Tales from the Table

Stories of the mundane, the moronic, and the natural 20 from my wonderful adventuring party.

[bryankonietzko]

Korrasami is canon. You can celebrate it, embrace it, accept it, get over it, or whatever you feel the need to do, but there is no denying it. That is the official story. We received some wonderful press in the wake of the series finale at the end of last week, and just about every piece I read...

[thetalesfromthetable]

[thetalesfromthetable]

And My ribs are apparently delicious with barbeque sauce.

[youre-adorkable]

*blows noise maker* Celebratory 206 followers charm giveaway!!!

One winner takes all!

An assortment of dragons, keys, locks, cogs, ying and yang and few others!

Rules:

~ You don’t have to be following me but if you are you get extra points.

~ One like/reblog per person.

~ I can only ship within the USA.

~ Ends October 20th 2014.

~ Winner will be picked with a random number generator.

Good luck! <3

[thetalesfromthetable]

Please do

[thetalesfromthetable]

See my WordPress where I'm posting a lot of my new content.

[thetalesfromthetable]

Deadlands 1: I Dun Goofed

We are beginning a Deadlands campaign, because we royally f***ed up Rise of the Runelords. No established adventures this time. The Characters Joe: He’s the GM of this game, referred to as a Marshal (Marshall?) Brandon (Me): Playing Carter Parnam, a huckster. Think Spellcaster who uses playing cards, like Gambit with variety. Nick: Playing another Huckster whose name is Ray Twisted Fate, basically a League of Legends character from what I’m told. Kate: Playing Shikoba, a Native American Shaman who as of this posting has taken an oath to never use any technology. Brad: Playing Miles Wormteeth, a gunslinger with a bounty out on his head. If you can spot at least three problems already, you get a cookie.

A little backstory on the game. The year is 1879, the civil war has only recently ended after waging for 20 years, only to be replaced by the great rail wars as rail companies vie for control of the country. Magic has resurged in recent years, though the reason is unknown. Many horrible creatures roam the land such as sasquatches, vampires, werewolves and wendigos. A strange material called ghost rock has led to massive scientific advances, henceforth known as weird science, creating everything from faster trains to Ray guns and rocket boots.

