[Olympia Novel] One Hundred Daughters Released!

One Hundred Daughters is the second book of the Olympia Chronicles and a loose sequel to The Bloody Notebook. Although knowledge of the first book is recommended, this second book is also a self-contained story.

The writing for this novel was a completely different experience than The Bloody Notebook, whereas I started with a clear idea of the ending of TBN with a vague idea of how the characters would get there. For 100d, I had a strong starting point, and a vague idea how the characters would reach the ending. Whereas TBN has a small cast, this book has a much larger one and features a sea voyage in the tradition of the Argonautica or the Odyssey with a wide cast of colorful characters. Several known faces from the first book return, including fan-favorite Melita. Others make cameos, while most of the crew of the Endoxos are brand new characters that explore the world of Olympia.

So this was a fun, unique experience for me to create and discover this story. When I re-read it, and really had a blast. This story has so many twists and turns as it builds towards it inevitable conclusion. And the secrets each member has and keeps from the others.

One Hundred Daughters

A Prince without a City

Miltiades is the last prince of Ekkos, a city destroyed by a Titan over five years ago. To reclaim his crown and his homeland, he gathers a band of heroes—including the demigoddess-sorceress Melita, a drunkard captain, a dancer, a priestess, and a handful of dregs from the docks of Athenion. Together, they sail aboard the Endoxos, an old, rickety penteconter, to seek the aid of a distant nymph-queen. The gods watch their journey closely, for their own entertainment.

But will secrets and prophecies tear the crew apart before they even reach their destination?

One Hundred Daughters is available on Amazon and DriveThruRPG

For a full PDF experience of the world of Olympia, you may get One Hundred Daughters as part of the Olympia Bundle.

[Crown of Tears] Lady of the Whip and the Old Man

The Knights of St Edras having accepted Sir Garrick's offer of assistance, accepting subjugation to the king in return for troops, servants, and supplies.

Dame Sabine de Marivault, a knight of the Order of the Whip arrived at the head of a force of outriders, servants, and archers to man and defend the Tower of St Edras.

After a short discussion, the Knights left because the Mists were going to part to open to a place called the "Hanging Glacier" to find another piece of the Crown of Tears. One held by the dragon Galdavantrix.

The world beyond was a plain filled with ice-looking crystals with snow whipping in the air. Lucky for them, Tera obtained enough cold weather gear for all of them to travel to that cold land without issue.

In the distance, they saw only one dark point over the snow haze. They headed that way and encountered a walled village. Wolf, the guard at the gate refused them entry, but showed them the way and reminded them of the presence of slaadi.

As they traveled to the Hanging Glacier, they encountered three red slaadi which led to a massive battle among the crystals.

After that, they found themselves at the base of a 600-foot cliff to reach the monastery where they wanted to meet the old monk master Vantrix. A few sheninanigans and abilities used later, and they were all up there sporting a few bruised.

Vantrix admitted that he could get the shard, but that he would not ask the dragon until the other shards of the crown were brought to him. When asked what the effects of reforging the crown would be, he replied "Not what you expect."

He also gave them the location of the two other shards:
- The Hanging Tower in the Underdark of a place called Faerun
- The Tomb of the Frost Giant Yarl in a place called Rhym

Now in possession of the locations they needed to visit to reassemble the crown, they made their way back to Tarsyn.

[Crown of Tears] Strange Giant Chickens

Continuing the annual tradition of a lighter, Thanksgiving-themed adventure. After last year's Chimeric Turducken, this year featured another fowl-themed adventure. This time, several farms have been raided by "strange giant chickens" and a bear.

After a short investigation, the knights of St Edras followed the monsters' tracks only to fall in a gnoll ambush, but then...

The squwaking reached a feverous pitch as a terrible flock of fowlbears burst from a cave to attack the knights.

After their defeats, they found several seasonal items and brought back enough food for the entire village as fowlbear meat... well... it tastes like chicken.

[Crown of Tears] The Devil's Boar

Problems in Darveshnagar are mounting as gnolls and bandits threaten the roads. Food is growing scarce in town and the merchants are looking for more.

The one military unit in town, volunteer spearmen keeps the road open, but the Knights of St Edras will have much to do. Too much to do for their own goods. The knights opted to track down a massive devil boar that attacked hunters and gnolls alike.

Tracking the large boar to its lair uncovered that it had taken over a bandit lair and killed several of the bandits, partially devouring them.

