Dragon Storm Card Based RPG

Presented by Art by Susan Van Camp

Game Tips
by Mike Marohl

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“Game Tips” by Mike Marohl

The Scholar's Scroll

I happened to travel these past few days with a band of Valarians who were on scouting mission into the Wastes of Dunbar. They explained that their mission was one of information collection. They wanted to learn more about what, if anything, lived in the wastes and maybe to mark the locations of any cities that could be the interest to future missions. My companions were a pair of Dwarves named Thergin and Krumbar, a ebony elf named Sabot, a pair of Humans named Bodhi and Trisha and Myself. The travel to the wastes was uneventful except for one minor skirmish with a mad spawn that turned out, in the end, to be a farmer's plow horse. Ah the miracles that the Valarians can perform on the infected are great.

Krumbar was out scouting and returned to us in Gargoyle form. There were several holes in his stone like skin. He explained that he saw a horse and thought nothing of it until it whipped its tail around and started pelting him with spikes. He left with Trisha and less than an hour later they returned. Trisha stated that they had purified the beast but it was too scared of Krumbar to be caught. Sabot Spoke up stating that he knew the whereabouts of a unicorn shifter and could teleport and bring him back. Within a few minutes Sabot had returned with Rin Ganth an Elf. Rin left with Krumbar to return with an old plow horse. Rin let us know that he would take care of the animal and try to find its owner.

Once we reached the border to the wastelands protective devices were handed out, and worn by each member of our group. Sabot then cast spells to protect us from the drain of the wastelands. The effect of the waste on us was almost immediate. The air seemed to tug constantly at our souls trying to pull the very life from us. We walked the entire day in almost total silence. The only words spoken were that of Krumbar when he returned to the group with his scouting reports, and his recommendation on which way to proceed. At the edge of the wastes their were stunted trees and a few patches of dried grass but this far in there was only dirt and rock.

I got little sleep the first night. I think most of the group suffered the same, only Krumbar and Thergin didn't show signs of troubled sleep. The next day was similar to the first more rocks and plenty of dry dusty dirt. Krumbar made a few marks on his map about where some ruined farm houses were and we continued on looking for anything else of interest.

The second night started out similar to the first. Nothing even close to comfortable to sleep on and always the air nagging at you pulling at your soul. I was near exhaustion when I heard in my head to wake up but do it quietly. I opened my eyes and slowly moved towards Krumbar. I whispered "what is it?".

He replied, "The shadows are alive!"

"Where I don't see anyth...ouch!" I felt the icy claws of one of the shadows tear into me.

Krumbar yelled, "They are among us!" as he and Thergin transformed into a hulking granite gargoyles.

Bodhi and Trisha quickly changed into werewolves and Sabot, not completely comfortable with the idea that he could turn into a dragon, decided to stick it out as an elf. He and myself lit ourselves up like torches. The flames from our fire shields seemed to repel the shadows for a moment, but they quickly overcame their initial hesitation and rushed at us.

After the battle Krumbar was sure that the creatures were infected with warp, but Trisha was adamant that if they had any warp features she was sure that she would have removed at least one. Sabot and I commented that fire fingers and lightening bolts seemed to have great effect on the creatures. Bodhi stated that arrows were all but worthless against them. Thergin stated that they were defiantly undead he went on to say that his anti spirit spells had no effect but when he switched to free the dead the shadows started to disintegrate before his eyes. He went on to comment that they seemed to be more resistant to his spells than normal undead.

Our trip into the wastes revealed three city sites for future expeditions. I hope that I am invited along for them I really enjoy exploring the unknown. Rin caught up with us later and told us that he had found the animal's owner. The farmer that the horse belonged to was very grateful and when told about the Valarian cause stated that he would be willing to help if he could. I collected samples of the creatures for later inspection back at my laboratory and the following are the results of my findings.

Anwald Stargazer of the Prismatic Circle -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In game terms the creatures that the party ran up against are what I call shadow skeletons. The creatures consist of a Skeleton card and a Ghostly form card but in this scenario the ghostly form card is not a warp feature but rather just a feature card and is not effected by the Valarian ability "Purify Body". Since the card point value of the skeleton has been increased with the addition of the feature I made it more difficult for the Free the dead spell to effect the shadow skeletons. A general rule here would be for every 4 points, or fraction thereof, of "features" added to an undead add +1 to its contest roll verses Free the dead. This same idea can be applied to zombies. There are many undead that can stem from this:

Steel Skeletons-- skeleton + Bone head 
Zombie Raptors -- Zombie + scaled skin (+ batwings for the flying versions or + muscular and or toughness for the Tera Raptors) 
Vorn Royal Tomb guardians -- Zombie + firebreather + rams horns + health

Just remember that many "warp feature" cards can be applied to undead as just "feature cards". The list goes on make up your own and have fun!

Mike Marohl

This site is copyright to Susan Van Camp 2007. Art on this site is copyright to Susan Van Camp.

Please do not download or use the art from this site in anyway without the express approval of Susan Van Camp.

e-mail questions to Susan at svancamp@mac.com

For Questions about Dragon Storm, or the web page, e-mail Mark at markharmon@mac.com

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