HeroClix - Pictures Of My Collection

I collected a lot of HeroClix early on, but I only played it a couple of times.  And the few games I played, we only used the simple version of the rules.  Still, I like having them.  Maybe I'll use them as minis if I get in a "Mutants and Masterminds" campaign.

In getting them back out to photograph, my biggest issue was that I hadn't stored them very well.  Pouring out the box, I was horrified at the huge mass of plastic, immediately worried about how many might be broken.  Almost anything that had a base was now off the base, and matching them back up again was very time-consuming.  A few will have to be glued back together, which lowers their value, but I don't collect these as an investment anyway.

Catwoman and Tigra were locked together in a rather scandalous union, and I nearly broke them prying them apart.  But the funniest thing I saw was when I found the base for the Invisible Woman, without the mini attached.  My first thought was, "That's an easy way to design a mini."  I should market an entire line of invisible miniatures.

In the pics, I tried to group them by affiliation.  But honestly, I'm not as big a comic book geek as I thought I was.  I have no idea who some of these people are, especially for the independent properties.  Heck, even my first love, DC, has a lot of heroes that were too obscure for me to identify right away.  It was difficult matching up the bases for these unknown heroes.  I tried using process of elimination, but come on...  "Jesse Quick"?  Using unisex names isn't even playing fair.  I had to resort to Google Image Search a lot.

My collection isn't as complete as I'd like, but I'm not going to start collecting them again.  The only ones that really bug me are the ones that don't make sense without others.  I have Bullseye and Elektra, but no Daredevil.  I have a Dagger but no Cloak.  I have a Loki but no Thor.  I have a Dove with no Hawk.  I have a really nice deluxe Sinestro, and yet I don't have a single Green Lantern.  How do I not have a Green Lantern?

Another random observation:  Batman has more villains than God.  No wonder he's always so pissed off.  Why don't some of these baddies move a few hundred miles away?  I mean, surely it can't be that hard to find a town where there's not a guy dressed like an animal patrolling the streets.

Anyway, that's all I have to say about that.  Here's the pics.  Click the pictures for larger versions.

DC

Batman and Friends

Batgirl

Catwoman

Two-Face, Joker, and Harley Quinn

Four Jokers beats pretty much any hand.

Penguin

Batman Villains

Various DC Characters

Lobo and Etrigan

Swamp Thing

Negative Woman

Blue Beetle, Black Canary, and Green Arrow - How colorful!

Ice hails a cab while Fire floats nearby.

JLA's Plastic People

JLA's Hawk People

JLA Villains

Sinestro

Superman and Supergirl

Superman Villains

Some Teen Titans

Marvel

Hulk and the Avengers

Iron Man and War Machine

Black Widow with some S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents

Hawkeye

Fantastic Four... like, 10 of 'em.

Hydra

Blade

Bullseye and Elektra

Loki

Sentinel

Skrulls

Spider-Man and his Not Totally Unremarkable Friends

Spidey Villains

X-Men

Wolvie Vs Sabertooth

Mystique

X-Men and Sentinel

Miscellaneous

Random Cops

Random Crooks

I have no idea who the frack these people are.

Independent Comics

Witchblade and Danger Girl Characters

2000 AD

HorrorClix - Pictures Of My Collection

I've yet to play HorrorClix, and I didn't collect nearly as many of them as I did HeroClix.  Click the pictures to see larger versions.

Various Monsters

Circus Freaks

Demons

Ghosts

Misc

Misc

Misc

Science Gone Wrong

Undead

Undead

Undead

Uniques

Headless Horseman

Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde

Rasputin the Mad Monk

Jack the Ripper

Giant Spider

Vampires

Vampires Vs Slayers

Werewolves

Aliens Vs Predator

I'm a big fan of the Aliens movies, so I was very happy that they made HorrorClix versions of the characters.

