Thus, this is a simple comic depicting some stuff that happened at one of our dungeons and dragons sessions a couple months ago. We had boarded a boat (The Lonely Turtle) to take us along a river (the Winding Waters) a ways. The boat had many other characters on board, many of whom were strangers to one another. One was a saboteur! Kolm met Benson (the saboteur), and Zara met the giant turtle. My character spent most of this time fishing.

I drew it with pen, and colored it on the computer.

Inspiration from here. Token of Swan Boat info here. This drawing marks my first time doing watercolor over the pen/ink. I went a little overboard with the watercolor. I wasn’t careful enough, and it smeared the ink. And I wasn’t expecting the ink to smear so easily. Plus I didn’t have great lighting, and also I was sloppy. But it looks okay. I scanned it when it was still BW, too, and that one looks a lot cleaner.

(Note, the “tokens” are usually feathers. But I made this one a scroll depicting a token.) They found it in a treasure chest in a secret room. And the scroll was presented in this scrollcase.

I got that in India.

Here’s the first doodle I did with it.

It’s a guy in a boat, or something. It was basically just an exercise in testing the tablet pen’s sensitivity. It’s pretty sensitive! I just think I need to start off with a larger canvas. But, this drawing does not scream out “this was made on a computer!” does it? I don’t think it does.

Anyway! I am busy coloring a dungeons and dragons comic. It will be done by the 2010 Portland ‘zine symposium. I’ll collect it and some other drawings/comics together into a little ‘zine – Blue Skies Above Us #2.

(I’ll post a track listing when I get home.)

It’s 27 songs, 180mb. I did not change the album titles, for in case you want to look them up to obtain the full records. And I did not sort them. I’m more of a laissez faire mix kinda guy.

-download the mix-

About 9 years later I saw this same yard duty staff member working at the downtown Borders. I apologised to him for my past behavior. Junior high was probably the period in my life when I was at my most misguided and jerky. I tried to turn around after this incident.

Click for a legible version.

So:

-Bluhilda bequeathed a special garland to Zara. It’s a beautiful garland, made up of a variety of branches, full of leaves and life, and it contains 12 red berries that, when munched, restore 1hp each. Bluhilda also gave out 20 Stonegault Power Arrows from the Stonegault Power Tree. +1 to damage. Don’t forget to use these!

-The group, sans Johanna, walked off to the refreshing spring. They soon found themselves off balance, due to stepping onto a sea of pinecones. The pinecones were carried by thousands of buff ants. They carried you forward, some of you fell. Baldwin got stuck in the big hole on their ant mound. Folks stood around him, and tried to pull him up. But the weight was too great for the mound, and it caved. Then Dulcinea fell in to the hole. And Twinkle fell in, too, right on top of Zara’s face as she was doing something heroic (or did Twinkle jump in?). Kolm stuck his hand in a hole in the wall, and his arm got stuck. When he pulled it out it came with a mashed and gummed up boot-looking thing that turned out to be a sweet boot. Then he got the other. The Pinecone Boots of Antly Mobility. +3 on move silently.

-A song was played, a rope was tied, and shoulders were stepped on – you made it out. You went to the spring. It was a nice place. Some of you almost took a bath in the replenishing spring. But then you changed your minds and washed your faces instead. A female gnome, Chilandra Cogswell, was playing some flute music while sitting on a rock near the waterfall. She told Twinkle about how renowned his tunes were. And she informed him that he was ready to take his craft to the next level. She informed him of the quick route to a better life: stepping into a glowing cave (She plays a sweet melody on her flute, and the waterfall parts in the middle. Between the part you see a cave, glowing with a soft but bright golden glow. You can feel the warmth from it, like it’s a million wombs multiplied by 20 but condensed into the size of a cave.) and then, ya know, seeing what happens. Twinkle ran into the cave. A short bit later he popped up, unconscious, on a rock on the side of the pool of water. He was revived. The rest of the group put water in water containers. Some (Zara?) mixed it with her old water.

