Skip navigation

Gen Con 2014

This is the first year in many years that Mike and I were not running a ton of games at Gen Con for Pinnacle. Instead we made plans to play games with friends we already knew. Our only worry was that we knew we couldn’t schedule a gaming table but would be at the mercy of the Gaming HQs. This turned out not to be much of an issue. We found a table in Union Station and pretty much used it the entire convention. Granted, as you’ll see, we did do some “off campus” gaming too.

 

A big Gen Con surprise was driving downtown only to find all of the parking garages were full (on Thursday). We had to drive another 5 or 6 blocks away to find one with empty parking spaces. After leaving the parking garage that evening, we noticed the next parking garage, 50 feet further away, was $12 cheaper. I should mention that on Wednesday, prior to the official start of Gen Con, we got right in “our” parking garage across from Union Station. The attendant went out of his way to make sure we knew where we were going. Somehow he pegged us as Gen Con attenders. Maybe it was the giant “Savage One” on the outside of the truck. Or the black t-shirts.

 

But enough about parking, let’s get into the gaming!

 

Wednesday

We started off Gen Con by playing a big game of Settlers of Catan. Besides Ben, Owen, Mike, and I, there were also our friends Bob Geiger and Shawn Hurst. We realized after opening Mike’s copy of the game, that a few pieces were missing. Undaunted, Owen pieced together the map and figured out a way to use what we had to get the board correct. (Owen’s a genius.) I liked playing Settlers on a larger board with more players. It gives you the illusion of more options. We all soon discovered that many of those options were just that—illusions. Any options quickly dried up as players hoovered up choice settlement spots. Shawn took an early lead by getting the Longest Road bonus. It didn’t last though as several other players also built bigger, longer roads. I was flushed with bricks In the beginning of the game. I was literally trading 4:1 each turn to get wood. Then I finally got the 2:1 Brick seaport. I’m not sure I ever got brick after that. (Stupid game.) Ben ended up winning and there was nothing any of us could do about it. Nothing, I say.

 

Then I ran a Savage Solomon Kane game for the group. We swapped out Bob for Norm at the beginning of the game. Let’s just say the game wasn’t my best work. In the end, the player’s did rescue the lovely Lady Olivia, but are now stranded on an island filled with snake men cultist. (Little do they know that soon after the game ended the island sank into the sea.)

 

We finished the day with a couple games of 7 Wonders. Norm and Shawn had never played it. There are a lot of ways to score points, so it takes a game or two to realize what you should be doing. Norm seemed to pick it up ok, as he came in second with 55 points. I was able to win with 61 points. Shawn tied Ben for third place with 49 points. Mike had 41 and Owen, having a bad game, had 40.

 

Our second game went quite differently. Ben won with 62 points. Mike got second with 60 points. Owen was third with 58 points and I was fourth with 51 points. Norm and Shawn came in last with 44 and 43 points respectively. This is how the first game should have gone…except I would have still won of course.

 

Thursday

I already mentioned the parking surprise. This caused us to unload at the curb a few times, then have Mike go park. This was also the day we got our badges. I tried to get our badges on Wednesday but there were some issues. At one point we weren’t even sure we had badges to get. Here’s a quote from the Exhibitor HQ:

 

“And now *you* understand. Anything goes wrong, anything at all… your fault, my fault, nobody’s fault… it won’t matter – I’m still not giving you badges. No matter what else happens, no matter who gets killed I’m not giving you your badges.”

 

Ok, actually the lady helping us at the Exhibitor HQ couldn’t have been nicer. She’d did everything she could to give us the badges. (I just like that Big Jake quote.) Jodi Black got the badges all straightened out so we were able to get ours.

