After a long absence...

Just to advise that I am still alive. However, I need to inform my readers that because of the demands of schoolwork on Junior Grognard, we have had to take the decision to suspend Team Adventure for a couple of months. It's not a decision that we took lightly, since we know that the players really enjoy it and were looking forward to it starting up again after Christmas.

I am still working on the Adventure for Every Monster series, which will be continuing soon. Since I'm not gaming (apart from running the CoC pbem), I've not got that much game-related stuff to blog about. But this blog is not closing down - posting will be intermittent until further notice.

Team Adventure - Gnome Comforts

Acting quickly – and unsure of how much longer the floor around Alurax would continue to support him - Gullhar (who had returned to the narrow corridor) pulled the doughty fighter out and onto firmer ground. Whilst he was busy doing this, Larsh detected somebody coming down the corridor behind him. It turned out to be a small figure armed with a short sword and wearing studded leather armour. He introduced himself as Gary the Gnome, a thief who had heard of a great treasure inside the dungeon and had come to investigate.

While Gullhar and Alurax were trying to work out what to make of the new arrival, he had skipped nimbly (but not as nimbly as Alagon now could) across the hazardous floor of the slime room, then bypassed Ferros and Alagon, who were still cleaning themselves up after the attack of the Shambling Mound.

On the far side of the Mound Room was another passage, down which the little thief now strode. The rest of the party followed on; Alurax and Gullhar managed to cross the slime room floor, disturbing more of the loose floor but not suffering any dire consequences.  Ferros’ two zombies which had only been created a few minutes earlier were dragged across on a rope, bits of them falling off as this happened, although nothing particularly important.

At the end of the passage, the party found a room with four statues on plinths at each point of a compass rose inlaid in the floor. In each plinth was a slot, about the size of a coin. Gary entered the room, approached the first plinth from behind, reached round and put a coin into the slot. The statue animated and sprayed out a golden dust onto the space in front of it. Gary touched and tasted the gold spray; it tingled when he touched it and didn’t taste of anything. Even as he watched it, the dust vanished like snow on a sunny day.

Ferros entered the room next and with Gary, tried to move one of the statues but it was very firmly fixed and neither of them could budge it.

Alurax’s idea was to get everybody to put a coin in each of the slots whilst one of Ferros’ zombies stood at the centre of the compass rose. This produced the same effect but as the zombie was not standing in front of any of the statues, the showers of gold had no effect.

The experimentation continued; the zombie was stood in front of each statue in turn so that he was showered with dust from each of them but there seemed to be no obvious effects on him.

By now, people were starting to get bored of the statues and their gold dust. They made plans to settle down for the night to regain spells and hit points, whilst Gary set traps at each door of the room to prevent unwanted incursions. Ferros deputed his zombies to stand sentry for a similar purpose.

Nothing disturbed the party during the night. However, in the morning (or so they believed, since they were deep below the surface of the earth), Ferros started to get telepathic messages, through Rufus, from Relic. Elysia, who had last been seen in the entrance to the dungeon, was contacting him to find out where they were.

The magic user had used her new spell, Teleport, to return to the Moat House in order to see if she could recruit additional firepower for the party in the form of Elador. However, she had not realised when doing so that she could only use the spell for one-way trips and so was stuck at the Moat House until she had rested up and relearned the spell. Now, she had teleported back to the last place that she had seen the party and needed to know where they were in order to rejoin them.

Thus guided, the two magic users made their way through the dungeon until they found the party, who were having a discussion about what to do next about the statues. Elysia was most interested in who Gary was, although his comments about searching for great treasure were met with a curt warning not to steal any of the party’s treasure.

Alurax had taken the initiative regarding testing the statues; he tried another gold piece in one of the statues, then decided to test Ferros' hypothesis that the plinth pulverised the coin and sprayed out the remnants. He tried to use a silver piece and the same gold spray came out, disproving that idea.

Finally, with no real idea of what the statues and their gold spray did, Alurax decided to use himself as a guinea-pig and stood in front of the eastern statue, placed a coin in the slot and waited. He was sprayed with the gold dust and somehow knew that he had acquired a particular power – the ability to put himself into a meditative trance and increase the efficacy of any healing magic cast upon him. Delighted by this, he then tried the other three statues and found that he had gained the ability to survive without harm at up to –20 below freezing, the ability to breathe underwater and the ability to summon a sandstorm in any desert and travel up to 30 miles in it.

When the rest of the party realised that far from having ill effects, the statues actually gave out good things, they all decided that they wanted a share as well.

Once they had all been sprayed by all four statues, they pressed on down the further corridor, which led to a small room with a single, iron-bound chest inside. Gary rushed in (no surprise, considering he was being run by Galadeus’ player) to check it out. He tried to break it open but it was so tough that he nearly broke his hammer. He turned his attention to the lock, which seemed very intricate, and got out his thieves’ tool kit. Unfortunately, whilst trying to pick the lock, he triggered a spray of gas against which he was able to save. With only slight irritation, he made a second attempt and this time, he heard the lock click open. He pulled the lid of the chest open and found inside a set of iron keys, each with a piece of coloured cloth attached.  The party was baffled by this discovery but they took the keys nevertheless, supposing that they had some significance and would come in handy later on.

They may be meaningless but the party's paranoia means they'll carry them around till the end of the campaign

The party had now explored every room and corridor and there seemed to be nothing further to find. If this was the case, it was a very small dungeon and they suspected that there was more to it than met the eye. Gullhar decided to see if he could find any secret doors or entrances that they might have passed by initially and moved through each room, checking and rechecking. Eventually, he found something in the narrow passageway that linked the slime room with the rat chamber.

Ferros, Gullhar and Gary gathered round the door and prised it open, finding beyond a room in which lay a dead body, a dagger in one hand. As Gary rushed towards it, another door opened in the far wall and through it came six shadows, heading straight for the hapless gnome. Ferros stepped forward and raised the holy symbol of Foik, which sent the sinister black floating shapes racing back through the doorway and off down the passageway beyond.  Alurax arrived and checked to see if Gary was all right; he also took the dagger from the corpse’s hand. The presence of a slash wound on the body’s arm showed that the knife had been used to end its owner’s life; perhaps he had no intention of becoming a shadow.