-Next, to the statue guy and Johanna. You arrived to discover Johanna tied to the statue guy (named Jonasphere), with 4 satyrs standing guard around her. You approached, they talked smack about you not leaving as quickly as they’d hoped. They were mad, and they would not be reasoned with. “We’re trashing this statue,” one told you. “But first we’re going to your face.” Zara tried to reason with them anyway, by going up and shaking one of their hands, and the satyr grappled her and brought a knife to her throat. Thus, a battle ensued. A satyr played a pan pipe, which caused Kolm to fall asleep. Cecil woke him up by biting his ear.

Arrows were flung, horns were smashed, stuff was stabbed, and the satyrs died. Oh, and Johanna freed herself during the battle.

The next logical thing to do was to perform the ritual to unpetrify Jonasphere. Zara drew a circle in the dirt with the staff of nugpick, then pricked herself and put the blood on his eyeballs, and then she knocked him on the head three times with the staff and said, “AWAKEN JONASPHERE! THE NUGS OF FAERUN NEED THINE PICKING SKILLS” except she said it in a sarcastic tone, and not, as I’d typed it, in all caps. Jonasphere awoke, and his petrified skin flaked off. He was a normal Elf again. But then! CRACK motherfucking Marslaakj ported onto the scene. He’d bound a part of himself into the statufied Jonasphere, so that if he was ever made real again Marslaakj would gate in and confront the jerks who helped out Jonasphere – which is you guys!

And then -CHA- the session ended.

The battle continued. One dire badger was already slain, its corpse floating away in the stream.

One badger was blind. Baldwin, Kolm, and Dulcinea (I think) infiltrated the nest of branches surrounding Bluhilda and were on the attack. Johanna, standing off to the side, was simultaneously conked on the head with an Acorn of Sleep AND overcome with a bout of narcolepsy. Thus, she fell asleep. Twinkle, still pissed at Bluhilda for being a treant, shot an arrow at her. The arrow hit Bluhilda – but since she’s really large and stuff she wasn’t hurt too much. Zara saw this and got really mad. She lunged at Twinkle and knocked him to the ground, pinning him in place. They then exchanged some words.

But our brave fighters on the front line fought on. The badgers did their best to rage out and stuff, but in the end they proved no match for our heroes. But as the last one fell, he gouged his claws into Bluhilda, drawing sap. The wound was substantial, and needed to be quickly staunched. Zara attempted to rip the pants off of Twinkle, so she could use the pants as a bandage, but Twinkle managed to roll out from under her grip. So, instead, Zara got a bunch of leaves and shoved those into the wound. And it worked! The wound was staunched.

Bluhilda then walked into the stream and found some relief. Zara dogged her every move, but Bluhilda, though thankful that you guys rescued her, displayed a bit of attitude. Bluhilda then headed back to Gormley via the path. You all decided to venture off toward the Blackburrow Ruins. And so you did that. And you forgot Johanna. But, then you remembered Johanna, and you went back and got her. She was still in a deep sleep. So she was carried or dragged or something. You got to the bramble bushes, with their four inch thorns. Twinkle played a chopping song, and you all chopped a little tunnel through the bushes. Johanna got entangled in some thorns, though, as you exited the bush. And there she stayed.

After emerging from the bushes, you saw some creatures up ahead on the path. They were circled around something, kicking and poking at an object. They saw you from far away, and stopped what they were doing to call you out. You saw that the object on the ground was the petrified statue guy who’s been ultra-planarily following Zara. The creatures, deemed Satyrs, accused you of bringing this foul object into the grove. They wanted you and the statue OUT. Baldwin successfully detected a bit of evil on it. So, what they said had truth to it. It was foul. Also, it had a nub of statue sticking out of its ear, and one of the satyrs grabbed this nub and ran off with it. The other three remained. But one of them head-butted the status and chipped a part of its arm off. Then Zara did some mad negotiating, and offered to take the statue from the woods once you all got back to Gormley and obtained the Staff of Nugpick. Her diplomatic efforts succeeded! The satyrs were like, “fine,” and then they ran off.

Zara then used her mad tracking skills (with Dulcinea in tow) to chase after the one satyr who ran off with that nubbin. She succeeded, and then she talked him into turning it over. He didn’t really know what he was doing with it anyway. He just took it as a precaution, in case shit had gone down over there. The nub had writing on it from the statue guy. It gave further instructions about – details about the ritual to perform with the Staff of Nugpick.

