Outta This World!

So, those tall freaky dudes turned out to be some sort of race who call themselves the "Irda" whatever that is. Anyway, they told us we needed to leave their island. We simply explained what leaving the island meant to us (certain death) and they found a way for us to leave without getting killed by our employers: They gated us to some other world! Grr...

So, anyway, we arrive on this other world in a huge grassland with mountains in one direction, ocean (?) in another (we didn't go that way, but there was a body of water) and a really, really tall black tower in a third. The fourth was just more grassland. What do we do? We walk toward the tower, of course!

Walk, walk, walk and more walk until we get tired and camp. The sun sets and comes back up less than 30 minutes later. Weird. Very weird. So we keep walking until the ground opens up under us and we start falling, falling onto a sticky net. The maw of that spider is large enough to swallow us whole, and I don't mean just one of us; I mean the whole party all at once!

Some friendly, but awfully quiet locals came to our rescue, but our fighter and our rogue foolishly refused rescue and were destroyed, and probably eaten, by that really enormous arachnid.  We get trooped off into a cave complex (whoa, there's an irony, eh?) and pointed toward the inn and the temple. 

It's at this point that we start learning a little about this world. Nobody goes to the surface except in the greatest of need. It's dangerous, they say. Nobody's ever heard of a rabbit or dear. They eat predominantly fungus (Yuck! Where's the meat?). Nobody has a sun tan. The local currency is in that entirely worthless metal: gold. Those of us who had good, steel coins find themselves pretty poor, indeed. Silk is super dirt cheap and is used for just about everything fabric GETS used for: clothes, curtains, flags, banners, tapestries, rope, harness, bags, backpacks, etc. They find linen, cotton and wool items interesting oddities, but of no other value. Leather, on the other hand, is likewise an oddity but, due it's toughness, has value for a number of applications and so its value is much inflated over what we're accustomed to.

A HUGE variety of different sentient racial templates live here, too. We've seen spider-men, dog-men, cat-men, bear-men, cricket-men, hu-men, bird-men, and more. How do they all get along so well? Apparently warfare is very small-scale stuff, little larger than inter-tribal skirmishes. There are no large nation-states. Instead, there are many city-states. Hmm.

Remember that tower? Apparently, it's the reason the surface is not safe. The locals claim it as the source of all evil. And we were going to just waltz right up and knock on the door!! Beyond that, nobody wants to talk about it. Again, hmm...

Interesting stuff, yes, but ultimately not important because we cannot readily capitalize on any of this information at this time. So three of us who still survive hire on as caravan guards and set off to another settlement through the tunnels ...

Introducing Luc

So, the Rippers game has been put on indefinite hold since the game master will be away for much of the remainder of our Winter gaming season. This is a bummer, as I rather liked playing Sgt. Wilkins. I don't often play happy character types, my usual style being the brooding, silent type. We switched to the DragonLance setting under D&D 3.5 rules and I get to play Luc - Human Nomad Barbarian.

The story so far...

For various reasons, the party were all visiting Solace and gathered at the Inn of the Last Home. A kidnap attempt was foiled by the PCs, but we were implicated, charged, tried and punished with the attempt to carry an artifact across the continent. The artifact was, of course, a dummy and we got to be the targets of anyone who may or may not have wanted to acquire it.

As it happens, we were ambushed in the woods a few days out of Solace, but not by thieves. Instead, we were captured and led to some sort of weird bandit/cult enclave and unwittingly enlisted to retrieve the Graygem - the prison of the god of Chaos - so that it could be destroyed, releasing the prisoner to wreak havoc on the poor, unsuspecting citizens of Krynn. Damn, I hate when that happens.

We were equipped, myself with a +1 spear and four potions of bane for which I have yet to devise a use, and sent onward to an island surrounded my a magical "stay away" mist. We managed to shipwreck ourselves on the island and proceeded inland towards a mountain, it being our only landmark of significance and as a likely a place to hide the Greygem as any.

Sure enough, we entered the mountain, fought some bad guys, lost one party member (Kender rogue), gained another (Human Cleric) and somehow managed to land in a town full of tall beautiful people who are not of a known racial type. We are currently recuperating, resupplying and preparing to venture forth again with better information. Oddly enough, asking the local residents about the Greygem in a straightforward manner provided some very useful clues.

The game master has been, perhaps, overly generous with the experience rewards. In four sessions, we've all attained fourth level. Perhaps he is justifying this as needed to confront his final Big Boss and maybe he's decided the island is magical and it Just Works That Way. I dunno. It probably would have been better to simply start us out at whatever level he needs us to be, but it has been kind of fun doing it this way!