The Grand Tapestry

Well, the short version is that the farewell-boy lost one character, but that character became an intelligent short sword, in the possession of his other character.

The party, minus Delver/CiCi's player (I played them) covered four sub-levels (a subterranean tower of sorts), down to a port with cryo-sleep bays (five occupied, three intact), and learnt a bit more of the history of Qerzyk.
--They are now faced with the option of leaving with an Abbekqorru spaceship captain and his two surviving human crew (one male, one female), or finish their prescribed mission from the Kherstic League to prevent the ship from departing the sea-cave port facility.

During their delve, they faced a horribly-'virulent' fungal plague (almost lost a PC to it twice); two armed Trolls with a Human-Troll spell-caster; a psychic artefact that contacted an Outer Leviathan who possessed the character who was killed (the same guy who'd previously telepathically contacted the Aelbaan and had lost his prior body), before the party members who were able to resist his Empathy-induced fear-effect, killed him.
--They found heli-coil ammunition canisters for bullpup weapons of the Ancients; 5 space-suits; four small fire-extinguishers; 15 'bullpup pistols' not really designed to fire from those larger heli-coils (much lower reliability: Fumble on a 01-05); and sundry items like disinfectant wipe pouches (hundreds of them), and spoiled concentrated rations, and partially-decayed utensil + spices packages.
---

I was in P_Armstrong's Saturday-night Skype B/X game, and had a good time.
--We had 6 characters (five players), plus Mr. Armstrong hosting the Gametable and Skype connections.

* Harpy: Vanquished in one Round, and a positive contact gained in Shewolf.

Next game scheduled for a fortnight.

The stalwart and fairly adaptable (if foolish and decidedly non-tactical) PCs have been exploring and mapping (read as: I have been mapping) Christopher B.'s Underlord of Cold Mountain location, which I have utilised as the Undercity of Qerzyk.

In previous sessions, the Aelbaan that tore the head off of the Xarj Scout once freed from the Stasis Field, took off down a corridor to another Lift Shaft and almost escaped. Delver, the WI Vrun noble (i.e., the thin-blooded Aelbaan) zapped him with a 3d lightning bolt, and the psychic of the party entered the Aelbaan's mind.
Inside, telepathic beings with a vast range (one was in a nearby star system) were wagering as to the KO'd being's chances of making it out of the complex. Wojo, the psychic, made the understandable error of directly contacting one of them, and was quickly possessed after a fumbled Control [Spells] Test. The distant woman began to Tele-relocate, metabolising the psychic's body as her gateway, transforming him into her body. A party member knocked the psychic unconscious, which resulted in a broken link and a rapidly deforming body (gooey-like). Long story short: They bag the Aelbaan, and escort the terribly deformed and wailing compatriot out of the complex, which opened up into an interior marketplace.

Fast forward to the psychic now residing in the body of a comatose mutant (with transparent skin), and the party, and a small army of support personnel (mainly construction workers, small unit repair techs, and troopers) who are working their way through the complex.

The previous week, they fought heat-sink organic-metal reptiloids with d8 Armour and the ability to sap heat to power their metabolisms and healing. The party vanquished the beasts and found curious architectural features in the prison cells of the middle left portion of the map.
Last night, they explored the guard post directly south of the cells, and found the secret door to the 20' bridge over the roaring, icy waters 120' below, which leads to the room designated on the map as the Temple Guard Barracks. The bridge was treacherous, and soon, the party had to devise an alternate rope-scuttle method of traversing.
Whereupon, they quickly ran afoul of a flame-thrower team of Green Sneers. As only a couple of PCs had crossed, they were the ones to detect the Sneers advancing, and two of the three smartly decided to fall back across the bridge before the alchemical Blackfire weapon was used against them. Tybalt, being Tybalt, remained and took fire damage before dropping a series of Darkness pebbles, and then Levitating and holding onto the rock face against the 24 knot headwind whipped-up by the roaring waters below.

The flame-thrower was almost able to reach across, but the spray was blown away by the strong winds and merely kept the party at bay as the ropes of the bridge began to burn and snap (mostly their rigged crossing ropes) as the Sneers' reinforcements arrived from the barracks. Now, Blue Sneers, a full head taller than the greens, arrived and were clearly their NCOs. One fired a 'bazooka' type launcher, the round of which exploded for 4d6, nearly killing the already battered characters on the other side.
Back and forth difficult missile-weapon combat transpired as Tybalt manoeuvred over the entrance and stealthily crawled along the ceiling of the stairs and eventually cast an 'empowered' Sleep spell, catching 2d6 creatures, including the 4FD Blue who fired the tube. Being Tybalt, he grabbed the weapon, and after I asked how he was aiming the device, fired it down the stairs (only 20' distant), nearly killing himself in the process of trying to keep the reinforcing Sneers at bay.

