch removes the head from the box, to find a red velvet box at the bottom, containing a Harrow Deck. This was one of my favorite plot lines from Edge of Anarchy, and in addition to the child-thief ring, made it a must-have for the Freeport story line. I've long been a fan of tarot imagery, and love the work Paizo's done on the physical Harrow Deck. As the PCs fanned out the cards, hands appeared, then arms, and finally, the rest of Zellara. I ended the adventure with these words: "Shall we see what the future holds?"

The next game is in two weeks, and the players will be aging six years, and going up to level 2. I'll see you then.

Game 01: Cleaves' Home for Foundlings and Wayward Children

2011-06-23T13:15:00.000-07:00

I can't give away any secrets, but I wanted to chronicle two things in this post. First, the books I used as prep to set the stage, and the events that took place.

As I stated in my last post, I got the idea to do a Freeport campaign over Christmas break '10. I previewed some of the books in PDF format by grabbing copies off sharing sites, and once I decided Freeport was the place to be, ordered The Pirate's Guide to Freeport, one of the best campaign sourcebooks I've ever seen, the Freeport Companion: Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Edition, so I didn't have to go making up character stat blocks, and Denizens of Freeport, so I'd have a massive cast to draw from. I love giving the sense of a lived-in world to my players, and sadly it's never been something I've pulled off to my satisfaction, even though I knew Middle Earth up and down, backwards and forwards by the time I stopped gaming in Tolkien's world.

Simply put, a world is more than enough. World-spanning adventures are quests. You don't get to know people along the way. I wanted to run a game that had the feel of the Ben Affleck film The Town to it: people grew up, lived, and died here, and there were adventures to be had within that context. I'm also a long-time fan of Robert Aspirin and Lynn Abbey's Thieves' World series, and relished the idea of running episodic adventures set in a world where larger machinations were taking place.

Accordingly, while I have all the Freeport adventures save Black Sails Over Freeport, I won't be running them in the standard fashion jamming adventure hooks down my players' throats. If they take the bait, that's one thing. If not, there are points down other adventure paths that will intersect with those larger events. One of the big reasons I chose this route was that I found the Freeport Trilogy exceedingly contrived in its execution. Further, most of the Freeport series of adventures assumes your party is from out-of-town, and is good-of-heart. This campaign was supposed to be about being a citizen of Freeport, and being a bit black-hearted. All the players are one stripe or another of neutral. So much of the Freeport adventures just don't work whole cloth. Instead, I'm looking to weave that material into my own storyline of Freeport criminals rising to power. What this effectively means is that I will occasionally have the players run into the events of the original Freeport series, starting with the Freeport Trilogy. While they're rising from urchins to underworld masterminds, it's Freeport sleuth Aleksander Tovac who's solving the mysteries of Freeport Trilogy. As he's been a friend to one of the characters, Tovac will occasionally tap him as a "source of information," involving my group of ne'er-do-wells in his courageous exploits.

'For the starting point of the adventure, I chose one of the orphanages in Freeport. Cleaves' Home for Foundlings and Wayward Children is off the beaten path, appearing in Cults of Freeport. All characters were required to start as children, using these adjustments to abilities and scores, or as goblins or halflings - anyone who could pass for a child.

The Players and Characters:

Taylor: Hutchins "Hutch" - a human survivor (New class from the Freeport Companion: Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Edition) - 13 years old
Blaine: Tuckery "Tuck" - Halfling Drunken Barbarian - 25 years old
Jeff: Mokey - Human Urban Ranger - 11 years old
Geo: Terrance Garside / "Gar" Irontooth - half-orc Alchemist - 10 years old
Mikey: Jamie "Lucky" Goodcakes - Gobling (goblin/halfling mix) - 20 years old
Shane: Ra'id Telour - Azhar (New race from the Freeport Companion: Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Edition) rogue - 12 years old

I began the game with a quick "guided meditation" to the music of Two Steps From Hell. Two Steps From Hell create trailer music, and I was using the track "Fallout" for the opening title music of our Freeport campaign, were it an ongoing television series. I like a cinematic approach to DMing. Following this, I switched to "Secret Plot" from the soundtrack to The Illusionist by Philip Glass. That soundtrack formed most of the music for Cleaves Home for this first game.

With this music playing, I got the game underway. The 25 year old halfling Tuckery is woken up by Hutch, finding he's been shanghaied and left to play the part of orphan. Intrigued by the plight of the children, Tuck decides to stick it out for awhile and enjoy the free room and board. Ra'id discovers Lucky in the fireplace (cleaning it out - he's a chimney sweep), and the two make a pact of convenience: Ra'id needs someone on the outside to get him things, and Lucky wants to attend class and make a better life for himself. Moreover, the gobling has a crush on 13-year-old Sophie Steadman, who tells the children bedtime stories. Gar, new to Cleaves' and still reeling from the violent death of his half-orc mother, is terrorized by Cleaves' bullying gang, the Forks and Knives, which the other children pejoratively call the Forkin' Knives, or, more crassly, Fuckin' Knaves. Hutch creates further enmity by expertly lodging a fork in the shoulder of Simon Midwich, the Knives' leader.

The group was split up for their daily work assignments, and was introduced to Freeport citizens via banal, everyday encounters. I introduced Delinda Knorbertaal and Alain Finnegan (of Finnegan's Books) to Gar; C.Q. Calame and the Shipping News crew, specifically newsboy Curbside to Mokey, Hutch, and Tuck while they were out helping Oskar Broadhammer, a dwarven jack-of-all-trades, with odd jobs. Ra'id and Lucky worked the day at Omar Nkotan's Fang and Claw, mucking out stables and cleaning the chimney respectively. This was the "day in the life" portion of the game, and was entirely open-ended.

While working, the urchins were given opportunities to search for objects on the street. One of these became a mysterious letter from Zellara, a woman of mystery, to Hutch, speaking directly of Gaedren Lamm, Hutch's former employer. Zellara and Lamm are NPCs from Edge of Anarchy, the first adventure in Paizo's Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path: as I said, the PCs will engage in their own track of adventures, while parallel events from the Freeport Trilogy are unfolding. None of those events have occurred yet: Drac's Lighthouse is being built, but the events of Death in Freeport are still five years away. My plan was to run two games with the PCs as children, then give them a five-year fast-forward to level 2, and full stats. Then, the events from Death in Freeport would be taking place on the periphery.

The adventure hook works, and Hutch, Mokey, and Tuck end up at Zellara's where she reads her Harrow Deck (I was so impressed by this aspect of the Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path I decided to include it in my storyline. No spoilers from that just yet!), and asks the three to take vengeance for her murdered son upon Gaedren Lamm, a local criminal who uses children as his workers. They agree, seeing as Zellara is willing to pay them each 1 gp in advance, and 1 gp upon completion (when you start PCs dirt poor, a Gold Piece as reward goes a long way). They return to Cleaves before curfew, and get ready for bed.

The bedtime story told by Sophie Steadman is from the sidebar "Ruler of Skulls and Shadows," found in The Pirate's Guide to Freeport. At this point, the characters have three possible routes to run with their storylines, but are only focusing on the first, and most obvious involving the hit on Gaedren Lamm. Everyone but Hutch and Ra'id nod off to sleep: these boys end up in trouble with one of Cleaves' Matrons for staying up late. I had done repeat visits of the Matron, which created a false sense of security for when the Fork and Knives entered the dormitory to put a literal hit on Gar and Ra'id for an earlier insult involving a stink bomb. The ensuing combat sees Gar badly beaten with clubs before the Knives run. Tuck nearly kills one, bludgeoning him senseless with a paperweight inside a pillowcase. Hutch beats one of Ra'id's assailants nearly to death with his bare hands (the Survivor class is the pugilist/table leg equivalent of the Monk) before the Matrons arrive. The rest of the Fork and Knives have retreated, to lie in wait for a better opportunity.

While these events have been unfolding, Lucky has been returning home, to the Devil's Luck, an Eastern District whorehouse and gaming hall, where he was born and raised. On the way, he runs into Thurber Sime, an artist with a strange gift: though blind, Thurber can see - the interior of the soul. He draws other realities, one might say, and has drawn an image of numerous goblin-ghoul creatures walking the streets of Freeport. Sadly, he cannot say who he was drawing, for he only hears them. "Children," is all he can offer. "I think they were children." But which children - those of Cleaves, Lamm's little Lambs, or some other group of juvenile street toughs?

Gar and Ra'id spend the night in the infirmary, and in the morning, plans are laid to go and deal with Gaedren Lamm. This final moment was played out with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' "Pieces Form the Whole" from the soundtrack to The Social Network. It's my "heist" music.

One last gear note. We're using almost all the face card sets from Paizo, as I want to have the characters be able to remember NPCs, if only by a face or action. The face cards are passed around when a new character is introduced. If only one PC meets the NPC, only they see the card before it is slid into protective card collector sheets hung on the wall, which will act as an ongoing Rogues' Gallery.

This game was played on Tuesday, June 21 from 7:00-10:00 p.m.

We're Back! Freeport/Pathfinder Campaign begins next week!

2011-06-15T13:22:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been over a year since the "Steam Lords" run of adventures ended and I hung up the DM's hat. We switched from Rolemaster to Dungeons and Dragons 3.5, then made the jump to Pathfinder in September of last year. While a few of my players were apprehensive, everyone is sold on it now, and having a great time rolling characters up in a fraction of the time it used to take! We've lost three of our crew, but that's made for a much more manageable table. I've vowed to never run a game with more than six people playing.

My transition to player was a trip down memory lane, though somewhat adjusted: Shane O. took over for me and ran the first adventure I ever played, Palace of the Silver Princess. I bought Palace back in '81, and convinced my dad to be the DM for our first game. He killed us off in the first 30 minutes, and closed the books and left the table. Kudos to my dad for doing it at all--however, that was the day I decided I needed to become a DM. I was one of those frustrated DMs, trying to play a character and be the DM, which meant few of my early adventures had much depth or complexity. I'd been just DMing for over a decade when Shane asked if I'd ever played without being the DM. I told him the story of Palace, and he decided that would have to be our first game - we needed to right that wrong, complete that story, storm that dungeon.
I was a Cleric of Heironeous with an appetite for baked goods. It was a standard group of heroes, and some of the best fun I've ever had.

In the fall, Shane ran a Planescape campaign, and I played an Aasimar/Human Bard, a reluctant hero who just wanted to play a great venue. Shane became a father in December, so he was relieved of duty. Longtime player George H. took a try at DMing in January, running the Pathfinder adventure path Rise of the Runelords. We made it through the first adventure, Burnt Offerings two weeks ago. I played a Paladin of Erastil, a backwoods hick with aspirations, based on a mix of the trio from O Brother Where Art Thou? and Tommy Lee Jones in Lonesome Dove. It was another really good time.

However, while I've enjoyed the break, I've been chomping at the bit to run a campaign again since Christmas. While on vacation in Houston, TX, I went to a pirate exhibit at a museum, and started thinking of running a pirate campaign. I also watched The Town and wondered about running a game with criminals as PCs. A web search turned up Freeport, and after looking over some PDFs of the books online, I ordered a copy of The Pirate's Guide to Freeport and the Freeport Companion: Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Edition. I thought about running the classic Freeport Trilogy, but decided to go more freeform instead. I can't give any details yet, but I'm running a combination of the Freeport sourcebooks and two of the Pathfinder adventure paths: Curse of the Crimson Throne and Council of Thieves. What I can say at this point is that I'm starting the group out as children, with their stats adjusted according to this table. We have six players: Taylor (human Survivor (Pathfinder Freeport Class)), Jeff (human Urban Ranger), George (Gar Irontooth, half-orc Alchemist), Mikey (Gobling (goblin/halfling) Rogue), and Shane (Azhar (Freeport race) Rogue). I'll post character profiles in the coming weeks. For now, I just wanted to say that the Steam Lords blog is back, albeit with a new story and system.

I'll be sharing some of my setup process once the first game has come and gone. That will include what we used for Battlemaps, and some thoughts about how awesome Green Ronin publications is.

