Kakita Raisho

Karax is the Southern Land, a harsh, dry, unforgiving place.

It is made up of three general areas. The Grey plains is the area with the largest concentration of population. The name comes from the grey-brown hue of the loamy soil. The Grey Plains hug the coastline, where there it is least arid and most habitable. Though not super fertile, it is sufficient for the day to day survival of the people. There are also a few rivers and a lot of marshes and coastal regions.

The other two regions are the Bloodstone Marches, south/southeast of the Grey Plains, and the Searing Sands, to the East. The Bloodstone Marches are a bit like Utah or the Grandcanyon, with a lot of dry lightning storms. The Searing Sands are made of towering grey, yellow and red dunes of sand; quite unhospitable, full of wandering monsters and gnoll warbands. All of Karax is littered with ruins, although most have been looted of anything useful (or if not is still dangerous and trapped).

One town situated between the Grey plains, Bloodstone marches and Searing Sands, is called Cragwater, so named for its position near a rare water source.

Agriculture in Karax is possible, but herding is relatively rare. Fish and other stranger omnivorous animals are the primary meat source, and red mead is an expensive delicacy.

Karax’s primary industry is mining, both for ore, precious stones, and mana. As you remember, Karax has the practice of reanimating corpses as thralls to do dangerous menial work. These thralls are generally ‘donated’ to the family, much like a person who dies in a car accident signs an organ donor card, a person that dies without severe trauma can volunteer to be sold to companies/government to make into thralls. These thralls generally have a life expectancy of a few years. As supply is relatively high (people die everyday after all), grave robbers for the bodies is rare, but not unheard of.

Karax does not have a hereditary government. What happens is that it is passed by decree, the dying monarch writes a will/decree naming his heir. His rule is law, unless vetoed by a unanimous council (which usually guarantees the new guys stays unless he’s really that crappy, resulting in a coup). The current regent is Emperor Maligant Raelthorne, the Stone-hearted. Emperor Raelthorne is going strong after decades of rule, and is a Qin Shi Huang sort of Emperor. He wants the best for his country, and honestly believes that he operates in the best interests of the nation (which is true). He realizes that the most important resource of the nation is mana, and that the nation’s most glaring weakspot is low human resource and middling magical knowhow.

In the past few years in his rule, he has implemented quite a few changes to try to improve Karax. Firstly, he increased the defense and logistics geared towards discovery and maintenance of mana fields. Armored troops escort each transport of mana to the cities. The economically important cities and trade routes are well-defended and patrolled.

Secondly (undecided), he has implemented a new method of defense of the less-secure villages. The villages and towns are all built on a concept of an ‘emergency bunker’. If families can afford it, they build a very secure basement/bunker. Upon gnoll attack, they run and hide within these bunkers. The governer of each city has a panic-button talisman. If pressed, it has a one time sending to the nearest barracks. Most gnolls get bored after slaughtering the innocents they can find, or get beaten back by the arriving Karax army. However, the unlucky ones still get killed.

In order to maintain military might, Karax has a very efficient national service. The eldest child (male or female) is drafted into national service for 5 years; people are welcome to make it a career. In addition, in times of emergency all Karax with former military training will be recalled. If a child dies in National Service, his family (if the army can track down records) will get one time remuneration.

Maligant has also stepped up magic and magic-related research. Wizards (if capable) are well-looked after in Karax, especially in the army (quite white horse). Warlocks are considered equally powerful, but treated with a bit more caution though; it is an unmentioned fact that Warlocks in the army are kept on relatively tight security; it is never known what pact they signed, and if this pact is more important than the nation’s well-being.

This is primarily fluff homebrew. There will be some tweaks in the rules, but these will (hopefully) be few and far between, and primarily related to residuum, and the use thereof. This is because I want residuum to take a more important role in this world. Aside from that, I’m relatively leery in changing something I have no experience in.

General gist of the word Faeryll:

Young. The world is only just achieving a renaissance after climbing out from the dark ages, a result of an earth-shattering cataclysm. As such, while a nation may have large extended borders, most of the area within might still be wilderness; civilization has only populated the most important, fertile and defensible areas.

The discovered world of Faeryll is extremely small. The entire map above is only slightly larger than the size of Europe. Travel across the seas takes 2-3 weeks (important, as perishables are often shipped across).

Magic is treated more like a technology that aids civilization, rather than an exotic, difficult art to master. Low-level magic is relatively common, but magic and magical items of higher level are exponentially rarer.

Mana is a fuel/resource. 4e’s Residuum (hereby referred to as mana) will be playing a major part of the economy. Not only is mana used to build magical items, it is also used as a fuel to power the more powerful magical items/constructs. In addition, PCs will be able to spend varying amounts and types of mana in order to replenish or boost their daily and encounter powers. I wish to make it such that the economy of residuum impacts the world, and I want the PCs to understand that as well.

