1991 Mystery Map

Some of the joy I've been having re-running my home game through the Lands of Krull once again is having an opportunity to flesh out or re-develop ideas and scenarios that were incomplete or poorly thought out.

A major thorn is what in heck I was trying to run for our first camping trip up Mount Diablo one weekend in August, 1991. I do know I was wasted after drinking beer for about 4 hours straight before we even started the game. Also, I was winging it most of that night - very ill-prepared compounded by intoxication. But I do have clear in my mind what the huge Dwarven stronghold was supposed to look like with 3 tiers of walls, each built upwards from the wall in front of it, and the large, domed keep on top with no visible doors or windows.

There was something to do with a mace or maces and dragons. However, the most interesting thing I discovered when I edited the raw video from this session is that I had an OVERLAND MAP!

None of my hand-drawn maps that I can find show that island off the south coast (I know it's the south coast because my place names run west to east across my maps). I can tell from the video that the map is incomplete, maybe a third at most. The cool thing is that it should show the location of the Dwarven stronghold.

Now, it doesn't appear that this map aligns with my two Krull maps. I have a vague recollection charting an adjoining map to my personal interpretation of the Lands of Arduin, but this section does not seem to attach up to the east side of that map. The map is definitely my style of cartography.

Anyhow, it's a mystery. I will continue searching through my game stuff. There is a possibility I used the other side for a different map, or gave the map to another DM from our Blipping Game to draw their map. Grrrrrr...

Cyberhell at DunDraCon

My submission for this year's DunDraCon is a re-imagination of Sick Rick and Dingul's old "Cyberhell" over Geoffrey O. Dale's new "Journey to Malebolge" based on the hell of Dale's 1980 "Inferno" and the source Dante version.

Malebolge is a huge, high-level sandbox. The Cyberhell "skin" focuses this sandbox down to a manageable series of deadly encounters. I am still including elements that demonstrate to vast terrain of Malebolge, but the party's mission should provide a pull in a certain direction.

1st Episode of an Original Campaign Video from 1991

Mic'ed D&D. Ha, there is so much going on at these games that is left on the cutting room floor for a variety of reasons. Just let it be said that this particular game at Sick Rick's in Santa Rosa was EPIC in the annals of our band of heroes.

As per usual, the system is 1st edition AD&D. J.A.S. typically runs his game tournament-style requiring spell details to be written down rather than looked up in books when cast. You might notice our Barbarian-Techno, Grady, is being run by someone new. Grady was basically our traveling NPC who pretty much was turned over to anyone who wanted to join up and didn't have a character. We actually still use Grady today in our game, one of the last remnants of this bygone age...

9th and Final Episode from 1990 Game Session

We conclude after about a 10-hour game session. Looks like Spacin' Jason crashed shortly after midnight (it was his apartment and visiting girlfriend); Dr. John departed after the 2am beer run (was sober enough to drive home and on beer run); Matrox and Postman Bob both slept during the game's latter moments. Other than that our DMs Sick Rick and Dingul, and players J.A.S., Summerled, Greg, and Shade Structure were all up for the duration.

The adventure created by Sick Rick and Dingul was actually very interesting. Ha, even the parrot. I really enjoyed what was done with the desert and Glass Sea, and had completely forgot about the Thri-Kreen. Of course, by the wee wee hours of the morning there is not a lot of deep thought, but our DMs seemed well-prepared.

Note that this recorded session was not the concluding session for Sick Rick's and Dingul's adventure. Our DM rotation was 2 sessions for a single DM or 3 sessions for two co-DMs, so this game had one more night to go which occurred the following late spring or early summer (alas, no video).

Now I want to see if I can clear up some holes the video left in the scenario. Mainly, what happened with Orcus?

8th Episode from 1990 Game Session

Moving to the conclusion, a final beer run takes place (off-screen) during this episode so the hour is after 2:00am - approaching 4:00am toward the end of this excerpt.

While the adventuring party does not seem to have found time and/or a place to rest, players (myself included) are dropping out for naps here and there. Ha, we woke folks (especially those who played clerics) when we needed them.

7th Episode from 1990 Game Session

We are closing in on the witching hour from this game night.

This particular segment is mostly a combat, the "roll" playing, which is interesting for 1-minute melee rounds and our Arduin Grimoire standard critical hits occurring after 2 natural 20s. And, yes, during this portion of the video we are indeed listening to the proverbial Led Zeppelin (their live "Song Remains the Same" album).

6th Episode from 1990 Game Session

My my my, I found out there is actually a link between this campaign from 1990 and my current game. Sick Rick and Dingul who DMed this ancient session actual gave a shout out in their scenario to my old "Krull" campaign, mentioning Orcus imprisoned in a sword and smashed "at the Gates of Hell!" (A prime material gate to the Abyss, actually) My current campaign had found the smashed sword, re-forged through the machinations of an Orcus-cult seeking to free Orcus. This is exactly what was going on in Sick Rick's and Dingul's scenario.

Did their Orcus-cult succeed?

That could throw an interesting timeline, or some alternative reality stream, into my current campaign...

5th Episode from 1990 Game Session

Ahhh, the night is running on and the pizza has not arrived yet... (I edited out the pizza money collection even though it was riveting drama!) I learned that my current home gaming group is going to meet a human-headed giant worm librarian. Sand Navigators too.

I actually spend a bit of effort to run in events from past campaigns to overlap here and there, mostly from some of the major campaign threads. These gaming interludes on video are super intriguing because no one has ever intricately studied what happened in the years since these games were played, and if I mine some of the stuff probably only the two DMs would recognize it. Heh, heh, heh...

4th Episode from 1990 Game Session

Not bad, I am beginning to have vague recollections of this game. We had a session a couple years ago where we threw on all these videos in the background, but I didn't follow the story closely. I'm personally interested to see what happens next...

Also, while there are rolls for certain class skills, there are no general "skill checks" that all characters can possess. So a lot of time was spent with DMs explaining to players what their characters see and the players having to figure out on their own how to bypass some mechanical or magical obstacle. That is why a lot of what was being a good, experienced gamer was knowing what different spells and class skills could be used to determine whether the operation of a thing was mechanical or magical, and depending on the operation how to overcome different things.