My weekend.....

So Thursday we were all getting ready to break the boat out for the first time this summer with my father in-law Nick. Man, I was so excited! This is the first time since last summer that we'd get to hit the water, it was the first time that our new dog Sable, a black lab mix, would get to go swimming and boating, and we'd get some sun, and ya, it'd be fun...

Unfortunately, my body is getting older and I haven't been maintaining it as often as I should. I stepped out of the shower that beautiful Thursday morning and began toweling off. I lifted my right leg to dry it off and a severe sharp pain lanced up through my back and down my right leg and I felt something TURN in my back. I tried straightening up and almost fell onto my face, luckily I caught the doorframe leading to the sink area (it's a small two room bathroom).

I lowered myself to the toilet seat but the increased pressure almost overwhelmed me. Panting slightly from the pain, I lowered myself to all fours and knelt there for a while. I discovered that as long as I didn't move at all, the pain eased up and passed. I would feel almost normal, although I had a devastating sense of wrongness associated with me back.

Moving brought an immediate and devastating amount of pain, enough to force me to gasp out. Knowing that I can't spend the rest of my life on my knees, I managed to eas down onto my side and then roll over onto my back. I scrunched/crawled my way into the outer room of the bath to give me some space but I was physically unable to straighten my legs. I tried pulling my legs one by one up to my chest, hoping that the action would pop whatever shifted back into place. I managed to lift my left leg by using my arms but my right leg was immobile.

That was when I called for help.

I could hear my wife shivvying our kids into their clothes and trying to hurry them downstairs so that they could eat breakfast. I knew that there was no way that I was going to make it to the lake. I hated the thought of them missing out on the lake, but I am selfish enough to want someone with in a situation like this.

My wife, as awesome as ever in a crisis, immediately started the kids on breakfast, grabbed the phone and made the call to 911. She also called her father to cancel the trip to Chatfield Reserviour, but he had already left. During all this she managed to put some swim trunks on me, remember, I was laying naked and wet on the very dirty floor of the bathroom that I have been sharing with my extremely messy younger brother while he stays with us. I actually thought that she was going to start cleaning up the bathroom while we waited for the ambulance, but she had other things to do (kids, dog).

The fire department showed up first. They hate our stairs, stating that if these stairs were any steeper they'd have to use mountaneering gear, and the massive amount of pictures that my wife has hung along the hallway upstairs.

In a normal person's house there may be three to five pictures hanging on a wall in a hallway. My wife has three ROWS of pictures, in some places four rows, and the total is over twenty pictures in a thrity foot hallway. Needless to say, these big burly firemen (my sisters would have been drooling) had to remove a dozen or so pictures so that they wouldn't knock them down while trying to manuveur my not inconsiderable mass out into the hallway and then down that narrow but steep flight of stairs.

"Only a man who's heart is pure can reach the dagger. And only a man who's ass is narrow can walk down these steps, and if mine is such an ass, then I shall have it!"

So they got me downstairs and into the waiting ambulance. The ambulance took me to Lutheran Hospital, where I used to work as a security guard. My first nurse there, the Charge Nurse over the ER was an old aquitance of mine from my security days. Unfortunately, she left me in the care of a snatchy older nurse and a hurried doctor who just wanted me to go home.

They told me that I had slipped a disc or strained my back (how do you strain your back by lifting your leg? I'm six foot tall and weight 220 lbs. It's not that hard to lift my leg, believe me), either way, the treatment in the same. Lots and lots of pain medication. I let them know that I have a high tolerance to pain meds and that Vicadin is nearly as useless to me as apsirin, all true for the curious doubters out there.

They gave me something like four or five BIG doses of good stuff in the ER and then agave me a perscription for Percoset, the drug of choice among celebreties. Percocet makes me tired and does a good job od dulling the back pain, but isn't a drup that I could see anyone getting addicted to.

It was funny though, after laying strapped to a back board for over four hours I told the nurse that I needed to pee and that if she gave me another dose of pain meds then I'd be able to walk to the potty. She told me that I shouldn't even be concious right then due to the amount that I've already taken. But she did give me another shot and had a male nurse help me up. I walked to the toilet just fine, the male nurse didn't even wait for me to finish! I walked back just fine as well, although I do have to admit that getting in and out of bed took some work.

They sent me home shortly after that (they informed me that if I hadn't been able to walk that they would have hospitalized me, that would have sucked something fierce).

My wife had to run some errands and showed up at the hospital about an hour after I did. She brought a book and a magazine from the store but I was in too much pain, too much meds to be interested. She got me a Mad Magazine, I haven't read one of those since early high school and some novel that had "evidence" in the title because I like those Forensic Files shows on Court TV. My wife cracks me up!

So instead of going to the lake I went to the ER. Instead of having afun weekend, I slept through most of it. I had friends over the last two days. The first day I fell alseep on them. The second day I grilled (my wife got me to grill by offering to do it herself if I didn't feel "up to it". Manipulating little wench...) until I was a zombie in need of a mercy killing. But the brauts turned out real good...

Today is my first day back at work and all I wanna do is go back to sleep. I have auxillery pain meds here, namely Alieve and Ibuprofin, to augment my quickly dwindling supply of Percocet. I'll be visiting the DR tomorrow for more of those. Sorry, but Alieve isn't gonna work for pain like this.

One side benefit of this whole experience is to give me a far greater understanding of what my wife has been going through with this, her third pregnancy. The meds I take have been giving me horrible heartburn, I'm up four or five times a night to pee, I get cold sweats for no reason, and I'm ALWAYS in pain. Sorry babe, I think about this more before knocking you up next time.

