Call of Cthulhu Friday: Mythos Card Game

In the early 90’s I decided I wanted to do some Call of Cthulhu with my regular D&D group. It had been a few years, and I was just chomping at the bit to do a new campaign. But most of my regular players, including my two long-time female players Terry and Planet Janet, did not have much interest. Pretty much none of my players at the time were even aware of the great works of Mr. Lovecraft.

But like other genres I would introduce to this group (the main other one being Champions), it only took one game to win them over. Both Terry and Janet came up with great characters, and often when we had a D&D session planned they would request I make it CoC instead. I remember one great game where only the three girls in my group showed up, so I just let them wander the map of Arkham, poking their heads into antique shops and bookstores, shopping at various clothing boutiques, and having lunch in a diner, all the while being stalked by agents of the evil they were then facing.

When I discovered the Mythos Card game and began collecting them, Terry and Janet got on that boat as well. Soon we all had enough cards for various theme decks, and for a couple of years we spent many a Saturday or Sunday afternoon doing tequila shots and playing session after session. We seemed obsessed with the game at one point (although I think it was only I who managed an almost complete set of all the releases).

In Mythos, you selected one of various Lovecraftian heroes, such as professors, students, journalists, and doctors to be your character de jour (one of my faves was The Pragmatic Hobo). The deck consisted of location cards, event cards, phobia cards, and monsters. In a nutshell, you would place various location cards to indicate your current spot (or that you were travelling there or leaving there), and use its resources to be able to lay out artifact and tome cards, allies, and use the gate at that location (if it had one) to summon monsters to your “threat” that would attack another player at the end of a full round of playing. Both damage and sanity losses were what could take you out of the game. Ultimately, you had a variety of “story cards” that you held on to, because there were various conditions you had to fulfill in order to get the points off that adventure. Get enough points, and you won. Or you could just say “screw the story” and try to take out the other characters exclusively with your threats and phobias. Sanitarium locations existed as places you could go rest and recover some sanity. Appropriately for a Lovecraft themed game, some asylums had a risk of monster attack or some kind of botched medical procedure.

According to Wikipedia, In 1999 Pyramid magazine named Mythos as one of The Millennium's Best Card Games.[3] Editor Scott Haring said "Mythos was a very deserving game, with great art and gameplay that involved more than just monsters fighting each other."

In the end our sessions sort of petered out as we did other things, such as focus more on actual rpg games rather than a card game. I actually think Planet Janet stopped playing because I kicked her ass so thoroughly in almost every game. She claimed it was because I had more cards than her, but that wasn’t really the case. I was damn good at the game. Terry was a good player, but she just made her decks too big, restricting access of cards she really needed to get to in order to fulfill her stories.

Last year Terry came over to play Mythos a couple of times, but then she got hooked on my Champions of Norrath and Baldur’s Gates Playstation games, and ended up preferring those to anything else we might do whenever she stopped by.

But I have fond memories of this card game, in a way I don’t really for Magic the Gathering, which I think I have outgrown. I’ll always be up for more Mythos down the line. Do you have a deck?

Charisma & The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

She is a loner. Aloof at all times, and surly to everybody, she downplays her looks by wearing black make-up and rocking a variety of piercings. The large dragon tattoo on her back is grotesque, appearing to literally be bursting free from her body. None of it is appealing to anyone but the most die hard goth/emo puke. Most normal people on the street who have more than a passing encounter with her find her repellant. Yet after you see this girl in action, getting a glimpse into her private life, you find her fascinating and you cannot look away. Inner beauty reveals itself in the form of steel-trap intelligence, physical pound for pound power, and certain invincibility.

Lisbeth is the titular character in the amazing Swedish crime thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In the film, this young woman, who already comes to us with half a dozen lifetimes of bad baggage, gets involved in one horrifying situation of another, whether in her own private life or in that of the famous journalist she is “cyberstalking” for the high end private investigation firm she freelances for. In a business monotone Lisbeth talks to a room of suit and tie professionals; fully out of place and almost bizarre in her macabre fashion statements. But the men in the room know her work, and have nothing but respect for her amazing computer research talents. These older, experienced private investigators look to her for the deep information that they cannot dig up on the streets. Lisbeth can find out anything about anybody.

