Dungeon Fantasy Nordlond #22: “Strategic Advance To The Rear”

Octopus dreams. The need for haste. A desperate stand. Dirty fighting in the dark. Some notes on holding a door against a hostile force, and the tactical impact of a second door. A display of archery skills from an unexpected source. Rifling pockets and mocking laughter. A rare opportunity for strategic thinking. Not the total party…

Spoiler Warning: The campaign (which started here; the whole saga can be found here) is set in Nordlond, Gaming Ballistic‘s Norse-themed campaign setting. Today’s session continues with a scenario taken from GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Adventure 4: Two-Page Dungeons, from Steve Jackson Games’ GURPS 2021 PDF Challenge Kickstarter. Beware spoilers!

Dungeon Fantasy Nordlond #21: “Watch Where You Step”

The strangest pet anyone’s seen in living memory. Administrative arrangements. Old friends. A side trip with results both foul and explosive. Demons. Rusty knives and dirty clothes. No rest for the weary.

Spoiler Warning: The campaign (which started here; the whole saga can be found here) is set in Nordlond, Gaming Ballistic‘s Norse-themed campaign setting. Today’s session came from GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Adventure 4: Two-Page Dungeons, from Steve Jackson Games’ GURPS 2021 PDF Challenge Kickstarter. Be warned!

Dungeon Fantasy Nordlond #15: “Darkness Falls”

In which our heroes journey deep into the Dragongrounds on a quest directed by a goddess. On the merits of using both carrot and stick when dealing with bandits. Seeing the sights, and the dangers of seeing too much of some sites. Deadly encounters, both large and small. Loyalty and courage, both put to the test; some pass, some fail.

Spoiler Warning: The campaign (beginning here) is set in Nordlond, Gaming Ballistic‘s Norse-themed campaign setting. This session has the party starting on the previously-forshadowed events of The Dragons of Rosgarth.

Dungeon Fantasy Nordlond #14: “… Where Draugr Fear To Tread”

We had nearly a full house, this session, with just one player missing. A few of us were feeling a little under the weather, so it was a short-ish session, but we were able to finish the fight from last time and get a good sense of direction for the next quest.

Spoiler Warning: The campaign (beginning here) is set in Nordlond, Gaming Ballistic‘s Norse-themed campaign setting. This session, as well as last, began as an encounter from Forest’s End pulled from its original context.

Dungeon Fantasy Nordlond #13: “Knights Rush In…”

This month, we managed to get nearly the whole gang together… and in light of the party’s expectation of a hard fight this session, Blixa’s player, who could not attend, extended “assistant puppeteer” rights to The Kid’s player. This meant that we had all the PCs in the same place at the same time, for the first time in a long while!

Last session, I expressed some frustration at the technology, and a longing to return to physical maps and counters. Due to that frustration, since then, I’ve dedicated some time to changing the technology. We’ve abandoned Roll20, and switched over to FoundryVTT, using Chris Normand’s excellent system implementation, self-hosted. It was a good time for it, since the party was returning to a map they had already seen, one that was already prepared in Roll20. If the FoundryVTT version of the map was a failure, we could easily fall back to the old solution. As it happened, though, it turned out quite well! I hope to dig in to this subject further in the future, but all the tech is in service of the game, so first, here’s the synopsis of the session itself…

Spoiler Warning: The campaign (beginning here) is set in Nordlond, Gaming Ballistic‘s Norse-themed campaign setting. This session began as an encounter from Forest’s End pulled from its original context.

Dungeon Fantasy Nordlond #12: “Faeries Wear Boots. Delvers Loot Them.”

This session, we almost had a full house. Esen wasn’t able to attend, but we did get the triumphant return of Slingshot!

We’re still playing remotely. We had our share of the usual difficulties: bad connections, folks on mute without realizing it, all the usual. We persevered, but I’m really looking forward to leaving all the gee-whiz technology and getting back to five half-painted minis and a Lego minifig versus three pieces of folded cardboard and a handful of pennies.

Spoiler Warning: The campaign (starting here) is set in Nordlond, Gaming Ballistic‘s Norse-themed campaign setting. We started off with the Hall of Judgment and the campaign has included material from several other Nordlond books. Expect spoilers, but also expect deviations from the source material – I’m changing stuff as I go. In fact, this session was based around an encounter taken entirely out of context and repurposed from Forest’s End.

Dungeon Fantasy Nordlond #11, Part 2: “Roll The Bones”

The second half of this month’s session. The first half is here.

Spoiler Warning: The campaign (starting here) is set in Nordlond, Gaming Ballistic‘s Norse-themed campaign setting. We started off with the Hall of Judgment and the campaign has included material from several other Nordlond books. Expect spoilers, but also expect deviations from the source material – I’m changing some stuff as I go.

Dungeon Fantasy Nordlond #11, Part 1: “Totally A Thing”

We missed a month, what with one thing and another, but we had nearly the whole group this time! We started off with some “asynchronous role-playing” using Discord over the past couple of weeks, before getting together around the virtual tabletop this weekend for the combat.

Spoiler Warning: The campaign (starting here) is set in Nordlond, Gaming Ballistic‘s Norse-themed campaign setting. We started off with the Hall of Judgment and the campaign has included material from several other Nordlond books. Expect spoilers, but also expect deviations from the source material.

Dungeon Fantasy Nordlond #10: “From The Depths”

Our regularly-scheduled game fell on the 4th of July, so we had to modify things a bit. We were missing a couple of players due to other responsibilities, and we started and finished somewhat earlier than usual to allow for family time in the evening. Thus, the party was not only smaller than usual, it also started off sleepy. Despite that, and the short session, they made some good progress.

Spoiler Warning: The campaign (which started here) is set in Nordlond, Gaming Ballistic‘s Norse-themed campaign setting. We started off with the Hall of Judgment and the campaign has included material from several other Nordlond books. Spoilers can unexpectedly come from any direction.

Dungeon Fantasy Nordlond #9: “Boo!”

This session, we were missing Blixa. Which was weird, because if this campaign were a movie from the early 1980’s, it would be called “Blixa The Destroyer” and Blaadao would be played by Mako.

Spoiler Warning: This session uses some leftover content from Hall of Judgment, the first adventure set in Nordlond, Gaming Ballistic‘s Norse-themed campaign setting. Not much in the way of spoilers, but if you’re a purist… Actually, no, upon review, there are some “forward-looking” spoilers for several other Nordlond books. I have a feeling (hope?) that from here on out, material from the whole collection is just going to start flowing together.