That Cube Movie

No, not those ones, I'm talking about the one produced by Jim Henson. What? You don't know it? Then take a gander... (It's more surreal than an episode of The Prisoner!)

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Temple of Death, Part Ten

Meet the Gang
After a hurried discussion about running away, the party enter carefully, Morf and Argorn with weapons casually held down... until the magic users and the Bard were in position. Some spells and a horn of blasting later and the mass hordes were quickly mass hors d'oeuvers, except for the Hill Giant. Which lasted a few rounds, but was also pounded (it being the lesser of the Giant races).

Continuing on, the party was about to start a 1/2 mile stretch when the thieves attack, one taking Marialena hostage! However, Kogaun's Wand of Paralysis finally worked (for the First Time Evah!!!), and they were thieves no more (just a thief: one ran away, the other run through).


Master of Mine
The big confrontation finally occurred! The heroes vs. the Master! And his Vampr! (Which everyone was surprised about, despite us keeping on mentioning it whenever we looked at the map.) The Vampire caused a lot of problems...ha! Cleric, Vampire. Vampire... run away!

With the big battle set, it all came down to one thing: who would get initiative? If the party, then Thaddeus could activate his pendant's one last charge and the party might not get slaughtered. If the Master... well, then the slaughtering would begin. After some minor contretemps over making sure the rolls were genuine, the victor was... the party! Woo, death to the Master! Or, at least, the Master's current body! (Yep, that ole magic jar getaway again.)

Faced with the prospect of possibly going through the entire castle to find the Master's new body, or just getting the heck out of Dodge, the heroes vote for running away, delivering the plans and Marialena to safety, and otherwise scoring major points for surviving. The Master could be dealt with later... dum dum daaaaah!

[This concludes The Temple of Death. We hope your stay was worthwhile. Please return all seats to an upright position. Copyright void where prohibited. These heroes to continue again some day if not cancelled by Fox. You have been warned.]

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Temple of Death, Part Nine

Cell, a Bit
With eight guys making their sneak rolls (yeah right, fortunately the castle was not heavily populated), they crept around, through a large room without touching anything despite the tempting items on an altar and two Displacer Beast guards ready to react, and onto the first set of cells. Hey, look, there's someone in them! Two problems, not Elven, not female. The heroes free him anyway, and thus they are joined by Narellus, 7th level fighter.

The next room along was just too tempting to ignore, what with the large coffin and all. The party entered, are attacked by another Confusion spell, and some weird guy, but nothing stops Habenath from ripping the head off the old guy in the coffin (the man has priorities!). The weird guy fights on, starting as a mouse... then a man.... then a mouse... then a man.... then a dead!, and his soul is unable to transfer back to his original body (dead old guy) and so is sent back to the magic jar it originally came from. Despite a quick search, no magic jar was found, so the party proceeded.

Cell, a Lot
The next stop was a huge mass of cells, right under the castle. Unfortunately, the way was barred by a Diviner guard and two bugbears, and his cunning ability to switch the lights out. Fortunately, the party (but mainly Habenath and his dark-defeating infravision) had a Wand of Cold. Funny how these things balance out.

Inside the cells were two thieves that Narellus had encountered before, and one Elven princess by the name of Marialena. (Woo! Tick number two!) The party bravely prods the two thieves to run down into the dungeon area before them, then proceed at a more leisurely distance. (The logic being that the thieves would be killed first... or that they'd tip off the next section, whatever works.)

Next up, as it happened, was a torture chamber, with two guys (a guard and an Inquisitor) standing around, chewing the fat. While the Inquisitor became permanently less inquisitive, the guard held up the party surprisingly well (although it didn't help that Morf couldn't hit for squat, and got hit for more than squat). Employing a cunning 'slowly fallback move' (so cunning was it, that the party didn't even know he was doing it), the guard pulled back to a large cave. A large cave with twelve goblins, eight orcs, five bugbears and a Hill Giant! (Oh, my!)

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Temple of Death, Part Eight

O Master, My Master
The Master rises to the occasion and levitates into the empty room. The tigers are less magical, and just jump up there. The Master offers Argorn a tempting counter offer of employment in his service (with dental plan, one hopes), but before Argorn signs anything, Thaddeus speaks up. More importantly, he speaks the name of Rahasia (where the Elven Princess babes are from), and activates his Rahasia pendant, cancelling all evil majick, and rendering the Master more impotent than a bottle of anti-viagra.

The tigers set upon Thaddeus while Argorn tackles the Master. The battle is joined, with the Bard and Lotus leaping down into the fray, while the rest stay on the top and perform ranged attacks. After some severe kicking, the Master makes for the sky and quickly leaves (boots of levitation, natch!). This still leaves the tigers, but eight party members versus two tigers don't make for long odds.


Castle Crawl
In the Master's bedroom, the heroes find two very important bundles of paper. One, a set of complete maps for the castle, complete with numbering (as if it had been photocopied from a module book, for example) and handy GM pencil notes (don't notice the Vampr!). Two, a full set of battle plans which will enable the forces of good to overcome all odds... or at least know how they are going to get stomped. We presume the former, but you never know... (Still, one of the main goals of the game, tick!)

With the maps in hand, the party descend, and encounter the castle's major domo and his hawk (everyone should have a hawk). (Insert your own jokes about "clerical duties", an "office wizard" and "spell checking" here. We certainly did!) The hawk Hulks out as the cleric casts Grow Animal on it, tearing open its hood and smashing its stand. (Try not to imagine this. One player did and we nearly had death number two...)

