In my regular travels to the mystical land of Bandcamp, I have several noteworthy ports of call. In particular I use the site for listening to some of my favorite Old-school styled, trad-revival, and so-called "NWOTHM" (New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal) bands, and several of my favorite ambient artists who might fall under the umbrella term of "Dungeon Synth."
It is this particular mysterious and arcane, yet-intensely evocative and surprisingly relatable genre that is the topic of today's Battle of the Bards. In particular, this is a look at one of my personal favorites, the Salt Lake City-based dungeon synth/"medieval ambient" artist known as Fief.
I first discovered Fief on the Dungeon Synth subreddit not terribly long after I discovered the genre itself a few years ago, and was quickly enthralled by their two albums of well-composed ambient music with a distinctive, medieval style and a uniquely bright tone compared to most other Dungeon Synth. I was instantly enthralled by the incredibly evocative soundscapes that Fief creates, and filled with RPG writing ideas. For a solid week, Fief's second album, the newest at the time, was the main soundtrack to my walks around the neighborhood, on which I often tend to come up with some of my better writing and RPG-related ideas.
As I discussed in the previous Battle of the Bards, there are bands and artists out there which are excellent for getting the creativity to happen and putting one in the general mental space for the best idea-flow. Fief are, as I touched on above, an excellent "mood band." They are, however, also much more. Fief are easily one of my go-to artists when it comes to background music for actually running games as well as writing for them, especially when the current scene of the game isn't located in the typical dark, dingy dungeon environment that old school Mortiis, Wongraven, or Lord Lovidicus are made for. Fief makes high adventure music, for when the players are re-enacting travel scenes from Lord of the Rings, crossing vast plains and climbing high mountains in the search of the lost ruins of ancient, noble kingdoms of Dwarves. Fief is the soundtrack to strolling through the vibrant garden's of a noble's castle, and of daring missions made by heroic, but impoverished knights errant to steal into the courtyard and climb the tower walls to the window of the callous old Lord's beautiful daughter. Fief is the soundtrack to the types of adventures that make me nostalgic for editions of D&D that I've never even played, for the kinds of adventures that transport one from a wood-paneled, shag-carpeted basement to the most epic of locales.
On top of all that, Fief always seems to get the best art for album covers.
That's probably just about all I can really say on the subject of Fief. I cannot possibly recommend them highly enough to anyone interested in RPGs, fantasy writing, or even looking for a musical backdrop for reading, playing a video game, or just relaxing.
"But wait," you might ask, "isn't this a music review?" Well, while it may equally be simply an ode to one of my favorite artists, it is a review nonetheless, brought on by the fact that Fief have just come out with a new album. The release of their new album, simply entitled "IV," was the reason for this post, and listening to it has made writing it an absolute breeze, thus pushing it slightly ahead of a new "Tales of the Table" which I am also working on.
There isn't a whole lot that I can say about the album that I haven't already said above, but as with each of the three before it, Fief's fourth album shows yet further development of a sound that they created on their first, perfected on their second, and have continued to evolve since then. It delivers layered melodies which Bandcamp user Gareth the Grey describes best as "Ear-balm." It transports the mind to far-off fantastical places of adventure.
The verdict: 5/5 Healthy Horns of Mead
To all of you out there, go check out Fief if you haven't yet. Here is a link to their Bandcamp. I'd recommend listening to their albums in chronological order to experience the same journey I have, but at the end of the day, as Mike Muir would say, "Nobody does you better than you."
With that, as always, may your road lead you ever onward to adventure,
-Armstrong
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Saturday, November 10, 2018
Tales of the Table: Crabs and Chair-shots
And now to debut the first installment of the fourth and final of the planned segments here on Delves and Shelves, Tales of the Table, where I recount to you stories, songs, and sagas of the various shenanigans that have gone on in my game groups, as well as publishing actual (system-agnostic, but somewhat D&D-styled) adventures that you can run at your table if you are so inclined.
All of that mentality went out the window the second the adventure began, as our characters’ first instinct upon seeing stranded children while heading up a flooded river to the dam where the dungeon proper is located, was of course to save as many as we could. It is due to this that our story today properly begins.
Being a physically-gifted fighting type, my character was the one selected to climb up to the second floor of the mill and assist with the rescue operations (and beating back the crabs) from up top, leaving the party’s magic user and holy paladin below to take a few whacks and blast a few spells into the seemingly near-infinite biomass of angry crustaceans. For several rounds this struggle went on, the crabs failing to ascend to the upper level of the mill, and the party failing to make much of a dent in the giant pile of crabs. We had come to an impasse. Three of the four fan blades of the mill were broken by my sword or by crab claws and chitinous carcasses, the ground level was too flooded and the door too blocked by sediment to be a viable means of egress, and the crabs, though bloodied, were still coming.
Now for part two of the inaugural Tales of the Table, an actual piece of gameable content, in the form of a mini-adventure designed to contain a night’s worth of gameplay for a mid-level party, with plenty of room for modification, and side hooks that can be used to integrate it into your own campaigns. Today’s adventure draws its inspiration from one I’ve run in the past, and from the story above. Without further ado, I present to you, The Palace of the Pincered Prince.
Whether locals, traders or warriors from a neighboring island, or travelers from afar, you and your companions are the ones that have been chosen by Chieftain I’rah to take Wetepi-Hi’ilo’s sturdiest war-canoe and venture into the cave to bring back her sons, or perish within.
The Tua-Loa warriors are upright-walking Fish-men with thoroughly piscine features, including the heads of barracudas or goliath groupers. Each stands slightly shorter than an average adult man, and each wears a simple cuirass of woven kelp fibers and a pair of simple seaweed sandals. They are each armed with a shield made of lacquered crab chitin, four light javelins, and an obsidian dagger. One of them will also possess a small horn made of a nautilus shell. This horn, when blown, is silent to humanoid ears, but emits a psionic frequency which can be heard by the Pinctagrex mentioned in entries 8 and 11, signaling it to open or close the door in entry 8.
“An ancient circle of silver-colored lacquer or shell is inlaid into the otherwise natural stone cave floor here. How long it has been here, nobody can quite work out, but a careful investigation suggests that the runes carved within seem to be Dwarven in origin. Its purpose is unknown, but the Tua-Loa seem to be avoiding it…”
This circle is a magical trap created by ancient Dwarves. When more than one sentient being stands within the circle at a time, jets of silver flame will shoot out of concealed holes in the ground, forming a ring around those inside, burning them, blinding them, and cutting them off from the area outside the circle (damage may be halved and temporary blindness avoided by a saving throw if you so choose, but it should be more difficult than those for the surrounding room). The Tua-Loa will avoid the circle should it become part of the terrain for the battle between them and the party (and it should). You may also consider having the trap activate once each round during combat to make it more of an active hazard. Additionally, having a Dwarf in your party should considerably reduce the difficulty of identifying the circle as Dwarven in origin, but not in discerning its function.
“Before you stands a truly unusual sight. Atop a green-hued metabasalt pedestal stands a life-sized statue of a Dwarf-sized humanoid, but where its head should be, there is instead the chitinous form of a meter-wide red crab. Unusually, unlike most living crabs, the statue’s head seems to possess a claw at the end of all ten of its appendages…”
This is a simple curio to be examined, though it may potentially become a source of cover, or even deal massive damage if knocked over (requiring an immense strength check), should a battle ever spill into the room. Closer investigation by the player characters (an easy check) will reveal that the statue was of a Dwarf, the head of which has long since been chiseled off and replaced with the boiled and varnished shell and forelimbs of real crabs of about a meter in width. The eyes of the statue, held onto the front of the shell by a simple glue made of fish bone paste and crushed limestone, are pearls the size of a Gnome’s fist. One is black, one is white, both are natural, nearly flawless, and worth a considerable amount.
