It was supposed to be a single CR 7 encounter—a challenge for the party, of course, but nothing overwhelming. It was a succubus. She’d taken up residence in a Greek temple, and the heroes opted to walk right in and confront her.

Two things happened in quick succession that changed the situation for the worse. One was that the demon summoned another of her kind, a babau; the other was that she managed to dominate the rogue. (In that last part, I know I was picking on the character with the weakest Will save, but I figured that was a better idea than trying it on the more resilient paladin.)

Suddenly, instead of four heroes against one monster, it was three against two. To his credit, Al, who was playing the rogue, didn’t pull any punches. When he had the chance, he used his two-weapon fighting and sneak attack, while flanking opposite the babau. It was touch-and-go for a while, but I figured that the PC’s were still going to win the day.

Then there was a critical hit and, to paraphrase Howard Cosell, “Down goes Paladin! Down goes Paladin!”

In the aftermath, Mike coined the term TPTKO to describe the outcome. It wasn’t a TPK, by any means, since only one character had died. But another was still dominated, while the remaining two were beaten into unconsciousness. Now they’ve been taken prisoner, and it remains to be seen just what will happen to them. For the first time in a while, I ended a session wondering just what the heck was going to happen next.

At first I felt bad, like I as the GM had made a mistake because of the result. After further reflection, however, I started to think otherwise. After all, the PC’s never pull their punches when dealing with the villains. Even though this is a setback, it will only add to the drama in the campaign. For one thing, it gives us an excuse to visit Athens and the Parthenon, to seek help from the late paladin’s order. More importantly, it’s going to make revenge for the party that much sweeter, if and when they should have the chance. And this way, the players will always know that their rewards were well earned.

We will have a booth in the vendor area and we’ll be running a bunch of “Kingdoms of Legend” events in our special “Theme Room” (all KoL, all the time!).

I am sure I will also try to sneak in some playtesting of the new card games while I man the booth. I am thinking mostly about flying around shooting people down. With my track record thus far in “Dogfight”, I will likely be the one going down in flames. Stop by and see us!

Here’s a link to the Con of the North website.

One is the first expansion to “Third and Long”, called “The PFL” (for Professional Football League). The main goal for this expansion is to introduce the rest of the league, adding 24 new players and filling out the other 5 teams. You’ll need the base game in order to make sense of the prototype playtest expansion.

The other is a new World War I aerial combat set collection card game called “Dogfight”. This is an entirely new prototype game, rolling down the aerodrome’s grassy take-off field for the first time. You can be one of the test pilots, brave enough to climb into the early morning skies aboard a new machine.

This week the heroes followed up on their business on Crete, where they found a labyrinth being excavated by slaves. After dealing with the captors—regular and half-fiend minotaurs—they discovered a hidden workshop belonging to the inventor Daedalus. Therein they found a book of valuable secrets, but it was stolen away by an invisible quasit. That was when the paladin/gunslinger strapped on a pair of wings, flew to the temple that I’d intended to be the site of the big final battle, and blasted the demon into a bloody smear on the marble.
This was followed by a pitched battle with more minotaurs and a gorgon, after which the heroes took up shelter in the hidden chamber. The conjuror who was behind everything called up the rest of his minions and came to find them, unleashing a variety of summoned monsters during the ensuing combat. On his person, along with other magical items, the heroes found a communication scroll, and item that I’d figured they would use carefully to find out who was behind the plot. To my surprise, the heroes have now called out their enemies by revealing what they’ve done and I can spend the intervening week devising all kinds of comeuppance. Very little of this was part of my plan for the adventure, but it’s making for some fun sessions. It just has me a little bit worried for when, at higher levels, the heroes might start having dealings with genies.

As I type this post I have been putting the finishing touches on the Cold North manuscript and we’re getting very close with the Sands of Destiny text. I have been writing the “Timekeeping PDF”, the first in a series of PDFs for 2012 detailing the gods and goddesses of the campaign setting.

Amid all of this I am also very close to releasing two card game products into the wilds of playtesting. One of them is the first expansion to “Third and Long”, called “The PFL”. It introduces the rest of the 8 teams in the fictitious Professional Football League as well as some new offensive and defensive play calls. The next is a brand new World War I aerial combat game called “Dogfight”. I am excited about both and will be looking to make them into Kickstarter projects after the playtesting phase. Hopefully I will have these two ready by the weekend. We’ll see how it goes.

In convention related news, we are trying to wrap up some of the many details for the events we want to run at Gen Con Indy 2012 (August seems so far away, but we need to submit these things ASAP). More on that as we get things lined up.

Look for the next installment of the Radio IPG podcast in the next week or two as well, and hopefully we’ll get another “This Week In Campaign History” piece to read soon too.

I have also been tweaking the prototype rules for a card game tentatively called Dogfight, a World War I aerial combat game. I need some more flight hours under my belt before I send this one out for playtest, but it is getting close.

I am excited about both, to be sure. After the playtesting phase, I will be looking to start Kickstarter projects for both of these projects and we’ll what happens then. More later!

I started playing in junior high and continued into high school, times in which there were always plenty of other players with whom to set up a campaign. As I headed off to college, then, I took it for granted that I’d find others. Given that my brother was going to the same school as I, we were determined to join the campus gaming club or start one if none existed.

What we found, however, exceeded our highest expectations. read more →