Freddy Vs Jason

Castles & Crusades and Central Casting: Heroes of Legend

Game Date: 2/4/2012
Players: Rusty (DM), Chere, Cliff, Greg, and Matt

Instead of our normal game, we gave "Castles and Crusades" a try.  Similar to that "Dungeon Crawl Classics" game we tried last year, Castles and Crusades is a relatively modern attempt to recapture the mechanics of some of the older editions of D&D.  (I keep confusing the name with "Crossbows and Catapults", a game that involves using toy catapults to toss checkers at your friend's plastic castle.)

For character creation, we used a generic background system called "Central Casting: Heroes of Legend".   The backgrounds are based on die rolls, but these backstories are many layers deep and require a lot of rolling.  Various rolls determine all kinds of things about your history.  After about forty die rolls we determined that my character was of moderate social status, was orphaned in the forest, became devoted to an Earth-goddess, was conscripted into the heavy infantry to fight a holy war, deserted his fellow soldiers, later served a lord who turned out to be his long-lost father's arch enemy, lost his house when his father burned it down, became good friends with a lawyer who was a former foe, learned to wield an exotic weapon, and is a skilled mountain climber.  And mine wasn't even one of the more interesting ones.  Some of the other players lost limbs, developed allergies, adopted pets, inherited fortunes, obtained magic items, and were the subjects of dark prophecies.  Some of these details affected actual in-game mechanics, like stat bonuses or starting money.  Other details were just for flavor.

Rolling up these backgrounds was time-consuming, but I enjoyed it more than the actual game.  Heck, it was practically a game in itself.  It's really neat to see how seemingly unconnected facts about your childhood can be connected to later details, creating a complete picture that actually flows.  On the other hand, it said my character joined the army at the age of two, so it doesn't always make perfect sense.  But much like reading Tarot cards, a lot of the elements are open to interpretation in order to make them fit together.

Once we all had nice long complicated backgrounds, we started playing Castles & Crusades. Mechanically, the system's biggest claim to fame is the "Primes" system.  Instead of having skills, you generally just roll ability score checks.  Two or three of your stats are considered "Prime Stats".  These stats are equivalent to trained skills.  But instead of giving you a bonus to the roll, it lowers the DC of the skill check.  For example, let's say you're trying to break down a door, so you roll a Strength check.  If Strength is one of your Prime Stats, then the DC is 12.  If not, the DC is 18.  It's an interesting concept, but I don't really see it as "better".  It's just a different way of doing things.

While I had a good time playing (as I usually do), nothing really stood out that made me think it was superior to any other system.  Again, like Dungeon Crawl Classics, C&C picks what its authors considers the best elements of earlier RPGs, while trying to keep everything as simple as possible.  But like I said in the DCC post, the game is designed to appeal to nostalgia I don't actually possess.  I didn't play much of the D&D editions this game is trying to emulate, so it doesn't evoke all the warm fuzzy puppy-hugging feelings that it does for some of the other players.

It would be unfair of me to really judge the game yet, though.  I've only played one session, and our characters were level 0.  We don't even have classes yet.   I can't really say if I like it or not until I see what an actual class is like.  I will be happy to play more of it next time it's on the schedule.  Of course, if it becomes a long-term campaign, I hope I can switch to a different character.  Mine's just not "me".  I'll play any character for a one-shot, but I have to like my character if it's going to be worth leaving the house every week.

Session Details:
Story-wise, our characters started out as captives on a slave ship.  There was a bad storm, which took care of most of our captors, and the ship ran aground on an island.  After exploring a bit of the island, we rescued a crazy old man from some Orcs and Goblins.  The man led us to a temple, where we learned that the goddess Tymora planned to destroy the island soon.  We knew that the old man's late master had been buried with a boat, so our goal was to get to that boat before Tymora unleashed her fury.  A few battles later, we were almost to the catacombs where the boat is entombed, when we ran out of time and ended the session.  We might pick it up from there next time our regular campaign is cancelled.

The Bottom Line:

Central Casting is a fun way to randomly give your characters deep and interesting backgrounds.  Most of the time I'd still prefer to write a character's background myself, but for the right game it's a lot of fun to make one at random like this.  I highly recommend it if your group is looking for some variety. 