The party gathered and moved on down the passage, turning a couple of corners till the corridor virtually doubled back on itself. At the end of the passage, a flight of stairs headed upwards. Gary, in the lead, climbed them and at the top, was confronted by a passage running left and right. He took the left-hand one and it led him into a room where he found four clay jars sealed with pitch, in which were written intricate and mysterious hieroglyphs.

Clay jars - irresistible to gnomes.

 Ferros was soon on hand to read them, casting Comprehend Languages, and was able to announce that they were a warning not to open the jars. Gary ignored this and decided to throw one of his darts at the first jar. It clipped it and knocked it over; it smashed on the floor and out of it came a cloud of screaming phantoms who swirled around Gary’s head, howling into his ears. Only when they had disappeared into the darkness did Gary realise that he was now deaf. 

Inside the shattered jar was a bony snake-like creature with a human skull, which rose up and lunged at Gary. It bit him but he was able to resist the sinister power of the creature by dint of his gnomish resistance to all things magical. Alurax and Elysia stepped forward to deal with the creature – the combined effect of his trident and her Magic Missile blasted the thing into a mass of bony smithereens.

No, I am not undead, despite appearances to the contray, so turn on, cleric, turn on, hahaha!

The second jar held another set of keys with pieces of coloured cloth on them; the party filed these under E for Enigmatic. The third jar held 19 silver balls, each with a single hieroglyph on. Ferros’ Comprehend Languages was still running but all it revealed was that each hieroglyph was a single letter of an ancient alphabet.

That just left the fourth jar, which was broken open to reveal a small figurine of a scorpion. Gary decided that he wanted this and pocketed it; a bad move as no sooner had he done this than it started to grow, bursting out of his pocket and landing on the floor. It continued growing and attacked both Gary and Alurax, who had rushed in to help him. The two huge pincers missed the gnome but the sting caught Alurax, wounding him but failing to overcome him with its poison.

These guys are mean critters. I must use one on a low-level party one day.

Elysia flew in to pluck Gary out of the fray whilst the scorpion turned its full attention to Alurax, catching him with one of its pincers. Alurax returned the compliment and Ferros fired an arrow that finished off the huge monster.

The party started to clean up, Alurax chopping off the tail of the scorpion and trying to bottle its poison.

On the far side of the room was a solid stone door which Alurax started to investigate but could find no way of opening. Meanwhile, Gary started down another passage into a large chamber, in which was a flight of stairs going down, as well as a dead body surrounded by large purple fungi almost as tall as the gnome himself.  The rest of the party recognised them as shriekers and concluded that it was a good idea to send in somebody who couldn’t hear anyway and was therefore immune to the deafening sound they would make.  As Gary stepped into the room, a flagstone on the floor shifted under his feet and the stone door which Alurax had been checking out slid open. From the opening came four wraiths which headed for Elador, who was closest to them.  Ferros had been thinking about entering the shrieker room but when Gary had volunteered, he had stayed back. It was a lucky thing that he did so because he was perfectly placed to step forward and let the power of Foik and drove the wraiths back into their chamber again.

Wraiths show off this season's colours

Gary moved further into the room, setting off the shriekers and investigating the body. There was nothing particularly interesting about it and when Gary popped back through to report his findings, Alurax recommended that he destroy the shriekers, which he did with an oil bomb.

While the rest of the party remained in the room of the clay jars, Gary pressed on, finding another room on the far side of the shrieker chamber (he didn’t seem to be interested in the descending staircase). This had a passage leading off it and a mysterious trail of slime on the floor that led down the other corridor. In the far corner of the room was an open doorway and beside it, a lever mechanism which had six settings. Gary checked out the lever, pulling it up and down but nothing seemed to happen.  He also examined the slime but it appeared to have no obvious effect on him.

The rest of the party now came through the shrieker room and joined Gary; Alurax took a turn at moving the lever up and down but achieved no more success than had the gnome. The party decided that it might be worth setting up camp here and Gary started to get his traps out again. However, just as he was starting to do that, Elysia heard something further down the passageway down which the slime trail led. It was a sinister squelching and slithering and it was getting closer. Alurax fired an arrow but could not see where it had gone or even if it had hit something. He flung an oil bomb up the passage and its sudden blaze illuminated a huge bulk with what looked like antennae pushing its way down the corridor. 

It was big, it was horrible and it was heading straight for them.

Team Adventure - Flame On!

The disappearance of their heavyweight fighter had discomfited the party and they quickly put their heads together to try and work out what to do. It was decided to test the fire with a second zombie (they  had used one earlier, but I’d forgotten to include this in the last session write-up). Said zombie shambled up the steps and into the fire, which had the same result; one vanished zombie.

Elysia decided that this was getting them nowhere and hit upon the solution of sending Relic through the fire. She was hoping that nothing bad was going to happen and figured that the telepathic link between them would net her more information than if they risked another member of the party. The little pseudo-dragon flew into the flames and was gone in an instant. Elysia concentrated on the connection between them and started to receive images from the other side of the flames.

Alurax was not, in fact, dead, or indeed in any immediate danger.  Relic had appeared in an octagonal room with four arches leading off it, each filled with a rusty orange mist. Beside each arch was a lever marked “Pull me”. One of the levers was up, the others down. In the middle of the room, a skeleton lay, a sword in its bony claw, pointing at one of the arches. Whilst Relic was taking all this in, he heard a call from above him and looked up to find Alurax stuck to the ceiling of the room. 

What had happened to him was swiftly deduced by Elysia, who worked out that a powerful magnetic field had been triggered by Alurax pulling one of the levers. As the only member of the party not wearing anything metal, she knew that she would have to go through the fire and having seen that Relic was not harmed, she knew it would be safe.

She arrived in the room, cast Web to secure Alurax from falling, then switched off the magnetic field. He fell into the sticky strands, whereupon Elysia cast Fly to rise up and cut him loose, lowering him safely to the ground.  While she was doing this, Ferros sent Rufus through to get information on what was happening and relayed the goings-on to the rest of the party.

One by one, the party members used the fire bowl to travel to the octagonal room. Once they were all there, Ferros realised that he would be unable to bring any of his undead army with him as he was not there to issue their commands. At least, he thought, he had two zombies with him. The party looked around the room and wondered what was through the mist-filled arches. Whilst they were pondering this, a strange growling howl came from beyond the arch to which the skeleton’s sword pointed.

It should be pointed out at this juncture that Galadeus had been the only one bold enough to touch the skeleton and take the sword. The party had half-expected it to animate and do something nasty but instead it just lay there. The strange noises, however, prompted the ranger to draw his weapons and go hurrying off into the mist to investigate. Without the rest of the party. As usual.

