Mummers' games

As later Dragon Warriors books were released and we began to introduce creatures that were less familiar from folklore and fantasy fiction, I liked to include adventure seeds in the description as a guide to how to use them. Some have found the Blue Men silly, for example, but my excuse is that if a bit of wackiness has your players giggling then the cold grue that follows will be all the more chilling.

Blue Men

By night in the sailors' taverns of many a port, with salt spray lashing the windowpanes, one may hear old adventurers in their cups whispering seafarers' tales. Sometimes the talk is of the Blue Men, who plough through the cold northern seas in their dragon-prowed warships, and plunder riches and souls from the living.

They come out of churning grey waves with the gnawing icy gale of an approaching storm billowing out their sail. A pallid flare of phosphorescence limns the rotted timbers of their vessel - an ancient, barnacle-encrusted hulk, waterlogged and impossibly afloat, like a grim wreck that has been raised by sorcery from the ocean depths. The grisly mariners of this ship stand silent on her creaking decks, blankly observing the terror-struck faces of their human prey. Chilled to the marrow of their bones by a cold no earthly fire could dispel, they possess the hunger of the dead for the living. Their flesh is shivery blue and their long beards are tangled with kelp, and in his hand each grips a cutlass of brine-corroded bronze. 

The Blue Men hold a course alongside the chosen ship, whereupon it is soon clear that they cannot be outrun or evaded no matter what the steersman's skill. Standing by the fierce prow, the Blue Men's chieftain addresses his prey. In a voice like thunder he calls out couplets of verse that describe the terrible fate that shall be meted out to them, but if a spokesman from among the adventurers can immediately reply with a rhyming couplet refuting his words then the Blue Men will be temporarily balked from attacking. So the chieftain might say: 

'Our prow shall split your ship like kindling,
Your own bright blood shall wash the decks.' 

And be countered by: 

'We have no fear of cold blue dead men
Blustering from their sodden wrecks.' 

The adventurers then get the opportunity for a riposte, which the chieftain must likewise deny in rhyme. The contest of verse continues until one side falters or is forced to make an unconvincing or clumsy rejoinder. If the chieftain wins, his Blue Men board the adventurers' ship and fight like demons, untouched by lesser sorcery and all but impervious to wounds. They may be driven back if the adventurers manage to inflict more than 25% casualties, returning to their own vessel which then sinks rapidly below the waves. Any character they slew will be beyond resurrection - his soul taken down with them to the depths, as the legends have it. If the rhyming contest is won by the adventurers' spokesman, the Blue Men will depart at once. 

Hardy adventurers will perhaps refuse to play the Blue Men's game. Ignoring the verse, they may attempt to take the battle on to the planks of the dragon-ship. The Blue Men will respond by lowering the vessel below the waves, and each adventurer who boarded them must roll under his Reflexes on 2d20 or be sucked down with them. The chieftain will hurl a final weird upon those who survive: their vessel will lie becalmed and stricken by plague unless every adventurer aboard can resist his MAGICAL ATTACK of 16. (In game terms, the effect of the weird is to leave the vessel becalmed for 3-30 days, during which time careful check must be kept on rations and supplies of fresh water. The adventurers are exposed to 1-3 random diseases each day the weird lasts.) 

ATTACK 23         Sword (d8 + 2, 6)
DEFENCE 10         Armour Factor 1 (take half-damage from arrows, slingshot, etc)
MAGICAL DEFENCE 8 (but immune to Sorcerer spells of lst-4th level)
EVASION 6         Movement: 10m (20m)
Health Points 1d6 + 16         Rank-equivalent: 7th

Fast-forward thirty-four years and we were in lockdown. One of our gaming group, Dr Aaron Fortune, volunteered to run a traditional Yule adventure featuring the Company of Bronze mercenary characters (later to become known as the Iron Men) whom I've mentioned before. This was on Discord, naturally. Oliver and I missed the opening session but Aaron ran a side quest for the two of us that led into the main adventure. Oliver was playing Whirrun, aka 'Cracknut', who apparently was based on a book he'd published, and I was Calidore of Warens Field, aka 'Caliburn'. This is Caliburn's account of the session, but it's also a description of the macabre Mummers that Aaron had dreamt up:

The Adoration of the Magi

We meet Sir Wulfstan in a tavern outside Cantorbridge. He’s not really a knight, he’s a member of the Company. ‘Here’s your pay,’ he says. ‘You’re to come with me to the cathedral.’ He says a lot of other stuff too but now the sun’s gone down and we’re drinking. It’s Advent, you see, so fasting all day.