Out in the urban jungle, Lisbeth is swift and canny, escaping one deadly situation after another, whether it be drunk punks in the metro looking to humiliate her for her appearance, brutal state imposed mentors who look to abuse her for sick pleasure, or even serial killers, Lisbeth comes out of each and every situation she enters on top. In the rare times she does not, she survives to return to exact brutal vengeance on any man who looks to harm her or the few people she is loyal too.

This weekend I saw the sequel to that great movie, The Girl Who Played with Fire, at an Academy of Science Fiction screening in West LA. Almost as great as the first, it got even deeper into the character of Lisbeth and her private world of violence and vengeance.

And it had me thinking about Charisma, in game terms, like it did when I watched the first film in the trilogy. This repellant and generally unattractive girl, so unlikeable on first meeting, actually turns out to have an almost irresistible, edgy charm. You only have to get a glimpse of her life to find yourself rooting for her in all of her misadventures. Those who see the true Lisbeth see an amazing and powerful charisma.

There are so many examples of repugnant individuals real and imagined who have big charisma, from Hitler to Hannibal Lector, who somehow have a strange magnetism. So many factors are involved. I think we have all hated somebody not knowing them at all, but after some acquaintance we change our minds completely about them.

Out of all statistics in a game like, say, D&D, I think charisma is the most difficult to apply in any kind of realistic manner. Even the somewhat abstract concept of Wisdom is easier to figure out in a real life way. In D&D, charisma helps you with how many henchfolk you can have, and give you a base reaction in encounters where it is appropriate. But let’s face it, that is more of a cartoony “winning smile” charisma. Tony Curtis in The Great Race flashing those white, gleaming choppers so charismatically that thrown pies won’t even dare sully him.

But how to make charisma more like it is in the real world? I’m guessing for a game like D&D it is just too much trouble. You’d have to take in both the persons speaking manner, their body language, looks, and actions. Plus you would have to look at any number of factors involved in the person we need a charisma related action from.

What can you do? I guess we’ll just have to keep charisma simple until a renowned gamer psychologist comes forward to put a better spin on it. Any out there?

Earthlings in your Fantasy Soup

I started thinking on this after reading a recent Grognardia post.

People from Earth ending up in fantasy worlds has an ancient legacy. “The Blazing World” of the late Renaissance, regarded as the first true fantasy world/science fantasy story, featured an Earthling stumbling into a strange world of humanoid animals. And Earthlings, even lepers and dumbass English kids who get locked in wardrobe cabinets, have been going to fantasy land ever since.

So how do I feel about a connection between my fantasy world and Earth? Well, over the decades I have been of differing minds on the matter. I still use the same game world I came up with as a kid, “Acheron.” But in those early days I was up for almost anything. Things like the multi-universal Arduin and The City State of The Invincible Overlord inspired me to do all sorts of wacky things with my world.

In those few short formative years I had gods from Earth myth as the gods of clerics; Thor, Odin, Zeus, etc, just like The City State did. It wasn’t until my mid teens when I started coming up with gods for my world from whole cloth, or expanding upon gods my players created, that I started rethinking that. Eventually I would eliminate those Earth gods from my world and stick with the original ones, so in thinking upon those early days I cut my young self some slack. But into the adult years of gaming I only very rarely had any sort of Earth connection with Acheron. When I did, it was not to use any normal sort of Earth human or Earth setting. It was my futuristic Hero Systems/Champions setting that I used.

In the 80’s I had a brother of my major ranger NPC (my first true D&D character, actually, that I ended up using for my own world) get trapped in my Champions setting, and become a sort of rustic superhero in that. So clearly I had established a link between worlds. And once or twice I had dimension hopping characters from my Champions games spend brief times in Acheron when I felt it was appropriate and I wanted some fantasy elements (in one case, heroes chased down some dimension-bending super-hunters who were going to Acheron to kill unicorns and other cutesy creatures).

