Chronicles of the Consortium

The four main characters continue northwards on their journey to the dormant volcano named after Khakun, Lord of the Earth - this is the eastern realms' version of Grome. Destiny reckons that she can placate Grome, because she has enough knowledge to set up a ritual summoning, and Bomilcar quite fancies aligning himself with the earth. Sir Blanque and Marion come along for the ride - all for one, and one for all. Or something like that. This expedition is producing something for everyone. As they reach the foothills rising towards the Withered Peaks, the group hears a really strange metallic booming sound coming from a valley off to their right (i.e. somewhat eastwards of their intended route). They decide to investigate, and see a huge cloud of scintillating insects congregating around a fixed point in the distance. Cresting the hills in front of them, they come across a very large metallic statue of a man in the lotus position; the noises are emanating from there. It sounds as ...

Reading around the various blogs I can find, it turns out that there are some seriously fun creative people doing all sorts of good things out there. They seem mostly to have started with what might be called the OSR, but actually a much better group name has been suggested by the artists and writer  Zak Smith among others - DIY RPG. Mostly, these are independent designers who start with D&D and then work their way outwards from there, and Zak is one of the most inventive of the bunch. He and his gaming group took a massive amount of internet flak over several years, for no reason that I can understand, and that seems petty and vindictive to me. The post I am making now isn't only a way to support what he has been doing, but also to bring his work to the attention of anyone who might be reading this blog of mine. My main intention has been to use this as a way of cataloguing my play sessions for myself, and anyone else who likes reading it can see what we are doing. However,...

Bomilcar, Destiny, Sir Blanque and Marion travel northwards to the capital of Anakhazan, leaving the rest of the expedition behind at the great library of Maidahk. The characters are beginning to see quite a bit of the formerly unknown eastern realms now; Anakhazan is the most northerly of the major central power bloc, the Valederian Directorates. They are coming in this direction because Destiny wants to find out more about the so-called 'Gardens of Ynn', the entrance to which is supposedly in the capital city. Bomilcar wants to go even further north than this, to the volcano named Khakun after an avatar of Grome, the Elemental Lord of the Earth. One thing they have realised is that every time Marion has gathered a piece of the Runestaff, her olive skin has darkened. It's just a little each time, but it has been so imperceptible to begin with that they have only now just consciously noticed it. Marion hadn't really spotted it herself - it just seems so natural to her. ...

The latest session was all about roleplaying, mostly in the form of socialising with spirits. No, not that kind, the players are all too young. Anyway, I've been using Lawrence Whitaker's map of the unknown kingdoms of the East: The characters have a copy of this map, courtesy of the possessions of a now deceased loony messiah person who turned out not to be approaching godhood after all. He died horribly. This was published for Elric! and so postdates 1st edition Stormbringer by many years. The inked blob to the left as you look at it covers a notation for 'The Sighing Desert', but since I'm using the original Young Kingdoms maps, that doesn't make any sense - it should be the Weeping Waste. The Sighing Desert is much further to the north on my earlier maps, on the other side of a mountain range. In order to make the area seem alien to the player characters, I have incorporated elements of  Yoon-Suin, and the players are really enjoying rolling for e...

I have a confession to make: I missed the Old School Renaissance or Revival or whatever entirely. This is because I stopped roleplaying for more than twenty years, concentrating instead on ancients figure wargaming, with some Napoleonics thrown in for good measure. It just slotted better into that period of my life. However, now that I have started RPGs again courtesy of my kids, I am taking advantage of the fact that in the meantime this internet thing has happened. The other thing that has happened is the OSR, which mostly seems to be a kind of play (and associated aesthetic, perhaps?) that tries to return to the roots of roleplaying - mad, bad and dangerous to know. And deadly. Very deadly. I don't play D&D in any of its manifestations, having lost interest around 1980, but I did get right into Chaosium's BRP-related systems when they first came out. I went through an intensive period from around 1983-1990 playing Stormbringer , Hawkmoon  and Call of Cthulhu. Not Runeq...

The latest episode sees the characters take the boar shield of the Scaled People Tribe to its intended recipients in the Valederian Directorates. Marion's growing pieces of the Runestaff have been going crazy, pointing incessantly towards a location in the centre of town. While Avan Astran leads the diplomatic and trade negotiations, she heads off to investigate, along with Sir Blanque and Destiny. They arrive outside a large fest hall named after the fabled Cockatrice, a creature said to turn anyone it touches to stone, with two imposing doormen standing at the entrance. Marion is befriended by an extremely large hound with an off-yellow shade to its shaggy coat. It sits outside waiting for her while she goes in; it doesn't seem to like at least one of the bouncers. The hall is built around an open air courtyard that contains a large cage containing four actual cockatrices; a very lifelike statue of a man dressed as a merchant stands next to the cage, with one finger poking ...