Dungeons and Dragons (Part 2)

We played DnD today!

So, when we left off last week, the party was standing in a cave, having just freshly killed a human boy-child who, with the help of a Demonic Teddy Bear, had been the cruel leader of a band of goblins.  The party discussed their options about what to do following this development.  Dragon Man wanted to go back to Bahah and tell it like it was and let the chips fall where they would, but Ulfgar argued for returning and just burning the compound down.  Most of the party was uncomfortable with this. 

Luckily, the Useless Bard found a signet ring on the boy, so they took that and burned the bodies of the child and the goblins and came up with a story about him being killed by the Goblins in a sacrifice to their evil god, Bhal.  Dragon Man grabbed one of the unburnt dead to bring back with us as proof they had slayed such beings to avenge the child’s death.  Ulfgar still argued that maybe we should attack the compound. 

The party camped out for the night to recharge and headed back in the morning, the return trip being uneventful except for Dragon Man stepping on a pile of poisonous snakes.  They scoped out the compound upon returning, but decided based o n the guard situation that maybe that wouldn’t work, so they went along on the while Lie Plan. 

It seemed that the Steward Tomas bough Ulfgar’s lies, but when they were brought before Lord Bahah, Ulfgar was less convincing, and Lord Bahah forced the truth out of them, which Dragon Man happily revealed, not being one to prefer subterfuge. 

Luckily, Lord Bahah was pretty understanding!  He was somewhat proud of his evil son for leading an evil goblin horde, but also didn’t mind that he was dead, what with him being evil and all.  It then was related that the Evil Demon Teddy Bear was a present to his son from Makana, an immortal human wizard with a Bahah Blast addiction living three towns over (and 4 weeks journey).  Lord Bahah very quickly blamed Makana for his son’s end, and swiftly hired the party to travel to Ispep, the city of Makana’s residence, and kill him, giving them 10 platinum coins each for supplies. 

The party took the job. 

Ulfgar bought a covered wagon and mule and supplies for the journey, while Dragon Man bought himself a Draft Horse, and the party set off that very day, with the Useless Bard holding the reigns, and Ulfgar, Nory the Mad Gnome, and Henk hiding in the back.  Nory found a strange somewhat magical clockwork toy hidden in a secret compartment in the wagon, but not much came of this at the time. 

The party began to hit a series of tolls on the road, which Dragon Man managed to pay only the five copper a piece for himself and the Useless Bard, as the other three adventurers were hidden away in the wagon.  They bedded down for the night in a campsite including a party of Magical Halfling Bards, and the Useless One got very drunk with them.  The rest of the party just went to sleep without a watch, and Henk shooed away one of the halfings that tried to watch their stuff. 

And the next morning, everything was still there!  The party headed on their way, hit another toll-booth, and stayed at another campsite, where their watch noticed a traveler arrive late at night that turned out to be…A Drow!  But the party pretty much left the Drow alone, and from him they learned that there was dog-like animals prowling the road.  Continuing on their journey, they found one such creature along the side of the road, slain, apparently by the Drow, with a poisoned crossbow bolt. 

Further along, they found a toll booth staffed by men who were obviously not real toll-guards, and after trying to get away with just not paying the toll, they noticed limp feet sticking out behind the toll-guards shack.  They returned to make battle, and defeated the two men revealed as bandits, as well as  their hidden bandit captain.  The real guards were dead, having been turned into phantom tollbooth guards, so the party took along the bodies of all five men on the pair of horses they found there, as well as the toll chest. 

Coming upon the next rest stop, they party found a peasant family being attacked by hyenas!  Luckily they were able to kill most of the hyenas, the last opting to run off into the woods, and used healing spells to save the father of the peasant family.  They then watched over the family for the night, as heroes do.

Coming to the next toll point, they turned over the bodies of the toll-guards and bandits, as well as the copper toll-chest, and then continued on, the toll-guards present there thanking them for delivering their compatriots justice.  They also mentioned that there were gnolls about up, to no good, and the party decided they would have to be more cautious on further travels, keeping lookouts and being battle ready while traveling.    

