Tag Archives: Reign of Winter

Reign of Winter: The Bard and the Dragon

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So I felt this needed to be posted while it’s still relatively fresh in my mind. As some of you might remember, the only game I’m playing in instead of running right now (well, until the Numenera game starts up again) is a Pathfinder campaign, Reign of Winter, run by my sometimes co-blogger Professor Jimbles. It’s a campaign that explores a number of themes, with the earliest one introduced being Russian folklore, including Baba Yaga, her dancing hut and her three riders; household spirits like the Domovoi; Winter Witches; cruel fae and never-ending magical winters. The folklore theme looks to be continuing through the whole campaign, but I know that later on additional elements of plane hopping and so on will be added (book 5 is called Rasputin Must Die! and features a WWII scene on the front cover… looking forward to that).

Anyway, when it came time to roll up a character for this game, I went with something I haven’t done in a very long time, and went Bard. Initially I made a Soundstriker archetype Bard, but after a rather heated discussion thread started on the Paizo messageboards between players and the developers regarding changes to the class, and there was no confirmation about the ruling for a long time (in fact, there still hasn’t been official errata released), I spoke to Jimbles and asked if I could re-roll as a Thundercaller, as it had a similar flavour to what I wanted from my Soundstriker anyway. Now, for those of you not familiar the various classes of D&D 3.5/Pathfinder, I’ll explain.

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Sigh

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Writer’s block is something I am heartily sick of.

I’ve been nearly done with the Hollowpoint write-up for almost two weeks now. I’ve missed the funding windows on most of the Kickstarter campaigns I wanted to talk about. I haven’t managed a single new word on the Reign of Winter journal. Every time I try to write something, I get a few words in, at most a paragraph, and then compulsively delete it because it doesn’t feel right to me. I try to think of new things to write about to just get me working again, and my brain gives me snippets of the work of Tennyson, Yeats and Coleridge (for those of you who didn’t go to high school with me, the last is a form of cruel torture. I hate Coleridge’s work, with the exception of Kubla Khan and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner), and fragmented dialogue from Titus Andronicus.

Sadly, that’s all I have to say right now.

Sorry.

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Written while listening to my heart pounding and my mind screaming. Also some Chevelle, but mostly the mental screaming thing.

A brief status update

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Hey guys,

Just wanted to give a very quick update on what I’m up to at the moment, since I still haven’t got the first part of the campaign journal for Reign of Winter: The Snows of Summer up. Rest assured, it’s being worked on, it’s just taking far longer than I’d hoped. I’m also having people review it as I write it, to help make sure that the writing style isn’t too painful to read.

In the mean time, I’ll be doing another Kickstarter roundup in the next few days, as I’ve seen some more projects I feel deserve some love. I’m also beginning to prepare a short run campaign using the Hollowpoint system, which is a very quick and simple indie RPG that focuses on cinematic storytelling and high violence capers. Think movies like Reservoir Dogs, and comics like 100 Bullets. As I start getting that ready, I’ll be preparing updates on the setting and basic story of the campaign as well as looking at how the system works. Other than that, I’m working on Project Helleborus again, on and off as I get time, so there may be some more Cooking the Cosmos at some point in the next few weeks. No guarantee on that though. When I have the time to put some descriptions for a few characters together, and the money to get the art commissioned, I’ll also be doing two or three more updates for The Unusual Suspects.

That’s it for my plans for the next few weeks or so. I’m not sure if Jimbles has anything in store for the blog at the moment, given that he’s been rather ill lately, so it could be a little while until we hear from him again.

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Written while listening to Dead Letter Circus’ new album, The Catalyst Fire. They’re an Australian alternative rock/metal band with a really unique sound, and I highly recommend checking them out. My favourite song off the new album so far is Alone Awake, which you can listen to here. The chorus has been running through my head a lot the last few days…

Please don’t fade,
Now that I’ve seen who you are
There’s not enough of you here today
And this world needs you
Please don’t change
Now that I’ve seen who you are
There’s not enough of you here today

Reign of Winter – GM Perspective.

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So, I fucked it.

Well, I wouldn’t go that far, but certainly, running a Pathfinder game was far more work than I expected, and it makes me appreciate the sheer amount of extra effort Keegan puts in above what the adventure path gives him.

Firstly, I haven’t run a rules heavy system since I was 14, where I mangled d20 Modern to represent school. It trainwrecked horribly, but it at least made some people laugh for a session. After that, I entered my WoD phase, being one of those oft-cursed eternal players demanding to be entertained. After some time I began writing Bard: The Crescendo (a WoD template, like Vampire, Geist and Changeling) with some friends. Eventually it fell to me to test the system. It went okay.

When Keegan wanted a turn playing Pathfinder, he thought I could do a decent job (uhh?) of running an adventure path, and gently pressured me into taking the job. What can I say, I can be an entitled jerk. He set me up with the core, our copy of Hero Lab and The Snows of Summer to bone up on.

Much like a Puritan high school, there was less boning up than would be healthy for everyone involved.

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Reign of Winter – Cold, but I’m still here…

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So, once again I’m bloody sick. I’m seriously starting to wonder if my body is ever going to completely recover from the series of respiratory tract and chest infections I had during and after my visit to China. I’ve been coughing on and off since then, even after a third round of antibiotics to clear out the last of the infection. Thankfully this time it doesn’t seem to be too bad, though I am more than a little annoyed that I started getting ill the Saturday before a week off on leave. Again with the coughing, but it’s not as nasty as last time. No fever either, just a constant dull ache all over my body. Still, I’m not going to let that stop me from going to see Lindsey Stirling tomorrow night. I’ve been looking forward to this for a month now, and I’ll be damned if illness is going to keep me from it… I’ll just have to stand very quietly at the back and hope there’s some seating available.

Anyway, now that I’ve got my bitching out of the way, it looks like it’s time for another update. As I mentioned last time, this is going to be an introduction to the Reign of Winter campaign that Jimbles is running for me. I was quite excited to have a chance to play in a Pathfinder game, as normally I end up running them, and it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to actually be a player in a D&D 3.5 game, and I’ve never yet been on the player’s side of the GM screen in Pathfinder, apart from once with a group that fell apart within the first session.

That's one mean looking old lady...

That’s one mean looking old lady…

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