I'm on my third run of dungeon terrain. Laser cutting and etching do take practice. In the first image, I cut too many pieces. I meant to have 1 six-inch wall, 2 4" walls, 4 2" walls, and 4 1"x1" walls. I accidentally cut an extra 1x1 that could have been doors or details.
On the prior run, I ran into a bunch of "fix it in post" issues. The red highlights are places where the laser power was off, or the wood was warped and didn't cut all the way through. The blue highlights are two pieces where I etched instead of burning a cutout. And the real insult is in yellow. Having known I was cutting too many 1x1 pillars, I failed to fix it by removing the parts. Hence the extra parts in the image above.
The whole "I can fix that" defeats the purpose of having a laser. Handcutting dings up the pieces, causes scratches, or causes blowouts. These are all things the laser should do so I don't have to.
Once I hammer out these issues, I plan on adding doors, tables, and other scenery to the collection. In a perfect world, I would sell the physical goods. I am hampered by shipping costs, which could be $20.00 per set. That seems self-defeating or at least very limiting.
I might list them on Etsy or KoFi as a digital file.
An interesting byproduct of all of this cutting was that I made a ruin from scrap pieces.
Maybe you remember the little structure I showed for my B2 Keep on the Borderlands Sessions. The little building above represents either the left or the right side of the fortified house. This is one of those Bob Ross moments where we know there is a cabin or whatnot, but nothing about who built it or who lived there.
Since it is positioned on the rim of the valley, over the Caves of Chaos, it stands to reason that either the fortified house was abandoned when the monsters moved in. Or it could have been built afterward, as a beachhead against the monsters.
Personally, I like the latter. I could imagine that forces from the Keep could have gotten a foothold against the actual monsters, but then it was destroyed with the coming of the priests. Perhaps the zombies and skeletons in the Caves are the former inhabitants of the fortification.
Grim.
I like telling myself these little stories. The cool thing about them is that when a character is supposed to have some lore or special knowledge, I can drop these little musings on them so they can tell the party. Sure, the story has to be brief, and it does turn into a game of telephone where the story distorts, but I make the player character's distortion canon to the campaign. It can make Bards, Wizards, and learned Clerics seem more special.
Next up, we will return to Castle Amber. After that, I'll get painting. And third, I will tell you about The Game of the Weather Witch.
Real life is really interesting. I helped a friend get her Book Club going. I don't attend Book Club, but I help her vet books. I am reading a lot of books lately. Add in that the Buffalo Sabres are rocking it in the NHL and tax season, and I know I am gearing up for a posting rut.
I will just have to power through it. Let's get this show on the road with Gabby the Witch, who was mentioned in my last post. Castle Amber has a weird and taxing structure for any DM. If you can successfully run this module, you can do anything.
The structure of Castle Amber is a straight-up railroad. I've played it with others several times, maybe as many as 4 times. The players really enjoy it, so long as you lampshade the railroad. I can guess why this module is written as a railroad: you bought a module with the intention of running it. Therefore, there must be no deviation from actually running Castle Amber.
That isn't the style of modern games, and to be honest, it was probably never sytle of B/X games, either.
I gave some suggestions to avoid the initial railroad back in Session 0. The railroad doesn't end when the characters enter the misty foyer; it is assumed throughout the whole story. It's structurally built into the scenario. In Session 1, the players encountered Jean-Louis. The way it is written, it seems like Jean-Louis will always be there in the same state the party left him in. The same happens in a bunch of encounters, and in the discovery of the key and the letter for those who would be free. Annoying, but a good DM can compensate for that with some minor changes.
One of my minor changes is the introduction of the rakshasa. Because of repeated replays over the years, the rakashasa are more often than not neutral or friendly toward the party. I've decided on this run that they will be friendly again. My head canon for the rakshasa is that they are exiles and are using the unusual properties of the Castle to stay out of harm's way.
That is where Gabby comes in. She is a hierling of the rakashasa and didn't sign up to live in a castle trapped in time. She wants out. She is one who would be free. Gabby knows what must be done because the rakashasa shared the letter/scroll with her, but can't do it herself. This is where the party comes in.
The witch character class is from Craft of the Wise: The Pagan Witch. They have some cool abilities. She is a spell caster who can wear cloth, padded or leather armor, she has 1d4 hp per level and weilds a sling and a magic staff. Of course, she has a couple of daggers. Witches can heal with herbs and cast ritual magic. They also have their own spell list. At the 5th level, Gabby has 2 first-level spells, 2 second-level spells, a third-level spell, and 2 ritual spells.
The rakshasa have given her tiger-claws, but she has no idea what to do with them. She made a couple of lanyards and uses the claws like clasps for her robes and a buckle for her belt.
Currently, she has left the rakshasa on the mission for them and to check on her Familiar named Gronk in the Indoor Forest. I "decided" Gronk is a giant rabbit because I have a giant rabbit.
Alexei and Lance have abandoned the party to follow her. Typical.
The remaining party members know about the rakashasa in the Study, they know someone entered the Indoor Forest, and they know they haven't searched Room 8, Servant's Quarters. They detected the green slime in there, but since Alexei and Lance vanished, they have other fish to fry. This is where session three will pick up.
As always, I am using my favorite B/X rules, Old School Essentials. You can grab the "Basic" set for free on DriveThru. It put Basic in quotes because the rules cover characters up to 14th level and has an attack matrix to 36th level. Obviously, you'll need X2 - Castle Amber. I also have an Oracle resource called OSR Solo.
This week has a lot of detours. I've run the laser 4 times since Saturday. Now I have a lot of items to assemble and complete. I wrote a review and revamped my review page with HTML. I rolled a character for my X2 - Castle Amber campaign and have a piece or two to write on that. Finally, I have broken with Amazon for what I hope is the final time and have a new alternative in the wings.
