Joel’s Scattered Thoughts

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

The party rested up after their unsuccessful encounter with Madness. Faces formed on the walls twice during the rest period and spouted random sentences at the person on watch, but otherwise left them alone. Once they were rested up, they did a bit more exploring and found a temple with corpses scattered around it. From their they found another set of rings like the ones that had affected Ruke earlier. As they pursued their exploration, they encountered Madness once again, but this time they ran before it could attack. Stymied in their exploration to the north, they decided to head back west.

Cooking For Engineers - Recipe File: Chocolate Cake I’ll have to give this a try.

I tried his Oven-Fried Onion Rings recipe and that worked very well.

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

The group decided to try and find Madness first. They took a wrong turn and ended up in fluid filled chambers that pulsed like living hearts. The first chamber had black fluid that left Ruke and Riamara paralyzed with despair. Cinner burned out the fluid with a well placed torch. The smell from the black liquid as it chars is one of the most horrible things you’ve ever smelt. It reeks of burning vomit. They found another chamber of red fluid, which Ruke determined was blood. The next chamber dripped yellow, which disturbed Cinner – the color not the ichor. The final chamber pumped a viscous green fluid.

The party went a little further north and went east through a series of shattered doors. Random screams became louder as they went further east. Finally they came to a room that churned nauseatingly, the walls, ceiling, and floor alive with pale, writhing flesh. Here a cluster of fingers, there a bubble of pallid eyes. Occasionally mouths set into the stone…or set in flesh…screech deafeningly. As Cinner tried to sneak into the room, it erupted in a chorus of screams!

Ruke’s holy sword failed to have any additional effects on Madness. Cinner managed to hit it with his crowbars, but didn’t do much damage. Ruke was repeated blinded by Madness’ acid spit. Neither side did much damage, but Madness was slowly gaining the upper hand, when our heroes decided to cut and run. Fortunately, Madness moves rather slowly so they were able to make their escape.

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

Ruke broke through the other ice wall, and managed to dodge most of the ice shards.  They found a small holding-cell like room and some scratches on the walls.  Upon examination, the scratches turned out to say “Damn all celestials and their traps.”

Upon encountering a jammed door, Miru and Ruke bashed it open.  On the other side they found some of the spikes Cinner had used to seal the door during one of their earlier rest stops.

Proceeding down the corridor, they found three dark-skinned humanoids, lying in a heap to form some bloodstained indalo. Ruke determined that they had been choked to death and found two rings - one with a spider pattern on it and another with a drider image.

Another corridor might have gone unnoticed save for a single feature at its southern end, a series of concentric iron and gold rings, fully three feet across at their largest are set into the wall. Ruke discovered that the middle ring could be moved.  However, as he moved it, he began to feel dumber.

As Ruke recovered, a creature with a snakelike body and a human face came out of the west door. She introduced herself as Siglinde. She told them of the Twins.  Madness, a creature of protoplasmic flesh, a hungry, angry version of the flesh you have seen on the walls and corridors.  Anguish is partially draconic but twisted in ways no dragon would dream of.  She gave them each a token with triumphant drider on one side and a spell-casting naga on the other. Siglinde wants at least one of the Twins destroyed by means of a ritual in a hidden area.  Mahir is the name of the master of this place. Mahir was a drider who mastered the art of reshaping creatures. There have been few could equal his ability with magic and none who surpassed him in that art.

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

After resting up, the party moved into another room. This one had an inner room of crystal. Inside the room were runes covered with blood - reading the runes drove Cinner into a rage and compelled Riamara to get out of the room as quickly as possible.

Riamara tried healing one of the flesh-covered walls. The flesh on the wall appeared much healthier. It swelled up and filled part of the hallway.

In another room they found a dead body being slowly absorbed by the floor. Ruke was the only one with the intestinal fortitude to search it. As he cut into the body to try and separate it from the floor, it burst and covered him with ichor. Fortunately, Riamara had a hygiene spell ready that cleaned him up.

From there they found a room where stone had melted and flowed sometime in the pat. They found scattered bits of parchment that appeared to be remnants of spellbooks. Cinner chipped away at a door covered by the melted stone.

Beyond the door he found a secret panel with a statue of a drider. As they examined the statute, it spoke “To pass beyond these doors, you must answer questions two, the number of the cursed Twins. The first. Who is the Master of this place?” Cinner answered “Celestials” and the walls started screaming. Thanks to Ruke, everyone managed to keep their courage up and so were unaffected.

They then nearly fell into a pit trap, but due to amazing reflex saves dodged the trap. Cinner jammed it shut, and then they proceeded to two rooms with icy walls for doors. Cinner chopped through one of the walls and it exploded; leaving a room that looked like a small holding cell.

*****
I was quite pleased with this. I wanted to convey the disgusting nature of the region and that seemed to get communicated. It was a lot of queasy fun.

I’ve fallen behind in these write-ups so this is going to be short.

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

After their battle with the grick, they searched the cells. Cinner found a skeletal hand holding a key with the letters “tmpl dr” on it. Then they ran into a flame trap in an intersection. Cinner got a little singed but managed to disable the trap.

Cinner spotted a cloaker lurking in the shadows of a strangely tidy room and the party beat the crap out of it. Its fear effect managed to keep Miru and Cinner out of the battle but didn’t do it much good in the end. After resting up, the party continued into another room where they met a large number of cloakers. This time Ruke’s aura of courage everyone but Cinner managed to keep their courage up. Cinner fled whimpering about baths and soap and other horrors. After a surprisingly brief fight, they managed to destroy the cloakers and retrieve Cinner.

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Between Riamara’s sorcerous blasts and Ruke’s aura of courage, this Region hasn’t been too much of a challenge yet. Have to see what next week brings.

Justin and Faith were over but I didn’t feel like continuing either of our campaigns.  Instead we went through The Temple of Mysteries.  Considering that we haven’t played any straight D&D, I think it went quite well.  The puzzles were just right – tough enough to be challenging without being annoying.  Unfortunately, we didn’t quite get to finish the game as the kids were starting to get tired and cranky.  I’m curious to see how it turns out.

RPG Expert - World of Warcraft - Macro Basics does a very good job of explaining the basics of WoW macros. I need to set up a few macros of my own.

Here are some sites with sample macros Compiled list of Mage Macros
and
Most used macros