Marsden is Here

I had a half-nightmare sometime in the past 24 hours where I was DMing for a too-large group and struggling to keep initiatives in particular straight at the beginning of a battle aboard a fairly small ship. Players included

A
N - playing some sort of heavy fighter.
S - playing a barbarian who channelled the spirits of his ancestors and turned into his grandfather when he raged, and helping track the PC initiatives.
A different S, whom I haven't seen in years.
B, who was in fine form.
Z
At least 2 others whom I can't remember clearly, one of whom was probably D

The party also had a pseudo-dragon or other small dragonlike creature along, whom I don't believe was attached to any particular character, and possibly a cat.

Against them, having just begun boarding over the stern of the ship after sneaking up in an invisible rowboat, casting some sort of becalming spell and getting their surprise round were
- A notorious pirate captain and her boarding crew.
- A smallish dragon, only about 1/4 size of the ship (probably did not approach /in/ the rowboat).

The pirate captain was demanding that the party hand over an artifact - possibly a necklace or amulet - that one of them or possibly an NPC was carrying. ("The something something something is mine!" [points dramatically].)

This encounter interrupted an ocean voyage to a far shore to bring aid to an ally under siege, or something, which at least one player expected to be "pull up to shore, throw a few spells and leave again", job done.

There were also some ship crew NPCs, but except for the captain thy were all aloft, desperately furling sail in case of more wind-based shenanigans.

My very erratic sleep last night included snippets of a dragonborn knight in service to a kingdom, whose overall arc was battling some form of demon/dragon cult which was trying to establish a foothold on the material plane from /somewhere/ else, possibly an afterlife plane. On defeating the local attempt to create a gate in an abandoned keep and reclaiming said keep for the kingdom she was granted paladinhood by Bahumut and sent to the battle at the main portal attempt, which her victory had set back but only delayed/weakened.

Supporting characters were a halfling sometime companion whose main purpose seemed to be to move around quickly and provide arcane or divine buffing support, and for the final adventure of the arc above a 12-year-old human squire (very squishy) just to complicate matters. (I infer the squire had a certain level of plot immunity.) At one stage there was also a princess and a horse which had not been saddled properly.

Now of course I want to play through/out this character's story ...

~~~
A couple of other concepts which have taken up residence recently are both tieflings. One fled the prejudices of the city for the wilderness, where they found nature accepted them for who they were and that county folk were more than happy to accept their horns / tail / etc as signs of natures blessing rather than a mark of evil, especially when they can bring healing and good crops.

The other has trained as a monk to battle demon/devilkind and protect others from being trapped in the sort of contract which introduced outsider blood into their family - or other machinations of the lower planes. I can see a variant of this who is a Ranger (more 3E than 5E), or a Fae bound warlock, or even a Sorcerer. (Seed: Gamemaster's Stash post on Facebook).

And of course this warrior still pops up on a regular basis.

~~~
Bonus campaign seed which popped up while I was picking stones out of the waste land this morning; The gods are dead and now that they are not hoarding it divine magic is flooding the lands/planes for any who possess sufficient will to use. It is an age of miracles, and also of dramatic conflict as every faction attempts to gather as much power as possible towards their own ends before either new gods arise or old ones return.

After all, in a world where divine magic has always meant death can be temporary for those with the right connections, who is to say how long the gods themselves might stay dead?

... my dreams last night were epic on a scale I haven't experienced in some time. This may or may not be related to my complete exhaustion on multiple levels. Some notes for future gaming reference.