This Mana thing makes the world very glowy. It’s quite heroic, and quite anime in look.

Intrigue is quite high. All three main powers have important resources the other two nations need, but the inculcated fear of war, incursions from outside sources and the fact that all three nations are naturally separated each other dictates that large troops cannot mass against one another, and so conflicts take the form of words, trade, and spycraft.

The gods are quiet. They give clerical power, and sometimes answer divinations, but do not actively participate with the world. The raise dead ritual does not exist.

The plane is disjointed from all others, except the astral realm, which is dangerous. No one knows why, but access to any other plane is singularly difficult. This explains the infernal and star warlocks; outside entities are taking this opportunity to try to enter the world. Related to this, long-distance travel is difficult. Gates, portals and long-distance teleportation do not work, and non-mundane travel may bring with it certain risks. No travel rituals exist, few divination rituals exist.

History:
Millenia ago, Faeryll used to be a huge continent, a traditional fantasy world. However, a great war broke out between the two largest human nations, one from the north and the south (generally where the Aevlyn, Karax and Alliance of Winds are situated now). In this great war, a weapon of arcane mass destruction was built and triggered. It succeeded, but its ramifications were far greater than anyone had expected. It was built merely to destroy the arcane defenses of a nation, but instead cataclysmically overloaded the magical weave inherent in the world, cutting off the world from the gods and magic. It also happened to blow a considerably chunk of the world into smithereens, flooding the western half of the continent in water.

During the next few hundred years, magic was inaccessible. Considering that magic is a cornerstone in establishing civilization in D&D suffice to say that most of humanity disappeared. Rampaging monsters were the norm, and humans banded together in small settlements to try to protect themselves.

The world eventually rediscovered magic, albeit in a different form. Nations were reforged, and they worked hard at returning the world to its former splendor. The Cataclysm took place about two thousand years ago (reports are sketchy and range from one to five millenia), but it was such a devastating event that it still weighs on the collective consciousness of the new nations. Perhaps that is why they are still afraid to lean themselves towards open conflict.

Magic:
During the instability of the weave, magic was inaccessible. Now though, magic is accessible again. Residuum/mana is also an important resource. While adventurers can find many magical items in their dungeon crawling, magical items forged during previous ages do not work, useful only for the mana that can be distilled from it. That means the world needs a new influx of mana. This comes from mana ‘nodes’, areas of particularly concentrated ambient mana, so concentrated that it can actually be mined, tapped and distilled.

However, most of these mana-rich regions are debilitating to human life. This is generally proportional: the richer the region, the more dangerous. This provides a problem to the nations; countries which are rich in mana are considerably less fertile, and vice versa. This forces the nations into a sort of symbiosis with each other.

As mentioned previously, I want mana to be an important tradable resource. Not only is mana used to make magical items, but it is also used to power some of these (essentially plot-hook level) items and constructs. For example, golems and guardians may be workhorses, but run off mana, which will have to be replenished every so often. Sailing ships may have a ‘store’ of mana which can be used to ‘overboost’, perhaps generating wind in order to outrun pirates, or for pirates to catch their prey. There may even be defensive artillery that runs off of mana.

PCs normally won’t have access to the above items (not yet, anyway). In order to bring to the forefront the idea of mana as a useful as well as tradable resource, mana may be used to replenish or boost their encounter and daily powers. They may use mana to boost their spell casting, or invigorate their body, or open another connection to their god, whatever it is; all classes may use mana in this manner.

I can just use mana as an alternate currency (ie spend x amount of gold in residuum to do y). This would be convenient for both me and the players, they only need to track residuum’s gold cost.
I want it such that PCs WANT to spend mana to increase their powers, and therefore become dependant on the mana economy, but at the same time I need to make it such that the burst damage it affords them doesn’t make encounters too easy. I’m thinking of just basing it off 4e’s magic item cost; for example, an replenishing an encounter power costs 10% of an equivalent level magical item, while a regeneration of a daily power costs 20% of that.

Technology:
Technology kind of dovetails with magic. Magic is treated as a science, rather than an art. However, because of the cataclysm, a lot of magic was forgotten and had to be relearnt. There are firearms, but they are a novelty, not really a serious alternative (too noisy).

Religion and Alignment:
Use 3e alignment rules. No PCs will be evil.

Gods are distant. Most divination rituals do not exist, and angels only manifest in the rarest of tales. Clerics and Paladins can be one step away from their gods in the good-evil axis, and may be of any alignment in the lawful-neutral axis.

The following gods and (slightly changed) their portfolios exist. Most gods are described in further detail in the PHB. Other gods exist but are lesser worshipped gods.

Bahamut: Lawful Good. Portfolio Good, Law and Protection. The main faith in Aevlyn. Lord Ryn Falkren (The Dragonlord) was the hero that pushed back the Orc and Goblin hordes in Aevlyn, allowing civilization to prosper. Bahamut later allowed him and his wife to ascend.