“Ahead of you, on the natural stone causeway which crosses over the tidal pools that form the base of this cavern chamber, stand several more Tua-Loa. They are not armed as warriors, but each bears a sodden net, a dreadful trident, and worst of all, a conch shell, which they blow as a whistle to call their “livestock” from below…”
(5d.) “Roeback” a she-crab nearly-completely covered by massive sacks of roe, which provide her with a damage-reduction ability, and when attacked (or once per each round she is in the fight) will have a chance to hatch 1d6 new crabs of the smaller variety. They are capable of inflicting the same amount of damage as those that the Tua-Loa farmers are tending, but in their teneral, newly-hatched state, they are soft-shelled and weak to physical damage, having only half the number of hit points as the more mature farmed crabs (or a single hit point if the crabs are numerous enough or your party’s damage output isn’t truly devastating to anything they come across). She also possesses a spit attack, with which she can shoot a concentrated burst of water at a single target in the room, causing some damage and knocking it back (if it fails its save), potentially even off the bridge and into the water...
“A strange, sucking current beneath the surface of the pools betrays the location of a hidden, submerged passage. Do you dare go in? I thought you were smarter than that…”
This is a hidden passage by which creatures of the large crabs’ size or smaller may pass between the farm pools and the Grand Pool of the Pincered Prince (entry 13). A brave, or foolish party member may attempt this, but the currents are strong against them (a very difficult skill check to swim through), and on the other side they will find themselves face to face with the Pincered Prince Aakumo’deo’o himself...
“What is this? Some kind of ancient temple-hall built here long ago by...well, surely not the Fish-men…”
This is an old temple to an old Dwarven god built here by a population of Dwarves who dwelt (or may still yet dwell) in the mountain range that runs along the coast. This temple was built to mark the border of their kingdom after their miners tunneled into this sea-cave centuries ago. The room is empty, and deathly quiet, but those who enter will hear a strange, magical whirring, as the slab of a strange metal alloy in the center of the room seems to animate.
The object is a Dwarven Battle Cube, much like those detailed by that master of the RPG room-design craft, Hankerin Ferinale of Runehammer. This one, however, is hundreds, if not thousands of years old, and as such, is limited in its abilities, perhaps only possessing one or two functions, which it is hard-programmed to repeat over and over. Thus, it can be avoided with some care by those wishing to further inspect the room. On the altar at the far end can be found 1d4 small bits of Dwarven treasure from the table below (roll once for the number, then again for each piece, items with an asterisk (*) in their entry are one-of-a-kind, re-roll any duplicate results for them). Additionally, wrapped in the remains of what was once a fine velvet bag, there is a small egg-shaped ingot of Osmiridium. It is roughly the size of a Gnome’s fist, and is engraved with Dwarven runes. Further inspection by a character who speaks Dwarven will reveal that the object is a standard weight measure for a unit which is still in use. It is magically enchanted to be able to dramatically alter its own weight when the name for the unit of measurement is spoken as a command word, and thus functions as a key for the Dwarven door in entry 8). The runes on the ingot itself do not explicitly state this use, but it should not be too difficult to infer or even guess. Perhaps standard weight measurements are a key component of most common Dwarven idioms and sayings?
“Before you stands a mighty structure, an immense doorway of Dwarven make. An ornate bronzen door stands stoic and steadfast, surrounded by a lacework of carved whitish stone, perhaps alabaster or a kind of coral. Beneath the cold metal glare of the carved door arch, there stands a pedestal of travertine, topped with a brazen bowl, in which there is a roughly egg-shaped depression.”
Four of the huts are currently inhabited, and should the party end up in combat in the village (the most likely outcome as diplomacy with the Tua-Loa, while not impossible, should be difficult), one new Tua-Loa warrior or farmer will issue forth from each hut every round. If a hut can be destroyed, it will not spawn any new combatants, and combat will end if all four are destroyed, or the party manage to enter the Threshers’ hut.
“In the center of the village stands a circle of assorted stones, arranged in an unusual pattern and painted with strange shamanic symbols using a putrid pinkish gunk. In the center sits a repulsive cauldron of the stuff. Surely only one afflicted by anosmia would go any closer, even if there is a glint atop one of the stones…”
In the center of the Tua-Loa village stands a circle of ritual stones that serves as both a shrine to their god, the Pincered Prince Aakumo’deo’o, and as a graveyard. When one of the Tua-Loa dies, or when any part of a sacrifice to Aakumo’deo’o is recovered from area 13, the remains are placed in the vat in the center (which was once an ornate bronzen cauldron of Dwarven make that used to stand in front of the statue in area 3) to decompose. The rendered good from the vat is used by the tribe’s Threshers to paint the holy symbols upon the ritual stones.
Atop a low stone next to the vat is an old Dwarven relic, a copper circlet set with four chrysoberyls and three sunstones. If recovered, it would surely be valuable if recovered, and cleaned off… (this circlet allows a properly attuned wearer to cast a blasting spell up to seven times a day, at three different intensity levels by touching the stones. Each blast is of a level corresponding to the number of stones touched, and once a stone is touched, it may no longer be used that day, ex. touching a single stone produces a blast of low intensity (equivalent to a cantrip), two a medium blast (equivalent to a low level damage spell), and three a high intensity blast (equivalent to a mid-level damage spell). In a single day the circlet can cast any combination of blasts totaling all seven stones, such as two high and one low intensity blasts, three medium and one low, or seven low intensity blasts.
“That hut looks bigger than the others, and has a sort of vestibule to it. Do you think the chieftain’s sons might be in there?”
The largest hut in the village belongs to the tribe’s three priests/priestesses, known as Threshers, Blii, Boh, and Bopp. Bo and Bopp are male, and have the heads of swordfish. Blii is female, and has the head of an anglerfish, with two distinct “lumps” on either side of her glowing lure. Tua-Loa Threshers should have comparable stats to the similarly named priests of the similarly named Fish-men in official published D&D.
Additionally, inside the hut is a large pool of water that serves as a throne of sorts for the Pinctagrex Blub’ossh Yik-buar. If the party chose to explore the eastern branch of the dungeon first, Blub’ossh Yik-buar will be in the pool, and Chieftain I’rah’s sons, Repang and Pengongke will be bound with kelp fiber ropes right in front of the pool. If the party went west first and have only now reached the Thresher’s hut, Blub’ossh Yik-buar will have been carried to his grotto behind the grand pool in area 13, and Chieftain I’rah’s sons will have been taken to the sacrificial pillar (entry 12) to be offered to Prince Aakumo’deo’o.
The Threshers are all clad in robes made of the rainbow-scaled hides of a local species of fish, and reinforced by armored girdles of crab chitin plates. Boh and Bopp each bear a quadrident in one hand and a barbed, ten-tailed lash whip in the other. Blii is apparently armed only with a small jade club. In combat, Boh and Bopp will fight ferociously with their dreadful weaponry, and their sharp bills, battling to the death if necessary to protect their mother and Bo-bo-yi-bo.
Blii is the most senior of the Threshers, mother to the other two, and is possessed of psionic powers due to her communing with Bo-bo-yi-bo. In combat, Blii has a wide arsenal at her disposal, but prefers to let her sons do most of the fighting. The club she carries is made of solid jade, and, as a gift from Bo-bo-yi-bo, been imbued with an innate psionic power to magically sunder an opponent’s weapon twice a day. She also possesses three psionic invocations, as detailed below. She may use these at will, but in any given round may only use either Alter Mass and Angler’s Lure, either one of those twice, or Drowning Doom once.
Additionally, Blii possesses two biotic symbionts. The “lumps” on her head, are in fact, the last remaining vestiges of Blip and Blop, the elder Threshers who taught her the craft. In their current state, they are shriveled and withered away to nothing more than a set of gonads that allowed Blii to breed the next generation of Threshers, Boh and Bopp. Blip and Blop, however, do still retain fractions of a mind, and can perform two functions, granting Blii a minor Psionic ability, and a suicidal attack that can be used as a last resort. Blip provides Blii with an extra attack per round, and Blop grants her a preternatural sense for incoming damage that allows her to dodge one otherwise successful attack against her during the course of a combat encounter.
