A Monster And A Squirrel Named Charlie

Under the Drink, the adventurers hear guards from the kitchens above. But the cavern past the snakes looks like a dead end! However, a closer inspection they notice that the rock wall does not look as convincing as it could. Despite the herculean efforts of the two gargoyles, they could just barely get it to budge. The rogue Billy took a look, and with a bit of experimenting they managed to open the secret wall. An obvious lever on the other side rapidly closed the door behind them. Billy, also being a naturalist, easily noticed the two green slimes up ahead, ready to pounce. Unfortunately for the slimes, they cannot eat the thick skin of a gargoyle, who rapidly shredded them.

And a 4 way intersection, they decide to go right, and found what appeared to be a small cell, with a pile of rags. In the space around it was a saber, hammer, and a well-used set of chainmail. While Billy decided to see if the chainmail would fit, Thade, our Elf vampire, decided to see if anyone was in the cell.

"Oy, yah, there be me in this cell. Me being Olly. And whatcha doing in me armor?" I grabbed a semi-random card from the set of characters we had from the Kickstarter. I had the prisoner in case my friend's son decided to come along and play and we would stick his character there. He did not, so now they have a meat shield, err, NPC companion. 

The gargoyles, Tecton and Argon, let the disheveled man from the cell, giving him back his rapier and hammer with the assurance that he would help them out. Of course, they do not trust him as he did mention he had crossed Derig Goldensunder, the dwarf proprietor of the Drink that they had just killed. 

Looking back at Billy in his chainmail, Olly takes the lead, and the cross to the other side of the intersection. Argon and Tecton batter down the door, and there they find what looks to be a small office. A ledger is found with varying amounts of money listed, and a list of names. All crossed off except for Ollie. A giant vault door stands before them, and, digging out a key that Billy looted from Derig, they find it opens the vault. Inside is a pile of gold in the corner. Warily they enter, checking for giant spiders, slimes and whatever may hang from the ceiling. Nothing is there.

Olly pokes at the treasure with his saber, which rapidly reveals itself to be a large mouth with large teeth!

so I have this mimic bed....

A fight ensues, the creature never quite hitting any of the adventurers, and the quickly slay this beast. Seeing bones, they surmised Derig used it to dispose of his enemies. Unknown to our crew, Derig had named it Charlie, and kept it well fed. Charlie was as fond of the dwarf as a mimic can be. Raised him from a mimic pup, he did. 

Finding a few pieces of real gold and silver, they head back. Billy relented and gave Olly back his armor. Which is good as Oly managed to fall into a pit trap in the corridor, but only suffered minor damage to his pride. Getting pulled out, the others  managed to get across without incident. A cool draft was coming from the corridor in front of them.

Opening into a larger room with two columns holding up the ceiling, they decide to investigate what looked to be a library. They find an odd collection of what looked to be romance novels of some sort, but also a scroll of weapon scalding (a magic scroll). There is an upstairs room they visit, complete with a bear skin rug, and a romance novel on the bedside stand. This appears to be where Derig would sometimes live. Being a Dwarf he did prefer being in a proper stone hold rather than some flimsy building above ground. Argom, with his excellent hearing, heard what sounded like the guards coming into the underground complex. Knowing that going forward was the only way, they continued into what turned out to be a frozen room.

Everyone but Thade slipped on the slick ice. That is when they saw the two ice snakes, clear as ice, slither across the ice. The battle was fierce as they had to often fight from the ground, unable to stand up. I really should have read the slippery floor rules, but I ended up making it a 4D against DEX to get up, and 4D against DEX each turn to stay up. And if fighting the snakes from a prone position, 4D instead of 3. But eventually (and much later than I expected!) the snakes were killed.

And that is where we left it: the guards are getting closer though one did fall in the pit trap. Is there an escape ahead or will it be a dead end? Why is there a frozen room under the city? What do ice snakes even eat as there cannot be enough adventurers coming down to feed them? And why was Charlie named Charlie?

