#|| the one who turned me to stone: goren of the stone ||

[thxcxlxstialwarricr]

Ow my heart

[doctorwhonews]

The Doctor Falls

Latest Review: Written by Steven Moffat Directed by Rachel Talalay Starring Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie and Matt Lucas with Michelle Gomez, John Simm, Briana Shann, Rosie Boore, Samantha Spiro, Simon Coombs, Nicholas Briggs, Stephanie Hyam, and David Bradley Produced by Peter Bennett Executive Producers: Steven Moffat, Brian Minchin A BBC Studios Cymru Wales Production for BBC ONE First broadcast 6.30pm, Saturday 1 July 2017   This review contains spoilers and is based on an advance preview copy of the episode.   Last week Matt Hills described World Enough and Time as ‘the bleakest and darkest that Doctor Who has been for quite some time’. The Doctor Falls, befitting the second part of World Enough and Time’s story, maintains if not deepens this atmosphere. Nothing that is done in World Enough and Time is reversed. At times many of the lead characters seem to be competing to find which of them has the most profound death wish. The plan the Doctor comes up with can only obtain a minor respite for the embattled humans on floor 507. Indeed, when the Doctor argues that the emergence of Cybermen is inevitable in any human society, and where he also points out that in this closed and time-dilated environment their advantage is overwhelming, what point can there be to fighting on? It’s this question which The Doctor Falls seeks to explore, and in doing so say more than we have heard for some time, if ever, about both Steven Moffat’s and Peter Capaldi’s understanding of who the Doctor is. The result is oddly uplifting. My first reaction, as messaged to one of the editors of this page, was ‘Shining, brilliant, beautiful’; but I added that I think I needed more words to do the story justice. So: The shift of setting between the first and second half of a two-part story is an established Steven Moffat device. As The Big Bang moved from the underhenge of the climax of The Pandorica Opens to the museum, so The Doctor Falls uses its pre-credit sequence to establish the society on floor 507. The Big Bang was itself a cornerstone for the edifice of mythology which Steven Moffat had (with characteristic use of paradox) already begun to build before the stone was set. The Doctor Falls finds Moffat readying and detonating the explosion which will bring down his own version of Doctor Who. The destruction is even more careful than that wrought by the Doctor within the episode, but the visuals suggest what happens: though so much is reduced to ash, burning the old growth might allow for the cultivation of the new. Floor 507 displays a placeless but vaguely mid-Atlantic rusticity, neatly juxtaposed with the gas-choked dystopia over five hundred floors below. It’s an agricultural community where children are central and guarded against the predations of the topknots by a thin line of defenders. It recalls Russell T Davies's idea from his 2003/4 pitch document, that outer space stories should feature human pioneers so the audience have points of identification, perhaps unconsciously also recalling the western. In contrast to the masculine universalism of the Cybermen – both male in that there are no Cyberwomen, but genderless in that the Master insists Bill is now an it – the community has a matriarchal bent, with Hazran as its leader. The chief cook and chief executive are the same person, unproblematic and brought to the screen with authoritative warmth and human fear by Samantha Spiro. The character reminded me a little of Lucy Cohu's Deborah Goren in Ripper Street. There are at least nods to the New England orphanage of The Cider House Rules, and to the pioneer communities of Little House on the Prairie, but theirs are not the stories being told. Introducing a child viewpoint character is an old familiar Moffatism, here used self-consciously. Briana Shann’s Alit recalls Caitlin Blackwood’s Amelia Pond; apparently parentless, independent, willing to confront her fears, and bearing enough of a resemblance to Pearl Mackie’s Bill (exaggerated by the hairstyling) to make one wonder if there is a direct connection between the characters. Perhaps this is Moffat once more embodying the child audience and acknowledging its link with the companion. Alit is the first person Bill sees when she arrives on floor 507, and the first person to make an empathic connection with her when she wakes up from the ‘sleep’ induced by the Doctor. Alit perhaps embodies the audience’s hopes that Bill can be restored to humanity, as well as the wish of her community and the Doctor for a non-cybernetic future. In reminding long-term viewers of lost friends, and present lookers-in on the current predicament, Alit helps to highlight the optimism underlying what could otherwise be read for much of its length as an overwhelmingly pessimistic episode. The Doctor Falls follows the non-linear structure of World Enough and Time in its first act, containing flashbacks within flashbacks. However, opening the main narrative with a scene where the Doctor is undergoing torture and ritual humiliation is a good choice. There’s something Christ-like about suffering enabling the Doctor to restate his values, though I’d be cautious about following this parallel too far. The scene and the Doctor’s speeches also help divorce the episode from the detail of the setting: there will, the Doctor says, always be Cybermen, wherever there are human beings. The origin of the Cybermen is a tale Doctor Who has told elsewhere in other media, and it’s a legend which this episode supposes will be told again and again in different ways. Hence the nod to Doctor Who Magazine's The World Shapers with the mention of Marinus, and why it is perfectly acceptable in this context for the Cybermen to blast death rays from their headlamps in a way which they never managed before on television, but did on the back cover of  the first paperback edition of Doctor Who and the Tenth Planet. Cybermen created by Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis; but with embellishments by Chris Achilleos, Grant Morrison and many others. Moffat, like Russell T Davies, has never been reluctant to draw from