Edge of the Empire – A New Saga Begins – Beginner Game Unboxing and Review

Just over a year ago Fantasy Flight Games announced that it acquired the Star Wars license that WotC had passed on previously, ending it’s critically successful Star Wars Saga roleplaying game. With that announcement came the news of two new games, the Star Wars Living Card game and the X-Wing miniatures game. Back then I thought to myself: this license must be crazy expensive, surely they’re gonna capitalize as much as they can and release a roleplaying game as well. Come GenCon 2012 and Christian T. Petersen announces the Edge of the Empire roleplaying game, with an imminent Beta to come in a limited softcover format. I got the beta as soon as I could (it took some time to get to the UK), and was excited at the prospect of playing. What I found was a 220 page rulebook full of crunch and nothing else (ed. note – crunch = rules). I dove in bravely but found the rulebook quite daunting. It had separate rules for regular combat and vehicular combat, various item stats, force powers, talent trees – the game was huge. It looked as complex as DnD but with a slightly more narrative driven focus. That, lack of time, and constant errata made me make a decision I wasn’t very keen on – I had to put off playing Star Wars.

Till now! Enter the newly released Star Wars Edge of the Empire Beginner Game, an entry level product designed for novice roleplayers and people new to the system. So what’s inside? Well, let’s have a look in my unboxing video.

I’m going to try and refrain from making this into a review of the beta and try and focus on the beginner game. All I’ll say about the core game is that I’m not entirely sure what I think about it in general. My feelings are definitely positive, but it’s hard to define where this game fits yet. As for the beginner game, I am almost sold. I say almost because I haven’t finished exploring the main rulebook yet (the basic rules are explained in the intro adventure – enough to run your first session). The game has a lot of promise but minor issues do crop up here and there. The first being the quality of the contents. Aside from the box itself, the quality isn’t really bad, but I feel like a comparison to similar products might shine a brighter light on the matter. The recommended retail price of the package is £24.99 (29.95$ for my American readers). This is right in between the Red Box which retails at £16.99 and the Pathfinder Beginner box which retails at £29.99. Content wise, it is almost the equivalent of the Red Box – you get a map, some character sheets, two booklets, a sheet of tokens and some dice. Overall you get more dice than in the Red Box and the character sheets are vastly superior, but it is no comparison to the amount of stuff you get in the Pathfinder equivalent (an erasable battlemat and a 90 page rulebook with character creation and rules up to level 5). So looking at the content to price ratio, Edge of the Empire seems to be the more expensive one – however, it must be said that some of that definitely goes to cover the Star Wars licensing fees, and the price is still very reasonable. The second problem is that there are no rules for character creation. This is a major selling point for some people, and those who love to dabble with characters will either have to get their hands on the beta, or wait for the release of the core rulebook.

The core of the game (same as in the beta) revolves around the dice mechanics. As I’ve mentioned in the video, there are 7 different kinds of dice. Ability dice (green d8) represent your basic skill and generate success and advantage. They can be upgraded to proficiency dice (yellow d12) which have better success and advantage results, and can also produce a Triumph – a sort of critical success. These are rolled simultaneously with difficulty dice (purple d8) which generate failures and threat, results that cancel out successes and advantages respectively. They can be upgraded to challenge dice (red d12), which have greater amounts of failures and threat and can also produce a despair result (a sort of crit failure). Ok. Still with me? So what ends up happening is you roll a bunch of dice and you’ll get various degrees of success and failure. For example, you could succeed at a task but generate threat, which nets you a success but with a negative side-effect. You hit the stormtrooper that was chasing you down a corridor with your blaster pistol but it overheated and became unusable for a round for example. You could also fail, but with an advantage, and so on and on and on. After our playthrough of the beginner adventure my friends commented that the dice mechanic makes it feel very much like Star Wars. Most of the time, even if you succeed – you never get away scot free, which is very much in line with the feel of the galaxy far far away.

Edge of the Empire focuses on the scum and villainy aspect of Star Wars. It’s set within the original trilogy (post Battle of Yaving I believe). The beginner adventure carries that feel across very well. There’s an evil Hutt crimelord hot on our trail, we’re in the dusty streets of Mos Shuuta, Tatooine, there are bounty hunters on our trail and eventually we even get to nab a YT-1300. What I liked about the way the beginner adventure is written, is how it allowed everyone to learn the rules of the game as the adventure progressed. It eliminated the need to just do a massive rules info-dump and allowed them to develop naturally as an extension of the game. Which was great when it worked, but it didn’t always. The rules for Critical Injuries are very vague and even after we consulted the main rulebook we felt a little baffled. Also, the rules for vehicle combat are severely lacking in detail and raised more questions than answers. But these are minor quibbles. After all, Edge of the Empire is meant to be a narrative game and the rules are only a crutch.