Castles & Crusades is a simple RPG for those nostalgic for older systems.  I really don't have the data yet to tell if I like it, but I do know that it wasn't designed with people like me in mind.

Gamma World: Death By Chocolate

Game Date: 1/28/2012
DM: Matt

The Party:
Chewy Sweatyhair (Rick): Empath/Entropic
Jerry Fungi (Bryan): Fungoid/Plastic
Pebble Bushyhead (Misty): Plant/Pyrokinetic

The Module:
This was a special session for Halloween.  Yeah, yeah, it's January, but we had a hard time getting everyone together.  This was a module that I designed.  The gimmick (I always have a gimmick) is that instead of using tokens or minis, it uses pieces of candy to represent the monsters.  Whatever you kill, you get to eat.  I wrote the module using a generic universe, so it was easy to convert it to Gamma World.  For those interested in running it themselves, I've posted the generic version of the module in this blog.  

The Characters:
Per the suggested rules, I had the players roll their characters randomly, from all three sources (the basic Gamma World set, Famine in Far-Go, and Legion of Gold).   Bryan was a Fungoid/Plastic, so he was basically a rubber mushroom.  Misty was a Plant/Pyrokinetic, so she was a burning bush (you know, there's a cream for that).  And Rick was an Empath/Entropic, so while he could feel your pain, he was also often the cause of it.

I packed a bunch of D&D and Star Wars minis so they'd have a variety to choose from.  I had a decent mini for Bryan's Fungoid - a D&D  Myconid Guard.  For Misty, we used a D&D Blackwoods Dryad (I don't seem to have a mini of a flaming plant, sorry).  Since neither of Rick's mutations really affected his appearance much, I told him he could look like whatever he wanted... so he picked Chewbacca.

A typical-looking party... for Gamma World.

The Session:
The first encounter was against a bunch of chocolate-covered zombie minions (Hershey's Kisses) on the factory floor.  At the end of the first round, a large chocolate golem (Reeses Cup) burst out of one of the vats and joined the battle.  They PCs out the minions pretty quickly, after which defeating the golem wasn't that hard.

The second fight was against four Fruit Imps (Starburst) in the break room.  Jerry developed a temporary flight mutation, which he used effectively.  Of course, the enemies could fly as well, so it's not like he could just hang back and blast them from safety, but it still turned out to be a useful ability. 

I ran the third encounter a little different than in the original module.  The storage/shipping room now contained only one monster, a large golem (Reeses Cup).  When he was defeated, he split into three smaller golems (Reeses Minis).  During the battle, Chewy used an Omega Tech item which put all three Lesser Choclans to sleep... and put himself to sleep as well.  This made wrapping up the battle fairly easy, even if it did backfire on Chewy a bit.

In the final battle, I used a large plastic Hershey's Kiss to represent the Demon Boss.  He was joined in battle by two more chocolate zombies and two more lesser golems.  Pebble had acquired an Alpha Mutation which allowed her to fly, and a successful overcharge even let her hover.  So she stayed above the enemies' heads firing ranged attacks at them.  Early in the battle, Chewy tried to overcharge a power and ended up stunning himself.  It was save ends, but he failed to save about seven times in a row, making him miss most of the encounter.  But the boss had problems of his own.  His only ranged attack was an encounter power, and the PCs managed to stay where he couldn't reach them in melee.

Afterthoughts: 
The candy gimmick was a big hit with the players.  I hadn't DMed in a good while, so it was hard getting back into the swing of it.  Sometime around the second encounter it looked like the enemies were doing too much damage against a three-person, level 1 party.  So I nerfed a few of the monsters on the fly, mostly by "forgetting" to use certain powers.

This was my first time running a Gamma World session, and it was a lot of fun.  However, the Alpha Mutations and Omega Tech cards make it a lot harder to predict how combats are going to turn out.  A perfectly balanced encounter can suddenly become a breeze when a player draws the right card, or it can become a nightmare when that same player fails an overcharge attempt.  But that's part of what makes it awesome.

Pictures:

When Chocolate-Covered Zombies Attack

Product shot!

