Blood and Lightning and Randomness...Part 2

The Archmages troops had been overwhelmed by the Blue Dragons Assault Team
(In their defense, the attackers did carry a medium sized Blue Dragon with them...).
Judging by the corpses scattered around the pillars entrance, the fight happened no longer
than a few hours ago. Fortunately this imposed no further problems for our heroes,
as they were heartily welcomed by the Assault Teams commander, a Tiefling named Hugo.
After they assured him that they had no quarrel with the Blue and were rather unwilling to
die for the archmage (an icon none of them was too interested in), Hugo invited them into the tower. He also guided Craven to the Shadowprince Agent, who had survived the battle unharmed by going full swiss and staying neutral until the end of the battle.
The agent turned out to be a female Gnome by the Name of Gisela (Yes, one of the PCs).
Hugo then took the chance of having all this expendable cannon fodder  those fresh quest seeking
adventurers to task them with checking the shrubbery.
 The shrubbery is an Outpost just west of the pillars that is used as some kind of emergency magic energy generator to fuel the pillar if something goes wrong. However, it seems to have stopped functioning, as it was supposed to shield the pillar from attackers and, as Hugo and his men quite thoroughly tested, failed to do so. Hugo promised an monetary award to the players as well as his gratitude and send his Smith Xrael (Yes, another PC) along with them in case shrubberys generator had somehow been damaged.
After leaving the tower Craven and Gisela did their Shadowprince business: In exchange for the mysterious bag, Craven got the magic sword Schmetterling, which the Shadowprince seemingly wanted him to have (This couldn´t be a bad thing, could it? I definately wasn´t part of the original Deal...). At this point Gisela found a note in her pocket urging her not to open the mysterious bag under any circumstances (The players of Xrael and Gisela were late to the table and I had added the note to her charactersheet while she wasn´t there).
Of course Gisela did the only reasonable thing...and opened the bag, releasing a gelatinous cube on the unsuspecting adventurers. After defeating the pudding (with some help from Hugo and his troops, who were not happy about the adventurers adding problems instead of solving them), the bag also produced an imp, covered in ooze and more than thankful to the person who rid him of his cubeshaped travelling companion and got him out of the sack.

The more you know (about the Dragon empire): Halfling Boxers are regularly excluded from Contests because they are physically struggling to not hit below the waist.

RANGOR, the Crusaders Publicity Manager

Blood and Lightning and Randomness

The following play documentation has been slightly "improved" for readability and enjoyment.
The events occured just as described, but at some points I may or may not have added flavour that I forgot to tell the players during play in the heat of the moment.
You really dont want to read a detailed list of this DMs failures, rule misinterpretations and missed narrative chances, do ya?
Well, you won´t get one!

Our First 13th Age Session started with the three Heroes Craven, Illidan and Rangor doing an Errand for the City of Glitterhaegens mage council. Their weather control station Boltstrike Pillar has been unresponsive for quite a while, so they pinned a Quest on the Adventurers black board promising money for information about the tower.
But other than that, each PC also had personal business of some sorts near the tower:
Craven is carrying a bag with unknown content that was forwarded to him by agents of the shadow prince together with the instruction to give it to another agent at boltstrike pillar and the grave warning not to open the bag under any circumstances.
Illidan is on a scientific mission on the high druids order investigating giant animals that seem to appear in the woods close to places where the Archmage practices his foul wizardry.
Rangor is on an ongoing quest to hire new followers for the crusade and carries a satchel full of crusader-merchandise, propaganda flyers (The Crusader wants YOU to join the crusade!) and registration formulas with him. The Boltstrike Pillar is a location just as good as any to start recruiting....
The Group met at the board and formed an allaiance due to the health benefits wandering in bigger groups can bring in uncivilized places like the bitterwood, which has to be passed in order to reach the Pillar.
In fact, their traveling was interrupted as soon as they reached the first trees by a scavenger group of goblins. The fight was quick and merciless and rated at least PEGI 18 because the halfelf sorcerer Illidan felt the need to try out his new lightning fork spell that he had gained recently.
After breaking a few goblin nuts with a sledgehammer (almost literatelly), the heroes surprise could not have been greater when the goblin shaman managed to actually revive those slightly goblinish fleshsacks with necromancy. The surprise however only lasted as long as it took for Rangor to get out his sword and smash the Zombiegoblin chunks into even smaller pieces.
The adventurer group made the rest of the passage safely and without further nuisances and reached the boltstrike pillar the next day. However they have come a little late for a battle that seemed to have raged there a few hours ago:
Boltstrike pillar has been conquered by the blue Dragon!
(doom-doom-doom) Cliffhanger!!
No srsly Im tired Ill finish this game report another time....

