Blanket Fort

There was a majorly cool Blanket Fort in Hayden South last week.  Who was the instigator?  One of the CAs* from Hayden South Second Floor - Rebecca.  How cool is that?  I approve and award her lots of Awesome CA points.  She's the same lady who invited us up to watch house and drink tea in her room (I went, nobody else did).

Here is a video of the Tent Fort in its splendor.

It later grew to this:

*: CA = Community Assistant.  Like an RA, but with a different name.

Drahkimar 1

I thought I'd do a post on some content set in the land of Drahkimar.Just get the content out there, even if the world itself isn't used for all that much.

Be warned, this is all old stuff from my childhood.  I've been building Drahkimar since I started writing (The Legend of Trazin is set in Drahkimar, albeit on the floating continent.

Today's topic is the boundaries of the Dominion.

Vakemia is probably the main setting at the heart of Drahkimar - all the surrounding lands, and the lands surrounding those, were originally answering the question of "what's over that direction?"

The Dominion 'borders' Vakemia on it's west.  It is about twice as large as Vakemia in size, shaped somewhat like a cross between a rectangle and an amoeba.  On the west half, the boundaries are pretty clear:  On the north there are the poisoned lands and the rot-iron mountains.  Unconquered due to it being blighted and mostly worthless.  On the south and southwest there is the Alterrian mountain range (though it continues to diminish the further it goes west, eventually just being foothills and nothing special), as well as the Jurungald.  The mountains are something of an annoyance, as see in the case of the kingdom of Alterria, but most of the border is due to the presence of the Jurungi.  As powerful as the Dominion is, they can barely fight a war on three fronts, let alone on four.

Directly west of west (the Dominion has been conquering west for quite some time), at the current boundaries, is Vakemia.  If you think of the Alterrian mountain range and the poisoned lands as north and south boundaries that both Vakemia and the Dominion share, then Vakemia is at the end of a long corridor, with the Dominion pressing onwards and inwards.  Vakemia proper is only on the west side of Mt. Keres, and the sweep of mountains north from there is what the Twelve Lords once considered the bounds of their territory (Mt. Keres is the highest peak of the Alterrian mountain range, massively triggered by the Apocalypse long, long ago). 

The Dominion has been pressing onwards continually, lead by the Children, and so a few decades ago they started to push around the north end of the Keres mountain range and entered into open war with the western kingdoms of present day Vakemia.  While the armies of the Dominion are one of the best martial fighting forces in Drahkimar, organized and well-trained, Vakemia presented a foe that they had never fought before.  All of the Dominion's other lands and neighbors are mundane, so they are not used to fighting a foe armed with both steel and magic, nor are they used to surviving in a magical land.  Moral is low, and their tactics are relatively ineffective.  This has not kept them from overwhelming several kingdoms, and causing one to retreat out of existence.  Shortly after the present day, a particular charismatic leader leads a revolt in the West Army(similar to legendary China, their are four armies after the four compass directions).

On the eastern side of the Dominion, less is known.  If one were to walk along the north boundary of the Dominion, the rot-iron mountains would be left behind, and later the poisoned lands would end as well.  Continuing onwards, you would eventually come across a rather large inland sea.  Between the poisoned lands and the water, there is near-constant fighting between the northern barbarians and the North Army.  Settlers from the Dominion have been colonizing further and further upwards, following the side of the sea north and then west and the North Army's role is largely to protect them from the more inland-based barbarians.

The sea is not all that wide, and the Dominion has started colonizing on the other side of the sea, crushing their demi-human cousins there.

Following the ocean south, the Dominion expands quite a distance south.  This is the southern thrust of the Dominion, and is, for once, at peace.  The southern thrust is borderned on the east by the inland sea.  The Dominion continues south until it reaches the same river that goes west to support the Northern (Desert) Kingdom.  On the other side of the river is the Southern Empire, and the two are at peace and enjoy a healthy amount of trade.  Following the river west from the inland sea brings you to increasing aridity and eventually the Desert.  Some hardy settlers have colonized westward, but there is decreasing appeal to the land the further west you go.  Following this very, very rough boundary north, it takes you to a smaller lake, where some of the rivers in the Dominion pool before going around south of the Alterria range and going west rather than east.  Going around the west of the lake would bring you into the Jurungald, so going around east keeps you in the Dominion, and links up to the southern boundary of the western Dominion.

And there you have it - the boundaries of the Dominion.

Of the bordering lands, the barbarians up north and the proto-humans to the east (other side of the big sea) were never fleshed out.  Well, I mean I know what the proto-humans are, since they figure in the history of the area, but I don't know how they are in this present day - the people in the area that I deal with are all what I refer to as humans.  (Except the Archipelago, which are Vi'nari by blood.)  (Actually except the Krt'kta, the elves, the elves, and the Jurungi, plus all of the Vakemia demi-races... but all the proto-humans have interbreed with other things.)

DnD quest thread thing.

A few levels back, shortly after we advanced to 8th level and got all our magic things, we assaulted a crypt with a vampire lord and some elemental guardians. Final battle against the vampire had us attacking him with a great number of minions on his side. It also was the infamous encounter where Selnar (my character) got dominated and critted Bryan to death. Anyway, I happened across the Monster Manual's Vampire Lord entry, and it got me thinking...

Here's how I would have had a vampire lord in DnD if I were the DM.

Adventure is for five 6th level PCs, assuming they are fairly strong. Level 7 is also a possiblity.

