Daniel Ruth
Owner of this website. See my bio page if you want to know more;)
Shelfari
Apparently there is a website called Shelfari that has extra information about a book. Kinda cool, though I am not convinced anyone actually looks at it. Anyway, I had fun filling it in.
http://www.shelfari.com/books/38398686/A-Prison-of-Worlds-(The-Chained-Worlds-Chronicles-Book-1)
-Published - 01/06/2015, 12:44 AM
Updated Book
Thanks to the reader that reviewed the book I knew it had to be proofread more thoroughly. January 4th 2014 I uploaded a revised version of the book. The first 1/3 had been corrected. I am hoping for more from my proofreader soon.
Publish Date - 01/05/2015, 6:43 PM
Published a new book through Amazon's KDP program
December 21, 2014 I published a new book. Book one of The Chained Worlds Chronicles, A Prison of Worlds.
-Published 01/05/2015, 6:40 PM
Ravenloft Game 50 - 09/30/22 - Let's Call It A Draw
We started as we ended, surrounded by Dire Wolves and Wolf Spirit Swarms with a legendary Fog Giant lurking in a fog cloud. The only change was that the battered wizard was replaced by a fresh ranger due to player attendance. For the most part, the wolves continued to attack who they were attacking last time. With the tight quarters and the swarms on top of people, it was hard to see and target. When the Giant finally went, he crit and then hit Loki. He took 70 hit points and was down to 12 before he ever even got a chance to act. So much for being fresh. Brian critted 3 times in that first round at which point we had very little chance of surviving. Duke Q only survived long enough to get in one action since he got racked last time. Loki disengaged and fled into the forest.
So, we fought on. Kharn beat on Dire Wolves recklessly against which he at least did full damage. The Swarms were immune to cold and resistant to weapons so he did less than half damage to them. Kaladin could make his hands a fire attack, thus getting full damage, so he worked on those. We found that a Swarm formed each time 4 Dire Wolves were killed. Loki used his bonus action to Hide using his cloak. That diminished his damage output but kept him alive. The Giant spent an action casting Fly and then came after Kaladin. The Monk fought bravely, hoping for a successful stun attack but to no avail. Unfortunately, his usual hit and fly tactics would not work against a Giant with reach, flying 60. Kharn got a berry into Duke Q and they fought Dire Wolves. One of the Swarms tried to find Loki but he was rolling just enough on his Stealth roll to evade it. So, much like the fight against the demons, we were whittling down the minions but doing nothing against the villain. Another invisible flying legendary villain, by the way.
So, then Kaladin finally went down. Plummeting to the earth with an automatic death fail. Loki rushed to his aid, once again hiding from the Giant. The Giant then moved 60 and exactly got into hand to hand with Kharn. He survived the first hit but not the second. At that point, we had 2 players with 1 hit point, 1 with 0, and 1 with 12. Parley? At the other players' insistence, Duke Q started to talk. He congratulated the Giant on his excellent fighting prowess and suggested we simply go our separate ways as equal forces. That, of course, was mostly a bluff since he’d been barely touched and we were mostly dead. However, we did take out 15 of his 16 Dire Wolves. As payment, he demanded both Duke Q’s and Kharn’s great swords, being a great sword user himself. Q told him that we needed the frost brand if we were ever to defeat Strahdanya. That did not move him however he did ask for a counteroffer. After the email exchange about miscellaneous magic items that we might have forgotten about, people started offering their “junk”. However, Kharn’s useless Wand of Conducting was argued to be of actual interest to a Giant. A magic stick that made music. A poor Persuasion roll was inspired into a better roll and the deal was made. We traded Duke Q’s backup weapon and a magic item we’d never use, for our lives. A fair trade. Thus ended another ass-kicking encounter.
As we took a short rest, we debated following him so that we could avenge our loss (after a long rest and with a bigger party). But since he was flying, we’d be tracking a single Dire Wolf which seemed highly unlikely. And the last thing we wanted was to find him too early. So, we quickly gave up on that idea. We pressed on, reaching a river feeding into the lake. The current was a little too swift to swim (67% on a d100), despite two swimmers, a flyer, and a super athlete in the party. We decided to have Kaladin fly a rope across the chasm. Brian wanted a “rope skill” roll and opened it up for what DnD skill that might be. While suggestions were thrown about, Dan created a Rope Use skill on his character sheet and rolled an 18. (The old Captain Kirk cheater method.) Brian let that stand but demanded a similar roll to untie the superior knot and save the rope. He rolled a 17 and we moved on.
