Author: kyle

The 10th Telvar Open: Pocketing the Difference

About 9 o’clock in the morning, the thieves arrange themselves around the tower while Phantasm heads into the tower to drop the Teleport Beacon. Phantasm then takes her position so that she can be the first to reach the likely area of Phantasm’s materialization/disintegration.
At 9:19 am, the three thieves are standing on the edge of the tower’s battlements when the Plan goes into motion…
…and the tower explodes.

The Tenth Telvar Open Tournament: Pocketing the Difference
“The random and the directly causal are often completely indistinguishable. I would argue that there is no difference—given that the world is far too complicated for us to really understand the consequences of our own actions.”
–The Anarchist Cleric known as “Bob”
Events of 11 October 2008 in Charlotte, N.C. / 26 December 2196 B.Y. in the ruins of a First Age slave city near the Realmish city of Hortun.
[the same day as the BLADES battle in the sewers of Botsweil, aftermath of a low-level adventuring party releasing two warring gods]
[NOTE: Some of the diverse summaries of these events contain contradictory information, and skewed perspectives based on the experiences of the characters involved. Some of these have been noted specifically, but otherwise the unique perspectives of each group have been maintained. The truth
of each situation probably lies somewhere in the middle.]
Dungeon Master: Edwin B. Anderson, Jr.
Assistant: Chris Allen
With Support from: Katherine Anderson Hosted by: Rhonda & Alan Jones
Near the Realmish city of Hortun lies an ancient ruin, abandoned since the First Age of Telvar. That ruin was the birth place of the Anarchist religion, where the first clerics began their work, establishing the first such temple after a slave uprising against the Codex Tyrants.
After the uprising was brutally suppressed, the site was left undisturbed for a long time, because the Restless Undead therein were deadly. Later, the Realmish government negotiated with the Undead to establish exterior walls and prevent intrusions. This fragile truce with the Undead has held for millennia…
Recently, the current government of the Near Realm has allowed the Auroran Church to establish, outside the walls, a memorial and observing post that will allow pilgrims to come and observe the site of the Revolt against the Tyrants. Though unfinished at this time, the memorial is due to be completed fairly soon…

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BLADES Analysis: Insane Dwarf Posse

Naturally the BLADES crushed them as mercifully as possible but the leader, Jim Jones, released a slew of killer worms that took out a number of his own followers including a number of children.

I started this discussion three weeks ago with individuals and then ran out of town. I’m finally back to working on this, so I’ll start with a non-summary summary and then launch into the discussion.
The BLADES decided that the best place for them to explore on the peninsula would be the untouched Ancients’ city. They sailed to the north-western part of the Druidic protectorate and upon arrival, they discovered an orcish village led by a disease worshiping cult. Naturally the BLADES crushed them as mercifully as possible but the leader, Jim Jones, released a slew of killer worms that took out a number of his own followers including a number of children.

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BLADES Notes #60

He has a strong brooding evil something in his leather pouch. There is a set of small tweezers that are in a leather sleeve. It is marked “Totally lifelike appearance.”

Character Race & Class Level HP AC Player Creator
Raybur Sidebottom Dwarven Fighter/Cleric 6/6 54 (-7) -3/0/2 Dean Joel
Phyllis Sidebottom Dwarven Fighter 7 54(64) -5/-5 Katherine Katherine
Effrede George Half Elven Magic User/Thief 6/6 34 -3/1 Katherine Katherine
Talarian Blackguard Half Elven Fighter 7 68 Occ. Ring
(-9) -8/-3
(-7) -6/-1 Dean Dean
Conrhia Applewhite Half Elven Woodsman 7 68 -5/-4/0 Rhonda Rhonda
Serlisse Reintar Half Elven Druid 7 32 -1/1/1 Rhonda Rhonda
Sputnik Half Elven Cleric 7 49 1/4/4 Jay Jay
Arthur of Petethal Half Elven Ranger 6 58 2/4 David David
Zephram Trent Hill Gnome Fighter/Illusionist 5/5 41 (-5) -3/-2/2
1/5 w/out PA Alan Alan
Shirlard Half Orkish Fighter 5 44 3/3 Darleen Darleen
Costigan Coastlander Fighter//Cleric 1//2 20 (2)3/3 Rodger Rodger
May 17, 2193
We see a path into the fourth building with an Ancients’ style door. There are two stories with the loft filled with paving tiles, pots and the like. The lower level has pots, trowels, short rakes and short hoes. We have found a cluttered potting shed.
Costigan guesses that we might be able to close the larger arches, so we decide to move the shed’s contents into one of the arches and we find two jars, marked in Ancient as Planter’s Friend and a tube of toothpaste, marked as Stone-Like-New. The shed is now a prison. There is a nice set of stone working tools. We also find spare instrument parts – strings, mouthpieces, no reeds or pads, only metal parts. There are twelve stone flutes. The hobgoblins sold many instruments, which they detail for us.
One of the humans wants to join us as a henchman. Five others are willing to be camp cooks, etc. for 10 gp of pay per month. We leave three days worth of food for the hobgoblins and close up The Gaol and The Vault.