After ten feet or so of swirling mists which would have fuddled his brain had he not been wearing a home-made face mask, he found himself in a clear passageway. Ahead of him was another archway filled with mist; there were two more, one on each side of him. As he was taking this in, out of each archway stepped a huge minotaur, armed with a nasty-looking axe. They laid into the luckless ranger, battering him badly. He put up a valiant fight and Florin the phoenix used its fire-based ability to set the genitalia of one of the minotaurs aflame.  Enraged and in agonising pain, it attacked all the harder.

Rufus came through the mist to find out what had happened; a brief scan of the scene enabled him to flash the message back to Ferros that Galadeus was in the process of being hacked to pieces by the minotaurs. The party surged through the mist to his rescue - Alurax relieved his comrade, who was virtually finished by now, Elysia flew in and pulled the ranger to safety and Gullhor brought ten feet of furry white power with him.

I'll see your three Minotaurs and raise you a Polar Bear

Alurax finished off one minotaur and Larsh ripped the two others to pieces although he did take some damage from the axe of one.  As the party were searching the bodies and clearing up, it was noticed that there was a trail of gold pieces that led through one of the unexplored arches. Having healed Galadeus, they decided to follow it.  Another mist-filled stretch of passageway awaited them, followed by a clear passage, followed by a mist-filled one, followed by a clear one…and so on. The party soon realised that their choices had brought them round in a circle and back to the octagonal room again.

Galadeus decided to try another direction, turning right where they had previously turned left and came to a passageway that ended not in an archway but in a heavy planked door. They suspected that something interesting lay beyond and how right they were as kicking in the door revealed a large pile of hay in the centre of the room and two more minotaurs closing in on them. This time the party was prepared and able to spread out and engage their enemy on advantageous terms. The fight was swift and the two minotaurs were quickly eliminated, leaving Alurax free to search the room, discovering a large stash of electrum pieces below the pile of hay. Whilst he was doing that, he and Galadeus noticed that there was a thirty foot shaft in the ceiling, and at its top, some sort of wooden trap door. There were also three other plank doors leading off the minotaur room.

Elysia realised that she was running low on spells now and did not want to start opening more doors without being able to fend off what might lie on the other side. She set up Leomund’s Tiny Hut and the party bedded down inside – all, that is, apart from Alurax and Galadeus. The two of them had decided not to pass up the opportunity of investigating the shaft and climbed up its side to the trapdoor, Galadeus using two minotaur horns that he had hacked off the head of one of the party’s defeated opponents. They managed to get the door open, although it swung down to hit Alurax but did not dislodge him.

They emerged into a vast room, thirty feet wide and as high. The floors were covered with old prayer rugs, their patterns worn by years of use. Ahead of them against the wall was a statue of the King that reached nearly to the ceiling and in its forehead was a glimmering red gem. In the floor in front of the statue was a compass rose carved into the floor.

The lure of the gem proved too much for our heroes; Galadeus instructed Florin to fly up and take it but the phoenix could not get it free, so in an act of lèse-majesté, Alurax scrambled up the statue and used a dagger to prise the gem out of the stone.

As soon as he did so, a deep booming sound started up from the statue. Both he and Galadeus ran back to the trapdoor and climbed back down the shaft again. Elysia was rather annoyed to find out what had been going on, firstly because her rest and spell recovery had been interrupted and secondly because despite all the fuss, the gem that Alurax had stolen was revealed to be worthless cut glass. She insisted that Alurax put the gem back as she had deduced that this would stop the alarm. She was exactly right and with the gem replaced, the party bedded down to some peaceful rest.

Eight hours later, on the morning of September 14th (if anybody is actually keeping track of time; I know the party isn’t) Alurax and Galadeus woke with a keen urge to continue their investigations at the top of the shaft. Elysia was not interested in the upper level but the ranger and the fighter pressed on regardless whilst the rest of the party continued its exploration of the room they were in. Alurax had wondered if the gem, despite being glass, might shine a clue onto the compass rose, giving a hint as to the way out.

Meanwhile, Alagon had started to investigate the three other doors that led off the minotaur room. Beyond the first one, he found a leather knapsack that contained two scroll cases and a pouch with about a thousand gold pieces inside it. Elysia was very interested in the scrolls and was even more so when it was discovered that one of them was Fireball. This spell, so inseparably identified with the most powerful wizards had long been missing from her spell book and her delight at its acquisition was hard to conceal.

The second of the doors opened to reveal another misty corridor, as did the third, although Elysia used Relic to scout out what lay beyond. It was definitely pay day for the magic user as the pseudo-dragon saw a glowing ring on the floor of the corridor. Relic snatched it up before Ferros could get to it and took it to his mistress, who used an Identify spell to reveal it to be a powerful Ring of Protection. As she was unable to wear armour, the magic user thought it best if she appropriated this item.

Meanwhile, on the level above, Alurax and Galadeus had managed to find a secret door in the statue room and opened it to find beyond a passageway which they decided to explore. Thereby splitting the party but no matter. It’s never bothered them in the past!

DG note - this week was the first time that Larsh the polar bear had made his appearance on the table, courtesy of Brian at Lead Legion. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank him for all the effort he made in locating the figure and painting it up for us.

Team Adventure - Pyramid Scheme

The next morning, Elysia despatched Relic and Rufus to scout out the two roads and see what lay ahead. It was not long before the pseudo-dragons returned to report that to the north-west lay seemingly endless tracts of sand dunes, whilst to the south-west, there appeared to be rocky hills rising out of the desert. There was a brief debate within the party about the direction that they should take; some thought the city sounded worth investigating whilst others were keener on the hills; somebody remembered that many weeks earlier (or so it seemed) Benbo had mentioned mountains across a desert and thought this might be them.

I should note at this point (for it was overlooked in last time’s report) that the party had left town without Benbo. The hobbit had not been present when they started their journey into the desert and nobody was particularly inclined to search for him.

The team set off towards the hills and arrived about mid-morning. The terrain was harder going but they nevertheless reached the high places with no great mishap.

At last, a break from sand!

