Whuf and double-whuf...

So, Secondborn and Beautiful Wife are both sick but apparently recovering, and Monday night my right ankle decided that I wasn't experiencing enough pain in my life, so it lit up with... I don't even know. Sudden onset arthritis? So On Tuesday I took Secondborn to the doctor's office, limping painfully all the way, then came home and took some meds and napped for the afternoon... and woke up with my ankle feeling little twinges of soreness here and there, but basically fine. 

So, I mean, A) What the Hell? and B) Man, I hate getting older. 

Secondborn, meanwhile, got over his fever, and since we're right in the final run of school I went ahead and sent him back in on Thursday; he seems to have most of his energy, though his cough hasn't gone away. Beautiful Wife taught her classes (masked) because Thursday is her long day and we're at that point in the semester where she really can't afford to cancel. 

I got some things done at work (and had yet another exchange with support over our line-of-business application not doing what it's supposed to do) but at this point I'm ridiculously behind and I need to just... stop taking calls and keep working until I'm caught up, basically. Problem is that if I do that, I'm going to have another whole load of stuff to catch up on when I check back in. 

Since I don't seem to be sick, I'll probably go into the office today and get as much done as I can, but I'm here to tell you that this has been a long week.

Nothing new on Dark Armor today, obviously. I'll come back to the various writing projects when I can. Y'all have a good weekend, okay?

Lithos Foundingstone: Supreme Ultimate Power

"What were you trying to do?" asked Hylos Windborne, drifting easily through the air. 

Lithos shook his head, frustrated. His master was better known by his nickname, Flyleaf, but the young goblin would never call him that. The elf's teaching was delightfully informal by dwarven standards, but calling him anything but "Master" felt like crossing the line into disrespect, and Lithos had nothing but respect for the elf who had taught him magic. 

Well, respect and just a tiny bit of jealousy. "What am I doing wrong, Master?" he asked. 

Master Windborne considered the elaborate design laid out on the stone in chalk and charcoal, the careful arrangement of candles within it, and the twin braziers just outside of it. "At a glance," he observed, "I'd say you're getting ahead of yourself. What is that delightfully visceral human expression? Biting off more than you can chew."

"I was trying to open a gate," Lithos admitted. 

"Why?" asked Master Windborne. "And why ask me to attend to this...?" He trailed off, leaving the word foolishness to hang unspoken in the air.

"So you could stop it if something went wrong," Lithos said, and then added more quietly, "and so that someone would believe me if it actually did work."

Master Windborne sighed. "You're still too eager. I know, I know, you don't have the centuries that an elf could devote to these studies. Still, at this point in your learning you should be practicing basic conjuration, not trying to summon things that could easily devour you. What would you have done if something had come through?"

"Asked it to make me stronger," Lithos said immediately, "but no less intelligent or learned."

"That's still a dangerous request," said Master Windborne thoughtfully. "You might have ended up as an intelligent and well-educated ape, for example. Difficult to cast spells without the power of speech."

"Um." Lithos looked away, abashed. "I just... I'm so different. And if I'm going to be different, I want to be leave-him-alone-he's-dangerous different, not let's-make-fun-of-the-goblin different. I wouldn't mind people staring at me so much if they were wary instead of contemptuous."

Master Windborne sighed and drifted down until he was floating cross-legged just above the stone of the shore. "I would like to tell you that I understand, but in truth I can only imagine. My experiences have been very different from yours. The best advice I can give you is to continue your study of wizardry, and not risk your future on dangerous shortcuts such as this. The respect you crave will come as you grow in skill, power, and reputation."

Lithos sighed back at him. "I know, Master... but I would also like to be larger, stronger, and harder to damage." 

"There are spells for those things as well," Master Windborne pointed out. "They will come to you faster the more you study and practice." He held up a hand, palm up, then turned his other palm up beside it. "I cannot command you in this, but... striking bargains for power with Outsiders is dangerous, and I firmly believe that by the time you are ready to do so you will no longer need to."

Lithos considered that for a long moment. "I still want to make myself better," he said.

"There are other ways," said Master Windborne. "Spells made permanent, magics powerful enough to transform one's essence. You excel at research; see what you can learn. But always, always make certain you know the price."

Blogging Challenge: Childhood Songs

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews. I have not been following along as reliably this year as I did in previous years, but I'm still participating! Mostly.)

Prompt: Songs that confused me when I was a kid...

I don't remember being especially confused by songs I heard as a kid. I really don't...