Tiamat: Chaotic Evil. Portfolio Evil, Knowledge, Magic, Chao, Power. Differs from the PHB. Her motto is power at any cost. Legend says that her most famous worshipper Alexia Thamar, or the Ladywyrm, was the one who bargained with the devil lord Orcus to become the first warlock, and subsequently wrested from the depths the knowledge of magic. It is argued that the Ladywyrm’s gift of magic played an equal part in beating back the bestial hordes. Tiamat is worshipped, albeit in a more civilized manner. She is more prevalent in Karax, where Thamar was said to be born, and among warlocks and especially ambitious wizards.

Corellon: Neutral. Portfolio Elves, Knowledge, Art, Beauty, Magic. Worshipped by more moderate wizards, elves and elf-wannabes.

Melora: Neutral. Portfolio Elves, Nature, Wilderness, Sea. Worshipped by travelers, sailors, elves and nature-lovers.

Lathander: Chaotic Good. Replaces Pelor. Portfolio Spring and Summer, Good, Sun, Day, Agriculture.

Shar: Chaotic Neutral. Replaces Sehanine. Portfolio Autumn, Moon, Day, Agriculture, Love, Trickery. More like a cross between FR Shar and Sune.

Talos: Chaotic Neutral. Replaces Kord. Portfolio Power, Battle, Strength, Storm. Worshipped by fighters and people who need good weather.

Waukeen: Neutral Good. Replaces Erathis. Portfolio Civilization, Knowledge, Trade, Laws, Buildings. Most prevalent in the Alliance of Winds.

Avandra: Neutral Good. Portfolio Gnomes, Travel, Luck, Adventure, Freedom.

Moradin: Lawful Neutral. Portfolio Dwarves, Steadfastedness, Creation, Smithing.

Raven Queen: Portfolio Death, Winter, Fate.

Races and society:
Humans are make up a large percentage of Faeryll.

A small diversion from humanity has just sprung up. Living in close proximity with unstable magic has caused some humans to be born with differences. These genaasi or elemental-born, as they have been come to be known, are both looked on with awe and cautiousness. They can be air, water, fire or earth, but are not actually elemental born. it’s an excuse to get that anime hair. =p

Genaasi use the dragon-born template with the following changes; Dragon Breath is more like a Ki-blast, and can’t be poison subtype. Remove Draconic, get 1 other language. +2 Streetwise, +2 intimidate instead of normal skill bonuses.

Elves (and Eladrin) do not exist. Most vanished after the cataclysm, and marrying with humans diluted the blood of the elves that were left. What was remembered of them has been greatly romanticized, mostly by the humans. Half elves exist and have capitalized on this romanticism of elves. They are considered especially exotic/beautiful by society. Most half-elves also tend to mirror the grace that their ancestor elves supposedly had.

Dwarves are very rare in ‘common’ society. Firstly, a few major ley lines overloaded in their ancestral mountain homes, turning some into archipelagos, and refusing to leave their ancestral homes, they have generally have been spending the past hundred years rebuilding and fighting off rampaging creatures. They also blame the humans for all that has happened to their world. Unfortunately, the fact that their ancestral halls are in bad shape means that they are forced to venture out and trade for necessities, although they try to do this as rarely as possible. City dwarves exist, but they are shunned by the ‘traditional, clan’ dwarves.

Nimble both mentally and physically, gnomes are generally on the cutting edge of any technology, arcane or otherwise. While they might get distracted, more often than not they will eventually return to their interest.

Gnomes use the Halfling rules in 4e, not the MM rules. Gnomes get +2 Dex +2 Int instead of +2 Dex +2 Cha.

Northern Lands

Avlyn is medieval in look, with terrain that is a cross between England, Ireland and France. Armor is generally big and bulky, kind of WOW in look. It is rule by a King, and advised by 4 dukes, the high paladin of Bahamut and the Lord Magister/Mage, the council of Seven.

Where the world will begin will be in the Galveston Duchy, in Northwest Avlyn, a cold and dreary place.

Middle Islands

The Alliance of Winds is very tropical, like southern Italy. Very sundrenched and wam, very nautical in nature. Most technological. Half swashbuckley pirates, half island Final Fantasy. They use laborjacks as their specialized workforce. Quite a few air/water genaasi come from here.

Southern Lands

Karax is a very harsh and unforgiving place. Red sand, black sand, yellow sand… It’s generally sand everywhere. Very Arabian in look (swaddled in cloth, protected from the sun, etc).

Look
Some art to give you a look and feel of the world. Not exactly correct, but good enough. Please remember your characters don’t start of looking (or being) as powerful as some of the ppl here though. Remember that’s what you’re aiming towards.

