[  Mood: Happy ]
Well Saturday has come and gone and so has another Game Night. Our host Craig spent a chunk of Friday night making islands and getting ready so we had no choice but to play at least one round of Wizkid’s Pirates!. Avast! With 3d terrain and our nifty game board the game just looked good from the set up:

After some review of the rules on the part of a few of us we were ready to set sail on the high (blue painted) seas.

Corey had an edge with his ‘booty finder’ *snicker*

A large part of the early game in the standard scenario is just racing to the nearest islands and snagging as much stuff as you can. Corey had an effective combination of crew and ships that let him really move across the board. Craig, on the other peg leg, had a group of really rich islands within easy reach and a four ship fleet that he used pretty effectively.

Still, conflict wasn’t far off, with me and Corey scrapping on one corner of the map and a three way struggle between Mitch, Craig and Jason in the center of the map.

War spread quickly across the seas and ships (Jason and mine) were sunk. Lesson here, big slow ships, even if they have a ton of guns and sails, aren’t that great.

(Note stylin’ Team Cthulhu bowling shirts)

Mitch’s Titan Crab caused havok all over the place until it was blasted to pieces by Craig.

Craig went on to score an absolutely overwhelming win with almost twice the loot of the next nearest player. Congrats!

Next up, Corey had purchased Flying Frog’s Last Night On Earth. Another zombie survival game ala Zombies!!! and Zombietown. The production values on the game were top notch and it looked amazing. The creators decided to go with photographs of real people as opposed to illustrations and it really gave the game a unique feel.

(Note bowl of delicious chili in upper right hand corner made by me)

The game had promise but was completely and heavilly scewed towards the zombies. This made the game frustrating for the human players, but we rallied and made a serious dent in the horde. Unfortunately the zombies managed to kill two humans thus winning the game for them.

We decided it could be a fun game but would need a lot of house rules to make it playable. Again though, it is a gorgeous game to look at.

After that we decided on some tried and true Munchkin. We started with Space Munchkin which none of us had played. It was a fun variation and Mitch went on to win the round. We then threw down on some Munchkin Impossible.

Which I went on to win by the hair of my chinny chin chin (triple agent rocks). After that we moved on to the goth and angst of Munchkin Bites.

In all honesty I forget who won this one, any members of Team Cthulhu reading this could you remind me? This marked the end of Game Night and the participants all went back to their various safe houses and ogre caves. We have one more regular game night and then…

dum dum dum!!!!

Call of Cthulhu game night on Oct. 27th. Stay Tuned!

(Or check in over at: http:\\www.teamcthulhu.org )

Editorial Note: It was Corey that won Munchkin Bites. We’re really going to need to set up a Munchkin leaderboard over on the website.

The group proceeded to share their information and the pieces all fell into place. It looked as if the jewelry was in the possession of a noble house of Waterdeep, House Thann known for their winemaking. This happened late in the day though and the group was forced to spend a nervous night again in the old shop. Aside from an out of place icy breeze though the evening passed uneventfully much to everyone’s joy. Though and the next morning saw the group mobilized for action heading for the Castle Ward compound of House Thann.

The odd combination of the bard and the rat catcher approached the nobles and, oddly enough, decided to play it straight up. They eventually got an audience with the lady Cassandra Thann who was wearing the very item they were looking for. After listening to their story she sent a group of her guards to secure the building and agreed to go back with the group that evening to see this ghost for herself. The group spent the rest of the day in comfortable imprisonment in the waiting rooms of the manor.

That evening, the gang was summoned to the courtyard where Lady Thann, a young man wearing mage type gear and a lady in waiting were boarding a coach. 6 more guards waited to accompany the group. After little fan fare the motley parade headed out cross town at dusk, peasants scattering out of their way. A few of the groups took the rare opportunity to lord it up a bit over the commoners which is hard to do when you are riding on the back of large dog.

The arrived to see the shop surrounded by Thann troops holding torches; so much for keeping a low profile. After the property was inspected and okayed by the mage the group filtered in to wait for the spirit to make his appearance. It would prove to be an awkward period for the group of rogues and royalty.

Midnight struck and right on time, after some spooky pyrotechnics, the ghost of al Hamid appeared. The jewelry on Lady Thann’s wrist gave him pause though and he then showed her the same domestic scene the party on the first night. Without a word the Lady rose, removed the contested piece and gave it up to the troubled spirit. With an ectoplasmic explosion the ghost and his prize vanished leaving everyone present with a serene feeling of accomplishment.

House Thann quickly gathered up with the mage Thann leaving a continual flame burning in the sconce next to the shop’s front door. After a few brief words they were gone and the group were now in complete ownership of a base of operations.

In addition to some awesome shirts Team Cthulhu now has a website:

www.teamcthulhu.org

Hopefully there will be some additional functionality like a calender and forum in the days to come. Still, it is nice to have SOME sort of webpresence for the crew.

Our power went out here for about an hour. About two city blocks were without electricity. It made me think ( as I was reading by candlelight.) about other places that don’t have electricity or do, at best sporadically.

Such a minor thing to us, but, when gone, such a major inconvieniance. I live in an apartment block, and we all went out with flash lights and so forth at 10 pm to try and figure out what was up. The cell phone owners (including me) called the energy company and all got automated responses.