If Aakumo’deo’o is slain and the party decide to explore the grand cavern more, they may find that the bottom of the pool is home to a large biomass of ordinary crabs from area 5 that swim through the passage detailed in entry 6 to gather in the grand pool, where they become the main source of food for Aakumo’deo’o when he is not feeding on offerings left by the Tua-Loa.
From the grotto there is also another cave opening, from which a passage leads beyond into unknown depths...
If the party successfully complete their mission and rescue Chieftain I’rah’s sons, they may well find themselves wrapped up in one of several other local goings-on. A table of further hooks is below for you to choose or randomly roll a seed for the next adventure in the area around Wetepi-Hi’ilo
As always, may your road lead you ever onward to adventure,
-Armstrong
With all that said, let us proceed to today’s inaugural Tales of the Table, which will start the segment off in the only adequate fashion, as a two-fer. Below you will find not only an amusing anecdote of my RPG experience, but also a fully functional mini-adventure which you can run, adapt, or even just idea-mine from as you see fit.
“The Chair is Mightier than the Sword”
Today’s Tale comes from a fairly recent (about a month ago) session played on a rainy Friday night in my friend’s basement, over a mountain of drunken noodles and spicy steak salad from the cheapest local Thai place, and perhaps one too many cans of Blue Moon. The game in question was a playthrough of Deep Carbon Observatory (warning, minor spoilers ahead), another excellent OSR-styled adventure and setting supplement by the dynamic duo of writer Patrick Stuart and masterful line-artist Scrap Princess, run in Shadow of the Demon Lord by the host of my Friday night group. As to be expected, it’s a very solid module with plenty of little details to engage both players and game masters/mistresses alike. It is focused around a fun, deadly romp of a dungeon crawl through an ancient underground complex created long ago by a civilization who studied the Underdark. As such, our group consisted of a hardened party of three largely amoral, treasure-and-glory-minded adventurers with swords, stats, and spells all arranged to try to survive the horrors of a deadly, mysterious, and at times confusing dungeon crawl.
All of that mentality went out the window the second the adventure began, as our characters’ first instinct upon seeing stranded children while heading up a flooded river to the dam where the dungeon proper is located, was of course to save as many as we could. It is due to this that our story today properly begins.
On our way up the river, after saving numerous survivors already, and having fought a reanimated mummy of a long-dead king and noble protector of the dam, as well as a cow-sized killer platypus (yes, that’s the exact description of it in the book), we were ready to make a beeline for the dam so that we could get into the thick of the adventure the module promised. Unfortunately for that goal, yet more children stood in our way. In this case, it was a heavily damaged windmill full of them, as well as the proprietor of the orphanage where they all lived. This, understandably then, was something we simply could not ignore, not only because of the flood waters that had yet to abate which were trapping them in the mill, but also because of the hundred or so meter-wide white crabs that had the place encircled as well…
These crabs were a fight and a half. Each one was weak, and went down with one swing of my character’s mighty weapon, an Executioner’s Sword imbued with life-draining magic. Regardless of how easily one could be dispatched, the fight quickly turned into a real struggle for the party and the refugees alike, given that there were so many of them, and that each round a few more of them would manage to grab hold of one of the windmill’s fan blades, riding it up to the second-floor window to threaten the children and schoolmarm within.
Being a physically-gifted fighting type, my character was the one selected to climb up to the second floor of the mill and assist with the rescue operations (and beating back the crabs) from up top, leaving the party’s magic user and holy paladin below to take a few whacks and blast a few spells into the seemingly near-infinite biomass of angry crustaceans. For several rounds this struggle went on, the crabs failing to ascend to the upper level of the mill, and the party failing to make much of a dent in the giant pile of crabs. We had come to an impasse. Three of the four fan blades of the mill were broken by my sword or by crab claws and chitinous carcasses, the ground level was too flooded and the door too blocked by sediment to be a viable means of egress, and the crabs, though bloodied, were still coming.
It was at this point, that I had a bright idea in and out of character, for how I might do some damage to the crabs while they were beyond the reach of my blade, mighty as it was. This room in which my character stood, surrounded by huddled children and their legal guardian, had within it one small table and two chairs. What my character did next was to stride over to the furniture, lift one of the chairs, and have visions of being not just the local Lord’s executioner, but also his Undertaker (or perhaps his “Stone Cold” Steve Austin), and delivering a chair-shot to the head of some poor, unsuspecting crabs.
What followed was, through the GM’s choice to interpret my character’s dropping of the chair as a simple attack roll versus the crabs’ abysmally low agility, and the 20 foot height of the second-storey window, an unintentional discovery of what may well be the single most efficient way of slaying a monstrous crab in the collaboratively-built setting into which my friends and I had inserted the locations and events of the module. Another chair, and two halves of the table later, enough of the crabs lay dead on the deck of our raft, that a small path was cleared for a rope to be passed so that the refugees could climb down -and perhaps more importantly, that the remaining crabs, not intelligent or well-fed enough to be above cannibalism, descended on their fallen fellows and began paying more attention the now-sufficient cumulative total of crustacean carcasses as an easier meal than the fifteen children and their caretaker.
I have no doubts that my character must have told a fancifully-embellished version of that day’s events to any bard who would hear of it when the party returned to town that day, much as I have just done for you now.
“Let me show you how to really take a chair shot”
“Palace of the Pincered Prince”
Background:
The town of Wetepi-Hi’ilo is in turmoil. For months the raids have plagued the surrounding volcanic coasts. Travelers have been waylaid in the channels between the reefs, fishermen have been slain, yet their catches untouched, boar have been slaughtered by peculiar clawed hands, and inland plantings of taro and yams have been ground to compost by strange implements. Yesterday, came the greatest raid of them all, and the one which has cost the town the dearest. Chieftain I’rah Kalonga’s twin sons, Repang and Pengongke, have been stolen by what she could only describe as “foul men with the heads of groupers and bulging squid’s eyes.” The only other person to have witnessed the perpetrators of the stealthy midnight raid is an old mute elder, who merely pointed in the direction of a sea-cave that the locals always avoid, though none can come to a consensus on the exact reason for this.
Whether locals, traders or warriors from a neighboring island, or travelers from afar, you and your companions are the ones that have been chosen by Chieftain I’rah to take Wetepi-Hi’ilo’s sturdiest war-canoe and venture into the cave to bring back her sons, or perish within.
The Shunned Sea-cave:
None in Wetepi-Hi’ilo can seem to agree on why it is that the townsfolk always avoid this place. Some say that it is home to a Kraken or other great sea monster, others suggest that it contains an accursed shrine to a dark god that the most wicked and vile of their ancestors once venerated. The chieftain’s sister, the mystic I’rah Wese’maati claims that in her visions, she sees it as the final resting place of an army of Dwarven ghosts, drowned when their miners tunneled into the sea. Whatever the reason, you cannot shake a sense of extreme foreboding upon entering, as the echo of crashing waves resound off the basalt walls and even the best-seasoned sailors among you can imagine dreadful horrors of the deep in the inky depths beneath the surface of the choppy black waters…
Points of Interest:
1. The Ambush
“Almost immediately upon entering this place, your worst fears are confirmed, It is inhabited, and those inhabitants are hostile, and armed…”
This is a simple combat encounter with a small number (between 1d4 and 1d10 depending on party size and strength) of the Tua-Loa tribe that inhabit the cave, and the party’s first real chance to get a look at them. The Tua-Loa will hide in the shadows, content to sit back and sling javelins until the party are all dead, or they run out, at which point they will slink back into the tunnel that branches to the east, and return to the village to alert the rest of the tribe. These warriors should have stats comparable to the D&D Fish-men with a similar sounding name, or the equivalent in whatever system you might run this in.
The Tua-Loa warriors are upright-walking Fish-men with thoroughly piscine features, including the heads of barracudas or goliath groupers. Each stands slightly shorter than an average adult man, and each wears a simple cuirass of woven kelp fibers and a pair of simple seaweed sandals. They are each armed with a shield made of lacquered crab chitin, four light javelins, and an obsidian dagger. One of them will also possess a small horn made of a nautilus shell. This horn, when blown, is silent to humanoid ears, but emits a psionic frequency which can be heard by the Pinctagrex mentioned in entries 8 and 11, signaling it to open or close the door in entry 8.
