A Company of Fools - Blog

[EvilGinger]

There will be a number of Stub articles appearing here shortly for which I apologise, and will in my defence say that they will be turning into full articles as soon as possible I hope over the course of the day.

 Ginger   

[EvilGinger]

A Matter of Honour - Episode twenty two

article to follow

Source: A Matter of Honour - Episode twenty two

[EvilGinger]

A Matter of fame - Episode twenty two

Article to follow

Source: A Matter of fame - Episode twenty two

[EvilGinger]

A History of the Shambles

Introduction & history

In the new town of Vayham there is a district which is known as the Shambles it has an interesting origin around a century ago after the building of the dye works its builder decided to build a fine house up wind of his works and the adjacent tannery's but on the cheap land outside the then town walls. There followed a period of economic boom forth and the whole area which is now the Newtown grew considerably. In due course the builder of the dye works died and his heirs who had grown even richer from the income form the works amongst other things decided that grand as the stone house was they did not want to live adjacent to what was now a relative slum as the second tannery had been built by this time and workers houses for it and the exiting tannery and growing dye works clustered thickly about them. They moved closer to the north gate where all the other wealthy towns’ folk lived and still live to this day. 

The sold the old house to the Kalamarian engineer who had been bought in by the then Count to deal with the problem of the growing effluent from the Tannery’s and dye works not to mention the water run off from the regular rain. There was a fear that this run off might contaminate the water supplies for the whole town and poison every one. The Engineer lived in the house during the building of the new town drains though the area was not called that then as this was before the walls where built. He continued to live here and use it as a base of operations as he worked in other towns in the region after the drains where built and the wall was extended until he did not return form one of his trips. His staff dispersed when he did not come back and he seemed to have no heirs.

The abandoned house was shortly inhabited by squatters and more squatters’ moved into and built shacks in the houses gardens forming the beginnings of the area now know as the shambles. At some point in the intervening sixty or so years the old house succumbed to neglect and  collapsed, but the ruins where quickly mined for building materials and then over built by more huts and shacks until in the current day no surface trace of the house remains except perhaps a bit of a mound in the middle of the shambles.

The shambles today 

The Shambles today is a warren of single story hovels, huts sheds and lean-tos’ with no road or even lane penetrating it just an ever changing maze of the narrowest of alleys which allow its residents access to their often squalid hovels

Source: A History of the Shambles

[EvilGinger]

The Stange world of Random Doom is upon us

Life gets in the Gamers way successfully

Not got much done yesterday I popped into Spirit Games for a quick look through the new stuff in a work lull and as ever I had trouble escaping  I spent most of the day playing Legend of the Five rings the Card game at Spirit Games having been Gamenaped by the owner Philip Bootherstone to support some lads who had driven down form Manchester and got no takers, as often happens at spirit Demo's. It proved to be remarkably good and kept me distracted all day. I then crawled home and having been up since four am was quickly asleep. Even Coffee had failed me at this point and I fear always will do till I get my espresso machine, so I can dose myself with Iranian coffee. Which is very something like a triple or quadruple espresso with enough sugar in it that the last of it floats on the surface and will not dissolve the liquor, wonderful stuff which will keep me awake and working for days, but I digress .

I woke at  an ungodly hour even for me full of energy and fell to sorting out the off line admin and paper work form last Thursdays game - Loads of people levelled and the two Parties I had been running  met so and mixed, I had much to do to get things up to date. 

However when I had got some order to that chaos I went on line to check up on what had gone on between 6pm & 2.30am and found my delightful niece, the one who I am doing  Adventures Elsewhere for was having an insomniac phase and I spent more time being harassed by her until work arrived and got very little more done. After work all the energy had gone and even the normal power nap failed to oblige so I got nothing at all useful done and now the Strange world of Random Doom is upon us and I probably won't get any thing else done today here either

I will try to get back on track again tomorrow and avoid things known to distract me is all I can offer by way of an further action plan 

Source: The Stange world of Random Doom is upon us

[EvilGinger]

A Strange World of Random Doom - Episode 10

write up to follow

Source: A Strange World of Random Doom - Episode 10

[EvilGinger]

The great catch up with the blog begins today

 Ginger

[EvilGinger]

A Strange World of Random Doom - Episode 10

This week we where unexpectedly down to three players none of whom are fighters so our long suffering GM had to improvise but it was a good session none the less and we got to clash indirectly at least with our old enemy the Were Rat and discover more about the Port and its politics much of it quite unsavoury to be honest.  

Sadly no new screen shots this time as the action all took place in port after we had done our training so the map above will have to suffice as all the locations involved are on it. 


