2007 Review

Well, this year has been a good year for gaming. Neill ran a game for the first time. I eventually managed to settle on a game that I am going to run. Nige, Willie, and John have all continued with their campaigns.

Neill ran Delta Green - the modern supplement for Call of Cthulhu. We all really enjoyed that game although I still to this day do not know exactly what we were facing. There were a lot of dead bodies though.

Willie continued running his DnD game which borrows heavily from the world of Kelewan for the setting. Metal is scarce, weapons and armour are made of a very hard and resiliant wood. Magic Users are all tightly controlled and members of a guild. I didn't know what I was going to play in this game. I usually play a thief/rogue type character. This time I decided to try something new and I tried a barabarian. I din't know how I was going to play the character but it sort of decided itself during the first couple of sessions. He quickly evolved into a 'Thrudd' type character who hacks first and asks questions later. The major driving forces in his life are fighting, beer, more fighting, more beer, and women in that order. He has a greatsword and he charges blingly into every combat hacking away making the best use of his rageing and cleaving abilities. At the moment his mimimum damage from his greatsword is somewhere in the region of 30 points per hit for the first strike and he then has another two with progressively lower mimimums per hit each turn.

Nige continued his Rolemaster campaign in which I am Nightblade. For anyone unfamiliar with Rolemaster this is a magically enhanced assassin. Unfortunately due to our parties composition he has ended up being the tank in the group which is not what he wants to be. The most memorable moment in the game this year is when we where guarding 3 artifacts on a cart in a procession through the city. We where attacked by magically aided thieves and the artifacts were taken. We chased them but couldn't find the artifacts when we caught them. It eventually turned out that the attack was to destract us while the driver ofthe cart and some of his other cooconspirators hid the artifacts inside the cabbages that were also on the cart - it was a harvest festival type procession with the cart full of produce with the artifacts in the center of the cart.

In Johns game we managed to defeat an evil villains plans and make our escape to South America. On the way we opened the book that we had taken and we now all change into big fluffy cats! This is important to the plot of the next aadventure that we are just starting, honest. The most important thing to happen though was that my Priest has had a crisis of faith and realsied that all he believes in is false - how can there be a god after all he has seen? He went on a bender of wine and women for about a week and he has now pulled himself back together. He has lost his faith, but he isn't telling mother church that as she has a lot of resources to call upon should we need them.

I never ran anything this year, but I have decided to run WFRP 2nd Edition in the new year. Let the battle against Chaos commence!

Browser-based MMORPGs

Last week a friend of mine gave me the latest copy of PC Gamer to read. I came across an article on Omerta, a browser-based gangster MMORPG set in the 1930s. I gave it a go and it was quite fun. Bit of a bad move on my part though!

After voting for the game I found masses of these things. I started playing Bulfleet - a space empire game that is reminiscent of the classic 'Supremacy' game that those of you who had a Commodore 64 or Amiga might fondly remember. Boy, the amount of hours I wasted on that game, and I never did manage to win the 32 planet game. Oh well.

I didn't stop there. I am now also playing Imperia Online, which is similar in scope to Bulfleet, but is set in Medieval times. I like the resource gathering and empire building techniques in both of these games.

The latest one that I am completely hooked on is Gladiatus. This one is different from the rest in that it is more like an RPG in which you play a Gladiator and you train, fight, and adventure. Its not a resource/builder game.

If you want something to waste a few enjoyable days on then I would take a look at one of these. The best thing is that they are free.

Back to Rolemaster

Well, we have been playing Rolemaster for at least 6 weeks now. Boy have we been having fun. At the start of this session, Johns character got a magical bow that was reminiscent of the one that you saw the Ranger with in the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon. That was a bit of a mistake on Nige's part. It totally unbalanced the game and we just walked through the following adventure. The next week it was nerfed!

The first mission that we undertook was to investigate what looked to be an abandoned keep in the desert. It wasn't quite abandoned. It was fully of undead. That caused lots of fun for us. It was during this adventure that my Nightblade decided that he was good at detecting traps, and that if he couldn't detect one, instead of telling his fellow party members that he coudln't find one, he categorically stated that there wasn't one there. This went fine for the first few times, and then bam! We set off a trap. Oops.