Faeryll Map

Example of Some Genaasi

North Country 1
North Country 2
North Country 3
North Country 4

Middle Country 1
Middle Country 2
Middle Country 3
Middle Country 4

South Country 1
South Country 2

The Talion Charter raiding party is back, and this time, they’re out for blood! Darren was using the same army as he did last week, and I was using the same army as the one below against Cygnar.

Darren wins the toss and elects to go first.

Turn 1:

His Seadogs skirt around that large fort/building thingy which is proxying as a plateau (because we don’t have enough). Everything else walks/runs up. Torrent and Phantasm is cast, but doesn’t really do anything.

My Kayazy do the whole Ironflesh-run thing, while the Devastator gets superiority plowed on him and he just rushes forward. Greylords and Gorman smoke up, Eiryss waits for an opportune time, while the Manhunter throws himself into the Seadogs by running. I hope to engage his riflemen, but that’s a bad idea.

Turn 2

Darren realizes phantasm and torrent isn’t doing anything, and drops those spells. Hawk charges into the Manhunter and somehow fails to kill him. However, the seadogs manage to kill him. How embarrassing for the Manhunter, killed by grog-swilling seadogs. The rest of the seadogs continue their dance around the fort with the Kayazy, afraid to engage them like they did in the previous game.

Mariner shoots the Kayazy, randomly deviates onto the underboss, and all that saves him is tough. Honestly, that UA is just a bloody AOE MAGNET. He died to some random deviation the last week too. Buccaneer nets the Devvie, and the Commodore uses the cannonball slam, scratching paint. it’s a good thing it’s only 1″ and I have superiority on, so it isn’t knocked over.

My turn = more kayazy running to engage the mariner and buccaneer as they make their way towards the commodore. Smokewall continues. I realise that I should have tried disrupting the Mariner but end up running Eiryss instead. Time she starts earning her keep. Kayazy get battlelusted, Devastator bulldozes into the Buccaneer and greylords and gorman continue their smokewall.

Turn 3

3 focus gets put on the mariner as he threshers, boosting all attack rolls. One dies, the rest survive, but not like Pow 10 ripostes are going to do anything to it. Buccaneer doesn’t fare as well, disengaging the Devastator, getting a freestrike from the kayazy/risen capo. Even with pow 10, 4d6 manages to deal 8 damage to it, but I believe nothing drops. He nets the Devastator again, and I think tries to slam it again, to little effect. With the Kayazy up in front, his seadogs skirt around the back to threaten my rear.

On my turn Eiryss walks and tries to shoot a commodore crewman. And misses. That elf has got no depth perception, I tell you. The kayazy run and finally engage the commodore, as well as threatening Darren’s rear solo force. 4 Greylords are needed to freeze the Mariner to prevent him from fully contesting the spot (I forget the mariner has reach and one kayazy is still engaging), and Devastator lumbers forward again. I use the remaining greylords to drop the buccaneer’s defense by a bit and gorman rusts the buccaneer. Irusk charges the buccaneer, scrapping it in short order and camps on focus. Just in case (for that extra bit of survivability), I feat defensively.

Turn 4

It’s do or die for the pirates now. With one stationary Jack and the other one scrapped, he knows that if he doesn’t caster kill, I’m going to win this. He feats to give the seadogs and hawk the extra 3″ and charge range to Irusk. Commodore doesn’t do anything.. and… Rockbottom ensures payday and to give the seadogs that boost to attack and damage as well as tough. Hawk charges Irusk, doing 6 points of damage. Considering she has stormrager on her and 3 attacks, it could have been worse.

Seadogs feat to get through rough terrain and extra attack rolls, and charge Irusk and my greylords. They… I think they miss, but the seadogs have terror and Greylords roll a 12 on their command check!

We believe that since Irusk got surrounded they lost all morale and decided to head for the hills.

After that it’s 3 seadogs with 3 attacks each (gun, sword and swordmaster due to object of affection). Boosted attacks, damages, and double strength. Doesn’t look good, and it isn’t. Some fail to hit, some fail to damage, and some fail due to tough checks, but in the end, 9 attacks with so many boosts win out, and I think he only need 6 of the 9 attacks to fell the great Kommandant.

Review

Darren asked why I didn’t IG on that last turn. I said that since he had no quarter it seemed irrelevant, and 3 extra armor seemed a lot better at the time. But on hindsight I see what he meant. I didn’t know how much hawk helped the seadogs in melee, and IG would have prevented her from contacting me. In addition, perhaps I should have played a bit more defensively and smoked Irusk with Gorman rather than rusting the buccaneer. I think if I inhospitable grounded and used focus to deal damage to the buccaneer I would still have scrapped it. I might have been left with no focus, but with a smoke bomb in front of me the seadogs would have had no way to get LOS for the charge.

Then again they might have just ran to surround the devastator. Hmm.

I have to note here that our week two is week 4 of the bloodstone marches, as we started 2 weeks late. In case you guys are confused. This is the Khador scenario where a Jack needs to be within 6″ of the centre point with no other enemy Jacks within 6″ to win the game.

