Continuing from the previous session.
Date: 11/23/2025
Game Date: 10/5/2025
Weather: Warm and mild.
Characters
Chop, human cleric (362 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (346 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (360 points)
Persistance Montgomery, human knight (347 points)
Rogar Thane-Blood, human barbarian (250 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (368 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (333 points)
Bullet points to cover the action in the continuing big brawl:
- The Gith turned their focus to Rogar, with the "main" Gith - blurred, enhanced by spellstones and potions - joining a Gith Lichtor and their axemen in attacking him. Hannari ran over to help, himself doubly boosted by a DX potion (+4 to DX) and a Speed potion.
- The remaining thorkers around Percy and Thor kept piling on to keep them busy, along with a Gith Lichtor.
- The other thorkers mobbed Chop, Vlad, and Duncan.
- Chop kept healing Rogar from afar, Cursing any non-cursed foes, and used Purify Air to clean up a nageteppo used to (it turns out) obscure incoming reinforcements.
- Hannari put down three of the axemen with help from Vlad's arrows right after they finally knocked Rogar unconscious, Percy put down a few thorkers and a Gith Licthor, and Thor decapitated a hapless norker brute and then put a few thorkers down.
- Alarmingly, 10 or so (by Hannari's quick count) Gith came running up, and then shieleded themselves with a layered wall of smoke from nageteppo. And even more alarmingly, a few more thorkers - supposedly bashed into death or unconciousness - clambered to their feet and re-engaged, not much worse for wear from endless head blows, neck shots, and "chop[s] to the hit points."
We left it with 4-5 thorkers up, and a lot of incoming Gith. The PCs plan to hold them off at a hallway so Duncan can temporarily wall it off with stone so they can haul ass and haul corpses out to get a lot of loot. We'll see how much they can take with them, assuming they get to that point, given that they're 100% sure the enemy can get around the walls rather more quickly than they'd like. That is where we'll pick up next time - Operation Build a Wall and Have the Gith Loot Pay For It.
Notes:
10 seconds of combat time. Took a while today - I was lagging toward the latter half of the session and that slowed us a lot.
MVP was Chop for his curses, which disrupted several critical successes by the enemy.
I like that the PCs call their enemies Gith, so I named them all that way in the VTT.
I don't like that one particular group of them shows with their DR under Actors, but when I add them to the map and use them to fight it goes to 0. Editing it doesn't help. Manually typing in DR on every hit isn't fun.
Sunday, November 23, 2025
Saturday, November 22, 2025
Game tomorrow
Tomorrow will - hopefully - be the end of the big multi-session battle in the depths of Felltower. The PCs seem to be in a good spot . . . but of course battles can turn suddenly, and they've been spraying resources (especially FP and ER and Paut) all over the place. They only have so much.
Looking forward to seeing what happens!
Looking forward to seeing what happens!
Sunday, November 9, 2025
GURPS DF Session 215, Felltower 138 - Into the second GFS Part III
Continuing from the previous session.
Date: 11/9/2025
Game Date: 10/5/2025
Weather: Warm and mild.
Characters
Chop, human cleric (362 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (346 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (360 points)
Persistance Montgomery, human knight (347 points)
Rogar Thane-Blood, human barbarian (250 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (368 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (333 points)
Bullet points to cover the action in the continuing big brawl:
- the enemy continued to pull back into a large "C" facing the PCs, and laid down three smoke nageteppo after Vlad shot one of the "Gith" axemen.
- Chop cleared the smoke with Purify Air and the PCs charged.
- Rogar fought his own little war with a couple of Norker Brutes and a quartet of axemen, eventually felling the two norkers and wounding one axeman.
- Thor rushed the main core of the enemy and got hit with Slow by a Gith they supposedly hit with Magebane, so that wasn't as effective as it might have been.
- Percy bashed down a few thorkers.
- A few fallen thorkers got back up, after having been put down rather harshly earlier.
- Vlad landed a few eye shots on Gith Lichtors and put them down.
- Hannari crippled the foot of a Gith Lichtor and found the guy have Levitation on and didn't fall. They decided that's probably why they don't worry about the Deathtouch floor.
