It Was A Dark and Not Rainy Night

Beubaun hobbled over to the window and nudged the shutters open. Peering out across the twilight fields his gaze traveled the muddy track to the horizon. "They should be back by now," the old farmer muttered to a healthy mastiff lounging by the hearth. The beast raised its head and after a silent moment of canine rumination offered a sympathetic whimper. "Yah, Lyle, you're right," replied Beubaun. "We'd better go find 'em."

In short order the pair were prepared to march in dark of night to the village. Beubaun lit his lantern and his pipe and paused at the door. The farmer made a quiet plea to The Given, asking for guidance and opened the door for his dog. The massive beast trotted over the threshold into the chill air and immediately halted. Lyle's booming bark sounded twice into the blackness and then he was gone, throwing mud behind him as he tore down the track toward the village.

In the distance Beubaun saw lantern light. Hope blossomed within his breast. He ambled after Lyle toward the distant illumination praying that his granddaughters had returned. It wasn't long before the mastiff reached the light bearers and Beubaun knew immediately that something wasn't right. There was a great deal of vicious barking accompanied by several shouting voices. He ran as fast as his old legs would carry him, jouncing lantern swirling light and shadow across the path.

Panting hard Beubaun kept his pace up trying to cover the distance as quickly as he could. The barking and shouting had ceased, but best he could tell, the group didn't seem to be moving his way. Finally shapes began to emerge before him. Beubaun saw two standing silhouettes, another crouching, and a child. A few steps more and he realized one of the figures belonged to his grand-daughter. "Bee!" cried out the Farmer, vision swimming from the strain. His granddaughter Anhkjxbee looked his way as he neared and the look of shock on her face did nothing to calm his nerves. He didn't recognize the young man standing beside her wearing the trappings of a cleric. He quickly scanned the scene for his other granddaughter. Djandra crouched by Lyle, grim faced as her sister. Had Beubaun any air left he would have sighed in tremendous relief having found his grand-daughters safe, but he gasped and wheezed from the exertion of running across his fields. It was then that he saw the child was not in fact a child, but a halfling, and that halfling stood looking down upon the unmoving form of a man. A fallen traveler, deathly still. It was then, that Beubaun noticed in the ghostly lantern light the bloody maw of his faithful dog, Lyle.

Thars Gold in Them Thar Chars

I (python) rolled up some starting cash for our intrepid adventurers. I've also started putting down some words to give this little (mis)adventure a starting context. It isn't especially clever, but I kind of like where it's going. I have a few more chunks to go and then I'll post it up. Hopefully it isn't overly painful to read.

Here's the stat blocks with their soon to be spent monies included.

Ahnkjxbee
female magic user
[('str', 10), ('dex', 14), ('con', 12), ('int', 13), ('wis', 15), ('cha', 9)]
Gold: 100

Jymjym
male cleric
[('str', 5), ('dex', 9), ('con', 13), ('int', 7), ('wis', 15), ('cha', 10)]
Gold: 160

Philo
male halfling thief
[('str', 8), ('dex', 15), ('con', 5), ('int', 11), ('wis', 10), ('cha', 12)]
Gold: 150

Djandra
female
[('str', 16), ('dex', 15), ('con', 15), ('int', 11), ('wis', 12), ('cha', 10)]
Gold: 120

It's True. Once You Name Em, You Can't Eat Em.

I flipped some coins (and by 'flipped some coins' I mean ran a python script) and randomly assigned genders to my four stat blocks. Next I decided to make some race/class choices based on the attribute scores and gave our little adventuring stat blocks some names. First names only.

Ahnkjxbee
human female magic user
[('str', 10), ('dex', 14), ('con', 12), ('int', 13), ('wis', 15), ('cha', 9)]

Jymjym
human male cleric
[('str', 5), ('dex', 9), ('con', 13), ('int', 7), ('wis', 15), ('cha', 10)]

Philo
halfling male thief
[('str', 8), ('dex', 15), ('con', 5), ('int', 11), ('wis', 10), ('cha', 12)]

Djandra
human female fighter
[('str', 16), ('dex', 15), ('con', 15), ('int', 11), ('wis', 12), ('cha', 10)]

Now that they are more than just a number (or in this case, several numbers) I'm already feeling some sentimental attachment to my little heroes. I also find it very amusing that the ladies outclass the menfolk when it comes to strength.

Choose Your Weapon

I've opted to play this solo game using the Swords & Wizardry core rules.

I'm a pretty casual rpg'er. I essentially dabbled with role playing a decade or two (more like 2.5) ago using D&D second edition rules. Thinking back now it seems like my friends and I did more collecting, reading, and prepping than actual playing. Even playing as little as we actually did, we had tons of fun talking about it, plotting and planning. Throw in a few handfuls of 3rd edition during the college years and that's pretty much the extent of my gamer's resume.

After reading the escapades of several OSR bloggers I'm convinced  I need to play. No group? No problem. Solo play! Those old schooler's have persuaded me to give S&W a try. It's the right price and their OSR enthusiasm has me hooked.

PDF downloaded. Introductory happy fuzzy words digested. On to glory!

Characters. I'm to roll up some attribute scores. Sounds like a job for python! One relatively tiny python script later, I've got some attribute scores. (3d6 for each attr.) That last one isn't too shabby!

[('str', 10), ('dex', 14), ('con', 12), ('int', 13), ('wis', 15), ('cha', 9)]

[('str', 5), ('dex', 9), ('con', 13), ('int', 7), ('wis', 15), ('cha', 10)]

[('str', 8), ('dex', 15), ('con', 5), ('int', 11), ('wis', 10), ('cha', 12)]

[('str', 16), ('dex', 15), ('con', 15), ('int', 11), ('wis', 12), ('cha', 10)]

Maybe tomorrow those numbers will get some names and classes.

The Obligatory

The short: This blog will 'document' my attempts to play a solo rpg. Along the way I hope to learn some rules, create some stories, and add to my knowledge of the python programming language.

How very odd, you say. Yes, I absolutely agree. Quite odd. Well enough meta.. let us commence.