Session write up to follow

Source: A Strange World of Random Doom - Episode 10

[EvilGinger]

A Strange World of Random Doom - Episode 10

This week we where unexpectedly down to three players none of whom are fighters so our long suffering GM had to improvise but it was a good session none the less and we got to clash indirectly at least with our old enemy the Were Rat and discover more about the Port and its politics much of it quite unsavoury to be honest.  

Sadly no new screen shots this time as the action all took place in port after we had done our training so the map above will have to suffice as all the locations involved are on it. 

• The episode started quietly enough with the Company in Port having just finished a period of training and reflection on prior experience.
• It was supposed to be a religious or civic festival but the pall of smog which now lay over the city and the accompanying acrid rain rather put a dampener on that and all the public events where cancelled
• It had also become apparent that the supplys of fresh fruit and vegetables all of which where locally grown rather than imported had become rather low as most of the farming villages had been depopulated and the continual acid rain and smog which was worse over the main farming area which was closer to the burning coal seam which was the cause of all the smog was bad for the crops, causing them to wither or at least fail to thrive even on the few farms which did survive.
• Food was getting increasingly expensive and  every ones diet more monotonous in content, 
• That the island seemed to have moved a long way north and a long way off shore of whatever the mainland was made imported goods expensive across the board, due to the sheer distance the few long range trade ships had to go, especially as the location and tracking the movements of the isle was the monopoly of the former pirate lord who ran the city's council. 
• That the  summer was as a result of being so far north  cold  added to the gloom
• People where leaving and returning to whatever part of the mainland was nearest to the isle. 
• Then some one started collapsing buildings, at first no one noticed particularly as building collapses in a hastily built city, the whole place was built in the last ten years or so, with no building regulations are not unexpected. However the next night another one collapsed and the night after a third.
• The last was a Dwarf built building and those just don't collapse, well not without help That it was also the shop of the best weapon smith in the city  and  friend or at least an acquaintance of the company drew the companies attention.
• The company arrived to find the local dwarf community still digging its way through the rouble of a stone building which the members of the company who had visited it recalled as being a free standing fairly splendidly appointed court yard house incorporating a shop the owners house a foundry and smithy it was at least two stories high possibly three as none of the company had been much beyond the shop and forge no one was sure
• Asking round the local dwarves the company discovered the shop owner was the local dwarf clan lord and he was missing as despite clearing the rouble for some hours no body had been found. 
• The collapse had happened late in the night and had initially drawn the last few dwarves still in the local Tavern's who had heard the place come down with a crash.
• None of the first arrivals had seen any one leaving the area and none of the locals had seen any one out of the ordinary visit Fargard or behave suspiciously all where at a loss.
• It did occur to the company that the three collapses might be linked, they had no evidence but decided the hunch deserved further investigation and besides Fargard was a fine fellow who deserved better than whatever fate had befallen him.
• After some discussion the company decided to investigate the site of the first collapse which was the other side of the town 
   
  

More Session write up to follow

Source: A Strange World of Random Doom - Episode 10

[EvilGinger]

Been a bit bogged down with off line paper work on the game today but progress is being made

 Ginger

[EvilGinger]

A new Protégé?

a Roll 20 Character

Attribute rolls

STR     12-33

INT      15-76

WIS     12-07

CON   09-76

DEX    16-29

LKS     07-43

CHA    14-51

A good set which I will not rearrange so 90 build points

I will however spend 3 build points to bring the con to 10/06 and 26! To take it up to 10/03

Kalamarian human fighter mage – costs 20 Build points

This leaves me with 40 build points without quirks and flaws, that I will do next getting the following

058 – First – Animal Phobia   - canines                       30

795 – Second – HackFrenzy                                       19

Other Priors and particulars

Gender female

Age

Height 66â€�       

Bmi = 19.5

Wt 120lb

Handedness - Right handed

Family

Birth – legitimate with two loving parents +4BP

Two Siblings – sisters both alive not twins

Youngest of three

One devoted

One natural

More on this an on 

Source: A new Protégé?

[EvilGinger]

Coradwin Leveling Upto level Five

Tempting fate again 

as he is a good 2-3 sessions form doing this 

Attribute increases 
STR d12              roll 10 >13/98
INT d20              roll 12 > 13/40
WIS d4               roll 1 > 11/01
CON d6             roll 2 > 10/15
DEX d8              roll 4 > 9/29
CHA d10           roll  3 > 12/26

Hit point  roll  1d4 Roll 2 so HIT POINTS go to 28 Lovely
  
Automatic increases
Skills - +1 skill point to Arcane lore to 34

Spell roll for fifth level
Rolled a 3 & got Entrancing light show and I am not spending Build points on a re roll so sticking with that

Next
Rolling for spell cognition for the spells in his spell book which he has not learned

