Blog redesign almost done

Posted on August 8, 2010 by J

As I have talked about on numerous occasions, I have been looking into redesigning my blog. I don’t think it will make much if a difference in terms of how many people read it, but I like the idea of using a customized template, which hopefully gives the blog a more personal feel.

There are many templates out there on the Internet, but I decided to use Google own tool for the mew template. The template allows me to easily change colors, backgrounds and all other stuff, and I find that important because change to the template makes the blog seem more alive, hopefully.

Currently, I am looking into setting up a social page, which will house all my social stuff such as Twitter. I have no followers on Twitter, so it makes sense to move that feed to a separate page. I might also add Stumple Upon or Del.icio.us to that page, as I tend to stumble across quite a few links that I like to share on my blog.

Finally, I am considering adding the Google friend module to my blog. I think it might be a good way of getting to know more people in the community and hopefully make a new friend or two, who share my passion for Dragonlance.

Since it is raining cats and dogs today, and my daily run might be somewhat limited, I hope that I will get around to finishing up the blog redesign today. Stranger things have happened.

Mother F*cker!!

Posted on August 5, 2010 by J

I went to my bookstore today to pick up The Gargoyle King. I had my daughter with me so she could see all the cool books, but in all the excitement I picked up The Fire Rose in stead. It wasn’t until we were on the train home, that my daughter told me: “Daddy, you already have that book at home”.

Anyway, I started Dragons of the Highlord Skies, so I guess I can wait until I get a chance to exchange the book.

Dungeons & Dragons in a box

Posted on June 16, 2010 by J

I was looking through our shed the other week, and I came across my boxes containing all my D&D. Since it has been far too long since I last leafed through my old modules and core books, I promptly brought one of the boxes into the house.

True to my geeky self, I had to take a couple of photos of my collection for the blog. The pictures do not give the collection the justice it deserves, but since I have not had the time to unpack the whole thing yet, it will a while longer before I can take some real photos.

Resurrection?

Posted on June 3, 2010 by J

Well, it has come as no surprise that this blog has been neglected for quite some time now. I started a major redesign project a couple of weeks ago, but since then I have not really found the energy to actually do something about it.

Since this blog is a nice little side project for me, I am reluctant to shut it down or just let it die a slow and painful death, so here I am, back again with nothing to write about.

That last sentence wasn’t exactly right. For the first in about seven years, I have actually come up with a couple of adventure ideas, that I plan on writing down one of these days. True to tradition, I will publish my writings on the blog, and hopefully get some feedback, or at the very least inspire somebody out there to pick up the ideas and run a good old fashion game.

I am not sure when I will actually get to post anything, but hopefully it won’t take me too long.

On a totally different note, I have been so unfortunate, that my registrar has turned out to be somewhat of a scammer, so I expect my domain to die in the near future. For the time being everything is up and running, but I have no access to domains, so one day it just might be gone all together.

Adventure hook

Posted on March 20, 2010 by J

I was looking through some of my old files, and I found a document I started back in the day with various adventure hooks. See, I used to keep a notebook with me at all times so I could write down ideas for my campaigns. It kept me from going insane many a time. Too bad I can’t do the same thing in current job. Maybe I should start blogging at work?

Anyway, screw my lousy job, here’s the first adventure hook from my old notebook.

The Minotaur Revolt

The ogres are known for their use of slave labor. Among the numerous slaves kept in Daltigoth, a group of minotaurs, who has been taken prisoners and are currently working the mines or building new houses for the ogres. These minotaurs are yearning for freedom, and would gladly join the impending slaughter of the ogres. A powerful group of adventures might succeed in penetrating Daltigoth and free the slaves. However, due to the cultural differences it might prove more than difficult to integrate the minotaurs into the invading army. If the player characters convince the slaves that they are people of honor, the slaves will fight in the war. Given the intimate knowledge of Daltigoth they have, the slaves are valuable allies and it is believed that the leader of the minotaurs will be rewarded with a seat on the ruling council of the oligarchs.

I intended to run these adventure hooks as little interludes in a much grander campaign “The Wizard’s War”. The party was involved in a huge attack on the city of Daltigoth, and the plan was to let that be the overall theme, however, in order to let the players get a little R&R I would let them stray from the main campaign once in a while.

Alas, it never came to pass…

Icingdeath

Posted on February 22, 2010 by J

I created this sword maybe 12 years ago for a minotaur PC, who was a member of the party for which I was DMing. The party was around level 10 (2nd edition rules), and travelled beyond the world of Krynn.

