The Holidaze

 Here we are, in between two of the major holidays of the year.

I wound up getting a pretty good grip on my All Outta Candy Canes scenario, but the holiday has been draining enough that I don't know if I have the ability to squeeze it in this year. The good news is that I've got some pretty well developed notes, so it shouldn't take much to get things into shape when I look at them again next year.

Speaking of next year, it's about time to talk about New Year's Resolutions. In spite of what people say, I'm not interested in being a "new me" in the new year. I just want to be better at being the same old me.

My resolution right now is to run a campaign. I've got a really ambitious campaign in mind, that I've been working on for years, but I don't know when/if that will be ready. To make things more manageable, I'm going to say that in order to fulfill this New Year's Resolution, I must run at least 2 sessions of the same game with the same characters and setting.

I've gotten to the point that I'm okay doing one-shots at the monthly Meetups, typically using improvised scenarios (my big games are Fiasco and Fate Accelerated using the It's Not My Fault! cards). My next steps are doing something a bit more scripted/planned and/or something that goes for multiple sessions. The ideal is both.

Did You Miss Me?

The reason that I didn’t update my blog last week is that I’ve been having internet connection issues and I wasn’t able to access Blogger. I actually still can’t, but I’m writing this offline and will upload it when I get a chance.

It has made working remotely more difficult. For a couple of days, I wound up hanging out in coffee shops most of the day using their WiFi. I eventually figured out a workaround, which consists of disconnecting and reconnecting to the router until it finally decides to let me online. And then it works for a few hours until it decides not to again.

I’m pretty much done with my All Outta Candy Canes scenario. At least, I think I could run it if asked. I almost ran it last Saturday, which was when my Meetup group has its monthly meeting. When we’re done socializing, we see who brought a one-shot game to play. Normally I’m one of only a few who brought something, but this time, there were enough that I didn’t get any interest. Which was fine. I got to play a fun game called Spire. It’s a game of revolution in a fantasy mega-city and I had heard many good things about it from my much cooler nerd friends.

If I have a stumbling block with the project, it’s figuring out how to define characters. According to the rules I’m using, characters only have one stat and it’s more of a pacing mechanism than an expression of competence. But players like to know who their character is supposed to be and what they do, as well as suggestions for any funny voices and shenanigans to get up to while playing. I think that's where most of my time is going. this week.

New Month, New Challenge

 Unfortunately, I will not be continuing with Apothecaria. It was fun and a good writing exercise, but it took most of my writing time for the week. Actually, even a little bit more than that. It does suck that I only really take my writing club time to write. One of the downsides of working from home is that I spend my entire day in front of my computer, so it takes effort to park myself back in the chair to do any personal writing.

And I do have a project that I'd like to be working on. For years, I've wanted to do a Christmas themed adventure using the system "All Outta Bubblegum" switching out bubblegum for candy canes to fit the seasonal mood. I had toyed with a number of possible scenarios, but it wasn't until just after Christmas last year that the best inspiration ever struck.

One of the more interesting holiday traditions of modern times involves NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command. While there are differing stories about how the whole thing started, NORAD has released reports of Santa's whereabouts since some time in the 1950's. Which brings up an interesting question: With all of the stories that involve Santa getting derailed on his deliveries, what would NORAD's response be if that blip that they're tracking all of Christmas Eve were to disappear?

So the short version of the pitch is "The Expendables Save Christmas." I hope that I'll be able to get enough notes together that I can run it this year.

And if you liked reading my playthrough of Apothecaria, let me know. I might be willing to revisit it on slow weeks, or if I can get my butt in my writing chair for more than 2 hours a week.

 Time to resolve the downtime for Week 6 and see if I can get the ingredients to treat Bas Bata's shattered tooth.

I got all of the Slime Shell I needed, but I still need some Shield Cap. So it's off to Glimmerwood Grove to gather some.

1. As I'm exploring, I hear a faint voice just on the edge of my hearing. I try to make out any words, but the more I pay attention to it, the harder it is to focus on anything. Finally, I can't focus at all and simply lose consciousness. I come to in the middle of a fairy circle. Once I manage to get my bearings, I realize that I've much farther into the Grove than I normally go. Thankfully, a Shieldcap is growing nearby, so I grab it before I head on my way.

2: This is definitely a place in the Grove that I've never been to. The legendary Glimmerwood Giant sleeps here. Were he to stand up, he would be twice as tall as the trees. Very gently, I gather a Shieldcap that grows between his toes. I don't know what would happen if he were to wake up and I'm not sure I want to be there when he does.

3. As I reach for the last Shieldcap that I need, I hear a loud bang and feel a sharp pain in my side. I feel the wound, grateful that it's just a graze. A dirty hand reaches out for the Shieldcap just in front of me. I hear a small, angry grunt as the Shieldcap is thrown back onto the ground. Once they are gone, I reach into my healer's kit for a salve to control the bleeding. The pain causes me to curse, but when you're a hedge witch, that doesn't just mean saying a dirty word. I just hope that bad luck for that truffle hunter makes for good luck for everyone else in Glimmerwood Grove.

4: That was the last Shieldcap that I needed. Now I think I'll try to track down some Giant Spider Venom. It would be easier to get this in Hero's Hollow, but getting shot already cost me some time. Fortune is smiling on me, as I see a unicorn in the clearing up ahead. It seems to be doing battle with a Giant Spider until it finally spears it with its horn. Detecting my presence, it dashes off with supernatural speed. I take advantage of the opportunity and catch the venom as it drips from the dying spider's mandibles.

5. Given my last experience in the Weaver's Wood, I'm not heading directly there any time soon. I wind up following a path well worn by various animals. Along the path, I find a Wild Rose bush. Not what I'm looking for, but the seeds have their uses. I gather some and head home to wait for my next patient.

Week 7

That wretched vampire has struck again! This time, a villager named Milton Cash has come to my door and he has clearly been Drunk. This time, however, I am ready. I still have the Ambergris that I was able to gather for my first attempt, and rather than Moon Moss, I can use Slime Shell to take care of the Blood Tag. I'll still have to get some more Slime Shell when I'm ready to treat Bas Bata's tooth, but the ability to treat an Ailment that I failed to treat previously is my priority.

I crush the Ambergris into a fine powder, which I then combine with the slime from the Slime Shell to form a paste. I then apply this paste directly to the vampire bite and color returns to Milton's face almost immediately.

After receiving my fee of 20 silver pieces, I head out to Hero's Hollow to gather more Giant Spider Venom for Bas Bata's tooth.

