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The Story so far… (Nirmathas Campaign)
Summary: Our heroes meet up for the first time in a small town called Kassen in the country of Nirmathas. Everybody except one are outsiders to the town. In the past, the founder of the town, Ekat Kassen, protected the town from being destroyed by a group of mercenaries lead by a man named Asar Vergas. In the final battle, Ekat managed to kill Asar but was mortally wounded in the process. In honor of his sacrifice, the townsfolk buried him in an ancient crypt as well as the invader himself, Asar. They placed an eternal flame above Kassen’s final resting place, so that all who visited might find warmth in the wilderness. From then on, every year, the town celebrated the founding of their town by making a pilgrimage to the crypt. There, they would light their lantern from the flame and bring it back to town.
Every few years, they would task outside adventurers to make the pilgrimage instead. The quest was relatively simple at first but soon grew elaborate as the townsfolk start setting up simple traps and puzzles for the adventurers to overcome. This year would have been no different from the other years. As the adventurers ventured forth to the crypt, they slowly began to realize that something has gone terribly wrong. As they reached the crypt, they found slaughtered horses outside and dead human bodies instead. They were, then, forced into battle with the undead. After the battle, they explored the crypt, avoiding traps (i.e. nearly getting killed by walking foolishly into them) and solving puzzles (no light or detect magic spells from the casters come onnnnnn). They eventually stumbled into Roldare, one of the surviving members of the group that went ahead to prepare the crypt with booby traps. He explains that the group was attacked two days ago by skeletons and his sister was taken by a skeleton in ancient mail armor. He pleads with them to rescue her and the group agrees.
After navigating the two-story crypt, they finally arrived to the resting place of the awakened Asar. They win the battle and secured Rolgare’s sister. They lit the lantern given to them by the mayor and as they do that, the spirit of Kassen rises from his slumber and thanks the party members for a job well done. There, the party finds out what really happened in the crypt and Kassen’s relationship with Asar. Asar and Kassen used to be comrades in arms. One day, they managed to acquire a great deal of treasure from an ancient vault. They sealed the ancient vault up and the only way to open it is to combine three amulets together. The amulets were split between Asar, Kassen, and an elven sorceress named Iramine and they all parted ways. Asar, who felt cheated out of his share of the treasure, attacked the town that Kassen founded. There, they killed themselves and the townsfolk buried them in the crypt. Three months ago, a group of thieves broke into the sarcophaguses containing Asar and Ekat’s bodies. They only stole the amulets from their bodies and, as a result, stirred the spirit of Asar. After Kassen told his story, he granted each hero a boon and parts ways.
The heroes returned back to Kassen to deliver the sad news. The celebration turns into a memorial of all the fallen townsfolk. During the celebration, Cygar approaches the party and introduces himself as a Pathfinder. He tells them that he has an idea of which group was responsible and offers them a job to get to the bottom of this. The party accepts and they begin preparations to depart for Tamran, the capital city of Nirmathas. Cygar pays a barge to take them down the river into the town. There, they meet up with his associate, Renigar Lacklan. He gives them some information about the cult of Razmiran and confirms that a group of them traveled north some time ago. Reginar, concerned about the cult’s influence on the town, informs them to start gathering information on the cult. They will return at a later time in order to plan their next action. The group decided that the best way to gain information was to join the cult itself.
After spending a bit of time observing the faithful and their “good works”, the party attended a recruitment meeting at the Ranger’s Lament, a tavern that’s across the street from the tavern. The entire group gets drugged and everybody wakes up in a cell. From there, they performed a variety of ceremonies before becoming full fledge members of the cult. The party was forced to take on missions that ranged from being tedious and mundane to downright criminal. As they complete their tasks, they began to understand the inner workings of the cult and later on, one of the party members escapes in order to attend the scheduled meeting with Reginar. Reginar comes to the conclusion that they must destroy the threat the cult represents before it gets out of hand. He orders them to sneak inside the personal chambers of the high priest and steal any incriminating documents or ledgers so that the town officials can drive the cult away from Tamran. He wants to get the information by any means possible as the time for subtlety is over.