Let's go back to front: Amazon disabled my account because I don't generate enough clicks and sales.
Well, yes. There is no solid connection between Amazon and me. I have to dream up really awkward ways to work a link in. I'm not good at sales, and I use that awkwardness as a crutch. It's time to stop.
What do I have as an alternative?
Two items and three mentions:
Awin, an affiliate marketing platform, Libro.fm, an alternative to Amazon's Audible, and finally, Meeden Art, Inc., an art supply company marketing through Awin.
I obviously love to read. I had hoped to pick up Libro.fm as an affiliate through Awin. They felt I wasn't a good match. I agree. This website is very niche. But I still want to support them and others.
Let me tell you a bit about Libro.fm. They are like Audible, but their style is different. You can pick from three subscriptions: one book a month, two books a month, and a yearly subscription, with a great discount on 12 books in a year.
Second, they are totally DRM-free, unlike Audible.
Third, they allow you to designate a local bookstore as your favorite. When you purchase through Libro.fm, a portion of each membership or individual book sale goes to that bookstore. I have selected Sulfur Books, a glorious little bookstore in Clifton Springs, NY. (I will come back and post again about Clifton Springs, but not here.)
While I don't have Libro.fm as an affiliate, I can share my membership link like this. When you click that link and place an order, I receive a free title. To be honest, considering the amount I read, that's better than gold. I could not be happier with this deal.
If you have a website and you like books, maybe you should consider Libro.fm. This is not an affiliate program with approvals and such. It's offered to all of their members, for all users. I love it.
Awin also led me to Meeden Art, Inc. I am very passionate about painting and drawing, despite not being very good.
Creating an ad for art supplies is something I wouldn't have to work at. In fact, on day one, I purchased some paints and gave myself two laser cutting projects to support my artistic habits. I overpurchased in the extreme, but I will burn through this paint fairly quickly.
The reason you are not seeing an ad for Meeden is that I need a tax document to complete the process, and it is tax season. I will be responsible and do my taxes early to get that document. Or, I won't post any ads until I do those taxes at the last possible second. I must roll for impulse control. :)
Not being too strongly aligned with my TheseOldGames brand, they would be extremely prominent without being an off-ramp. This matches my tactics for DriveThruRPG. I can give you a link, you know what the link is for, and you can partake as you wish.
And let me thank you and DTRPG again for that support. You and DriveThruRPG easily pay for my web costs.
Moving backwards, I have created a new NPC for Castle Amber. Her name is Gabriella, or Gabby, and she is a witch. She is trapped just like the party but she has been here for a very long time. If you follow my suggestion and don't completely railroad the party into Castle Amber, you will need links back to your campaign world. Gabby is one of my links to home.
I will be posting about her in my next run back to the Castle. These links to my Castle Amber series will display all of the posts in that category, so you may go all the way back to the beginning. Castle Amber is an epic module and could take all year to work through.
In order to generate her, I used one of Timothy S. Brannan's books called Craft of the Wise: The Pagan Witch for Basic Era Games. This is one of a whole series on Witches for B/X style games. I use the OSE ruleset, and we will see how well these books merge with that system.
This was also an opportunity to refresh my review page with actual HTML. It is so much easier to update now. Let me know what you think in the comments, either here or there. My pages have a comment section, too.
Let me share the last item, the item I wanted to be the focus of this post, but failed at. I have a couple of items I rocked out with the laser. The first item was a repeat of physical dungeon terrain. This is the collision of art and gaming. I love making terrain and painting figures.
The dungeon terrain consists of 1", 2", 4", and 6" walls, pictured in the upper left of this image. They are modular and now have a texture etched on them. In the near future, I will stain one set and paint another. I am not sure how I want them to look, so I want to see both styles.
I will be doing a follow up post on these little bits and bobs.
The next two projects are obvious for painting. I was able to cut a palette out of 1/8" plywood. It came out nicely. I thought it would be too thin, but it wasn't. I also thought I would need to bevel the edge, but I didn't do that either. It works nicely as is.
The final item was a color wheel. Color wheels are a self-teaching tool. However, they are annoying to do on canvas. You need 1/8" or 1/4" masking tape to lay out the spaces. I cannot tell you how annoying it is to mask out 135 or more spaces for paint.
Etching a color wheel is amazingly fast. I could do this on canvas, but I wanted to try a wood panel. It's nearly perfect. Zoom in, and you will see that I dropped the brush in the red/pink area. If I had masked that area with tape, that mark would have been on the tape.
Oh, well.
The final thing I will comment on is my intended structural changes to the website. I have nearly finished the Review Page and this simple change makes it simple to maintain. I will need to do more reviews in the future.
One other change I made was to my post categories. I now have a template so I can post a whole series of articles and link back to them via a single category search. That is very useful and was a trivia change all readers can see, but it is non-disruptive.
In 2026, I will be marching backwards and cleaning up articles and posts, mostly for grammar. For all non-game book reviews, I will be adding my Libro.fm link. Once I have Awin and Meeden Art set up, I will also be applying ads to posts, too.
Thanks for sticking with me through these changes.
I think... I hope I have all of these witch-themed books by Timothy Brannan. I was hunting for a particular ritual for an upcoming game and post, and couldn't find it. Well, that is because this one title doesn't pop up in the search for "Witch" in the DriveThruRPG app.
The Pagan Witch has all of the same great artwork you'd come to expect from Brannan's prior works. Again, I took the date above from the forward, which provides excellent insight into why these books were published. The whole series has a great layout and detailed explanations in each chapter. There are no surprise changes from book to book.