PCs, being wandering heros and the like, recieve a message from a small town, requesting help. Young men are found dead in the morning with no obvious injuries, and rise against as terrible creatures the next sunset. The towns wants help removing the curse that has been afflicting their town, and has turned to the PCs. He offers to pay money as well.

A DC 20 religion check at this point can determine that the people rising are vampire spawn, folks killed by a vampire lord's bite.

Upon arriving, they are met by the mayor, and who tells them that the previous night he lost his son. If the PCs arrive the same day they were contacted, he sent the message when he found his dead son. If not, then it is unrelated. He asks the PCs to watch the body of his son at sunset. Until then, the PCs can go around the town and gather information (diplomacy checks DC 10 then 15, one to engage the townsfolk interviewed, one to illicit interesting information - checks cover all info-gathering, and each PC has two tries before sunset). Depending on how many of the five characters have success with the interviews:

1 success: Each victim was killed during the night, and rose as a nasty creature when the sun set the next day. Several families were killed by their loved one rising and attacking them while they were waiting to be buried. (PCs get another vampire-spawn religion check if they want, DC 15)

2 successes: The people killed have all were young, healthy, and male. The mortician was killed by one of the spawn. The attacks started two weeks ago.

3 successes: The first victims were found killed on the street. When people stopped going out at night, the attacks abated for several days, then resumed with young men killed in their beds with no sign of entry. Also, three weeks ago, raiders attacked the town and killed a number of people and looted a bit before the town guard and militia grabbed their weapons and belately fought back.

4 successes: Many of the victims attacked were members of the town guard, and some people think it is related. All of the people killed in bed were members of the town guard. The town temple was attacked during the raid, killing the priest and his two assistants. No holy healing was preformed after the raid, and many of the injured died of infected wounds days after the attack. Raiders were orcs. Many of the recent victims were chained and sealed underground in coffins. Of those that were not, four killed their entire families and vanished, while the two others were put down by the dwindling guard, killing two of them in the process. (DC 20 Religion says that the four survivors would have either attacked more people or sought out their maker)

5 successes: The first three men killed in bed were sleazy characters, known for drinking, womanizing, and getting away with it by abusing their power and authority. The other two, including the Mayor's son, were captains of the guard, but not known for abusing their power. The four victims who slew their entire families and escaped were never seen or heard of since, though there were no attacks the nights afterwards.

Other specific questions that could be asked: The town graveyard has had minor ghost problems in the past, but nothing the priest, the local hedge-wizard, and the mortician could not handle.

If the PCs ask about the hedge-wizard, they find out that he is extremely old, and weak. His granddaughter was one of those who died after the raid, and he shut himself up in his house, refusing to speak to anyone, after he was unable to save her. He is of no help, and the townsfolk worry about stirring ghosts.

Raiders were orcs from the nearby mountain range.

Asking about surrounding caves or tombs comes up mostly negative. One small cave held kobolds a decade back, but was too small for medium sized creatures. The towns folk poured oil into it, and set it aflame.

A decade ago, elves settled in the forest. This stopped logging, and the town's economy never truly recovered.

All of these are brought up in conversation, no roll needed - obviously some need prior knowledge to ask the right questions (do not volunteer information).

Insight check (DC15) about the proportions of Town Guards to the total population of young men reveals that only a quarter of the young males are part of the town guard, while over 75% of the victims killed were of the town guard.

Each character can only interview one day's worth of people before sunset, but if any particular characters are willing not to monitor the mayor's son during the night, they can do a second check to gather more information.

Staying with the corpse until sunset has it rise as a level 5 vampire spawn bloodhunter, attacking the PCs in a frenzy - two attacks in the surprise round it awakens, and two each round thereafter.

The mayor is shocked by the change in his son, and goes a bit crazy. If the PCs take more than one round to kill it, or somehow mutilate him with powerful attacks (DM judgement), he is traumatized and will not talk to the PCs.

Shortly after the vampire spawn attacks, there is female screaming that can be heard from the temple, behind which is the graveyard. If the PCs investigate, there are normal screams coming from inside of the temple, and an unearthly scream from behind.

If they PCs try to go in: The temple is locked, but the doors can be busted down with a DC 25 strength check. If the PCs try the windows, they are easy to break, but the PCs take 1 damage from sharp glass and have to climb/wiggle in one at a time. Breaking down the door or window elicits more screams, and an impromptu attack by one of the occupants (+7 (including CA from surprise) charging attack with a 1d6 chair by a monk). Once they realise who came in, the monk and two nuns direct the PCs to the back of the temple. Their is a town guard bracing against the back door, with thuds on the other side from something trying to bash in. As they approach, the door is instead pulled/ripped outwards, and the guard stumbles out into the open, and is attacked and killed by three vampire spawn minions. The PCs can see the three minions, but the female screams are coming from something else out there.

Leaving the temple leads to the same encounter that circling it does: one wailing ghost, one trap haunt, and the full 6 formerly-chained vampire spawn. The only difference is that the door (and the guard) stay intact if the PC circle way around (and no glass or monk damage). As the PCs get a good view, they can see one of the vampire spawn pull the door off of a coffin in a shallow pit, and a chained vampire spawn emerges. The other vampire helps it break the chains. (The cinematic spawn is one of the six.)

Vampire spawn killed turn to ash.

A DC 20 perception check during the battle looking around can reveal a shadowy figure on the roof of a near-by building.