Downtime

1: Following a path of spider webs, I enact my plan. I locate a giant spider and draw it towards me. As it snaps at me, I block with my left arm, which I have wrapped in thick, absorbent material to catch the venom. Once the spider has successfully bitten my padding, I smack it squarely between all 8 eyes to dissuade it from pursuing me further. As I turn around, I find myself now facing The Baron, one of the more notable denizens of these dungeons. A poltergeist animating a large suit of armor blocks my path. He lets out a booming villainous laugh and draws a wicked looking sword. I do my best to stay out of the path of that sword. He bellows "Coward!" but I don't care. I'm an apothecary, not a hero. He swings at me and misses, hitting the stone dungeon wall with enough power to force the sword from his gauntlet.

He laughs again, this time with some measure of ... mirth? "Well fought!" he booms. He extends a hand with a small vial in it. "A token of my esteem. There are few who have stood against me and lived." The liquid in the vial is a pale red. Vampire's Venom. Not what I was looking for, but it should work just as well.

2. The ground gave way beneath my feet! Pick myself up and take stock of my situation. I'm now in a small cell with a barred door of rusted iron. The lock is rusted as well and it takes just a little effort to work it open. As I'm celebrating my cleverness, a giant spider skitters down the hallway towards me. Thinking quickly, I throw the cell door wide and dodge as the spider lunges at me, luring it into the cell. Throwing the door closed and pressing my body against it to keep it closed, I present my specially prepared left arm. It's bites into the padding and I absorb another dose of Giant Spider Venom.

3. I discover a puzzle room in the dungeon. The floor is covered in lettered tiles. There is a mirror on the far wall showing the reflection of a word. Easy enough. But as I step on the first letter of the word, my foot falls through as if the floor isn't there. I mange to catch myself, but manage to hear a telltale chittering beneath the floor. It turns out that the tiles where the letters are reversed are solid, but not the other stretches of the floor. Passing my left arm through an illusionary tile, I smile when I feel the pressure of spider mandibles filling my padding with the final dose of Giant Spider Venom that I need.

4. Since I used that one Slime Shell for my cure this week, I'll need to make it up. Since I'm in Hero's Hollow, I'll try to collect some Liquid Fire, which has the same power against Infection** that Slime Shell does. I pass through a dusty crypt and step on an old, dry bone. The bone snaps and the sound fills the silence of the crypt. Ghostly voices grumble "Knock off the racket!" I freeze for several moments and proceed carefully, trying to avoid waking the dead.

5. Wandering through the tunnels and caverns, I find myself is a large, elaborate dining hall. At the head of the large table is a figure cloaked in shadow. It can only be the Dark Ruler of the Underlands. "Come!" they say. "Join me for dinner!"

The food and drink at the table were not things that I was accustomed to. Thankfully, my apothecary skill helped me identify which things are poisonous and which are not. And one of the libations is actually Liquid Fire.

We have a pleasant conversation over the unusual meal. While there's a wealth of foes and challenges in the Hollow, there's very little company. I discovered that Ira, my first patient, had moved into the Hollow with her vampire lover, just waiting for them to turn her into a full vampire. I mention that I treated another victim this week, preventing them from having another Renfield, which caused the Ruler to laugh.

As thanks for being such pleasant company, they opened a mysterious portal to a realm called The Strange. The prior apothecary left notes that some strange and wondrous Reagents might be found there.

 Week 5

Seth's patient this week is Clara Lucas, a local seamstress who has acquired Magnetic Thumb. The Tags for the Ailment are Pain* and Blood* and there's no Timer. I actually don't need any time this week, as my explorations have provided the necessary ingredients already. While those are the same ingredients I was attempting to accumulate in order to treat Bas Bata, it will allow me to focus on my downtime and accumulating more of the Reagents that I need.

So I boil the Shock Fish to extract the electric essence and once it's cool, I mix in some slime from one of my Slime Shells. I give it to Clara to drink and within a few minutes, the thimble finally releases itself from her thumb. I earn 20 silver pieces and 1 point of Reputation for a successful cure.

For my downtime, I will head to Meltwater Loch and try to acquire more Slime Shells. I need 4 more to treat Bas Bata's Infection

1: As I'm walking along the beaches, I notice a strange set of footprints in the sand. They have four clawed toes that are widely splayed and the line of a tail dragging between them. The gait is clearly bipedal and they disappear into the sea. I wonder what sort of creature (person?) might have left them.

2: As I'm gathering a Slime Shell, I see Grobeck the dwarven fisherman. I wave to him and he waves, then rows himself towards me. He shows me his catch and I notice a Wigfish among the fish. I ask if I can have it and he explains that even though they are very rare, they're not very good to eat. I rattle off a few conditions that Wigfish can help to treat and he is happy to give it to me.

3: Scouting the beaches for Slime Shell, I find an old bottle with a note inside. It reads "Hello! My name is Maggie. I am 6 years old and I go to Lakewood School. I like peanut butter sandwiches, but without jelly. I would like you to be my pen pal. Put your letter in the bottle and put it in the water." I pause for a moment to write back. "Hello Maggie. My name is Seth. I am too old to go to school, but not too old to learn. I would like to read about where you live." I throw the bottle back in the water. Will she actually get my message?

4: A blood curdling bark echoes over the loch. The call of a cu-sith on the hunt. I scramble to a pile of rocks near the shore and hide in a recess just big enough for me. I wait for another Timer to make sure that the creature has passed before resuming my search. The good news is that my hiding spot was also the home to a Slime Shell, which I grabbed before I left.

5. I go hunting for Slime Shell in an old, barnacle covered shipwreck on the shore of the loch. In a cabin below deck, I spot a large chest of waterlogged wood next to a skeleton that's been picked clean by either sea boards or carnivorous fish. I open the chest to find a collection of wine bottles, the liquid inside turned to vinegar.

That's all the downtime I have and I managed to collect all of the Slime Shell I needed to treat Bas Bata.

Week 6

This week's patient is Vicki Hampton, an adventurer who went exploring the wrong tunnel in Hero's Hollow and came out with Phodothropy, which is kind of like lycanthropy, but for hamsters. Yes, Vicki needs my help to prevent her from turning into a were-hamster.

The Tags for Phodothropy are Curse* and Hair* and it has a Timer of 6. The Wigfish that I acquired from Grobeck can take care of the Hair Tag, but it looks like I'll have to go to Glimmerwood Grove to find some Fairy Dust (6) to remove the Curse.