We ended it at second 31 of the fight, having resolved a good 10 seconds or so of combat. Slow, yes, but people kept a move on. It's a big fight and the VTT helps a lot but also slows things down a bunch, too, when we hit issues that it doesn't do well.
Notes:
- MVP was Vlad for the nice eye shot criticals.
- I really need token statuses for - "off balance," "unready weapon," "Slowed," "Hasted," Crippled Limb, and a few more. Oh, and different ones for Blur, Shield, Armor, and other buff spells.
Date: 11/9/2025
Game Date: 10/5/2025
Weather: Warm and mild.
Characters
Chop, human cleric (362 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (346 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (360 points)
Persistance Montgomery, human knight (347 points)
Rogar Thane-Blood, human barbarian (250 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (368 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (333 points)
Bullet points to cover the action in the continuing big brawl:
- the enemy continued to pull back into a large "C" facing the PCs, and laid down three smoke nageteppo after Vlad shot one of the "Gith" axemen.
- Chop cleared the smoke with Purify Air and the PCs charged.
- Rogar fought his own little war with a couple of Norker Brutes and a quartet of axemen, eventually felling the two norkers and wounding one axeman.
- Thor rushed the main core of the enemy and got hit with Slow by a Gith they supposedly hit with Magebane, so that wasn't as effective as it might have been.
- Percy bashed down a few thorkers.
- A few fallen thorkers got back up, after having been put down rather harshly earlier.
- Vlad landed a few eye shots on Gith Lichtors and put them down.
- Hannari crippled the foot of a Gith Lichtor and found the guy have Levitation on and didn't fall. They decided that's probably why they don't worry about the Deathtouch floor.
We ended it at second 31 of the fight, having resolved a good 10 seconds or so of combat. Slow, yes, but people kept a move on. It's a big fight and the VTT helps a lot but also slows things down a bunch, too, when we hit issues that it doesn't do well.
Notes:
- MVP was Vlad for the nice eye shot criticals.
- I really need token statuses for - "off balance," "unready weapon," "Slowed," "Hasted," Crippled Limb, and a few more. Oh, and different ones for Blur, Shield, Armor, and other buff spells.
Sunday, November 2, 2025
Norkers & Thorkers
Norker (n). 1. One who norks.
2. A Fiend Folio monster I use a lot.
(Warning - stats are AD&D, and I've made them different for GURPS.)
One thing I love about norkers is that they're great fodder. They're intrinsically armoured, so they don't need to provide $5K in loot each just to be able to absorb some hits. They are cheaply armed with axes, so killing a few of them doesn't provide a realistic amount of loot. They fulfill the value of monsters to a GM - they're a threat - without that implicit promise that games have made to PCs - fighting is good because fighting means loot.
The "Gith," aka the Masters, the six-fingered elven vampires, etc. - seem to have a number especially tough norkers. So the PCs are enaged in a brawl with them as I write this.
They also have some other guys - Thorkers.
Thorkers
The PCs aren't exactly sure what thorkers are, exactly. They're very quiet, eeriely silent. They don't readily bleed - or maybe don't bleed. They take enourmous punishment to put down, regardless of magical or non-magical weapons. Their best effect on them has been putting them to sleep with sleep elixirs - clearly they're not immune to that - and repeatedly bashing them in the head with a flail - which takes far too many hits of far too much damage to make anyone feel like it's a really vulnerable spot.
They attack with claws or a bite - generally claws, since GURPS (unlike AD&D) tends to make biting suck unless biting is your main or only thing. They don't use weapons, unlike "regular" norkers.
They're a new monster for Felltower, although with an old inspiration. And the PCs are the first to encounter them, so research isn't going to turn up much. Their best bet is to take a live or dead one home - in that order of utility. They've hit upon that plan.*
I may update this post - or just link back to it - when they find out more.
* And I expect either way, they'll try to explain why someone in town should pay them for the prisoner or the corpse, and then tell them everything they want to know on top of that. No, NPCs don't pay you to find out what you want to know from them. No one has that level of social skills in game to pull that off. And it's probably less fun as a game if they do and regularly do so.