Once the two ghosts are killed, or 4 of the spawn, the remaining vampire spawn flee down an alley, but are attacked by the vampire lord (see later) and probably easily destroyed. If the PCs follow, they see the combat if they are in time, if not, they see a shadowy woman crouching over some ashes and letting them fall from between it's fingers. She is wearing a very ordinary blue dress, with a black cloak over it. She makes a stealth check to hide her nature from the PCs, pulling the hood low and hurrying away. Opposed insight checks on players turns can identify her, as does passive insight if she rolls low enough.

She runs away at full speed. If the PCs pursue, she tries to elude them. If they seem to be catching up or trying to attack her or any of them tell each other that she is a vampire, she takes gaseous form, going through a building to elude her pursuers. If they break into the building, she is already gone.

Information PCs get off the bat is that she is female and relatively young, and quite shapely. If they don't know she is a vampire, they consider her quite fast. If they know she's a vampire this should not be relevant. During the encounter, she should take pains to hide her identity, both her nature and her face. Active Insight or perception checks as to who she is always reveal no recognition as if a failure ("You don't recognize her face.") but are relevant for later checks if they score a 15 or higher, as they can describe her better to townsfolk - only the PCs doing the check will get this bonus later on.

The PCs can search onwards once she takes gaseous form or loses them, but automatically fail. The town guard tries to calm people down concerning the screaming and combat heard - people are peering out of their windows, though keeping them closed. The PCs may rest the rest of the night in the major's home, but it is their choice.

The next day, the PCs can go around asking for more evidence. This includes any information they failed to get the prior day, plus asking about the dark lady/vampire they saw.

DC 20 insight checks, 2 complexity, can find information from people who were looking out their windows and saw the chase from different angles. The people living on the alley and chase route know, but if the PCs do not specifically ask them, any person they are interrogating has a 1/6th chance to be an onlooker.

If the PCs saw the face, they can describe it to any townsfolk, and get an answer DC 20 insight.

Either way, the townsfolk recognise the figure as being the deceased granddaughter of the town hedge-wizard. Presumably this leads to a confrontation with the old man.

House is two story, relatively small and normal looking.

Assuming they just knock on the door, he tells them to go away. Diplomacy checks are encouraged, but the door opens when they mention his granddaughter in the diplomacy checks.

If they bust in the door, they find him making soup. He screams and cowers, telling them to not hurt him. He thinks they are raiders, not being up-to-date with their arrival and inquiries around town, and offers them anything they want. No resistance.

Interogating him, skill challenge complexity 5:

Intimidation checks auto-fail, with him turning into a gibbering wreck.

Diplomacy checks are the main work-horse.

Perception checks looking at his wares reveal a mix of implements and other tools, uniformly neutral and good aligned with the exception of a small altar to Orcus on a table in the back room. If this is brought up, it auto-counts as a success.

Perception checks exploring his house reveal a trap-door under a carpet, with a stair-way leading to a basement. If the PCs go down it, the man screams frantically for them not to go down there, giving a multitude of incoherent excuses, from delicate wares to a toxic accident to their being nothing of interest down there. If the PCs continue, they find a steel door. DC 30 to break down, plus the considerable opposed strength checks on the other side by the vampire lady. Whoever is trying to break down the door notices a undead aura eminating from the other side of the door. If they persist, after 5 tries the vampire lady tells them to stop, and tells them that her grandfather knows where the key is, and pleads for them to treat the old man well.

Succeeding the skill challenge has the old man admitting the following story:

When his daughter and his son-in-law died, he raised their daughter as a father. She grew to be a beautiful young woman, and used to flirt with all the young men. He assumed that she would be married off her pick of the possible suitors, but instead she asked him to become part of the local nunnery.

When the raiders attacked, she tried to defend the priest, but was struck down. With the priest dead, and the other nuns busy taking care of the injured town-folk, she was expected to care for herself until they were free. However, her wound from the rusty axe became infected, and her grandfather brought her home to try his own implements. She continued to waste away, and he prayed to the gods for her to be healed. Neither she nor the other victims (under the care of the remaining three nuns) got better, and one by one they wasted away.

He sent a letter to the temple of the Raven Queen in the nearby city (the one the PCs were in), but the reply told him to let her die, that her time had come. Outraged, he cursed the Raven Queen's name, and invoked Orcus to give his daughter the chance the Raven Queen had denied. To his surprise, he was seized by a vision of a magic ritual from Orcus, and the knowledge that the ritual would save his daughter.

He preformed the ritual, but soon afterwards his daughter died. Researching the magic he had preformed, he discovered the ritual was to create a vampire lord from the living. He hurried home and much to his surprise his granddaughter was on her feet, gorging herself on his spell components - the ones that included blood. She saw him and asked him what had he done to her. He replied honestly, and she fled into the basement and slammed the door, horrified at what he had made her into.

He talked with her outside the basement door, and calmed her down. He was willing to give her a nightly supply of his own blood, and she could live in his basement, safe from the prying eyes of others.

He grew weak from giving his blood, and his granddaughter soon began to refuse it, on the basis of it slowly killing him. (If the PCs check, this was around the time the killings began.) His daughter has stayed in the basement ever since.

If the PCs ask him whether he knows about the killings, he will admit he has heard something of them, but note that the metal door is locked from the outside. Other than that, he evades the topic of his grand-daughter being responsible, and denies any possiblity, citing the door.

If the PCs ask him to unlock the door, he will first make them promise not to hurt his grand-daughter, who is still completely innocent in his eyes. He then goes down the stairs and opens it with the magic password, "Myralice."

Upon entering the room, they find the vampire lady sitting placidly on her coffin, non-threateningly. If they approach her threateningly, she raises her hands and tells them she wants to talk. Her grandfather also makes a ruckus about the promise.