A Illusionary Mural- cant learn Maximum spells already known  
A Fire finger - cant learn Maximum spells already known
J Freeze Water      - Not tried
                                  J Candlelight - Failed
1 Throw Voice - Not tried
1 Wall Walk       - Not tried
                                                                    2 Shocking Touch      - Not Tried
                                  3 Flaming Missiles - Not Tried
4 Skipping Betty Fireball - Failed


all of which results in the typical blank - Coradwin needs more intelligence but that's something for another level if he makes it


Spending the 15 build points

First off Coradwin rounds out his Broads sword Specialisation getting +1 defence so he has now got specialization +1

That leaves him with five to spend
one he spends on tripping his strength over to 14/03 all this sword swinging is doing him some good

Leaving him with four and as ever some hard choices as he has used a lot of skills between levels and it would be quite useful to increase almost any of them. however in the end it came down to

Oration - +1 Mastery level  roll d12+1 result +12 skill it however failed to penetrate as I rolled an 11grrr
Glean information +1 Mastery level  dice roll d12+0  result +2 skill

Reasoning
he got some actual practice addressing a crowd and getting their attention under difficult circumstances hence the Oration and he did quite a bit of information gathering in the Port whilst tracking the Rats plots

and that's it done till next level when he will have more Build points to spend as he will not be spending any more for a while on Broad sword specialization.

Source: Coradwin Leveling Upto level Five

[EvilGinger]

From The People we Support

Catch The Pigeon...

The Rescued Pigeons

what happened

Approximately eight weeks ago we rescued a  badly injured dove from a lady in Loughborough after it had been shot  with an air rifle. The lady owned a horse and it was kept at a yard  where a flock of pigeons was residing, the injured pigeon being one of  them. Unfortunately the pigeon was too badly injured and lost her fight  for life. 

We arranged to take in and offer the remaining birds a home. The lady managed to convince the yard owner to stop the shooting and allow us to capture the remaining birds. We attended two weeks ago  to assess the area and come up with a plan, then last night we returned  to catch them.

As it was  dark the pigeons had gone to roost in the top of the barn which made it  easier for us to locate them. Using a ladder we climbed into the hay  loft and began by locating nests. There were quite a few babies and eggs  including fertile ones. Once we had collected the squabs and fertile  eggs we began catching the adults and older youngsters. This involved a  lot of team work, with one person catching them using a net and the  other using a pole to push them from their perching areas. We managed to  catch 31 out of 34 that were roosting, as well as taking 7 babies and 9  fertile eggs. Unfortunately there were a few dead youngsters and adults  within the roosting area, some mummified, with one having dried blood  on the feathers so we suspect this may be a parent bird that was killed  in the shootings previously.

 We also took a racer and a very young  wood pigeon squab that another lady at the yard had brought so in total  we rescued 40 birds. 

We plan to return within the next two weeks  to attempt to capture the escapees that evaded us last night and any  others that may turn up. The babies will be hand reared as they will  most likely be rejected. If anyone can donate any hand rearing formula  we would be grateful. We are currently using the kaytee extract formula. 

These pigeons are now safe in a converted shed where they will  be confined for at least four weeks. This is so they get used to  roosting within the shed, meaning they will return to roost at night.  Eventually they will be allowed free flight of the sanctuary along with  our other pigeons. We have  placed rings into the legs of all the birds  with the rescues number so that if they should ever get lost they can  always be collected and provided with treatment if needed.

Ringing

flock from a different angle

Thank you to Claire and the pigeon rescue community who donated towards the new shed for these beautiful birds.

Reposted from the Burton Wild life face book feed read more about Burton Wildlife Rescue

Source: From The People we Support

[EvilGinger]

Sorry about the Lull in posting

I am afraid 

I have been rather mad busy in my off line life and have not been catching up with things as I had hoped however I am now I believe in the position to catch up and get posting again as at as furious a rate as I can. 

I won't set myself any public targets I will just plough on and advise you to watch this space, stuff will happen and not least because the next company of fools Session, number Twenty Three, is less than a week away.

Source: Sorry about the Lull in posting

[EvilGinger]

A not entirly random new map

Kethia

The purpose of this map will become apparent and its not a work in progress well not in the normal way its the players map at the start of a game based off the Pathfinder adventure Path Iron Gods but it will be Gingerfied so as to make metagaming suicidal as required as I have never yet played a published module as written they just become unique just by me running them it would seem. I am planing on running this as a roll20 game and I am currently recruiting.

I am posting this as I am aware I have been doing lots of work off line with company of fools write ups and related stuff   but not been able to post all that much so this is quick and I hope it whets the appetite and keep the blog turning over

Source: A not entirly random new map