Known World: Tower of Bargle the Elder

The old wizard hasnt been heard from in two weeks so the villagers ask you to investigate.

Poster Action: an alternate DM screen

For those of you who prefer greyhawk over mystara.

Free stuff: this could be popular...

Wind Surfing on roads...it could become an olympic event.

Vocator Jarno: Dungeons & Dragons returns to film...again.

Okay...so Warner Bros. look at Game of Thrones, stick it in a blender with Guardians of the Galaxy, a copy of the Hobbit, Peter Dinklage, and add a bottle of pina colada...and switch on.

No...no they dont get an awesome megaprofit fantasy franchise. Dungeons and Dragons isnt that. Its the setting they needed, not a game engine. Forgotten Realms. Greyhawk. These are settings. A tv series might suit them better. But core characters come and go. Arko the thief that everyone liked at the beginning of the pilot when he sells the Paladins warhorse out from under him...is killed when he fails that disarm traps roll and has his skull crushed by a block of stone.
Finn the farm boy who joined at the beginning of Season two tries to swing across a crevase with the drow foster daughter of Kayand in his arms but they fall to their doom when he takes a crossbow bolt mid-swing.
Thats the nature of the game...characters die and the players introduce the new character as opportunity presents.
Thats not a film. Its barely even Game of Thrones (no one will take it well when Tyrion gets stabbed to death by Arya come season seven).
We are uncertain if we even want to see a film based on Hank the Ranger, Sheila the Thief, and friends.

Perhaps we can hope for Jeremy Irons as Bargle...combined with paint your wagon musicalness...where Bargle sings the Pina Colada song...as he tortures Peter Dinklage...in front of Aleena.

Poster Action: Why create posters?

Begin with a basic drawing.

In Microsoft Paint lay down some polygons to define shading, colour and shape.

Build your Dungeon Master Screen.


And that is part of why you want to be able to create a Poster.

NPC Class: The Sneigweik

The Sneigweik
The snake clan are a somewhat outcast group. There are multiple sects each of which has a single snake species:

• Black Mamba
• King Cobra
• Desert Asps
• Anacondas

Some are little more than crime syndicates whose members are thieves and assassins. Others carnival workers or even those whose services are openly employed. They can be any alignment but most are non lawful.

Prerequisites
Charisma must be 13+.
Constitution must be 18.
Intelligence must be 12+.

The Snake-mage
Title_____________HD_____XP____SA
Snake handler     1d4         0   +2v. Poison
Snake charmer    2d4  5000    +4v. Poison
Snake eater          3d4   10000  +6v. Poison
Snake priest         4d4   20000  +8v. Poison

Weapons of choice:

• Snake Venom: a snake handler may collect venom for use as poison.
• Snake Staff: a Snake priest will capture a snake and bind it with twine to long sticks creating a 'snake staff'. The snake is kept alive and fed mice and watered. The staff can be employed as a weapon that bites a target unleashing its poison.

Creature Catalogue: Leafdragon

Leafdragon
AC: -2
HD: 1-1* (s)
MV: 30'(10')
AT: bite or breath
DA: 1hp/as current hp
NA: 10d10 (1)
SA: DC20 (+10 v. Dragon breath)
ML: 11 (7)
INT: 12
TT: u x 2 (o)
XP: 6

Description: a leaf dragon will look like a twig with leaves on a branch. A leaf dragon will claim a single tree as territory and fight rivals for it. A swarm of leafdragons will claim an entire wood, defending their territory.
Their breath weapon is similar to the green dragon.

Poster Action: creating your own

Some times you just need to make your own...

I recommend pen draw an image and photo it and open it in ms paint where you can overlay it and colour it.

Enjoy their awesomeness.

Space war: north korea puts sattelite in space

Well done on north korea for having used a missile for launching stuff to orbit.
Lets see North Korea build an O'Neil cylinder and lift their own space colony with thirty two billion cubic feet of hydrogen to the edge of space where rocket motors will push it to orbit.

Random NPC: Peyton of Ux

Peyton of Ux: a gods worshiping alcoholic who keeps his family in poverty while he spends the meagre profits of farming on Beer for himself.
stats: normal human; neutral; 5hp; S12, I9, W7, D10, C11, Ch9; Poor clothing, shoes, hat, belt, pouch, 34cp; Personality: selfish asshole.