Gaming Advice

I'd like to write out the way that I run adventures and campaigns. A lot of people ask me to explain this and maybe this will help fledgling GMs. One could always hope, right?

The World

I start with a basic idea of the word that the campaign will take place in. By world, I simply mean the area of land that the story will take place in rather than an entire world. I usually start by looking up Physical Maps from different areas of the Earth. A physical map is one that shows forests, trees, mountains and such without cities, roads, or other man made items.

Here's a good example:

Sample Map

After I have a land, I start filling in cities and create borders. Before long I will have divided the land up into kingdoms, duchies, or whatever. I usually decide the scale of the game-to-be while playing with the map.

Once I have the map done, I design governments for each kingdom. I like to try and mix things up, so any given land may have two or three separate types of government. A monarchy bordered by a confederation which is bordered by a theocracy. Makes for some tense politicking and you can throw a war in at the drop of a hat.

Then I contact my players.

Character Creation:

I give the players the background and campaign information needed to create their characters. For example:

"You'll start in the human City of the Three Suns in the Kingdom of Light. This kingdom is a theocracy and all officials are members of the Church. The City of Three Suns is named so for the mountain that sits to the east. When the sun rises it shines through caves near the summit of the peak. These caves allow the sun to be seen through the mountain. There are three caves that pierce the mountain and when seen, divide the sun into three.

Three is a holy number and acts as a centerpiece to the whole religion.

The City of Three Suns the capital city of the Kingdom of Light. Situated at the joining of two rivers and surrounded by fertile plains, it is centrally located and is a center for trade.

Crime is punished severely here. If you get caught stealing you will be branded. A second offense will cost you a hand.

Women are accepted, but looked down on as inferior. They may own a small business, but will not have a voice in the church.

You can play anything that you want within this society."

I have the players submit a character background to me. Typically these are one full page long. I go over the background with the player and fine-tune the character to fit my world and the other characters.

These backgrounds detail where the character came from, who their parents are and how they met, siblings, and where and how the PC learned whatever skills that they have.

I never allow the term adventurers. No one can ever say, “I have all these skills because my parents were adventurers and they taught me all the good stuff.” That is beyond lame.

People may go on an adventure. If someone goes on multiple adventures, then they may be called an adventurer. But “adventurer” is not a career nor is it a job description.

Your parents may have fought in Vietnam, survived a sinking ship, been stranded in the Alaskan wilderness for two months, and lived in Compton California for a week. These are all adventures, full of danger, and they make a great story. Someone who did all of these things may be called an adventurer. But their JOB could be an accountant, a cop, a teacher, or anything else. They just happen to have the bad luck to live an adventurous life.

When my players write backgrounds, I force them to make logical reasons behind their skills. A noble’s son is not going to be a street savvy cat burglar without a good reason. Nor is an orphaned street rat going to know how to read. A brawler from the docks will not know how to use a sword and a mercenary may not know the appropriate manners required when eating a meal with his employer. But if the player can come up with a logical, well thought out reason, then they can have it.



When everything is satisfactory to both me and the player, I make their character for them. I do this for several reasons.

1. It forces the player to be detailed in their character description and background. If they play a thief, they'll specify a pick pocket rather than a loanshark or cat burglar if that's what they want to play. If they don't, then they may find that their character doesn't have the skills that they thought they would.

2. It completely prevents munchinism in character creation. It gives the GM absolute control over what the character is capable of while allowing the player the creative freedom to have the character that they want. All the characters balance out and no one feels slighted because each of the players is treated the same.

3. It gives me the chance to suggest certain traits or skills that may fit the game, the group, or the character story better.


I understand that some games, old school D&D for one, do not run on a point based character creation system. In that case, I would have the player roll up the character's stats before writing up a background.


Getting Started.

After the characters have been made I sit down and design three or four adventures. I use elements of the characters' backgrounds to draw them together and to set them on the path that I want them to take.

I write the adventures with each character's skills, traits, enemies, and everything else right in from of me. Thus the resultant adventures are personal to both the players and their characters.

Sometime during this process I develop an idea for the campaign. This idea may start at any time during the creation process but always happens by the end of the second adventure.

So let’s say that I have three players. Joe, Bob, and Mary.

Joe has a mercenary thief. A big guy, he's good with a sword or spear and likes sniping with his crossbow. He's also a pick pocket, con artist, and gambler.

Bob is a squire to a knight of the Church. The unwanted third son of a Count, he was given to the church on his fifth birthday. He has just barely been squired and is eager to prove himself in battle. Unfortunately, he has led a sheltered life and is pretty naive about things outside of the church.

Mary is a confederate merchant. She has the innate ability to cast magic, but is unaware of this fact. She is incredibly good looking, charismatic, and intelligent. She uses the locals disparaging views of women and her looks to get the upper hand in almost every transaction.


The first adventure that I wanna run takes place in a small frontier town. I have the church assign Bob's master to investigate disturbing rumors in that region. It is on the way back to the confederacy so Mary joins the party along with a couple of mercenary guards, one of which is Joe. As there is safety in numbers, the knight welcomes these additions even with the slower rate of travel.

I'd throw in a couple of ambushes by bandits or an animal attack to tighten up the group a bit before throwing them into the meatgrinder... I mean adventure.


Running Sessions

A couple of things to keep in mind while running sessions:

1. Keep out of game conversations to a minimum. Everyone does it to a greater or lesser extent, but try to tone it down otherwise the game will never get anywhere.

2. Don't be afraid to fast forward time. You do not need to roleplay out every single day of a three month trip. If nothing happens, skip it.