I think they had fun, and I got to use a lot of my terrain and things. Of course, with a weekly cadence I need to figure out things faster. And I do have answers for all the above actually:

1. Yes, there is an exit ahead of them. Somewhere. 
2. The frozen room was there because I wanted something different and I had this ice room. In the game world, an ancient ice spell was used in this area in an arcane attack. The spell became permanent. Derig was using it to keep some of his food stores cold. Though it could also be an opening to a frozen plane of existence. There are gates in this world...
3. Ice snakes eat from the stores of food, Derig figured it was nice to have guard snakes.
4. Charlie was the name of my stuffed squirrel from when I was little. I still have it 50+ years later...

Charlie

Murder at the Drink

A vampire Elf, hunting for the one who turned him, and his two companions, a gargoyle wizard and a thuggish gargoyle who cannot speak the common tongue, stayed at Gudeliva's Tavern outside of Edge City. While enjoying some stone soup and pretending to drink some wine, a few boisterous Dwarves showed up. Getting some of her fine ale in their bellies, they start a bit of a ruckus which ends up in a bit of a tussle. After our gargoyles helped clean up the Dwarves, Gudeliva tells her tale: her father died last year and Derig Goldensunder has been wanting to expand his taverns to include hers. She is now thinking her father's sudden death under a horse cart may not have been quite the accident she thought as additional hardships and minor calamites have happened and Derig has been making more offers with hints that it was dangerous for a woman to own a tavern outside the safety of the city walls. She says that Derig keeps his treasure in a cellar at the Drink, Derig Goldensunder's Tavern in Edge City (at the corner of Quarry and the Hole and Corner streets). There is a trap door in the kitchen leading down. She would be obliged if they could find something to implicate Derig in her father's death, but perhaps just taking some of his gold may strike him better.

The next night finds our trio at the tavern at closing time. There are a couple city guards after their shift imbibing as the evening wears on. Then they leave and the tavern master, Derig, tries to get the remaining customers to leave so he can close up. A fight quickly ensues, and death of course happens (and here I was trying to avoid the murder hobo trope!). Our vampire is almost killed but drinks from Derig himself. Interestingly in The Fantasy Trip vampires heal a point every other turn. Makes them a bad enemy and perhaps an overpowered player character. The cook meanwhile, seeing the damage unfolding, escapes out the kitchen door. 

Once in the kitchen, they find the trap door and head down. A small room with a couple chests is at the bottom of the stone stairs. One chest is open and they scoop up some gold. They also hear above that the town guard has arrived at the Drink. Ignoring the second closed chest, they move into the connecting corridor. Of course, there are giant snakes down here (and no, despite appearances, Noodles is not dead, though perhaps his twin is!), and not sure what else (I really need to get better at notes!). And that is where we left things.

the start of a random dungeon 

The two NPCs are from Philip Reed's Fantasy City Sites & Scenes (link in previous post). Though I did make up the secret cellar, and after that, I actually used the big box top to do a random dungeon via dropping a die in there. Of course, now I need to make up more of the dungeon as we play again Sunday morning!

As noted before, Edge city is built on older cities, so we have complete archologies here! and yes, they probably all interlink somehow. In fact, the scene from Gudeliva's Tavern actually has a dungeon behind her tavern in the well! Missed that when reading things.

As part of my living city, there will be wanted posters in the next few days for the gargoyles and the robed man as the cook did see them. And I have started a post about Edge City so will have something on that at some point. Just a severe lack of time coinciding with the desire to write that up. As much as I do like writing!

Maybe the other players will see this wanted poster and we have a party hunting down another player party! Of course, to a non-gargoyle all gargoyles probably look pretty much the same. Or not - we've not really established how the gargoyles look. And Edge City has its share of well-covered people in town. In fact, the other group I am running has this half-Orc/half-Elf who is also tall and well wrapped up. The next wanted poster may look similar to her, and she gets pulled in. But that is a few days away in game time.

And in using the Ank-Morpork book, it is quite overwhelming in its detail. I do have as things near the Drink:

• The Baths in Brown Stairs
• Twilight Caverns which is a rest home for Trolls and Dwarves (this is Discworld)
• One Happy Man on Fat Street
• The Crab And Stars
• The Crown and Hippo
• The Hole and Corner
• The Klatchian's Head
• The Mason's Arms

Of course, it has been a few years since I've read any of these books so it is all very vague. 

To the sewers once more!

I ran my second group through the same sewers. And threw slightly different monsters at them, perhaps a bit too many as they did mention it was like a zoo down there!