This title focuses on Pagan Traditions. This goes hand in hand with my love of the Romans. While not Roman at all, they were there alongside them. And of course, they didn't get along much. This book covers what it means to be a witch while highlighting what THAT means to other characters, like magic users and clerics. Backtracking to the Introduction, Brannan pulled in the modern-day depictions of a witch.
Like the other books, it starts with the class description, cowens (assistants to the witch), and familiars. Personally, I think familiars are more "witch-like" than "wizard-like" and enjoy the details given to them in this series. From the class description, he moves on to spells, rituals, monsters, magic items, and NPC witches. This book is well constructed to get the most out of the concept.
My reason for reaching for this book this weekend was that I needed a ritual spell to cast a particular character in a special light. You'll be seeing Gabby in my next post for X2 - Castle Amber.
In session 1, the party retreated to the Castle's exterior to take stock. Merry, Jude, Rety, and Nononn make a plan of attack once the foyer doors open in the morning.
Session 1.5 presented the character sheets. If you want to know what the party has, take a moment to review.
The party obtained some treasure, but more importantly, received two Demos Magen who are now behaving oddly. They make the choice to leave them outside under the watchful eye of Pizzaballa while the rest of the team explores the northwestern corner of the castle.
Rety checks the door just south of rooms 6, 7, and 8 and finds it unlocked. As the main party listens at door 8, there is a click. Alexei and Lance walked to room 6 and opened the door. Nononn has a caniption. While the team searches the linen closet, he orders the two green characters into the main hall to listen for Pizzaballa and keep watch on the approach.
The party doesn't hear anything in room 8 and opens the door. They study the slime-encrusted room and decide that there is nothing of interest at the moment. They close the door.
Rety believes she heard something in room 7, so the party arms itself for battle. In reality, she failed her roll and reacted to an imagined sound.
Rety, Merry, and Kuri take a knee, bows drawn in 5 feet back from the door. Behind them, the magic-using characters stand ready to fling magic missiles over the bowmen's heads. Thomas and Dorian flank either side of the door to push it open. Behind the clerics, Jude and Nononn wait, weapons drawn.
This is Kevin.
On the other side of the door, Ted turns to Bob and hisses, "Did you hear that?"
Kevin waves 6 of his eight legs. "Someone's stealing our towels."
The Arenea ready themselves for what will be known as The Battle of Soap and Towels.
This is one of those odd times, where A) I wasn't going to do a commercial but now I am, and B) one module refers to another. Castle Amber refers the reader to X1, which features the Arenea as antagonists to the Phantons on the Isle of Dread.
In this case, neither side will engage in movement. Everyone is locked and loaded. Thomas unlatches the door. Both Dorian and Thomas give it a good push. Initiative is simultaneous, and no one is surprised.
I have decided I didn't like the Arenea's spells and gave them different ones, but it doesn't matter much. All three bow wielders target Bob and let fly. Not only is his spell foiled, but he drops dead. Kevin and Ted unleash Magic Missiles at the same time as Solvo, Sybil, and Belaphon.
All of the magic users are hit and are slightly toasty. Since the party is making all kinds of noise, I roll for a wandering monster and get Raskasta. Alexei and Lance notice the largest Cat Man they have ever seen and retreat into the corner of the main hall, behind the double doors on the south wall. They are trying not to be seen. A group of five of them comes out of the Study. No one looks at Alexei and Lance.
Round 2. The Arenea win initiative and take the fight vertical, skittering up the walls to the ceiling. Thomas, Dorian, Nononn, and Jude rush into the room. The two Arenea try to blind Nononn and Jude with continual light spells, but fail. Jude has a polearm and is able to take Ted off the ceiling. No one else can reach that high.
The Magic Users fade southward, with Solvo guarding them. They both took heavy hits in the last round and are really annoyed. They don't realize Alexei and Lance are not visible.
The party found better jewelry than this.
The lead Raskasta gives a gruff command to a young woman and closes the door to the Study. The woman runs off down the hall to the Indoor Forest.
Round 3. The bowmen advance into the room, and the party mops the floor with Kevin. Bel, and Sybil led by Solvo, stumble out into the main hallway to regroup as the rest of the party searches for more monsters hiding in the webs. They were tagged by one magic missile each, but sometimes Magic Users will play up their spells' power for the watching masses.
Bel sees the door to the Indoor Forest close. He looks to Lance and Alexei, but they are nowhere to be found. Bel lets out a groan as Sybil runs to the foyer to check on Pizzaballa.
The party splits again. Bel, leads Nononn, Solvo, and Rety to the doors to the Forest, bows ready. Sybil and Pizzaballa return to the southside of the main hall with Merry and his bow for cover. Kuri, Jude, Dorian, and Thomas continue to search the Arenea lair.
Bel opens the door to the Forest. There is no one in sight. They communicate this the best they can with hand gestures to Merry's team. Jude collects up the treasure they find in the lair and returns to the team in the main hallway.
Each character has gained 435 Experience, except Lance, Alexei, and Pizzaballa, who missed out on the combat. This closes up Session 2. I hope you enjoyed it.
Here is the scorecard post. I should have started with a character list and character sheets. You know why? In Session 1, I put Lance at the front and in the last rank in the marching order. Dummy. Tracking 13 characters is a beast.
These are PDF files from my Google Drive account. You don't need an account to download them
There are also Demos Magen with the party now. They do not have character sheets.
If I had posted these earlier, I would have successfully completed my #CharacterCreationChallenge. As it stands, I am still a few short.
Before we go further, let's have the overt DriveThruRPG commercial:
I use Necrotic Gnome's Old-School Essentials. I picked up the boxed sets from a Kickstarter. You can approximate this with two titles: The Referee's Tome and The Player's Tome. Or you could taste test it with the Basic Rules. These are free.
