The Big Letdown

So it turns out the elves were less than truthful.  Apparently, the Yuan-Ti have actually defeated the Elves, mostly because they were able to magically age the Elven King, and seal the cave which contained the cure to all who dwelled in the Elven City of Yarauna.  Using the gold collected from the party to purchase magical items, the Elven King, Arch Mage and High Priestess bribed the Yuan-Ti "diplomat" that was at the party to get the location of the cave, then transformed themselves into magical items, powered by their essences, which they had presented to the party as the items they had purchased.  This allowed them to bypass the wards which prevented them from entering The Clockwork Cave.  After fighting their way through the cave, defeating the Time Dragon at the Heart of the Cave, and two of their party being aged significantly, the elves revealed their deception, and offered a reward for the party's service, explaining that the could not reveal the truth of things before because of the presence of the Yuan-Ti hidden throughout the city, who were monitoring them for signs of treachery.

Now, at this point, I expected the party to be... upset.  They had been running around with Gauntlets of Ogre Power, a Long Bow of Accuracy and a magic axe that returned after it was thrown, all of which a) they had paid for, and b) they no longer owned.  In addition, it turned out that the Limited Resurrection spell hadn't been limited at all, the Elves had just told them that to get them to brave the Cave.  But, as I said, the elves were genuinely regretful of the damage they had caused the party and offered a reward.

I expected them to be upset, I expected them to fuss.

I didn't expect them to try and kill the King of the Elves. 

They didn't ask what the reward was, no, one of the party (who in fairness, had doubled in age since they entered the cave) simply leapt at the King and attempted to stab him.  The Elves teleported away, leaving the party to mutter angrily and plan a campaign of asymmetrical warfare against the Elves.  They have considered burning down the city, choking it with animated vegetation, even joining the Yuan-Ti.  Which is funny, considering they're still wandering around with a bag full of Yuan-Ti heads strapped to their belt - I'm not sure how the Yuan-Ti will take their offer of comraderie.

The Clockwork Cave, aka the Cave of Time

As I mentioned previously, there is a One Page Dungeon Contest going on.  I've decided to enter a little gem I've been working on for a bit now, in my 2e campaign.  I ran the group through most of it this past weekend, and it seemed to work out well.  Some of the puzzles turned out to be a bit tougher than I had thought, so a bit of reworking is in order, but overall I think it was a success.  Once we've completed it, I'll be posting it here and submitting to the contest, but the gist of it is that it makes use of the wonderful forced aging mechanics from 2e, with creatures called Time Flies, of progressively greater strength, that randomly age or deage the PCs in increasingly greater amounts.  The creatures that inhabit the cave are also of increasing strength - they started with demonic babies charging out of a fleshy womb-room, still attached to umbilical cords which grew out of the walls, and the party got as far as the old men that sucked away physical attribute scores from the party.  They are on a timelimit, with only 24 hours to make it to the heart of the cave, but time works oddly in the cave, with some areas slowed, and others hastened.

They still have a final group of enemies to face, before they reach the heart of the Clockwork Cave, and descover the horrifying secret within!

<insert accompanying dramatic music>

I'm back... and I'm all about YOU

Back to reality.  Or rather, back to escaping reality. 

The picture to the right is the word cloud generated from this blog, proving I talk about YOU along.  Yes you.

Anyways, I had a fun time, got married, and  discovered a really awesome FLGS out on Cape Cod, gamenight.net.  Yes, their name includes the .net, which is also their website.  Which isn't operational right now, but as it says, the store is open.  And it's really quite good.  They have a wall of 40% off stuff, which puts them near and dear to my heart in these troubled times.  I picked up a slew of old Dungeon Crawl Classics, including the Cage of Delirium, which came with a CD by Midnight Syndicate.  Also found a copy of The Lost CIty of Barakus, which looks like a TON of fun. 

Came home to find my copies of Lamentations of the Flame Princess' new books had arrived, along with a copy of a module I half remember from ages ago that had stuff to do with time.  With time  being a key factor in the Clockwork Cave, I'm looking forward to reading through it.  I also found a bunch of stuff in the dollar bin at Half Price Books.  More than likely it deserves to be there, but for a dollar I'll take a chance.

I'm most interested in a game called Morpheus.  I picked the main book and several supplements up for less than $20, so my expectations are pretty low.  I couldn't help but chuckle at the claim on the back that it had been, "Heralded as the best roleplaying system ever developed".  But hey, in for a penny in for a pound, right?  The idea seems to be that you operate within a shared dream, so literally anything can happen.  Okay, whatever.  To be honest I skipped right by the main book and only went back for it when I stumbed upon the supplement "Operation: Hitler".  I'm going to paste the blurb from the back so you can understand why.

Innocent Dreamwarriors, drafted and shipped off to Europe to assassinate "the man that represents the greatest threat the human race has ever known." If they fail, they die. If they succeed, they probably die anyway. If only things were that easy!
Operation: Hitler! is an adventure for Morpheus characters of 2nd to 4th level. Adventuring in the past, you are conscripted for a suicidal mission: fly into Europe to destroy the Nazi party with a surgical strike. Or maybe not.

also: 

PLUS: Important addenda and errata for the Morpheus RPG. No Referee should be without this!

I know, right?????????????

I needed to know what the hell was going on there.  So yeah, um.  Snagged.

One final note, I volunteered to by the RPG coordinator for Dwarf Con 2013, being held in Austin, TX.  If any of you are in the area, or plan to be in early May, or just love Dwarves, the idea of a Dwarf-based RPG, or both, enough to change your plans, come on down.  Details will be coming, but essentially, it was borne of a stretch goal on Mike Nystul's Axes and Anvils kickstarter.  Which I had the pleasure to playtest recently, as some of you may recall.  Anyhow, Mike's got a lot of big things planned for the Con, so clear yer calendars!  I'll repost updates here as they become available!