non-television Doctor Who where it helps develop a concept. Likewise his attitude to the programme’s lore: the importance is not in the detail of where the Cybermen come from, but that the Cybermen’s conviction that turning people into Cybermen is a dead end for all the natural and moral sciences. As someone once said, they must be fought. Bill is herself a battlefield. The Master likes to remind everybody (but particularly the Doctor) that she is a Cyberman, the result of a conversion process which stripped away anything deemed useless to Operation Exodus. From his point of view, Bill is dead. The programme shows the Master to be wrong, or at least that it disagrees with his view of the individual as nothing more than an organism. As long as Bill recognizes and believes in herself, she exists, even if the programming of a Cyberman rages like a hurricane in her head. The continuing presence of Pearl Mackie in the credits and her voiceover in the trailer tantalized exactly what role she would play, and doubtless many hoped or expected a speedy and conventional resolution. The Master’s brutal taunting is a reminder that we can obtain neither. The device of allowing the viewer to see, most of the time, Bill as she understands herself, not only avoids practical problems surrounding the uniformity and inflexibility of the Cyberman costumes, but allows Pearl Mackie’s talents to be displayed in a way they haven’t been so far. Mackie's physical awareness makes her fill the space of a Cyberman while remaining visibly Bill to us. We often see Bill as a Cyberman only when she is reminded that a Cyberman is what others see – such as when she walks in on Hazran and Nardole unannounced and Hazran blasts away with her shotgun. It’s a jarring, heartbreaking moment. Also breaking hearts is Missy. Those hoping for an hour of multi-Master malevolence will be disappointed, but I think this episode does better with the scenario it presents than it would with the one some seem to have hoped for. Michelle Gomez plays Missy in the manner of an addict who keeps slipping from the wagon, deliberating giddily between new and old hits and guessing at some kind of peace beyond the spectre of withdrawal. It’s an irony that the Doctor never knows for certain that Missy was luring her former self into a trap which would have made her feel free to help the Doctor. In the meantime Missy and the Master flirt like bad fairy nobles making sport in the woods. Shakespeare scholars will know better, but their bickering seemed to me a sort of self-obsessed fusion of elements of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Much Ado About Nothing. Gomez and John Simm are very good at this, especially as there’s a genuinely disturbing undercurrent to their bantering. Simm in particular, with his beard, is a poisoned Pan, a violator whose lust for his next self reminds one of the brutality with which the Master treated his wife Lucy. Despite his very real and effective threat (and history) of violence, John Simm’s Master is a hollow malevolence, harmful, damaging, self-consumed, but overall an evil with no point to it. I’ve been looking at academic Doctor Who books for another project, and remembered that in an interview with the writers of Doctor Who: The Unfolding Text, Douglas Adams complained that the Master’s plans had no meaning. The Doctor theorizes the path of the Master’s career on the ship in a way which assumes the emptiness and self-defeat in the pursuit and exercise of absolute power for its own sake. In return, later, the Master critiques the Doctor’s course of action on his way to floor 1056, arguing that if the Doctor hadn’t given his lecture on time dilation he would have arrived early enough to save Bill. This line of reasoning is possibly flawed in story terms, but anticipates (or echoes, depending on where one stands) the criticisms made by several reviewers of World Enough and Time. It’s an old fan observation that the Master often seems like a character who realizes that he is in a television series and behaves accordingly, but here his criticisms flag up his own powerlessness; he’s not willing to act in a way that helps anybody or contributes to the main narrative, so stands on the sidelines and plays critic until he can escape. It's tempting to think of this aspect of him as a departing showrunner who knows his successor is already in the office. The Doctor Falls is a good episode for Nardole, a character whom we never really got to know and who has probably suffered from never having been the focus of an episode. A friend explained him to her enquiring mother as the Doctor’s butler, and perhaps that’s why he remained semi-visible, his full properties a secret. Here, though, Hazran makes her discovery of him one of her missions and Matt Lucas’s depiction of Nardole’s awkwardness must resound with everybody who has felt unworthy of another person’s esteem. It’s natural and credible and also very much part of Moffat’s observational writing of male self-effacement and overconfidence as a mask for doubt. How one greets it will depend on one’s patience with Moffat’s themes, but for me, here, it works unobtrusively, the Doctor and Nardole competing over their relative usefulness, or lack of it. Nardole’s departure doesn’t give him a chance to say a long goodbye; he leaves as part of an operation in much the way he might have done if he’d expected to see the Doctor again, but as he never had a conventional introduction this is appropriate. As a title, The Doctor Falls intrigued me more after World Enough and Time because in one sense the Doctor had already fallen; he’d hubristically reduced his way of living to a formula by which he thought he could test Missy, and where stock phrases had replaced psychological insight. Instead we have a heroic fall which (like much else, as Matt Hills noted last week) calls back to the series trailer. The Doctor says he is a man of peace, but walks in war, and here he accepts the fate of the warrior, picking off more Cybermen than logic would perhaps expect with his absurdly versatile screwdriver until a Cyberman blasts him down through the chest, a wound which is one of at least two ways in which Bill’s fate has anticipated his own. The devastated