February 2008: Reach Out and Cleave Someone!

Greetings once again, wardens of wee wizardry!

It is I, Zombie Dan, infecting your imagination from afar with tales of the D&D Miniatures community at Gamescape North! We’re growing steadily as a group, with a few new faces each time, mixed in with our grizzled polyhedra-hurling veterans. Those of you waiting in the shadows to join us, step forward! Help swell our ranks and create an invincible tide of plastic figurines laying waste to map after map, marching across two-dimensional empires of frenzied (but still polite) mirth! The more players we have, the more interesting things can get.

Take last game, for example. Six players packed the table for the 150-point tomb-raiding adventure Mum’s the Word. Mummies! Cursed magical items! A vengeful bone naga on the loose! Two more players dueled on another map in a 200-point brawl.

Which reminds me, if anyone out there has a map of the lower planes I’d love to borrow it. You see, ahem, I was at the carnival the other night with some other liches and got trapped in the Hall of Mirrors. One of those blasted soul mirrors sucked me in and flushed me into Limbo. Now I’m wandering goodness-knows-where, looking for some batteries. My wand of teleport is one of these newfangled pushbutton designs, and it’s out of juice! The landscape here is a bit dreary, with endless pockmarked fields of piping-hot obsidian, and brooding clouds that rain tiny barbed worms. Hitchhiking is not advised in this realm, as most of the creatures appear to be covered with poisonous spines or made of some corrosive sort of glowing green goo…

Alack, my luck is poor at the moment. But undeath is like a box of chocolates, they say. Regardless, I hope to be back in your dimension in time for this month’s game. Saturday, Feb. 23rd, pack your bags and bend the laws of time and space to Reach Out and Cleave Someone! Teams of two will work together to defeat their enemies and collect the seven Shards of the Oracle. Multiple maps will give players the opportunity to jump their warbands between maps through magical warp portals!

The cultist of the dragon paced in his chamber, nervously reviewing the spells he had studied for this adventure. The anticipation filled his dark little heart; yes, he was ready. He checked through his gear one last time and nodded. Soon, they would all kneel before the Dragon Queen, and he would sit to the right of her throne.
“All right, let’s be on with it,” the cultist snapped. As he entered the foyer, he saw his travel companions sitting down to a strange sort of game with living dice, fleshy polyhedra that had once, in another world, been men. But that was before they met the tiefling warlock, who now flung them carelessly, grinning in wicked, amusement. That is, those of his companions with hands. The tiefling blademaster barely looked up from the game his brother had devised, but the canoloth blindly pointed his maw attentively in the cultist’s direction.  Its tongue flicked noisily in an otherworldly language that was completely foreign to human ears.
“The time is right,” the cultist began, thinking of how the sages, in the generations to come, would probably never tell this part right. “The Moons of the Anth’aar have aligned, and the door is unlocked –“

“Yes, yes,” the blademaster said, yawning. “You will show us ze warpgate. We will get off ziss boring human world and go somewhere more stimulating. ”

“And you will lead me to the Shards of the Oracle,” the cultist added, his voice cracking a little. “The last message from the Dragon Queen, which fell to earth when the skies-“
“Ah, yes, ze Shards of Ze Oracle,” The tiefling interjected, eating a chunk of meat off the tip of his sword. One of zem is in our world. It should be easy to find, but you must remember, you are not ze only one looking for ze Shards. You will pay us ze gold up front. Each shard is in a different world, and you wouldn’t survive a minute in any of them without us.”

“You might be surprised about me, demon,” the cultist snarled. “I have friends in unexpected places. But let us waste no more time. Here! Here is your precious gold.”

He reached into a small bag at his belt, which seemed empty. An impossibly large amount of golden coins tumbled out onto the table, smothering the anguished cries of dice that had once been men…

Join us Feb. 23, 2008 at Gamescape North for Reach Out and Cleave Someone. We will be doing 150-point warbands, though latecomers will be playing 200-point skirmish. Teams will be aligned based on their shared characteristic, and this will affect their starting location. For example, if a lawful good warband works with a lawful evil warband, they will start out in the plane of law. A team of lawful good and chaotic good warbands will start in the plane of good. And so forth.

The fun begins promptly at 1p.m. Come a bit early to form teams, buy and swap minis, and build your warband! I’ll be there at noon, putting things together and sipping coffee. Sally forth!

Braiiiins,
-Dan

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