Gametable Tests and Multiplay Scheduling

The cool lava looks a little bright to me... but that's just me.

Oh and gametable this week for me is out. Perhaps you three should continue on the adventure? I won't be able to make too many gametables, unless I can do them on saturday night. Which just happens to be tonight.

So I'll pop in again... some time later.

Sorry guys.

Hmmm...I might have to work on that lava a bit more, then. Danke.

Also, even though I probably have better things to do, I took a break from writing down notes for all of Corwin's trade transactions and hammering up a few more things for our Gametable goodness. Rest assured, SEAMUS, the end of the tunnel that is Corwin's brief days as a seafaring trader is in sight. Hang in there.


Want some wishes? Run west into Lebeq Prime (or one of those other nice, sandy, quasi-Arabian or quasi-Persian or quasi-Turkish lands) and find one of these guys...the older, the better. Don't expect them to just hand over the goods, though; there's usually some test or quest involved. Ya gotta impress these hoary old otherworldly beings before they pony up for your little heart's desires, don'tcha know?

Hellspawned outsiders native to the Abyss, demons--or Tanar'ri, as they refer to themselves and as other Outsiders refer to them--are extraplanar embodiments of chaos, wickedness and ruin. The only thing which can be predicted about demons is that they cannot truly be predicted, and while some demonic breeds are fearsome engines of destruction, others can be equally malevolent and ruinous through mastery of guile, subterfuge, temptation and manipulation; though fierce and powerful if cornered by blade or by spell, many demons greatly prefer to avoid battle, embrace subtler arts and make games of leading mortals down a dark path to despair, damnation or self-destruction. Some seasoned mages will go to great lengths to summon and bind demons to their service, but even when bound, demons are never to be considered completely safe, and they are never to be trusted.

Oooooh, preeety.....

Wraith wrote:

Oooooh, preeety.....

It's the mariliths, isn't it?

Yeah, six-armed half-serpent demon women always succeed in bringing the sexiness. You should see how many marilith pics on the internet feature topless mariliths without any strategically placed arms or swords to cover up the jumblies; I actually had to turn down a few of those, just because the three pics above were prettier (well, that second marilith--from a pic where she's trying to slice up Drizzt Do'Urden, no less--is less "pretty" and more "bad-ass"). Apparently mariliths are the new succubi.

For that matter, why is it that I could scarcely manage to Google up any pictures of quasits or vrocks or glabrezu, yet I could find mariliths and succubi by the hundreds? On second thought, I'm pretty sure that we can all guess the answer to that one, right?

Next up: Devils, where we'll see how many hits I get when I Google up "erinyes". Stay tuned....

Hailing from the Infernal plane Baator, devils (most of them from Infernal families known as Baatezu among planewalkers and outsiders) are the living embodiments of domination, tyranny, oppression and torment. Their Hell is governed by a rigid caste system in which authority derives not only from personal power but from political station. Contrary to what many mortals believe, devils and demons are not allies; rather, the two are bitter and grudge-bearing enemies who vehemently contend with each other as well as the benevolent outsiders for the destiny of the Prime Plane and all its inhabitants, and the enduring Blood War between the despotic Baator and the anarchic Tanar'ri stretches back farther than many of these Hellspawn can--or care to--remember.

Devils are a bit more predictable than demons are, and any devil typically maintains a degree of honor and honesty in their work. Many a tragically mistaken infernalist or diabolomancer has concluded from this that devils can be bound to a mage's will by a variety of arcane and cosmological laws, never conceiving that, rather than being slaves to the forces of the Law, devils are instead masters and manipulators of it, and more than one wizard has had the tables turned on him when his oathbound devil finds and exploits a loophole in their Infernal contract. The summoner's fate is usually quite bleak after that; devils take malicious delight in enslaving those to whom they were once enslaved, and payback can indeed be Hell.


And let me tell you: sometimes, I wish those pogs were larger, especially those normal-sized pogs for Medium-sized creatures. Because taking this much detail...






...and stuffing it into a 64x64-pixel square (which is an even less area after you omit the little gray ring and the four corners of the square outside it) is pretty bloody hard to do.

As for those dark-angel-like erinyes, the D&D 3.X Monster Manual likens them to the devils' version of incubi and succubi in their description ("Hey, look at my boobies! Wanna nibble? Okay, now I get to make a depraved sinner out of you! Come on, it'll be fun!" Yeah, I don't think the succubi need any help with that game, considering that they pretty much wrote the book on it. I think that book's titled Kama Sutra or 120 Days of Sodom or something. Friggin' demonic harlots...).

But, considering that devils tend to do more high-handed commanding than underhanded enticing ("Ask your insignificant questions, worm, and be quick about it!"), I prefer to hold the erinyes to their roles in classic Greek mythology (where they're better known by their less ancient Roman name, the Furies), where they function more as fallen angels of judgement, devils of vengeance and Chthonic tormentors. And apparently a lot of erinyes pics on the internet agree with me. Do something particularly bad and an erinyes might just pay you a visit; maybe she'll cut you a deal, maybe she'll share wine with you while she figures out a surefire way to goad you into completely dooming yourself, or maybe she'll just chain you up and flog you silly, depending on circumstances. They can get a bit carried away on that whole punishment-and-castigation thing....

And I do still have that customized erinyes with that big, magical, Infernal trumpet waiting in the wings. Give her a chance to jump in somewhere, will you?

(Also, it's pronounced "ih-RIN-ee-eez". I looked it up. The singular form's the same as the plural form, too. )

While I'm on that vein of thought, okay...remember the Greek myth where someone murdered Agamemnon, and Apollo took Agamemnon's son Orestes aside and told him to hunt down and kill Agamemnon's murderer? So it turned out that the person who killed Orestes' Dad was his Mom, Clytemnestra. So Orestes stuck a knife in her and killed her, thus fulfilling his oath to Apollo and avenging his father's death.

Meanwhile, down in Hell or Tartarus or the Underworld or whatever, the three Erinyes watched Orestes kill Clytemnestra. They didn't know the whole story; all they saw was a guy stabbing his own mother to death. So the Erinyes said "It's go time", slammed down some Powerade, threw open the gate to Hell, went topside, hunted Orestes down and jumped up his crack bigtime. We're talking about chasing him all over Hell's half-acre, clawing his back to ribbons, sticking torches in his face, flogging him with venomous snakes, spraying lemon juice in his eyes, choking him, chokeslamming him through a dozen card tables, throwing his car keys off a cliff, rolling his car into a lava flow, pulling his hair while the other two Erinyes took turns kicking him in the jimmies...that sort of mess. Brutal. Those devil chicks did not play games.


(Yeah, don't look at me. I guess everyone pretty much ran around naked back in ancient Greece. Mario and Martino Prada--and fashion industry moguls in general--would go positively loonie-tunes from having absolutely nothing to do if you timewarped them back to yon days of yore. But I digress.)

So Apollo finally got the memo which said "Hey, Orestes completed his mission and now the Erinyes are slapping him stupid all over the Mediterranean, come quick!" So Apollo told Athena, "Yo, go clean up that mess." And Athena came down from Olympus and told the Erinyes to back off. And they did. Because nobody tangles with Athena. Nobody.

Except for maybe Kratos.