The Walhkrevt’s Well
Thursday, May 22nd, 2014
An homage to Undermountain and the mega-dungeons…
On an exposed outcrop high on a stony mountainside there is a broad pit. The pit is ringed by a low stone lip carven with all manner of gargoyles and obscene figures; swaying over it is a heavy black bucket large enough to fit two men, suspended with thick cables from a sturdy-but-worn wooden frame. A great, iron winch carven with skulls beckons. None know who maintains the apparatus, only that it is.
To those few mountain-dwellers of the area, this place is called the Well, but no one draws water forth from its depths. Only evil.
Were a brave or foolish soul to descend in the bucket (as some have), they would find someone–something–has carven rooms and burrowed tunnels through the casement all along the descent into the nethermost-depths; each entry along the way down leading to new complex of rooms: some small, some large, and some sprawling. The Well holds level-upon-level of cursed dungeons and cavern lairs, each holding horrors independent of the others. And at the very bottom…
A Paladin of Tyr
Tuesday, August 6th, 2013
When I was ten, I probably wouldn’t have imagined my go-to character in computer role-playing games would end up being a woman.
Back in the late 80’s, a cRPG called Pool of Radiance was put out by Strategic Simulations Incorporated (SSI for short). The game used the rules from the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons tabletop RPG, and was the first computer game to do so. I played it on a green-monochromed Apple IIe screen.
In those days, there was a limited “story line”, and virtually no interaction with NPCs, so a great deal was left to the imagination. Nor were there pre-crafted characters to pick from who joined your party, instead you created each member of your party from a large set of options, exactly like you would in the tabletop game.
One of the characters I created was a red-haired female paladin of Tyr, the daughter of a noble house, whom I named Brinna D’Vere.