So what’s been good about my year? I retired a few months back, and I am loving every minute of it. I needed to decompress from a schedule, from work, from work stress, so while I haven’t concentrated much on writing here, I’ve been reading your newsletters, went on a few vacations, had my birthday, had my 30th wedding anniversary (of which I am very proud of), visits to Disneyland (of which I’m ready to take 10 years between visits now). I’m also catching up on reading my huge piles of books…mega piles if you will. Oh, did I mention that I did an indie bookstore crawl??? It’s like a pub crawl, but bookstores! Thirteen indie bookstores across the Los Angeles area got together and sponsored the crawl over three days. I divided up the stores by geographical area, found the best routes and for three days, in the blazing heat, in terrible LA traffic, we visited bookstore after bookstore. It was really fun and crazy, but we did all of the stores and earned some prizes along the way. Such a cool idea!

That all led up to the jaw surgery I had about a month ago. Apparently, I blew out the joint, much like a knee joint as well as ligaments in my jaw. (2 years ago!) I tried everything to heal it on my own to no avail. I finally was able to have surgery, which took 3 hours and 25 stitches. The doc had to rebuild my joint with bone or whatever from my skull. I was on pure liquids for a week and lost ten pounds! (A good side effect) Then soft foods for thirty days. I just graduated to regular food now. There is still some pain and swelling in my jaw, and my scalp is very sensitive in that area. I can’t open my mouth fully, and to try causes some aching pain, but I’m through the worst of it. Doc said give it six months for all of the pain and swelling to go away. I will endure!

What about gaming? Solo board games, painting minis, terrain, solo RPGs. I spent a lot of time play testing a game that I mentioned before, and now I’m concentrating on Arathi Sector. (For 3 weeks after my surgery I couldn’t concentrate enough to do much gaming) The family DnD game has been on hiatus for a few months. For the rest of this article, I’d like to talk about Arathi Sector. My last article and comments on the Stack has shown how much I love Arathi Sector as well as science fiction. My play through notebook is up to 38 pages as of today! Instead of writing out whole conversations, I usually do one or two lines to show where my imagination is taking me, but as usual, the two main characters have taken hold in my mind. Full conversations are back, but I am limiting them. (Mainly because I want to focus on playing the game!) One adventure though, on a salvaged ship, turned into a short story, and I think it came out pretty good. I am not a writer, but after some editing, and filling in my notes, I may post it here. That’s one thing I LOVE about solo rpg’s, my imagination is sparked and fired up, and it will take me to special places, even if it isn’t a journaling game.

For now, I am going to list the main characters and NPC’s that have been created as I’ve played. Some of the NPC’s become more important as the game moves along, sometimes it’s just a one time NPC. The main character is Yve Temperance, AKA Raven Deckard. More about her in a future article.

NPCs:

-Stax Touvey, male, age 50, bloated, bald, always licking thick lips. Cynical, watchful, greedy. Yve’s creepy boss.

-Malcom Syntax, male, age 55, tall, white hair, tan skin, ultra enhanced green eyes. Jovial, precise, hungry (success) Research Scientist.

-Basa Zeen, female, age 30, dark skin, black eyes, enhanced vision, muscles and a cybernetic arm. Tired, curious, watchful. Smuggler, fixer, rebel.

-Monk, age? Male? Age? Anomaly, weird. Rigid, tired, elegant dress and manners, intense stare. Owner of the Cryo Pub.

-Zara Apexson, female, age 40, plain looking, scarred on face, bitter, worried about survival. Bartender at Happy Lights Bar.

-JXN (Jaxon) Styx, male, age 30, Mohawk, enhanced eyes and voice box, uses a lot of drugs. Damaged, erratic, kind. Musician at the Quantum Star.

-Axel Solo, male, age 32, scruffy, scarred, shabby, tall. Ambitious, courageous, cynical. Captain of the Hauler SH Eagle. Freight, salvage, smuggling.

-Juniper O’Conner, female, age 45, plain looking, athletic. Curious, precise, disciplined. Communication enhancements on face. Leader of a local rebel cell.

-Ira El-Amer, male, age 35, short, scarred, muscular, enhancements in arm and on face. Damaged, melancholic, distracted. Owner of Hotel Jumpgate.

-Ru Zisk, female, age 28, hooded cape, muscular, rugged, tan, nomad tattoos on face. Arrogant, angry, yet patient. Leader of a Nomad group.

-Zander Brath, male, age 23, young, very thin. Had an awakening, merciful yet cunning. Leader of the Psionic Siblings. Grew up with Yve at the Luminary.

-Sherman “Acid” Cross, age 50, white hair, crew cut, former military, buff, cybernetic eye. Sarcastic, loyal to himself, does odd jobs for Basa.

I will leave you with some pics that I’ve drawn of some of the characters showing up in my game. Once again, thank you Castle Grief and Co for such an awesome game. The last picture? Can you believe this book exists, and that my kids found it??? LOL

Thank you for reading! Please be well and take care!

I cannot tell you enough how easy it is to roll up a character. The first step is to roll on your birth environment. I got a Psionic monastery in a remote asteroid belt. This was already giving me ideas. Next is roll on how your youth was spent, but I wanted to stick with the monastery theme, so my PC spent her youth training her mind at the Luminary Monastery. The next table to roll on is Everything Changed When…and i got a 4, which is “You uncovered something you were never meant to see…and everyone else who knew is disappearing one by one. YES! I can really work with this! Rolling next on Since Then You’ve table, I got “joined a cause-revolutionary, religious or insane…and burned all the bridges behind you. (This is getting so good I remember thinking at the time.) The last table, Right Now, You’re…stuck working for people you despise because it’s safer than the alternative. I created a nasty NPC who is my current boss.

Next up is to pick your stats, easy peasy, and roll for money to buy your own equipment, weapons and armor. I also had to pick what type of Psionics I was going to get into. I picked Biomancy, which seems to be more about healing. The equipment you got to buy and pick from is extensive and descriptive. You also have to pay for lodging, food and drink, public travel, and other services. I love that! It’s the right mix of not too much bookkeeping, but enough to be interesting. I can’t afford a vehicle or a ship right now, but my gal has some ideas about that.

Book Two is full of tables, travel info, points of interest, traits, conflicts, threats, starship travel. Second half of book two is all about the encounters., nomads, Earcutters (absolutely terrifying) slavers, reavers, mercs, soldiers, ship to ship encounters and more. I love how this section is set up. The only thing that I would like to see in encounters is local wildlife, crazy plant life and aliens. Hey CG, maybe a Zine for this??? I’ll be first in line. For now, I’m going to take some wildlife stats from my Kal-arath book. (Wild thought, maybe I should write up some plant life and aliens myself?)

For backers, Castle Grief recently sent an email saying that they plan to heavily support Arathi Sector with zines, adventures and supplements. I am so in on this….I want it all now!! I also want to give a shout out to for their awesome Solo Toolkits. If you haven’t picked one up yet, please do! I use the Solo Toolkits and the recently released One Page Tool Kit Sci Fi edition. YES! A Sci fi edition! I so jumped on that one. (I even printed the took kits in color, which I very rarely do or need.)

That’s all I have to say for now. I am also playtesting a game for 3 months for a game designer and that is taking a lot of my time. I’m loving it a lot. I’m not going to say who or what game right now because I don’t have permission to talk about it…yet. I have finished my first report and waiting on an update on the game that won’t show up up until the middle of July, so I’ll be filling in with some Arathi Sector. Thank you CG and company for making such cool games and art.

Who else got Arathi Sector?? Comment! Also, I would love to know who you are rooting for at the World Cup!

“As you all know, we were attacked by the Arrogators. I know it was confusing, and we were caught off guard, which is my fault. Believe me, more drills will be in our futures now. We all knew the risks of coming here. Still, to lose even one person…” another long pause and audible swallow. “…to lose even one person, let alone 20 of our precious crewmembers…honestly, I’m still trying to come to terms with it. I’d like to acknowledge each person who we had to sadly put on our Memorial Wall.”

The Captain names each person, with a special fact or quick anecdote that he knew about them.

Samantha Block

Juan Rameriz

Abdul Shalif

Emily Kirk

Zoe Chung

Isaiah Feldstein

Bernard Windsor

Bettina Becker

Ivan Petrov

Liam Blake

Arthur Cillian

Orisia Melnyk

Javier Aguero

Keith Wood

Jaromir Golubov

Benjamin Goldmen

Nour Shendi

Maria Torres

James Barton

Ebe Loman

“These brave souls came from all departments. They fought for us, they saved research, they saved other shipmates, they protected the bridge, and some were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I want to let you all know, that Ebe Loman, an orphan, a bubblegum snapping funny woman who made the Vanguard her home and family…she volunteered for what we all knew was a suicide mission. She knew it was a suicide mission. Yet she still stepped up. She flew one of our shuttles right into the enemy’s ship that was pounding us with bombs. Because of that incredible sacrifice, we survived. The Vanguard survived. Her last words to us on the bridge as she approached the enemy ship were “Vanguard, don’t forget.” We won’t forget Ebe, we won’t forget any of you. I promise. Let’s have a moment of silence for our fallen comrades.”

Hello Readers! What you just read actually happened in a board game that I am playing called Vanguard. This is not a review. However, if you like board games, battles, science fiction, adventure, minis, and a campaign style kind of game, this one is awesome. I am having a lot of fun with it. I finished the main campaign, and will one day soon get into the expansions. (I’m working on painting up the minis that go with the game.) But Robin, you ask, does this mean you are giving up on TTRPGs? HELL NO!!!

One of the reasons that I got into solo RPGs is because as most of you know, it’s hard to get people to play an RPG with you. It’s hard to get people together to play board games too! (For the upcoming Mother’s Day in the USA, I asked my daughters just to come over and no presents, that I wanted to play games all day. So Girl’s day with Mom!) I have always played board games since I was a child. Recently though, I started wondering about board games that I can play solo, and wow, there are so many cool games of every genre. Right now, Vanguard and Zombicide are my two game obsessions.

The above short eulogy of some of the crew members of the ISS Vanguard, a deep space colony ship, really happened. The ship really was attacked, which caught me so off guard, that I really felt under siege myself! The anxiety was real! And one of my main characters, Ebe Loman, really did fly a shuttle into the enemy ship! I had to sacrifice her and a shuttle to save the Vanguard, and I’m telling you, for a second, it felt real. That is a sign (to me) of a good game. So Ebe, I’m going to toast your sacrifice with a glass of wine, and thank you for saving the Vanguard, and my game! Another note: the Captain mentioned a Memorial Wall. There is a ship’s binder that actually has slots for fallen comrades where you can slot their cards. I think that adds a pretty cool touch.

Upcoming articles: an interview with @sarahblount, and an article about the board game Zombicide with some pictures of the minis and zombies! (Really fun to paint) Have a great week, be well, be kind. Thank you for reading!

This is not a review. That might come later. What I want to show you is a few items that I am using to help enhance my game. Besides the usual, dice, dice tray, notebook, items like that, I am using three items. Those three items are what I want to talk about.

Item #1: Solo RPG Playing Cards by the Ravensridge Emporium. I love this deck of cards. It’s a regular deck of playing cards, but with names, spark words, dice rolls, oracles and more! I have a binder of oracles and random tables, not to mention a lot of PDFs on file too that I use, but I decided to try this out, and I am so pleased. I needed a YES/NO/AND/BUT kind of answer today in the game, and I opened the box, pulled out a random card, and didn’t get the answer I was hoping for, but hey, dice or cards, they don’t always go our way. One suggestion though, do not try to play Solitaire with this deck. I found the words too distracting to focus on my strategy. (Yes, sometimes I play good old fashioned Solitaire with a physical deck of cards. It’s comforting to me and reminds me of when I was a kid.) Here’s a few pictures…

Item #2 The Great Book of Random Tables Science Fiction by DiceGeeks.com. (Matt and Erin Davids) I’ve had this book for awhile and I use it all the time. There are over 138 D100 random tables included in one volume! The price is affordable and if you want, there are about 4-5 smaller separate sci fi books that make up this one volume to suit your needs. For any sci fi game, whether they include random tables or not, this book is by my side. We are talking over 200 pages of sci fi greatness! Pictures speak louder than words, so here’s some…

Item #3-The Terrain Set Book of Battlemats by Loke Battle Mats. Sometimes, war games call for a 4×4 mat, 3×3 or a 2×2. 5 Parsecs jumps between 3×3 and 2×2, so when I need a 2×2, I go for this set. The set came with two matching books of terrain mats and works perfectly for 2×2 if you combine the books. A lot of the maps are perfect for alien world terrain. So easy to set up too! See below!

That’s my top 3 go to items for a sci fi war game like 5 Parsecs. Let me know if you have other recommendations for sci fi stuff! I’m all ears! Thank you for reading and take care all.

Today’s article is not a battle report, although I have tons of battle report notes to…well, report about. I switched my game/craft room to a bigger room in the house with more storage and that’s been keeping me busy, then took a two week trip to Germany, so I haven’t played a solo game in at least a month. I think that’s actually a good idea to take a bit of time away from solo play to catch up on reading, other crafty things, my family etc etc. It builds up excitement in me to get to play the next game! Keeps it fresh and interesting.