Fruit Imps in the break room

Chewy gets put to sleep by his own Omega Tech

The final boss

Unlikely Heroes: Nightmare Carnival

Game Date: 1/28/2012
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Dalia Lockwood (Matt): Human Ardent
Derp DuDerp (Cliff): Half-Elf Bard
Keyanna (Chere): Half-Elf Sorcerer
Marrick (Greg): Dwarf Knight
Starr (Star): Eladrin Paladin
Teddi & Sid (Ted):  Dwarf Warlock & Homunculus Familiar

The Session:
We continued our enjoyable romp through the carnival.  Various members of the party competed in games like the egg toss, a sack race, a pie-eating contest, and even a maze where we had to take rings from gnomes wearing minotaur masks.  For every game we won, we were given some creepy-looking kewpie dolls.  Sometimes we won them just for participating - they carnival employees seemed quite happy to give these things away.  We gave some of the dolls to the various orphans we'd been entertaining, but we also kept some for ourselves.  These dolls had eyes that would follow us around the room.  We did arcana checks on them, and found that they were magical, but we couldn't discern the full nature of the enchantment.

At one point, Derp entered a tent and met a fortune teller.  She predicted that he would have his throat torn out by the end of the night.  She offered to sell him a magic collar to protect his neck, but he didn't have enough money on him.  He went to get the rest of the party, but they were skeptical.  Teddi entered the same tent to get his own reading, but she was gone.  

After taking a wrong turn in the maze, Dalia got separated from the rest of the party, and wound up outside the fair.  While outside, she saw a light off in the woods, and a friendly fox tried to get her to follow him.  Dalia was afraid to stay too far from the rest of the party, so she paid to re-enter the fair.

It was now dark, and the fairgrounds started the fireworks show.  Some of the party members started to see things differently.  Everything around them was covered by an illusion, and the true fair had a much darker nature.  The fireworks were really leeches falling from the sky, and the gnome employees were really goblins.

Still oblivious to the illusion, Dalia made her way back to the party.  Along the way, she saw someone offering free sleigh rides to children.  She finally met up with the party near the pie-eating tent, and everyone exchanged information.  Things were getting worse - Starr's face was starting to resemble that of a kewpie doll.  Immediately we started to get rid of our kewpie dolls.  There was a furnace nearby at the tent, but as we tried to burn the dolls we were accosted by a large pig-man.  We fought the pig-man (a fey creature called a Swineomancer) and some lumberjacks who now had pig faces (Craven).

We noticed that most of the crowds were not reacting to the fight.  Nor did they notice the strange changes to the fair.  After we beat the Swineomancer and burned the dolls, we also destroyed their meat-pie machine so they couldn't feed their evil food to any more carnival-goers. We headed back towards where Dalia had seen the sleigh.  We saw more nightmarish imagery - the ticket booth had the faces of fair-goers nailed to it, the lollypops they were handing out were really eyeballs on a stick, the fair tickets were really skinned fingers and tongues, Teddi and Dalia started to develop a case of kewpie-face... and yet most fair-goers couldn't see the world for what it really was.  Even we could see things either way depending on how we focused. 

The sleigh pulled up again, and the driver called for more children to come aboard.  We asked if we could ride.  The driver resisted at first, saying it was just for children, but we talked him into it.  He took us through the fair - we noticed a lot of cries of pain as we passed the mechanical trade show tent - and finally the sleigh left the carnival altogether and headed into the woods.  When it finally stopped, we fought a gaggle of gnomes. 

After the fight, we saw a light in the distance, like the one Dalia had seen earlier.  When it got close, we saw that it was a naked elven woman, who identified herself as the Fey Queen.  We asked if she was responsible for all the terrors we'd seen, but she denied it.  She said that while our foes were fey, they had been corrupted.  She wanted us to go back to the fair and defeat the source of the corruption.  We were to look for a large armored man with a stag-horned helmet, riding a beast... really, we can't miss him.

We prepared to head back to the carnival, and our first destination was to be the mechanical trade show tent.  That's where we ended the session. 