3. If the player wants to do something, never tell them no. Just pick a difficulty number and have them roll against it. The more off the wall the action is, the more difficult the roll.

4. When things bog down, throw in a fight. If the fight can be tied into the campaign, that's great. If it can't, oh well. Fights wake everyone up, gets their blood pumping, and pulls them back into the game.

5. BE SUBTLE!!!! Do not let the players know that you are manipulating them! Manipulate them all you want, the more the better, as long as THEY DON'T KNOW IT!!! There is nothing worse than the players having to play along with what you want. Railroading GMs shouldn't be running games anyways.

6. Do not give the NPCs (good or bad) anything that you do not want the PCs to have.

7. Make characters earn the things that they have. Players and their characters will appreciate the +1 sword they received if they had to win a game of chess against the Grim Reaper to do it. Giving a character a magical item or money every time they kill something gets old fast. It also unbalances the game. If every guard carries a gold piece or three, then what is that gold piece worth?

8. When running an NPC, THINK LIKE THE NPC! It doesn’t matter if the NPC is only gonna be played for five minutes rather than five sessions. Every NPC has a personality, motivation, needs, and desires. I knew a GM once who made a NPC personality random chart. He’d roll five times and the results would be the NPCs personality, mood, desire, need, and dislike. A typical roll would produce something like: Mothering, depressed, love, money, loud. This NPC has a mothering nature, but she’s depressed. She wants to find her true love, but she is poor and hates loud men. Get it?

9. Money makes the world go ‘round. Believe it. Make money worth something. In my typical world, a Farthing is 25% of the whole. A Copper Farthing would be $.25 because a copper is $1. A Gold Farthing would equal $25. A Piece is worth less than a Penny.

A Copper Piece would equal $! And a Copper Penny would equal $5.

A Silver piece Equals $20 but a Silver Penny equals $50.

A Gold Piece equals $100 but a Gold Penny equals $500.

Make characters earn money. Make them scramble to get enough money to buy that $650 sword. Don’t just give it to them.

When PCs start flashing money, play out the consequences. If you walk into a seedy bar and flash a wad of hundred dollar bills, someone is going to try to take your money.

NPCs aren’t stupid. Mugging isn’t the only option that they have. Picking someone’s pocket is easy if the victim is distracted by a partner. So is slipping a mickey into their drink. Rigged gambling can lighten their pockets, especially if multiple people are involved. As a last resort, mugging or burglary can be used.

10. Whatever the PCs do, have a logical consequence. If a PC mouths off to the king, punish them. Throw them in a dark cell and forget about them for a few months. When they get out, drop some of their stats a bit. Their health will suffer after being shut up in a damp cold cell with no sunlight and barely enough gruel and moldy bread to survive. If their constitution drops by three points and it takes them nine months to get their health back up, then you will have made your point. No one mouths off to the king.

11. Don’t forcefeed your players. Give them clues and let them figure it out themselves. Give them something good to start off with and then let them investigate. If they don’t take the bait, then throw something else their way.

12. BE PREPARED!!! Have at least three or four adventure ideas ready to go at all times. Have a list of names appropriate to the culture that the players are in. Have recurring Generic NPC stats handy (City Watch, Pickpocket, Gang Member, Gambler, etc.). Have a list of building names (don’t have ever inn in every town called the Frothing Otter and don’t name every bordello the Horney Whore) handy as well.

13. Throw in random stuff in random places. Distract you players from time to time. The main campaign may be slow going for the first two thirds of the game. Throw in small adventures, side quests, and other random junk and gradually drop in a clue or piece of information here or there until the PCs realize that something much larger is going on.

Even after the PCs tear into the main campaign, keep up the random stuff as long as you can. The random encounters will get smaller as the campaign gets closer to the end and will eventually stop. Let it end naturally, but don’t stop just because the PCs have finally latched on to the main story.

14. Reward players for good roleplaying and inventive ideas that work! Even if your game system does not reward players for this, make sure that they get a reward! This will make them want to be better players and will make the game much more fun for everyone!

By Special Request:

Per request, here is the history of the last world that I ran and the campaign that took place within it: This campaign lasted a little over three years and ended about a year and a half ago.

There were three original characters; Atlantis, a young noble-born mage, Shakira, a mercenary with rudimentary magic abilities, and Valecusious, a mercenary with aspirations of grandeur.

Atlantis and Val left and Shakira was joined by a mage and her bodyguard. I don’t remember their names, so I’ll call then Dawn and Grant. I had one NPC traveling with the characters this entire time. His name was Gabriel and he was a young silver dragon who had polymorphed himself into an elf so that he could travel with the party in order to satisfy his curiosity of humans.


The Campaign World:

The only original sentient races in this nameless world were the Elves and Dragons. The two races got along well and there was no strife.

Dragons sometimes polymorphic into elves to live with their friends for a while and they two races spoke elven as their common tongue as draconian is not something that they elves could hope to pronounce. The dragons came in gold, silver, bronze, and other colors.

Elves were complete and total pacifists. They had no words for war, hatred, murder, theft, or anything of the sort. They were scholars, artists, gardeners, and at peace with nature and themselves. They ate meat and believed in the circle of life.

This world was very magical and the elves as a race were great mages. Unbeknownst to anyone, the source of the world’s magic stems from an odd three-pedaled pink or crimson flower known as the Bion’eshe. This flower was worshipped by the elves due to its miraculous healing powers and great taste; they use it in tea and to flavor food. In tea it tasted like a combination of cinnamon and ginger, in food it was spicy but not hot. This flower figured prominently in elven culture and can be found in their artwork.


Demons are real and live in the nine planes of hell. They constantly battle for dominance and powerful demons have armies of lesser demons and slaves garnered throughout different dimensions/worlds/universes/whatever.

