And the New Librarian says....

"I've got good news, and bad news."

"The good news is that I've found the location of a smelting caldron that would be perfect."

"The bad news is that it is in downtown Beaumont."

"Oh, and the other bad news is I don't know whether Cookie's wagon and horses will be able to move it."

Mutant Ape Warriors

These will be cool, whenever they're produced:

Next Game

Next Savage Worlds game, Sunday, June 2 (Venture Day!), 4pm.

Mutants and Muskets

I've probably said this before, but the campaign structure for Mutants and Muskets is working out surprisingly well.    For something we just sort of stumbled into without of lot of extensive planning.  Basically, it was a gear list, with some items locked and some unlocked, and a series of missions to unlock the locked gear.  That plus the overland map, 1 page of faction description, and and 1 page of overland encounter rules and there's the campaign.  I just need to make up a few mutant cards and sometimes a dungeon map of some sort and it's all a go.  

Of course, it is Savage Worlds, so it's always a matter of waiting until someone aces you on damage repeatedly and you die.  

The ease and the success of the game so far does give me some pause about ACKS.  It makes me worry that I may end up over-planning.   If minimal planning works well, why risk serious planning.  On the third hand, we have a long history of 20-30 session D&D campaigns and 10-12 session Savage Worlds games.   So, maybe I'm over-thinking over-planning.

I'm still unsure of our future timeline.   Are we going to just keep plugging away with M&M until October-ish when Andrew returns (8 or 10 sessions more I guess), or do we start ACKS this summer, at the peak of my Mojo season?  

Professor Elemental is ready to go

Pith helmet, check
Blunderbuss, check
Fighting Trousers, check

New Map, New Guys, New Chairs?

Good game last night.   A tight, dungeon crawl with a plethora of poo jokes.   I thought the maps on the 12" cardstock squares worked out very well.   It cut out all the mapping hassle, but at the same time, there was still mystery about the areas not yet visited.   I have some cardboard squares coming too, to mout squared paper on.

Welcome to Zach, who turns out to have been a student of mine long ago.   He fit right in, and we all hope he had a good time.  What with him and Robert, and Andrew returning bringing potential new recruits, it looks like I need to buy some new chairs.

On your marks, get set, --Crab People

I just have to embiggen the maps onto the 12x12 sheets and we're ready to go.

Sunday Forecast

So we should be heading for the Guano Caves on Sunday.  I'm not sure of the roll-call.  I remember Bob saying he might not make it, but Robert has said he is coming.   We should be joined by a new guy named Zach, who saw one of our old notices.   I think I remember that Jason or Marlon said that they were on the maybe list, it's all a bit fuzzy.

Oh, and can I pitch this:  Crab-people?

ACKS: Badaxe Hold

So in the interests of seeing how the stronghold rules work, I rerolled Badaxe Jack as a craftpriest, used the rules in the back of the books for starting characters at level 9, and set about creating Badaxe Hold.

The first thing a character is supposed to do, is find an area to build the stronghold.  Some classes have very specific rules about where they're allowed to build their strongholds.  For example, Badaxe Jack, being a dwarven craftpriest, can only build his stronghold in dwarven civilized/borderlands or a wilderness area.  I figured the hill that had the griffon nest on it in our old campaign would suffice for that.  After deciding on the area, you have to 'secure' the area, which basically means destroying monster lairs or major wandering monsters in the area (for sake of clarity, I'm just going to say Jack was successful in doing this).  When the area is first secured, you roll three D3 and add them together to determine the land revenue per family per month, which basically represents the how rich or poor a secured area is.  The player is allowed to keep or abandon an area, as they choose.  (I rolled an 8 for this area, and decided to go with it).

