CHARACTERS FIND OLD HAUNTS, OLD COMRADES

A raucous, rambunctious, and hilarious All-Star game Saturday ended with a somewhat depleted lineup finding some very familiar ground...and pounding some familiar faces.

Several stories follow, dealing with level equalization, the game itself, and post-game revelations from the DM as to what was missed.

EQUALIZATION SUCCESSFUL BUT NOT SMOOTH

Expecting to be running a party ranging between 3rd and 11th levels, players at Saturday's all-star game received something of a shock right at the opening faceoff, when the character sheets were recalled by the DM and substitute sheets issued.

These replacement sheets reduced each character to 1st-level, and listed only a tiny representative sample of its old possessions. Each character's name was changed, though race and with one exception class remained the same. The one exception was Kim's Cnutkum; played as a Fighter through his Riveria career, he appeared Saturday as a Monk.

While events in the game restored the characters' true identities, along with a few minor abilities, the entire game was played at 1st level. Initially, this caused some grumbling among the players, but before long most had accepted the reality of the situation once the game got rolling. An early and deadly in-party brawl took much of the heat off the officials, as the players and characters had other things to deal with.

Starting characters (from Dafan): Bree, Gutezapre, Ragnar, Martin; Gandalf, Shauna (join later)
                             (from Telenet): Havelock, Miriel, Jack N., Kalvin
                             (from Riveria): Drogmac, Pearl, Cnutkum, Dharmastin, Dior, Altheas, Akasha; Khorindel (joins partway)
                             (from Hobbitika): Taro

EARLY CONFUSION LEADS TO MAJOR BRAWL (Game report, part I)

The party "appeared" on an open flat green plain, some 150x250' in size, with a small pool at the center. Streams flowed out of this pool in four directions, dividing the plain evenly into quarters, and the characters appeared in these quadrants sorted by world of origin. Initially, the characters had no idea who each other was; though old comrades at least looked vaguely familiar, the names they gave were pure nonsense. Of all people, it was Havelock who found the solution, that drinking from any of the water on the plain restored your own name and memories.

Meanwhile, everyone had rather scanty possession lists, and some of the items were rather unique. A later story details who had what, and what it did.

Another quick realization was that everyone in the game was considerably younger than when last seen, and without their hard-earned scarsof battle.

Once everyone's identities were restored, attention turned to the edge of the plain. The streams flowed over the sides of the plain and plunged into the mists below, and inquisitive characters who looked "under" the plain found it to be very thin, and green on the underside. Some experimentation determined there to be a "floor" some distance below in the mists.

One of the first to determine his item's function was Gutezapre; his tiny broom had the power of Levitation, and he took little Pearl and stepped off the platform, to fall gently downwards into the mist. At about the same time, Havelock had got his item going; a floating saddle, though slow-moving, put the Cavalier back in his element.

Meanwhile Ragnar, seeing a couple of hated Elves standing close to the edge, tried his own experiment and simply shoved them over the side. Dharmastin and Dior panicked at first, then relaxed once they realized an unknown force was cushioning their fall. They reached the forest floor below (passing Pearl and Gutezapre on the way) and turned to await Ragnar's arrival; after getting pounded once by an enraged Havelock, he too had jumped off, followed by a wave of others.

Before long, most of the party was engaged in a mass brawl on the forest floor. The main event was Dior and Dharmastin trying to gain some revenge on Ragnar, but soon others joined in: Bree came flying in and nearly slew Dior on the spot, Gutezapre's arrival put Ragnar down for the count, and Akasha only added to the confusion by tossing an illusionary lightning bolt into the midst of the fray - the only person who believed it was Gutezapre, and he fell in his tracks. Seeing this, and also believing the illusion, Havelock made his way over to Akasha and pummelled her into the ground.

The designated referee for the day, Altheas, was still on the platform above, exchanging pleasantries with Jack and Kalvin.

Once Ragnar was down and killed, attention quickly turned to curing the wounded. Miriel proved the star here; she had been given a sewing kit that, when used properly, seemed to cure. She got Gutezapre and Dior up and running again, while the rest of the Clerics found they had, for the moment, no spell ability. Meanwhile, Havelock busied himself with Ragnar's corpse, and before long had arranged things such that it appeared he was riding the Dwarf! This hilarious arrangement remained for the duration of the game.

