Saturday, June 25, 2022

Session 6 Recap June 18

Romulus tossed his tusk spear to Vanilla Assassin to fight the wraiths.  The door then slammed shut.  This week we start with Vanilla in the dining room hearing a knocking at the door; it’s Romulus in the hallway!  They try to open the door but it’s stuck.  The door can’t be locked because Vanilla sees that the door is moving.  Vanilla Assassin pries it open with the tusk spear.  Vanilla passes the tusk spear back to Romulus.  Vanilla tells Romulus that he’s Vanilla now. Vanilla doesn’t tell Romulus what happened behind the closed door.  They’re in the hallway.  They move Luna to a sitting position so that they can move past her in the narrow hallway.  The north door is emanating a disgusting smell; they hear noises coming from the east door.  Romulus decides to try the north door.  Vanilla moves into the hallway.  Romulus leads the way.  Romulus steps in front of the door and hears a click followed by a ticking.  He tries opening the door but it’s not opening.  A trap opens beneath Romulus but he avoids it with a saving roll.  There’s a spike covered with slime in a pit under the floor tile.  He jumps back and the trap resets.  Romulus and Vanilla decide to try the east door.  Vanilla pushes the door open!  They look inside the room.  Vanilla moves into the dark room and sees a dim outline in the ambient light from the hallway.  It's a giant mass; about ten feet high.  There are two toad wraiths in the room.  The blob is pulsing as if it were breathing.  It’s smooth.  Romulus speculates it’s a giant toad and comes into the room with his lantern.  They see a Toad Behemoth!  There are four pillars in the room.  The wraiths are serving the platters of flies and slime to the Toad Behemoth.  He’s being fed but notices the party and says “Who’s there?!”  The party debates whether to answer or go get something to offer to the Behemoth.  It’s been so long since I’ve had anyone to talk to.  He’s wants the party to answer his riddles.  What can fill a room but take up no space.  Vanilla thinks “a demon.”  Romulus says “air.”  The Behemoth was thinking of “light” but the Toad acknowledges air is a valid answer.  What goes through cities and fields but doesn’t move?  Romulus says roadways and it was right!  The Toad calls the adventurers wise.  He’s impressed.  The Toad offers secrets about the shrine:  “There’s a trap in front of the door in the hallway. Also, have you rung the bell in the first room?”  He says if he doesn’t eat once an hour he’ll go on a violent rampage.  Romulus thanks the toad.  Vanilla asks how to ring the bell.  But the Toad won’t answer any more questions.  They decided to look around the room.  They check the south wall carefully using their lantern. They inspect it closely.  It looks like the rest of the wall but they see an outline on the wall near the south east pillar.  They ask about writing on the door.  The mortar looks different within the outline.  Vanilla wants to shoulder block the wall but Romulus is slightly stronger so he decides to try.  He gives the lantern to Vanilla and then runs at the door.  It barely moves.  He risks a shoulder injury but tries again.  The door is open now and Romulus didn’t sustain any shoulder damage.  Romulus wants to go back but Vanilla goes forward into the hallway.  He sees a door at the end of the hallway and runs toward it.  There is another trap in front of the door.  A pit trap is triggered but Vanilla avoids it by holding onto the walls on either side of the trap.  The trap resets.  They search their inventory for a solution.  Romulus triggers the trap with the tusk spear.  Vanilla suddenly runs back to the room with the Behemoth.  Romulus pushes down on the trap with the spear and triggers the trap.  It’s open.  There’s a pit 3 feet down.  He lets himself down into the pit carefully avoiding the slime covered spike.  He's now in the pit but can reach the door knob; it’s three feet above his waist.  The spear is wedged in the trap keeping it open. 

Monday, June 13, 2022

Session 5 Recap Saturday June 10, 2022

Romulus saw that Cutie Pie was in trouble and from the hallway he tossed his tusk spear into the room where Cutie Pie caught it. 

Cutie Pie hit the toad wraith with the spear on the neck and stunned him.  The wraith was unable to counterattack.  Then Cutie Pie swung down on the toad’s head and split his body in two releasing the wraith.

The other wraiths are still occupied with their gruesome task.  They’re not interested in losing their toad hosts like their friend did.  It’s an onerous task to find a new one and their task is more important than fighting; besides as long as the party isn’t trying to stop them or steal the platters of food there is no reason to attack.