 

Our first game of the day was Norm’s Hell on Earth game. This was made a little better because we had Teller in the game. Teller actually wrote Hell on Earth (HoE). Norm was nervous about the game; having never run HoE before and having Teller in the game. Teller immediately put him at ease though, because Teller is a great guy. Norm had prepared a cool game where we met a Domiciles solider who had lost his memory. We were trying to help the soldier get back into his bunker which had been taken over by forces unknown. We did this out of kindness and because we knew the bunker was loaded with goodies (weapons, ammo, food…) We had a lot of fun and nearly bought the farm in the end. But thanks to the heroic efforts of our characters we were able to save Denver and probably the world.

 

Following Hell on Earth Mike ran us through an Agents of Oblivion game that he made up on the way to the bathroom…or something like that. Teller stayed for that game too and we had John Goth join us too. John gave us all cool “Night Train” dice. In Mike’s game out team of agents were sent to Amsterdam. The agency knew something dramatic (i.e., bad) was going to happen there soon and it was our job to to find out what. We were to do this job quietly without drawing any attention to ourselves. Out team being who they were ended up nearly leveling a building in downtown Amsterdam. But we did this quietly and without drawing attention to ourselves. A critical failure reading some runes in the middle of the game caused the gates of hell to open later in the middle of downtown Amsterdam. Our bad. And we worked so hard on those runes too. The demon was summoned in a downtown square. It took all of us to put it down…quietly and without drawing attention to ourselves. It will take several years to rebuild Amsterdam after our visit.

 

Friday

Friday was Lake Day. Mike invited all for a day of boating and gaming on his deck by the lake. It started off rocky with Mike forgetting his bag—we had to turn around—and then McDonalds refusing to wait on a couple of us. I swear we had our invisibility suits turned off! But they failed to see us or wait on us. Later after cruising the lake, we ate at Anthony’s pizza. We all gave it two thumbs up.

 

Back at the dock, we sat on the deck and Norm ran us through a Savage Shadowrun game. It was fantastic. We had an absolute blast! We planned on staying and playing until dark, but circumstances changed and sent us home early. That was ok though, we all got to rest up for Saturday.

 

Saturday

On Saturday we continued playing Savage Shadowrun until dinner time. We really played two games. In the first game our team injected a virus into the lab of some secret facility. In the second game, we were hired to find a missing singer who was a rising star in the industry. The second game pivoted on the first. (Norm’s a genius.) I’m sure Norm will have more Savage Shadowrun goodness for us in the furture!

 

After dinner, instead of finding a gaming table downtown, we went to Mike’s house. Mike ran us through a Savage Tarsa game. Tarsa is a setting that he and his friends (Lee and Shawn) have developed over the years. It’s a sci-fi setting. It was late when we played and I must say I was completely out of it. This is a continuing game and we did move the game forward, but not by much. (I think I blacked out right after Mike said, “Ok, let’s start.”)

 

Sunday

Sunday was dealer room day. We started at the back and walked down every isle. This took us the better part of five hours. We bought a lot of cool stuff and left even more cool stuff behind due to not being independently wealthy. We wore out Mike’s son, Alex. He left us early to find someplace to sit down. He guarded our stuff with Jack Sparrow’s sword though. His Gen Con purchase.

 

We had a great time and are already looking forward to next year!

 

 

 

 

50 Fathoms: The Not-Quite-a-Ghost Ship

50fathoms-e1334040658306
Ben – GM
Owen – Harlow Hinde, Masaquani
Mike – Pete, Kraken
Evil Mike – Ankas, Scurillian
Alex – Reconaki “Green”, Kehana
Steve – Potts, Grael

Last week we left Keira and were sailing to Brigandy Bay (or Baltimus, or someplace else. I’m not the captain, I’m a grael. I go where the ship goes.) We’re carrying a cargo of munitions and two passengers. A princess and a purported magic user.

IMG_1325-0.JPG

We took on a new party member. A krakin by the name of…uh…Pete. We immediately regretted this when he critically failed the first roll of the game. A Notice roll that would determine our future. But fortune smiled on us and a giant red parrot pooped on Pete. The parrot was Carifax who belonged to Tressa the Red. More poop to follow.