But in the course of talking about this with a friend of mine I got reminded of a couple of childhood songs that... well... have kind of a different flavor from what I hear of kids' songs these days. I wasn't confused about them, but I think they might be a bit confusing to modern children just because the entire genre seems to have gone out of fashion. 

Case in point: 

Or how about this one?

Or there's, well...

Okay, this last one isn't strictly a children's song, but I'm throwing it in here anyway because apparently I'm in a mood:

D&D 3.5 Homebrew: The Bladebinder

The Bladebinder

Hit Die: d8

Requirements

To qualify to become a bladebinder, the character must meet the following criteria:

Race
Any.

Skills
Knowledge (Arcana) 8 ranks.

Spellcasting
Must be capable of casting third level arcane spells.

Class Skills
The bladebinder's class skills are Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int) Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually), Ride (Dex), Speak Language (none), Spellcraft (Int), and Swim (Str).

Skill Points at Each Level
4 + Int modifier.

Class Features
The following are class features of the bladebinder prestige class.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency
Bladebinders gain proficiency with one individual weapon of their choice, and with daggers. The chosen weapon and and up to two daggers must be bound to the bladebinder with a secret ritual that takes half an hour to complete and require 50 gp worth of components. The bound weapons may be mundane or magical. If the bladebinder wishes to change to a different set of bound weapons, she must repeat the ritual with the new weapons.

Arcane Blade
When using her bound weapons, the bladebinder calculates attack and damage bonuses based on her spellcasting ability score (Intelligence for wizards, Charisma for sorcerers and bards).

Improved Caster Level
At the first, third, and fifth levels of bladebinder, the character's effective Caster Level improves. This does not add additional spell levels, feats, or other features, so a wizard 9/bladebinder 2 would cast spells as an 11th level caster for purposes of saving throws, penetrating magic resistance, and level-based spell effects -- but would still only have access to the spells, feats, and familiar advancement available to a 9th level wizard. If the character had more than one original arcane caster class, they much choose which class to apply the advancement to. Once assigned, advancement cannot be shifted.

Bonus Spells
Bladebinders gain bonus spells at second and fourth level, as if from having a high ability score, as given on Table: The Bladebinder. A bonus spell can be added to any level of arcane spells the bladebinder already has the ability to cast.

If a character has more than one arcane spellcasting class, he must decide to which class he adds each bonus spell as it is gained. Once a bonus spell has been applied, it cannot be shifted.

Guardian Blades
Beginning at third level, the bladebinder may use their movement action to command their two bound daggers to fight alongside them, as if those weapons bore the Dancing enchantment. At the end of four rounds, the daggers return to their sheaths and may not be commanded to dance again for four rounds.

Arcane Strike
Upon achieving fifth level, the bladebinder may sacrifice one arcane spell per successful attack. For each level of the spell sacrificed, the attack does 1d6 additional damage.

The Bladebinder

Level	Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special	Bonus Spells	Improved Caster Level
1	+1	+1	+1	+1	Arcane Blade		+1
2	+2	+1	+1	+1		+1
3	+3	+2	+2	+2	Guardian Blades		+1
4	+4	+2	+2	+2		+1
5	+5	+3	+3	+3	Arcane Strike		+1

Notes: This one is basically just me indulging my deep, strong love of gish builds. If taken at a relatively low level (say, Wizard 6/Bladebinder 1) then it give a full caster some ability to swing a blade effectively, and once they reach level 5 in bladebinder then continuing to advance as a spellcaster also improves the power of their arcane strike. The tradeoff here (as with any gish build) is that you give up spellcasting levels in order to be able to swing a blade, which means an overall weaker character than a full caster of the same level. This PrC could also be used for epic levels, where the arcane caster has maxed out spellcasting advancement and is looking to add some other options (and a pair of higher-level spell slots). This strikes me as particularly interesting for a bard, since it could potentially bring a higher-level bard back to being an effective melee combatant. I'd also like to run some numbers and see how this compares against the D&D 3.5 eldritch knight, but that's going to have to wait until I have more time and more brain.

Additional Note: This still isn't anything I'm looking to actually play with any of my current characters, though I think it would be fun under other circumstances.

Back at the house

Ye gods, I don't know whether I've talked about this or not -- I think actually not? -- but we've been staying with my Mother-in-Law for the last six or eight weeks.

We have just returned to our own home. MiL is now on her feet, cleared to drive herself around, and capable of tending to the two small dogs who live with her. We are returning home with laundry to clean and everything to put away: clothing, electronics, toys, books, medications, toiletries, D&D figures... all of it. So that's been most of the weekend: moving, and then unpacking, and then cleaning.