The room also contains all manner of alchemical instruments, compotents, ritual components, etc. Not all of it seems to have been used in quite some time. A DC 20 insight check gives the realization that the grandfather, old as he is, is not the original wizard in the family - much of the equipment is for much more complex spellcraft than the kind the hedge-wizard seems capable of.

She asked her grandfather to leave, telling him that she needs to talk to the adventurers privately.

She tells the adventurers that, yes, she has been the one behind the killings. She never wanted to be a vampire, but now that she was, every night she has been filled by an insatable urge to feed. She would smell and hear the fresh blood flowing through their bodies as they walked in the alleys next to the house. One night found she could turn herself into a gas, and used it to seep out onto the street, and she attacked the young man in the alley next to her house. His blood tasted so much more fresh than the old blood provided by her grandfather, and she knew she could not go back to the stale juice of her grandfather. She hunted randomly at first, but when she met and slew the spawns of her creation, she came to realise that with her strength and abilities, she could attack whoever she wanted.

Doubt flickers in her eyes at this point, and instead of continuing the story, she says different stuff:

She tells the PCs that she knows they are here to kill her, and she is willing to let them kill her. To her, this is a false life, and she died two weeks and a half ago - she knows that she is killing people, that that it is wrong, but she cannot help herself. She asked them to do what she could not bring herself to do, and end her life.

She rolls forward off the coffin with surprising grace, and lies down on the ground, face down. She asked the PCs to tell her father whatever story will make him happy... she doesn't know anymore. PCs get one coup de grace, but right before they hit her, she shrieks, turns insubstancial, and sinks into the floor via a drain. DC 15 insight says that leads to the town's river, as seen earlier while information gathering.

If the PCs leave immediately, they can see her in gaseous form, flying swiftly towards the nearby forest. On the road in that direction they can see a caravan of wagons on the road next to the forest - she heads towards that, but passes out of sight due to being semi-transparent.

The PCs have some options now. They can ask around town and gather information about the forest, trading caravans, traits of a vampire (from the folks in the temple, and specifically their books, which have the DMG's vampire template on it (sans the stuff requiring the lady to be 11th level)). Among information gathered about vampires, they will find the Monster Manual blurb about coffins. Forest traits are that is occupied by elves, and a no-go zone for humans, due to the elves and other forest creatures.

The PCs could immediately start to chase the vampire. If this brings them to the caravan (2 hours of fast travel), they will find that the caravan is hiding a raiding party of orcs inside the wagons, with a single, very scared, man driving the oxen pulling the wagon.

This leads to the following encounter:

1 Orc Bloodrager

1 Orc Eye of Gruumsh

6 Orc Warriors (minions!)

If the scared man survives the fight (he runs away, but can be killed by misjudged AOE effects, etc. He will tell you that one of the orcs was found dead an hour or two ago, causing an uproar. The PCs can find the corpse and cut off its head and otherwise mutilate it to avoid its rebirth as a vampire spawn. The dead orc looks very similar to the Bloodrager - a brother, perhaps. Each dead orc has an axe (aside from the Eye, but the orc killed by the vampire is missing his axe and his armor. History/insight check says that orcs are buried in their armor with their weapons, but his are entirely missing.

Further enquiry with the man reveals that the warrior wandered off of the trail and over a hill, then never came back. Insight check if the party researched vampires says it probably was the victim of Dominating Gaze.

Orcish loot is in the wagon as well - the only treasure interesting to the PCs is the gold, unless severed fingers and shrunken skulls are their thing.

The road is very close to the forest at this point. DC 25 nature check can trail the trail of the vampire from over the hill (the man can point it out) into the forest.

Entering the forest is uneventful, but after a few minutes of walking, two unarmed elves come out of nowhere and tell the part to turn back or face violence. They are very terse in their choice of words (or lack of works).

Diplomacy checks auto-fail - the two elves are firm in their insistance that you leave.

Intimidate automatically provokes combat.

Insight versus bluff reveals that one or two of them (depending on check successes) are dryads.

After 10 minute of negotiation, or a time seeming like that, two dire wolves and a normal-looking wolf arrive. At this point the Dryads demand the party leaves, and if they do not, they attack.

If the party tries to intimidate them, they shed their elf disguises and attack. They fight with hit and run tactics via tree stride (the forest is thick enough when generated that no two trees have more than three squares between them), always retreating towards the same direction, parallel to the edge of the forest. If the PCs retreat, they chase continue to hound them with hit-and-run attacks.

Depending on how long the diplomacy took, in 1 to 5 rounds the rest of their group arrives. In total:

2 Dryads

2 Dire Wolves

1 Werewolf

If the combat takes more than 10 rounds, elves arrive en masse and demand that both parties stop fighting. The remaining forest-folk back off (werewolf continues regeneration), elves care for the fallen (both sides).

(If they left the forest, an elf runner appears shortly after they leave, and invites them inside - they meet the full forest company.)

Their leader asked the party what relationship they have with the deadly girl who has intruded into the forest, and has been picking off elves. Insight check or guesswork concludes that the girl is drinking lots of blood to make up for the lack of a coffin. Conversation concerning PC aims occurs, with the elves finding out what they can about vampires. Elf runners are dispatched to behead the dead elves.

The Elves ask the PCs to come to the elf camp with them. On the way, they find a dead elf runner, largely drained of blood. His tunic is ripped open, and cuts on his chest spell "murderer."

If the PCs ask the Elves about them seizing the forest and not allowing humans to enter, they evade the topic.