landscape which the Doctor’s bomb leaves behind is as much a design achievement as anything Michael Pickwoad has hitherto accomplished – a landscape we’ve got to know has become a devastation of a kind previously associated in his time on the series with Skaro or Trenzalore, and this time the Doctor is the immediate cause. Redemption and the chance of new beginnings come in part because the Doctor was wrong. There was hope and there was a witness, perhaps even a reward. I’m sure that in earlier seasons we’d have had glimpses of Heather now and then, as the series piled arc upon arc. None of Steven Moffat’s companions have been allowed to return to anything approximating their old lives; travelling with the Doctor means incorporation into the mythic substrata of the universe, and so it proves with Bill, reunited with a Heather whose personality has now re-emerged and seems dominant in the watery spaceship. It's good to see Stephanie Hyam once more; there's still a note of wondering in her performance but the dislocation has become the confidence of the explorer. As all the interaction between Bill and Heather is seen from Bill’s narrative point of view once Bill has been remade as a Heather-like creature, perhaps what we see is all a translation convention. Whatever, the choice to become human again is open; it’s intriguing that the door is not closed entirely on Pearl Mackie’s return. However, if this is a farewell, it’s a good one. There's irony in the Doctor’s regeneration being sparked by a tear (a rearranging of the meaning of grief expressed for the third Doctor in The Monster of Peladon and Planet of the Spiders, of course) from a protected friend who has now turned twice into a creature he has previously fought against. It recalls Russell T Davies’s theme of the Doctor as agent of liberation rather than reinforcer of parental authority. However, this year the Doctor has forgotten that lesson and become guardian and tutor to both Bill and Missy, with Nardole as an unteachable voice by the wings. The Doctor's efforts to protect people have not succeeded in the way he sought. As the first Doctor realized at the conclusion of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, beneficial change can come from taking the risk of being brave enough to let go. That was the real lesson of Susan's portrait seen on the Doctor's desk in The Pilot, and he had forgotten. The problem, of course, is that the Doctor doesn’t want to let go. Bill, as a Cyberman, wanted to die if she couldn’t be herself any more. The Doctor wants to die too. Peter Capaldi’s performance of a fragmented Doctor, repeating the words of his earlier selves while holding on to his current physical form, was dizzying, helped by a camera which located him at once from several angles and levels in the TARDIS interior. Perhaps this Doctor’s changes of persona across series reflect an ongoing uncertainty about who he is which stretches beyond the ‘Am I a good man?’ interrogations of series eight. Back in 2010 Frank Collins wrote (in a review of The End of Time) of the tenth Doctor’s life as a Bildungsroman; the Doctor’s reward for personal development and the achievement of self-knowledge, was however to be returned to adolescence to begin the process again. Perhaps this older Doctor is about to change without having reached the point his two immediate predecessors did, and worse, can’t see any prospect of doing so. What, then, can be made of the first Doctor’s emergence from what presumed convergence of narrative (over fifty-one years) leads us to believe is an Antarctic blizzard? I’d thought earlier this series that Steven Moffat’s valedictory notes weren’t only for the period he’s been showrunner, but for the entire period he’s been involved, from the time Doctor Who returned in 2005. The Logopolis homage of companions suggests this too in content, as well as calling further back in form. If nothing else, the montage will open up arguments about who counts as a companion again, which will keep a lot of people happy and angry at the same time. The first Doctor said, if only in the script of The Tenth Planet, that he would not go through with the change to his next self, and the meeting of the two Doctors benefits from that level of fan knowledge while I hope still working as a confounding moment – a ‘suspended enigma’, it was once called – for those who don’t know. In the brief time we see him, David Bradley gives a performance which is very much the first Doctor as opposed to his William Hartnell or his Hartnell as the first Doctor from An Adventure in Space and Time, which augurs well. I’m always conscious that I tend to emphasize what works for me in these reviews, and they are often moments which leap out rather than broader themes or more thorough analysis. This article is based on one viewing of the episode and I’m still not sure why I found it so positive an experience. Throughout I imagined that the director, rather than the Doctor, must have the hidden arms of a Venusian Aikido practitioner; Rachel Talalay conducting with at least three batons like a hexapod, but with many more eyes than Alpha Centauri. The open vistas of floor 507 come to mind; the fatally wounded Doctor’s monologue about stars, too, was uplifting despite its note of disappointment, perhaps because it acknowledged that the Doctor’s belief and perhaps hope that this was the end for him was false. Heather’s return was a reminder that hope, even if apparently lost, can never be written off. Yet throughout there are sacrifices unappreciated and only postponed, with the sense that the inevitable is only being delayed. Perhaps the episode can be read as a musing on mortality, especially given that Cybermen, Time Lords, unconverted humans and indeed puddle-spaceship-creatures are all seeking to delay the inevitable, unless they are the Master, which is in a sense to be nothing at all because he can’t adequately empathize with others’ conditions. If so, it’s also the second part of three. The twelfth Doctor’s finale is begun, but it is not over, and we have to wait almost six months to conclude our verdicts on the whole. http://reviews.doctorwhonews.net/2017/07/the_doctor_falls.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