From the peaks, they could see down across the desert plains and far off in the distance, Alurax (with his hawk-assisted vision) was able to pick out a tiny black speck on the horizon. Thinking that this could be the pyramid about which the obelisk had spoken, the party pressed on, coming out of the hills and into the desert again. Elysia sent off Relic to see what he could find out about the distant object but the team were setting up camp amidst the dunes before the pseudo-dragon returned, very hungry and thirsty, to relate that it was definitely a pyramid, with the ruins of some sort of temple outside.

When the sun rose, the party was eager to get moving again, now that they had confirmation that they were on the right track. It was not long before something unusual happened. Alurax suddenly went rigid in the saddle, moaned, clutched his head and fell to the sand. The rest of the party gathered round, very concerned. The doughty fighter soon recovered his wits to relate that he had experienced a weird vision; he had been in a moonlit desert when he was confronted by a mysterious figure in rags, beckoning to him. When he refused to approach, the figure came to him, revealing that it was the spirit of a long-dead king, who was now cursed by the gods to linger outside the afterlife as punishment for his greed and arrogance in life. He told Alurax that he needed help; if the party could seize the Staff of Ruling and the Star Gem from the tomb within the pyramid, then his soul could move on to the afterlife after hundreds of years. He also warned Alurax to beware of somebody called Munafik, whose heart had become filled with darkness.

The other members of the party seemed to consider that Alurax had been chosen by the King’s spirit to enter the pyramid and lift the curse. They rode for most of the day, with the distant pyramid getting slowly larger on their horizon.

Hmmm...I wonder if that's worth investigating

At last, however, they arrived at the foot of the huge building. It was getting on for late afternoon by now, but the gang were undeterred and scrambled up the steps which led to the only visible entrance. 

Inside the entrance, they found a passage running to the left and one to the right. Ahead of them was a long dark hall with four thick pillars on each side. Away at the far end of the room was a statue, dim and hard to make out in the gloom but Elysia used her Wand of Illumination to light the chamber and they could make it out. Alurax recognised a similarity between the figure he had seen in his vision and the statue, concluding that it must be of the King. It was also noticed that the statue was not carved of the same material as the wall against which it stood; further examination showed that it seemed to be concealing an entrance. Alurax and Gullhor tried to shift it but it was too heavy for them so they enrolled the assistance of Larsh and with his furry strength, the statue was soon heaved aside to reveal a short passage to another room, which had another statue of the King and two passages leading off to either side.

Concluding that the statue must hide a similar door, the party soon had it shoved aside and sure enough, a long passage lay beyond. It sloped downwards and the party followed it for about seventy feet until they arrived in a large room. On the far side, facing them were three statues of the King, with two more on each side of the room. The party edged around what appeared to be some kind of altar in the centre of the room. Elysia noticed that the ceiling and walls were covered in strange inscriptions and Ferros used his Comprehend Languages spell to decipher that they repeated the name of the King in many different but archaic languages.

On examining the altar, the party noted that there seemed to be the impressions of a left and right hand on one side of it. They were reluctant to place their own hands there, and instead conducted a thorough search of the room. One of the statues on the side opposite the main entrance yielded to the power of fighters and polar bear, only to reveal a small but empty room beyond.

Not wishing to leave any stone unturned, Alurax volunteered to place his hands onto the impressions on the altar. Nothing happened when he did so; nor did it when Gullhor tried. Then Ferros and Alagon remembered that the King’s name was almost everywhere in the room and thought that perhaps uttering this might give some result. So it transpired, and with a click and an eerie grinding noise, one of the statues on the side wall slid slowly aside to reveal a passage into the darkness beyond.

With Alurax and Alagon leading the way, the party moved further on into the tunnels and chambers. The passage led them into a grand hallway – or perhaps it had been grand once, many years ago. Now, the plaster frescoes had crumbled to rubble and there were axe and hammer marks all over the walls. At the far end was a broken door, showing the signs of violence.

The party decided to investigate further and found that beyond the door was another huge room. This had carvings in the wall which, when translated by Ferros, read ‘Treasure Room’. If it had ever contained treasure, there was none there now; merely broken pots and smashed chests. An archway at the end of the treasure room led to a room inside which lay a stone sarcophagus. Its lid had been heaved off and smashed into fragments. The sarcophagus was empty apart from a thick layer of dust. On the wall behind it, there were words which read “Here lies the true tomb of the King. Know that you have arrived too late to plunder his riches”.

Gullhor speculated that even if somebody had plundered the tomb, they might still find the treasure somewhere else in the pyramid since it had been said by the man who spoke to Alurax in the tavern in Sandholm that nobody had ever returned from the desert.

Meanwhile, Elysia and Ferros had despatched their pseudo-dragons to investigate some of the side passages that the party had passed on its way to the plundered tomb. The reports came in; the two passages that they had found just inside the main doorway led to a room with a statue of the King in on one side and a similar chamber on the other side but this one had a statue which held a large bowl in which blazed flames. The second pair of side passages led to deep wells within the pyramid, one of which was filled with murky water whilst the other was fed by a fountain that came pouring out of a hole in the wall of the well.

The party decided to check out the flaming bowl room, and were soon examining the statue, which stood at the top of a flight of stairs. Alurax approached the fire and noticed that it gave out light but no heat. Curious, he put his hand into the fire and found that he was not burnt. He tried placing a small twig into the bowl and at once, the fire flared up fiercely; when it subsided, there was no sign of the twig.

It was at this point that Galadeus, who had been checking around the room, noticed that as well as the tracks of the party, there were other footprints disturbing the dust, which climbed the stairs but did not go back down again. However, this observation did not deter Alurax from clambering into the bowl of fire. As had happened before, the flames blazed up, momentarily blinding everybody and when they could see again, there was no trace whatsoever of the trident-wielding fighter. Alurax was gone.   

DG note - a shorter session than usual this time, since it was Junior Grognard's tenth birthday this weekend and after we broke for lunch, the lads wanted to do other stuff. Nevertheless, they got a long way in a couple of hours, which pleased me greatly.

Team Adventure - Storming the Desert

The orcs had deployed with an eye to ground-level confrontation. A line of thirty polearm wielders had the job of stopping enemy cavalry, as well as screening twenty archers. On either side of the bowmen were two groups of twenty axemen. On the flanks were spearmen whose job it would be to hurl their weapons before retreating out of combat range. At the rear was the chief and the warband standard. The remaining seventy or so had been despatched to meet the advancing elves.