- A hero bearing a spear tipped with light appearing at various times throughout history,
- actually different members of a secret society founded and led by members of a race of immortals (do not age, susceptible to violence variety), dedicated to ensuring than an ancient fortress literally thrown/torn down after a murder of passion followed by a bloody schism never rises again to trigger the fulfillment of a prophecy.
- The world has changed so much in the centuries since though that some of the senior members are starting to wonder if it actually matters any more, or if they were being too literal and there is more to be gained by letting the younger races continue their growth on the site.
- There are a number of such weapons but only one more will be made, the person it is made for must then kill the one who can make them before and demon possessing them and invoked in the process can escape (per prophecy)
- The "king" of the immortals and father of the murderer prevented from taking his revenge on the (legitimate) killer of his son by law and the other nobles, secretly plotting his revenge on basically the entire planet from the immortals' home city in the sky/spaceship, which has been basically isolated since the body was returned.
- immortals included Batman, Wonder Woman and possibly Dr Strange analogs as well as other characters I do not recognise a source for.
- There was a self propelled stone battle wagon occupied/controlled by the soul of an immortal woman who had stolen the secrets to power it from the city, kind of in a
- "Of those who travelled north only those who had previously travelled south survived" or "the key to surviving the north lies in the south."

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Authors' note: it has now been some years since this campaign ended but the need to complete this final chapter has stayed with me. Tonight I find myself inspired (and rested) enough to finally put it down.

Scrying for Anthony, even with the aid of the most powerful spellcasters of the kingdom was only able to narrow his location down to somewhere within a magical storm which had raged over a particular area of the ocean since time immemorial. Of course.

So it was that the party acquired a sturdy ship and stout-hearted crew and set off for the malestrom. Reaching the edge was easy enough, it was well marked on all the charts. With deep breaths all round and everyone tied to something firm the captain spun the wheel and set course directly into darkness.

( Storms, giants and other guardians )
( Dragons beneath the sea )
( Epilogue )
Fin.

Thanks to Niall (DM), Sam (Zediz'r), Josh (Zenon), Laura (Aiu), Lucy (Sa), Izzy (Val) and Kristiana (Daggakorian) for memories which have stuck with me so long.

This weekend past was Labour Weekend in NZ; so a public holiday was had on Monday. It was an unusually ordered weekend in more ways than one.

I can not actually recall much of what I did on Saturday. I know I spent some time at the Hall in the afternoon. I suspect the rest of the time was spent on housework and on the phone to Wellington. I've been on the phone (or FaceChat) to Wellington a lot recently.

Sunday I actually managed a whole day at home when the urban search and rescue dog team cancelled their booked training at the Hall. Most of the day I spent focused on cleaning obsolete material out of my gaming folder, attending to various GM admin tasks related to my Sunday game and planning the encounter and aftermath for the next session (the PCs were ambushing an enemy camp). It was good just to be able to sit down and concentrate on gaming stuff for an extended period of time, closing a lot of small loops in my to-do list; but it was also about as mentally taxing as the equivalent time (ie a full day) at work.

Sunday evening I attended a Labour Weekend drinkies for a few hours as a) I really needed to get out of the house for a bit and b) the game had actually been moved (one day only) to Monday afternoon; one player down but better for everyone else, to be run at the Hall while I was on site for photographers. (#atmosphere) Monday morning I spent on house chores and final gaming prep.