The story starts in a little town in Kansas. Our group all meets at the local tavern run by a half-blooded Indian woman named Ivory. Shikoba enters last, fleeing from her backstory I will touch on later and seeking sanctuary. Nick and I volunteer to help her. Brad sits in the corner with his face covered, says nothing, but follows us as we head upstairs. Ivory threatens him, But he swears he wants to help and won’t cause trouble. We are given the basic mission of getting Shikoba farther west and away from the people pursuing her. She currently has a small bounty on her head. Brad continues to sit in the corner and be anti-social and creepy. Deciding to wait until morning, Nick and I set out into town with the basic plan to get her bounty off the board. There we see Brads. Wanted Dead or Alive for $6,000. Keep in mind, this is a time where wages are around $30 a week if you’re lucky and a pound of bacon costs .15 cents. It’s a hell of a lot of money for a guy in character who has been nothing but creepy and annoying. We also meet a bounty hunter named handsome Tom who has been tracking Brads character and offers to split the bounty if we help. So, after another small event involving Shikoba that I will get into next time, we return to the Inn and confront Miles. My response is to call him by name as he has been using a fake one, out of character giving him a chance to lie or give me a reason in character not to turn me in. He does neither. Not really. He explains that he didn’t kill the people he was accused of and a skill roll tells me that he is being honest. He did not, however, give a reason for me not to kill him. About this time, there’s a knock at the door. It’s Handsome Tom, saying he has hurt his hand and asking for a cloth. Shikoba turns into a bird and flies away. I do all I can think of to do. With Handsome Tom at the door and Brad with his hand on his gun (yeah he did that too while we were talking), I cast one of my spells. Now, spellcasting in Deadlands (or Savage Worlds depending on how you look at it as Deadlands is really more of a setting) is one of my favorite things about the game. Instead of hundreds of spells you have trappings. What these are basically amounts to templates. For example, the power is Bolt. You can decide outside of base damage what the attack does and what it looks like, as well as give it a name. The spell I choose is Entangle, what I call the Chains That Bind. Iron chains that are on fire come from my playing card and bind him. I roll really well and the fire puts him about an inch from death. Ray tries to stop me with his own entangle spell, but fails his roll. So, I slit Miles’ throat so I can collect the bounty. Ray then attacks me with an explosive blast of fire, but I’m the better spellcaster, having chosen to max my skill at creation, and deflect it. My intention was to simply stop it, but that’s not what happened. It his the door, sending a hurricane of fire into Handsome Tom, the door into him as well, and forcing him to crash through the banister and onto the bar below. He is very dead. Ray, having some sort of mental breakdown, puts his gun to his head and kills himself. So I am left alone with two corpses and a stunned and frightened crowd below. I explain as best I can, blaming the magic on Miles because it’s taboo and seen as witchcraft, and explaining he had a bounty on his head. I promise to pay for the repairs and the two other men are buried. I take Miles’ corpse and send it off to collect my money. Brad is fuming, though admits he can’t blame me. Ironically, I had spent an hour a few days prior explaining why he shouldn’t take the Wanted Hinderance for his character. Yes, the bounty was his choice. Just not the amount which was determined by die roll. But the story isn’t over yet. See, in Deadlands, when you die, you don’t always stay dead. You draw a card from an action deck of playing cards. Ray TF got a red joker, meaning his character returned to life as a Harrowed. Harrowed are like zombies in a way, but they have intelligence, don’t really rot unless they want to, and are in fact sharing their body with a demon that could come out and destroy everything around him. The only real condition is that the wound that killed the person will never heal. Handsome Jack also rose as a Harrowed, but his death wound was most of the front of his body being burned off and large shards of glass embedded into his back. The locals dealt with him quickly. So, we haven’t left town. We haven’t entered combat. Two PCs and an important NPC are dead. One oarty member is a zombie. And I have inherited the modern equivalent of about 600,000 or 6,000,000 dollars. (The mark up is hard to tell because I am paid in gold coins) all before we even walked more than 200 feet. Needless to say, everyone needed a few minutes for a break.

[thetalesfromthetable]

ROTR: Probably Final Update

So, mid side quest because the party needed experience more than anything, the group came up against one of the leading members of a villain guild I had created simply called The Shadow Squad. The squad had 23 teams with number one being the strongest, 23 the weakest. Squad 8 held the control room of the flying castle they were trying to reclaim. The squad was made up of leader Yukina, a Yuki Onna, her wives a harionago and rokurokubi, a Rusalka, a Sayona, and twin sister blood and winter hags. In addition, they held an artifact which let them control white dragons. As such, they brainwashed the half dragon Npc with the party and one of the members, Joe's alchemist, who had ingested her blood multiple times for blood transcription. When faced with these odds, the group is offered a chance to leave, live in the castle, join the group, or die. After brief discussion where the only complaint came from the paladin, they decided to join up. Thus, they are now working with the people who are trying to resurrect the Rune Lords. And the plot is dead. So, this week we are going to play Deadlands. I really don't know if we'll go back to Rise of the Runelords. The only way would really be to either make new characters or start over. And the later isn't really an option since.we were about two months in. We also may try out, using the beginners set, D&D Next/Fifth Edition/5e whatever you call it. Who knows. Onward to the future.

[thetalesfromthetable]

Bringing the Mountain Down on the Plot

This tale needs a bit of a preface. When Brad was DMing a campaign, he gave each of us a magical ability. Justin, a vampire, could vomit bats for example. I, a wilden, could transmute any object into wood, as long as I had an equal amount of wood to use for equivalent exchange. Being a druid who owned a bag of holding, I filled it with wood by growing my own trees. Fast forward to near the end of one of Justin's campaigns. Somehow, we all have acquired a dragon That we can fly (How to Train Your Dragon had just come out and he thought it was a good idea) and these primordial elemental gods were rising. From a volcano, this colossal magma beast was trying to emerge. Can you see where this is going yet? While the rest of the party evacuated a town, Nick, Joe, and I went to try to contain it. Seeing it growing and climbing up the inside of a mountain, I got an idea and jumped inside. Inches from the primordial, I cast my spell. With over a thousand pounds of wood on me, I transmuted the primordial magma beast into a giant, wooden statue. Then I cast rock to mud on the ceiling. I used a scroll of dimension door to escape just as the monster was crushed to splinters. I soloed a creature that was expected to fight 6 PCs and 6 dragons and hold its own, an end boss to this part of the campaign, all thanks to Brad. The party cheered. The DM cried.