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BLADES Notes #59

The bridge is guarded by some sort of invisible being. It protects the hobgoblins and tries to dissuade them from crossing the bridge. They haven’t done it in three years. The humans had to do all the basic “menial” tasks. The Wind Chime alerted the hobgoblins of intruders.

Character Race & Class Level HP AC Player Creator
Raybur Sidebottom Dwarven Fighter/Cleric 6/6 54 (-7) -3/0/2 Dean Joel
Phyllis Sidebottom Dwarven Fighter 7 54(64) -5/-5 Katherine Katherine
Effrede George Half Elven Magic User/Thief 6/6 34 -3/1 Katherine Katherine
Talarian Blackguard Half Elven Fighter 7 68 Occ. Ring
(-9) -8/-3
(-7) -6/-1 Dean Dean
Conrhia Applewhite Half Elven Woodsman 7 68 -5/-4/0 Rhonda Rhonda
Serlisse Reintar Half Elven Druid 7 32 -1/1/1 Rhonda Rhonda
Sputnik Half Elven Cleric 7 49 1/4/4 Jay Jay
Arthur of Petethal Half Elven Ranger 6 58 2/4 David David
Zephram Trent Hill Gnome Fighter/Illusionist 5/5 41 (-5) -3/-2/2
1/5 w/out PA Alan Alan
Shirlard Half Orkish Fighter 5 44 3/3 Darleen Darleen
Costigan Coastlander Fighter//Cleric 1//2 20 (2)3/3 Rodger Rodger
March 26, 2193
Rest and Identify. We think the undead will dissipate when we beat them and take time to reform. We could then Exorcise them, which might free them rather than destroy them. The Locatha recommend entombing the Kraken artifact.
April 5, 2193
We are ready to go again. We owe The Republic for a Chain Mail upgrade +1 to +2 for Costigan.
The skills from the Ancients’ Pool are open & close doors; operate the elevators in a non-random fashion; fold rooms; unfold rooms and lock & unlock doors.

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BLADES Notes #58

One of the guys behind him is badly hurt and one is instantly slain. The shaman and his guards shrug off the Lightning Bolt, but the shaman starts casting a spell with no apparent effect and then he starts casting healing spells that helps himself and his two buddies and the one that was badly hurt. The pile took almost maximum damage and then the orcs start rebuilding the pile. We decide to wait for the second Call Lightning to be available.

Character Race & Class Level HP AC Player Creator
Raybur Sidebottom Dwarven Fighter/Cleric 6/6 54 (-7) -3/0/2 Dean Joel
Phyllis Sidebottom Dwarven Fighter 7 54(64) -5/-5 Katherine Katherine
Effrede George Half Elven Magic User/Thief 6/6 34 -3/1 Katherine Katherine
Talarian Blackguard Half Elven Fighter 7 68 Occ. Ring
(-9) -8/-3
(-7) -6/-1 Dean Dean
Conrhia Applewhite Half Elven Woodsman 7 68 -5/-4/0 Rhonda Rhonda
Serlisse Reintar Half Elven Druid 7 32 -1/1/1 Rhonda Rhonda
Sputnik Half Elven Cleric 7 49 1/4/4 Jay Jay
Arthur of Petethal Half Elven Ranger 6 58 2/4 David David
Zephram Trent Hill Gnome Fighter/Illusionist 5/5 41 (-5) -3/-2/2
1/5 w/out PA Alan Alan
Shirlard Half Orkish Fighter 5 44 3/3 Darleen Darleen
Costigan Coastlander Fighter//Cleric 1//2 20 (3)4/4 Rodger Rodger
December 5, 2192
We are back home in New Teft.
We find a scroll to buy for 1500gp. It is Illusionist, cast at level 10, Phantom Steed x2, Rope Trick, Dispel Exhaustion. Zephram already has Rope Trick, so he should be able to copy 2 and cast 2. Dispel Exhaustion is 4th level, so he’ll have to wait to copy it.
January 3, 2193
Set sail for the Ancients’ City on the Northern Coast.
February 14, 2193
We arrive at the Ancients’ City and find that the docks are covered with a dome that rises out of the water instead of starting from the top of the standard white wall. The water level inside the dock space is about 2 feet below the choppy seas. At the dock is
There is a clearing with lots of very large dinosaur skeletons to the southeast. There is a small village in the northwest shelter of the domes at the foot of the cliffs.
There are a dozen structures with heavily armed orcs in the village. It appears to be families living around a shrine that looks like a pile of oceanic debris. There are probably 50 to 100 of them.

