Session 95 was run this evening. Greywalker, Oscar, Bastiano, Drake, more mess in Realm 0 and introducing Rite Publishing's Stratospheria too.
Whew... I am now 3 sessions behind on write-up. Attempting to move from one side of Australia to the other with my family plus trying to run the Chosen of the Stair game is just a bit much at the moment.
Grant and Ethan
Grant (left) and Ethan (right), with Macavity the Cat
Tuesday, 18 October 2016
Thursday, 6 October 2016
GM Commentary
Session 94 was run this evening. I'll do my best to get the writeup done in the net week. 
Saturday, 1 October 2016
Session 92 - The Other Warden
GM Observations
- A long time ago, we played an Amber Diceless roleplaying game with ~14 players for about 2 years. It was called the ‘main game’ by those who played it. In one of the sessions I clearly remember an incident where a GM introduces a foot-high fluffy dragon into the game and the First Rank Warfare character promptly shot it with an arrow. The GM was upset, wondering what had prompted such a response. The player answered that he’d just spotted a clumsy plot device and he wasn’t going to be drawn in by something so obvious. I’m sure there was an in-character reason as well, but I don’t really recall.
- The reason for mentioning this is that back in Session 51, Ethan met a mad-old fellow named Oscar who is almost certainly Grant’s mentor/master. I, playing Ethan, could have asked Oscar lots of questions about him but it didn’t seem to be in character to do so, so I just carried on with the plot of rescuing Lucien. So the opportunity for expository was lost.
- David took this in his good-natured stride, but now, 41 sessions later, there will no doubt be consequences for Ethan failing to engage with this fellow at the time. What has happened since?
Part 1 - Exploring
- The others that Ethan is with decide to stay in the inn for a day or so. Bartholomew and Sally have a lot of catching up to do, and both Moses and the Colonel need some time to adjust after their imprisonment. With two days left before Ethan is supposed to meet Abbie, he decides to excuse himself and head back onto the Stair to see what progress he can make before he returns.
- Focusing on which Doors have been opened recently, he identifies a total of seven Doors within a few miles of each other. He decides to pick the nearest Door and steps through.
- On the other side is a slice of modern suburbia. There is a corner store selling petrol and snacks. There are overhead powerlines and cars on the roads. The people are dressed in one-piece garments in a range of different colours. The presence of Stolvir attracts attention - some people stop to stare.
- Ethan takes a deep breath and uses Wayfinding to look for anything different here. There is no Warden present but there are three unusual power sources (sorcerous power). Two are close together. Ethan goes for a walk down leafy streets to find the nearest one. He cloaks himself (and his companions) using his mental invisibility spell. His Wayfinding leads him to a nearby school with large, old buildings. He finds his way to a chemistry building, down into the basement and through a number of locked doors. At last he comes to a room with signs warning of a radiation hazard. He prepares a simple protection spell, asks Macavity and Stolvir to wait, and then steps into the room.
- There are a number of small containers here. One of them contains blueish crystals which store and slowly radiate sorcerous energy. Ethan senses that they are part of something bigger.
Part 2 - Escape Pod
- Three miles back the way he came, Ethan follows his Wayfinding instincts to a shed in a suburban backyard. Again he asks Stolvir to wait but Macavity leaps the fence and Ethan follows. Even though the shed is locked with many padlocks, these are nothing to a Warden of the Stair. Ethan opens them all. Inside there are many tools on the walls and workbench, some of a higher technology level than should exist here.
- Under drop sheets, Ethan finds what can only be described as a small space ship, shaped like an egg on its side. The space ship is clearly too big to fit out of the door. It is made of a silvery metal with no seams. The design looks oddly familiar but Ethan can’t immediately place it. Elsewhere in the shed there is a case and inside is an orb of black energy. Ethan can tell that it contains Umbral energy, but there seems to be barrier surrounding and containing it. Studying the barrier, Ethan can tell that it is not Eidolon, but Wrighting.