[greyhawk5e]

1st Level 5e Greyhawk Adventure

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS

Unwelcome Guests

A Beginner World of Greyhawk Adventure for D&D 5th Edition

Original Player Characters

Kaedriss, Bride of Boccob, A Flan Cleric of Boccob from the Bright Desert

Lovecraft, A Drow Ranger who has rejected his people's evil ways

Malachius, A Half-Orc Paladin of St. Cuthbert, raised by humans

Baba Manya, A Rhennee Warlock of The Great Old One, an anicent entity from the home wold of the Rhenee

Cast of Characters

Cidan of Hardby, Merchant, recently deceased

Kensa Waters, 18 year old daughter of Cidan, competent, pretty, and athletic

Tozen, Laborer, 30s, coward, shirked the war

Father Zoreg, Cleric of Iuz, arrogant, smart, and charming

Ygiane Harper, hard drinking lesbian folk musician

Argus Redknuckle, 50, super tough ex-boxer, F2

Ollant, butler of Cidan, helped raise Kensa, grieving for Cidan

Lionas the Reeve, 60s, town official, minor functionary in the Barony

Father Goren, 30s, priest, friendly, funny, won't talk religion without a drink

Jedona, Goren's wife, tough, a healer, not squeamish

Sesin, Goren's 8 year old son, inquisitive and joyous

Breddon, 36, disabled veteran, F7, was “in the shit” in the Greyhawk Wars

Ivaine, 14 year old girl, very brave, good under pressure.

Cawen, brother of Ivaine, 6, scared and quiet

Coren, twin brother of Cawen, scared and LOUD

Fendel, 25, Iuz Soldier, poor farmer joined up, in it for survival

Ilina, 20, Evil fanatic Devoted of Iuz, haughty, sure of her cause

Varde, 32, Practical, self-interested, quiet type

Read to the Players:

“It is an early summer evening in the fishing village of Cardyn's Cove. The sun is still out, but the twin moons of Luna and Celene are just becoming visible as the sunset begins.  It's a beautiful day here on the eastern border of the Kingdom of Furyondy, made even better because it's pay day.  Today you each have 10 gold pieces coming your way.

Most of the working age men of this tiny village of 350 are off on a crusade against the Empire of Iuz.  There is a demand for the able bodied, and for the last several weeks, you have filled it.  You've been doing various jobs for Cidan of Hardby, the richest man in the village.  His enormous fishing vessel, The Pride of Hardby, can be seen in the dock, towering over the smattering of small boats that ply the largest lake in the world, the Nyr Dyv, also known as the Lake of Unknown Depths.

Cidan hired you, but you have mostly dealt with his young daughter Kensa. With her brothers at war, she is left to run the household.  She has asked you to meet her at and her father at the Narwhal, a large ramshackle Inn, the only one in town.

As you walk towards the Inn from the north, you pass the lighthouse, which allows ships to leave the rocky harbor at night, the old stone Church of St. Cuthbert high on a hill, the homes of fishermen, and the small businesses of boat-wrights and merchants of bait and tackle.  When you arrive at the Inn a small crowd has gathered for dinner.  There is a gruff scratchy voiced Melissa Ethereidge-style female musician playing bouncy folk songs.  You are struck how everyone in town is either a woman, a child, or over 40.

While the bouncer may be 50, he's still 6'6', in leather armor and carrying a large mace with a bunch of notches in it.  He doesn't look like someone who would be fun to fight.  As you approach, he puts his hand up and says, “Welcome to the Narwhal.  The special today is spicy crab stew, put your weapons in the rack or you can't come in, no exceptions.” He points to a rack on the wall, where a couple rusty swords and an old quarterstaff are stowed.”

 If the PC's refuse to rack their weapons, a very annoyed Kensa will meet them outside the Inn.  The Bouncer (Argus Redknuckle) will fight if provoked.

