Category Archives: Lone Wolf: Fire on the Water

When last we left our intrepid Lone Wolf, we were deciding whether to leap off the ship in hot pursuit of the evil warlock who's been plaguing us, or to jump ship. We voted to visit the watery depths, resulting in:

Kraaaaaaaaaaaan!

Kraaaaaaaaaaaan!

Ahem. Having regained our dignity, we now turn the page. Things get pretty intense from here on, so I'm going to step aside as narrator and just show you what happens.

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Our interminable adventure on the high seas battling undead continues from last week, when we opted to charge the tower of the dread sorcerer on the floating ship of doom:

Coward! These sorcerer types, they always talk a big game and throw around a lot of flashy effects, but when it comes time to bare steel they disappear in a flash of smoke. Jerks.

Of course, maybe that's because in the finest D&D tradition, magic users only have like two hit points. Still, it's quite unmanly.

So what'll it be this time, intrepid adventurers? Do we seek out a friendly ship to continue our naval assault, or do we give chase to our yellow-bellied foe?

When last we left our intrepid Lone Wolf, he had carved a bloody path through undead nasties on the deck of a massive dreadnaught, and was deciding whether to storm the ship tower (whence came devastating sorceries) or to jump overboard in a daring attempt to see whether or not you can swim while burdened with armor and weapons. Sadly for science, we chose to hope for good luck storming the castle:

Sweet, we just cleaved through two zombies without even having to tap our dice chart! Why couldn't we do that every time?

According to our notes, we did at one time have a Crystal Pendant. Which got stolen by the pirates. However, our helpful narrator has said we can use it even if we ain't got it, which is a relief. Thus:

Yowza! An incredibly powerful master of the dark arts, and us without our wand or lightning bolt scar. Also, if i minotaur is half-man, half-bull, and a centaur is a half-man, half-horse, should we assume a Vonotar is only half a man as well? Because that would make our decision a lot easier. If he were a Vinotar and thus half-man, half-Vin Diesel, we'd have to tread carefully.

So what'll it be, fellow adventures? Boldly charge into the face of potential death, or leap into the waters in a quest to finally answer our earlier scientific conundrum?

Last week we left our daring Lone Wolf poised on the railing of a burning flagship, staring into an advancing fleet of a terrifying armada of undead savages and wondering whether to jump for safety in the water or to boldly leap onto the deck of the approaching death hulk. And we chose ... Death Hulk!

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When last we left our Lone Wolf, we had decided to walk forward with our hands up towards some soldiers. In other cultures this stance would be known as "surrendering", but since we are a Kai Lord we get to just say we happen to be walking unarmed towards potential enemies with our hands up, completely unarmed. That's totally different. So here's what happened:

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When last we left our intrepid Lone Wolf, he was deciding whether or not to follow a well-heeled rat-creature into the tunnels. Being the brave types (ha!), we dove in after it. Let's hope there's cheese.

We do indeed have the Kai Discipline of Animal Kinship! At the end of the adventure, our experience communicating with rats will land us a prestigious job in the Kingdom of Disney, which is nice. Meanwhile:

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When last we left our Lone Wolf cub, he was facing a band of fell brethren blocking his path. We decided to draw our weapons and confront the savages, but note that they didn't tell us ahead of time the main guy looked like this:

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When last we left our little Lone Wolf, he was deciding on where to go in the exciting town of Port Bax. You might think, having struggled so long to get here, we'd be in for some neat town with tons of adventure. After all, our first adventure in a town was fairly exciting, with skullduggery amongst pirates and houses of ill repute.

Apparently, though, Port Bax is like the Scranton of this fantasy world, a place where very little happens except meaningless paper work. For instance, our last thrilling choice was whether or not to go to City Hall. I know when I was a kid, I'd lay awake for hours dreaming of the chance to go to someplace as mystical and exciting as City Hall, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that childhood fantasy.

Seriously? This is an actual decision point, whether or not to ask a clerk for directions? My god, why not have pages dedicated to whether or not to blink, or to step out with the left or right foot first? I fondly recall reading "Lord of the Rings", when we were treated to three hundred pages of Frodo having to file some forms in Hobbiton relating to his purchase of Bag End.

Look, it's bad enough that in my actual, real, non-book-length, I-don't-get-to-choose-my-own-adventure life, I have to go to the DMV and waste an entire morning. I don't want to have to deal with this crap in my adventure gaming. If you're in the middle of an exciting RPG and suddenly you find yourself having to navigate multiple layers of bureaucracy, then something has gone seriously awry with your RPG. No one wants to roleplay Bob, the Second Assistant Filing Clerk at City Hall as he trundles his way through various permit applications.

I went ahead and figured out the fastest way through the red tape in front of us here, and it takes five steps, five decision points, five written-out pages, just to get to our consulate so we can continue the actual story. That's insane. Far be it from me to question the plotting expertise of Mr. Joe Dever, but folks, this is "stab yourself in the eyeballs" level of ridiculosity here.

So I'm going to save you the tedium of slogging through five pages of turgid prose that has no other purpose than to inflame your blood with the illicit and pulse-pounding thrill of bureaucracy, and instead will skip ahead to the good part. You can thank me later.

Finally, a good meal and some healing! It took five pages of bureaucratic red tape for this?! Why not just send us here directly upon reaching Port Bax? Aaaarggh!

Anyway, I got a "7" on the random chart, so it's off to page 254 we go.

Hey, what do you know, swords and enemies and choices that might actually matter! Suddenly, in the midst of IRS Form 1056-EZ we found ourselves a fantasy adventure, boys and girls!

Since we don't have Sixth Sense ("We see dead Giaks and run away from them!"), we either fight or flee. So what'll it be?

The vote in our last Lone Wolf decision was running overwhelmingly to telling the truth, so I'm going ahead and booking that as a given. Which results in:

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