Important Characters:
Ekat Kassen – Famous crusader and fortune seeker. The founder of the town of Kassen. Used to be allied with Asar and Iramine until they split off after acquiring a great deal of treasure from an ancient treasure vault. He used to have an amulet that matched with three other amulet pieces that would open the vault. Died after Asar mortally wounded him in battle.Asar Vergas – An old companion of Ekat who went his separate ways after splitting the treasure acquired from the ancient treasure vault. Was killed by Ekat after Asar tried to raid the town of Kassen but not before mortally wounding Ekat. Used to have the 2nd amulet piece that opened the way to the treasure vault.
Iramine – The mysterious elven maiden who held the 3rd piece of the amulet.
Cygar Anravis – Mysterious member of the Pathfinder society who tries to find adventurers worthy enough to join his cause. He sends the party off to Tamran.
Captain Welren – Captain of the barge. Loves fishes.
Reginar Lacklan – The pathfinder associate who resides in Tamran. Gives the group vital information regarding the cult of Razmir and gives them a quest to find any incriminating evidence against the cult.
The Cult of Razmir – The faithful who worships the living god, Razmir. They aim to corrupt the people and the government of Tamran and to increase the power of Razmir.
Egarthis – The current leader of the temple and the first high ranking leader the party members meet. Responsible for overseeing the ceremonies.
Krant – A brutish priest who is second in command. He is responsible for overseeing the group and making sure they complete their tasks effectively. He also enjoys a little bloodsport as he forces the group to fight amongst each other.
Evlar – A homeless acolyte who joins the cult at the same time the party does. His father beats him.
Krox – Doesn’t feel that Nirmathas is big enough to contain him.
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Pathfinder – How about you find your way out of this game (7/23)
About two weeks ago we had a Pathfinder game! And people supposedly thought it was pretty fun? It’s entirely possible, nay probable, that they are a group of lying scum but since there’s no way for me to prove it yet I’ll just have to take their word at face value. I know a few people felt burned that they were asked to leave the group, but the truth is I felt this game went about ten thousand times more smoothly than the last one I ran, where we had seven players. I believe we started very close to on time, which is 2 PM, and we actually finished up what I had prepared (which was two parts of the six-part module) by around 6 or 7 iirc. Everyone wanted to keep going, and with Jack and Justin driving up from Chesapeake to play I suspected they might. So we broke for a few hours to eat and I read through the next section and then played that until 2 or 3 AM!
Starting off, the party had just finished off their initial purpose – defeating the rat-bastard Gaedren Lann at the behest of Zelarra, a local fortune teller whose son had died. At the conclusion of that task they learned that Zelarra was actually dead and manifesting herself through her deck of Harrow cards. Armed with a powerful new ghost ally the group exited the fishery Lann had been hiding in to discover a city gone mad. Riots, fires, screaming and violence were rampant, with Hellknights invited inside the city to restore order and mounted griffin riders of the Korvosan Sable Company dropping from the sky like drunken flies shot by arrows or fireballs or whatever. The ailing King has finally died, and the foreign (and ill-thought of) Queen has ascended to the throne. A lot of people weren’t happy about this, apparently.
After a little stop at Johnny Ikea’s House of Furniture ‘N Thangs to sell off the goodies found in Lann’s horde, a nearby blacksmith and neighboring scroll and potion shops owned by elderly twin brothers, the group discovered that one of the items taken by Lann was a brooch belonging to the Queen, who is now sitting pretty on the throne (she’s pretty and she’s also sitting pretty so you see I sdkfj;lkjeriou). After Mr. Ikea informed them about the reward the players went forth, but the riot made journeying through the beleaguered city difficult at best. After being accosted by a group of miniature devils (and saved by a nearby pack of pseudodragons), being manhandled by a grimy crazy man and diffusing an escalating confrontation between a noble and a gang of disillusioned laborers, the PCs made it to the castle and sought an audience with the Queen.
Queen Ileosa expressed her gratitude and rewarded the party with a hefty coffer of gold, then asked if they would be willing to help out the Korvosan Guard in the city’s time of need. They accepted, and after talking to the officer in charge at the Citadel, were put up in a local inn and told to come back tomorrow. That evening, the players encountered a drunken guard, whom they dragged back to the Citadel after listening to him count his woes over several pints. After returning, they met the sell-sword Krox, a lovable guy who offered his services as a mighty warrior should the party require it (at a very reasonable rate). The PCs, who were without a strong front-line fighter, gladly accepted, and so they decided to meet over breakfast the following morning.