15 patrons in the Inn are served by a bartender and 2 servers.  Kensa orders a round and says it's strange her dad is late. After speaking to a messenger, the musician (Ygiane) speaks.  “The King's army has defeated the forces of The Old One at Axeport.  They have taken the city!  The Legion of Black Death has been routed.  We attacked from the East, and cut off their escape route.  The Legion has scattered, and is being picked off throughout the countryside!” Half the bar cheers. Ygaine sings  “Old Wicked's Balls,” including the line, “Oh, we're bending over Old Wicked and chopping off his balls!”

Half the bar doesn't cheer or sing.  If the PCs ask Kensa why, she explains that many in the town don't think they should be fighting to free the Shield Lands, when they already fought a war to defend their own country and lost so many.  “It's not our fault the Shield Lands couldn't protect themselves.  They turned down our help before. Why should more die to help them?  We should be defending our own borders and not seeking more death, when we barely survived the last war.”

Just then, a man in a black cassock with a red priestly collar, wearing black scale male over the cassock, enters the bar.  He has black hair, and carries a short sword.  He says, “Stop talking!” His voice BOOMS through the room, and all of the candles on every table burn blood red and super high for three seconds (thaumaturgy) He then throws the lifeless body of Cidan on to the floor of the Inn.  Kensa, seeing her father dead, goes pale.  Behind the PCs, ten Soldiers of Iuz enter.  They wear black leather armor and a red tabard with a white grinning skull in the center.  

The priest is Father Zoreg of the Legion of Black Death.  He offers everyone a chance to convert to Iuz.  “I was once just like you.  I worshiped a god I couldn't see or hear, but then I found a god I could see with my own eyes.  He doesn't tell me what to eat or who to sleep with, he just asks me to kill for him and he rewards me with power and money.  Doesn't that sound wonderful?  Does anyone wish to be saved?”  

No one takes it.  He goes on, “Elements of your government have attacked our city without provocation.  We were able to take a very valuable item and flee the city before their temporary victory.  We find ourselves behind enemy lines.  We have taken your ship, the Pride of Hardby and we need men to sail us to our rendezvous point. In return, you will be allowed to live.  As you see, we have killed the man called Cidan of Hardby.  We have also killed his household guard.”

The Soldiers roll a bag of five heads on to the floor.

Zoreg continues.

“No one is coming to save you.  If you think you can flee and hide in your homes, be assured that my men are looting them as we speak, and loading your possessions on to the ship.  If you resist you will die, but we would much rather you sailed us to our destination and lived long healthy lives.  I carry an item that is vital to my immortal master and I can not fail.  You do not want to cross me.  Soldiers! Loot the kitchen and the pantry.  Take all the sausage, bread, and beer.  The rest of you, get these men to the ship, take the women and children hostage and kill them if they disobey.  You three, come with me.  I'm going to strip this town bare!”

Zoreg leaves.  The patrons  surrender.  Three Soldiers come to the PC's table

Main Encounter One

Argus

AC 12, HP 11, +3 to Hit, D6 + 1 DMG

7 Soldiers of Iuz

AC 12, HP 11, +3 to Hit, D6 + 1 DMG (Short-sword) D8 + 1 (Crossbow)

If they fight, Argus will join the players. 5 Soldiers will fight in the room.  2 will roll a wheelbarrow to the kitchen. 3 leave with Zoreg. The PCs have to get to their weapons at the rack, with three soldiers at their table.  The table can be pushed into them with a successful strength check, knocking them prone. Turned over tables proved haf cover (AC+2.)  The 2 from the kitchen will join the fight on round 4.  The last remaining Soldier, Fendel, will Surrender.

In exchange for his life, he tells the PC's: Zoreg has carried a black box  since they left Axeport.  There are twenty five in the party. Soldiers like him, Priests and The Children (or The Devoted Children of Iuz) who dedicate their lives to the faith.  The have the Greyhawk Rune for “Evil Magic” carved into their foreheads. His second in command is a “Skull Sword” named Varde, he is a sergeant in Iuz's army, his head shaved, his face painted like a skull.  Zoreg is desperate to return the box.  He doesn't know what's in it. The Soldiers carry 10-15 sp each.

If the PC's lose the fight, they wake up on The Pride of Hardby.   This ship is in the dock just south of the Inn (skip ahead)

Argus can tell them that any ship attempting to leave the town now that the sun is down will need the Lighthouse functioning to navigate the rocks.  The PC's should be able to deduce that disabling it would be a good idea.

If the PC's are badly banged up, the Temple of St. Cuthbert, across the town to the northeast, is a possible resting place.  There they will find Goren, his wife Jedona, and son Sesin, and a copy of the Book of Common Sense and The Parables of The Wise Fool. Tucked inside each book is a Scroll of Bless, and a Scroll of Cure Wounds.  There are also two Potions of Poison Resistance and a vial of Holy Water.  If they search, they will also find the back entrance out of the church, and can avoid the trap and follow the tunnel out to the docks (see Tunnel Encounter.)