1: I follow some boar tracks, hoping that it will lead me to some Fairy Dust. No luck on that front, though it does pass by a Nurse Willow, so I take the opportunity to collect some Surgeon's Sap.

2: It seems that the boar I was following was not a wild boar, but a boar trained by a truffle hunter. She starts hurling accusations of truffle poaching as soon as I'm in sight. A warning shot from her pistol passes right by my ear, temporarily deafening me. I hide in a hollow tree until the ringing in my ears fades, costing me a Timer. As I'm getting ready to resume my foraging, I spot a small shimmering on a mushroom cap. I've got my Fairy Dust.

3: Since I lost all of the Shield Cap that I collected last week, I give myself one more opportunity to collect some. I tried to avoid where I had my encounter with the pixies last time, but instead found myself wandering into Weaver's Wood, a section of the forest overrun with spiders of every size and description. I try to carefully avoid the webs, but the chittering of spider legs and mandible soon gives way to barely audible whispers. The whispers get closer, becoming voices just behind me. While most of the spiders are content to stalk me, staying just out of my senses, one approaches me. I recognize it. It's the spider that I aided a few weeks ago. It guides me through the webs and keeps me just one step ahead of its hungry brethren until I'm clear of the Weaver's Wood.

Returning home, I sprinkle the Pixie Dust on the Wigfish's wig and apply it as a poultice to the cursed hamster bite. I collect my fee of 20 silver pieces and 1 point of Reputation.

Reputation: 8

Silver: 84

Reagents: Ambergris, Gas Weed, Pixie Fur, Sea Beast Saliva, Shield Cap (x2), Slime Shell (x5), Surgeon's Sap

Familiar: Spider (Magic Eye; Glimmerwood Grove only)

Golem Helper: Make Garden Plot (Will be finished by the end of Spring)

 

I'll do Week 6s downtime next week.

 I know I said something about getting caught up on the downtime step of Seth's 3rd week as a village apothecary, but I think I'll skip it for now. It's not really something that needs to happen. Mostly it allows me additional time to forage for herbs but without an Ailment, it's hard to know what I might need. Maybe when I get a stronger handle on the game, I'll be able to anticipate my needs better.

Week 4

My patient this week is Micheal Stevens, a young adventurer who seems to have acquired a case of Cludgie Mouth when his trail rations took a dip in a dark pool in Hero's Hollow. Now every breath he exhales smells like it comes from the other end. The other end is actually worse, he tells me, but infrequent enough that the primary issue is his breath. I leave him with a pot of mint tea as I head out foraging.

Cludgie Mouth has the Tags Curse* and Infection* and a Timer of 6. The Star Shard I've collected can deal with the Curse Tag, but I still need something for the Infection. A Slime Shell from the Meltwater Loch should do just the trick.

1. Slime Shell is pretty easy to find. But just as I pick up the shell, an immense beast rises from the depths. It's Bas Bata, the great guardian of this place. It lets loose a mighty shriek and I see a wall of sharp teeth in its mouth. Except for one, which is shattered and the gums raw and inflamed. The creature is clearly in pain and thrashing. I don't have the resources to treat it right now, but it's something to keep my eye out for.

Shattered Tooth has the Tags Pain***, Teeth* and Infection**. Based on the size of the creature and its tooth, I'll need 5 times the normal treatment.

While escaping from the creature takes an extra Timer, I've got what I need to treat Micheal. I think I will take advantage of the opportunity to get some more Slime Shell, which will help Bas Bata's Infection.

2: As I'm hunting for Slime Shell, I find a small fishing boat occupied by a dwarven fisherman named Grobreck.We spend a while chatting and he mentions a patch of Gas Weed that he rowed past not too long ago. I bid him farewell and find the Gas Weed exactly where he said it was, along with another Slime Shell.

3. Another Slime Shell down. As the sun goes down and the mist rises in the loch, a ghost ship sails past me. The skeleton crew sings a working song, stomping their feet to its steady rhythm as they hoist their sails.

4: As I'm hunting for more Slime Shells, I find a small abandoned campsite. Just a simple lean-to and a circle of stones around a pile of burnt out wood and ash. Inside the lean-to, I found a small flute and a few pages of what looks like sheet music. While I can't read music, the handwriting looks familiar. Could this be where the prior apothecary went to get away from their troubles?

5: As my last act before returning home, I decide to find some Sea Beast's Saliva to treat Bas Bata's intense Pain. While Bas Bata is certainly the greatest of all of the Sea Beasts in Meltwater Loch, she's not the only one. I find an immense eel slithering among the beams of an old shipwreck. It chases me into a small cabin, but it's too large to follow me inside. As it hisses threateningly, I gather its saliva from its gaping jaws. As it swims away, tired of waiting for me to leave the cabin, I turn to see a skeleton guarding an old treasure chest. Remembering the ghost ship, I decide to let the skeleton keep their treasure.

I return home with my ingredients and set about curing Micheal's breath. I use my mortar and pestle to grind the Star Shard to powder, which I then mix with the slime of one Slime Shell. I pour it into his tea cup with the last bit of mint tea from the pot and tell him to drink it down. As soon as he does so, his next breath is a gust of minty freshness.

I have earned my fee of 20 silver pieces and 1 point of Reputation for a successful cure.

Reputation: 6

Silver: 44

Reagents: Ambergris, Gas Weed, Pixie Fur, Sea Beast Saliva, Shock Fish, Slime Shell (x2)

Familiar: Spider (Magic Eye; Glimmerwood Grove only)

Golem Helper: Make Garden Plot (Will be finished by the end of Spring)

Now that I have something of a quest, I'll be taking advantage of my downtime to try to fill it. I've got Timer 6 to do whatever I want. To keep things interesting, I'll be hunting for Shieldcap in Glimmerwood Grove, which will be good for Bas Bata's Teeth.

1: Shieldcap is plentiful, but unicorns are rare. This is my second glimpse of a unicorn in as many weeks. Perhaps one day, we will trust each other enough to get closer. But that is not today.

2: Just as I'm about to pit another Shieldcap in my pouch, I hear the roar of a bear very close behind me. I drop the Shieldcap and back away from the bear slowly before breaking into a run once I'm a safe distance away.