Exactly why I haven't been posting links to X2 Castle Amber is beyond me. I've been nattering on about it for weeks.
When I posted Session 0, I listed the characters' levels. I didn't do that this time because modules like X2 put the characters in a sweet spot where low-level characters rapidly catch up with somewhat higher-level characters due to the taking of gold. The party won 10,000 gps from Jean-Louis D'Amberville in Session 1.
In adapting this for my table, I have solved the railroad problem by allowing the characters to retreat to a point of safety outside of the Foyer. That's cool. However, the module was written as a railroad and doesn't take into account that if you subvert that point, the party could return to Jean-Louis's Salon over and over again.
Should 10,000 gps and 3 more Magen be available every time?
Yes-No. Jean-Louis and his Magen should be there, but should not offer a match to the players each time. At least not for money. That would be game-breaking because dumping 10,000 gps on the party would send their levels through the roof in short order.
Here is a handy post where I compare all of the character level charts from OSE. Since OSE doesn't have the concept of "Challenge Rating", you can use this chart to quickly determine how much experience is too much to hand out. It doesn't help with creating a combat scenario, but it will stop you from throwing too much cash at the party in one go. It also helps you determine how quickly low-level characters can catch up to higher ones and what classes will rapidly level.
Jude (formerly known as Punch) had this issue. In the B2 sessions, he struggled to keep up because he obtained most of his experience from combat, not treasure. In B/X, limiting the treasure is the best way to keep characters in a certain regime of play.
I don't know if we'll see Jean-Louis later, but I have a couple of ideas about how I would play him. He was a pomus ass at first, then morphed into a gamer and gambler. The next time the party sees him, I suspect he will act like a trainer, a promoter, and a coach. He should stay interesting, but slightly annoying, so the party doesn't get stuck. This is why I gave him a cell phone in the last session. Players would catch the meta of a pre-republic French dude trying to be an Instagram influencer. That's fun.
I believe I'll have time to post again on Saturday or Sunday.
In modern role-play, Castle Amber is challenging. There are so many moving parts, and the module is presented as a straight-up railroad.
In Session 0, I suggested that the DM either dispense with the mist/fog to stop the railroad. Or present it as a mysterious force that stymies the party. The module was written for an unknown cast of players and makes the obvious assumption that one purchased X2 to play X2. That requires the author to turn it into a railroad.
At your table, the motivation to explore Castle Amber can be different, specific to your campaign world. Therefore, you don't need to push so hard.
I have given these characters a version of "Horse Heaven", so that they feel safe in proceeding into the castle, and the question of the mist never came up. After setting up camp, the party walked right into the adventure.
Theoretically, the party could explore all of the castle without being forced or arm-twisted into slogging through the whole adventure. At least until they reach the gates to Averoigne. Then they are trapped.
The entry to Averoigne wouldn't be a surprise. They can back out, up until that moment.
This does present some flex in your campaign world. If the party can back out of Castle Amber, why can't other parties find it, too? That is where you need to get creative and make something different or special happen to the characters.
Anyway, let's get into Session 1.
The party has opted to enter the Grand Salon with Jean-Louis D'Amberville. If you opted for the railroad option, this is your first challenge. Most modern players would question Jean-Louis about the situation. I dodged that here by allowing the players to retreat to a safe zone.
Nononn is fully suited in his ghostie armor and throws open the door.
"Marvelous! Enchanting!" exclaims Jean-Louis. "Take it off! And step in the ring, please."
Nononn's ghostie armor should cause fear, but the D'Amberville family is highly magical and bat-shit crazy. I figured I'd put a lampshade on that from the get-go. That would give players a nice meta-jolt.
The party exchanges a few questions, while Jean-Louis encourages one of them to get in the ring with his Magen. Jean-Louis really wants Nonnon to be the first. Jean-Louis's bet is his suit of armor vs. the ghostie armor. As per the instructions, he also offers side bets. There is a lot of gold here, and therefore a lot of experience on the line.
The Magen is not much of a challenge to an equal-level character like Nononn, who is 4th level. This is because most characters with high strength, dexterity, and constitution have bonuses. What hinders the party is the fact that they don't know the Magen's stats, plus they have the opportunity to throw in the towel, whether the combatant wants it or not.
The challenge for the DM is managing a large party watching a single combat. I would sort the party by PLAYER demeanor. Those who want to fight go into one group, those who want to gamble go into another group, and those who are not interested in either of those go into the third group.
Before we go much further, let's have the overt commercial:
I use Necrotic Gnome's Old-School Essentials. I picked up the boxed sets from a Kickstarter. You can approximate this with two titles: The Referee's Tome and The Player's Tome. Or you could taste test it with the Basic Rules. These are free.
I mention this because this combat uses non-standard rules per the module. PC's do 1 or 2 HP of damage while the Magen does 1-3. Any time a combatant does max damage, there is 5% chance of a KO. Being reduced to zero kills a combatant. Each boxing round is 6 normal combat rounds, and there are 5 boxing rounds. Mechanically, we are talking 30 initiative rolls and 60 to hit rolls. This is why I split up the party into 3 groups.
I use one house rule at all times, which means I can't take it back for this scenario. All characters, including monsters, can go to -10 hp before dying. It makes death virtually impossible in this scenario. It also sets up a dramatic twist later. There is a second house rule in play that I will mention later.*
Those interested in boxing are engaged with Nononn, and Nononn's player can ask other players to make his die rolls if he wishes. Gamers are a superstitious lot and may want to switch who rolls and what dice are used for luck. They also get to throw in the towel for Nonnon, even against his wishes. This keeps them busy.
The gamblers are verbally engaged with Jean-Louis, making bets and throwing taunts. You want to have snappy patter going for them.
