Today's offering comes from the 'official' D&D soundtrack published by Midnight Syndicate.
This is the first track off that album and doesn't really do the album justice, but for what it's worth, it's good stuff. If you have any interest in the sound (for the most part, symphonic goth,) I'd say check them out.
No lyrics to this one, just enjoy the snippet of music/sfx.
*As always, I don't own this, blah blah blah.
11.15.2009
In the Interim: The Keep on the Borderlands!
As I have stated before, Dark Heresy is on hiatus, and as bad as I hate doing that, the least I feel I can do is to fill the time with games I can run "out of the box," so to speak. Zero-prep stuff.
The first dose is a sandbox offering with a front-loaded Keep on the Borderlands hook.
I had the guys (David B., Carl, Steve, Mike, and Kevin) make 1st level 3.5 characters and sent them off to their deaths. The hook was set, the characters bit, and off they went to the Caves of Chaos.
The party was heavily-loaded with fighty-types, and I was ok with that. There really were no restrictions on what could be played (I had allowed the PHB1 & 2, DMG, and Complete Arcane, Warrior, Divine, and Adventurer,) but we ended up with a Cleric, a Fighter, a Barbarian, a Ranger, and a Duskblade...Steve being the only person to choose something from outside the PHB.
On the first leg of the trip to the caves, Carl's Cleric got a chestful of green slime as he slept, though he lived, and then the party nearly all died to wolves, who really just wanted to eat David's donkey.
They came upon a cave that led back about 100 feet to a carving that looked like a door, save had no seam and it looked impossible to open. The group took stock of the scene depicted on the "door"...a woodland scene with rabbits and deer and such, and then marked it on their map for future reference, then moved on.
After a few misadventures with random encounters, they finally came to the caves, entering on the closest Southern opening. There, they encountered some goblins, and then some hobgoblins, and then decided to rest INSIDE the caves. Granted, they did take precautions to billet themselves, but ultimately it just wasn't enough and the gobbo-friendly Ogre that lives close-by showed up to help his pals oust the squatters.
This is where I messed up. I pulled my punches. I know, I know. Me! Of all people! I'm the most "let the dice fall where they may" of the DMs I know, and I went pansy ass and retconned a death (though there wasn't anything I could do for Mike) and had the surviving party members held captive by the hobgoblins.
David, by virtue of his insanely high armor class, waltzed out of the caves during the tail end of the ogre fight and left his adventuring buds to fate, not resting til he reached the walls of Bugbear Falls (the name of the Keep in my run.) While he was rushing back to town, Steve had devised an escape route and was able to free himself and the others (including a berserk gnoll that nobody can understand) and high-tailed it to the Keep.
In town, David was able to recruit a few lackeys and Carl's new character (a Scout and the son of the town sage) after a meeting with the local sage and talks about the strange not-door. The fighter then decided to get a night's rest before heading out just to see one of his original companions show up the next day (Steve's character) with some of the others in tow.
I think this is pretty much where we left it, though David and I did some goofing off that wasn't 'official' in the game. I was kinda hoping all of the DH group would join in this, but I guess Kristy doesn't wanna play if it isn't DH. I dunno.
Probably more of this to come, and maybe a Scion one-shot, but I've almost got DH to a point where I'm happy with it and we can pick it back up.
The first dose is a sandbox offering with a front-loaded Keep on the Borderlands hook.
I had the guys (David B., Carl, Steve, Mike, and Kevin) make 1st level 3.5 characters and sent them off to their deaths. The hook was set, the characters bit, and off they went to the Caves of Chaos.
The party was heavily-loaded with fighty-types, and I was ok with that. There really were no restrictions on what could be played (I had allowed the PHB1 & 2, DMG, and Complete Arcane, Warrior, Divine, and Adventurer,) but we ended up with a Cleric, a Fighter, a Barbarian, a Ranger, and a Duskblade...Steve being the only person to choose something from outside the PHB.
On the first leg of the trip to the caves, Carl's Cleric got a chestful of green slime as he slept, though he lived, and then the party nearly all died to wolves, who really just wanted to eat David's donkey.
They came upon a cave that led back about 100 feet to a carving that looked like a door, save had no seam and it looked impossible to open. The group took stock of the scene depicted on the "door"...a woodland scene with rabbits and deer and such, and then marked it on their map for future reference, then moved on.