We took a wrong turn at some seaweed and ended up spotting another ship. As we drew near we saw no movement on board. The ship seemed in good repair with no obvious damage. We boarded. Then things went dark…for two reasons. A thick fog quickly moved in and Octopons (octopus-like humanoids) cast Blindness on several of us. I think my Grael was the only one to actually go blind. The Grael immediately cast Iron Skin for protection. The increased weight caused him to break through the ship’s deck, twice, and land very ungracefully on the ship’s hull. Several of the party were already fighting Octopons there.

We eventually overcame the Octopons. Searching the ship we found treasure and a few magic items. We decided to keep the ship. With some cleaning up it would make a nice addition to our new fleet.

We continue to wherever, but now have to cut through the Flotsam Sea.

What part of “Chaos Steve” don’t you understand?

2014-08-20 19.36.40 2014-08-20 19.37.18

50 Fathoms: The Great Escape

50fathoms-e1334040658306
Ben – GM
Owen – Harlow Hinde, Masaquani
Mike – Kratos, Kraken
Evil Mike – Ankas, Scurillian
Alex – Reconaki “Green”, Kehana
Steve – Potts, Grael

This week we continued with our “plan” to break Tomas De Orinjo out of the prison at Kiera. To bring you up to speed on where everyone is, here’s a short recap. Evil Mike got himself captured and placed in a cell. Mike and Alex are sneaking in the back way. Alex has since gone back to guard our escape route. (Alex was a no-show this week.) This left Mike to wander alone. Owen and I, accompanied by six crewman from the Valiant along with a lieutenant named Milo, sneak into the prison hidden inside barrels. Let’s see how we are doing…

Evil Mike easily escapes from his cell and begins looking for Tomas. Evil Mike is nearly out of power points and out of Bennies. Still he manages to take out a few passing guards. No luck finding Tomas though.

Mike begins wandering around the rooms of the prison until he’s caught by some guards. Mike easily takes down a few of the guards, but the fighting continues.

Owen and I “sneak” into a tower and immediately run into some guards. During the noisy battle that follows, an officer and 10 more guards appear outside the tower.

Time passes…

Mike finds the remaining guards have more experience and better dice rolls that his character. His character is killed, leaving behind a mound of magic items all bequeathed to Evil Mike.

Shortly after that, Evil Mike makes a new acquaintance with someone who looks like a trustworthy fellow and we ask him to join the party. Evil Mike and the new guy (Mike’s new character) continue to fight their way out of prison, all the while looking for Tomas.

Owen and I are in a pickle. Owen tries to parlay, but with no luck. The Kieran officer has formed up his men and is hell bent on capturing or killing us. I make a d4 Smarts decision and rush the line while intimidating the officer. This works…for six seconds. Then the first row of guards fires their muskets at me. Fortunately my magically enhanced toughness of 15 is enough to get me through it with only a Shaken.

Owen is conflicted. On one hand he knows that my move was completely idiotic and I deserve whatever fate awaits me. On the other hand, he’s Heroic. Meanwhile the men from the Valiant have taken the stairs to the top of the tower. They thinned the guards out a bit with a few shots from their pistols and muskets. Owen finally resolves to help me, and rushes out into the fray. We eventually kill them all except for the cowardly officer who has run inside. I believe that it was Evil Mike and Mike who eventually get him. They also find a very grateful Tomas.

We all gather at the assigned rendezvous spot and escape the prison…but not before Evil Mike loots Mike’s dead character of all of his magic items.

Tomas is very happy to be rescued and gives us the next quarter of the medallion we are searching for.

Note: during the game there were several things of note that people mentioned that I must put in the write-up. If I included any of them, it’s by accident.

Chaos Steve

2014-08-06 17.30.45 2014-08-06 17.31.01 2014-08-06 19.34.18

50 Fathoms: All Part of the Plan

50fathoms-e1334040658306
Ben – GM
Owen – Harlow Hinde, Masaquani
Mike – Kratos, Kraken
Evil Mike – Ankas, Scurillian
Alex – Reconaki “Green” , Kehana
Steve – Potts, Grael

This week we continued our journey to the Kieran Empire. Thanks to the help of our mages (Evil Mike and Mike) we made the journey in record time. “You’ve never heard of the Millennium Dolphin?… It’s the ship that made the Kieran Run in less than twelve parsecs.”