Thought of the day: an apple a day keeps the doctor away. Overdosing on apples does not further increase the doctors distance

The gang´s all here

With some players changing their characters after the first demo play, this
is the current lineup of their adventurer group, the democratic 13:

1) Rangor, a half Orc Paladin and the Crusaders Publicity Manager
OUT: Currently in anger management therapy (has a magical chicken he uses as a anti stress ball)

2) Craven, Drow sorcerer and sacrificial offering on the run (his shaman mentor needed the energy that was trapped in his body for a ritual)
OUT: Whilst Craven is Drow-style Cruel and somewher between evil and neutral, he has an prosthetic forgeborn arm whose alignment is lawful good.(He lost his arm whilst accidentally saving a dwarf, and dwarven law demanded the dwarf to repay his debt)

3) Xrael, Dragonspawn Fighter and officially licensed blacksmith for the blue dragons secret police
OUT: Has wings (albeit of ridicolously small size)

4) Gisela, Gnome Rogue and one of the Shadow Princes treasurers.
OUT: Can see peoples weaknesses (e.g. weakness for chocolate)

5) Illidan, Halfelf sorcerer and the High Druids Mage Council (In our setting the high druid despises Magic that doesnt come from the earth but keeps him as a necessity. Therefore Illidan is the councils only member)
OUT: He is both cursed by the Diabolist and blessed by the Goldwyrm, and the effects stack rather than equaling each other out.

6) Geuqs, dwarven bard and the dwarf kings favourite tavern musician.
OUT: Has an mechanical Eye that lets him see other dimensions, smells, the winds of magic etc...
but it has a loose contact.

7) Urio, woodelf monk and drunken master
OUT: 3 time winner of the dragon empires annual drinking contest (Overworld and Underworld beings excluded)

Non player Members:

8) Schmetterling (Butterfly): Sentient Blade that chose its name because "schmettern" means smash and it didnt know what a Schmetterling is. Currently used by Craven and turned into a flamethrower

9) Igor: Imp, property of Gisela, refuses to cover his private parts with clothing.

10) Kobura: Illidans talking snake pet

11) Cravens forgeborn arm: takes his own seat in the council with equal voting rights.

12) Imp: Imp, property of Geuqs, also refuses to cover his private parts with clothing.

13) empty, but reserved

Once upon a 13th age....

These are the adventures of a pen and paper noob who went on the quest of becoming a GM.


But first, let me introduce myself: My name is Max, and I am an illustration/animation student from Cologne, Germany. I grew up in a rather rural part of Belgium (I am, in fact, part Belgian) close to the german border. My heritage resulted in two things:
1. My hobbies include Belgian Abbey Beer and Pommes Frittes.
2. There are not too many pen and paper groups in close range (mainly because cows cant hold pens and would only eat the paper) so I didnt come in contact with all too much actual pen and paper, apart from other media that draw from those rpgs.


In fact I only recently became fascinated of D&D and the likes during my final semester when I built my whole workflow around coffee and podcasts (including the infamous Acquistions Incorporated) whilst struggling with my deadlines and working 24/7. I may or may not have suspected my laptop for a Mimic at some point (investigations are still running while I´m typing this from my PC), but overall I consider those podcasts one of the main reasons why I was able to finish my projects in time.


After finishing my studies at the academy in Cologne (I will relocate to London for my Bachelors Degree) I recently returned to my home town with a severe coffee addiction and the determined intention of starting a pen and paper group. Maybe I was even a little too enthusiastic, because when the group had its first session we were already eight players, all of them green as a goblin in terms of D&D experience.


After a short hook-up with the german D&D retro-clone Dungeonslayers (a setting with really simplistic and easy to understand rules,using only the d20 die) we gave the D20 game "13th Age" a Go, mostly due to the (compared with DnD) lightweight rules and the only roughly outlined lore, which allowed for a lot of improvisation. Because I was both the only one owning the rulebook and actually capable of understanding english to the necessary degree I was instantly elected GM of the Noobs and assigned to help my noob player friends build their characters.

Thought of the day: The early bird gets eaten by the Shai-Hulud