3. I reach for a Shieldcap by a riverbank, but slip on the slick mud. Thankfully, the river is home to a naiad named Galit, who rescues me and sets me on the bank along with all of the Shieldcaps I've gathered so far. I thank her profusely and suggest that maybe one day I'll learn to swim. She gives me a playful smile and suggests that she'd be willing to teach me. If only I didn't have a tormented Sea Beast to treat, I would have taken her up on her offer immediately.

4: I find more Shieldcap in a grove tended by a druid named Maplehusk. I tell him about my encounter with Bas Bata and my quest to treat the might creature's shattered tooth. Maplehusk then directs me to another patch of Shieldcap that he had encountered not far from the grove.

5: As I'm looking for the last Shieldcap I need, I feel a tap on my shoulder and a tug on my satchel. A small swarm of pixies has decided to prank me by stealing my satchel. I try to run after them ,but they are too fast. In their haste, however, they do drop one of the Shieldcaps I had gathered. Disheartened, I head home and await my next patient.

The main thing that happened this week was my birthday, which was on Sunday. I spent the day just relaxing and doing the things that I wanted to do. I resolved that I would treat myself to some RPG books from the game store, but wound up having the hardest time deciding what to buy.

My gaming collection as it stands now is very scattered. I packed up a pretty impressive collection about 5 years ago when I was getting ready to move to San Diego and most of it is still in storage. And my digital collection continues to expand. So whatever I buy now has to be something that either I don't already have or is sufficiently worth having a copy on hand right now, or something that I have a digital copy of and want a physical copy of or something that I don't have in any format. Combined with that eternal question "When am I actually going to play any of this?" I spent quite some time going back and forth among my options.

I settled on the new Cyberpunk RPG from R. Talsorian Games. With the new video game and Netflix show, it felt like time to get on board that train. I also picked up the Dungeon Masters Guide for D&D 5e. For a number of reasons, I haven't delved deeply into 5e, but this is one more step to taking that plunge. Now I just need the Monster Manual and I'll have the 3 main books.

Now on to the continuing adventures of Seth Creighton, Apothecary of High Rannoc.

Week 2

Although I failed to save my first patient, I was eager to make up for it with my second patient. Little did I suspect that my next patient would be an ogre from the mountains complaining of an ogre-sized hangover.

In game terms, a hangover has the Tags Poison* and Stomach* but a Timer of only 4. None of the ingredients I collected last week will help with these Tags, so I've got to go foraging,

I'll be heading to Hero's Hollow, a nearby dungeon where novice adventures go to prove themselves, to acquire Skullcap* and Crow Coal**. Skullcap should be the easiest, so I'll start there.

1: The areas closest to the entrance of the dungeon are supposedly well explored and relatively safe. That doesn't mean that surprises can't happen, though. Some crafty kobolds dug a pit trap where there wasn't one before and I made the mistake of falling into it. After playing dead at the bottom of the pit when the kobolds came to check on it and then climbing out, I'd lost 2 ticks of Timer, leaving me with only one more chance to gather the reagents for my hangover cure.

2: With only one chance left, I try to track down some Crow Coal. That way, if another hangover comes my way, I'll only have to find the Skullcap to have a complete cure. While I don't find any Crow Coal, I do find a map drawn by a novice adventurer. It's not very good, but it does have a description of a small pond with a Shock Fish. Not useful for a hangover, but it could help me treat other ailments.

Defeated again, I return to find my patient has recovered without my help. Or at least, the ogre's headache is down to the point where he is no longer in agony, but just very irritable. This time, my failure harms my Reputation. I didn't mention it last time, but I start with a Reputation starts at 5, as the locals are willing to give me a chance after their last apothecary disappeared mysteriously. But as the ogre passes through town grumbling on his way home, I can feel the villagers disapproval as I drop to Reputation 4.

Downtime: I only need 4 more segments of downtime to get the golem back in working order. I get it started building a Garden Plot which should be completed by the end of the season. I'll just wait out the 2 remaining segments because I want to try one more ailment and hopefully successfully cure it.

Week 3.

Flossie Patton may not consider her Toad Nose a blessing, but I sure do. As annoying as it is, it's a stable illness that won't get worse or better regardless of how much time I take. There's no Timer on this Ailment.

The Tags for the Ailment are Warts* and Mood*. This calls for a trip out to Glimmerwood Grove for some Songberries and a Princess Toad.

1: Just as I manage to locate a Songberry bush, I am accosted by a swarm of tiny pixies who play keepaway with the berries. Before long, they tire of their game and I gather my Songberries in peace.

2: I encounter the Princess Frog trapped in a spider's web. As it tries to wriggle free, I notice that a couple of the spider's legs are broken and its eyes flash iridescent colors. If I could heal its injured legs, it might be able to help me find magical ingredients in Glimmerwood Grove. I know Surgeon's Sap grows in the area, and even if there were a Timer on Flossie's Ailment, I already have the reagents for that.

3: Luck is on my side this week! Not only do I find Surgeon's Sap almost immediately, I see a unicorn further up the trail. As I close close to it, it notices me and runs off. Maybe someday.

Returning to the spider's web, I apply the Surgeon's Sap to the creature's broken legs. As I look into those 8 iridescent eyes, I sense that I have made a friend in the Glimmerwood Grove.

Rushing back to my cottage, I proceed to boil the Princess Frog's mucus before incorporating a paste made of crushed songberries. Once this is distilled into a thick paste, I apply it to Flossie's nose. We share a cup of tea while the paste does its work.  She then goes to wash her face and reveals her petite, button nose without a trace of the warts that had previously covered it.

With my first success, my Reputation begins to improve. It's now back up to 5. I also earned 24 Silver pieces.

To summarize:

Reputation: 5

Silver: 24

Reagents: Ambergris, Pixie Fur, Star Shard, Shock Fish,

Familiar: Spider (Magic Eye; Glimmerwood Grove only)

Golem Helper: Make Garden Plot (Will be finished by the end of Spring)

I still need to resolve Downtime for Week 3, but I'll do that next time.

InSpectres and Apothecaria

 My session of InSpectres went ... interestingly.

I had posted it as an event to my Meetup group, but didn't get much response. One of the people who had tried it with me at the big Meetup gathering had expressed an interest, but backed out when she realized that she was the only one.

Being a man of my word, I went to the meeting place anyway. It was Bards & Cards, so I figured there would be a chance of picking up some players while I was there. I was right. It was actually the fellow who had been looking for a Pathfinder game and another fellow who he had been playing Magic with when I walked in.

