Okay, I know we weren’t being very original when my designer friend and I decided on a sword-and-shield motif for the Papers & Pencils logo, but this still made me giggle when I found it in one of my old Dragon magazines. And what the hell? I can share whatever pointless minutia I want. It’s my blog.
I really wish one of us had thought of the D20 morning star. We had two really great ideas with the pencil swords and the paper shield, but a D20 morning star would have taken the cake. I may need to steal it if I ever do a redesign!
Just a little bit of seasonal fantasy role playing humor which came to me via @EmpyClaw and @Jezi_Belle on twitter. I hope my Christian readers can enjoy it in the spirit of a lighthearted jest, and have a pleasant holiday tomorrow.
Today I learned that the newest player at my game table, Poker the Rogue, is an artist. Now I’ve got two of them! The comic above depicts a scene which took place early in his first adventure, when I rolled “Worg” on my random encounter table, and “Wounded” on Trollsmyth’s “Monster Motivation” table. I think the party’s reaction is documented rather well.
Two of the members of my group (both of the artists, actually) have a large interest in ecology. So when one of them mentioned that it might be an invasive species, I confirmed that Worgs (along with any “Magical Beast”) could be considered an unnatural, and thus invasive, species. It was funny to see sympathy for the creature completely dry up once the players realized it was harming the game world’s ecosystem.
The whole exchange took perhaps ten to fifteen minutes of game time, and the fact that it was memorable enough to make a comic about just goes to prove what I’ve always said: the best kind of fun is the kind which players create for themselves. The game included several well crafted NPCs, a dungeon filled with rich lore, and a few very impressive landmarks. But the #1 thing this player latched on to, and wanted to share, was a moment when a randomly-rolled encounter gave birth to some quirky party interaction.
This comic tickles me absolutely pink. I hope there are more of them forthcoming!
Way back in November I wrote about a game session in a post which I had entitled Goblins Redux. To quickly recap, it was a Zalekios Gromar game, which is usually one-on-one with me and the GM, but since my ladyfriend had moved in with me we wanted to get her involved in the game. Rather than creating a level 12 character to join in, however, she suggested that she play the four level 1 goblins from Pathfinder’s “We Be Goblins” module. The game ended up being extremely entertaining, and she even described it as “the most fun I think I’ve ever had playing D&D.”
She recently made this drawing of the campaign’s final encounter. There were these large flying dragon-things which Zalekios was fighting. Being level 1, nobody really expected the Goblins to be much help. That is, until Mogmurch managed to throw an alchemical bomb directly into the creature’s mouth. The act was so remarkable that even though we decided against leveling the goblins up, it has been decided that Mogmurch will forever after get a +4 bonus when attempting to throw something into a small space. I thought my readers might get a kick out of the drawing. And if you do like it, you can check out more of her work on her deviantart page.
By the way, I was totally planning to do an April Fool’s Day post. It was going to be about how one of my players accidentally bought the 4th edition rulebook instead of Pathfinder, and asked if I would give it a try since they spent all that money on it. I would then extol the virtues of the system, and how I had completely misunderstood it previously. In the end I decided that I really needed to use this weekend to recuperate some of my energy and finally get around to doing my taxes–and I didn’t even do that latter part! I’ll just have to plan something really original for next year…
Americans, like myself, don’t tend to get a lot of historical education. I don’t know about the what others may have experienced, but looking back it seems as though I simply learned about the same things over and over. It wasn’t until a few into my university education that I realized I knew next to nothing about American history after the revolutionary war. I was even less familiar with the history of other countries, and even less familiar than that with the history of countries outside of the west. It is a failing I have been regrettably slow to correct, which is really too bad, because ya know all those people who were alive before our parents?
They were awesome.
I mean, they were awful. For most of history, every social group has been dirt under the feet of the social group above it. I firmly believe that the human race has, overall, improved as time has gone forward. But none the less, if you take the time to explore the past, I guarantee you’ll find something amazing. Something like bejeweled skeletons.