Obviously the heroes won (they wouldn't be heroes otherwise), and decided to make for the obvious cells marked on the map, because they were supposed to free Marialena (remember her?) and time was marching on and people wanted to GET ON WITH IT!

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DW: Episode 3.12

Who is John Simm playing? Will that character please sign in?

Let's start off with the coolest thing about this episode: the drumming. The beat that everyone taps out as they play to the Master's tune. Way neat. Although I might be able to buy how it convinces everyone to vote for Saxon, how exactly does it hide the Master from the Doctor??

But, and this is the point, is this really the Master? The Master is after power, pure and simple. There is nothing about this 18 month plan that is either pure or simple. If this had been the Master (and, frankly, the Delgado Master moreover), he would have been able to bypass the Doctor's lock out and go roaming in time and space anyway. I don't know how long it takes for the "Paradox Machine" to work, but, again, if the Master was going to take over the world with the drone things, why did he need to be Prime Minister? Just something to pass the time? Hardly.

We do find out that the Time Lords resurrected him. Fine, that gets around a lot of problems, but they didn't create a brilliant mastermind, but really the evil twin of the Doctor. An incompetent evil twin at that. (At least RTD didn't give in and have the Master and Doctor as brothers.) I'm sure the Confidential episode (which I watch after writing these) will proclaim that this is the Master, but I'm not buying it.

As this is the episode before the last, it has the duty of ramping up the pace for the finale. Yep, but it surely takes it time doing so, and likes to undercut itself to. The Doctor isn't there?... oh wait, there he is. Will Marsha be fooled by her family?... oh, not really. Will they be captured walking around?... oh, never mind. And then they just stand around while the Master gets his way. Yeah, big heroes there.

I can see now why Bad Wolf had all that bit in the game shows and why Army of Ghosts spent so long getting to the "ghosts" breaking through. It's because RTD can't write a build-up. Skip on to next week...

Next Week: It's a big battle with the fate of everything at stake.... again!

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Temple of Death, Part Seven

The Skeleton Crew
The party recombines once again, mourns the loss of Excrutia for less time that it takes to read this sentence, then heads on! For a while, Habenath (aka Mr. Pointy Ears) has been hearing a horn a callin' and now it becomes obvious as everyone else hears it. The party decide to stop and wait, and all too soon a pack of spectral hounds come bounding down towards the group. The tension is high, and missile weapons are readied, but a handy Habenath fireball means that the fight doesn't go to the dogs.

However, there isn't progress made before there is a ship in the skies. A sailing ship of the aquatic kind. In the sky. (Fortunately this is D&D and no sanity checks are necessary.) An inviting rope ladder is lowered, and half of the party board to find the ship crewed by skeletons! Fortunately, Alrick learnt 'Speak with Dead' and so the party finds out that the Master graciously sent this ship to help sped the heroes to their final encounter. After the requisite bone and ship jokes, the party boards and they are on their way.


Tower of Troubles
The Master has some lovely lake front property, with a castle and surrounds facing out onto Lake Tross. The party see all this as they arrive to the top of the castle tower via the skeleton ship. Despite much talk about disabling the skeletons and crashing the ship into the castle, nothing eventuates from the all-talk, no-action wusses.

The top of the tower affords a lovely view of everything around them, such as the very long drop over the side, and the lack of any way off the tower top. Fortunately, Thaddeus finds a trap door, and he and Argorn descend into... an empty room! Score! They find another trap door, and open it to reveal a) a tiger, b) the Master, and c) another tiger, all in the Master's bedroom (Siegfried and Roy, eat yer heart out!).

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Temple of Death, Part Six

Forrest and Relaxation
After hightailing it out of Magden, the party run their horses through the night before finally slowing due to horse-related problems. Deciding to travel by night, they head on their way, leaving behind the blacksmith in a convenient ditch without shoes, but with the full knowledge of where they are going. (Very useful, on both accounts, I'm sure.) And, unfortunately, during the kerfuffle, Emergency Rations (the dog) got away. Shame.

The party travels for a few days, before discovering they had the ability to warp time and space and arrive at the forest, a week's travel away. Forgoing the obvious benefits this ability would bestow on a potential courier service, they decide to enter the large, black, dark, foreboding evil-looking forest. 'Cos that's what they do, you know.


Possession is Nine-Tenths of the Character
Picking their way carefully through the forest, the group eventually comes to a clearing, at the centre of which is a large black obelisk. Excrutia, being at the front, makes her saving throw, but fails due to "unknown modifiers", and thus becomes spooked. Or rather, really spooky. All she wants is to run away, although various other party members are intrigued.

Giving into the warrior woman, they depart some distance, and set up a camp for resting. The group splits as Lotus, the Bard, Argorn and Thads decide to go "rabbit hunting", in the direction of the obelisk. This leaves Morf, Habenath, Alrick and Kogaun to suddenly fend off Excrutia's magic attacks! In the Confusion (yep, the spell), Excrutia takes to the skies and isn't seen again. (In fact, technically, she wasn't seen since the failed saving throw, as whoever escaped from the magic jar into her body definitely wasn't Excrutia.) [Score one party member death to the GM!]

Back at the obelisk, Argorn gets touchy feely with the obelisk, causing it to admit a stream of light into the sky, with the completely incidental effect of alerting all and sundry to where the heroes are. (Oops!) Deciding that discretion is the better part of valour, and that disintegration is the better part of discretion, the Bard blows a blast with his horn, and shattered the obelisk, disabling the lights, and providing nifty black stone souvenirs!

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