Cygnar:
Darius
2x Centurion
Lancer
GMCA
Eiryss
Reinholdt

Khador:
Irusk
Devastator
Kayazy + UA (Ninja Alexia undead)
2x Greylords
Manhunter
Eiryss

Deployment

Turn 1
I win first turn and charge my manhunter at Eiryss. He whiffs on both attacks. Run my Kayazy helter skelter forward with iron flesh, superiority on the Devastator (who also runs). Gorman and Greylords throw smoke on each other and the Devastator. (I won’t talk about my Eiryss at all as all she did was remain invisible in case Darius approached)

Darius and the Jacks run forward, steam cannon pressure cookers a random point. Eiryss whiffs on attacks too, then crazy lancer charges and smooshes manhunter due to… I think full throttle. Damn full throttle. GMCA

Turn 2
Continue upkeep on superiority and iron flesh. Kayazy continue insane mad rush to block off access to the control point. Devastator walks forward… and I think I cast inhos ground. Greylords and Gorman continue smoke screen. I think I also freeze the lancer.

I shouldn’t have clustered my IFed Kayazy so close together, because I find out that steam cannons are still remarkably able to hit def 17 when they have a focus and reinholdt helping out. 4d6 discard lowest die later, 5 kayazy are a hole in the ground. A full throttled centurion gets one more, as does an aiming GMCA. Things look pretty bleak. The only thing that saves me here is inhospitable ground preventing his centurions from gaining ground. And boy does it save my ass. The halfjacks run in to contest the spot.

Turn 3
Good thing I have enough Kayazy and a devastator to do what I need to do. Irusk moves up and shoots on halfjack (boost to hit and damage just to make sure), all my kayazy gang up on another halfjack, and the Devastator runs up to bulldoze the lancer out of contesting the spot. I totally pulled that one through by the skin of my teeth. If this wasn’t a scenario I have no idea how I would’ve won.

Review
I shouldn’t just assume that Iron flesh will save my Kayazy’s ass all the time. Should have spread them out more to ensure that fickle luck won’t destroy all the eggs in my basket. The devastator was also a good choice for this scenario, allowing me some board control. I wish I knew how to use Eiryss and the manhunter properly though.

I haven’t used this site in ages, but I’m trying to record all my games, with photos and everything. Hopefully this will put me in the mood for blogging again.

My LGS has just started league 2, so we’ve all been getting our games in. Unfortunately, like most people with work and a significant other, time is at a premium, and 2 games in a week is already better than most. My most recent game was with Darren, the local PGer that’s stepping down soon. He’s looking to further his studies, but you can tell he’s a PGer through and through, because he plays pirates. Because I had a game under my belt vs his 0, this is last week (week 3’s) Khador scenario (transverse assault), and the merc map (map 4).

I think the armies were:

Absolut Khador
Irusk
MOWDCx5
Risen + Alexia proxying as Kayazy + Underboss
Greylords x2
Mortar Crew
Eiryss
Manhunter
Drakhun

Argh pirates!
Shae
Commodore
Buccaneer
Mariner
Grogspar
Doc
Hawk
Rockbottom
Pirates Seadogs w 3 riflemen and Mr Walls.

Unfortunately I forgot to take photos till halfway in the game, so all you readers out there will have to imagine the first two rounds. I won the deployment roll and decided to go first. I set up everything around the centre, with DC on the left and Kayazy on the right. Eiryss and Manhunter flanked left while Drakhun flanked right. GLs, Irusk and Mortarcrew take the rear.

Darren deployed all of his crew all the way on the left, and the commodore in the centre, giving him a nice wide view of EVERYTHING I HAVE. Mariner and Buccaneer was centre-right-ish, and Shae and the solos were between the seadogs and the commodore, able to support both.

I would like to mention now that I never played against pirates before. It was a fun match.

First few turns
I ran my Kayazy up, nice and spread out, encircling a tower and fence that was doubling as a building (see photos below). DC ran behind and greylords threw smoke on them. Irusk advanced and Ironfleshed and Battlelusted the Kayazy. Mortar advanced to stand on the first spot I needed to get. I thought that maybe the Drakhun would be better on the left, and Eiryss could threaten the commodore and shae, so they ran across the board to exchange places. Manhunter stays where he is. Silly setup.

Darren advanced his army, then took some potshots at my Kayazy. The commodore took one down with a decent deviation and that silly fire AOE (come on… they’re not going to survive a pow 12 anyway) but the mariner didn’t. There was also phantasm and torrent involved, but I don’t remember much else.

I upkept ironflesh and realised that I was being silly trying to ram kayazy down his throat (down the path of a commodore and mariner… therein lies madness). I skirted the other way, around the tower. DC continued running helter skelter down (which I thought was a bad idea, but might not have been). Eiryss continues flanking right while manhunter and drakhun continues flanking right.