One of the best parts were the character sheets. These were done much like the Pathfinder character folios, but with leveling up in mind. The sheet explains everything that players can do during their turn, and after they complete the first half of the adventure they are given some xp and allowed to spend it on new talents or skills. We encountered one minor error in our playthrough, 41-VEX, the droid characater is able to upgrade his Ranged (Light) skill which should upgrade his dice when firing a blaster and throwing a grenade, however the upgrade on the grenade part isn’t accounted for. It’s a minor oversight and won’t affect the game much, and I don’t think I’ve encountered an error-free roleplaying game yet, so this is not a surprise really, more of an FIY to future players of 41-VEX.

After you’re done playing an intro adventure, there’s a link to a much bigger adventure in PDF format. There are also two extra characters giving players some variety of choice and creates the possibility of accommodating a larger game. You can find these resources by going on the Fantasy Flight Games webpage.

One of my favorite parts of the box has to be the map, specifically the YT-1300 interior side, which I can see myself using over and over again in many games to come. It really sparked the imagination of my players and made me really glad  I got the box.

The gameplay itself felt smooth and the innovative dice mechanics forced us to think outside of the box narrative wise. As a GM, I felt like I needed to provide a good amount of description behind every dice roll, which meant that the game was always full of detail – definitely a good thing in my book. Most importantly, it felt very much like we were having a Star Wars adventure and my players looked like they were having fun. So the game was definitely a hit. My only concern is the amount of structure within rules – it is definitely rules-heavy. Thankfully, the gameplay can easily adapt to the style of every group and the focus can easily shift towards narrative. I’d also like to note that the mere fact that the Beginner Game exists says that FFG want this game to be big. DnD big. And I think it’s well on the way to be just that.

Loremaster’s Screen and the Lake-Town Sourcebook Review

The One Ring roleplaying game is currently in my list of favorite games. I’ve recently ran a mini campaign in my FLGS, Chaos City Comics to a lot of success and after the current season of DnD Encounters is complete we are looking to possibly resume it. What I really like about The One Ring is that, in essence, it is a narrative driven game, but provides a few rules for character customization and advancement to make it interesting to those of us who still like to spend countless hours slaying monsters in dungeons. Loremaster’s Screen and the Lake-Town Sourcebook is a double packaged product that provides exactly what it says on the tin.

The game isn’t without it’s faults (but what game is?). And it might seem strange to release two diverse products packaged into one. What if I don’t want the screen? Or I’m not that bothered about the sourcebook? Well, to be honest, both are  needed. As someone who’s run the game before, having these in my hands feels kind of like a relief. For one, The One Ring is a narrative heavy game but within itself doesn’t include a lot of information on how to build narratives for GMs. Yes, the Loremaster’s Book has some general information on locales, movers and shakers and the world history. But when it comes to specifics the game is lacking. There are many locations within the world like Dale, Woodland Hall or Esgaroth, the Lake-Town itself, but none are thoroughly detailed. Whilst this is really not a problem for someone who’s heavy on Tolkien lore, I myself know very little in comparison. I’ve seen the films, I’ve read the books a few times (ages ago), and I stared at the Silmarillion very hard in hopes of penetrating it with my mind. Still I found myself clearly in need of information about the inner workings of locales. It’s not a detrimental problem as all it takes is a bit of creativity on one’s part. But sometimes it’s just nice to open up a book and let it do all the hard work for you.