Dharmastin dashed off into the forest seeking curative herbs and came back both with those and a legend: Dafan's great Kaija. Kaija, unlike anyone else here, looked her age and then some. She explained she had been in this forest for some 250 years, unable to leave, and that the party's job was to restore balance by doing some deeds in a nearby building: recover a map from Babar the Ogre, decipher it, then take it to Tracu who could then do something with it. She also told the spellcasters of yet another stream in the forest; a drink from this gave back limited spell ability to all, to the tune of 2 or 3 spell points each.

Somewhere along here, the party also found its last member: Erin's much-reviled Khorindel.

REEXPLORING FAMILIAR GROUND (Game Report - Part II)

With surprisingly little disruption from Khorindel's arrival, the massive party trundled to this building. A quick look around the outside revealed it to be roughly Y-shaped, with a number of doors. One set of doors, in the join between two branches, seemed to lead into a larger open area.

Jack took the lead here, and gazed through the glass (the doors had glass windows) long enough to see some people moving around inside. As one of them somewhat resembled Dafan's famous Gandalf, Bree and Gutezapre needed no further urging to simply barge in - and find themselves in a time-warped version of UVic's Student Union Building, circa 1986!

The Gandalf-like figure was nowhere to be seen, so Bree, Jack, and Gutezapre headed for the back area of the building, to find a lounge area with 4 closed doors. Numbering the doors 1 to 4 left to right, Jack opened door number 3...singing from inside immedately caused Bree and Gutezapre to pass out. Jack, more resistant to such things, scrunched up his face in distaste and managed to get the door shut; the two fallen Clerics were quickly brought around.

Door number 2 led to a small room completely filled with cases of Red Axe beer.

Door number 4 caused some trouble. A number of characters walked into this room and promptly disappeared. Only Pearl was able to get in without problem, and then only because she slipped in at the same time as Taro. She held a brief conversation with the room's occupant - a Brownie - and soon had the other members of the group released. They had been both "held" and made invisible on entering the room, and pushed aside by the Brownie before the next person entered.

Door number one held nothing of interest.

A couple of doors along the main hall were next to fall - one led to some sort of office, occupied by someone called "Kez" who was reasonably helpful - the other led to a staircase going up. The party filed up this, only to be jumped by some Kobolds at the top of the stairs...these proved a nuisance, but fell soon enough.

Wading through the several small rooms up here found a few more Kobolds. The last room had in it both a Kobold (wearing what turned out to be headphones) and all kinds of electrical gear, switches, machines, and so on. Channelling some sort of spirit, Dharmastin immediately got on this and started trying to operate it, succeeding only in cutting all power to the upstairs!

This drew a quick response. An armoured, axe-wielding menace came out of a downstairs door and stormed through the building until it got up the stairs where most of the party was; it then started carving through the party like butter. Khorindel, quiet until now, came up the stairs behind it and psyonically stunned the whole room - except the opponent! Miriel, who had been watching Dharmastin's performance with others, then ran into the room and "command"ed the opponent to die - it fell, and was bound by Havelock and Gutezapre.

Pearl finally figured out what her item did at this point: it was a straw, to be used like a blowgun for shooting magic missiles. Also, Akasha - who had died in the forest brawl - was now raised in the field by Miriel and her sewing kit. Questioning the fallen foe, once it came around, revealed her name to be Michelle Aucut, and her role here was to cut things - hence the big axe. She was then run through, and Gutezapre took the axe.

By now, the party was collectively getting just a little banged-up, and a night's rest seemed in order. The upstairs area soon became a camp.

DESCENT INTO NIGHTMARE (Game Report - Part III)

The next morning, in considerably better shape, the party ventured down into the basement. Once down the lower stairs, the choices were a blocked-off hallway ahead, a room to the left with music, or a room to the right with humans and ogres. Once again Jack took charge, and looked through the windows to each room. He then ventured into the pub (with the ogres) and once his hand was stamped by the bouncer, he went and ordered a beer unmolested.

About now, Dharmastin - who had been all day trying to determine the use of his odd hat - finally realized it made him invisible when he said "Yes" and visible when he said "No".

The rest of the party filtered in to the pub and took stock. The target, Babar, was soon spotted, at a table covered with papers and in the middle of a mass of people. These were quickly cleared out by the combined "stun" capabilities of Khorindel and Altheas.