We came across a bigger, steeper river just before nightfall. We took a long rest. Kharn did his Commune with Nature ritual and could sense a small hut on the other side. And a lower-than-normal population of fish and animals in the area. In the morning, we were told it was too far across to use the rope this time. We almost swam in the lake to get around but people were worried about that Lake Demon. It would be a 30-minute swim. We chose to go upstream to look for a better place to cross. It was hilly and rocky so we had to do some climbing. But again, Loki had a climb speed, Kaladin could fly, DQ could Levitate and Kharn has a +many climbing roll. So, no problem except that we passed a cave along the way.
From it, 11 Swarms of Bats emerged and attacked. Again, we were doing half damage but we didn’t have too much trouble. Once half were dispersed, they went back into the cave. Meanwhile, Kharn who was fighting in the cave entrance for better footing thought he heard something big and clawed in there. Kaladin noticed that the stone was unnaturally flattened, as if it had been melted by great heat. And at the end, Loki noticed claw scrapes at the entrance as if something had been climbing out of it for decades. So, likely a Red Dragon. We debated stopping there so that we could go in with a fuller party, however, a good Arcana roll from our Dragonborne revealed that based on the claw width, we’re talking about a massive (i.e. ancient) sized Dragon. We decided to run away (quietly) like little girls and move on. So, yet another unbeatable foe. When we first arrived in this realm, Kharn warned us to stay on the road and avoid the wilderness. After a legendary Fog Giant and an Ancient Red Dragon, it appears he was right. I think we stopped there. I don’t remember if we crossed the river or not. We did not level up but we didn’t really do anything either.
Ravenloft Game 49 - 09/24/22 - Giants in the Mists
This session began with a reduced cast. The thief, ranger, and paladin had real-life events to deal with. Slackards! Poof! They never existed in our little slice of an alternate reality. PMS (player missing syndrome erupted.
We dug a few and gold from the magical bonfires that the devil detectives had turned into upon death. We then made our way to the Valaki encampment, only to get challenged by the guards. They were alert due to the camp being attacked by a massive tiger. Apparently, an undead hunter (who’s camp/tower we had found earlier) had sicked his pet tiger onto the gypsy camp and it had done some damage before it was slain. I am unclear how many, if any, died but they did express appreciation for how nice the fur coat was. We idled a few minutes testing if this was a magical beast or were-beast but all clues pointed to it being a normal, if large, animal.
Later we headed off to find the Mad Wizard on the other side of the lake. We immediately got distracted by a sign from Blynsky’s Toys stating it was giving tours of the lake. Over this poster was a sign saying it was closed due to issues. We guessed the issues involved a sea monster with aspirations to godhood. The one that we had fought before when it tried to eat the ungrateful smart aleck gypsy girl.
So, the barbarian did some rituals to allow him to commune with nature and found there was an island a few miles off. We talked about exploring it but couldn’t think of a reasonable way to bring the entire party. Ideas like shoving everyone into the portable hole and having the monk (me) fly over prolificated but the cowards were concerned over minor issues such as suffocation. Obviously, the real men who knew how to take a few teeny risks were out this night. Back to finding the wizard! We shortly found a lone tree in a clearing surrounded by ravens watching it. The barbarian did another ritual to speak with animals and we found out it was a tree of life. Or perhaps THE tree of life. It wasn’t clear. He talked to a few other animals but got nothing more relevant except animal type stream of thoughts.
Patrina volunteered to go and explore the tree, apparently wanting to be a real girl. Or come to life, despite the fact this would then mean she couldn’t live in her hole or create more wine. She tried communing with it, then communed with spirits. The barbarian communed with nature. I thought I was surrounded by hippies. Nevertheless, he discovered that the tree was actually two trees merged together with one of them dormant. We didn't get anything more out of the experience, so we decided to leave and maybe come back later when we had a better clue on how to proceed.
Off to see the wizard again! We had barely resumed our journey when we heard a hunting horn throughout our journey. We also found we were being stalked by a giant wolf. Perhaps invisible, since we only saw indirect signs it was there. Soon we found ourselves surrounded by a giant with more than ten dire wolves. He demanded to eat Lord Q in order to let us go. Naturally, we found this reasonable but decided to kill him anyway. Knowing Patrina would be out next game we initiated combat so she could get one attack out. Patrina did some sort of sickening cloud zone and we fought for one round, then 2, then almost 3, killed several wolves, and found the giant was planting fog banks around us to obstruct our vision. The dead wolves formed ghost wolves that in turn merged and formed a swarm of wolf spirits. The giant is pulling out legendary actions, so it's a decent-sized villain.
