Mortaine’s Blog

Yesterday’s game went great. Carl was very late, and we waited over an hour and a half before starting without him. Usually, I won’t do that, but. . . . Carl was kind of on the outs with everyone yesterday (except me), for being irresponsible.

Anyway, I got the party oriented quickly, and got them moving. They found the dead end with the secret door that they just could not have detected without help (Orva finally found it during their spot/search offensive, because she had Detect Evil, and there was evil behind the door, giving her a bonus to find it). Gotta improve those Search checks, guys!

The Throne Room was defended by Lawrence Gannu (head were-rat) and two dire rats. Hiding in the shadows, however, were the second rank of were-rats and their were-rat goblin chieftain. The throne room is dimly lit, an aid to the rats and a disadvantage to everyone but Orva (but since Orva carries the light source, she never gets to use her darkvision).

Anyway, they fought the Big Battle with the head were-rat and his goblin chieftain. They knocked out Lawrence Gannu (the head wererat), and miraculously, he stabilized. They then had a dilemma. As a shapeshifter, he can easily turn into a rat and escape any rope bonds they might use; that had already been proved to them earlier when a wererat pretended to be knocked out and then shifted form to escape his bonds quickly. However, it’s an evil act to kill a defenseless foe, and it’s not especially good to just wake them up so you can kill them anyway (Orva’s a paladin; these arguments come up weekly).

They, like all good adventurers, are terrified of the Bad Evil NPC getting away.

However, as they’re arguing over this, I had to do something to point out that they hadn’t even investigated the rest of the room– they were making a life-or-death decision with only half the information. So I had the slow-witted NPC (Jake– also known as cannon fodder) make a quick check around the room. He comes back over to them and bluntly asks “Why don’t we just put him in the cage?”

Cage? What cage? He points to the cage in the dark, dingy far corner of the throne room. The party goes to investigate, one of the PCs staying behind to guard Lawrence.

Inside the cage, they see a creature– a humanoid, certainly, but unlike any they’ve ever encountered before. The figure is slumped against the side of the cage such that it’s uncertain if he’s even alive. Long, gaunt arms end in curling claws, and at first, they think perhaps he’s a golem, because his head is made of metal. But then, they see it is a filthy metal bucket turned over and strapped to cover his head.

And that’s where we ended for the night.

[Next game session has them meeting this bucket-helmed creature, bringing Lawrence Gannu to justice, collecting the treasure that Gannu had accumulated, and hopefully (please, please, please) finding and defeating the REAL evil that lurks in the Gannu family silver mines. . . .]

Oh, and I think I watched about 30 seconds of the Superbowl last night. Um. I’m not much of a football fan. Sorry.

News article about the woman whose house burned down: http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/012804/new_20040128065.shtml

Interesting. If you call FedEx’s phone number and say into their automatic voice system “Talk to a Human,” the system will not recognize what you said, and will transfer you…. to a human.

Now it turns out that FedEx Ground won’t allow me to use someone else’s account number to ship to that someone else; the buyer has to get labels and send them to me. I am just waiting for him to say “but that’s so inconvenient!!!111″

You’re the light of my life, baby.