One demon, Sha’taan, discovered the world of elves while scrying for a new source of power. In his magical eyes, this world shone like a beacon, and he immediately made plans to conquer it and to harness its magic. Sha’taan is one of the most powerful demons on the seventh plane of hell. He only has three or four real rivals and is constantly looking for an edge over the competition.

He gathered his army together and tore a rift into this magical world. He sent his lesser troops across, mostly slaves, keeping his demons with him in case someone attacked.

His slaves were comprised of orcs, humans, bugbears, dwarves, and most of the other sentient races known today.

The demon army assumed that the source of magic was known by the elves and tortured the elves that they found for this knowledge to no avail. They sent back captured elves to Sha’taan as well. He had n luck either.

The elves, being pacifists, ran before this army to no avail. The demon army had powerful sorcerers and creatures that could fly and they found the elves where they hid and slaughtered them. Captive elves of all ages and sex were raped, tortured, killed, and in most cases eaten or fed to other elves.

Eventually a young elf named Eos’an thea ’Diantha (Dawn Flower) killed her tormentor and escaped from one of the torture camps. She made the journey from demon held lands and eventually found others of her race. She told them what went on in the camps and what she had done during her escape. She was feared and ostracized by most of the elves, but a few younger elves listened, as did elves who had been injured or who had lost loved ones.

These elves, called animal elves or wood elves due to their uncivilized killing, started fighting the demon army using the same traps and snares (augmented with magic) that they used to hunt with. They took weapons from the enemy that they slayed and taught themselves how to use them. Soon other elves joined them and the war was on in earnest.

The Dragons had stayed away from the war until this point. It was around this time that goblins discovered a dragon’s lair with eggs in it. These eggs were brought through the portal to Sha’taan.

Sha’taan was an inventive sort of bloke and used powerful magic on the embryotic dragons. When they hatched they were black, green, red, blue, and worse. Sha’taan sent these dragons back through the portal with riders on their back.

These riders were his best warrior mages, created from his experiments with captured elves. They had dark skin and darker hearts, and they eventually came to be known as Dark Elves or Drow in the elven tongue (means abomination).

The introduction of the Drow and their corrupted Dragon mounts brought the original (or good) dragons into the war and also convinced the vast majority of elves to fight and they abandoned their pacifist ways forever. Dwarves were corrupted into Duerger in a similar manner, and human became vampires (who led armies of zombies, skeletons, and ghouls).

The last of the pacifist elves, known later has the Grey Elves due to their adherence with outdated concepts like pacifism, fled to a small tropical island. There they realize the importance of the little flower called Bion’eshe.

The demon army had destroyed a lot of these flowers, grinding them under the wheels of their war machine, tramping them under the feet of their armies, and burning them whenever the pyromaniac urge struck or when they started missing home.

The Grey Elves started preserving the seeds of the flowers. They also started work on a massive machine that would end this war peacefully.





As the years dragged by, humans, dwarves, and other “good” races started changing sides. They deserted the Demon army, joined with the elves and dragons, and fought by their side.

The Allies fought the Demon army to a stalemate, and so it remained for over a century. This war was fought on every continent on the planet was quite literally a World War.

Eventually, the Allies started driving the Demon army back. Sha’taan sent more and more of his army across to the elven world and the Allies met up with some true demons for the first time and were driven back.

While all of this was going on, some of Sha’taan’s rivals took advantage of his distraction and attacked him. Sha’taan immediately withdrew all of his troops in the immediate vicinity of the portal and turned his full attention to combating this new threat.



His demon army crumbled without his leadership and the Allies farced them back to the portal. While fighting the Last Battle the Allies were able to back the majority of the Demon Army into the city that had been built around the portal.

Sha’taan was fighting for his life; His enemies were streaming past and through his portal. He changed the spell and caused the portal to explode. A portal uses a lot of magic and this one had been held for over a thousand years. All of that magic was unleashed at once and the explosion was devastating.

In hell it destroyed Sha’taan’s enemies when they were on the verge of success. It also destroyed Sha’taan’s link with the elven world and most of his army. He was weak, wounded, and completely vulnerable to attack, but his rivals assumed that the explosion was a new and very powerful weapon and hesitated out of fear. Sha’taan regrouped his surviving army and immediately set about rebuilding it.



In the elven world the destruction of the portal utterly destroyed the Demon Army and devastated the Allies. The survivors of the explosion fled and the armies disintegrated.

The Elves, vowing as a race never to be unprepared for another attack, based their entire culture on becoming the best guerilla fighters in the world. They also invented several martial arts (Eastern) and became some of the best weapon smiths in the world. Elves are very xenophobic. They were the first sentient race on the planet (outside of the Dragons with whom they are still friends) and most elves, especially the older ones consider all other sentients to be Demon-spawn.

Dwarves fled the chaos and vulnerability of open spaces and built fortresses inside of mountains to prevent them from ever becoming slaves again.

Humans settled the land at their whimsy. Unlike the elves, dwarves, or dragons, they were a short lived enough that they soon forgot their origins and the Demon War fell into story and then legend.



A half-elf by the name of Gabriel wanted to preserve knowledge of the Demon War before it was forgotten. He also wanted to preserve knowledge of the world before the demons arrived. Gabriel joined with several like minded elves and half elves and they journeyed to the isle of the Grey Elves. There they met with the elders and learned of the machine.

When they returned to the mainland they discovered that the humans believed in higher powers that they called Gods. Using this, they started a religious movement and founded what later came to be known simply as the Church.

