I had a lovely weekend offline catching up with friends and some of my other passions.  Resolve this mixture of interests – MMORG, Pen and Paper roleplaying (ok so far I grant you), and also knitting, embroidery and jewelery making :)

Well this weekend our pen and paper game was a D&D game set in the Underdark.  The party is all Drow (Dark Elf)  and the game is very very focused on roleplaying.  The setting is full of family intrigue, manipulation, self interest, twisted plots and chaos.   The self interest actually is one of the things that keeps the party of players working as one :)

Our little group has been together for 15 years and we meet on Saturday nights as often as we can manage.  This is how and where I met my husband, but it was only after around 6 or 7 years knowing each other that we started dating.

It is wonderful fun.  My husband is the GM and I have to say he is absolutely gifted as a storyteller and adapting to the manouverings of the players.

My character in this game is Selara and she is a Blackguard.  This is essentially a fighter class, but the specialisation of Blackguard gives her just one or two clerical type abilities and makes her a fantastic character to play.  I think of her as an evil Paladin.

The other members of the party include a gifted priestess (Yyavdra) who worships the Spider Queen Lloth,  a mentally unbalanced necromancer (Razzein) with his impish pet harvisto (who wants to be a pit feind when he grows up), an assassin with a love of very nasty poisons (Xulian),  and our house weapons master who wields 2 very impressive rapiers.

At this moment our adventurers seek to reclaim the honour of their families name.  The Matron mother of their house has forged an alliance with some mind flayers (psionic/mind power based mob) in order to further her ambition to be the head of the council of Matron Mothers.  However, she has been manipulated, and our house is in debt and ruins. 

Yyavdra, Selara and Razzein have uncovered this information, and armed with evidence they seek to depose the Matron Mother with the help of their trusted allies.   As they sneak back into the compound of their family home through a secret passage, they are confronted with the knowledge that the magical defences protecting the grounds have been breeched.  There is a jade spider construct guarding the entrance to the main hall, and it is under the control of one of the competing houses. 

The decision is made – we must defeat this construct.  We prepare our offensive magics and protections on the fighters, and the combat begins.  The spider hits hard but we work as one towards it’s defeat. 

At that moment the manipulative mind flayer leader perceives the danger, and attempts to flee with his bodyguards.  He uses his psionic mind blast and attempts to render our party innefective.  Sadly, Razzein who was closest to the blast is effected and stunned for a short time.  Fortunately Selara’s attention is not swayed from the construct, and Xulian and the house weapons master turn their attention to the fleeing foe.

With our combined efforts the construct is defeated in short order, but in a last ditch effort the mind flayer uses his plane shift to teleport him self from danger.  Our matron mother then stands before us a lonely and pathetic sight.  She has been abandoned by those she thought were her allies.  They have used her for their own ends, and she now sees the truth of this.  All too late.  We are now faced with the decision of what we must do with our matriarch and how we can best restore the honour of our house.  Do we slay her where she stands, or retain her to maintain a facade of family unity and strength?

To be continued…..