All the characters of the forest so far gather in the large elf-camp for protection, save for the dire wolves, who patrol around. The night passes without disturbance.

The next day, the PCs and Elves try to figure out how to hunt the Vampire. If the PCs do not come up with a plan, the elves suggest that the vampire might be hiding in one of the caves. They refuse to go in, but lead the humans to the entrance.

The cave goes down quite a bit (full darkness - use sunrods etc), and a DC 15 insight check by anyone who has been in a mine before recognises it as a mine. Several of the mine shafts (going straight down) give off bad vibes, and sending a light down or exploring it reveals a multitude of human bones at the bottom, with some remains of clothes (belt buckles, buttons, etc.).

At the very end of the main mining tunnel, there is the dead body of a elf maiden. Again, the clothes (dress in this case) has been ripped open, and words written on the chest: "Fools."

Nothing else of interest is in the mine, though sleazy sorts could loot the body for a pair of fine elven footpads (+1 stealth).

Upon immerging from the mine, the dead bodies of elves lay all around the clearing near the mine-shaft, and the vampire is sitting on a tree, only slightly wounded. She is wearing leather armor now, and has an axe resting on one slender shoulder. Her chin and neck and clothes are drenched with blood.

"Do you think this was wrong of me to do? I don't think so."

If the PCs tell her that it was wrong:

"No it's not. Elves kill humans, now I kill elves. I could kill humans too, but that would make me no better than these creatures."

DC 15 diplomacy on why reveals:

"My father was a logger, back before the elves came. He used to chop firewood for the house and for market. One day, the elves moved in, claimed the forest like it was theirs. Dad told us that he didn't think that a little bit of logging mattered, and if it did, he was sure he could sort it out with the elves. He went to the forest, and didn't come back that night. The next day, my mother went to the forest. She came in peace. She didn't come back later. You've seen the burial the elves gave my parents. Killed and dumped down a mine-shaft. I should have come here right away, never killed those wicked men in the town."

If it comes up, she will admit that she can't tell right from wrong anymore, not in her heart, but she remembers what she thought before she died.

If the PCs ask about the wicked men in town, she looks away and states that they deserved it.

After that question, or any failed diplomacy check, or any attempt to attack her, she leaves via gaseous form. Almost immediately, the two dryads treestride out of the tree she was standing on, and one claws her ineffectively while the other leaps and stabs her with a small dagger. She immediately reverts to her natural female form, and falls from the tree (20 feet) with the dryad on top of her. She strikes back in midair with her axe, and the dryad lands under her and her axe, the axe chopping through her completely.

Encounter:

1 Vampire Lady

Ally: 1 Dryad.

The Vampire spends the first round trying to pull the axe from the dryad's wooden body - players automatically get initative all before her. If they hit her before she her turn starts, she instead grabs a spear from a nearby dead elf, and fights with that.

She starts at -15 health, and once she become bloodied (without a blood drain and second wind), she will attempt to flee by foot. Foot speed is slowed down by the heavy forest as people have to navigate around trees. The dryad, having treestride, will do her best to teleport in front of the vampire and force an OA. Vampire will attack the Dryad until the party catches up and damages her, in which case she will continue to run. If the dryad dies, it's up to the party to catch up with the Vampire and stop her, with their less than perfect foot speed.

If the vampire is killed, she looks peaceful and whispers 'thanks' to the PCs, and crumbles to dust.

For her to get away, she must be out of LOS to make successful stealth check, and then starts moving slowly. If no member the party can find her in five minutes, she regains gaseous form and is gone.

Failure grants half-XP. Going back to the original battle-site finds a +2 Shapeshifter's Sorrow dagger on the dead Dryad, and a few other magic items on the elves. Footpads can be looted from each of the shoes.

Going back to the town with the news of the dead vampire and the dead elves is greatly welcomed. If the PCs killed the vampire, they get twice the original amount offered - the original payment plus another of the same amount for the elves being dead.

If the PCs did not kill the Vampire, they can still bluff the mayor into paying them the full amount.

If they do not bluff, they gain half the amount (whe original amount offered) for driving the vampire away.

If they fail the bluff, they don't get any of the reward for the vampire.

Vindictive vampire lady, if still living (escaped), can return in other adventures later on, as a templated vampire of level appropriate for the PCs at that time. Probably 2-weapon ranger, given her personality.

It's implied that the men from the town guard abused her at some point - the thread is: her being young and attractive, her sudden choice to become a nun, her uncomfortableness (as a vampire, no less) with talking about the men, and her comment that they deserved to die. It could be speculated that the two town guard captains, which not participating themselves, turned a blind eye of their fellows' misbehavior.

Personality notes - she lost her soul to Orcus when she became a vampire, and can no longer to the things people do with soul. Like have morals. She does miss being a human, however, and tries to act like it, even if she doesn't feel like it. Tries to be nice to her grandfather, as that's what she would have done if she were alive, same with her choice of victims - she certainly remembers wanting certain people to die. Her killing her vampire spawn has to do with her not wanting messiness, or hurting the families she used to care for as a nun. Basically, she is an unfeeling, hateful bitch who tries her best to fake the human thing.

Notes: Myralice is the name of the vampire lady's mother, and the hedge-wizard's daughter. Come up with your own name for the vampire lady.