But just having some d-bag professor or leper or whatever show up to dick around in Acheron? Naw. It isn’t that interesting to me. Maybe because I found Thomas Covenant and Harold Shea to be total bores. It has to be something very appealing to make me break that line between worlds, and the typical “Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” type stuff seems pretty played out to me now. Just a busted, old concept.

These days, I just like to keep my fantasy world pure. I do, however, like chocolate in my peanut butter. That will never change.

Character betrays party: film at 11

We got to do our Night Below game two weeks in a row, which is a rare treat. Let’s just say that Andy promised to take the trash out and mow the lawn for the wife for the next 30 years so we could get that extra access to her workshop.

Anyway, this session would prove to be just as memorable as the last Deck of Many Things session.

Let’s talk about the character Lily for a second. When a couple of new players came along last year, both of their characters began in the hands of a fierce tribe of gnolls in the sub-surface caves above the deeper Underdark. First captives of surface world slavers looking to make a buck from the Illithids way down at The City of The Glass Pool, the gnolls came along and picked up a little something for dinner, slaying most of the slavers in combat, and taking the already bound captives to a larger cave to butcher and munch them. Seconds from becoming a nice meal as the gnoll chopped up one captive after another, Lily and the other new character Lumarin the lawful good Grey Elf MU, were saved and became a part of the overall quest against the COTGP and the Aboleth in the Sunless Sea.

Lily is a local of the frontier settlement Overtown above, and her upbringing was less than ideal. She was a child mostly of the streets, and at a young age learned both to steal and to sell herself. At some point Lily learned magic from a mage “john” (yeah, I am allowing human multi-classing in some cases), and hence began her adventuring career as a Thief/MU. In her notes on her history, Lily described a gang leader boyfriend in town named Xavier who had tricked her into killing her own estranged father. When Lily was captured by the slavers, she was on the run from Xavier.

I should mention that Lily’s player, Paul, is a young guy very new to tabletop, and most of his experience is with video games. It was kind of refreshing to have this rpg near-virgin come to the table, as in stark contrast to most of my other players he comes with no baggage from previous years/decades of game play. Paul’s character actions, which might be pretty munchinky from more experienced players, take on a sort of innocent quality. Pretty much Paul is just trying to run a character with a broken soul, and nothing he did with Lily comes from just being a prick or anything. That in itself is refreshing, no doubt.

Lily had proven herself mostly unworthy of trust by sneaking around stealing and hogging treasure while others fought the good fight in encounters. Krysantha the Drow was especially hard on her, and in at least one case Vaidno the half elf Bard kept Krys from letting loose with violence on Lily and her nihilistic attitude. Things had gotten bad enough that when Lily got wishes from the Deck of Many Things in the last game, she offered one to Krysantha if she would agree to leave Lily alone in her endeavors from now on.

OK, as for the current party in general, they had left the Jubilex Shrine slime caves and were well on their way further down. Beaming from their fabulous rewards from the Deck of Many Things, nothing impeded the party or broke their spirit. Several wandering Displacer Beasts were handily dispatched. Further down the road, a Purple Worm (fixed encounter in book 2 of NB) attacked, but they managed to defeat it in fairly quick time (only Vaidno took a hit from the tail, and making his save was one of at least three close calls he had this game. I took to calling him “Survaivno”).

But the next encounter proved to be a bitch for everybody, even me.

In book 2 after the purple worm area, there is a set encounter with a high level group of slavers. A 7th level fighter in plate, a 7th level female human MU, a 6th level human cleric, a 6/6 high elvish female figher/MU, and Prentyss, a 9th level thief (and “Frienemy” of Lily who vied for Xavier’s attention). All these NPC’s have magic items up the yin yang besides their own decent powers and abilities. Some time ago I decided I would include Lily’s old gang leader boyfriend Xavier (a fighter/thief 6/7) to round out this group. Tall, dark, and sadistic, I gave him (besides other things) a magical tattoo that could turn into a giant rattlesnake once a day that would help fight for him.