Next day at the cathedral, Wulfstan says we’re to escort Sir Joffe (who is a real knight) on a trip. ‘First you’ve got an audience with Subdeacon Elfwine.’

‘Why?’

‘Just listen to what he says.’

So we go in and this young priest tells us about factions in the Church and what his faction stands for and how there are rumours of the End of Days and that. After a bit I can’t hold my tongue. ‘Is there anyone you want killed, your holiness?’

‘Eh? No. There’s a relic at a hermitage up the coast. The hermits have been reluctant to part with it but now they’ve agreed. Go with Sir Joffe and bring it back in time for Christmas. Now, if Sir Joffe gives you orders then – ’

‘He’s not a member of our Company. We take our orders from Wulfstan.’

‘Well, pretend. I don’t want Sir Joffe to suspect.’

Suspect what, I wonder, but I don’t say anything because Church business is not Company business.

Wulfstan finds me and Cracknut and Portus. ‘It’s up the coast a ways. You’ll get another pay packet when we’re back. Also the best food and lodging, and horses all along the route.’

This sounds like when somebody is setting you up as a patsy but we don’t say anything. I put Coronach in the stables here in town because I gather we’ll be riding post up the road and I don’t want to wear him out.

Off we trot, with Sir Joffe and his five Chaubrettian guards, and a few days later we come to an island that you can ride to at low tide. Here the three hermits live, in conditions my granny would call squalid. Filthy wretches they are, claiming to be holy and that. ‘Where’s my relic?’ says Sir Joffe.

The shiftiest of the hermits, who I notice from his bloody shirt has been whipping himself, pushes back the altar and hands us an old box with three crisp new lead seals on it. Funny, I think, but I’m not paid to think so I keep quiet.

Off we go along the coastal road back to Cantorbridge. There’s a foul smell off the sea and some ominous looking ships, but the world is supposed to end soon so it’s not too surprising. Also, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and being in a mercenary company you tend to welcome bad omens.

After a bit Joffe discovers that what I handed him wasn’t the relic but a packed lunch wrapped in an oil cloth. He starts moaning that we’ve been robbed, but then I hand him the real box and he’s so happy he gives me a crown, which is five shillings or a considerable number of farthings.

Pretty soon Sir Joffe is whipping the horses so that two of them go lame. What an idiot. Then Gilbert, who is in the Company, rides up to meet us near Langdip. ‘Give me your horse,’ says Sir Joffe to Cracknut.

‘Good idea,’ says Wulfstan. ‘You three hand over your horses. Go down that track there and you’ll find the home of Mistress Godwina. She’ll give you fresh horses for the lame ones. We’ll ride on to the next coaching inn and you can catch us up.’

Now, this all seems entirely too convenient for anyone thinking to shake us off. Only two horses are lame, but Wulfstan is trying to get rid of me too. Is he up to no good?

‘Cracknut and Portus can do that,’ I point out, ‘and I’ll come with you.’

‘You stay too!’ says Wulfstan, a bit agitated now.

‘Uh-uh. I’m sticking to you like one of Joe’s turds after a big cheese dinner.’

‘I’ll see you sacked from the Company,’ he says.

‘Try it. I’ll answer to Pieter de Fleur.’

So he rides on with me right behind him. We’ll see what that was all about later.

Cracknut and Portus have barely seen us off down the road when they hear a horse whinny, and turn and see a young bloke that gives his name as 'Prince' Aengus. ‘Have a lucky rabbit’s foot,’ he says to Cracknut. ‘It will help you win a dice game against the Mummers. In fact, it will mean you always win.’

‘What you want for it?’ says Cracknut, who is no fool.

‘Nothing. I give it to you freely. And now I ride off.’

As it’s getting dark they go down the lane Wulfstan pointed out and there’s an old house, reasonably grand with a porch and that. They’re welcomed by Mistress Godwina, an old bird who lays out a good spread. She’s a friend of Wulstan, who is even more long in the tooth than Portus so might conceivably have had a thing with this crone at some stage in the past.

‘What about these Mummers we keep hearing about?’ says Cracknut, gnawing a chicken leg.

