Game On, Moles

Both kids are home from school with colds, and the wife's at work, So we got our game on in Avalon.

(Dork note/Spoiler alert: Heavily Hacked version of DnD Module "Scourge of the Howling Horde" used as basis for this Adventure. If you've stubled across this blog by some cruel twist of fate, and intend to play that Adventure, turn away now - although I thinks it's safe to say that in Avalon, most things are Hacked beyond easy recognition.

The little guy was jealous when I cracked out my Hackmaster Deluxe GMs screen, and said "I want one!" 20 minutes later we heard someone open the flyscreen door, and we discovered a parcel - ,Hacklopedia Vol6, and The Hackmaster Player's Mat, which I'd won on ebay and had thought were heading for Skaffen's work address in the UK. So we cracked out the Player's Mat, which he promptly claimed as his own, and we transformed it into combat mode - crenellated castle complete with doors to roll your dice through into the middle of the table. We secured the castle walls with sticky-backed velcro tabs and the little guy was geared up and ready to HACK. That parcel arriving today, at that moment, has to be chalked up as one of the raddest coincidences in recent history.

(Skaffen I got it mixed up. Hacklopedia vol1, and 2 Hackmaster Modules "Smackdown the Slavers" and "Annihilate The Giants" will be waiting for you at the Post Office. Read the Hacklopedia for a laugh, it's Vol1 of an 8 volume Monster Encyclopedia set, but dont open the modules - they are 2 large chunks of the Hackampaign I am preparing for when you're in town to play.)



The party regrouped at the "Whacked Mole" Icecreamery and Milkshake establishment, with rooms to let for adventurers upstairs, and the Echidna exchanged the Grumpy Mole's flying hammer with his friendly Mole buddy for a glass vial of healing potion, with eye dropper, and the pet wrestling crab he has been wanting so badly.

The crab promptly started carrying gold coins from their treasure sack, across the table and dropping them into the side of the magic horn (with coin slot) which the scored from the Grump. The coins promptly disappear inside. 4 gems are sunk into the horn around the coin slot, a successful spot check revealed one gem had started to glow faintly as coins went in. The Echidna test-sounded the horn, and a cat-sized mudman climbed out of an NPC's milkshake and trudged across the table, standing to salute the Echidna, ready for orders. The NPC put his now strangely muddy milkshake to one side, and the mudman dissolved into a puddle after one round. The crab looked dejected later when the party spent all their gold on equipment. All he wants to do is feed coins into the horn.



The party set out on foot for a nearby village, to see a Turtle there who can make an antidote potion to cure the cursed Owl wizard who is still laid up in magic hospital.

They come across goblins who have ambushed a wagon, and ambush them in turn, rescuing also a would-be-rescuer Large Enraged Flightless Cockatoo Barbarian swinging a 2 handed greataxe (8ball's character, run as an NPC,) besieged by goblins, who serves this encounter as a huge feathered HP sink, soaking up 17 points of damage from the goblins while the party flank them from behind and hack away.

Skaffen's character, also run NPC style by my 13 year old, is Laurie "Sissy" Aquasleeves, a Pretentious Lyre Bird Sorcerer, who acts smart but only knows spells from hanging around the Magic Hospital imitating wizards. Sissy flounces around on the periphery of battle, flapping his sleeves like Stevie Nicks and consistently missing the goblins with throwing darts. What a poofter.

The Cockatoo, screetching like the 7' enraged imbecile that he is, rarely hits (for some bizarre reason) but when he does he pops goblins like they're water ballons. The party prevails, they heal the Cockatoo who dubs them brothers in battle, even Sissy, and joins the party "Until Death!!" The Echidna loots a goblin's shield, and a Hamster merchant peeps out of the wagon, thanks them, talks them into dragging the wagon to the village (the giant wagon snails ran away) and offers them 100gp each . . . . . . . worth of credit at his store. Game on, moles.



Today was also the debut of the home made dice tower, which works a beaut. No more fractured eye sockets for the rest of us when the little guy throws for initiative.