One of the most memorable encounters in the keep was when we opened a door and there was a room full of weapons in racks - obviously an armoury. Willies character detected a blanket magic field over the room. We threw an object in the room and one of the weapons animated and flew towards the door through which we had threw the object. It was easily dodged. Willie then crouched down and waved a staff or similar object into the room above his head. Another weapon flew through the open doorway aiming for the point where the tip of the staff entered the room. This task was repeated numerous times until the entire armoury was emptied. Nige's masterpiece encounter was ruined - absolutely no challenge to us whatsoever. Well, let me just say that this triumph on our part was to cost us dearly in later weeks when Nige wreaked his vengeance on our characters. Oh well, that will teach us to be smart!

In a later mission, we were travelling through a forest and my Nightblade was scouting ahead. I came across some fire elementals setting fire to the trees. It was at this point that my Pyromania kicked in and I just stood there watching these absolutely enchanting creatures torch everything in site. The rest of the party caught up and defeated the creatures and then put the fires out, to Corvuses disgust and sadness.

A screaming book

Dr Leicester and Father Montalcini go to the library, where Dr Leicester casts a spell and notes there are a number of magical tomes. Father Montalcini goes to hold a book to take it down when he notices it’s made of human skin with veins that pulse with blood. He drops the book in shock and the book screams in pain when it hits the floor. Father Montalcini is freaked by the fact that the book cover is human skin, but not by the fact that the book screams. What gives?

Wooster and Captain Cullen investigate the basement and find their way into the lowest floor – the 3rd basement. The floor and walls of their floor are made of the same marble as the Temple in Egypt. They enter a room with 20 cloaks hanging around the room by their hoods. Embroidered on the cloaks is a half moon pattern similar to that on the book that Mogens has. Half the room is lit by a ‘moon lit’ glow and the other half is in darkness. This is caused by a half-moon hole in the ceiling. In the centre of the room is a rune carved altar. The plinth is made of red and white marble. The arrangement is half in the darkness and half in the moonlight. There are no chains to hold anyone down on the altar. Wooster notices that the red veins in the marble are actually veins filled with blood.

At this point Nige has rolled a natural 100 on his sanity role, and then rolls a max on his sanity loss. If this was Rolemaster that would be fantastic but as it’s Cthulhu!

Wooster recoils away from the altar uttering ‘I’m never going to get that clean!’ Captain Cullen starts casting a spell. As Captain Cullen starts to cast the spell, Wooster spots that the veins in the altar start to pulse faster and the pulsing increases the nearer the spell comes to being completed. Wooster spins around, walks away, and tries to ignore what he has seen. Captain Cullen finishes the spell and finds out that they have passed the book they are looking for.

Revenge of the Dog-Men

I missed the previous two weeks but the following is a quick overview of what happened. When Father Montalcini visits Joshua in the asylum he is obviously mad. He talks about creatures coming out of the walls in the temple in South America – dogs that walk on their hind legs. While talking to him I notice that the tips of his fingers on this right hand are missing, obviously taken off by the ‘blades’ on the ‘lock’ for the book that Mogens currently has.

It turned out that Joshua Farnsworth is the lovechild of Penelope Farnsworth and Dr Jones (the curator). We believe that either Dr Jones or Penelope killed her husband. Dr Leicester, Captain Cullen, and Wooster go to Penelope’s house as they believe that she will be the next victim. They arrive and enter her corner apartment and they notice a ‘dodgy’ smell. In her house they encounter a ‘hell hound’ which looks like a were creature. It seems to be about to eat Penelope but after being disturbed it runs out of the apartment.

Fast forward to Mondays session. As the creature runs out of the apartment, Captain Cullen notices that when running in a straight line it runs on all fours, but when going around a corner it runs on two. It then jumps out of a window. As Penelope Farnsworth begins to stir Captain Cullen, Wooster, and Dr Leicester exit the scene. When entering the building where we are staying, Captain Cullen notices the ‘hell hound’ in the shadows across the road.