After a few misadventures with random encounters, they finally came to the caves, entering on the closest Southern opening. There, they encountered some goblins, and then some hobgoblins, and then decided to rest INSIDE the caves. Granted, they did take precautions to billet themselves, but ultimately it just wasn't enough and the gobbo-friendly Ogre that lives close-by showed up to help his pals oust the squatters.
This is where I messed up. I pulled my punches. I know, I know. Me! Of all people! I'm the most "let the dice fall where they may" of the DMs I know, and I went pansy ass and retconned a death (though there wasn't anything I could do for Mike) and had the surviving party members held captive by the hobgoblins.
David, by virtue of his insanely high armor class, waltzed out of the caves during the tail end of the ogre fight and left his adventuring buds to fate, not resting til he reached the walls of Bugbear Falls (the name of the Keep in my run.) While he was rushing back to town, Steve had devised an escape route and was able to free himself and the others (including a berserk gnoll that nobody can understand) and high-tailed it to the Keep.
In town, David was able to recruit a few lackeys and Carl's new character (a Scout and the son of the town sage) after a meeting with the local sage and talks about the strange not-door. The fighter then decided to get a night's rest before heading out just to see one of his original companions show up the next day (Steve's character) with some of the others in tow.
I think this is pretty much where we left it, though David and I did some goofing off that wasn't 'official' in the game. I was kinda hoping all of the DH group would join in this, but I guess Kristy doesn't wanna play if it isn't DH. I dunno.
Probably more of this to come, and maybe a Scion one-shot, but I've almost got DH to a point where I'm happy with it and we can pick it back up.
Other Gaming
I just wanna say, since some people seem irritated about my availability of gaming on some nights, that gaming is a luxury to me, and not something that I can just drop everything else for to do.
I don't just sit around doing nothing all the time, and it's not like I can afford to just drop everything I've been doing when I have things I need to get done.
It's just a shitty time. Things will level out. Sorry to anyone who is disappointed, but I'll make it when I can.
I don't just sit around doing nothing all the time, and it's not like I can afford to just drop everything I've been doing when I have things I need to get done.
It's just a shitty time. Things will level out. Sorry to anyone who is disappointed, but I'll make it when I can.
Eberron: Prophecy of Ascendence, Parts 49-52
When I left off the APs, our intrepid adventurers had come to the conclusion that this thing was alot bigger than they originally thought and that the main ritualistic happenings all centered around the major holidays of the months, and were going to culminate at the Nights of Long Shadow in Vult.
After resting up some, the party scattered to the four winds to do a bit of research on their own, which eventually led to a chance meeting with dark elf hailing from Xen'drik who came to the mainland searching for the meaning behind visions she had been having, and to the party teaming up with Allura (and her bodyguards) to gain a bit more knowledge. The party going back to Karnnath also led to them being the guest of the grand Baron Althom!
Deciding that the current happenings hadn't been averted, they pressed back into the Starpeaks to venture into the Desmodu city and put an end to this round of summonings or other nasty stuff. However, when they arrived, they found that the city was under siege by a group of ne'er do wells under the control of what they surmised to be a priest of Ashardalon and a half-red dragon warrior woman.
Dispatching this group of hold-outs, there then came onto the scene a large group of adventurer types led by no other than Dyson! Battle didn't take place, however, as the PCs had it on good authority that Dyson shared a goal with them, and also that the Cuckoo had great control over the events with Dyson's band before.
Through comparing notes, the two groups did, indeed, confirm that the summonings up to this point had all been "practice" rounds, of a sort, and that there was one other threat that Dyson and his band knew of that the PCs didn't...that Ashardalon's son Imperagon was building an army on the plane of Shavarath and were going to march on Eberron so that when Ashardalon ascended, the world would be ripe for his taking.
Needless to say, nobody really liked the sound of that. Even Dyson's mostly-evil troupe were very anti-Ashardalon, proving that baddies like living free, too.
And so it was that straws were drawn (Dyson volunteered the PCs) to see who would go to Shavarath to avert this whole military world-domination thing that seemed to be met by most members of the party with a very blasé attitude. This led the party to Sharn, the City of Towers.
Or the City of Shopping, as I think it should be called...