Superbowl Fifty: Peyton Manning Shills god and bud

Even in Australia daytime T.V. was sold out for the Superbowl 50.
Some guy named Peyton Manning thanks God and Budweiser for his superbowl win.
Bud responds with this twitter: 'Congrats to Peyton and whole @broncos team. Where would one ship 50 cases of Budweiser? Just curious.'

Then I caught sight of this response: '...I'm a recovering alcoholic. I've been sober 24-years.
Maybe its because I have not eaten today.
Maybe its because Budweiser was the first beer I ever drank at the ripe old age of 14, on the way to my first blackout of many to come.
But goddamn, this image of 50 cases of Budweiser made me have a major craving, like a sledgehammer out of nowhere...
Fuck you Peyton Manning.'
-thegentildouche

...kinda says it all.

Swords Drawn: challenge accepted

Monsters & manuals has declared that imagination is a creative muscle that must be exercised.

Beginner Exercises:

1. Create a new monster (with stats); 

2. Create an NPC wizard (with treasure and two assistants);

3. Create the top level of a dungeon;

4. Take four rules book monsters and give them replacement abilities.

5. Create a new magic item.

6. Create a new spell.

Advanced Exercises:

1. Pick four monsters and create a shared society.

2. Create a hexmap of six hexes.

3. Create a random encounter table for a specific terrain type.

4. Create a d30 (d20 for d&d fans) table of Random events.

5. Create a new PC race or class.

I created Creature Catalogue II: yellowdingo's edition which occupies space on Vaults of pandius so I figure a few more manuals wouldnt go amiss...but how to combine them all?
They will all go in B2-Mountains of Ash.

Now Reading: Old Tales Retold

'Old Tales Retold' by Lu Hsun is a collection of very old Chinese (and earlier) stories 'rewritten' for the 'modern' audience (published 1961).

While they are in their majority early tales of China, 'Mending Heaven' is an amalgamation of the emergence of the first humans and a smattering of civilization.
The goddess Nu-wa (a protoindoeuropean two-phonetic name meaning: [now-to bend (knees) apart]; a childbirth or rape reference), aparently bored as can be...

"I've never been so bored!"

 '...scooped up a handful of soft mud.' She kneads this into a 'small creature much like herself'. Not content with this she breaths life into it.

"Nga! Nga!" The little creatures were calling out.

*I previously suggested that ng- is a phonetic associated with a particular group of 'humans' (the oldest being neanderthals: ul phonetic, the other being the very small folk who use the dj phonetic).

Nu-wa, having gone off to amuse her self leaves 'man' to his own devices.
During her time there is a great crash and 'heaven split asunder'.
Now she stumbles across creatures living in 'gullies' on some mountains.
A shaman reference here:
'Vomited on the ground beside these creatures was something resembling gold dust and powdered jade with chewed pine needles and meat.'
Nu-wa recognizes them with their white beards as that which she created.
They plead with her to save them. They are in a quest of immortality. She doesnt understand but transplants their mountains to the backs of sea turtles. All but one man who is left on a beach slapping his face...

Map of the week: location 11- a hidden keep and a nest

B2 Mountains of Ash continues to develop...

Eastern Action: B2 - Monastery of the Dragon

Why bother with caves of chaos when you could be fighting your way through the Monastery of the Dragon?

Tiers of the Dragon
Level 1

• Round one: 32 x 1 HD fighters
• Round two: 39 x 2 HD fighters

Level 2

• Round three: 35 x 1 HD Mystics*

*Monks for other versions of d&d.

Level 3

• Round four: 29 x 1 HD Mystics, 3 HD Mystic, 4 HD Mystic

Level 4

• Round five: 1 HD Mystic, 21 Children (3 x 1 HD Mystics)

Level 5

• Round six: 11 x 1 HD Mystics, 5HD Mystic

Level 6

• Round seven: 15 x 2 HD Mystics, 3 HD Mystic

Level 7

• Round eight: 8 x 3 HD Mystics, 4 HD Mystic, 5 HD Mystic

Level 8

• Round nine: 6 HD Mystic

Map of the Monastery