The end is nigh

I know it sounds pretty gloomy, but it is not meant that way at all. As you probably gathered from my last post, I am putting this blog hiatus, probably forever, but since I have had so much fun writing this thing, I thought I would go through my old stuff and publish it here. Who knows, maybe someone can actually use it for something.

Anyway, I posted a piece I started some years ago about thieves guilds, which I intended to use in my Daltigoth campaign. The idea was that the guilds were an important part of the conflicts on Anasalon, all vying for control and power among all the players in the conflict.

I imagined that the conflict would be a little bit more intricate than what we have normally seen in Dragonlance. I felt that having a more politically charged campaign would be a perfect lead up to a regional war would the players  better feeling for why things happened and who was the primary movers and shakers. I envisioned a conflict brought on by greed and the search for monetary and political power and so much a conflict driven by Takhisis’s desire to return to the world. Of course there would be godly interests behind many of the powers that participated in the struggle, however, they were not the main focal point of the campaign. An added benefit was that it would allow me to introduce the other gods, and have them act according to their own interests. Alas, it never came to fruition, but that doesn’t mean that nobody can use the idea.

I have uploaded most of the stuff I ever wrote, or rather, I have uploaded must of the stuff that is worth uploading. I have a lot written in Danish, but I doubt I will ever translate it, and I see little point in uploading Danish texts. 

I noticed that Wizards are going to create a new version of D&D, so I will take a look at that when the time is right.

Happy belated New Year

As any reader of this blog, and I know there are next to none, will no doubt have noticed, I have pretty much stopped blogging here. In fact, I have been considering dropping this blog for good, and use the domain for something else. As it is, I can’t really get myself to drop it, so for now it will remain here, and occasionally I will hopefully write a post or two.

As we have entered 2011, I feel that it is time to have make a status of the gaming situation for me, so here we go.

• New Dragonlance gaming material to look forward to: 0
• New Dragonlance novels to look forward to: 0
• Active Role Playing gaming groups: 0
• Active board game groups: 1
• Number of home brew pages: 0

All of a sudden it makes a lot of sense why I have nothing to blog about here. Alas.

Long time no see

It has been a while since my last blog post and as always I feel like I should apologize for my lack of activity. However, this time I think I will refrain from that and instead dwell a little at the fact the I have not written anything, even though I promised myself that I would do it.

First of all, I have been invited to join a group who plays the board game Dune. I was actually invited by the director of development at my work, so of course I was a little skeptical. It turned out to be a lot of fun, and tomorrow I get to go pick up the first three Dune books that I ordered from Amazon.

the fact of the matter is, that I am growing a little weary with the whole RPG scene, or rather the lack of a scene. Nothing is really happening in terms of game releases that hold my interest, and the Dragonlance novel line seems to be as dead as disco. Had I been younger and less burdened by my job, I would probably have written a lot of stuff myself, just as I intended to do two months ago. However, now it seems like I can’t really think of much to write, and I rarely experience the creative streak that spawned my interest in Dragonlance and this blog.

Honestly, I don’t know what to do now. Heck, I don’t even know if I will maintain this blog any longer. I suppose I could use the space for something else. on the other hand, I don’t feel quite ready to leave Dragonlance for good, so maybe my passion will be rekindled some day.

Nothing new

So, I decided to go ahead and compile all my old Dragonlance writings into one big file, and guess what – it has happened yet. I guess I could try to come up  with all kinds of dumb reasons why I never got beyond the introduction, but I am going to spare myself the indignity.The project is not really dead as I see it, but for me, it is important that I sit write when I feel the urge to do so. Right now I do not.

It’s not that I have abandoned Dragonlance, I am actually reading the annotated Legends these days, but I am doing so many other things at work and around the house, so whatever creativity I possessed is pretty much gone. Perhaps the lack of a real gaming group has something to do with this. 

Anyway, I have decided to take some time off around Christmas, so hopefully I will be able to post something by then.

Done for now

Well, I finalized my blog redesign for now. I was looking around for a couple of extra social networks to add, but I decided to stick with Twitter, Picasa and Google Friend Connect.

I played around with StumpleUpon, but I could not find any way to syndicate the feed, so I have abandoned the idea for now. I might look in to it at a later point. I am considering a new de.-icio.us account to share various links, but I think I might be able to do that using Twitter. Time will tell.

As for some content, I have been working a little bit on a few ideas lately, so with a little luck I might one day start to upload things that are relevant to the D&D game, instead of complaining about how there is no more support for Drangonlance.