And this is exactly what the Lake-Town Sourcebook does. And then some. We get a lovely detailed map of the city, with various locations marked on the map with numbers. Those numbers are then referenced within the text, describing the places of interest. The descriptions themselves provide pretty much what you would expect, some detail on the visuals and information on various NPCs that you might find and relevant mini stat blocks with a few skills per character type. The book then proceeds to offer various other little fixes to the game. The one thing my players were always confused about was treasure. The problem for them was not only that it wasn’t tangible (it’s literally just measured in points of treasure), but that there wasn’t that much to do with it. I understand why it’s been written like that. The focus of the game shouldn’t be on monetary gain. The type of characters played in The One Ring are all bold heroes that put material wealth behind them. But I would argue though that it would need to be either removed altogether or given some purpose. To my delight, there’s not only a system that converts treasure points into a form of currency, but also provides new fellowship phase undertakings (for those unfamiliar with the fellowship phase, it’s meant to represent downtime between adventures and allows you to improve your character) that enables you to spend the treasure within the market to purchase items that improve certain skills, which have otherwise been very difficult to improve.

The sourcebook isn’t all patches though. For such a small book there’s a wealth of material and exciting additions to the game. First of all we get a new culture, The Men of the Lake, which itself is a derivative of the Bardings. There’s also cultural rewards and virtues to accompany the new ‘race’, providing some neat abilities for various types of characters. We also get some information on the Day of the Black Arrow, an archery event meant to honor Bard the Dragonslayer. A chunk of the book is devoted to this event and rules are presented on how to GM this specific archery competition with various skill challenges. A fellowship undertaking of herb gathering in the marshes will allow access to various herbs described in the book, with potential bonuses that aid the party. For the adventurers who like to stray too far into the marshes three new monsters appearing in the booklet might pose a big threat, including a hulking Marsh-ogre, who’s mangle ability allows him to hit twice. The book is finished off with a sample player character belonging to the new culture, and a blank character sheet with the Lake-men specifics pre-filled.

The screen is beautiful. That’s it. It’s just gorgeous.

Oh, that’s not enough you say? What’s behind the screen you say? Well, EVERYTHING. Everything is behind the screen. Every little rule thing that you couldn’t remember before is there.  From healing, to roleplaying, to monster abilites, to corruption tests. Rules for combat. It’s all there. I can see this screen simply becoming invaluable. I have a love-hate relationship with them as I hate having a barrier between me and my players. But this is just so useful, barriers-be-damned. The quality of the manufacturing is great; the cardboard is possibly the sturdiest I’ve encountered in a screen.

Overall, I’m very pleased with the product because it addresses all the little issues that have been nagging me since I started GMing The One Ring. This is clear evidence that the people at Cubicle 7 listen to their players’ concerns and provide answers. Which is all anyone could ask for from a games publishing company. I can’t wait to find out what’s in store for The One Ring in the future and highly recommend the Loremaster’s Screen and Lake-Town Sourcebook.

p.s. To those of you who do own the game (or are looking at owning it), here are a few handy links that you might have not yet discovered.

If you GMed this game before, you know that the index isn’t quite up to scratch. Here’s an updated index from the developer’s website – Index (right-click to save)

The rules for journeys have been revised and now work much better. If you haven’t yet, check out the new journey rules – Journeys revised (right-click to save)

There’s a thread on the Cubicle 7 forum that combines a lot of useful information + fan made content. Definitely worth checking out.

Australia in Space, or My Report of Durance

When I say Australia, I don’t mean the semi-successful Baz Lurhmann musical featuring Nicole Kidman and Wolverine, I mean actual Australia. Or the act of colonizing it to be precise. This is what Durance, the new indie role-playing game from Jason Morningstar, is all about. Here’s the premise: the future has too many delinquents. They aren’t bad enough to murder, but too irredeemable to reprogram. So the government has a genius idea of putting them all on a ship and sending them to some far flung planet in order to settle it and, hopefully, in the future it will generate profit. As all government plans, it’s executed badly and people on the colony face starvation and other difficulties.

If you’ve read my previous post, you know that I’ve facilitated this game at Indie Con 2012. I’ve done it with minimal preparation – the plan to run it came together only the day before. I’ve read the rulebook once, and whilst it seemed like I had a pretty good grasp on the concept and rules, I was still a little unsure of how it would all play out (if at all). But this is a general feeling I get with all indie games, and they always work out so I worried needlessly. Here’s what it’s all about.