1 GL blankets the DC in smoke while the other one is a supporting force for the Kayazy. Irusk hunkers down behind the tower and casts battlelust on the Kayazy and IG. I’m hoping to dissuade him from the Kayazy at the same time forcing him to pop his seadogs minifeat (charge across rough terrain etc). I think I shoot someone with the mortar, but combination tough (rockbottom’s payday) + Doc’s 4plus tough + Grogspar’s no knockdown = What I call the formula for supertough, or what the 40k-inclined call the 4+ invul save. I call it a pain in my neck. Nothing died.

Darren’s turn. He upkeeps phantasm and torrent (which he cast previous turn, preventing me from Icecaging his jacks) and he proceeds to say something along the lines of ‘let me show you the tricks pirates have’ or ‘now the fun begins’… or maybe he just cackled maniacally, I don’t remember anymore. Anyway he advances the buccaneer and nets a DC, and then fires a cannonball at my MOW (13 def is NOT a defence against the commodore). And then he tells me the cannonball slams.

…

They do WHAT?!

Yes. Slams.

Ok, so that’s one DC down. He slams directly back against the leader (whom I thought was safe behind a wall of smoke), but luckily only got dealt 4 damage. The other guy who decided to play catch with the commodore bought it. Survival of the least stupid. Mariner hit another DC, but only damaged, failing to kill. One more kayazy might have died.

I forget. At this point in time I’m actually quite tense. I’ve only lost a few models, but he hasn’t lost any! If he continues to roll like that he’s not going to lose any more! Gorram supertough.

Turn 3: Finally pictures!

I decide to pop my feat defensively. Irusk advances, upkeeps IF, casts IG, and BL on the DC and leads from the rear. GLs Icecage the buccaneer. Boss DC stands up, gives charge order. 2 DC render the buccaneer to scrap while the third one smooshes the pirate into paste. Who then stands up again. Gorram supertough.

Kayazy run up and engage as many pirates as possible. Eiryss, the Manhunter and Darkhun just lurk around. Too afraid of charging seadogs with 3d6 to attacks and damage to do anything.

It’s Darren’s turn to feat. He does so to remove the free strikes as the seadogs disengage to prepare for a charge later. The mariner advances and threshers 2 DC and I believe one Kayazy. I think he misses the Kayazy (duh) kills one DC and wounds the other, but Khador’s Supertough (in the form of Irusk’s feat) saves him. He buys two attacks on the almost dead DC, who makes the next two supertough rolls anyway. It is at this point that Darren curses supertough, and I remind him that while I have to spend a feat to get it, he has it then entire game.

Rockbottom gives them +2 to attacks and Walls minifeats, giving them… 12+ to hit def 19 Kayazy with 3dice. not wonderful, but the best he’s going to get. His seadogs charge in, promptly making short work of the Two frontline DC. The third I think supertoughs it out. Unfortunately, this turn’s luck is all against him. Just about all the seadogs whiff their attacks by 1, trigger riposte, fail supertough, and die. His solos don’t fare much better. I also rolled poorly, but in the end I fare a lot better than he did.

The cannon tries to shoot Eiryss with the canister but misses, and Hawk runs up to her to engage her, saving the crew from a snipery death.

It’s all downhill from there. I dropped IF and popped the Kayazy’s feat, and charged them into as many solos as possible. I whiffed most of the damage (I didn’t activate Irusk yet in case I did really poorly so I could ensure IF on the Kayazy) but managed to kill the one guy that was important, Rockbottom, the only model contesting the back spot. With the kayazy in front and the mortar at the back, all I did was run my GL onto the center spot (which the seadogs weren’t close enough to contest) and it was game.

In the end it was luck. If his Seadogs killed a few more Kayazy, I’d be in a much worse place. I also effectively played many points under, with my manhunter, Drakhun, Eiryss and 1 GL effectively doing nothing the entire game. I’m not sure what I could have done to make them more effective. However, this is one time I was glad that I popped my feat defensively.

My next game is either Friday or Saturday.

Asakusa temple, home to a really huge lantern! Honestly. It’s huge.

The Asakusa Temple was really close to where we stayed, so we managed to get there quite early, before most of the stores had opened, and before most of the tourists arrived. Which was probably a godsend.

It’s interesting, cos Alanna was telling me about the Japanese tradition of ‘omiyage’, apparently Japanese for ‘being as uninhibitedly touristy as possible’. Japanese go to places, take pictures of themselves there and buy back (for friends, family and themselves) souvenirs to prove that they were there. That’s why Asakusa (one of the most visited tourist spots) has a veritable LINE of shops leading to the temple. Some shops have the most kitschy things. Rubber masks, those gross rubbery things that swell when you dunk them in water, that sort of thing. Very amusing.

Some of them sell foodstuffs though, which is the only thing I am interested in. You see a little pagoda replica of Asakusa. And while it’s small, it’s filled with red bean and pretty darn good.