2. A Fiend Folio monster I use a lot.
(Warning - stats are AD&D, and I've made them different for GURPS.)
One thing I love about norkers is that they're great fodder. They're intrinsically armoured, so they don't need to provide $5K in loot each just to be able to absorb some hits. They are cheaply armed with axes, so killing a few of them doesn't provide a realistic amount of loot. They fulfill the value of monsters to a GM - they're a threat - without that implicit promise that games have made to PCs - fighting is good because fighting means loot.
The "Gith," aka the Masters, the six-fingered elven vampires, etc. - seem to have a number especially tough norkers. So the PCs are enaged in a brawl with them as I write this.
They also have some other guys - Thorkers.
Thorkers
The PCs aren't exactly sure what thorkers are, exactly. They're very quiet, eeriely silent. They don't readily bleed - or maybe don't bleed. They take enourmous punishment to put down, regardless of magical or non-magical weapons. Their best effect on them has been putting them to sleep with sleep elixirs - clearly they're not immune to that - and repeatedly bashing them in the head with a flail - which takes far too many hits of far too much damage to make anyone feel like it's a really vulnerable spot.
They attack with claws or a bite - generally claws, since GURPS (unlike AD&D) tends to make biting suck unless biting is your main or only thing. They don't use weapons, unlike "regular" norkers.
They're a new monster for Felltower, although with an old inspiration. And the PCs are the first to encounter them, so research isn't going to turn up much. Their best bet is to take a live or dead one home - in that order of utility. They've hit upon that plan.*
I may update this post - or just link back to it - when they find out more.
* And I expect either way, they'll try to explain why someone in town should pay them for the prisoner or the corpse, and then tell them everything they want to know on top of that. No, NPCs don't pay you to find out what you want to know from them. No one has that level of social skills in game to pull that off. And it's probably less fun as a game if they do and regularly do so.
Sunday, October 26, 2025
GURPS DF Session 215, Felltower 138 - Into the second GFS Part II
Continuing from the previous session.
Date: 10/26/2025
Game Date: 10/5/2025
Weather: Warm and mild.
Characters
Chop, human cleric (362 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (346 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (360 points)
Persistance Montgomery, human knight (347 points)
Rogar Thane-Blood, human barbarian (250 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (333 points)
Reinforcements:
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (368 points)
We picked up where we left off. Not a lot to add for the fight, except that:
- Thor came running up, a few seconds into the battle.
- More foes came up - a dozen or so norker brutes led by a pair of "Gith" Licthors, as the PCs call them.
- Percy put down a few thorkers, but it took a lot of hits to do so.
- Vlad's arrows were largely ignored - he hit a couple of norker brutes but Missile Shield kept the Gith safe.
- More Gith showed up - axemen, more lichtors, and a taller, more slender Gith. Assuming he was a mage, Hannari used a pair of Magebane grenades to take away their Magery. It didn't stop one from using one of Wyatt's long-lost spellstones to Awaken a good number of thorkers asleep from Hannari's grenades last session.
- Thor bashed down two obsidian golems and the iron spectre, allowing Rogar to concentrate on the norker brutes.
- Gith threw lightning - even after being hit with Magebane - and demon's brew grenades at the PCs.
- Chop found out that while norkers can be hit with Command to attack their allies, they won't follow through.
We left it mid-fight, with the awakened thorkers getting to their feet and the Gith and norkers forming a semi-circular position away from the PCs.
Notes:
- I really need a way to display multiple icons in one hex in Foundry.
- Thor was MVP for smashing up three constructs pretty quickly, freeing up Duncan from a threat and Rogar to fight foes he is better able to deal with as a brand-new 250 point PC.
Date: 10/26/2025
Game Date: 10/5/2025
Weather: Warm and mild.
Characters
Chop, human cleric (362 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (346 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (360 points)
Persistance Montgomery, human knight (347 points)
Rogar Thane-Blood, human barbarian (250 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (333 points)
Reinforcements:
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (368 points)
We picked up where we left off. Not a lot to add for the fight, except that:
- Thor came running up, a few seconds into the battle.
- More foes came up - a dozen or so norker brutes led by a pair of "Gith" Licthors, as the PCs call them.