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Star/Rangorn Summary #2: More Ogre, Less Filling

The Rangers, of course, looked at their log book of available adventuring parties and noticed one that had a particular penchant for finding and killing ogres. Hmmm… Would Star and Rangorn be interested in finding the demon ogre and his minions, and destroying them when they crossed over?

Party Roster:
Rangorn, 7th level half-elf woodsman, 65 hp, played by Joel
Star, 6th level human Phaulkonian cleric, 37 hp, played by Kyle
Chiaro, 7th level human illusionist, 22 hp, played by Aaron
Zippo, 2nd level dwarf fighter, 21 hp, henchman of Star, played by Sir Jack
Lewis, 1st level human ranger, 15 hp, henchman of Star, played by Sir Jack
Minerva, 3rd level half-elf mage, 14 hp, played by Katherine
Madupe, 1st/2nd gnome fighter/thief, 11 hp, played by Katherine
Alisan, 1st level half-elf Phaulkonian cleric, 8 hp, henchman of Rangorn, played by Jay
Magic Lad, 1st/1st level gnome Mandred cleric/illusionist, 6 hp, henchman of Chiaro
[Events in Charlotte, 4 Feb 2006; Telvar Sep 2191-Feb 2192]
The World of the Stone Soules and the Restenford Defenders collide (slightly):
When we had last left our newly formed “Strangorn” party (name forthcoming, ideas have been proposed!), we had just begun a successful series of missions working for the Rangers out of Depwood in Petethal. Rangorn and Star are ex-Stone Soules party members who decided to found a new adventuring group that played to their strengths. Each acquired supporting henchmen, and additionally two new members joined them.
Meanwhile, back in 2185, the Restenford Defenders had just broken up. Most of the members had moved on to other parties and continued their adventures (Balinor joined the Wreckers, and later the Killer Bees and eventually the Band; Felix, Donald, and Nakumanu formed a dwarven party out of Shabrund; Cassian initially joined the Wreckers and formed her own party with Warwick after the Fane of the Winds quest). Chiaroscuro (his full false name; his real name is somewhat less grand) had been unaccountably left behind, supposedly off to some obscure training known only to Quentin and Peacemaker (Felix’s sword; Felix himself remains ignorant).
Chiaro is a truly bizarre-looking old Sarkian human: he wears a fiery red hellhound skin cloak, has a mask that is half white/half black, has glowing yellow pants (via continual light spell from Cassian recalling his original party nickname, “Sunshine Happy Pants”), and a green “lilly-pad” beret.
In mid-2186, Chiaro emerged from his training with new powers and decided to join an adventuring party. He signed up with SMART (Syndicate of Master Adventurers for the Recovery of Treasure) and although he was only 6th level and maintained only associate membership in the group, he was disproportionately useful to them as a rare illusionist. Chiaro’s other strange abilities were masked by his use of a “feather of levitation” and “mask of domination”. As Chiaro kept “using” his “magic items” he was given replacements because “surely he had used them up by now.” The SMART party trekked out to a desolate desert where nomadic tribes of barbarians roamed that could detect the presence of any water or the creation of water (magically or otherwise). The nomads would descend on those who brought water into their domain and try to kill them and claim their precious water. Here Chiaro’s many illusionary abilities were of great use, and they prevented many party deaths. Chiaro was rewarded amply for his efforts and came out with several items of interest:

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Ninth Telvar Open: Teaser Summary

We begin: As the Librarian completes work on a strange device at the top of an ancient pyramid on the edge of the haunted forest… And an ancient evil awakens…