The "boar" turned out to be an ogre infected with lycanthropy, leading to a hard battle in the cave.

Let's just say the scene ended on a war crime as the prisoners (future meal) of the ogre met a sudden fiery end...

When the knights returned to the Tower, they found the skulls of six of the spearmen on pikes forming a welcoming committee of sorts...

Another development is that Fatima found a charming girl for Vulcanus. Marya is a pious orphan she believes would make a great match. She even sent him a portrait of the girl.

FOE releases... The Fiend FOELio!

Since FOE was formed in 2013, I have ran several multi-year campaigns, one-shots, and the Legacies campaign that still runs yearly at Gencon and at other smaller events through the year.

These many events resulted in the creation of several different, new, and unique opponents. These stat blocks languished in various documents, and adventures, forgotten or ignored. Some were on roll20 where I created them. A few were on pictures of a scan of a partial stat block.

Over the past two years or so, I have been collecting these stat blocks in one location. Several of them needed new coats of paints: tightening the wording, creating new art, and bringing things in line with hour we create our stat blocks now.

I added some new art, from the usual artists I work with, and a several pieces using AI. This is capped by The British Shark's awesome cover inspired by X-Men 135 by John Byrne (one of my favorite comic of all time).

The book contains:
- Over 250 fully-statted creatures and NPCs to use as allies or opponents and seven major characters from the Legacies campaign over the years.
- Unique characters from Akhamet, Olympia, Ozaka, Rhym, Tarsyn, the Truskan Empire, and even fully-statted First Ones.
- New creatures from FOE settings, presented with notes on how to adapt them to other worlds.
- Updated creatures from older FOE products. Giving a little love to these creatures after years of playtesting. Cleaning and bringing them in line with more modern standards.
- Dozens of Book of Lairs-style encounters provide immediate adventure ideas for your table.
- Though written for the worlds of FOE, most of the material contained within can be used for any campaign setting.

This is a book that took over a decade to create!

It is available on:
- Amazon for physical books.
- DriveThruRPG for PDFs.

The Face that terrifies my players...

[Crown of Tears] A Queen, boobie-honk, and a Dragon

The Knights of St Edras met with Queen Livia of Tarsyn. She offered them money in return for an item they were researching previously. She offered them 100 freshly minted platinum pieces as an advance.

What followed was a series of typical adventurer shenanigans that ended with Terrificus getting whipped. Vulcanus to played boobie-honk with the queen. And others expecting to get whipped or killed.

After this encounter, they headed to Darveshnagar arriving after the Queen.

So they decided to leave the village while the crowd welcome the Queen.

They headed to Zapel Lake to look for a bandit. There, they learned about not only the site of a bandit camp, but also of a strange star that fell from the sky and that made the sand glow with strange colors.

They headed to the glowing sands where they found a beachball-sized chunk of crystal from which an odd light came. No doubt what the fisherman talked about.

Terrificus shattered the crystal with a spell and a crystal dragon came out.

A half-fight later, the dragon flew off in the hills...

[Crown of Tears] Bandits, crying girl, and fireball

The Knights of St Edras followed up leads that led them to the site of an attack by bandits.

Expecting gnolls, they discovered several boots leading away from the site. Following the tracks, led them to a site where people some humans got eaten by unidentified creatures.

The tracks of the large number of people led to an unfinished tomb near the Pistaccio Woods.

Inside the tomb, they got assaulted by several bandits, coming out of every room. Then their wolves came out.

Finally a female voice called for help in a distant room. Tera went to investigate to find a bound and gagged young woman. He freed her, only for her to cast a fireball that blasted the party AND to reveal herself to be a green hag!

What a twist!

The fireball decimated the party, but she somehow managed to escape, leaving the PCs with more questions than answers.

All that was left was to plunder the lair and return home victorious!

[Crown of Tears] Other Letters

New letters came in this week. I spent several pips (12), advancing various plots from the NPCs this week.

[Lendore Isles Campaign] Back to 2e... after 32 years!

For the first time since... huh... 1993? I joined an ongoing campaign of D&D 2e! Now even if my last D&D 2e campaign was back in University, I did play the occasional game, but I really disliked the game. It had so many flaws to me, especially since there were games that fit what I wanted to play much more. It was the time of the World of Darkness, of Legend of the Five Rings, and of Call of Cthulhu.

I saw an ad for the game on a Quebec D&D group. What drew my eye? It was a game set in Greyhawk, in the Lendore Isles. I was in and wanted to play.