Let’s talk about inspiration. The dictionary defines inspiration in a few different ways but I’ll stick to the meaning that is applicable to this article. Definition: the action or power of moving the intellect or emotions; the act of influencing or suggesting opinions. Some synonyms of inspiration: motivation, stimulation, spur, spark, creativity, inventiveness, brainstorming, ingenuity…you get it, the list can go on.

What’s been inspiring me lately? Let me start a list…

1. You all here on Substack! I can’t tell you how many times that you creative, inventive, smart gamers/artists/writers inspire me and motivate me. If I had a dollar for every time that happened, I’d be able to afford all of the games, paints, minis, terrain and brushes that I want. Haha. I’m so blown away with the quality of information, thoughts and ideas on the Stack. I deliberately keep away from politics and arguments on here. This space is for my favorite hobbies, not my news.

2. My own solo games. Why it took me so long to play by myself, I’ll never know. Just the act of setting up, prepping, taking notes, creating characters, rolling dice-it’s so satisfying to me, even when my party is dying. I think I crave the play and I’ve never outgrown that need to play when I was a child. It doesn’t feel uncomfortable to me, it never did, although I recognize how a lot of people do feel funny playing alone. Similar to eating out alone or going to a movie alone. My family tends to like to play puzzle type games, like Sequence or Dice Poker. I love those games too, but I need more of an outlet than puzzle games. I need twists, drama, roleplaying, battles etc. What can I say? I am a true Leo. (That’s probably why I like to DM too, having some control and some of the spotlight on me. I admit it! I spread the spotlight love around though in my games.)

3. YouTube playthroughs. I don’t go on there for drama and stupid videos. I watch other gamers play, listen to their thoughts, and take ideas freely given. I watch terrain and minis being built and painted so that I can be better at it. I watch board game videos, solo play videos as well as group play videos, especially if it is to research a game that I want to buy/play. I know how hard making a video can be, with editing, adding sound effects, titles and then try to shine among all of the content creators. I so respect the work and the process that goes into making a video.

4. Reading books. Seriously, I have been inspired by so many books that I read, I can’t count the ways.

5. Movies. Honestly, I get the same inspiration from movies that I get from books. Sometimes I have to put a quick note in my phone when I see something cool that would work in a game while watching a movie so I don’t forget the idea.

6. Travel. Travel inspires me in so many ways. Historical facts, architecture, the people, different customs, art, all of these can be used as spark ideas for gaming. Architecture, especially medieval and gothic, can influence your terrain especially if you are into the realism of terrain like I am. The colors can spur the colors that you use for terrain and minis. Visiting a castle? Can you see the possibilities?

This is a short list for sure. I’m curious, what inspires you? As always, thank you so much for reading my ramblings. I’m going to leave you with a few pictures to inspire you from my trip to Germany.

The crew hide in cover and observe from the forest. There is fencing, a home in the middle of the land, a bubbling fountain, some ugly ass statues and sculptures. The target is talking with a specialist on a bridge overlooking the property. There seems to be some crates behind the house, possible extra loot to scavage. More important though, there appears to be about 8 hired muscle, looks like corporate security. Wonder whose corporation is guarding his ass? They are armed with infantry lasers, a long reach, while the specialist has a rattle gun, capable of a lot of damage. Looks like the specialist and the target have combat armor on. They seem prepared for something, or someone.

Bjorn kneels next to Eva. “What do you think?” He whispers. Hers is the only opinion he really respects. She shrugs and whispers back, “I don’t like this. They look like they are waiting for some action. Were they tipped off?” Bjorn explains his plan. “Look, we come in from here, trees for cover, and start blazing away. Surely we’ll take some of the security down. I think we have the advantage here.” (They do actually since they won the initiative roll and get to go first before the round starts) She shakes her head. “That’s your plan?“. “Hey, I’m a doer, not a planner.” She rolls her eyes. “Fine, you’re the boss. Call it then.”

Bjorn quietly radios the crew scattered about. “Alright, let’s do this. The target is on the bridge in the suit. Whoever has a clear shot, take him out.”

Most of them start advancing to get into range, but Kana has a marksmen’s rifle, and she’s been practicing at the gun range. The target is in her sights. She takes a deep breath, pulls gently on the trigger and….Success! The specialist standing next to his boss quickly crouches down as blood is sprayed all over his armor. This will not look good on his record, losing his client. (Sorry, the client failed his armor roll)

(I keep bare bones notes on the battles. Who has the first kill, anything special, if a crew member is shot, and how many deaths of the enemy in each round. I don’t record blow by blow, unless it is something cool, like Kana killing the objective on her first shot. Thank you dice Gods)

Jax becomes a casualty in the first round, probably because he has a habit of rushing into danger. (Being a feral) After round 2, I roll on a battle events table to see if things get spicy. Sure enough, reinforcements arrive from another building farther into the property. Round 3 is not good for our crew. Bjorn is down, and Xerxes has been stunned twice. Third time and he’ll be out too but he’s able to head over to check out some of the stuff behind the house. By Round 5, the ladies manage to take out the rest of the security and somehow get two big guys back to their ship and into the med bay.

Post Battle

Xerxes found some damaged weapons, a hand gun and a boarding saber. He also found a boarding saber in great condition. Checking around some more, he was able to find a nice starship part. (This allows us a discount on the next starship part we buy). They receive 6 credits of payment, 3 extra for danger pay.

Bjorn is seriously a lucky bastard. He was only knocked out and had no long term effects from the battle. Jax though, received a crippling wound and needed immediate surgery which cost 1 credit, and I had to spend a story point to revive him. (I’m a dork though, because I forgot he had a lucky rabbit’s foot which give him one point of luck. Oh well, we’ll use it the next time he is shot. There will definitely be a next time) Eva is ticked off. Two wounded, Xerxes almost out too. She calls the patron and demands more money or she will tell the local authorities about the politician hiring a hit squad for her rival. The patron agrees to 3 more credits but demands that they do not contact her again.

Eva checks on Bjorn in the med bay. He’s attempting to get up and get dressed. She pushes him gently down onto the bed. “What do you think you are doing big guy?”

He grunts. “Getting up like every big guy does. We have another job to do. I’m fine. Don’t mother me please.”

Her eyes widened. “Mother you?? Mother you???!!!! Is that what you think this is? You could’ve been killed, Jax almost died, we had to pay for surgery, and you want to go all He-man on me?” She starts pacing around the med bay muttering about bull headed cocky men.

Bjorn grimaced. :”I did say please…” She whirled on him and stared at him, just like his mother would do when he was in trouble. Do women go to a stare school or something? She approached him and tapped his chest hard. “Next time, keep your head down bud.” Then she grabbed his shirt in her fists, pulled him upright, and gave him a kiss that curled his toes. She quickly turned on her heel and left the room. He sat there gobsmacked. What the hell was that about?

He reached over and hit the ship intercom. “Listen up, all able bodied survivors meet me in the mess to discuss tomorrow’s job.”

This is a short one and I didn’t take pictures of the battlefield. I’m having a lot of fun with this game and it’s different not having a huge roleplaying aspect to it, so I’m adding in a bit of my own. Next time, we’ll find out what kind of job Bjorn, Eva, Jax, Xerxes, Kana and Ani have. Who gets hurt? Do they find anything special? any rumors? Cool stuff? Follow along to find out! Thank you so much for reading!

WhirlWind: repurposed science vessel. Upgrades: Secret smuggling compartment, military fuel converter and upgraded shielding

Crew:

Bjorn: Captain, Human Male, Former Mercenary, upgraded security training, formerly seeking revenge (achieved his goal of revenge)

Eva: Second Mate, Human Female, Working Class Bureaucrat, seeks truth

Xerxes: Human Male, lived on an Alien world, Hacker, in for the glory

Jax: Feral (wolf like) Male, Drifter, Techie and Petty Criminal, all about the money

Kana, Emo-Suppressed, Human Female, Survived a subjegated colony on an Alien world, mercenary, only concerned with survival

Animus, “Ani” Deconverted Female, from overcrowded dystopian city, Nomad, wants revenge against the group who tried to convert her body with cyber parts

Bjorn, Eva and Xerxes have worked together for a few months now with another crew. The rest of the crew went their separate ways. Bjorn and Eva hired three new crew members, Jax, Kana and Animus. Each has their own special talents. As the crew of the WhirlWind hope to take on different types of jobs, the new hires should be able to adapt and use their skills. The new crew was found on Putnik 1, a world with an adventurous population and rampant crime.

Bjorn was able to find a Patron, Fergus Syntax, a wealthy “entrepreneur” for some small jobs to break in the new crew. Bjorn’s plan was to take a few simple jobs, make some money, check out the new crew members in action. Except Jax forgot to mention in his “interview” that a nasty group of Bounty Hunters were after him. As the crew were attempting to head out on a job, they were attacked by the Bounty Hunters.

During the ensuing battle, Xerxes was stunned badly, and Bjorn was shot and fell off the container, thankfully with no long term effects or injuries, but out of the battle. A curious data stick was found, which Bjorn intends to give to Fergus, after accessing it himself of course.

Back on the ship, Bjorn grabbed Jax by the collar and pushed him hard against a metal wall. Jax growled. (He is a wolf on 2 legs after all). Bjorn and Eva want to know why these Bounty Hunters were after Jax. Jax shrugged.

“Hey, I told you I was a thief and Putnik 1 is full of us! I didn’t know these guys were on my tail…haha pardon the pun.” Bjorn slams him again against the wall.

“Will there be any more that we need to worry about?”

“I don’t think so, but hey, let me make it up to you. I know someone. Friend of a friend kinda thing. I heard good things about the jobs this person offers.”

Bjorn scoffs. “Let’s see the job first. I will say though, for newbies, you all did pretty good. Staying alive and unhurt is a good thing. Now, it looks like the life support system needs some cleaning. Get on that asap, then Jax, go find your job. Ani and Kana, please do some extra training. Xerxes and I are going out to see if any rivals are following us, and Eva is doing some exploring. Be careful out there.”

Everything goes as planned, except Eva came up with nothing while exploring. It happens. (Damn dice roll, lol) Jax came back with details of the new job. Danger pay, (that’s good and bad) no hazards to speak of, might be an extra rumor about another job in it for the crew, and this is a one time job. Patron does not want to see or hear from the crew again after the job is done. Eva asks a question.

“Who’s the patron?”

Jax replies. “Ah, local government official, Emilia Zahara. Wants us to whack a political enemy, and frankly, this guy is a piece of work. Awful, violent, stirs up trouble all the time. I say good riddance! So, no other conditions, and there might even be some extra loot around the place. I already know where the guy hangs out.” Jax started drawing a rudimentary map on a scanner pad.

The crew discusses some of the details, as well as the ethics of “whacking” a political enemy. Some don’t like that, some don’t care. Eva decides to do a comprehensive background check and have Xerxes hack into the local authorities main frame. She wants to make sure this guy is a legitimate douche. Bjorn orders them all to get some rest. Tomorrow, they will scope out the target and his compound.

That’s it for now! I’m really enjoying playing this game. The combination of some roleplaying and a lot of battle tactics is a lot of fun for me, especially when I just want action, and not too much RPG. Feel free to ask any questions about the game. Please take care of yourselves. We live in a fast paced world and we need downtime sometimes.

This article is not about a playthrough or a new game that I discovered. (PS solo rpgs rule and I will die defending that statement.). This article is about….ORACLES!!! (And random tables). Hello, I am Robin and I have an addiction to oracles and random tables.

I now have so many oracle and tables that I had to set up a binder. I wanted to show you what I’ve come up with, and would love to know what you all have too! Do you have something set up? Do you keep your oracles in a computer file? Do you wish you had more? Are you addicted to oracles and random tables? Or, do you dislike them? Please share your opinion. I’m genuinely interested. (I don’t collect dice, so I feel like collecting oracles is a fair trade, maybe better because so many RPGs come with their own, and many talented wonderful people create their own and share them for free!)

First, I’ll mention that I also have a few books of random tables and oracles, for fantasy and sci fi. Next, I do have a computer file where I keep all of the oracles that I’ve downloaded. Some of the shorter ones I’ll print out for easier access. Some I have not printed out because of ink and paper. Or I’ll print out the meat of the oracle and tables, as I don’t usually need instructions on how to use an oracle.

Here’s my new set up of oracles and tables. I got a simple one inch binder and dividers. These are the subject headings:

General Oracles

Travel Oracles

Dungeons

Horror/Mystery

Sci-fi

Random Events

Character Trait Tables

For now, that’s the subjects that I need and have collected. Does anyone have other suggestions for subjects? Here’s a picture…

Nothing special, and just used my ugly handwriting for the labels. (The horror, I know). Another thing that I do is if I buy the PDF version of a game, and it has oracles/tables, I will print those out for my binder to use in other games. For instance, I own both the PDF and hard copy of ShadowDark, which most of know has some of the best collection of random tables. I printed out a few and stuck in my binder to use for other games if needed. The funny thing is, I have a great imagination, so I really don’t need to refer to the tables a lot, but sometimes, even I get stuck and need an idea.

As you know, a 3 ring binder has inside pockets, and this is where I keep those cool sheets and toolkits that encompass everything, not just a single subject. (I really, really love these kind of oracle/tables/spark idea kind of things…) Here’s what mine looks like… (some of you might recognize your stuff and a big, hearty thank you for creating!)