Since we’re being tourists, we might as well try our fortunes, right? So we do the shake-out-the-fortune-stick thing that we hear so much about but never do because not like we’re buddhists or anything. It’s kinda fun as a once-off thing though. Like reading your horoscope.

Funner cos both me and Alanna got good fortunes. Too bad I don’t know what mine says. =/ Alanna said it’s something to do with getting teh monies. (Good thing too, finding a job now’s a bitch haha)

If it’s a bad fortune, you can tie it along a rack (or branches of a tree in smaller temple/shrines), and Alanna took a photo of that. You can go flickr it if you want.

From there we headed off to the Meiji Jingu Shrine, near Harajuku. Home to… I think the largest wooden torii arch in Tokyo. Maybe Japan, I’m not sure. But it’s nowhere the size of the one in the Yasukuni shrine. But that’s for another day.

I much preferred it to the Asakusa temple, because there the only spirit you feel is of touristy consumerism. The Meiji Jingu shrine, with its 15 minute walk IN to get to, is a lot quieter, less packed, and closer to nature.

Also, a short discussion about shrine vs temple. Apparently in Japan, temple = Buddhist, and shrine = Shinto!

Now you know.

We were also lucky enough to witness and honest-to-goodness shinto wedding too. I took a lot of photos (as you can see), which strangely turned out really really well (as you can also see). I guess a bride really does look her best on her wedding day. I still felt like a paparazzi though, taking pictures of absolute strangers who might have taken offence.

The shrine had the same shaky fortuney thing as well, but we decided to forgo that and write on a wish-board instead. Just something else on the touristy to-do list.

Here’s alanna hanging up them wish-boardy thangs.

And then…..

She goes crazy in Harajuku. >.>;; I have to admit that she probably reined it in for me, and for that I am thankful. But there’s a reason why I don’t have anything much to blog about here….

But they have pretty gosh darn good crepes. XD;;

And then…. the highlight of the day….

GANCHAN!!!

Zomg. Peilin, Alanna’s friend mentioned Ganchan as a must-go place. And it was in just about all the travel guides. Which means it’s good. And it’s pretty damn good. It’s like… eat and then experience nirvana good. (But don’t hold it against me if you go there and don’t experience nirvana. I happen to like yakitori.)

But let’s walk you through it.

One of the staples, asparamaki, or asparagus wrapped in bacon. This one is one of the OMG ones. The asparagus spears were thick and juicy, while the bacon was crispy savoury delights. I’m guessing that they cook the asparamaki like this so that the bacon can protect the asparagus from overcooking and burning, and it’s…. wonderful.

More staples: Chicken with green pepper and Tsukune, or chicken meatballs. The chicken with green pepper was okay, which mean merely ‘really good’ as opposed to the savoury bliss that is Tsukune. Grilled to perfection. They also flatten the meatballs a bit. I’m guessing so that the meat cooks through faster. Also, the mustard is even hotter than the wasabi we get here in Singapore (which really isn’t wasabi. wasabi’s actually quite mild)

Err… I think the top one is bacon wrapped with Chiso leaf, some sort of herby thing. I didn’t care for it. Tasted funny. Alanna liked it though. The chicken wing though was superb. I don’t normally care for chicken wings. Too much bone and fat for my tastes. But this was the best chicken wing I ever had. Tender and juicy on the inside, with the skin grilled to a peking-duck like crispy perfection. Probably the cleanest I’ve ever eaten a chicken wing.

Chicken with leek and Tsukune in green chili (I think). Pretty gosh darn good, but by now, I’ve run out of descriptions. So I’ll let my photo do the talking.

mmMMMMMMmmmm. Alanna was very amused by my happy face.

We also had some more stuff. Shitake mushrooms, and barbequed onigiri (more like a senbei, which is rice cracker, really). Not as impt. I then ordered another tsukune and asparamaki, cos that was all I could afford (the beef was really tempting, but also abt 1000-1200Y per skewer. Maybe when I have money next time). Honestly, asparamaki, tsukune and the chicken wings were the three best things I had there.

Incidentally if you hadn’t noticed, you can see that Ganchan actually skewers the different meats differently. 1 stick, 2 sticks or a broad stick. I assume it’s to hold and cook the different meats better, which… probably means they’re very proud of their craft. As they should be.

And after Ganchan we returned to our Inn. Very happy, very full.

Dammit I wish we had Ganchan again. T_T

First up, I apologise for the very slow blogging of me and Alanna’s trip in Japan. My defence is that she hasn’t even blogged about it yet. But then again, she’s flickr’ed. And I’ll refer to it every so often. I’ve got much less photos up here, but then again if a picture’s worth a thousand words, prepare for Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Or at least Atlas Shrugged?

We start on May 12th/13th, when we fly to Japan.

