#375
Dec 7, 2025
Books
This week I read:
Absolution by Jeff VanderMeer
This is split into two parts, the first set before the border of Area X comes down and is about a spy from the mysterious “Central”, looking into the area because a previous mission, a few decades ago, had some strange happenings. Area X has been strange for a long time. The second part covers the first mission into Area X, giving the backstory for Lowry who plays a significant part in the other books as overseer of the Southern Reach.
The Lowry bits were interesting but I didn’t feel expanding on his story really improved anything: turns out he was nuts even before going into Area X.
Roleplaying Games
The Halls of Arden Vul
This week the players encountered the feared heqeti—bipedal salamander-like beings from the underdark, with a loathing of all surface-dwellers—for the first time! They took out the guard group they stumbled upon, taking care to remove the bodies and cover up their means of entrance afterwards to hopefully avoid raising the alarm too soon.
It’s kind of amazing that we’re 121 sessions into the game and still encountering major factions for the first time. They’ve seen a lot of heqeti stuff in the campaign so far, but never before an actual heqeti.
After that, more exploration.
They found the door to the tomb of Liskon the Mad, following a map they’ve got, but they don’t have a means of opening it. What they don’t know is that the tomb got repurposed as a magical safe-house by an archmage back in the old days, and the door is wizard-locked. They detected the enchantment, but thought it was something to do with the amnesiac people they keep finding in the area (like touching the door wipes your memoies) and decided to back off.
Next time, we’re returning to the Trials of Arden, which means they might have to fight 1,234 ghasts!
Solo
I’ve been trying to get to grips with the solo rules for The One Ring, specifically the Moria expansion, this week. The premise is that you’re running one of the captains in Balin’s ill-fated expedition to reclaim Moria between the events of The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring. It comes with tables to generate missions as well as whole new combat and skill resolution rules for running your band of dwarves. I find solo games interesting, but a bit hard to get into; it’s tricky coming up with interesting adventures that last a good amount of time when you’re both the GM and player (at least for me), but I’d like to stick with it and givt it a good go this time.
One thing I’m trying this time is keeping track of “opportunities” (things spotted in previous adventures that may become seeds for future adventures) and “loose ends” (problems untresolved in previous adventures that might come back to bite me), and using those to help interpret the random events.
Miscellaneous
A small patch of grass has appeared in the garden, so it somehow survived being buried under woodchips for four months and has begun to regrow. Hopefully it won’t spread too far before the yellow rattle starts to grow and I sow the rest of the seeds in spring. The garden doesn’t need to be totally grass-free, it just needs little enough grass that the flowers don’t get choked out before they can establish themselves.