Once in the port city of Kiera we became mired in our search for Tomas De Orinjo, the fire mage. We did sell our cargo hold of wood however for a tidy profit. The captain, Owen, also sold his soul to become a gun runner…but that’s another story.

Eventually we discover that Tomas was accused of burning down a bar and taken to Kiera’s prison. Evil Mike, Mike, and Alex worked out a plan to free the fire mage by approaching the prison from the sea side: they are all aquatic or thereabouts. Evil Mike’s scurillian (giant crab) thief goes first to reconnoiter the area. He’s eventually caught. “All part of the plan.” Could be heard as they led him away to his own private cell. That left Mike and Alex to find their own way in.

In the meantime the captain and I were having dinner with the harbor master. This is where Owen sold his soul. After dinner we headed back to the ship.

Alarms begin to sound as if all hell has broken loose at the prison. At that same time, a boat full of salty sea dogs offer their help to Owen and me in freeing Tomas from the prison.

Check out the pictures of Ben’s prison layout!

Next time we will continue with Evil Mike’s plan. I hope it doesn’t include us getting killed. I hate plans like those.

Chaos Steve

2014-07-23 17.16.51 2014-07-23 17.17.13

Origins 2014

Origins was different this year from past years. 1) We weren’t running 16 hours of games each, and 2) Alex, Mike’s son, joined us. Both of these things made Origins a lot of fun. We arrived and hung out with Norm after eating at Barley’s. We introduced Norm to Ra, the dice game. The first game you play of Ra is always a little different because it’s hard to tell just what you should be doing. Norm caught on fine though.

 

That night Norm ran us through a Savage Gladiators game. His arena was fantastic. We fought through several contests. Norm also added rules for “playing to the crowd” and “playing to the…” shoot, I can’t remember his name for it, but it’s the person that oversees the fights in the coliseum. He who has the power to say whether you live or die. My character learned that it’s not whether you actually kill the minotaur that’s important, it’s whether the crowd thinks you killed the minotaur that’s important. We lost a gladiator or two before the final contest in which we all fought to the death. Evil Mike and Evil Mark (Daymude) survived as the duel winners in the “There Can Only Be One Contest”. This shows just how corrupt the government was in the time of Savage Gladiators. Mike and Mark should have been put to death. Oh, and I shouldn’t have died, but that’s another story.

 

Thursday found two goblins raiding the dragon’s horde. Mike and I were the goblins. I’m not saying whose horde we plundered.

 

The first game on Thursday was mine. I ran a Deadlands game on a Geek Chic table. There’s nothing better than running games on a $2000+ table. As it turns out every game for the rest of the convention was run on one of their tables. In my game, the brave party was hired to guard one of Professor Vanderkook’s newest inventions—an improved version of the submersible boat. Unfortunately one of the warlord Kang’s lieutenants wanted the boat as well. There was lots of kung-fu fighting, an angry giant octopus, and even a compression explosion within one of the character’s diving suit. Just a normal day in the Maze in Deadlands.

 

We all got uncomfortably stuffed at Buca di Beppo’s and then returned to play in Norm’s Savage Conan game. This is a real favorite of mine for two reasons. One, Norm in the GM and two, Norm is the GM. And the third reason is that it’s Conan. (The One, Two, Three was all intentional and for no reason at all.) The adventure led us to the home of a large cave troll. Then we discovered it was really the home to a GIANT cave troll! Several of us went down, incapacitated, during the last scene with the mamma of all cave trolls. Al came to our rescue and was able to kill the creature with a fantastic damage roll.