Of course, I based this all around Lily, having previously rounded out the NPC personalities in relation to having known Lily before, and I also had given Lily notes about them before this encounter (“in case she ever ran into her old gang again”). So yeah, this was all about a cool encounter with people from Lily’s troubled past. I rarely use high level groups of NPC’s in encounters these days, although I did that a lot In the past. I feel it is not just a great challenge to players, but it often comes off like a cool comic book hero/villain group encounter. With my comic book upbringing, this is a great thing and I just don’t do it enough anymore. Here I was going to make up for it in spades. A possible battle royal, and finally a real challenge for this party.

So down in the tunnels, the Xavier gang is heading towards the party. 9th level thief Prentyss, invisible, scouts the way up ahead, and comes across the party while they are encamped and preparing for a rest period. Prentyss recognized her old friend Lily, and listens to the heated discussion going on (as the party tends to have). After a few minutes Prentyss returns to Xavier to tell him about Lily and her new friends. Xavier assumes Lily has joined up with some other gang, and decides he can use her to make capturing the characters easier. Xavier sends his fighter and bodyguard Groznyi to the character party to ask Lily to go speak with Xavier while Groznyi stays with the party as a hostage. After some arguing, Lily is allowed to head down the tunnel alone.

At this point I need several minutes with Lily’s player Paul, so I throw everybody out and tell them it’ll be a bit. Almost all of them smoke something or another, so it’s “smoke ‘em if you got em’.”

Xavier is there waiting with his badass gang for Lily. Basically, he asks a bit about the party, then asks her to rejoin him and help him take the party alive for sale down at the City of the Glass Pool. Now, although Lily’s alignment is pretty much chaotic neutral, Paul told me early on that she has a tendency towards evil, but not fully. So when I designed this encounter for Lily I had no idea which way this character would lean. At least for now, she agrees to lull the party into a false sense of security and lead them past the Xavier gang.

Finally back at the camp, Lily tells the party that her old friends are willing to let them pass without a fuss. Krysantha, ever the angry paranoid, is unconvinced. The drow goes ahead and uses her detect lie on Lily, and proceeds to give her the third degree. As still invisible Prentyss is listening close by, she goes and tells Xavier that the plan is not working, and he and the gang move in for the attack.

All hell busts loose as 6 powerful player characters and 6 NPC’s lock it up. Well, 5 player characters, because Lily turns invisible and hides. She seems unsure of what to do. I will admit that at this point I figure Lily will help save the day, but it is not to be so. She sneaks up behind a badly wounded Vaidno (one of her main defenders in group arguments regarding her) and attempts a backstab.

This was a big “oh shit” moment for me. Paul likes the character, and you would imagine that if for nothing else he would help the party to still stay in the game. But no. Lily decides that the ultimate quest is doomed to fail and figures helping Xavier is the best way out of the horrors of the Night Below (or as I call it after this game, “The Hurt Locker”).

Anyway, Lily misses her backstab on Vaidno! The bard lucks out again, because Lily’s extra damage would possibly have killed him. Lily hits herself with Mirror Image as attacks begin to come her way.

Although the NPC high level cleric is quickly killed early on in the battle by Vaidno and his flashing blades, most fight to a pretty good standstill, great blows being given and received. The NPC party has a high level MU and a mid level fighter/MU, and they use their decent amount of spells for good effect. But since Xavier wants the party alive, they hold off on fireballs and lightning bolts. But as damage is mounting on both sides, both Lily and the high level MU burst loose with fireballs. I describe the tunnel shaking badly, and Xavier tries to pull his people back from the fight, yelling at the characters to do the same so nobody else dies. Most comply, but Lumarin the high elf MU decides he hasn’t had enough and lets loose with some chain lightning on the NPC’s (an unusual move for the lawful good and reasoning Lumarin, but he had just come out of unconsciousness so he gets a pass).

