Due to time & dayjob constraints, I’m unable to continue my series on Scrivener today. However, Scrivener is still on my mind. I added this to the Citizen in the Wilds project, and before I put it aside, interested parties may want to check this out.
Spoiler-tagged for your protection.
Spoiler
Asherian zan Alwred’s defining characteristic is that he’s intelligent. He’s not brave or willfully charming, nor is he arrogant or rude. He’s a bookworm, focused entirely on his magic and how it benefits him. Being thrown into the Wilds makes him apply his intelligence in different ways. Even then, he doesn’t begin really questioning who he is or the nature of his home until Danae is shot.
His sister needs to be downplayed. The loneliness and alien nature of the Wilds loses a lot when he’s in nigh-constant contact with her. The killing the seers subplot is also superfluous. Mention her, give Ash the means to ‘mind-meld’ with Danae somewhere in his notes, but don’t put them in actual contact until maybe halfway through the book. The change in Ash from shy, polite bookworm to someone determined to find answers and uncover the hidden nature of the world should be jarring to his sister.
The Cities need more initial presentation. The conversations among Ash’s classmates need to underscore that the way the Cities do things – the control of the Council of Elders, the sanitization of history and exterior cultures, the use and abuse of non-Citizens – is normal. Emphasize that Justinian allegedly founded the Cities as a haven for the study and protection of magic, which to Citizens is an essential part of the nature, the lattice upon which the world is built. By mastering it, they master the world, and without them it would run rampant.
Consider adjusting Harren’s motivations & attitude. He may be bitter and disillusioned with the Cities since they never came for him. When he finds out someone IS coming for Ash, perhaps through a whisper in his brother’s dreams (NOT A FULL-BLOWN CONVERSATION), he’s simultaneously jealous of this and willing to help his brother stay alive long enough to get rescued. Danae’s wound and Ash’s reaction to heal her pisses him off because it is, to him, a delay in getting back. When the truth comes out, he’s even more dumb-struck than Ash.
Danae’s fine, save that she should be conscious when Ash goes after her memory. After witnessing it, Danae’s in contact with Ash’s mind and knows he recognizes the guns. This means she’ll be less inclined to speak to him or flirt with him on their way to the dwarves. It’s only after days of contemplation and observation that she realizes Ash really had no idea of how his work would be used.
Thanks to my attendance at MEPAcon this past weekend and the generous guys of the Portal Comics & Gaming in Bethlehem, I now own the Dungeon Master’s Kit, a D&D Essentials product in the vein of the new Red Box and the Monster Vault. The party is returning to the Nentir Vale tonight, and while my laptop awaits a new power supply, this Kit promises to make sure I do not assume my place behind the screen unarmed.
Peeling away the plastic and pulling off the cover depicting some rather dashing art, one discovers the following.
Reavers of Harkenwold. This is a two-part adventure that not only expands further upon the denizens and situations within the Nentir Vale, but also explores many of the aspects key to a well-rounded adventure and part of a larger campaign: NPCs with personalities and goals, dungeons with traps and branching pathways, role-playing encounters and so on. So far there’s a great deal of potential and I will know more once the party enters the Harkenwold.
Battle Maps. These go with the adventure and also can be used afterwards. One of the maps has art consistent with the quality seen in the other Essentials products while the other feels a little lackluster. It could just be the brightness of the colors and the thickness of the lines, but it doesn’t appear to be of the same quality. To me, at least. Still, the greater variety of locations on these maps means they can be combined with those from the other products to mix things up for the players in future encounters.
Monster tokens. While you’re sure to see some repetition between these counters and those in both the Monster Vault and the Red Box, there are plenty of human opponents included, for use as guardsmen, minions or competing sellswords. There are also some rather nice NPC counters mixed in to the bunch. From the innkeeper’s wife to a white-bearded wizard, you can now depict either valuable allies or singular villains on the maps when your heroes storm the enemy stronghold. Like the Monster Vault’s tokens, these are two-sided to facilitate easily showing when a victim is bloodied.