On the plus side, I have now had two full nights of essentially-uninterrupted sleep: nine hours worth Friday, and another nine Saturday night. Hopefully by the time this posts I'll have gotten a full night's sleep on Sunday as well. That's one of those things that's, y'know, really good for me but also just a shock to the system: my body doesn't know quite what to do with itself, and would really like to take a couple of weeks off to recover. 

All of that to say that I am tired on an existential level. 2024 has been One Damned Thing After Another, and I don't know how much more of this I can keep up with. I suggested to my work that I really needed a minion -- that was a few weeks back -- and they countered with the proposal that I try training one of my co-workers. This is a difficulty, because with the current run of issues I've needed to have her covering the Financials & Payroll systems so I could try to troubleshoot the stuff that ideally I should be training her on. Still, nobody could have predicted that, right? 

(Bullshit. I predicted it. But I digress.)

But, all right. Work can just keep on as best it can, and if we do get a chance to do some cross-training we'll take advantage of it. Unfortunately, that also means that I don't have two brain cells to rub together for writing or much of anything else this week. So tomorrow you'll get my next D&D 3.5 homebrew (also not intended to actually be used in the campaign). Wednesday will either be the blogging challenge or music, depending on the challenge question and also my brain. Thursday should be the notes from the most recent D&D session, and with any luck by Friday I'll have enough oomph to add the next bit of Dark Armor. I need to add more of A Wolf in the Mundus, but I need more brain than I currently have for that. 

So that's where I am, and that's what I'm looking at for the blog and other writings. I hope you, Gentle Reader, are doing well.

Dark Armor: The Stone Tower

The vision appeared in fragments and flickers, images called from the misty depth of the tall silver scrying mirror in the antechamber to the chapel. It was placed there so that the Black Knight could look over the field of battle before it went to join the fight; but, as with so much else, nobody had ever bothered to inform Pallian that he had access to that resource. 

I should have consulted with the elders earlier, he thought. I should have been talking to them, learning from, this whole time. Only... when I was first sent here all I wanted was to be left alone, and I assumed that was what they wanted too. He pushed the thought aside, kept his attention on the mirror.

It was... he caught a glimpse of a massive statue supporting a section of curved wall, there and gone again with nothing to establish any sense of scale; a shattered remnant of the city wall, partly melted and twisted up to flow into the smooth white wall behind it; a more distant image of a tower, flickering against a distant horizon; a half-dozen stone statues held in a great stone hand; ramps and balconies and parapets...

"Whatever it is, it's replaced the city," said the sturdy older woman, her expression blank with concentration. "It's using a huge amount of magic, enough to warp the shape of this plane. I doubt there's a House out there who isn't aware of it by now."

"How the hell are the rest of the Second not aware of it by now?" asked Pallian. "Has there been any activity at the Tomb of the First?" 

"Some," said Dakrin Eld. "Not what I would have expected. Perhaps the others are waiting to see what happens. It's been centuries since any of them have truly awoken, after all."

"We have to go back there," said the Shadow of Edrias, in that genderless, whispering voice. "We need to know what's going on."

"The carriage won't take us," Pallian said, frustrated. 

"The carriage won't," said Dakrin Eld cheerfully, "but perhaps the horses could be convinced."

Pallian turned his head slowly to look at the ancestor. I like the way you think, old man. "We'll try it."

Terra Povos: Show us some spine

We are back in the shrine to Durest. Whisper is looking over the urns; there are two large ones, a medium one, and a small one. Whisper searches the medium urn for traps. He finds no traps; it appears to be filled with ale. 

James tries it. It’s old and yucky but appears to be safe to drink. 

Whisper moves on to the small urn. It has a foul-smelling liquid in it, and no apparent traps. Maybe very foul ale? The larger one has rancid, spoiled food; so does the other larger one. Amergin looks at the small, foul-smelling one and identifies it as a manufactured poison. 

Lithos detects magic. The chair has lost its magic, the weapons are gone, but the skull pile still has some kind of magic; the urns and the chest are not magical. Amergin claims the poison jar. 

Whisper prods the skull pile with the ten foot pole. “Eh! What’re ya doin’! Quit pokin’ me!”

Lithos: “Hey, those skulls are magical! I think it might be necromancy.”

We interrupt the skull’s nap, and it floats up out of the pile. “Hey! You’re interruptin’ my nap! Look, you don’t bother me, I don’t bother you.”

