Games are on Thursday nights sometime after 6:30PM at World's Best Comics, 9714 Warwick Blvd Newport News, Virginia 23601.

I decided to make something unusual, a bacon double-cheeseburger pizza. The cook used bacon, ground beef and American cheese. Finely chopped onions (I think), tomatoes, and pickles, with a little mustard in the background. Yes, it tasted like a bacon cheeseburger.

If anyone likes this unusual recipe (and to give free advertising), and lives locally, it was built at Anna's Pizza #2, 9708 Warwick Blvd, Newport News, VA 23601. (Two doors to the right of World's Best comics.)

++++ START OF SESSION ++++

In order to put a little initiative into the game I enjoined the presumption that the Party's Druid Glaxx and her trusty Elven Wardawg, had a burr on her backside to re-explore the wilderness that she wandered about for five years before coming a Druid. Having their "take" from last adventure, they all had two hundred and fifty gold pieces with which to buy horses, saddlebags and kit. (For those who didn't already have horses of course.)

However the wilderness was about 400 miles away, and over a river. Not one of those rivers you can ford on horseback, judging from my GM's map, it was a 12 mile wide estuary-like river. So I made the characters travel. (For you BlackMoor aficionados, they started in hex 2219 in the DA1 map, and headed Southwest to the Plains of Hak.)

So they headed south toward to the town of Lake Gloomy, and turned west to the Gar's Hold, choosing to delay crossing the Misauga River as long as possible rather than crossing early at the Tower of Midges. (Especially after I explained what midges were.) They made it to Gar's Hold without incident, meeting only once with a Giant Patrol. The patrol were Plain's Giants wearing the livery of BlackMoor, so nothing untoward happened besides "Greetings little citizen.", and the Giants went on their way.

The crossing at Gar's hold was just a nominal fee, since diplomatic relations between the Duchy of Ten and Blackmoor were reestablished some thirty-three years before (after Players from my earlier campaign kicked out the Afridhi Barbarians).

The Party set out overland until it started getting dry. Very dry, as if everyone in the Party had brought their own Towelie from South Park. Then came the Party's first real encounter, Orkin Wardawgs, who seemed very hungry. Glaxx our Druid, was able to smooth things over using her Animal Lore and Handling skills but only because these were "wild" Orkin Wardawgs. If they were part and parcel of an Orc tribe, she would have had no such luck. And you'd think that her Elven Wardawg would attack on sight the Orkin Wardawgs, or vice versa, but there was no codicil in the Hacklopaedia of Beasts that indicated mandatory combat, so I let the dawgs do what they normally do when meeting other strange dawgs, which was to sniff each other's butts more or less. I don't think this relationship will last long however, even though Glaxx found tracks that led the party to a rabbit hole, and was able to use the rabbits to feed the dawgs. (Sorry no pocket watch was found, that belongs to a higher level adventure anyway.)

Finally the Party reached their goal, which was a hallucinogenic vision remembered from Glaxx's formative years of three huge statues atop a sand dune. Making it to the top of the dune, the party found the blatantly obvious secret door. A door that was mainly held open by the body of a dead Hobgoblin on the ground with a crossbow bolt in its back. The degree of dessication indicated the body had lain there for about two weeks. Checking inside the entrance Namo the Thief spotted the obvious crossbow trap set to release if anyone opened the door. Sham the Samurai took the crossbow and the bolt from the back of the Hobgoblin.

Turning around the corner the Party came to a door for which out Thief Namo detected another trap but was unable to disarm it. With some ingenuity the Party came up with the idea of pulling the door open from a distance with rope. Making a formal case for it, I had each Party member make a die roll, not telling them what why. Fortunately someone heard a distinct hiss. Guessing some form of gas, the party decided to wait until sometime after the hissing ceased and the gas dissipated.

The party took this time to tie up their horses outside to the statues and leave the wardawgs to their own devices.