Hero tokens. Expanding on those included in the Red Box, an entire sheet in the DM Kit is dedicated to the races available to players, from dragonborn to tieflings. There are more humans than any other race, and spaces that could include more art from other races — dwarves or halflings for example — are taken up with Action Point tokens. I’m glad to see some of these races get tokens, as I mentioned in my Red Box unboxing that getting miniatures for all of these guys can be quite an investment, and I personally am a big fan of dragonborn and tieflings as player races. As complaints go, holding something in your hands and saying “I wish there were more of these” isn’t a bad one.
DM Screen. Flimsier than its stand-alone cousin, it still contains a lot of information a DM might need in the course of an encounter, right at their fingertips. It also conceals notes and dice rolls from the players.
Dungeon Master’s Book. There have been some updates to the 4th edition rules since the original DMG came out a couple years ago, and this book makes it a point to include those revisions. It also includes sections for the DM regarding campaign-building, improvisation and loot creation. What might be most surprising to veterans of Dungeons & Dragons is this book’s size. Instead of the hefty hardbacks of other core rulebooks, this is an attractive softcover that still contains a fantastic amount of information and is written in a format similar to the Monster Vault book — in-depth, easy to digest and fun to read.
While veteran DMs already armed with the tools of their trade may not see the value in this kit, newcomers to Dungeon Mastering or returning storytellers with only peripheral knowledge of 4th edition (like myself!) gain a lot of tools when they pick this up. More than just a pre-generated adventure and monsters, the Dungeon Master’s Kit lays the foundation upon which a saavy DM can build just about any campaign he or she wants. The size of the book belies the value of its information and is far more portable than others of its kind. Of the three Essentials products I’ve unboxed, the Dungeon Master’s Kit is probably my favorite. But the Monster Vault’s a close second. I loves me some beholders and owlbears.
The adventures of our intrepid heroes in the Nentir Vale will continue, probably when Melanie Goodmelon’s player returns from vacation in New Orleans. In the meantime, Andrasian’s player and myself happened across a great discovery. Not due out for another week to most retailers, a local store got a copy of Wizards of the Coast’s Monster Vault, part of the Essentials line of Dungeons & Dragons products that also includes the Red Box. Having seen Greg Tito’s excellent unboxing video over on the Escapist, we decided to pick it up.
It’s an unfortunate truth that we, like many gaming groups out there, are on a budget. Big heavy books and supplements add up quickly. And miniatures? Forget about it. Unless you’re heavily invested in playing a miniatures game and have the time and skill to paint the little plastic or pewter bastards properly, it’s a lot more expensive than it’s worth. So the prospect of more counters to depict the monsters our heroes do battle with was very appealing to me. Not to mention the Red Box barely had enough kobolds for the denizens of Kobold Hall. I think I had to swap in a couple lizardmen at one point.
So, opening up the box, here’s what you’ll find.
Cairn of the Winter King. This is a 4th-level adventure, clocking in at 32 pages. It looks to be a good follow-up to Keep on the Shadowfell, which is where my victi- I mean, our heroes are headed next. There’s a good variety of encounters inside. I’m looking forward to guiding the party through it.
Glossy, 2-sided map. Like the map included with the Red Box, this is great for the included adventure but its utility will likely diminish as soon as Lyria stabs the Winter King up a treat.
Monster tokens. Damn. This is a LOT of monsters. There are 10 sheets of die-cut, heavy-grade monster tokens here, each double-sided so you can flip them over when the monster becomes bloodied. There’s also a clever mechanic introduced. Some of the tokens have a black ring around them that is separate from the monster itself, indicating that the monster contained in the ring is Huge instead of Large. This adds a lot of longevity and flexibility to the creatures inside, and allows a DM to get creative with his or her monsters. I mean, how often do you think players see a Huge-sized owlbear? Or gelatinous cube?