A perfectly good plan, were it not for the presence of the Air Force. Elysia was not about to hurl herself and her party at the orc polearms and decided to make use of the third dimension. She cast Enlarge on Florin, Eristar, Rufus and Relic, then had them carry Galadeus, Alurax, Alagon and Gullhor into battle. She used Fly to carry both herself and Ferros over the enemy lines. The Air Force was then assigned the task of circling the orcs with oil bombs, creating a ring of fire that would hem them in and prevent them redeploying to take on the party. Benbo was left behind to look after the horses (again).

Polearms, check. Archers, check. Axemen, check. 20mm anti-aircraft cannon....oh ****!

It should also be pointed out at this stage that the plan was produced with the input of everybody at the table; Galadeus’ player made some insightful observations and suggestions, as did Alagon’s player and Junior Grognard.

The plan worked quite well; granted, the orcs were not expecting such a manoeuvre, but they responded orcfully to the challenge, firing a volley of arrows up at the magic user and cleric, hitting Ferros several times (I’d ruled that Elysia was carrying him in front of her; literally, a meat shield). On the flanks where Rufus and Relic were moving in on the orc spearmen, a hail of missiles shot up from the ranks, causing the pseudo-dragons some nasty damage, but fortunately not fatal. Rufus and Relic then carried out the second stage of their plan, the ring of fire, which was soon blazing away. The fire would not stop anyone determined enough to leap across it but it might deter the orcs from trying to do so in the first place. 

The two fighters landed and leapt into action, Alagon’s oil strike taking out all five of the orcs targeted. Gullhor had less luck, his oil bomb going wide in a mis-throw that caused the orcs to hoot with laughter at the incompetence of elves. They were not laughing when Larsh the polar bear appeared from his figurine status, although the bear had the same luck as his master, failing to damage a single orc.

Still in the air, Galadeus had tried to load a bag with oil bombs, a flask of rum and light it at the same time. Needless to say, his dexterity was not up to the task and of the ten bombs he had, he dropped seven of them. He sent Florin into a low dive and used the phoenix’s Cause Flame ability to ignite the dropped oil.

Alurax was having similar luck; he dropped his bag of oil bombs but his attempt to extract, light and throw a torch to ignite it saw the firebrand go sailing off target. He landed and commenced his attack on the axemen before anything else went wrong.

Elysia and Ferros landed behind enemy lines. The orcs were turning to face this new threat but the orc chieftain suddenly realised that his previously secure position behind dozens of his hardy warriors was now a very dangerous place to be. His orc archers fired again at Elysia and Ferros but the doughty cleric returned fire with a shot that went straight through the throat of the luckless chieftain. Elysia cast Confusion and followed it up with a Fear spell which neutralised most if not all of the archers.

While Alagon waded in to assist Galadeus, Gullhor’s luck was turning on his flank – Larsh ripped an orc apart with each paw, whilst the elf stopped the smirks on the orcs’ faces. The spearmen were soon eliminated as a fighting force.

I got HOW many XP?

The paladin and ranger, despite taking some damage, had managed to kill several more orcs to add to the tally burned by the oil bomb strike. With the death of their leader and the disintegration of their centre, fear-stricken orcs ploughing through the ranks of polearm wielders, the remainder of the orc force decided to make a run for it. Elysia was more than happy to let them go, seeing no need to fight any longer if the enemy was not a credible threat. It was not long after that the elves arrived, thanked our heroes for their aid and said that they would hunt down the stragglers, now that their morale was in tatters.

The next day, the party came across a merchant caravan that was heading for Sandholm. Unsure of what other threats lurked in the vicinity, they agreed to ride with the merchants to their destination.

It's no Waterdeep

Sandholm was hardly a city of splendours. It was a ramshackle collection of timber buildings on the edge of the Shining Plains, which could now clearly be seen as desert. The entire population was little more than a few hundred, and merchants used it as a stopping point, rather than a source of trade. Nevertheless, it had a store where the party was able to restock its supply of oil bombs (I suppose there must have been a tar pit or source of naphtha nearby – might be worth checking out later).

A chance remark from Alurax in the tavern sparked a conversation which hinted at more adventure amongst the sand dunes. A man overheard Alurax mention pyramids and told the fighter (with Ferros listening in) that legends hinted at a lost pyramid deep into the desert, stuffed with treasure but guarded by a curse. Many had voyaged out into the desert to find it but none had returned. Alurax tried to enlist the man and any of his friends to accompany the party but the man insisted on equal shares of the treasure, a deal which Elysia swiftly vetoed when she got to hear about it.

Since their quest would lead them out into the desert anyway, they decided to stock up with protective clothing (Ferros would deal with the food and drink angle of things) and the next morning they rode westwards, to the curious (and pessimistic) reaction of the townsfolk. Elysia and Ferros flew out, trying to impress the good folk of Sandholm. Whether it did or not, our party never found out. 

Your new adventure starts here

On the first day, little of consequence happened; the desert is a big place, with not much in the way of life. A shower of acid rain caused problems for the horses but it swiftly passed and healing was applied to the stricken beasts. As the sun dipped towards the western horizon, the party spied ahead two weathered pillars of rock which they approached with trepidation. There was some ancient writing on them, which both Ferros and Alurax studied and managed to decipher. The writing proclaimed the pillars as the Gates of Sule, with the added message that a curse was on all who passed unbidden.

Galadeus decided that he was not going to be cursed by passing through the gate and instead went round the pillars. He had not noticed what Alurax had seen; the sands to either side of the gate were softer than the track. The ranger tossed his rum bottle onto the sand with no effect, then took one step forward. When that produced only a minor shifting of the sand, he took another step and sank into the sand.

Alurax and Gullhor were on hand with rope and soon hauled the luckless ranger out again. They realised that stepping through the gate was really the only option. Alurax went first and nothing seemed to happen to him. The rest of the party apart from Elysia and Ferros did likewise, much to the magic user’s chagrin. The mention of a curse had clearly got her spooked. She and Ferros flew over the gate and camp was made soon afterwards, the desert being a cold place at night.

Next morning, the party pressed on westwards, the sun at their backs, the shadows long on the sand before them. The silence of the desert was oppressive and they were left with each other’s company and conversation. Evening was a welcome diversion but as the desert started to darken again, they saw that ahead of them, the trail forked. One branch went north-west, the other south-west. Nearby there was a hummock in the sand, which Alurax fired at with his bow to see if it was alive and hostile. It was neither; a fallen block on which were the words

“Here lies the road to the garden city of Pazar whilst there lies the road to Terbakar, Keeper of the Pyramid”

Unfortunately, there was no way of knowing which road was which, since the obelisk was toppled and its directional arrows were weathered away. The party decided to camp down for the night and decide in the morning which road to take.