[thetalesfromthetable]

The One Time I Split The Party

First, an apology. Lately, we've either had nothing worth mentioning when we played, or we haven't been able to. Last weekend was an anime convention that most of the group attended, the week prior the player whose house we play at was on vacation. Now on with the story. We were playing one of Justin's (crazy, stupid, and often illogical) campaigns that essentially forced all of us to be pirates. That part isn't really important. I was "playing" the rogue in this instance, meaning I had the best (only) stealth. We had heard an army of goblins were amassing in the forest and that a strange fortress had appeared from nowhere. Everyone else was recovering from a battle, so I took off into the forest to scout. I came across the goblin camp and snuck around, just getting an idea of the layout. Justin, being the guy He is, decided that the goblins would execute someone now when I couldn't possibly stop an army on my own. That's strike one. I continued on, angry, but trying not to ruin his game. I come to a massive stone wall. There is essentially acid running Down the walls and guards stationed at the top. He has me roll stealth. I roll a 27. I fail...step on a twig that snaps, and alert them to my prescience. So I run. Apparently, these lizardmen hop on wyverns and give chase. Out of options, I do the only thing I can think of that might save me. I attack the goblins. I use my Enlarge metamagic feat to create a large fireball and lob it over the trees and into the heart of the goblin camp in a way that it looks like the wyvern they can see flying at them was the source. I kill, in his words, 20 goblins with my attack. What ensues is a war between goblins and lizard men while I dart to the right and around the forest. By the time I make it back to the party, all I can say is run. And we do. All in all, 90% of the goblin army is massacred and we advance two levels between them, the lizards, and the wyverns and giant boars (the goblins mounts) that died while Justin's campaign is kind of In ruins. All because I split the party.

[thetalesfromthetable]

So I Killed a Fellow PC and Here's Why

Warning: This post will get a bit grotesque, possibly offensive, and contains mutilation. You have been warned.

We’re playing pathfinder. In this instance, I’m running a female dhamphir paladin, because we only have a female in our group and she doesn’t like being the only girl in the party. For my part, I don’t mind either way. The other party member of consequence is a wayang shadow bard. The player has asked I leave their name out of this in shame. On a snowy battlefield, the undead start rising from beneath us. A reflex save allowed us to dodge the first bite in the surprise round, but we basically all had a head or hand rising next two us. Mine was between my legs trying to bite my ankle. Given they are undead and we have two paladins and a cleric, I’m not worried. We see one of the creatures rise up. Despite being humanoid, they often move on all fours and have several razor sharp spines along their backs they use to make slashing attacks. Keep that in mind. The bard moved before me, but before him, the ranger picked off his own and the one attacking the bard. The bard asked the question, “Which one is closest to me?” To which he was told the one between my legs. He proceeded to cast a spell called Unnatural Lust on the creature, who being undead failed his will save by a lot. The other target was an unattended bedroll. I have to roll my combat maneuver defense and I fail. The creature lurches up between my legs and one of its spines hits the only place it can. That in mind, it bull rushes forward at to speed. Ripping everything in front of its spines. Thanks to the Bard’s spell, my paladin has had her vagina impaled, shredded, and lost her clitorus as if we needed more insult to injury. Here’s where I had to stop. Do I treat this as roughly 30 damage that can easily be healed, or do I acknowledge that this little goblinoid creature has caused my vagina to be destroyed and act accordingly? I forget if it was a Paladin ability for my archetype or a feat, but I was able to cast lay on hands as a free or minor action as long as I used it on myself. So one hand clutching my rapidly bleeding girl parts, I drew my sword, a falchion with a nifty ice burst enchantment, and moved on him. I rolled a crit and confirmed, an 18 to 20 on a falchion. The hit left him with 3 hit points as I impaled him with the blade. And I had one more attack that round. I scored a second critical hit. The rest of the party just watched, jaws agape, as I brutally murdered our friend for what he had done to me. No one wanted to get involved and no one blamed me.