Cutie Pie asks about how the room is lit.  There are 3 candles along the length of the table in individual candle holders.  He takes a candle and holds it up to view the room. Again, the wraiths take no notice and apparently don’t mind the loss of focussed illumination. Cutie Pie sees a painting hanging on the west wall of the room.  He examines it and can’t make out what the artwork represents since it’s caked in grime, grease, and smoke.  He takes the painting off the wall, sees that there is clean section of wall behind the painting, and, finding nothing, puts it back onto the wall.  Looking east towards the door he examines the table and sees a glint of reflected candlelight.  He approaches the table and digs in the filth and ooze to uncover a platter that isn’t rusted like the others.  He wipes it clean on his cloak and realizes he found a silver platter.  He continues along the table and finds 3 more silver platters in the same way.  The wraiths aren’t interested in the silver platters apparently; they’re not grimy enough.  They’re only preparing meals on the most rusted platters.

Cutie Pie hears a knocking at the door.  (It’s Romulus).  The door was slammed shut while Cutie Pie was battling the toad wraith and after he threw the tusk spear into the room.  Apparently, as is his way, Cutie Pie forgot about the rest of the party while he was exploring the room.  While he was there Romulus was trying to get back into the room to help but the door wouldn’t open from the outside!  Will Cutie Pie tell the party about his find? 

Tuesday, June 7, 2022

 International Tabletop Game Day is observed on the first Saturday in June which fell on June 4th this year.  Tabletop games are games played on a table and include games played with cards, dice, paper and pencil, miniatures, maps, and tokens.

Tabletop gaming dates to at least 3500BCE. Senet, Backgammon and Go are among the oldest games still being played today, but in the 20th Century, board gaming, fueled by cheap printing, cardstock, and newly minted leisure time, had a new beginning.  In 1903, Elizabeth Magie’s The Landlord’s Game (appropriated by Charles Darrow as Monopoly in 1935) kicked off a broader interest in board games.  For the next few decades board games were often roll and move games with paper money and player elimination. 

Gary Gygax made waves in 1974 when he released the first commercially available role playing game: Dungeons and Dragons.  Instead of a board, the game was played in the theatre of the mind directed by a referee who ran the adventure and applied the rules set forth in the Player’s Handbook.

Roleplaying game.  Image by C. Mitolo

A watershed moment happened when the family friendly strategy game Settlers of Catan introduced Euro style gaming to North America and gamers haven’t looked back. What followed was an explosion of new titles and reprints of popular European games. Today, Boardgamegeek.com—a boardgame database--lists tens of thousands of tabletop games.

If you’re interested in tabletop gaming and want to explore the hobby without wading through thousands of titles then try one of these gateway games that can serve as an entry into the hobby.  They’re easy to learn, easy to find, and aren’t a huge time commitment to play. Start here and cultivate a love of cardboard.


Trade goods in the bazaar in Jaipur.  Image by F. Coruzzi

For 2 Players Only

·         Jaipur.  Buy and sell in the marketplace in this card based game.

·         Patchwork.  Create a quilt by laying tiles and spending buttons.

·         Dominion.  A deckbuilding game in which you try to build your empire.

·         Memoir ’44. A stripped down wargame where actions are based on cards in your hand.

For 2 Or More Players

·         Carcassone.  A classic tile laying game in which you build walled cities in France.

·         Ticket to Ride.  Claim rail networks by collecting sets of cards

·         Pandemic.  Beat a viral outbreak in this co-operative globetrotting game.

·         Forbidden Island.  Grab the artifacts and escape the sinking island with your party of adventurers.

·         Kingdomino.  Match landscapes instead of numbers by laying down your dominos.

·         Small World.   Send elves, dwarves, and other fantasy races out to claim your territory

·         King of Tokyo.  Choose a giant monster to battle your friends in this fast paced dice game.

 

Want to try a game before you buy? Visit a board game cafĂ©!  You can visit The Bard and Bear on James St. N in Hamilton; they have many of the games listed above that you can play for a small cover charge.

Uwe Rosenberg’s 2 Player Patchwork.  Image by: C. Mitolo

So grab some friends, some snacks, your dice, and have fun!



Listen to Leave Luck To Us—Hamilton’s tabletop gaming podcast--on CFMU every Saturday at 7pm.  You can hear us chat about tabletop gaming and play a roleplaying adventure called The Forgotten Shrine of the Slime Toad.

 


 Setting Calendar


Check out our setting calendar here.

Character Table