Unlikely Heroes: Freaks & Geeks

Game Date: 1/21/2012
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Dalia Lockwood (Matt): Human Ardent
Derp DuDerp (Cliff): Half-Elf Bard
Keyanna (Chere): Half-Elf Sorcerer
Marrick (Greg): Dwarf Knight
Starr (Star): Eladrin Paladin
Teddi (Ted):  Dwarf Warlock

The Session:
Having left Teddi and Starr behind, the rest of us were on the road when we were stopped by three men riding dire wolves.  The leader introduced himself as Silas Kreed, and told us we would have to pay him to continue on this road.  Marrick responded with an offer that was part deal, part threat.  "We'll give you 10 gold to stand aside, otherwise we will kill at least one of you.  Even if the rest of you manage to defeat us, is it really worth one of you dying when you could get 10 gold instead?"  The bandits replied that they liked their chances, and the battle began.

The bandits rolled badly for the first couple of rounds, so we got an early advantage.  Nevertheless, it was a tough fight.  We faced both mounts and riders, and our party was incomplete. The bandits turned out to be werewolves, and they were hard hitters.  But we concentrated our fire on Silas until he was down, making the rest a little easier.  We used up all our healing powers and a few Dailies, but we survived.

After this, we decided that splitting the party had been a bad idea.  We turned around, picked up Teddi and Starr, and continued the trek.  In the town of Olfden, we bought horses, making our trip to Falcon's Hollow a bit faster.  Along the way, a few well-rolled heal checks cured Teddi and Dalia of the Moon Frenzy they'd picked up a couple of sessions ago.

Once we reached Falcon's Hollow, we caught up on local events.  Construction had begun on our tower, but it was slow going due to unseasonably cold weather.  We learned that our employee Ralla's former pimp had been harassing her.  Derp met with the sheriff and asked him about Silas Kreed and his relationship to Thuldrin Kreed; it turns out there were rumors that Thuldrin had a brother.  We learned that the mysterious murders (the ones that prompted us to get Jevra out of town) were still happening.  Also, Marrick tried on his ancestral armor for the first time, and heard the voices of his ancestors whispering in his ear.

The next morning it was snowing.  It was unusually early in the year for snowfall, but the town made the most of it and scheduled an ice carnival.  It sounded like fun (or a plot hook), so we all bought tickets.  We also paid the way in for some of the poor children who were begging nearby.  Once we were inside, we split up.  Dalia and Derp went to see the freakshow.  Marrick and Keyanna headed for the ale tent.  Teddi and Starr headed for what appeared to be a large windmill.

At the drinking tent, Marrick set out to sample every possible flavor of ale.  He drank a huge amount of liquor, while Keyanna quaffed more conservatively.  After a while, a drunk lumberjack bumped into Marrick and started insulting him.  It looked like a fight was inevitable until Keyanna calmed them down.

The windmill turned out to be the site of a large spin-the-wheel game.  The barker tried to get Teddi to play, telling him to "Come spin the wheel and prove your strength!"  But Marrick wouldn't bite.  Meanwhile, a man asked Starr to watch his son Justin, and show him a good time at the fair.  Being new to the party, she didn't recognize the man as Thuldrin Kreed.  However, Marrick could see them from the ale tent, and went over to let them know.

At the freakshow, Dalia and Derp saw a tap-dancing dog-faced girl.  Then they saw a fetus-like creature floating in a jar of yellow liquid.  The creature was alive and alert.  They also saw the "Man of 1000 Stiches" (a guy with a lot of battle scars), and "The Human Fish" (a guy who could breathe underwater). 

Teddi and Starr took Justin to the freakshow.  When they saw the fetus creature, Teddi broke the jar and grabbed the creature. He tried to simply walk away, but he was blocked off in all directions.  He headed backstage with his liberated friend.  Starr, Derp, and Dalia followed.

