D&D session 2 - A black magic waltz

We had another D&D session yesterday and it was good. we had boss fights, secret facilities and near deaths. to recap from last time princess garnet of Alexandria fled the castle with her would be captors Richie, Joe and her captain of the castle guard Stuart. when trying to leave on the theatre ship, queen Brahne attempted to stop her from leaving by shooting the ship causing it to crash in nearby forest under the mist called the evil forest. in the evil forest the princess was captured by a tree monster and accompanied by Tantalus's (a thieves group) own blank. after killing the vine horror, the group fled the slowly petrifying forest, but unfortunately blank was caught and turned to stone.

So now they rest outside the forest, where they plan to get out of the mist by climbing up the valley through the ice cavern and to the village of dali. princess garnet requests their help to get to Lindbulm to which they agree. on the way to the ice cavern they are set upon some flying stirges, easily killed and no problem. it seems the mist hides many monsters, and secrets (que eerie music).

they enter the ice cavern which you can imagine is covered in ice, hence the name (clever lot are square enix aren't they :p). at one point the way is blocked by a wall of ice which after some mighty hammer strikes was broken. close to the exit they are ambushed by a robed, winged mage who bears the same pointy hat as Joe. connection? the mage, announces himself as "Black Waltz #1" and demands for the princess to come with him. her defenders rush to prevent that, starting their first boss battle. he is killed then striped of valuables.

they exited the cavern and came to the village of dali. upon arriving the two kids on the street point at joe and run away. connection? Richie secures their room at the inn, Joe sells the newly looted wares and stuart with garnet goes to a landed cargo ship to see if they can get a lift. garnet stares at the barels outside the ship whilst stuart questions a gardner about it. Richie secures a room at the inn and goes looking for joe who has been abducted and thrown in a barrel. garnet recognizes that she's seen the barrels outside the ship back at the castle. they learn of some stairs to an underground factory, so they meet up with richie and go deeper underground.

they sneak in and see rooms with boxes and a room with a chocobo on a tread mill. a chocobo is basically a giant riding chicken, the domesticated animal of all final fantasy (still not sure, look it up on Google). they sneak further in, when joe bursts out of a barrel in front of them. ahead they see a load of factory workers and barrels on a conveyor belt. near them however is a mist engine (an engine that runs on mist, keep up) and a door. they open the door to find a mist filled tunnel and a monster. they kill the relatively weak monster, and decide they've seen enough and rest at the inn.

They head to the cargo ship and board where they see in the engine room Black mages that also look like joe. outside they hear the princess and rush out to see her being harassed by another black mage with wings. He announces himself as "Black Waltz #2" and there last opponent, cocky? well when you can fly and do magic you can tell him otherwise. after the second boss fight of the day they rake in some more exp off the kill. they board the ship and head into the sky. of course the ship is headed to alexandria NOT Lindbulm so they need to make a u-turn. After going to the cockpit and killing the poor seemingly defenceless black mage that was piloting the ship they turn it around and head towards the Lindbulm airship gate (a huge gate in the mountain for, you guessed it airships!).

Things were looking up until yet another Black mage with wings shows up, do these people come from a factory or something?! wait, erm yes they do thinking about it. He as you can imagine calls himself "Black Waltz #3" and reveals to them that he is the last black waltz. before the battle begins the black mages on the ship come and form a wall between them and try to blast him away with magic. a huge explosion occurs but its the black mages that suffer as they all die and fall off the ship. A major boss battle ensues afterwards where the team nearly dies. If it wasn't for the timely healing magic from the princess they would be worm chow. with their last strength they manage to land the killing blow.

And that is where our story ends. what is up with magic soldiers being sent to alexandria? are the black waltz's really finished? will garnet reach Lindbulm? and will gareth show up at all this year??!?!? tune in next time.

Incredible space hulk

Before i write up what we did let me just announce, I have a job! its at the whitby disablement action group so i'm now always busy. :P

ok so the game. we did a game called "Space Hulk" made by the lovely people at games workshop. they actually got it right here as its a nice balanced game, really well made pieces, not over complicated or powerful. it cost me 60 quid but its a limited edition so its now worth double that. basic idea is its set inside a space ship called a space hulk (hence the name), its space marines vs genestealers (think aliens from erm aliens) and basicly you either have a mission or just kill em.

in this perticular one the object was escort duty (not that kind of escort). 1 squad started at one end, another squad at the other, squad 2 had to escort a tiny robot to where squad 1 came on. the aliens mission is to stop the marines from escaping with it.

it was a back and forth game, the marines managed to secure the escape corridors but there was a worry amount of aliens coming between the two squads. alot of the time the aliens were just charging the assault cannon waiting for it to run out of ammo. it of course did and the aliens managed to kill him but behind him was a battlehardened seargent with a shield, lighting hammer and enough bonus's to ensure i dont get through.

eventually the other squad managed to cut a path through the aliens to the escape route, thanks to some flamthrower action. the marines escaped with the "package" and then the hammer seargent followed. so a marine victory and a good game and since i'm working now (:P) probably the last game i'll be doing on friday for a while.

