PrinceCon XXIII - MonsterCon II
Ten years after PrinceCon 13, the original MonsterCon, we revisit the Dark Lord and Lady. In MonsterCon, the players served the Dark Lord by retrieving and constructing his bride, the dark Lady. The Dark Couple exchanged vows and rings, the humanoids exchanged fearful gazes. Before long, the monsters had forced their way into new lands, conquering the feeble populace, and basking in the glory of the Dark Dominion!
Now, however, life in the Dark Castle has fallen into disarray! Both the Dark Lord and the Dark Lady have lost their respective Rings, and have tried to keep the loss secret. The humandoids are trying to take advantage of the situation to recover the initiative, and drive the monsters out of their lands. Clearly things are getting out of hand, and something must be done!
Stories #
With Friends Like These
A 1st run party was sent to investigate a Leo army encampment. A specter investigating the camp accidentally set off a magical trap on a chest. A party of adventurers encamped with the army used a locate to track the specter back to its base.
The party noticed an incoming, movement-hasted party of adventurers two rounds before they arrived. The GM polled the party, which consisted of an umber hulk, a vaikral, a spectre, two djinni, a vampire, a gargoyle, and a bughieman.
Umber hulk and vaikral: stand and fight.
Spectre: dive into the ground and run away.
Djinn 1 (with 4 spell points left): go gaseous and flee.
Djinn 2 (with full spell points): go gaseous and flee.
Vampire: turn to bat and flee.
Gargoyle: fly away.
Bughieman: teleport to safety.
The two hasted, strengthed fighters with two-handed flaming swords make (extremely) short work of the poor umber hulk and vaikral, while the rest of the monsters report to the Skull Warrior lord who sent them on their mission: ``We ran into a little trouble.''
Death Wish
- Djinni flies up to 240 feet and materializes in declaration phase, such that he knows he can't cast before he hits the ground, and bounces off a protective bubble around the arch enemy which gives him the extra seconds to cast.
- Blue Carstensen, playing a mind flayer named S'pok, was informed by Death (a 6 year old girl) that he was to ride in her bumper car. This caused Blue to remark afterwards "When Death asks you to ride in her bumper car, JUST SAY NO!"
Most Creative Play
- In a puzzle room, the party rolled up the area rug (ten by fifteen and completely unrelated to the puzzle) and proceeded to bash the doors, thugs and arch criminal's minions with it, very effectively.
- A djinni when told to get to the basement on and infinite staircase, went gaseous, rotated 90 degrees and walked ``up'' the stairs in the down direction.
- A beholder when told to
be as that which is unlike him'' closed all his eyes, fell to the floor and saidsomeone drag me towards the door''. - A Sunday morning party is faced with the following.
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- Problem: you must assassinate a Leo high priest who lives in the high temple to Leo at Hack-n-Sack. The problem is that he is always surrounded by his bodyguard of 8 9th level fighters, 4 9th level Leo clerics, a 10th level Leo mage, and an 8th level Leo FMU (named Zandossa).
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- Solution: vertical envelopment. The entire party, movement and combat hasted, swoops in under cover of an illusionary cloud on a rainy day. In the two rounds when the monsters are in striking distance, the humans kill one of them and badly wound several others. However, the sphinx carries away the high priest. After several rounds of slashing, blasting, imploding, and healing the (massive) damage the priest was doing to his abductor, they succeeded in disembowling the high priest, sending his entrails raining down over the Hack'n'Sack commons.
Conbook Errata #
Of course, we had to undertake a vast rewrite of the Con Book this year, and some of the details simply slipped through the cracks. Since everyone who attended took the rules away with them, we figure it's only fair to make sure you get the corrections.
Furthermore, we'll be taking another swing at the Con Book before retiring it to the archives, so if you'd like to get a corrected copy, for only the cost of shipping, please let us know!
- Naga: Nagas may use items as fighters, but some types of items (e.g., Boots and Girdles) cannot be worn.
- Sphinx: The definition of the abilities Lore and Memory Enhancer were listed in the GM book but not in the shorter player version. Here they are:
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- Lore. The cleric can recall a great volume of lore about the world. This can include history, geography, botany, etc. It will not include arcane or peculiar subjects and will never include anything that the character could not have found in a library somewhere.
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- Memory Enhancer. This will help to bring back the memory of something noticed but forgotten. This is useful when trying to reconstruct an event and memory (especially player memory) is not reliable.
- Skull Warrior: The Experience track printed in the monster chart on p.40 for the Skull Warrior is incorrect. It is the Human Fighter track, though the descriptions earlier correctly state that the Skull Warrior uses the Elven Fighter EP Track.
- Vampire: Regarding the gaze attack, the vampire must continue to gaze at the victim or else the victim is immediately released. Hence, it is impossible to have 2 victims gazed at the same time. Also, gazing vampires cannot attack any creature other than gaze victim; if the vampire wishes to attack another, the gaze is immediately broken and the former victim may still use a Melee phase action.
- Illusion: The duration of the mage morphic spell Illusion is 10 minutes.
- Scouting: The species modifiers for scouting abilities were not properly printed in the conbook. The information on the character sheet and expedition sheets are correct. You can also visit the corrected Scouting Table.
PrinceCon 23 Summaries & Run Recaps: #
- Aaron Dulgar's Scenario by Aaron Dulgar's Scenario
- The Spectral Persecutor by Bob West
- Dahlia Kang's Scenario by Dahlia Kang
- Dan Eisenstein's Scenario by Dan Eisenstein
- Wanted - Child Care Provider (aka Nannygate) by Hugh Huntzinger
- Kevin White's Scenario by Kevin White
- Mark Krumholz's Scenario by Mark Krumholz
- Rob Owen's Scenario by Rob Owen
- York Dobyns' Scenario by York Dobyns