The Church taught of the battle between elves and demons. It taught how the humans were saved and redeemed by the elves. A Book was written, detailing the history of the demon war and included the chronicles of several human and half elven heroes. They called this book the Bible.

Gabriel found an order of Knights dedicated to preserving another book that detailed where the elven isle was and the machine there. Not wanting the Grey Elves to be disturbed needlessly, nor wanting the demons to find the island should they appear again and conquer the city that the Church was based in, he left clues in three major human cities in the form of large statues, buildings, and in writings.

When Gabriel died at the ripe old age of 342 years he was interred per his son’s instructions. His tomb also held clues to the hidden Elven isle.

The first three leaders of the church were male and with elven blood. Gabriel, his son, and his grandson. They lived for a total of 703 years. In that time the Church spread like wild fire and all civilized humans worshiped through the Church. After Gabriel’s line died out full blooded humans took over the leadership of the church and kept the leadership and eventually all members of the church male. In time popular views within the church shifted as memory faded with time.

Elves became angels and gained great white feathered wings while they lost the pointed ears and other distinctive elven features. Gabriel was sainted as were other human heroes of the war.

The humans couldn’t believe that they came from evil, the histories must be wrong. So they invented a divine Creator who created them in his own image.

Sha’taan became the source of all evil in the world, rather than just the evil creatures and over time his name was shortened to Satan.



Other orders of Knights were founded and the original order of Knights took to calling themselves the Knights Templar (Temple Knights, Guardians of the Temple). A new Temple was built for the Church and the Old Temple is where the separate orders of Knighthood made their home.

It is in a hidden room in the foundation of this tower–like Temple that Gabriel’s Book is hidden, as is the original Bible.

Gabriel founded a separate group, the Illuminati (Illuminated ones, ones with knowledge) to protect the knowledge of the elven island and the machine that operated outside of the Church. The Illuminati and Knight’s Templar have often acted against each other over the years. They are now rather bitter enemies.

The flower, Bion’eshe, was destroyed during the war. The last few flowers can only be found on the Hidden Island of the Grey Elves. The machine has been completed but the war ended before it could be used. The magic required to create the machine was so great that it noticeably aged the Grey Elves. Only a handful survived the machine’s creation and none of them are powerful to activate it.



There are three kinds of magic in this world. Draconic, Elven, and Demonic. The source of the magic is the Bion’eshe. This is unknown to all but the Grey Elves. Draconic Magic is unavailable to other races and the Draconic Tongue is unpronounceable to other races.

Humans can learn to cast both Elven and Demonic magic as long as they can read and speak each language and they have access to the spells.

Elven magic focuses on healing, nature, and animals while Demonic magic focuses on necromancy, hurting others, mind control, and killing.


The Campaign:

The campaign that I ran in this world dealt with Sha’Taan’s return. It took four thousand years for him to regroup and to rebuild his army. Even though the magic that had so attracted him in the beginning was almost gone, he knew that the planet was full of races that he could enslave and which would give him a powerful base of operations and supply.

He couldn’t reopen the portal from his side as he had destroyed it. But it could still be opened from the other side. He couldn’t contact anyone on the elven world directly, but he could influence dreams and grant minor visions.

Eventually a vampire named Angra Mainyu dreamed of the demon summons. A powerful Demonic Mage, he immediately cast a spell that allowed him to converse with Sha’taan and together they started making plans.

Angra raised an army of were creatures (created by the elves during the War) and stormed a human city. Under the city is a magical sword, but only someone innocent and pure could remove it from where it hung floating in the air.

Once he had the Sword, Angra would then need to purify himself and the innocent and together, using the Sword as a focus, they could reopen the portal.

Getting the sword is the easy part, Angra could just throw an infant and knock the sword down. But he still needed an innocent who was also a powerful mage. Good luck…

As you know, I play GURPS. One of the rules for Gurps is if you critically mess up a roll while casting a spell, then you roll off of a table. If you roll an 18 (Gurps uses 3D6 for everything) again then you accidentally summon a demon who attacks you and everyone else present.

One of my players, a mage, was terrified of that and kept her character as pure and innocent as possible as a demon cannot harm someone with a pure nature.

Angra kidnapped this character (named Atlantis) and forced her (using charm spells and the like) to help him open the Portal. The other party members rescued Atlantis just after the portal was opened and they fled before the emerging demon army. The Second Demon War had begun.

A few other things happened but the party eventually made it back to the capital city of the Empire that they were from. They informed the Emperor of the invading Demon Army but he just laughed.

The Demon Army showed up within a week and sacked the city as the party (having lost two members and gained two more) escaped by ship. They had some small clues about a mysterious elven weapon that could destroy the demon army.



They did further research and stumbled across one of Gabriel’s clues that pointed them in the right direction. Unfortunately, the Illuminati noticed them and soon assassin’s were after them.

The party discovered a Book of Secrets hidden beneath the Knight’s Tower and got inside the Tower before they were imprisoned by the Templars. They escaped, stole the book that held the Island’s location, and shipped out. Now they had the Illuminati and the entire order of Templars after them.

The book was written in invisible ink, but the party figured out that lemon juice restored the writing to visibility. They also discovered that it was written backwards in Elven. They translated the location of the elven isle and set out to find it.

In the meantime, the Templar’s entire order sailed to the Island and started setting up defensive fortifications.

The leader of the demon army, a human sorceress known only as the Dark Lady, had also discovered the Island while scrying for the source of magic. She immediately sent her second in command, an eight foot tall human monster known as the Dark General (how do I come up with such original names? Talent, I guess ;-).

The general and his best warriors, all Dragon Riders, flew to the Island and met the Knight’s Templar in combat. It is during this battle, that the party finds the island.