Monster Vault book proper. Big ol’ book of monsters. I don’t think there are as many monsters presented here as there are in the proper Monster Manual, but the monsters that are in this book get extensive write-ups. In a well-organized, conversational fashion, each monster is laid out in terms of background, habitat, behavior and motivations. For example, instead of giving a dry description of what a beholder is and does, the book describes the Far Realm from which they hail, what drives them to behave the way they do, the few other creatures they may serve and the ways in which they pursue their aims. It reads a lot more like a novel than a rulebook, and it makes reading up on monsters and thinking of ways to use them in a campaign a lot more enjoyable. I already have quite a few ideas for the players once they outgrow the challenges of the Nentir Vale. Heh heh heh…
All in all, this product is strikes me as a lot more useful than the Red Box. The Box is a great place for new players to start, but the Monster Vault adds a lot more depth and longevity to an investment of time and energy into 4th Edition. It’s also relatively cheap, at $30 US. Instead of buying a single rulebook for that price, you get a rulebook-style resource, a ready-made adventure and more creatures, monsters and NPCs than you can shake a bag of dice at. This one’s well worth the money.
I’m not sure which other, if any, Essentials products I’ll be picking up. Dungeon Tiles, perhaps, as ink is pretty damn expensive. I took a look at the Dungeon Master’s Kit, but my players generously set me up with a DM Screen meaning I’d have two, and I think most of the information in the Kit’s book is already available to me through other means. Then again, I hear the Kit’s included rules are updated and the adventures included are top-notch, so who knows?
The universe, be there a master of it or no, seems to have an interesting sense of irony. You see, I watched Toy Story 3 for the first time the night before I put this little gem into my computer’s optical drive. I had He-Man toys when I was growing up. In fact, one impetuous act of youth had me seeing Skeletor’s evil castle long before I was supposed to unwrap the gift. Oddly, though, I don’t remember seeing Masters of the Universe clearly before now, save one occasion where I might have been watching it and remember it being very, very dark. My memory might have been affected by booze or therapy, but I really can’t recall anything about that film which etched it into my mind as one based on some of the favorite toys of my childhood.
Seeing it now, I think I know why I didn’t remember it. I’m hoping I can find a way to forget it again as I write this.
Even from the opening titles, I was faced with a major flaw in the movie. The grandiose music, the swooshing credits, the somber narration – this movie’s trying very, very hard to be the original Superman. But the director is not Richard Donner. The music’s composer is not John Williams. Even when this came out, Superman was ten years old. This means Masters of the Universe was dated when it was in theaters. Other movies from earlier, working in a similar vein with similar material and even similar looks, are a lot more fun than this movie. Flash Gordon immediately springs to mind. That was camp. This is crap.
Let me ask your indulgence to explain, as I see it, the difference between camp and crap. Both are styles of film where the material is silly, the premise far-fetched and the budget on a level quite a bit below the usual summer blockbuster. But camp has fun with this. Camp is fully aware of how silly it is, and it’s grinning and laughing right along with you. Crap, on the other hand, plays it all straight. Masters of the Universe is definitely the latter. Between the stilted writing, the freshman-year-of-film-school directing and several hero-cast members acting so wooden they make Hayden Christensen look like Oscar material, this movie wouldn’t know camp if Flash Gordan and Jack Burton were sitting in its backyard toasting marshmallows and pitching tents.
“Um… guys? Does anybody remember how we got here?”
I realize I’ve been complaining already, and for two solid paragraphs, without mentioning the story of this movie. I’m not even sure it’s worth a mention. Basically, there’s this fight going on between the heroes defending the castle Greyskull and the villains attacking from Snake Mountain. An ill-explained turn of events and a magitechnical MacGuffin see the heroes catapulted to Earth. Other than the names and the occasional location, there’s really nothing at all connecting this story, its characters or anything about this movie to the action figures or cartoons that brought it into being.