InSpectres is a very simple game, so we were able to make characters and get things underway fairly quickly. The point where things got interesting is when the players realized what having narrative control of the story can do. One of the players decided that their character was old and carried a walking stick. After a lucky roll let him pull off something pretty unlikely and definitely supernatural, the player decided to lean on that walking stick as much as the character did. Almost everything they did after that point was based on the walking stick and what ridiculous thing it would do this time.

It was fun for a one shot, but I told them that if we did a follow-up or it actually became a campaign, the walking stick would be strongly dialed back.

Nothing else on the list of games to play with other people, but I will be playing a game with myself.

Apothecaria is currently on the Bundle of Holding along with a number of other solo and journaling RPGs. I had seen someone else play it on RPG.net, so when it made it into the Bundle of Holding, my interest was piqued.

The game doesn't use stats or a character sheet, I'm at least going to give my character a fun name. Using a witch name generator, I've come up with Seth Creighton, so that it the name of my hedge witch/alchemist who will be mixing up cures for the fantastical ailments of the folk of High Rannoc.

Week 1

My first patient is Ira Neal and she has been Drunk. Not an issue of too much alcohol, but too little blood. Ira has had a run in with a vampire and is lucky to have survived. This is the most difficult of the Novice Ailments, requiring ingredients with the tags Blood*, Cold*, and Senses**. If there's good news here, it's that there's a slightly more generous Timer than other Ailments, with a value of 8. So I have 8 chances to forage for herbs before Ira has to face the Consequences of her Ailment.

I think my best bet is going to the Moonbreaker Mountains, since I can gather Ambergris*** which will treat the Cold and Senses Tags and Moon Moss *** to treat the Blood tag. Those are difficult ingredients, so I'm grateful for the extra Timer on this one.

1: I don't find any Ambergris and it's a good thing I didn't. I accidentally drew the attention of some gull-drakes and it would have been very easy to lose anything I had picked up in the ensuing scuffle.

2: An eccentric balloonist named Woodrow Hicks has dropped an anchor to me and offered me a lift in exchange for some company. He was kind enough to take me a floating sky-island to the last place he saw a sky-whale, which should help me find some Ambergris. Thanks to Woodrow's balloon, I was able to avoid some dangerous passes in the mountains and have effectively gained a point of Timer.

3: I finally found the Ambergris. And also a damaged stone golem. I was able to gather enough pieces that I might be able to turn it into a working stone golem with enough time and materials.

4: Now it's time to track down that Moon Moss. As I roam the Moonbreaker Mountains, I think I spot something that could be Moon Moss. It's only when I get closer that I find out it's actually a swarm of pixies. It's lucky that springtime is shedding season for pixies and I'm able to pick up some Pixie Fur without having to risk their ire. It put it in my pack next to the stone golem rubble and continue on my way.

5: I was lucky to escape with my life! I had apparently trespassed on the hunting territory of a Wild gryphon and it chased me into a narrow pass. Just before it could catch me, I ducked into a cave. The cave was part of a large complex tunnel system and I finally made my way to the surface far from the pass where I had seen the gryphon.

6: Still no Moon Moss, but I did find a Star Shard. Useful, to be sure, but not what I'm after right now.

7: Not as dramatic as a gryphon, but a billy goat can still wreck you day. Especially in the mountains, where his footing is stable, but mine wasn't. I slid down a ravine and had to take a different path out.

8: After all of my adventures so far, it felt good to find a Wayfarer Stone. The magic runes carved into its surface ensure that it's never too hot or too cold nearby, which is very useful against the chill mountain air. Not long after I sat down, a fellow in strange clothes approached. He said his name was Mark Kidd because he had grown up as a goatherder. I told him about my recent encounter with a billy goat and he gave me some advice for my next encounter.

9: With time running out for Ira, I dashed through the mountain passes with more speed than was wise trying to find some Moon Moss. I didn't notice the sheep in front of me until I had very nearly run into it. Allowing myself a moment to catch my breath, I noticed the sheep waiting very patiently. It's clearly a tame sheep that is part of someone's herd. But the only shepherd nearby is on the other side of the mountain. There's no way I could return the sheep and then make it home in time to save Ira. But I can't save Ira anyway since I haven't been able to gather any Moon Moss. I escort the sheep home to the shepherd and then return to High Rannoc well after sunset with my head bowed.

Ira's husband reported to me that she had disappeared at sunset with no trace but a red rose left on her pillow.

My first Ailment was unsuccessfully cured and the patient lost. I have gained no compensation, nor the trust of the villagers. But I did obtain Ambergris, Pixie Fur, and a Star Shard.

Downtime: I devote the rest of the week to trying to repair the stone golem I found. Of the 10 segments of downtime necessary to repair the golem, I spend 6.

Maybe Steps

 Another Maybe step this week. Checking in on the Bards & Cards Discord server, I saw someone looking for someone to run a Pathfinder 1e campaign. While I'm not particularly a fan of the system, I have invested in it, mostly at my wife's urging, and have run a session or two.So I answered that I could run something. Now we're actively looking for more players. Maybe it'll be something, maybe it won't.

Even though Pathfinder is not the game I would have chosen to run for my first campaign in ages, I'm realizing that I really needed a good swift kick to get myself moving. Even though I've got other things on my mind, I'm not developing them to the point where anything is actually going to happen. Which keeps me away from gaming. It's like the saying goes "The perfect is the enemy of the good." I've been waiting for things to be perfect, and therefore missing out on things that would have been, at very least, good.

Even if this doesn't become anything, it's at least a reminder that I should get back in the mix sooner rather than later.

Even though I don't think I have the ability to pull out a novel for NaNoWriMo in November, I'm thinking of trying to flex my creative muscles. There's a solo journaling RPG called Apothecary that I picked up from the Bundle of Holding recently that looks interesting. So at least for November, I'll try to play a little bit and post my results here.

I think my last post came out really muddy because I kinda solved the dilemma I was looking at sort of in the middle of working it out on the screen. What happened to my playstyle and the way I think about games? I shifted to player-driven gaming over GM-driven gaming. I don't have to worry about gearing my scenarios towards different taste groups because I let the players themselves decide what they do. If someone wants to fight, they can pick fights if they want. If someone wants to talk, they can do that too.

The gaming Meetup group met on Saturday and I was one of the 2 GMs offering to run games for attendees. And the other guy was just "I didn't plan to run something, but I have a game later tonight, so I've got my stuff." I ran a quick game of InSpectres, since it's October and therefore time for spoopy things.

