Sky Pirates & Bandits of Mars! - Warriors of the Red Planet & Hyperborea rpg - Session Report

 My party of adventurers has been in the deep Martian desert for far too long. We've wandered along the ancient caravan routes of Old Helium for a very long time. It was time to return to civilization and re-equip our PC's. 

We had a standing invitation to visit one of Helium's Red Martian merchant princes whose lives we saved some months ago! And we were taking him up on his offer! After charting a flyer our party took to the sky to save time!

And it was wasn't long before adventure found us! In the skys above ancient Mars we found ourselves being followed by Martian sky pirates! That's right it was the ancient sky pirates and raiders of Mars the Black pirates! Just incase your not aware the First Born as they are known are absolutely ruthless and immoral outlaws. Our small mid range flyer was equipped with two heavy duty Martian rifles and our own wizards plus our mind wizard. 
The First Born are an outlaw nation praying on whomever crosses thier part of the red skies and they work for whomever can pay them! 
Our party waited until one of thier ships got close and then our wizard fire balled the first scout ship with a scroll we'd saved just for such an occasion! Next our thief managed to do an expert tumble onto thier deck with a natural twenty. 
He was equipped with a particularly nasty natural spirit that we used as a Matov cocktail on thier Martian decking. We had our pilot do a roll to retrieve our thief Bardoc The Nimble with a carefully timed jump and telekinetic catch by our mind master. 
The First Born called up two mid range flyers crewed by a craven lot of bandits and outlaws. We began to sense a pattern here and wondered if this was the First Born NPC thief and his pirate crew we'd ran into some months ago! We didn't recall his name but took out the other ship as the cocktail exploded. 
We opened up with our guns as the ship drew closer and closer. And this was because we'd radioed to Helium's air navy! We were delaying the pirates with games until we'd crossed into Helium's airspace. And then it was all Hell broke loose as we dived below the clouds and the Navy patrol closed in! 
Part of our party ended up on Zothique but the bulk of our mercenaries are still on Mars. We've got our Zothique game coming up later this we. You can read about our last Zothique session here. 

The Shrine of Thasaidon - Warriors of the Red Planet & Clark Ashton Smiths Zothique - Session Report

 Our characters in DM Paul's game entered a gateway to another plane but we were cautioned not to stray from the path. We strayed from the path and ended up on a flat ever expanding desert.The PC's immediately recognized the giant bloated red star in the sky. We found ourselves on Zothique! 

It is believed that the cover art can or could be obtained from Ballantine Books.

This was bad because we had no idea where on Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique we were. And we were in the middle of a desert. And on Zothique we were as good as dead. The deserts on Zothique the far future Earth is filled with all manner of undead horrors! 
We had water fortunately and some rations among our lot & we had plenty of weapons as well as ammo. Our party of Warriors of the Red Planet had a stomach full of experience with desert planets. 

We trugged through the desert wasteland for a couple of hours when we came to a rock shrine or small temple. The whole affair was covered in carved demons & outrageous devils writ in some odd form of common was the following: 
"Black Lord of bale and fear, master of all confusion!
By thee, thy prophet saith,
New power is given to wizards after death,
And witches in corruption draw forbidden breath
And weave such wild enchantment and illusion
As none but lamiae may use;
And through thy grace the charneled corpses lose
Their horror, and nefandous loves are lighted
In noisome vaults long nighted;
And vampires make their sacrifice to thee —
Disgorging blood as if great urns had poured
Their bright vermilion hoard
About the washed and weltering sarcophagi.
-- Ludar's Litany to Thasaidon." 
We looked around the shrine and then we heard the thunderous sound of foot falls. Before we could blink we were surround by men. 
And then we were surrounded by city guards! 'State your purpose & business within the kingdom of old Tasuun?!' Our mind master quickly stated, 'We are mercenaries and fighting men of forgein lands seeking employment, sire. " 
'You will find plenty of employment here sir. Quickly come in the Old Gate'. And we quickly brought before the master of arms of the Old City of Tasuun and brought onto the payroll.' 
Next week we find out our mission 

And Then There Were Four erm Five - Beyond The Ice Falls By Joseph D. Salvador From Raven God Games For Swords & Wizardry - Hyperborea rpg Session Report II

 So we're going to pick this right up from where we left off last week on the blog here.  Our crew of Viking warriors got in over our heads as the 'ice spirits' got their vengence against us. Early this morning we  got together over coffee & donuts. Gunther Bloodbear caught up with us at the pass as we had the ice spirits hot on our heels. And we lost one of our number due to bad dice rolls this morning! Beyond The Ice Falls By Joseph D. Salvador hits different on this side of the screen. 

Jess's PC got flash frozen in a two way crunch as the ice maiden had her revenge against us. That store of Winter fish looked far more away from our party at the moment! I got one of the guys with a lucky dagger roll. And then circled back to take out Guther in a last move only to come face to face with his frozen corpse! 
The woods were turning deadly around the village of the village of Askibakken. We needed more men and had to buy ourselves some time?! 
So an offering of treasure & relics was the only way?! And the ice maiden wanted it all and the life of one of us. There were only three left and we couldn't afford to lose another. We offered the treasure and the promise of another warrior or maiden. That seemed good enough for the moment. 
We made it back to the village of Askibakken. And were able to grab a fisherman or two as replacement warriors. We dropped our gear & grabbed hunting outfits. We also changed weapons to disguise ourselves as hunters. Then waited two days (game time) to go back into the woodlands around the village of Askibakken. The woods were deadly quiet and we almost killed a wise woman who was making her way to the village. She promised us answers for two fish if we'd escort her back to her hut in the woods. 