Blog redesign almost done

As I have talked about on numerous occasions, I have been looking into redesigning my blog. I don’t think it will make much if a difference in terms of how many people read it, but I like the idea of using a customized template, which hopefully gives the blog a more personal feel.

There are many templates out there on the Internet, but I decided to use Google own tool for the mew template. The template allows me to easily change colors, backgrounds and all other stuff, and I find that important because change to the template makes the blog seem more alive, hopefully.

Currently, I am looking into setting up a social page, which will house all my social stuff such as Twitter. I have no followers on Twitter, so it makes sense to move that feed to a separate page. I might also add Stumple Upon or Del.icio.us to that page, as I tend to stumble across quite a few links that I like to share on my blog.

Finally, I am considering adding the Google friend module to my blog. I think it might be a good way of getting to know more people in the community and hopefully make a new friend or two, who share my passion for Dragonlance.

Since it is raining cats and dogs today, and my daily run might be somewhat limited, I hope that I will get around to finishing up the blog redesign today. Stranger things have happened.

Mother F*cker!!

I went to my bookstore today to pick up The Gargoyle King. I had my daughter with me so she could see all the cool books, but in all the excitement I picked up The Fire Rose in stead. It wasn’t until we were on the train home, that my daughter told me: “Daddy, you already have that book at home”.

Anyway, I started Dragons of the Highlord Skies, so I guess I can wait until I get a chance to exchange the book.

Dungeons & Dragons in a box

I was looking through our shed the other week, and I came across my boxes containing all my D&D. Since it has been far too long since I last leafed through my old modules and core books, I promptly brought one of the boxes into the house.

  True to my geeky self, I had to take a couple of photos of my collection for the blog. The pictures do not give the collection the justice it deserves, but since I have not had the time to unpack the whole thing yet, it will a while longer before I can take some real photos.

Resurrection?

Well, it has come as no surprise that this blog has been neglected for quite some time now. I started a major redesign project a couple of weeks ago, but since then I have not really found the energy to actually do something about it.

Since this blog is a nice little side project for me, I am reluctant to shut it down or just let it die a slow and painful death, so here I am, back again with nothing to write about.

That last sentence wasn’t exactly right. For the first in about seven years, I have actually come up with a couple of adventure ideas, that I plan on writing down one of these days. True to tradition, I will publish my writings on the blog, and hopefully get some feedback, or at the very least inspire somebody out there to pick up the ideas and run a good old fashion game.

I am not sure when I will actually get to post anything, but hopefully it won’t take me too long.

On a totally different note, I have been so unfortunate, that my registrar has turned out to be somewhat of a scammer, so I expect my domain to die in the near future. For the time being everything is up and running, but I have no access to domains, so one day it just might be gone all together.

Adventure hook

I was looking through some of my old files, and I found a document I started back in the day with various adventure hooks. See, I used to keep a notebook with me at all times so I could write down ideas for my campaigns. It kept me from going insane many a time. Too bad I can’t do the same thing in current job. Maybe I should start blogging at work?

Anyway, screw my lousy job, here’s the first adventure hook from my old notebook.

The Minotaur Revolt

The ogres are known for their use of slave labor. Among the numerous slaves kept in Daltigoth, a group of minotaurs, who has been taken prisoners and are currently working the mines or building new houses for the ogres. These minotaurs are yearning for freedom, and would gladly join the impending slaughter of the ogres. A powerful group of adventures might succeed in penetrating Daltigoth and free the slaves. However, due to the cultural differences it might prove more than difficult to integrate the minotaurs into the invading army. If the player characters convince the slaves that they are people of honor, the slaves will fight in the war. Given the intimate knowledge of Daltigoth they have, the slaves are valuable allies and it is believed that the leader of the minotaurs will be rewarded with a seat on the ruling council of the oligarchs.

I intended to run these adventure hooks as little interludes in a much grander campaign “The Wizard’s War”. The party was involved in a huge attack on the city of Daltigoth, and the plan was to let that be the overall theme, however, in order to let the players get a little R&R I would let them stray from the main campaign once in a while.

Alas, it never came to pass…

Icingdeath

I created this sword maybe 12 years ago for a minotaur PC, who was a member of the party for which I was DMing. The party was around level 10 (2nd edition rules), and travelled beyond the world of Krynn.