The next day the same Citadel officer told the party about a silver-tongued deserter, who had taken advantage of the chaos to lure a few fellow guards into his plans. Holed up in a previously deserted butcher shop, the group was giving out meat to the poor for free. What a great bunch of fellows! But as the group discovered not all was as it seemed, and in a series of intense encounters the group snuck through the back of the shop during normal business hours and were greeted with a great deal of hostility and boars. In the course of hacking their way through jerks and traitors and thoroughly demoralizing animals, the group found the leader, one dude whose name I don’t remember. It was a tough fight, but after a hard battle he surrendered and permitted himself to be carted back to the Citadel for interrogation. The party was given a pat on the head and told to wait for further instructions. Then they went back to the meat shop and discovered the dismembered remains of humanoids in the sewers underneath. What is going on?!? I DON’T KNOW AND NEITHER DO THEY! I guess we’ll have to wait and see!
Highlights of the Adventure:
Darzzo telling animals exactly what he thought of them
Alora using her claws and eliciting an audible groan from the entire table
Kali forgetting a favorable rule for firearms and still managing to blow a head or two clean off
Sumak helping Darzzo up over a five-foot fence and face-first into a pile of manure
Xia stabbing a lotta dudes, like three dudes
Krox being the best character ever createdI hope everyone had a decent time and is prepared for the next Pathfinder game, which will take place on September 17th. Excelsior!
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Call of Cthulhu – Dead Men Don’t Cry, They Only Go Insane (6/25)
Last weekend was the first time in a very, very, very long time we’ve all gotten together for a good and proper p&p rpg, and what’s more it was Call of Cthulhu! We had a lot of fun, drank a lot of sugar, and even had a few special guest stars. Who were they? Well I’m glad you asked! Here was our rogue’s gallery:
Returning cast:
Bruce McPherson, Professor of Physics and Canes at Miskatonic U., played by Enoch
Johnny Ikea, Pilot with a Degree in Gastronomy (also Medicine), played by David
Harry Gallagher, Unstable Sergent in the U.S. Army, played by KevinNew to the party were:
Micky “the Sticky” O’Houlihan, Former Boxing Champ and Currently Sort-Of Braindead, played by Justin
Salazzo Grizzlebee, Grizzled Forester with an Axe to Grind, played by Eric*
John Thompson, Merchant Banker and Dead-Eyed Wunderkind, played by Tony
Colin O’Shea, “Smooth” Talking Con-Man with a Heart of Bronze, played by Pedro** new failures
With this ragged group of players, we immediately set to work investi – oh, that’s right. Actually, since we couldn’t find anyone’s characters sheet we went to work recreating the existing characters to the best of our knowledge. Then we rolled the new dudes and everything worked out more or less for the best. I say “more or less” because in the grand scheme of things some damage was probably done but most of our investigators managed to get by with only severe cases of indefinite insanity, the breadth of which has yet to be determined. That’s what seeing a horde of the undead rise from their graves can do to a mind not carefully weaned on pop fiction since birth!
What we had was essentially an investigation centering around what appeared to be the sudden reanimation of a a man shot dead by a mob hitman. There were police officers, speakeasies, mobsters, more jazz musicians than an episode of The Cosby Show and even THE LIVING DEAD. How very exciting! Now let’s take a look at the catastrophe tally:
Pedro trying to brute-force negotiate with cop: 1
Pedro trying to brute-force negotiate with musician: 1
Two people (don’t remember who!) calling a Mr. Louis Armstrong’s manager and failing to talk their way past him: 2
Tony shooting an unarmed man: 1
Eric shooting an unarmed man: 1
Tony killing an unarmed man: 1
Kevin taking a ride on the insanity train and checking out early: 1
Unarmed (dead) man summoning an army of zombies: 100Comedy of Errors Score: 107 – HILARIOUS
And then almost everyone got an indefinite insanity. Overall a good, if crowded, showing. That being the case, we are now finished with the tiny adventures in the core rulebook and will begin Tatters of the King after the next Pathfinder game. For which we will have to clear up some space because everyone seems agreed that seven players is far too many to run smoothly and efficiently. It’s gonna be tough.