The last group will take over the DM's role and will roll the dice for the Demos Magen, including throwing in the towel. This sets up a little friendly hostility because they can screw the party with random die rolls or save the party by throwing in the party. Jean-Louis will meta-shit-talk them if they throw the towel without a good reason.
By breaking the party up into different groups, you get everyone engaged rather than 1 person rolling dozens of times while everyone else watches.
Remember, I mentioned that a like-level fighter has an advantage in this combat? That is not entirely true. They only have an advantage if they know the Magen's hit points. And only the group rolling the dice knows the Magen's hit points, and I ask them not to reveal them on pain of forfeit. They need this information so they know when to throw in the towel.
*My second house rule that is always in effect is "Just say it". If a player is discussing gameplay and tactics, but not speaking for their characters, they can use numbers and such. If they flip it around and have the characters speak about HP or levels, I'll break the fourth wall and mock them. This is important for this boxing match because it clues in the party as to Nononn's state of health.
Nononn doffs his armor and gets in the ring. The other two Magens signal the start of the match by stamping their feet. To make the insanity of the situation complete, the floating wizard's eyes appear, and Jean-Louis orders his Magens to cheer. I want the vibe to be Heath Ledger's William Thatcher vs. Heath Ledger's Joker. And here we have it.
Nononn is a beast of a fighter. He has more hit points, is harder to hit than the Magen, and he has a plus one to damage and to hit. At the end of the first round of boxing (six combat rounds), the Magen is down to 18 HP from 29, plus Nononn tags him for both a 20 to hit plus max damage at the end of the first. The Magen avoids being KO'ed. Nononn has 22 hp left.
In the middle of the second round, things go south for the party. The Magen rolls a pair of 20's in a row, rocking Nononn. He takes damage and rolls 94% and 06% to avoid being knocked out.
Remember what I said about players being a superstitious lot? Due to a fluke of the dice, Nononn happened to roll within one of the top five or bottom five on a 1d100. The team got spooked and threw in the towel. That's not how random or die rolls work, but that is the choice they made. Players do this all the time, but shouldn't.
Annoyed, Nononn climbs out of the ring, glaring at his friends. The party heals Nononn and more than a few characters ask for double or nothing.
Jean-Louis suits up in the ghostie armor and asks the party, "Do you really have enough for double or nothing?"
They do not. They do have 2500 gps and Jean-Louis bets his suit of +2 chainmail against them. Ana replaces Nononn in the ring. Jean-Louis orders one of the guardian Magens to take the place of the slightly banged-up Magen.
If anyone asks, the ghostie armor has turned into something unusual, but completely normal plate armor once Jean-Louis dons it. It is essentially non-magical now.
Ana and the Magen survive round one and round two, but the Magen goes down in round 3. Pleased, the Nononn accepts the +2 chainmail and suits up.
Back in December, I posted about my first and second run through of X2. And I would like to incorporate an event that happened decades ago. The party in that session healed the Demos Magenes they defeated, and a perplexed Jean-Louis asked:
"Why would you do that? They are just automata. A thing."
Jean-Louis is still super excited and dismisses the banged-up Magens to the corner, like broken toys. But he hasn't had this much fun in a long time, so he wants to go again. The third Magnus takes off his armor and gets in the ring.
The gang of gamblers wants to go big. In addition to the 2500 gps the party has, they offer a pair of +1 daggers, a +1 short sword, a bag of holding, and a cloak of elven kind as a wager.
"My, my. You are suddenly very rich, and perhaps on a winning streak."
The healed but bruised Demos groans at the condescending tone. He is now ashen, instead of the golden tone he started with. The party dismisses it as not remembering correctly, and Jean-Louis ignores the automata entirely.
The floating eyes examine the groaning creature, then the party's wager. After an oddly one-sided conversation with the eyes, Jean-Louis gives back the party bag of holding and bets 10,000 gps against the party's wager. Everyone is all smiles as Merry starts to strip off his armor.
Jean-Louis bellows, "Bravo!" and the party turns around. Jude, armor off, is standing in the middle of the ring.
"What a fine challenge this will be. The lightning bruiser against the magical automata!" Jean-Louis is not wrong. "Perhaps, you would like to accept my offer of magical preparation? I wish I had ordered food and libations for this." He pulls out a cell phone, but having no data here, puts it away.
Thomas enters the ring and bestows a blessing on Jude, who kneels to accept it. Jude has an 18 strength. He now has a +4 to hit and damage thanks to the spell. But he only has 18 hit points vs. the Magen's 29 HP. Rety and Bel consult each other as Sybil uses her magical Cloak of Wondrous Items to produce a pig on a spit.
Jean-Louis claps and 2 of his creatures approach to assist him out of his not-so-ghostie armor. The ashen Magen is nearly useless in this task, and Thomas takes an interest in him. It removes a guantlet and stops to examine it. The other Magen completes the task before it is finished.
After everyone is situated with food and drink, Jean-Louis asks if they are ready.
Rety replies, "Almost," then nods to Sybil.
"Wait!" shouts Jude as Sybil casts invisibility on him. Jean-Louis is not amused and mutters something about cheaters being drawn and quartered. The Wizard Eyes flutter around the boxing ring. The eyes face each other, bouncing up and down as if having an animated conversation.
The challenging Magen vanishes, as one of the eyes casts invisibility on it.
Jean-Louis chuckles appreciative and says, "With that, I believe we are ready."
For drama, Invisibility isn't canceled by attempting to attack. It's the rolling of damage that causes the spell to end. The first round of boxing doesn't go well. Jean-Louis roars with laughter as the two combatants stumble around the ring trying to find each other. Jude utters an oath, and the Magen fixates on his location. Jude moves, and the ring quakes as the Magen strikes the turnbuckles.
