D&D Next?

Some interesting stuff here.

Of course, this announcement has started me thinking about what rules I want to play the game with in the future.  I remain unsettled on that score.  For the time being, with Ptolus (2.0) in the offing, we'll obviously stick with 3.5 (or rather, methinks Pathfinder/3.5 with the tie going to Pathfinder).  As for my planned 4e campaign... well, it looks like that could be an obsolete rules set by the time we get around to it, but we'll see.  I've also been thinking of doing my homebrew campaign with a completely different system, say Savage Worlds... but again, no decisions have been made on that score.

In any event, I did some work on a couple of adventures that I was planning to do in 4e and may still, including a one-shot holiday themed adventure that I'd like to do next December.  Stay tuned for more on that later.

For now, the Ptolus reboot is the first thing on the horizon.  As always, life is a bitch and things like chronic illnesses, family crises, and work situations make planning difficult.  But I'm committed to making this work.  Hopefully we can start Ptolus 2.0 in March.  Look at your calendars, think about your characters.  We'll make it happen.  I'm thinking a once a month schedule might be doable, with a possible big two game day weekend at some point over the summer.  Maybe.  Anyway...

A Question

Unfortunately, it has been far longer between Ptolus sessions than I intended.  I apologize for that, I didn't want to tease you guys with a campaign and not deliver.  Hopefully my health situation will be better under control soon and we can get around to resuming the game.

Which brings me to my question.  Since it has been so long ago since we started the Ptolus campaign, it seems to me that we have a problem, or an opportunity... depending on your point of view.  It strikes me that some of you may have forgotten the who, what, when, where, and why of the campaign, since we started playing.  Some of you may have come up with a different character idea, a new hook, whatever and may not be excited about going back to your previous character.  I think you see where this is going...

In short, I want to give you the opportunity for a reboot.  Now don't get me wrong.  I am neither pushing for this, nor lobbying against it.  I just realize it might be easier for everyone (and perhaps more fun) if we just started over from scratch.  So..., I'm leaving up to the group, as a group, to decide.  Do you want to continue the campaign we started, or do you want a Ptolus reboot?

Discuss.

Here We Go Again

Players Roll the Dice for Dungeons & Dragons Remake

. . . On Monday, Wizards of the Coast, the Hasbro subsidiary that owns the game, announced that a new edition is under development, the first overhaul of the rules since the contentious fourth edition was released in 2008. And Dungeons & Dragons’ designers are also planning to undertake an exceedingly rare effort for the gaming industry over the next few months: asking hundreds of thousands of fans to tell them how exactly they should reboot the franchise. . . .

Lummox Envy

“Collecting penises is like collecting anything. You can never stop, you can never catch up, you can always get a new one, a better one,” Hjartarson said as he reached into the museum's penis-shaped cash register to return some change to a customer, before picking up a phone of the same shape.

From this article about the Icelandic Phallological Museum:

The Icelandic Phallological Museum (Icelandic: Hið Íslenzka Reðasafn) in Húsavík, Iceland houses the world's largest collection of penises and penile parts. By July 2011, it had 276 penises taken from 46 species, including homo sapiens. Its collection includes 55 penises taken from whales, 36 from seals and 118 from land mammals, including a wide variety of domestic, wild, terrestrial, and marine animals and an unfortunate stray polar bear shot by fishermen who found it drifting on pack ice off the Westfjords. . . .

The Girl That Haunts My Dreams

- by Farland Dane

(A dwarfish love song)

Her eyes are as dark as a brandy, so fine.

Her lips are as sweet as bumblefruit wine.

And I want to plant my pick deep in her mine.

The woman that haunts my dreams.

She has a firm grip and she never lets go.

Her thighs hold me tight to her while in the throes.

I feel passion with her that I've never known.

The woman that haunts my dreams.

Her smile is so wicked while we work up a sweat.

She’s wild and screams, “Oh, you’re not finished yet.”

She mines my shaft deep for all she can get.

The woman that haunts my dreams.

She moves like a river running wild and fast.

I try to keep pace but not sure I can last.

We finally finish in a gigantic blast.

I wake up and change my sheets.

Ptolus Campaign Recap: Session 1

17th of Blessing, 721 I.A. (Imperial Age)

Our intrepid adventurers, for one reason or another, find themselves in Ptolus, the City by the Spire.  They each, for reasons of their own, end up at the Ghostly Minstrel in Delver's Square.  Farland Dane, the gnome bard, is there for the music and the connections he can make to Ptolus's bardic community.  He quickly makes friends with the talented Tarin Ursalatao who has, of late, been a regular on the Minstrel's stage.  When he's not hanging out at the Minstrel, drinking too much, and sleeping it off in the dog bed behind the bar, Farland plays a regular gig at The Black Swan pub where he is picking up some of the raunchiest dwarven drinking songs around.  Through Tarin, Farland is introduced to Marlowe Atrabonc, the chief writer and director at Midtown's Cloud Theater.  Marlowe offers Farland a part in the orchestra for his newest play "The Boy Who Could Sing."

Meanwhile, Grimslade the Vermin Hunter, a refugee from the sacked Imperial Capital, Tarsis, arrives in Ptolus enticed by the promise of a newly announced bounty on the tails of the Ratmen that plague the sewers and sometimes streets of Ptolus.  Grimslade visits Bith the Ratter, one of Ptolus' more interesting small businessmen, and is pointed towards a rat hunting job at, of all places, the Cloud Theater.

Prithvi, the enigmatic, yet blunt Vanara woman takes a room at the Ghostly Minstrel and strikes up conversations with the other patrons.  Prithvi has a sweet tooth, and spends extravagantly in the Minstrel's dining room. She is inquisitive, and soon makes the acquaintance of several other of the Inn's guests, including the handsome young cleric Auric, and the dwarf mage, T_______.  

.... to be edited and expanded.

Well, this is simply Awesome

This.

And why I can't get the image to upload, I don't know.

Two Things

1.  There is an unfinished recap of Ptolus game session number one in the unpublished posts.  Please feel free to add to it if you wish.  I would like to keep an ongoing record of each session as we go along so that two years from now we can actually remember with more clarity game events.  If you do decide to provide some updates, do them in a different font or sign them parenthetically so we'll all know who contributed what.

2.  In the comments lets start talking about possible July or August game dates.  I might be out all of July (I apologize) because of job stuff, but we'll see.  There is a possibility right now that I might get a new job and have to move sometime in July... if that happens you could all come help me move and we could play D&D when we were done! (right? anyone? anyone?).