D&D session 1 - FF9 conversion

Our D&D group recently reformed and just like the last one i'm writing what happened down. we had our new member joe join us, however gareth was "absent". still we had a good session. i decided instead of inventing a whole storyline i chose to "borrow" one, the FF9 one since its the most medieval like.

some background info for you now. there are 4 continents, the one they are on is the mist continent. the continent has a tall thick layer of mist on the ground level, hence why all the nations and villages are built above the mist layer. inside the mist are monsters. the continent has used the mist as a power source for airships which fly on top of the mist. the nation of alexandria is where our story begins, a castle sits overlooking the town which has a huge sword sticking out of it. alexandria is ruled by queen brahne (a huge, fat, ugly woman) who has a daughter called princess garnet (the beautiful woman) who has turned 18. if your confused, tough! go play the game.

a theatre airship arrives in alexandria to put on a play, however the ship belongs to a group of thieves called tantalus. richie (rogue) is on the ship. joe (ranger) is in the town with a ticket for the play. stuart (paladin) is guard of the princess and captain of the knights of pluto (a rather incompetent lot). tantalus are there to kidknap the princess, and richie hears the plan. stuart does his duties and makes sure his knights are actually working. joe wanders around town before going to the play. when it comes time for the show joe hands in his ticket which turns out to be a fake, however he soon meets puck (a rat person) who after a theft of a ladder helps him sneak into the show. richie helps put on the performance of "i want to be your canary" (sappy title i know but it is a romeo&juliet ripoff so what can you do). after his fight scene with fellow thief blank they slip into the castle. the princess has decided to go to her room instead of watching the play because she's been depressed all day (and lets face it a romance tragedy aint gonna help). joe is surprisingly still watching.

richie and blank throw the nearest guards into a room and make there way to the princess's room up the stairs, however a woman in a hood comes bursting out, knocks into richie who knocks into blank who falls down the stairs. joe comes in at this point who after smiting blank with a hammer and bluff checks later, lets them leave with the hooded girl who at this point has been identified as the princess. still confused? dont worry so was i but if you play the game all will become clear-ish.

In the stands joe is spotted as a non paying patron and try to arrest him, however he runs away with the only exit being the theatre ship. richie, blank and the princess were just getting on the theatre ship after convincing stuart there going on a "tour" when the alarms sounded and the queen barked orders to sieze the ship and make sure the princess doesn't leave. joe ran on the ship and destroyed the makeshift set on the stage which collapsed on everyone and revealed the hooded girl as the princess to everyone. the ship pulled away from the castle and was shot by cannon fire for its trouble. the ship now on fire managed to leave the city but soon crashed through the mist and into the evil forest which is at the bottom of the cliff alexandria is on.

the ship has crashed and when stuart wakes up he notices the princess isn't on the stage, which you'd think would be his prioty but he decides to smite blank through a wall and threaten richie some more. joe comes out the closet (yeah i know) he was hiding in, and leaves the shipwhere he sees the princess on the ground. he goes over to help but some giant forest beetles decides to attack. stuart hears the fight with his might paladin senses and goes to help, richie is oblivous at this point. joe and stuart fend off the beetles but later realise this is a diversion, because a vine horror was abducting the princess (which happens alot from the sounds of it). richie comes in and kills the last beetle and after a bit of a rest up (what with beetles and a ship crashing) they go looking for the princess. seriously if your confused play the game, you wont regret it. :)

they find the princess but the vine horror stands between them. blank (the abused) comes in and tells them that the VH controls the forest and when he dies the forest will collapse. the battle was surprisingly quick, i honestly thought it would do more, mind you it nearly killed richie (not by choice, its the dice). when it died the forest started to petrify (turn to stone), so the gang grabbed the princess and legged it. they nearly got petrified themselves but managed to out run it. blank fell over and threw a map to a nearby village to richie before he was turned to stone.

so they escaped, with the princess but what now? will they get the princess to lindbulm? what will the queen do to get her back? will gareth show up next week? tune in next time.

and in other related news got Final Fantasy dissidia. FF1-10 combined in a non conventional beat-em up, brilliant.