The end of the story comes a bit later. The rogue found a ring that called upon a djinn to grant him three wishes. A good friend in and out of game, He used one to repair all of the damage done to my lady parts, as opposed to clerical healing which had only closed the wounds.

[rebel666]

The Truth Behind Heroes Of Cosplay: New Orleans

The Truth Behind Heroes Of Cosplay: New Orleans

Heroes of Cosplay is a popular tv series on SyFy that showcases certain cosplayers at conventions across the US. But what you might not know about it is how this show treats the people at conventions… the ones that aren’t the “elite” few, the cosplayers and convention goers behind the camera. I never had to deal with them until they came into my town - New Orleans. I thought it would be a great opportunity to see this show in person but my opinion quickly changed.

The way they treated my fellow cosplaying friends and the way they took over our beloved costume contest was completely inexcusable. There were a few mishaps on the convention floor but a majority of the issues came around the time of the Costume Contest. This was my third time attending Wizard World New Orleans and usually the costume contest is done in 1-2 hours. This one took over 2 hours just to get through the individual category. It was clearly being staged because only certain cosplayers were being allowed to talk about their costumes on stage, everyone else was rushed off. I didn’t realize it at the time but the ones they stopped to chat about were mostly Heroes of Cosplay participants. They didn’t care one bit about anyone else. It became really painful to watch/participate when I saw beautiful and elaborate costumes getting rushed off because they weren’t one of the “elite few” from the show.

After the contest was over, my friends and I went on to enjoy the rest of the convention as much as possible. Some of us completely shut out the competition because it was the black mark of the whole show. I began gathering stories from my friends and fellow Wizard World convention goers. Then other people began approaching me with their account of what happened. Here are our collected thoughts:

Encounters on the Convention Floor:

1 -

This happened Saturday around 2:30pm the Cosplay Circuit Digital Hall Awards photobooth, where they take your photograph and post it on the Wizard World site. Jesse Lagers tried to cut in line in front of me. The obnoxious camera crew’s goal was to cut the “Costume Contest Winner” into the line. I was sandwiched right between him and the AVP guys. The costume contest didn’t happen until later that night. They decided the winners for the contest before the show even started.

2 -

I just want to chime in for a second here… I have always loved Yaya, she was always nice to me over the last 3 years and I really admired her up until WW New Orleans. Now I’m a photographer at alot of Cons and I’ve worked for Wizard World for years. This year I wasn’t working for them because I was working exclusively for a very well known website. When I passed by her just in walking around the con floor she pretty much stopped me and was like Oh you ARE going to take my picture now. I was crazy

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[thetalesfromthetable]

The Story of a Monk

In an old campaign which our friend Justin was running, Brad played the only human, a monk who's name escapes me. In this game, we went to a town that it would turn out was host to a demonic cult and run by demons. We had heard about some type of party from our informant and went to see the town's leader, again who it turns out was a demon. We found out from him that the event was a ritualistic sacrifice where every human in the village had to bring an offering from their family. We had to go but we had the obvious problem. Brad was human. So he asks if there is anything the demon can do. And then the demon turned him into a goat. Brad was angry, we all found it awesome. So we go to the festival...where it turns out that the sacrifice everyone in the village must bring is a goat. We get out of it alive somehow. Fast forward a few weeks of Brad being a goat. I forget the circumstances, but magic transformed him partially back, making him a satyr. Again, we thought this was awesome because cloven hooves and monk powers in 4e. About 3 months later, the group was beginning my infamous book campaign. Along the way, they had to venture into the Underdark. While their they met a man from one of the D&D source books who had managed to perfect a way to turn a human into a mindflayer while keeping their own mind. With permission, he used it on Brad so they could continue their mission. Then Brad was infected with Vampirism. So at this point Brad is a human/goat/satyr/mindflayer/vampire. Justin, being the asshole he is, was holding onto a wish that he had earned via a deck of many things. He used his wish from Brad to become a gnome. At this point, The mindflayer vampire gnome monk reached up and used a strength check to snap his own neck and die.