There, after some days kinda....living...the party (minus Carl's Death Knight, who was replaced by Allura), travelled into the bowels of the Cogs to find the undercity called Rigus, which held a gate to Shavarath, whereupon passage, they split up! As all good adventuring parties should. *nods*
The split led to them all having to regroup again and then make another foray into the plane, this time going directly to Imperagon's pad, since Lucky and Nas had successfully scouted it the previous trip. There, they had to face some gate guards, in the form of an advanced Iron Golem and 2 advanced Steel Predators, who all went down like bitches, then pressed inside, finding first a giant of some sort and his pet hydra, then, in another room, a chain devel and dust mephit who were torturing a lillend.
The mephit successfully fled after laying down a darkness affect, and upon being freed, the lillend was like "Ohai. I'z `portant" and the party were like "We'un care" and she was like "kthxbai" and then they pressed on, finding a door that nearly defeated Roark and a room with a nothing that hurt Nas.
Roark defeated the door only to find a wall of force behind it. The Artist formerly known as Murmur dispelled it and they went in to find a rakshasa on a rack along with some shinys. Lots of shinys. Almost everyone got some shinys and Lucky fireballed the room for good measure with an invisible Staff of Fire that he found. Hurty shiny!
This is where we left off, and yeah...not everything is in order in this post and it's REALLY condensed, but that's what happened. I do want to thank Taylor for sticking around and playing the past two weeks with us, that's been cool. Josh, we need Soh and Kitty to show up sometime!
This week, the group will be pushing deeper into Imperagon's Iron Fortress, and will likely finish out Lord of the Iron Fortress and move into Bastion of Broken Souls, the last adventure of the path. Good stuff.
Current Cast of Characters
Devin "Lucky" Nel, Male Cleric 5/Human Paragon 3/Fortune's Friend 5/Mythic Exemplar 4 - Paul
Druss Deathwalker (Murmur), Male Human (Formerly Warforged) Paladin 8/Exorcist of the Silver Flame 9 - David B.
Vacht Aernsland d'Orien, Male Human Wizard(Evoker) 10/Master Specialist 4 - Steve C.
Nas d'Thuranni, Male Elf Rogue 7/Nightsong Infiltrator 9 - Chris S.
Roark Grardrek, Male Human Fighter 16 - Taylor
Allura Fellhaven, Female Kalashtar Psion(Telepath) 16 - Carl
Xen`va Torkak, Female Drow Wizard 11 - Angela
Dann Da-Veto, Male Dwarf Fighter 12 - Kevin
Legions, Male Half-Orc Barbarian 12 - Mike
After resting up some, the party scattered to the four winds to do a bit of research on their own, which eventually led to a chance meeting with dark elf hailing from Xen'drik who came to the mainland searching for the meaning behind visions she had been having, and to the party teaming up with Allura (and her bodyguards) to gain a bit more knowledge. The party going back to Karnnath also led to them being the guest of the grand Baron Althom!
Deciding that the current happenings hadn't been averted, they pressed back into the Starpeaks to venture into the Desmodu city and put an end to this round of summonings or other nasty stuff. However, when they arrived, they found that the city was under siege by a group of ne'er do wells under the control of what they surmised to be a priest of Ashardalon and a half-red dragon warrior woman.
Dispatching this group of hold-outs, there then came onto the scene a large group of adventurer types led by no other than Dyson! Battle didn't take place, however, as the PCs had it on good authority that Dyson shared a goal with them, and also that the Cuckoo had great control over the events with Dyson's band before.
Through comparing notes, the two groups did, indeed, confirm that the summonings up to this point had all been "practice" rounds, of a sort, and that there was one other threat that Dyson and his band knew of that the PCs didn't...that Ashardalon's son Imperagon was building an army on the plane of Shavarath and were going to march on Eberron so that when Ashardalon ascended, the world would be ripe for his taking.
Needless to say, nobody really liked the sound of that. Even Dyson's mostly-evil troupe were very anti-Ashardalon, proving that baddies like living free, too.
And so it was that straws were drawn (Dyson volunteered the PCs) to see who would go to Shavarath to avert this whole military world-domination thing that seemed to be met by most members of the party with a very blasé attitude. This led the party to Sharn, the City of Towers.
Or the City of Shopping, as I think it should be called...
