Happy Holiday from the Drunk Umber Hulk!

Happy holidays everyone!  I hope you all have a safe and fun holiday season.  May your presents be filled with gaming goodness and your bellies filled with tasty treats!

OGRE Designer's Edition has arrived!

The box is humongous!

My copy of Ogre arrived about two weeks ago, I finally had time to open it up and put everything together.  Here are a few pictures of the box and the completed pieces.  I'll post some more pics once the wife and I play our first game!

The giant sized tote bag.

Its a thing of beauty!

I can't believe how big this thing is!

The non-3D playing pieces.

With the maps in the box.

The Ogre Garage.

My cat reacting to the size of the box!

**SPOILERS** Temple of Elemental Evil **SPOILERS**

I had a chance to get together with my old gaming buddy this weekend and smash out some more of the Temple of Elemental Evil.  We began playing six to seven years ago and get together when we can.  We were (and still are) living in different states and don't get to play very often.  When we started out we were using VOIP and a whiteboard program (before google+ became the way to play) and then fell into a once or twice a year in person session.  It felt good to get back to DM'ing, we last played about a year and a half ago so I was feeling a bit rusty at first.

This is the first time I have run the Temple as DM having previously played through it once before when I was a wee lad.  It's my favorite adventure of all time and it was really fun to spend all weekend rolling dice, eating pizza, drinking beers and embracing my inner geek.

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

The party:

Vallon - Human Fighter & Surly Bastard

Marhev - Human Fighter (my toon but being run by my friends girlfriend)

Jess - Human Cleric with a dark soul

Kaila - Elf Wizard (holds the record for most deaths)

Rahan - Elf Rogue (nicknamed The Finisher for his ability to drop baddies with his bow, after spending the entire fight missing them)

Things started with the party heading back to the Temple from Verbobonc, Jess (the lawful good cleric) wanted to sack Nulb and put the occupants to the sword but was dissuaded by her fellow companions.They made their way to the Water Temple as they had previously cleared out the entire third floor except for pool room. They were unable to figure out the acid pool and almost lost Rahan after he jumped in the acid but was able to climb out of the pool before melting into a puddle of goo.  After some general shenanigans they decided to move on and attempt the fourth floor of DOOM.  Over the next few hours they explored all of the rooms south of the main temple and found them all to be empty of creatures, leaving them mystified.  Near the main altar of worship a portal opened that cut off their escape and all of the monsters from the level began pouring out.  Darting down a side hallway they stumbled into the portal that lead to the Air Node.  I had hoped to drive them into the nodes, I'm not sure if my players would have volunteered to go through without a push so it worked out well!

Upon entering the Air Node they found themselves pummeled by flying debris and they sought cover.  Heading east they began working their way counterclockwise around the edge of the node.  They spotted a white dragon flying high above them giving them a bit of a scare.  Pressing on they entered a cave system and found a dead Cloud Giant, his body blasted by ice.  Pushing further into the cave system they encountered a Frost Worm and a vicious battle ensued!  Using its Trill ability the Frost Worm froze several of the party in place and proceeded to tear into the rest.  Kaila was killed (again) by the beasts breath weapon and was finally felled by Rahan The Finisher (after he missed multiple times during the fight).  My friend was pretty upset that Kaila died (again), shes already fallen behind in levels due to her previous deaths but he decided to try and save her by casting Gentle Repose until we could get her resurrected.

Feeling defeated the party moved on, much more cautiously than before as we were now lacking our wizard. Continuing around the outer edge of the node they came upon a large cave filled with a giant boulder field.  Shortly after they began to maneuver through the field a small white dragon flew from deep in the cave and glided out the entrance through which they had come.  Rahan donned his invisibility ring and scouted ahead while the rest of the party took refuge in the shadows of the boulders.  He discovered the dragons treasure horde and spent a few rounds picking through it hoping the dragon would not return.  He found several small items of value including a silver box with a aquamarine gem in it.  Returning to the party they realized the gem was the perfect size to fit into the golden skull they were in possession of (the Orb of Golden Death).  Seizing the gem from the box they were all suddenly ripped from the Air Node and deposited in a splash into the center of the Water Node!  Shocked and surprised this is where the adventure ended as we were all a bit tired.

I am looking forward to playing again but it will probably be some time.  My players were sure that the fourth level was the final one and were surprised at the inclusion of the nodes.  They are slowly piecing together what they need to do to bring the temple low.  Next time should bring the conclusion to our many year adventure.  I'm looking forward to it!

Orb of Golden Death

For the last few years I have been running a 3e conversion the Temple of Elemental Evil.  It's the first and only campaign I have run in 3e and will probably never play 3e again once this adventure is complete. My feelings on 3e aside, I was looking around for a decent image of the Orb of Golden Death that I could print out for my players and was unable to find anything I really liked.  So I made my own version in Procreate on my iPad.  Above is a time compressed video of the creation of the drawing.

Our adventure will be wrapping up soon and once it does I will be making available all of the materials I used to run the Temple including the 3e conversion and the different play aids I used.  Much of this stuff was created by other people, I just pulled it all together and made some edits for my campaign.  If you have never had a chance to play the original Temple of Elemental Evil I highly recommend it, I have played once as a player and now a second time as a DM.  Its a classic adventure that is a blast!

Feel free to use the image below for your own adventures!

New Barrowmaze Crowdfunding on the Horizon

Hey folks, 

I just wanted to pass along the news that Greg over at Discourse and Dragons has announced he will be running a new crowdfunding campaign for Barrowmaze Complete starting in January 2014.  This new book will combine the two existing Barrowmaze Dungeons into one mega-module and will include new material, art and layout.  The amazing Erol Otus has been tapped to do the new cover.

I already own both Barrowmaze and Barrowmaze II, they are both amazing products but I would be willing to contribute to a new combined module.  The best news for me is that he is currently working with the guys over at Otherworld Miniatures to produce a Barrowmaze box set, awesome news indeed!

The original announcement can be found here: Barrowmaze Complete

Busy, busy, busy!

Heya folks!

Sorry for the lack of updates, I have been super busy.  I am back at school for the fall semester, taking classes in the evenings after work (math class.....bleh).  On top of full time work and part time school are all of my house projects and honey-do lists.  At some point I will get back to posting and will finish up the Men of Iron game I started, just not in the next month or so.

I have managed to squeeze in a little miniatures painting here and there, I'll try and take some photos and get them posted.  I hope you are all well and enjoying the fall weather!

Battle of Poitiers - Update

At this point in the game I have caught up with my old posts from Consimworld. From here on out I will be playing the game as I post instead of just copying and pasting already completed turns.  What's that mean for you dear reader?  Well things are probably going to slow down a bit as far as posting turns as I need to play things out and take screenshots.  Its also been a while since I have actually played so I'm sure I will be spending some time with my nose in the rulebook.  

Please have patience, I intend to complete this entire battle.  I hope you all are enjoying it as much as I am!