Ow. Ow. Ow.

I just hit my knee on the corner of my desk.

That smarts.

I acquired a copy of Dungeonscape this weekend. It was mostly a present from Angela (who picked up a copy of Monster Manual V for herself. She has a bit of a bestiary habit.)

I’m hoping that Dungeonscape will help inspire my work on the Goblins of Gourm. I sort of got stalled on the dungeon-y bits. I haven’t looked through it too much yet, but it does have the best line I have ever read in a D&D book…. something about the only thing being better than having a pool of acid in a dungeon is having a pool of acid with a shark in it.

I also glanced at the Factotum class. It is… interesting, but weird. I’m sort of tempted to ask Angela if I can multiclass into it in the D&D game that she’s running. At the same time, though, the class doesn’t feel like a D&D class to me. I don’t know.

Anyway, Angela’s D&D game:

Last night, Bart & Co. ended a major subplot. We (probably) stopped the threat of a barghest-led army of marauding goblins… through misdirection and trickery. What did we do?

1) Robbed the drow envoys to the barghest of their gifts and supplies.
2) Forged a letter from the drow to the barghest (delivered via silver raven) announcing that they considered the theft to have been an act of war.
3) Had someone wander into more ‘civilized’ goblin areas pretending to be a very rich drow. (Hoping that this would get back to the barghest and he’d think the drow were just looking for an excuse to declare war)
4) Snuck into the barghest’s camp and totally disrupted it (charmed the dire wolves and talked them into playing some games with the goblins’ tents and such)
5) Sent the silver raven to insult the barghest in a way that only a bird can…
6) Reported to a powerful goblin tribe (under a zone of truth, I think) that the barghest was:
a) not protecting the lands it held
b) not able to control its own dire wolves
c) at the edge of war with the drow
d) a coward – we knew that it ran away in front of its own men (ok – it was from a naga, and I don’t blame it… but the other goblins did).
7) then we hooked that goblin tribe up with another one that had its own reasons for mistrusting the barghest

So… assuming we didn’t start a war between the drow and goblins, we definitely started a war between the almost-sane goblins and the nutzo-freak goblins… and basically told the former all of the weaknesses of the latter.

Not too bad for a group of 4th level fugitives.

I swear, though, if we ever get caught in a stand-up fight, we are toast.