The end of the Line

2010-03-24T12:41:00.000-07:00

While it's unlikely that the title of this post will evoke a Tolkienesque reference, it's a steampunk play on "The Road Goes Ever On." But rail-lines do not. And this adventure has finally, after nearly two years, ended. What began in May of 2008 has been concluded. My apologies to those who have followed our adventures for not keeping you informed as well as I should have. For anyone who stuck around, here's how it all ended after the Damnation episode:

First, the character of Tari underwent some radical moments, due to scheduling conflicts with players, resulting in a convoluted backwards timeline. Everything "Tari" did in Damnation was actually the work of a Nightblade, an assassin specializing in magic related to poison and deception. The Nightblade took on Tari's appearance and mannerisms and infiltrated the heroes' ranks. It explains a great deal about how the rest of the action played out, so it requires a mention at this point.

The Nightblade Tari reported the actions of the company as they headed west to the Ashen Shores to protect the Frontier against the Second Darkness's assault. This was why their defense would be met by a massive airship strike. Upon arriving at the Ashen Shores, Maeliana, Braith, and Sterling took flight upon Roac, and were accordingly the first to spot the airships. The forces on the ground were occupied with repelling a naval attack, which the Eagle Crew had done much to thwart. Ultimately, the airship strike could not be stopped by the Eagle Crew, and they were forced to abandon their companions. During the battle, the last King was killed in a heroic attempt to stop the Witch King's airship. An explosion buried Rusty, Aiden, Spooner, and Klovis. Chance, the "new face in Damnation" was also lost in the battle.

The image that inspire the Black School.

At this point, I shifted the game to Orthanc, to engage in an experiment of PC dynamics. What would happen if everyone was a magic user? Further wanting to riff on steampunking popular fantasy, I made Orthanc/Isengard into The Black School, a Steampunked-Middle-Earth version of Hogwarts, but in a universe where 'Voldemort' effectively won. So the students are learning magic, but they're also convinced that the current world order under Saruman and the Witch-King is the right one. I won't get into excessive detail here, except to say that we explored how industrialization of magic items would affect a world like Middle-Earth, thinking of magic as an energy source, and thus introducing an energy crisis to the game. Ultimately, the student PCs became aware of Saruman's deceptions when Morsein, now Lord of Moria, brought the defeated Balrog's Maiar essence to become the power source for an infernal machine: a great colossus. The students then struck out from the school for the Library of Annuminas in the North Frontier, believing the key to defeating Saruman might lie there. Tari was one of the students, having left for the Black School by invitation, the action which got her out of the way so the Nightblade could take her place. Tari was instrumental in changing the PCs minds' about Saruman and the Second Darkness.

Steampunk Gandalf?

Meanwhile, Eagle Crew met up with Gandalf, in a steampunked homage to the return of Gandalf in LOTR. However, due to the magical energy crisis, Gandalf has not returned from the Undying Lands in the wake of his battle with the Balrog, but has rather been rebuilt by the Dwarves of Moria, who found his ruined body outside the West Gate, where it had fallen. I got the idea from this image of Samuel Colt as rendered in the Steampunk Legends and Myths challenge at CGSociety. As in LOTR, Gandalf has returned to tell the three remaining companions (Braith, Sterling, and Maeliana) that they are needed to protect the princess, the King's daughter. The trio rescues the princess from an airstrike on the ruins of Far North (Fornost) where the remnants of the resistance had fled to.

While all these events unfolded, Klovis, Aiden, Chance, and Spooner awoke on an airship, taken captive by the Witch King. Nightblade Tari is with them, and while they find it odd that she is there, they accept her as part of their company. They escape their cells, and in the ensuing battle, Aiden ignites the airship. As the airship falls burning from the sky, Aiden mortally wounds the Witch King with Narsil, which was on the deck of the ship as a trophy from the battle at the Ashen Fields. Chance is killed in the battle: Klovis, Aiden, Nightblade Tari, and Spooner are transported to the shores of Lake Nenuial, scant miles from the ruins of Annuminas. Unconscious, the Nightblade is revealed for who she truly is, and the group sets out for the ruins to the south.

In a bit of a deus ex machina, all the characters converged, so that PCs were playing two characters at once at times. They have all come to the Library of Annuminas, but to what end? The campaign ended in a two-part "Library Crawl", a tribute to the roots of roleplaying's classic Dungeon Crawls. Inside the library were found ancient texts of taboo magic, books of theology relating to the Valar, and rooms filled with herbs and seeds from before the Second Darkness. Two powerful rooms are also located: a room which allowed time-travel, and a room with a floor detailing a map of Middle-Earth, which when activated, showed weather patterns, and movements of large bodies such as airships or armies. Using all these elements, the group decided to go back in time 20 years, build a printing press, print the books of magic and the Silmarillion and distribute these and the seeds as a quiet revolution.

Two of my players (Braith and Sterling) had taken the princess to Tharbad for a secret coronation. They were the witnesses of the change that came over the world in the blink of an eye when the timeline of the past was altered. They immediately forgot it, but at a gaming level I was able to show how the quiet actions of ecological and ideological revolution changed the world and ultimately defeated the Second Darkness. It was the perfect ending, and allowed me to tie up loose ends in a sort of "cut scenes" exposition at the end of the game.

So ends the thought experiment. What happens when you steampunk Middle-Earth? A lot. And ultimately, I concluded that you can't have the Shire back, as Tolkien also wrote. The industrialization of Middle-Earth could not be undone, but the minds of the people living within it could. And a balance between the pastoral romanticism of Tolkien and the technological ambivalence of steampunk was found.

Namarie!

The end is near!

2010-02-09T22:31:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to post an update - Steam Lords the campaign is not over, but it is coming to a close in the next few months. I've been reading some of the comments from folks, and wanted to say a quick thanks to those who have been following our "exploits" here on the web. My apologies for not keeping this site up. When I started working on my dissertation (about steampunk), I utilized the game as a thought experiment. In December of 2008, I started a blog called Steampunk Scholar, and that's been my blogging focus ever since. For those of you who were wanting to know more about our game in a more codified fashion, please note that I'll be posting on "How to steampunk your RPG" at the Steampunk Scholar site. The posts will be summary and reiteration of many of the posts from this blog. The posts will also contain observations I've made about the steampunk aesthetic, as observed by the thought experiment this game proved to be. Please come and check it out, starting this Friday, February 12. Thanks again for coming by and enjoying the portion of the ride we shared with all of you.

Synopsis of "Damnation" - Episode 3, Season 2

2009-07-22T10:20:00.001-07:00

Synopsis of Episode 3

March 24
The heroes flee Stratton following the firefight at the Eagle’s Nest Inn. They disperse into three groups: Farson and Thoron, the two apprentice Gunslingers, and Klovis, the enigmatic stranger who came upriver from Tharbad; Aiden, the stoker from the train the group escaped Moria Station aboard, Sterling and Braith, former owners of both the Overhang and the Eagle’s Nest Inns, and “Rusty,” the iron/brass-automaton, recently freed from the Stratton Keep; and Maeliana on the back of Roac the Great Eagle. Kaa lies dead in the Eagle’s Nest Inn, and Tari, while not forgotten, abandoned to her own devices. They arrange to meet in Damnation.

Maeliana and Roac track down the remaining bounty hunter and Roac kills him with one swipe of his talon.

Tari sees Kaa’s body among the dead brought to Chilperic’s to be prepared for burial. Chilperic advises her to leave Stratton as soon as she can.

Wistan leaves Stratton in the early morning in pursuit of the heroes, taking three of Herion’s best horses. By mid-afternoon, he has ridden the first nearly to death.

Tari leaves at nightfall to follow her friends. Along the road to Damnation, she finds Wistan’s abandoned horse and heals it. Invigorated by Tari’s Strengthening Song, the horse speeds along the road, following Wistan.

March 25
All parties en route to Damnation. At nightfall, Farson spots Wistan pursuing them.
Samwise Spooner, Damnation’s barber, and Salvino Gustavo Esquebar, a local gambler, engage in a game of cards with a local farmer and a stranger to town.

March 26
Braith, Sterling, Aiden, riding on Rusty, and staying off the road entirely, arrive in Damnation an hour after midnight. Aiden states he wants to explore the town, while Braith, Sterling and Rusty head for the King’s Rest Inn to see if they can contact someone in the Resistance.

Aiden wanders down to the train station to see about getting work, where a train is being readied to carry two Gunslinger platoons to the Ashen Shores, the former Grey Havens, now the Western Front of the Resistance. He overhears a conversation between Fairfax, leader of an insurgent Gunslinger platoon, and one of his aide de camp, revealing their intentions to assassinate Aranath, the current leader of the Gunslingers. Aiden uses magic to warn Aranath, who confronts Fairfax. Fairfax denies the accusation and asks where Aranath got such an idea – since Aranath acted upon Aiden’s Long Whisper, there is no way for him to substantiate his suspicion. The train prepares to leave for the Western Front. Aiden, unaware of the train’s final destination, sabotages the rails to prevent the journey, in the hopes it will thwart the assassination attempt.

Wistan reaches the apprentice Gunslingers and Klovis two hours before dawn. He casts spells of mind-destruction on both Farson and Thoron, resulting in the cart going out of control and crashing onto its side. Tari arrives in time to badly wound Wistan, who flees through magical means. She attends to the wounded Thoron and Farson, while Klovis sets to work repairing the cart.

The card game finishes after the stranger reveals himself to be Lincoln Barker, an enforcer for Neburcha, Master of the Trader’s Guild in Tharbad, to whom Sam Spooner is indebted. Spooner takes his leave of the card table, and heads back to his shop to ready himself to leave. Sterling observes that Lincoln is some sort of thug, while Braith has ascertained that Sam Spooner would be the man to talk to about contacting the Resistance. Salvino wins another hand from the farmer, who has surreptitiously pocketed some of Spooner’s money, and decides to return the money to his friend, and perhaps have another drink. Salvino heads for Spooner’s shop. Lincoln follows Salvino; Sterling and Braith follow Lincoln.

Maeliana and Roac arrive at Damnation, and after scouting the town from the air, land in the woods near the town. Maeliana is initially unsuccessful at getting past the gate warden, but finally succeeds through a combination of finer clothes and magical coercion. She begins looking for her friends.

Lincoln is joined by two henchmen, and they approach Spooner’s shop. Salvino is already inside, and Spooner apprises him of the situation. Salvino gives Spooner one of his pistols, which Spooner lays on his table before sitting down with his other revolver under the table, out of sight. Salvino hides in the back room. One of Lincoln’s men goes around the back of the house, but is apprehended by a very stealthy Braith, who peacefully dispatches the thug, taking his weapons. Lincoln enters the shop through the front and demands the money from Spooner.

The train embarks, and hitting Aiden’s sabotaged section of track, derails lightly. The Gunslingers leave the cars. Aiden, having ascertained that Fairfax was the man who was plotting the assassination, singles him out. Aranath confronts Fairfax yet again, this time employing magic. Fairfax is uncloaked as a traitor to the Resistance. The two Gunslinger platoons stand, pistols drawn, tension filling the air.

Braith enters Spooner’s shop through the back, but is nearly shot by Salvino before identifying himself as a friendly. Spooner shoots Lincoln in the leg from under the table. Lincoln’s thug shoots Spooner, the bullet breaking ribs, but glancing off the bone. Lincoln’s shot strikes Spooner in the leg, opening up his femoral artery. Sterling shoots the thug from outside, shattering his kneecap. Braith and Salvino enter from the rear of the shop and cut Lincoln down, Salvino shooting the enforcer through the eye.

Chance, another new face in Damnation, observes the standoff from his vantage point near the wall, and performs a movement of hands and fingers. Simultaneously, one of the Gunslingers fires a shot. The Varaja Standoff becomes a firefight. Aiden takes cover. The fight moves into the town.

Maeliana flees the fight, hiding behind Rusty, who has come to investigate the train’s derailing. While she stands in the shadow of the automaton, Rusty’s automatic weapon-system engages. Rusty’s right hand retracts into his forearm, to be replaced by a set of revolving cylinders, which spray bullets at the oncoming combatants, who are summarily mowed down in a gory mess.

Spooner begins performing surgery on himself to remove the bullet and sew himself up. Braith assists by tying a tourniquet. Sterling fires at the Gunslingers, uncertain of what is happening.

Chance causes a number of the Gunslingers’ clothes to burst into flame, then spotting Aranath, magically numbs the Gunslinger leader’s right hand. Arantath’s pistol falls from that hand, but he recovers and quickly draws his sword…a broken sword.