‘Oh, they’re terrible bad sorts. Devils, some say, or bad fairies. They live in a ruined chapel in the woods and at this time of year they come to the door when people have had a baby, and they shake dice, and when they win they take the baby away.’

‘What if they lose?’ asks Portus.

‘They use weighted dice – or so the rumour goes – so they rarely lose. And if people don’t give them what they want, they kill everyone in the house most horribly. Blood and guts everywhere.’

I guess Cracknut and Portus look sheepish at that, as they are not known themselves for over-daintiness or mopping up people’s guts after they’ve done a killing, but they tuck in and soon forget it.

Meanwhile I’m at the coaching inn and Wulfstan is distraught. He takes me aside and shows me inside the box. There’s no relic, just a velvet cushion which has got exactly as tatty as you’d expect after a few centuries under an altar stone. It looks like there used to be a mask in the box, and as it’s a relic of St Lucinda I can guess what bit of her that was.

‘Where is it?’

He shakes his head. ‘The box was empty.’

‘Oh. That’ll be why that hermit was so shifty, then. And why the lead seals look new.’

‘You go back and get the others,’ says Wulfstan. ‘Better get back to the hermitage and – ’

‘Say no more. Acquire the relic by any means necessary.’

Now it’s a good job I tagged along, and I bet he doesn’t go bad-mouthing me to Pieter de Fleur after all. But as I ride back I’m wondering why he was so keen to get rid of all three of us. He’d have been well stuffed if I hadn’t insisted – unless, that is, he pinched the relic himself and this is a wild goose chase.

As it happens, roast goose is on the table when I get to Mistress Godwina’s place. I tell the others what’s going down. Luckily Mistress Godwina tells me the story of the Mummers, because Portus and Cracknut are sitting gaping at the food like a couple of flounders on a fishmonger’s slab.

‘Well, it’s clear to me what’s happened here,’ I say. ‘Shifty the Hermit gambled the relic away to the Mummers. Guilty conscience, that’s why he’s been whipping himself. We’ll have to get it back off them.’

‘They might turn up at the house of Leofstan and Hild,’ says Godwina. ‘She had a baby yesterday.’

Sigh. We grab our stuff. ‘We’ll have to get over there and deal with these Mummers.’

‘They’re very dangerous,’ says Godwina. ‘Monsters, really.’

‘Only way to get the relic.’

As we’re riding over, Cracknut mentions the rabbit’s foot. ‘Handy,’ I say. ‘You can gamble against the Mummers for the relic.’

‘No, I want a Yule present for my wife.’

‘Give her the rabbit’s foot,’ says Portus.

‘But don’t we need it against the Mummers?’

‘Look,’ I say to Cracknut. ‘Win the relic first, save the baby, then afterwards you can give the rabbit’s foot to Lady Misery. Sorry, Maisery*.’

The house is down by the shore and it’s quite a hovel really. Poor folks, this couple, but they let us in and seem to believe our story. I suppose they’ve been quaking there expecting the Mummers and we’re a ray of hope.

So we wait, and at midnight there’s a knocking at the door. I open it to find thirteen cowled figures in masks going, ‘Mmm, mmm, mmm.’

‘In you come.’ I’ve got my hand on my sword but they’re all armed and there are thirteen of them. It’s a tight squeeze inside the cottage. The leader goes up to Cracknut, who is sitting at the table. He points at the baby, then he slams down his dice cup.

‘Hang on,’ I say. ‘If you lose we want the face of St Lucinda, which is the relic from the hermitage.’

‘I think I must name you,’ says Cracknut, and he goes on to say they’re all called Death.

They don’t unmask, so maybe that’s wrong. The leader gestures impatiently at the cup. ‘Mmm.’

So Cracknut rolls and the Mummer rolls and, thanks to the rabbit’s foot, Cracknut wins. The Mummers don’t take it well. They start up a horrible shrieking and the leader whips off his mask to show a leathery yellow face with the mouth stitched shut, and he shrieks so much a few of the stitches break and a bit of black spittle rolls down his chin. I’m very glad that nothing scares me, and I’m surprised that Cracknut and Portus don’t lose their dinner at this point.

Anyway, the Mummers have lost so they give us the relic and piss off. The relic is, as I thought, St Lucinda’s face, cured and mounted on a jewelled stick like a posh bird’s mask at a ball.