Same start as before: they are on the city docks (as I have this big 2x3' dock map and so get to use it!) when they hear a cry "Hey - that rat stole my Keg!" and see the guards chasing this giant rat carrying something in its mouth into the dock warehouse. They get in there and see the guards huddled around the grate in the back office and overhear one say to another: "I ain't going down there! Just a couple days ago, three went down and only two came back!". The other responded with "They don't pay us enough for going down there!"

One of the new adventurers, an Elf, tries to sweet talk a guard into paying them to go down there to rescue this keg. The keg's owner bustles in and offers a gold apiece to "recover my Keg." The characters of course do not hear the uppercase K, not knowing it is an enchanted keg named, well, Keg.

Keg, the keg

Declining the guards offer of a drink and a meal after they get back, the elf Dawn manages to get a few silvers from the guard for the return of this keg. The Elf, the heavily covered half-Elf half-Orc wizard. the reptile man from the Abasscar Islands, and the halfling head down the grate's stone stairs to the sewers of Edge City.

The player created this map of Hexis' home islands

Of course, there are the ever-present slimes. One missed and fell into the sewer: water and slimes do not mix so it could hardly hold itself together as it floated out to the river. The other also missed but landed next to (and no notes, so not sure who it landed next to!). Needless to say, Diemos, the magic user, tried to shove it into the water with his spear. Unfortunately, it is like pushing a 50-pound mound of jello with a stick - it was not too productive. Deciding that as it was very slow, they could just leave it, they did. Hexis, our reptile man, being a strong swimmer and the sewer water not being too nasty hear, walked and swam next to the group until he got attacked by a river leech! It seemed to be a quick battle and they killed it without much ado. And mentioned there were certainly a lot of creatures living in these sewers!

mostly painted river leeches. at least for this game!

Coming up on the corner, the stench was overpowering. And as none could fly in this group, a good roll and Hexis found an old bench that now served as a bridge for Dawn the archer Elf. Deimos the half Orc/half-Elf magic user and Violet, the "farmer" with some amazing skills (aka rogue) get across without any issue. They all missed the rat's wet footprints (no one made the roll) and flipping a coin, went to the larger cavern. They too saw the chest, and Hexis swam out to it when the giant toad came out and attacked the others! Swimming back, he managed in the next turn to jump on its back and stab it with his steely blade, but still could not kill the beast. Between that and the adventurers in front, the frog was killed without any damage to anyone, and they sawed off its legs as frog legs make for good eating! And the rest of the carcass was eventually eaten by the river leeches. Getting back to the cruft of debris in the corner, they recover a small chest with a bit of treasure and a map to a temple a few days west of the city. 

Heading back, not yet recovering the rat or missing keg, the head into the other chambers. Seeing a blunderbuss on the floor was an odd find, and looking up, they did see the giant spider, and next to it, a goblin-sized roll of web. The spider attacked, but our new crew managed to kill that beast without anyone getting bit or dying from the poison. In fact, they took the poison gland as it will allow them to dip a weapon in it and if they hit, have the same effect: roll 3 dice against STR, and failing that, take another 2d of damage!

Continuing on, they come to the chamber with the open casket. They find a scroll of the Dancing Shield which may prove useful, some silly books, and Hexis, who has lived in the city for a few years and has Area Knowledge, recalled seeing the golden gryphon as a symbol for a ruler hundreds of years ago. They also manage to shove the heavy stone casket and find a trap door below that. Deimos detects magic on the sword. Violet, using her "farmer senses" per Hexis, finds the hole the rat went down, and Keg. Realizing that Keg was an enchanted keg of some sort. The whole is too small for Deimos to fit down, and Dawn may have an issue as well. Then a discussion came out that perhaps Keg did not want to be a servant or was even a slave. While slavery is technically illegal in Edge City, there are some borderline cases where indentured is pretty darn close to being a slave. On the way out, the magic user casts an illusion spell over the entrance to those other chambers to keep others out. As they want to go back for that sword

They return to the surface and that is where we left that game. I think everyone had a pretty good time - it was later than we thought so we wrapped things up there. We'll start when they pop their heads back up through the grate in the warehouse in a month.