Luckily, thought, the rest of the journey was uneventful, and they soon arrived in the city of Tek, which was larger than Bahah but less nicely appointed.  Here the party stayed at an inn and replenished their supplies, glad for some time off the road.  Ulfgar also attempted to learn something of Makana the magician, and came away knowing of Makana’s seeming agelessness, and that he had lived is Ispep for two hundred years, in an ancient tower that was all remaining of some fallen castle from ages past.  The party prepared to leave Tek soon, and make their way to Sana Bell, the next city along the road. 

Here, the session ended.

Also, at some point Nory started to decode that text of Eldritch Darkness he has been carrying around, and learned it concerns the history and descriptions of beings called the Old Ones.  No one else in the party knows this is going on! 

Dungeons and Dragons! (Part 1)

Today we played DnD! It was at Ye Olde Raven House.  I bought snacks, Boyle was Dungeon Master, and Molly, (Jolly) Eric, Harper, John and I played. 

It all started with us at sea, sailing along the southern coast of Some Continent Yet To Be Named.  It was a dark and stormy night, and my character, Ulfgar Orebreaker, of the Orebreaker Clan, the Royal Hill Dwarf House that controls the gold trade in the lands to the north, was down in his bunk, counting the thousands of precious gold coins in his possession.  Then suddenly, a giant tentacle rose from the depths and split the ship in two!  This delighted to no end John's character, a gnome warlock named Nory who used to be an academic before throwing his career away to become a disciple of Cthulu.   He is now convinced the world is ending.

The ship sank into the depths, and Ulfgar was only able to save 25 of his precious gold coins.  Seemingly the sole survivors of the ship, our adventuring party washed up on an unfamiliar shoreline, in what later turned out to be much farther to the south than we thought we were, leading us to believe we spent several days floating upon the sea.  That we all survived is a seemingly miraculous event, one that we each attribute to different forces. 

After taking stock of our new situation, we suddenly found ourselves in a pitched battle with several dog-sized crabs, one of which Nory the Fanatic convinced to leave us along using his dark mental powers.  The others we cooked and ate, being starving. 

We then headed into the nearby forest, where we found ourselves set upon by wood goblins, who proved not too much trouble, especially since Molly's Half-Orc Fighter Henk (our Tank) had ridiculous rolls and killed pretty much everything in one go.  Eric's bard, who is mostly useless and who's name Ulfgar has not bothered to learn, climbed a tree and spotted some civilization in the distance, so we headed in that direction.  We made camp for the night, and Harper's Dragonborn Paladin Dragon Man met a nice tree who offered to watch over us while we slept.

In the morning, the tree gave the Party a quicker route to the mostly human settlement, which he seemed very cross about on account of the humans there loving to cut down trees.  We made our way there, and Ulfgar Orebreaker and his friends were given a warm welcome, on account of the illustrious Orebreaker name.  Once there, we learned the the place we had found ourselves in was called Bahah, after Lord Bahah, who lived inside a heavily guarded compound that dominated the surrounding edifices.  Asking Lord Bahah if he had any need for the services of an adventuring party, it turned out that his son had disappeared, and the nanny watching over him had been murdered and horribly mutilated.  Lord Bahah seemed generally unconcerned with this development, but his distraught trophy wife offered us one thousand gold to rescue her son and return him to her, which, after some unsuccessful attempts at bartering for more, we accepted. 

It was around this time that Nory the Fanatic of Cthulu remembered that Bahah Blast is a popular and addictive street drug in the North, and many of the details about the compound confirm that this was the place from which it originates. 

After receiving some trail rations and a meal, we set out along the trail of the missing son, Jack.  (During this time of rest, we heard many servants voice a desire not to see young Jack Bahah returned, which was curious!)  After following the trail for not too long, Henk the Tank was almost crushed between two swinging logs, but thanks to Molly's fantastic rolling skills, was able to jump to safety.  The party was attacked by four goblins, who we made quick work of, thanks in no small part to a magic missile Ulfgar split upon three of the four, allowing his companions to take out each of them with their subsequent attacks.  We found upon their bodies markings that Nory the Servant of Dark Lord Cthulu identified as denoting Bhaal, a Goblin God of Death, but no treasure of note. 
Next we came upon a tripwire, and saw goblins hiding in the distance, but Dragon Man raised his bloody greatsword, which scared them off, and we just walked over the tripwire and continued on our way. 

