Back from Garycon VI

Which was, as usual, a blast.

I got to play chainmail for the first time in maybe ever (I honestly don't recall). It was a lot of fun, and interesting to see how the mechanics are so different today in many games from their roots. The table were a bit confusing at first, and I don't know that I ever fully grasped the turn sequences, but one of the advantages of playing in the game with several people, and having a referee running it, is that there is always someone to ask. In the end, we (the dwarves) won out over the elves. My captain's valiant run to get the simaril away from the pointy-ears allowed Durin's folk could keep the fabulous jewel. This turned out to be critical in securing the necessary victory points for our side.

I ran a session of my Mutant Future module The Gyre, and the players did well, surviving to the end and finding their way home. In retrospect, an adventure with a bit more action might have been preferable. Of course, the mutant cactus got to slap a brain lasher in the face with poison thorns, so I wouldn't say it was completely action-free.

There were many other games, including a fun one I hadn't played before called WEGS Old Skool that I enjoyed enough to pick up the books for. Michael Curtis ran one of his upcoming DCC RPG adventures for us, in which my dwarf feigned drunkenness while pounding on the kidnappers' door as he bellowed for Tito to come out and take his damned money.

So of course they released the dogs on me.

I missed out on Jim Wampler's Mutant Crawl through Stonehell because the chainmail game ran late. I did stop by to see the group of post-apocalyptic mutants start to draw from a Deck of Many Things, though.

During a six hour Castles & Crusades game run by Steve "Iron GM" Chenault, I managed to steal Dale's coffee and received a goblin patch for it.

As tedious as extended campaign stories can be ("If they weren't there, they don't care."), they do serve to remind us of those moments that keep us in this oddball hobby. It's the little moments that make you cringe or cheer or laugh out loud that are remembered: not the scores, or the XP, or what level you were, but the tales we recall around the metaphorical campfire, like old campaigners telling war stories.

This is why Garycon exists, not only to remember Gary, but to celebrate all the lives that are being well played.

Lives Everlasting

(inspired by the RSA: Reincarnation post)

Lives Everlasting

This is a powerful curse bestowed by the gods or other similarly powerful beings, it is far beyond mortal spell-casting except through the powerful rituals. There is no saving throw. It basically denies the recipient the afterlife by trapping them in a cycle of rebirth. 

If a character subject to the curse dies of old age, they are reborn as an infant of their race with no memories of their previous existence other than a sense of loss and denial that plagues them for their whole lives. If the character dies before his natural span is done, then he is Reincarnated (as per the spell) and his new form is rolled randomly. The reincarnation occurs instantly, preventing any chance of Raise Dead or Resurrection being performed. The soul is bound to the new form irrevocably. When that body dies, the same conditions apply.

Only direct divine intervention can fully counter this curse. A Wish spell or item can break the cycle, but only if used to permanently kill the character. Certain powerful items, such as the Deck of Many Things (i.e. the Skull card. The Void leaves the cursed soul intact, though trapped.) or a Sphere of Annihilation can grant a character release from the curse, but only in the sense that he is destroyed.