The Heavy Standard: The Forest Fire

[Part of the Party Time journal]  

Inside the tree is a mind trip of chambered puzzles involving keys: leaving an item to take a key off a pedestal, finding a key reflected in a mirror that's not there, defeating a scarecrow whose powers the players themselves decide (easy as non-flammable wasn't one of them), and saving four strangers who happened to be themselves. The queen herself serves only as a guardian to her daughter's room - she bestowed upon her all the powers of the forest for her to make her own paradise. They convince the queen to let them through and beyond find her daughter: a lich.

It is a swift battle once they realize it is a battle, because I was just going on with flowery narration while they are being life drained before Agrellon woke up (by DL saying "hang on what?"). He then body slammed her to wake the others up who then set her alight... which set the entire tree alight. At this point they've lost around 14 of the 555s, and I give them the remaining 20 reinforcements to control evenly.

Regrouping outside they find the old elves and the outpost elves staring in horror at the magical forest fire about to spread and those of them gifted in magic hold hands and try to "kumbaya" chant it away - only to fail and each explode in a horrible scream of brilliant flame rapidly one after the other. This sends Juris' dogs running off into the woods and he gives chase with Flipper, while Agrellon and his frog man chase after Juris. Miraculously (good rolling, supply spending and inspiring Flipper lol), he gets them all back unharmed but are now cut off from the others due to the fire.

To dodge it they head back to the Fool's March fort encountering a murderous silver haired elf on the way who is executing a human female (the local healer at the fort) for lying about the elves spreading a disease in the fort. The kill him unceremoniously and make it there, only to learn there's more trouble coming in the form of a Skyriver raid!?

The Heavy Standard: The Green Swamp

[Part of the Party Time journal] 

As the cavalry leader, Sparrow-touches-trees, does not seem hostile and only wants the child returned Agrellon passes a diplomacy check on his own people to truss up their own legion leader who is so anti-Southlander he's willing to murder the child (and proceed to murder the entire camp as per the Emperor's standing orders). The boy is returned and the 555s are allowed to make camp near the Skyriver tribe's base where they are given some food and learn that its been 25 years since their initial battle. Since then a great upheaval has closed off the routes up to the Waiting City which the 555 are interested to return to. After learning the hills to the East are dangerous they instead go West, leaving the anti-Southlander with the people he hates (and they kill him, feeding him to their Death Speaker who then names the 555 as friends to the tribe).

En route Juris manages to tame a pack of 12 wild dogs on the prairie before they come to the rocky, winding slope that leads down from the Southlands to the a green swamp. Halfway down is a rickety old fort of Fool's March manned by other old "Highlanders" (people from the Waiting City) who got trapped after the upheaval. While playing some dice poker for supplies they learn that no one can exit the swamp, for other than the creatures within strange elf magic prevents them from leaving it. Juris convinces the wavering 555 NPCs to continue the journey rather than stay here and so they descend into the knee deep muck and soon encounter a frogman village.

The froggies are friendly, and Dr. Qwek Qwek helps the constipated chief of his illness: eating stones to stay heavy as the heaviest is the chief. They are each given a froggy ally for this, despite Juris' rejections as his one, Flipper, is very amorous? Lol. The froggies prove to be good guides and can at least give them a choice between passing a dry island of evil trees or a crocman nesting ground. They choose the latter and end up fighting through, then enter a mirrored grove where ravens snatch the hair of some of their soldiers. A voice warns them to leave and they agree, promising to not return this way - so they proceed unmolested.

Next they find some elves lying about in a glade, tripping on the lizards they're licking while one of them gets dragged away by a panther. They wake up and befriend these old guys who proclaim the end of the elves has long been coming: Emperor Hiatus' tactic of flooding their emerald forest and turning it into a swamp was effective and now their queen defies nature itself. They agree to escort the 555 to said tree, letting them pass a guarded elf outpost unchallenged up to the gigantic tree palace itself (now dying from over watering). Here the vines and vine controlled corpses are fought off with some losses as they push through to the large hollow to gain an audience with the elven queen.