Waiting a minimum of one Turn, they entered a 40' by 40' room with no deleterious effect. Apparently the gas had gone, the room contained three bronze pillars five foot in diameter, each with a hatch and a rotating dog lever.

It was blatantly obvious the three bronze pillars corresponded to the three huge statues topside.

Namo learned his usefulness to the Party quickly and checked for traps, finding traps on the first two hatches but not the third. The first two were simple spring traps that threw darts and spears. Not finding a trap on the third pillar he took his queue from prior door openings and stood aside while opening the hatch. Instead of a projectile, the tiled floor in front of the hatch simply gave way. Fortunately our intrepid Thief made his Dexterity check and did not fall in.

Meanwhile while Namo was checking the 2nd and 3rd pillars, Sham the Sam(urai), started exploring the first hatch to the bronze pillars. Sham went up inside the first pillar and yes, he could see the out the top, he also discovered well rusted machinery that could have made the arms of the statue move by the operator inside.

Going down, Sham found another hatch on a level below the one he entered. He opened it, and was immediately attacked by a Giant Fire Beatle, complete with haircut. This was about the same time the Namo triggered the trap that dropped a tile this this level in front of the third pillar. This revealed two other Beatles in the lower level, so it turned out to be a Hard Day's Night.

Combat ensued, the party eventually squashed the three remaining bugs which also means there will never be a reunion, however what follows are the major highlights: Sham scored a hit for 13 points which was just over half the bug's hit point score. This Giant Fire Beatle in turn rolled a almost scored a critical hit but scored penetration hits causing more that half damage on Sham. Sham therefore had to roll a Threshold of Pain check and failed. At this point Sham should have fallen back into his room, only to find Gideon's Bible. However the player noted that his first roll also required the bug to take a Threshold of Pain check. In the back of my mind I was certain insects did not require such a check but I relented. So I rolled the check for the bug and it failed, meaning Sham was never hit and survived. Other than that, Paveltepec the Painted Mage cast at two Magical Mystery Fireballs, Sidewinder Factor 1, down the broken tile for minor damage on The Beatles.

On the following day I checked for the rule about bugs and the Threshold of Pain check and found it on page 4 of the Hacklopaedia of Beasts, essentially saying there is no such check for "most" insects. Without going into the meaning of "most", it meant that Sham the Sam should have gone down for the count unless rescued by the Party. But I decided it was water under the bridge and I wouldn't revisit the timeline on this matter.

After the Giant Fire Beatles were squashed. The explored below which turned out to be another 40 by 40 foot room with three external doors. There was also some spare machinery parts and some clay jars with a strange marking of a diamond shape subdivided into four other diamonds colored red at the top, blue on the left, yellow on the right, and white on the bottom. Each colored diamond except the white had black runes in an unknown language. The blue right and the yellow left diamonds had the same rune which looked like a vertical bar with a slight tick at the top. The red diamond had a rune with a curly shape at the top and flat on the bottom, while the white diamond had no rune at all. (This was actually different than what I drew for the Players, but this is the official version.)

None of the characters were willing the open the jars, except Paveltepec the Painted Mage. Inside the characters found machine oil, which they deduced would have kept the rusted machinery above in good order had it been applied. But the shelf life had reduced the oil volume to six flasks worth that the party duly collected.

++++ OUT OF CHEESE ERROR ++++

BT







BBBB

PART 2.

++++ CHARACTER ROSTER ++++

CHARACTERS

Paveltepec, first level Painted Mage
Sham, first level Samurai
Cadfael, first level Cleric
Glaxx, first level Druid
Namo, first level Thief

BT







BBBB

++++ RECORD KEEPING ++++

PART 3.

This is also posted on two forums, and a blog.
http://www.kenzerco.com/forums/forumdisp...ster-Tales
viewforum.php?f=76
http://furiouslyeclectic.com/hackmoor/
http://www.furiouslyeclectic.com/forum/ ... php?fid=13