- Percy put down a few thorkers, but it took a lot of hits to do so.
- Vlad's arrows were largely ignored - he hit a couple of norker brutes but Missile Shield kept the Gith safe.
- More Gith showed up - axemen, more lichtors, and a taller, more slender Gith. Assuming he was a mage, Hannari used a pair of Magebane grenades to take away their Magery. It didn't stop one from using one of Wyatt's long-lost spellstones to Awaken a good number of thorkers asleep from Hannari's grenades last session.
- Thor bashed down two obsidian golems and the iron spectre, allowing Rogar to concentrate on the norker brutes.
- Gith threw lightning - even after being hit with Magebane - and demon's brew grenades at the PCs.
- Chop found out that while norkers can be hit with Command to attack their allies, they won't follow through.
We left it mid-fight, with the awakened thorkers getting to their feet and the Gith and norkers forming a semi-circular position away from the PCs.
Notes:
- I really need a way to display multiple icons in one hex in Foundry.
- Thor was MVP for smashing up three constructs pretty quickly, freeing up Duncan from a threat and Rogar to fight foes he is better able to deal with as a brand-new 250 point PC.
Friday, October 10, 2025
Random Links for 10/10/2025
- AD&D Asassination. Seems straightforward in the PHB, and then the DMG comes and takes it away. Thanks, Gary.
- Next game is in 3 weeks.
- Next game is in 3 weeks.
Monday, October 6, 2025
More notes on Session 214
More notes on Session 214, which we played on Sunday, 10/6/2025.
- It was interesting watching the players talk themselves into going into a big fight on the "first landing on the second GFS." It's always been a big fight on this level, against a mixed lot of enemies who are always (somehow) alert to the invasion. But somehow there is always some at least mild surprise that, hey, those guys we never defeated are still there and still ready to fight. They did make it past before, but it always involves a nasty battle.
Maybe this time they'll be able to either win out or make a permanent dent in the forces here. They have a lot more tools for the job - witness the sleep grenades and nageteppo - and better supporting tactics. But the "Gith," as the players call them, are tough and have a lot of seemingly loyal minions.
- I have a "no helping" rule but waived it for helping our new guy. He's an old hand at gaming and a quick study. Still, we really need the GURPS module for Foundry to include Committed Attack as his barbarian has Berserk (Enraged, Battle Fury) and will use it extensively.
He also has Bad Temper and Bloodlust. But I know that's how he plays, so he may as well gets points for them.
- I love that they visited the mysterious blue pool when their PC with Curiosity and Impulsive isn't around. Oh, and jumped into a big fight when the same player - who is all for heavy combat - isn't around.
I can't wait for next session . . . in 3 weeks. Oh well. If this goes well enough for the PCs I suspect it'll strongly opened up a lot of adventuring possibilities. If not . . . I hope there will be sufficient survivors.
- It was interesting watching the players talk themselves into going into a big fight on the "first landing on the second GFS." It's always been a big fight on this level, against a mixed lot of enemies who are always (somehow) alert to the invasion. But somehow there is always some at least mild surprise that, hey, those guys we never defeated are still there and still ready to fight. They did make it past before, but it always involves a nasty battle.
Maybe this time they'll be able to either win out or make a permanent dent in the forces here. They have a lot more tools for the job - witness the sleep grenades and nageteppo - and better supporting tactics. But the "Gith," as the players call them, are tough and have a lot of seemingly loyal minions.
- I have a "no helping" rule but waived it for helping our new guy. He's an old hand at gaming and a quick study. Still, we really need the GURPS module for Foundry to include Committed Attack as his barbarian has Berserk (Enraged, Battle Fury) and will use it extensively.
He also has Bad Temper and Bloodlust. But I know that's how he plays, so he may as well gets points for them.
- I love that they visited the mysterious blue pool when their PC with Curiosity and Impulsive isn't around. Oh, and jumped into a big fight when the same player - who is all for heavy combat - isn't around.
I can't wait for next session . . . in 3 weeks. Oh well. If this goes well enough for the PCs I suspect it'll strongly opened up a lot of adventuring possibilities. If not . . . I hope there will be sufficient survivors.
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