The Meemba Dilemma

Here is an encounter for your party between dungeons when you are in town resting and re-equipping.

One, or more, of your party is walking down the street when he/she sees a gang of young bullies beating another small figure. You step in and break up the fight and discover that the small figure is a prootwaddle. His name is Odig and he is very grateful.

“Thank ye, thank ye. They try to keel Odig. What can Odig do to repay you?” His face screws up in hard concentration. “I knows! Meemba. I gives you Meemba.”

“What is Meemba?” you ask.

“Meemba is good. Very sweet. You like Meemba” Odig expounds, grinning broadly.

Before you can ask another question or turn down the offer he turns and runs off, shouting that he will give you Meemba. You go on with your business and later share the incident with the rest of the party over drinks at the tavern.

The next morning your party wakes up to find a very small figure in your room.

“Hello”, she says with an innocent smile. “I’m Meemba. My da gives me to you.”

Your challenge is to get rid of Meemba some way. (Have you ever seen the cartoon “The Cat Came Back”?) or return this tiny waif to her father. The prootwaddle family were transients in town and are now nowhere to be found.

I forgot to mention that the inspiration for this encounter came from a license plate on another car I saw on the road the other day. It was a vanity plate with the letters M-E-E-M-B-A.

This Week In Technology

Yep. You read that correctly. This post has nothing to do with fantasy roleplaying.

First - last Wednesday my grandson had my phone. He will listen to music and watch videos on a device and then drop it when the battery dies and go searching for another. Even with 2 iPhones and 2 iPads in the house, it's hard to keep one fully charged for his use. Anyhow on Wednesday he sucked the battery life from my phone and dropped it somewhere before grabbing my wife's iPad. Where was/is the phone? Good question. We've been searching for almost a week.

Second - I mentioned in February that I had spilled coffee on my computer (Coffee And Keyboards). I have been using a cheap keyboard and mouse to use my laptop ever since... until Sunday night. I sat down to the computer that evening and she was unconscious. I immediately began CPR (Computer Panic Repair) and opened the case, tried disconnecting the battery and rebooting. I had watched the technician do this to reboot her at the store two months ago.

I GOT A PULSE! Wait, no, lost it. CLEAR! Try again, and again. I thought I had brought her back. She booted up completely and I logged in. But no. She died again in less than a minute. I tried a couple of more times, but finally I had to pronounce the time of death at 10:59 PM. In lieu of flowers send me money. All denominations are welcome.

So there I was getting up early (for retired me) at 8 AM on Monday morning for a doctor's appointment at the sleep clinic. Without my phone or computer, I had missed the reminder email about their change of address. When I got there I find myself standing at the door of some women clinic. I could not call the sleep doctor without my phone, so I went home and searched the den again. Still no phone!

Luckily for me my wife is the smart person in the family. She has insurance on the phones and I got online with an iPad and filed the claim that we had delayed doing. The new phone should arrive sometime today. Then I took my computer to the shop and they confirmed that she was now a brick of aluminum with a 13 inch screen. My next stop was the Apple Store where I walked in and pointed specifically to this little beauty, whose keys my fingers are lightly dancing over at this moment.

Salesperson: Ah yes. You know we've just upgraded that model with a backlit Retina display...
Me: For the same price?
Salesperson: Er, no.
Me: Like I said, I want that one.

I came home with "that one" and kept a promise to my wife to spend less than $1000. Since yesterday I've been updating software, loading files from backup and at this moment UPS has dropped the new phone on our doorstep so I'll get busy setting it up. Oh, the joys of technology.

And now a little update: Tuesday afternoon our cable modem decided to quit functioning. How am I writing this? Luckily I got my new phone setup before that happened and I have been using it as a wifi hotspot today. The cable guy is coming tomorrow morning. This week in technology is not over yet.

The Boar's Tusk Inn

Thirty-five years ago I was just playing The Fantasy Trip solo. I was either in a Death Test dungeon or on a quest for the Holy Grail. But I was also was letting my imagination run wild creating a couple of different fantasy worlds to campaign in if I ever was to GM a game. I was digging through my hand-written notes today and decided to post a little about one of my favorite NPCs.