I'm planning to run a session at Bards & Cards (the game store that's nearest to me) closer to Halloween and it was a good chance to get some practice in.

I had mentioned intending to run The Great Ork Gods, but I realized that the edgy humor that was the inspiration of the game isn't quite as funny these days. I do remember having fun, and am interested in trying it out again, but I want to come up with a scenario that would actually be funny.

My current thought is to have a scenario where the orks are running from a dragon that devoured the rest of their tribe. They're on their way to warn/join the neighboring tribe, but have to pass through a human village along the way. So even though they are not there to raid and pillage, the humans assume that they're there to raid and pillage, and so the scenario is actually them trying to make it through this village without raiding and pillaging it because they know a dragon is coming this way.

Or maybe a straight up raiding and pillaging scenario, but they're doing it because the humans raided and pillaged them and they're just trying to get their stuff back.

Always Be Playing

 Believe it or not, this post is inspired by my experiences at Wasteland Weekend. In order to cover the cost of my ticket, I volunteered to help the event happen. This mostly consisted of patrolling the grounds overnight one night and again on the last day as the attendees were filing out. As it turns out, Wastelanders are a well-behaved lot, so the patrolling was very uneventful. Which gave me lots of time to get to know my patrol partners, and it turns out that a couple of them were D&D players. (It would be great if they were into other RPGs as well, but I'll take what I can get.)

At one point in one conversation, there was the classic discussion of the balance between combat and roleplay/social interaction. Everyone has their own opinion, so it's a conversation I've had dozens of times over the many years I've been gaming. The idea that an RPG plot is fight scenes separated by talking, or social scenes in between fights..When I was running games much more regularly than I am now, this was part of my adventure writing rubric.

But this time, my brain rebelled. Since that time, how I game, how I GM and how I think about gaming had changed so much that it felt like we were having the wrong conversation. 

The big shift, when you get down to it is from GM-driven campaigns to player-driven campaigns.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with GM-driven gaming. When I wrote my D20 Modern tabloid-world nostalgia adventure, I dove right back in to my old adventure writing methods, which were still in that GM-driven model. And "social interaction vs. combat" is still something that I need to think about, because even if I'm not railroading, I'm still providing a structure to the scenario.

In a player driven game, the players have much more impact on the play experience. In my OSR megadungeon campaign, the players decided which hallway to go down and which door to open.Fiasco and InSpectres both lean heavily on player input to create the plot, with Fiasco not even having a designated GM role. The debate between social interaction and combat is lessened for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the GM has less of a role in setting the pace of the game, Secondly, being player driven means that the players can call for the types of scenes that they prefer. In the megaidungeon, players can choose which section of the dungeon they want to explore. In InSpectres and Fiasco, the players have a degree of control over the narrative itself and can directly call for the things they want to see in the game.

I don't know if this is a deep thought or just me rambling, but I felt like I needed to get it out.

Feeling Wasted

 Don't worry. That's actually kind of a good thing.

While gaming conventions have been thin on the ground the last few years, my wife has been dragging me to Wasteland Weekend for the last 3 events (I'd say 3 years, but there was a 2020 in the middle there, so the 3 events happened over 4 years).

It's pretty cool. You basically spend 5 days hanging out pretending to be extras in the background of a Mad Max movie. If you want to get deep into the LARP angle, there are tribes and factions and missions that you can do. I keep meaning to get into that stuff, but I never quite manage. The tribes and factions also manage a lot of the entertainment. There is a main stage with live bands most nights, but there are also smaller events in other spaces. One night, I did karaoke in the Wreck Room. Another day, I visited the Slammer for a cabaret/burlesque show themed around villains.

The thing that sucks is that my wife and I don't drive, so we have to do a lot of wrangling in order to attend because 1) The event is held in the middle of the desert, and therefore 2) The only lodging available is what you bring in. Think about the amount of stuff you would need to go camping for 5 days, then modify that for desert conditions and further modify for having to carry all of this yourself for some portion of the journey.

 We finally managed to make it home last night after train service interruptions made everything take much longer than it should have and cost a bit more, too.

So as fun as it is, I'm also thinking about how the annoyance and effort and expense create a counter-balance to that fun. If things tip too far to the annoyance side, it might be something we don't do again (much to the chagrin of my wife).

Here are a couple of pictures of me in my Wasteland gear. The first photo is pretty much my original costume. You have to have a costume to contribute to the illusion for everyone else. unlike a Renaissance faire where there's a clear divide between the participants and the tourists, Wasteland Weekend wants everyone invested in selling the post-apocalyptic vibe. I think a lot of people do a basic "military surplus" look early on to meet the basic requirement and upgrade as time passes. The second look is built around that chest piece. There's a funny story about how I got it that I may tell some time, but I count myself very lucky to have it and built a sort of second costume around it.

I do have other photos, but that would take some sorting and more brainpower than I really have right now.

The Orc Baby Dilemma or Whether Good Has To Be Nice

 This is something that popped into my head over the week and I felt the need to write about it.

For those not in the know, the "Orc Baby Dilemma" is an old chestnut of D&D lore. Just to explain the scenario requires some setup.

First we have alignments. You may have heard of them. There are all sorts of "alignment chart" memes out there with the 3 x 3 grid of alignments. In D&D, the 2 axes of alignment are Law vs. Chaos and Good vs. Evil, with Neutral in the middle of each. So you can be Lawful Neutral or Neutral Good, along with Chaotic Evil and so on.

Next we have the paladin class. This character class has several special powers, but in order to maintain them must maintain a Lawful Good alignment. Which tends to make them unpopular among certain Dungeon Masters. For one thing, the special powers have the potential to make exciting encounters deflate as the party can now steamroll over them. The other issue is that the player is so dedicated to keeping their Lawful Good alignment that they often don't bite at all of the adventure hooks that the DM presents.

The Orc Baby Dilemma then exists as a brute force method to force the paladin to "fall" and lose their powers. The premise is simple: The party has probably killed all of the orcs at an encampment/dungeon lair and as they are looting, they encounter an orc baby. And the DM asks the player if they kill the orc baby.

There are two possible outcomes.

1) The paladin refuses to kill the baby orc. But since it's an orc, it's bound to grow up to become just as evil and marauding as its parents. The paladin loses their powers since they failed to stop the potential evil from happening.

2) The paladin kills the baby. The paladin loses their powers because they have harmed an innocent, who has done no wrong.

To be clear, this is a Stupid DM Trick. It's not terribly smart or clever and only exists to smack around players and their characters.