I also ran another game this morning for my other group - we're currently meeting in a weekly cadence. I'll have that summary in the next post or two. But they are in a random dungeon I started as I had no plans really. I based the 1st part from Philip Reeds Fantasy Cities Sites and Scenes and then the 2nd part from another of that series. adding a secret hatch in the kitchen of the pub. But that's a tale for another post!

This game is going to the sewers

I've started running not one but two Fantasy Trip game. One that takes once a month with the mostly-Monday group, and the other is Nate and a nephew. As both groups wanted to move to a more urban setting, it is back to Edge City, my Ank-Morpok analog (well, I have the maps and may as well use them!). 

Of course, the first run through with the new group saw a 50% party kill. Which served, I hope, to point out just how deadly OSE types of games are. On the bright side, one of the two characters was technically my own, though one of the players was going to play him when we got together. He could not make that first session, and as the game needed 4 characters, I played Bruk the barbarian. Who was killed by a skeleton.

The game this weekend actually finished the set piece but did take a fair amount of time to get started. Both players brought character and none of them were legal 32-point characters. I did end up allowing for 33 points but there was some major character renovation going on. For one player, this was his first time playing The Fantasy Trip, and was use to D&D 5e. I think old-school rules and not being able to do everything and be basically a superhero at level 1 was throwing him off (and yes, I may be throwing shade at 5e but I really don't like that version). 

The players had just docked at a river dock, when they hear a scream and see a very large rat carrying something off into a warehouse. Following the guards, the just catch the end of the rat tail disappearing into an office in the back corner, being chased by the 4 dock guards. We have a human rogue type of character, a goblin artificer carrying a blunderbuss, and a gargoyle who cannot speak common. The goblin has been his translator. Still not sure why some players want to carry a gun in a fantasy game; in TFT you fire once and yes, it can do a fair amount of damage but takes 12 rounds to reload, gunpowder is expensive and hard to come by, and it can literally blow up in your face. And honestly, really not sure how a short goblin carries a blunderbuss. But carry on!

The guards are around an open grate in the floor that leads to the sewers. "I'm not going down there!" one says. "They don't pay us enough for that!" says another. The sergeant looks over at the newly arrived adventurers, and asks why they are in Edge City. "Adventure and gold" seems to be the common answer. 

"For a gold piece each, if you can track down that rat and bring back what it had." With a yes, our trio heads to the sewers down the stone stairs. 

setting up the game

No, not all these rats were involved

First encounter - they live!

I finally got around to using my Lasers & Dungeons sewer set. Though it is not set up in a particularly logical manner in hindsight. I may re-arrange it for the next foray. I also used another room set for a min-dungeon off of the sewers. Just as with the Discworld series, Edge City has been built on the bones of other cities and so has a fairly vast subterranean ecology. 

One of the characters actually has Naturalist, so caught sight of the slimes before they (slowly) attacked. The gargoyle has an halberd and used it most effectively - he actually got double damage and killed the first slime quickly. Our naturalist lost two arrows missing both shots. The second slime was more difficult to kill, but eventually it too splashed into the water. Which also splashed on the goblin who was none too pleased to have sewer water on him!

Moving up there was a T intersection, and seeing as the left went nowhere, moved to the right. A pipe was flooding the sewers with more effluvia, increasing the stench a great deal. Getting over that, there was a sewer entrance to their left, bit a glint of something shiny in the other area caught their eye. Off in the corner, there appeared to be a debris pile caught up in the current. Having a flying gargoyle really helped: he flew over, made a good landing, and found a small chest with some gold a jewel in the pile. On his way back, the goblin was attacked by a giant sewer frog! The gargoyle's pole attack helped, and the naturalist got one shot off but missed due to the surprise nature. A quick battle ensued, and the giant frog was killed. 

Moving back to the sewer entrance, they could see a slight shadow and what looked like torchlight a few rooms ahead. There was what seemed like a bridge over actually clear water, which took most of the aroma away. The walls themselves, once they crossed the bridge and went through the archway, were an entirely different style; ornate and well-crafted. 

The next room a giant spider attacks. While our roguish naturalist got away, the spider attacked the goblin and managed a bite! And dealt 4 points of damage. And he failed his strength roll and succumbed to the spider venom! And sadly, he was the only one who spoke Gargoyle! The spider got attacked again but it scuttled away, having gotten a taste and not wanting to die. Raising his torch in a salute to their fallen comrade, the spiderweb get torched but fizzles out pretty quickly as it is also fairly damp in these sewers. 

