Game Viet Nam

So in last Friday's game a couple of PCs caroused successfully, so I should really share some drunken news about the ol' dungeon situation. 

Durgar Ironfoot, Skole the Viking and Philip the Black spent some time digging through the big pile of rubble that used to be the main keep of Castle Dundagel.  Well, Philip the Black didn't actually do any of the digging. He let his henchweenie do the work for him. Near sundown they cleared a narrow accessway to a wide set of stair leading down into some unknown part of the dungeons.  The number of sinister crows in the vicinity had been steadily increasing as nightfall approached, so the party decided to get back to the abbey before the sun set. 

The next day, with the addition to their party of the cleric Geoffroy of Cornouaille they descended the stairs in search of treasure and glory.  As I recall the only treasure found was a magic-user scroll with a spell from the Arduinian Age, mostly the poor deluded fools encountered brain-hungry zombies, rabid rats (one of which killed Philip's henchman) and several trapped doors.  The expedition ended prematurely when the dwarf Durgar narrowly avoided the gaze of a trio of medusae, who then proceeded to chase the party right out of the dungeon.

So if you encounter one or more snake-haired ladies on the grounds of the ruined castle, you know exactly who to blame.

Big thanks to Stuart over at Strange Magic for sharing this on the Google+.

My buddy Pat photoshopped a new face onto Gandalf to make me a photo of James of Dillington, the NPC wizard who has been seen skulking about the Caves of Myrddin. He used to look a lot more wrinkly, but Finn the Thief, a PC in my Wednesday night game, sold old James a Potion of Longevity. James is currently the guest of William of Crevan, the castellan of nearby Castle Bottreaux.  Staying at the Abbey guesthouse is for chump adventurers with no connections.

Since G+ is so ephemeral I thought I'd save a couple items here. First up, an idea of mine that a few folks seemed to like:

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Today's stupid XP/class idea for old school D&D: Rearrange the XP bonus for stats so that a LOW stat gets you a bonus.

If you have a low Int, you get an XP bonus for playing a fighter.
If you have a low Str, you get an XP bonus for playing an MU.
If you have a low Dex, you get an XP bonus for playing a cleric.
If you have a low Wis, you get the bonus for playing a Thief.
You could use Cha for dwarves (all dwarves tend to act like Grumpy of Snow White fame) and Con for elves (elves have always struct me as slightly consumptive).

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And here's a question I asked and the respones:

"If you dig Frank Frazetta then you should check out the work of ________"

Jeffrey Jones
The Brothers Hildebrandt
Boris Vallejo

Who else?

Answers: brom, Don Maitz, Julie Bell, Simon Bisley, Alex Ross, Mike Hoffman, M.W. Kaluta, William Stout, Roy Krenkel, Mark Schultz, Gary Gianni, Joe Jusko, kent williams, Sam Keith, Barry Windsor-smith, Cary Nord, Robert E. Howard :), Ken Kelly, Glenn Orbik, George Barr, virgil finlay?, Michael Whelan, Chris Achilleos, Don Lawrence, Frank Schoonover, Alex Raymond, Al Williamson, Wally Wood, Richard Corben, J. Allen St. John, Bob Guccione :-)

Okay, so I've got 32 people on my player list for the Friday morning Caves of Myrddin game.  Each week I draw four names at random to get on Google+ and play.  So far 25 players have got a chance to play.  Most of those folks have played once, twice, maybe three times so far.  Here are all the people that have played more than that:

Blixa the Thief (Zak S) - 6 expeditions to the Caves
Hugo le B�tard (Jeremy Duncan) - 5 expeditions
Philip of Luxembourg (Evan Van Elkins) - 4 expeditions
Pavel the Great (M�ty�s Harty�ndi) - 4 expeditions

Zak tops the list largely because he stays up late and is two time zones over, so if someone no-shows he's available whenever I broadcast the message "Need replacement player right now!"  The other three guys have just had the dice go their way when it came time to select players.  Actually being available for the play time also helps.  A couple of other people would be on this list, but they couldn't make one or two sessions when their number came up.

I'm bringing this up and identifying these guys because they all happen to be cool dudes. If you're going into my stinky little dungeons and want some clues on how to survive and thrive, these would be choice guys to hit up for advice.