The party seems to be ok with this turn of affairs, continuing to engage with their host. The food and libations go down fast. The round ends, and the opponents retreat to their corners and the merriment continues.
The second round is a stunner. Both fighters come out of their corners swinging, and as a consequence, both drop their invisibility spells. The Magen strikes on each swing, but does poorly with damage rolls. When Jude hits, he rocks the Demos Magus hard.
They move on to the third and final round. Jude is staggered by a series of hits, stumbling around with one hit point left. The Knight pulls himself up and chases the Demos Magen now. Jean-Louis considers throwing the towel. Jude unloads 3 powerful hits to finish the fight.
The party cheers, and Jude comes out of the ring. They collect their winnings as Jude asks to retreat from this horrible place to rest. Thomas, Merry, and Dorian pour on the healing spells as the party cleans up. They have decided to exit Castle Amber and rest until the next morning.
Sybil laughs and smiles as she turns to recover the empty spit. Lance packs up the food, but Nononn and Thomas are dismayed.
Jean-Louis is pointing at the two Magens who received healing. Both have lost their golden luster and no longer respond to the man's orders. They dumbly allow themselves to be led out by Nononn and Thomas.
The party has won 10,000 gps and a +2 suit of armor.
In the yard outside the foyer, one Magen mumbles, "We don't remember our name."
I've been jonesing for a Sci-Fi game. I picked up the Free League Publishing Alien RPG, but before I did that, I took another look at both Star Smuggler and Star Frontiers.
All three games are very different from each other. Star Frontiers is very operatic, where characters can dish out and eat high levels of damage. It also has its own starship rules. Star Smuggler is more deadly. It is harder to dish out damage, but once it occurs, it's deadly. And Alien is exactly like movies - Survival is incumbent upon not letting the Aliens close.
The links above are to my review posts on these games. I have links to Brainiac to download Star Smuggler for free. Star Frontiers is available at DriveThruRPG. I haven't completed my review of Alien, so I don't have links at all.
I am forever tinkering with Star Smuggler. Right at the start of the book is a suggestion to use this game as a campaign guideline. Personally, I think it is just meaty enough to support an actual RPG. It does need slight modification to be usable as a standalone game.
First things first, it needs to allow for classes and levels. Duke, your avatar in the game is both multi-classed and higher level than typical NPC characters. If you allow your players to create a crew, then you don't need Duke. You DO need the ability to let characters rise to Duke's abilities.
What I am tinkering with is allowing each character to have a cunning stat like Duke. This stat is given a second purpose instead of bamboozling people. You can trade one point of cunning to increase one statistic by one point or trade 5 to learn a different trade.
For example, Duke can pilot, navigate, drive a skimmer, and operate starship guns. On the surface, this is done so that Duke can lead the NPC by filling certain roles. Since you won't have Duke anymore, the rest of the characters need his capabilities and the ability to grow and learn.
There are just a handful of scenarios that add cunning. To address this, I created a mechanism to increase cunning. Once per event, if a character hits the exact target number of a die roll, they increase their cunning by 1. I like this method as it morphs and shifts throughout play. You aren't trying to roll 2 sixes, but to exactly match your target. In many cases, some characters will have a chance to increase their cunning, while others will not.
For example, if the party has a shoot-out escaping from a planet, only those who make attack rolls can gain cunning. After combat, medics and engineers can gain Cunning by repairing and healing. The default rules don't make you roll for these actions. I would impose a roll of 1-3, where an exact roll of 3 results in success and a point of cunning. This can only occur once during RRR, no matter how many people are healed or how many items are repaired.
The next item that needs to be addressed is the money sink. You could maintain the default rules to pay off the ship's loan. It's clunky and requires paperwork.
One quirk of the rules is that Hypercharges are the only item I have noticed with a standard cost. If you wanted to eat cash quickly, change this to the base cost. This creates a cash sink that requires no paperwork. It also causes players to plan ahead so they aren't purchasing Hypercharges on a high-wealth planet. I feel it is both elegant and time-saving.
Since I love tinkering with stuff, there are a few events that bug me. In e081, you can capture a Battleship. But then the event says you can't keep it. I suspect that the reason is to stop game-breaking events and the ship is not entirely defined.
The whole scenario can be fixed by creating deckplans and statistics. I doubt this was expedient or practical when writing the solo adventure.
The Battleship is ridiculously huge, having 120 hits. The ship also behaves weirdly in combat under the pretense of a skeleton crew.
That makes sense.
There are two methods to take the Battleship. Either get lucky, which I have never done, or cheat. The easiest cheat that is not precluded is having more than one ship. Two Antelopes, with two shuttles each, can overwhelm the Battleship. The main issue is that the Battleship will waste shots on the shuttles while your Antelopes close for the kill. It's a lot of die rolls, but it is doable.
It's hard to do, but nothing stops you from having several ships. It is highly likely that multiple players can coordinate the attack. If you allow for boarding actions, it becomes more reasonable.
The deckplan to the left is what I came up with for a Pocket Battleship. I would use a fully crewed Battleship so that it has a chance against an attack.
The ship has several features that make it stand out against normal ships. First, the crew quarters are divided into 6-man pods. A critical hit only affects one pod. The crew quarters are protected against mass decompression. This setup allows for both the skeleton crew option in the game while also allowing for a full 60-man crew.
The infirmary is likewise protected; it can't take a critical hit at all. It is only destroyed when the whole ship is destroyed.
It has 2 gun batteries, left and right. Batteries operate just like regular ship guns, except they operate as a unit. One six-gun battery can only fire on one target. To give the ship some teeth, it has one bow chaser turret and two stern guns for use against smaller ships like the hopper.
