Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Crossing the Lake

As you begin to move forward as a group, you note that the ambient temperature steadily drops as you get further and further onto the lake.  The sides of the lake reach to the sides of the cavern, offering no other path to your destination.  After nearing the halfway point, snow begins to curl outwards from ahead of you, drifting on gusts of cold air that strike your face and freeze your eyebrows and the edges of your hair.  It is unpleasant, but not enough to daunt you.

These gusts, however, reduce visibility.  You can see no more than 80 feet ahead, where all becomes white.  There is plenty of ambient glow from the lake, however, so that there is no trouble with light; it is just that the blowing snow is too thick to see through.

Then, at the edge of your line of sight, you see things humping along across the lake towards you.  They are white in color and therefore indistinct against a field of white snow, ice and background.  But they are the size of small bears, weighing upwards of 150 lbs. each.  You see no heads, however, no fur, no signs of claws or even limbs.  In texture, they seem more like bulbous flesh than animal.  In the snow, they are hard to count; but there are at least twenty of them.  They are moving towards you at a steady pace.

Now would be a good time to finalize your movement, which weapons you are carrying and your armor class.

28 comments:

Danielle Osterman said...

Can we tell how many there are?

I am carrying my battleaxe and have AC 7. I have 4AP with my pack on.

Unknown said...

I am in the back, AC 8, carrying a dart (normal). I have 5 AP.

Lothar Svensson said...

AC 7, AP 4, Talon in hand, and my new shield in the off hand.

Lothar Svensson said...

Oh, and I'm in front.

Alexis Smolensk said...

You cannot tell, Dani/Embla.

Embla Strand said...

[Sorry, wrong account was logged in]

I am behind Lothar. Does my infra vision help at all in the snow?

Rob Munro said...

[ AC 8 , AP 5, carrying the trunk club ]

I would be to the left side of Embla.

Alexis Smolensk said...

snow = no heat

Alexis Smolensk said...

There's no surprise. Are you moving forward? They are approaching you at three hexes per round ... it will be four rounds before you engage.

Unknown said...

I cast Armor on Rob (I rolled a 4, so 5 points).

Rob Munro said...

Thanks!

No need to delay further I think. I vote for advance.

Lothar Svensson said...

I don't think we're going to get a Bless from Engelhart, so yes, advance towards the lumpy things.

Alexis Smolensk said...

I'm drawing them now, trying to get the battle map in place.

Alexis Smolensk said...

Nope. The map has seized on publisher, its rolling as the computer thinks. I'm ff'd for the moment.

Alexis Smolensk said...

[I'm going to have to call it. Publisher is hung, it's no responding. I'm going to have to close it, which means my work is gone; which means I'll have to start the map over.

[So, sorry. I have to say, I am sick to death of microsoft office 2016; I'm taking steps to put office 2007 on this computer, so that I can work on images without this lag crap]

Unknown said...

Sorry to hear that, hopefully you get it working

Rob Munro said...

It's always deeply frustrating when the software fails us.

Rob Munro said...

I know it would not be the same, but wouldn't using online systems be a viable alternative for such case where the offline software doesn't work?

Lothar Svensson said...

Ugh, I hate losing work. It's a hard thing to come back from, and I usually need at least a day to work the momentum up again. See you all next week.

Alexis Smolensk said...

This is online software. This is the Microsoft Office suite that I am paying $89/year for, which works fine as long as a) you don't want to create a publisher file larger than 0.5MB, or b) a word document longer than 30,000 words.

I can't work on my maps on this computer, I can't keep my book files in one file on this computer, and I can't design any image that is exhaustively complicated. I have looked through the internet and I have found thousands of people making this precise same complaint, for these precise same reasons. I've tried all the fixes on those sites and apparently they are only useful for people making small documents.

I could work on 10MB publisher files on Office 2007, but Office 2016, which is what I've paid for online, has fits if I go above a single meg.

Engelhart Askjellson said...

Just to notify that I've filled-in on all that's happened and am sorry that I couldn't be present. It is a shame that Publisher failed you like that, Alexis.

I am AC 4 on my Banded Mail, carrying my Maul and, given the time alloted, would like to drop my backpack and draw my hammer in preparation for a well-aimed throw.

If possible, I would also like to draw myself alongside with Lothar and Embla, seeing as there's quite no need for us to be in a line if we have the time to form up a unified front, with the more fragile members taking our rear.

Rob Munro said...

[ I was thinking more along the line of things like Roll20. Granted, They won't let you make images as detailed as you may wish (however you can easily import your images), and one has to dedicate a couple hours learning to understand the system before useful things can be achieved. Nevertheless, that may be useful as a backup when all else fail (It is, personally what I use when GMing a fight online). ]

Unknown said...

[Here. Any luck with Publisher?]

Lothar Svensson said...

[Here]

Rob Munro said...

[here. Although today I shall be driving from around 9:30am to 1pm. I shall make pauses every quarter/half hour or so to check out the blog, but don't expect to much responsivenessn, sorry. ]

Engelhart Askjellson said...

[Here today]

I was left uncertain on how much time we had remaining until contact.

Alexis Smolensk said...

[here. though we're going to get a slow start on the day; i'm not feeling well. The publisher content is fine, but I need time to put it together; I've been pressed lately and haven't touched it since Wednesday.

Alexis Smolensk said...

All right, at last, the next post is up.