All the elves of that tribe, every man, woman, and child, die - the ones in the camp are killed after the PCs and the leaders go off to the mine. The ones that went with the PCs are killed while the PCs are in the mine. The Dryads were busy with the werewolf - they were getting the knife he had in his lair. Once they got it (it's a spoil from someone who tried to kill the werewolf), the Dryads treestrided the whole way. The werewolf is unaccounted for after the quest, as are his friends. There may be other tribes in the forest, but the town doesn't know that. The orc raiders indicate an orc presence in the nearby mountain, and they might invade if they think the elves are weak.

Future threads and other notes:

Other elf tribes, if they exist, may be pissed off at the PCs for accepting money on the thing, or even assume that the PCs killed the tribe for the town. Elite elf hunters could hunt after the party, etc.

The hedge-wizard may or may not kill himself after learning that his granddaughter was killed. He's largely harmless, though, if he is upset with the PCs.

Bonus adventure is if the PCs did not properly dispose of the dead elves - they rise again as Vampire Spawn, all of them.

So that's how I would deal with incorporating Vampires into the story if I were DM.

Whether weather needs to be weathered.

I think that the weather today was good.  Day temperature rose to be on the hot end of T-shirt weather, and night temperature is on the low end of T-shirt weather.  Good for people who wear T-shirts.  Like me.

I guess that next it will become miserably hot during the day, and only be decent during the night.

Sci-fi.

I just realised that I watch a lot of sci-fi - or rather a specific segment of Sci-fi.

Stargate

Farscape

Babylon 5

Andromeda

Firefly

I swear their must be a pattern... some traits common to all of them.  I seem to little or no interest in Startrek, or the expanded universe of Star Wars.  But Stargate?  Farscape? Firefly?  Something there...

Also: I think that a lot can be said from second episodes.  First episode introduces, but second one is where the creators want to go.

Farscape's second episode has the ship crashing on a planet of 20th century technology aliens, very similar to humans.  Puts the main character on the wrong end of a first contact situation - it's him with the other (much more alien) people on his crew that are the aliens.

Firefly has the Train Job, which introduces their life of crime and their sense of morals.

Andromeda has the ship landing on a station where the decendants of High Guard families--all dying young from radiation poisoning--have developed a Lord of the Flies-ish culture based along the perverted remains of High Guard protocols.  Surviving for generation after generation against brutal attacks by other races, they wait for the coming of the High Guard.  The captain is, in fact, time-frozen High Guard, and is seen as a messiah by the children, leading to the Day of Lightning... which is when the children man and fly off in slipfighters armed with nova bombs to destroy the star systems of all their enemies...  Very interesting, with Dylan trying not to abuse his power as messiah while keeping the fanatical children from doing anything horrible.  There are so many moral questions raised in the episode, and I love it.

*cough*

Anyway.

Let's make a game.

I want this game to be made...

I used to play EV Nova, and while it is a good game, I always wished for multiplayer. When I saw the game EVE Online, I was very intrigued. Fly my spaceship around a persistant universe? How cool is that?

Except it isn't, really. You don't fly a ship, you tell a ship where to go. And the game has a variety of Truly Awful features. A lot of the game is spent mining, training your stats, etc. Drudge work. Worse than many other MMORPGs, the training process isn't even fun - it's very much a ProgressQuest sort of grind, where your character's improvement is slow and based on how long you have owned the game.

So screw all that.

This is what I want:

I want to fly my spaceship around a persistant universe, interact with Player Characters and Non-Player Characters, carry out interesting quests from both types of players, and goddamn fly. Have I mentioned flying?

So let's start from the ground up. Flying. In Space.

Control scheme is flight simulation. Inside of a cockpit or with the cam following the ship. A variable degree of automation, so that newer players can play alright, and the real piloting experts can have as much control as they want, and as their ship can preform.

I am an advocate of a full six degrees of freedom for manuverable ships, though obviously crappy ships or huge ships would have a lessened number of degrees. 2.5 degrees seems to be the least needed - Yaw, pitch, and thrust (which is half of the forward backwards acceleration).

Fighter battles when every ship can accelerate right, left, up, down, forward, and backwards, as well as turning left, right, up, down, and rolling left or right... it will be fun. Obviously some thrusters will be more powerful than others, and some tools and weapons will be mounting on one part of the ship, not others, but... yeah.

Physics scheme. EN Nova gets points for how ships fly - rockets and gyros. Your controls consist of turning, and firing the engine. To slow down, you spin around and accelerate in the opposite direction. It's not like you are flying through a fluid atmosphere - you are in space, and an object in motion remains in motion. This may take some getting used to, but I'm sure that players can catch on. Think Bablyon 5.

Of course, there's dumb things in B5's flight as well. Maximum speed, for instance. Most space probes have thrusters that provide a fraction of an ounce of force. But there's nothing slowing them down, so they just go faster and faster.

Of course, there are restrictions for game-play to make sense. First, acceleration is of major importance for spacecraft flying like this. If all craft had fuel-efficient drives and provided a ounce of pressure for a year to build up decent speeds, what kind of space battles would that provide? But if they had insane acceleration, the kind that makes flying interesting, then they could accelerate and keep accelerating, and go at a pretty insane speed. With a few tweaks, it can be balanced:

Fuel: Acceleration costs fuel. This can be bought cheaply at a space station, an orbital dock or planetside(atmospheric capable only, costing some to go down). This means that while the fastest way to travel sub-light is to spend half the trip accelerating and half the trip deaccelerating, but the cheapest way to travel would be spending a fraction of a second accelerating, drifting for a long, long time, and then spending a fraction of a second de-accelerating. Or hell, just let the docking bay arms grab you, you are moving so slow. Most people will pick somewhere in the middle, but trade-offs are never bad for game balance. (In fact, if a choice has a right answer, it shouldn't be a choice.)