The Estate of Cidan of Hardby to the north of the Narwhal  is another possibility.  Cidan's estate has been looted already, but a servant (Ollant) hid himself.  If they need to take a Long Rest, they can do it here undisturbed.

If they go anywhere in town, roll d20 every 10 minutes.  On a roll of 12 or higher, a Patrol of two Devoted and one Soldier will cross the PC's path.  A Wisdom check will allow the players to see them first.

On a roll of 5 or lower, they find three Villagers trying to escape.  The Villagers consist of a teenage girl, Ivaine, and her little twin brothers, Cawen and Coren.  If the PC's see them, they will have to figure out what to do.  If they travel more than a block with them, they will encounter a Patrol.

If the PCs investigate the Lighthouse, they will find a Patrol going up the stairs.  The walls can be scaled by a Dextrous Rogue or Ranger.  It is three storeys tall with windows on every storey, that can be kicked in from the outside.  The narrow winding staircase allows only the front ranks to fight.  Being shoved causes you to fall down the stairs on an unsuccessful saving throw.   A second Patrol guards the lantern in the top. It will be easy to smash the equipment inside once they are dealth with.  Then Father Zoreg's force will have to wait until tomorrow.

Patrol

Soldier of Iuz

AC 12, HP 11, +3 to Hit, D6 + 1 DMG (Short-sword) D8 + 1 (Crossbow)

2 Devoted of Iuz

AC 12, HP 9, +3 to Hit, D6 + 1 DMG (Short-sword), advantage on Charm

If they search the town, they will find all of the hostages are locked in the  Boat-wright building.  There are 25 in each building, including the families of the 10 men on the boat.  They are guarded by a Patrol.  Kensa is with them, as Lionas the Reeve, the top village official.  There are still 180 unaccounted for.

The Pride of Hardby

Main Encounter Two

7 Devoted of Iuz

AC 12, HP 9, +3 to Hit, D6 + 1 DMG (Short-sword), advantage on Charm

3 Zombie Pit Bulls

AC 12, HP : 5, + 3 To Hit, DMG D6+ 1, Knock Target Prone if Miss a DC 11 Dex Save,

Undead Fortitude: If reduced to zero, they rez on a check of DC 5 + DMG Dealt, to 1 HP

The loot from the town is being loaded into Wheelbarrows and stockpiled on the Docks.  A Work Crew of 5 Devoted are loading it on to the Pride of Hardby.  At any moment, 3 will be on the ship, and 2 will be on the dock.  It will take two rounds for the reinforcements to arrive.  There are several shops, including a Boat-wright and Bait Shop 100 feet from the dock, where a PC sniper could set up.  If the Devoted lose 2 men, they retreat to the ship. Torches could burn the ship, but the PCs will soon hear the sounds of the screaming townspeople imprisoned inside.

In the Wheelbarrows on the docks are the Village Archives, including Plans of the Church of St. Cuthbert, showing a secret passage from the docks to the Church that was built as an escape route.  

If the PCs lost the battle in the Inn, they wake up in the cabins, which, luckily, are made of shitty wood.  Dex and Strength checks will break their ropes. There are weapons in a crate in the captain's quarters, along with a set of Plate Mail.  Loaded on to the ship are five art objects from Cinan's estate worth 50 gp each.  There is also a Scroll of Dispel Magic.  

On the below deck of the ship are the ten prisoners, including Tozen, and disabled veteran Breddon, locked in the crew cabins. They are guarded by 2 Devoted commanding 3 Zombie Pit Bulls, which roam the halls in a set pattern.  The Devoted are stashing the town's valuables in the caargo hold.  They will attack the PCs on sight.  

If the PCs start the fight from being captured, the Devoted from the docks will come down to help once the fight starts going badly for Iuz.  But no matter what, the PCs should not have to fight all 7 and the Pit Bulls at once. Break it into waves.  

If the PC's win, the last Devoted alive, Ilina, will tell them that even if they sink the ship, it won't matter.  Zoreg has all he needs to cast the Hailing Ritual, and contact his master.  

Once the encounter is over, the PC's will learn that the Cleric of St. Cuthbert, Father Goren, his wife Jedona, and their son Sesin have been captured and taken to the Church, and that the remaining Iuz forces were seen rolling a black box in a wheelbarrow there.  They will also learn that they collected Nightshade, Mandrake, and Blood Moss from the Apothecary.  If the PC's can learn what a Hailing Ritual is (Breddon knows this, as well as anyone making an Arcana check) they will know they can't do it until dawn, so there is time for a Long Rest.  If they check the town records and look at the Church Plans, they find they can enter through the Escape Tunnel that ends up in the Old Boathouse.

Tunnel Encounter

2 Giant Centipedes

AC : 13, HP 6, + 4 To Hit, 1D4 Damage,

Poison Save DC 11, 10 DMG + Paralysis for one hour unless Cured

This is a long dirt tunnel that leads from under a building near the docks to the

Church of St. Cuthbert.   If the tunnel is used, 2 Giant Centipedes will attack.  A stealthy PC with Darkvision can find their nest and distract them with meat or Corpses so they do not attack the PCs.