This party was basically a bunch of good guys, who fought evil with remarkable savagery. I decided to use the Ravenloft setting, so I added the Domain of Dread to my own Dragonlance setting. The wizard in the party was a Red Robe with few scruples, which made him susceptible to the influence of the dark powers of Ravenloft.

I needed a character who could pull the party in the direction of good, and as it turned out, the player, who played the minotaur agreed to provide this counterbalance. In order to empower him, and send him on a epic quest, I created the sword Icingdeath.

I stole the name from Forgotten Realms, as it is the name of a white dragon killed by Drizzt Do’Urden. I include the only write up of the sword I could find on laptop. I seem to remember there was a richer back story to the weapon, but unfortunately I cannot find it. I haven’t updated the weapon to 3rd or 4th edition rules either. I don’t have the 4th edition rules, and since my gaming days are long gone, I didn’t see any reason for me to update to 3.5 either.

I hope somebody will find this interesting and maybe update the stats. I’d be more than happy to post the stats on the blog, so if feel free to email me should you decide to update my sword. Email me at dragonlance (at) gigaboot (dot) dk

Icingdeath

Used by: Fighters, The white minotaur.

Description: This sword looks like a normal clabbard, except it glows with a faint white light when drawn.

Powers: Being a Frost Brand Icingdeath has the following natual powers:

• +3 bonus to hit and damage.
• +6 vs. fire using/dwelling creatures.
• Wielder is protected as if he wore a ring of fire resistance:
• Immune to normal fires (torches, flaming oil, bonfires, etc.)
• Large fires, molten lavas, wall of fires, etc. causes 10 hit points of damage each round the wielder is directly in it.
• +4 bonus to saving throws vs. red dragon breath weapon and magical fire.
• Damage rolls are calculated by -2.

Secrets: Icingdeath is an intelligent sword and has the following additional powers:

• Primary abilities: Detect fire using/dwelling creatures
• Locate fire using/dwelling creatures
• Extraordinary powers: Cone of cold 1/day (10d4)
• Blizzard 1/day blinds opponent

Special purpose: Slay fire using/dwelling creatures

• Special purpose power: Paralysis 1d4 rounds save to negate
• Intelligence:14
• Communication: Speech (telepathy)
• Number of languages: 2, Common, Minotaur
• Weapon ego: 21

Defenses: Icingdeath chooses its own user and thus does not permit any lesser fighter to wield it. The unfortunate one is subject to a cold shock doing 2d12 points of damage.

Vanity URL – new blog home

I recently purchased a new domain for my non Dragonlance related blogging pleasure. Since I already own a domain, which I use for testing purposes, and generally goofing around, I decided to reconfigure my DNS settings, so my gaming blog now is hosted on www.gigaboot.dk

I also configured Gmail for my domain, just for the fun of it. Hopefully this means I will start blogging a little bit more now.

Adventure hook: Ravenloft in Dragonlance

So, this is not exactly an adventure hook, but rather a little story about how we included Ravenloft in our Dragonlance setting back in the good old days. Hopefully, somebody can find some inspiration from this post, or at least be a little entertained.

The whole story started with the Tower of High Sorcery of Istar. In our campaign the tower was transported to the demi plane of dread, Ravenloft, shortly before the Cataclysm struck Istar. My DM got the story hook from one of the Dragonlance comic books.

My black robed wizard found out that the tower wasn’t destroyed in Cataclysm, and after many dangerous adventures, he was able to locate it in Ravenloft. Hen entered the tower, and basically had to pass his Test of High Sorcery again. Long story short, he passed the Test and became the Master of the Tower.

The Tower still included the original portal to the Abyss, but since the Tower was located on a different plane, and since there was no white robed cleric around, the Portal opened up in Scull Cap back on Krynn. This little nifty trick allowed us to run a campaign that spanned across the Dragonlance and the Ravenloft setting.

Shortly after I more-or-less retired my character since he had attained level 23 or something like that. The character was used as a high level NPC, who could help the party travel between planes.

My Library

Now that I am done with Dragons of the Hourglass Mage, I have stated reading The Legend of Huma for the umpteenth time. It is by far one of my favorite Dragonlance books, and it seems like a good choice to “come down” from the high of Hourglass Mage.

As I was looking through my book collection, I happend to find our charger for the digital camera, and I took some pictures of my bookshelves. I always enjoyed seeing other peoples stash, which I know is terribly dorky but what can you do?

The pictures are not really that good, because I can’t really fit the whole thing into one frame due to limited space in our home office. I will try to make a Photosynth at some point, but for now this is all I’ve got.

 

View Full Album