You start by completing a planetary survey and a colony record. Passing a leaflet around you mark things that you think are true or false about the planet and colony, then you pick a unifying drive, such as status or control, for example. You create a list of notables, characters representing the social strata of the power-ladders for Authority and Convicts and give them oaths, things that they swear to never ever do. Then everyone spends some time fleshing out the details and voila, you have yourself a planet, a colony and some characters, all ready to participate in a story that is played out in scenes, much like Fiasco. The difference though is that one player is always the guide, and his notables mostly don’t participate in scenes (a rotating role). Instead, she asks a formulated question that should help other players decide what the scene is about, what notables participate, and how the oaths might be pushed towards a breaking point. Whenever there is uncertainty in the scene, some dice are rolled to determine which drives take precedence and the scene is played out accordingly. It’s all very clever but I kind of don’t really want to get into the mechanics, they’re there, in the book. If you wanna find out more – go and get it. It’s great.

I really want to talk about my personal experience of playing the game, expectations, outcomes, etc. So, when you hear the phrase ‘the new Jason Morningstar game’, you instantly think: the new Fiasco!, right? Well, as you’re reading the book, you quickly realize that that simply isn’t the case. It has similarities yes. In both games you spend some time creating an ensemble of characters and then play out scenes to determine their fate. That’s about as close as it gets though. Whilst Fiasco has a unifying theme of corrupt characters, it’s genres are broad and settings nearly limitless. Durance is what it is, space colonization with convicts.

My other three players weren’t familiar with Durance at all. I explained the rules for the setup and off we went creating our planet and colony. The book said it would take about fifteen minutes. The book lied. It took us over an hour. Yup. Over an hour. Which is great really. And I imagine that the setup time decreases as you become more accustomed to the game. We’ve ended up with an oil rich planet that ‘changes’ you if you spend too much time outside of the colony. The base itself was a strictly regimented authoritative nightmare that focused solely on expansion and food production was non-existent. Our Governor was a man who didn’t tolerate incompetence and the Dimber Damber, the dismissively named shadow criminal overlord, was deliberately slowing down all production. And the colony was naturally driven by control.

The game itself mechanically is all about breaking oaths. As soon as a number of them equal to the number of players are broken, the game ends. And as soon as one is broken, the dynamics of the planet/colony/status/drives changes. The governor was the first to fall. After numerous incidents he stormed out to arrest the Dimber Damber only to find out that he couldn’t even do that. He tolerated his own incompetence long enough. He broke his oath. The colony fell under corrupt criminal control. Whatever was ‘out there’, started to seem much better. People started to leave. At the end of the game, most of the colony escaped, and the last scene was between the Dimber Damber’s lieutenant and the leader of the bolters, the mutated men and women who have adapted to the environment and became ‘something else’.

Because players always get to establish what the scene is about before it begins, there was always a heavy amount of discussion. We usually dismissed the first idea that came to the table. The instinct was to dig deeper, find something a little more interesting. Whereas Fiasco games are ‘Yes, and’, this was more ‘No, but how about’. And then ‘no’ was usually targeted at self. As in, no, I can think of something better. Which is actually something I prefer I think. The gonzo aspect was almost non-existent. Instead we had hard-hitting drama in a tough environment. You can usually tell a good game apart in the convention by how much cheering and laughter there is. Ours must have looked like the dullest of them all. But we, the players, knew better. We were experiencing a gritty story and it had us captivated.

Every scene usually ended up as a confrontation in dialogue between two characters. It would reach a certain point when we didn’t know which character should give in. We then rolled for Uncertainty (a game mechanic meant to move the game along and suggest options), and proceeded accordingly. If at any point two of the dice return with the same result, an event happens. Strangely enough, every time it happened in our game, the event was ridiculously apt for the current situation. I guess it was partly luck but probably some clever design techniques were involved in writing those events.

The game ended fairly soon. I’d say the total playtime was around three and a half hours. I think we were conscious of the fact that we had a limited time slot and all pushed for a slightly quicker game, resolving character arcs fairly quickly. In fact, two of the oaths were broken in a single scene. A lag (convict) broke her oath of never trusting again when she was trying to escape the colony into the wilderness and encountered an unsure marine perimeter guard, who decided to break his oath of never going ‘out there’ and left together with her. Quickly the last scene followed, giving us a glimpse of the life outside and letting us know that the colony would never be the same again. And then the game just ended. We decided to narrate a little followup on all our notables, talking about their fates. And now I just want to find out what the next story is. What will our next planet be like? How will the power dynamics shift? Durance has me captivated and I simply want more.

Indie Con 2012 report.

This was my second time. That is to say, I was no Indie virgin. So I kind of knew what I was doing, what games to look out for. It was good to wave hello to people I’ve met last year and to meet new ones as well. It was good to be back.