It burrows back down into the pile. “Leave me alone or I’ll suck out your souls.”

We give up on trying to talk to the skull. Whisper goes to check the chest, which is of course trapped. It’s a poison needle arrangement, but Whisper is hopped up on antitoxin and goes in to disarm the trap. He succeeds, and makes a point of breaking it; he then spends some time working on the chest. Inside are twenty acid flasks, which can be thrown to deal acid damage. We hand them out to everybody except Lithos. Baldy has the glass sword. We consider whether or not to dip the glass sword in the poison, but Amergin points out that it’s an ingestion poison. 

We start looking at the puzzle. Lithos positions himself in front of the mirror, looking at the reflection. He tries splashing the candles with acid but only dissolves them. We get some more candles and try again; Whisper takes the other clues, scoots Lithos aside, and then traces his away around the room following the clues. He ends up facing a wall with an illusionary center. He tries the ten foot pole, and clanks something. Finally he reaches in and finds a handle. He pulls it, and after a certain amount of clanking a secret door opens. He probes the floor with the pole, and blocks the door with the pole, and then checks the chest. It looks just like the chest in the cage. Whisper opens the chest and finds a +1 mace of undead bane and disruption.

Whisper takes the mace. 

Lithos: “So maybe the pick wasn’t the weapon.” After some discussion – none of us are particular strong or martial – we hand that off to Amergin.

We consider the chest in the cage. It appears to be identical to the one in the secret passage. We try lifting the cage, but it won’t budge for us. Amergin tries doing it backwards and finds another illusionary pocket. He pulls that lever, and the cage goes up. We pull another identical mace out, and pass it off to James. 

We offer the skull a chance to come with us; we can put him a very nice hat box. He’s… interested. His name is Snort. He opens the bottom of the Durest shrine for us, and a little drawer pops out; it has ten black onyx. He then ensconces himself in Lithos’ backpack. “All righ let’s go!” 

Lithos gathers up his scattered stuff, bags it, and hands the bag off to Whisper. We head back around through the broken door and down the narrow passage to the spot on the wall where it says “don’t keep going unless you have the weapon”. Scratched on the wall is a note that says “giving up freedom opens all doors.” Lithos: “You The Adventures of Lady Ariana in the Flesh Pits of Sol Povos? Giving up her freedom sure opened up all her doors.”

An Allip phases through the wall and Lithos spins around and throws acid at it – and actually hits. 

Amergin yanks Baldy out of the way and steps into his place. Amergin is still sickened from the vipers’ venom, so he isn’t at full strength. Whisper continues to the door and checks it for traps; he doesn’t find any, so he opens the door. 

There are some zombies inside.

Baldy fires off a magic missile at the Allip; James moves in and attacks the zombie but doesn’t hit it. Lithos fires off a Magic Missile at the Allip. It steps into the wall, provoking an attack of opportunity from Amergin, who misses. The Allip is now flailing at Lithos from inside the wall, but Amergin clocks it and it explodes. Whisper slips in the door and slices a zombie; another zombie wanders over. One tries to hit Whisper and succeeds. 

Another Allip appears and hits Lithos, draining four Wisdom from him. Amergin slips into the room and positions himself beside the Allip. Snort is giving helpful suggestions to Lithos: “Her! If you go down, I can drive you!” 

Lithos: “No! No! If I go down, you bring me back as an all-powerful djinn or something like that!”

Another zombie comes through a door, but that closes two other doors. Lithos fires off Magic missile and steps back; the Allip whacks him again. Amergin smashes the Allip, and it explodes. 

Whisper slashes the zombie again. James smashes zombie again, but hers doesn’t explode. Lithos throws acid at the zombie James is fighting. Amergin turns and mauls the same zombie. He whacks it, and it collapses. Whisper slashes his zombie again. 

A door opens and a zombie comes shuffling out. James turns and hits Whisper’s opponent (zombie). Archie fires off the Formorian crossbow at the zombie, tagging it with a magic missile. Lithos drops Mage Armor on himself (as he should have done before we marched in here). Amergin turns on the new arrival, smacks it, and does a big chunk of damage to it. It doesn’t explode, though. 

Whisper tries to attack, gets bumped at the wrong moment, and drops his knife. The zombie whacks him again. James smacks that zombie with her spiffy new mace, and damages him. Baldy fires off another magic missile and lithos follows with acid. Amergin swing, hits, and explodes the zombie. Whisper draws his kukri and slices the zombie; the zombie tries to slam Whisper but misses. James swings but misses. Archie shoots the zombie again, and lithos finishes ot off with acid. 

