The Tek - September 2020

 My stats for DriveThruRPG were lack luster. I really should have done something for the second anniversary of Zero to Hero. 

 AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana: 6

 Compass Rose Inn Minisetting: 2

 Kobold's Folly: 1

 Swashbuckler Character Class for D&D and AD&D: 1

 These Old Games Presents: The Hex Pack: 4

 Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners: 2

Unfortunately, spending was greater than DriveThruRPG income for the second month in a row.  This month I grabbed 3 books by Timothy S. Brannan which was totally worth it. 

In August, I got back up on the horse and brought my webstats up. This month, I fell off again. 

Google Analytics Pageviews - 596

Google Analytics Sessions - 532

Pageviews per Session - 1.43

On a personal aside, I am trying to back down my insulin. Balancing my blood sugar against what I eat has a big learning curve. I cut back on food and added a lot of exercise to loose weight and the blood sugar goes haywire. It's not as bad as the last time, but it really slows me down. 

Blood sugar isn't a dump stat. Today, I laughed and cried like a loon at dinner, but recovered enough to make a video and write three posts. My head hurts.  

Ah, well. Enough b----ing. This month is Inktober, so maybe I can pull in more readers with videos. 

Inktober the First

Back in August, I sketched out a castle scene and became fascinated with the two guys wandering through. 

I think this Inktober, I will give them names, crank up the detail and document their explorations through various locales. 

I think they will mesh nicely with my D&D kick. 

I actually set up an area to draw, I now just need to get the zoom and lighting correct. 

B2 - The End?

Oh no! The end is nigh. 

Ok, I can be too upset, but the end came much quicker than I expected. 

My oldest just turned 18 in July and in less than a month, he will be in the Air Force Reserves. He hopes to be back by January 1st, 2021 so he can start college. We'll see how that goes. 

In light of his final weigh in and upcoming swearing in some time in October, we have placed this campaign on the back burner. 

What happened to the party? 

Glad you asked. 

In the last adventure, I decided I didn't like the treasure listed in the module for Vis and Ostro so I rolled my own. I used the table from the back of the Monster Manual and the characters scored 4 potions, 2 Invisibility, Animal Control and Heroism. They also got a bit more coin that the module provided, which I converted to gold pieces for the simplicity of tracking. 

Today, after dinner we talked about what to do with the game. 

The characters rapidly realized that they had too many coins to take back to town easily. The decided to divest themselves of everything that was unnecessary. Anything that was too hard to carry was dumped around cave B, sometimes in humorous ways. They left random stacks of lead coins in odd places, the last +1 arrow was engraved with the words: "That Guy" and other odd things. 

They traded the tiny wagons to the goblins who found them charming. They used the copper, electrum and silver to make peace with the kobolds, who were strangely coming out of the goblin's cave. The party retreated to the ogre cave for the rest of the night. At sunrise, they left the Caves of Chaos. A couple of orcish women warriors trailed them for a bit, as if to make sure they were really leaving. They used the potion of Animal Control on a mountain lion, to push it off their trail and to discourage the warrior women from following. 

We left off with them arriving at Keep and making their way into the structure. 

Since they completely bypassed the Keep at the start, they could potentially have a few more adventures in the coming month, but we can't be sure of anything. I will keep you posted. 

Thanks for following their adventures from the Caves of Chaos to the Chaos of IRL. 

I will be publishing their final character sheets at some point and may even covert them to my beloved BSOLO style sheets. You can also download my old school character sheets at DriveThruRPG. They come in two forms, a scan of the original sheets created in the mid-1980's and 2019 reprise I created last year. Both come in the same download, but to be honest, the original is better. 

Character Sheet
for AD&D

Character Sheet for AD&D

Meet Vis and Ostro - Orcs of the Caves of Chaos

In our play through of Keep On the Borderlands, I've had to name the leaders of the Kobolds, the Goblins and both Orcish leaders. 

Vis is the western orc leader and Ostro is the eastern leader, just like the Goths. Vis has lost his cave system to the party. 

Ostro thought Vis would get himself killed defending his caves, but decided to use diplomacy. At first glance, Vis failed but Ostro can't turn out Vis's tribe, he'll need the manpower to stop the party. Ostro had the smaller of the two colonies so his position was initially weaker but the characters cleared the Cave B rather quickly so everyone is sweating and swearing.

If the characters had hit them and left the cave system, Vis would still be in control and Ostro could think of making a move on him. But the dastardly humans know where Ostro's den is and could take him out. Oddly, they don't know where the exterior cave mouth is, so they have not tried a direct attack. The party also lacks the manpower to defend their position in cave B while hitting the cave mouth anyway. They discovered that when they took the cave and most of the orcs simply fled to Ostro's cave C. 

Vis and Ostro are unwilling compatriots. They are currently acting as co-leaders who work as a pair, but what is really happening is each is hoping the other gets an arrow in the eye. 

The orcs are getting smarter and wiser when it comes to tactics. The orcs woefully lack missile weapons and the party showed them what a sling is. They are now trying to make their own slings, which is far easier to make than a bow or crossbow. This has put the wounded warriors in the position formerly held by women and the women in the role of warriors. 

The other thing the tricksy party did was set up triplines. But instead of using rope, they gathered up rocks from around the caves and made 6-12 inch high steps in random places. Because the orcs see by infrared, they can't see a difference between the cave floor and the low rock piles. Rocks from the same environment have the same temperature. 

My daughter thought this one up from reading Les Misérables. The barricades in Paris were made in this fashion by ripping up the cobblestone streets to make a low step then placing all kinds of crap on top of it. If you managed to punch a hole in the barricade, you ended up stumbling into the muck that was under the cobbles. While revolutionaries rained gunfire and pots of boiling water down on you. 

They also put up a wicker door over the cave entrance which creates the problem where the orcs can see through it but not well enough to tell how many people are in there. Or more importantly, if the dogs are there. The party has taken to howling, which creeps out the orcs. 

The next trap they came up with was to place candles in the dark with cloaks and ropes hanging in front of them. It looks like movement, so the orcs rushed in to attack. The party hit them from behind, from spaces that were kept dark. With missile fire. It's not very deadly, but the orcs fight their way out of a brighter area to a darker area while under fire. Usually, if they can flee, they do flee. 

The orcs are now lighting everything up in their caves because it's easier to deal with than sudden shifts in lighting. They are copying the wicker like door screens and steps to foil attackers.  

The net trap that caught Solvo was spread down the hall from room 13 at about knee level. It makes movement really difficult. They added rocks and garbage below the net to make noise and cause twisted ankles. The orcs haven't countered this as they don't have enough oil to set it on fire. But that is their plan. 

It's interesting that the kiddos are using history against me, I'm a social studies and history major. Should Vis and/or Ostro survive, they will be the trickiest villains ever. The siege of cave B is really changing the Caves in unexpected ways. 

I can't wait to see what happens next.