If caught and questioned by a party member who can interpret their language, they will provide little coherent information, as they have all been whipped into a frenzied fervor over the prospect of “slaying in the service of the Pincered Prince, Aakumo’deo’o.”
2. The Circle of Silver Flame
“An ancient circle of silver-colored lacquer or shell is inlaid into the otherwise natural stone cave floor here. How long it has been here, nobody can quite work out, but a careful investigation suggests that the runes carved within seem to be Dwarven in origin. Its purpose is unknown, but the Tua-Loa seem to be avoiding it…”
This circle is a magical trap created by ancient Dwarves. When more than one sentient being stands within the circle at a time, jets of silver flame will shoot out of concealed holes in the ground, forming a ring around those inside, burning them, blinding them, and cutting them off from the area outside the circle (damage may be halved and temporary blindness avoided by a saving throw if you so choose, but it should be more difficult than those for the surrounding room). The Tua-Loa will avoid the circle should it become part of the terrain for the battle between them and the party (and it should). You may also consider having the trap activate once each round during combat to make it more of an active hazard. Additionally, having a Dwarf in your party should considerably reduce the difficulty of identifying the circle as Dwarven in origin, but not in discerning its function.
3. The Unusual Statue
This is a simple curio to be examined, though it may potentially become a source of cover, or even deal massive damage if knocked over (requiring an immense strength check), should a battle ever spill into the room. Closer investigation by the player characters (an easy check) will reveal that the statue was of a Dwarf, the head of which has long since been chiseled off and replaced with the boiled and varnished shell and forelimbs of real crabs of about a meter in width. The eyes of the statue, held onto the front of the shell by a simple glue made of fish bone paste and crushed limestone, are pearls the size of a Gnome’s fist. One is black, one is white, both are natural, nearly flawless, and worth a considerable amount.
4. The Bridge of Peril
This is a slightly more difficult and dynamic combat encounter. The number of Tua-Loa should be similar to, or slightly less than the number of Tua-Loa Warriors that ambushed them near the entrance (no more than 1d8). For each of these Tua-Loa farmers, there should be about 1d4 monstrous crabs of small size (about a meter wide) which can be called to climb onto the bridge and attack the party. Tua-Loa farmers are slightly smaller than Tua-Loa warriors, and are clad only in a simple kirtle or kilt woven of kelp fibers. Each is armed with a weighted, throwable fishing net, a bronze-headed trident, and an obsidian dagger.
In the water below the bridge mentioned above in entry 4, there are two truly giant crabs (about 2-2.5 meters wide, or the size of a small horse), which will surface when battle is joined, in order to attack from the water, or climb onto the bridge if their side has the advantage. These crabs are prodigiously-sized individuals of the same species as the smaller crabs, but are unique in their characteristics. They are:
(5a.) “Lefty,” a male crab with a massively oversized left claw which can be used to deliver a bludgeoning attack that does twice the damage of his right claw’s pinch, and may grapple an opponent to pull them into the water. Any party members slain by this formidable natural weapon may be graphically bisected, instilling terror in (and likely prompting saves against fear from) their allies.
5a./5b. Tua-Loa Crab-farming Pools
“Watch out! Clawed terrors lurk in the water, tread carefully, lest ye be truncated by their pincers or drawn in and drowned…”
(5a.) “Lefty,” a male crab with a massively oversized left claw which can be used to deliver a bludgeoning attack that does twice the damage of his right claw’s pinch, and may grapple an opponent to pull them into the water. Any party members slain by this formidable natural weapon may be graphically bisected, instilling terror in (and likely prompting saves against fear from) their allies.
(5d.) “Roeback” a she-crab nearly-completely covered by massive sacks of roe, which provide her with a damage-reduction ability, and when attacked (or once per each round she is in the fight) will have a chance to hatch 1d6 new crabs of the smaller variety. They are capable of inflicting the same amount of damage as those that the Tua-Loa farmers are tending, but in their teneral, newly-hatched state, they are soft-shelled and weak to physical damage, having only half the number of hit points as the more mature farmed crabs (or a single hit point if the crabs are numerous enough or your party’s damage output isn’t truly devastating to anything they come across). She also possesses a spit attack, with which she can shoot a concentrated burst of water at a single target in the room, causing some damage and knocking it back (if it fails its save), potentially even off the bridge and into the water...
6. Passage to Doom
This is a hidden passage by which creatures of the large crabs’ size or smaller may pass between the farm pools and the Grand Pool of the Pincered Prince (entry 13). A brave, or foolish party member may attempt this, but the currents are strong against them (a very difficult skill check to swim through), and on the other side they will find themselves face to face with the Pincered Prince Aakumo’deo’o himself...
7. The Dwarven Temple
“What is this? Some kind of ancient temple-hall built here long ago by...well, surely not the Fish-men…”
This is an old temple to an old Dwarven god built here by a population of Dwarves who dwelt (or may still yet dwell) in the mountain range that runs along the coast. This temple was built to mark the border of their kingdom after their miners tunneled into this sea-cave centuries ago. The room is empty, and deathly quiet, but those who enter will hear a strange, magical whirring, as the slab of a strange metal alloy in the center of the room seems to animate.
The object is a Dwarven Battle Cube, much like those detailed by that master of the RPG room-design craft, Hankerin Ferinale of Runehammer. This one, however, is hundreds, if not thousands of years old, and as such, is limited in its abilities, perhaps only possessing one or two functions, which it is hard-programmed to repeat over and over. Thus, it can be avoided with some care by those wishing to further inspect the room. On the altar at the far end can be found 1d4 small bits of Dwarven treasure from the table below (roll once for the number, then again for each piece, items with an asterisk (*) in their entry are one-of-a-kind, re-roll any duplicate results for them). Additionally, wrapped in the remains of what was once a fine velvet bag, there is a small egg-shaped ingot of Osmiridium. It is roughly the size of a Gnome’s fist, and is engraved with Dwarven runes. Further inspection by a character who speaks Dwarven will reveal that the object is a standard weight measure for a unit which is still in use. It is magically enchanted to be able to dramatically alter its own weight when the name for the unit of measurement is spoken as a command word, and thus functions as a key for the Dwarven door in entry 8). The runes on the ingot itself do not explicitly state this use, but it should not be too difficult to infer or even guess. Perhaps standard weight measurements are a key component of most common Dwarven idioms and sayings?
Small Dwarven Treasures (1d6)
1
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A heavy corselet of mail, completely untarnished by age (will provide the wearer resistance to attacks or spells that would attempt to knock them back or move them around)
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2
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An orb of solid brass, carven with strange runes for some unknown purpose (this one’s not magical, it’s just a Dwarven bocce ball)
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3
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An orb of clear glass sitting on a tree-shaped stand made of malachite (a crystal ball, but it is broken and only shows the user events which happened within a half-mile radius up to 10 minutes ago. The stand is pretty valuable though)
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4
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A mushroom and a moth preserved in amber (these are the only two examples of the species’ whose stems and scent glands are required as reagents for the best known potion of lichdom, and whose caps and wings are components of the antidote for said potion. Their life essences would be extremely difficult to extract, but they’re already pretty to look at…)*
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5
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A golden penannular brooch with an amulet wrought in the shape of a crab (eerie foreshadowing much? What Dwarfstradamus made this thing?...)
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6
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A crown of a strange silvery metal (a platinum-palladium alloy) and inlaid with imperial topaz in the shape of an open eye (provides its user with a superior ability to see in the dark)*
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8. The Dwarven Door
This is an ancient Dwarven door with a locking mechanism that is part mechanical and part magical. On either side, there is an identical brass font atop a travertine pedestal (much like an ancient Dwarven bird-bath), and in each one there is an egg-shaped depression. These are meant to receive a Gnome fist-sized egg-shaped ingot of a dense metal alloy (such as the one found atop the altar in entry 7) which, once inserted, may be activated to dramatically increase its own weight, causing enough pressure for the font and pedestal assembly to sink into the ground partway, and activating the mechanism to open the ancient door, which will remain open as long as the key is in place, and until the command word (the name of the Dwarven unit of measurement that the egg-shaped ingot is a standard for) is spoken again, at which point, the pedestals and fonts on both sides will return to their resting positions and the door will close.