The Ninth Telvar Open Tournament: Faces from the Past
5 November 2005 in Charlotte, N.C. / 10 June 2192 B.Y. in far
western Cromwell, in a place known as the Salt Sea Region
[the same day as the events of the Eighth Telvar Open]
We begin as:
A corrupt and evil kingdom of slave lords collapses…
A city built on the edge of a large salty sea is in chaos…
A haunted forest in the shadow of a extinct volcano slumbers…
The ruins of an ancient Kraken temple moulder…
And Cromwellian forces enter the region to restore order and crush the
slavers…
But:
A librarian at Cromwell’s famed Academy heads off on an unusual vacation…
A holy Paladin of Nevron receives a vision of great importance…
One of the High Priests of Aurora hears a rumor….
And a team of auditors working for the government of Cromwell realizes
that the Librarian’s preparations for his vacation violated some of
the policies of the Academy, resulting in an Academy Team known as
Death from Above being dispatched in pursuit…
And we begin:
As the Librarian completes work on a strange device at the top of an
ancient pyramid on the edge of the haunted forest…
And an ancient evil awakens…
[The Ninth Telvar Open Summary is finished! You can read it here!]

*Telvar Open* Aftermath of the Eighth Telvar Open

During the Ninth Telvar Open, discussion as to the results of the Eighth Telvar Open shed some light on what became of some of the principal figures in that adventure, in its immediate aftermath.

(Note: During the Ninth Telvar Open, discussion as to the results of the Eighth Open shed some light on what became of some of the principal figures in that adventure, in its immediate aftermath. –Joel)
After the Monument collapsed, a brainwiped Lien (Hood’s erstwhile companion), Krasse (leader of the Party of Secrets), and Szyn (a phase spider), found themselves together in the space at the bottom of the dark staircase, Hood having been annihilated in the judgement. That is, Hood was utterly destroyed after he blew the horn, the Wailer for Lost Delnan, and freed Delnan, dark servant of Tram, from his captivity.
None of the others knew who they were or why they were there, but they had only one exit: up the stairs.
Szyn the phase spider did not need the stairs, however. He simply vanished, presumably to be restored to himself one way or another in that far-off place or plane that the phase spiders inhabit.
The others, however, were forced to walk up the staircase and meet their fate at its top.
Unfortunately for Lien, Krasse’s final order to the Party of Secrets had been to kill anyone besides him who emerged from the Monument. As Lien crested the stairs, he was shot to death. Krasse was pulled in by his surprised party, who found him incoherent and confused.
Shortly thereafter, the Realmish Shocktroopers, Fire Giants, and Minotaurs arrived in a large group. The Shocktroopers took charge, and it was quickly determined that Lien and the fallen Myzon (who had undertaken the Rite of the Dark Pact) had been responsible for the collapse of the Monument and the slaughter at the Giant slave mine. The Party of Secrets was given a reward for help in completing the investigation and sent on its way. Krasse was healed via an Elixir of Health and returned to form, satisfied that although he did not possess the power to save the world, the Force capable of doing so had already been unleashed.
–Joel (with minor editing by Kyle)

*Special* Alumni Profile of Our Friend Mark Wagoner (1971-2003)

“You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down…so why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. In climbing take careful note of the difficulties along the way; for as you go up you can observe them. Coming down you will no longer see them, but you will know they are there if you have observed them well. There is an art of finding one’s direction in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know.”
– Rene Daumal, Mount Analogue

This page is borrowed from the NC State Caldwell Fellows Alumni Profile of Mark Wagoner. It was once found through the NCSU Caldwell Fellows Program here. I can’t seem to find it online anymore, so I decided to post it here. You may also want to look at his obituary. We miss you, Mark! –Kyle=
Mark Wagoner’s passion for adventure and service was boundless. His zest for life profoundly impacted those around him. He loved to share his excitement for the outdoors with others.
Mark graduated in 1989 from the NC School of Math and Science in Durham. Mark scored 1580 on the SAT and was accepted at NC State University, where he was a National Merit Scholar, a Caldwell Scholar, a member of the NC Fellows Program, and a Rhodes Scholar Nominee. He graduated Summa Cum Laude with B.S. Degrees in Electrical Engineering and Physics in 1994. After graduating, Mark worked at Proctor & Gamble in Browns Summit, NC, from 1994 to 2001. He then went on to earn a master’s degree in business administration from Duke University in May, 2003.
Mark first became interested in mountaineering at an outdoor leadership development course to the Rockies with The Caldwell Fellows Program in 1990. Some of his major accomplishments in this area include National Outdoor Leadership School training in Alaska, certified Wilderness First Responder, and Instructor with Colorado Outward Bound. He also led technical climbs on Mt. Rainer in Washington, Mt. Hood in Oregon, and in Ecuador. He remained active in The Caldwell Programs, co-leading several wilderness experiences for Caldwell Fellows each spring.

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