Speaking of hoppers, this ship is equipped with two improved hoppers. The main difference is how the cargo and crew are divvied up. These are more troop transports than fighting ships. You could mount guns, or you can drop 6-7 crew on a planet with a skimmer, with space for LSU and Fuel. The last feature is a garage large enough to hold a tank. I have depicted the ship with two skimmers instead.
Players taking the ship will immediately experience the skeleton crew problem themselves. It is unlikely any party would have the 14-16 starship gunners necessary to utilize all of the guns.
I just picked up a copy of Alien by Free League Publishing at Great Escape in the Waldern Galleria mall. I can't think of the last time I went to a local shop in the mall and found a game I liked there. Here is a link to the PDF on DriveThru.
The Alien Franchise ticks all of the boxes for me. Horror, Spaceships, Aliens, and Space Marines.
This book is packed with details. It's hundreds of pages of rules, setting information, and pictures. I can't wait to review it.
I struggled to find a copy online and paid a tiny bit more at Great Escape, but ended up with exactly what I wanted. They do have a starter set for less, but I decided to skip over that for the moment. Don't let that fool you, I will be buying the starter set, because I love those things.
Now that I am parsing the rules, I will purchase some dice for this game. One of the nice things about this ruleset is the trackable consumables. I have a half dozen Atlas Games The White Box Set for tracking every conceivable item.
From the photo to the left, you can see I got impatient and created some of my own dice and a box to hold them. I need to print some character sheets. I'll use these.
The box was laser-cut. For the dice, I used DollarStore wood cubes and a set of steel dies to punch the numbers in. They are very rustic, fitting the crapsack world of Alien.
Anyway, back to the rules set. It's several hundred pages. The rules are well organized, neat, and easy to read, but it is still 300+ pages to digest. This is going to take a while.
The art is really nice. It captures the world of Weyland-Yutani, across all eras. The shifts from Corporate White and Green, to gritty images of the nooks and crannies where humans and Xenomorphs really compete.
While this is horror-based, the art doesn't descend into gore. It also doesn't try to reproduce the films. There are a few pictures where you think you see Ripley or Hudson, but they don't come off as copies of the film. They capture the films from a slightly different angle than what you saw on-screen, as if you were tapped into a different helmet feed. I like it.
I can't wait to dig into this RPG, play, and review it.
It is time to begin. This is the introductory post of my solo play-through of Castle Amber. I grabbed a copy just before Christmas from DriveThruRPG, and you can, too. Click the link.
I am using the Old School Essentials rule set. For the most part, these are available on Drivethru. You might like the Rule Tome, or you can carry on with whatever old-school D&D product. I've played it with AD&D e1, B/X, BECMI, and RC. There is no real reason to change what you are comfortable with. None of these rule changes should break X2.
Carry on as you see fit.
I have already outlined the characters that will be adventuring in Castle Amber in this post. The party is loaded towards physical combat, having only 2 Magic Users and 3 Clerics. Two elves give the party a little more magic. For brevity, I will simply list all 13 characters:
Merry the Halfling, Paladin, 4th level
(Ana) Khouri, Post Human, Fighter, 4th level
Lance, Human, Fighter, 1st level
Alexei, Elf, Bard, 2nd level
Pizzaballa, Elf, Cleric, 2nd level
Nodonn, Human, Fighter, 4th level
Solvo, Elf, 3rd level
Thomas, Cleric, 3rd level
Jude (aka Punch), Knight, 2nd level
Rety, Thief, 3rd level
Dorian, Cleric, 3rd level
Sybil, MU, 4th level
Belaphon (aka Bel), MU, 3rd level
I said the magic words: Comfort and Brevity. This is not a good combination. You should be comfortable with the rules you are using, which is why I suggest your favorite because you will know them best. X2 launches with a railroad. The characters find themselves in the 1. The Foyer. There is no path but forward. This is where brevity hurts.
There is no way the author could know what type of campaign you run, so it goes into a default railroad scenario. This might not be necessary for your campaign setting and style of play. First, you can ditch the railroad entirely by landing your characters in the Foyer, but not subjecting them to the mist. This is easy enough, but you have to know your players, not the characters. The presentation you use might put a bug in their bonnet to explore Castle Amber without the nasty wall of mist to force them. It's your world, and Castle Amber can sit idle until the party takes the challenge. You can wait them out.
Or you can go all Fifth Edition and declare a "one-shot" where Castle Amber is the ONLY adventure for a series of sessions.
For my session 0, I am going to lay out a cosy-catastraphe scenario. The party has wandered to the castle in the dark, and is brought up short by locked doors to the Foyer. The doors unlock in the daytime. The party sets up camp for the night.
In the dark, exploration is limited to an area of 200 or 300 feet east, west, and south. In my campaign world, I limit nighttime activities, and I would not present any wandering monsters or other suggestions they should explore at night.
In the morning, they will be able to either try to get out of the area and fail or proceed willingly into the Foyer. If they explore the environs, the trail approaching the castle goes south for a few hundred feet and turns. It is entirely hemmed in by trees.
Proceeding around the bend will result in the party stumbling back to the castle. A perplexing mystery. If they wander into the trees, they will encounter the fog and mist as described in X2, with one change. Animals won't wander into the mist, and the mist hides a dense forest.
It is like the box to the right. Not particularly notable or scary, just odd.
Next, the area around the entrance to the foyer has fruit trees, berries, grass, two troughs of water filled by a fountain, and two wall-mounted hay racks. There are also several post-mounted hitches on at the foot of the stairs.
This area has several magical oddities:
Horses tied to the hitches will magically release themselves to graze.
The hayboxes will refill every morning.
Dogs will find bones and small prey easily, as if set out for them.
If a character mentions a type of fruit or berry that has not been described previously, it will appear the next morning.