Gutezapre immediately charged Babar and saved his own life in so doing: as soon as Babar realized what had happened, he picked up the table and sent it sailing over the Dwarf to nail Khorindel for 48 points of damage! End of Khorindel.

The combined might of the party soon took down Babar, while an invisible Dharmastin sorted through the papers and quickly found an odd map. The rest of the papers were newsletters, along with a few examples of very bad poetry...with this, Babar's true identity was revealed as BBR.

The "map" was actually a set-subset diagram...it didn't take long to determine the subsets were the characters and their worlds of origin, and that where all the sets overlapped there was a letter "S". Some old-time Dafaners knew right away this represented their old friend and nemesis Shauna, and the music from the other room took on a whole new meaning.

En masse, the party charged into that room and found what were, to some, yet more familiar faces. Shauna *was* on stage, with her new urban band "The Metrognomes", and the legendary Gandalf was deep in drink and nearly passed out over a table. Gutezapre made good and sure he was passed out by driving his head into the unyielding table and leaving him for dead...Bree then followed suit.

Shauna quickly sorted out the map, and sent the party up to Tracu, now revealed to be better known as TravelCuts. Once here, the party asked for tickets home, got such, and returned to their normal worlds and times none the worse for wear.

Surviving characters: Bree, Gutezapre, Havelock, Miriel, Jack N., Kalvin, Drogmac, Pearl, Cnutkum, Dharmastin, Dior, Altheas, Akasha, Taro, Martin, Shauna, Gandalf
New characters: none
Casualties: Ragnar, Khorindel; (Gutezapre, Akasha - both revived)
Retirees: all (back to wherever they came from)
Continuing party: none

ITEMS AND DM SECRETS REVEALED

So what did we miss? And what did all those items do?

About the building:
- The quasi-SUB was done to the DM's best memory, and was intentionally somewhat inaccurate.
- "Kez" was a representation of long-time AMS accountant Kenzie.
- The Brownie that Pearl talked to was in fact stoned.
- Had the party entered the cafeteria kitchen, a Shambling Mound was awaiting them - the food fights back!
- Had the party gone down the blocked-off hallway there was a Purple Worm at the end (i.e. instant death) as Rob never did know what was down there in reality.
- Anyone going into the old Copy Shop would have had to fight a clone (copy) of themselves.
- Had the party gone into the old C.U.B. (used bookstore) they would have found an immense trove of magical and clerical scrolls.
- Cinecenta was being used as an Illusionists' testing ground; in other words, it had become something of a primitive holodeck.

About the characters:
- Kim's Cnutkum was in fact a vampire, hence it's being hungry all the time.
- Deaths and experience from this game will have no impact to active characters, as the events actually take place several hundred years in the future.
- Ragnar, Gutezapre, Akasha, and Khorindel join Swiness and Skyboot as characters who have died in an all-star game.

About the items: (not a complete list)
- Taro's teacup was one of curing: fill it with any liquid and give it to someone hurt and it did the equivalent of a Cure Light Wounds.
- Havelock's saddle was just that, a floating slow-moving saddle.
- Cnutkum's belt was all the different types of magical rope in one.
- Pearl's straw shot magic missiles when blown through.
- Jack's little box (in fact, a 3-button mouse) fired magic missiles when any button was pressed.
- Dior's rake was a +3 weapon that did extra vs. plants.
- Gutezapre's little broom was a device of levitation. The axe he took off Aucut was a +5 axe.
- Miriel's sewing kit had 6 charges; each charge gave whatever curing was required to get the recipient moving, and each use did 1 point damage to Miriel.
- Altheas' referee's uniform worked like a Cloak of Tranquility: on mental activation, everyone around him calmed down.
- Bree's helmet had 2 functions: one horn was a foghorn, while the other provided the effects of a Bless spell.
- Ragnar's book gave the effects of a War Cleric's Prayer spell.
- Akasha's pen and pad allowed her to generate an illusion of whatever she wrote down, one per page until the pages ran out.
- Kalvin's teeth had the power of charming just about anyone.
- Dharmastin's hat turned him invisible on command.
- Khorindel's device: ?
- Martin's device: ?
- Drogmac's device: ?
(one of the above three had a rock that was a +2 weapon whether thrown or held)