Braith, having moved to the roof of the shop, sees Narsil drawn in Aranath’s hand and has a sudden epiphany about his own delusions of being the lost King…he sees Fairfax draw his pistol to shoot Aranath and fires his own shot, shattering Fairfax’s hand. Fairfax retreats. Braith yells “protect the King!” to Sterling—Rusty hears, and moves to protect Aranath. The gunfight is at a draw. The insurgent Gunslingers begin to withdraw on horseback. As they exit the city, Tari and Klovis enter – Klovis and Fairfax stare at each other in recognition, although Klovis cannot remember why.

Salvino gives his “lucky deck” of cards to Spooner before disguising himself as a Gunslinger and duping his way into their confidence. Salvino is assigned to a squad of Gunslingers accompanying Aranath’s wife and daughter to Norbury, the ruins of Fornost Erain, for safety. The heroes agree to accompany the remaining Gunslingers to the Ashen Shores, provided the train can be repaired. Meanwhile, Maeliana goes to Cobman Greenwood, the tanner, and commissions a saddle and a harness for Roac.

Correspondence from Stratton, Rhudaur

2009-07-13T13:27:00.000-07:00

To Lord Ethacali, Governor of the Territory of Rhudaur, servant to His Most Awesome Majesty, the Witch King of Angmar, Greetings.
Your most humble servant Herion desires to apprise your most excellent Lordship of the events of the past few days. Two days ago, I received your directive to expect and assist a Royal Agent in the transportation of a valuable artifact. I did indeed meet Wistan yesterday, but in regrettable circumstance. The artifact Wistan was transporting is a Metal Golem which raged out of control until the company of imperial soldiers I promptly summoned stabilized the situation. A number of locals were prepared to grievously assault Wistan, requiring me to bring him into protective custody. At that time, he informed me of his mission and of the importance of the Metal Golem which I had wisely sequestered in the guard tower. Wistan, an amazingly personable gentleman, especially for an agent of such seniority, informed me that an essential component of the Metal Golem had been stolen, and that the controller of the same, disguised as an imperial badge, was also missing. Fortunately, a valuable contact I had cultivated, the new proprietor of the Wharf Rat tavern (now called The Eagle's Nest), was able to identify the thief, who was at that time resident in the tavern. I immediately dispatched the best company of Imperial Soldiers to retrieve these items. I recommended that Wistan accompany the troop, but he demurred, not wanting to draw greater attention to this matter. I assigned this outpost's best officer to lead this operation, and cast a word of command on him to assure> his utter devotion to the task. Most unexpectedly, the> company returned decimated and with the task unfulfilled. The officer was among those killed, and those returning spoke of foul magic at work. Leaving Wistan to guard the Metal Gollum, I proceeded personally to the tavern, accompanied by half of the remaining detachment, with the balance assigned to security for Wistan and the Golem. I indeed verified that the residue of a great deal of magic from many users was present, and of a nature and precision unprecedented in the recent history of this region. I identified the bodies of all the missing troops save one, a young private whom I suspect of treachery since even accounting for magic, the troop should not have been so summarily defeated. As I was returning to the tower, I was accosted by a distraught Wistan, who advised me that several perpetrators, number hard to determine as they were almost invisible--clearly more magic--had reactivated the Metal Gollum and vanished. Wistan has chosen to pursue this band of robbers and murderers on his own, a truly brave but rather foolhardy action given that I had offered both a large force and my magic prowess which would have been most helpful in advancing this operation to success. He has left with three of the finest mounts from this outpost. I shall be sending a document with more complete descriptions of the perpetrators of this outrage as soon as I can find a forensic artist to draw portraits of the same. I await further instructions on this matter.
Your most loyal servant, Herion.

This post was written by George Hardy, in character as the NPC Herion.

Season 1.5 Timeline

2009-07-03T15:04:00.001-07:00

August 6: The balloon car is abandoned and the Eagles take the Eaglet into their care, with the understanding that, since she bonded with the Eaglet as mother, Maeliana must go with the Eagles to live upon the Eyrie, until the Eaglet can fly. Jae decides to accompany her. The remaining company commissions a rancher in the shadow of the Misty Mountains to carry their goods to Stratton, the human settlement nearest to the site the balloon-car set down. Stratton stands upon the site the reknowned Last Inn once stood, in the shadow of the Trollshaws.

August 7-October 20: The companions attempt to settle into Stratton life. Aidan finds work at the blacksmith’s; Kaa becomes deputy under Luzog, the orc sheriff of Stratton; Braith and Sterling start a new inn, the Eagle’s Nest, by taking over an abandoned one, the Wharf Rat; Thoron becomes cook at the Eagle’s Nest; Tari becomes a reclusive shut-in, working as the assistant to Chilperic, a venerable healer, and most trusted herbalist in Stratton; Farson begins running a supply wagon to procure goods for Braith and Sterling, while also trying to make contact with the Gunslingers west of Damnation (the town formerly known as Bree).

October 21: The Eaglet flies for the first time

October 22: Maeliana and Jae come to Stratton, and re-open the local Theater, performing there weekly for the entertainment of the townsfolk. They both hide their Elvish features behind costumes, and rarely go out in public.

October 23-March 15: The heroes become used to a “normal life” during winter in Stratton. Given the reality that people outside Moria station seem unperturbed living under the Second Darkness (now known commonly as the Minyadae, which means nothing to most people, as Sindarin is fast becoming a dying language), the adventurers are lulled out of their desire to be an active part of the resistance. Maeliana secretly meets with her Eagle in the woods outside Stratton, training it to fly with her on its back. Aidan begins courting Seanna, one of the barmaids at the Eagle’s Nest. The Eagle’s Nest becomes one of the most popular places for good food in Stratton. Braith decides to run for mayor against Guntram Goldenhands, the current mayor of Stratton. Life finds a quiet rhythm as Spring approaches.

Detailed Analysis of trailer for Season 2 of Steam Lords

2009-03-30T11:52:00.000-07:00

In some alternate universe, Steam Lords isn't a pen and paper Steampunk version of Tolkien's Middle-Earth. It's a Space channel series as sweet and awesome as Battlestar Galactica. In that universe, the trailer for Season 2 was finally released. Load up this YouTube video which plays "Super Strength" by Two Steps From Hell, the people who did the music for the kickass third Star Trek trailer, to hear the music which accompanies this possible-worlds-trailer. Read along to see what happens.

0:01 - montage of slow motion shots of the Rangers of the North (a combination of Wild West outlaws and Aragorn as played by Viggo - a mix of swords and six-guns) riding on horseback, throwing sticky bombs to the sides of moving trains, trains derailing). These shots are played behind a greenscreen of Saruman's shadowed face in profile. V.O. (Voice-over) by Saruman: "Too long have the Rangers of the North resisted us. Too long have they thwarted the completion of the Iron Dragon's path into the West. If we cannot stop them by land, we will crush them from the air." (Saruman's face fades out)

0:13 Tracking shot following a young boy as he runs through the streets of a ruined city (think Osgiliath in Return of the Kings). It is likely Fornost, once the capital city of Arnor, a kingdom which fell under the onslaught of the Second Darkness. The boy is dressed in Victorian clothing with slight differences (think Oliver Twist). He is looking furtively over his shoulder at the sky.

0:16 Overhead tracking shot of the boy looking up. An immense shadow is falling over the ruined street behind him, catching up with him.

0:19 Very low tracking shot, looking up from the ground at the boy as he continues running. Overhead is a rigid airship, overshadowing the ruined spires of the once-great city.

0:22 Wide shot revealing many people running, the boy in the background but still center of the shot

0:24 Medium shot as the boy climbs a flight of stairs

0:27 - Wide shot of people running in foreground - we see the boy running along the parapet in the background

0:29 - Overhead view of Bay doors opening and bombs dropping down towards the city

0:32 - Closeup of the bombs falling, reflected in someone's eye

0:35 - montage of people running, the bombs exploding, buildings collapsing, people falling and dying, Rangers standing and firing at the airships

0:45 - More explosions, very close to the young boy, the parapet collapses

0:50 - A shot from below, framing the boy and debris falling as a silhouette against the sky

0:55 - a hand grabs the boy's, and we hear Sterling in voice over: "Got you!"

0:57 - circling helicopter shot of the Eagle's Eyrie high in the Misty Mountains, with the Great Eagles in flight around it. Once catches a glimpse of people on the rock platform beneath the nests, emerging from some underground shelter. V.O. of Thoron: "We've been hiding and waiting for the right moment to strike."

1:00 - A wide shot of a bright, naturally lit chamber wherein a Mallorn Tree is growing. A woman is facing the tree, her back to the camera, arms held out to either side. The blue skin on the hands and her white hair make this a fair bet it's a shot of Kari.

1:04 - A tracking shot of Jaa playing the stringed instrument built by Gimli and Jaa's father. He is seated outside with the sun setting in the distance. He smiles, looking content.

1:07 - on the fanfare, we see Maeliana, her arm held out - her normal eagle alights on her arm

1:10 - on the second fanfare, the new, but fully grown Great Eagle touches down beside Maeliana, and looks down at her and her little eagle as if for approval. She laughs.

1:13 - wide, fast tracking shot of Braith, Thoron, and Farson riding very fast while pursued by Gun-Wraiths: Ringwraiths with firepower - it appears Farson has the boy on his horse as well. V.O. of Farson: "Who is the boy?"

1:15 - another shot of the boy from the opening shots - the camera tracks towards him very rapidly, and he has a look of fear on his face. V.O. unidentified character: "His name is Earnur - he is the last king of Gondor."

1:17 Next begins a very rapid succession of 16 very brief clips which one has to pause to see details concerning. As best as we were able to make out, here's what they are:
- On the first cymbal crash, there is an explosion with a silhouetted figure shielding himself with a cape in the foreground - he appears to be wearing a gas mask and a wide-brimmed hat - Gandalf back from the dead, or something else?
- A low shot circling the entire group of heroes, who are standing in some sort of great wooden hall, surrounded by what appear to be the Rangers
- A fight between Braith, Farson? and Thoron with a man in a Nazi officer's uniform, who appears to be deflecting bullets with his arms (some sort of body armor) while dueling them with a great sword and a ball and chain. It appears they are on TOP of one of the rigid airships, as there is what appears to be an aerial battle in the background.
- A flying shot behind the great eagle with full flying harness - clearly the heroes are flying on the back of this thing - they appear to be in a city, and are pursuing what appears to be a dragon
- Jaa strapped to the bottom of the eagle's harness, firing a long-rifle - another character on the other side of the harness, but can't see who it is
- The cloaked figure with the gasmask and wide brimmed hat drops down into a crowded ballroom where lords and ladies are dancing, and act in shock when they see him
- A large group of people bow, revealing Kari, standing with her hands held out in blessing
- Geo's new character (couldn't remember name) standing behind two hanger bay doors, which are slowly opening to reveal him. He begins to grin.
- A figure in what looks like a Nazi officer's uniform, except that he wears a mask reminiscent of the Witch King's (Lord of the Nazgul) from LOTR steps onto the bridge of what is likely one of the rigid airships
- Unknown character with goggles on running across rooftops with the moon in the background
- Closeup shot of Maeliana with aviator's goggles on, hair flying in the wind, which zooms out just as she banks the Great Eagle into a barrel roll
- Kaa in the midst of the ballroom, pulling out his sword to duel with a man in noble clothing - there's a beautiful woman looking on in the background
- Kari wheels towards the camera, fangs? (holy shit!) bared and eyes blazing red
- Another shot of the great eagle flying, between the buildings of a city, with explosions happening behind them
- Sterling with arms out at her sides, drops from an airship platform and goes into a controlled dive
- A shot of the inside of the rigid airship hanger - some are clearly still being built, and a hand comes into the shot, covered in fire.

1:39 - The entire shot is a fiery sky (at sunset?) with clouds - a massive airship fleet can be seen moving through the sky - these are not rigid airships now, but lethal sky-juggernauts (see image above).

1:42 - same shot, but the great eagle flies up into camera view, its back to the audience. Maeliana can be seen clearly on top, and the gunners are also visible through the flapping wings on the underside of the harness, right before it dives towards the airships.

1:44: STEAM LORDS - SEASON TWO - Coming May 2009.