I also keep a few pages from JP Covert and his excellent, easy map making art for when I need a few ideas for drawing maps in my playthrough notes. Just a short, random thoughts type of article today to express my love for oracles and random tables. Thank you very much for reading. Thank you to all of the creators here on Substack. I love reading your newsletters, and I love the stuff you all create! And please, be kind, and smile at people. It can really make someone’s day.

Day 13 Hex 9 Weather: light rain No foraging, not lost

POI: Cache #1 Coin: 31 Food: 9 rations Weapons: Flail Light Armor x2 Teela and Rauf take the light armor, thus reducing damage by 1. Hal takes the flail. They split the rations.

10 miles away is another cache easily located by Hal. Coin: 52 Weapons: 2 daggers, another light armor Rations x6

Feeling like they have enough provisions, they decide to forgo the 3rd cache and hit the road. First, they camp for the night. No nighttime encounter. -3 rations

(At this time I decided it’s time to level up to level 2. This helped increase stats and HP. Hal went from 8HP to 13. Teela went from 4HP to 8 and Rauf went from 7HP to 10. It’s also time to change directions and head North.)

Day 14 Hex 1 Weather: partly cloudy No foraging, but Teela lost track of pit fighters. (Oracle: Can Teela pick up the trail? Yes but…) It took a few hours of searching but Teela found the tracks of 5 humans heading North.

POI: 6, stone circle. The small group is very happy to finally find the tracks. The quest to save the villagers is moving forward. The mood is cheerful, until the group comes across a stone circle, similar to an arch. There are beautiful flowers and flora around, but as they approach, a strange fog rolls in, chilling, heavy and creepy thick. (I had rolled on an inspiration table and got heavy, harmful, complicated and flora) Hal, never really feeling these types of instincts, started to walk towards the circle. Both Teela and Rauf stopped him. Rauf said ominously, “This doesn’t feel right. We need to move on now.” Teela agreed but saw some herbs that might be helpful to them. (Rolled on herbs table-got Valkash x2)

They only managed 10 miles that day, made camp, and had an interesting encounter with a Giant Owl. As they settled to eat some rations (-3 rations) they heard loud flapping wings from above. Hal and Rauf jumped up, hands on their swords. Teela sat very still as a giant, vibrant colored owl of reds, browns and oranges looked coolly at her with green eyes.(Oracle: is the owl a sign? Yes) The same green eyes as her mother. Teela smiled as a tear rolled down her cheek. The owl cocked its head. Teela whispered to Hal and Rauf…”Don’t move. It’s harmless.” The large green eyes snapped towards Hal, and widened slightly. Then the eyes and head rotated to Rauf. The green eyes narrowed significantly. Rauf stood his ground, wondering if the owl was going to pounce. The owl huffed loudly, and settled nearby for the night.

Teela let out a breath. “Ok fellas, we’re good. I think that might be my mother?” Hal looked at her and rolled his eyes. “No really Hal, you know my Ma had the same eyes. I think she approves of you two. I think this is a sign that we are on the right path.”

Hal countered with a smug tone…”As long as it’s the path of vengeance, then I’m good.” Rauf shook his head sadly at Hal. “Are you ever gonna learn boy?”

That night, every time Teela woke up, she saw the green eyes looking at her softly, and she felt safe and loved.

Day 15 Still in Hex 1 Weather: Storm (1/2 travel speed, -1 getting lost)

Trail is lost again due to the storm (and a bad roll with a minus 1) No foraging.

POI: The group comes across a lone yurt, with the ceiling open to the sky. Hal peeked inside, and recoiled at first. The yurt was full of dead human skeletons. Rauf pushed him aside and looked for himself. “Heh,” he grumbled. “Bleached white. Been here a long time. Wonder what happened?” They searched for clues but only found 33 coins.

No encounter. Decided to camp, -3 rations. At half speed, only did about 10 miles again.

Day 16 Hex 2 Weather: Still storming (1/2 travel speed again)

I decided instead of rolling for lost, I will roll for tracking the Pit Fighters, using the same mechanics. Rolled a 12, success, Teela was able to pick up a trail of muddy, deep footprints. “Thank you Mother,” she whispered to herself.

Again, only half travel because of the weather, so half the hex, 10 miles or so. No POI, No encounter. Slogging along in mud, pouring, cold rain has made them tired and hungry. Hal is grumbling about needing horses or donkeys. They stopped for the night. -3 rations Nighttime encounter: YES!

The wet, hungry group find some semi-dry ground under a thick tree and were able to start a small fire. Warm food and tea made all the difference. As they were sipping herbal tea, sounds of the forest stopped, except very loud footsteps and snapping branches. Again, Hal and Rauf get prepared quickly for an attack. In to the clearing lumbers a huge giant, with thick flowing black hair tied back by a leather strap, craggy wrinkled orange tinged skin, huge arms and legs and feet!(I rolled a 12, that he is actively helpful and rolled on motivation: to obtain knowledge. Traits: odd and solemn.)

He sat down nearby on a huge fallen log, which cracked a bit under his weight. “Well met travelers. I hope I’m not intruding. I saw your fire and wanted to introduce myself. My name is Slurgem. Who might you all be?”

Teela smiled widely, but Hal and Rauf looked at Slurgem warily. Slurgem looked at them. “Please sit. I mean you no harm. Your tea smelled so good, and I haven’t talked to anyone in ages. It would be good to catch up on some news in the Kingdom. Oh, here, I have a cup for tea that fits my big hands.” He smiled crookedly and sincerely at Teela. Rauf sat down, but Hal remained standing.

Slurgem inhaled the aroma of the tea. He closed his eyes. “Ahhhhhh, I have not smelled something this enticing in a long time. I do not have a female yet to share my life, and I don’t know how to brew tea.” Teela sat next to him and for the next hour they spoke of nothing but tea, leaves, water temperatures and steeping. Slurgem clapped his hands loudly, causing some leaves overhead to fall off a tree. “I never knew that brewing tea is an art!” Hal and Rauf, you are so lucky to have this female with you.”

Hal narrowed his eyes slightly. “We do not own Teela. She makes her own way and her own decisions. It is our way.”

“Ahhh,” said Slurgem. “I have offended you? My pardon, Teela.”

“Oh no Slurgem, it’s fine. Hal is just grumpy most of the time.” Hal reminded himself to talk to Teela about being too friendly with unknowns, especially a giant. He spoke to the giant again.

“Tell me Slurgem, what rumors have you heard lately? Any news?” Slurgem pinched his chin, thinking. Suddenly, he brightened. “Yes Hal! There have been small groups of armed men patrolling to the North. I heard that many travelers have gone missing. I often wonder if the two are related.”

“What do these men look like?” Asked Rauf.

“Well, some are Pit Fighters, but some are definitely soldiers, heavily armed, flying a red banner. So tell me, what are you doing on these trails?”

Hal answered quickly. “We are a merchant family, headed for the Pits to sell our wares to the Pit Fighters and attendees.”

Slurgem smiled. “You don’t feel like a family to me. And you smell scared. I also smell grief.”

“Oh Slurgem” Teela interjected sadly. “How did you know? Our mother died recently. She was like a thick paste to this family, holding us together, and now we feel lost.”

Slurgem now looked sad too. “I give you all my condolences. I hope she is resting in peace.” With that, he clapped his hands again and stood up. “Time for me to go.” He bowed to them. “Thank you for the conversation, and the wonderful hot tea.”

“Slurgem?” Hal asked. “We could use a bodyguard. Would you be interested in the job? We can pay you.”

“Oh no Hal, that would be inconvenient for me at this time. Oh, I almost forgot! Please, take these cakes (x6 rations) as a gift. Thank you and good bye!”

The three of them watched the giant lumber off into the forest, and finally out of sight.

Teela turned to Hal and lamented, “I really hated lying to him about us being family.” Hal kept watching the forest.

“Sometimes Teela, lies will save your life. Remember that.”

And thus ends this chapter of Hal, Teela and Rauf in Kal-Arath. I know it’s been awhile since I’ve posted. Life has been super busy lately. I’m about to go on vacation, so I hope to write more newsletters, as well as catch up on reading some of the great stuff that you all put out too. Thank you for reading! (And for some reason my BOLD and ITALICs stopped working ) I’d like to leave you with a quote that I came across. I don’t know who wrote it, but it spoke to me.

DON’T BE AFRAID OF BEING DIFFERENT. BE AFAID OF BEING THE SAME AS EVERYONE ELSE.

Day 11 Hex 8 Weather: strong storm. (1/2 travel speed, foraging impossible and -1 on lost/not lost)

Not lost, No foraging. POI: Nothing. Encounter: Yes, 61, traveling pit fighters x5! (If we have a battle, my little group will probably lose!) I rolled on the reaction check table for the pit fighters. I got a 7, which is neutral. YAY! No fighting these tough guys and gals.

The small threesome did not make much progress on the trail this day due to the storm. The rain stung, the wind howled. Rauf and Teela huddled behind Hal, in hopes that he would be a wind break for them. Suddenly, Hal stopped abruptly, which caused Teela and Rauf to stumble into his backside. Hal ignored them, because what he was looking at was much worse than getting knocked in the back. Five wet, tough looking men and women looked back at Hal. Hal nodded to them. The larger group were sitting under a slab of rock, trying to stay dry. A pathetic small fire was wavering in the rain and howling wind.

“Hello, horrible day on the trail, yes?” Hal said kindly.

One man, possibly the leader, grunted his agreement. Hal continued. “My name is Hal, this is my sister Teela and our father Rauf.”

The man, bald, except for a large ponytail on the top of his head, dark eyes with dark circles around them, multiple scars on his body finally spoke. His voice was very deep and gravely. “My name is Varek, we are pit fighters. (Rolled on traits table for Varek, grim, guarded and rough. Perfect, sometimes the dice know how to roll!) These are my fellow pit fighters. We are headed for wealth and power in the near future, in the PITS!” The last phrase he yelled, and his crew yelled after him, “IN THE PITS!!”

Hal decided to keep walking past the fighters, when Varek yelled, “STOP!” Hal sighed and immediately stopped, fingering his sword hilt. Then Varek surprised him. “Sit, share the fire, share some news.” Hal looked at Teela, who was soaking wet, and had pleading eyes. Rauf seemed indifferent.

“Sure Varek, we’d love to get warm and share some gossip. In fact, I have some dry wood in my pack, let me add it to the fire.”

Teela spoke for the first time. “And I would love to brew some hot tea for all of you. A gift for sharing your fire.” Hal stoked the fire and Teela started to set up her small pot and added tea leaves to it. After everyone was settled, they sipped on nourishing hot tea, a nice respite from the pouring rain.

Hal finally spoke. “Varek, I have recently seen a banner. I was wondering if you recognize it. It’s deep red background, with a skull, and two bony hands holding swords and knives.”

Varek laughed. “You must be living in a cave lad. That’s the banner of the Warlord Vlad the Bloodthirsty. (Yes I know, it was the only name I could think of at the time. He is not a vampire. Vlad is a minor retainer of the Demon Lord Akkai) In fact, that’s where we are headed. To the pits of Vlad. He has promised glory and riches and power.” Varek stretches his muscles in his chest and arms. “And we intend to grab as much as we can, in the PITS!” His crew yelled too.

(ORACLE: Is Varek hurt? Yes.) Teela noticed a wound on Varek’s arm. It looked infected. She spoke for the second time. “Varek, you have a wound. May I tend it for you?”

Surprised, he agrees. Teela made a paste out of herbs, smeared it on the wound, and wrapped it in a dry cloth. She gave him extra paste and explained how to clean the wound again. Varek was very appreciative. “Thank you lass. Been a long time since anyone has offered to help me. I won’t forget your kindness. Now tell me why are you three on the trail?’

Teela answered back. “We are in fact a traveling merchant family and we heard that Vlad wanted more merchants for his marketplace. We are headed to a town to buy a new cart and supplies, then headed out again to sell them.”

“Well, if you make it there, come find us in the pits. I will dedicate a fight to you!” Exclaimed Varek. With that, he raised his hand in the air, circled it around a few times, and his fellow pit fighters roused themselves. Varek looked at the Hal, Teela and Rauf. “Stay, spend the night here by the fire and stay dry. We are on our way. Thank you for the wood and tea.” Some of the men thanked them too. Rauf and Hal watched them walk away until they couldn’t see them anymore. Rauf spoke for the first time.

“I’m going to follow them a bit and make sure they keep walking.” Hal nodded his head in agreement. When Rauf came back an hour later, he nodded. Hal felt the tension leave his body. They prepared camp for the night. -3 rations No nighttime encounters (Travel cut in half, only 10 miles covered)

Day 11 Hex 8 Weather-partly Cloudy (+1 getting lost)

Hal will not allow foraging today. He wants to make up lost ground due to bad weather. They decided to follow the tracks of the pit fighters to the battle barge. The only POI is their burnt out village, filled with corpses and still smelling of smoke. Hal will not let Teela stop. To be honest, she does not have the heart for it. They skirt along the outside of the village.

Encounter: A cursed traveler, who is angry. HP 3, sword 1d6, morale 7 , leather and shield. He attacks Hal first!