Shielding: It's mostly true that there is nothing slowing you down in space. Mostly. But the faster you go, the more dangerous objects in space can be. The faster you fly through, say, a gas cloud, the more damage your shields will take. Plow into an astroid belt, and you better hope you have some mighty ship with incredibly powerful shields... or you can slow down a bit and dodge all the astroids, should you be piloting something more fragile. ...or not slow down that much, and have a hell of a time saying in one piece. This opens all kinds of scenarios, what with most planets having some degree of gas surrounding it, the existence of nebulae, astroid belts, solar flares, etc. Much fun.

Friction: In direct proportion to the damage being done by impacting objects, there is a degree of friction. Traveling through a gas cloud will slow you down a lot if you are going really fast, but the effect is less noticeable at lower speeds, and while theoretically it will bring you to the same speed as the surrounding cloud, in practice it will take a long, long, boring while. (Good if you run out of fuel, have no generator, and need to be picked up.)

Relative motion: Actually not really so much a fix as an observation: If you are moving at 600 km/s, and I move at 600.001 km/s , I'm only going one kph faster than you. And since I don't have to be running my engines to keep moving, the two of us could have an entire dogfight while both of us continued hurdling towards our destination. To the two of us, the 600 km/s velocity in some direction doesn't matter much at all, only our speed relative to each other.

Relative motion2: Don't forget that not everything is moving at 600 km/s with you. If you are too busy dogfighting and don't notice your stop coming up, you'll probably wind up making a nasty fireball in the night sky, or having the spacestation tractor drones pull you off-course to avoid collision.

Other parts about the physics scheme: Gravity. Yes, you are in space. Yes, gravity exists in space. Yes, that means that space is warped. Yes, that means that planets orbit suns, yes that means that moons and space stations orbit planets. And yes, that means you should get in an orbit unless you want to spend your time thrustering upwards according to the strength ofthe local gravity. Match your speed with your planet, match it with the orbital platform... at least the means of interstellar travel have matches you to the net velocity of any gravity well you reappear in. Of course, if you have a good sense for these, things, you can let gravity work to your advantage, just imputing a certain velocity and letting other things do the work. If you do, go sell that information.

Again, everything is relative - if you are in the same orbit as a orbital platform, then both of you would be relatively weightless. Move out of the orbit, and you're going to be messed with to a good degree. Makes flying interesting, especially if you turn off the automated features.

Of course, some bits of physics will have to be ignored. Time dilation, for instance, if anyone chooses to fly that fast through very, very empty space.

Movement is not just within a star system, however, as what's the fun if there are only a number of planets, space stations, and a single star? What about all the other cool phenomina out there? But the distance between stars that have interesting debris around them (any type of planet, planetoids, useable gas, or anything else that provides a reason for people to go there) is pretty extreme. So faster-than-light travel is something nifty, especially since relativistic travel makes for messy time questions.

My proposal is to use Second August's system of FTL travel (SA was a forum-based RPG game/setting I made with Celiana). Ships move from real space to a sort of lower-energy, more delicate version of our space - infraspace, let's call it. Ships power down (any velocity, no acceleration), and slip into infraspace. They turn back on again, and flight through infraspace to their destination. Infraspace is affected by the real world, and gravitational effects bend space much more than normally is the case, leaving slow-moving wakes, ripples and crunched spots. Infraspace is highly non-euclidian, and ships use that to their advantage by simply flying through the most compressed areas, reducing the distance traveled. Additionally, ships systems are much more powerful relative to the physical laws of the alternative realm - this is part of the reason ships power down - the different physical laws can cause energized parts of the ship to surge destructively, blowing out capacitors, etc.

Organized races can modify the delicate infra-space. While a smart and diligent pilot can navigate the moving gravity distortions to his or her advantage, this is not neccesary for travel on the major space lanes. What governments (or corporations, even) do is plant small space stations that project a false mass. Inside of infraspace, each station provides a point of crushed space (gravity hole), and compresses the corresponding infraspace. Strings of these stations provide roadways of compressed space, plus plenty of gravity holes to leave infraspace.

Which reminds me: Gravity holes. When a realspace object weighs enough, it's reflection in the corresponding infraspace doesn't just bend space, it punches a hole in it, similar to a realspace black hole (which makes for quite the distortion in infraspace, btw). Though gravity itself does not exist in infraspace, the degree of distortion allows infra-space ships to exit infraspace into real space (which is part of why infra-space is so empty - it takes work to get in, but you can just wander out). Note that space is highly compressed around the hole, and the actual hole - a point in space that is infinitely compressed - corresponds to a large portion of the entire gravity well. Entering the hole pops you out to the nearest corresponding bit of realspace - the edge of the gravity well where gravity is strong enough to entirely punch through infraspace. Game mechanic-wise, this means that people cannot drop to subspace within a gravity well, and people cannot emerge in non-safe objects, as whatever makes an area non-safe generally (always, in the game, because we can) provides enough of a gravity well to have people arrive on the periphery. Note that super-massive objects like black holes and blue giants would have you arrive a distance away where the gravity is no stronger or weaker than arriving at a rogue planetoid (though the distance would differ extremely).