 

Friday morning Mike got up early and went running with Dave. Dave tried to kill him by taking him over hither and yon. Most injuring was a hairpin curve where something in Mike’s knee went “snap”. That “snap” was nothing that kept Mike from finishing, but his days of running outside on the pavement were over for a few months while that “snap” healed.

 

Friday’s games stared with Dave’s Xcom game. I think everyone except Mike and I had played in one of these games before. Dave got some very cool terrain from Drop Zone Commander Cityscapes. The city layout was made even cooler by the Geek Chic table that enabled us to put the map under clear Plexiglas with the buildings on top. I got to play Deacon, the medic. Apparently the medic had died in all of the previous games. That, along with my history of playing medics, meant I was going to die. I amazed everyone, including myself, as I played the medic as he should be played…as a support team member. (I’ve learned that medics should not be the first into the fight.) Early in the game Gordon’s character jumped off a 10-story building. He thought his personal wingsuit would save him. It doesn’t when you roll a critical failure trying to deploy the wings. With the help of the medic (me), he survived to fight another day. Xcom is all about repelling an alien invasion. We did it with style and had a great time!

 

Friday night Mike and I got together with Bob Geiger and Phil to play some board games. But before that, I talked everyone into going to a pizza place for dinner. It was a big hit. Then Mike and I headed to Bob’s room for board games. First up was a game called Dungeon Fighters. What made this game unique was that combat involved you skipping a die unto a board painted like a target. If that wasn’t bad enough, many times you had special throw restrictions. These restrictions required you to throw the die between your legs, off your nose or elbow, or off your forehead. Dungeon Fighters is a cooperative game. We all died a long and painful death.

 

Next we played Clash of Cultures…until 3 a.m. Bob and Phil had never played before. I won, but only by a ½ point. Phil came in second.

 

Saturday Gordon ran us through a Savage Crackdown Supers game. (As you’ll see Saturday is a little fuzzy, so I may have this all wrong.) We played characters who were agents recruited for their various skills, some of these skills were induced by a drug. This drug has a name. It shall not be revealed here because I don’t remember its name. Anyway, it gave us all various super powers. It might have been called “Starbucks coffee”, but you didn’t hear that from me.

 

Our characters visited a super-secret, super secure containment area. Some would call this a jail. It was our bad timing that a jailbreak occurred while we were there. We fought tons of various villains; some with super powers, some not. All-in-all we had a rock ‘em sock ‘em good time.

 

The last game of the convention was Mike’s Savage IX Corp game. My character was a cybertech enhanced pilot. We were junior officers on a space ship.

 

That’s all I remember of the game. If Mike sends me more information, there may be more about it after this sentence. Let’s go see…

 

(I bribed a source who heard about the game from a friend who was sitting three tables away. This is what I got.) Our ship got sucked through a black hole. On the other side we discovered our ship had been badly damaged. Not only that, but a high percentage of the crew and passengers were dead or dying. Mike put us all in charge of our respective areas. This was a lot of fun roleplaying as we tried to get things done around the ship with a minimal staff. Once the ship was somewhat stabilized, we landed on a nearby planet and found a signal it was giving off. Following the signal, Gordon was killed by a viscous animal predator that he <intentionally> scared into attacking us. We discovered that the natives were enslaved by another race. We had a huge battle with them—the slavers, not the natives. Only the timely arrival of some reinforcements allowed us to survive the fight. Norm videoed that last part because Mike made noises for it. See it here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10203238638820205

 

Saturday night we ate at the pizza place again. It was good.

 

Sunday Mike, Alex and I spent the day checking out of the hotel and running around the dealer area deciding what things to buy.

 

Thanks Origins for another great convention!