Season 1: A Timeline

2008-12-10T09:22:00.000-08:00

The view of Moria Station from the Overhang

T.A. 2008

July 10 - Tari commissions a series of figures of the Valar from Gimli
July 27 - Thoron, an apprentice Gunslinger arrives in Moria Station, makes contact with Braith and Sterling, proprietors of the Overhang, and their associates: Kaa, a half-orc 'cleaner,' Gimli, a dwarven craftsman and Jae, a Silvan Elf courier. The Lord Balrog receives a gift: an unhatched Great Eagle egg, and the egg's mother, her wings clipped. The Balrog orders that the mother hatch the egg, whereupon he will consume the eaglet. The heroes decide to rescue the egg.
July 28 - Knowing they will be venturing up into the sunlight if they succeed in rescuing the egg, Gimli begins crafting a series of goggles for those who have lived underground their whole life.
July 30 - Thoron's remaining companions arrive: Galad, his mentor, a fully accomplished Gunslinger (one of the first), and Farson, Galad's other apprentice. An altercation with the local militia. Jae makes contact with MaeLiana, the daughter of a minor elven noble who possesses lore about eagles, and is able to advise the group as to how much time remains before the egg hatches. It is likely less than a month.

The Streets of Moria Station, lit by Gaslight

August 1 - A plan is formed to rescue the egg. Gimli crafts a facsimile egg as decoy.
August 2 - Thoron, Maeliana, and Tari descend through a series of ventilation tunnels about the Balrog's chambers. Once inside, Maeliana entreats upon the mother eagle to give over the egg and allow them to replace it with the decoy. Farson discovers Galad is a traitor, but is unable to stop Galad's treachery, as he is attacked at the Overhang by a group of guardsmen.. Galad attempts to kill Gimli and Kaa in the cold forges. Gimli and Kaa escape through mine shafts and tunnels, eventually coming upon an underground lake where they discover two Dwarven battle axes, treasures hidden at the coming of the Second Darkness. Braith, Sterling and Jae are attacked by Galad, but in the ensuing battle, Galad loses a hand, and Braith claims his pistols. The group returns to the Overhang in time to rescue Farason. Gimli vows to have revenge upon Galad, but Thoron and Farson prevail upon the group to allow proper justice to be served.
The group is visited by Morsein, a strange elf who believes he is the first of his kind in Middle Earth. He arranges with the members of the Kelumé resistance to assassinate Brodish Hair-Dragger, one of the Balrog's highest ranking captains (and Kaa's father). In order to make Brodish vulnerable, Morsein has arranged for a feast for all the elite of the Second Darkness currently residing in Moria. Brodish will be among them. The crew from the Overhang will be masquerading as guests and servants. With the feast taking place on the main platform of Moria Station, an opportunity will be provided to load the stolen Eagle egg into a train car, ready to be taken out of Moria Station.

Lower levels of Moria Station, above the Balrog's Chambers

August 3 - Gimli sets to work on the container for the egg. Galad escapes.
August 4 - The Feast at Moria station: the Kelumé resistance is betrayed by Morsein, Gimli dies in a final confrontation with Galad, and two new allies, Rhavas Grau, a train engineer and Aidan, his fireman, assist the group in escaping with the eagle egg. Tari undergoes a radical physical transformation from her interactions with Morsein. As the train smashes its way through Moria station, the Lord Balrog arrives, only to be thwarted by Sterling, who throws one of Gimli's fallen axes into the Balrog's eye. As the train moves onto the main line leading Westward to freedom, all of Moria Station's forces converge upon the escaping train.
August 5: The flight through the main tunnel of Moria to its West gate is fraught with peril. Despite a number of skirmishes with their pursuers, the Kelumé resistance reaches the West gate and bursts out into the dawn of a new day. Rhavas Grau orders Aidan to initiate a complex mechanism in one of the train cars. The roof of the car is blown, and with Aidan’s fire, a hot-air balloon rises. The adventurers board the car, laden with their luggage and equipment. Suddenly, as the balloon-car begins to lift off, the Lord Balrog descends them from the mountain in full fury. In response, Rhavas Grau takes a massive wrench in hand, and leaps from the airborn car, yelling “You Shall Not Pass!” as he falls upon the Balrog in mid-air combat. The balloon-car carries the group northward as the enigmatic train-engineer grapples the Balrog down to earth, lost to sight and knowledge. The eagle egg hatches, and its cries bring the remaining handful of Great Eagles to accompany the balloon-car further north along the ridge of the Misty Mountains.

Codex Transportica

2008-08-28T08:01:00.000-07:00

I hardly know what this is yet, but I think it's worth a look.

Synopsis Game 01: The Eagle has...landed

2008-06-18T11:31:00.000-07:00

It is summer in the year T.A. 2008. The Kelumé, the Free People's resistance against the Second Darkness, had contacted Braìth and Sterling, the Eriadorian (human) owners of the Overhang to request they grant every possible accomodation to three operatives stealing into Khazad-dum via Moria Station. Since getting onto the platform at Moria Station requires very particular documentation, Braìth and Sterling set about procuring the proper documents, as well as the essential feature of a wax seal, done in the same sigil as the Lord Balrog's. Sterling, Braìth and their associates Kaa, a half-orc 'cleaner,' Gimli, a dwarven craftsman and Jae, a Silvan Elf courier all set about utilizing their contacts and skills, with the end result being a perfect replica of the proper documents necessary to gain access to Moria Station. In the process, Kaa was wounded bad enough to need medical attention, which was granted fortuitously by Tari, an acquaintance of Jae (who had also recently commissioned a series of ceramic icons of the Valar from Gimli).

As Jae descended the stairs from the Overhand towards Moria Station, a military procession announcing the Lord Balrog's presence entered the platform. While Jae was frozen in terror, unable to go on, Gimli and Braìth took up the document and continued toward one of two trains recently arrived. Their destination, a passenger train, was just disembarking. While Gimli and Braìth maintained a low profile, the Lord Balrog was presented with a shocking gift, representing a terrible blow to the hope of the Kelumé. A female Great Eagle, wings clipped, and her unhatched egg were presented as gifts, with the clear intention to force the female to hatch the egg, and then present the eaglet as a feast for the fallen Maia. The companions watching from the Overhang were shocked with horror at the prospect, even as Gimli and Braìth made contact with Braìth. After a brief altercation with the security force of Moria Station (which ended in an explosion which killed a number of the security force), they returned to the Overhang, where Tarondor revealed that his reason for coming to Khazad-dum was to retreive the Great Eagle egg. When Tari commented how confused she was by everything that was happening, the Kelumé retreated to a secret room in the cliff face behind the Overhang. Tari followed, undetected save by Tarondor.

When she was discovered, the group grudgingly resigned themselves to including her in their plans and mechanations, also having determined that they need to find a way to get the egg out of Khazad-dum before it hatches.

Memorable Quotes:

GIMLI: Now, what would have made it explode like that?

KAA: So what I want to know is, when you've got some smelly orc drooling all over your face, and then they cut off your arms and legs and torture you, are you going to give us away?
TARI: No!
KAA: Why not? I totally would!

KAA: I totally smoking a cigarette...

STERLING: So I'm interrogating you! Why are you here?

The Overhang and Moria Station

2008-06-12T14:47:00.000-07:00

Located on the outer circumference of the vast chasm containing Durin's Stair (also known as the Endless Stair), the Overhang is an inn and tavern built on a large overhanging outcrop of rock. As a result, patrons of the Overhang are afforded an excellent view of the central pillar of Durin's Stair, as well as the recent network of rails and sidings for the recently completed train station built on top of a huge natural basalt abutment which has been leveled by Dwarven engineering. The Moria Station is built on the abutment to increase the security surrounding arrivals and departures; the only way onto the abutment besides the rails is a 70' long bridge which connects to one of the "abyss' numerous natural basalt abutments," (Moria 54) which in turn has a number of bridges leading out to other abutments or a platform adjoining Durin's stair. Security at the station is extreme; papers signed by one of the various Steam Lords across Middle-Earth are required to disembark and enter Moria. The residents of Moria who are not in official positions within the rule of the Second Darkness are rarely permitted to leave the underground city, and so only those who have visitor status are permitted onto the platform without the proper paperwork, usually bearing the seal of the Balrog of Moria himself. Moria station runs from the Greatwood (Mirkwood) Line directly, running east to west. The line has not connected to the yet-to-be-completed Cardolan line, since construction of that last leg of the Great Endor Railway (GER) continues to be harried by the terrorist efforts of the Rangers of the North. Moria Station is also a stop-off for the Anduin spur line which runs North to South along the Eastern edge of the Misty Mountains, following the Great River Anduin, connecting Orthanc with Moria, Goblin-gate, Gundabad, and ultimately, Angmar. As a result, it is a constant site of activity, a swarm of armed forces, workers, and official dignitaries moving to and from the underground city.

The Overhang is known for it's excellent brews, clean rooms, and friendly staff. These attributes are those which are spoken of loudly, in conversational tones. What is whispered in dark corners and passed in encrypted messages is that the Overhang is the meeting point for members of the Kelumé ("rising up," Q.), the bourgeoning resistance against the Second Darkness. Table conversations are as likely to be about how the day's work has gone as they are to concern the rising tide of Light against the Shadow.

Moria and Lórien: T.A. 1970-2008

2008-05-19T14:08:00.000-07:00

When Saruman and the Witch-King began their assault on Middle-Earth, the Dwarves of Moria, under the leadership of Durin VI, responded with an action which arguably preserved the culture and people of Lórien, simultaneously redressing a grievous wrong which had plagued the relations between the Elves of Lórien and the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm for over a thousand years.

The Dwarves of Khazad-dûm and the Elves of Eregion had enjoyed an amicable relationship of trade, commerce and craftsmanship:

"The discovery of mithril [circa. S.A. 700] prompted a Noldor migration into Eregion. Coming in search of new material for their wondrous crafts, these Elves settled in smaller Elven towns and built a great city at the junction of the Rivers Sirannon and Glanduin. Mithril excite the ever-curious Noldor, Elves who rivaled--and often surpassed--the Dwarves in the art of smithcraft...Within decades of finding mithril, Durin's folk had completed a subterranean road beneath the Silvertine that connected their city and mines to the Elven realm of Eregion. The West-gate of Khazad-dûm was opened, and goods bound for the Noldor stores and forges no longer had to travel the long route over the Redhorn Pass. Khazad-dûm [now] spanned the Misty Mountains. Elf-crafts and Dwarven things flowed freely and the Dwarf-city become known for its increasingly opulent splendor. It was truly a golden time" (Moria 13).

However, this peace and goodwill was not to endure. In S.A. 1697, the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm closed the West Gate "in defense against the onslaught" of Sauron's armies, and, "in doing so, shut out Eregion's Elven refugees" (18-19). When the Dark Lord's armies invaded Eregion, the "Dwarven warriors refused to leave the protective confines of their city, while the Deep-elves battled the Dark On'es host through the ravines and holly-covered hills of Eregion. By day, the Noldor withstood waves of pitiless Men; at night, the assailing ranks were filled with countless Orcs and Trolls. Sauron's horde broke through and stormed the Elf-city of Ost-in-Edhil. Seeking refuge for his beleaguered people, Celebrimbor sent envoys to Durin III. The Dwarf-king refused to open the West-gate to the Elves, just as he had denied warriors for the defense of Eregion. The escape route was closed, and the Noldor slaughtered" (14). This action was the genesis of "Moria," the Elven name for Khazad-dûm, which means "the Black Chasm" (19).

Legends take Durin III's Ring of Power into account for his rejection of Celebrimbor's pleas, since, while the Rings of Power given to the Dwarf Lords never resulted in Sauron's mastery over them, they have been held responsible for the increase in greed and paranoia amongst the Dwarves. The Dwarven version of the story is that Durin III's "acted out of concern for his people" (14), assessing the defense of Eregion a lost cause and any aid to the Elves too great a risk to his own people. "In any case, Durin III withheld aid when it was sorely needed, and the Elves never forgave him or his kindred" (14).

Nearly 4000 years later, history repeated itself. In 1972, Lórien, threatened by the alliance between Saruman and the Witch-King (popularly known as the "Second Darkness," turned to the Dwarves of Moria for assistance. Amroth and Nimrodel, rulers of Lorien following the Last Alliance, simply begged passage through Moria to Eregion, and then on to the Grey Havens to escape the fall of Middle-Earth. Durin VI agreed, but when the Elven host reached the West Gate and found Eregion had fallen to the Dark Alliance's Host, the Dwarven King saw the opportunity to strengthen his own people's chances to withstand the coming tide of darkness by forging new ties with the Elves of Lórien. The compact made between Durin VI and Amroth proved to be a powerful one, and the Elves and Dwarves of Khazad-dûm may well have held the underground citadel indefinitely, had it not been for the unearthing of one of the Darkness' greatest minions in the depths of the Seventh Deep of Khazad-dûm. The unearthing of the Balrog of Moria in 1980 was too great a power for even the combined might of the Elves and Dwarves with the host of the Second Darkness on both their doorsteps. The battle between the Balrog and the denizens of Khazad-dûm resulted in the opening of the Eastern gate, and as Dwarves and Elves attempted to flee, they were cut down by the waiting hordes of Orcs, Trolls, Black Numenoreans, and the subjugated peoples of Middle-Earth. The Dark Alliance had found entry to Moria through the East Gate, and with the Balrog on one side and an army on the other, Durin VI and Amroth had no choice but to surrender.