They wait until the next morning before landing on the Island. They knew that the weapon was in the center of the volcano in the center of the island. They were nearly there before they were spotted.



During their travels, Gabriel and a PC named Shakira had fallen in love. The night before they landed on the isle they had made love for the first time. It wasn’t until the Dark General and his Blue Dragon attacked that the party found out that they’d been traveling with a dragon the whole time (I gave them plenty of clues but they thought that all elves were weird like Gabriel).

Shakira hopped on Gabriel’s back and they fought the Dark General and his dragon. Shakira lived, though barely. Gabriel, the Dark General, and his dragon all died.

Another PC, I’ll call him Grant because I can’t remember his character’s name, was the magically sworn bodyguard of the third PC, an extremely powerful mage named Dawn (can’t remember her character’s name either, it’s been well over a year now).

They made it to the mountain and were met by Angra and an NPC named Vallecusious (sp) who was once a PC. Val had found some demon armour and in a serious lack of judgement, put it on. The armour is addicting, magical, and cursed. It transforms the wearer into a demon and places them at the control of the Dark Lady.



Grant took on both enemies with minor help from Dawn. Dawn scurried past them and into the cavern. The vampire followed Dawn and she ambushed and killed him, though she was wounded a bit in the fight (it helped that the fight occurred during the day and Angra was not at his most powerful).

Grant killed Val but he lost a leg from the knee down and had an arm crippled.

Dawn made it to the machine where she met the last of the Grey Elves. Together they activated the machine. The machine used their life’s energies for power. The Grey Elf died and turned to dust and Dawn aged 75 years within seconds.

The machine powered up, started lava flowing through special tunnels that fertilized the Bion’eshe seeds. The volcano erupted, launching the seeds into the winds and dispersing them over thousands of miles.

The machine drew energy from the volcanic eruption to power itself up fully and cast a spell so powerful that it moved the elven planet, the sun it orbits, and other nearby planets to another part of the galaxy.

In my world you have to know the beginning and ending point in order to open a portal or teleport. They moved the ending point, and if Sha’taan finds them again, they can move it as needed. This was the only way that a bunch of dedicated pacifist could stop the Demon War. Pretty nifty, eh?


Afterwords:


Dawn retired as a scholar and Grant as stayed as her bodyguard. Dawn slowly regain the use of her magic and Grant did the same with his arm.

Shakira discovered that she was pregnant and retired to raise her and Gabriel's child in peace. As their child is half human and half dragon polymorphed into an elf, we don't know how it'll turn out.

Comments anyone?

I had a dream...

Warning: Foul Language. You have been warned. If you do not like foul language including the words shit, fuck, and ass, then please do not read any further. You have been warned.

I was napping on my way to work today when I had a strange dream. I can sleep traveling two and from work because I carpool with my wife and she is kind enough to drive everyday.

I think that my dream was influenced by the music that my wife was listening to. Britney Spears “Lucky” is the last song that I remember before zoning out.

In my dream I had written a book or something and had become very rich. Of course, being relatively young and rich, I got invited to A-list parties in Hollywood.

Don’t laugh! This was a DREAM, remember?

So anyways, in this dream I was standing around at this party talking to celebrities like Vin Deisel (is “Vin” his first name?), Wesley Snipes, and yes, Britney Spears. There were also directors, musicians and stuff.

But instead of the normal inane conversations that you’d expect at a party, we were going at it pretty viciously.

Basically, I was chewing these celebs out for being money grubbing sellouts. I asked Vin Deisel why he made such a complete ass fest as the “Pacifier”? Did he even read the script? Or did he lose a bet or something?

Why hasn’t Snipes been in anything since the Blade trilogy started ten years ago?

I didn’t even speak to Spears, she was kinda in the background chain-smoking at a table while she piled mounds of food onto the plates that her husband carried for her as he listened to a constant stream of invective spewing forth in a puff of smoke from her white trash mouth.

I did see Paris Hilton. The sight was stomach churning enough that I almost walked over and sullied my hands by punching her in her nasty snatch face. I doubt that it’d hurt her though. It’d be like punching an almost life-sized Barbie doll. The head is hollow plastic and would just pop back into place. I doubt that she’d even notice.

Instead, I turned and conveniently found the producers of almost every bad TV show and movie for the last few years and tore into them instead. I informed them that the reason that they are losing so much money is because they have been forcing shitty products down our throats for so long that inevitably there is going to be a backlash. As soon as people have the ability to create their own shows and movies they won’t put up with the studio’s mindless tripe anymore.

They tried giving me excuses and justifying why they put out crap. They claimed that the vast majority of people are stupid and will watch almost anything, as evidenced by the popularity of shows like the Simple Life, Jerry Springer, Desperate Housewives, soap operas, and movies like Shaggy Dog, the Pacifier, Brokeback Mountain, Wolf Creek, Traffic, and the list goes on and on…

Unfortunately, we arrived at work and my wife woke me up right before I lost it and physically attacked the blubbering fools.



Why is it that we have so much crap on TV? Why do they spend MILLIONS of dollars making shit like the fucking Pacifier? And why do rich stars like Vin Deisel, who already have enough money that they never need to work again, sign up for mindless campy crap like that? What the hell are these people thinking?

How does it work? Vin Deisel gets the script for a movie about a Navy Seal who has to babysit a bunch of kids. Not only that, but he’s assigned to be the kids bodyguard, nanny, mother. Father, rolemodel, blah, blah, blah… And they have a pet goose.

What’d he do? Read the script and say, “Hole Shit! This is the best script ever. I have to do this one! Call my agent!” (because he’s too rich to actually pick up a phone and call someone his self)? I doubt it.

