To Touch An Annulus

(Matrox Lusch and Sick Rick bookend newcomers' viewing "The Annulus")

I finally dug into the "End of the Multiverse" scenario which was where our New Old Weird World campaign left off in 2022 (and the site of where our Blipping #2 campaign left off). The scenario is a hack from Dawn of the Overmind by Bruce R. Cordell. 

Ha, most everyone said the night vibed like an old Blipping game as yes we pretty much followed Ye elder game anatomy:

1. Drive: 2 hours each way from the Bay Area to Mountain Ranch up in the Sierra foothills.
2. Jam: We did have a pretty fun set, plus had our Geo Pigs singer Sumerled for a couple of covers "Last Days of May" and "Guns of the Roof."
3. Feeding Frenzy: Jeez, 3 flavors of BBQ chicken, steak, salad with homemade dressing (Thanks Michelle!), 2 different sorts of cheesy bread, etc., etc., etc... 
4. Pre-Game Business: So J.A.S. daughter visited with her beau and she hadn't gamed regularly with us since the ver. 3.5 "High Fantasy" days. They ended up playing Grady, the plane and time-hopping techno-barbarian from the 20th century. Then also, because the last time we played this party was in 2022 there was a bit of clean up like folks who couldn't find their current character sheet, what happened last time, stuff like that.
5. The Game: It was actually very exciting considering there were only a couple of encounters (well, 3, except the party purposefully avoided one). I did good when I mixed up the stats for the Grimlocks with another critter and gave the Grimlocks 4x damage from their claws due to their bodies producing a corrosive enzyme. Har, Plus I rolled 3 natural 20s on J.A.S.'s Pixie. (The Grimlocks use echo-location by emitting a soft clicking noise, to the Pixie's invisibility was nullified.) Fortunately I wasn't using the Arduin critical hit table or the Pixie would have been toast. On natural 20s I use exploding max damage, then if a character drops below zero then Zak Smith's Death & Dismemberment table. Raspatan the Elf cleric-assassin shifted himself over to the Astral Plane along with "7" the half-orc, Elf cleric mage Darrius, and the mercenary Sando Brech. It was Brech who grabbed the Annulus, and the characters also spotted not one, but two Mind Flayer "Engine Consummate" adrift on the Astral waiting to travel through time...
6. Interlude Journey: Was there? I am not sure. 
7. Stacking: Unfortunately no, we do not all drink nor as hard for most of those that do. 
8. Wind-Down: Indeed we chowed more sugar and discussed where to play the next session.
9. The Ride Home: Some did stay for breakfast. Me and a couple others headed back home at 1:30am, barely making a gas station in Mountain Ranch for a 12-pac of Budweiser just before 2am.

It was a good OSR-style game, at least our version of that style. Advanced Labyrinth Lord with my New Knights of the All Mind (Conventional Edition). Since all my other games are running 5th edition it felt good to have at least one intermittent old-style game hanging around. Although there is that pesky ending of the Multiverse thing. And the game finished as the Astral Travelers your see the destructive blot consuming the Multiverse had intruded even onto the Astral plane.