A DnD Tale: Ghost in the Tower

It's Only Been an Hour

So we ended up with a bit more sessions to move the plot along. Awakening to a brand new morning they head into the town where they split up. The Silverhawks and Sphinx head for the dwarven smith to repair the sword... which they can't do due to the trade caravans not running since the roads are infested with bandits and the Lord Warden tries to fight of the threat. What they need is some dragon scales... which they could have taken from the dragons corpse, I'm an evil DM. Meanwhile the rest of the group have entered the wizards tower to get the letter translated. They do so and finds out that the Dark Lady is the vessel of Tiamat and operates from a keep near Winterhaven. Nimozaran warns them that they must stop this plan no matter the cost since the items she collected and ritual mentioned could be to let Tiamat roam this world once again, destroying all civilisations that exist in the wake of the chaos goddess. He also seems to recognise the tiefling in their company, but can't quite grasp where he have seen her. Not even his apprentice can help him. So they leave and head for the Silver Unicorn Inn to meet up with the others. They meet up and head for the Import shop to look for a job, but sadly, the caravans aren't moving meaning they have neither gods to send or caravans to guard. Although the store owner will contact them as fast as possible, he also hints them to the tower and the Upper Quays where a dwarf named Strongbeard can ferry them across. 

Since He Locked Her in the Tower

 The dwarf let one off his men ferry them across and the Silverhawks set up a camp outside the ruined tower. The rest goes in. The bottom floor has a ring in one of the stone slabs so the thief climbs to the top and uses a rope in a hook in the ceiling which they uses to pull open the slab, they tie it to a light stuck on the wall and climbs down to a secret room beneath the river floor. The floor is full of decayed corpses from the Bloodspear wars 90 years ago. Apparently the nobles hid below the floor, but somehow couldn't escape afterwards and starved to death. They find a hidden door and apparently footprints leading in and out. Barefoot human-sized to be precise. They open the door, illuminates the tunnel and enters... and behind them they hear a crash. Sphinx heads back as he guards the rear and the stone slab has fallen in place. There is only one way out as they know of and that is the secret passage. They walk for several hours until they reach the end of the tunnel. Another door, but this one radiates arcane magic. It's blocked by a spell which seems to have dwindled due to the passing of time, they deduce they must be back in Kobold Manor. They break the spell and enters the underground lake. All they hear is a gnawing sound. They try to be as stealthy possible, but it doesn't help and three grey wolves attack them. After a short battle they head back to town and stand in cue for the toll. The sergeant arrest them due to not existing in their register and they blab about how they crossed the river with the help of Strongbeard. The sergeant sees her chance and arrest them all for smuggling. They are brought to the dungeons below the Fallcrest keep and are soon joined by Strongbeard and the Silverhawks who just had come back from the island and was caught up in all of this.

The Time has Come

Apparently the roof gave way and the stone slab went back in place so they waited out the ferry since there is no support to lift it again. Strongbeard is furious and tells them that when he gets out of here they will have hell to pay. The guards arrive and bring them all to the throne room as the Lord Warden has returned. He takes payment from Strongbeard and let him go and ask the party how they were able to leave the town. Under much pressure they tell him about the secret passage below the tower. Kiera, the half-elven bard also mentions that she must get ready to perform so she and Despair prepares (Despair is bound to her with a magic collar so that she won't escape). The rest goes to bed as Kiera plays the night away in front of the towns nobles and important people.

A DnD Tale: Thief in the Night

He was a Magic Man

After almost 2 years the craving for a real dungeon crawl in DnD went so strong I was left with only one option... I roped in my three sisters and brother-in-law. So I went all in and wrote a short adventure that spiralled for all 20 levels and even godhood if need be. I probably won't reach that level, but let's see how far I can get them (which probably is a big fault from my side, but hey, it's my first time as a DM). Back-story is that my brother-in-law is a dragon born named Sphinx, son of Phalanx. A paladin of the Bahamut order sent to the mercenary company Silverhawks in Fallcrest for his training. Sarion, the eldarin wizard on a journey to Fallcrest to discuss some recently discovered relics from a long lost kingdom with the green wizard. Kiera, the half-elven bard entertainer that are travelling through and lastly Despair, the tiefling rouge trying to escape the slums of the town by stripping it down, even the smallest copper coin don't go free.