-Hal fails his dodge, causing -1 HP. Hal pushed Teela behind a tree and warned her to stay out of this. She was watching when Hal got knicked by the sword, and jammed her bent finger in her mouth to keep from screaming.

-Rauf attacks 7, fails! (Since Rauf is cursed, I am going to subtract -1 from all of his rolls)

-Hal attacks, 7, another fail!

-Angry traveler attacks Rauf, Rauf dodges and succeeds.

-Hal attacks, 12, CRIT!!! (-10 hit points)While the angry cursed traveler is distracted by Rauf, Hal rams his sword through the man’s back and out his heart, killing him instantly. Teela jumps out, avoided looking at the body, and ran to Hal. “Let me see that wound Hal, you’re bleeding!” Hal sat down on a log while Teela tended to him. Rauf looted the body. He noticed Hal and Teela looking at him questioningly.

“What? We need things to sell right?” He gave Teela the healing herbs, split the 6 rations and 10 coins, and took the sword and shield to sell. He took the leather armor for himself, thus reducing damage from attacks by 1.

They decide to camp for the night, having traveled another 10 miles and are on the border of hex 9. -3 rations No nighttime encounter. They talked a little bit, made plans for the next day. Hal wants to get his cache, find the trail of the pit fighters, and make better time. Rauf chimed in that he was sure the pit fighters were headed north. Should be easy to find the trail if they don’t waste any time in the morning. Hal should heal his -1 HP overnight.

That’s it for now! I hope you stick around to find out what happens to Hal, Teela and Rauf. When I started playing, I had no idea if this would be a one and done kind of game. On page 20 of Kal-Arath, there is a fate table, What Fate Brought You Here? I rolled a 2, which is slavers came to your village, burn it down, kidnapping some of your people. Find them, rescue them and exactly vengeance. I knew then that this was going to be a mini campaign. I like to play ahead a few chapters so that I always have some newsletters ready to go. Looking at my notes today, I anticipate 3-4 more chapters before the big finale. For the finale, I have over 14 pages of notes! To be fair, some of those pages are the actual notes on battle moves and rolls, which I’m going to paraphrase! Also different ideas and objectives for the finale. I hope you’ll follow along and get as much joy out of reading this as I’ve had playing and writing. After, I plan on doing a page through of my notebook and format that I used for Kal-Arath. Then, I will decide on continuing with my playthrough of Hostile, or start posting about ShadowDark. Which do you prefer? As always, thank you for reading, feel free to comment below. I love to hear what you think about the character’s actions!

Weather: 5, strong storm (half travel, no foraging, -1 getting lost) Not lost but miles walked cut to 10 miles due to weather

-POI: another obsidian field. Teela collects 5 for trade

-Emotions: Hal and Teela are somewhat quiet after the eventful night. Teela apologized to Hal, letting him know that she will listen to his instincts from now on. Hal is still shocked at how close he came to horrible death.

-Encounter: None Camp for the night— 2 rations Night time encounter: Rolled a 9-Wolves x 6 (oh crap) 8 HP each

I rolled on the reaction check: and got a 7, the wolves are Neutral!

As Hal and Teela sat by a warm fire, eating their rations, 6 pairs of yellow eyes started to stare out at them from the darkness. Hal jumped up, grabbing his sword. They were surrounded. Teela, the explorer, knew a little bit about wolves and their pack tactics. She stopped Hal from attacking. (Oracle: can Teela read the body language of the wolves? NO. Will she still approach? Yes, but very slowly. Can she figure out which one is the Alpha? Yes and, he allows her to approach)

Teela studied the wolves covertly, making sure she did not look them directly in the eyes. She decided correctly that the biggest wolf must be the Alpha. She slowly and submissively lowered a bit towards the ground. She talked gently, and finally bared her throat. Hal held his breath. This was one of the bravest things he had ever seen. (Skill check for Teela: INT: 4-fail!) The wolf was intelligent. He seemed to know her intent yet he growled at her as she got closer. He watched her as she submitted to his leadership. Two legs never submit. They fight. They die. He became intrigued. Again, slowly, Teela reached into her pocket. He stiffened. She took a piece of beef jerky out of her pocket. (Second INT skill check: 9. Pass!) His nostrils twitched. She held out her slightly sweaty hand with the meat. He sniffed the meat, and pronounced it safe. He took it in his large mouth and gulped it down. (-1 ration) (Oracle: do the wolves leave? No but they seem to relax.) All of the wolves sensed the body language of the Alpha. Alpha happy. Alpha safe. Alpha relax. The wolves all laid down in a big pile by the fire, and spent the night with the humans. The next day, the wolves were gone. Hal started to see Teela in a different light.

Day 6 Hex 4. Weather: 1, clear skies (+1 getting lost, +1 foraging)

-Teela decided to forage: 4, Good harvest, 4 rations. Not lost. POI: none No encounter. Camp: -2 rations. No nighttime encounters. (Able to leave hex 4).

Day 7 Hex 5. Weather: 1, clear skies

No foraging. Not lost. POI: 20 foot statue of a headless humanoid. Hal and Teela stared up at the top of the statue. Teela had seen these before, but Hal had n not. “What the feck is that?” Hal asked. Teela answered. “I’ve seen these before. Some tall, some not. I asked a wise woman once what they were, what they meant. She said keep walking past the statues. Do not touch them. If you touch them, you will disappear, and the next morning, a new head will start to form on the statue, your head.” Hal scoffed. “Teela, you jest.” He reached out to touch the statue. She slapped his hand away and spoke harshly. “Hal, do not tempt fate. Have we not seen some weird things lately? Let’s be safe. There is always some truth in old legends.” Hal grunted and started to walk away, but looked back to make sure that Teela followed. Teela smiled to herself. When they started this quest, Hal would not wait for her. Now, at least he looked back.

No encounter. Camp: -2 rations. No nighttime encounters. Able to go 20 miles across Hex 5. 1 XP each, will probably level them up when they get to the first cache.

Day 8 Hex 6. Weather: 1, clear skies ( also about 40 miles away from first cache)

Lost: YES! POI: 41, High rock formation. Teela and Hal are lost, so they decided to climb a large, high rock formation that loomed ahead of them to get a high view of the area. While climbing, Teela foraged. (Rolled a 5, bountiful harvest, gained 5 rations).

-Encounter: at the top of the rock, they met a “Cursed Traveller”. He was an older man, who sat staring out at the view of the land. Rolled a 9 on the Reaction check, the traveller is friendly. (I can work with this, just need to think about how and why he is cursed). Rolled on more tables for the traveller, Elder, Attain Enlightenment, thoughtful. I decide to name him Rauf the Unlucky.

Rauf’s stats: Male, age 45, Warrior

STR 1. TOU 1. AGI 1. INT: 0. PRE: 1 HP-7

Skill level 1: Roll an additional attack per round at disadvantage.

Equipment: Rough clothes, rope, Hatchet (1d6 damage) 2 rations This dude is poor and unlucky!

Hal and Teela arrived at the top of the rock formation. Sitting near a ledge, was an older bald man with a beard and very dirty clothes, cross legged, staring out at the land. Teela approached him tentatively. “ Um, hello? Are you ok? My name is Teela.” The old man’s voice was deep and raspy. “Young man, put your weapon away. I’m harmless.” “Says you,” Hal scoffed. The old man rolled his eyes. Youth. “I am Rauf, Rauf the Unlucky. I suggest you move on, stay away from me or my bad luck will follow you too.”

Teela answered, “We are lost. We climbed up here to take a look at what direction we need to go. We want to get our bearings.”

Rauf grunted. “Where you headed?” Teela started to answer “To our….” But Hal cut her off. “We are on a noble quest.” Rauf grunted again and said nothing. Hal questioned him. “Don’t you want to know the quest?” Rauf was blunt. “No.”

Teela asked him if it was ok if they camp for the night and leave in the morning. Rauf looked at her amused. “I don’t own this rock. Stay where you want. I won’t bother you.”

Teela and Hal turned and looked out over the land and started pointing, talking quietly. They saw a rushing river in the distance that they would probably have to cross. (Oracle: is there a fast current? Yes, and some huge rapids, level 4&5’s. Is there a bridge? No, but there is a log.)

Hal started a fire for the night. Teela invited Rauf to join them. He hesitated, she smiled warmly, waved to him. He came over and sat by the fire. Hal asked him why he was called Unlucky. Rauf did not answer, just stared deeply into the fire. Hal shrugged. Teela asks Rauf if he’s heard of any rumors.

“Well I heard from a passerby that there might be a lost caravan around here, full of goods and treasure, but you know how that goes…” He grunted.

An idea starts to form in Hal’s brain. “Teela, what if we find that caravan, maybe act like we are merchants, and roll on into the battle barge area?”

Teela shrugs with a hesitant look on her face. “Maybe? Maybe it could work….” Rauf started to look at the two travelers with an interested look. Is this his chance to redeem himself? Break the curse?

Nighttime encounters: none. -2 rations for Teela and Hal. -1 for Rauf

Day 9 Hex 6 Weather: Light rain. No need to forage, enough rations for now.

POI: More high rock formations and a river that needs to be crossed.

Hal and Teela stare at the rushing river. The land around the river is barren, which is strange, but not uncommon. There is a wobbly wet log across the river that does not inspire confidence. Hal mutters under his breath while pacing, “ Don’t these people believe in bridges?”

Rauf climbed down the rocks and stood next to Hal and Teela. “Quit your moaning and quit starin.’ You’re not gonna just fly over the river. Let’s go.” Teela and Hal look at each other, Teela with an amused look on her face.

Teela spoke to Rauf, “So, you’ll come with us? You don’t even know what we have to do.” (Social Skill checks: PRE 9, success)

Rauf smiled at Teela crookedly. “It sounds like you need all the help you can get. You can explain to me while we walk.”

Skill check on crossing a wet, slimy log: Teela: 8 Hal: 9 Rauf: 10 All successful!

No encounters. Camp: -3 rations Nighttime encounter: 7, Nomads (neutral) no issues. Rauf traded herbs for food rations.+2 rations

Day 10, Hex 7 Weather: Clear skies

Hal is very impatient to find the trail of the slavers. The small group is fast approaching the first cache that Hal had hidden. They are about 20 miles away from it.

Not lost: in fact, they are starting to get back into the village territory. They can smell smoke. Ten days later, and the smoke still lingers.

No foraging. Hal wants to keep moving quickly. POI- bridge across a deep span. No encounters. Camp for the night:-3 rations

Nighttime encounter: Dark Sorcerer/Mystic 9: Friendly (rolled on traits and motivations table: make amends, fulfill duty, loyal and shrewd)

While a tired Hal, Teela and Rauf are sitting around the fire, a dark shadowy woman draped in a long cape strolls up to them.

“Peace and well met,” she said in a smooth, soft voice. “May I share your fire?” Hal answered gruffly. “You may if you have no ill intentions towards us. If you do, keep moving.” She smiled gently. “I just want to get warm for awhile.” Hal noticed that Rauf was on high alert, watching the woman intently.

“My name is Sarnara. I have been cast out of my coven and am wandering to find a new place.”

Hal answered. “Hal, Teela and Rauf.” Everyone is quiet for a few minutes. Hal spoke again. “In your travels, have you seen anyone with a red banner and a skull on it? Bony hands holding swords?” (Oracle: Does she recognize the description? NO. Does she recognize revenge in Hal? Yes, and…)

Saranara cocks her head. “Mmm, no, but you, Hal, I see revenge in your eyes when you name this banner. Be warned, revenge does not always turn out the way you want it to.” She looks over at Rauf the Unlucky. “I see old man, that you know of what I speak about.” She had seen the curse aura glow around him (I rolled on a table for Rauf: accident, conflict, capture.)

Rauf clears his throat. “Aye, I do. Tis a sad crazy tale. When I was younger, I was married to a great woman, and a beautiful daughter. But I didn’t appreciate what I had. I drank too much. I was driving our cart with my daughter and her best friend, another little girl, both about 10 summers old at the time.” He hesitated, his throat bobbing up and down. “This time again, I was drunk, not paying attention. The cart hit a huge furrow in the road, and the two girls flew out. The cart ran over them, killing them both. The other girl, she was the daughter of a local witch who was good and kind and helped our town often. But when she saw the mangled, crushed body of her daughter, she snapped. She cursed me and in my sorrow, I didn’t believe she had the power. I was holding my own crushed daughter, my heart broken, hearing the screams of my wife. Wasn’t that curse enough? To live with what I had done?” He was silent for a few seconds, then went on, his voice breaking slightly, “I started noticing little things at first, not going right, failing. Food becoming rotten after one day…my horses running away…my…my wife left me…and then bigger things happened…the town well ran dry…people were getting sick for no reason…no one would hire me. Buildings burning down, but no one could figure out why. Things like that. It was then I figured out, it was me! I was the bad luck, I truly was cursed. I left the next day, the only home I had ever known, and have been wandering ever since. Every time I tried to make friends, or live somewhere, bad luck followed.” Rauf bent his head low as a tear rolled down his cheek. Teela put a gentle, comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Oh Rauf, I’m so sorry, “Teela said. He raised his head and smiled slightly. “I think I’m not long for this world lass. I’d like to do one good thing, and redeem myself before I go. Maybe be lucky enough to be reunited in death with my child. I think she’d be proud of me if I helped save yer people. Maybe that will break the curse.”