As a bonus treat, we captured rare video footage of some nerd actually roleplaying Louie Armstrong (under great duress) on the phone with the investigators. He’s not worried about money; he just loves to help people!
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Pathfinder – (2/19) Curse of the Crimson Throne
Game time is less than a week away! Holy Moses! One last update for you before we meet up, just to make sure everyone’s on the same page.
1) BACKSTORIES ARE IMPORTANT FOR THIS CAMPAIGN! You don’t need much, I keep saying this but I don’t think too many people have actually taken care of it yet. You can wait until the very last day if you want, but don’t expect me to work it into the story (because I won’t have the time). There is a Player’s Guide to the campaign we’re running which I will make available RIGHT HERE RIGHT HERE RIGHT HERE – download it, look it over, and at least go to the section on Character Traits so you know what we’re looking for. They give you sample stories to explain your connection to the Big Bad Guy this time around, with traits to go along with them. If you choose these stories/traits they will take up your one trait available, so if you want to have one of these stories and not choose the trait that’s fine. There are a lot of ways to tie yourself to this guy aside from what’s in the book so there’s no excuse!
2) We are nuking the last “adventure” (I invest that word with a great deal of scorn) we had, since it bore little to no relevance to this campaign. We could fit it in, but with people dropping in, out, and starting new characters, it just makes more sense to do it this way. We’ll go over gold totals before the game, but it’s of relatively little importance so don’t worry about it.
3) If everyone could bring around $4 for the first part of the campaign + the city guide that would be great. The guide was ~$12, the adventure was somewhere in the realm of $15-20. Anything over the cost of those two will be put towards future campaign books. If you decide you don’t want to keep playing you get your dollar back it’s that easy!
I hope to see everyone there on Saturday, and I hope we all have a good time. Going to aim for around a 2 PM start time. Please show up and be fed by 2 PM! PARTY ON
Downloads:
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Pathfinder: Heroes of Nirmathas
This is it, guys! This is the beginning of our campaign with our new characters and my first game as a DM. Hopefully, this won’t be the last. The stage is set for this Saturday afternoon (February 5th) and it probably won’t end until later in the evening. This post will serve as a last minute FAQ for anybody who wants to participate. I actually meant to post this up on Tuesday but I got really busy. Oh well.
What the hell is Pathfinder?
Pathfinder is a pen and paper RPG that split off from Dungeons and Dragon after the 4th edition came out. It’s essentially Dungeons and Dragons 3.75 or what 3.5 should have been.Wait, isn’t DnD like really nerdy? Why should I care?
Well, I can’t really change your mind if you think the game is too “nerdy” for you. If you don’t want to play then that’s cool. I will ask that you refrain from passing any judgement until you’ve actually played a game or two yourself. Personally, I’ve always wanted to play a pen and paper RPG like this for a while. Until recently, there wasn’t really enough interest to justify learning the rules and going through the long process of making a character. But now, thanks to Arkham Horror and Call of Cthuhlu, we can finally play a proper pen and paper RPG. Exciting, isn’t it?Okay, you’ve convinced me! I’ll meet up at your hou…
Whoa whoa whoa! You’re going way too fast. First, before you can play, you need to make some preparations of your own. These preparations are for the benefit for the whole group. There’s nothing more tedious than stopping a game in the middle of combat because somebody didn’t understand how attacks of opportunity work. That said, you don’t have to read EVERYTHING since it is a lot to go through in one day. Everything you need to know are available at this website: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/That’s a lot of shit. Where do I start first?
You don’t have to go through everything but you need to at least read the combat rules. I can’t stress this enough. You must read the entire combat section. Some of it might sound confusing and that’s okay. We can clarify everything once the game starts but you must at least know the basic concepts. Then after that, if you have time, read the additional rules. If you’re going to be a caster, read the magic section as well. When you think you got the basics down, then it’s time to make your class. Read this page and follow it step by step. Contact me if you need help. You can even bring over a partially created character and we can finish him/her off real quick. Just make sure you know what you want before you come. If you want, you can even create a back story for your character.Hey, none of these questions applies to me! I already know what I’m doing! Tell me what do I need to know for this game?
