Happy New Year!

Well, Happy New Year! Albeit a few weeks late. I've had quite a busy year so far this year, mostly related to work and the job hunt, so I haven't been gaming very much. I do hope to turn that around in the coming weeks.

I have been playing quite a bit of Pathfinder -- at least two sessions this year. Both of which were fun, but neither of which went well for my characters. Yes, that's right, characters plural.

For the past year I have been playing a fighter. Not a very good one I should add, but I did enjoy mixing it up during combat and wielding my two-handed magic sword with only one hand. I was building up quite a bit of wealth as well and had already reached third level, on the verge of leveling up to fourth level. I was even studying to be a cleric. Life was good. Then we were attacked by some creatures and one of them scored a double 20 against me. Yeah, my head came off. That was early in the session so I rolled up a new character, a cleric of Desna.

I was ready to go with Varion. I had my spells, my figure, and my backstory--I was the step brother of my fighter who was killed. I quickly proved my worth by dispensing luck and healing the injured. But during our second session of the year, I tried to hide myself in some rock outcroppings, tripped, and was killed and eaten by an orc's lizard mount. Not a pleasant way to go. So, figuring I was doomed to death, I decided to roll up a bard.

I had never played a bard before, but it always seemed like a lot of fun. My instrument of choice would be a crude self-invented harmonica, in honor of the Stan "The Man" Musial, who had died just the day before. Once again I had my spells ready and my figure in place. My first chance to prove myself came when we encountered an orc patrol. My group was hidden in a rock outcropping (a different one from where my cleric was killed) and I mesmerized the patrol with my harmonic and brought them past the rock outcropping where my group laid in wait to pick them off one at a time.

Things went downhill after that. We tried to infiltrate an orc camp to liberate some ant-people who had been taken as slaves but we were discovered and a mass of orcs pretty much slew our party. Our rogue had a magic deck which helped to some extent, but ended up drawing the "magic sword of death" card and was killed and turned into an evil sword, but not before he could liberal the ant-people slaves to help us fight. Yeah, they were pretty much slaughtered by did serve as speed bumps.

Our one fighter was killed and replaced by a barbarian, who was also killed. Our wizard and druid fought bravely, but the druid tried to escape by casting a disguise spell to hide as an orc, but one orc wasn't fooled and he slew the druid. The wizard, who killed a total of--get this--16 orcs, managed to cast a spell that helped him escape while my halfing bard was able to sneak past the battle and make his own escape.

It was a bloodbath, but it was a fun bloodbath.

On another note, I ended up buying Britannia for myself for Christmas and have only one game left on my wish list -- Guildford -- which I may soon buy from a friend. After that, I'm done for a while.

I write this on Martin Luther King Day, a day where I and many of my fellow gamers have the day off. As is tradition, we are getting together to play games. We usually play an all-day wargame (yeah, I know, ironic since the day is to celebrate the life of a man of peace) but with the inauguration today and busy schedules, we are getting together for a quick game of Formula De. It's a fun game and we will have about 1/2 dozen or so--maybe more.

Happy gaming! Roll well and live!

Al