Or did he get a good script, agree to do it and signed a contract obligating him to do it, and then they changed the script on him? The basic concept of a hard core Navy Seal babysitting a bunch of brats could have been funny. Instead it was just sad.



What about the Shaggy Dog? Is Tim Allen under a contract with Disney that he HAS to make whatever movie that they want no matter how shitty it is? Galaxy Quest was great! The Santa Clause was good (it’s sequel much less so). So why take a talented and funny guy like Tim Allen and throw him into a movie like the Shaggy Dog and that Christmas one from last year? I bet he'd rather take electrical shock treatment to the testicals than to sign his name to something that bad. At least I would.

I mean, I can understand a no talent hack like Lindsey Lohan starring in a shit-fest like Herbie Reloaded or whatever, but not Vin Deisel, Tim Allen, and Morgan Freeman. These are real actors with talent and worth. What are they doing in shitty movies?

And why are people with no talent being put in movies that require acting ability and charisma? Ben Afleck is not a fucking star, he is a supporting character at most! Paris Hilton’s only redeeming quality is that she’s rich! That’s it! Nothing else about her is worth mentioning!






There is supposed to be a video game coming out soon called the Movies. This game allows you to start up a movie studio in the 1930’s and run it up to today. You can write scripts, cast actors, direct, and then watch the (short) film that you have made. Of course, this game keeps getting pushed further and further back. It’s graphics are less than the standard and overall, the gameplay doesn’t look very good.

But what a great idea! How long before Microsoft and other companies put out movie making software so that you can create movies in your own home and play them on your DVD player? They’d have to start with animated features, and eventually move up to “live” action films.

Then maybe talented but poor people who love movies will get recognized and be allowed to make feature films. How cool would that be?

O.k., I'm done now. Yes, I feel better. Thank you.

Review of Gurps Character Generator 4th ed.

My friend Dawn gave me a copy of the Gurps Character Generator for 4th ed. I had the 3rd ed. Character Generator before and I loved how easy it was to use and so it was with anticipation that I sat down to transfer my character, Sir Deimos of Ironhold, into electronic format. Boy was I disappointed…

The “4th ed.” character generator doesn’t comply with the 4th ed. rules out of the books. Nor does it have all the skills and skill classes listed in the Basic books. Let me explain.


In the books, weapons are organized by class and characters can study the class skill or specific weapons within that class.

For example, in the Basic book, you could have Swords as a skill, meaning all swords with a one or two handed grip that you swing and poke with that have a blade that is two feet long or longer. This includes broadswords, bastard swords, great swords, claymores, and others. It does not include fencing weapons or shortswords.

The reasoning is that a person who can wield a broadsword should be able to wield a claymore. It’s not that far of a stretch, skill-wise. I know this from experience.

Or you can specify that you know Broadsword as a skill, but have never picked up a claymore or used a bastard sword.


My character is a knight who is trained in a multitude of weapons. I gave him the sword skill as a class, allowing him to pick up and use different swords during battle, which he has done on several occasions now. But the “4th ed.” character generator doesn’t allow for this. The character generator only allows you to pick specific sword skills (i.e. broadsword).

I pointed this discrepancy out to my GM and we reread the weapons rules and agreed that the character generator was still going by the 3rd ed. rules. How lame is that?

Another feature that I didn’t like was the automatic defenses. As I stated above, my character is a well trained knight. He has already fought a three year war and is well versed in a multitude of weapons. His two best combat skills are the longbow and the broadsword. He is a master swordsman who spends a lot of time teaching others how to use their weapons when he has the time.

Gurps has three basic defenses. A dodge; based on your movement with the option to have bonuses because of certain skills or advantages. Blocking; which is the ability to block attacks using a shield. And a Parry; which can be used with a weapon or with your hand to hand combat skill. The character sheet has a box for each of these defenses, but only allows one entry per box.

My best close combat weapon skill, and the one that I use the most, is my sword skill. That is what I would like to have in my Parry box. That way it is easily referenced and available for everyone. For some reason, the generator entered my Brawling parry into the Parry box and there doesn’t seem to be a way to change that. How lame…

Seriously, how often am I going to use Brawling? I’ve used it in the middle of a fight before, but not on a regular basis. I think that I used my brawling parry once in the game so far, and that was only because my sword was stuck in another foe. So why can’t I pick which parry to use? Wouldn’t that make sense?

The last problem that comes to mind is the character sheet itself. I did a print preview of my character sheet and noticed that the area that lists each of the weapons that I own, their stats (dmg, ranged, etc.), and their costs was all jumbled together. The different weapons overlapped so badly that you couldn’t read what it said. It was utterly useless.

Before you ask, I have updated the generator with all the patches and whatnot from Steve Jackson Games. I did this before starting on my character. Normally, I can count on Steve Jackson Games to put out a quality product (outside of the never-ending binding issue) but this is a huge disappointment.

Will I use this product in the future? Yes. I will use it to make characters, but I’ll probably have to write them out since you can’t read a lot of important information. I will also have to add in skills that are missing from the Basic book, like Military Science.

Would I recommend that you go out and by this product? Only if you can’t figure out how to write up a character on your own. Or if you are extremely lazy or if you have handwriting that only you can read, and even that is a stretch. Other than that, I’d have to say that this product is a waste of money.

A review of Requiem for the Conqueror by W. Michael Gear

I’ve been going back and rereading the books that I grew up with and loved. I do this in part because I remember them fondly and I hope that I’ll enjoy as much now as I did then. Another reason is that I’m getting a little nostalgic in my old age (I’m turning 31 in a month). And another reason is that I know more and have experienced more, thus my experience reading these books changes over time. I find it fascinating to read something that I once thought of as a work of art only to find that I view it as illiterate garbage.

