The CARDINAL has clues that put the Sword of the Dawn at the bend in the Rhine in Belgica, so that's where we're headed. ROSA leads the expedition on a path she knows which covers the 500 miles in half an hour. Because it's a shortcut.
BOWENN IVORYBOW, former Elvish ambassador, is making a red and gold tornado which snows colored snow. Why, he doesn't immediately say. We rush towards him and are assailed with a crystal tornado and barley stalks which grow actual dagger blades.
JUNIUS takes his ancient iron sword, whose hilt is the Cross, and calls IN HOC SIGNO VICTIS! The illusions vanish.
Bowenn says he is seeking the Sword of the Dawn for his patron. We don't want Crassus to have it, but he explains it isn't Crassus he is aiding. Rather, the Elves are facing their doom, and they hope the Sword will awaken the King Under the Mountain, the king of all Elves who went away a long time ago.
When Junius says we need the Sword to save our own people, and Bowenn cannot convince us that his people matter more than ours, he casts a spell to put us all in a stasis of time, while he goes ahead to find the Sword.
It takes many days for us to walk the half-mile to the hill where the Sword is hidden. There is a cave, cleared out recently, with a zombie dwarf inside. He takes some considerable hacking, but eventually falls.
Junius, Brother Aquila, and Retarius are alone, with the others lost in time. They find and defeat several living stalactites called ropers, and then Vesuvius arrives, one step behind them, which came out to several hours. They do not wait for the others, but press on, deeper into the tunnels in the hard rock under the hill ...
One experience point is awarded.
Thursday, January 26, 2017
Fire And a Wedding
On the first day of 855, JUNIUS marries SIGRID, cementing the alliance between Rome and the Isles du Loup.
In the cathedral, a mysterious man in shabby clothes is watching all the guests. RETARIUS questions him; his name is SPADICUS and he claims to know things. He also disappears whenever he strays beyond the cruciform core of the cathedral; this puts Retarius on guard.
SPADICUS says he has spread a song throughout Rome to warn its champions to find weapons of power to defeat the Enemy of all humanity. He can speak freely inside the cathedral, where the Enemy cannot hear, but outside, he has to use code. The song is a good code because the Enemy, being in rebellion, cannot hear the Symphony clearly.
Retarius: Are you used to making no sense at all?
Spadicus: (sigh) Yeah, it's getting familiar.
ROSA hears the song and follows it to a small niche, where she perceives a rainbow glass hummingbird singing the song. She is able to follow the complete song, whose words are:
In the cathedral, a mysterious man in shabby clothes is watching all the guests. RETARIUS questions him; his name is SPADICUS and he claims to know things. He also disappears whenever he strays beyond the cruciform core of the cathedral; this puts Retarius on guard.
SPADICUS says he has spread a song throughout Rome to warn its champions to find weapons of power to defeat the Enemy of all humanity. He can speak freely inside the cathedral, where the Enemy cannot hear, but outside, he has to use code. The song is a good code because the Enemy, being in rebellion, cannot hear the Symphony clearly.
Retarius: Are you used to making no sense at all?
Spadicus: (sigh) Yeah, it's getting familiar.
ROSA hears the song and follows it to a small niche, where she perceives a rainbow glass hummingbird singing the song. She is able to follow the complete song, whose words are:
Bring fire, bring storm, bring light, bring steel.
The Sword of the Dawn,
The Mad God’s Amulet,
And the Jewel in the Skull
Mark the Way to the Runestaff
Which Marks the Destiny of Men.
Bring fire, bring storm, bring light, bring steel.
The bird doesn't know what any of that means ... it's just a song. Rosa befriends the bird, which sings joyously until she can't forget the song even if she wants to.
Rosa approaches the CARDINAL afterwards. He has heard of the objects in the song; they are pre-Christian, indeed, probably pre-pagan artifacts of great importance.
VESUVIUS notices smoke in the air and follows it outside. BROTHER AQUILA, BJERN, and SYLVIA are already running to the Temple of Janus, where there is a huge fire.
Indeed, the priests who attend the Temple are all dead, burned in their tracks. Both doors of the temple, front and back, are open, and flames roar from within. As they approach, additional flames lick down the roads, burning up the firemen who come to put it out. Unlike most fires, this one knows how to defend itself!