Next, you must design and build a stronghold (or seize one in the area).  According to the rules in the back of the ACKS book, a character starting at 9th level gets 240,000gp to spend on a variety of things.  After spending on a couple of other things, Jack ends up with 80,000gp to spend on his stronghold.  Since Jack is securing his stronghold in the wilderness, it must be worth a minimum value of 30,000gp.  Jack has plenty of money to build his stronghold, however, because he is a dwarf, he has to build it underground, and only a maximum 25% of the total value of the fortress can be aboveground, as well as everything must me built of stone or earth.  So Jack opts to excavate most of the hill, and deeper underground, as part of the living quarters, various halls, library, labs, shops, etc, as well as offering housing for dwarven followers that will eventually show up

Now, the followers.  Jack gets 120 dwarven followers (3D6x10) during the construction phase of his stronghold.  Rolling on the tables he ends up with 40 dwarven crossbowmen and 80 dwarven heavy infantry of various armaments but, sadly, no mounted crossbowmen.  These are no-pay 1HD dwarves, who will help maintain and run the stronghold.  Jack can hire mercenaries, but demihumans can only hire soldiers of their own race, and there's not a lot left after building the stronghold.  Next Jack gets his settlers, the people come to work under his command.  Again, getting lucky, Jack gets 50 families (D4+1x10) of dwarves show up to work for him.

I have the economics of the stronghold worked out thanks to making a couple of connections between information in the player section and the 'judge' section in the back.  As you might expect from a dwarven stronghold, there is a great deal of mineral wealth (metals and gems), as well as an incredible abundance of tools, weapons/armor, and beer/ale.  They're short on lamp oil, most foods, and hides.  All of this could change depending on any other strongholds or towns within trading distance.

Overall, I like the rules.  But, again, the biggest thing is their insistance on using hexes in stead of squares for computation purposes, as well as a big need to streamline and reorganize some information.

Next Game

Since Andrew's falling down on the job:

Next Savage Worlds game, Sunday, May 19th, 4pm

Guano Caverns of the North

What seems like more fun?   The New Librarian handing you a map of the Bat Caverns, allowing us to just start moving around the big paper; or, handling the cave clearance totally old school, with description, mystery and danger at every foot step (but annoying map-making jive the whole time)?

Andrew, What ever happened to the other new guy

We've added Robert to our crew lately, and he seems to be working out well, but Andrew mentioned another possible new guy.  What ever happened with that?  I may try poking Chuck once or twice over the summer, but have the feeling that Sunday nights won't see him out from under the whip.  Not that we need new people (especially whenever Andrew returns to us), but it's usually a good thing when someone new comes along (a few cheats, wankers and Klingons excepted).

Great Googly-Moogly

It turns out that when I wasn't looking, I've collected another quite large pile of miniatures to paint.   Not nearly as big as I had several years ago, but still appreciable.    I painted my 30 frontiersmen a couple of months ago, but now, looking over my pile, I see about 30 animals,  a giant I didn't know I'd bought,  a bugbear,  some Lord of the Rings hobbits,  a "dwarf command group", a Lord of the Rings Theoden (mounted and on foot), a LOTR Bull-roarer Took (mounted and on foot), a box of plastic Vikings  (my god, I thought I had sworn never to by another medieval or ancient group of spear-armed infantry) and some Warhammer mounted knights.    I, of course, realize the backlog AFTER ordering a dozen Reaper lizardmen and one last order of various ants, spiders, rats and centaurs from Megaminiatures before they close up shop.

Well, I'll get cracking on the animals, giant and bugbear today (have to use some personal days before the year ends) and see where it takes me.

I had been hoping....

I really had been hoping that you guys were going to go to the Bat Guano Caves this week.   As much as the expeditions to the south, down the timber country and across the prairie have provided us with exciting adventure, I was really hoping for a change, a short overland trip and then some cave-crawling.  But, over the prairie it was.

I also had been hoping for a battle with the Apaches.  I mean, come on, Apache Chief!  Shaman who can summon A Patchy Fog!   But noooooo, you got to buy them off with whiskey.  What's the matter, didn't have any beads?

Ahh, it's coming up

I've got to switch mental gears back to Savage Worlds.   I suppose I need a map of a big bat guano cave.  I've got some stats for some creepy monsters.    Wait, did someone say "Crab People?", I thought they did, maybe I'm wrong.