A ways on we found a door hidden in a forest, which lead us down to into a cavern.  Ulfar cast light upon Dragon Man's greatsword, since he was the only party member without darkvision. The cavern traveled down a ways at a height of about five feet before opening up into higher ceilings, then split off along two pathways.  We chose the one to the left, and Henk the Tank got lodged in a pit trap, but we were able to pull him (her?) out of it and continue on our way.  Turning a corner, we bumped into two goblin guards and their warpig, but we killed them rather quickly, thanks to Henk and Dragon Man not messing around. 

Up ahead we heard voices, so we sent off the Useless Bard to see what was there, and he reported back to us, using Ulfgar's messaging spell, the presence of goblins and some kind of human voice inside. 

Not wanting to mess around anymore, we charged in to do battle, and discovered— Jack the Boy was the leader of the Goblin Horde!  He was covered in his Nanny's blood and whispering to his Teddy Bear! 

The Goblins attacked us on his orders, and The Teddy Bear jumped to life with glowing red eyes, ran up to our Tank, Henk, and cast fear on him (her?), which was too bad because Henk find all monstrous things adorable. 

Realizing this was no time to mess around, Ulfgar Orebreaker, of the Orebreaker Clan, cast his second and final Magic Missile of the day on the Teddy Bear, and instantly killed it.  (This turned out to be super lucky, because Magic Missile was apparently just about the only thing that could get through its defenses and/or cause damage, and it was the most powerful thing in the room.)  The Teddy Bear morphed into some kind of evil insect thing and melted. 

The Party made short work of the remaining goblins.  The Useless Bard was almost useful when he grappled the kid, but Dragon Man stepped in and all but sliced the little bastard in half.  However, the tiny jerk was still alive!  Confident we were dealing with some bad business here, Ulfgar firebolted the little monster dead. 

Then we looted the place. 

Unfortunately, Molly chose this moment to stop rolling like a boss and totally whiffed on getting us anything good. 

So there we are standing, surrounded by bodies, short on treasure, and having freshly killed the kid we had promised a drug kingpin we would bring back alive, wondering what to do next.  Cliffhanger!

Stan and Jack

So, I have been recently started reading and rereading the original runs of Fantastic Four and Amazing Spider-Man.  This has in part been spurred on by questions about the relative influence of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby upon comics, and who deserves the bulk of the credit for Stuff.  Due to the existence of Spider-Man, Amazing Fantasy #15, and the fact that I can't really justify giving Steve Ditko much credit for the ideology underlying a character like Spider-Man ("With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility" is a sentiment diametrically opposed to the ethos of Objectivism), I have often in the past given Stan Lee a lot of the credit for the Marvel Universe, the Marvel Ethos, and a larger influence on comics in general.  But, most people these days seem to give Kirby the bulk of credit for such things, perhaps in response to the undeniably shabbier treatment Kirby has received at the hand of Marvel and the general comics industry (Does Kirby's family see any more for the New Gods?  I mean, one of these days Darkseid is going to be the major villain in a major motion picture.  Why the Kirby estate see any money from that?). 

Anyways, today I went on Wikipedia and added up some numbers.  Keep in mind that I added up all of these number on a computer calculator, so there is a distinct possibility that I have some major errors in here. 

For the total number of comic titles that Stan Lee has either a writer, plotter, or co-plotter credit, there are 946 entries listed on Wikipedia, by my addition.  However, Strange Tales, Tales to Astonish, and Tales of Suspense usually ran two stories, and some of his credits for those titles were listed twice, so the actual number of individual issues involved is lower by a significant number, maybe as many as 100.  Lee's only other listed credits are one thing for Simon and Shuster and the 15 comics for DC, 14 of which were just some BS hype thing called Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating where the conceit was Stan Lee created classic DC heroes based off of just the names.  I remember those being pretty terrible and not counting for any sort of legacy. 

