The Longboat

Land ho, all ashore. 

At Sea

The Flying Dwarfman

24/38 days at sea, en route to Dort, the neutral nation

The First Four

Foxbucket, Wen, Kragor, and Lemania on their mounts (Reginald the Warhorse, Battle Cat, Gryphon, and Giramel respectively)

Goat Dragon

Cardboard crafts for DnD are fun! My first attempt is the six legged Goat Dragon. not that we actually fight dragons in our campaign... well, i just wasted a whole bunch of my time.

Another Gathering Quest

These are the three conceptualized pieces of the many in the Legendary Dinner Set which we must aquire.

Lem etc.

Couple of Doots related to one of my DnD characters. Lem has interesting bone structure, hence the lack of skin on her portrait. also, that's totally a giraffe/camel.

Antagonist

So far, the primary, and sometimes subtle, antagonizer of the House of Cards is a douche wizard named Lydian. but his character has been written so well that he's the sort of guy you love to hate.
there's a bio here if you want, but i'm just gonna do a recap of the encounters i remember:
(Alex, you're gonna help me flesh this out i hope; Ethuli'en didn't meet Lydian until the party had more than a couple of dealings i think.)

First saw him when he was in his tower (actually now that i think of it, when E. was crowbarred into the story, we were in Lydian's tower chamber right in the middle of something). He asked the party to go find his apprentice who was investigating a Kobold cult (the party had just fought a bunch of Kobolds so we figured it was related) and bring back any information they could find about the Kobold's reasons for attempting to summon the demon prince C'thai'ran. Also what happened to his apprentice, but that was secondary.

After some Kobolds and some Shad'ar Kai Witches who used Crispin's shadow to gain entry to the Kobold cave, we learned that Lydian might know a lot more about C'thai'ran than we thought...

So there was some betrayal involved, some artifact acquired, and a few other things that i can't recall, mainly because the ritual is most important.
Lydian was basically in tune with a bunch of devils from a Shadow Dimension and he was bringing a big 'un to our Plane. Sadly (awesomely) he succeeded.

So Lydian summoned C'thai'ran who set about laying waste to our dimension but was eventually defeated by Ethuli'en. (the DM had planned on a big fight with a reanimated stone statue of a king but he didn't plan on Ethuli'en rolling a natural 20)
So C'thai'ran was defeated and sucked us all into the Shadowfell along with Lydian.
this was the end of Part I of the campaign.

In Part II, we met Lydian again (after a bunch of other stuff that isn't related to him).
turns out he was a Vampire Wizard and is soul came back to the Shadowfell when he was plotting his return to our Plane. Lydian was murdered by Fenrak and Ethuli'en broke a piece off Lydian's own coffin and leaped through a wall of fire to drive it through his heart.
Lydian's Flesh turned to ash and his bones dissolved and all that was left was a crystal heart.
After escaping his crumbing tower, we heard a voice from the crystal.

To our delight, Lydian's soul is now trapped in a crystal heart that Ethuli'en keeps in his pants pocket. Currently he is suffering eternal torment.

We're looking forward to how he's involved with the rest of Part II.

Ding!

The party hit level 12 last week, so this week was the first time we got to use the lvl12 abilities. nothing special, i didn't even use mine.

Summary:
The House of Cards is on a sympathetic side quest to save slaves from ...being slaves, since they are, themselves, slaves to the owner of a magic shoppe in the dimension they got sucked into after part 1 of the campaign (i really should get a summary of part 1 up sometime).
slaves were freed at the end of the night after like 3 weeks of trying. 'bout time.

Highlights:

• Ethuli'en managed to successfully hit an invisible wizard while rolling with a -5. we were all very impressed.
• Actually, Ethuli'en was the primary source of aggravation for that little wizard, which was funny cos apparently there was some backstory between Jack and this guy. There was some pretty funny RP going back and forth to say the least.
• The visual image of Fenrak slam-dunking a halfling AirJordan style. many roffles.
• A Giant Deuregur charged Crispin but burned to death at his feet before he could get there. good ol' Crispin.
• There was actually a lot of drinking on mine and Alex's end. Good old booze.
  

Dungeons and Dragons and Drinking

Every Tuesday that we can, a few of us gather 'round a nice, cozy internets and play Dungeons and Dragons.
And drink heavily.
Iain is our DM (Dungeon Master as opposed to District Manager), and he has come up with a magnificent campaign for our characters to explore and destroy.
(Side note: Explore and Destroy is the best Warcraft guild name ever)
I want to sum up the story of the campaign so far, but it's been months since act 1 finished and my character was crowbarred into the story half way through. I shall email my good friend Alex and see if he can't blog it.
But at any rate, here's a summary of characters:

Fenrak Fjörgynn (Alex)
Dwarf Fighter.
Son of an accountant, equipped with his reading glasses and massive shield, Fenrak is a proven unstoppable force. Fenrak is the most level headed one of the group. Many wild and crazy ideas come from our collective madness, but Fen always knows what's really the best course of action. and it usually has something to do with his hammer and faces.

Ethuli'en Smith (Thom)
Half-Elf Paladin.
I'm gonna do a separate post about Ethuli'en since he's my character. Also, he's way too awesome for a summary. Although that's really true for all of the characters. Except Jack.

Crispin Grant (Michael)
Human Wizard
Alcoholism and magic are seldom a good idea to practice together, but Crispin deftly pulls it off every time most of the time. Recently exchanged his Magic Missile spell for something else due to the fact it hit party members instead of the intended target without fail. With a murdered wife and a plethora of emotional baggage, Crispin is definitely the most complex character.

Orbrinus (Derek)
Drow (Dark Elf) Rogue
Blade monster. We've seen him do 76 damage in a single (sort of) attack. Which is ridiculous because a hefty hit from Fenrak the Tank or Ethuli'en the Glass Cannon does an impressive 30-40 damage. Mostly quiet except for his punchlines. No one knows timing like Orb.

Larien (Courtney)
Elf Priest
The only female member of the party. Also our healer. Pulled our sorry wounded asses out of more than a few scrapes. Sarcasm is her primary offensive method.

Jack Nickles (Jacob)
Ex-Human, Shadar Hunter
Likes coffee and douchbaggery. Constantly undermines the group for the sole sake of attention. "Chaotic Neutral" apparently means he can do whatever the fuck he wants and it's considered funny. It's not.

I'm going to try and do a summary blog every Tuesday after the game. we'll see how long that lasts. Although i suppose i have to post the story summaries first to get the readers (yeah right) up to speed.