The tunnel slopes up to the entrance under the Church. There is a trap door, which opens downward into the tunnel, so one can climb into the church.  It is trapped, with a large iron ball set to fall on the intruder's face when they pull the door down.  If the player does not disarm the trap or stand to the side when opening it, an Iron Ball falls on them, doing 1d6 damage.  The back entry way goes up into the store room of the Church (skip ahead.)

If they don't use or learn of the Tunnel, they have to go through the front door. Varde and 2 Soldiers block the front.  A Devoted stands on the roof and signals if the players come from either side.  There is a Lesser Glyph of Warding on the door, which will be found by examining it.  It registers as evil and magic. If Dispel Magic is used, the doors may be opened safely.  If not, take 1d8 damage. Varde is a Skull Sword (Sergeant) in the Army of Iuz.  His face is painted like a skull.  

Front Door Encounter

1 Devoted of Iuz

AC 12, HP 9, +3 to Hit, D6 + 1 DMG (Short Bow), advantage on Charm,

2 Soldiers of Iuz

AC 12, HP 11, +3 to Hit, D6 + 1 DMG (Short-sword) D8 + 1 (Crossbow)

Varde, Skull Sword of Iuz

AC 12, HP : 20, +5 To Hit, 2d6 + 3 DMG, 2H Fighting : Re-roll 1,2.  

Second Wind: Can add 1d10 HP Once

Inside, the PCs will find Father Goren and his family tied upside down to the statue of St. Cuthbert, making the Evil Magic Rune symbol.

They are performing a Hailing Ritual.  If they perform a spectacular act of ritual murder to enemies of Iuz, it will draw his attention and they may ask him a favor.  In this case to be teleported home to safety.

  2 Devoted chant and play drums made of demon skin.  2 other Devoted do an elaborate dance, while Father Zoreg sprinkles goats' blood with a dead branch on the altar.  There are three ceremonial knives and a ceremonial bowl in front of the family.  If attacked, Zoreg and the dancing and drumming cultists will continue the ritual.   They will only attack if the PCs disrupt the ritual by rescuing Goren and his family.  If one of them is moved to safety, they drop their chanting and attack.  Varde and the guards will enter if still alive and the PCs seem to be mopping the bad guys up, but it is important not to throw too many villains at them at once, as they are 1st level.  A long arduous fight of many enemies in succession makes for a great climax, but two many at once is a sure party wipe.

The two 2 other Devoted, not involved in the ritual, will throw demon globes at the PCs.  They have 5 with the souls of Manes trapped inside them, and one with the soul of a Dretch.   A demon globe is a glass sphere covered in runes that contains a demon's soul in smoke form.  When it shatters, it releases the smoke which forms a demon which can attack next round.  

All it takes to disrupt the ritual is to douse a burning concoction of incense and reagents in the center of the room, or free any one of the prisoners.  Once this happens, the remaining Devoted will stop the ritual and fight to the end.  However if Varde or the Soldiers are the last ones left, they will flee.

Main Encounter Three

6 Devoted of Iuz

AC 12, HP 9, +3 to Hit, D6 + 1 DMG (Short-sword), advantage on Charm

Father Zoreg,

AC 15, HP : 18, +2 to Hit , DMG 1-6,  

Touch of Death: Add 9 HP to One Attack Once

Chill touch 1d8 Attack, Command, Shield of Faith (+2 AC), Bane (-d4 AT/SV for 4 Characters) 1 Potion of Gaseous Form

5 Manes Demons (from demon globes)

AC 9, HP 9, + 2 to Hit , D6 + 5 DMG 2d4

1 Dretch Demon (from demon globes)

AC 11, HP 18, 2 AT + 2 To Hit, Bite : D6 DMG, Claw, 2D4 Damage

If the ritual is disrupted, Zoreg will grab the box and run down the passage to the docks and attempt to steal a boat himself.  

If Father Zoreg dies, the PC's will find his box.  It cannot be opened except by magic beyond the ability of the players, but gives off magic and evil.  

Magic Items

Vayne's Demon Globe – A Magical Glass Eight Inch Sphere.  If thrown at the ground it shatters and releases the demon imprisoned with in it in gaseous form.  The demon grows to full size and solidity and attacks the nearest character on the next round.   

Null's Impenetrable Box (major, rare)

This item is a black box about one cubic foot in volume.  It is made of an odd black laquered wood into which odd runes in Abyssal are carved into every surface centimeter.  It gives off strong magic and evil if detect spells are used on it. It cannot be opened by any means except by the creator of the box. It is indestructible.  In this case, the locket of the Great Kingdom (from Greyhawk Adventures) is inside it.  The soul inside the locket can normally cast magic jar, feeblemind, and animate dead but because it is inside the magical box, it cannot affect anything outside the box's walls.  The only way to open the box without it's original creator is to cast anti-magic shell. This will also negate the properties of the locket so it would have to be removed from the box and the shell for the soul inside (currently Waquonis, a Warlock of Iuz) to use it's powers to free itself from the locket.