[thetalesfromthetable]

When is a Paladin Not a Paladin?

This isn't so much a story as it is just an astonishing moment. Kate, who has always played reserved and good characters as well as either scoffing at or ignoring the evil or brutal actions of the party, was fighting with the group against a large ape-like creature. When it was knocked prone, it was her turn. Pulling out her crossbow, The Paladin announces her intent to called shot to its nuts...killing it. The table fell silent.

[thetalesfromthetable]

Brad's Latest Screw Up

This week continued the group's travels through my castle of we need experience. Ironically, they new this and avoided every fight. First, Karash (Joe) investigated a room. Inside he found an a large canine with a clawed hand at the end of its tail. Having been annoyed with Rathbane (Brad) over something involving a meat hook through Karash's ribcage, he blurred and told Rathbane that there was about 5000 gold in the room and he should go get it. Karash rolled a 27 to lie, Rathbane got a 3 to see if he knew. So Rathbane goes into the room, Karash watching from the door. Here's what no one knew because my party never rolls that Dungeoneering skill they have. The creature, called an ahouizutal or something like that I can't spell, is a master grappled with its hand tail. It quickly grabs Brad's character by the throat, crushing his vocal cords so he cannot speak. The other thing no one knew was that the creature had a voice mimicry ability and a massive bonus to its bluff skill. So with Brad practically incapacitated, in Rathbane's voice, the creature yells out, "Shut that Damn door! This one's all mine!" So Karash does. What follows is this thing wailing on Brad's Gnoll, slamming him into the piles of hard metal copper pieces and managing to dodge the attacks of his sword while holding him by the neck. Its about five minutes later when Karash tries to check on Rathbane, finding him beaten up, bleeding, and buried under a mound of coins while the creature chews on his head. Everyone survived though, but the night wasn't over yet. They entered a room where a little girl was having a tea party with her friends, a babydoll, a zuni fetish doll, a purple doll with a mouth on top and bottom of its head, a faceless mannequin, and a marble human with green magic veins running along its body. The room was very hot and the child wore a scarf around her neck. This is to be important. She serves the group tea and cookies since they don't attack. A craft alchemy chest from Joe's second character reveals them to be chamomile and chocolate chip. The Paladin uses her detect evil and hones in on the scarf concealing something. She asks the girl if she can see, to which the child replies she can, but she has to take it off because she is eating. Here is where things went downhill. The alchemist, doing very well on a slight of hand and a bluff check "accidentally drops" a smile bomb. As it goes off, she jerks away the scarf. The purple puppet tackles her, ties her up in near invisible string, and holds a glowing claw to her throat. Everyone but Brad stops especially when they notice the danger mouth in the girl's neck. Brad, creeped out by the dolls, cleaved one in half with his bastard sword. The zuni doll leaps and stabs him in the throat with a poison spear, paralyzing him. The girl and the paladin converse. She is revealed to be a daemon. While the paladin was detecting evil, she was detecting good, and still just fed the group and let them join her tea party. They did convince her not to kill Rathbane as the alchemist was making glue to piece the other doll back together, but she insisted that he still needs to be punished. The purple doll rakes a glowing claw down his face over his right eye from forehead to chin creating a cursed wound that cannot be healed (barring a ridiculously high check performed several times in a row according the the handbook). It doesn't bleed or kill him, But as of now it won't close either. The alchemist clutches her throat realizing what she almost had happen to her. They ask nicely, receive a key on the promise they'll get an item back for her later, and leave. Now the room was supposed to be either all combat or no combat. Either they stormed in an attacked, with the girl and the puppet fleeing in 1d4 rounds and dropping the key, or they have tea and ask for it. The in between had them surrounded.