Of course it turned out that one of the groups booked in weren't actually as familiar with the Hall as I had taken from their email so we lost 45 minutes to an abridged version of the orientation tour. But the party did manage to make it through the encounter, defeat the giant "sheepaphant", capture the mage and start getting out of Dodge in just the amount of time we had remaining. I don't know if playing in the Hall dining room (in the dark, for a night battle) actually added to the experience for anyone; once I was focused on the table I stopped being aware of the surrounds but then I'm quite used to being in them.

~~~
Regardless I've been feeling rejuvenated somewhat recently. Bookended by wake-ups / good nights from my lady in Wellington I'm sleeping a reasonable period, waking up sharply in the morning and if I can get out of bed (or have something to do on the laptop) being quite productive. Followed up by a full day of activity - Sunday gaming prep; Monday chores & gaming; Tuesday work; Wednesday work followed by chores.

It's not all positive though:
- My sleep quantity may have improved but the quality continues to be questionable. Monday night was particularly bad. Not that I wasn't sleeping, but that it came with a very vivid, epic length end of the world, hopes and expectations repeatedly crushed type dream.
- despite the extra hours I am not finding much downtime for just me; there always seems to be someone or something demanding attention just when I try to take a break (cat/sudden deadlines/hall requests/messages of distress) and I am starting to feel worn quite thin.

On Monday I cut my planned holidays short by a week and went back to work to deal with issues which had been unfinished last year and blown up over the Xmas/NY closure. This wasn't entirely unexpected so I was mentally prepared and even eager; so much so that I was at work uncommonly early on Monday and pushed through a 7-hour day in determination to complete what I was working on. (Which I didn't, but made satisfactory progress.) This may have been a mistake so I wasn't unduly concerned when I did not manage the same start on Tuesday, but by Wednesday I was lying in bed in the grip of a very familiar slough, one that held me even more as the week passed so that I didn't actually get out of bed these past two days until after 11am and to work until about 1pm. (Despite that quite a productive week. Quiet office.)

The stupid thing (well, one of many) is that on Wednesday I had been out of bed about 6am to put bread (left to rise overnight) in the oven and again about 7am to take it out. If I had just stayed out of bed I would have made it through the day just fine.

Excepting the really good start on Monday this is of course the pattern of my life which I have been trying to change for the past few years. And it really was absent over the break; or at least the feeling of weight that kept me in bed when I knew I ought to be elsewhere. Thinking back there were one or two times it resurged, when I was only partially enthused for some commitment or other.

I do not want to go through another year like this. As I sit here I don't actually know if I can face/deal with going through another year like this. It seems so unnecessary, and it should be such a simple thing for me simply to stay out of bed each morning.

Installing a standing desk has shaken up my routine and broken some of my bad computer habits, doubtless contributing to the amount of other things which have got done over the past couple of weeks; I am seriously considering reserving the bed for naps for a few months and at nights sleeping on the couch in the dining room to see if that does the trick.

~~~
In better news on Monday I gave a home to a box of old RPG books that a friend was disposing of before heading back overseas. Never mind that I haven't finished reading through the acquisitions from the last time I did that, a couple of years ago (longer)? There's some good stuff in there; collectibles and useful references.

Ability damage whether through poisons, energy drains, feats or other effects is fairly common in D&D3 and it's close relatives. In fact as hit point totals grow I've found that the easiest way to make the players concerned about the ability of an enemy to damage them is to break out an ability-damaging critter, taking them back to worrying about a total which is likely in the teens to start with rather than the tens.

Monte Cooke's Arcana Unearthed (and revision for 3.5, Arcana Evolved) deliberately make healing harder to come by. For HP damage the lower level healing spells either cure less (fast and with no side effects) or cure more but at a cost to the caster.

After diligent searching I found the following options for ability damage:

#Iamblind #rightundermynose
The Restoration spell is a Complex, Positive Energy (specifically accessible by certain classes / feats), level 5 spell. It requires the target have a Truename to be effective. Diminished (cast using a 4th level spell slot) it removes all temporary damage to one ability score and dispels negative levels; cast normally it dispels negative levels, restores one drained level, removes all temporary ability damage and one point drained from a single ability score, and heightened (cast using a 6th level slot) it restores all lost levels and all points drained from a single ability score. At best you need to be a 9th level caster before you get access to this spell in any form, 11th to use it heightened.

For comparison the 3.x spell Lesser Restoration cures 1d4 points of ability damage and is 2nd level (3rd level caster), Restoration dispels negative levels, restores one drained level, cures all temporary damage, restores all points drained from a single ability score and is a 4th level spell (7th level caster)

Other options appear to be:
- The heightened version of Transfer Wounds (Total) (Simple, Positive Energy, using an 8th level spell slot) in addition to healing all hit point damage removes all temporary ability damage, applying half of that damage to the caster as per usual for the Transfer Wounds spells.
- Perfect Health (9th level, Simple, Positive Energy, requires Truename) removes all temporary ability damage but explicitly does not remove drain.
- Heightened Neutralise Poison (Complex, Positive energy, 5th level slot) heals damage inflicted by poisons within the past hour.
- Heightened Remove Disease (Complex, Positive energy, 4th level slot) heals any damage inflicted by diseases in the last week.
- Remove Malady (Complex, Positive energy, requires Truename, 5th level slot) can take away (among other things) a poison or disease affecting a character, but it is not clear if this will restore ability damage. Comparing it to the levels of the previous two I would say not; this spell instead has the flexibility of being effective against a wide variety of conditions.
- the Runethane (class) Rune of Rest doubles the rate of healing while during rest, presumably including ability damage.

