Tarry Wisdom

Another critter the Champions fought was a farastu (tarry) demodand. That's the scrawny little critter on the left. Four of 'em exploded outta some zombies. Not much of a challenge, but sure evokes some nasty imagery, very Dead Alive.

Not a big fan of demodand, just kinda feel stuck on, because they needed neutral evil demon/devils. They excrete yuckiness, and in the farastu's case, it is tar. This tar makes weapons stick to them unless a relatively easy save is made, all saves were made so I couldn't use these scummy little boogers to take away some weapons.

In second edition, when they didn't want to call fiendish critters demons and devils, they changed demodand's name to ghereleth's. The decision to try to disguise demons and devils always pissed me off. In a weird way, the belief that D&D was devil worship gave it a little more credibility. Something you might play with metal heads, instead of a hobby exclusively enjoyed by dorks.

Garycon: Face the Eye Tyrant!

In celebration of Garycon, I put my players up against a beholder. Awesome. I've never had a party high enough level to even look at a beholder without dying. It was pretty crazy, they kinda peppered it with arrows till it died, which shows just how awesome the Champions of Cauldron are.

I wish I had a picture of it handy, but back in the day my mom made a beholder costume for halloween. My brother used to play D&D, he's the one who I inherited my first rule books from. He had a fistfull of mini's (which my dad would paint up for him) one of which was a cheap grenadier beholder knockoff. The bad boy shown over there on the left. Think it was painted glossy grey, if I dig deep enough, I might be able to find it in my box of discarded mini's.

Her "eye monster" was a big purple scaly thing with a giant eye for a head, and tubing tipped with styrofoam eyes dangling around the bottom. For some reason she didn't win the contest she went to, got beat out by a sexy witch or something. I'm thinking the judges thought it was a rental, not made from scratch (which it was!).

Really have nothing to say about E.G. Gygax's death that hasn't been already said, more eloquently, on other blogs. It really is a pity, makes me sad.

Pros and Cons

So I slapped a new section over there on the left for conventions. Really haven't been to too many, went to Gen-con back in the nineties, and once more about four years ago. Few other ones I went to, didn't really sign up for any events, just looted through the dealer area. Then there was Winter War. Signed up for events, got a room, the hole shebang. Tons and tons of fun. Really puts gaming in a different perspective to do it with bunches of strangers, in games ran by guys who do it like the "how to game master" section in most rule books tell you to.

This means now I want to go to butt-tons of cons, and go completely broke. Or just spend less on food and obscure out-of-print games. Meh, we'll see.

Face trauma

And summa this..

They don't make 'em like they used to...

So I watched Solarbabies again last week. It's been a while, and I'm glad I rewatched it. It is one of those eighties movies that is unmistakably dated. Seems like most Jami Gertz movies are, Lost boys, this one, Less than Zero. Like a trilogy of eighties movies that can be pointed to and said "aha! that's what they really thought of themselves, and also why it is so ridiculous now!"

It's a messed up mash up of Dune, Road Warrior, Xanadu, Beastmaster, E.T., and Rollerball. In the future, water is scarce, society has crumbled, the bombs have dropped. Orphans are raised in prison like fortresses in the middle of deserts. For entertainment, they play this game of roller skate lacrosse or just skate around in a circle during free skate while propaganda done in an MTV style plays on big screens.

It's got a flimsy plot, which I wasn't as interested in as what they do with civilization in the wastes. The meat and potatoes of this post nuclear mess.

You got a tribe of gypsy/amerinds called the Chicani (I think) who live in a nomadic tent carnival style place, complete with a mystic who lives in a giant plaster demon head which contains a complete wax museum. They all wear ponytails on the sides of their mulleted heads.

There is a town called Tire Town, surrounded by cars set up like standing stones, and built around a giant tire melting factory. The guards all wear armor made of tires like Wesley Snipes in Demolition man.

There is a group of rebels called the Eco Warriors, who fought the government a generation or so ago, they run around dressed like dervishes, with a lot of white and pastels. They also found a way to live in a paradise down in a cave with an almost intact glacier. Under the desert.

The "Man" or whatever has taken the nearest body of water and built a big shell around it, so they can control it. At the end the solar babies blow it up. The person in charge of this giant water management facility is the broad who played Evil Lynn in her best nazi scientist style. She even has a robot built to torture, and cut down gemstones.

An enjoyable mess, worth the time

Wrath of the Dragon God

I watched the second D&D movie the other day (well, kinda watched it while I did the dishes and cooked). Wasn't so bad. Had the essential elements, bad guy gets his hand on evil artifact, party of adventurers formed to fight him, solve some puzzles, go to a dungeon, deal with a dracolich.

A few things I liked. Mentioned the barrier peaks, shrine of the Kuo-toa, ghost tower of Inverness when the adventurers talked about their past career. The dungeon had a chessboard style trap. The adventurers had to go find a tribe of goblins who worship Jubilex. The cleric of the party gets eaten. The rogue fails a save and goes negative. The wizard botches a teleport and gets her arm stuck in a pillar.

Things I didn't like. Everyone talked in Ren-Faire British. The party tangled with a huge white dragon, a lich, and about sixty bandits, but when faced with about six darkmantles, they ran like sissies. The Black dracolich spewed fire, not acid. When the villain got the artifact taken from him, fairly, he shows up later to just snatch it out of the adventurers hands, to complete his evil plan. From a gamer perspective, that is friggen cheap, and a good way to piss off your players. Especially after killing off the cleric and having the wizard lose an arm. The tribe of goblins who worship Jubilex were all dead, so they just searched an empty village.

Still, liked it a little more than I though I would, worth seeing.