Amergin leads the way around to the open door; Whisper opens the closed door. That closes the door in front of Amergin. 

There are some stocks and a couple of piles of coins in the middle of the next room. There’s also a zombie around the corner. It comes over and attacks, but misses. James slips over and attacks; Baldy brings out his whip and tries to pull the zombie into the stocks. He misses. 

Another Allip comes out and hits James, draining some of his wisdom as well. Fortunately, he won’t miss it. Amergin moves back around and joins the rest of us. Whisper attempt to grab the zombie and wrestle him into the stocks. He fails. The zombie attempts to wrestle Whisper into the stocks. The frame falls closed and the lock clicks shut. 

All the doors open. Archie zaps Whisper with Cure Light Wounds.

James attacks the Allip, but misses.  Lithos throws acid at the Allip but misses. The Allip yanks down Whispers pants and the fazes back out through the wall. Amergin explodes the zombie, but another one comes over and starts caressing Whisper. James smacks the zombie before rigor mortis can set in. 

Baldy sees the dire straits that Whisper is in, and attacks the zombie with his rapier. “Behold my special attack,” cries Archibald. “FILLET!”

He hits, but fails to fillet. Lithos resists the call of the evil voice that seems to be coming from the Allip, and throws acid at the zombie. Amergin tries to smash the lock, and Whisper again tries to shake loose but fails. 

The zombie hits him with a powerful thrust. James hits the zombie, who does not explode. Archibald attacks with his rapier and the zombie keels over on top of Whisper. Lithos comes and tries to push the zombie loose… and knocks it right off. A zombie comes around the wall, and the Allip comes through the wall to attack Whisper. It drains some wisdom. 

Amergin whallops the Allip and it explodes. 

Whisper sheds a single, manly tear. The zombie pushes past Uncle Baldy and lines up behind a Whisper for a backstab. 

James attempts to open the lock, but doesn’t quite make it; Lithos is starting to wonder if James is under some sort of curse. Lithose throws more acid. Amergin explodes the zombie with his magic mace. 

Nothing is currently attacking us. We drop out of combat and Baldy heals Whisper, then does it again. We pause to collect the coins here: 220 gp, We move around and see massive zombies lying on the floor. Ogres? Probably. 

We settle back into an ambush, and Baldy shoots a magic missile at one of them. The ogre zombie wakes up as Archibald heads for the back of the crowd. As it comes around the corner, Lithos hits it with a Scorching Ray, then ducks back towards the hall. Whisper moves back into the hallway and readies a sling bullet. James lines up, and when it comes stomping through the stocks he swings and hits, doing some damage. It attacks with a giant greatclub, hitting James solidly – but James doesn’t quite go down. 

Amergin swings, hits, and fails to make the thing explode. He does some damage. James attacks and does some damage Baldy moves up and does Cure Light Wounds on James with his wand. Lithos moves back up and throws some acid. Amergin hits the ogre zombie and it explodes. 

Uncle Baldy slides up to the next ogre and shoots it, then retreats rapidly. We wait as the thing lumbers towards us, and Baldy takes another shot. It comes around corner, and Amergin hits hit, James misses, and Lithos blasts it with his remaining Scorching Ray; it clobbers Lithos and he goes down, but doesn’t actually die. James and Amergin swing again and miss as Baldy pulls Lithos away from the thing. Archibald cures him back to mobility, and Lithos crawls over and throws acid. Amergin hits him, doing a fair amount of damage. James hits him too, just not as hard. 

The ogre zombie hits Amergin, who goes down. Baldy moves up to heal Amergin, getting him back to consciousness. Lithos throws more acid; Amergin, still prone, attacks again; James smacks him and takes him down. James: “Finally.” He falls over backwards. 

Archie heals us back up. 

We proceed to the ogre room and check out the treasure there. The chest has no apparent traps; Whisper moves on to the bag and finds no traps; ditto the pile of coinage. He opens the chest and finds a bas relief on the inside of the lid; it shows a dwarf riding in the ribcage of a giant skeleton. It’s full of lollipops. Each takes one minute to eat, but heals one hit point; there are 1,000 of them in the chest. 

10,730 Gp, one wand of cure light wounds, and two vials of silversheen. With everything else, we have a total of 15,852 GP -- enough to resurrect Pythia and improve our equipment.