The newest book that I’ve reread is “Requiem for the Conqueror” by W. Michael Gear, the first book in the Forbidden Borders trilogy. The book is 622 pages long and too me three days to finish.

The Forbidden Borders are an energy field enclosing humanity to a limited amount of space. This space is rather large and holds dozens of systems, and humanity has been waging war to conquer all of it (from each other, not from aliens or anything).

The main characters are all very interesting, and the “world” is cool, but the author has interjected a lot of religion into the story.

I wouldn’t normally mind this but the religion in question is rather senseless and weak. Gear almost comes off as an understudy of L. Ron Hubbard (notice the initial instead of a first name!) and his Scientology which also started in his novels.

Despite that, this was a very good book. I’m glad that I bought it, but I wouldn’t buy it in hardback. Is that a good enough evaluation?

How’s this; I’d give this book 3 ½ outta 5 stars. It’s better than a lot of books, but not as good as The Song of Fire and Ice by George R.R. Martin or the the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan.

The future of the Houston Texans

So now that the NFL draft is over I have a few things to say. I know that you’re all anxiously awaiting my reactions and commentary so here we go.

Houston Texans:

Did they completely miss the chance of a lifetime by passing on Reggie Bush or what? Reggie Bush (the only Bush that I ever liked or respected) is potentially the best running back in the ENTIRE HISTORY of football.

I know that the Texans have a really good (when healthy) running back in Dominic Davis. I also know that the team’s biggest problem is their front line, not the RB or Wide Receivers.

And granted, the Texans did an excellent job with the rest of the draft and shored up a LOT of weak areas.

But why did they pass over Bush for a Defensive End? Williams is a great athlete and will make an impact on defense, but why pass on someone who can arguably be the greatest player of all time?

But they did, and Bush got picked up by the New Orleans Saints (a waste of a football team).

I do have to say, with the exception of being stupid with Bush (maybe they confused Reggie Bush with the other Bush who’s been making headlines by being retarded and in power?) they’ve done an excellent job with all the shuffling and moving since hiring Gary Kubiak as their head coach.

I was so excited when Kubiak got the job and I’ve already had to raise my expectations a couple of times. It’s almost like reaching football nirvana. Of course, that won’t happen until the Texans win the Superbowl, but that shouldn’t be too much longer now…

I KNOW that the Texans will de better than last year, it’d be hard not to. How much better? Well, that’s the question now, isn’t it?

I think that the Texans stand a good chance of making the playoffs as a wild card contender. They have the ever improving Colts juggernaut in their division as well as the Jaguars (not a sorry team) and the Titans, who have made some improvements in the offseason and may not be the joke we were used to anymore.

I think that this is one of the toughest divisions in the league. Think about it:

The Patriots have no competition in their division. The other teams in that division may be competition in the NFC, but are too sorry to compete in the AFC arena. In fact, the only good team in the AFC are the Seahawks, and that’s been a recent change for the better.

The Bengals and Steelers are both great teams, but the other two teams in their division are more like practice squads than teams.

Denver has a pretty good rival in KC, but the Chargers haven’t been a threat in years and the Raiders are in the same sorry sad state that they’ve been since the lost the Superbowl and then Rich Gannon.


Compare that to the Colts, who went 14-2 last year and seem to average 35 points a game. Or compare those teams with the Jaguars who managed a very respectable 12-4 record last season. These two teams had a higher winning percentage than every other team in the NFL except for the Broncos and the Seahawks, who managed to slip in between them with 13-3 records.

Ya, the Titans sucked last year, but they’ve managed to grab Vince Young QB and LenDale White RB, two of the best picks of the draft.

As a junior, Young was 182-of-285 (63.9 percent) for 2,769 yards and 26 TDs to go with 850 yards rushing and nine (rushing) TDs. His 168.6 passing efficiency rating led the nation, and he became Texas’ single-season record-holder in total offense with 3,619 yards.

White has a big, powerful frame; combines speed and power to hit the hole with authority; consistently breaks tackles; and has the lateral quickness to bounce outside and make the big play. He moves the chains consistently and can get the tough yardage near the goal line as well as break a 20-yard run.

In 13 games, he had 197 carries for 1302 yards for a fine 6.6 yards-per-carry average, along with 24 TDs (the longest scoring play was 46 yards) and an average of 100.2 yards per game. He had 14 catches for 219 yards (a 15.6- yards-per-catch average) and two TDs. He lost only 17 yards rushing over the entire season. He scored a school-record 57 career TDs. He did not work out at the Combine.

Talk about a double threat.

What did the Texans get? A shut down defensive end who will have a great career.

The official reasoning behind grabbing Williams over Bush was beating the Colts. A worthy goal.

But it’s almost impossible to beat the Colts with defense. You need to outscore them more than anything else.

Last season the Colts made 49 touchdowns compared to the 26 that their opponents managed to get. The Colts defense is one of the best in the league and has been a huge factor in winning 14 games last season.

To beat the Colts, a team needs to have a defense that can throw pressure on Manning QB. They also need a great offense.

There is no way to stop that Colts from scoring. The best that can be hoped for is to keep them from getting over 21 points a game. Therefore, having a great offence is required in order to outscore and beat them.

If you can beat the Colts, then you can beat anyone. And you can win the Superbowl.

I think that the Texans will be able to take on the Colts by next year at the latest. I predict that they’ll have a 9-7 season this year.

But hey, I’m an optimist!