Since this is my first game DMing, we will be running a module. Let me warn you, though, that this module isn’t very sandbox friendly. So, please bare with me. For this particular game, I will allow one trait if you provide a back story that explains why you have the trait. The first game will take place in a small town called Kassen. It’s in Nirmathas. A long time ago, a raider (Asar) kept attacking the town for two months until the town’s founder (Ekat Kassen) stepped in and killed the raider. Unfortunately, Kassen was mortally wounded and died two days later. To honor his death, the townfolks built a crypt for Kassen and with an eternal flame hanging over his sarcophagus. It has become a tradition to journey to the crypt every year, now. Adventurers must light a lantern using the everflame and bring it back to town, where a huge festival awaits.Is that it?
There’s a lot of information that I’m sure that I’m missing. In any case, if you have any questions, feel free to IM me and I’ll help you out if I can. Again, this game is taking place this Saturday. Please show up on time. Thanks. -
Pathfinder (2/19) – banishing Moon Apes since 2011
Here’s some new information which will hopefully meet your Pathfinder needs! Also I need to make an announcement:
If you don’t show up for the 2/19 game, you’re out of the group. No hard feelings, we just need everyone there to get started on the campaign proper. There’s always next time (or other people’s games).1) In addition to utilizing the Ultimate Combat playtest, we’ll also be including the Ultimate Magic playtest! That means more butterscotch for everyone, in addition to a new character class (The Magus) and a new style of play for casters (Words of Power mages). They’ll be linked below, or you can download them for free from Paizo’s website so why not!
2) I’ve got a nice, big map of Golarion here for you, along with a link to the Gazetteer, a nice pocket-sized version of the Campaign Setting. If you’d like to check out the Campaign Setting book, which is a slightly heftier download, by all means; there is a lot more information on races and nations. Get in touch with me and I’ll send it to you!
3) Stats are being re-balanced. In the future I’m planning to utilize a point-buy system to hit a sweet spot between players having control over their characters without making them way overpowered and difficult to balance. If people want to re-do their stats this way, that’s fine (I’ll take a vote sometime in the next week or two); if not, the rule is to take your stats BEFORE your racial modifier and add them up. The total needs to be between 80 and 85. If you currently surpass this, you’ll need to lower them suitably, and across the board. No lowering your least-used stat to 3 and keeping everything else topped off. I’ll take a look at everyone’s dudes way before playtime and make sure we’re all on the same page. I’m not too worried about it.
Links:
Map of Golarion
Pathfinder Chronicles – Gazetteer
Pathfinder Chronicles – Gods and Magic
Ultimate Magic – Words of Power
Ultimate Magic – Magus -
Pathfinder: Seek Your Path Down the Trail Which Led You Here to Find the Truth (February 19th is GAME TIME)
Okay here are some changes to the game for next time:1) Traits are IN. Go HERE to look up what you have available. One per person so don’t get too crazy. Anything is open to you, more or less, with the caveat that you must work it into your backstory. Which reminds me,
2) Backstories, while not mandatory, help both the DM (that’s me) and you (that’s you) understand and work with your character. It’s a lot easier to remember your character’s alignment and particulars of their personality when you have a source to draw such things from, instead of the nebulous ‘well I’m Lawful Good but not really in a high-handed douchebag way.”
You’re free to not write a backstory if you really don’t want to, but then you won’t get a trait (and everyone else is going to make one so just make one alright). It doesn’t have to be long or really detailed; a paragraph or two will be more than sufficient. Check out the geography of the Pathfinder world HERE to start checking out countries and what have you for your chosen race. You may want to wait until I figure out where this campaign is going to be set so you can figure out how you got there, or you can jump right in and start building it now. It’s seriously not hard.
3) Most of you already know this, but I will be allowing use of the Ultimate Combat Guide (I think that’s what it’s called) beta, which includes three new classes (Gunslinger, Ninja and Samurai) to choose from. Go HERE to check it out and see what’s what! I would think if you want to choose either Samurai or Ninja you’d have to be from Tian (basically another continent which is Asia) but I’m always open to changing or breaking rules if you can provide a good backstory and logical reasoning so there you go!