Passing two tall statues, they come into the room with two torches lit. A barrel is against the wall, a bookcase covers one wall, and there is an open casket with a skeleton holding a sword, a statue behind the casket, and a banner with a golden gryphon behind that. The statue is holding a ruby-pommeled sword. Taking the sword, our remaining adventurers notice that the stone statues are now watching our rogue. The gargoyle leaves the room, but the statues ignore him. Attempting to throw the sword to the gargoyle, the statues catch the sword instead. Grabbing the beer barrel with its odd arms and legs, the rogue gets ready to leave. Running through the door, both statues missed him. They are unable to move, so he made it safe and sound. I had more normal bad rolling here, unlike the spider.

Retracing their steps, they leave. The guards ask where the goblin was and try to pay only 2 pieces of gold. A fairly rapid discussion and they get 3 gold for the return of the beer golem. And then the game ended. 

I think it went pretty well: we did lose one character, and I forgot to give out XP which I'll do now. The gargoyle will get 100 XP for his killing attacks, as well as the player playing in character for both the goblin and the gargoyle. Our rogue the same - though not as effective in a fight, he did spot the ambushes other than the giant frog. And Nate always plays in character well. 

The frog did not get his goblin snack

I also got to use a lot of my stuff which is good. Yes, most of the creature encounters were set up around what I have, just like the original D&D games. And yes, this will be re-run for the next group so I'll leave it up, though I may re-arrange the sewers a bit. And they may find a dead goblin with a blunderbuss in the sewers...Of course, TFT is hex based, but the tiles work well enough though the tiles are square based. I think it did help in setting up how things fit together and the space. What I can't figure out yet is a good way of using all my fake coins, though they did open the little chest I do have and get the gold. Along with an odd stone disk that they do not know what to do with yet (and neither do I but I'll make something fun up for the next outing!)

Too many rules?

I like books a lot. I read them for enjoyment mostly, but also to learn. In the role-playing world, there are a lot of books on rules, how to play, as well as lore, settings and a near infinite number of random tables to generate just about anything. In a discussion I had with my group (a really brief one, so really more of a comment than a discussion) it was mentioned that I don't need to have rules for everything. And honestly, yes, that is true in general. Yet without any rules, we are just playing make-believe without an agreed-upon framework of assumptions. 

I favor consistency in most things. Heck - I write software for a living so consistency is a job requirement: that program had better do the same thing with the same set of inputs as it always does. Idempotency is a thing we strive for in software. And my game worlds also require that self-same consistency. Which is why I do like rules and more tightly structured game mechanics. And just as in software development, there are many frameworks to choose from. In fact we're rewriting some core software and are making a final decision this week after the environment changed: looks like I am going to be back to writing in .NET again!

For Traveller and all its incarnations, there is a consistent definition of a character, a world, or ships. The details may vary a fair amount (see all the fun trying to reconcile LBB 2 Starships with High Guard ships!) but that is really in the mechanical details more than anything. I will admit I have not read Hero Traveller or T20, but I feel the basic characters are probably pretty close. Not entirely interchangeable, but close enough that it would be relatively simple to convert between systems.

The comment came up about crafting and making magic items in the OSE game. OSE has a bare page on magical research and crafting: it will take a week and cost 500 gold for magical items per level of magical item. Double that for researching new spells. I somehow missed that when I was asked about the druid making magical items. We had a brief offline discussion and I decided that yes, he can create things but at 2 levels below his current level. That is, a level 3 druid can only craft level 1 magical tokens. I had not established a timeframe nor cost. The OSE book does give that info. The Fantasy Trip actually has some detailed tables for making magical things in its world. This includes time, specific ingredients and a few other things. And then I remembered I also had the Ultimate Guide To Crafting as a result of their failed miniature campaign. They were very good about that BTW. And within that giant book, there are some really detailed processes for this as well. Though written for 5e (and he mentioned that we are not playing 5e, but just as with pretty much any game or book, you can always pick and choose what works for your world), it is general enough that I feel we can use this as well if he wants. I'll see if he wants to borrow my book and read up on it. My guess is not: most of that group is "yes I read the rules but we're going to do it all differently and just keep this one thing." Though to be fair, they usually stick within the RAW, just ignore chunks of it which is mostly what RPGs do in order to better fit the game the players want.