‘I reckon she was ashamed of how often she got propositioned because of her beauty,’ I say, struck by sudden inspiration. ‘Holy people hate fucking. So she cut her own face off because being holy can make you do things like that.’

The baby was crying. We went and had a look, and Hild agreed to call him Whirrun as that’s Cracknut’s real name. I looked through the mask’s eyes at him and announced he’d have health, happiness and prosperity. But I’m not sure that blessing worked, coming from me, even though it was a relic, so I also left a shilling on the mantelpiece.

We’re riding back when Cracknut says he thinks there’s something up with the road, and sure enough it seems we’re somehow lost in a wood. Well, it is after midnight now. I take out the relic and look through its eyes and now I can see the true path as a clean gleaming trail, which leads to a warm light beyond the trees, but behind us are the Mummers and they have a cold, blue-white glow to them that’s somehow menacing.

We follow the true path and it brings us to Mistress Godwina’s place, and the warm light is shining from her. The Mummers stay lurking back there in the woods, not liking to come near. Bastards. Bad enough that they use weighted dice or magic or whatever, but to be sore losers too. I’m tempted to go out and kill them all to teach them a lesson, but it is pitch dark and it’d be thirteen to one, so maybe not tonight.

We have some mince pies and ale, then we take turns sitting up through the night, and every now and then there’s a soft thump of something hitting the door, and when we’ve had breakfast and we go outside we find three dead rabbits in the porch with their front paw cut off, that the Mummers threw against the house.

We ride on, making a good pace, and by close to midnight on Christmas Eve we catch up to Wulfstan and the Chaubrette geezers. No sign of Joffe, he’s ridden on to present the relic – well, the empty box, as he’ll find out.

We’re approaching Cantorbridge and we hear the bells ringing midnight. ‘Happy Christmas, lads,’ I say, and at that moment White Light** appears in the north like a candle that’s been lit. Or more like a thousand candles. But it doesn’t last long and then it goes out. It makes me think of that star and our Saviour with the Magi that came and did the spells on the manger or whatever. Bet they didn’t leave a shilling. Stingy sods, Krarthians***.

* Cracknut had been wed in an earlier adventure to a lady of possibly fay origin called Maisery.

** One of the so-called Ghosts of the Magi (in common parlance) or, according to official Church teaching, the Pentaphan -- five celestial bodies that appear from time to time in the northern skies.

*** Caliburn is confusing the Magi who attended the Saviour's birth, who were almost certainly from Opalar, Batubatan and Zinj, with the rulers of Krarth.

There are plenty of interesting ways to use mummers in a Legend game. You don't even have to bring in magic or horror. Those masks are perfect for concealing one's identity -- a spy, a thief, a former foe seeking revenge, a proscribed lover sneaking in to see his beloved, an outlaw coming to free his comrade from the castle dungeon. But Aaron's Mummers are actual monsters, fay or undead or diabolic, so let's consider them in terms of the DW rules.

First, Cracknut seems to think that if he can name them they will be robbed of power over him. That makes sense, especially for beings wearing masks, and traditionally you get three guesses too. But there are thirteen of the Mummers, so it won't be as easy as dealing with Rumpelstiltskin. If you're going to let your players discover all the names I think it's fair enough to ask them to memorize them, not read them off a piece of paper. Oh, come on, not every adventure can spoon-feed the adventurers their successes.

But what if the Mummers aren't named? They offer a game with rules -- which is typical of the fays, however they may twist those rules. They roll the dice. If you win, they must depart. If you lose they will take the child they've come for, or something equally precious in its stead -- unless you can outwit them. Think on your feet. 'Do we roll for the one who was born tonight?' could mean the foal in the stable. Pointing to the cradle and saying, 'The winner takes what lies there' could indicate the cat, not the baby who you cleverly hid elsewhere when you heard them knocking at the door.

If they win the game and you haven't managed to outwit them, then it's a fight. A bloodbath, perhaps. They should be more than a match for any normal group of fighting men. You'll scale them to the strength of your PCs, but here I'm assuming they are equal in rank-equivalent to the strongest member of the party.

ATTACK 22         Shortsword (d8 + 1, 4)
DEFENCE 12         Armour Factor 2 (unaffected by nonmagical weapons until the dice game has been played)
MAGICAL DEFENCE 15 
EVASION 7         Movement: 15m (30m)
PERCEPTION 14
Health Points 2d6 + 10         Rank-equivalent: 8th

Goodbye to the tabletop?