[thetalesfromthetable]

And the GM Cried

So having royally screwed up the plot and do to several character deaths being very under leveled, I decided it was time for a side quest dungeon crawl designed to be challenging, but essentially gain experience and advance my other plots I have outside of rise of the runelords. The sisters of fate sent the PCs to a floating castle, once home to the mighty storm king, that had been taken over. Also two powerful artifacts (that the PCs cannot use) have been stolen and are being held there. Now, because I wanted this to be challenging, I decided to give them a little help in the form of Xan, a skinwalker werewolf monk, and Nix, a horrible little demon pixie cleric. They would also have the ability to recruit one more, a captive held within the castle, and here is where I'll tell the story. They found a girl with white hair, later known to be named Dianna, chained to the floor in a dark chamber. In addition, a metal plate had been bolted into her face to keep her mouth covered. As the PCs approached, a deep booming voice called out to them. "You have one chance. Leave this room or continue forward, but stay away from my prize." The paladin, played by Kate, cast glitter dust throwing golden sparklies into the air and covering the room. In doing so, she revealed the body of a young bronze dragon. He was young. That's important. And that is also why I am sad. Nick decided to take his corrosive called dagger and throw it at the mouth piece covering the girl, trusting even on a bad roll he could recall it without doing much damage. He rolled a crit and confirmed. So he melts through the mouth guard and recalls the dagger. Now the girl gets a roll since her mouth is no longer covered. She rolls a crit. I roll to confirm and she does. You see, Dianna was a half white dragon and as such had a breath weapon. She blasts the bronze dragon with an icy fury that forces it to the ground. Joe readies his compound bow and fires. HE CRITS. HE ROLLS TO CONFIRM AND SLAMS AN ARROW INTO THE DRAGON. This combined assault has reduced the Dragon to two HP. And its Nick's turn. Forsaking his move action, Nick pulls out his double barreled shotgun pistol. Can you guess what he rolled? And that's how, thanks to bizarre luck, my players defeated a dragon in one round without taking damage.

[thetalesfromthetable]

Rise of the Runelords: 0.75 Hendersons

The group arrives in the city of Magnimar, which Joe hated because he used Magnimar as a setting before and knows how awful it is. They arrive at an apartment complex, because I changed the detail in the book from Aldern having a 3-story home because there was no reason for it. They go to his room and enter via a key they had swiped earlier from Ghoul Aldern. Inside, sitting at the dining table, they find a fully human Aldern and Iesha Foxglove happily eating soup. After a short conversation and a few failed sense motives checks by Kate and Joe as Karash, the group eats dinner with them. Brad ate a bone. The Alchemist managed to succeed on a craft alchemy check I allowed to let her see the soup was filled with what amounted to a powerful tranquilizer. Unfortunately, it was too little too late. Everyone in the group save for the alchemist passes out on the table. The Foxgloves reveal themselves to be faceless stalkers and attack. Now for anyone who doesn't know, alchemists in pathfinder use bombs that they craft as weapons. Joe had a feat that allowed him to attach a bomb to a crossbow bolt and fire. He used what basically amounted to an incendiary grenade weapon on one of the creatures. He did almost lethal damage, but more than that, he set the room on fire. While he was trapped in combat. And everyone else was unconscious. The burning creature used its move to grapple and blood drain the paladin, setting her and the table on fire. The other creature successfully grappled her and then sundered the alchemist's crossbow. The following turn, he slammed the small fey onto the table, which was burning more with each round. At this point Joe tells me something. The Alchemist has five bottles of alchemist's fire on her. When the fire reaches her, they all explode, failing a save I gave them not to. Time slowed down as the rest of the party prepared for a total wipe. Suddenly, Karash, still unconscious and unseen by the alchemist raises his hand and casts a fire shield on the party, a spell he doesn't have and cannot learn. Then a dimension door opens and a large tongue reaches in, scooping up the players and pulling them through to safety. As a punishment, the strange fire shield only covered skin. The explosion destroyed almost all of their gear save a few items that were simply broken. So the group wakes up naked and covered in Terrasque spit on the floor of Foxglove Manor. They previously gave it to the Sisters as payment for saving Brad. Nick was the only one really spared as he was in bat form when he passed out and his gear just kind of becomes part of him when he shapeshifts. The paladin now has a pixie cut, half of Karash's head is devoid of hair, and the gnoll's front side is hairless. They were given basic clothes, Brad earning a pair of hot pink pants akin to spandex. So that's how Joe almost ended the campaign and how I pulled the solution out of my ass. Now, however, they are in debt to the Sisters and will begin a perilous side campaign in the next game. Cheers folks.