Meanwhile, Marrick and Keyanna checked out a noisy tent that turned out to be the Lumber Consortium's technology trade show.  They looked at a lot of mechanical devices used for cutting lumber.  As a Dwarf, Marrick was impressed by the craftsmanship.  While there, he saw a little girl get her dress caught in a machine.  He pulled her free, breaking the machine in the process.  The employees started to protest, but Marrick aced his Diplomacy roll and ended up having a friendly conversation with them.  He continued to talk shop with them while Keyanna took some of the beggar kids ice skating.

Back at the freakshow, Quinn (the carnival owner) demanded an explanation.  We offered to buy the creature's freedom, and with a high diplomacy roll we ended up paying 100 gold.  The freakshow resumed, and the next act was a musical number featuring two Grimlock Pinheads.  Derp pulled out his instrument and accompanied them.  We then saw a lady sword swallower, followed by a guy who got into a glass box filled with snakes and spiders.  The final act was a hunchbacked giant holding a large sack.  He kept asking audience members to look in his sack.  Teddi stuck stuck his hand in, and was bitten by something.  It turned out to be the giant's (really an Ettin) other head.

We started to walk around the carnival a little more and look at the other games, and decided it was a good time to end the session.

Being A Little Too Elf Conscious

Other people will have heated debates about healing surges and defender auras, but I'll probably enjoy the game regardless of the mechanics.  It's the odd little fluffy things that get me into a tizzy.  For example: In 3rd Edition D&D, Elves had a life span of "over 700 years".  In 4th Edition, their life span was shortened to "well over 200 years".  Okay, arguably, 700 years is "well over 200 years", but I don't think that's what they had in mind.  I'm guessing a 300 year old Elf would be considered venerable by 4e standards. 

I'm sure they felt they had some valid reasons for lowering Elven life spans.  For one thing, it takes some of the mystique out of entering a 500-year-old crypt if one of the party members can say, "Yeah, I was here when it was built.  It was nice!"  But what really bugs me is that they don't call attention to it anywhere, at least not that I've found.  I haven't came across an in-universe explanation for why the life spans shortened, it was just, "Here's the new rules.  Elves live to be about 200."  It's almost Orwellian, like they're saying, "Elves have always lived to be 200."

The 4e Forgotten Realms setting takes place about 100 years after 3rd Edition.  So at some point during the last 100 years, something happened (probably Spellplague-related) that cut Elf life spans by more than half.  Exactly how did this play out?  Since Elves used to live 700 years, I'm going to assume the Elf population had an average age of 350 at any given time.  That means well over half the world's Elf population suddenly dropped dead at one point, when their maximum life spans shortened to "over 200".  This is not the sort of event that would have gone by unnoticed.  This pointy-eared holocaust would should made the cover of every history scroll.  But it's not mentioned in the "10 Important Facts about the past 100 Years" section of the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide.

Of course, the life span of my own character isn't a big deal to me.  I've yet to be in a campaign that lasted long enough for aging to be a factor.  But it does matter during character creation.  In 3rd, they said that Elves mature very slowly, and that an Elf doesn't reach adulthood until about 100.  So whenever I would roll up an Elf character, I would generally make them 90-110 years old, just as my Human characters usually start at around 18-22.  But the 4e book says they mature at about the same rate as humans.  I refuse to believe that when the lifespans suddenly changed, that they also suddenly started maturing that much faster.  Reaching adulthood has great significance for people, with rites of passage and other cultural ramifications.  It's hard for me to imagine the Elves just suddenly rewrote that much of their cultural guidebooks when the change happened.  Of course, I'm sure a lot of younger Elves were delighted to learn they can drink vodka now. 

And what if I'm playing in a setting that takes place between 3e and 4e?  We don't know what year this big change took place.  Was it a sudden change, or gradual?  Not that you can "gradually" reduce a race's life span by 500 years, within a 100 year time span.  That doesn't even make sense.  When I'm creating my character's personality, I generally have an emotional age in mind, but I really want to know that race's equivalent before I write the number down on my character sheet.  So if I make an Elf in a campaign that takes place 50 years before 4e, what age do I pick for a young adult?

Anyway, that's the kind of thing that gets under my skin.  Welcome to my psychotic little world.

