Well... that was different. Campaign update.

Alright, nothing went as I expected. For what I expected, see this post.

The mission was to escort the bodies of the dead to Nace. That part was initially unsuccessful due to a great number of injuries to the party but they got the job done in the end.

The dice went in the party's favor, especially the 6 siders. They were unsurprised by the raider's ambush, which was devastating to the raiders. The party lead on every roll of initiative for the whole combat.

(I was expecting a fun run back to the Villa, with the characters picking off raiders. Nope, didn't happen like that.)

Gurwinder and Cassia let off a volley of natural 20 arrows, which left 3 of 4 of the horse riding bandits dead. One poor guy was super dead as Cassia and Gurwinder rolled 20s and 6s, one time each. The fourth raider on horseback stopped in his tracks.

Our strategic map. The black marks in the middle are coffee
or the blood of dead raiders... not sure which. 

Jim and Jaime were riding on the right side of the wagons (left side of the map) and totally sidestepped the slingers first volley. Gurwinder, Felix and Megan were hit. Cassius took an a single arrow for double damage... and shrugged it off.

In the next round, things went nuts. Jaime was taken off his horse by a swipe from a two-handed sword as the two raiders stepped out the treeline. Ortaire, the only surviving thief turned tail and ran off with Jim in pursuit. The oxen were hit by sling stones, which caused the wagons to slam to a stop as the oxen tried to back up.

Into the next round, the raiders tried to get on the wagons. Guilbert hit Rona with a bastard sword, nearly killing her. Flortina and Jim, the zero level humans, fired arrows into everything except the targets. Cassius went hand to hand with one of the raiders, downing him immediately. Gurwinder took another down, while Megan and Matilda got kicked around. Interestingly, all of the action came from the right hand side of the map, but the melee type players were confused and thought the main action was to the left.

The theater of the trash heap, or when
you don't have minis for your players. 

In the fourth round, things weren't looking good for the raiders. Cassius and Jaime downed another raider each, while Cassia and Gurwinder pin cushioned three more. Guilbert decided he had enough and took Jaime's horse and booked it. Megan and Matilda got a piece of him, but not enough to stop him. Jim spotted Guilbert galloping up behind him and thought he was being set up. Ortaire got away, with Guilbert not far behind as Jim gave up the chase.

The fifth round was mop up time. Not much to clean up as two of the raiders made it off the map on horseback.

Megan, Rona, Felix, Gurwinder and Cassius were down to a single hit point each at the end of the fight, so the party returned to the Villa to recuperate. They planned to try again in the morning.

I had an encounter with the 3 elves planned, but everyone was so low on hit points, I replaced it with the surrender of the some of the raiders. It was supposed to be for humor, but it would have turned deadly quickly. The player of Gurwinder took control of Rona, while the other NPCs were divvied up between the other players.

By morning, Guilbert and Ortaire showed up at the Villa to surrender themselves. They traded information on the remaining raiders, and search parties are combing the area to the north of the Villa. The raider's information is not especially helpful. Guilbert doesn't know one raider has gone home and doesn't know any of the raiders made it to Nace. They had thought the information would be enough for a pardon, but Rona nixed that idea with a powerful speech. At least for Guilbert. Ortaire never got a chance to attack anyone, so he might escape with a slap on the wrist.

The second foray to Nace was successful and uneventful. The party attended the funeral but had to leave for the Villa to return the honor guard. On the way, they rounded up most of the raider's horses and did a bit of healing.

Briefly, using the horses, the party joined in the search for the missing raiders. They spotted the lone raider hoofing it home but didn't recognize him as anyone important. He'll probably go back to turnip farming. Ortaire and Gil are on their way north to the Capital, to face whatever justice they find. The Villa is still abuzz with changes and excitement. The party, after returning the honor guard to the Villa, started making their way back to Nace. They arrived by morning on horseback, but the wagons will be a bit behind.

The Eastern Gate of the City of Nace. 

Next adventure, Jim becomes a Ranger. This is a relief to the party, because he had a handful health and was riding point far too much. Megan's player will be taking Jim's character as a second. She doesn't like how swashbucklers work a low levels. She'll be playing two characters for now.

It should be no surprise...