 

Chaos Steve

 

 

 

The Hunt for Maggie Brown – Game 1

Cast of Characters

  • Jimmy Bain Jimmy Bain– Private Dick and former boyfriend of Maggie (Tom)
  • Maxie Brown Maxie Brown - Steve– Maggie’s ne’er-do-well black sheep brother (Chaos Steve)
  • Andy Delgado Andy Delgado - Norm– Wealthy philanthropist described as Little orphan Annie meets Harry Conick Jr., in “puppy love” with Maggie (Norm “No Relation” Hensley)
  • Guy Noir (not his real name) Guy– Maggie’s bodyguard, with a very strange demeanor (Lee)
  • Theseus the Fearless  Theseus– Stage magician extraordinaire and sometime employer of Maggie (Shawn)
  • Effie Wiggins Effie Wiggins– Delusional street urchin who witnessed Maggie’s abduction (Deb)

After reading about Maggie in the Times-Picayune, each of the gentlemen and lady decided to write in and offer their services to help find Maggie. Emmett went through all the responses and picked out six people who seemed to have the best information. He was personally aware of all but Effie and so he felt with the combined skills, that this group could do the job. He invited them all to his house where he introduced them all.

The palookas all spent time feeling each other out (failed attempts at picking pockets and some successful attempts at lifting items from Emmett’s house) and they decided that based on something Theseus saw during his show, they should investigate the Angel’s Rest to see if they could find a note that Maggie dropped on the night she disappeared.

Before leaving the mansion, Jimmy and Andy searched Maggie’s bedroom and did a much better job than the cops did. In a secret compartment in the floorboards they discovered a ledger with encrypted entries.

At the Angel’s Rest, Theseus was able to get them entrance as Angel trusts him and she also wanted to see Maggie found. While Effie searched through the trash dumpsters in the alley, the rest went inside to look for clues. Guy turned out to be the most observant and found the crumpled up note to Maggie in a corner of the floor near where she was sitting. The note said: “Miss Brown, I’m tired of your temporizing. Deliver what I want before sunrise or no one in your family will be spared!” It was signed ” – X.C.”

Just then the front and back doors burst open and a Mr. Thompson and six goons walk in and start asking questions about what our heroes saw. Nobody was interested in talking so things turned violent fast. It was not looking good for the heroes as Guy took two wounds, Jimmy was put down, and Andy was put in his place hard with two wounds of his own! Maxie really showed some moxie by throwing some very wicked dice and pouring some strong spirits down the right throats. Theseus used his skills to not only swipe a heater but to use it in the right way and even Effie got her licks in by gluing a dude right to his spot.

Unfortunately Mr. Thompson got away and the interrogation of the surviving goons did not go well. With the cops on the way, Angel said she would explain that these guys busted in so our heroes (who may not always be on the same side as the law) beat feet back to the Brown mansion to go over what they found and plan their next steps!

Handouts

 

 

Twilight Imperium III

This week we continued our Twilight Imperium game. I slowly retook what the Green Virus (Ben) had stolen from me. Then I returned the favor and took one of Ben’s planets. (I needed it for my special objective.) Mike, playing Blue, sensed a victory point and brought his armada over and wiped me out. Owen built ships and took a few planets. He even attacked Mike. Still, I think Owen is waiting for just the right moment to reign chaos all over the universe. And by this, I DO NOT mean by attacking Yellow (me).

If Mike, the current point leader, doesn’t start losing some planets soon, he’ll be unstoppable.

Chaos Steve

A picture of the board at the end of the session:
2014-06-18 20.21.38

IX Corp Game 1

Diogenes Crew:
Prof Talqsalot - Astrophysicist and Biologist (Alex)
Elvis Jackson – Pilot (Steve)
Dr. Ivan “Chrome Dome” Medulla – Engineer (Norm)
Jonathon McElroy – Command Officer (Dave)
Murland – Security Officer (Gordon)
? – Physics and Electronics Scientist (Gordon)

 

Check out this video from my IX Corp Game at Origins 2014!

Post by Norman Hensley.

Twilight Imperium III

We started a Twilight Imperium III game last night. We expect to be through it in about 6 weeks.

Some of the highlights:

Ben is a virus. Coincidentally so is the race he’s playing in TI3. He’s attacked both Mike and I. He’s doing it so his race can copy our technologies. I think we’ll attack him back because we want to.