Meanwhile, the trolls from a Troll room (15) came to investigate and ambushed Delver who had dragged-out two unconscious and dying support personnel. Fortunately for him, the Troll missed with one claw and the bite, and only did 1 point to his Dodge Pool on the ambush round, and missed with all three attacks on the second, surprise round. Delver then struck back and damaged the troll's left arm. Other retreating characters (PC and NPC) began to engage the troll, who took off back into his chamber.
Darius crossed over, by hand, and began to grope around in the 20' radius Darkness spell for Tybalt. Ashta followed, but, despite her massive 19 Power [Strength], failed her roll, and plunged the 120' to unconsciousness below the icy river. My drowning rules are pretty cinematic (it takes 5, 6-second rounds to take 1d4-1d4 Critical Damage), and so she was rapidly washed downstream to (Barracks 29).

Tybalt, now at 3 or so DP, hands Darius the Long Range Flight (Overland Flight) potion, and they begin to search for Ashta. --[Mela Mela, has died from the 'bazooka' round damage, but Wojo's new mutations save her at the cost of burning out his Total Healing (scratched-off his sheet).]-- Ashta's Ancient Ancestral genetic memory plays out as the Superstructure Technician enters a ship's superstructure and begins to greet old friends as the steady thrum of the FTL drives pulse through the lengthening ship's hull. She hears a foreign name being called. Someone punches her in the jaw, and she awakens. Ashta comes to as a green, scaly 'gill-man' slaps her to consciousness, and deposits her upon the teardrop-shaped, black river stone beach, as Tybalt and Darius fly about, piercing the darkness with their mediocre 20' radius Light spell. She is flown out first, and then Tybalt, and the party meets up with more of their Grogs, now equipped with flaming longswords as they battle back another troll.

Wojo tried to leave a peace-offering, having been opposed to the bridge-exploration from the beginning. The construction workers, who have a green Sneer on their force, tried to relate the 'Draw' result, but it was only partially understood by the proud and defiant Blue overseers.

We held it more or less there, and I drove Wojo and Ashta/Mela's players back. I asked them if they felt comfortable with me removing the kid gloves, and simply killing their characters outright next time, and received a hesitant, 'yes.'

We started around 5PM (as opposed to 3), and were down the one player for most of the game, excepting the one hour he was present. I reminded them of what had occurred two weeks ago, and I was reminded of a fact I had forgotten.

The PCs (both parties) banded together and attempted to evade a force moving parallel to them through the misty-rained filled, dirty and soot and cinder-covered streets of Qerzyk. A brief stop in a squatter's enclave provided them with a water-refresh opportunity, and a lead-lined box in which to place the communication device Tybalt has used a few times, and is the object for which the Hierophantic Church agents desire.
Contact was re-established with the Kherstic League (their patron organisation) who warned them of the danger of wandering into the Church's scouts, but informed them that two groups of the League were triangulating onto their coordinates.

In the subsequent battle with Church-hired mercenaries armed with Coilstocks (coil-spring operated quarrel launchers actuated by a side-mounted cocking tab), and led by a Church Wizard, the PCs held a defensive position and used it to great advantage (having a black-bear equivalent in the doorway paired up with Ashta the Western Isles Hjighlands lass ('barbarian') seemed to have done the trick). Delver ('Dell-Ver'), the Western Isles lesser noble, and his female battle companion, Ceaneq (?) the quasi-Buddhist-merchant Cleric (?!) deftly dispatched two foes in two Rounds while the Wizard fired MMs at Ashta and the bear, 'Kitty'.
Ashta charged from the doorway, failed to defeat the Shield spell he was protected by, and was wide-open for the rest of the Round. The subsequent Round, she eviscerated the lout, upon which he uttered, "...impossible...' and crumpled to the bloody cobbles, at which point something small exploded out of the crown of his skull and flew off into the dark skies.
With the mercenaries no longer employed, they ceased hostilities and were not cut down by the PCs.