A couple of months ago, Wendy's launched thier game Feast of Legends. And I wasn't totally surprised. Some lost memory tugged at me, but I wasn't able to put my finger on it until this morning. This little tug of memory had me categorizing a burger joint's RPG as "normal!".

While cleaning up for a game session this morning (already underway), a chance find refreshed my memory. I stumbled across a chapter book of the Spiderwick Chronicles. My daughter told me that it was part of set given away by Wendy's with their kids meals. 

Ah, innovation and creative has always been a part of the Wendy's brand. Those are strange attributes for a burger chain. But what better prize is there than reading? I love to read to my kids, and Wendy's was right there with me. My son tells me that McDonalds also jumped in on the bandwagon with Big Nate books. 

I feel funny singing the praises of fat food companies, but I do want to share that the things you give and read to your children have a massive impact on them. So read on to those kiddos. 

The TEK - November 2019 Stats

November 2019 Downloads via DriveThruRPG:
AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana - 2
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting - 5
Kobold Folly Minisetting - 4
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 4
Swashbucklers Character Class - 3

Webstats:
Google Analytics Pageviews - 1,208
Google Analytics Sessions - 751
Pageviews per Session - 1.61


Pageviews were up by 29% over last month. That is cool.

Downloads from DriveThruRPG were weak this month at 18 total. This month, I launched a new character sheet and really anticipated more downloads. Nope. I suspect that the main draw to this group of files is the age and nostalgia, so I missed with an update.

November is typically a rough month for me, but this time I was pleasantly surprised.

I didn't meet any of my goals for last month. I did add a lot of images and such, but not to every post. I did wordsmith a lot of them, but again, not all of them. To be honest, I was wordsmithing like 4,000 words every few days, so I'm sure I hit 50,000 words edited. I didn't do the tabs for podcasts or the blog roll. I did try it, but didn't like how it worked. The blog roll remains unchanged in format, while the podcasts got images. That was neat.

UPDATE Jan. 12, 2020. I've decided to at some images of my Google Analytics to this post.

October 2019

November 2019

December 2019

The Raider War Band

The Raider War Band is waiting for the PC's party to the Southeast of the Villa. There are 7 fighters and 3 thieves. The 3 thieves are mounted and have been hunting for food. Ortaire has been keeping everyone fed with his bow skills, but is running out of arrows.

Albé and Guilbert are the only mounted fighters. Guilbert is one of the younger raiders, but has risen to be the nominal leader of the war band thanks to his high Charisma. All three thieves have short bows as does Warren. Raglan, Albé, Frédéris and Guilbert have slings.

One square is 10 yards.

Guilbert has selected a bend in the road to ambush the party. His plan is to hide the sling armed raiders on the right side of the road with the two melee only fighters on the other side. The horse mounted bow men will charge at the party, which will be the signal for the slingers to attack the oxen. That will allow the bowmen to dismount and attack from the front.

Click the link for a PDF of the 10 characters.

Continuing the Keep and Itching to Paint

It's going to be  a while before I can paint this keep. But I am itching to do something. I've decided that the keep has the stairs going to the right with a low wall and solid looking stone plinth.

This is just a dry fit of balsa wood while I wait for the glue to dry on the actual stairs. I think the basal wood wall will be stone, not wood, but I haven't decided yet.

While the paint dries, I am cleaning up some old models and finishing others. 

This little hovercraft was a modified Ice Rover by Revell. It was part of the Robotech Defender line. I made some changes to it to match my 1990s era Star Frontiers campaign. I used to have a spotlight on the top, but the mount vanished. The players modified it to be a transport instead of a weapon carrier, hence the wooden section on the back. 

The set was a 2 pack of a 1:72 model and a 1:48. I think this is the larger of the two. I want to clean it up and try to restore it. I also want to find the smaller one. 

Next up are a pair of F-4E's by Academy. They are 1/144th scale and went together really quick while waiting for the Keep to dry. I'm hoping that these can be painted up by Christmas for by boys. 

One of my solutions for gluing on the tanks is to use a 1/2" by 1 inch quarter rounds to support the model while I tack the pods in place.

Anyway, I'll be back at the Keep in the morning.

Keep Planning

Before I start my next major step, I need to plan the stairs. I don't like any of three options I came up with, but I think I am going to have the stairs project straight outwards. 

This would be good for 15 mm, but this is 28 mm.