At this point the game had gone until 11:30PM. We usually stop around 10:30, but this fight was bigger than I thought it would be. I was getting a big exhausted and cranky (I went into this session tired as hell). I described a roof shaking and possibility of collapse, and I was a bit pissed when the chain lightning went off because I had so far been lenient on fireballs and explosions from the party in the games. I just had not taught the players a lesson about not being careful with that shit underground. So I went for a cave-in roll. Got a 5 on a 6 and here comes the cave in.

Now, the players got scared and thought I was super mad when I called for a saving throw vs. death magic. But it isn’t instant death, I have just traditionally used that save for natural disasters like cave-ins and floods and the like. It was just a save for no damage. Those who failed got several dice in damage, and a couple of the characters went into negatives, including Terry who assumed her character Helena was toast at this point. All the NPC’s managed to make it out alive and kicking, and it provided a decent way to have them escape without any more fighting. I even had Prentyss, who was charmed, turn and run out of self preservation.

I was fairly generous letting the dying PC’s be gotten to and saved by the others in the dust from the collapse, but still, with one of the party fighters and the MU now in a world of hurt and needing a week of rest to be at full capacity (or at least a full heal spell), and many of the others battered and bruised and plenty damaged, the party is in a bad place. They are at the literal front steps of the Derro area before the City of the Glass Pool, and they will be needing every hit point for that.

This was a really exciting last couple of games. Unlike the last Deck of Things game where I got to negotiate characters dreams with them, this one was brutal dice rolling and bookkeeping game. Trying to do the turns of several powerful NPC’s in quick fashion (in many cases my doing turns for all those NPC’s was shorter than most of the single characters turns) is a bit of a challenge, but rewarding in the end. It was a hell of a battle royale.

September was the two year point for this campaign. 3-4 more sessions, and this ride is over – or is it?

(added note: Lily escaped with the bad guys, much to the party's chagrin!)

Comic Dork Monday: Prez

I’d like to talk today about my Night Below session from last week, where a character in the party ultimately betrayed their trust and turned on them when that characters evil ex-boyfriend showed up with his gang of slavers. But it is just too deep and exciting to have time to post that on a Monday morn, so I’ll have that later in the week. For now, let’s enjoy some comedy filler (or an attempt at comedy anyway) to cheer up our hectic Monday (where it is raining here in Southern California after two week of brutal, record setting heat).

You young punks! You don’t know how good ya got things nowadays! Why, when I was a lad, we had a teenage president! You think Dubbya Bush screwed up this country? You shouda seen what President Prez was up to. Talkin’ to animals instead of balancing the budget. Fightin’ legless vampires instead o’ making peace in the Middle East. Yeah, Prez was what set up on this path of doom.

I’ll get to the Prez comic in a second, but let me admit right off the bat that at one point in my futuristic Champions game world New Haven (based on the setting in Superhero 2044). In the early 80’s, I briefly toyed with the idea of a teenage president getting elected and the ramifications of that (luckily it never happened, keeping me from having to retcon an entire period of time in my game world when I got older and smarter). Of course I was inspired by Prez, one of DC Comics greatest Morts (Mort = in retrospect embarrassing and poorly conceived comic book character) of the early 70’s.

Although admittedly set in an America that was alternate to the ongoing DC comics continuity (even though Prez appeared in an issue of Supergirl at some point), it still seemed like an idea out of the worst fever dreams of a hacky comic book writer. But no hacks worked on this; no less than Jack Kirby collaborator and co-creator of Captain America Joe Simon created this ode to an idiotic decade.