Team Adventure - Swamp Thing!

Across the wilderness, summer was slowly giving way to autumn and our gallant band of adventurers were but a tiny pinprick on the route march of the seasons. Having bade farewell to Hragnir and his dwarven band, the gang moved on, still on the plains but now they could see a distant tree line; could that be the domain of the elves who they had last seen when saving (and later transforming) the life of Cafaror – now Gullhor.

Of course, the open country meant that their aerial reconnaissance was easily able to spot a gang of ten ogres a couple of miles off and although certain of the party were keen to wet their blades, wiser counsel prevailed and they took steps to avoid the ogres.

At around midday or so, Galadeus, who – as ranger – was at the front of the party, heard suspicious noises from some thick undergrowth ahead and rode in to deal with what he at first thought were more ogres. He was badly mistaken for out popped a snarling, tusked face whose expression should have told the young ranger to back off. That he did not was his choice and the result of that choice was a hard-fought battle between Galadeus and not one but three wild boars. He urged the rest of the party to leave him to sort this out himself, feeling confident that he could fight off three boars.

Squeak piggy squeak

 His phoenix Florin managed to set one boar’s fur on fire and chased it off into the undergrowth again but the other two managed to overwhelm and bring down the ranger. Even the intervention of Alagon couldn’t save Galadeus from serious injury, which was almost compounded when Gullhor fired an arrow that missed the boar and nearly hit Galadeus. Eventually the boars were finished off and the party decided to have an impromptu meal of roast pork.  Their afternoon was a leisurely ride through the countryside with only an encounter with wild cattle to punctuate their journey.

Evening saw them enter the forests towards which they had been riding. They rested up and the next morning continued their quest. Gullhor now began to recognise leaf, feather and fur totems that marked this area as belonging to the elves. Despite this, they saw nobody. Was this because the elves did not wish to be seen or was there some other reason?

Later that morning, as Galadeus was again scouting through the trees, he was rudely surprised by the sudden appearance of three ogres. Normally, rangers are the ones doing the surprising but it was not so in this case. Maybe his mind was on other things or perhaps the ogres got lucky; whichever it was, he and Alagon were hard pressed to win their fight. The rest of the party were some way behind them and hurried towards the noise of fighting. The ogres were overcome – and the paltry sum of one hundred and twenty gold pieces looted from their corpses – but Alurax, climbing into a tree (on his second attempt) could detect signs that these three were but a small part of a larger party. Again, discretion was the better part of valour for our gang and with the ranger at their head, they took evasive action through the forest, eventually managing to dodge the rest of the ogres although Alagon standing on a fallen branch and snapping it didn’t help matters.

The party eventually deemed it safe to camp down for the night, but things were not going to be so peaceful for them. Gullhor started to sense that something was not right in the forest nearby and set off to find out what it was. He soon discovered a scene of carnage not too far away from their campsite.  Dead bodies, horses and mules lay in bloody disarray, wagons were tipped over, wheels broken and boxes and sacks split and emptied.  Gullhor was unsurprisingly perturbed by this and advised the party of what he had discovered. They resolved to check it out further in daylight and when they did so, they realised that whatever had done this might still be around. Elysia and Ferros took charge of the investigation and managed to find two bodies on whom Speak With Dead might be cast. From their post-mortem investigations, they found that the dead were merchants who had been ambushed and killed for their gold and goods.  Ferros was also delighted to find so many bodies as it meant that he could add to his skeletons who he had animated in the Giant Wasp nest. Now he had seven zombies to go with them.

Gullhor’s elf senses were soon tingling for another reason. He sensed that there was something nearby which, although not evil, was ripe with the potential for conflict. Elysia advised the party to use caution and diplomacy in their approach and this good advice was completely ignored by Galadeus who went riding through the trees to see what could be found. Caution and diplomacy were in short supply as the impetuous ranger confronted five burly men, shaven-haired with thick bears, armour, scars and impressive weapons. They were gnawing on the bones of some roast animal for breakfast but the situation nearly came to blows as Galadeus threatened their leader and they responded in kind. Elysia flew in and tried to cast Sleep on the five men but the spell had no effect whatsoever. The magic user realised that she was faced with powerful men and her approach became conciliatory and pleasant in the extreme.

We love the smell of blood in the morning

The men calmed down when they realised that Galadeus was not a lone hot-head with a death wish and their leader introduced himself as Ithnir. He described his band as mercenaries, blades for hire who loved fighting, the bloodier the better. In the course of their conversation, while Elysia tried to persuade the band to join Team Adventure, Ithnir revealed that he and his comrades were wereboars, which understandably made things difficult with Galadeus, particularly considering his treatment of the wild boars that they had met a couple of days ago.

Nevertheless, Ithnir did tell Elysia some things about the lands ahead, through which he and his fellows frequently travelled. A few days’ travel west was a town called Sandholm which was on the edge of a vast desert in which, it was hinted, lost tombs, temples and fierce monsters could be found. Beyond that was a range of mountains and beyond them, only rumours of deadly swamps, marshes and fungus creatures that had no name. He also mentioned that although on other journeys, he had seen elves in the forest, this time, he had not noticed any of them around. In return, Elysia told Ithnir of the possibility of war with the giants, a battle in which she was sure he and his band would love to take part. She hoped that it would be on the right side, however, and she had the money to make sure that it was so.

Ithnir and his band bade them farewell and headed off into the forest. The party set off again, hoping that they might run into some elves but wondering why they had not done so already. Galadeus was scouting ahead again and had got some distance from the party when he noticed that the forest around him was getting misty; in fact, he was soon surrounded by thickening fog and the hooves of his horse were squelching through mud and water instead of grass.

Galadeus had a bad feeling about this but as usual, he ignored it and pressed on

 Ahead, in the murk, he could see a light, dim in the mist but moving through the trees and he headed towards it. Soon, his horse was trudging through very thick mud and almost came to a complete stop. The light grew closer. Galadeus eased himself out of the saddle and tried to jump to the nearest piece of dry ground.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party realised that they had lost touch with their ranger. Elysia sent Relic off to try and find him; the little pseudo-dragon flew off into the forest and returned soon after bearing images of Galadeus’ horse up to its belly in the swamp and Galadeus on a piece of dry ground nearby. The party made haste to catch up with him before his horse was sucked under completely.