Holy Fighter in an Ancient War

I used the training dungeon in the Dungeon Master's Guide together with the town Fallcrest as a setting to make it easy to adopt it. So three players are arriving at Fallcrest, the first is Sphinx that on the way to the Silverhawks company gets pick-pocketed and has to get help from their captain, Tyrell the Swift, an half-elven bard searching for a statue of Bahamut stolen earlier from the Temple. Meanwhile Sarion has reached the Green wizards tower where the wizard informs him that the artefact, a jewel rose has been stolen and he localised the thief with his crystal ball so Sarion and the wizards helper tries to find her (if you haven't guessed it it's Despair). At the same time Kiera enters the town and gets pick-pocketed immediately, but catches the thief in the act, but receives a fist in the face so the hunt is on. running through the streets they almost push Sarion to the ground, but recognising the thief from the crystal ball follows suit. They follow the thief to the lower quays where she enters a building and looks the door behind her. They bang on the door, but can't enter and instead attracts the attention of seven kobold minions surrounding them. After some slashes arrows begin firing from the roof-top. A dark shadowy creatures emerges and kills off five of them when the bard kills one of them with one hit while the last one runs off. The wizard mostly fired magic missiles all across the scene illuminating them. Down jumps a drow elf and starts picking the lock. Meanwhile Sphinx tried his luck with the leader of the River Rats, Kelson, but get laughed at for getting pick-pocketed at the first day on the job. He also mentions the most likely suspect is Despair, the rouge he more or less fired from the gang for sticking her fingers in the profit margins. They follow the clue to Sandercoots provisions where they open the front door, but the paladin armour scrambles so high that the sons of the owner comes down to rough up the intruder. It ends with Sphinx throwing one of the sons across the room, through the door and into the room where the owner haggles with Despair... which could have gone better. She got rid of most of the goods, except a pyramid of Onyx she stole from Kiera which she tried to bluff off as a treasure from the Lord Warden... which I spun as being extremely hot for the black market so she would have to pay me to get rid of it for her. Still, Despair got caught between the groups and ratted out by the Sandercoots as they felt the noose around their necks. All well that ends well... they thought. An explosion from the backroom where the goods are stored interrupts the party and they head back where they find the goods missing and a lot of dead kobold bodies from the explosion they set up. The Sandercoots offers some guiding help to the Kobold Manor and a map for some small compensation... the 2000 gold coins Despair had collected. After that they head over to the Silver Unicorn inn to rest as the darkness have fallen. Tomorrow they went for the Kobold Manor.

Only light in the darkness shining forever more

They enter Kobold Manor while the two Silverhawk members, Tyrell and Argent the Fallen guards the entrance and keeps their escape free. After hard fighting they kills off the guards in the first floor that they spend four hours resting up after to restore their strength. They break down the barriers to the second level. There they enter a grave chamber and fights off three skirmisher kobolds and unfortunately activates several of the dart traps immobilising all of them, except the paladin. Afterwards they breaks the statues being the source of the darts. After some nasty backfires of course. Meanwhile the paladin finds a Tiamat alter that he smashes. They enter the third area where the kobolds are invested in a game of Skull-Skull where they throw a wrecking-ball at four coffins... and any one foolish enough to enter. After an intense battle they take another long rest as two fell unconscious during the battle. The fourth area they sneak into listening to a mysterious lady berating the kobold for the measly treasures they offer Tiamat. She takes the rose, the statue and the pyramid and start to leaves but notices the heroes in the doorway and alert the kobolds before leaving through a side-door. The kobolds unleashes a rolling boulder trap that starts rolling down as two slinger kobolds climbs up from the middle area and starts throwing rocks at the party. The trap sadly backfires at the kobolds as the party tricks them into its path or the best part bullrush a flying drake onto the ground so it gets crushed. After finishing of the cultist leader they head for the secret passage and enters an underground passage with an ice covered floor. All they can hear is something breathing in the cave. Sphinx and Despair sneaks down the columns past the ice lake and finds a sleeping dragon. They detect a magic door on the side. but the rouge accidentally awakens the dragon. It starts off ice-breathing the two intruders, but the paladin avoids damage, but the tiefling takes it head on. In retaliation the rouge blinds the dragon that stumbles out on the ice lake where the wizard finally gets one hit and burns the dragon and the ice so it falls into the water. The dragon surrounded on all sides it crawls up and intimidates the wizard to inaction and bloodies the dragonborn. At this moment, after waiting over 9 hours, the members of the Silverhawks venture down the path wondering where they disappeared too and joins the fight. The Drow ready his bow for a sure shot attack. He fires and... miss. He re-rolls and... miss. He uses his action point and... miss. Just like old times. Anyway, the battle rages on for some time, several of the characters get bloodied (Argent accidentally shot Tyrell in the back one time), until Spinx smites the dragon with his flail. They search the cave and finds a chest with a letter they can read and several treasures (which I forgot to give them during the course of the adventure... oops!). They try to enter the magic door but it is sealed by a powerful magic spell, wrought by Tiamat. They get Tyrell to fiddle with the spell, but he unleashes the trap that send him and his two assistants across the room while the cave tumbles in over the door. The wizard Sarion restores the cave, but the door still stands, untouched. They decide to head back to Fallcrest. There they can't enter the town as the gates are closed for the night. They enter the inn just outside and are introduced to the owner and important noble tiefling. They gather information on some rather interesting tidbits happening in town. Apparently a ghost have been spotted in the tower in the middle of the river, the lord warden is away dealing with the bandits led by Wren, the draconian in the north, usual complaint of high taxes and so on. They talk bit about further plans to get their items back before going to bed.