Nimrodel, overcome with fear of the Balrog, cast herself from the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, sending Amroth into a killing fury. The wrath of the Elf Lord in his sorrow was great, and while he succeeded in sorely wounding the Balrog, the forces of Darkness prevailed. The Elves and Dwarves of Khazad-dûm found themselves under the heel of Saruman and the Witch-King. Since that fateful day in early 1981, Khazad-dûm has become Moria the Dark Chasm once again.

Now, in 2008, Elven and Dwarven craftspeople create weapons which oppress the Free Peoples. Slaves from all corners of Middle-Earth labor in the Mines of Moria, seeking Mithril, Laen, and other precious metals, not to mention coal to feed the engines of steam which belch black clouds into once-blue skies. It has become a saying amongst the peoples of Moria that they are glad they are captive beneath the earth, since they have never had to see the sorrow of Middle-Earth under the gloom of the Second Darkness. However, there are whispers of hope, whispers that remind that the darkness is only a veil hiding skies which remain blue. It only remains for those whose hope can give birth to courage to clear the skies of the darkness, to let the light shine once again.

A New Beginning

2008-05-07T16:12:00.001-07:00

Welcome to "Lord of the Steam," the blog for my gaming group's newest MERP (Middle-earth Roleplaying) campaign. The setting is simple, albeit nearly blasphemous to a die-hard Tolkien fan. Imagine Saruman making the decision to abdicate his responsibilities as one of the Istari 1000 years earlier than the War of the Ring, when the Witch King of Angmar was finishing off the kingdom of Arnor. Imagine an alliance, not between Sauron and Saruman, but between the Witch King and Saruman. Imagine that it succeeds, not because of superior magic, but because of two technological innovations; the discovery of the steam engine, and the invention of gunpowder.

Arnor falls, and in its wake, so does Gondor. The men of Westernesse are scattered to the wind. The elves of Lothlorien, Rivendell and the Grey Havens prepare to leave Middle-earth, but as the Swan ships prepare to depart, they are engulfed in a firestorm. A flight of dragons, awakened from the Grey Mountains, descend on the Havens with teams of Uruk-Hai bombadiers and "pilots" (taking a page from Naomi Novik's His Majesty's Dragon where dragons are literally like B-52 bombers, with full crews). The elves of Thranduil's kingdom are the last safe haven for elves in Middle Earth. Mirkwood, not yet the abode of darkness it will become with the growth of the "Necromancer's" power, becomes a place for free peoples to hide. The Dwarves make their peace with the new world order, becoming unwilling servants of the Shadow who retain their customs, traditions, and even methods of warfare fiercely, believing their radical traditionalism to be a form of resistance.

The famed underground citadel of Khazad-dum is the last bastion of Dwarves to become servile. While they were able to hold out against exterior assault, there is nothing that can save the Dwarves of Khazad-dum when they delve deeply, uncovering the Balrog of Moria in T.A. 1981. The underground kingdom falls, and the victory Sauron would seek in 1000 years at the War of the Ring is won.

But beneath the surface of occupied obedience, a desire for resistance begins to grow in the hearts of the oppressed people of Middle-earth. And in T.A. 2008, nearly 400 years after Saruman and the Witch-King first made their alliance, the opportunity to strike back has finally come.

This is our campaign, which we'll be sharing with you all here at this blog. We'll be giving our tips and hints on how to launch your own MERP-based Steampunk campaign, character profiles, as well as sharing chronicled versions of our games. We hope it will inspire those of you who love Rolemaster gaming and have access to the MERP sourcebooks to try some Tolkienesque blasphemy of your own.

Namarie!

SIDETRACKED!

2008-02-19T08:49:00.000-08:00

A recap of the February game ...

Shasta’s sprit needed to be healed. Her wounding and near death had left her broken, and it was decided that those who could go would venture out in search of the wellspring. Shadrach, Ben, Addle and Hawk prepare and pack and venture out into the sands.

The journey is not as strange as is our guide, who only Shadrach can see and talk with. The journey he had to take just to be able to find her was long enough, though maybe not so long for him. She seems a bit of a jealous lover more than a guide, but the rest of the group can only trust him in this.

We come upon some brigands who seem very interested in talking, which seems rather at odds with their being brigands but is still better than the alternative. They also seem quite happy to furnish us with the name and location of a rival band, and move us along.

What they seemed and what they were collide that first night in the very same spot we have chosen to make camp. Attacking on Hawk’s watch they are quickly dealt with, and the leader left only maimed. This is rather a miracle, as Addle decided dropping a live grenade amongst our company during the defense might liven things up a bit.

Interrogating the survivor proves rather easy, and isn’t without benefit. Bruises, as he is called, knows the area and its pitfalls well. He is happy to trade this information for his freedom as we patch him up. We are just has happy to have him along to ensure his information is correct. He will have to come along with only the one arm, as we lack the skill to mend that.

That morning a shortcut is proposed. Bruises must be attempting to get this business over quickly. Of course, he could be quite ready to die as well. The new route will bring us to our destination much faster, but is a way rarely taken, and for good reason.

The valley stretching out ahead of us now is the stuff of stories. Sand and wind become living things, where no other living things will last. Navigating the twisters themselves might not much of an impediment, but attempting it with your head wrapped so that you might preserve your face and eyes has proven to be a task not many are up for. Leaving the animals and taking only what we might need, we wrap ourselves and clasp hands. Ben, with timing and precision, steers true.

Our human chain emerges through roaring winds and pelting sands, and into the entrance of a great catacomb. The twisting path leads down and down, leaving us eventually in a vast chamber littered with sarcophagus and a single pillar that stretches up and out of sight. As the rest of us wonder and wander, Shad reaches the top of the pillar to find a large piece of amber. Feeling as if he has no other choice, Shad takes the stone, and choice is indeed removed from us.

At once this solid pillar turns to salt and dust while all around the dust and sarcophagus turn out mummies like some dark tale. Grinning like a fool, Shad leads us a merry chase, amber in hand, to a room not unlike the first. In fact, it is exactly like the first, only there is no glint of amber from above to entice Shadrach to climb. Wincing still from his fall off the first pillar, he climbs anyways as chaos ensues in this dark room.

No matter who is shooting, the mummies still pursue us. Stone or not, Shad is still trying to climb, though what he plans to do only he has had time to contemplate. Just as things look dire, Hawk levels a shot that eases some pressure. Shad takes the opportunity to collect himself and push for the top of the pillar. Upon doing so, he places the amber atop this second pillar. A sigh filled with dust and time echoes through the hall as the mummies return to dust.

Ensuring everyone still had all of their pieces (which elicits a dark stare from Bruises), Shadrach limps to the door moving us on.

The next challenge is less of a mystery. At least to Addle. The rest of us are happy to leave him to it. A few of us do watch with mild interest as he calculates his way through a sand powered Babbage Machine. Watching or not, everyone is caught off guard when the flowing noises build quickly to a crescendo. There is a moment only where all of our eyes meet in confusion before we are overwhelmed by sand.

The twisting and turning ride is not without its bumps and scrapes. The hard part, as anyone who surfs the sands will tell you, is the landing. Addle, probably still lost in thought about that daft machine, would not have fared so well without Shadrach’s supporting hand.

While the others are dusting themselves off and testing their limbs, Hawk rises up, spits out a wad of sand, and keenly assesses the situation. While the sand continues to settle, noise is actually building, and that has Hawk worried.

His caution proves contagious, and the group naturally moves into a defensive position. Even still, nobody is ready for the sands to rise up once more. It seems as if the core of the earth is banking its fires into this room, but what is taking shaping and life deep in this cave like space it truly what has everyone worried.

It seems to take hours, though only seconds pass. What stands before us, be it maggoty flesh or writhing sand, is a boar with huge tusks and fiery eyes. There is a moment of complete silence only, and then the great boar sets upon us.

It seems maddened. Perhaps we have awoken it from peaceful slumber, or perhaps not. Regardless, it charges around attacking any of us that it may reach. Each of us tries to buy time for the others to get a shot, though bullets only seem to enrage it more. We are all tossed around, and Hawk, holding out for a better shot is caught once badly in the leg. Rushing his next shot from the ground, he takes the boar through the eye.

Slowly, it is unknit before our eyes. As the sands swallow it back up, the tusks fall, still solid, to the floor of the cave.

After a time, we move on, to find an opening at the back of the cave, and the grotto that opened up beyond was breathtaking. There was a feeling of peace and healing, transmuted through the light bouncing off the water and dancing on the ceiling. There was a sleeping power that began to slowly uncoil itself, and coalesce above the gently moving water in a vaguely human form.

We had assumed that our challenge was won, having passed through much harrowing and unknown danger. We had assumed wrong. The source of power in this wellspring was a capricious spirit who had been much entertained by our trials in reaching it's spring. It was Hawk's feeling that our adventures and success aided us in this encounter, but how would any of us ever apprehend that.

What was set before us was a wager. Each of us could make a wager and pass through the pool, knowing not how the dice were weighted.

What happened for each man in that time was very personal, and time passed very differently for each there.

Shadrach, used to the lively exuberant life of the circus, wagered his injured leg in the hopes that he would be healed. Addle wagered his telegraphic knowledge for knowledge of the books that we have been seeking. Both won their wagers, Shadrach walking smoothly from the pool and Addle emerging with a curious map of sorts upon his skin.

Ben, having come up against the harsh reality of a situation much the same as this, passed on the wager.

Hawk wagered the dark side of his fears against the light side of the same. He submerged slowly in the pool, but fought its power, thrashing in blind panic. After a mighty exertion, he crawled, exhausted, from the pool, with both a blessing and a curse bestowed upon him.

Bruises, the noble thief, marveled at the arc his life had seemed to scribe upon the sky that day. His life, taken and given more than once that day, was wagered for the life spark we sought for Shasta. His wager was well won.

We left the sands, returning to Shasta and the rest of the group.

Merry Christmas from the SteamLords

2007-12-19T11:00:00.000-08:00

Best wishes for as Victorian a holiday as you can muster in the 21st century! I found a nice little gift of music for my fellow Steampunk enthusiasts; free Christmas music from the definitely Steampunk themed band Abney Park. Check out their Vault, or just click on these links for some renditions of Little Drummer Boy and Winter Wonderland. Merry Christmas everyone!

Final Game of 2007

2007-12-04T07:31:00.001-08:00

Will be on Tuesday, December 11. Same alternate stream of history, same secret basement lair...

This "episode" takes place on Christmas Eve. Now we just need the cards to tell us more.

Oral Hawkins

2007-11-01T10:04:00.001-07:00

Ok, I have a peek at my new character for you all, based heavily on the miniature. I don't even know his name yet, though I think he only has one. Obviously he's military, or has a strong military background. I know that the gun he's firing is called The Turkish, and that he likes his guns big. He probably views the Summer Wandered Mark II as a big gun that can fly. He's only subtle if he's firing from a distance.

I'm wondering about him coming with the new ship, so to speak. The group gets some gear updates, duplicates, and a big black long gunner who likes to chill in one of the firing nests, and pick things off.

Oh, and those scribbles up top are where Gunnar TeH Dragon™ was helping me.