With lassos of rope, they managed to drag the gallant steed to safety although Galadeus seemed intent on finding out what the lights in the fog were. Alagon sensed evil all around them but there was no specific focus for it. Elysia tried to interrogate the lights but all she receive in return was the sound of sinister laughter in the space between thought and sound. She tried to fly towards one of the lights to force it to reveal its purpose but a bolt of electrical energy knocked her out of the air and she fell into one of the boggy areas. 

Don't follow the lightssss, precioussss!

 Meanwhile, Galadeus had tried to hurdle one of the swampy patches in his efforts to catch up with the lights, but failed to clear the slime and ended up stuck once again. As he started to sink into the marsh, he could feel a cold, chilling sensation passing through his body. He managed to struggle towards a tree root and slowly pull himself out. Once he was on dry land again, he noticed that one of the lights was moving along what seemed to be a path through the swamp; as he followed, it move further and further away, enticing the ranger ever onwards until finally, he blundered into yet another area of marsh. Stuck fast, he could only call for help.

By now, Elysia could see that the entire party was in danger of getting mired. She had cast Protection from Evil to keep herself from being drained of energy – an insight that Alurax had gained through consideration of what they had learned so far. She also cast Enlarge on Relic and Rufus and told them to find Galadeus and pull him to safety. Once they had done that, she got the two not-so-little pseudo-dragons to find a path out of the swamps and lead the rest of the party to safety. Elysia realised that she had very few spells left now that might even affect the sinister lights and no chance of casting Magic Missile (one that she had not as yet tried) until she had rested and recharged her spells. She was keen to ensure that the rest of the party survived, even if she didn’t.

Relic and Russet flew ahead to guide the party into a more wholesome area of the forest, then Relic flew back to be with his mistress. The party were stunned by what had happened and to a man, they were ready to go back and try to rescue their magic user. However, Rufus and Relic were in telepathic contact and through this, Ferros was able to realise the gravity of their situation; they would be risking their own lives if they tried to go back, since if a powerful magic-user was unable to defeat the sinister lights, what chance had those without magic?  If they ended up getting killed, then Elysia’s sacrifice would be in vain.

The session ended on that cliff-hanger; would Elysia survive somehow or would she be drained or drowned when the Protection from Evil Spell wore off?

Are children intuitive railroaders?

A couple of years ago, I was reading an article which discussed the tendency of children to ascribe purpose to everything and pondered if this effectively hardwired them to a theistic view of the universe. Whilst that is in itself a very interesting article and worth a look, it’s not what I want to discuss today, although I have purloined and slightly altered the title.

The recent account of the Christmas dungeon run by Junior Grognard will have shown just how railroady it was, although this is not to take anything away from his achievement in writing it and running it. All I’m saying is that there was a specific goal, a pre-determined path and no substantial deviation had been planned for.

This surprised me at the time, since he and his friends have been playing a very sandbox, player-agency driven campaign for a number of years and I had thought that this playing style might have rubbed off on him to a certain extent. The reasons why it hadn’t intrigued me.

It may be that since birth, children are exposed to story, either in the written format or in the televised version. The stories they encounter in this fashion are very linear; A leads to B, leads to C, concludes at D. There’s no concept of the possibility of alternative outcomes; the text is inviolable, created by an unseen source, presented as a given. When children begin to write or otherwise create their own stories, they often adhere to the beginning-middle-end format, not necessarily examining motivations but letting actions fuel their narratives. Indeed, to change anything about the narrative alters the end and this is not something that children find easy to contemplate unless alternative resolutions are addressed by a specific exercise. 

Since the emergent story is often hard to discern from the pre-planned, pre-existing version whilst running dungeons, particularly if the DM is skilled in making random events mesh seamlessly into a coherent and unfolding experience, the existence of other ways of creating stories may not even be apparent to child players. That the party was ultimately victorious against the giants in the fire chasms seems to them a logical outcome, their destiny fulfilled. Something that was always meant to be. Returning to the nexus points where specific decisions turned an entire adventure onto another (and unexpected) track can show how player agency affects outcomes but it seems not to sink into the child mind.

Another possibility is that sandbox is by its very nature formless, unpredictable and places a large amount of responsibility onto the players for their own fates. I don’t know about your family but in my experience, a childhood is not often the place where there is a lack of predictability, a feeling that anything could happen (good or bad) and a whole shed load of personal responsibility dumped on a child (well, not until they get into their teenage years.)  Junior Grognard gets up at a particular time, goes to school at a particular time, eats what I buy and cook, goes to bed at a particular time, takes holidays we choose, has specific areas where he enjoys freedom and others where he knows not to venture (often involving hot, fragile or sharp things). That might seem controlling but he’s only nine and he’s the only one we’ve got. Asking him to suddenly take on the responsibility for the choices, actions and fate of a character, even a fictional one is a big leap. It’s possibly why players become more adventurous in their teenage years as they begin to realise that what they do affects what happens to them and they are allowed to do more. A campaign where there are few choices, things are set up so that they know where they are going and the outcome is predetermined does give a fair degree of security.

There’s also the possibility that the child’s mind as it grows is just not equipped to handle the kinds of uncertainty and choice that sandbox presents. It’s documented that the frontal lobes don’t fully integrate into the brain as a whole until the early twenties. These are the parts of the brain that deal with outcomes, judgements and controls a person’s impulses and emotions. Being able to make informed choices from a range of options and to estimate the consequences of those choices is much harder without fully formed and integrated frontal lobes.  However, whilst the frontal lobes are the parts of the brain that take longest to develop, the nucleus accumbens is a part of the brain that plays an important role in reward and pleasure. Children are biologically prone to seeking out experiences and activities that give the most reward for the least amount of effort; one reason why child RPG players are very easy to hook with shiny magic items and piles of treasure, leading to XP!

So, given the preceding, is it worth running sandbox games with kids?  Should we just switch to adventure paths where the amount of player input is minimalised?  I’d say no; my players, as I’ve said have been adventuring in a world where, unbeknownst to them, events are being driven by the choices and actions that they take. That they don’t entirely realise the mechanics behind the world in which they are playing is immaterial; the philosophy of choice, player agency and lack of constrictive DMing is seeping into their still-forming minds and come the day when they can handle the concepts that underlie sandbox in its purest form, they will be ready for it, rather than addicted to the quick fix and the easy option.