Through some sketchy political wrangling, the age of American President Candidates is lowered to 18 years old. Why not? We knew everything there was to know at 18, right? “Prez Rickard,” called Prez in infancy by his mom who obviously wanted him to be president one day, bust onto the political scene (in his origin story he got all the clocks in his town of “Steadfast” to run on time, making him a hometown hero) and took those unhip, fuddy duddy Washington fat cats by storm, winning the election hands down. Groovy, baby! Do it for the kicks!
A firm believer in nepotism, Prez put both his mommy and his hot teen queen sister in high profile White House positions. Also into this already weird mix came Eagle Free, a sort of a native American Doctor Doolittle. No suit and tie for Eagle Free, please. Even after the sweater and jeans teen president makes Eagle the head of the CIA (!??), ol’ Eagle still runs around with feathers and leathers and no shirt. Even in the white house at press debriefings. No damn shirt.

Eagle Free teaches Prez the ins and outs of animal fighting abilities (which, I shit you not, Eagle Free apparently learned himself from a library of animal books in his humble cave home). So now Prez can fight like…a…bear. And…a…horse. Or…an…elephant. Or…ok, look, for the most part a human who fights like a bear or an elephant is going to be fairly piss poor in your average bar fight and get his ass brutally kicked. His teeth are gonna be flying like popcorn. So for the sake of sanity, let’s just say Prez somehow is bestowed supernatural animal powers by Eagle (although it is clear in the comic Prez is “taught” these techniques as one would learn karate) and call it a beautiful day.

Prez only managed 4 issues. The most interesting storyline featured our Presidential hero battling handicapped, legless vampires. No shit. Let me just say that the truncated undead were about as scary and deadly as you would expect. Which is not at all.

Many yeas later Neil Gaiman would give Prez and appearance in an issue of the acclaimed Sandman series, but otherwise DC has not often thrown him a bone. He didn’t even show up in that multiple realities warping 80’s series Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Although my own “Prez” didn’t happen (thankfully) in my Champions game world, we at least have the original and the best to look back on fondly. Kidding aside, it is a fun idea from a kooky 70’s perspective. But c’mon, legless vampires?

How to make your session report more interesting

Simple. Talk about how you really feel. Game session descriptions, even those about Dwimmermount, are far more interesting when the blogger includes their mental and emotional states than just the mechanics of what happened in a game. Sure, James M. or Zak at D&D with Porn Stars are going to get people reading their session logs whether they are truly spectacular or not (not a knock, but few of them are ever more extraordinary than anyone else’s), but if you know they are tired or have a splitting headache it gives the proceedings some flesh and blood substance, and therefore I relate to them more.

Your group power gamer is in true “gimmie gimmie gimmie” form tonight. Another player is telling jokes you think are kind of inappropriate. Somebody ate the last piece of pizza you should have gotten. You’re tired because you are hung over or your kid cried all night. You’re hosts wife/girlfriend has decided to clean the kitchen oven with powerful chemicals 10 feet away from you. You are badly constipated and are afraid it’s going hit Normandy during the frantic last moments of a big combat game. This is the type of stuff that makes it all the more real. OK, maybe I’m too brainwashed by the serio-comic semi-real life antics on reality television shows, but to me the emotion and passion (or lack thereof) are just as important as the rules and situation on the game table. And how you feel, good or bad, has an influence on all that.

OK, you don’t have to go overboard with your passions like I have in the past, but blogging about your life should include a large part of how you feel. You’re not a robot, Mr. DM. Tell us how you really feel. Every time.

The Deck of Many Things and Me

OK, last week the group actually got back to my Night Below campaign. It had been 4 months and change since the last session of it (we just could not get everybody together and had to do alternates), so it was kind of a big deal. I would have posted this sooner, but besides a little bit of mindless kerfuffling the last couple days I spent the weekend at the Northern Ren Faire as the area sweltered under 112 degree heat. Can you imagine? It was like some kind of post-apocalyptic steam punk Elizabethan England. The platemail dudes seemed to be taking the worst of it, and believe it or not there was a pudgy guy in head to toe black ninja gear walking around (hmmm…wonder if he plays D&D, I said wryly). How he didn’t just burst into flames I’ll never know.


Anyway, before the weekend we played the main AD&D campaign, and I finally sprung the Deck of Many Things on the group. That’s right, an artifact I described as “…the ultimate and impenetrable object of true balance; reward and punishment.