[connorrenwick]

In Jerusalem, a Matchmaker Pairs Mature Artisans with Young Designers

We visited Jerusalem Design Week where Daniel Nahmias exhibited “Matchmaker,” a collection to promote traditional craftsmanship in Jerusalem by coming up with new collaborations between older artisans and young designers.

“I love walking around this place. There’s all sorts of people with crazy talent. You never know who you will meet,” Daniel Nahmias says as we follow him through the Old City of Jerusalem in the midday heat. It is our first day in Israel, and even though some of us have begun to tire with the weather, Nahmias has a sprightly spirit that makes us pick up our pace. It’s the same spirit we will later come to associate with his work. He leads us with childlike excitement through the alleyways and stone streets, through one turn and then another, through quarters unexplored by even the Jerusalemites themselves.

Photo by Or Kaplan

Photo by Or Kaplan

We turn a corner filled with colorful rugs and emerge onto a wide alley with skylight, shuttered storefronts, and men sitting on the ground. Dan wanders into a shop filled with metal goblets and lamps. “Here,” he says as he emerges, “I’d like you to meet Muhammed!”

Photo by Or Kaplan

Photo by Or Kaplan

Muhammed abdalghani abed aljawad is an metal craftsman that Dan came across on one of his saunters around the flea market in the Old City. He does what Dan calls “soft metal processing,” which includes soldering and cutting metal by hand.

Photo by Or Kaplan

While many a passer-by may walk through this street unaware, Dan immediately recognized Muhammed’s exceptional skill with metal. So when Dan got the idea to pair artisans with young designers in a bid to promote heritage crafts, he encouraged Muhammed to work with Galia Sasson, a multi-disciplinary designer and Holon graduate.

Together, they came up with a series of tables and lights:

Photo by Or Kaplan

These objects, which combine manual and laser cutting, eventually made it to Jerusalem Design Week as part of Dan’s “Matchmaker” collection.

Dan said, “We compared the designs cut by a machine with those cut by Muhammed, and Muhammed’s is just so straight, so precise.”

After meeting Muhammed that afternoon in the Old City, Dan leads us down Via Dolorosa, a storied street where Jesus was said to make his final walk to Cavalry for his crucifixion, to the Blind Arab Association workshop located there.

This is also the birthplace of Dan’s project between the Blind Arab Association Workshop and Bar Horowitz. On first glance, the place is a storefront that sells brushes and brooms, but Dan leads us through a back door to a large courtyard and a factory building so we can learn how the men work.

Photo by Or Kaplan

Photo by Or Kaplan

The designer, Bar Horowitz, had spent weeks here as well, watching these men in order to learn about their unique method of working with their hands, and how they rely on an established, ritual order of actions to make their products.

Photo by Or Kaplan

Photo by Or Kaplan

For the “Matchmaker” collection, Bar and her collaborators: Aziz, Taher, Samir, Achmad, Abu Samir, and Abu Ballal, wanted to make a product that can be used at home, and enjoyed both by people who can see and people who cannot. Their end product is a scented home object called “Fawah” that distills fragrant smells through the room.

“Fawah” Home Scent distillers \\\ Photo by Oded Antman

Photo by Or Kaplan

Photo by Or Kaplan

When we visited Dan’s “Matchmaker” exhibition at Hansen House the next day, we also saw lamps at half mast that mourn the demise of reading; woven basket totes designed with twisted palm fronds and 3D printed embellishments; and gothic-styled bags made by a traditional violin maker and a fashion graduate duo.

Photo by Or Kaplan

Photo by Or Kaplan

Photo by Or Kaplan

Photo by Or Kaplan

Amir Zobel, the designer who worked with traditional engraver Eitan Goren on the atrophied lamps, summed up his Matchmaker experience: “I admire the wisdom he (Eitan) acquired with his own hands over many years of sometimes hard and Sisyphean work. I saw this as an opportunity to contact a world that was not completely foreign to me, but that I haven’t sufficiently experienced as a creative artist – before it is all replaced by smart machines and computers.”

Towards the end of the afternoon, after touring the rest of the exhibitions at Jerusalem Design Week, I’m sitting by the entrance of Hansen House and chatting with the curators Tal Erez and Anat Safran. From here, they spot Daniel Nahmias popping out of Hansen house and walking towards us. “He’s amazing,” Anat Safran says to me as she beams with pride. “We are so happy this was a part of our exhibition. He really brought it together.”

In case you missed it, we featured the Matchmaker story as a highlight on our Instagram page under “Jerusalem Design Week.” Our visit to Israel was organized by Vibe Israel, a non-profit foundation that supports education and culture.

via http://design-milk.com/

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