Hal spoke up. “Is that why you have a straw doll tied to your waist? Was that your daughter’s doll?”

Rauf looked at Hal with narrowed eyes. “Aye you dolt. You think a grown man would carry around a doll for nothing?”

A few hours went by, and Sarnara gets up to leave the group. “Teela, Hal, Rauf, thank you for the stories, and sharing your food and fire. Teela, do you have a special object on you by any chance?”

Confused, Teela grabs her pouch and showed Sarnara the mantis claws. Sarnara touches one with magic flowing out of her fingers and created a magic necklace for Teela. She tells Teela to wear the necklace always for protection. (+1 to attack rolls)

“Hal” she says, “I warn you again. Be careful for what you wish for.” She slowly turns her head to Rauf, staring intently into his eyes. “Rauf, a sad story indeed. For you, I only see death.” He nods, accepting. She walks slowly away, her back to them, until a strange fog swallows her up.

Stats for Rauf the Unlucky: Age 40, Warrior STR 2 TOU 1 AGI 1 INT 0 PRE 1 HP 7

-Skill level 3: Roll additional attack per round at disadvantage. Roll attack and damage at a +1.

-Equipment: rough clothes, rope, hatchet (d6 damage), light leather armor, reduces damage by 1

Welcome to the party Rauf! I hope he doesn’t jinx this quest. Thank you for reading as always. I appreciate it and I hope you enjoy the continuing saga of Hal and Teela in Kal-Arath. Please stick with them. I have actually finished the campaign and the ending is WOW! After, I plan on writing about my notes and some of the format that I tried for this play through. I think I’ve found the style that I am most comfortable with.

Hal and Teela had interrupted a contest of some sort between a few warrior type women. That explained the cheering and shouting they had heard as they approached. Outside the fighting circle, some women had set up items on blankets to trade or sell. Teela wandered over to look at the wares. She was looking for a warmer cloak or heavy blanket. She found the perfect cloak and traded a few obsidian rocks for it.

Hal sat by the large fire to keep warm. One of the warrior women, a young woman of about 25 summers (named Sirella) sat down next to Hal. Hal ignored her for a few minutes. He preferred to watch everyone and took in details and body language. (Rolled on a table of traits for Sirella, solemn, rough and wants to “pursue her passion.” ) Hal felt Sirella staring at him silently. He looked over at her and nodded. She nodded back.

“I’m Hal,” he said as he introduced himself. He held out his hand for a shake. She grasped his hand with rough, hard skin. Her face was tan from outside labor, and her dark hair was tangled.

“Well met Hal, I’m Sirella. Got any news of the outside world?” Hal frowned slightly at her choice of words. Outside world? Hal countered with his own question.

“Have you seen any slavers coming this way?” He asked. Sirella looked puzzled. “No, not a one. You are the first people we’ve seen in a few months. Why?”

“Teela and I are from the same village. Our village was attacked by slavers, and they kidnapped a lot of our people. We are trying to find them. We’re looking for warriors to hire.”

“Hmmm,” Sirella murmured. She looked around carefully, then leaned in closer to Hal. “I might be for hire. I’ve been wantin’ to leave for awhile. Really not by cup of mead around here.”

“Well, you look like you all can take care of yourselves, even though I only see females and a few little boys. Why is that? Where are your men?”

For a long time, Sirella remained silent, as if she was trying to decide what to tell Hal. He could see indecision on her face. (I rolled on the insight table and got silent and sacred) Finally she said, “That is not for me to tell, but for our Shaman to answer you if she wants. It is a sacred rite for our tribe. We don’t discuss it openly.” She stared hard into Hal’s eyes, as if trying to communicate something to him. He looked over at the Shaman, who was watching them with a sly, confident smile on her face. She leaned over to speak to a woman next to her, who promptly got up and headed for Teela. The Shaman also got up and went into her tent.

A middle age woman approached Teela and spoke to her. “Our Shaman and leader, Karen, asks for your presence in her tent. Please oblige.”

Teela asked, “Am I in trouble? Did I do something wrong?” The woman quickly answered in a reassuring voice, “Oh no, not at all. Krenn would ask more questions about your travels and your purpose. Perhaps we can help.” Teela shrugged and followed the woman to the tent while Hal watched her carefully. Something did not sit right with him. Something was off about this place and this tribe.

Teela poked her head into the dark tent. “Hello? You asked for me?”

A voice answered back. “Yes dear, please come in.” Teela hesitated, and looked back at Hal. He nodded and smiled. Teela took a few tentative steps inside.

A woman, about 45, with salt and pepper long braided hair, eyes so dark that they looked black, sat upon a thick braided rug. She introduced herself.

“I am Krenn, Shaman and leader of our little tribe and compound that we call Krennla. Would you like some hot tea?” She handed Teela tea in a small ceramic cup. (Oracle: is the tea poisoned? No, and in fact, it tastes quite good. Is there anything in the tea? Yes, an herb that is similar to a truth serum. Unfortunately, Teela is not familiar with this herb.)

Teela takes the tea and inhales deeply. (Oracle: does Teela smell the herb? No) “Thank you, I am Teela.” They sip their tea for awhile and finally Krenn speaks.

“Tell me Teela, what brings you here?”

“Hal and I are from the same village. I am an explorer and hunter for our village. Hal found me a few days ago and told me that our village had been raided and destroyed by slavers. They kidnapped our people. We are trying to find them and rescue them.”

“Ah, a noble pursuit indeed. Tell me about Hal. Is he strong? How old is he? What do you know about him? Is he your mate? (Oracle: does Teela answer? Yes, but she embellishes the relationship)

Teela giggles. “Hal? He was a warrior and a guard in our village. I guess he’s strong, I’m not sure of his age. Maybe 25 summers or so? He’s grouchy and angry. He survived the attack and came and found me. Did I tell you that already? He’s handsome I guess. He told me my mom was killed and my dad and brother kidnapped. I miss them so much. How will I survive without my mother? I’m tired and cold but Hal will protect me. We’ve become very close these last few days on the trail. He respects how I can forage and track, and I respect his strength. I think we will get married after we rescue our people. We really need to save them, can you help us? You have warrior women. I can tell that they are strong…we have some money to pay for help…”

“Now dear, you are understandably upset,” Krenn interrupted the rambling. “We are about to have a fantastic story told by our storyteller, L’rell, around a nice warm fire before we retire for the night. Join us, then rest.” (Oracle: does Krenn believe Teela? Yes but still has her doubts about some of what Teela told her.)

“Thank you, “ Teela said. “You’re so nice.”

Hal breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Teela leave the tent and come sit by him. “What did she want?” He whispered to her, leaning into her hair. Teela leaned on his shoulder and slurred her words a bit. “N..nnnnothin’ muccccch sir warrior…just lot of quest….wrist….questionssss about us and you.” Hal stared at Teela. “Are you ok?” He asked. She giggled softly. “I’mmmm fine.”

Most of the tribe were finished with dinner, and started to congregate around the fire. A short woman about 30 years old, blond hair, twisted up in a messy bun, stood before the fire. (Rolled on story prompts table: mystery, hope, courage… and the traits table for the storyteller, fierce, crafty and “wants to attain wisdom”) She knew how to pitch her voice to catch the crowd’s attention.

“Hello my sisters! Good evening, and welcome to our new guests!” She turned and looked at Hal and Teela. She winked at Hal. “ I am L’rell, the tribal storyteller and historian. Welcome to Krennla, named after our esteemed leader!” Everyone clapped, some very enthusiastic, some only politely, not so enthusiastic. “Let me weave a story for you tonight! A story of mystery, hope and courage! Much like our Hal here!” Hal flushed red and hoped the fire would hide the blush. Teela nudged him and giggled again. L’rell spoke magically for almost 30 minutes, and when she finished, she motioned to Hal.

“Hal, tell us your tale, what is your story? How did you come to be with us?” The crowd clapped, hooted and encouraged Hal to speak. He told the story of the past few days, in more detail. Teela sat somberly, nodding at the appropriate places. When Hal finished with their story, he asked a question.

“I notice the lack of males here, except for a few little boys. Where are your men?” The women erupted in voices, some angry, some tearful. He caught a few sentences…”none of your business outsider…he’s an outsider and a man, he has no right….my son my son they killed my son…Hal seemed to have stumbled on some internal conflict in the tribe.

Shaman Krenn yelled out, “Enough! Our guests do not want to hear about our issues. Remember your vows to our tribe. Now let’s get some rest. We have a long day of farming to do tomorrow.” Hal heard Sirella grumble under her breath, “you mean you have a long day of sittin’ on your ass while we farm…

Hal grabbed Teela’s hand and found a spot for their tent. He whispered to her, “I don’t want to stay here. Something is not right. It feels…wrong…dark.”

“Hal, we’re tired. We need rest. We’ll be fine.” (Oracle: Do Hal and Teela stay? Yes and they decide to share one tent and take turns guarding each other)

Teela went to sleep immediately while Hal took first watch. He sat inside the tent, cold, hugging his knees for warmth. A few hours later, very late at night, he heard a voice calling him softly. He poked his head outside the tent cautiously. He was then grabbed by the Shaman and multiple women, who promptly started arguing over him. “ He’s mine, I’m first…no no it’s my turn….he should go to Krenn first….”

Krenn shushes them. “From what I can tell, there is enough of him to go around.”

Hal was horrified. “What is going on? What are you talking about?”

Krenn cackles evilly. “Young…strong…virile Hal. Have you heard of the mating habits of the female praying mantis? The female kills and eats her mate after reproducing. We worship the Goddess Andressa, who demands that we mate and sacrifice our male children. We kill the men after they impregnate us, because we have no need for men except to make babies. Tonight Hal…you are the main course.” Hal tried to break free, but the women held him fast. They poked him, touched his body, licked his tasty, salty skin.

The voices woke Teela. (Oracle: can she come up with a plan to save Hal? No, and she’s frozen with fear and horror)

Hal noticed Sirella was sneaking up behind Krenn. No one else noticed her. (Oracle: Does Sirella help Hal? YES!) The women were too busy arguing over Hal. Sirella held a short sword against the throat of Krenn and demanded that they let Hal go. A few of the weaker women scattered.

“Oh Sirella,” Krenn said in a rebuking tone. “No need for this. You can have him first if you want.” Hal broke free and grabbed a sword from a distracted woman. (Oracle: does Sirella slit Krenn’s throat? YES!) Sirella whispered something in Krenn’s ear, and slit her throat quickly.

(Author’s note: this will be my first battle in Kal-Arath. I know, weird, but the dice were rolling my way. I think I interpreted the rules of combat correctly, and for this battle, I won’t write out all of the moves but will summarize the fight. I wanted to keep it easy for the first one, so I only had 2 women fight Hal and Sirella. I gave them bodyguard stats which are:

Woman #1 HP 5 Woman #2 HP 4 Armor: Leather +1 protection Attack: sword, damage 1d6 Morale: 7

Hal rolled a 10 (vs an 8) on his first attack (sword 1d6 damage) against Woman 1 and did -3 HP damage to her. He was able to dodge her attack and rolled another 10 on his next attack, with a -4 HP damage. I rolled on the Death and Wound table: Hal cut off her arm and she will die in 4 minutes if she gets no help. Trust me, she got no help.

Sirella rolled an 11 on her first attack against Woman 2 and did -3 HP damage. Her dodge failed on a crit fail, so this resulted in -12 HP damage to Sirella. I rolled on the Death and Wound table, and got a 2, Instant Death! Her last words: “it is a good day to die.” (This bummed me out because I was hoping to recruit her)

When Teela saw Sirella go down, she snapped her out of her fear. She picked up a thick stick and attacked Woman 2. Teela rolled a 2, double 1’s, a crit fail! The stick breaks. Her dodge is successful though, but her next attack (with another stick) failed on a 7. She also failed to dodge the attack, resulting in -2 HP for Teela. ( she only has 4 HP!) Teela fails her next attack with a 5 (and now I’m thinking I’m going to lose Teela too!), then rolls a crit success on a dodge which also knocks the enemy prone. I did a morale check for Woman 2 and rolled a 6. She continues to fight, but his time Hal steps in and rolls an 11 to hit, causing -5 HP damage. Rolling on the Death and Wound table, the woman is shattered and stays down.

Hal and Teela remained standing, gasping for breath. A woman yells out STOP! It is storyteller L’rell, who makes a short speech, renouncing the demoness that they worship, and offered to lead with newer, compassionate laws. She promises that all men and male children will be safe now if they come upon this tribe. She sent Hal and Teela on their way with her apologies, good wishes, 2 rations each and directions.

At this point, I realize that Hal and Teela deserve some XP so give them 1 XP each. Hal is at 7 HP (out of 8)and Teela is at 2 HP (out of 4) but they will both recover over night with rest. What did Sirella say to Krenn before she slit her throat? I have an idea, do you? Let me know in the comments. Below is the hex map that I’m working on for Hal and Teela. Hal wants to head west towards their village to pick ups one of the caches that he buried. Krennla, (yes, the Shaman named the tribe after herself) is in Hex 4, Day 4 of their adventure. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and stay tuned for Chapter 4. Hal and Teela will meet more characters in their travels. (Owl picture credit: Oldbookillustrations.com public domain art)

DAY 1 TRAVEL: Hex 1 Autumn Weather: 6, early snowfall, major cold snap, light flurries (expend an extra ration at day’s end)

Direction: head west for the caches that Hal hid while searching for Teela

Roll for Lost: Teela can still see a faint animal trail that she uses even with the light dusting of flurries.