It is worth noting that the Tua-Loa, despite lacking anything approaching ancient Dwarven magical or technical know-how, are able to open and close the door. They do so by enlisting the help of Blub’ossh Yik-buar, a Pinctagrex, or giant psionic oyster (akin to the one presented here), which the the Tua-Loa Threshers confer with. To do so, the Pinctagrex, whom the tribe call “Bo-bo-yii-bo,” will temporarily transfer its consciousness into a an egg-shaped iridized pearl the size of a gnome’s fist, and dramatically alter that pearl’s weight, allowing it to activate the opening mechanism on the Tua-Loa tribe’s side of the Dwarven door.
The party may open the door either by acquiring the key from the Dwarven temple mentioned in entry 7, or by utilizing a combination of the nautilus horn and the black pearl “eye” of the statue mentioned in entry 3, or by simply entering the cave during a high tide while the door is open. If this is the case however, the nautilus horn will be blown in the initial encounter with the ambush party, and the door will quickly be closed preventing the players from passing through unless they are quick enough, or can find the key later on).
Using the white pearl “eye” from the statue in area 3, or any other object lacking a significant enough iridium content, will case the pedestal and font to sink into the ground as though correctly activated, but will not open the door. Instead, it will activate another ancient Dwarven trap, causing silver flames to issue forth from the font, which then returns to its default position and begins to fill the room with a toxic cloud of osmium tetroxide, causing severe damage to any exposed, as well as blindness on a failed save, or near-instant death by pulmonary edema on a critical failure (or on a regular failed save if you run a very high-lethality game).
“Before you sits a motley collection of squat, round huts, loosely cobbled together though not without some strangely piscine sense of artistic sensibility. It seems the Fish-men have built a whole village of these crude dwellings here. Let us hope by the gods that none of them are home…”
It is worth noting that the Tua-Loa, despite lacking anything approaching ancient Dwarven magical or technical know-how, are able to open and close the door. They do so by enlisting the help of Blub’ossh Yik-buar, a Pinctagrex, or giant psionic oyster (akin to the one presented here), which the the Tua-Loa Threshers confer with. To do so, the Pinctagrex, whom the tribe call “Bo-bo-yii-bo,” will temporarily transfer its consciousness into a an egg-shaped iridized pearl the size of a gnome’s fist, and dramatically alter that pearl’s weight, allowing it to activate the opening mechanism on the Tua-Loa tribe’s side of the Dwarven door.
The party may open the door either by acquiring the key from the Dwarven temple mentioned in entry 7, or by utilizing a combination of the nautilus horn and the black pearl “eye” of the statue mentioned in entry 3, or by simply entering the cave during a high tide while the door is open. If this is the case however, the nautilus horn will be blown in the initial encounter with the ambush party, and the door will quickly be closed preventing the players from passing through unless they are quick enough, or can find the key later on).
Using the white pearl “eye” from the statue in area 3, or any other object lacking a significant enough iridium content, will case the pedestal and font to sink into the ground as though correctly activated, but will not open the door. Instead, it will activate another ancient Dwarven trap, causing silver flames to issue forth from the font, which then returns to its default position and begins to fill the room with a toxic cloud of osmium tetroxide, causing severe damage to any exposed, as well as blindness on a failed save, or near-instant death by pulmonary edema on a critical failure (or on a regular failed save if you run a very high-lethality game).
9. Tua-Loa Village
“Before you sits a motley collection of squat, round huts, loosely cobbled together though not without some strangely piscine sense of artistic sensibility. It seems the Fish-men have built a whole village of these crude dwellings here. Let us hope by the gods that none of them are home…”
Four of the huts are currently inhabited, and should the party end up in combat in the village (the most likely outcome as diplomacy with the Tua-Loa, while not impossible, should be difficult), one new Tua-Loa warrior or farmer will issue forth from each hut every round. If a hut can be destroyed, it will not spawn any new combatants, and combat will end if all four are destroyed, or the party manage to enter the Threshers’ hut.
10. The Ritual Stones
In the center of the Tua-Loa village stands a circle of ritual stones that serves as both a shrine to their god, the Pincered Prince Aakumo’deo’o, and as a graveyard. When one of the Tua-Loa dies, or when any part of a sacrifice to Aakumo’deo’o is recovered from area 13, the remains are placed in the vat in the center (which was once an ornate bronzen cauldron of Dwarven make that used to stand in front of the statue in area 3) to decompose. The rendered good from the vat is used by the tribe’s Threshers to paint the holy symbols upon the ritual stones.
Atop a low stone next to the vat is an old Dwarven relic, a copper circlet set with four chrysoberyls and three sunstones. If recovered, it would surely be valuable if recovered, and cleaned off… (this circlet allows a properly attuned wearer to cast a blasting spell up to seven times a day, at three different intensity levels by touching the stones. Each blast is of a level corresponding to the number of stones touched, and once a stone is touched, it may no longer be used that day, ex. touching a single stone produces a blast of low intensity (equivalent to a cantrip), two a medium blast (equivalent to a low level damage spell), and three a high intensity blast (equivalent to a mid-level damage spell). In a single day the circlet can cast any combination of blasts totaling all seven stones, such as two high and one low intensity blasts, three medium and one low, or seven low intensity blasts.
11. The Threshers’ Hut
“That hut looks bigger than the others, and has a sort of vestibule to it. Do you think the chieftain’s sons might be in there?”
The largest hut in the village belongs to the tribe’s three priests/priestesses, known as Threshers, Blii, Boh, and Bopp. Bo and Bopp are male, and have the heads of swordfish. Blii is female, and has the head of an anglerfish, with two distinct “lumps” on either side of her glowing lure. Tua-Loa Threshers should have comparable stats to the similarly named priests of the similarly named Fish-men in official published D&D.
Additionally, inside the hut is a large pool of water that serves as a throne of sorts for the Pinctagrex Blub’ossh Yik-buar. If the party chose to explore the eastern branch of the dungeon first, Blub’ossh Yik-buar will be in the pool, and Chieftain I’rah’s sons, Repang and Pengongke will be bound with kelp fiber ropes right in front of the pool. If the party went west first and have only now reached the Thresher’s hut, Blub’ossh Yik-buar will have been carried to his grotto behind the grand pool in area 13, and Chieftain I’rah’s sons will have been taken to the sacrificial pillar (entry 12) to be offered to Prince Aakumo’deo’o.
The Threshers are all clad in robes made of the rainbow-scaled hides of a local species of fish, and reinforced by armored girdles of crab chitin plates. Boh and Bopp each bear a quadrident in one hand and a barbed, ten-tailed lash whip in the other. Blii is apparently armed only with a small jade club. In combat, Boh and Bopp will fight ferociously with their dreadful weaponry, and their sharp bills, battling to the death if necessary to protect their mother and Bo-bo-yi-bo.
Blii is the most senior of the Threshers, mother to the other two, and is possessed of psionic powers due to her communing with Bo-bo-yi-bo. In combat, Blii has a wide arsenal at her disposal, but prefers to let her sons do most of the fighting. The club she carries is made of solid jade, and, as a gift from Bo-bo-yi-bo, been imbued with an innate psionic power to magically sunder an opponent’s weapon twice a day. She also possesses three psionic invocations, as detailed below. She may use these at will, but in any given round may only use either Alter Mass and Angler’s Lure, either one of those twice, or Drowning Doom once.
Psionic Invocations
Alter Mass
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Can dramatically increase the mass of a weapon for a split-second as it hits a target, doubling its damage. Blii can use this on herself or her allies.
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Angler’s Lure
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Causes Blii’s lure to glow an impossibly color, transfixing a single target and causing them to be stunned for a round on a failed save.