BJERN glances inside and sees GAIUS PROCELLUS, the Fire Mage of the Temple of Elemental Evil, within. Procellus emerges and manically demands to know how BJERN will survive when he, Procellus, sets the buildings on either side of him ablaze! Bjern runs forward and cuts Procellus using the Axe of the Apostles, which he borrowed from the Order of St. Michael.
Cut (and arrow-shot), Procellus swells up to giant size, throwing flames far and wide. Brother A rebukes him, Bjern cuts him, Sylvia shoots holes in him, and Vesuvius wonders whether he's using a simple flame charm amped up, or some kind of elemental summoning.
Eventually the Romans punch so many holes in Procellus that the fire roaring within him rages loose, spraying everywhere and setting everything on fire. The Fire Mage may be gone, destroyed!
Junius, recently elected Pontifex of Mars, was supposed to be there at the New Years' feast, but decided to get married in a church instead. Thus, he is the only one of the pontifices still alive. But he has a mission in Belgica, so he leaves his wife, Sigrid, the very recently converted Norse pagan, in charge of all the civic temples of Rome. What's the worst that could happen?
One xp is awarded.
One xp is awarded.
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Dungeons and Eagles Character Creation
Everyone has 200 points to spend. Every stat and skill you choose costs points. Some, like Deafness, cost negative points: if you take this trait, you get more points to spend, because the trait is going to impede you in some way.
The basic stats are ST (Strength), DX (Dexterity), IQ (Intelligence) and HT (Health). Will, Dodge and Hit Points are derived from these stats.
You get a 10 (the human average) for free. So a zero-point character has ST 10, DX 10, IQ 10, HT 10 and no skills.
Each additional level in a stat costs 10 points. So ST 12 costs 20, while DX 17 costs 70.
Stats above 20 are superhuman, and not normally allowed.
You will also want to get several SKILLS. Most are of Average difficulty, and cost 2 points per level. They are tied to DX or IQ; therefore, if you have DX 10, and you want Sword-12, it costs 4 points (2 levels above your DX). Mental skills are based on IQ, physical on DX.
Some useful skills include:
Alertness
Axe/Mace
Boating
Bow
Brawling
Dagger
Detect Lies
First Aid
Hiking
Jumping
Lance
Law
Leadership
Music
Naturalist (outdoor living)
Ride
Running
Sword
Stealth
Shield
Shortsword
Spear
Staff
Survival (outdoor survival)
Swimming
Tactics
Theology
Throwing
Tracking
If you plan to take 10 or more physical skills, it's probably cheaper to buy up your DX before buying skills.
The last category is ADVANTAGES. These are abilities you either have, or don't.
Some appropriate advantages are:
The basic stats are ST (Strength), DX (Dexterity), IQ (Intelligence) and HT (Health). Will, Dodge and Hit Points are derived from these stats.
You get a 10 (the human average) for free. So a zero-point character has ST 10, DX 10, IQ 10, HT 10 and no skills.
Each additional level in a stat costs 10 points. So ST 12 costs 20, while DX 17 costs 70.
Stats above 20 are superhuman, and not normally allowed.
You will also want to get several SKILLS. Most are of Average difficulty, and cost 2 points per level. They are tied to DX or IQ; therefore, if you have DX 10, and you want Sword-12, it costs 4 points (2 levels above your DX). Mental skills are based on IQ, physical on DX.
Some useful skills include:
Alertness
Axe/Mace
Boating
Bow
Brawling
Dagger
Detect Lies
First Aid
Hiking
Jumping
Lance
Law
Leadership
Music
Naturalist (outdoor living)
Ride
Running
Sword
Stealth
Shield
Shortsword
Spear
Staff
Survival (outdoor survival)
Swimming
Tactics
Theology
Throwing
Tracking
If you plan to take 10 or more physical skills, it's probably cheaper to buy up your DX before buying skills.
The last category is ADVANTAGES. These are abilities you either have, or don't.
Some appropriate advantages are:
Blessed 15 May re-roll one die twice per game
Charismatic 10 May inspire others to resist fear
Detect Evil 15 May attempt IQ roll to detect evil
Fearless 20
Inspired 15 Make Will roll to gain +5 on a particular task
Knighthood 20 Legal enforcement powers and Status 6
Lay on Hands 30 May heal light wounds 3 times/day
Protection from Evil 30 If in a state of grace, cannot be harmed by evil magic
Rebuke Evil 30 May present the Cross to drive back evil with a Will roll
Status 30 You are from a powerful family which can equip and defend you
Steed 5 Has a powerful loyal warhorse
Vigil 20 May pray one solid night to obtain visions or contact angels
Code of Honor -15 Do not cheat, allow injustice, or accept an insult
Honest -15 You may not break the law. Difficult in the Roman Empire!