Jack Kirby has 532 stories listed for Marvel Comics.  Now, none of his stories for those three anthology stories listed above overlap.  However, in each place he is listed as performing one of the stories, so giving him a credit for full title for each of those probably justifies giving Stan Lee double credits for when his anthology title credits overlap.  But to be even, it's absolutely necessary to point out that drawing each of these titles was a much more time consuming process that writing them, especially given that this is the Marvel Method we are talking about.  In addition to that, Jack has credits for 29 issues of Timely Comics, the work he did for what eventually became Marvel Comics, including the the work where he co-created Captain America.  He also has credits on 284 comics from DC, and 113 comics from other publishers, resulting in a total comics credits of 958.  Considering many of those titles are ones where he is either a co-plotter or full on writer, that really is just a staggering achievement in Comic Storytelling. 

Also, the Wikipedia section on Characters Created By Stan Lee has 347 entries, and Characters Created by Jack Kirby has 316 entries.  No idea how accurate either number is, or what even counts as a character here.  So those number could be completely arbitrary. 

fragment

Word wedded whispers lie weighty in the boughs of burl trees, leaves shivering lyrical quivers as the poetry passes through the night.  The spirits are awakening, under moon bathlight and starry firmament, they come traipsing stumbling floating flying wafting on a whiff of air, on a weak whirl of wind.  Elsewise, a wolf howls.  The frogs ribbet. The crickets violin.  A fearful memory, a loving touch, a warm bed of soft sheets.  Darkness sits everywhere behind the light.

Comics are fun.

So, after a pretty long interregnum I have suddenly gotten back into superhero comics. In a big way.  Specifically, Marvel Comics.  I don't know if this is some slow-burning response to the Avengers movie reactivated by Iron Man 3 or what, but I recently spent like a day reading wikipedia articles and the back histories of tons Marvel characters and suddenly found myself interested in what was happening to the characters in Marvel comics RIGHT NOW, (or what's happening in Marvel Now, Ha!) and started reading articles trying to figure out was would be a good jumping on point, which lead to reading about Marvel Now and how that was basically set up by the Avengers Vs. X-Men crossover event.  So I went on Amazon, where they tend to mark comic volumes down twenty to forty percent, and ordered that in hardcover (there are more comics included if you order the hardcover, also the pages are bigger), and well as some other Marvel Now titles that looked interesting, artist and writers I liked or had heard good things about. 

Thinking back on it, I think one of the main motivators was some tumblr I had stumbled upon that posted pages and scenes from various Marvel comics, including stuff from All-New X-Men, one o the first additional volumes I got.  Huh? Cyclops is a villain?! The Original Team has been transported into the present, which means Jean Grey is back, and a boss?  Where when why? How can I figure out what is going on here? 

So that's why I wanted to read Avengers Vs. X-men.  I hadn't read superhero comics in 6 years, I realized, and I simply missed the characters.  I mean, the movies are nice, and those are new versions of the characters, not the one that I grew up with and watched grow and change, that grew and changed, apparently, without me.  I had originally given up on them because I decided, what with the Civil War, World War Hulk, the Initiative, Captain America dying, Spider-Man's arc with the revealing of his identity and then apparently (I later found out) the in-continuity retcon of his marriage, that in some sense the Marvel universe had passed me by.  The stories, the characters, as I had grown up with them, the themes I had associated with them, they were gone.  The people working on them now just did not value them or think of them in the same way I did.  The Civil War, in a sense, seemed to me to be a nice to conclusion to the Marvel Universe as I knew it. I could get off the merry-go-round.  There were other, outside personal stuff, going on as well: my comic shop closing, moving to a new state, suddenly not having any money.  But even with all that I could have easily started up again, found a new comic shop, bought just the main titles I liked, spent money on comics instead of beer (probably would have been a wise move).  But I didn't.  I just stopped. 

So I got Avengers Vs. X-men and within a couple of pages the Scarlet Witch is fighting MODOK across a double-page spread, drawn by Frank Cho, with the White House centered in the background, and I just started giggling.  What I was looking at was just so delirious and ridiculous that I finally rediscovered everything I had been missing, I don't think I had had a moment of just such pure FUN from a piece of entertainment in years.  I mean, MODOK!  MODOK as a concept is just so completely fucking mad that I find it impossible not to smile whenever he pops up or even gets mentioned in anything.  And the Scarlet Witch?  I mean, following everything that had been happening to her with Avengers Disassembled and House of M, having her back in action was like a weird kind of relief, like characters can bounce back!  They eventually all come back!  Also, in front of the White House.  Yes.  And come on! Double Page spreads!  Way to take advantage of that canvas, Cho!