Before the combat, aside from some bluster, we found that the giant’s daughters had been kidnapped by Baba Lisaga. Telling him we killed her didn’t buy any goodwill, but we found that his daughter's name coincidentally matched our horses, Petunia and Daisy. A clue! A clue no one understood but a clue nonetheless.
Moving Day
The last few months have been pretty hectic. I joined the "Great Resignation", got a new job and now I am moving. Actually, I've been gradually moving for weeks, but it's finally close to the time of cutting the cord, so to speak. Since the new place is smaller, I have been clearing out a huge number of things. Rather than throw them out I have been putting them out on the sidewalk with a "Free" sign. I have to say it is remarkably effective.
One thing that might happen is that my webpage may go down for a short time. Or I hope it's a short time. It took me a while to get the port forwarding and setting to work with AT&T. Now I am moving to a place with a new internet service I will have to work with the Xfinity service. I have to admit it felt like a crapshoot the first time and years later I am not sure I remember the best way to set things up. Here is hoping for the best.
As a side note, Shepard: Discover the best books, offered me a spot on their website. I'll go into a bit more detail on my WordPress blog, but here is the link. It's a pretty cool premise. https://shepherd.com/best-books/that-inspire-the-creation-of-worlds
Ravenloft Game 35 - 02/04/22 - Freakshow
We explored the monastery. We found half-dead, disfigured insane people and decayed furniture. Finally, while exploring we encountered a large lumbering figure. An assemblage of human body parts. As we approached the area, we heard chanting screaming etc. The creature did 20-30 per hit. Worse it exploded after it died.
Afterward, we further explored and found room after room packed with mutant surgical experiments. One room had a guy holding a shiny sphere, another with a group singing around a statue. Another room with a brawl (fight club). Another room full of hungry mongrels. The last had rabbits and turnips. Ambrus almost fled in terror. We retreated to have a long rest before we decided what to do with them. The flesh golem was the guard and the guy to give the inmates food. We then spent time figuring out how to feed them without the flesh golem.
Irina had a guilt trip about the dream pastries incident and insisted on staying at the Abbey and becoming the Abbess. As a reminder, there was a riot because the people of the city couldn’t get their cookies made of murdered children, since we killed the child-killing hags. Because we didn’t think to warn her brother of the sudden lack of opiates, the town rioted and people died. Fortunately, few children died since their parents had already sold them to the hags to be made into cookies. For some odd reason, no one in the party cared about the deaths of the rioters. She was the only person that had healing and cooking so in her head it seemed to have made sense.
We left the Abbey and soon met with Serena Lousyrescue (or so it sounds). She was the NPC we rescued from the demon at the cost of Brian’s original character. Later she was kidnapped by Strahdania. She had a chain around her neck, that boded ill.
Notes from the GM:
Ravenloft Game 32 - 11/19/21 - The Evil In Me
Poof! The Racoon faded out and the berserker gypsy suddenly existed. Exploring the house we found a room full of mirrors. Inside one of the mirrors, Ambrus saw the placard hanging on the wall. He sent his mage hand into the mirror world, grabbed the placard, and pulled it out of the mirror. Meanwhile, his mirror image stepped through and attacked him. Kharn ran in to attack the image and then an image of him stepped out to fight us. Patrina cast darkness and Kharn vanished but her own was still there since she can see in her darkness... oops. Patrina’s image dispelled the darkness and mirror Kharn reappeared. Then Lord Q cast fog cloud. During this, the monk stayed out of the room and did a fog horn imitation allowing the people inside the fog to navigate without activating the mirrors. Someone got the idea to cover the mirrors and Kharn then covered the mirror with a billowing cloak. In the next few turns, the party scavenged moldy tablecloths, blankets, and curtains to block all the mirrors in order to negate the mirror images. Once most were covered the fog was disbursed and the remaining mirror had a second crest. Ambros cast invisibility and went in the mirror and grabbed it while everyone else stayed outside the room. So we seem to have two crests.