I guess the whole storyline of foppish, cowardly Prince Adam secretly being He-Man wasn’t good enough for this movie. We get a midget inventor who looks like he was carved out of a pile of sick instead. I have no idea why this character is necessary at all. The closest parallel that comes to mind is Orko, but at least Orko had a purpose half the time and had the good sense not to follow He-Man around when he’s raiding Skeletor’s stronghold. You know it’s bad when a character in the movie makes you miss the “Scrappy” comic relief character from the cartoon. Dolph Lundgren sports an outfit bought at an S&M yard sale and a hilarious He-Mullet as he makes his way from one scene to another with an expression that is of a man either utterly lost or putting on a manly show to try and hide how utterly lost he is. Teela’s practically gutted, the mercenaries sneer like high schoolers snatched up to play villains in a Saturday amateur dramatics production and I’m going to reiterate that Gwildor is even more arbitrary than the whole “sent to Earth by happenstance” excuse for a plot. At least Man-at-Arms is having some fun.
“No I’m not. You leave me out of this. And stop checking out my daughter’s ass!”
It’s a bad sign when you find yourself wanting to spend more time around the villains than the heroes. Skeletor has decent make-up and an agenda that he pursues rather intelligently, and Evil-Lyn not only makes evil look pretty damn good, she does everything Skeletor orders her to do and does it well. For the bulk of the movie I came damn close to rooting for the ruthless magitechnological dictator and his sultry right-hand girl. Even the innocent Earthling bystanders have more pathos and character than the heroes. I mean, say what you want about Courtney Cox and Robert Duncan MacNeill – yes, that’s Tom Paris – but they can actually salvage something watchable out of this mess. As the movie hurtles towards its lackluster and flaccid climax, though, the things I found myself almost liking dribbled away one after another: Evil-Lyn had less to do, a police detective tried and failed to upstage the kids caught up in the fight, and Skeletor not only got a little to into He-Man getting whipped by a fellow bondage show refugee, he also started taking fashion tips from Lo Pan’s gay cousin Emperor Wang. I didn’t care about the outcome of what was probably meant to be an epic battle, save for the fact that seeing it end brought with it the end of the film. Finally.
Masters of the Universe leaves the unfortunate viewer with so many questions. Why does a movie from 1987 look and feel like something from a decade before? You’d think special effects would have at least grown a bit beyond recycled bits from other sources. If Skeletor achieves godhood, why does he still need his minions to do his bidding? Can’t he just smite the lot of them, or does he leave matters in the hands of his inept underlings out of habit? If the police detective was Korea, how does he not know what a “forward position” is? The closest I’ve been to a battlefield is the tour at Gettysburg, and I know what a forward position is. Why does He-Man, a hero defined by his manliess and swordsmanship, insist on constantly using frickin’ laser beams? I don’t recall his action figure ever having a gun as an accessory. And what purpose does Gwildor serve, other than to be annoying in just about everything he does?
“Evil-Lyn! Bring me the Golden Headdress of Wang! I have a party to attend!”
“… My lord, I’m afraid He-Man’s stupidity may be catching.”
The fight coordination is awful, the dialogue is trite, the special effects are painted on, the connection to its source is as intangible as its narrative structure and its utter dedication to its sincerity makes the entire experience excruciatingly painful. G.I. Joe, Revenge of the Fallen, hell, even the original 80s animated Transformers was better than this. This is just… sickeningly bad. There are very few movies that I’ve loathed utterly when watching it. In that scene towards the end of Toy Story 3 – those of you who’ve seen it know the one I mean – I can only hope that somewhere in that pile of about-to-incinerate garbage is a master copy of Masters of the Universe burning masterfully. It languishes in dark obscurity in places like Netflix, and if you have any decent taste in movies, that’s where it’ll stay.
Too good for it, I say!
Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.
The Nentir Vale is a campaign setting provided to new players of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. It’s present in the Red Box and most of the starting materials. For a party almost all completely new to D&D and a DM re-familiarizing himself with the latest edition, it’s a great place to start a campaign. This will be an ongoing recollection of what happens to the party as they make their way through the Nentir Vale. Enjoy.