I had a computer up on UPS and emailed them as well. Still, they don’t have that option in Bagdad. We stood out in the breezeway and talked about it. Eventually, someone brought out food and I hauled a 12 pack out and it became a very social hang out.

It confirmed my idea that you find the best of people in the weirdest times. I am all about some altruisim, no god involved, people just tend to be good and want to fix things. We were already talking about, what we would do about tomorrow, and how we could could cover one another. (it is going to be like 90 here and my neighbors know I essentially work from home).

The power came back on (obviously), but we went back to our homes with a bit more then a smiling nod for one another.

Our heroes set themselves up around the main common room near a soaked in blood stain awaiting the ghost. At midnight, complete with spooky fanfare the ghost of Jazid al Hamid appeared, the merchant who had built the building and ran a business there until his family and eventually he himself were slain by the Shadow Thieves 100 years ago.

Ed the vermin catcher wisely decided to parley with the ghost (which could have easilly killed the entire group) and they discovered it was tethered to the place by a unique bit of jewelry that belonged to his wife. A combination ring/bracelet device that signified marriage in Calimshan. It was obvious that he wanted this jewelry back.

The ghost then departed, leaving the group to obsessivly search the building room by room. They found no wedding gear but did find some minor loot and discovered that their well went far, far deeper then they realized. After some discussion in the morning the group split up and went researching. Half went to the Temple of Lathander for a divination and Craig went to the hall of records to dig up what he could (mostly alarming information about Trask and Hammerfall).

The temple crew was more successful, gaining some clues to the wedding bands’ current location. The group met up at the building ready to make some forward progress. During the day more stuff had arrived and the place was teetering on the edge of being livable. Frank’s wife had delivered breakfast (unseen) to the group as well and Frank the smith himself as well as Royce the priest of Lathander were amazed the group had lived through the night.

(to be continued)

We kicked off the ‘Thieves of Waterdeep’ D&D campaign last night and I think I can safely say a good time was had by all. I almost hit my goal of having a combat free D&D game. A brief tussle with some drunken mercenaries on a main street was the only stumbling block, and that combat only lasted two rounds. In defiance of the whole ‘the group meets at a tavern’ standard sort of D&D start I had the group be an already established gang of thieves in the Forgotten Realms city of Waterdeep.

They had just come off of a successful robbery and were loaded with goods and cash so money was kind of a non-issue. That in mind they decided they needed a base of operations. (In an urban game a base of ops is a necessity, much like a space ship in a sci fi game)Fortunately Ed, playing a gnome and life long Waterdeep resident (and professional vermin hunter), knew of a potential place. The only problem is that it was haunted and no one had been able to stay longer than a night in the building for over 100 years.

Undaunted our party decided to look into it, soon discovering that the deed for the place was in the hands of the weirdly menacing moneylenders Trask & Hammerfall. Trask, a tall and cadeverously thin human and Hammerfall, an almost spherical dwarf, proved to be shrewd negotiators and reluctantly parted with the building for a mere 1000 gold. The building, a stucco affair of Calimshani design (think Sante Fe meets the middle east) proved to be pleasant enough during the day, if a bit run down. More importantly it was perfect for the uses of our team.

The gang made nice with the neighbors in the form of Frank, the smith and his son (and apparently invisible wife) next door, and the mini-vermin hunter brought a priest of Lathander (god of the dawn) around to bless the place and generally spread good mojo. Sherman the bard went out on a shopping expidition and bought all the various sundries the house would need. He returned with two hirelings loaded with stuff and half filled the store room, with more goods to come the next day.

The team went on to generally clean the place up and search around, finding a few hidden spots here and there and discovering their well was indeed a source of decent fresh water (and was being used clandestinely by their neighbors). Night was falling and soon the group would find out if their new home was really haunted or not.

(more to come)

I need a set up like this for my shower, you know, for the zombies.

The bowling shirts arrived today and they are made of pure woven awesome. The dice on the right collar really set it off. I went with this model with ‘Team Cthulhu embroidered on the left chest (over the pocket) and a pair of dice on the right collar. They were worth every penny. One problem though, I ordered one shirt short.

So now I am in a weird situation. I bought all these shirts with my own money not expecting a lot of return, but the shirts are kind of pricey. $40 a pop. I know that some of the dudes will pay me back and am cool with some of the dudes not. This was all completely my idea after all and I was willing to just cover the cost of all the shirts really. Otherwise I wouldn’t have spent the money.

So now the problem. Do I buy the shirt for one of the Team that I missed, or let it ride and say hey, buy your own. I mean I did spend over $300 clams on those shirts. Ugh, it’s an odd and akward situation.

As I mentioned elsewhere on the bboards I was pretty much stuck at home this weekend doing workstuff. (Not that I minded really, it was kind of interesting, if time consuming stuff). So in the intermittent time when I wasn’t cooking and eating way to much dead animal I was working my way through the season one box set of Heroes. I’ve got to say watching them upsampled to near HD quality has been a treat. I’d forgotten some of the quiet nuances to the series, there are a lot of subtle connections between the episdoes and the characters that I had missed the first time around. I’m about at the 2/3rds mark and given that I’m going to be night owling it for the rest of the week on the project I’m on I should be done with the show in the next few days.

Oh box DVD sets of TV shows…how did I live with out you?

Oh and Mike Nelson from MST3K already has a RiffTrax on episodes 1 and 2.