While exploring the rest of the house Lord Q came across a phantasm figure wearing armor. Meanwhile, Ambross and Kharn had a short rest to heal up from beating themselves up in the mirror room. Since Lord Q had no backup he closed the door. When everyone was ready we all went in but Ezera effectively soloed the phantasm with one 20 HP hit and another critical smite 82 HP. The ghost just wanted to end his life in glorious combat instead of by poison. Hopefully being one-shotted by the paladin counts. Although the monk wanted the armor as a wall trophy, it was finally decided it go to the paladin.
Continuing our exploration we found a magical haversack that finally went to the monk. Later explored the bedroom we originally stayed in during the groundhog cycle and found it full of zombies. One with a big glowing fist. We won after a short combat, partially due to the undead being limited to having to attack through a doorway. The zombie with the glowing fist had a bracer that gave +1 damage and hit to natural weapons and unarmed attacks. The monk got this. It was late but it was hinted that there was only one more room on this floor so we continued. The next room over we found the second half of the bracer set that gave an additional +1 hit and damage (total +2). Yay! At this point, it was after 1:00 AM so we called it a night.
Ravenloft Game 30 - 10/22/21 - Ravenous
The party woke up find the chickens gone. The house owners had made breakfast and left for the day. So in between the time we woke up and the people in the house cooked breakfast they were gone (eaten). We spent the day looking over the sheep, talking to Luca and then the villagers. No one knew anything. We even interrogated the sheep. Luca was mentally challenged due to a head injury, so was a bit frustrating to talk to. They knew nothing as well. We all knew it was Ilya, the resurrected boy with an unnatural appetite but there was no proof. Patrina even left her book/familiar with the sheep to spy on them. Then we left. After hours of getting the run around it came to a boil when all the sheep went missing at once after we left for a few hours. The familiars were gone and Luca had left the sheep alone after telling them to look after one another. During this discussion, he took out a letter stating that due to his father’s friend he could find shelter and food for himself and his companions. I must have blinked because this seemed a bit contrived. So perhaps the villagers won’t starve? (hint: yes they still will)
The villagers noticed soon after we did that the sheep were missing and formed two mobs. Kaladin tried to reason with the crowd but failed despite a decent roll (14 but no bonuses). As usual, the people without charisma skills shouldn't bother to try to roleplay. Lord Q tried afterward and failed too (with advantage he rolled two 1's. Maybe it was fated.). Just they were about to attack, Ilya ran up, looking obviously emaciated, and demanded food. We all attacked since this was the proof we had wasted two hours trying to get. However, he was a legendary creature. He swallowed random villagers (his mother specifically) to regain hit points, as an interrupt action spat poison area effects and basically two shotted most of the party. Patrina was fairly effective using darkness and chilling touch to reduce his hits and negate his healing some of the time. Naturally, we still mocked him for using an ability similar to his infamous Plant Growth fail. Luca got nailed the first attack and lay dying on the sheep field. It was difficult healing without the goodberries but we had some healing potions, a paladin, and Patrina who had some sacrificial healing abilities. Ilya seems to still have some life to him but after a final attack and health absorption, he ran his house near the sheep fields. Patrina did her sacrificial heal to Kaladin who had gone down earlier and he then flew after Ilya in his house. The heal was well-timed because he was 2 failed death saves down. We charged after him and once again kept going down. It was even worse in the confined space. (It wasn't helped that the map had the two floors stacked on top of each other and kept flashing each floor randomly. Very confusing and frustrating, especially with the wall obscurement of FG that never matched the floor you were on. I would strongly recommend that the GM spread out the maps so they aren't on top of each other even if it needs those annoying gates at the entrances) The warlock eventually claimed the final blow. Most of the others didn’t even get a hit in and were just hit point buffers.
Dimitri (Ilya’s father) was informed of the news rather brutally by Patrina (she was criticized by the rest of the party for being far too blunt, though it was amusing), then again by Ezera (who was just as blunt, he just worded it differently. It could be questioned who was nicer). His mind snapped, then he recovered and they did it again. I was actually wondering if they were trying to drive him mad. He ended up catatonic and disavowed by the village mayor. The paladin was disgusted by this attitude (nobody else was happy with it though they didn’t want to take responsibility for it either...even though it was pretty much Patrina and Ezera that drove him mad) and righteously washed his hands of the whole matter. Leaving the entire village to starve while we head off to explore the dead Luca’s inheritance and its stash of food. That’s Ravenloft. Even the paladins are evil.
Going Mad!
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