The Heavy Standard: The 555

[Part of the Party Time journal] 

At the center of the isle of Atera is a tall and huge plateau upon which sits the sprawling and grey Waiting City ruled by its Emperor Hiatus Waiting. Having grown tired of other nations occupying his island, the Emperor drafts up large numbers of his citizens into his Waiting Legions among whom are doctor in training QwekQwek (Rose), Agrellon the novice swordsman (DL), Eagle the apprentice archer (mom), and Juris (as himself) the novice mage who happen to all be allocated to the 5th legion, 5th division, 5th cohort (aka "the 555") with other mainly civilian folk and after an inadequately short training period at the Southern Cross tower they are all given a club and a tabard, and Dr. Qwek Qwek gets the dubious honor of bearing the heavy standard of the legion: a red flag with a black figure of a sideways facing soldier stabbing themselves in the chest with elder speak writing along the border that translates to "Sacrifice yourself".

Their legion is then sent South with the young orange toga wearing wizard, Roland Lexington, to wage a winter war against the Southland Horselords who have been harassing the farms in the region. They witness Roland's power from a distance as he throws lightning at the masses of torch bearing, bone armor wearing, horse mounted natives but suddenly his position is consumed by a translucent black dome. After a moment of chaos, the 555s are instructed to enter the dome and retrieve the wizard - but first must fight through the horselord forces that get in their way. Juris has the good sense to transmute Agrellon's club into a sword and Eagle's club into a bow and arrows so they can make use of their abilities.

Worth noting I give each of my players 20 NPC soldiers at this point - each with a name and a one line personality trait, keeping a 20 "reserve" on me. For each point of damage they don't want to take, they can instead cross out names on their list. Indeed, some names are crossed out as they forge their way into the dark dome just as it solidifies into a solid black. In the center they find an old man in an orange toga - Roland Lexington (because magic in this world makes you age), his face frozen in terror as a bone spear stopped in mid flight begins to pierce his chest. Approaching it makes time slow for the individual who gets close, and even Juris' attempt at telekenesis causes him to be frozen in time.

Despite their best efforts (or due to their meddling) the spear is pushed forward into the wizard and suddenly time speeds up! The projectile spins wildly, tearing Roland into bits of bloody gore and with a flash of bright light the black dome shatters! Gone are the snowy night time fields they were warring upon and instead they see fields of spring time grass and a bunch of Southland children nearby looking at them in terror. They capture one who spills the beans about where their current camp is and head there, finding a sizable teepee village near the waterfall but a cavalry unit (no doubt warned by the kids that escaped) awaits them.

The Heavy Standard - The System

[Part of the Party Time journal]

We've finally played my home brew tabletop campaign so I'll be posting here how things go. :)

Definitely "Forged in the Dark" (inspired by Blades in the Dark), this is a fiction first role playing game that only uses D6 to determine action results. A 6 means you did it, 4 or 5 means you did it but something bad happens, and 1 to 3 means you failed badly and something bad happens.

Unlike Blades I'm trying to restrict the number of dice to 1, unless you have advantage or disadvantage which adds a dice and the result taken is the higher (advantage) or lower (disadvantage). If things are wildly in their favor or against though, maybe through a good idea or through sacrifice I'll give them a third die. To find out if someone has an advantage or not just roll a d6 and see if it is higher than the number of stars against the relevant skill. My players can pick any skill within reason (and in the setting) and they can spend 10 XP to add a star next to them (or add a new skill) to a maximum of 5 stars.

Character wise they just get a name and a few boxes: 8 harm, 8 stress, 6 scars and trauma. Harm is physical damage, stress is mental damage or spent to re-roll, and exceeding either of those gives them a scar of trauma in which case they are out of the scene. If scars and trauma is full the character dies, but 6 is super generous I don't think anyone is going to die this way. I'll even let them split the damage out as they like [except in certain situations] and can just sacrifice items or NPC allies (per damage). That's intentional as my players are unlikely to take kindly to character death. :P

There's also an "age" track with 16 boxes, the first 4 being "prime" and the last 4 being "old". People in their prime have and advantage healing, and old people have a disadvantage in healing. That's taken during the more mechanical "rest" action in which each player can do two things. Rest as above, gather "supplies" (which I'm representing by tactile gold coins, but they actually represent anything so if they "need" something I can say, sure - you have that: for x number of supplies), or use said supplies for research or construction of whatever. Resting and traveling are the main ways in which time moves, with each season having 10 boxes - I roll a dice when "time passes" and (6) 3, (4 or 5) 2, or (1-3) 1 time unit is filled in. For ease of remembrance they all have the same birthday to age up.