- Ethan closes the case and goes back to the ship. He puts his hand on the metal (which feels like a liquid to his touch) and tries to ‘listen’ to the ship. From touching the ship is able to determine that it is a long range armed escape pod, designed to return someone to their home base and capable of cross-dimensional travel. He can tell that this ship has suffered a navigational failure because of an inability to detect certain ‘marker beacons’. Apparently there was a battle, centuries ago - this may have been the cause of the navigational failure but Ethan can’t quite tell.
- Replacing everything as it was, Ethan returns to the Door and heads back onto the Stair.
Part 3 - Further Still
- Over the next day, Ethan goes to five other worlds that the other Warden has accessed. He visits an realm of blue ice, a realm in the middle of a great land war where much of the landscape has been blasted into a moonscape of muddy craters, a forested world where the natives thought that Stolvir was a ‘Great Spirit Wolf’ god, a crystal city where even the slightest noise triggered a symphony of sound, and a world with giant robot machines which creep over the landscape, harvesting crops. In each realm Ethan finds more objects made of the same silvery metal that are both solid but liquid. Each object seems to be part of something bigger. By this time he has figured out where he had seen these objects before - the serpent coiled around Grant’s arm is made from the same materials.
Part 4 - The Mad Warden
- At last, Ethan finds himself in the seventh realm. Stepping from the Door, Ethan finds himself in an outback town. Everything here is covered in a layer of thick red dust. He looks back and finds that he’s just stepped out of a crude wooden ‘dunny’ (toilet). Almost immediately Ethan can sense the presence of another Warden of the Stair.
- There aren’t many buildings here - a fuel station with a diner attached, a motel, a repair garage, a ‘Quick-Mart’ and a few other houses. There is a dust cloud on the horizon and a windmill with large blades slowly turns in the breeze. A single bitumen road runs through the town.
- Ethan heads over to the diner. He feels that this Warden is somehow familiar to him but he can’t place the individual’s identity. Outside the diner are some blocky looking cars with large sturdy tires. All are caked in red dirt. Stepping inside, he notes that there are a handful of patrons scattered across the twenty or so small tables here. The proprietor seems surprised to see him, Stolvir and Macavity as he didn’t see Ethan drive into town. He shows Ethan the menu and he makes a selection.
- By the time Ethan has paid for the food, he has identified the Warden in the place. It is Oscar, last seen on Brairus. Oscar is dressed a little better than last time, but his clothes are still pock-marked, trail worn and overdue for replacement. There are two empty plates on the table but he is eating a huge hamburger from a third plate.
* Image by Francoclun on DeviantART
- Oscar shows no sign of recognising Ethan so Ethan sits down for his meal. A short while later, it arrives. Stolvir whines for some food and the proprietor brings over the largest dog food bowl that he has and fills it from an oversized can. While Stolvir tucks into some overdue dinner, Macavity sits on one of the human chairs and insists that he will not be eating out of a bowl on the floor. Ethan asks the owner for some fish, but the owner responds with a blank look. Macavity is disappointed that this realm has never heard of fish, so he settles for some other meat.
- It is only after Oscar’s fourth meal that he glances over in Ethan’s direction and Ethan gives him a casual wave. Oscar redirects his next order to Ethan’s table and he relocates to join him. While he waits for his next meal, Oscar asks if Ethan ‘found her’? This is not what Ethan was expecting him to say and he is taken aback. Oscar gives a chuckle and says that he’s clearly lost his memory. He tells Ethan that he dragged Ethan out of the library before he could be overrun by the plant-zombies. (GM’s note - a reference to Ethan’s adventures from Sessions 79 to 82) He reiterates that Ethan was looking for a girl and Ethan doesn’t know who Oscar could be referring to.
- Oscar peers at Ethan and chuckles again, saying that he’s clearly been ‘touched by it twice’. (GM’s note - clearly a reference to the Breath of Eden) Oscar grimaces and says that he wishes he’d killed Mowbray when he had the chance. Ethan finishes off his meal and orders another beer.