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Drowning Doom
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With a flick of her hands, Blii can cause a single target’s lungs to begin filling with seawater, causing death by internal drowning in three rounds unless stopped somehow.
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Additionally, Blii possesses two biotic symbionts. The “lumps” on her head, are in fact, the last remaining vestiges of Blip and Blop, the elder Threshers who taught her the craft. In their current state, they are shriveled and withered away to nothing more than a set of gonads that allowed Blii to breed the next generation of Threshers, Boh and Bopp. Blip and Blop, however, do still retain fractions of a mind, and can perform two functions, granting Blii a minor Psionic ability, and a suicidal attack that can be used as a last resort. Blip provides Blii with an extra attack per round, and Blop grants her a preternatural sense for incoming damage that allows her to dodge one otherwise successful attack against her during the course of a combat encounter.
If Blii’s own survival seems to be at risk, Blip and Blop may resort to their emergency mechanism, suicidally shooting forth from Blii’s head to burrow their way into a target and explode, filling the host with a swarm of parasitic worms that will (on a failed save), eat their host from the inside. In three rounds time unless stopped somehow, this will kill the host in a burst of escaping worms that can infect other targets nearby.
Blub’ossh Yik-buar, if present, will remain in place as it is largely sessile and incapable of significant locomotion. It will instead make efficient use of psionic suggestions and force pushes to attempt to control its enemies in such a way that the Tua-Loa Threshers may fight them off more effectively.
“Before you is an enormous cavern chamber with high ceilings lined with numerous tooth-like stalactites. Within the chamber is a subterranean tidal basin the size of a small lake, over which a single promontory of basalt is perched. Atop this outcropping stands a single pillar of greenstone, fitted with bronze eyelets into which thick ropes of kelp fiber have been bound. Next to the pillar, on a stand made of driftwood, sits the meter-wide lithified shell of an ancient ammonite, iridescent, glistening, and apparently intended for use as some sort of aerophone…”
This is the place where living sacrifices to Prince Aakumo’deo’o are bound to await the arrival of the Tua-Loa’s revered god-being. The horn (which itself is an ancient shell that has fossilized and lithified into a substantial quantity of gem-quality ammolite that would be very valuable if its immense weight can somehow be removed from the cave), can be blown to summon the Pincered Prince to consume the offerings bound to the pillar.
“The grand pool occupies nearly all of the cavern chamber, with the outcropping upon which the pillar stands, and a small cave opening on the opposite side being the only areas of note which are not submerged. The water is oddly still, but then there is a ripple, then another, and soon the entire surface is roiling with seething spray, heralding the imminent arrival of the great and terrible beast…”
Prince Aakumo’deo’o, for all the praise and fanfare that the Tua-Loa give him, is not a divine being except in the Fish-men’s understanding of the concept. He is, in fact, simply a giant monstrous crab of truly immense proportions. He does, however, possess two mighty pincered claws, each of which is over 2 meters in length and easily capable of chopping a Human-sized creature into small bits, or knocking several of them into the water of his pool at once. Additionally, Aakumo’deo’o is capable of rapidly inhaling great quantities of water, and once per round can create a whirlpool that will draw smaller creatures toward the Pincered Prince. His massive carapace is as hard as steel plate armor, and three times as thick, rendering him impervious to damage from most normal weapons unless part of his shell can be pierced or crushed first (such as by a falling stalactite, or some other means…)
Prince Aakumo’deo’o will attack the party almost immediately , and will attempt to knock any of them, or Chieftain I’rah’s sons into the water at the first chance. He would be loath to lose such a quality meal. Nonetheless, it could be possible to rescue the chieftain’s sons without having to defeat the Pincered Prince if the party can manage the right combination of quick maneuvering and sheer luck.
Blub’ossh Yik-buar, if present, will remain in place as it is largely sessile and incapable of significant locomotion. It will instead make efficient use of psionic suggestions and force pushes to attempt to control its enemies in such a way that the Tua-Loa Threshers may fight them off more effectively.
12. The Sacrificial Pillar
“Before you is an enormous cavern chamber with high ceilings lined with numerous tooth-like stalactites. Within the chamber is a subterranean tidal basin the size of a small lake, over which a single promontory of basalt is perched. Atop this outcropping stands a single pillar of greenstone, fitted with bronze eyelets into which thick ropes of kelp fiber have been bound. Next to the pillar, on a stand made of driftwood, sits the meter-wide lithified shell of an ancient ammonite, iridescent, glistening, and apparently intended for use as some sort of aerophone…”
This is the place where living sacrifices to Prince Aakumo’deo’o are bound to await the arrival of the Tua-Loa’s revered god-being. The horn (which itself is an ancient shell that has fossilized and lithified into a substantial quantity of gem-quality ammolite that would be very valuable if its immense weight can somehow be removed from the cave), can be blown to summon the Pincered Prince to consume the offerings bound to the pillar.
13. Pool of the Pincered Prince
Prince Aakumo’deo’o, for all the praise and fanfare that the Tua-Loa give him, is not a divine being except in the Fish-men’s understanding of the concept. He is, in fact, simply a giant monstrous crab of truly immense proportions. He does, however, possess two mighty pincered claws, each of which is over 2 meters in length and easily capable of chopping a Human-sized creature into small bits, or knocking several of them into the water of his pool at once. Additionally, Aakumo’deo’o is capable of rapidly inhaling great quantities of water, and once per round can create a whirlpool that will draw smaller creatures toward the Pincered Prince. His massive carapace is as hard as steel plate armor, and three times as thick, rendering him impervious to damage from most normal weapons unless part of his shell can be pierced or crushed first (such as by a falling stalactite, or some other means…)
Prince Aakumo’deo’o will attack the party almost immediately , and will attempt to knock any of them, or Chieftain I’rah’s sons into the water at the first chance. He would be loath to lose such a quality meal. Nonetheless, it could be possible to rescue the chieftain’s sons without having to defeat the Pincered Prince if the party can manage the right combination of quick maneuvering and sheer luck.
If Aakumo’deo’o is slain and the party decide to explore the grand cavern more, they may find that the bottom of the pool is home to a large biomass of ordinary crabs from area 5 that swim through the passage detailed in entry 6 to gather in the grand pool, where they become the main source of food for Aakumo’deo’o when he is not feeding on offerings left by the Tua-Loa.
Additionally, the cave opening at the other side of the room, which can be reached by swimming across or traversing the pool in some manner of watercraft, leads to a small grotto. Inside, there is a pool of water fed by a thermal spring, from which the heated water, rich in iridium salts, bubbles forth. By making offerings to Aakumo’deo’o, the tribe of Tua-Loa are able to placate the Pincered Prince and pass across the pool to the grotto without being attacked. This allows them to periodically carry Blub’ossh Yik-buar to the thermal pool, wherein the Pinctagrex can synthesize the iridized pearls necessary to act as key analogues for the Dwarven door, as successive uses will degrade them. If the party happen to defeat Blub’ossh Yik-buar and rescue Repang and Pengongke, then proceed on to also defeat Aakumo’deo’o, they will find the pool in the grotto empty, save for one slightly misshapen pearl, which is useless as a key for the door, but valuable in its own right.
From the grotto there is also another cave opening, from which a passage leads beyond into unknown depths...
Onward to Adventure:
Additonal Occurrences (1d8):
1
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Recently, a beached whale was seen on the other side of the island on which Wetepi-Hi’ilo is situated. A great being of nature should be assisted if it may yet live, and if it dies, its meat would feed the village for a month or more.
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2
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In the wake of the raids, food production in Wetepi-Hi’ilo has been decimated. Chieftain I’rah needs someone to help remedy this situation, whether by finding richer fishing grounds, new fruit groves, or a potential trade route with a neighboring island village. Who better, the chieftain proclaims, than those who saved her sons.
|
3
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Since being returned from their captivity by the Tua-Loa, the chieftain’s two sons haven't been the same. Pengongke has been in a trance, asleep for several days, though floating above his bed mysteriously. Repang has been getting into fights with other children, and, possessed of strange powers, nearly killed one of them. Chieftain I’rah is worried that something tragic will happen if nothing is done about this.