More miniatures...I think these have grand potential

2007-10-22T14:47:00.000-07:00

A plethora of figures...I came across a line from Privateer Press, and they had some great stuff. The stuffy looiking unpainted academics are not from theirs, but I thought I'd display them for anyone whose character is ultimately pedantic. The long rifleman with the broad hat seemed an option for Nathaniel, while the man in the gas-mask could be either Taylor or Jeff - Taylor, because of the Alchemy, Jeff because of the ruined face. The guy with the two guns held up...well, I like him a lot, but I like all the two fisted shooters in this lot. There's a big burly sunnuvabitch with a bald head and beard - Thorower post shave, with a new outfit and a John Henry hammer in place of the axe? Of course, there's always the two fisted axeman for Thorower...There's a guy with a huge wrench who might be Blaine, and several general heroes...It was too grand a pain in my ass to format these pictures to fit together in any sense of coherence, but each one is linked to their original page at the site we can order them from. I thought they captured a lot of the spirit of our game, if nothing else. I know they're a bit "swordy" but there are always ways around that. And if we can't remodel them, then let's wield some swords dammit! Anyhow, bottom line is this. Go through the miniatures and let's get ordering some. Here are the links to the previous miniatures posts.
Miniatures, Round 1
Miniatures, Round 2
Miniatures, Round 2.blu
And a quick link to the Call of Cthulhu minis, which are choice.
Place your comments as to which ones you want for your character, and I'll get ordering as soon as everyone has let me know.

From the Journal of Benedict Ulysses Stewart - November 6, 1869

2007-10-09T22:50:00.000-07:00

Leibniz believed that, while there were countless possible worlds known to the infinite mind of God, only one existed in actuality. As I write this, sitting at the nearly an exact replica of my writing desk back on the Summer Wanderer (And yet, by Jupiter, I am on the Summer Wanderer), I wonder if he was completely correct in his estimation that only one actual world was given freedom to exist.

Yesterday I would have agreed with Leibniz wholeheartedly, and until I discovered the documents, the fantastic events that lead to my sitting here would not have convinced me otherwise. This is my desk, and yet somehow, it is not. It bears all the same markings, but documents inside the false compartment inside are decidedly different. The Benedict Ulysses Stewart who owned this desk favored his first name, not his second, as I do. His signature is identical, save for the scrawled "Benedict" with the intial "U" in place of the initial "B" and the scrawl of "Ulysses" which is my own custom. We loved the same girl - that is clear, but the cameo hidden in this desk is not identical to the one in mine. It is fascinating to see, not an artists' rendering of the Countess Hermione Lovegrove, but rather a photograph of her. What a wonder!

I am certain that some might argue that the airship my friends and I have taken by force is merely a facsimile of the one which even now is headed back toward Great Britain, but if that is so, then it is no less a wonder! With only a few exceptions, such as the cameo, it is a perfect replication of the Summer Wanderer constructed upon my family's estate. The conclusion I have come to seems less incredible given how this adventure began.

Just over a week ago, I assembled a group of adventurers on the Summer Wanderer while we were berthed over London. We had intercepted an encrypted transmission, which piqued my interest; as you know, I seek to involve myself in an adventure worthy of a published memoir. The encrypted message seemed as good a place as any to seek such an adventure. I was not disappointed. A. Aaron Addle, a cryptologist in the service of Her Majesty the Queen Victoria of England was able to determine that the transmission involved the rising concerns between England and Prussia. There were enigmatic statements about a diabolical device which could change the history of the world. Addle, using his Aether Flux Capacitor, a machine of his own devising, determined that the source of the trouble lay to the North. I invited Addle, along with Allaister R. Tyson, a recent graduate of Oxford whom my father had been the benefactor of. Evidently something Allaister was studying was of great interest to the elder Stewart. Accompanying me as always of course, was Clarence Henry "Dunny" Dunnington, the Summer Wanderer's engineer, Little Ben, the clockwork marvel who flies her, and my man-at-arms, Isaiah Kipps. We also took on a navigator in London, a great bear of a man named Thorower Baerd, a whaler from Greenland.

We left London in high spirits, but two mishaps nearly brought the entire enterprise to a halt. The first was an engine problem which nearly downed the Summer Wanderer. Dunny was brilliant as always, getting us back on track. Then, a bullet fired from one of my prized Colt Dragoons while I was cleaning the weapon, wounding me in the meat of the shoulder. While unconscious though, I believe I had a vision of the device which we seek in the North, the cause of the aether disturbance.

Between the engine trouble and my mishap on the flight from London to Edinburgh, the trip took two days where it should only have taken one. In Edinburgh we stopped to replace the missing parts to Addle's machine, and to stock up on necessities. Thorower and I hunted for Scotch and cigars, which we availed ourselves of from the store-rooms' of Lord Holburne, a family friend. In the meantime, some of my crew found themselves in a hearty row at a local watering hole. While I had opportunity to finally unholster the Dragoons, there was no chance for firing, which is just as well; bullets wear out a man's welcome altogether too quickly.

Addle's machine repaired, Little Ben set our course for the Arctic Ocean. The range of the machine is too short to determine more than a general direction. Our hope was to narrow the choices set before us; we set our course in a zig-zag pattern, first for the Shetland Islands, then on over the desolate Faroe islands, and finally on toward the coast of Iceland. This journey took us nearly 2 days, keeping an average speed of 20 mph, and flying through the night.

During this time Allastair continued to pursue his theory that the bullet had been placed in my Dragoon deliberately, and that this would-be assassin was also the rogue who had made off with Addle's equipment. He finally found his proof, which set Thorower searching the ship for the culprit. He found signs of a stowaway; a bottle of my Scotch, and an empty glass covered in what he assumed to be soot, but what I determined to be brimstone; how could I ever forget that smell? It brought back such strong memories that I retired to my room, only to find the stowaway passed out on the floor. He had obviously been in the middle of yet another caper to divest me of my liquor, and with the skill that comes of living on such a ship, I bound him to a chair with rope and sat to await his coming around. All the while he sat unconscious I drank, mostly to forget the memories - the smell of brimstone was strong on the lad, and I could think of nothing but Hermione. As consciousness began to return, he gave the characteristic muscle spasms I have seen Little Ben exhibit when he is short on opium.

I called Benjamin to my room with some of his personal supply of the drug, which he takes for the pain of his condition. He administered some to the lad, who came around rapidly under the drug's effect. He revealed his name as Shadrach, an orphan of the London streets who claimed to have performed with a circus at one time. I placed the stowaway under Thorower's care; if there were ever a deterrent to mischief, it's the Greenlander's axe. It was about this time that Addle's machine ceased to work. Something was blocking its transmission. Thankfully, we were already aware of our destination, if Thorower's calculations were correct. The long uninhabited island of Jan Mayen, once a Dutch whaling outpost.

However, on our journey to the desolate island, Allaister revealed through his Magickal Arts that the source of the problem with Addle's machine was an "invisible servant", which Thorower divined to be on a collision course with us. We determined a plan to unveil this servant, and to attack it. Thorower was convinced it was a mechanism of some sort, and arranged a boarding party to storm the ship. Shadrach, who had earlier that very day proved himself a unique addition to our crew (he has the miraculous ability to shift his position in time and space!) was among the boarding party, as was I. Finally, the Dragoons would see action!

We raised our elevation and ejected our coal dust in a fine spray, in order to bring the mysterious assailant into vision. When this was accomplished, Addle fired his machine at our foe, revealing it to us! What a shock it was to see the very airship we ourselves were strapped to, waiting to leap from! The only difference we could see was immediately apparent - the twin of the Summer Wanderer was equipped with Gatling guns!

Thorower's mighty arm launched a harpoon which served as the anchor for a rope our boarding party rappelled down and into the control room, where we engaged the crew in a brief but bloody battle - we nearly lost Addle, who had the misfortune to shoot right through the control room on the momentum of his rappel before catching the rope line on the other side! The Dragoons roar took down two men before the fight was over, effectively concluded by Thorower's pistols, which blew the ersatz captain clean out of the cabin!

And so it was that we captured this double of the Summer Wanderer, and are headed north, disguised as our enemy, to determine how it is that they captured the very airship we had been traveling in, and modified it...how can there be two? Allaister believes it has something to do with DaVinci's Via Peregreus, the Dimensional Engine described in one of the great man's lost notebooks. We found a copy of the pages devoted to this infernal device on board this ship, which has fueled Allaister and Addle's desire for knowledge - the books had been thought to be but legend...yet here is proof they might not be.

This Dimensional Engine can disrupt the normal flow of time...and perhaps space. It may allow the user to travel to another time...and bring back the wonders and marvels found there. How else to explain the amazing communication device Addle is currently puzzled by?

There are so many questions, and there remain, not enough answers.

A moment in the history of Dwarvish-Human relations

2007-09-27T01:51:00.001-07:00

Humans and Dwarves have always known of the other species so long as the two have existed upon the earth, but turned blind eyes to one another, speaking of each other as legends to each generation. In the 13th century, when underground mining using shafts and adits was developed, skirmishes broke out. The humans had infringed upon dwarven lands, the underworld. Again, there was an uneasy peace; the dwarves moved further underground and the humans stayed as near the surface as they could. In the 17th and 18th century, when the demand for coal increased around the world, it became necessary for the races to establish alliances. The result of these alliances were that the Dwarves' exposure to human technology radically revolutionized the advance of industry. Their minds were aptly suited to the mechanization of the age of industry. Within 100 years of the first compacts between humans and Dwarves, the Dwarves had far surpassed humans in machine related skills. They are responsible for the early development of many innovations which came nearly 50-75 years later in our own time stream, the Airship and submersible to name a few.

Dwarves remain in separate societies. They work with humans because it benefits them to do so. Only on rare occasions to Dwarves mingle in human society. In this way they are much like the Amish or Hutterites, choosing to live apart, in great underground cities.

More Star Wars Steampunk

2007-09-15T09:19:00.001-07:00

'Cause it's cool. Go HERE for some more of that kind of cool.

Is this the Summer Wanderer?

2007-09-14T11:04:00.001-07:00

Found this while doing a search for more Star Wars Steampunk...looks a lot like what I imagined the Summer Wanderer to look like...

George Hardy's favorite combination ever?

2007-09-14T07:45:00.000-07:00

Click on the pic to go to the link.

Airship Plans

2007-09-12T15:33:00.000-07:00

For when I get down to business with mapping out the Summer Wanderer...

A proposed approach to magic for Steam Lords

2007-09-11T23:22:00.001-07:00

Just some starting thoughts on the subject, working off of Castle Falkenstein (pp. 197-207), the Book of Sigils, and the Victorian Age Magick supplement.

You must belong to a school in order to work magick. The term 'school' is simply a taxonomic device - in Thorower's case, school would equal druidic or shamanic order. Allaister would likely belong to the Templars or the Freemasons, as they work a fair amount with Material Magic, which is what Alchemy belongs to. I like the four major designations of magic in CF: Emotional, Material, Spiritual and Elemental. I'm not sure how we'll work out how these four designations have any impact on our system, but it's something to think about.

Once you've joined a school, you must research using that school's texts. This would fall under the skill section of Lore, not "research" under Science Analytic, as that research is relegated to scientific undertakings. Lore covers research in any area. So you must develop a Lore skill for each separate text you wish to master.

The Thaumic Energy requirements listed in CF should give us an idea of the difficulty level needed to utilize the spells in these books; this would be a skill under the general Magic category; we could call it "gathering power". Each school has book which contain spells which have Thaumic energy requirements ranging from a value of 2-16. We need to come up with a system to mirror these values which works on our chart. Perhaps 2 is equal to the 0 or "somewhat average" designation on our chart, while 16 is Sheer Folly or Absurd.

And finally...once the power is gathered...you cast. Yet another skill, under magic.

Anyhow, some thoughts to get us rolling.

I'm thinking that Ulysses belongs to The Illuminated Brotherhood, what with their mind control spells and all...Allaister is likely a Freemason or Templar. Thorower...Druidic Temple.

Character Profile: Clarence Henry Dunnington

2007-09-05T11:59:00.000-07:00

Former engineer for the RAF. Apprenticeship under dwarvish engineers - top of his class - the dwarf who taught it often remarked that Clarence was "the tallest dwarf I ever met". Clarence's abilities are largely natural though, via trial and error; he can often be heard to say, "That should have worked. I can't understand why that didn't work," with a puzzled look on his soot-blackened face whilst scratching his head.

posted for Blaine by Gotthammer

Miniatures 2.138746

2007-08-31T00:38:00.000-07:00

Ok, I've left numerous comments on Mike's last miniatures post, but I found these, and they seem bang on. Brigadegames.com's Victorian Age figures. There are even a couple of dual pistol weilding gangsters in there for you Mike.

These sky pirates also might interest some of you. Just throwing that out there.

I might also need to develop a character around this figure. Just you all try and stop me! (I'm not even linking the British infantry in rubber dinosaur suit figure I found)

So, some more cool stuff. Just a question of how tough it is for us to get in these cold northern wastes of ours.