The gist of all of his is that it is horse heaven. The party should feel very comfortable leaving their animals here, which speeds progress into the Castle.
Try not to make the party too inquisitive here. The windows are too high to easily reach and have dark-stained glass in the panes, meaning they can't peek into rooms. The party could load up on fruit and berries here if short on supplies. For several sessions, they can retreat here to heal up and rest.
On the first night and first morning, the party discovers themselves in a trap.
Alexei and Rety scope out the Foyer doors and deem them safe and free of traps, while everyone else readies their gear. The Foyer's inner doors open by themselves, jump-scaring everyone. The weapons come out and the party assembles into a marching order:
Merry, Lance, Jude, and Nodonn take the front rank.
Ana, Alexei, Solvo, and Thomas are in the second rank.
Dorian and Thomas bracket Sybil and Bel, who want to go first.
Lance, Pizzaballa, and Rety take the rear.
The party bypasses the door to room 2 quietly and moves into the main hallway. Entering the majestic hallway leaves the party perplexed. They put away their weapons, except for Solvo and Lance, who keep their bows out. They quietly send Rety and Alexei down the hall, creeping down the right and left walls respectively.
Rety listens at each door, but hears nothing. She detects a musky and smoky smell from the second door. She also notes this is the only door with a keyhole. The door is very thick and has covers on both sides of the keyhole, so she can see nothing. Once they reach the end of the hall, they pull out their bows to cover the rest of the party.
Merry, Jude, and Nodonn quietly advance to Rety and Lance's position. At this point, I roll for wandering monsters, and the result is nothing. Bel and Sybil follow the three men to the door to Indoor Forest. Merry signals for everyone to draw weapons and open the door.
Curious glances are exchanged as they view the Indoor Forest. Cautiously, the rest of the party advances to get a look. Confused by the sight, Lance and Alexei are sent back outside to get a better look. They return and confirm that this forest is actually inside the castle. I roll again for wandering monsters, and again the result is nothing.
The whole party exits the castle to regroup.
They know three doors have locks, but do not try them. These are the two bedrooms and the study. The party opens and closes the door to the Indoor Forest. They know there are no traps in the hallways, and the carpet nicely silences footsteps. They have no reason to believe there are wandering monsters, but this is wrong.
Rety, Nodonn, Merry, and Jude convince the party to start at the first door, searching room by room until they discover someone or something.
This collection of characters is all third-level characters with secret weapons. They are known to Otto, and he fears them with good reason.
Of course, these characters were created for Old School Essentials, but I am going to link to a copy of Fiend Folio on Drivethru. It fits the vibe of these three characters and their creepy equipment.
Thomas Reed, Third Level Human Thief
STR 11 INT 10 WIS 13 DEX 15 CON 12 CHA 14
HP 10 AC 7 Leather
GP: 7 SP: 100 CP: 100 EP: 0 PP: 0 Gems: a small diamond, 100 gps
Previously, I mentioned Ghostie equipment. Rather than sketch out these characters, I will describe the Ghostie weapons and armor they have and how they use them.
Ghostie equipment is high-tech, not magical. All Ghostie equipment is old and battered.
Ghostie armor and weapons have many strange properties. Ghostie equipment is always +1. However, it has many other properties that inspire terror in opponents. Creatures of animal intelligence must make a morale check when the equipment is around. Typically, they will flee rather than stay around to fight someone using Ghostie equipment.
Let's start with the armor.
Ghostie equipment cannot be directly sensed. It can only be seen out of the corner of the eye. Once out of sight, creatures forget they saw it. If worn and buttoned up for combat, it stops making any noise caused by movement. Distressingly, the wearer's voice and breathing are amplified. The wearer cannot stop this. If the wearer is motionless and quiet, there is a good chance (a save vs. paralyzation) that they will be mistaken for an empty suit of armor. AND forgotten when the creature looks away.
Opponents should flee.
If someone asks the DM about this property, the DM should gaslight them:
"Armor? I didn't say armor. Oh my god, an armored thing sneaking up on you - roll for initiative!"
If you can get a jolt out of players, do it a couple of times in a row. Don't let the PC's make any rolls except initiative. Do everything yourself. At the start of each round, use a script like this:
"You're winded and lying on the ground. As you stand up, you can't remember how you came to be on the floor. It seems important. The room is empty except for scuff marks on the ground where you fought...
"The armored thing is coming at you! You remember it hit you. Roll for initiative!"
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Eventually, this will get old, and you should stop. Assume the terror weakens with exposure. Animals won't hang out for this type of abuse. After a while, the characters will figure out how to compensate for the forgetting and the terror. Any indirect spell or weapon can easily hit Ghostie armor, such as fireball, magic missile, vials of oil or acid, etc.
Ghostie weapons are +1 to hit and damage. Since they can't be seen directly, the user gains a bonus of 1 to their AC. On to hit rolls, a natural 20 skips the damage roll. The strike will do weapon type's maximum damage ( and a +1) and forces a roll vs. poison. If this save failed, in 1d3 days, the character will begin to suffer from infection. This is caused by the debris and dirt that the weapon pushed into the wound.
Ghostie weapons are also invisible to direct sight and are forgotten once out of sight, just like the armor. This creates a curious problem when they get dropped because it affects the owner as much as the opponents.
These three men have a sheet of Ghostie material that they cut up to use as a mask or veil. It is utterly terrifying because their faces are blank spaces, but it doesn't have the full effect of armor or weapons.
The most common armor is plate and mail, followed by chainmail, and/or shields. There is no such thing as soft Ghostie armors. Weapons come in several types: hook-like daggers, axes, stilettos, and long swords. There are no Ghostie missile weapons, spears, hammers, or maces.