Weapons are next, because they are fun. There are three types of weapons: instantaneous (IW), unguided(UGW), and guided(GW). Lasers are instantaneous - you fire a laser pointed at a target, and it hits there immediately, albeit warped by gravitic distortions (especially in subspace). Tractor beams and several other technologies fall under this catagory. Unguided weapons (U are fired where a ship will be, on an intercept course, and there is an appreciable delay between it being fired and when it arrives on the target. UGWs start motion relative to the weapons platform(ship, station, drone, etc), and have a fixed velocity relative to the gun. Railguns and gauss cannons fall are the faster end of this catagory, while flak cannons are slow to the point of being used as area denial weapons. Guided weapons are those such as missiles, magnetic grappling hooks, and anything with the ability to follow a craft. Launched similarly to UGWs, GWs possess homing capabilities. An important facet of this is that the launcher does not need to be facing its target or its target's projected location when it fires, and better missiles can avoid obstacles, thus not needing line-of-sight. They also can be intercepted or jammed.

Drones are a special case - they are guided, similar to missiles, but instead of ramming into the target, they follow it and fire other kinds of ordinance - IWs and (U)GWs. A tractor drone falls under this catagory, as does a ion device and most weaponry that would not function if it ran into something. Mass-impact weapons also benefit if the drone is attacking a fleeing enemy - see below.

Damage types also differ.

Mass impact damage (MID) has to do with the relative velocity of the (U)GW and the victim ship - in essence it is no different than the normal problems of moving fast, save that the object may be more damaging for the amount of speed you run into it. Effects physical defenses more than energy defenses, though may penetrate energy defenses and hit physical defenses instead. MIDs generally have an effect on the velocity of the victim ship.

Payload damage (PD) is damage from an explosive or otherwise damaging payload - this is dealt regardless of velocity. Most missile weapons deal a combination of MID and PD, the proportions of which are dependant on relative speeds of missile and target. A missile filled with sensor sludge is really meant to cover and jam sensors, but if you fly directly into it at high velocity...

Energy damage (ED) is mostly from IWs, and operates independent of velocity. Affects energy defenses more than physical defenses, in general.

Outside of that basic framework (which could be expanded) many weapons have specific effects - one IW might try to drain the shield battery, while another may overload it temporatily, and another might be a way to hack the target's systems from a range to prepare for boarding. Some drones could act as mines, and the poor man may fly backwards at the launching speed of his UGW to lay them as an evironmental hazard.

Movement upgrades are relatively specific for each ship, but generally involve thrusters for acceleration for rotation, grappling hooks for hitchhiking, gyros for rotation, etc. Note that each upgrade may only affect certain aspects of a ship's preformance - they might improve main thrusters but not strafing thrusters. Movement upgrades fall under the general category of upgrades.

One of the main thrusts of the game is buying new and inventive upgrades for your ship. All manner of improvements are possible, limited only by your wallet and the amount of weight you are willing to carry (the heavier you are, the harder it is to accelerate along any of the six degrees of freedom), and the usage requirements of the upgrade (tractor beams take energy, for instance, while magnetic grapples are lighter and do not, but have their own problems). General philosophy is that there is not a right choice and a wrong choice, just different choices - everything is a trade-off.

Another main facet of the game is manning a ship. Larger ships involve far more than a single pilot can manage. By default, many tasks are taken care of by automation, but a free downloadable cilent should allow non-paying customers to pose as volunteer gunners, communication specialists, Remote-controlled strike-craft pilots, etc. Thus a player might invite his friends over for a online party where everyone mans parts of his crusier. This promotes the game, and makes it more fun for everyone.

If you don't have friends willing to volunteer, you can put out requests for whatever position is required, along with a salary, on the BBS of a station. Players sign up, and you can view their history, achievements, and reviews, and then pay some lucky soul some money to (hopefully) man a gun better than the computer... and review them later on how they did. Or save costs and not buy an automatic gun, and hire some cheap goon to man the gun every time. Actual players can also drive other ships that you own - if you buy a large enough ship with a docking bay, other ships you own that are small enough can be launched on a hiring basis (plus hired help you might buy can repair and refuel in your docking bay). More on player interactions later.

Players start with very little. Instead of buying a ship outright (they could buy a crappy one...) players can get into the action immediately by renting good ships and performing missions to pay the rent on the ship, or being hired to fly a ship by someone else - PC or NPC. Escort missions are frequent, as pirates(including other players) may attack trade ships if they are not protected - setting a gravity mine in realspace to create a gravity hole to pull trade ships out of subspace and into combat until they can escape the temporary gravity well. On the shady end of things, assault missions also exist. Before each mission, the player may choose whether the mission will appear on his or her history. Marked missions provide prestige and a good resume, but failure or unscrupleous jobs also show up. Unmarked missions aren't recorded, but you still can get paid or otherwise profit.

Eventually, the player can get enough money to buy his or her own ship, and between flying their ship and flying in other ships, continue to get money to improve their own ship, until that becomes the primary financial source. The point is to make improvement matter, but also to make improvement fun.

Ships dock, of course - you can land in space stations, orbital platforms (w/ or w/o space elevators to a main station and planet), and on planets (depending on habitation, facilities, ship, etc.) If your ship is too massive to actually dock in/at the facility in question, you can park it in orbit / in space and fly a smaller ship to the station (if you don't have a smaller ship by that time, you can probably hire one).

Once docked, the player can communicate with the shops, read the E-boards for jobs, etc. Alternatively, the player can go into the station.

Inside the station, or planetside, the player has a customizable avatar and can interact with other PCs in the facility. Stereotypical facilities exist, though player requests and usage can cause expansions. Voice channels exist, as well as text channels. Rentable quiet rooms for explaining missions in precise terms also exist. Depending on usage and profits, stations or planet-side facilities can expand, as explained on AI behavior.

Enough chatter for now.