/shiver

Miniatures Part 2

2007-08-29T13:55:00.000-07:00

Was up at Mission Fun and Games today picking up some plastic card stands, much like the picture here, but white, not black. These are tough little suckers to come by. Bought every bag they had - 3 of them at 10 pieces/bag. They'll work nicely for paper miniatures, which are likely going to be the way we're going to have to go. I picked up the Victorian paper miniatures I mentioned in my last post on miniatures. They'll work nicely for NPC's, but they lack the flavor a good adventurer needs.
Lucky for us Mission Fun and Games carried a few of Copplestone Castings offerings. These figures are made in the UK, so they're an arm and a leg in terms of purchase per package. Each pack was roughly $16. Then it occurred to me that this is close to the standard price for individual figures...$4 a piece. So I grabbed two packs, just to get us going:
1. Jolly Good Chaps - from the "High Adventure Series" (1890's-1930)

2. Armed Archaeologists

I'll be the first to say...they're not precisely Victorian, but they're hella more accurate for our game than our current roster of figures are.

Here's a link to the page of the "High Adventure" figures. The "Back of Beyond" ones repeat a few of these, but there are some in there that would be worth getting. They also had a lot of the Call of Cthulhu figures I talked about in my last post which are also appropriate if none of the above 8 figures suit your fancy. There are 8 of us gaming this campaign (Blaine, David, Jeff, George, Mike, Mikey, Nathaniel, and Taylor) so you can pick one of the above (first come first served. I already chose the armed archaeologist with the double pistols), or head over to Mission Fun and Games to peruse their Call of Cthulhu stuff yourself. I know they had the doctor, private investigator and priest, to name a few. My guess is they have the entire line, although I wasn't ready to lay down the money to buy the whole bunch. I should also mention that Copplestone did a series from Central Asia Taylor might be interested in if he ends up playing Khan.

Picking a figure this time around actually might help you build your character...where in the past we often had to do it the other way around.

Why reinvent the wheel? Or in this case, the steam engine?

2007-08-16T07:36:00.000-07:00

After M.B.'s one shot game last night, I got to reflecting about the Steampunk game for the fall, and did some searching on RPGnow.com. I knew they had some source books for what we're looking to do, and I came across the following:

The Castle Falkenstein line of books:

Originally a print series adapted by GURPs, this is a fully late Victorian world, but it seems to contain most of the elements we've been talking about; the use of faerie magick will remind some of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell: more on Falkenstein HER E.
Castle Falkenstein
Memoirs of Auberon the Faerie
The Steam Age
The Lost Notebooks of Leonardo DaVinci (I imagine a lengthy campaign retrieving these!)
Six-Guns and Sorcery
Comme Il Faut
Book of Sigils

And some other odds and ends:
Sorcery and Steam
Steam and Steel
Deadlands Player Guide
Paris: The Spectral City Babbage Edition
Imperial Age Magick
Imperial Age Spiritualism
Gamemaster's Guidebook to Victorian Adventure

I know I earlier stated we likely wouldn't need such things, some of these sources were so on track with what we've talked about that I thought they'd make good resources - and if we get them at RPGnow.com we can all have PDF copies to peruse at our leisure - plus the print versions we run off (only of the sections we want to use!).

I didn't do a calculation of what the whole lot would net us, but seeing as we'll be dredging up around $60/gaming session, I'm not too worried about that - most of these resources were dirt cheap.

Character Profile: Mordecai Flint

2007-08-03T00:43:00.000-07:00

The question, as posed by the joker, was where does he get all these wonderful toys? The answer, is Modecai Flint. If he doesn't have it, he knows where to get it. If he can't get it, chances are he'll still tell you he can get it, provided you have a deposit.

He has toys that don't quit, and no clue where they came from or how they work. If they cease to work he dumps them in the trash, assuming he can't find a sucker to pay him for taking them. It's rather a safe assumption. Suckers or not, he can read people exceptionally well and exceptionally quickly.

He looks as if he's been on the wrong side of a few deals. He is also a man that would make you want to be sure of your position, if not your equipment and any possible back up, before starting
something.

Why work an honest day when you can work people like clay, and enjoy your day. He'd turn over on his mom to finish a deal, but he's already done that one too many times. He didn't even attend her wake.

Character Profile: Khan

2007-07-31T10:05:00.000-07:00

Posting this for blu since he doesn't know how to use the interwebs 100% yet:

An Osmanli fighting noble (Ottoman Empire) who left during the modernization of the Ottoman Empire. Caught up in the elation of the time in Turkey, he finally admitted that though promising, the Ottoman Empire was doomed, having traveled and seen what the rest of the world powers were up to. He left his country quietly in the night, though not without a promise to his Grand Vizier, a long time friend. He would send back what information he could. It was his information and connections that later brought the Ottoman Air Force into being in 1909, after arranging for 2 Turkish pilots to attend the Internation Aviation Conference in Paris.

Khan lead the Akiunci (frontline cavalry), and later the Sipahi (elite cavalry). He lead decisivly these forces, who could at once attack as well as defend, attack brashly and then melt away quickly. Of course the Ottoman Empire was the first military force to employ the musket (smoothbore long guns), and to this day still make the best firearms.

Not much else is known of Khan. He must fight publicly, but all else he keeps private. It is assumed that his connections range far and wide, and in many places, high as well. An inscription seen on his gear translates "Ever victorious".

Screw Starting, It ENDS HERE

2007-07-26T08:04:00.000-07:00

I am well aware I keep posting and linking about gadgets and making things. Sorry. I can't stop. I could not in good conscience keep this one to myself though. I might actually miss some games, as it looks like I'm going to have to leave Canada, travel to Japan, and apprentice myself to the guy who made all of THESE.

Either that, or I'll shortly be slashing my wrists and bleeding out. The world might not be able to contain this much beauty.

It all started with ...

2007-07-25T00:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, I posted about architectural salvage, but for me it all started here. Aside from the crap faux marble base, that thing is perfect. Apparently Geo has been messing around with some stuff, and its possible that he and I have a few other tricks up our sleeves to augment the game room, which has a decidedly swords & sorcery theme bias.

Taking a look over that site, if anyone has any other ideas toss em on into the ring. I'm sure that more than just myself would love to collab on a cool project to step things up a notch or three.

Cool Gaming Environments, Guest Stars and Proposed start dates

2007-07-23T11:22:00.001-07:00

Okay...so how cool would it be to game an episode of Steam Lords on board the Railway Saloon Car at Fort Edmonton Park? It's $150 if during the daytime, so maybe we could do it for a birthday game or something (Rusty requested one...). Being at Fort Ed for a game would really add something to the experience!

I was also thinking, given the chagrin of some of the significant others attached to our proposed group, that the occasional guest star wouldn't be a bad idea. Get some other people in occasionally, or fill vacant spots when our regulars can't make it.

AND...I think Monday, September 10 would make a good start date. If Monday doesn't work, we can use another night, just not Thursday or weekends for me.

Character Profile: Mr. Harland Wyndham

2007-07-20T00:38:00.000-07:00

Mr. Wyndham is not well known in most circles, although in rare moments observant folks think maybe he was, or should be, or has been. Those who had known his former self would have trouble recognizing him, and he was never well liked anyways.

Upon meeting Wyndham, the question most on people's minds is "where are the bottom halves of your legs?", but most gentlemen and ladies would not presume to ask that and Wyndham has never been heard to volunteer the information. These people usually recover from this train of thought by focusing on the chair he rides around on, which tends to remove the focus on his lack in the leg department with little effort or demonstration.

He is well spoken, but quiet. Often thought to be thinking, brooding, or sulking, his grizzled appearance is rather offset by his well made, if a bit tired clothing. Neither of these do much to balance his brisk manner with those around him. He isn't really old, but most would guess him to be 10 to 15 years older than he really is. From time to time a memory twigged will light Wyndham up like an arc welder, but once he's done glowing he will typically grow quite shadowy, throwing himself into very focused work.

The chair offers clues to his past. The parts can be traced back to a formidable rail baron, where Mr. Wyndham was well paid for his work on a secretive project that has still not come to light. He was well paid, and well respected, grudgingly. His talents were valued, until an explosion claimed his legs just above the knee. The resources pulled together to assemble the chair he would spend virtually all of his time in rival the yearly revenue of most small countries. With this chair, he could continue his work with little inconvenience.

Wyndham was told to leave when it was seen that he could no longer focus and had become a danger to himself and those around him. He was no longer trusted, and so he was no longer valued, respected, or, sadly, paid. His parting gift was the chair.

Having been a mercenary, he is no longer in good standing with his school. He still has the Art, but no longer has the resources he had become accustomed to. He is smart enough to know that the explosion was no accident, but has never discovered just who was responsible. For this reason he trusts no one, suspects almost everyone, and obsessively avoids people from his past. He appears to have no living relations, and very few friends.

His personal project is constructing himself some new legs. It is primarily secret, and revealed only on need to know. Unfortunately for him, they are complex enough that he will need much assistance before they can be completed.

Plate Techtonics

2007-07-19T11:51:00.000-07:00

Could it be that the movement of techtonic plates is not a geologically ancient event, but the aftermath of a tremendous explosion a few thousand years ago. (Since mass extinctions did not occur in this time frame this could not be a meteor impact, but an energy driven explosion, say a billion megatons or so.) Now could analytical engines simulate the movements of the plates, and extrapolate backwards in time and geography to the explosion mid-atlantic? Would Captain Nemo be interested in exploring this spot? What will he find? Are Steam Lords tapping into the same energy that caused this explosion? Inquiring minds need to know.

Brainstorm: Train Punks

2007-07-19T09:08:00.001-07:00

The rail barons rule the railways. But renegade Steam Punks with confiscated trains also ride the rails...the question is...how do they do it?

Do they build their own lines of track and intersect the main rails until their track is scrapped by the barons?

The dangers are high (unless you have train schedules)...but the rewards in terms of speed are great.

Who are the Steam Lords?

2007-07-18T21:55:00.000-07:00

Given that steam is the greatest energy source on Earth in this alternate history, the search for better and more efficient ways of using steam occupies the great thinkers of every nation. Some schools of magic utilize the four basic elements of Creation - earth, water, fire and air...but generally most users of the Art can only manipulate one of these elements. The discovery that four mages working in tandem could produce intense amounts of steam energy resulted in athe major powers recruiting mages to produce energy. While this is seen as the worst form of mercenary values by the Sorcerous schools, the riches and power given to such practitioners outweighed allegiances to the Schools. This has resulted in the Schools attempting to assassinate such defectors.

Recently it has come to light that there are rare individuals, who can use all four elements. These rare individuals are highly prized in the growing energy rivalries between nations, and sought out at astronomical prices. These individuals are known as the Steam Lords, and are guarded closely by their benefactors.

The Summer Wanderer

2007-07-18T12:51:00.000-07:00

In the alternate history of Steam Lords, the Airship owned by the Stewart family was commissioned by Benedict's father, Lord Somerled Stewart from Charles Renard and Arthur Constantin Krebs. The original designs for this airship were improved upon by Lord Somerled's engineers prior to his death in 1893. When Benedict returned home from his adventuring to attend to his father's estate, he made the construction of The Summer Wanderer (the translation of Somerled into modern English) a top priority. The Summer Wanderer made several successful flights before it became apparent that a rigid skeleton would improve upon the overall design; in 1898 Benedict commissioned The Summer Wanderer II, a rigid airship which would remain unsurpassed until WWI, when Zeppelins would be able to match The Summer Wanderer II in speed. (By then of course, Blaine's character will have designed something even better!)

World Inspiration

2007-07-18T08:12:00.000-07:00

Something I have been checking out a lot lately is Architectural Salvage places, and being rather inspired by things like this. It started as plans for when we lock down a house, but its obviously blending well with this effort as well. I'll toss in a few links to some sites that show some pretty cool stuff, that might get you thinking.

Architectural Salvage Inc.
The Brass Knob
Old House Salvage
Ohmega Salvage

I just visited that first one, down in Denver, on the weekend. I wanted to take half the place with me. That push plate I linked up top was tough to walk away from, even at $95. Trying to reason out how I'd get mantles and oversized doors home in my suitcase has haunted my dreams since.

Definition of Steam Punk and a Summer Reading List

2007-07-18T07:34:00.000-07:00

Blaine was asking -- so I thought I'd help out here.