That night Captain Cullen enters the Dreamlands and goes to the Library. He is given a book called ‘The Divine Feast’ by Henry Hollowell written in 1914. This book describes a Grimoire call ‘Haze of Gowls’ which Hollowell claims was destroyed by the Church. It details a monastic order which practiced heretical rites and talks about fantastical creatures in the centre of the earth. Persecution by the Church drove them underground. They only rise to the surface to eat humans. This cannibalistic practice turned them into a human/canine hybrid whose lifespan is extended far beyond that of normal humans via the eating of their victims’ hearts. The victim’s souls are kept within the creature as a type of hell. These creatures believe that they are absorbing the sins of humanity by consuming their wrong-doers. The writing on the wall is part of the creatures prayer. We realise that not all demons are ‘evil’. This demon preys on the ‘guilty’ and not the innocent. We decide to do nothing about the ‘Hell Hounds’.

We head off to Mogens estate for his party. In the dining room of Mogens house Captain Cullen casts Detect Magic and detects a room under the house with what seems to be a sacrificial altar in the centre which is under a statue in the middle of the foyer which is under the centre of the domed roof. The book seems to be off to the side of the altar.

The dinner is a ten course informal affair. We mingle with the guests, with Dr Leicester and Father Montalcini being the more sociable and trying to draw attention away from Captain Cullen who is trying to investigate the grounds and house further to find a way into the room under the mansion. During the fifth course Mogens and a group of his guests disappear and then reappear some time later. It seems that they went down to the room under the Mansion.

Oops...

The next day Wooster spends the morning looking into Mogans but he fails to turn up anything new. Father Montalcini looks into any folklore on heart-eating. He finds information on a lot of different beliefs including that it can extend life, increase your knowledge, or even that you are eating that person’s soul. Dr Leicester searches the curators’ office and finds a museum ledger which details substantial regular payments to a Mrs Penelope Farnsworth that started 18 months ago. There are also regular monthly payments to the Belview Asylum for a Joshua Farnsworth. The ledger also notes that Mrs Farnsworth lives at West 86th Street.

After lunch we all look through newspaper archives to see if there are any articles about Joshua Farnsworth. He turns out to be a promising archaeologist who was studying under Dr Jones (the curator) at the university. After an expedition to South America he contracted some sort of illness which caused him to degenerate to an almost animalistic nature. Nige, at this point rolls a 1 on his Gather Information roll, so all Wooster can seem to find out is that Joshua was the last President of America – too many Pink Gins I think!

The papers also list Dr Alcott, Dr Jones, Dr Graham and Dr Anderson as being on the same expedition. Alcott, Jones, and Graham worked for the museum. There are various stories about the ‘biggest museum dig of the century’ being on and off. Explorers attached to the museum believed that they had found a Mayan temple that predated any other temple found. Dr Anderson approached Dr Jones initially about the temple, and Mogans’ seems to have financed the current trip to the dig site. Mogans’ had made the first trip to the temple on his own. On the last expedition the y found a gold headdress and bracer set. They seem to be 95% gold, with the final 5% of the material being unidentifiable via laboratory analysis. They have tried to damage the items but have been unsuccessful. Stone embedded within the item cannot be chipped or crushed. These items seem to be over 10,000 years old, predating Mayan civilisation.

That evening Dr Leicester and Wooster enter the Dreamlands to talk to Sir Nicolas. Captain Cullen attempts to enter but fails. During their conversation with Sir Nicolas he reveals that he knows Mogans as he passed through the Dreamlands a few years ago. He went to regions where evil was more prevalent as this seemed to better suit his temperament. He also said that we need to make sure that Mogans should not get his hand on the key to the book. He sets out our mission, which is to locate the book, find a way to shield it so it can’t be tracked, return the book without delay, and then rebind it to the temple. Sir Nicolas says that he requires us all to be present, and summons Father Montalcini and Captain Cullen. They arrive in Sir Nicolas’ room wearing what they had been in their own dreams. Captain Cullen appears wearing an RAF uniform of a rather higher rank. Father Montalcini appears wearing leather shorts with cut-out sections across the bum cheeks and a leather chest harness. He seems to have red welts from a riding crop across his bare cheeks. His first words are ‘oops..’

After the initial stunned silence, Sir Nicolas proceeds to teach us a spell to Detect Magic and a Binding Ritual to aid us in our mission.

That stain is going to be a pig to get rid of...

We spend the day sight-seeing and then go to the curators’ home. The curator was seen arriving home at 8.40pm the night before, and has not left the building. There was a dinner party at Mr & Mrs Pinkington’s on the 9th floor of the building so it was reasonably busy. People started arriving at 7.30pm and there was a steady stream of visitors until 8.15pm.