Meanwhile! Twinkle and Cecil ran into the cave at the Ruins of Blackburrow… and Twinkle fell into a hole. A moat, more like. Ten feet deep. But Cecil helped him up, to the other side. And the others came over, too.

Beyond the moat was a circular room. It had no other openings except the way you came in – but there was the outline of a big door on the far wall. The ceiling was made of dirt. The walls were covered in vague carvings that you figured out were depicting signs of reproduction and whatnot. In the middle of the room was an empty bird bath. A closer look at the walls revealed that a part of it told a story. The story was that when water from a refreshing-looking spring is dumped into the bird bath, the door will open. Then Twinkle poured some of his canteen water into it, and nothing happened. Then he got upset and stood atop it and peed into it. The room seemed to sense a disturbance, and some pieces of the ceiling fell down. Nothing major, though. (so you’re plan at this point is to head to the refreshing spring on the map and get that water.)

You left the cave, and decided to head back to Gormley while on the way to the spring. You left the statue by the ruins, and you left Johanna entangled in the thorns.

At Gormley’s, Zara said something poetic about the forest. Bluhilda enjoyed this poem. Gormley, true to his word, jabbed his pinkie finger deep into the ground and then snapped it off. Then Zara licked the sap that ran out of it….

The Staff is Nugpick was obtained!!

So, Lugoj’s minions defeated and the loot obtained, you regrouped. It had been weeks since you’d seen your beloved pal Twinkle. So there was much catching up. He had been searching for the Harp of Ages, and had come so close to finding it in Riverbend. But he’d arrived onto the scene too late – the harp had been plundered by mysterious thieves. Some folks, like this dunce kid with a gift for healing named Cecil, believed the plunderers to be followers of Count Strahd, from Castle Ravenloft. But others – like, everyone else in the village – think Cecil done got some head problems up in his melon, and that he wouldn’t know the Mark of Strahd from the Skidmark of Mal’Kalehbror. Only time will tell – because Twinkle unofficially adopted Cecil, and is using Cecil’s giant, malformed nose to stick to the scent.

You all trudged off toward Gormley’s Grove. While traveling, Zara taught her owl Otho how to fetch. What a smart owl!

Upon coming upon a giant’s old fork sticking out of the ground, you took a left. You caught sight of the grove. It looked large, and darkish. But a big ray of light broke through the clouds and shined into some middle area of the grove. Clouds of pollen were seen flowing out of the forest and into the evening sky. When you reached the border of the grove, you camped for the night.

At daybreak, you awoke. You entered the forest darkly, and saw the path meandering through the woods. The way was lit by will-o-wisps, but you paid them no heed. Zara shadowed the path from a few feet off of it. Johanna did the same (on the other side of the path), but while hiding and moving silently. She soon stumbled upon a gnarly tree. The group came over. You all talked to it for a while, but it did not talk back. It was not a treant. You noticed some shrooms at the base. Zara talked Baldwin into eating one of them. After eating one, he superpowered up and became larger, stronger, faster, and he had ultravision. He was more vulnerable, though, because he removed his armor as he grew in size. With his psychedelic vision, he spotted in the tree a nest. Zara attempted to get Otho to check out the contents, but all he brought down was a twig. Johanna was not convinced that the nest only contained twigs. So she climbed up to check it out. She discovered that the nest contained bright green acorns. Most unusual! She threw one down to Cecil, and Cecil failed to catch it. It hit the ground and exploded. Acorn grenades! (DM’s note: this should have actually blown Cecil’s hand off… but I wussed out.) At this point – correct me if I am wrong – Johanna bagged all the acorns, and told everyone that there weren’t any more… I feel like I am getting this wrong. Like, I thought she failed her bluff check.

At any rate, you got back on the path and continued onward. You encountered a mama bear eating honey, with two cubs nearby, playing in a stream. Wisely, you choose not to disrupt them. You went around. Next, you came across a fork in the path, with a foot bridge to the left and a pond nearby. The pond contained no magic. And beyond the foot bridge you spotted a bright spot in the woods. Reckoning it to be Gormley’s spot, you went thataway.