A moment later the Kherstic League group prematurely dispatched one merc with a quarrel in the throat, but aided the wounded once the fog of battle had cleared. The League Overseer, Daen, Jedi'd the merc captain to simply walk away.
The PCs and Kitty, and Mela Mela's riding bird all were escorted into the posh side of town. The PCs were bathed and refreshed and shown to an upstairs study in a palacial mansion, the actual building's footprint being roughly 240 acres.
There, the PCs extracted a rat-being they had captured in the sewers and began to question it in the presence of Overseer Daen. The thing, rather insane for the experience of having been turned into a humanoid, cackled in his little ratty voice, gibbering on about the Elders sitting upon their thrones, deep-deep in the earth. Then another voice began speaking through the creature as a bright light began to shine forth from the increasingly hot little creature's skull.
Daen recognised their rapidly-approaching doom, and uttered a Void spell of high enough energy-level so as to inflict aging effects upon her in consequence, a white shock shot through her luxuriant raven hair and a tremble showing in her hands at the exertion.

The rest of the session consisted of them discussing how best to spend their hefty recompense for the safe return of the comm unit, as well as selling (some of) their Mummy Spice*.
No clear plan had been formed by the time we called it a night.

It seems my concerns regarding the player are perhaps unfounded.


* "In addition to black pepper, cinnamon, ginger,
and saron, such spices as galangal, zedoary, long
pepper, and \grains of paradise" (malagueta pepper
from West Africa) were commonly used in medieval
cookery, along with sugar, which only later became
the commodity that we know today. These, along
with many others, including even ground mummy,
were used as medicinal drugs, while expensive aro-
matic resins and animal products such as ambergris,
castoreum, musk, and civet were used as fragrances,
both for aesthetic and for medical reasons." -- Paul H. Freedman. Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2008. x + 275 pp. ISBN 978-0-300-11199-6; $30.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-300-11199-6.

I apologise for not posting for a day or two (more?), but I've been out of sorts, but am doing much better now. Thanks for the patience.

• Also, hello to the new public subscribers. > waves <

So, yes, um, this 'ought' to have been the first week of the editing and polishing month toward the beta .pdf release, but you know how life goes. :)

I have been working with Peter Mullen on having a unified artistic feel throughout Vol. I and, my, it is looking very good. Peter is a real pleasure to work with, very professional and personable. The art alone promises to be great.
We are at the full incorporation of the 'iconic' figures in the cover's foreground, and they look sweet. :) After that, the colour begins. big grin

I am asking those inclined to pray for, or beam 'Good Thoughts' to Jeff Berry (of Qadardalikoi-fame), who is not feeling very well at all.
He and I have been discussing a project (I find fascinating, timely, and dare I say, important) which ought to fascinate anyone interested in the early history of in our hobby, as told by a witness to its proceedings. I'll keep you informed as it progresses.
Jeff is another golden individual I am blessed to have crossed paths with.

So, what is the state of Vol. I's text? Not in .pdf form, to be certain. :D
I've begun the mental layout process and letting my inspirational games help inform me of the order of elements, something I think is often overlooked in games (with 4E's PHB being a particularly odd example -- almost Lovecrafian in its bizarreness).
Likewise, last night as I was waiting to become sleepy-enough to go to bed, I was looking at the Tekumel Bestiary and its non-stat descriptions (the bulk of the work) and how the stats are entirely in the last few pages. That, my friends, is both cool, and ...not. Cool from an immersion PoV, but not in a gamist way. I think you see what I'm saying.
So, that's the sort of stuff I'm engaged in now, before I drive myself crazy (-ier) with swapping bits out and whittling text down to fit within my 96pp-limit framework. I'd like to keep it down to 64 pages, but am not certain if that'll happen. Ken told me long ago, "Less is more, unless it's not enough." I hear you, Ken (and James M.) ;)

One player is almost certainly not going to be at the game tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes. Sometimes I feel like the jaded and low attention-span youth of today -- oh look, a squirrel! I foresee his leaving the game and that potentially ending the playtest game due to his connections with the LGS owner and 'typical guy' bull. I hope I'm wrong.
Regardless, Qerzyk's Dockface is burning, and the Hierophantic Church's agents are after both sets of the PCs (both their Primes and 2nds). Could get messy.

In other news, this post on the Ode to Black Dougal blog is a really interesting topic to me, given my background(s), and I thought I would share it with you cool cats.