Anyway - the crux of the question: too many rules? When I run a game, or play in one, I value an internally consistent world. Part of that is my personality, and part of my profession. But the rules are just the starting point: all RPGs have the implied rule 0, the rule of cool. But that only works if there are other rules so that you can't always "win" or succeed in everything you do in a game. It is like art or any creative endeavor: there are some initial rules, but after you learn those, you can draw outside the lines as you now know where those lines are. But for me, you first have to know where those lines are.

So yes, there can be too many rules. Equally, there can be too few rules. And as there are many types of people, there are many types of games running across the gamut of rule complexity. From Robin's Laws, we have the gamut of players that closely correlates with the mechanics. Ranging from the storyteller gamer that has the rules favor the GM in that the "crunchy bits weak, vague or abstract" to the power gamer where the "crunchy bits are powerful and tightly defined". What this means, at least to me, is that the vague rules favor the GM by allowing a lot more interpretation and freedom to do whatever you want in terms of the game. The tightly defined rules mean that the GM has little say in rulings as things are well-defined mechanically. Fate, for instance, seems fairly rules light with a lot of interpretation available to the game master. Traveller 5, on the other hand, has rules for EVERYTHING pretty much (even if not always well explained!). The Fantasy Trip has the combat and magic rules very tightly defined, but the most other rules and mechanics outside of that are well defined but not as complete. They give the GM more wriggle room for some things.

Now, like most GMs. I tend to pick and choose a fair amount when running games. I try to stick to the books and mechanics, but sometimes you have to draw outside the lines for the game to be fun. Something I am still trying to do even if for whatever reason I am not always comfortable with that. My players are - they just want to have fun and not worry overly much about the mechanics. Sadly, I always worry about the mechanics even if they are not aware of that concern (well, if they read this post then they will know!). One of the reasons my Traveller games do not do well: it is a mechanically complex game, and they really don't care about those mechanics as I do. And I think this also goes into our gaming preferences: most of them want to keep trying new games, new rules, new worlds. I want to understand the game mechanics, play games long enough so that I am not constantly worrying about the rules. Even though I consciously know I don't need to worry about them, I cannot help myself. Yes, I have a fair amount of self-awareness (and self-deprecation) but that does not mean I can do anything about sometimes!

To draw some sort of conclusion to this rambling talk: I don't think you can have too many rules. They don't have to all be used but can be useful as an inspiration on how to do things. Which is what I try to do just not too successfully Sadly, while this does work for RPGs, it does NOT work for software development! I keep getting books that I barely read but can use for inspiration and guidance in gaming. Which reminds me that I need to add more books to my library software!

Now if only I could figure out costing better in fantasy games! Of course, typing that out, I realize that the societies portrayed in these games would not have consistent costing. A larger city would probably charge more for the same food as a small inn in the country. Then you start factoring in availability and demand and the costs can be all over the place. I just need a base amount to start with. And then apply rules based on location, season, and...and yes, more rules!

I need to add more books - just found that the ISBN lookup actually works, so I can just type that in and it fills out the data for me. Cool!

And finally - Waffles. One of the games we play took an interesting turn this last weekend. We managed to rescue a Dryad, being pulled in a slave cart by a very tried donkey and guarded by a Grey Man and 6 mooks. We killed them (the Gery Man almost killed us) and freed the Dryad. My character, an Alligator raised by squirrels, named him Waffles. Originally it was a simple riff from Shrek, but then my character and a snake type of character realized we could have Waffles for breakfast. The Minotaur was not happy with that and was protecting Waffles as best he could. Waffles is now part of the party until my character gets hungry. Which is funny as I also really enjoyed playing my vegetarian Centaur who was the party cook. And there was this 'Gatorman who only ate meat. He did not like my barley stew. Slither came from this image and as I thought it was funny...and pretty sure I may have already posted this story. Happens when you get old (I turn 60 this year!)

Character Challange 31 of 31: Maddox Wyrlet, Grav Racer

And I am finishing weakly and late! But finishing so I get a finisher's medal, right? I used to run marathons (and running may be a strong word) but I did finish them. So leaning on the sporting side of things, and I have the Foreven Worlds Careers book so may as well use it as there is an Athlete career in there. 