Truthful -10 You may not lie
Poverty -20 You may not acquire equipment except through adventure.
EQUIPMENT is not acquired with points, but bought with money (unless you have Poverty). Your character starts with the equipment collected over a short career: chainmail, a shield, a horse, two weapons, a cross, and any special gear your skills require. If you have First Aid, you have a packet of linen bandages, for instance.
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
The Rivals
The Crassus team starts attacking the Valerian team, but then the fountains produce water elementals. Those run over lots of Roman soldiers, but also infuse the soil with elemental water which brings forth monsters! Ogres, four-armed tusked swordsmonsters, giant insects, etc.
Both teams and the remaining Romans fight the monsters. A cross scratched onto the fountains prevents further monsterism.
Once the fighting is over, the mysterious White General of the Crassians shows his face for a moment to Junius. Junius decides to trust him. The two parties agree to race through the mansion, grabbing all they can.
Rosa finds a huge chessboard with hundreds of figures representing powerful leaders and monsters. And for some reason, there are models of all of the dungeoneers except for Retarius. Rosa uses juice from the fruit of the tree of life to bring the model of a wizard partially to life. The wizard turns out to be Bowenn, who doesn't like that at all and destroys the model. This makes Bowenn die, but he gets better, because elf.
Junius finds a miraculous machine that makes whatever you ask for, but then stops working. He tricks the Crassians into going there, hoping to waste their time. They don't have an engineer, but they do discover that you have to put matter into one end of the machine, ask for what you want, and an equal weight of material will be given at the other end. So it cannot make gold out of nothing, but it can turn rocks into gold, carpeting into silver, art and goblets and loose wall boards into tasty pigeon pies, and so forth. His plan succeeds; the Crassians spend all their time at the machine. But they also get all sorts of stuff; the Black Mouser, their thief, is seen leaving with a pillowcase full of diamonds.
Rosa finds a nightmare, which tries to carry her to Hell, and a pegasus, which carries her off into the sky. She sees a huge fireball approaching from the Alps, with a seated man in it.
She warns everyone, and they withdraw with cartloads of loot. The Crassus team teleports to safety, presumably. The fireball blows up the mansion, all of it, and burns down the Tree of Life planted outside.
However, Rosa returns after the Man In The Fireball leaves, digs up the undamaged roots of the Tree of Life, and brings a cutting away with her.
Both teams and the remaining Romans fight the monsters. A cross scratched onto the fountains prevents further monsterism.
Once the fighting is over, the mysterious White General of the Crassians shows his face for a moment to Junius. Junius decides to trust him. The two parties agree to race through the mansion, grabbing all they can.
Rosa finds a huge chessboard with hundreds of figures representing powerful leaders and monsters. And for some reason, there are models of all of the dungeoneers except for Retarius. Rosa uses juice from the fruit of the tree of life to bring the model of a wizard partially to life. The wizard turns out to be Bowenn, who doesn't like that at all and destroys the model. This makes Bowenn die, but he gets better, because elf.
Junius finds a miraculous machine that makes whatever you ask for, but then stops working. He tricks the Crassians into going there, hoping to waste their time. They don't have an engineer, but they do discover that you have to put matter into one end of the machine, ask for what you want, and an equal weight of material will be given at the other end. So it cannot make gold out of nothing, but it can turn rocks into gold, carpeting into silver, art and goblets and loose wall boards into tasty pigeon pies, and so forth. His plan succeeds; the Crassians spend all their time at the machine. But they also get all sorts of stuff; the Black Mouser, their thief, is seen leaving with a pillowcase full of diamonds.
Rosa finds a nightmare, which tries to carry her to Hell, and a pegasus, which carries her off into the sky. She sees a huge fireball approaching from the Alps, with a seated man in it.
She warns everyone, and they withdraw with cartloads of loot. The Crassus team teleports to safety, presumably. The fireball blows up the mansion, all of it, and burns down the Tree of Life planted outside.
However, Rosa returns after the Man In The Fireball leaves, digs up the undamaged roots of the Tree of Life, and brings a cutting away with her.
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