The light was casting down through an opening in the trees. The spot was grassy, and there were some fruit trees. And, there was Gormley the Treant! Zara stepped forth and plead her case. She offered him a deer tchotchke in exchange for his finger. He was intrigued, but soon revealed that he needed not fake animals… but real animals. He asked her to bring him a squirrel or two… actually, here’s Gormley’s dialog for this part:

“Honestly, I yearn for more companionship. It’s been a while since I felt the activity of freshly-hatched chicklets nesting in my neckbeard, heard their chirpings as they said, in their bird-language, ‘feed me!’ Felt a squirrel burrowing a hole in my side, building a fine house in me, raising a family in it.” He sighs, longingly.

“Can you help me get that? Can you, like, convince a squirrel to chill on my trunk for a time? Can you build me a sweet bird house that I can hang from my bow?”

“Alas,” He continues, sighing humongously, “Doing that would not be enough. This is, unfortunately, a tainted grove. I fear I have an idea of why the plants are so uneasy; why they shed their pollen with such gusto, choking this grove, making the ground all mushy and gross in places. The trees, the animals – they are unhappy here. And I think it is my fault. You see, I once had all the companionship I could ever ask for. And at that time this place flourished. I yearned not for squirrels and birds and the like. Flowers bloomed beautifully, birds sang sweetly, animals mated robustly. The grove was in a state of harmony. Her name was Bluhilda, and she was my wife…” A wad of sap runs down from his eye. “To make a long story short, she was, at times, super critical of me – trim your neckbeard, stop picking those nugs, drink more water, it’s good for you, etc and so on. And then finally one day I was like, enough already. Just love me for who I am! Why do I need to change these things for you; it’s not like you’re perfect! And so on. And she got angry. Her glare would have petrified balsa wood. In her anger at me for saying this, she stormed off. But it was a foul night, that night, and evil had encroached into the grove, lurking on the outskirts – Evil Badgers! As she approached the rim of the grove, intending to do a lap or two around it in order to work out her rage, she was, let’s say, occupied by these dire beasts. They burrowed into her, and they won’t come out! These badgers are horrid creatures – they’ve weakened her so. They stripped off many of her branches, and used them and others from the forest outskirts to build a protective wall around her. And they’ve had her trapped ever since. My attempts at ridding them have failed. So, please, if you can, defeat those evil badgers. Reunite me with my woman! Restore the balance of Gormley Grove. Then I would be down with awarding you the Staff of Nugpick, and then may it serve you well.”

“To help you on your journey, I’ll give you this. A little while ago a strange ranger visited me and, while here, surveyed the grove. I can’t say it’s the best representation of the grove (he was more enthusiastic than competent), but anyway, here it the map he made.” His branchy arm drops down, and with the Staff of Nugpick he picks a piece of bark off of his trunk. He drops it at the base of his trunk.

And here’s the map. Click for bigger.

So, Zara, and everyone else (even JoeMar, who fell asleep during this), agrees that this is a-ok.

But also, I should mention that Twinkle has expressed a profound hatred of treants. He hates them, and he’s very open about it.

Anyway, with the map as your guide you head along the path. You stop by the elders. They are having an orgy, naturally, and aren’t too into conversing. They give you some info about the Blackburrow ruins. But it’s not much.

Finally, you make it to the area with the dire badgers. The badgers – I forgot to mention – had been trained by beavers! And that’s why they, like, built a damn. ahem. You approached. And then Twinkle loudly said something about how treants are stupid. This awoke the (unbeknownst to you) sleeping badgers. They were within the wall, but as Twinkle went in for a closer look, a third badgers pounced on him from behind and attacked!

Thus, a fight started. You killed the one outside, and you rammed into the wall a bunch and broke a hole in it. Johanna lit the wall on fire with an acorn grenade. And this is where we stopped. Until next time!

This was a drawing made for I Love Meat Tube.

A lot of my inspiration for stories comes from my experiences playing Everquest. I had a friend named Lugoj; the Reckless Efreeti in Solusek A was badass; the Butcherblock Mountains had a giant chessboard with giant skeletons on it, etc.