And that concludes my first couple of sessions as a DM. Maybe not the best, but I think I got the right story hooks. I'm just a little bad at getting them to talk between them and tell more of the setting. They seemed to enjoy it though. Next is levelling up and see if there will be some more play session before they leave... although since this happened during the Christmas holiday I will probably know. Also I put this on the video game Wednesday since it kept me away from completing video games during the holiday so enjoy. Also I played 4th edition since that's the one I've played and since I'm the only one experienced it probably was for the better. Plus it got all the extra material I can use compared to 5th edition... at the moment of writing that is.

Steel Empire

Or Empire of Steel as it was known in Europe

Finally after more than a year we in Europe could get our hand on this remaster of a classic shooter, Steel Empire. I got the original for the Sega Mega Drive and I guess it was the cover that grabbed me since I don't know why I would have bought it otherwise. I might have been into aviation at the time. That was a good buy I say. The visuals was amazing portraying this steam punk adventure and the amazing gadgets like trains, windmills and such. A pity the colour schemes have been changed for some of the enemies. I guess it was to adjust to a more "HD"-look as well the 3D which work nice and at least have some purpose in showing what you can pass through or not.Also the background visuals on some stages are amazing, especially the sky mission. Lastly the music is as good as I remember, but I think they toned it down from the original. Although they can't quite emulate the Mega Drives special sound so it might be cleaner, but misses the grit that pushed the original up and beyond.

They even showed the notes for the intro at the intro screen

So what is it about? The Empire of Motorhead, lead by General Saurlon (the l is silent) has conquered its neighbours with their machines fueled with coal and steam and only the republic of Silverhead remains and by equipping their last line of defence, the Reinhardt, with a bipedal plane and zeppelin capable of using the newly discovered weapon Lightning Bomb and attacking the Empire at its core, the Imperial Capital Damned. First you save your ally mining town, then stop the empire from attacking through some abandoned mines. You attack the empire head on at there sky fortress and takes a diversion through the imperial anti-air batteries at the coast. Sadly the ruse is found out and the Reinhardt is destroyed leaving you and your plane/zeppelin as the only hope against the capital. You take the capital, but Saurlon escapes to his mountain fortress which you climbs and enters and find a cannon capable of sending a rocket to the moon. You fly after him and after a long battle his rocket is destroyed.

Reenactment of Saurlons journey

How awesome is that? A freaking space battle on the moon surface with a plane/zeppelin firing lightning bombs. This would be an awesome cartoon series for at least 14 episodes. I finished this game once as kid and on easy, took me a whole lot of lives and maybe even a continue. This time one sitting 2-3 deaths, of course also on easy, but it feels like I'm better at this now. I really like this game and to me well worth the wait. I actually thought we never would see it here and then they drop the price right of the bat compared to the American release. Awesome, although I will have to get better to finish the damn achievement puzzle so I can see the whole picture.

Thunder and Lightning heading your way, Stormbringer coming, time to die!

Wild Arms (PS3)

Spagetti-RPG

More than a year ago I watched the Completionist let's play channel where they played this very game. It looked rather fun and since I had a craving for JRPGs I went ahead and got it. Finished it now and boy it was really good. It was probably a blessing since much that they played through I've already forgotten so it was fun to rediscover it although some twist you kinda can't forget. The special about this game is that it has a western setting and theme to it... which basically means that instead of a samurai game there is guns, since the spaghetti western already proved you could take Japanese samurai movies and set them in the west and they were as good (up to ones taste of course). Of course this is Japan so it isn't enough so you get Golems, which are basically mechs, demon cyborgs, space elves, guardian spirits, space stations and cities and human cyborgs. It's freaking amazing.

I AM IRON MAN!