Unlikely Heroes: Getting Wood at the Inn

Game Date: 1/14/2012
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Dalia Lockwood (Matt): Human Ardent
Derp DuDerp (Cliff): Half-Elf Bard
Keyanna (Chere): Half-Elf Sorcerer
Marrick (Greg): Dwarf Knight
Starr (Star): Eladrin Paladin
Teddi of the Sculpy People (Ted):  Dwarf Warlock

The Session:
First off, check out Ted's homemade mini.  Sweet!

So, last session left off with us finding the second of five Druid items.  We thought about hanging around where we found the most recent artifact, in hopes of ambushing the rival adventuring party.  But with time being an issue and all, we decided to just start looking for the next item.  We followed the clues and wound up at a pond surrounded by high reeds.  We heard a rustling and started to check it out.  A hidden Wizard fired some spells at us.  Luckily he was alone, and the battle lasted less than a round.

After the fight, we heard a voice coming from the water.  The voice identified herself as "Nixanna".  We asked her if she'd seen our rivals.  She said that another group had arrived at the pond recently, but she'd scared them off.  The Wizard we fought was one of them, but Nixanna had bewitched him to be her guardian.  We asked her if she had the next item we were looking for, a vial of Royal Water.  She did, but she wasn't going to give it up for free.  She offered to trade for it, if we had any items that used water-related magic.  It turned out that a ring we'd found last session fit the bill, and we made the trade.  Nixanna then kissed Derp, granting him a boon.

We also asked if she knew where to find the Druid Willowroot, the owner of the items we've been looking for.  She told us about an inn nearby where he sometimes hangs out.  We headed there next.  The "Spirit of the Wood Inn" looked abandoned, and was overgrown with rich plant life.  We began searching inside, where it looked like there had been a large scuffle.  While examining a pile of debris, we were attacked by a Wood Beast.

Meanwhile, Marrick and Keyanna were still outside the inn, where they were attacked by the rival party.  It was a Goblin, a Ranger, and a Cleric.  Marrick nearly killed the Goblin in the first round, while ordering Keyanna to warn the rest of the party inside.  But of course Starr, Derp, Teddi, and Dalia had their own problems with the Wood Beast.

Merrick was overwhelmed, and was quickly brought down by his three opponents.  The indoor fighters weren't doing much better against the Wood Beast.  It was a heavy hitter with high defenses, and it took a lot of work to wear him down.  The fight inside gradually shifted towards the front doors.  While still outside, the rival Ranger started shooting at the Wood Beast as soon as he could see it.  He ordered the Cleric to assist him, but she was too angry at our party.  Still, it was nice to know that not all our enemies were on the same side.

Eventually the battle completely moved outside.  As soon as Dalia saw that Marrick was down, she healed him so he could rejoin the fray.  After the Wood Beast finally went down, the two parties continued to fight each other.  The Ranger was the last one standing.  We gave him a half-hearted chance to surrender, knowing he wouldn't take it, and we finished him off a few turns later.


From the Goblin's corpse we found a magic wand, one of the Druid items.  Then we searched the inn a bit more.  Teddi found a skeleton with a staff.  He used a "Speak With Dead" scroll to talk to the skeleton, and found out that it was Willowroot.  The staff was the final item we sought.  After an extended rest, we headed back for the small town where the Historian had sent us on this quest.

The Historian was delighted to see us (and our quest items), and he had the Sheriff clear our charges.  The Historian told us that he would need to study the items for about 6 or 7 weeks, and asked us if we would return the items to Willowroot when he was done.  We didn't bother telling him that Willowroot was dead... why make him worry?  Well, that and we plan to keep the items for ourselves. 

Not wanting to stick around in this crappy town for six weeks, we planned to head back home to check up on things.  We left Teddi and Starr behind, so they could stay close to the Historian.  The rest of us began the long walk back to Falcon's Hollow.  On the way, we were stopped by three men riding Dire Wolves.  The leader introduced himself as Silas Kreed.  He told us that the road ahead was closed, but he would open it for us if the price was right.  We ended the session on this cliffhanger.