Feelings: Hal is angry, sad, vengeful and impatient. Teela is grieving, sad, scared and unsure of their plans. She’s always lived in her own little world of safety. Both are quiet, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, very little conversation.

Roll for Point of Interest: (POI) 52, Stony field of obsidian pieces. Ask Oracle: are these graves? NO, and (rolled on table, 25, discovery, perfect for what I’m thinking) Teela chips off some chunks of the obsidian to trade. The chunks are hard and full of edges. Might make part of a good hatchet or blade.

Encounter: No Miles travelled-20 (one full hex) Camp: expend 2 rations each (They each have a tent, but to keep warm, decide to share a fire instead.) Nightime encounter: N0

DAY 2 TRAVEL: HEX 2 Weather: 1, clear skies, cool (+1 on getting lost, +1 on foraging)

Roll for Lost: not lost, decided to forage (forage roll 6, rare bounty!) 5 rations of food, 3 Tarnak Berries (provide a burst of energy when ground up and drunk, removes the need to consume a ration that day) Tesla’s skills prove to be very useful this day.

Roll for POI: 62 As they walk along the animal trail, still headed west, Hal blocks Tesla’s path with his right arm. “Hold up,” he whispers. “ I see something weird…”They watch and wait for a few minutes. There is no movement, no noise except the usual forest noises, light cool breeze through the trees, faint singing of birds, a few insects buzzing around. They slowly approach what appears to be a large petrified bug. Teela gasps lightly. “Oh, a Eukarya!” Hal shoots her a look of puzzlement and shrugs his shoulders. She elaborates, “a giant mantis.” When they inspect the creature, Teela believes that it was killed by magic, but not recently. She cuts off the claws to use for trade.

Encounter: None Camp for the night-expend 1 ration each. Not much talking, each keeping to their own thoughts and grief. Nightime encounter: None

NOTE: The dice are rolling my way as far as encounters go, which can be very dangerous in this game. As stated before, each hex is 20 miles in distance. If you forage, this will take half of your time, so they only travelled 10 miles or so. It looks like I forgot that in my notes and advanced the next day to Hex 3.

DAY 3 TRAVEL: HEX 3 Weather: 3, light, cool rain. (No disadvantages, no advantages)

Roll for Lost: LOST! (Cuts the distance for the day) Hal is still lost in his thoughts, thinking of his beloved, thinking of revenge. Teela interrupts his ruminations. “Hal”…no response. “Hal…” Hal whips his head towards Teela, startling her. “What?”he snaps. She sighs because of his tone. Of all the people in the village to be stuck with, it had to be Hal. A formidable young man that she never took the time to get to know. “Don’t get mad at me, but I think…we’re lost.” Hal closed his eyes for a second. “Teela, for the love of the Gods, you are supposed to know your way around here. We don’t have time for this!” “I know, I know, “she says, “ but the rain, and I’m tired. I don’t usually march through the forest. I…meander.” “Feckin’ hell” he exclaims, “this is feckin hell. “Look,” Teela says “I should forage for more food while I slowly figure out which direction to go. Can you handle that?” “Do I have a choice?” He asks.

Roll for Foraging: 5, bountiful forage! 5 rations POI: None Encounter: None Camp for the night: expend 1 ration each Nighttime encounter: None

DAY 4 TRAVEL; HEX 3 CONTINUED Weather: 4, Heavy rain, mud (1/2 travel speed, -2 foraging, -1 lost)

Roll for Lost: Still lost! Hal is cold, frustrated, stomping through the mud. The weather and mud are really slowing them down. Teela is not complaining, but she’s trying to keep up with Hal. The rain feels like spikes hitting her skin. She needs a better, heavier cloak.

Roll for Foraging: 1, scarcity, find nothing

POI: 26, Settlement Rolled a 3 on the settlement type table, Tribal Compound ( a few dozen inhabitants) I rolled on the Insight table and got a 13, twice! 13=DARK I decide to go with that theme, and an idea starts to formulate. I then rolled for a few NPC’s and their traits and motivations.

Storyteller: L’rell She is fierce and crafty, and wishes to “attain wisdom” (seems to suit a storyteller to me)

Hunter: Sirella She is solemn and rough, and wants to “pursue her passion” (not sure what her passion is yet…but she might be a good person to recruit)

Shaman: Krenn She is the leader. She is stern, secretive and “corrupt”. (This is going to get interesting.)

Teela is about to keel over, freezing and wet. The cold rain is sapping all of her energy. The thick mud is cold and weighing down on her feet. She swears she hears cheering just past the trees. She stops Hal. “Do you hear that?” He cocks his head, listening. “What do you hear?” He asks. Teela shakes her head, trying to clear it. “I swear that I hear cheering, lots of cheering.” Hal takes out his sword, just in case. “Let’s go slowly, keep our eyes open and figure out what that is without falling into a trap.”

They walk for another half mile or so, when they reach some rocks and fallen logs, seemingly innocent and natural looking, but in actuality, is the entryway through the trees to a tribal compound. Hal takes the lead, and the two of them slowly and carefully advance to the tents and warm fires. It appears that they have interrupted some kind of tournament or contest. Hal sheathes his sword and stands still. Teela gazes at the crowd, who have stopped cheering and now look very hostile. Interestingly enough, the crowd is almost all women and female children, with only a couple of male children sitting quietly. Two warrior women walk over, asking questions and demanding answers. Teela explains that they are lost, cold and tired and asks if they could spend the night by the fires. The women glance over at the Shaman. She signals a yes, with a sly smile.

I am going to end this here for now. Remember, I rolled DARK two times, so it’s going to get a little dark in the next chapter. These notes are a little bit different style for me, so I’m still learning my way around typing up the notes. Thank you for reading and following along with Hal and Teela. Will they survive to save their villagers? I hope so, but I’m letting the dice decide. If you like my maps, the pieces are from a company called 1985 Games, at www.1985games.com I backed their first product on Kickstarter way before Covid started, and have loved their products ever since. The rocks, trees, logs etc come from very large sets called Dungeon Craft. They have multiple sets now full of everything you need to create and stock a dungeon, a village, a large town. Each piece is double sided! You get over 1000 pieces in each set. I use the sets all of the time for my DND games. I figured, why not use it for my forest in Kay-Arath too? Check out the website!

Hal came looking for me. I hardly recognized him when he found me. He’d been running for two days. I made him tell me the story over and over until he shouted “ENOUGH! What are we going to do about this?”

“Are you insane?” I scoffed. “We are but two people.” He stared at me with grief stricken brown eyes. His betrothed had been killed by fire while hiding with some of the children. “Please Hal, let me think on this. Let me absorb the news.” He had also informed me that my mother was dead, my father, the village blacksmith, as well as my apprentice brother, were taken by the slavers.

“The longer you feckin’ take to think, the trail goes cold,” he angrily snapped at me. “Your own family was taken, your Ma dead. We need to act now!”

The mention of my beautiful, kind mother broke through the shock and I started to wail. I wept. I keened and rocked myself. Hal watched coldly. “Who did this?” I managed to sob out, snot and tears ran down my face.

“I don’t know,” and he spat onto the ground, “but I can describe the banner. I tracked the slavers to a battle barge.”

I sucked in a frightened breath. “That means a war lord. What direction?”

“North, probably towards Kar’eld. Some will be held as household slaves, some of the men will be thrown into the Pits I wager.”

Feeling defeated already, I listlessly said “this is not good, this is not good, not good…” I started to panic.

Hal grabbed my arms and tightened his fingers on me painfully. He yelled in my face, hot breath blowing on me. He shook me hard.

“Teela, snap out of it! I need you, and I need you to be able to function!”

I laughed bitterly. “You don’t need me! You need a damn army!” I kicked his shin. “Let go of me you ass!” He let go immediately and backed away. My green eyes blazed at him. “Don’t ever touch me again.”

He smiled sadly. “That’s the Teela I need. Look, I’ll protect you, and you get me to that barge. You know the area for miles. You know how and what to forage. You know how to track. You are…were…the best in the village. Maybe we can hire a few soldiers, rescue our men and women and fight our way out. We exact our vengeance. You think your father isn’t planning his escape and vengeance as we speak? I know Jorum, he is planning.”

“My father would also want me to save myself and not come after him. He will be furious.”

“Better furious and free, than a slave,” Hal replied, self assured.

I sighed heavily. “What money do we have to pay mercenaries?”

Hal answered quickly. “I went back to the village, buried some coin and food in a few caches. Mark me well Teela, I will SELL my soul to have my revenge.”

I said sadly, “I think before this righteous quest is over, you will do just that.” Little did I know how correct I was. Thus started an uneasy alliance between an explorer and a warrior.

This is the start of my play through notes for Kal-Arath, a fantastic game by Substacker @Castlegrief. If you haven’t read my review, check out my previous newsletter. A few housekeeping notes: the season is Autumn (roll a d4). Overland travel can be done by hexes, something I don’t usually use but decided to try for this game. Each hex is 20 miles by foot, 40 miles with a horse. If you have to forage for food, it will cut your travel in half. Weather can also affect your traveling time and foraging abilities. The banner that Hal saw: Blood red background, grinning skull, claws holding swords.

I will still be playing Hostile (my gritty sci fi adventures). I am planning on posting alternately between the two games. Thank you sincerely for reading and following along. Here’s to the new year, 2025, and hoping for peace, safe weather, and more kindness in the world.

I kept hearing on the stack lots of good things about Kal-arath. I believe Castle Grief had a very successful Kickstarter, but I didn’t have a chance to get in on that. However, there was a Lulu sale recently, where Kal-arath resides. This is what I received:

This book contains the game rules (47 pages) and two supplements, another 92 pages for a total of 139 pages all in a small bundle! The book is well put together with a cardboard cover, cardboard back and coil binding. The book is approximately 8 inches by 6 inches, and about ¾ of an inch thick. The pages are thicker than a normal book and will hold up well to flipping through it. Let’s take a look at some of the insides…(I will only show table of contents and some of my notes so if you want more, buy the book!)

The beginning of the book gives us a brief overview of the world, “a savage land”, with ancient demons, humans, monks, mystics, traders, merchants, warlords and flying lizards! I love this quote on page 2: “This is Kal-Arath. Who will you be? How will you die?” And that sets the tone of this game. Character creation is super easy, with 5 basic stats, Strength, Toughness, Agility, Intelligence and Presence. You have 4 points to put into the 5 stats. HP is determined by rolling the good old d6 and adding your toughness stat. You can choose one out of four skills, Warrior, Rogue, Mystic, Explorer. I never like to travel alone, so I always pick two characters to run with. So easy peasy…. I chose a Warrior and an Explorer. (There’s even a handy table with names to choose from)

To resolve issues, you roll 2d6 plus the applicable stat. You need to beat an 8. Roll two 6’s and you get a crit success, whereas two 1’s is a crit failure. Pretty standard. I’m not going to talk about combat because so far I’ve only done one battle (my dice have been lucky in this game, except for one NPC that I wanted to add to my party but she died) but I found the combat easy to understand. In fact, everything is easy to understand. There is magic and spells in this game, but since I was learning how to play I decided not to read that section and skipped magic. After all, Castle Grief does say, play how you want, do what makes sense and most of all, have fun!

I love the tables in this book! Somehow, rolling on them seems to fit my mission or questions. There is overland travel by hexes, or whatever you want to use. I’m using hexes for now. You roll for weather, getting lost, foraging, points of interest, encounters, settlements, night time encounters while you are trying to rest, and more tables for NPCs! Roll on their motivations, traits and roles. Roll on resources and trade. Roll on conflicts, rumors and opportunities, oh my…Honestly, Castle Grief has made it easy so that you can play!

Next up, dungeons!!!! I haven’t rolled a dungeon up yet, but once again, CG (Castle Grief) has laid it out for you with tables. He suggests using a dice pool of d6 to create your dungeon, one for each area. Make it big, make it small, whatever works for you. The last few pages contain a bestiary, about six pages of creeps and monsters.

Next up is Ziggurat, a supplement included in the same book. I haven’t played through it yet, only browsed it quickly. More tables, skills, magic items, points of interest, encounters, beasts, bosses, etc etc. On page two of the supplement, CG writes a page about solo campaigns. He has good suggestions and tips on playing solo. He makes a great point with this sentence, “Emphasis on connecting threads, NOT increasing mechanical complexity, sometimes we want new systems or more complex advancement rules, thinking this will make the game deeper. What adds depth to solo play, and RPG’s in general is CONNECTION. Ask yourself how places, encounters, NPCs and situations connect to other ones, and what the relationship is between them.” (Emphasis is mine) I wanted to yell out YES!! When a game gets too complex, too mechanical, sometimes I don’t want to attempt it. CG proves with his rules that you don’t need complexity to have a great time. Look, I love DnD, my first roleplaying game, and I love crunchy games but sometimes I want to roll up a character and throw them into situations quickly. I love letting the dice decide where my character goes, what their actions are, who will they connect with. I don’t always agree with my dice rolls, but I stick with them always in combat. If it doesn’t make sense on a minor thing for the character, sometimes I will reroll. I can do that. I’m the boss.