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4
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Banten Issho, a local fisherman, claims to have seen large ships with black sails on the horizon the last sevral mornings. He believes that they may be here to hunt him down for cooking as sacred fish.
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5
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Wen’an Jaka, the most revered canoe-maker in Wetepi-Hi’ilo, is working on his greatest masterpiece of craftsmanship, but lacks the wood necessary to build his new design. He is looking for someone who can travel to a nearby island where the mightiest of koa treed see said to grow in order to retrieve suitable materials for the craft.
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6
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Word around the village is that a large foreign trade ship has recently wrecked off the coast of the island. It is said that there may be valuable goods to be salvaged or stranded survivors to rescue if anyone can brave the rocky waters where it sank.
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7
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I’rah Wese’maati, town mystic and sister to Chieftain Kalonga, tells of a vision she had in which an army of Dwarven ghosts sailed a charred ship put of the crater of a volcano to wreak fiery havoc upon the land.
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8
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What mysteries lie beyond the cave opening at the back of the grotto behind the grand pool. Ever since you have returned, you can't help shake the urge to venture further within. Adventure beckons, will you heed the call?
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So, there you have it, an ungainly beast of a post, but hopefully a decent way to start off a new segment. From now on, I’ll likely only be posting once or twice a week, so that enough thought can go into each segment. I may end up following a formula of posting each of two columns one week, and the other two the next week, but we’ll see. It mostly depends on what kinds of inspiration come when. Either way I’ll see you in the next one.
As always, may your road lead you ever onward to adventure,
-Armstrong
Off the Shelf, a Stroll through Sandgerði
Today I thought I would debut the other two of the main segments that I plan to have here on Delves and Shelves. The first of them is this one. It’s called Off the Shelf, and it's pretty much what you'd expect from a blog on any old subject, a purr stream-of-consciousness rant about something-or-other which is probably doesn't matter, but maybe you can find some sort of meaning in it, and maybe that meaning can be of use to you in your RPG playing, writing, or general hobbyism.
Today's segment concerns a trip I took back in college during the summer after my junior year. A friend and I made a trek across the Atlantic to attend that year's Sonisphere, a big rock festival, with emphasis on harder rock and metal in England. Though that was full of many fun experiences and excellent performances, this story is not about that. This story is about the three-day stopover that we did, for free thanks to an airline promotion, in Iceland. While there, we stayed, similarly for free, at my friend's grandmother's house, enjoying the peace and quiet of the Icelandic countryside (even though we were only about twenty minutes drive from the airport), caught a couple games of the 2014 World Cup, made full use of blackout shades to sleep at all given that it was light for 19 hours a day, and ate more milk, cheese, butter, yogurt, and ice cream than I previously thought was humanly possible.
-Armstrong
Today's segment concerns a trip I took back in college during the summer after my junior year. A friend and I made a trek across the Atlantic to attend that year's Sonisphere, a big rock festival, with emphasis on harder rock and metal in England. Though that was full of many fun experiences and excellent performances, this story is not about that. This story is about the three-day stopover that we did, for free thanks to an airline promotion, in Iceland. While there, we stayed, similarly for free, at my friend's grandmother's house, enjoying the peace and quiet of the Icelandic countryside (even though we were only about twenty minutes drive from the airport), caught a couple games of the 2014 World Cup, made full use of blackout shades to sleep at all given that it was light for 19 hours a day, and ate more milk, cheese, butter, yogurt, and ice cream than I previously thought was humanly possible.
Our story today concerns one afternoon while we were there, with nothing much to do, and we ended up deciding to walk to a nearby lighthouse just to see what was up. The form this trip took was largely that of a point-to-point march, with us starting in his grandmother's back yard, and walking straight out into the field behind it, all the while discussing Primus bass riffs and formulating our plan of attack for seeing the most bands as efficiently as possible in a few days time.
A field much like the one I walked through that day, as well as the lighthouse that was my destination. Wikipedia says it's in Garður, so if anyone Icelandic happens to see this, I'd certainly like to hear where exactly the line between there and Sandgerði is. Is it sort of like a city within a county?
For those who are from or have been to Iceland, I'm sure you'll agree that the scenery is quite something to behold. For those of you who have been out in the countryside, away from any major cities, you'll know what I was experiencing at this moment. The flat fields of rocky ground covered only with low grasses, moss, and lichens stretched out as far as the eye could see behind me, and in front of me only ended in the cold grey waters of Reykjanesbær, the inlet of the Atlantic which forms the bay that shelters Reykjavík from the north sea. Above, the sky was grey, but clear, empty. All around, the atmosphere was as the kind of still quiet that you can only find in the middle of nowhere.
And then, the terns came…
In our efforts to go from one physical point to another, my friend and I hadn't realized until we were already in it, that this particular part of the field was the nesting ground for a flock of terns, who were less than happy at us trespassing on their land.
The whole encounter only lasted perhaps a minute or two before we passed through the area where they were gathered, but in that time, we were angrily squawked at, occasionally dive-bombed, and I was altogether rather thankful that my friend is about 6-foot-three, and thus a closer, easier target. It was only after the fact that we noticed the small white splotch on his dark blue knit hat, that we realized that he had, in fact, been shat upon.
It was in that moment, and again for the rest of that day, and ever since, that I've had what I'm fairly certain is a slightly better idea of what a random encounter with a randomly determined group of small animals would be like, kind of a nuisance for a short time, but untimely not too harmful for either of the parties involved.
After that brief brush with a bevy of somewhat belligerent birds (bonus points to anyone who can make that sentence any more obnoxiously alliterative), the rest of the walk was pretty uneventful. The lighthouse and its visitor's center turned out to be closed for the day, we got lightly rained on as we walked back to the house along the actual road, and as we passed some local club fields I can officially say that I've seen people playing soccer in the most northerly and the most southerly places I've ever been. After that, the rest of the day was, much as the ending of the the others that I spent in the small seaside town of Sandgerði on the southern coast of Reykjanesbær, a collection of flatbread, smoked lamb, butter, and cheese. I do plan to go back to Iceland someday, and when I do, those kinds of sandwiches will be just about first on my to-do list.
And with that, as always, may your road lead you ever onward to adventure,
-Armstrong
Thursday, November 8, 2018
Battle of the Bards: We Hunt Buffalo
Welcome to “Battle of the Bards,” a segment here on Deep Delves and Bookshelves where your ol’ pal Armstrong takes a look at a particular song, artist, album, or other wondrous item of aural artifice, and breaks down what makes it cool in a general sense, and what additional value an RPG player can get out of it. Today’s sonic scrivening is We Hunt Buffalo’s new album “Head Smashed In.”
The “Backstory”
My knowledge of We Hunt Buffalo as a band was nonexistent until about a month ago, but in the time since my discovery of the band, thanks to a couple of fuzzy rock-loving friends, I have become fairly well enamored with their heavy, low-fi but not low quality riffage, and their at times atmospheric style that occasionally puts one in a darkly bluegrassy state of mind. In this way, We Hunt Buffalo have delivered for me on what another album, “Red Hands, Black Deeds,” by Shaman’s Harvest, set me up for with its first two tracks, and then let me down on (Definitely not a knock towards Shaman’s Harvest though, they make a lot of very listenable and radio-friendly modern rock, and have apparently partnered several times with WWE to write theme songs for professional wrestlers, a niche for which their sound is perfectly suited. I’d definitely encourage you to check them out if you’re a wrestling fan or a general fan of more mainstream hard rock bands like Black Stone Cherry or Halestorm). At any rate, from the moment I heard We Hunt Buffalo’s sophomore offering, “Only Ghosts,” I’d safely say that I had once again found that musical place of dark mountains and coal dust-infused heavy fuzz for which I had been searching ever since I first heard the magical first two tracks of the above mentioned Shaman’s Harvest record earlier this year. I also knew that I was hooked on this uniquely fuzzy, complex, and atmospheric sound that We Hunt Buffalo have produced with such aplomb on their last two records.