This party was basically a bunch of good guys, who fought evil with remarkable savagery. I decided to use the Ravenloft setting, so I added the Domain of Dread to my own Dragonlance setting. The wizard in the party was a Red Robe with few scruples, which made him susceptible to the influence of the dark powers of Ravenloft.

I needed a character who could pull the party in the direction of good, and as it turned out, the player, who played the minotaur agreed to provide this counterbalance. In order to empower him, and send him on a epic quest, I created the sword Icingdeath.

I stole the name from Forgotten Realms, as it is the name of a white dragon killed by Drizzt Do’Urden. I include the only write up of the sword I could find on laptop. I seem to remember there was a richer back story to the weapon, but unfortunately I cannot find it. I haven’t updated the weapon to 3rd or 4th edition rules either. I don’t have the 4th edition rules, and since my gaming days are long gone, I didn’t see any reason for me to update to 3.5 either.

I hope somebody will find this interesting and maybe update the stats. I’d be more than happy to post the stats on the blog, so if feel free to email me should you decide to update my sword. Email me at dragonlance (at) gigaboot (dot) dk

Icingdeath

Used by: Fighters, The white minotaur.

Description: This sword looks like a normal clabbard, except it glows with a faint white light when drawn.

Powers: Being a Frost Brand Icingdeath has the following natual powers:

+3 bonus to hit and damage.
+6 vs. fire using/dwelling creatures.
Wielder is protected as if he wore a ring of fire resistance:
Immune to normal fires (torches, flaming oil, bonfires, etc.)
Large fires, molten lavas, wall of fires, etc. causes 10 hit points of damage each round the wielder is directly in it.
+4 bonus to saving throws vs. red dragon breath weapon and magical fire.
Damage rolls are calculated by -2.

Secrets: Icingdeath is an intelligent sword and has the following additional powers:

Primary abilities: Detect fire using/dwelling creatures
Locate fire using/dwelling creatures
Extraordinary powers: Cone of cold 1/day (10d4)
Blizzard 1/day blinds opponent

Special purpose: Slay fire using/dwelling creatures

Special purpose power: Paralysis 1d4 rounds save to negate
Intelligence:14
Communication: Speech (telepathy)
Number of languages: 2, Common, Minotaur
Weapon ego: 21

Defenses: Icingdeath chooses its own user and thus does not permit any lesser fighter to wield it. The unfortunate one is subject to a cold shock doing 2d12 points of damage.

Vanity URL – new blog home

Posted on February 6, 2010 by J

I recently purchased a new domain for my non Dragonlance related blogging pleasure. Since I already own a domain, which I use for testing purposes, and generally goofing around, I decided to reconfigure my DNS settings, so my gaming blog now is hosted on www.gigaboot.dk

I also configured Gmail for my domain, just for the fun of it. Hopefully this means I will start blogging a little bit more now.

Adventure hook: Ravenloft in Dragonlance

Posted on November 2, 2009 by J

So, this is not exactly an adventure hook, but rather a little story about how we included Ravenloft in our Dragonlance setting back in the good old days. Hopefully, somebody can find some inspiration from this post, or at least be a little entertained.

The whole story started with the Tower of High Sorcery of Istar. In our campaign the tower was transported to the demi plane of dread, Ravenloft, shortly before the Cataclysm struck Istar. My DM got the story hook from one of the Dragonlance comic books.

My black robed wizard found out that the tower wasn’t destroyed in Cataclysm, and after many dangerous adventures, he was able to locate it in Ravenloft. Hen entered the tower, and basically had to pass his Test of High Sorcery again. Long story short, he passed the Test and became the Master of the Tower.

The Tower still included the original portal to the Abyss, but since the Tower was located on a different plane, and since there was no white robed cleric around, the Portal opened up in Scull Cap back on Krynn. This little nifty trick allowed us to run a campaign that spanned across the Dragonlance and the Ravenloft setting.

Shortly after I more-or-less retired my character since he had attained level 23 or something like that. The character was used as a high level NPC, who could help the party travel between planes.

My Library

Posted on August 14, 2009 by J

Now that I am done with Dragons of the Hourglass Mage, I have stated reading The Legend of Huma for the umpteenth time. It is by far one of my favorite Dragonlance books, and it seems like a good choice to “come down” from the high of Hourglass Mage.

As I was looking through my book collection, I happend to find our charger for the digital camera, and I took some pictures of my bookshelves. I always enjoyed seeing other peoples stash, which I know is terribly dorky but what can you do?

The pictures are not really that good, because I can’t really fit the whole thing into one frame due to limited space in our home office. I will try to make a Photosynth at some point, but for now this is all I’ve got.