I had printed out some decent graphics of the cards from some old Dragon Magazine pdf, and they turned out pretty nifty. Nothing to write home about, but much better than just using a deck of playing cards.

I know the deck can be a big game changer, and even affect the campaign in a major way. But I thought "why the heck not shake things up a bit?" I feel I was just as brave/foolish by introducing the deck as anyone who would pick from it.


All six players picked (I was kind of thinking nobody would), with Paul, the player of dirty girl Lily, declaring she would pull three! Blew my mind. Lily got all good things, including a fighter who appeared to join up with her, and the Moon. She rolled the max of 4 wishes!


The other female character, Terry’s fighter Helena, chose and also got the Moon - and also rolled for 4 wishes! At this point I was numb; my mind reeling with the possibilities that could pretty much end this campaign (which is getting close to the City of the Glass Pool in book 2).


Another character got a keep and an 18 charisma (Vaidno the bard, so handy for him). The Gnome Illusionist Ormac, run by the returning player Ben 1.0 (little Ben, who took several months off because of his job) nabbed a couple of intelligence points in his pick.


The high elf lawful good party MU Lumarin, run by big Ben, got the Idiot and lost 3 Int points! Yikes! Chose again, and had to radically change alignment (I deemed that to be C/E). Poor Ben. I take back everything I said about him. Mostly.


Oh, but the wishes the wishes. Here was where I feared having to “wing it”. You never know what my players are capable of. But no, nothing was done to affect the main campaign. They could not wish the evil city away, but with 8 wishes total I thought they could call upon earthquakes and floods in the main cavern, or maybe wish for a hoard of vermin to attack it or whatever. But no, it was almost all used for personal stuff. Helena made all of hers in secret (mostly ones to improve her own life, in fairly humble ways.


Lily offered a wish to Krysantha the drow if that character would promise to leave her alone in her thieving and other less savory practices (Krys had been giving her a hard time in some games for selfish thievery and bad attitude). Krysantha used the wish to combine two +2 scimitar swords into one +4 sword (on Krysantha’s own draw she got “the Key”, rolled on the sword table, and got a nice “+ 5 defender” sword which made it three swords total, so she turned the former ones into two. Nice, eh?).


Then MU/Thief girl Lily, much as Helena had done, used the rest of her wishes on a couple of personal things that the party doesn't know what they were (and I won't blab here). Oh, she also used one wish to turn Lumarin back into a lawful good dude (albeit one with only a 13 intelligence).


Phew. This ended up being most of the session, and was big time fun and exciting. Really a high energy night with very little combat. Great role playing by my gang. I was maybe a little easy going with the wishes, but seeing as they weren't being used to nerf my campaign, I was feeling a little generous, even letting a couple of stats get mildly raised.


I had wanted to spring the deck on the group for awhile, and finding those printable cards really got my juices flowing. Still reeling about how lucky the party was in these picks, and thanking God really because I didn't want to end this campaign if some smart strategic wishes were made against my challenges. But in the end, personal greed was sated with most of the wishes.


Just FYI, here was my approach. I had the 22 card deck, and a max of 12 cards could be drawn before it went away (if not for other reasons). I let the magic-users in the group (Lumarin and Lily the MU/TH) and also Vaidno (with his bardic lore ability) know all about the deck because it was a famous artifact. I even went so far as to let them look at the DM Guide entry, which did not seem to take away from the fun and mystery of it. After all the picks, 3 picks still remain. And some bad cards just dying to be picked after all those lucky hits.


This night was maybe one of my top 10 DMing experiences! So much fun to wing it on the draws, and to negotiate Lily and Helena’s dreams with them. I have to admit, it could have turned out quite the opposite. This magic item could bring a campaign to a halt. Especially if they have 8 wishes…Jeez. Dodged some real bullets there.



I'm a man of many wishes
I hope my premonition misses
But what I really feel my eyes won't let me hide
‘Cause they always start to cry
‘Cause this time could mean goodbye
- Lately by Stevie Wonder