Wikipedia states that:

"Steampunk is a subgenre of fantasy and speculative fiction which came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often set in Victorian era England—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date. Other examples of steampunk contain alternate history-style presentations of "the path not taken" of such technology as dirigibles or analog computers; these frequently are presented in an idealized light, or a presumption of functionality. It is often associated with cyberpunk and shares a similar fanbase and theme of rebellion, but developed as a separate movement (though both have considerable influence on each other). Apart from time period and level of technological development, the main difference between cyberpunk and steampunk is that steampunk settings tend to be less obviously dystopian."

Check out the rest of the article HERE.

Our game is going to be set in the 19th century, so here is a list of books that are steampunk in the 19th century:

19th century setting

Novels set in the Victorian era include:

· Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon (2006)

· Anti-Ice by Stephen Baxter (1993)

· The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers (1983)

· Celestial Voyages series (2003) by Jeff Provine -- Interplanetary expeditions are launched in 1901.

· The Difference Engine (1990) by William Gibson & Bruce Sterling -- the designs of Charles Babbage led to the wide usage of mechanical computers in Victorian England.

· Fata Morgana by William Kotzwinkle (1977)

· Homunculus by James Blaylock (1986)

· Imperial Moon by Christopher Bulis (1980) -- A Doctor Who novel set in 1897 when Queen Victoria sends a mission to the Moon

· Infernal Devices by K. W. Jeter (1987)

· Larklight, Mortal Engines, Predator's Gold, and Infernal Devices by Philip Reeve (2006)

· The Light Ages, House of Storms by Ian R. MacLeod -- Set in an England where aether has been harnessed as a power source

· Lord Kelvin's Machine by James Blaylock (1992)

· "Ned the Seal" trilogy by Joe R. Lansdale:

· Zeppelins West (2001) [1]

· Flaming London (2006) [2]

· The Sky Done Ripped (TBA)

· The Steampunk Trilogy by Paul Di Filippo (1995)

Character Profile: Master A Aaron Addle

2007-07-17T06:21:00.000-07:00

Aaron, was son of a telegrapher James, and sickly mother Anna. He grew up rather impoverished, owing to the fact that James had to spend all of the spare income and more on medicinal herbs for Anna, who suffered repeated bouts of multiple herb resistant TB. As a result, Aaron was raised in James' workplace. He learned [Morse] Code as a toddler, and it is in reality his first. He, along with a select few of his peers (kids who learned Code as toddlers) could communicte with key faster than anyone could follow, or dream of. He was also an mechanicist, who as a child dissassembled the wall clock in James' office, and reassembled it. Despite having three cogs left over, the reassembled clock had two new chime sounds, kept much better time and needed winding only once every other week. His most significant invention was a Code Key that worked far faster than the manual models, and allowed him to communicate with his many distant friends. (Yes, he Black Boxed the Telegraphic Web and consorted with Steam Punks, though unknowingly.) His communication skills were rewarded when, in a chain of events too long to tell here, he was recruited into Her Majesty's foreign service as a communications officer, responsible for secure, encrypted communication with London. His amazing talents obviously worked for the Royal High Commissioner, but Aaron longed for a little more adventure, and even more for the opportunity to better his financial lot, so he could afford to marry--no impoverished family for Aaron! He was fiercely loyal to Her Majesty, and, naturally, a staunch Anglican (his sovereign being defender of the Faith, after all). He was bespeckled with the wierdest of mechanical spectacles, which had interchangable lenses able to adjust from near to far vision, microscope to telescope. He carried a kit box with an incredible variety of mechanical and personal items, tucked into a seemingly endless number of tiny compartments, some of which were well hidden, sometimes even from Aaron himself. Though the picture of English gentlemanly eccentricity, an image he cultivated with relish, Aaron's impoverishment as a child, and the necessity to obtain herbs far too expensive to purchase through legal channels, gave Aaron a secret underground background, and so he was exceedingly street wise.

Character Profile: Benedict Ulysses Stewart

2007-07-16T18:37:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking of a mix between Sir Richard Francis Burton, Roland the Gunslinger, and Allan Quatermain; he likely had ties to Colonial England but has long since done away with these, frustrated by the ethnocentrism of the British nation. If there are other reasons for Michael's anti-colonial attitude, he has not revealed them. He attended Oxford, then traveled the world on his father's money (he has a background in nobility), spending his fortune on adventuring, womanizing and philanthropist activities in destitute countries. He maintains a fair estate, although he is rarely ever there, choosing instead to travel the globe in an airship. He is working on a written account of his exploits but realizes that so far they mostly amount to going to exotic lands, seducing women and then donating money to church orphanages. As a result, he is looking for something really grand to devote his attention to. His favored weapons are two Colt Dragoon Revolvers (amazing given their rarity) and a cutlass he won off of a pirate while in the British Navy stationed in the Caribbean. He is a theological Anglican, but a bit of a rogue in practice. He has been married, but at 28 is already a widower. He has no children to his knowledge, but keeps hunting dogs on his estate. He has a passion for Appleton rum and expensive cigars.

Mechano Analytical Engine

2007-07-16T15:41:00.000-07:00

Some cool steampunk art

2007-07-15T23:30:00.001-07:00

Miniatures

2007-07-15T22:01:00.000-07:00

We'll definitely have to get some new miniatures, whatever we decide about the sets. I think we should continue our tradition of $10/game to generate the necessary bling for things.

I've come across a couple of good possibilities for our miniatures for the Steampunk scenario proper if it's set in an alternate history, not a secondary world:
We can use PAPER figures...it would definitely be cheaper. Victorians...gunfighters...pulp heroes...pulp sci fi...
GURPS Steampunk Box Set
Call of Cthulhu figures - click on the links, look around at the sub-menus for Call of Cthulhu, there's some good stuff there.
Some great historical figures...at a size pretty close to traditional gaming figures (1/72 scale - we use 25-28mm currently)

And a shout out to the best collection of miniatures I found available online...

Another possibility are the figures for "Horrorclix", because they have stuff like this figure. Trouble is, it's a collectible figure game - so we'd be paying for individual figures out of box...which makes it again more work. But there's definitely some cool stuff.

My old fantasy fave, Reaper miniatures has some good figures as well - a cowgirl, a Monster hunter and others hidden in the depths that might work well for us, but it's going to be work tracking down good figures for this campaign, that much is blatantly obvious.

Anyhow. Just some late night surfing, with the hope of finding some kick-ass figures.

So I did some thinking...

2007-07-15T21:54:00.000-07:00

And thought...okay, we've got all this great gaming gear...aka our Dwarven Forge stuff. And I was doing some searches for miniatures, and our best bet is going to be paper ones from RPGnow. So then I got my brain chewing on a fully secondary world as opposed to alternate history. Don't know if this appeals to our steampunk sensibilities our not. There are secondary world steampunk styled storylines...Avatar: the Last Airbender comes to mind, especially as regards the Fire Nations' weapons. Or a bunch of the artwork in Magic: The Gathering had a steampunk feel. Battle Chasers was also influenced by Steam Punk. And that started allowing for the possibility of really having some powerful fantasy elements vs. Victorian with computers. A bit more swordwork could be involved as a result. We'd still have black powder, and all of what SteamedinEdmonton already spoke about, but I thought it would give us more room to play with the secondary world, without tying it too tightly to real world history.

Depends on what we want to do I guess. Me, I want to have a good time, but I'm also a perfectionist when it comes to representing the physical environment, so I guess it makes me think it would be cool if it all took place in castles, and had barons and lords and knights and what not, but the knights might be "gunslingers" ala Stephen King's Dark Tower series.

Then again, I love a good car chase in an early Ford. Or a monowheel, ala Steamboy.

Just thinking out loud here on the blog.

Spanish American War

2007-07-14T16:21:00.000-07:00

It is war, and Generalisimo Santa Anna, having conquered Texas, is in the process of doing the same against General Lee's United States army. How can this be? At every turn, Lee's strategy is both anticipated, and countered with greatest effect. The situation is dire. Queen Victoria's scientific advisory board has programmed the Royal Analytical Engine to ananlyze the situation, and with an 89.4% certainty, the Spanish forces are using temporal displacement to guide their battles. Since Her Majesty does not want a hostile Spanish presence along the southern boarders of her North American Colonies (Upper and Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, etc.), she commandeds that her crack time machine detection and elimination unit take action.

The Aether Vortex Discriminator

2007-07-14T16:15:00.001-07:00

This is a picture of my latest, greatest invention, the aether vortex discriminator. It is extremely useful in locating the spacial coordinates of time displacement devices.

The Setting for Steam Lords

2007-07-14T13:17:00.000-07:00

Steam Lords is the working title for a roleplaying campaign world that myself and some friends are currently getting ready to play in. To facilitate discussion and to anticipate gaming posting being a vital part of what will make Steam Lords kick some major ass (or gas?) I'm putting up this low-budget blog.

Here's the initial setting, as written by the Geomancer:

Based on history up to 19^th century and diverged at that point.

Charles Babbage was sponsored by British Empire to construct and perfect his steam powered analytical engine.

By replacing some mechanical linkages with steam based pneumatic linkages, the analytical engine was adapted to solve many harmonic type equations. (This created, among other advances, steam techno music.) This actually produced analytical engines capable of calculations impossible to digital technology of our benighted modern era.

The analytical engine solved Maxwell’s equations, resulting in early discovery of high velocity solutions (special relativity: E=Mc² etc), black body radiation (quantum mechanics) and accelerated solutions (general relativity: black holes etc.). Out of this, steam driven mechanickal anti-gravity devices were developed. (Flying super dreadnaughts, space travel etc.) Simultaneous solutions for general relativity and quantum mechanics were calculated, resulting in perfection of quantum string theory, and practical harnessing of zero point energy. (Mechanickal generators both tiny and huge, with virtually unlimited power—limitations only that the device had to be large enough not to be melted or vapourized by its high power output.) Zero point generators in the middle of boilers yield both tiny and huge steam driven machines of unlimited power. Zero point generators in the middle of furnace brick yield heaters, while inside of high temperature ceramics yield light sources, no electricity required thank-you.

Detectors of brain waves were developed and analyzed, again by use of analytical engines. It turns out brain waves are so analogous to zero point energy waves that by proper biofeedback training, meditative techniques could harness zero point energy. The difficulty is avoiding frying your brain with the energy. (This is “magick”.) Analytical engines also analyzed life auras based on Yin-Yang models of eastern origin, calculating DNA sequences, and were used to sequence plants to grow health or death dealing herbal remedies. Multiple brain systems were calculated. Queen Victoria herself took great interest in these calculations, which modeled yielded a governance under her Monarchy so clearly superior, that many countries adopted her as their Monarch, greatly increasing the scope of the British Empire. Calculations based on Malthus’ results demonstrated the need to conserve, so no new technology was developed if old technology worked. Personal transportation was outlawed, and rail and water based (oceans and canals) mass transit only was used. The onset on an ice age was calculated, so coal and petroleum reserves were tapped and burned just enough to increase the greenhouse gasses enough to stabilize world climate. The Empire faces threats, however, like monopolistic empire straddling railroad and shipping corporations seek to usurp Her Majesty’s power , end of the world fanaticism (zero point energy, unlimited in power, makes this a dire threat) and several international and interplanetary rivals.

Curious feed back loops in analytical engines were always present, indicating that opposites always occur together. Political stability must always be accompanied by instability. Thus the global telegraphic net which united the Empire always attracts hackers who periodically bring it down, thereby invigorating it (steam-punks especially!) The only way to deal with end of the world fanatics (an inevitable consequence of harnessing zero point energy is that some people become these fanatics) is through rivalry and limited conflict (steam cold war) with other states. Society must be both utopian and dystopian. Privilege and under privilege must accompany each other. Social equality must always come in an unequal society. Techs and anti-techs go together. Nobility and street punks coexist.

Strangely, certain calculations always break an analytical engine. Calculating the existence or attributes of God, for example. Humans trained in zero point control (magick) can perform these, but if they begin as atheists, the calculation maddens them, and if they begin religious, they remain religious. Nobody outside of their religion will trust their calculations.

Occupations include: noble, steam punk, fanatic, scientific dabbler, mechanickal artificer, mechanickal operator, magick user, military person, spy, analytical engine operator (like programmer), telegrapher (all communications, and input and output of analytical engines are by telegraph), engineer (two kinds—civil and steam engine operator), cleric, rail-road/shipping baron, detective (schooled in the Sherlock Holmes detective agency), herbalist, medicinist, surgeon, military person (various ranks), navigator (sail the oceans, or skies or space), captain, scrap recycler.