There, after some days kinda....living...the party (minus Carl's Death Knight, who was replaced by Allura), travelled into the bowels of the Cogs to find the undercity called Rigus, which held a gate to Shavarath, whereupon passage, they split up! As all good adventuring parties should. *nods*
The split led to them all having to regroup again and then make another foray into the plane, this time going directly to Imperagon's pad, since Lucky and Nas had successfully scouted it the previous trip. There, they had to face some gate guards, in the form of an advanced Iron Golem and 2 advanced Steel Predators, who all went down like bitches, then pressed inside, finding first a giant of some sort and his pet hydra, then, in another room, a chain devel and dust mephit who were torturing a lillend.
The mephit successfully fled after laying down a darkness affect, and upon being freed, the lillend was like "Ohai. I'z `portant" and the party were like "We'un care" and she was like "kthxbai" and then they pressed on, finding a door that nearly defeated Roark and a room with a nothing that hurt Nas.
Roark defeated the door only to find a wall of force behind it. The Artist formerly known as Murmur dispelled it and they went in to find a rakshasa on a rack along with some shinys. Lots of shinys. Almost everyone got some shinys and Lucky fireballed the room for good measure with an invisible Staff of Fire that he found. Hurty shiny!
This is where we left off, and yeah...not everything is in order in this post and it's REALLY condensed, but that's what happened. I do want to thank Taylor for sticking around and playing the past two weeks with us, that's been cool. Josh, we need Soh and Kitty to show up sometime!
This week, the group will be pushing deeper into Imperagon's Iron Fortress, and will likely finish out Lord of the Iron Fortress and move into Bastion of Broken Souls, the last adventure of the path. Good stuff.
Current Cast of Characters
Devin "Lucky" Nel, Male Cleric 5/Human Paragon 3/Fortune's Friend 5/Mythic Exemplar 4 - Paul
Druss Deathwalker (Murmur), Male Human (Formerly Warforged) Paladin 8/Exorcist of the Silver Flame 9 - David B.
Vacht Aernsland d'Orien, Male Human Wizard(Evoker) 10/Master Specialist 4 - Steve C.
Nas d'Thuranni, Male Elf Rogue 7/Nightsong Infiltrator 9 - Chris S.
Roark Grardrek, Male Human Fighter 16 - Taylor
Allura Fellhaven, Female Kalashtar Psion(Telepath) 16 - Carl
Xen`va Torkak, Female Drow Wizard 11 - Angela
Dann Da-Veto, Male Dwarf Fighter 12 - Kevin
Legions, Male Half-Orc Barbarian 12 - Mike
11.01.2009
More Musical Inspiration...
This one's gonna be a long post, but will catch us up to this week, so we'll have 3 vids, the last of which will be Halloween themed!
First up is the band Bolt Thrower. Just a glance at the play window will tell you why I chose to feature them, but it seems like GW actually endorses this group and has given them pretty much full-reign in making songs about the Warhammer 40k universe.
Highly unusual, given GW's usually strict policy on things of that nature.
Bolt Thrower - "World Eater"
As silence roars through gathered masses
You stared waiting eagerly
Approaching darkness decreasing your life expectancy
The tension is now rising
The calm before the storm
See your life flash before you
Will you live to see the dawn?
The enemy is now approaching
With bloodlust in their eyes
Intense fear is overcoming
For now death - you will defy
As the battle raged all dead and wounded
Bodies, carnage all you see
The white hot blast - melting flesh
The screaming pain in agony
You stand alone
The final parody
As you realise - your mortality
For you cannot change your destiny
To die at the hands - of the unknown enemy
Your death - you can't deter
As the silence - returns
World-eater
Next, we have a softer, slower song from Marcy Playground that's not much for inspiration, but seems to be an adventurer lamenting his lost youth with some of his spoils around him. Sixteen books of magic spells, no less. That's a huge library of magical might.
Marcy Playground - "A Cloak of Elvenkind"
A cloaking robe of elvenkind
Hangs in my wardrobe behind
All the thing that mother said
Were proper for a boy
And I know I could not say why
On this summer evening
Sixteen books of magic spells
Stacked below the cloak of elves
And sixteen books on magic spells
So elegantly bound
And I know I could not say why
On this summer evening
And I know something...something about you
And I know something...something about you
A cloaking robe of elvenkind
Hangs in my wardrobe behind
All the things that mother said
Were proper for a boy
And finally, I'm wrapping it up with a Halloween treat for all you boys and ghouls. (I hate that joke, but I love puns. Sue me.) This one is from England's Vallenbrosa, and is a song on the topic of a well-known American tale...that of the Headless Horseman, a supposed Hessian mercenary whose bloodlust did not die when he did.