But it does bring up perspectives on alignment in an interesting way.

One of the things that's been debated for almost as long as alignment has existed is exactly what alignment is. The two main schools of thought are that 1) Alignment is about your behavior and 2) Alignment is about your position relative to cosmological forces.

Most discussions lean on the first school, that alignment is about behavior. If you are Good-aligned, then you are a good person. If you stop acting like a good person, you cease to be of Good alignment. That's one of the things that enables the Orc Baby Dilemma to work.

But alignment entered the D&D game through the inspiration of the Elric stories by Micheal Moorcock, in which the forces of Law and Chaos are in eternal struggle, and as D&D's cosmology expanded, the idea of a cosmological origin (or at least reflection) of alignment makes a lot of sense. There are many spells and items that have specific effects that depend on the user or subject having a specific alignment.

In this model, what determines your alignment is the faction you've chosen to support when Law and Chaos, and/or Good and Evil do battle with each other. It's also useful because one of the core activities of D&D is violence, and killing is not considered a "nice" thing to do. Being aligned with the Forces of Good does not require you to be nice. You may not even by required to be particularly good. Just so long as your actions advance the cause of Good in the world.

This is the point where I started feeling smug about how I had figured things out, but then the Orc Baby Dilemma popped into my head. And then I deflated.

Because in the cosmological interpretation, the Orc Baby Dilemma is not a dilemma at all. There's a clear answer. Kill the baby.

The Forces of Good have little interest in whether or not a paladin is nice, so whether or not the baby is innocent is not a real consideration. The paladin has presumably killed a large number of orcs of many ages. So the only standard is whether the action harms the Forces of Evil.

That thought disturbed me for a while.

If there's a saving grace here, it's that in the cosmological interpretation, the requirements of behavior are fairly loose. While there's no barrier to killing the baby, there's also no strong incentive.

I think that's my next question: What behavior or actions would cause a paladin to fall (or any other person to change alignment) under the cosmological interpretation?

 It was the monthly RPG Meetup last Saturday.

I only got two players for my "It's Not My Fault!" Fate Accelerated game. While Fate isn't like D&D in that it assumes a certain minimum party size, the premise of "It's Not My Fault!" is that the story starts in the midst of a sticky situation and the players are supposed to fill in details as they blame their woes on the next person at the table. With only 2 players and me (for the purposes of fleshing out the scenario, I participated in the "It's Not My Fault!" portion of the game, while serving as GM for the resulting scenario), there was a limited number of juicy and interesting details that were brought up.

The good news is that I now feel like I have sunk my teeth into Fate. When trying out new RPG systems, it can be tempting to treat it as just another way to build characters and roll dice. And that's kinda what it felt like in my prior experiences with Fate. But this time, I made a point of going over things, deciding which of the 4 actions that people were doing, how they used their Create Advantage actions to create Aspects and all of that fun stuff. There were a couple of fights so we got to explore Stress and Consequences. There are always things that I would like to have done better, but it's definitely something I want to try again.

But for the Meetup next month, I think I'll try to run The Great Ork Gods, which is a comedy game about playing Orks as well as their Gods, who hate them.

I don't know if I'll get a lot of gaming in during the interim because I'll be going to Wasteland Weekend near the end of the month and that should be exciting enough by itself.

Has it been that long?

 Well, I had a little breathing room from these weekly updates, which is nice. It feels like I don't do enough or not enough happens to really justify a weekly update. But at the same time, I don't want to lose the habit of blogging again.

I've been playing Magic at Bards & Cards, which is the name of my Friendly Local Gaming Store. It might just be my generation, but I'm very careful about posting "identifying" information freely online. It was probably a few years before I got around to mentioning the name of the city I lived in because of that.

I'm not great at the game, but that's not the point. It's to create a point of contact with other gamers/nerds. And it's doing that rather well.

I also got a chance to play Dungeon Crawl Classics. The gaming Meetup group I belong to posted a Dungeon Crawl Classics one-shot at Bards & Cards, which was something that I just couldn't refuse. The GM was very well prepared, with sheets of pregenerated characters and laminated maps of the scenario's combat encounters. Since it was a pick up game of DCC, the adventure was a "character funnel:" a scenario for large numbers of 0-level characters such that whoever survives achieves 1st level and becomes a proper adventurer.

Everyone started with 4 characters printed on a single sheet of paper. Whenever one died, the GM had a stamp that said "Dead" on it and he would stamp the section of the page that was that character. All of my characters died, but the important thing is that I had fun.

Next week is the monthly Meetup group meeting. I'm bringing the "It's Not My Fault" story starter cards for Fate Accelerated that I've had in my collection for many years, but haven't gotten around to trying out. I've even brought them to the monthly Meetups, but I made the mistake of bringing several other options. I'm a collector, and it also serves as a chance to show off my collection. By bringing multiple game options, I wind up competing with not only the other potential GMs, but also myself. By bringing only 1 game option, it's more likely that I'll actually get to play/run the thing that I bring.

That doesn't make the choice of what to bring much easier. Shortly after I had decided to do "It's Not My Fault," a random conversation on the internet reminded me of another game that I hadn't played in ages and I got excited about it all over again. For a while, I worried that the conversation that got me thinking about this other game (The Great Ork Gods) had been seen by the others in the Meetup group so I would be feel obligated to put off "It's Not My Fault" for at least another month. Then I went over the chat logs, found the conversation and realized that it was far from their prying eyes.

Which gives me something to present for next month.

RPGaDay 2022 #31 When did you first take part in #RPGaDAY?

 I've actually been doing RPGaDay since it began. Like I said yesterday, the thing I probably am the most in my gaming life is a collector and that early "shelfie in prose" set of prompts appealed to me.

I kept going more or less out of habit and to try and extend my readership with the gaming public. Not sure if that worked.

It also reminds me to put myself out there. Without some sort of pressure, it's very easy for me to crawl into a very small hole and hide from the world. I know that's not really good for me, so some reminder to interact with people and get out in the world is important.

With any luck, I'll use this writing group to work on my gaming content and keep things updated here.

RPGaDay 2022 #30 What should #RPGaDAY do for its 10th anniversary next year?

 When RPGaDay first started, it interested me because it was a chance to talk about the games on my shelf. A sort of written "shelfie," if you will. Since I was very much a collector (still am when I can get away with it), that appealed to me.

The other thing that I am is a GM. While I haven't run as many games as I've collected, I've enjoyed answering questions about games I've run or that I want to run.

