Photos From The Front Line

Surprise! Instead of a post, today you get photographs.

At our last session of Thunderspire Labyrinth the talented Julia, who plays Dreyfuss the human rogue, got busy with a camera. Some of her photos are reprinted today with permission to give you all a look at our game that I'm sure you probably won't care about.

Pictured left is AJ, who plays our group's striker, Tolliver Green, who is totally not a thinly-veiled caricature of a certain DC Comics bowman.

On the right here is Katherine, who's running the group's main healer, Dramia, Cleric of Pelor and disliker of dark, cramped subterranean spaces. We're thinking she might want to rethink her career as a dungeoneer.

These photos were all taken during the Proving Grounds encounter in the Well of Demons. The group were attempting to hole up in a secure room and force a Green Dragon to fight them on their own terms; you can see a certain frustration in Katherine's face as the tactic doesn't quite work and she gets Luring Gazed into the deadly path of the Doom Sphere for the second time in one encounter.

This next one is me. Sorry to everyone who had me pegged as a dashing seducer of women. Unfortunately the large size of the map and my placing at the end of the table meant I spent most of this game on my feet trying to reach my party-destroying Dragon and move it in search of its next victim.

At this stage Wizards doesn't cast a model of a "Doom Sphere" so to represent the giant ball of magical force I broke out my Beholder model and had that chasing players around the inner track of the Proving Grounds.

Here's Julia, who's deployed her artistic genius to provide us with this photo essay. I'd like to say she used her psychic powers to manipulate the camera and take her own picture but actually it's Andy behind the lens for this one.

Julia plays Dreyfuss - thief, bigamist, and essentially good-hearted ruffian. At this stage Dreyfuss is one encounter away from saving his captured children from an evil band of gnolls, but Julia's getting more than a little frustrated because of eight consecutive failed saving throws against the slowed condition imposed by the Dragon's breath weapon.

This is Tony, who plays Alcarian, the group's defender. Alcarian's Eladrin fey step and a range of mobility-focused powers makes him play more like a mark-and-forget Swordmage than the Fighter that he actually is. It's eternally frustrating for me as GM to watch him start each combat by teleporting into melee with the enemy artillery and proceeding to neuter them for the remainder of the battle. However, it's saved the group from wiping several times over so it seems churlish to complain.

Lastly, here's Andy, who's taken up the challenge of playing Hydraan, a Dragonborn Cleric of Bahamut. He delivers a range of melee attacks by way of a greatspear (which has reach 2) and takes an almost unnatural joy in finding places to really make his turn undead and dragonborn breath count.

As an extra bonus, here's the party roster in miniature form. From left to right: Hydraan, Tolliver, Dramia, Dreyfuss and Alcarian. Also a bonus appearance by the rarely used and much maligned d12, which we eventually discovered Julia had been throwing all session instead of a d20 but landing hits anyway.

Tomorrow: a real post, I promise.