Initial stats are 748B87 so average strength, clumsy, decent endurance, smart and average education and social standing. Of the three options, I was going to pick electronic sports, such as drones or holo games. But vehicle advancement uses dexterity. Oddly his best chances are in vehicle spots. So off we go into racing, NASCAR better look out!

Term 1

Our rookie starts his training and gets Athletics-0, Carouse-0, Streetwise-0, Drive (Walker-0), Mechanic-0 and Electronics-0. And he must have made some great friends: Pleasure craft - he gets a great deal on a ship. Gain a yacht or two ship shares. Must know people in high places! Of course, a yacht is really, really expensive to maintain! And he just barely survives, only by dint of his intelligence! A close match with death-defying antics. He also makes Rank-1, so no longer a rookie. And picks up Grav-1. 

Term 2

Getting Mechanic-1 so he can work on his own vehicle, he again just barely survives though did not need the intelligence DM. Moving to Rank-2 he gains Electronics-1 so that he can also fix the comms. He also chose to speak up at a rally and was told to just pilot his walker. -1 DM against survival next term!

Term 3

Fortunately, I finally rolled high on the survival, but the ruckus from the previous term seems to have held public opinion against him, as he does not get promoted. However, the reporter covering Maddox Wyrlet falls in love with him, and they get married. He gains Grav Vehicle-2. 

Term 4

Sadly, Maddox, fresh from his honeymoon, threw a race and was caught. Bella promptly divorced our gambler, not knowing he had gambling debts to pay. He does gain Gambling-1 but gets a -1 on all benefits. Yes, I rolled snake eyes on survival. 

Having 5 rolls, he musters out of racing with Cr50,000 (the gambling at least off-set the -1), his grav racer (also known as a speeder) and the walker which he is barely proficient in, and gained a bit of wisdom with a +1 intelligence.

Maddox Wyrlet 748C87 age 34, ex-Grav Racer

Grav vehicle-2, Electronic-1, Mechanical-1, Gambling-1, Athletics-0, Carouse-0, Streetwise-0.

While he started in construction and knows how to pilot the walker he has, Maddox was drawn to the race circuit for grav racers. While working more as a mechanic at first, he learned to maintain most of vehicles that Team G used. In fact, he impressed the insanely rich owner that he was actually given a well-used yacht, Eventually, he started actually racing. His career was mired for years when he spoke out in a social protest against the overbearing government of his homeworld. Part of that was the tax burden his yacht was causing him. He took to gambling, thinking he was smart enough to beat the odds. Despite this, he married Chaleinne, the girl of his dreams. Like his racing career, it did not end well when he was busted for throwing a race in order to pay his gambling debts. She left him. Now his yacht has been impounded for taxes due and he is desperate for a job. And can even provide a ship should someone pay the impound fees...

Maddox and his flying machine

2024 Challenge

Captain Tardis Challenge Site

Day 1: Classic Traveller Trace Hoolens

Day 2: Mechanoid Invasion P.A.V.M. Marissa Key

Day 3: Classic Traveller SubSector Navy Rony Sonnet

Day 4: OSE Witch Bellatrix

Day 5: Mechanoid Invasion Commando

Day 6: Planet Mercenary Captain

Day 7: Corsair Captain Erica "Fierce" Kelly

Day 8: Classic Traveller Pirate

Day 9: Amazon Nasliope

Day 10: OSE Merchant Usman

Day 11: Brass Rings Gouda Parsnip

Day 12: The Fantasy Trip Barbarian

Day 13: Planet Mercenary: Legal Counsel

Day 14: OSE Grace Carver, Guard

Day 15: OSE Kobold Shaman

Day 16: OSE Dungeon Duck

Day 17: Traveller Zhondani

Day 18/19: OSE Guards

Day 20: Mechanoid Invasion Communication Engineer

Day 21: Dolmenwood Breggle

Day 22: OSE Gnoll

Day 23: Traveller Navy

Day 24: Dolmenwood Grimmalkin

Day 25-27: Classic Traveller K'kree

Day 28: TFT Master Physicker Erirderlun Earthfury

Day 29: Classic Traveller Scout