They took time to rest. Melanie reflected on her spells, Lyria sharpened her daggers, Andrasian practiced his swings with the axe and Krillorien recited his prayers. When they were ready, they delved
deeper into the so-called Kobold Hall, wary for trouble and unnerved by the caverns’ growing chill.
They walked into an open chamber with pillars and a frozen pool of water. Guttering torchlight cast dancing shadows along the stone walls. The party kept their eyes on the darkness for any potential danger, with the exception of Lyria.
“Oh my, is that a hangnail?” – Danielle as Lyria, getting surprised by Szartharrax
From behind the largest pillar in the room, a large winged shape pounced upon the party. Covered in snow-white scales and fixed on its prey with beady eyes, the white dragon Szartharrax announced his presence with a blast of cold breath and a palpable miasma of fear. The party was quick to respond, Krillorien blessing them with his prayers as Melanie assaulted the dragon with the vision of an imposing ogre. The dragon seemed unimpressed, however, and swiped at the humanoids with its massive claws.
“Why do we roll shit when we get all these bonuses?”
“Because RNG hates your guts.”
– Eric & Danielle
The dragon did not have the advantage of surprise for long. Lyria, forgetting all about her apparent hangnail, sank her blades deep into its side as Andrasian kept it at bay. Krillorien’s sword sang the battle hymn of Pelor as Melanie conjured the terrifying image of a mind flayer. Set on its scaly heels by the assault, Szartharrax struck back, only to overextend its reach and leave itself open to a counterattack by the cleric, who unleaded a brand of righteousness upon their foe.
“It misses like a champ.”
“Then I kick it in the balls.” – DM & Ben
The dragon quickly found itself on the defensive. Another flurry of blows from the halfling sent it into a mad frenzy, causing it to breath cold once more. This time, the sellswords were ready for it. Spells and strikes meant to shatter bones and cleave limbs came into play, even if every blow did not land as intended.
“RIGHTEOUS BRA- oh, a 7. Nevermind.” – Eric, on Ben’s Righteous Brand roll
Szartharrax had begun by attacking Lyria and Melanie in an apparent bid to rob the party of its lighter-armored members. Now, it focused all of its attention on the elf in scale mail. Perhaps the metal scales reminded it of some metallic foe of its past. Perhaps the elf’s blows were the most telling. Whatever the reason, Szartharrax lashed out at Andrasian, first with its claws and then, unsatisfied, snapped out to bite the elf. Andrasian felt the cold teeth sink deep, but struck back at the dragon with all his might.
“It’s okay, I still have Elven Accuracy just in case. *rolls a 4* …I use Elven Accuracy…” – Mike
The dragon was clearly beginning to feel its wounds. Its movements slowed but were still deadly. Melanie reached deep into Szartharrax’s juvenile mind, pulled out its deepest fear and made it real with her phantasmal force. The metallic dragon that suddenly appeared roared at Szartharrax, giving it pause. That was the opening Lyria had been waiting for. With a running start, she sprang onto the white dragon’s snout, somersaulted behind its horns and bent to bury her dagger in its eye up the hilt. The white dragon squawked in surprise, then toppled to the ground.
“YAAAAAY WE DID IT! *claps like an infant*” – Ben
Among the dragon’s hidden belongings were the bit of dragon hide Teldorthan had asked Andrasian to recover, a sum of gold along with a decent-sized pearl, a longsword with a handle wrapped in black leather with a small silver skull for a pommel, and a letter written in Draconic offering an alliance to the kobolds from Irontooth, the goblin warlord wishing to conquer the Nentir Vale. It spoke of taking the long-unoccupied dwarven manse south of Fallcrest and using it as a staging point for the invasion of the town. Krillorien realized that was why the goblins kept attacking his house.
The party left Kobold Hall, returning briefly to Fallcrest before making their way south to Winterhaven east to Harkenwold. While they had ended the threat of Szartharrax and his kobold minions, the ominous portents of the letter and word of a death cult beyond the southern hamlet eastern barony meant their adventures were only beginning…