4) Remember that, after last time, you can change essentially any part of your character you’re not happy about. Talk to me about it first so I can make sure it gels with everyone else and that it’s OK but aside from that it’s pretty much Open Season. If you’ve taken some more time to peruse the kits, or you don’t like your feats, or whatever, just tell me what you want to do and we’ll try to get it done.
Either get in touch via the usual methods OR just comment below! My Goodness that’s so handy and easy and convenient now there’s absolutely no reason not to wait until the last minute for things!
Handy links you may need to refer to again:
Character Traits
The World of Golarian
Ultimate Combat Playtest <-- this is passworded ask me for the password if you don't already know it! or anyone else on puppyrush because they all know it! -
Pathfinder Trip Report – Goblins Gotta Go
The bustling trade town of Shrewsberry upon first sight seems peaceful, but on second glance their stone walls seems to be poorly fortified. Their mayor, Mayor Paul, calls upon any brave warrior to stop a goblin threat against their city. A motley crew of seven brave adventurers heed the call.
- Godrick, the Half Orc Fighter
- Ellannan, the Half Elf Paladin
- Darzzo, the Halfling Bard
- Meladriel, the Elf Rogue
- Sumak, the Halfling Druid
- Alora, the Half Elf Sorcerer
- Dolgrin, the Monk Dwarf
They meet at an inn and talk about the situation. Goblins seem to be camping in the north and south. A vote is cast, and they decide they should attack at night, to catch any goblin threat off guard. Careful planning was involved, as goblins could easily ambush our heroes as they can see in the dark.
Another vote is cast, and the heroes decide to head north. Sumak uses his advanced survival skills to find goblin tracks that head north east. The adventurers follow in single file through the slowly dimming forest, only to come across a camp fire in the middle of a clearing.
The clearing has six goblins, with five around a campfire, and one seemingly away from the rest of his pack, fast asleep by a tree. Meladriel, being a deadly trained rogue, uses his cat like stealth to try to plunge an arrow in the heart of the goblin dozing off. He is successful, and our party fights off the remaining goblins. They find 12 gold, some short swords, and some light shields.
Our heroes decide to eliminate the other goblin camp down south. They return to the city of Shrewsberry to backtrack the goblin trail. The path leads them to the second goblin camp, visible in the quiet darkness.
Before they strike, Darzzo uses his bard training to understand the goblin language. He overhears a mumbling about a “waterfall”. Unfortunately for the goblins, they mumble their last breath, as they get horrendously slaughtered by both bow and blade. Our heroes triumph once again, and loot 8 gold, some short swords and finally a map.
The crudely drawn map shows two points, and is assumed to be the two goblin camps. After some very painful deliberation our party decides to follow the river upstream to see what lurks ahead.
Eventually, our party arrives at the end of the river into a waterfall, the torrent of water rushing down spraying a fine mist in the air. A door is spotted beyond the waterfall, and our pathfinders trudge on. They find the door is locked, but our rogue friend Meladriel picks the lock after some careful fiddling. The door is slowly open, as creak of rusted iron hinges echoes in harmony with the pitter-patter of water dripping down the stone walls. Everyone takes a look inside the cave.
It is pitch black, so a stone is illuminated with Light, and our heroes walk carefully inside. The faint glow of luminousness emitting from the rock flickers along the jagged cave walls. The path creeps along until it makes a sharp right, where our heroes stop and examine the turn around the corner.
Godrick, the half-orc leading the party with his perfect night vision exclaims out-loud “Halt! I see… stairs!”. Godrick’s deep voice stirs echoes in the cave.
Sumak the halfling, calls out right behind Godrick, “Stairs? How big?”. Sumak once had a terrible accident regarding stairs, a pack mule, and a bee hive.
Alora, the half-elf replies sharply: “Who cares? More importantly, which way do they go, up or down?”. Alora seemed to be irritated at the prospect at stairs, as she was always pampered and never enjoyed the prospect of doing more work than she had to.
