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As far as I can tell, the Virtual Tabletop only allows players to import characters from the subscribed Character Builder. If a player is not a subscriber, he must fill out his character painstakingly, entry by entry into the Virtual Tabletop, and then it does not save his character.

In view of this, we should all subscribe at least month by month for this game. (Either that or look to Maptools.)

Last night I played Labyrinth Lord in a Google+ Hangout. It is a much freer environment: no grid really possible, the dungeon master would have to roll the dice or rely on the honours system, old school mapping (the players have to draw their own map as the dungeon master describes it).

I think I would like to try that out and see how it works with the Fourth Edition.

As well as try to figure out the Virtual Tabletop. The Virtual Tabletop looks much slower and more difficult to use. 

I have rolled up a Deva Artificer and a Deva Hybrid Cleric | Avenger.

I will make sure that my friend here in Korea is ready. May 5 is a very busy weekend. 

May 8, 2012 -- 10:52AM, BRICKTOP wrote:

Having 2 defenders in a party of 4 is not optimal. They are wasting their marking abilities so most encounters will be a grindfest.

I would like to reduce the amount of time taken by players to decide about using an attack power during an encounter so as of now, please cut out the power card and display it when you are using it. Make the attack roll and tell me the result and I will announce whether it was successful.

I will manage your characters' power cards for you so it'll not apply to you for obvious reasons. I don't have any source info on "Blessing of Battle" and "Sun Burst" as I am using the old CB from Oct. 2010. What books are they from?

Sun Burst is from p.115 of Heroes of the Fallen Lands. The relevant information is on the Character Sheet which I sent to you. I have decided against using Blessing of Battle in favour of Gaze of Defiance.

If Jon likes hitting things with an axe, he might consider playing a Barbarian and reskinning it as an angry Fighter. That would provide the strking power we need.

Caerthmndh the Artificer

Caerthmndh is racially and physically human (pronounced Caerth-nith: the first th is soft like in thin, the second th is hard like in mother.) 

He grew up in a village of free peasants (not serfs) near the wilderness. His mother was the daughter of a Shaman who taught him the nature of reincarnation and showed him how to channel the experience of those lives into his own. (His mother Oma Desala believes that all souls have been reincarnated countless times since the beginning of the worlds.) Caerthmndh has a special gift for so doing (which is why the mechanics of Deva best suit the character), but he is not as flexible and bold as human adventurers (thus he does not have the human racial benefits) relying instead on the wisdom of his predecessors. 

His strongest link is with an ancient astral being named Fendal, a creature from a lost civilization of great technology and equal decadence, a federation spanning many worlds. Thus Caerthmndh is very apt mechanically and naturally turned to the ways of Artifice. Caerthmndh’s upbringing in a mediaeval world limits his understanding of the true scientific theories and knowledge behind his mechanical skill, and he tends to think of it more in terms of magic and magical formulae. 

Fendal was an amoral and callous being however, ever endangering Caerthmndh’s soul through this psychic contact. Fortunately their mutual soul has learned wisdom and goodness through its aeons of reincarnation: indeed their soul has spent many incarnations in very humble forms as penance for the evil of Fendal and Fendal’s own predecessors. 

Life in a village could not satisfy a boy so full of curiosity and hidden knowledge. He soon moved from town to town and eventually to the largest city in the known world in search of arcane lore and in the employ of rich men who could use his mechanical and engineering skill. 

Caerthmndh’s restless mind can hardly fix on one thing from all the whispers and groans and shouts of a thousand lifetimes of reincarnation. New discoveries or rumours of great and unexplained items or phenomena distract him constantly. Nevertheless he does dream of one day finding the remnants of the ancient and powerful civilization of Fendal. Surely this world of darkness and endless strife could be transformed into light, peace and beauty by the artifacts of such a utopia?

Many thanks to Chris for running last night’s game!

A Tale of Woe and Horror

These are the generations of Angada the Forest Walker. Angada was the father of Anga who wed the princess Amba. The son of Anga and Amba was Bhagawan and his son was Bhima. Bhima was young when he begat Parada and old when he begat Pandu. Ardjuna was the son of Pandu, and this is the beginning of his tale.

It came to pass in those days that evil befell the great forest of the fey, and fire did consume the circles of the mushrooms and the groves of the oaks and apple trees, and the dead rose up against the living. Then the creeping things of the dark grew large and came forth in bold gnashing hordes. So Pandu Chief of the merry singers and dancers of the dale and springfed streams sent forth his son Ardjuna to search out the cause of such evil.

But when he lay down that night, then he arose not in the forest, but at the door of some strange bricken wall in the company of three other strangers. There slept on the ground beside him a dwarf, an elf and a giant. Seeing the elf, Ardjuna took heart and joined himself with these men to seek out the cause of this wonder. There was Grrrarrr the Giant, a Warden of the Forest, and Alaire the Elf, a Druid of the Wild, and Gloam the Dwarf, a Captain of Fifty.

Then entered they in through the door and met there a gnome, who pressed them on through his master’s house. But nary a word nor a blessing spake he save to hurry them, yet nonetheless the four men did as said his master bade, and anon they were flung through yet one more portal by means of a golden key.

And lo! They emerged yet once more in the same forest of Ardjuna’s birth, but the silence of the grave was all about them. They soon met a wandering merchant, who desired the golden key at any price, but when he was refused, he waxed wroth and cursed them and fled. And then two foul creatures risen from their tombs assailed the four men, but their wicked strength failed them.

And the four men came upon Ardjuna’s village of treetops and groves and saw a sore sight, for the whole place was wasted and desolate. Tears filled Ardjuna’s eyes and his breath wracked with sobs. He led the party to the village’s temple where the fey paid homage to their ancestors and to the spirits of the great forest, but forthwith there met them a wicked necromancer and his abominable servitors.

From the steps of the temple Ardjuna shot down two horrid creatures whose flesh was entirely stripped from them and in whose hands were rotten and cruel bows. Alaire summoned a fiery hawk which assailed the necromancer, but yet the evil magician did smite the Elfin Druid with fire. The Warden of the Giants shuddered the earth with his steps and clove in twain two other animate skeletons. Then Captain Gloam found himself in fierce struggle with one of the necromancer’s servants on the steps of the temple. After many arrows were spent and much blood spilled, all of the evil ones were destroyed, but Alaire the Druid was saved from the door of death.

Ardjuna shewed the other men his ancestral temple, and sore did he weep again when he saw the desecration and abomination therein. So great was the destruction that the Elfin Chieftain even fell through the ruined floor and forthwith there attacked grossly swollen spiders and their houndmaster a ghost. Nimbly he clambered out of the pit and so did the spiders. So terrific was the strength of these monstrous creatures that although the four men defeated them, yet they must needs rest for the night in watchfulness. Their hearts were bold however and they slept as they needed and replenished their power and might.

Morning came grey and cheerless, so the party descended into the crypts of the temple, where they found evidence of furtive and treacherous diggings. Into these tunnels would they go, but immediately they were assailed by the shrieks of specters and the arrows of skeletal archers. The fight was all the more difficult because it happened where several corridors met and the ledge from which the party descended afforded no great vantage but had to be abandoned for the fatal dangers of the ambush below. This deadly ambush almost claimed Ardjuna’s life twice, and indeed threatened his fellows, but the inspiring words of the Dwarf encouraged Ardjuna to a newfound and deadly purpose, and the Giant was as steady as a rock, and the Druid was as bold and dangerous as a Wolf and a Bear.