There's a division among roleplayers when it comes to gaming over the internet. It's not quite as fraught as the bonkers split about mask-wearing but it seems to run deep. The other day we had a player drop out of our game. As he put it:

"The whole Zoom thing is a pain. I just don't enjoy sitting in front of the screen, trying to get a word in, moving a marker around on a map, or waiting for the referee to come back when he's got several private messages to deal with. I much prefer the snacks and drinks, the face to face interaction, and the quick 'can I have a word'. It feels more real like that somehow."

Until recently I was playing in two online RPG campaigns, one on Zoom with Roll20 for dice and maps, the other audio-only on Discord. Of course there are good and bad points. I rarely bother with a full tactical map, but in Roll20 it's harder to do a quick sketch to show where everybody is. (Do please point me at some good software for that if you know of any.) As for the Discord campaign, I loved it but we did benefit from having stripped-down rules and a brilliant referee in charge. It wouldn't work so well with a complicated game system and lots of dice rolls. Also my private gripe about Discord is that it was designed as a chatroom; players who miss having visuals will comment on the action by posting cartoons and movie stills, which runs against the immersiveness of pure audio. If there was a way to turn off that legacy feature and go full theatre of the mind it would be perfect -- at least for those of us who are radio hams in spirit.

Our disaffected player's point about snacks and drinks was interesting. I like having friends round for dinner. Also I like gaming. I don't much like mixing the two. One of the great things about gaming during lockdown was that we can jump in, play for three hours, and say goodnight. Nice and focused. No need to eat supper, stow everyone's coats and bags, clear a metric pileup of crisp packets and wine bottles off the table, and so on. Admittedly Zoom and Discord aren't so good for dinner parties but, hey, you can't have everything.

If anything the quick 'can I have a word' is much easier online. You can set up breakout rooms in both Zoom and Discord and it's easy to pop over to those for a private chat. Around a table, everybody has to get up, squeeze round, avoid tripping over other players' scattered belongings... You could waste two minutes getting into the next room just to say, 'You secretly search the body and find nothing.'

For me, the biggest advantage of online gaming is being able to play with friends who live at the other end of the country. They could hardly ever make it along to a real-life session. Avoiding salt-saturated snacks and tooth-corroding fizzy drinks is just a bonus. So I'm in no hurry to get back to physical games. But what do you think? Screen or table?

Don't listen to Hydra

It'd be a reckless gamer who'd dive back into face to face roleplaying right now. Whatever the Red Skull says, the coronavirus is not going to magically disappear. Fortunately there are plenty of online alternatives, and taking the glass-half-full view I quite like not having to travel to a game during London's rush hour or faff around cooking supper for a room full of hungry gamers.

Here are Scott Dorwood of The Good Friends of Jackson Elias and Joe Trier of How We Roll with a smorgasbord of suggestions for gaming over the internet. (I'll append my obligatory quibble, which is that HPL probably pronounced the "dh" in dhole as an eth. So, not like the Asian canid. But I realize it spoils a perfectly good pun, so I won't press the point.)

In our games we've stripped it all back to Discord with the Dice Maiden bot installed for the rolls. Discord supports video now, but we stick to audio because it stimulates the imagination. After a session's over my mental impression of the game-world lingers as vividly as real memories. If your games involve a lot of tactics and combat, though, you might be better off with one of the other options Scott and Joe discuss there.

One of their recommendations is ViewScream:

"Three to five players assume the roles of desperate people trapped in a world of high-tech horror. A typical game session lasts 60-90 minutes." 

We haven't had any problem with seven or more players at a time (audio-only seems to help) for games of three to four hours, but I've heard several people say that online gaming works better with shorter sessions and smaller groups, so I plan to try it out and report back here.

In the meantime, don't go drinking any bleach, will ya? Take vitamin D if you like (it won't hurt) but there's no evidence it has any effect against covid-19. As for hydroxychloroquine -- no, just no. Though if you buy into that stuff and you have a few hundred dollars to spare, why not pick up a USB stick (sic) which, as any fule kno, uses authentic quantum woo to "re-harmonize" 5G radio waves. Between Trump's twitterings and barmy internet medical myths, the coronavirus has some pretty stiff competition in its quest to wipe out humanity. Your best defences are reason and evidence. So stay alert -- to nonsense.