The dice have been rolling pretty well for me, which is unusual. I expect that to end very soon. I’ve also been lucky on the random counters that are place on planets. So far all have been good. Speaking of planets, my home world is surrounded with them. That’s another good thing. I’ve also been able to grab an artifact for a victory point. (I think Owen is eyeing it though.) Ben the Virus has been my only real issue. But not for long.

Mike has been steadily building troops, grabbing planets, and claiming victory points. Unless Ben the Virus or Owen do something soon, he’ll be too powerful to stop. I believe he currently has the most victory points. On the upside, he does have an armada heading for Ben the Virus’ home world.

Owen got crappy worlds to start with. Then he’s had crappy luck with taking over planets. His dice rolling has also been horrendously bad. All this has led to some slow grow for Owen, but he’s building momentum now. I see him becoming a problem for the peace-loving race to his left (me). One thing I have learned is to never count Owen out of the game…unless he attacks his peace-loving neighbor to the left.

(Last picture is the final shot before we stopped for the night.)

2014-06-04 18.45.442014-06-04 18.45.572014-06-04 19.48.512014-06-04 19.52.132014-06-04 19.54.49

50 Fathoms: Mr. Tinkles Goes to Town

50fathoms-e1334040658306
Ben – GM
Owen – Harlow Hinde, Masaquani
Mike – Kratos, Kraken
Evil Mike – Ankas, Scurdlian
Alex – Reconaki “Green” , Kehana
Steve – Potts, Grael

The fabled mage Tressa the Red has given us a quest to save the world. Anybody want to say “No.”? In a nutshell, three evil hags have cursed Caribdus by flooding it (eventually) under 50 fathoms of water. Soon all of the world will be like in the movie “Waterworld”. And we don’t want that, now do we?  It’s great if you’re a fish. We’re not fish. We’re…uh, well, we’re not fish. Unless you count Green who looks an awful lot like a fish. Ankas is a crab. He might survive. But on a whole, I’d say saving the world is our best bet. And we are not fish.

To prepare us to be the saviors of Caribdus, Tressa has loaded us up with magical enhancements. Our quest is to find four amulets that when placed together makes a magic item so powerful it might just defeat the hags. And yes, we expect to wield supreme power just ’cause some watery tart threw some magic at us.

Back on board The Millennium Dolphin (our frigate) we decide to head to Victtoria to make repairs on the ship. Then we’ll head to Keria to look up a fire mage of some renown.

We find that Victtoria is a decrepit hive of thieves and villainy. We seem to fit right in. On the trip there, Potts’ chest of pieces of eight becomes property of the ship. (Not that Potts really cares.) We spend 100s on harbor fees, 350s on ship repairs, 200s for the crew to go carousing, and there’s an entry of 10s for Evil Mike’s silk crab pants—whatever that means.

While taking in the sights of Victtoria, two sub-plots reveal themselves. (This takes about 2 hours of game time. 1:58 minutes of it in the bizarre doing…well, I’m not sure we actually did anything.) But back to the sub-plots. One is to rescue a princess who has been abducted by slavers. The other is to rescue some old guy who may or may not have access to items that may or may not be magical in nature. We go after the girl first. (Duh.) She’s at a heavily guarded compound.

Now things get a little fuzzy…

Somehow we realize that breaking into a building across the street from the compound is a good idea. There may be tunnels leading under the compound. (I don’t know why we think that.) I think the crab actually breaks in. He immediately starts looking for magic items. Somehow guards get wind of us breaking in and there’s a fight. We fight our way down to some tunnels. We come upon more guards and a huge red man with an even bigger sword. We best them of course and are ready to continue on…next time.

I’m sure I missed a few things. What part of “fuzzy” didn’t you understand?

And who is Mr. Tinkles (from the title)? Why that’s the name given to Kratos’ cat form (by Ben).

PS: I got an extra XP for being awesome. 

Chaos Steve

2014-05-28 20.54.56