This might be the best of all three, but I am not in love with it.

This what I originally pictured, but I don't like the way it looks.

In case you are wondering, the stairs are cut from soap stone. It's a great material to work with and I hope my next project incorporates more of it.

I don't know where this is going, but before the next step, I need a plan.

The Honor Guard

The players were not supposed to court any retainers or followers at the Villa. However, due to circumstances beyond their control, they will have an honor guard traveling with them until they reach Nace.

Cassia, Florentina and Lucius have been selected from the ranks of villagers by the Emperor to escort the two accused to justice and then lay their master and mistress to rest. All are slaves that were instrumental in operating the Villa del Vino successfully.

Lucius is an elderly man, however he is a former gladiator. He has a head for accounting. He is in his late 60's but is still powerful. His daughter-in-law is Florentina, the head woman of the villa's mill and presses. Her husband died many years ago and she is representing him. The final member of the honor guard is Cassia, the master's mistress and bodyguard. She was horribly beaten during the raid, but was also responsible for scattering the other villagers before she was incapacitated. She has given a statement that could free or condemn the accused murderers.

Rona has healed Cassia as much as she is able to. Gurwinder has encouraged the woman to take up her master's bow, which is a +2 weapon. Cassia laments not having it during the attack, as she is a deadly archer.

The honor guard will travel with the party several miles north to hand over the prisoners. They will then return to the Villa and transport the Master's family to it's final resting place in Nace. This is a little trickery on the Emperor's part. He wants the bodies of the family removed from the Villa proper, but also honored in a major city so that when he replaces them with his own leadership, no one will have a reminder of the former Master.

NPC stats will have to be generated for these characters as they will respond to any encounters with the enemy with lethal force, for vengeance. These will be loaded to the Pregenerated character lists when time permits.

Who's Out There - Post Twoth

Twoth by sea. Who is out on the water ways?

The elven schooner and the raider ship. The elven schooner put 3 elven warriors ashore and left to go chart the comings and goings of ship of the Empire. The Schooner has a problem as the raider's ship has been ghosting them.

The raiders have a spy and informant network on the shore and believes that the schooner is the source of a power band of warriors who hit them at the Villa del Vino. Well, that's not true at all. The party captured two, killed 3 and the remaining men are scattered to the winds. They know the sea and the coastline, but have poor land navigation skills.

The raiders have a myoparo, a ship with 15 rowers and a crew of 55 men who are also raiders. Most of the rowers are slaves but some of the younger, inexperienced raiders also man the oars. The real crew is less than a quarter of everyone on board.

The raiders believe that the schooner has inflicted all the casualties on their crew, which they count as 25. In reality, only 5 are dead, three are horribly lost and wandering eastward on to the plains and the last two were captured. There are three groups of raiders prowling the area, each unaware of the others. Technically, most of the raiders are not lost, they merely don't know where the others are.

There is a group of 5 men on foot, northwest of the Villa del Vino. They are busy dodging patrols. In actuality, these "patrols" are runners bring news back and forth from the Capital to the Villa. They would like to reach the shore, but keep getting forced into the trees due north of the Villa.

There is a tiny group of 4 that has wandered in to the city of Nace. They are currently drinking themselves silly, believing that the Empire's assassins are on their tail. They couldn't be more wrong.

The third group is southeast of the Villa, waiting to bushwack anyone coming south. There are 10 men, half on foot and half on stolen horses. They have seen their myoparo come and go several times, but they believe that they can catch some or all of the slaves fleeing the Villa. Unfortunately for the raiders, the people of the Villa are now heroes surrounded by real heroes, namely the PC party. They won't be fleeing anywhere and the PC party will encounter these guys soon. So could the elven war party, which could make things interesting.

The last raider is walking home, to his farm.

Meanwhile, back on the myoparo, there are only 35 raiders and 10 slave rowers. All of the inexperienced raider/rowers have gotten lost on shore. Since the ship needs 15 rowers, the older raiders are pulling double duty and are very angry about this. Words have been said that can't be taken back and violence will erupt if they don't find something else to fight. So far, the only thing they have seen small enough to engage is the elven schooner. Things are getting dangerous on the ship, for everyone, except possibly the slave rowers.

(Hey, that adds up to 17 raiders... I am updating the numbers to add to 25.)