That's been our public health information broadcast for this week. Come back tomorrow when we're plunging into a time of superstition, plague, violence and apocalyptic fear. No, it's not another current affairs post -- I'm talking about Legend, the world of Dragon Warriors.

Keep your distance

My gaming group have been looking at ways to play online using options like Skype or Discord. I'm even tempted to do some play-by-mail. Why? Well, if you've been in the Negative Zone for the last few months, this will help explain it.

What do you do about dice-rolling in a virtual setting? Becky Annison had a good thread on Twitter about online gaming and her view on that was: "Trust your players not to cheat on dice rolls - it doesn't matter if you can't see their roll. What on earth are you doing playing with people you don't trust?"

I don't know if it helps anyone - but I role-play a lot and mostly online because I have small kids. I role-playing between 1-3 nights a week and I have done for years. This is what I know works to make an online game smooth and fun (1/8)

— Becky Annison (she/her) (@BeckyAnnison) March 13, 2020

Fair enough, although I'm sorry to say that in the past we had such trouble with one player cheating that I had to institute "the shield of truth", a ghastly blue plastic tray in which all dice had to be rolled. Thankfully that's a thing of the past, but if you're unsure then take a look at Rolz.

Playing online will probably reduce the amount of dice-rolling in your game anyway, which in my book is no bad thing, but if you really want the full rules-heavy dungeon-bash experience there's always Roll20, of which one of our group says:

"Roll20 does seem quite good for creating a virtual space in which we can visualize our characters. It would be enough, I think, for us to hear one another, see the rolls, and pass secret notes to the GM. We could add tactical map battles fairly easily when a particular situation calls for it. Roll20 doesn't have full integration to other systems like GURPS or Dragon Warriors so it would be simplest if we keep the rules in our heads and use the platform mainly as a communication device. We might even use Roll20 for the map and dice, while using Discord for the voice communication. The advice on GURPS forums suggests that most people use Roll20 that way, as a lite service for rolls and maps, keeping the rules, characters, and so forth offline."

Other options worth considering include: Astral Tabletop, Fantasy Grounds, Dungeonfog, and Streamyard. (And for board games try Vassal.) Some of those are full-on VTTs that include maps and dice rolling, others are just for chat. Have a look around to find the best fit for you. After all, you've got plenty of time for research.


But you could be missing a trick if you're simply looking for a way to replicate your usual tabletop experience online. Maybe there are benefits here that are unique to virtual play. For example, our group meets every other Thursday and that means at least half a dozen people travelling across London in order to grab about three and a half hours of gaming. (It'd be longer, but I can't get them to follow the Earl of Sandwich's advice and forgo a cooked meal beforehand.) Because we have such limited time for gaming, we've drifted towards a planned adventure-of-the-week style of play that's really not a patch on proper seat-of-the-pants roleplaying. The improv style of gaming is a luxury it's hard to make time for when everybody has jobs and family. It's a far cry from playing at school or college or in your early 20s, when it's possible to set up side sessions with one or two players on the spur of the moment, and the events in those sessions feed into the main weekly game.

If you're gaming online, though, it's pretty easy to recapture the sandbox, open-world approach. Each player is only a phone call away, and it's no problem finding a half hour for a Skype session involving just one or two players. That opens up a much more freewheeling kind of campaign, where one player might, for example, be sent as ambassador to a foreign court, and he or she plays that out separately, creating world events that will impact on the events of the main weekly game -- if "the main game" even means anything any more.

There is no substitute for hanging out with friends in person, but while the Sword of Damocles hangs over us, let's look for the ways that playing online could provide something different and just as entertaining.

Life and death are only a dice roll away!

Only a dice roll away? That's never been truer than now for most of us, but while you're battening down the hatches there's no need to lose all contact with the outside world. My gaming group have been looking at Discord, Roll20 and Zoom for roleplaying and Vassal Engine for boardgames.

James Desborough ran a Dragon Warriors game the other night, and as you can see it's almost as good as playing face to face. Even better than face to face, perhaps, if your friends are scattered all over the country and find it hard to get along to an in-person session.

If you've been waiting for the right time to snap up all the Dragon Warriors books, Serpent King Games have them in a Bundle of Holding for the next couple of weeks. And I'm now talking to SKG about them publishing Jewelspider, which would mean wider distribution and more artwork -- which the proceeds of the Bundle of Holding sale will help pay for. See, there's always a silver lining.