Reading through the rest of the arc, seeing characters I had like and even loved, fighting and getting on the wrong side of everything, having Professor X die, Captain America matching up against Cyclops, of all people (One of my biggest problems with the X-Men movies is that they failed to give proper due to Cyclops.  In there actual X-Men comics themselves, as the original team leader, Cyclops is pretty much THE most important character, even more so that Professor X, or Jean Grey, who is dead half that time and needs to be brought back NOW, and definitely Wolverine, who though central to the Marvel Universe as a whole, has ultimately, in the context of the X-Men been basically a loose cannon, a great side character.  You're not properly adapting the X-Men unless Cyclops has a fairly large role.  Seeing that the comics had, with their mutant properties, evolved Cyclops to a point where he was basically leading all mutantkind and was thus a character with enough stature to be pitted against Captain America, [nice to see him back and running things again, by the way. Stay in your lab building stuff, Tony.] of all people, was a nice sign to me that the Marvel U was doing a good job now of building on what had come before, even if this meant Cyclops had completely lost his gourd.  Though that was actually kind of in character too, what with M-Day and Cyclops having evolved over time into being a bit of a dick.) made me realize something about comics, about all the deaths and retcons and stuff.  I learned to just stop worrying about that stuff and love it.  They're superheroes!  They are like Celtic gods, constantly fighting and dying and being reborn in the Cauldron of Plenty, or at least the equivalent of it in a world of science fiction and magic.  I mean, of course heroes in such a world would keep dying and coming back. of course they would keep having their allegiances shift and mutate over time, that's just the way of Heroic Cycles.  Death is just something that happens and gets conquered in the course of a story.  Right now, in comics, Peter Parker is dead.  Doctor Octopus switched bodies with him and Peter died while in Doctor Octopus' body.  But Doctor Octopus has all of Spider-Man's memories and is now trying to be a hero in his place, even though he is still a tool.  Now, that doesn't mean that Peter is gone forever!  This is an arc!  An arc where Peter is dead, but don't worry, he will still figure a way or this, and come back and be Spider-Man again, and then Doctor Octopus with go back to being dead again, and a new arc with come after that one.  These just fun stories about impossible people, why not have them  conquer death a couple of times along the way? It doesn't cheapen anything, and if it's really bad and ruins a character, well, it can always be retconned.  Say it's something Mephisto did or something.  Or MODOK.  Seriously, why complain about death not meaning anything in a world where there is MODOK? 

So, after reading all that I was hooked, and started ordering more and more volumes online, and also, I started trying to work my way forward, ordering volumes starting with where I left off and moving forward, starting with a the first deluxe volume of Mighty Avengers (whose first arc was drawn by Frank Cho. I think after that one panel I just wanted more Frank Cho.).  After reading that, I saw just how tied in it was to New Avengers, so I was reading, that, which meant I had to read Secret Invasion, and wow.  Secret Invasion was an insane thing to read, because it basically turned all those new Avengers comics into a single story, going back to the first issue and on through to the end of Scret Invasion.  I had left off right in the middle of a massive story!  One that stretched from Secret War and Avengers Disassembled through New Avengers and and on, and one that was sandwiched inside of another massive story that ran from Avengers Disassembled through to Avengers Vs. X-Men.  (Avengers Vs. X-Men really does seem to wrap up a ton of long running story arcs, both in the world of the Avengers and in the world of the X-Men.  It's kind of awesome.)  I was totally wrong to think that the stories I was reading were over and done with.  Now I have a new hobby, trying to get complete runs of collected additions of comics off Amazon for the least amount of money possible.  I have now spent like 4 hundred dollars on comic volumes on the internet, and everyday is like waiting for Christmas now. I have the entirety of Avengers comics heading up until the present coming to me in the mail, as well as a fair chunk of X-Men and Thor comics coming was well. 

It is fun.