Boar’s Tusk Inn

Harlan Finstok Carook, proprietor

The Boar’s Tusk Inn is in the town of Bridgeton which is located along a major trade route where it crosses the river. The Inn itself is a rambling affair of buildings added to over time. The main building includes a tavern with large main hall, private sitting room for valued guests, kitchen and cook’s quarters. Upstairs are Harlan’s family quarters and two fine quest rooms accessed by a separate set of stairs. The attached addition contains more rooms ranging from moderate to very economical lodging. There is a stable for animals, store house, smoke house, and the home of the bartender and his family. 

The town of Bridgeton offers many services to the travelers along the road. There are a number of merchants who can help prepare a party to travel by the river or the caravan road that leads northward into the mountains.

Harlan fancies himself an adventurer, but one look at him says different. He is a portly, 250 pounds, with graying temples. He wears trousers, linen shirt, leather vest, and apron around his waist. He speaks, reads, and writes the common (human) tongue, speaks common elvish, and knows a few phrases of orc, dwarfish, and high elf.

He makes a trip down river once a year to the city to purchase wines and spices for the kitchen. He has an agent there who buys for him.

It’s been a busy night at the Boar’s Tusk Inn. Two large groups of travelers had arrived before dark and both groups demanded the best of the house. Also it had been market day and there were more than the usual crowd of locals dining and drinking. Just a few minutes ago two men got into an argument over a game of dice. Harlan Finstok Carook lumbers back behind the bar and grabs a towel and proceeds to wipe a spill.

“Salesmen!” he shouts in an exasperated voice at no one in particular. “The gods protect me from salesmen.” He pours himself a glass of his favorite brandy. “Do you know I had one of those traveling parasites in here yesterday. He… he wanted me to buy his wares and give them away! By Ygir’s frozen beard can you believe that? Give it away! Where’s the profit in that?”

Before you can get a word in to ask a question he goes on. “They didn’t impress me at all. A sort of bread stick, thin and way too salty. Put them in bowls on the bar he says, let the customers eat all they want he says. He must have taken me for a fool. I threw the lout out of here, I did.”

“Pretzels, he called them. Bah!”

Making Maps

I downloaded a free copy of Hexographer mapping software last week and I've been playing around with it ever since. I managed to duplicate the campaign map that we were given by our GM for weekly game and update it with newly discovered territory.

I'm also am working on re-drawing a duchy map from 1984 from the pencil sketch I did at that time. Here is a village map I've been working on as a practice.

This Is For Joe

Our GM is not a fan of Facebook, but he occasionally looks at my blog to see what I am saying about the campaign. We recently encountered Ettercaps for the first time. This was posted on the Dungeons and Dragons Memes Facebook page. Enjoy.

Wish Me Luck

I mailed off my postcard contest entry yesterday. With about two weeks left before the deadline I've heard that Steve Jackson Games has received about 10 of them. Small numbers make my odds of winning sound good. We'll wait and see.

Homemade Counters

I love the new counters for The Fantasy Trip, but I also enjoy customizing my stuff, so I made counters of my own for our current campaign.

Top rows are the five members of our band of adventurers plus our friendly ogre, Ralph.

Second row are five members of our militia that we use from time to time. In our last big battle we used them plus five more generic archers to fight a large force of "Dark Hobbits".

The bottom row contains NPCs we have regular dealings with. Sir Oswald is a hedge knight, Ogden is a merchant who we have guarded his caravan many times. Stafford is a hedge mage who once was a bear. Roger, or more correctly now, Lord Rumbold is the Lord Mayor of the town of East Riding.

Finally there is Snidley.  He is steward to the Ogre Lord of Gromly, but we suspect that he is the real power, in not only the town, but over the entire island.

I printed the counters onto card stock at a copy shop and mounted them to a stiff cardboard. I wanted to use artist illustration board, but the craft store I went to didn't have any. Instead I used drink coasters from a steak house we go to on occasion. (G'day mates.) It worked out fairly well. Maybe we will try them out this coming week.