This adventure takes place in the World of Anon.

https://sites.google.com/site/worldofanon

8/15/10

Into the Hive...

Two gaming sessions and two homebrew sessions have passed since the last update.  Both players and the DM have gotten rather tired of the Cousins Caverns and the vague assignment to "fix the problem".  The players are desperate to level up and resupply.  The DM is eager to advance the story.  The DM has resolved to draw maps smaller to expedite play.

Bartok and Giels ventured deep into the caverns finding a large cavern filled with a forest of fungi.  Undoubtedly where the Gnomes ran into trouble.  They venture into a seeming dead end they were swarmed by bats and attacked by giant centipede.  Beating a smart retreat, the party turned away from a watery cavern, then found the entrance to the ant Hive. What, Nobody up for a swim in the dark water where evil DM's are known to lurk?

They blundered in quickly dispatching a soldier guard and a few workers.  Feeling confident beyond their abilities they moved into the breeding chamber where they found the ants did not appreciate their intrusion.  They were quickly swarmed by many workers and a pair of soldiers.  After a tactical retreat down a narrow tunnel Bartok quaffed an unknown potion found in the Crystal Cavern.  Being large and in charge (Potion of Growth) the duo crushed the ants.

Re-entering the breeding chamber they were greeted by another group of workers, soldiers, and a really pissed off flying Queen.  Expending the last of their powers and potions the party narrowly kill the Queen and her defenders.

The party now pauses to consider whether they have the courage to go forward or the strength to travel back through the dangerous cavern to a safe resting place.

The DM struggles with managing his DM Genie and MapTool to run the campaign.  If only there was a single tool to manage encounters and maps.  I'd pay good money for that.

7/1/10

New tools and deeper delving

The campaign successfully introduced the use of MapTool to manage the game table.  Snafu was able to host a server and have Velvet join via an ad-hoc wireless network.  The game session time was spent primary discussing home brewing and getting some of the bugs worked out of MapTool.  We are old school D&D players and this is a huge leap forward for us.  I do believe that this will be beneficial to our game and help us to attract some new players to our campaign.

As far as the two cousins are concerned they loved MapTool.  Their tokens were recklessly moved about the screen and Snafu had a hard time clearing the fog of war quickly enough.  There was a minor glitch with map scaling that caused the entire map to be revealed when trying to use the built in illumination feature of a sunrod.  I think we will stick with the DM revealing as we go. 

Long gone are Jim Giels oppressed days of military training and monastic living to earn his paladin hood.  Having the freedom of MapTool, he was quickly jumping up and exploring a series of ledges in the Darkmantles cavern, only to be reminded again of the pure evil of DM's.  Upon reaching the top ledge a nasty slime lurched out at him and Bartok a ledge below.  One smoking sword later they wisely beat a hasty retreat and moved on.

Not much exploring or combat for an evening of Dungeons & Dragons but time well spent amongst friends.  As the DM I feel that MapTool will help spur the players on to making decisions and moving their characters forward decisively.  I think I will be asking less "So, what are you doing?" and more scrambling to react to their actions.  I hope they don't always move too fast or it will be a short lived campaign.

5/17/10

Who is better at persuasion?

The cousins returned to GnomeHold to resupply and rest a night.  After a lengthy debate Bartok won, they decided to continue exploring the Gnome caverns and collect the reward. 

With a little time to explore the GnomeHold Bartok finds the ampitheatre and has a close call with the Gnome's allies.  Diving for cover thinking he is about to be eaten by a giant Eagle the gnomes have a good laugh at his expense.  John learns the eagles are the gnome's friends and allies.  Their eye's in the sky.

Gnarlin learns that there may be sentinet fungus in the caverns that are directing the rampaging ants.

The party returns to the caverns and convince Billy the Crysmal to come with them on their adventure.  Traveling through new ant passages the party discovers a large cavern with a greenish pool of water.  They discover a skeleton wearing a magical suit of chainmail.  Jim Giels claims this for himself.  This cavern also connects with the Crystal Caves.

Traveling deeper into the new large caverns the party is surrounded in darkness and attacked by cave dwelling Darkmantles.  After narrowly escaping death the party kills the Darkmantles and resolves to continue on...

5/11/10

Insect Intervention

The two cousins are deep in tunnels of a giant ant colony pondering their next move.  The cousins are wondering if the 50 silver gnomish trade bars (1000 gp value) were payment enough to fix the problem of intruding ants into GnomeHold Liftgate.  And just what does fix the problem mean?