A Pleasant Night in Emerald Grove: Session 3 – The Morgue

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The date is 10/30/2010.  The place is Emerald Grove University… right?  The criminal justice major may have gotten in over his head in his daring solo investigation, and something is undeniably moving in the fog. But that’s fine, the Campus Center should be a safe place – there’s no way anything could hurt us when we’re all together.

Things are heating up as the campus begins to chill down, and things are treading soil that has not known their touch in millenia. Can our heroes unravel the secrets locked in the campus morgue before it’s too late?

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Dungeons and Dragons 4E: Dark Sun – The Caravan Rescue Episode 2

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A dry wind blows through the endless deserts of Athas – is it perhaps a wind of change, the last breath of a dying world, or is it simply the harsh exhalation of triumph of the sorceror-kings that hold the sands in their deathless grip?  One small group of travelers, brought together from around the desiccated world, must band together to dare these ceaseless winds and save the lost members of a decimated merchant house before the sands (and the darker things that dwell there) swallow them up forever.  Can they save their emperiled comrades before death takes them?

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Time Lord

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The Time Lord Ruffles had promised one of his companions that he would take them all to a nice beach, but things rarely worked out exactly the way he planned in his old Type 42 TARDIS.

He’d picked up two of his companions in 21st Century Temporal Nexus Point Earth.  Sgt. John Stewart was a member of U.N.I.T. who had joined him after he had defeated a demonic creature who had meant to first enslave Yorkshire and then the rest of the world.  Sgt. Stewart had insisted on coming with the Time Lord, though he had actually been ordered to accompany the man by his superiors, who suspected Ruffles might actually be the Master in some new, goofy disguise.  Veella Cyan had stumbled into the TARDIS when it had been disguised as a Lady’s Room.  Crytozoologist Kyle Epps from the mid-1980s was his third companion, though he was missing since he’d gone to take a nap after helping Ruffles deal with some parasitic insects on Alpha Beta IV.  That had been two weeks before.  The internal restructuring system on the TARDIS sometimes activated on its own and the room that Epps had been in had disappeared somewhere into the interior.  Ruffles was not sure where the man was.

On April 30, 2010, I ran a game of Time Lord as a one-shot to test out the game for a review in Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine.  My players were Elliot, Eric, Tori, and Michael.  The scenario was called “Curse of the Cyclops.”

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Expendables

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The First Galactic Empire, thought to be the creation of Terra, collapsed 6,000 years ago.  The Second Galactic Empire, started with the establishment of the Star Empire of Yorkin, formed some 2,000 years after the fall of the first.  But civil war and unrest caused first damage and then the destruction of the Second Empire almost 500 years ago.  Now The Company controlled all interstellar trade, ship drives, and fuel.  “The glue that binds the far flung outposts of humanity together,” The Company, so huge that its name had been lost and forgotten, now controls humanity in the galaxy.

Dacks McCool was mission leader of an inexperienced E Team in Fiscal Year 1390.  The “E” used to describe the Exploration Teams that The Company sent out to explore worlds heretofore only checked by deep space probe was also used for the other term for the teams: Expendables.  These small teams of specialists were dropped off at planets that had been deemed suitable for colonization by probes.  They stayed on the planet for 90 days, cataloging it and making sure it was suitable for a full colony.  Many of the teams didn’t survive, hence their nickname.

Gyr Tam was the mission’s security specialist.  Gaston Cayce was the group’s pilot.  Denn Pax was the medic.  This is the story of their exploration of one such far-flung planet.  No one knew exactly who assigned planetary code names except that whoever did didn’t admit it for personal safety reasons.  In this case, they had just cause.  The planet had been code-named “Kukamunga.”

On March 22, 2010, I ran a game of Expendables with Steve, Ken, and Erik as a one-shot to test out the game for a review in Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine. As there weren’t enough players, I ran the medic as an npc.

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Tomb of Horrors Part 3

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The adventurers Tallion the mage; Hastik Wasney, the priest of Rao; Hundar the Barbarian; and Generi, the thief continue their foray into the Tomb of Horrors.  One of them has died and been raised from the dead with powerful magic by this time.  Would they all survive?

On September 21, 2009, I ran the third and final session of the original Tomb of Horrors, using Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, for a group of players in Kernersville, N.C.  Jeff, R.J., Tim, and Bethany all played.  This is the third of three sessions that it took them to get through the tomb.

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Tomb of Horrors Part 2

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The adventurers Tallion the mage; Hastik Wasney, the priest of Rao; Hundar the Barbarian; and Generi, the thief continue their foray into the Tomb of Horrors.  None have yet died, though danger remains all around them.

On September 7, 2009, I ran the second session of the original Tomb of Horrors, using Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, for a group of players in Kernersville, N.C.  Jeff, R.J., Tim, and Bethany all played.  This is the second of three sessions that it took them to get through the tomb.

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