Our adventures stare at the steps for a while, perplexed as they could not decide which way the stairs lead, even though the steps lay simply in plain sight before them. One might believe that such a notion to determine whether stairs lead up or down would be absurd, but unfortunately our heroes were literally in the dark. After some deep deliberation, they decide the stairs do in fact go down, and after even more careful planning they walk down the slippery steps.
As everyone assembles themselves at the bottom of the stairs, they approach a door with what seems to have a terrible odor and loud rumbling snoring. The door is opened, and inside the source of both the foul smells and sounds could be faintly seen – it was an ogre. It’s faint outline was visible from the door, with the three torches lit in the room providing just enough light. The ogre itself was possibly 10 feet tall, weighed as much as four men, and slept with a large wooden club, covered in what seemed to be blood of it’s latest victims. Meladriel realizes we would stand no chance against such an enormous creature, tip toes quietly to the ogre. He unsheathes his longsword, and plunges it directly in the skull of the slumbering ogre. A howl of pain would have filled the walls of the room, had it not been for the fact the ogre’s brain scattered along the floor.
Our party gathers themselves, cleans themselves up, and moves down the hall of where the ogre now lays dead. They come across a branching path, so two parties were formed. Meladriel, Godrick, Sumak, and Darzzo go to the left, while Alora, Ellannan and Dolgrin walk towards the right.
Meladriel, Godrick, Sumak, and Darzzo creep along the cave until they find a small room. Unfortunately they are not alone, as they stumble upon a pack of goblins playing poker. The goblins stare as our heroes stare back, realizing the depth of their situation. The goblins, being the more nimble creatures they are, react first, throwing their playing cards up in the air and flipping their table, drawing their bows and bucklers. Our heroes call out for help, as Alora, Ellannan and Dolgrin come running back and assisting the fight.
The goblins are slaughtered, their corpses once drawing cards are now drawing blood speckled all over the walls. Our heroes loot their earnings and then some, and move on to the other path where Alora, Ellannan and Dolgrin initially went. At the end of this hall, loud voices can be heard on the way.
The voices seem goblin, except they sound logical, almost intelligent. The high pitched squeaks seem displeased, as hand-slapping could be heard in between foot-stomping. Our party runs in, screaming at the top of their lungs, only for two of them to be knocked down by two bugbears hiding around the corner. The remaining five stop in their footsteps, their eyes pathing through the lines of the wall, until they see the source of the squeaks – a goblin, taller than most – but just as hideous. This goblin is sitting on what looks like to be a crudely constructed wooden throne, while his legs are crossed, seemingly bored that more adventurers are willing to throw their lives to forfeit.
Sumak’s eyes grew, “That must be the… prince of go-“.
Alora cut in “-bolins! The prince of goblins!”.
Uneventfully, both the two bugbears and the goblin prince were slaughtered by our heroes, their knives and spells plunging into flesh and bone till nothing but shimmering loot could be found. Sumak decides to sit in the throne, himself once being a prince (though many just believe he’s crazy because he just talks to plants all day). As he sits down and wiggles his rear in to the still warm cushion, he finds a small button, and presses it with out second thought. The button reveals a small hidden compartment in the wall, showing a burlap bag with a pound of platinum.
This newly found loot in hand, our heroes make the journey back to the village of Shrewsberry, where they receive their reward and rest.
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Behind the Screams – No Country for Old Men
Beginning at the start, or starting at the beginning, we’ll kick things off with a heated debate around No Country for Old Men. Some of us liked it, some of us didn’t. That’s sure to get intense! Let’s watch:
Bob (me) starts out the PPR movie thread with a real barn burner
just finished No Country for Old Men
a pretty decent thriller wrapped around an increasingly absurd center of pretension. by the end of the movie I had gone from “yeah this movie is pretty awesome and intense” to “oh god I hope this fucking movie ends soon or my eyes are going to develop repetitive stress disorder from rolling around so much”
Justin then comes to the rescue and injects some much-needed conflict into the thread, which by this point is growing stale and comfortable
no offense, but you and eric are the only two i have ever heard complain about pretension in no country for old men
as a matter of fact, most of the negative reviews of the movie complain about it being too trivial with no real meaning
Bob rallies back
yes tommy lee jones tell us about your dad. I know you don’t tie into the plot in any meaningful way but please, continue discussing the dream about your father last night to tie up this story. I feel very fulfilled knowing that the last 2+ hours were an elaborate and meandering metaphor for the sense of alienation decrepit fucks like you feel as you attempt to “run email” on your “computer drive”
Justin responds in kind!