Indie con is a hard sell to people who haven’t been to it or don’t know much about indie role playing games. The term ‘indie’ is easy to dismiss, as in they are games that weren’t good enough for major publishers. I won’t try and convince you otherwise. I’ll just say that I’ve had the best weekend this year and played some of the best games to date.

This year it wasn’t just me and Elaine, we took some cohorts with us to share a lodge. The convention worked out at 60 pounds per person with pretty neat accommodation included for four nights and a total of  10 gaming slots ( I only went to 6 and was pretty shattered afterwards (yes, gaming can be knackering especially if you forgo sleep in favor of preparation for GMing)). Aside from Elaine, my other lodgemates were new to Indie con and all of them attested to having a great experience.

It’s hard to single out any game I’ve played/GMed/facilitated as the best one, so I’ll try and briefly talk about each of them. I kicked the con off with Jaws of the Six Serpents, a sword and sorcery style setting governed by a FATE-like system where a character sheet consists of a number of vague descriptors and invoking them in role play allows you to add bonuses to dice rolls. It was fairly straightforward, and a good cast of players plus a  more than competent GM meant that we were well on our way to an amazing game. I checked out the core book later and it quickly went on my shopping list, although I found the art somewhat lacking. Not that aesthetics are really important, but some inspirational artwork can go a long way.

Next I GMed a World of Darkness adventure, which went quite well, but as far as I’m concerned it’s old news so we’re  moving straight on to Fiasco, and specifically the October play set of the month – Back to the Old House, written by Sean Buckley from Leisure Games. I decided to take the observers seat on that one and simply facilitated the game by clarifying rules to first-time players and asking a question or two to move the plot along. It was a joy to watch, the game played out like no other Fiasco game I’ve seen before. Whilst the play set certainly delivers for those who are looking for gonzo, the players went for a more low-key approach and before I knew it, a great Stephen King style story emerged, with a poignant and heartfelt ending.

Afterwards I found myself on a table with a demo of the now revamped 6d6 system and a campaign setting titled 6d6 Hellenic. I’ve played the older version of 6d6 and wasn’t really taken by it, although to be fair, I am not really a fan of generic systems. The new version is definitely and improvement but I still think the game is lacking. It simply didn’t feel finished, many aspects were lacking necessary polish. Kudos to the guys who wrote the Hellenic setting, James and Mark Foster. They’ve certainly done their research and it felt like the world building was carefully executed. The new version has now been fully funded on Kickstarter and I’m really happy for the publishers – my only hope is that the game sees some much needed revision before it hits the printers.

And then I had a chance to play Durance – the new Jason Morningstar (acclaimed Fiasco developer) game of space colonisation gone wrong. This kickstarter funded game has a lot of things going for it. I want to analyse the game thoroughly in a proper review so all I’m going to say is that if you’re expecting another Fiasco – you’re not gonna get it. And the game is all better for it. Durance provides a deep, low-key drama experience with some clever development techniques.

My last game was a yet to be published Sci-Fi Beta Kappa. The premise is simple: you are Alien students trapped in a lousy university on Earth, or Terra, and all you wanna do is throw a crazy party of epic proportions. This is pretty much National Lampoon’s with extra-terrestrials. The game is very gonzo and has an interesting ‘never fail at anything’ mechanic, allowing for the most improbable to come true. Our game, for example, featured, amongst other crazy things, six pink painted elephants pulling the dean’s car as a sleigh whilst we slew a sacrificial x-mas dinner (university mascot and last eagle on earth). I felt like a GM was an unnecessary element and the writer was nice enough to hear out my criticism and promised to send me a copy of the game document so I could try out a GMless variant.

The ones that got away: I really wanted to play Hillfolk, the new drama focused game from Robin D. Laws. Unfortunately, the game I signed up for was cancelled. I also never got a chance to play Microscope, which was a big hit at the convention. My lodgemates also highly enjoyed Dead of Night, Icons, Tenra Bansho Zero and Squadron UK. I’m sure I’ll get a chance to play them on my trip next year. See you there.

DnD Next Playtest – thoughts and observations

Like most, I was worried. I mean, it’s the new edition. It could swing either way on the terrible-amazing pendulum. And much of anyone’s opinion on the system lies on personal preference of course. The word is that the DnD community forums are rife with outrage, but I wasn’t willing to poke the hornet nest. Let me explain my own feelings on the matter.

