Joel’s Scattered Thoughts

Present this week were:
* Cinner - dwarven rogue
* Riamara - loresong faen greenbond
* Ruke - human paladin
* Kevgretor – dwarven cleric

This session was spent fighting shadow mastiffs. They didn’t prove to be much of a challenge for the party. A big party of that was lucky rolls on the party’s part - I don’t think they missed a single blow due to the mastiffs’ concealment ability. The party found a room that silenced all sound within it, a room with a shrine and a couple of fountains, a hot room, and a room of sound.

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I’m hoping they find the last staff this week so that we can move on to the next region. Mind you they may still run into trouble in this region….

How should we study religion? Prospect Magazine March 2006 issue 120
looks to be fascinating. Now if only I’ll take the time to read it…

Jaimie and I have been plying World of Warcraft for the last two weeks or so. It’s a lot of fund. Here’s what I enjoy about the game so far.
1. The scenery. I mostly prefer text to graphics, but the scenery in this game is amazing. Looking out over the Thunderfluff cliffs and bridges gives me a touch of vertigo, the undead lands look like a ruined copy of the human lands, Ironforge looks like a dwarven city.
2. The people. Admittedly there are some real jerks on there, but mostly it’s fun to get together with a group and take on a tough quest. I love the way Blizzard “forces” you into groups – the creatures that you fight will come against you in a group so you need a group of your own to match them. Soloing is an option, but being with a good group is so much better.
3. The character options. I’m having a lot of fun creating characters and seeing what they can do.
4. The Auction House. Selling things to other players is a lot more fun than selling them to merchants. I can see how some people would stick to playing the auctions rather than doing quests and such.
5. The professions. I like creating things and having them be used in the world.

Things I don’t like
1. All the running. I would love to be able to tell my character “Take the path to Brill” and be done with it rather than having to steer it every step of the way. This is especially bad in the capital cities – why can’t I just click on “Go to alchemist”?
2. The minimap has no labels on it. I often have trouble finding a place I’ve been to before just because it isn’t labeled.
3. Some of the quests are less than inspiring – “Talk to this person, now go talk to that person, now go talk to that person.”

Present this week were:
* Cinner - dwarven rogue
* Riamara - loresong faen greenbond
* Ruke - human paladin
* Miru – human fighter

The skittering of little feet turned out to be two massive swarms of scorpions. Cinner enlarged Ruke, then stepped back. The scorpions swarmed over Ruke, who crushed dozens of the creatures as hundreds of them crawled over his body. The scorpions crawling over Ruke nauseated him so that he couldn’t attack and had to fall back. Miru managed to wipe out another dozen scorpions as more pressed in to attack.

Cinner threw alchemists fire at the scorpions, but hardly any were burned. Meanwhile Riamara boosted Miru’s strength. The scorpions crawl over Cinner and Miru - the swarm seemed to be healing itself - some that were down and wounded rose up and rejoined the fight. Miru resisted their poison, but the dozens of tiny stings send poison through Cinner’s veins. Ruke continued to battle nausea. Miru fought her way through the stings, biting her lip. “Let’s find a place to recoup for a second!” She took a parting stab at the swarm she’s standing in, and moved back.

Cinner and Riamara fell back as the scorpions moved forward. Ruke’s mighty attack on the swarm moving towards him split the swarm in two. Cinner, Miru and Ruke were all hit by the vermins’ poison. Ruke hit a might blow causing the surviving scorpions to scuttle away into the dark corners. One solitary scorpion died at the point of Miru’s spear, leaving the hundreds more free to attack.

More scorpions crackled and burned as Cinner’s alchemist’s fire hit them. Riamara healed Miru and Ruke blasted another swarm into oblivion. The final swarm moved closer to Cinner, attracted by the smell of his dead rats. Cinner fell unconscious as the scorpions swept over him. Ruke spit out some blood from his mouth that had collected from the poison in him, rounded the corner swinging hard at the last swarm, but hit the wall instead. Miru moved over, trying to save Cinner from an unfortunate demise as she continued to skewer scorpions.

Riamara managed to heal Cinner as the scorpions poured off of his body to attack Miru. A wave of terror from watching Cinner fall swept over everyone. Ruke’s presence bolster’s Miru’s courage, but Riamara fled screaming. Ruke once again split the scorpion swarm in two as Miru succumbed to nausea from having the creatures crawl over her.

Cinner blasted the scorpions with more alchemist’s fire as Riamara continued to run. Cinner wiped out one swarm just as it was about to overwhelm him and Ruke took out the last one. The aftereffects of the poison almost killed Cinner, but thanks to a potion of lesser restoration, he survived to fight another day.

After catching up with Riamara, the party returned to the celestials for healing. Sanjid was less than pleased to see more people in need of his services. From here the party fought some spiders in an old armory, found some monuments to those who had fallen in battle, and killed a couple of centipedes in a room with a healing fountain.

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I got a little bored with the easy vermin encounters so I threw in an apocalypse swarm of scorpions. It worked really well – lots of tense moments but nobody died.

Present this week were:
* Cinner - dwarven rogue
* Riamara - loresong faen greenbond
* Ruke - human paladin
* Valik – dwarven wizard

The party found two barghests hiding in a room. In return for their lives the barghests offered the location of one of the wardstaves. The party retrieved that one with ease and returned it to the celestials.

From there the party headed south to look for the last of the wardstaves. They found a dead celestial with a cloven trumpet and a bunch of monstrous scorpions. They defeated the scorpions with ease and headed into a fog room where they heard the chittering of hundreds of small creatures…

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Absences due to computer problems, assignments, and a case of the flu combined to make this a short game. Hopefully this week’s game goes longer!