Good metal, this.
Vallenbrosa - "The Hessian"
Wake me up, won't see my eyes
When I leave, it's time to die.
Wake me up, repent your sins,
The tree of the dead a thousand souls they said I'd keep in.
So wake me up, I'm on your list and I will never quit
To claim your head upon my blade and then to bury it.
My simple tools, my axe, my sword
And that should cover it,
No sympathy, all apathy, that's what you'll see.
So when I die please bury me alone,
Unite my head and watch me go.
So when I die, the southern sun shall fall,
Unite my head and watch me, watch me...
You've woken up the hessian mercenary,
Who fought for nothing but the love of anarchy,
Five victims, four graves in four days,
An array of prey from the high council to the slaves.
so on this dark day there's a list I must follow it,
To curse the damned and sew the seed that it's been blessed with.
My simple tools, my axe, my sword
And that should cover it,
No sympathy, all apathy, that's what you'll see.
*As always, I don't own this, blah blah blah.
And so we're caught up there. More music to come next Saturday!
First up is the band Bolt Thrower. Just a glance at the play window will tell you why I chose to feature them, but it seems like GW actually endorses this group and has given them pretty much full-reign in making songs about the Warhammer 40k universe.
Highly unusual, given GW's usually strict policy on things of that nature.
Bolt Thrower - "World Eater"
As silence roars through gathered masses
You stared waiting eagerly
Approaching darkness decreasing your life expectancy
The tension is now rising
The calm before the storm
See your life flash before you
Will you live to see the dawn?
The enemy is now approaching
With bloodlust in their eyes
Intense fear is overcoming
For now death - you will defy
As the battle raged all dead and wounded
Bodies, carnage all you see
The white hot blast - melting flesh
The screaming pain in agony
You stand alone
The final parody
As you realise - your mortality
For you cannot change your destiny
To die at the hands - of the unknown enemy
Your death - you can't deter
As the silence - returns
World-eater
Next, we have a softer, slower song from Marcy Playground that's not much for inspiration, but seems to be an adventurer lamenting his lost youth with some of his spoils around him. Sixteen books of magic spells, no less. That's a huge library of magical might.
Marcy Playground - "A Cloak of Elvenkind"
A cloaking robe of elvenkind
Hangs in my wardrobe behind
All the thing that mother said
Were proper for a boy
And I know I could not say why
On this summer evening
Sixteen books of magic spells
Stacked below the cloak of elves
And sixteen books on magic spells
So elegantly bound
And I know I could not say why
On this summer evening
And I know something...something about you
And I know something...something about you
A cloaking robe of elvenkind
Hangs in my wardrobe behind
All the things that mother said
Were proper for a boy
And finally, I'm wrapping it up with a Halloween treat for all you boys and ghouls. (I hate that joke, but I love puns. Sue me.) This one is from England's Vallenbrosa, and is a song on the topic of a well-known American tale...that of the Headless Horseman, a supposed Hessian mercenary whose bloodlust did not die when he did.
Good metal, this.
Vallenbrosa - "The Hessian"
Wake me up, won't see my eyes
When I leave, it's time to die.
Wake me up, repent your sins,
The tree of the dead a thousand souls they said I'd keep in.
So wake me up, I'm on your list and I will never quit
To claim your head upon my blade and then to bury it.
My simple tools, my axe, my sword
And that should cover it,
No sympathy, all apathy, that's what you'll see.
So when I die please bury me alone,
Unite my head and watch me go.
So when I die, the southern sun shall fall,
Unite my head and watch me, watch me...
You've woken up the hessian mercenary,
Who fought for nothing but the love of anarchy,
Five victims, four graves in four days,
An array of prey from the high council to the slaves.
so on this dark day there's a list I must follow it,
To curse the damned and sew the seed that it's been blessed with.
My simple tools, my axe, my sword
And that should cover it,
No sympathy, all apathy, that's what you'll see.
*As always, I don't own this, blah blah blah.
And so we're caught up there. More music to come next Saturday!
Just So You Know...
Yeah, I got behind again.
Seems to happen alot, I know, but I'm back until something else causes a hangup in the routine.
I have quite a few drafts that I hope to have pushed out either tonight or tomorrow.
Seems to happen alot, I know, but I'm back until something else causes a hangup in the routine.
I have quite a few drafts that I hope to have pushed out either tonight or tomorrow.
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