Upon the Eve of Battle

This is what I'm aiming for.

This is it. The day before the (hopefully) grand finale session of my current D&D campaign. We decided to change things up from our usual short evening sessions and take advantage of the Fourth of July holiday to run a longer daytime game.

If planning is any indication, this last session is shaping up to be pretty epic. I'll be running my first ever battlefield adventure using the "think big, play small" rules described in Heroes of Battle. I've run large scale combats in my game before, but it usually involves my players and a limited number of allies against large collections of enemies. This is the first time where the battle will become more setting than action, and the dynamism implied in a spiky, armor clad dungeon of humanity and carnage has me a bit anxious. There are so many moving parts, I fear that they could just as easily go flying off into oblivion as lock up entirely in a giant, stagnant brick.

This game has been going since February of 2009! That's four and a half years! Seven players, lots of adventures, but one adventure arc! I bit off more than I anticipated when dreaming up the story for this campaign, and I'm honestly amazed that it has held together as well as this. But tomorrow I will need to earn the ending. It needs to be exciting and epic. A deserving climax to almost half a decade and 10 levels of play. For most sessions, I plan for the best, but if they fall flat, it's okay. Not this time. This time has to go well. It has to be exciting, and challenging, and memorable because there is no next time for this particular story.

Now, don't get me wrong, I have discussed the "what's next" with my players and most of them would like to continue with their characters in this world, tying up loose ends, moving on to bigger and better adventures. But the battle against the blight that has torn the Kingdom of Cydon asunder ends tomorrow. It needs to end well.

My brain is full of one of my favorite descriptions of the eve of battle. The calm before the storm. I leave you with the words of the Chorus from Shakespeare's Henry V IV i.

Mental Tapas

Dear readers, my mind is a whirly-twirling with unfocused inspiration which has left me unable to settle on a single topic for today's post, so I'mma give you several small tastes of the stuff all up in my gourd.

My players in my weekly D&D game are drawing ever closer to the climax of a campaign arc that has spanned three years! I am especially stoked for the upcoming leg of their adventure because I had a brilliant bit of inspiration to base it off of a particular work of literature. Unfortunately, because several of my players read this here blog, I can't reveal that work yet. I can, however, tell you that it is a work often read in high school English classes, and there is a movie based on it. I'm excited to see how it works out and may begin feeding y'all clues to see if you can guess the work.

I really enjoy basing adventures on movies, plays or other works of literature. My PCs just wrapped up an arc that was a mix of Hamlet and Macbeth. The classic story of princess kills the king setting her husband the prince up to be his successor. His brother, however ends up bringing back the king's ghost to reveal the true murderer (okay, so maybe it was a Michael Bay-esque interpretation of the bard.) So, there's your first clue. The current adventure will be neither Hamlet, nor Macbeth. In fact, it won't even be based on Shakespeare.

DNA Phil over at Gnome Stew posted an excellent post earlier this week about the GM's high. I for one definitely experience this heady sensation after a particularly well run session. If you've ever been on stage, it's very similar to the high that occurs after a performance. Your mind has been so focused and running in high gear for a sustained period of time. The mental momentum that has built up takes time to dissipate. Phil posts that it makes it hard for him to sleep after playing until 11:30 on a Sunday night. I have the same problem after my Wednesday night games. Though the fiancee would prefer if I came to bed immediately after everyone goes home, she understands the wind-up and knows that I would just end up babbling about orc ambushes or something.

Vanir from Critical Hits also has an excellent post from last month -BTW, I am really behind in my blog reading!- It lists out several of the less obvious epic-world problems. I found myself chortling heartily at several points. I recommend you check it out for a larf (laurgh?)

Finally, I stumbled on this gem over at ATIAC.

COME, WEARY TRAVELER. WE ARE NEARLY TO THE MAGICAL KINGDOM. YOU ARE QUITE LUCKY TO BE GRANTED ACCESS. FEW HAVE THE TRUE SIGHT, AND SO THE KINGDOM REMAINS INVISIBLE TO THEM. YOU, HOWEVER, HAVE MIXED THE NECESSARY ELIXIRS: ROBITUSSIN AND JÄGERMEISTER. 

WIPE THE SPITTLE FROM YOUR GAPING MOUTH AND FOLLOW ME. IT IS JUST THROUGH THIS MISTY GLEN.

It's funny because it's true... and a cat in a goat costume.

Lord of the Bricks

Clearly, I need more Legos!

Check out the description and photos of a project that recreated many of the iconic sets and scenes from the Lord of the Rings for the 2011 BrickWorld in Chicago.