The trolls have hooted...A Tunnel Crawl week-end.

It was time to get out of the house...

Last week-end was a little get-get together between the wife and I and another couple whom we know from the Trollhalla, an event we decided to call the Troll Hoot. Others from the 'Hall indicated they might come also as well as a few of my friends from elsewhere, GenCon and just road-tripping in general. But most were too busy by the time the week-end rolled around. Still the intrepid, and dedicated, all five of us stuck to our guns and headed to Dayton for a week-end of carousing, and a day of role-playing hard-core Tunnels and Trolls.

Peryton and I left on Friday afternoon, and it would seem that the first Friday of Spring had arrived. At least a Friday that I was not working that had some sunny, warm weather for this year. We amused ourselves listening to my latest version of the Who's Quadrophenia(sp?), a CD-rom downloaded from on-line. Then after that, talking about which big name stars would fit our collective fiction's characters. Milla Jovovich for my Rjenn, the swords-arm; Christian Bale for Peryton's Charn; Liam Neeson as the Trollgod; Michael Madsen as Khenn Arrrth; and maybe Robert Downy Junior or James Spader as Shippy, the Cunning. We're stuck between Angelina Jolie and Bridget Fonda for Peryton. No others than Bruce Willis or Andre Braugher could play Kopfy of course. Now all we needed was the screenplay. Luckily before I made Peryton drag out her hand-held and start taking notes, we arrived.

By the evening, Aarra'aghaa, also known as Mandy-B. and her husband, let's call him Steppenwulf, (seen in the picture to the left) as well as ourselves, were settling into our rooms and discovering that the hotel/motel was indeed as run down as Traveler's Club told us, BUT it had a great wireless internet connection even for rooms well away from the lobby. And any place that has a Gators' bar attached to it, how could a band of rogues and bandits such as ourselves go wrong. The four of us that had arrived walked to dinner, where everyone else showed me just how old I was getting, until we hit the up-hills, where my billy-goat blood kicked in. I was not a Yama soldier in '93 for nothing kiddos. The arduous trek aside we found a local Mexican restaurant, where I actually declined starting out the night with tequila. We then walked back and checked out Gator's where the "quiet" karaoke crowd was getting warmed up, where we talked about T&T a little and more about the young days and college years-- in my case that meant all fourteen of them. And then we wrapped things up around 10:30.

Friday was sunny, but Saturday was rainy and cool. Peryton, when finally dragging herself out of bed, stretched, smiled, and said, "What a great day for a game!"

Around noon we decided to generate player-characters, as I had decided that we were going to play Shipy's the Temple of the Sun God as a tunnel crawl adventure for however long as opposed to the two events I had played originally planned. Mandy-B created Tura, not to be confused with "Tuna", the Dwarf Warrior-ess. Peryton made up Peryton, the magus, a stretch I know. Steppenwulf developed Lothar, the Bird-Brained. And I added Puttle the Rogue, as back-up. And we role-played the trip from Khazil to the ruins of Knor. Right before three pm, my friend called to let me know that she was crawling out of her mausoleum, where 3rd-Shifters like us like to sleep in the "bright hours" and would be joining us soon. So we decided breaking for lunch was a good idea.

At Red Lobster this time, Caed and I performed for everybody, despite their moans. Mandy-B. took refuge in a Pina Colada larger than her head, and taller than the waitress who brought it to us. And though the theater performance was awful we made a long leisurely lunch out of the occasion.

Back at the room, I posed for the picture above, and the party came across Cade, the Rogue-ess, (played by Caed who is pictured to the lower left.), who had just happened to be washed ashore on the beaches just west of the pyramid of King Ra, and they then joined together to fight the forces of darkness. Or just make a lot of money and loot if all else failed.

And what a tunnel-crawl the event was. By 1030, again, the party had faced zombies, one goblin, and a walking statue, and were so beat up that everyone was scared to death of a copper statue of a griffin with two goldne lion statues at its sides. And then the party found the descending passage into "the LOWER LEVELS!" Looking around the room, we as players and the GM were about as beat-up. I was actually thinking about which "house rule" would keep me as the GM from having to roll so may damn six-sided dice for anymore large encounters-- and when I am thinking Mike Hill's rule variants are looking good, it means I am tired. So we decided to end the crawl there, may be to pick up again when at least four out of the five of us were together again.

Mandy-B. took the lead in a cool-down card game called "Chez Goth," which is the sequel to "Chez Slacker." While Caed and I learned the game, Peryton withdrew to a corner and pretended to be listening while hiding her face behind her bangs and napping. Caed's SO showed up and demonstrated his ability to actually speak Kharrrghish, by switching from English into gutteral sounds halfway through every sentence that he spoke, with the appropriate attitude of indignant misery for being forced out of the house and into pants. Finally a little after midnight, Mandy-B. had beat the socks off of all of us, Peryton had stopped pretending to be listening, instead rolling herself fully into the covers of the bed she was on, and Steppenwulf was nodding off. I bid our Trollhalla companions adieu, I think Peryton actually revived herself also to be polite, with promises to meet again during Origin's week-end this year.
Caed and I further tortured her live-in, by forcing him to come down to the Gator's bar and endure, as gloomily as he could, us having a couple of drinks and showing the world how tough we were. Caed played mind-games with every drunken creepy guy in the place, and I sang David Bowie songs to a mixture of Air-Men from the nearby AF base, and country music officianados. It was worth it just to watch the SO complain, and we made some friends. Still we restrained ourselves and said good night long before closing time, dozens of minutes at least.

The next day, Peryton and I met with Caed, her SO, and another friend planning on attending GenCon for lunch at an Indian restaurant. And then we began the not too long drive home. Now we had to figure out who is playing Aarra'aghaa and Steppenwulf...