Not that my game will span years anyway... BUT the magic system does. You cast spells, you AGE. The stronger the effect the worse off you are. You fill up your age you die. I feel this is more acceptable than "a monster killed you because it rolled better than you" as the player is willingly advancing towards their own end by continued casting. I think the magic system should balance itself out this way.

Healing harm and stress is the main way to get XP, while I might throw a few extra points for well played segments or good ideas. This does mean XP tracking is done by the GM (me) though, as I'm not going to award silly self harming characters with XP.

I think that covers most of it... on to the game!

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning and Captain America: Brave New World

A pair of action movies!

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning

With the world facing a new threat Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, still in good running form) is deployed again to do the impossible... defeat AI? Yep. Decent humor and action scenes (except one sword / knife fight with too much slash grappling instead of stabbing) can be found here, and an alright story to boot. I'm glad they dialed down the "this is what we hope will happen" scenes this time around and all up I do think its a stronger story than the previous one, but while it has all the necessary story arcs it certainly is still a "Part I", as it clearly warns in the title sequence. :P

Captain America: Brave New World

With the world powers in a race to claim the resources (adamantium, said to be better than the Wakandan's vibranium) from the newly risen Celestial Island (from the Eternals), new-ish Captain America Sam Wilson (played by Anthony Mackie) becomes tangled in a plot to try keep the peace. Much like the audience he's very self aware that he's not a super soldier, and humorously that Ant-Man kicked his butt that one time. Despite having improved shielding thanks to Wakandan tech his survival in this movie is more dependent on his plot armor and reliance on bad guys missing completely or definitely hitting the center of his shield with bullets. Better than I thought it would be, but still only recommended if you are an Anthony Mackie fan.

Dark Winds and House of David

TV shows with greater powers at work?

Dark Winds

This currently three season series follows tribal policeman Joe Leaphorn (played by Zahn McClarnon) as he and his colleagues investigate often fatal crimes that happen to have a touch (but the slightest, lightest whisper of a touch) of the supernatural. After all sometimes your medicine bag will protect you better than your six shooter? It's an interesting mix but one I feel isn't played to its full potential. I'm also a bit annoyed that our hero is very slow on the trigger but I have to keep reminding myself that that's a more reasonable / relatable character than one who just blasts everyone away. :P  I'll definitely keep watching it but am holding off on recommendations for the time being as the episode quality ranges a fair bit.

House of David (season 1)

This currently one season show follows David, the biblical shepherd boy destined to be king. Other than it being a lot more musical than I though it would be as David (played by Michael Iskander) sings a lot, there's a bit of royal drama mixed in with a few action scenes that really solidify this as an old testament story (there's lots of killing in there). It helps that the acting and story are decent which make us eager to watch season 2. I don't think its as good as The Chosen though, but it still has a lot of time to change my mind.

G20 and Tortoise Tumble

A silly movie and a silly little game.

G20

When greedy terrorists somehow take the world leaders hostage at a G20 summit, its up to the USA's military trained black female president (surprised they didn't make her lesbian as well right?) to save the day while wearing a dress  made of plot armor. This is quite the spectacle and the actors did a decent job with the predictable script they were given which makes for an OK enough movie. I'm guessing they were hoping to target younger audiences who don't know movies like Die Hard and Air Force One which also might explain their shyness in having blood and death on the camera. For everyone else, this is an ok "background" movie while you do something else.

Tortoise Tumble

This is a ridiculous little game that involves rolling two toy turtles onto a set of randomized tiles to score points. How your turtle lands gets points with being on its back giving you 0 to a head plant which gives you lots! In addition to that landing on a particular tile might be better than another, but missing entirely is a zero, regardless of how your turtle landed. Very silly, very shallow and very fast to run. Can't really recommend it though.