As we land in Narita Airport and on the subsequent train ride to Tokyo we pass foliage, stretches of padi fields, and 1 and 2 storey houses dotting the landscape, interspersed by the occasional billboard sign, I mention to Alanna that this really isn’t the Japan I had envisioned. Where’s the samurai, catgirls, ninjas or mecha?

After a LOT of luggage dragging (a very disheartening pale shadow of what is to come), we finally check into our first Toyoko Inn of the trip; Toyoko Asakusa Komagata. It’s still too early though, so we can’t get into our room yet, so we head off to Akihabara first.

It’s packed! Well, not as packed as we can see some parts of Japan later (especially in rush hour), but since this is like 2pm on a Monday, it’s still pretty darn busy. There was all the things that I was totally unused to seeing, like people handing out pamphlets for AV shops, or a bazillion different maids giving out pamphlets for their respective cafes.

There was even a veritable horde of girls in maid outfits bua-long-longing down the street! Unthinkable! Too bad maid costumes don’t exactly do it for me. =p

Somewhere around this point Alanna asks me if this is the Japan I had envisioned. And while the bustle of people conjures up that lost-in-translation (for those who have watched the movie) feeling, I’m still sorely lacking in the catgirl, ninja, samurai and mecha department, and tell Alanna so.

She gives me the =_= look.

I have to admit though that Akihabara really is the mecca for geeks. Even if you take away all the hentai and ecchi or electronic stuff that it’s kind of labelled with (in an outsider’s eyes) and that probably takes over 90% of Akihabara, there’s still enough for me to go gaga over. Floors and floors of gatchapon shops! Miniature accessories! (Doll bits for Alanna and horrendemously cheap- compared to Singapore- miniature things I’ve been looking for.)

It’s weird. They can attach anything to an anime and sell it. And people will buy it! Now I know why Megatokyo starts in Gamers in Akihabara (see photo). It’s where geeks like him would want to go to when they die.

We even see a dry run for the Sanja Matsuri here, but enough about Akihabara. I’ll talk about that during the real Sanja Matsuri. We check into the inn- for real this time- and then go out to have dinner in some of the surrounding food places. It’s nice to know that while Asakusa is relatively out of the way, we’re quite near to two or three good food places (mentioned in travel guide good).

This is Namiki Yakisoba in Asakusa.

And this is what I had! It’s cold soba with mountain yam, and to be honest, I don’t know where the yam is. I sincerely hope that the weird gummy mucus-like sauce that they ladle on it is the yam, because if it wasn’t, I really don’t want to know what it was. >.< In spite of that, I would like to assure you that it’s the best soba I’ve ever had. Alanna couldn’t get past the gummy texture of the sauce and much preferred hers (see her flickr), but I loved mine. It was savoury, the noodles had a wonderful WONDERFUL texture, and even though I got the runs for a few days after that, it was STILL the best soba I’ve ever had.

In their defence, I don’t know why I got the runs the next few days. It wasn’t very bad, just mildy annoying. It all got better after 2 charcoal pills. And I’d still go back there for their Soba. I miiiight not take the same dish though.

We head back to the inn to crash. Only one more thing to talk about. The receptionist counter was at that moment womanned by a lady we referred to in the rest of our stay there as ‘the dragon lady’. She didn’t speak English and always seemed annoyed when we spoke to her in English. Even when Toyoko Inn is supposed to be English speaking. But we don’t know when or where breakfast was served! So I pick up my courage and go:

“Errr… Breakfast…. doko?”

She has the ‘orrrh’ face and points to the lobby area and says ‘kore’ which I (rightly assume) means here.

JAPLISH FTW!

Your results:
You are Wash (Ship Pilot)

Wash (Ship Pilot) 65% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 65% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 65% Alliance 45% Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 40% Inara Serra (Companion) 40% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 35% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 35% Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 30% River (Stowaway) 30% A Reaver (Cannibal) 5%

You are a pilot with a good if not silly sense of humor. You take pride in your collection of toys. You love your significant other.

Click here to take the Serenity Personality Quiz

Hunh. Three way tie between the 3 people I think I’m most like. Go figure.

From alanna and alvin…. these aren’t REALLY my top 10, cos some of them got taken already >.> I’m trying to make the easy ones at least… not so easy. Hope not too hard though.

1) Space opera, fugitive, subliminal message, heroine, unrequited love
2) Part of trilogy, castaway, sword fight, monkey, blockbuster
3) Teenage boy, agility, guilt, hate, wisecrack humor
4) Prostitution, tenement, gang violence, knife fight, loss of father
5) Black hole, holographic map, mutiny, cyborg, planet
6) Katana, violent movie, antihero, flashback sequence, duel
7) Dystopian, fisticuffs, bombing, insomnia, cult favourite
8 ) True love, tragedy, told in flashback, terminal illness, turn of the century (just so I could alliterate)
9) Psycho thriller, black detective, serial killer, pride, digits in title
10) Alien, experiment, redemption, little girl, animation