The third and last supplement is called Lord of the Pits. Again, I haven’t played this part yet, still keeping to learning the game. It’s exactly what the title sounds like, can you succeed as a gladiator? Or, can you succeed as the stablemaster, master of the fighters? Two ways to try this out, and sounds really interesting as well as deadly. Don’t get attached to your character! New skills, new weapons, new foes, drugs, powders, FAME and EARNINGS!

I am finding game play a lot of fun. I’m having fun with my characters conflicts and emotions. I’m having fun with my play thru notes. Basically, yes, I’m having fun and I highly recommend getting this rpg. It feels like Cairn 1st edition to me, and I like Kal-Arath much better than Cairn. I did create one thing to use so I didn’t have to keep crossing out rations every night. It’s not original, and I’m not sure what to call it, but it works for me keeping track of rations. I also created mini stat sheets and reminders on index cards. See the next two pictures.

An interesting encounter popped up, while we were climbing a small mountain to see how to cross a river (no bridge in sight), atop the flat mountain was a smelly hermit kind of guy, a cursed older traveler. Why cursed? Who is he really? Will he hinder, or help us? I rolled on the motive table and got “redeem”. Like holy crap, could this fit any better with his curse? Maybe he got cursed because he did something bad, and wants to redeem himself. Only the dice and the story will tell me soon.

That’s it for this game review. I really hope you check it out. The book is only 24.99 on Lulu.com. If you wait for a sale, I got 7.50 off, which covered shipping and tax. Turns out it was a fantastic deal for what you get! Can you really put a price on fun and enjoyment? Now, I think I will be switching back and forth with my play thru newsletters between Hostile and Kal-arath.

Happy New Year Folks! Be safe tonight, be kind, and let’s all have a great 2025! Thank you so much for reading and subscribing to my newsletter.

I wanted to give you all a quick glimpse into what 2025 will be like for this newsletter. I’m going to communicate this in pictures, not words for now. Note: this is only a small glimpse into 2025. Thank you for subscribing. I really appreciate it when you take the time to read my insignificant words. They don’t change the world, but damn, I’m having fun doing this, so it’s changing me. Without further ado, keep scrolling, and soon in the future, (if any of the pics confuse you) I’ll be explaining the pics in a future newsletter. (All photos by me)

PS, yes you will see a lot of prescription bottles but they aren’t mine! I’m too cheap to buy a mini holder, so I use tacky stuff on top of a prescription bottle. Been doing it for years and works for me. The scripts are for my 83 year old mother so I snag hers.

Captain’s Personal Log, CH Vigilant, Liberty Station above Earth

Well, that drama is over, and now like those soap operas of old that I’ve heard about, there is more drama on this ship. After I escorted Anna off the ship, I headed back to the cargo hold. I needed to make sure the gas had been dispersed with no more after effects on my crew. I already have one injured man down. I want the salvage torn apart, sold, and the ship loaded with our next cargo run. I asked Serge for a report on the lifeboat, our salvage.

“Cap, this is a Nomad class boat. Only 3 years old. I say we sell it used. Don’t tear it apart. There’s no damage except for a few dings and dents out on the hull. We can pound those out. In fact, I think I know someone who would be interested.”

I shrugged. “Well how much we talking?” I asked. His eyes gleamed and he grinned.

“These things cost 9 mill to make. I think we can get 1.5, 2 mill.”

Pretty sure that my eyes bulged, “Are you shittin’ me right now Serge? Cuz if you are, I’ll kick your ass!” The crew looked as stunned at the amount as I did.

Serge laughed loudly. “No, honest, look at the ads here.” He pointed to the computer terminal and scrolled a few pages. We all crowded around to look. Then the high fives started.

“Ok Serge. Make your call. Broker the deal. I’ll be in my quarters working on the next shipment.”

Game notes: Serge, the engineer, has broker as one of his skills and rolled a 12 vs an 8 so he succeeded in negotiating a great price. The salvaged boat was sold for 2 million dollars divided by 8 crew members=$250,000 each. (less taxes of course.)

Serge took to negotiating back and forth with his ship broker for about 24 hours. In those 24 hours, I spoke with Doc about our injured security guy, Brian. She recommended leaving him on Liberty Station in better medical facilities. I agreed, and the crew recorded messages for him. Hopefully we will see him up and about soon. The crew is beyond ecstatic about the salvage money. This makes up for lousy pay from HQ. I wonder what everyone will do with their shares. I’d like to go out on my own with a small but mighty ship. Pick my own jobs. Make more money. Get out from under these corporate assholes.

I also received new orders concerning the next cargo haul. We’ll be taking raw materials, (industrial chemicals) as well as our first paying passengers(prospectors and their equipment) over to Prosperity, a mid size planet, with low tech, a C spaceport, semi lawless. (I rolled a bonus on the passenger delivery. If we get there on time, 10% bonus of 800.00 for a total of 8800.00) The planet is 4 parsecs away, which will take about a week to travel in hyper speed. Speed is much slower on this ship when we get out of hyperspace, so I’ve padded the time, giving us a total of 45 days for this trip. (I also roll a starport encounter, which is meet up with a friend.)

Surprisingly, I received a video call from Anna. We decided to meet at The Morningstar Hotel and Casino Resort on Liberty Station before we take off. I’ve been there before, the views are phenomenal of Earth and the surrounding stars. I’m glad she called. When we sat down, she started thanking me for the help with the lifeboat. I apologized for Cass’s slug to her face. She told me the families are happy to have their loved one’s bodies back. The ‘bot got confiscated and permanently deactivated. We talked about our jobs for a bit, how we got on our career paths, etc. Talked a bit about family. I told her my crew is usually my family. I have no one else. She looked at me sadly, then asked me if I had any plans for Christmas. It’s still 6 months away. I usually stay on the ship while everyone else leaves. To my surprise, she invited me to spend the holiday with her. I told her I’ll think about it, depends on whether I can get back to Liberty Station. It was a nice dinner. We both agreed to keep in touch. We ship out tomorrow so I made it an early night.

Flight Day/Day One

Fueling: rolled a 9, successful, Loading cargo, rolled an 8-No Delays

Take off: Pilot dice roll, 9. Navigation roll, 7, missed so add 1 extra burn. Burns start at 24. Cost is 4 to take off, now 5 with the penalty. 19 Burns left.

Engineering: rolled a 7, which is a miss, so something will pop up inflight

Also need to roll for an in space encounter: rolled Training for Crew, so crew trained in Zero G mechanics and movement.

Approx 25 days to Hyperspace jump point.

Day Five

Rolled for a ship encounter:

Pedro pinged me on the ship’s comms. “Cap, we’re picking up a ship. Identified as Verticle assault ship, USS Sea Dragon. We’ve hailed them once, but no answer.” (Rolled a 6 on comms, a failure)

“Hail them again and report. I’m on my way to the bridge.” (Rolled a 10 on comms, success) As I entered the bridge, I heard a deep male voice answer from the Sea Dragon.

“Hello Cargo Hauler Vigilant. No time to chit chat. You are ordered to keep flying out of this sector. Be aware and warned that we are chasing pirates in the area. Godspeed and good sailing.”

I give the order to Pedro for constant sensor readings until we are out of this sector. (During this time, Serge, Hoss and Randy are setting up the security bots. Serge rolls a 5 on engineering, while Hoss rolls a 12 on mechanics. I roll on the in-system encounter and get a 53, which is two crew have an argument, Serge failing his roll will be perfect to expand on)

In the cargo hold:

There are parts spread all over as Serge, Hoss and Randy put together two security bots that HQ provided for the ship. (Serge rolls a 5 on an engineering roll, failing again, and getting frustrated. I rolled on the Inspiration table, and got Asshole and Honest.) Hoss starts needling Serge, teasing him as best friends often do, but Serge wasn’t in the mood.

Serge snaps at Hoss. “Hey man, not nice. Stop being an asshole.”

Hoss counters, laughing. “Maybe you can’t take some honest criticism.”

Serge throws his tools down and says angrily, “Fuck you man”. Then throws a surprise punch at Hoss! Clocks him right in the jaw.

( Serge 10 to hit Hoss defends rolls a 6 failure, surprised, 1d6 damage, rolled a 3)

Randy backs away, eyes wide and calls Kace. “Um Cap, I think we need you in cargo bay A, STAT!”

Serge swings again. (Rolls a 10, another hit!) Hoss defends (rolls a 6, failure, damage 6)Again, Hoss takes a direct hit to his eye. Hoss goes down. Serge jumps on top of Hoss and pins him, then picks him up and slams him down again. (Causing 7 points of damage as Hoss hits his head on a nearby crate. Hoss’s endurance is down to Zero now, he’s unconscious)

Randy yells out “STOP IT!” She pulls hard on Serge’s arm to hold him back. She succeeds in pulling Serge back (rolled an 8 on strength)and runs over to Hoss. Serge stands still, clenched fists and breathing heavily, eyelids blinking rapidly. Hoss is unconscious and bleeding from the face and back of the head. Randy calls Doc to cargo bay A, making Kace run even faster to the cargo bay.

When Kace arrives, the scene pulls her up to a stop, as well as shocked. “What the fuck??!!! She exclaims. “Pedro to Cargo Bay A, double time! Randy, what happened?” Randy quickly explained and Kace tells her and Pedro to escort Serge to his quarters with a priority 1 lock in.

Doc arrived right behind Kace, quickly running over to Hoss, assessing him immediately. She applies pressure on the wounds and gets Hoss stabilized. (Rolled a 10 for medical)

“Captain, this stretcher is seeing a lot of use lately,” Doc said angrily.

Kace shrugs. “Well, we don’t want you bored Doc. How is he?”

She grumpily replied. “ Concussion, broken nose, contusions all over his face and back. Let’s get him to sickbay.”

In sickbay, the doctor starts hooking Hoss up to machines. She mumbles to herself, shaking her head, “we still have 20 days more days to go….” (Med roll 12) Hoss is hooked up, vitals are good for now.

Hoss and Serge are best friends. What set Serge off? What will Captain Kace Ryan do? What will everyone do with their newfound wealth? Will Cap lose some crew? Find out in the next episode and play through of Hostile Solo, with the crew of space haulers of the CH Vigilant Reliant. Thank you as always for reading!

Hello Readers! I genuinely hope you are all doing well. I was sitting down at the kitchen table, about to write up another session of Hostile solo play, and as I was pulling out the “stuff” I use to play, it occurred to me to maybe write about that “stuff” in a separate newsletter. So here we go!

The Basic List:

Dice

Hostile Solo Book

Notebook

Oracles

Book of Random Tables/Sci fi

Dice: I’m pretty sure most people use dice, or a deck of cards to play most solo rpg games. I prefer dice. The throwing, the clicky clack when they bounce, and the randomness of dice making a decision for me…I love it!

Hostile Solo Book: um ya, this is like my game bible for right now. I have always loved science fiction, the grittier, the better. I really do need to get Mothership. I have bought a few modules for Mothership to incorporate some of the adventures/misadventures/death into my Hostile game. You don’t need modules for Hostile, but it helps spark some ideas for me when I need inspiration.

Notebook: I know, this a no brainer those of us who like to keep notes and/or journal. I started with a basic cheap lined notebook for 1.00. There is a certain set up with the pages that I’ve been looking for and I finally found the exact notebook that I want.

Oracles: What can I say about oracles that hasn’t been said? They fascinate me, and I love them! I started collecting different types and now have a whole folder full of them. I have a few designed just for sci fi but some of my favorites to use, One Page Mythic GME, Random Realities (by Cezar Capacle), Solo RPG GME (by Moses Boyajian) and Solo Tookit (by Silver Nightingale)

The Great Book of Random Tables/Science Fiction: And this leads us up to the review I’d like to do so I hope you stick around.

This book is 282 pages of luscious encounters, vessels, technobabble, items, rumors, names, star system generator, planets, and the list goes on! It is written by Matt and Erin Davids, of DiceGeeks.com. You can buy the book (hardcover) in the large volume that I have, or they also sell it in small pieces of thin paperback books. To be honest, the Hostile game book has everything that you need for most of the topics covered in the Random Tables books. Hostile has oracles, sparks for ideas, planet and star system generators. (Sorry honey, yes, I needed another book) Just as I love oracles, I love random tables too and letting the dice decide certain decisions, or names, or planets etc etc. I guess some people could say that this limits a person’s imagination, but I don’t see that happening with me. In fact, for me, looking at a table, or an oracle, usually generates more ideas in my over active brain. And I’m okay with that.