 While I do enjoy playing at times, I have never really been able to do it enough to collect a lot of stories to fill all of the questions about playing.

If I had a suggestion, it would be to have questions that either work for a player or a GM, or maybe questions that can be "flipped" to apply to someone on either side of the screen.

RPGaDay 2022 #29 Who would you like to see take part in #RPGaDAY?

Kris Newton.

I know that I mentioned him before, but I really appreciate his insights.

He's not much of a blogger, and he's stepped away from podcasting for the foreseeable future, but he's a brilliant guy and a heck of a player and GM.

Also, John, Rudy and Chris from the San Diego Roleplayng Association Meetup group. Mostly because I know them only very casually/virtually and it would be an opportunity to get to know them better.

RPGaDay 2022 #28 Style Sunday: Roll 1d8+1, tag that many friends with your favourite RPG cover art.

 Tooting my own horn a bit, I'm going to say that my favorite cover art is my own. Well, not that I did the art itself, but I did commission it for the cover of my game, Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road.

Although AiO is not technically licensed, there's a tendency for games based on existing properties to feature the main characters on the cover in some way. Star Trek RPGs usually have the cast from one of the shows on the cover, for example. Some other games will have characters on the cover that resemble the characters you could be playing. The most recent Star Trek RPG went this route, with unidentified Starfleet characters on the cover.

I didn't want to put existing characters on the cover of AiO for 2 reasons. First of all, one of the main reasons to do an Oz RPG is to expose people to the wider world of Oz from the books and putting Dorothy & Company on the cover would feel like just another retread rather than offering them something they might not have seen before. The second reason is that I had intended to release my own edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and they were going to be on the cover of that.

In fact, because of that plan, I commissioned the same artist to do both covers and intended them as companion pieces. The WWOz cover featured the characters from that novel, while the AiO cover featured characters from the deeper canon that shared some similarity with one of those characters. So I wound up with the best of both worlds: I got canon characters that fans of the novels could appreciate, while those coming with fresh eyes would see something familiar, but also distinct.

RPGaDay 2022 #27 How has the character changed?

In terms of what they've done in play, Ealdred hasn't changed at all.

She only existed for about 2 weeks in total and maybe saw 2-3 days of in-game action during the initial run of the campaign. Not enough time for much to happen. And when things start again, she'll be reset back to her original state.

On the other hand, she's grown quite a bit in my head as I've been preparing this campaign.

One of the reasons that I pre-rolled my random encounters was to make sure that I knew what I was doing. Have that time to learn a monster's stats and powers. For neutral and friendly encounters, it meant taken the time to roll up quick personalities for them.

But the one thing that I didn't count on was having not just weeks of prep time for the campaign, but ultimately years. It's been over two years since I rolled her up with all of her quirks and treasures. And while there are other encounters on that list waiting to be unveiled, Ealdred is notable for being the most friendly of them and the most likely to be a powerful ally for the party.

RPGaDay 2022 #26 Why does your character do what they do?

 She hasn't gotten the chance to do much, but Ealdred's goal is to rule a country. This was randomly rolled from a table.

But exactly why she's chosen this goal for herself is something that I still need to work out.

One of the other thing that I rolled for her is that she is secretly religious. Exactly what this means in the "blank map" scenario I've worked up is very unclear. There are no established churches and the divine landscape is as undefined as the terrestrial. It could simply be that she believes that she has a Higher Purpose of some kind, which makes sense considering her advantages. She's a werebear (whether she knows it or not), has a bear companion and a lair full of treasure.

Or maybe her ability to understand alchemy is an indication of a generally high intelligence and she's got some idea of Natural Order and Natural Laws. Her desire for a more orderly world could extend from science to politics.

The other option is that exposure to the PCs influences her. They've been charged with the mission of establishing civilization in this newly created world, and her exceedingly positive Reaction roll could mean that she's an eager ally on this mission. It could also mean that she's infatuated with one of the party members and is trying to help/impress them.

RPGaDay 2022 #25 Where has the character been?

Unfortunately, Ealdred has not traveled far.

For one thing, she hasn't been alive very long. In my initial run of the campaign, she encountered the party on about Day 12. Exactly when she'll turn up in the next run of the campaign has yet to be determined.

Also, even though she's technically a "wandering monster," she is encountered in her "lair." So until she appears, she has no fixed abode. Even if I were to tell you which hex she appeared in during the initial run, it wouldn't help you predict where she'll turn up next time. Just know that her bear companion Garey Hancy will not be far behind. Even she realizes that he shouldn't be left unsupervised for very long.

So all she's really seen has been the Starting Forest. It's a placeholder name that I hope the players will improve upon once the campaign begins. Though there's no guarantee that anything they come up with will be an improvement. Knowing players, they're just as likely to name it something dumb/vulgar than significant. Which is part of the fun.

RPGaDay 2022 #24 When did you start playing this character?

 Like I said in my last post, Ealdred came about as an NPC during the quarantine period of 2020. That's when I rolled her randomly, got really excited about her and put her through a couple of her paces.

As to when she's getting rebooted, along with the rest of that campaign? Unknown at this time. I was trying to do prep for the campaign, building the dungeon maps by hand in Roll20 during my writing club time, but now that I'm trying to do RPGaDay, my focus is here rather than there.

Maybe the end of September? One can dream.

RPGaDay 2022 #23 What situation are they currently in?

As yet, Ealdred has not entered play, since the campaign has not properly begun.

In fact, as part of the premise of the campaign, Day 1 of the campaign is the first day of history. There's no backstory spanning millenia, so on Day 1, Ealdred will wake up, adult, knowing everything that she needs to know, but with no past.

She is a true random encounter. She has no fixed location until she is encountered, at which point her lair will become a fixed point on the map.

Since she won't have a lot of time to gather her hoard, I'm going to assume that she woke up on Day 1 right next to this collection of stuff. She's turned as much as she can to practical purposes. She actually managed to turn some of her alchemist's supplies into a potion and might be able to do more.

Day 1 was a new moon, so she probably doesn't know that she's a werebear. When I ran a preliminary version of this game during quarantine, the party did meet her and get along quite well with her. On their way back from the dungeon on Day 13 or so, she invited the party to stay with her at her camp for the night as she underwent her first change.under the first full moon in the history of the world.

In fact, even though I have decided to reboot the campaign, I'm keeping those random encounter results mostly because I have sort of fallen in love with Ealdred and want to see what happens should the campaign actually take off this time.