The “Adventure”
When listening for the first time to what in only a few weeks had gone from a release entirely unknown to me, to one of my most anticipated of the fall, I can’t say that I went in without at least some expectation of enjoyment. What I can say, though, is that this record not only met, but far exceeded that expectation. Musically, all of the songs are written and arranged in a way which is engaging, and easily parallel in quality to the tracks on “Only Ghosts.” It sees a band who found a good formula on their debut self-titled album, improved in production to produce a truly excellent sophomore record, and who have now shown that they are truly masters of arranging an album. The entire track listing flows nearly flawlessly from one track to the next, without a jarring transition to be found anywhere on the album. The strong, heavy opening of “Heavy Low” -which, don’t worry, I’m not about to talk politics, but I feel as though this song’s lyrics really speak to, and make it an anthem for, the unique predicaments of our present world- launches the listener right into bangers of tracks like “Angler Must Die” and “Prophecy Wins, before going truly bonkers on the energetic instrumental of “Get in the Van,” and the aggressively bluesy “Industry Woes.” It then transitions surprisingly seamlessly into the breathy, atmospheric soundscape of “Giant’s Causeway,” before returning to heavy resonant fuzz that serves to quite literally “Keep it Refreshing.” “Anxious Children” is likewise heavy, funky, and serves to really highlight some of the album’s more elaborate bass passages, and then finally the album closes somewhat quietly with “God Games,” the track which I personally would consider to be the weakest of the lot, but is still melodically complex and full of interest. This is an album meticulously designed to take the listener on a journey with multiple climactic moments, and just enough chances for a breather that each crescendo is highlighted. All in all an excellent album to follow an excellent album, from an excellent band that I will eagerly anticipate any and all future releases from.
"A group of bards sings of my front door-step? How preposterous..."
Armstrong’s Rating: 4.25/5 frothing mugs of ale
Favorite Tracks: Heavy Low, Prophecy Wins, Get in the Van, Industry Woes
Favorite Tracks: Heavy Low, Prophecy Wins, Get in the Van, Industry Woes
The “Rewards”
So, by now, hopefully I’ve kept your attention through my rambling thoughts on a rock n’ roll record, and you’re all still with me, even if you’re thinking “Great, he’s written a music review. This is fine, but what does it have to do with RPGs?” Well, if indeed you are still with me on this journey, allow me to deliver the payoff you’ve been waiting for this whole time. This album, to me, is what I might describe as an “Atmosphere Album.” This is an album which I would listen to, and which I would encourage you to as well, in order to establish a mental framework for developing an RPG setting or fleshing out the details of an adventure which you want to have a certain theme. This album, and other Atmosphere Albums scratch many of the same itches as playing and running RPGs themselves to. They transport the mind to a place in which your setting and stories can take place, and which contain a very strong thematic connection to a certain desired tone to a campaign, one-shot, or adventure of any kind. In this particular album’s case, the atmosphere it cultivates, and the tone it evokes is one of a rugged, vaguely western setting, surrounded by mountains or in the deep, dark hills of a frontier mining region. For me, it’s the perfect accompaniment to writing a session of a fantasy western adventure, whether or not I end up actually playing any of it during the running of the game itself.
So, there you have it, a well structured atmospheric album perfect for getting into the mood for writing a setting or adventure for your next game of Owl Hoot Trail, ICRPG’s Ghost Mountain setting, or that Red Dead Redemption LARP you’ve recently started working on again with the release of the sequel. As always, I do not own any names, images, or trademarks thereof which I have mentioned above. I do so only for the purposes of review and discussion, and make no profit from their use. All are the property of their respective creators, who I urge you to support.
Once again, may your road lead ever onward to adventure,
-Armstrong
Wednesday, November 7, 2018
The RPG Room: Spell Miniatures
I Put a Spell on You: A review of the new D&D Spell Effect Miniatures
I did not have to wait too long, or shift to solely collecting and painting metal or plastic miniatures from the likes of Reaper, Games Workshop, or others. By the end of 2012, the next big revolution in miniatures had hit. Reaper had given me a near-infinite mountain of things to paint with the release and immensely successful kickstarter campaign (the first of four and counting) for their budget-priced Bones line, and Wizkids had entered into the market of miniatures that don’t come on proprietary Clix bases with their Paizo Publishing-licensed Pathfinder Battles line. It was through this that I first got a taste of what would become the theme for years to come. Those early sets of Pathfinder Battles, and a few years later the first few sets of official D&D minis also produced by Wizkids were inconsistent to say the least. I certainly expected it to take a while for the Wizkids line to measure up to the same level of quality in construction, sculpts, and paint application as the old Hasbro line. In some ways I remain disappointed to this day. There has yet to be a single set of the Wizkids lines which I would consider as having truly surpassed the Hasbro line in every way. That said, there have been several sets which have done so on average, and for every strangely painted Naga with visible seams where the parts connect, or every Waterdeep noble with the face of a blonde Mr. Potatohead, there are generally at least two imposing Storm Giants with translucent lightning bolts or gorgeous Gynosphinxes with exquisitely dry-brushed feathers and the expertly painted face of Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra.
The resemblance is uncanny, no?
Among the most recent offerings by Wizkids, are the subject of this review, the two sets of Wizards-licensed D&D spell effect miniatures. One set offers a collection of translucent plastic figures depicting many of the classic spells used by D&D spellcasters over the years. Within can be found representations of mage hand, Tenser’s floating disk, multiple forms of Bigby’s Hand, a phantom steed, and just about any kind of magically summoned weapon you could possibly want. The other set contains a physically imposing collection of effects markers for the spells Wall of Fire, and Wall of Ice, of which each has six pieces. The pieces themselves are cast from translucent orange and blue plastic respectively, and painted well, with just enough dry-brushing to bring out detail, but not so much paint that one would be lost on the fact that they are translucent. All in all, through thorough examination in my FLGS, I can definitely say that I am impressed with the quality and presentation of these miniatures.
The one thing that I am less than impressed with, however, is the price. I acknowledge that this business can sometimes be a risky one, and that all companies are out there to make a profit at the end of the day, but given that these retail for 40 bucks a box ($31.99 US on certain online retailers), I did not feel the temptation to actually purchase any of them. When compared to the unpainted, but Vallejo primed Green, White, and Red Dragons which have also just released as part of the Pathfinder Battles: Deep Cuts line, and which retail for $29.99, I have to say that this pricing was a bit of a misstep on Wizkids’ part, and that despite the fact that their pre-painted nature commands a premium for good reason, there really isn’t much justification to having a set of minis that look like things that could happen, rather than the characters and monsters on which the game is focused, sell at such a price point is a bit ridiculous on some level. Why would I pay that much for things that have been historically handled in the “theater-of-the-mind” even while miniatures are present?
All of that said, they are excellent quality figures, and I would also not be surprised if unpainted versions are released as part of a coming expansion to the Nolzur’s line, likely retailing for something like 9.99 a box for one of the Wall spells or 4.99 a blister-pack for 2-4 of the smaller spell effects. If you happen to be in that stage of your career where you have disposable income to dump into your RPG hobby for days continously though, and if you also happen to play as or run for a party that includes a Wizard, I couldn’t recommend these figures highly enough.
The Verdict: Cool, but not 40 bucks cool
If you happened to stumble upon this, thanks for reading. If you found anything above helpful, feel free to pass it along to your friends. I do not own any part of Wizards of the Coast, Wizkids, Reaper Miniatures, or any of their intellectual properties. Any references or pictures above are intended solely for the purposes of review, praise of, and occasional complaint about their products, of which I remain an avid consumer.
May your road lead ever onward to adventure,
-Armstrong
If you happened to stumble upon this, thanks for reading. If you found anything above helpful, feel free to pass it along to your friends. I do not own any part of Wizards of the Coast, Wizkids, Reaper Miniatures, or any of their intellectual properties. Any references or pictures above are intended solely for the purposes of review, praise of, and occasional complaint about their products, of which I remain an avid consumer.
May your road lead ever onward to adventure,
-Armstrong
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