The book has a basic binding that seems to be holding up well so far. I like the black, starry border around each page. It seems to keep the table under control for me, if that makes any sense. There a few random black and white sci fi pictures, planets, and star fields through out the book. The black and white fits in well with Hostile solo. (Gritty sci fi). The pages feel a little bit thicker than an average book. If you are a tactile person, the pages feel good on your fingers. Each table uses a d100 to roll on, so there are plenty of choices in these tables. I counted 140 tables! The book is divided up into 11 sections:, Adventure Ideas and Side Jobs, Encounters and Discoveries, Cargo Runs and Cargo, Items and Things, (haha I typed thongs by accident-I imagine you would find a thong on a space ship or space station) Vessels and Space Stations, Places and Planets, Activities and Reasons, Technobabble and Codes, Names, Fields of Study and a Star System Generator. Definitely cool stuff! So far, I’ve used it for name ideas, drink name ideas, medicine names, technobabble and perusing shore leave activities. I did find one misspelling so far, in the table of contents…something called Pulbic Administration, which I’m going out on a limb to say this should be Public. Even then, on an alien world, you could use Pulbic…haha.

To sum this up, yes, I love the book! If you are into sci fi, and random tables, I highly recommend this book. I’m going to post a few more pics, so keep scrolling…let me know what you think about oracles and random tables. What do you use when you play rpgs solo? Thanks again for taking time to read this! Your time and attention is appreciated!

Ok, to be or not to be….to buy or not to buy…that is the question, and I think I have the answer.

First, a little history about me, rpgs and DnD. I wanted to play DnD badly when I was a kid, but having an uber Christian mother, there was no way she was going to let me play with witches and demons. It might infect my mind, they might invade our house…I grew up, got married, had kids, and played board games and video games. Video rpgs was the extent of my rpg adventures for years, until as I talked about in the previous newsletter, my niece wanted to try it because of Stranger Things, and I picked up the Phandelver starter set as well as the Strangers Things set.

I taught myself how to play, dropping rules that seemed too complicated or didn’t make sense, or modified them. I taught my family, and found some other people to play with so I wasn’t always the DM. I bought all three main books to begin with, the fifth edition Dungeon Master Guide, the Player’s Guide and the Monster Guide. I wanted to learn everything I could about DnD. I loved (and still love) being a DM! I love the prep work, I love home brewing some stories, I love painting minis, I love putting my PCs through the paces.

As someone with decades of experience in the book industry, a ten year stint on an edition of a game book is actually a very good run, mostly for the consumer. Let’s be honest, the fifth edition needed updating. Let’s also be honest, are the updates worth it? Continuing to be honest, do the people at Hasbro/WOTC (Wizards of the Coast) really love DnD like we do? Do they even love RPGs like we do? Considering some of the dumb mistakes they’ve made recently, I doubt it. It’s a corporation, concerned about the bottom line. I think, not the best way to hold onto a legacy, but that’s a corporation for you. Most of us have probably heard all about the foolish moves they’ve made, ticking off their main base of consumer. I saw tweet after tweets, videos after videos, emails after emails about people giving up on Dnd, or at least giving up on the fifth edition. As I said before, I’ve invested so much time and money in fifth edition, that for our family game, it will still be our go to. (For now). I love being on the Stack here and learning about all the OG games or different types of RPGs for me to explore. I also read anything and everything that will help me be a better DM. In fact, most of my books are for DMs.

So, all of this said, I really wasn’t too interested in the new books coming out. My fam is happy with fifth edition, I’m happy with it (once I changed some things up and did a lot of extra research because these books seem to assume that a person already knew how to play). The Player’s Guide came out. I watched a lot of videos on YouTube to get a feel for the guts of the book, the meat of the game, the updates…and whether the YouTuber was into it or not, I’m a big girl, and I’m going to make my own decision. I’m really not interested in the Monster Guide, because I like that info at my fingertips when I play. I don’t want to flip through a book when I need stats. I don’t want to slow down combat. I want the stats in front of me, either written out on an index card or, yes, I bought the monster cards made for DnD. As far as the DM guide goes, now this I was a little more interested in. Once again, I read reviews, watched YouTube, listened to the spiel. This sounded like I could still find new and interesting information for a DM with this 2024 guide. 379 pages of RPG goodness! Right? Right?????

Now, I know myself. When I get a hankering for something, I think about it for a few days. After a few days, if I’m on the fence, I usually put it out of my mind and don’t buy it. The DM guide was nagging me in my brain…”you want this, you need this, etc etc” so I put it on my Xmas wish list, hoping someone would buy it for me. Then, good old Mom surprised me with a $50.00 gift card to a local bookstore, and that sealed the deal. I did it….I BOUGHT THE 2024 DM GUIDE!!!

I immediately flipped through it, mostly looking at the art work, trying to discern if it was AI, or real art. (Having heard that Hasbro wants to use AI art instead of paying real artists. Boooo!) Beautiful fantastic art has been a selling point for years! I recently had time to skim through each chapter and make some notes. This is where I come in with, yes, it has some cool stuff, but yes, I’m still disappointed in that it’s mostly NOT new stuff, at least not to me, and I only have about 5 years experience playing! If you want to DM, and have never been a DM, this is a great resource and I highly recommend it. Why? The book covers more than just rules. There are pages talking about respect for the players, respect for the DM, how to deal with anti social behavior, how to handle death scenes, and finally, adding in fear and mental stress rolls. (Thank you Walking Dead and Mothership and probably many more games. I love this mechanic because it’s so real and human). There are a lot of helpful forms, but I probably wouldn’t use them. There were so many sentences throughout, “you can find this in the new Player’s Guide,” again, really???? I personally feel, certain types of rules should be in the DM guide, not spread out over a few books. Grrrrrrrrr….

There are also alot of random tables, but guess what??? I already have TONS of random tables for every genre that I play. I don’t need more. Still, very helpful for a newbie. I liked how the book talked about creating backgrounds, creating monsters, magic items and spells. The book has a lore glossary, which is new and I liked a lot. Another new thing, how to handle mobs. There are lots of maps in the back, dungeons, taverns, cities, farms, ships, mines, caves and even a wizard’s tower. Of course, a huge double sided, tear out, beautiful map is included in the back of the book.

Flipping through the magic items, most looked familiar and I didn’t notice anything new, but then I didn’t read about each item yet. (An incredible 120 pages spent on magic items and treasure. Why???) As someone who didn’t play in the world of GreyHawk, including this is a bonus that I enjoyed. While I’m partial to the Sword Coast, who knows, my players may end up in GreyHawk someday. Still, GreyHawk has been around for years, so technically, it’s not a new thing. You can easily find all the info that you need online. It almost felt like filler to make the page numbers go higher. (30 pages for this) They added 40 pages to describe the different planes in the world of DnD. Ya, I don’t need that. The best part of the book is Chapter 8, Bastions. Now, when I heard that word, I will admit I had no clue what that was. I had to look it up in the dictionary. Why did they call it Bastions? The origin of the word is French, from mid 16th century, meaning “build”. That’s not totally the meaning of the word today, but hey, potato, pototto right? I would have called it a hide out, a stronghold, a home, but granted, those words don’t sound as cool as Bastions. Twenty pages of how, where, what about your very own hideout…er…bastion.

In conclusion, for me, it’s a beautiful book with a lot of words and pictures. (Sadly, I don’t trust the artwork from WOTC anymore) I think I will use maybe 50 pages out of the 379. I will read it cover to cover and maybe discover more. Let’s be fair and say that maybe, and that’s a big maybe, there’s 100 pages of new info, and I’m including GreyHawk since it’s new to me. As I said before, if you are a new DM, this book will be very helpful to you. I don’t regret buying it all, but I am disappointed at the lack of NEW stuff. I was really hoping for good info to up my game.

Thank you for reading and sticking around for my opinions! Take care, stay healthy, be kind.

Ok, I lied. Our family campaign is not always monthly, but we do our best to stay on schedule. As I mentioned in my last newsletter, life events sometime intrude, darn it!!! We were able to play this past weekend after about 3 months of not playing, and honestly, it was mostly my fault. I’ll explain about that later.

I wanted to write about the campaign for a few reasons. One, I always write up session dates and notes, and as I started to do that, I looked at the very first session of this campaign 3/1/2022. It struck me that we’ve been playing that long with our family game. (Yes, I’ve heard of 30 year campaigns but for us, that’s a long time) Two, we had so much fun I had to write about it.

How did we start? My niece is really into Stranger Things, so she wanted to try the Stranger Things boxed set from you know who…yes, WOTC. We started with my sister in law, her daughter, and two male cousins, both young teens. I taught them how to play 5th edition. I knew I had to keep the attention of teenagers, especially the boys. I figured to hold their attention, I would have to include battles, funny NPCs, scary NPCs and a lot of visual items, pictures, maps, handouts, anything I could think of. I also wanted to keep it simple at first, and while they had fantastic imaginations when they were little kiddos, I had already noticed that the awkwardness and embarrassment of the teen years had set in.

To keep it easy and interesting, I decided to get them all custom minis from Hero Forge that were created and then we painted the minis to look like them. We had a fun paint party, with me cringing every time they ruined the bristles of a brush, so I quickly learned to have them use cheap paint and cheap brushes. I also wanted them to learn the very basic mechanics first. Again, with the simple thing, I decided that their characters would be….themselves. They would start out in our small town in Southern California. (so they already had a visual of the area in their heads) I did change the time period though, because I wanted it to be a simpler time, when some of us were kids…no cell phones, no electric scooters, no social media, riding our bikes, building forts, hanging out. I had a blast describing a typical day for a kid in the 60’s or 70’s. Again, going with the theme of simple, for the first four sessions, I didn’t allow weapons. If they are playing themselves, c’mon, who’s going to give a teenager a sword or battle axe? Wait, don’t answer that. I came up with hiking sticks, baseballs, soccer balls, sling shots, and a few other common things to use as weapons and made new stats. I didn’t allow magic either, as I wanted them to get used to the rules and house rules before I introduced magic spells and spell slots.

I created an NPC, The Librarian, to guide them if they had questions. And so, Stranger Things came to our small city, and we all had a blast. I had a lot of fun prepping for the sessions. I would say the only issue was that it felt like pulling teeth to get the kids to engage in conversation with each other or an NPC. I would ask, what do you do, and get an “I don’t know.” I would ask, what do you say to this person, and get “I don’t know.” I started giving out inspiration whenever they did interact. I learned to rephrase what I had asked, and make it very specific. When they did something, anything, no matter how small it was, my sister in law and I praised them. I’d tell them this is exactly what I am looking for. I explained that I feed off of their enthusiasm and fun, so the more they do, it really inspires me. I never forced any roleplaying. I asked them to try certain things with me if they wanted to, and most of the time they did. As expected, they seemed to like the battles the best. Another important detail, keep the sessions to two hours.

After the four sessions for Stranger Things, I asked if they wanted to keep going on. The oldest teen dropped out, but the other 3 players wanted to keep playing. I wanted them to succeed,(mostly haha) so I replaced the oldest teen and ran a PC too, but gave him a lesser role. Somehow, he has a surfer dude accent, but I guess that’s apropos for SoCal. I also surprised them at the end, with a great reveal. The Librarian, was really from another plane, and sent here to monitor the weird activity happening in certain areas of the Earth realm. When I gave my niece a strange dream from the MoonWeaver Goddess, she went to the Librarian looking for answers. In her dream, she (conveniently) saw a world and a young man that she’s never seen or heard of before. Thus began the next chapters of the campaign.

Now, this might be controversial, almost as bad as politics, but with DnD 5th edition being my first ever RPG game, I’m a little sentimental about it. I don’t like the commercialism and some of the things that WOTC/Hasbro has done lately with the brand. I have found other options for RPG games that I love, but I am not going to teach those to my family. They learned DnD 5th edition, and for now, we are sticking with it. I also love Critical Role, and the stories that they write and tell. I know people either love ‘em or hate ‘em, and to each his own. There’s more important things to argue over in my mind. That said, my sister in law got me Into the NetherDeep campaign book/module, “A DnD product created in partnership with Critical Role”, and based on Matt Mercer’s world of Exandria.

I home brewed or used one shots sessions for a while, (actually, looking at my GM notes, I home brewed for 11 months!) to ease them into the world of Exandria. This time, they had weapons. They trained on their weapons in Exandria to be more realistic about using weapons. They had forest adventures, had a Bard Off, had races in the desert, had a museum heist, tangled with a Dryad (my daughter was a guest player and it was some of the best roleplaying I’ve seen in our games) and fought countless battles, met endless NPC’s. They went to taverns, caverns, dungeons, castles etc etc. They also finally gained magic spells and learned how to manage spell slots.

This brings us to November 16, 2024. I am finally using the actual book. We started chapter 1 this past Saturday. Since I’m used to adding so much of my own home brew, it’s difficult for me to use a book written by someone else. I’m sure I’ll eventually get into a rhythm. We had so much fun though! The first chapter has the PC’s arriving during a fun festival of games and food. Everyone got a chance at playing different games of challenge, skills and puzzles. I’m still riding the high on a great session.

At the beginning of the article, I mentioned that we hadn’t played for 3 months or so, mostly because of me. I lost my GM mojo. I had nothing left in the tank for prepping, for doing voices, for coming up with interesting conversations with NPC’s…It had nothing to do with being a GM or the game itself. It had to do with real life, sick mothers, unexpected deaths in the family, job issues, a hostile election, etc etc. It all caught up with me and I couldn’t focus on a hobby that I love. I know how to take care of myself mentally, it just took awhile to get back on track. Saturday’s game proved that I got my mojo back!!!!