saying tommy lee jones’ character didn’t tie into the plot is kinda silly since the entire movie is about why his character retired from being a police officer. also, i thought that the dream metaphors were a good, jarring way to end the movie since there really wasn’t any other way to end the involvement of TLJ’s character. if the movie ended on Chigurh limping away, it would’ve looked too much like a cliffhanger sequel set-up (even though McCarthy never wrote a sequel)
Catching everyone by surprise, Eric now wades into the fray. He’s clean and mean
ok now that ive had a shower~
the frame story with TLJ was pretty weak and felt tacked on to the plot (like multiple things i will go into). iirc, the movie doesn’t start with him, he’s not the main character, its not like he’s relating the story to us or has that much inolvement in the action with chigurghmurgnmen and the protagonist. there’s also drawn out scenes like the one with the gas station clerk (why do we care about this character again). one could argue its meant to reaffirm the chance motif you mentioned i didnt see before, and that’d be ok if it wasnt a rather cliche bad guy routine. another character thats tacked on is the other assassin who doesn’t really add anything to the plot since he ends up getting killed in like 2 minutes.
Bob (me) takes Eric’s comments and run with them
yeah it basically seems that they were trying to tell TLJ’s story through a much more interesting story, with him as one of the tertiary characters. I don’t really buy the “it was all about him because it was all about why he retired” because regardless of what the filmmakers say it was about, it was about the one guy running away from the crazy guy. the kid who gave Chigurh his shirt may have spent that money on a motorcycle and become Evil Kinevil, that doesn’t make his part in this story any more relevant.
also the fact that they killed the main character with so little fanfare, either before or after, was where the movie really started sliding into ‘lame’ territory i m o. I have never seen a movie where killing the main character ends up being a good idea, unless it’s at (or near) the very end. it elicits a powerful emotional response from the audience, sure, but you better have something real good to finish it up with or people are going to start realizing that you just spent an hour and a half building up this character (although the amount of characterization in NCFOM is, to be generous, quite light) to be someone we liked and respect as a resourceful, cool guy, and now he’s dead and there’s really nothing to show for it. “oh heh he wasn’t the real main character even though we’ve shown him for 90% of the movie HERE’S the real main character *points to typical stock sheriff* have fun” is lazy film making
Eric has a little something to say about that though
i didnt mind him being abruptly killed at all, it’s not often seen in movies. what bothered me is that i didnt give a shit about him dying.
Bob (me) has a response to that. An extreme response
I didn’t mind him being abruptly killed, but that so little attention was given to it. the whole movie was (seemingly) building up to a showdown with him and the crazy guy and then they were just like AWW WELL HE’S DEAD NOW LET’S MOVE ALONG and I was stuck wondering why the hell I’m still watching this movie if the primary source of tension no longer exists
And so we reach the end of our first Behind the Screams look at Puppyrush movie review process. I hope you’ve enjoyed this (unusually lengthy) entry! Look forward to more, less interesting entries.
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Three – Two – One – Mark. *PSSHHHWWW*
The time is now.
Thus begins the great Puppyrush dot Net Movie Extravaganza. Here you will find deep, insightful reviews of movies the members of Puppyrush have gone out to see and watch, sometimes actually even paying for them in real-life movie theatrical encounters! The best part is, since these are ripped directly from a thread secreted deep inside the throbbing, moist sanctum of the PPR.NET forums, everything is live, unrehearsed, ripped directly from the mouths of babes (posters) and put down here for your truthful enjoyment. Uncensored, uncut, often rambling and nonsensical, with a poor sense of grammar and lack of reviewer’s etiquette.
Also, occasionally a review generated a discussion, and you’ll be privy to that information as well! Are you as excited as you should be to peek behind the veil of Puppyrush and witness the cogs in the machine? There’s no way you are! Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, for he is nothing but a miserable little pile of secrets.