Her son was waiting for his mother 'Ashcor the woodsman' (replacement PC) whose mother Arsha the witch was more then happy to have us. We paid the old woman her fish & gathered around the fire to warm our bones. Arsha made us tea & tended to our wounds which cost us another fish. Her hut was a maze of herbs & dried salted  corpses of various alien fish. She was more then happy to have us as her usual clientele of the local women and mothers had dried up with the ice maiden stalking around the village. 

The ice maiden has influence over the local humanoids, monsters, and even the trees the old woman told us. We were told to relax as no monster would dare to come to the hut. Our party looked relaxed but we were ready for anything! 

And anything didn't happen. DM Paul seemed a bit wrung out this morning and the game progressed rather nicely. His style is a bit easier to deal with then DM Steve's killer style of encounters every time we'd settle down.  We ended here until next week.. 

OSR Commentary - Beyond The Ice Falls By Joseph D. Salvador From Raven God Games For Swords & Wizardry - Hyperborea rpg Session Report

 "In the village of Askibakken, the winter has been harsh and an unnatural blizzard has gripped the area. The village chieftain has called upon young warriors to search for a missing supply ship, but this endeavor leads the adventurers into a mysterious adventure. Will the party discover what lies Beyond the Ice-Fall?" 

Wayback in 2017 Raven God Games sent me a copy of Beyond The Ice Falls By Joseph D. Salvador for Swords & Wizardry. But tonight I'm not running this deadly little adventure instead I'm playing Scotta Berarus last viking theurorist noble to the tribe of Odin's rabble. Scotta Berarus has fled to his cousin Gunther Blood Bear's tribe after his was wiped out by an orc raid in the lower ice flows of Hyperborea. Gunther has sold our party's services to  the village of Askibakken in exchange for a Winter's store of fish, sea greens, and other food stuffs. With the unnatural Spring weather the village of Askibakken is deep trouble! We came into the village & observed that the village was in poor shape with everything covered in snow. 

Beyond the Ice Falls has quite a bit of talent behind it; "Features cover art and an interior piece by Del Teigeler! Writing, cartography and additional art completed by Joseph Salvador. Included in this 28-page product are a mini-setting, a dungeon crawl, two maps, new monsters, new magic items, new spells, and a viking name list!"We sat with the chief to find out particulars and while the catch was amazing the hunting around the village had suffered as animals were found flash frozen, beheaded, and destroyed in ways that spooked even the hardest of the village of Askibakken's hunters & trackers. 

So I'm a party of a party of hardened Viking mercenaries & warriors having joined up with my cousin's band in a fit a promise of a life of plunder & adventure. So far things had worked out. We were recruited to go on patrol with the village fishermen as monster patrol because of problems with sea serpents & the like. Next we were asked to help as monster patrol with a hunting expediation. Something wasn't right & finally we asked the village headman why didn't the village's warriors help out?! Then it was revealed that they had been found dead flash frozen by some mysterious force?! 

The woodlands & waters around the village of Askibakken are highly unnatural. There's few sounds, the spirits are quiet as in too quiet, and there are highly dangerous monsters in the woods around the village. Darr The Brave our scout & tracker found the tracks of a highly dangerous monster! We got into it hot & heavy with a Hyperborean  owl bear! And it wasn't even our first session! The monster was pretty dangerous & highly violent! He took out two of our hirelings & almost one our fighters but I got off a magic missile spell to distract him while Gunther got Valt out of the monster's reach. We were barely able to get our wounded back to the village. 
And now we've got to track down the owl bear back to it's lair to put the monster down! It's wounded, dangerous, and a terror to any other villages in the area. 
So DM Pual was incharge of tonight's Hyperborea rpg session. He's got a slightly different style to DM Steve's killer DM style of play. Being a forever DM being on the otherside of the screen for once has been both enlightening & very dangerous. We're all 2nd level PC's and there are six of us at the moment. 

Strong Medicine on International E.Gary Gygax Day - Is This My Exit From The New Hartford DM's Network?!

 Today's E. Gary Gygax day & it's hitting me that I really need to get back to the creative well of my gaming. I've been a part of a network of DM's in New Hartford. Which has been a fall back after my own game hit the skits. It's been good, I get a network of DM's & a support system of good friends allowing me to step away from behind the DM's screen & play for a change. But today's it's hitting me hard. But the fact is that these are not my own players but they are friends. And this makes it hard because DM Steve allowed me some time to get back on the horse with his players. But at the end of the day these are his people.

Need to make my own way in the hobby. Grab some new players and make other friends as well in New Hartford. At fifty two this isn't an easy decision on my own part. Does one take the risk or remain comfortable where one is?! 

So my wife & I are talking it over tonight, there are decisions to be made. And is this my time for an exit after two or is it three years?! 
It struck me meeting up with a fellow DM for coffee today. It's time like this when one is too stuck knee deep in a comfort zone that maybe it's time for a challenge & change. Maybe this is my take away from E.Gary Gygax 2022, it was a damn fine cuppa tea & to catch up with DM Paul as well as Steve.