… and that’s where we left Session 92. We then switch back to Grant for Session 93 and what he got up to next. The two characters will be reunited shortly, and we’re closing in on Session 100.
And yes, I guess I’d better think about a LEGO Oscar character.
- A long time ago, we played an Amber Diceless roleplaying game with ~14 players for about 2 years. It was called the ‘main game’ by those who played it. In one of the sessions I clearly remember an incident where a GM introduces a foot-high fluffy dragon into the game and the First Rank Warfare character promptly shot it with an arrow. The GM was upset, wondering what had prompted such a response. The player answered that he’d just spotted a clumsy plot device and he wasn’t going to be drawn in by something so obvious. I’m sure there was an in-character reason as well, but I don’t really recall.
- The reason for mentioning this is that back in Session 51, Ethan met a mad-old fellow named Oscar who is almost certainly Grant’s mentor/master. I, playing Ethan, could have asked Oscar lots of questions about him but it didn’t seem to be in character to do so, so I just carried on with the plot of rescuing Lucien. So the opportunity for expository was lost.
- David took this in his good-natured stride, but now, 41 sessions later, there will no doubt be consequences for Ethan failing to engage with this fellow at the time. What has happened since?
Part 1 - Exploring
- The others that Ethan is with decide to stay in the inn for a day or so. Bartholomew and Sally have a lot of catching up to do, and both Moses and the Colonel need some time to adjust after their imprisonment. With two days left before Ethan is supposed to meet Abbie, he decides to excuse himself and head back onto the Stair to see what progress he can make before he returns.
- Focusing on which Doors have been opened recently, he identifies a total of seven Doors within a few miles of each other. He decides to pick the nearest Door and steps through.
- On the other side is a slice of modern suburbia. There is a corner store selling petrol and snacks. There are overhead powerlines and cars on the roads. The people are dressed in one-piece garments in a range of different colours. The presence of Stolvir attracts attention - some people stop to stare.
- Ethan takes a deep breath and uses Wayfinding to look for anything different here. There is no Warden present but there are three unusual power sources (sorcerous power). Two are close together. Ethan goes for a walk down leafy streets to find the nearest one. He cloaks himself (and his companions) using his mental invisibility spell. His Wayfinding leads him to a nearby school with large, old buildings. He finds his way to a chemistry building, down into the basement and through a number of locked doors. At last he comes to a room with signs warning of a radiation hazard. He prepares a simple protection spell, asks Macavity and Stolvir to wait, and then steps into the room.
- There are a number of small containers here. One of them contains blueish crystals which store and slowly radiate sorcerous energy. Ethan senses that they are part of something bigger.
Part 2 - Escape Pod
- Three miles back the way he came, Ethan follows his Wayfinding instincts to a shed in a suburban backyard. Again he asks Stolvir to wait but Macavity leaps the fence and Ethan follows. Even though the shed is locked with many padlocks, these are nothing to a Warden of the Stair. Ethan opens them all. Inside there are many tools on the walls and workbench, some of a higher technology level than should exist here.
- Under drop sheets, Ethan finds what can only be described as a small space ship, shaped like an egg on its side. The space ship is clearly too big to fit out of the door. It is made of a silvery metal with no seams. The design looks oddly familiar but Ethan can’t immediately place it. Elsewhere in the shed there is a case and inside is an orb of black energy. Ethan can tell that it contains Umbral energy, but there seems to be barrier surrounding and containing it. Studying the barrier, Ethan can tell that it is not Eidolon, but Wrighting.
- Ethan closes the case and goes back to the ship. He puts his hand on the metal (which feels like a liquid to his touch) and tries to ‘listen’ to the ship. From touching the ship is able to determine that it is a long range armed escape pod, designed to return someone to their home base and capable of cross-dimensional travel. He can tell that this ship has suffered a navigational failure because of an inability to detect certain ‘marker beacons’. Apparently there was a battle, centuries ago - this may have been the cause of the navigational failure but Ethan can’t quite tell.