First of all, I’d like to say that I’m easy. I don’t ‘rage’. Even now, I am sitting in an armchair and listening to smooth jazz. Am a generally relaxed person. And that’s the approach I brought in when I was reading the playtest. I will admit – I like it. There’s some things that still worry me – but I do like it.

The most attractive part in the new system for me is DM empowerment. What is this? Well, empowerment, in roleplaying, is a term that denotes who has a stronger command of the game, the players or the DM. In 4th edition, players held empowerment through a heavily structured system where rules answered most questions. Any time a DM made a decision, he could be challenged by a player stating that “that’s not what the rules say”, or “you can’t do that, that’s not in the rules.” DnD Next favors DM empowerment, presenting a less structured approach and letting the adjudicator be the decision maker. Some will hate this, I know. Some people will fear the return of killer DMs – if you have one, please stop playing with him – that’s not what roleplaying is about. I believe that roleplaying is a communal, social storytelling experience, where the players and DMs contribute equally and share a symbiotic relationship, coupled with the rules of a tabletop game. In this situation a DM is an adjudicator, but he is also a friend. He knows what he’s doing (hopefully) and he needs the subtle shift in power to make sure he can keep the game in check. A few times I had players that must have suffered some DM abuse – their mental scars were still showing. They would cry out, “that’s not fair, you’re gunning for my character.” I guess there will always be players like that, using that statement as their “Get out of a dungeon untouched and unscathed” card. I wonder how DnD Next will work out for them (sidenote: most of my players are not scarred by DM abuse and are cheerful outgoing people that like a challenge).

The character creation seems simple. Whilst we don’t have the rules for it, the pregen character sheets speak for themselves. I especially like how backgrounds and themes work. Backgrounds effectively give you skill training, whilst themes give your character a role. That way we end up with a Dwarf Cleric whose theme is a Defender. Why not? I imagine that will open up some pretty interesting character concepts. The only thing that worries me in character creation is healing and hit dice. Gone are the days of healing surges, mostly because HP and damage seem to be at the core of the game (rather than to hit bonuses). What I’m afraid of is structuring issues, but hey, the game isn’t supposed to be so structured. I know my thoughts are a bit scattered here, but it’s mostly because I haven’t had a chance to run a DnD Next game yet. I imagine I’ll have a better understanding of how healing works after I do (on Monday!)

Improvise is a type of action – gotta love it!

It is only when you start to read through the adventure that things start falling into place. There are encounters with 25+ monsters. There are ones with 40+!! How do you defeat that? You don’t. There is no combat situation where a group of 5 level 1 adventurers can survive this. You have to think outside the box.  The dungeon is alive, and ‘rooms’ can be influenced. You can set a trap and draw half the monsters out. You can stride in and demand to talk to the chief, seeking an alliance. You can start a fire and pick the monsters off one by one as they run out. The adventure is no longer shackled by the rigid structure of balanced encounter progression. DnD Next is your game – make it what you want it to be.

I won’t delve deeper into the rules. Why bother? Anyone can download them and read through them – and if you haven’t – you should! http://www.wizards.com/dnd/DnDNext.aspx

Introductory Post

Hello,

(It’s appropriate to say Hello first, right? I mean, it’s just not polite if you don’t). My name is Efka (I feel like I’ve done this already in the About section, but hey, again, it’s not really polite to not introduce yourself (oh look a double negative)). I like to overthink things (have you noticed?). I also really like DnD and with my experience in DnD I feel like I finally have enough to say to merit a blog. So here it is! Exciting? You bet it is. So what’s in this blog-a-magig, apart from this first post? Well not much at the moment, but I can tell you what to look forward to:

An adventure by yours truly and Elaine Bladukiene (my wife), titled The Bloodiest Chamber (sounds gruesome huh?)

A few Encounters to enrich your game

Play reports

Product previews (including early previews for the yet unreleased The Dungeon Survival Handbook and Dungeon Command: Sting of Lolth)

General musings on the game and helpful DM tips.

Analysis of my Home Campaign where the adventurers have been fighting the Elder Elemental Eye for 17 levels now.

So if the Blog Elves haven’t gotten to you yet, I hope you stick around for what’s bound to be the most amazing blog in the entire known and unknown muliverse, throughout all time and existence (ok maybe not but it’s gonna be pretty damn neat).