Recent Gaming Shennanigans

Am playing Call of Cthulhu as player 6th ed which is nice and met lots of recent gaming. Lock-in has ramped up but ppl seem to be interested in finding more game groups as a way of being social. I am trying to be good but I did bury the trapezohedron in a dark skyscraper foundations doh!

Castles & Crusades Mythology Codexes
Some arrivals from a KS extension that was late: but fixed promptly once I asked and got the Castle & Crusades mythology books. If I had found this RPG earlier it might have been my game for a while and it does lots of similar things to my own homebrew. So these codexes are: Celtarum, Nordica, Slavorum, Egyptium, Germania. I have mentioned it before but having 6 books in hand is nice. Well researched and considered and up to date research that just was not possible in gaming in the 80s. Bonus is they are dead religions it's harder to get freaky over "mistakes". Gaming books can be a gateway to history and culture but don't rely on them solely. Looking at the series I note some have lots more gods than others some more classes and some more spells. The Celt codex is the fattest if you wanted to try to get more. Im not sure if art always right as very gamey but it's fine for gamebooks. Some volumes better illustrated some are scant. I'm hoping my other mythology-gamer friend will have a big dig through them. Lots of giant lore in various books I can use right now. Inspiring stuff. I got a bundle as an add-on to the Egypt book as the best value for books and posts. 

Stoneage Sorcery Game 17thLv
Orco the fire wizard master of his own school
Lanos the Sky Giant, Hero of Law with lots of pet magic dogs
Boron the Warrior, Champion of sky god - quit stoneage now in plate+5
Sourberry the Twilight Elf

So players in the flying castle they jacked from giants circling the world at 50kph. He is currently plotting to hunt cosmic giant plot in giant land and got a message from Sourberries former queen asking to borrow some mid-rank followers to hunt an elf slayer wizard in return for a clan tree seep making his new clan legitimate. They teleported some followers to the elf queen (we will run a 80s TSR adventure with them sometime).

While zooming south they found a boy Cutter McGuffin

I'm running 80s real TSR adventure for Basic D&D Sabre River I reviewed recently and spoilers plenty here. I played up the  plot hook npcs obviousness. Im sure not considered great design now but players were quick to check out the boy with magic and came to realise he was a magic boy tied up with some divine agenda. They all got a dream and I made other omen into a dream just for Cutter that he told them as two visions is pretty heavy.

So went to cutters in peril village to find his family gone and the place a wreck and people fighting and doing crazy stuff. Lanos featherfalled to earth and everybody els jumped on griffons. Cutter tried to ask Orko for a ride and he said nop, his oaths to the forces of neutrality forbids him from helping strangers. Boron grabbed Cutter and down they went,

Using magic and wrestling they captured the self-harming people and determined bad water to blame. Took people to flying castle where minions worked on healing, purifying and giving them castle water untainted by the curse. Cutter mentioned a local seer so the heroes walked to the seer island. Made the crossing and found the entry pit and entered an opulent chamber of silk hangings and pillows and singing. Crept close to a woman in robes who turned stoning three players. They swiftly killed her and teleported back to the castle where a wizard could un petrify people. That sucked up 2 days then teleported back. Cutter found a secret door and clairvoyance spell mapped out the dungeon. Saw lots of rust monsters moving oddly in patterns and an altar so went to see. Sourberry turned into a rust monster and went to see and they didn't react but out came six shadows who chased him back to the party and were destroyed by a cleric. 

So they 20 rust monsters swarmed after them fanatically through a firewall into a ready party who defeated them and one was charmed by sourberry and he gave it a name (Rodney?). Got some awesome treasure and were keen to move on. Staff of power and potions

Took on a room with a Basilisk and they tried to be prepared and sent in earth elemental and Orco used it as a shield to enter the room. Alas, an invisible 17th Lv wizard had his invisible stalker move near orc and an earth elemental was summoned. As this fight escalated someone noted the wizard who was now visible in the back of room undercover and the party managed to win but it escalated badly for a while. The wizard had nice loot including a displacement cloak and +3 ring of protection. Orco from this and other treasure gained +5AC and save with this stuff.

Went to last room and sent elemental over the bridge that was a trap and players backed off done with this level. Battled a gargantuan gargoyle a bit and Boron was battered and Orko picked up three invisible gremlins who cursed him with bad luck 3in20 chance of catastrophic fumble on skills attacks and spells.

A bunch of monsters were flash-fried in lower area, leaving a nice magic hammer Boron gave his cleric wife. Found a secret door but went another way because they didn't want to miss another cool treasure. Found a chamber with a dragon. Tried to speak when Orco the expert got close and tried good dragon manners and realised it was the kind raised in a cave with no culture and language. The party was attacked Orco tried his Cone of cold and gremlin magic caused an explosion that killed the gremlins and Orco then acid breath hit and Sourberry teleported the party back home. Rested and revived Orco and went back. Avoided dragon and used secret doors. Went through a terrible machine maze full of awesome traps. Boron had his wife cast True SIght which helped a bit but invisible tripwires are still tricky.

The trap table here is so cool I want to have this system for every dungeon like encounter. This slog had party very suspicious of the Seer. Cutter of course was unharmed. While resting 8 hours in the corridor before seeing the slave as two party members were incapacitated by traps. On trap turned two party members into bats with no memories that other party members caught before they flew into giant machinery. A reverse gravity into a nasty machine made them wince a bit. Best trap fun In a module ever.

Met the sage who was a suspicious jerk but Boron had communed with his god and checked they should follow the Sage advice but not trust motives plus gods were meddling a bit here so Borons Skygod a bit vague. Ignored the sage advice and went back to kill the dragon this time with acid resistance spells and lots of magical buffs. It went well and the party scattered to avoid breath and Lanos was burned with worse acid than anticipated then torn apart into chunks connected by intestines. The dragon died and Boron and his wife went to help Lanos. His wife recommended healing the corpse before bringing him back to life as being in parts might make him unhappy.

Went on to fly to the volcano to the next area for the quest to cure the river to a volcanic complex.

Party happy with loot and the several deaths and petrification and polymorphic fun. This was the most deaths and similar bad ends I have had D&D ever. Players happy despite near TPKs and death.