The story is that the world of Filgaia is under siege by the race of demons, who are space travelling parasites, part machines. They are led by Mother who is the first and pretty much a Lavos who travel from planet to planet devouring it. But 1000 years ago they came to Filgaia where the Elw (space elves), humans and guardian spirits united their forces and defeated the demons and put Mother in stasis. Of course the battle took its toll so the Elw escaped to another dimension  while the technology level of humans went back from the space age one to a wild west setting while the guardian spirits put up mechanism to contain Mother which obviously, since this is an JRPG, starts to fail one Millenia later. The intro cutscene tells of the demons return and attack on castle Antarctica where they have found the cocoon prison of Mother in an excavation and only one person escapes the onslaught. Jump forward some years and you met your three main protagonist. Rudy, a boy who tries his best to help people, but since his abilities scares people he is always wandering aimlessly across the world. Then there is Cecilia, the princess of Adlehyde who is the chosen one of the guardians to be the protector of the Tear Drop, some sort of artefact. And last there is Jack, the swordsman treasure hunter with his talking mouse Hanpan... who quite clearly is the lone survivor of Antarctica. They all met excavating a golem named Lolitha and due to an attack of the demons that steals them away you set out on adventure to save the world.

Always bring a gun to a sword fight

During the course of the adventure you will fail to stop the resurrection of Mother, but since her only desire is to destroy the other demons allow you to finish her of since they want to make Filgaia their own home. In an confrontation with Zeikfried (the main demon lord after mother) he deciedes to chance it all by overloading a generator and creating a black hole that will swallow them all, but he believes he is strong enough so he uses a chain of magic silver to hold Rudy. As the chains won't break Rudy cuts his own arm of revealing that Rudy is really made of Living Metal, a machine created during the war as soldiers that went out of control to become killing machines. Of course Rudy is different since his time spent with his grandfather gave him a caring heart (although I've slaughtered monsters and demons left and right and hit bullies and so on). So you must go to the Elw dimension so that they can fix his arm. Unfourtunalty I remember that so the twist didn't have the same impact when I played through it. Also, Zeikfried ended up where Mothers weekend body was left and she devoured him overtaking his mind and continue her search for destroying Filgaia. A tower rises in the middle of the world and you climb that and end up on a space colony that orbited the planet and has a final confrontation with "Motherfried"... utterly ridicules name. After that you use the transportation device back, but are intercepted by Zeikfried that regained his own will and fight in the dimensional space causing the tower to explode and the Golem sacrificing himself to save our heroes. Freaking AWESOME.

You're an ugly Mother...

Really this game is so over the top with it's setting and it's memorable and fun to wander this world. The gameplay is amazing, besides the typical rpg you have tools in which you can traverse the dungeons which is fairly reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda, with hookshot, magic wands, bombs and radars which also gives us some rather fun puzzles (except those that are just a pain, like the four statues that makes three of them placed correctly and the fourth must be destroyed by a bomb). Also, the music is unbelievebale good and fit the western themes with acoustic guitars, whistling and so on. It's really good, although I think it glitches out on me a couple of times when it couldn't decide which music track to play or which sound effect to use... of course just change setting and you are good to go. Talking about glitches I need to tell that I played the game as intended for almost half the time then I recalled the duplicator tricks and used that to max out my stats. The trick is that you use an item twice in combat and then change it with something you only have 1 of and want to duplicate. The game doesn't realise the item has been moved so uses the items with intended effect, but since its counting the new item which only has 1 of it counts zero and then 255, giving you 255 of that item. This is a really simple glitch when even I understand why it occurs. This apparently only works on the original game, but really, the game isn't that hard and it probably saved me 10 hours of grinding for levels and cash. If I play this game again I will most likely play it as intended without the glitch, but I just wanted the story this time. 

To think that one of the characters is actually almost 30, unthinkable

A final note, I already mentioned the similarities to Lavos from Chrono Trigger, another similarities was a cutscene when a tsunami was hitting the world which looks identical to a scene played after the destruction of the Kingdom of Zael and then one of the concept arts during the credits looks awfully familiar to a similar concept art for Chrono Trigger. Just a funny note.(you could probably say the tower of Kal Dingle is similar to the Black Omen). Also, New Year Tomorrow. Wonder what 2016 will have in store.

Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens

Where's Jar Jar?

Finally watched the latest Star Wars movie and gotta say, I'm satisfied... of course I probably said that back in 1999 as well. I even watched episode IV-VI in anticipation and at this very moment VII feels faster and better paced than all the old ones. Better characterisation than I-III, maybe equal to the original trilogy and same music, but felt more present than the others. Very much better dialoge although some names still sound rather silly, like Snokes. Really intimidating... or maybe not. So now I'm gonna be a real Homer and spoil many parts of the movie so a fair warning.

Last warning: Spoilers ahead!