Here’s the recap:

Title: The Interworldly Skele-Chess Association presents: Blood on the Chessboard, an intimate evening with the grand masters of Faerun

-We picked up mid-fight on the chessboard. Meanwhile, Johanna was making moves to pick the lock on the cage holding Twinkle and Cecil.

-After a move or two, Master Lugoj declared that this game required a captive audience, and some glowy green walls shot up around the board. Even though technically you weren’t audience members…

My description of this part:

“Enough frivolity!” he says. “This game requires a captive audience.” And with that he raises his arms up. A “sssssssssssssewk” is heard and then you see an emerald-colored sheen emerge from the ground, all along the border of the board. It rises up, until the perimeter is completely covered over with this glowing green wall. It’s about 10 feet high, emerald mostly but with yellowish areas, and it’s translucent – you can sort of see through it, but you wouldn’t be able to make out, like, facial expressions through it. It casts an eerie green shadow across the board, and onto the bones of the skeletons. Even the sky above you seems cloudier and more doom-laden than before.

Master Lugoj is, of course, outside the wall. But then he pops his head over the top, peering down at you all. You see, through the emerald glass, his feet dangling in the air, about 4 feet off the ground. “Indeed!” he laughs heartily, grinning down at you, “How do you like me now?” Then he rests his elbows on the top, and a serene smile settles on his face.

“As you can no doubt see, my powers over this board, and over my dear skeletons, are powerful. I can determine when they are impervious to attacks, and so on and so forth. Yet my powers over you are limited. If I could, I would limit your movements. Alas…” he trails off, his eyes kind of glazing over.

-You guys systematically wailed on the skeletons. The bishop never even got to attack back! In fact, none of the enemies did a great job fighting back… Baldwin charged up to the king and pounded on him. But the king fought back with some neat spells. One knocked Baldwin’s charisma and intelligence to 1. After the king took more damage, his lovely queen came to his aid and healed his wounds.

-Johanna, outside the walls, rolled a natty deuce on his open lock check. Thus, Twinkle and Cecil were freed. But it was no time for pleasantries – Johanna took off to check out the spire behind the board, and Twinkle and Cecil tried to run through the wall. Cecil ended up getting part of his arm stuck in the wall. And then he tried to chew off his arm.

-Lugoj, not worried about Twinkle’s escape since the rest of the group was stuck on the board until the battle was over, allowed Twinkle and Cecil to join the battle. He used his magic to lift them up and over the wall.

-But Master Lugoj got a little agitated at this point, sensing that he was losing the battle. He declared that he would kill them all right then, if it weren’t for the fact that this is a ranked tournament and stepping in to personally slaughter his foes would tarnish his reputation in the Interworldly Skele-Chess Association. He slumped down on the edge of the wall and looked sad. And then his shoe fell off, and he howled to the heavens. He couldn’t jump down there. Zara tried to push Otho to fly over and pick it up, but he wasn’t skilled enough to succeed. So Twinkle walked over and took it. Lugoj whined a bunch about this, because he really wanted his shoe. But Twinkle was steadfast, and did not sympathize with Lugoj’s situation.

My description of that part:

Suddenly you hear a soft wood whistle, and some faint bells. You look up and see Master Lugoj standing atop the wall, his hands on his hips. He is glaring down at you. “If you weren’t such foul, pointless (get it?) jerks, I would crush you right now like bugs. Alas, such action would drop my rankings in the Interworldly Skele-Chess Association.” He pans his eyes across you all. “So know this,” he says, “I never liked any of you anyway. And when I laughed earlier, I wasn’t laughing at your jokes, because your jokes were stupid. I was just laughing straight up AT you.” And with that he crosses his arms across his chest… and then sits down on the edge of the wall. His feet dangle, and suddenly! One of his slippers falls off. “Goddamnit!” He roars. But he makes no movement to drop down and pick it up.

-Despite the queen’s healing, the king was soon vanquished. The death blow railed against him by Baldwin caused his crown to shoot up into the air. Conveniently it flew right in front of Johanna, as she sat atop the spire. She snatched it up. The match was over. Lugoj begged a little more for his shoe, then he slipped down his portal.

-The remaining skels were immobile, so the group slaughtered them all. Their bodies were plundered, and some fine loot was found.