Twingol's Tales: Aurora Campaign Chronicle #2

Year of the Bounding Lamb, 5th Waning, Day 4 – The Escaped Rout Pt. II.

Ah, there is nothing like the aroma of a cool Spring morning! The crisp air invigorates the body, and the sounds of the songbirds clear away the shadows and cobwebs from a burdened soul! I have always relished greeting the sun as he first peers over the horizon, though it appears that several of my compatriots find more comfort in the embrace of their bedrolls. The only two who are awake, besides myself, are Sir Ravenmantle and Lady Proudfinger. She kneels in prayer, arms raised in supplication towards her God. She spends far more time praising her God and interceding for others than I would think necessary; certainly more than any other novitiate I've known. It seems to work for her, though, and her demeanor can be like a soothing balm after a hard day. Sir Ravenmantle certainly appreciates it. He's supposed to be keeping the final watch of the night for the whole camp, but I suspect were we to fall under attack, his priority would be to protect the holy woman. It's natural, I suppose; I believe they were traveling together before they fell in with the doomed militia.

Hmmm... I should probably be memorizing spells, but my mind is still awhirl with the events of the previous day. So While my friends slumber, I'm glad to take this opportunity resume my account of the yesterday's madness, in hopes that doing so will give rest to my troubled thoughts.

Call of Cthulhu Campaign Chronicle #1

This Sunday marked my first foray into the madness-inducing world of H.P. Lovecraft's Call of Cthulhu. Specifically, Chaosium's 6th edition version of that world. I'd long been intrigued by this game, and jumped at the chance to play when I saw a "looking-for-players" post on the Austin RPG meetup board.

Character Generation

I really got a kick out of creating my character, "Mike McTigue". Rolling up a "normal" guy was actually something of a treat and a welcome change from making medieval superheroes for D&D. The game is set in the 1920's, and Mike is a former rising star in the pro-boxing circuit. Unfortunately, his passion for betting on the ponies led to a run-in with an angry bookie over debts he couldn't pay. The mob decided to insist on payment in the classic mob fashion, and Mike's resulting broken leg left him with a pronounced limp. This spelled the end for his boxing ccareer, and might have been the end of Mike if his former trainer, Salvatore Finazzi, hadn't taken pity on him. Sal knew some people at Miskatonic U., and was able to find Mike a job there as a librarian. Mike had become engrossed in literature during his convalescence; next to boxing, books were his great passion.

At my first game, two other players showed up out of a possible four. The two missing PCs were a bootlegger and a veteran/student. The two that did play were:

Louise - A flapper with a taste for the sauce, and who's not above using her feminine wiles to get her way.

Parker - A government agent posing as a psychology student. She carries a gun in her purse, and a combination armory/hardware store in the trunk of her car.

Twingol's Tales: Aurora Campaign Chronicle #1

Other than the B2 Caves of Chaos one-shot, the most recent game session for my D&D group marked the beginning a new campaign, as we unwrapped new characters for adventures in the land of “Aurora”.

What follows is the first installment of a campaign chronicle, written as the personal journal of one of my characters: Twingol the Gnome Illusionist. The account was composed a week or two after the actual session, so I’ve used creative license to fill gaps in my recollection, as well as to punch up the narrative. An example of the latter would be Twingol’s reference to “Foundry Day”, an event which marks the first day a young dwarf is deemed eligible to work as a blacksmith unsupervised. Think of it as something of a Dwarven “Sweet 16”, a day of celebration for the normally dour race, and one of much, much drinking.

[edit: When I first made this post, I was having trouble recalling all of the names of the characters. Consequently, I was forced make numerous references to "the other gnome wizard", which is a very clunky and unsatisfying way of identifying a subject. So in a bit of post ret-conning, here is the cast of characters:

Oliver:  DM

 Frank:
Montgomery Drake Scott, Esquire - Human Cavalier
Zeb (no clan name given)  - Gnome Thief/Mage

Todd:
Jane Proudfinger - Human Cleric
Gareth Ravenmantle - Gnome Paladin

Flip(me):
Beorn Sigrunsen - Human Barbarian
Twingol "Twinkle" Fiddlesap, Image Master Red Class - Gnome Illusionist (Image Maker kit)]

Juggling Worlds

As I've mentioned before, I'm currently playing in three different 1e/2e campaigns. Essentially, my D&D group rotates between three different sets of PCs in three different game worlds directed by three different DMs. In addition, others will occasionally run one-shot games, sometimes with an existing particular combination of PCs and World, other times with a completely new cast, location, or even game system. We settled on this arrangement because we are blessed (or cursed) with a surfeit of DMs, none of whom really have the time to devote to the preparations a regular game would require. The end effect is that a given DM may go a month or more between running a session; during which interval he is reduced to the lowly status of player in the games of the other DMs.

Each regular player in each campaign typically rolls up 2 PCs to play, giving a total of 8 active characters. This allows us to accommodate those players who are only able to attend sessions infrequently, as well as curious passers-by who want to try out the game. The guest player will assume control of an absent regular's PCs, or one of the attending regulars will loan him one of theirs.

As you might expect, this jumble of worlds and players can lead to a bit of confusion -