So Rey is the Jedi of this series? Fine enough. Beating of a trained... sith-lord (?) in the way of the force? Hey, if you possess stronger force powers than sure, quick learner and adaptable so fine by me.  Dual better? Here comes a grey zone. I accept Fin since the first enemy he meets with a lightsaber is a fellow stormtrooper wielding an electrified baton which seemed to work as a sword substitute and he could have got training so fine. Rey only wielded a staff... but then again, she might have gotten training in many weapons as fast she handled the blaster. All it comes down to is who her family is. I might not even have noticed if my twitter feed hadn't exploded about Mary Sue-tweets, and maybe I shouldn't care. 

Another big spoiler is that Kylo Ren is Han Solo and Leia's son, Ben. My sister think they should have gotten an actor that would have looked more like either parent. He also kills Han Solo in the end battle. And Chewie survived which was probably the biggest question when you realise Han is gonna die. It's also here they seemed to jumble the time and space to get characters at their position in the right time. Kylo Ren appearing before Rey and Fin in the woods after the killing of Solo. I know, speed-force and force jump might explain it, but still. And then we have the First Order commander picking up Kylo Ren after the battle and escape right as the planet is destroyed. When the Millennial Falcon barely makes it out. Also speaking of the Starkiller (which probably is an honourable mention to Luke's original surname) what planet was the Federation located at? Was it Courocont (sp?)?

Last spoiler is that the movie ends as Rey finds Luke Skywalker at  the first Jedi Temple location... without him saying a word. Nothing to say, good ending. Can't wait for episode VIII.

Space Harrier

What did they smoke back in the eighties?

So I got the Sega Ultimate Collection so I have 40 new (and old) games to play with upscaling so they take on the whole screen and save states. Save states that makes it possible for me to finish the damn games. Why haven't they been released on the Wii U virtual console? Why? I got many of them on the Wii virtual console, but who can finish these games without serious memorisation... or just getting good and I ain't got time for that. So save states it is. Sadly I found it used the same day it arrived where I could have saved 200-300 SEK.

Seriously, what is this?

There's no story, you are just some guy holding on to a missile which can fire lasers and you shot monsters and navigates obstacles for 18 stages... and that was pretty much gameplay as well. I played one stage like that in Wonderful 101 and I get it was a homage to this game so now that I played it... boy we didn't expect much from games back then. 18 stages? With just shifting colours and faster speed? And several bosses are the same with just a palette swap and they pretty much use the same AI... if you can call it that? I get it was still the time when high scores was the driving points of games and especially this one which was the arcade version, but come on, no explanation? Not a saving your girlfriend from the last boss or something like that? Well, at least it was an experience and it probably has some other historical value. At least it's Christmas tomorrow. Happy Christmas or whatever you celebrate.

Ace Investigations: Miles Edgeworth

Allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste!

It was AMAZINGLY COOL! Damn, this puts Apollo Justice to shame since this one has a better connection to Ace Attorney. Frankly, we have Gumshoe, Wendy Oldbag, Menkins, Lotta Hart, Maggy Pie, Viola from the loan shark agency, both Von Karmas, Payne and Larry Butz and you know  that if something smells, it's usually the Butz. They even got Ema Sky. Apollo Justice got Ema Sky and Phoenix Wright.

We're a DUO, A DUO

It's basically the same although more focus on the cases and finding evidence to use compared to the Attorney games. It's a bit more fun though since it is actually much more logical compared to Phoenix insane turn it upside down logic. Although some things make me appreciate Dual Destinies saving futures. I was gonna play it legit and did up to the last case where I restarted twice due to failure and after that I used a walkthrough to finish it up. Damn final villain was hard to get. Mostly since it was so insanely long without much way in restoring the bar at the top. Especially when I have to finger him for the crime *spoilers* you use a statue, but there is two of them so don't fail to show the right one. *spoilers*. Also, you can walk around the actual sites and at points deduce if methinks wrong and such. And the music, Edgeworths theme is one of the best and here it's used all over. The new music isn't bad either.

Murder on the dance floor.

The story is that while traveling back to the states Edgeworth stumbles upon the activities of a smuggling ring that been active for over 10 years leaving dead corpses all over and some of them being important for the career of Edgeworth himself. So it's your job to stop this ring together with the always loyal Gumshoe and series newcomer Kay Faraday, the great thief who hunts for the truth. Another things it ups over Apollo, the story actually means something for Edgeworth and those around him. It's almost like they dropped all side characters and wanted to start new with Apollo and gave Edgeworth all remaining ones. They made a sequel, but sadly it's still stuck in Japan so I must wait for the next game... whenever that is coming.