The lack of lower level magic for addressing ability damage is clearly a deliberate design decision but it's a bit problematic when a series of horrendous FORT saves leaves your low-to-mid-levels group mostly incapacitated by a few spiders. By the rules it also makes ability healing items (eg potions) prohibitively expensive at lower levels. Google has not revealed unto me any existing house rules for this out there, so here are a couple of ways I see to address this while still keeping the availability of healing a bit more scare.

1. Easily within the rules Lesser Restoration can be brought in as an exotic spell. I would probably make it 3rd level, Positive Energy, restoring 1d4+1 points of damage to one ability score, diminished restoring 2 points but at a cost to the caster of 1 point (ala Transfer Wounds), heightened restoring all points of damage to one ability score.

2. The Lesser and Greater Transfer Wounds spells could be modified such that the heightened version additionally / instead restores some amount of ability damage at the usual cost of transferring half the damage to the caster (effectively having half the effect if cast on oneself). If I were taking this route I would probably make the amount 1d4+1 points to one ability score for LTW and all points to one ability score for GTW (heightened is a 5th level spell so Restoration may be available, but GTW is a Simple spell and doesn't require a Truename).

As a side note even with multiple applications of these spells there would always be one point left /somewhere/ which has to recover naturally #math.

3. The Lesser and Greater Battle Healing spells could be similarly modified. These are already a level higher than their Transfer counterparts which seems reasonable for the utility. Restoration is still preferable if it is available if only because it now uses a lower level slot (heightened GBW uses a 6th level slot to achieve what Restoration does using a 4th level slot).

My preference would probably be to use both 2 and 3 but for the stingier DM introducing an NPC who has spent the feat for or an Amulet of Spell Knowledge containing the first option might be more palatable.

On Tuesday evening I had the opportunity to play in a one-shot of Numenera with a group of people I don't have the pleasure of gaming with very often. I've heard about the system on-and-off and I was suitably impressed with it in play; immediately encouraging of a descriptive style of play, very simple mechanic, setting deals neatly and explicitly with the natural player tendency to "now-ise" everything. Would pick up and run.

Busana the Intelligent Glaive who Explores Dark Places* and her two companions Roderick the Foolish Glaive who Stands Like A Bastion and Future Steve 17 the ? Nano who Exists Slightly Out of Phase were drawn into a "game" wherein an inimical race were plotting a public massacre of several locals.
* Recreation of the character I am currently playing on Wednesdays in an Arcana Unearthed campaign - system which was coincidentally also authored by Monte Cook.

Things I Have Not Done Before in a game included
- discretely emptying a "love poison" potion around the roots of a plantlike creature acting as a receptionist to gain her favour and expedited access to the Aon Priest we hoped had information which would help us.

- persuading an NPC that the reason his husband was lying on the floor goaning and bleeding out his ears was because he was going to imbibe too much "counterwise wine" at the event he had received an invitation to.

- having to dodge an "Instant Boat" being created in the air above the final combat (and special mention to Roderick who "stood like a bastion" and caught one end of said boat as it fell to give myself and Future Steve 17 a better chance of getting out of the way).

The final battle was a nail-biting and near-thing as our characters were underpowered for the scenario, and more than once it looked like we were doomed to lose. We only managed to interrupt and limit the massacre rather than prevent it completely, and Busana nearly perished but after the final opponent was subdued Future Steve 17 was able to make use of a convenient first aid kit to restore sufficient health that she was able to limp tail-and-ears-high out to the cheering crowds.

~~~
On the way home from the game I nearly ran over a bunny just around the corner from home - a pale tan mini-lop with dark brown ears which ran straight at the car. A grey smush-faced companion hopped out of a nearby drive while I was trying to earn the first's trust enough to catch it so I was able to go and bang on the door (just before midnight) until the owners came out to herd them back to their hutch.