We go up and check curator Jones room with the doorman. The doorman enters while we wait outside and then we hear him vomiting loudly. We enter the apartment and in the study find a bloody stain going across the floor and then up the wall. The curator is slumped in the corner with his stomach and chest ripped open allowing to view his intestines. We can see that the heart has been torn out of the body. On the wall is writing in the curators’ blood:

‘Loetan riht onfindan aet scyldig he gear aet fyllo man hwa foloetan se leotit’

The curator was obviously dragged from the middle of the room to the corner. Father Montalcini and Dr Leicester are violently sick at the sight before them.

When searching the house we find some love letters written by ‘Penelope’ but nothing else of any interest apart from a partially written letter that seems very serious and basically says ‘it has been done, we can be together soon’.

The police arrive at the scene and then another guy arrives wearing an ill-fitting cheap suit, trilby hat, and long coat and takes charge. A coroner is called. Statements are taken from us and then we are released. We notice that when searching the room the detective takes no notice of the writing on the wall as though he expects it to be there. On quizzing the Detective he admits that the writing appears on the wall besides all the victims. We overhear the coroner say to the Detective that ‘it’s like all the others. All the ribs are broke, and it looks like someone has torn his chest open and the person who did this has more strength than I have seen in any man’.

I go to the ‘speak easy’ that evening with Harry. The talk is all about the murders. Some folk believe it is the work of a demon and this seems to be leading argument. The information about the victims chests’ being ripped apart is not in the papers but everybody is talking about it. There have been 31 known victims but only 16 have been reported in the papers.

Dr Leicester spends the evening analyzing the writing from the wall and determines that it is a pre-Latin European language. He enters into the Dreamlands in an attempt to gain further information from our patron, Sir Nicolas. Unfortunately he fails to remember the entire message so can only get help for small snippets. Sir Nicolas tells us that we should look at pre-Roman English languages for help deciphering the message. Dr Leicester eventually translates the first line of the message as:

‘Let justice discover the guilty’

The World is coming to and end and we go sight-seeing!

It’s been a while since my last entry. To bring things up to speed, our bold investigators managed to stop the blasphemous rites that were to be performed by Kharkov in the desert. After saving the world, the tired and weary band travelled via London to New York with a side trip to the Dreamlands to meet with a dead person called Sir Nicolas. They are currently at the Smithsonian.

We are at the Smithsonian to look at finds and pictures from a Temple in South America. While looking at the pictures, everybody but Dr Leicester realises that the constellation in the picture is basically the same as the one we saw in Egypt, with the only difference being the position of the stars relative to the top of the temple. The constellation seems to be Orion with an extra star present.

We are brought a book which is similar to the one we found in the Middle East, but instead of having a Star of David on the front there is an eight-pointed star which is obviously the locking mechanism. We are also brought a ‘music box’. Unlike the first book, when we touch it we do not sense anything or get a ‘shock’. Wooster manages to open the ‘music box’ which we think is the key for the books lock. We try various ways of using it but fail to open the lock. The book was donated by Professor Morgan amongst a lot of other items, in return for ‘borrowing’ some items (which we believe are magical) of the Institutes for a private display. On closer inspection we determine that the book is a copy.

Meanwhile, a spate of murders has been occurring with the first reported cases being within Hooverville (a shanty town that exists within Central Park) but then they expanded to Harlem. The most recent murder occurred close to the 100 Street ‘barrier’ on Manhattan Island. These murders are reminiscent of the ‘Ripper’ murders of late 19th Century London, with the main difference being that the victim’s hearts are either missing or damaged.

Captain Cullen went into the Dreamlands to talk to Sir Nicolas, and while he was there he noticed that the Orion constellation was the pattern on the floor of his room. The ‘missing’ star from Orion was still missing in this pattern, but where is should have been was the exact centre of the floor. During that night the curator that we are working with at the Smithsonian also seems to have gone missing.

The next day Dr Leicester decides that he would like to spend the day sight-seeing. The world could be coming to a bloody end and the old fart want to go sight-seeing!!! He says that he would like to visit the Statue of Liberty and Captain Cullen mumbles that it is because ‘it’ll be the first woman he has entered in years’.