So after we went through the session zero, we made characters. I chose to make a cleric (my favorite class in all editions). I created a cleric of Lydia (imagine a gossip-cleric!).

The first game is still to come but I'm really excited to start and see what happens.

The Four Questions

An important NPC: My mother Berthe, who works at the local inn, Le Griffon Vert.

An important Event: I ratted out some of the local bullies, Lars and his 2 goons, after they did something bad. It taught me that to speak the truth led to good outcomes. Revealing hidden truths is one of Lydia's tenets.

An important Place: The library beneath the local chapel. I live there in a small room. I help out at the hospital, teach kids, and perform religious service.

One thing I'd like to accomplish: I'd like to establish a cult of Lydia in Valiandre (our home town).

[Crown of Tears] New Letters...

New Letters...

[Crown of Tears] Ancient Golems

Having opened the double doors to reveal the odd statue of a six-armed snake woman... a marilith demon! They decided to... SMASH the statues by the doors. They turned out to be stone golems! Then, they attacked the marilith statue, and the skeletons on the spears activated, creating a massive free-for-all, with the PCs, skeletons, and golems all fighting against each other.

A lot of frantic running around and damage dealt and taken led to one of the stone golems to fall into the chasm and vanish (for now).

In the scramble that followed, Sylumbra tried to escape the other golem by drawing it into the chasm (again) but this golem held on and pummeled her to death, her body disappearing into the depths.

Then the party fled, told Fatima to brick up her basement.

[My Character] Villaine the Green Knight

I created this character for a one-shot Nick-T ran at my place in September called Lost in the Forest. The details were otherwise sparse as to what we would be doing. We would be level 6, pretty much anything goes.

I decided to play a ranger, which I haven't played in years (I think my last PFS character was a ranger). After building her up to level 6, I decided to add some versatility and made her Ranger 5/ Fighter 1.

For my archetype, I chose the Green Knight from the Tarsyn Setting. I liked the idea of a ranger walking around in an armor made of dirt, leaves, and vines.

What is a Green Knight? The Green Knights of Tarsyn are dedicated to the protection and defense of holy site. The knightly fist of the Druidic Circles. The idea got me excited.

Now to complete the character...
- Sex: my previous character was a male, so I went with a female character.
- Race: I considered one of the Princesses, but did not want to be a Rose Red (an iconic combo). So after poking around, I went with a variant human.
- Background: I knew I wanted something different than the outlander... After some thought, I went with criminal. But I did not want her to be a burglar, but a highwayman... That was cool. Thus, she grew up, fell in with some bad folks, then later became a Green Knight...
- Name: I wanted something interesting that told a story... so I went with "Villaine" meaning "Bad Girl" which I thought brought the concept together...

Villaine Villaine was born outside the city of Tarsyn to a family of honest farmers. Not interested in the toils of her family, she joined a group of bandits and became a highwayman, taking the name "Villaine"to protect her family from retribution. One day, she met a Green Knights, and she became enamored with the idea of being a champion of nature.

Turns out, she was very much needed for the adventure and really helped the party throughout our adventure in the forest. The adventure was filled with fey spirits and interesting challenges that made for an interesting afternoon of D&D fun.

I hope to revisit her in the future.

[Kinda Book Review] Essential Avengers Vol 6

The Avengers are a constantly revolving door of a group. There are some stories that are very exciting... but this is not it. It's an in-between set of stories with a LOT of exposition that happens between the events of the major characters' own albums.

For 4-5 issues (2 of them 'Giant-Sized Avengers') they go about talking about the backstories of two characters: the Vision (some interest) and Mantis (not interesting). And It's long. I mean... boringly long, with the people talking and looking as they travel through time... GUH!

I hoped that Kang's appearance would add some interest, but not really. The death of the Swordsman also added nothing (he's back in 1 issue-ish). Captain America shows up, just to tell us of the cool stuff in his title.

Frankly, it was not TERRIBLE, but it wasn't good.

I will rank this a 2/5. It's much more boring than a 3.

[Crown of Tears] Under the Weaver's Shop

After much debate, the party decided to garner goodwill by helping out Fatima the Weaver. After a lovely discussion over tea and scones, where the PCs discovered more secrets, they entered the basement.

They uncovered a secret/unknown section crypt with several unique/ ancient elements.

But the oddest discovery (so far) was when they broke a stole stela and discovered a strange being encased within, entombed in salt...