- Replacing everything as it was, Ethan returns to the Door and heads back onto the Stair.
Part 3 - Further Still
- Over the next day, Ethan goes to five other worlds that the other Warden has accessed. He visits an realm of blue ice, a realm in the middle of a great land war where much of the landscape has been blasted into a moonscape of muddy craters, a forested world where the natives thought that Stolvir was a ‘Great Spirit Wolf’ god, a crystal city where even the slightest noise triggered a symphony of sound, and a world with giant robot machines which creep over the landscape, harvesting crops. In each realm Ethan finds more objects made of the same silvery metal that are both solid but liquid. Each object seems to be part of something bigger. By this time he has figured out where he had seen these objects before - the serpent coiled around Grant’s arm is made from the same materials.
Part 4 - The Mad Warden
- At last, Ethan finds himself in the seventh realm. Stepping from the Door, Ethan finds himself in an outback town. Everything here is covered in a layer of thick red dust. He looks back and finds that he’s just stepped out of a crude wooden ‘dunny’ (toilet). Almost immediately Ethan can sense the presence of another Warden of the Stair.
- There aren’t many buildings here - a fuel station with a diner attached, a motel, a repair garage, a ‘Quick-Mart’ and a few other houses. There is a dust cloud on the horizon and a windmill with large blades slowly turns in the breeze. A single bitumen road runs through the town.
- Ethan heads over to the diner. He feels that this Warden is somehow familiar to him but he can’t place the individual’s identity. Outside the diner are some blocky looking cars with large sturdy tires. All are caked in red dirt. Stepping inside, he notes that there are a handful of patrons scattered across the twenty or so small tables here. The proprietor seems surprised to see him, Stolvir and Macavity as he didn’t see Ethan drive into town. He shows Ethan the menu and he makes a selection.
- By the time Ethan has paid for the food, he has identified the Warden in the place. It is Oscar, last seen on Brairus. Oscar is dressed a little better than last time, but his clothes are still pock-marked, trail worn and overdue for replacement. There are two empty plates on the table but he is eating a huge hamburger from a third plate.
* Image by Francoclun on DeviantART
- Oscar shows no sign of recognising Ethan so Ethan sits down for his meal. A short while later, it arrives. Stolvir whines for some food and the proprietor brings over the largest dog food bowl that he has and fills it from an oversized can. While Stolvir tucks into some overdue dinner, Macavity sits on one of the human chairs and insists that he will not be eating out of a bowl on the floor. Ethan asks the owner for some fish, but the owner responds with a blank look. Macavity is disappointed that this realm has never heard of fish, so he settles for some other meat.
- It is only after Oscar’s fourth meal that he glances over in Ethan’s direction and Ethan gives him a casual wave. Oscar redirects his next order to Ethan’s table and he relocates to join him. While he waits for his next meal, Oscar asks if Ethan ‘found her’? This is not what Ethan was expecting him to say and he is taken aback. Oscar gives a chuckle and says that he’s clearly lost his memory. He tells Ethan that he dragged Ethan out of the library before he could be overrun by the plant-zombies. (GM’s note - a reference to Ethan’s adventures from Sessions 79 to 82) He reiterates that Ethan was looking for a girl and Ethan doesn’t know who Oscar could be referring to.
- Oscar peers at Ethan and chuckles again, saying that he’s clearly been ‘touched by it twice’. (GM’s note - clearly a reference to the Breath of Eden) Oscar grimaces and says that he wishes he’d killed Mowbray when he had the chance. Ethan finishes off his meal and orders another beer.
… and that’s where we left Session 92. We then switch back to Grant for Session 93 and what he got up to next. The two characters will be reunited shortly, and we’re closing in on Session 100.
And yes, I guess I’d better think about a LEGO Oscar character.
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