I haven’t been able to find much more information than is given in my original source (Defunct). The scant information I’ve been able to discover about the individuals has covered their lives, and stopped short after their death. But, apparently, these are all saints of the catholic church. As best I can determine, it seems that all died sometime before 1100 C.E. Each was taken from Rome (probably the catacombs under Saint Peter’s Basilica, though I’m not positive) sometime in the 1600s. Their remains were dressed in these elaborate, bejeweled imitations of what was then modern fashion. They were then re-interred in the catacombs of a small German chapel.
I’d love to learn more if anyone can find anything on the subject. Though the benefit of not knowing is that I get to imagine the details for myself. Was this odd, elaborate ritual done peacefully, or were the remains stolen? If the former, why? Was the transfer of hallowed corpses a bargaining chip in a diplomatic negotiation, or were the corpses moved because it was felt they did not belong amongst the hallowed corpses? Perhaps they were garbed in such a rich fashion in an attempt to satiate their spirits for the dishonor of being removed from a more respectable grave. And if the latter, if the remains were stolen, why, and how? Was there a battle, or was their acquisition a daring act of subterfuge? Were they each members of some secret society, and were taken so they could be buried according to that society’s rituals, or were they all secretly members of a single family? The possibilities are enticing, and endless.
This is the stuff adventures are made of. For a low level adventurer, finding just one of these skeletons would be worth delving through a 10-level dungeon. Even higher level adventurers would be awed to find a group of these skeletons posed around a table, perhaps reenacting some magnificent deed from their lives.
Pictured above is Saint Maximinus, whom I imagine would not be a fun person to game with. Each of the skeletons below are labelled in turn. Many thanks for the beautiful photography must be given to Toby De Silva. You can see more of his work on his website. (Defunct) He’s got an eye for the macabre, which I like.
The trees bent aside like twigs to make way for the creature that stepped out of the darkness. It’s appearance was grotesque and alien. It wasn’t until it opened its colossal jaws to choke out a guttural roar that the adventurers even realized where its mouth was. Yaril drew his blades and stepped forward.
“Alright kids, we do this by the book. I’ll try and sneak behind the bastard.” His apparent confidence was belied by the tremor in his voice. Graft none the less nodded silently and began pulling an arrow from his quiver. Behind them, Vortican was already mumbling the beginnings of a spell, arcs of magical energy gathering around his fingertips.
“I’m going to seduce it.” Tassandra said. The rest of the party’s jaws dropped in unison. It was Vortican who spoke first.
“How do you intend to do that?”
“Well…ya know. I look at him with lusty eyes, and open my mouth just a little. Then I turn so he can get a really good view of my ass, with a little sideboob for good measure. Then I take this big stick thingie I have and hold it like its his penis, just to make sure he gets it.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not a valid strategy.” Yaril managed, still dumbstruck by his companion’s foolishness. “I’m not even sure that thing is a ‘he.'”
“Shut up, it will totally work!” were the last words Tassandra spoke, before the entire party was devoured by The Beast Who Hates Sexist Fantasy Art.
It’s really good to see Pathfinder getting the attention it deserves from webcomics. Wizards of the Coast seems to be working out a lot of product placement deals lately. Not that product placement is necessarily bad. In fact it’s all been classy and entertianing. Nothing wrong with a nerd comic taking money from a nerd company to showcase a nerdy product which fits within the comic’s nerdy theme, and which the comic’s nerd audience will enjoy. But considering that Pathfinder is currently a more popular game than D&D fourth edition, It’s good to see Gabe & Tycho paying attention to it.
I must confess, I would love to have Tycho as a GM. He’s beyond insidious, he’s positively evil. That kind of harsh game environment holds a certain appeal. Plus, the man has a way with words that I could never hope to match in a hundred years of studying the craft of writing.
Pathfinder made an appearance in today’s Penny Arcade! You may want to click back a few comics to read the rest of the storyline. Essentially, Gabe (the fellow in yellow) is GMing a 4th edition game, but he’s lost control of it. He’s allowed his players to become overpowered, and is no longer capable of challenging them. Tycho (the fellow in blue) is a much more experienced GM, and has resolved to help his friend teach his players a harsh lesson.