That’s my take on the issue; I’d be interested to know if other DMs who play with kids in their groups have encountered the same things or if other evidence is going to blow my hypothesis out of the water.

Junior Grognard's Christmas Dungeon

You might not be aware of this, but it is a tradition in the Grognard house that Junior Grognard runs a one-off session of his own on Boxing Day or as close as possible thereto. So it was this year; he had been working away on it for several days and was soon installed behind the DM’s screen with books, paperwork and dice – just like a real DM.

We (Mummy Grognard and I) rolled up two characters apiece – I got a cleric and a pretty good set of rolls for my second character (13/14/11/13/12/15) and decided this was a perfect F/Mu/Th, therefore half-elven and I plumped for a female character, partly because I’d played so few in years gone by and partly because JG had acquired a set of pre-painted WotC minis for Christmas and one of these was a cool sword-wielding female elf.  MG found herself with a M/U and a thief; we set the levels at 2nd, diced up spells and hit points and got going.

Our party entered the tavern and were enjoying our drinks when we were told by a man who had come rushing in that it was blowing a blizzard outside; it had just started after we came in. The barman (unjustly putting two and two together to make five, perhaps) told us that finding the reason for this was down to us. So, we finished our pints and set off to find out what was going on.  

We marched through the woods until we saw ahead a mound, the only thing around not covered by snow. I misheard JG and thought he said ‘man’ (possibly Dognard whining and howling in the living room might have made the word difficult to hear) and approached it; unfortunately, it started to spit bolts of fire at my half-elf and she was pretty soon down to minus hit points.

The rest of the party dragged her to safety, healed her and rather sensibly decided to avoid the mound if all it was going to do was attack us. A little while later, we came to a frozen lake. Suspecting that the ice was less than supportive, I declared that we would go around it, only to be told it was so big that we couldn’t do that. It turned out to be a frozen fjord rather than a lake, so we decided to try our luck on the ice. Luckily, we made some good rolls (the d20 of doom was on our side this time) and we managed to get across with no unpleasant consequences.


On the far side, a snowman stood, with a flask of warmth as a gift for us. This had six doses and each dose would enable the drinker to endure the wintry conditions for two hours. Each member of the party took a mouthful and we saved the remainder for later.

The blizzard showed no signs of stopping and we decided to camp in the woods. It was getting late but that was no deterrent for the gang of orcs that decided to pay us a visit. To make matters worse, when I asked which was the leader, so our M/U could cast Friends and try to influence him, it was revealed that the orcs were being led by an owlbear. Aieee!

My half-elf cast Spider Climb and shimmied up the nearest tree, unpacking an oil bomb and launching it at the owlbear. I thought an attack on the leader might deter the rest of the band from pressing home their assault. I hurled it, with a 19 and then chose the d30 to roll for damage. An 11 was not as good as I’d hoped for but better than might have been the case if I’d gone for standard damage.

Down on the ground, things were not going the party’s way; the cleric and the M/U were brought down and we were not making much of a dent on the opposition. Finally, after a dagger and bow attack from on high, the orcs withdrew, along with their owlbear leader and we licked our wounds, regained our strength and waited for morning (and Cure Lights).

Sunrise revealed the source of the blizzard – a huge mountain towards which we made our way. We had to cross plains of ice that had once been pastureland but any cattle that might have used them were probably now frozen beef.  Far off, we spotted a large figure by a spire of rock and set off to find out if he was friend or foe. It turned out to be the former – a frost giant with his feet stuck in ice. We used our weapons and torches to free him and in return he told us that we needed to find Father Christmas who would give us something to help us get up the mountain, which, apparently, could not be climbed by conventional methods.

Find him we did, camped nearby with his reindeer. He had a golden crossbow with a silver bolt loaded in it, which we were advised to fire at the top of the mountain.

Before this, we had another obstacle to get around; a gang of monsters with white spiky fingers and noses. They were ice orcs and it was their job to stop us getting up the mountain. They were led by a larger creature who announced that he was Jack Frost. This cut little ice with us (hehe) and we piled into combat, shattering two of the ice orcs and discomfiting the others sufficiently that they retreated, uttering the standard threats of unspecified revenge.

We were now clear to fire the golden crossbow at the mountain. When we did this, the rope attached formed a cable up which we all climbed (having to make a STR roll to avoid losing our grip and falling – although the damage was minimal as my half-elf found out – a bit of a damage magnet, this one).

At the top of the mountain, we found Luck, the blizzard hound. The snow and icy wind was coming from his gaping jaws. He was howling because he had lost his coin in the ice maze. We calmed him and promised that we would find his coin.

We set off for the ice maze;  at its entrance, we found two large statues – they appeared to be frozen creatures who we promised to try and help if we could. Inside the maze, we came across the figures of long-dead adventurers sealed inside the icy walls; a chilling reminder of the danger that the maze presented. We were soon confronted by a choice of passages. I turned left, but found a dead end. Right took us to  a room where there was a magic sword hidden behind a stone wall. The central passage led to a t-junction – we took the right-hand passage first and found ourselves in a room where a set of stepping stones led across a pool of icy blue liquid to a pedestal. The thief managed to get across with some good DEX rolls and found that the pedestal contained a glowing coin. Yay, we thought – first time lucky.

Of course, it was nowhere near that simple – as the thief grasped the coin, it crumbled to dust in his hand. A decoy chamber to throw us off the scent. The thief retraced his steps to safety and we chose the left-hand passage which led us to another  chamber. This time, we were fairly confident that the coin was the real deal but the thief managed to trigger a trap that did not harm him but caused a number of spikes to come out of the walls where the rest of the party was standing. We dodged out of the way, which was not hard since they didn’t move at Raiders of the Lost Ark speed but the thief was now stuck inside the room.

Fortunately, it was not long till the spikes retracted and the thief was able to escape with the coin. We left the ice maze, finding that the frozen figures at the entrance were now freed from their icy confinement. We climbed back up to where Luck the Blizzard Dog was waiting. We handed over the coin and in gratitude, he teleported us back to the tavern where we had started the adventure. Waiting for us were individual presents that were in fact wishes which we could use for anything we wanted.

It's a welcome change to be on the other side of the DM's screen and reminds me that I haven't played in many a year. Hopefully, someday one or more of my players will get a game of their own going and I might be able to run characters again. Until then, it's Team Adventure 2013 coming soon.