I have posted some but not much.

It occurs to that many of the D&D blogs I follow haven't even updated since I've started this thing. Which on one hand, is cool: since Jeremy Duncan stopped posting I've made nine posts. But on the other hand, it's easy to imagine many of these ancient wyrms stirring again. Jeff Rients has been at this for years before I even started reading blogs, and I bet he'll still be here years after I stop. It's weird, thinking that if I stop today, I may be a rush of mumbled words in between the breaths of a giant.

But hey, at least I was here. I guess in the end that's all you can ask for.

On Crow Vampires

You may have heard of sludge vampires. You may have heard of sewer vampires. But have you heard of crow vampires?

They are terrible creatures.

Crow vampires are made of vampire crows. When a regular crow feeds on the corpse of a man, it becomes vampiric. They look like regular crows, but if they sink their beak into you they will suck your blood, stealing one point of health. Crows have 1d4 HP (plus whatever they stole), and it takes at least three of them to turn into a crow vampire. They do this by flying into each other and combining their hit points, melding into the shape of a man. They only do this if they're hungry.

Crow vampires look like men, but with their arms and legs replaced by black talons. A swipe with them deals 1d8 damage, but their bite is more feared. Crow vampires love to pin you down with their massive strength and then take a good long drink from your jugular, stealing 1d6 health. When you're sucked dry, they turn back into crows and feed on your corpse. 

Crow vampires are immune to damage: they just turn back into crows. So if you shoot a crow vampire with a gun and deal 3 damage, a crow will fly out of the bullet wound. If you swing an axe, deal 6 damage and chop off an arm, the arm will split into two crows and fly away. Then next turn they'll fly right back and reattach.

This means you need to kill crow vampires twice, once as men, and again as crows. Otherwise they'll just keep reforming. Fire is good: if you set the vampire on fire, when it splits into crows they'll be on fire too. Silver is potent, for wounds dealt with silver spawn no crows. If all else fails, find sunlight. Crow vampires can't keep their man shape in direct light, so they'll split up and fly away. This is why attacks only happen at night or on overcast days.

Crow vampires do not have personalities: they're made of crows. They're just a more powerful hunting form. But if a vampiric crow eats the brain of a wizard, it turns red and becomes intelligent. The more of the brain it eats, the more it remembers of its past life.Whenever this red crow is part of a crow vampire, its personality takes over.  It makes for an odd sort of immortality, being a crow vampire wizard, but some wizards claim it's the only way. The most powerful of these are composed of hundreds of crows and can cast terrifying magic. 

Sometimes multiple red crows fuse into a single crow vampire. The less said of these individuals, the better.

On How Quickly Children Learn

Today I ran a game for my little brother and his friends. These kids were all 13-14, mostly eighth-graders, and only my brother already knew anything about D&D. During college, playing in the dorm's study room, I taught a fair number of new players what all this Strength and Dexterity nonsense was about, but I was a bit anxious about trying to teach four unruly youths at once. I mean hell, half these kids play Skyrim and the other half uses facebook. I need to compete with that.

We were running the Palace of the Silver Princess, mostly because I'm a lazy cur who forgot to prepare anything the night before. This week I should probably read the damn thing, since at the end the party was attacked by some priests and I have no idea who they work for. So, new players, unread adventure, motley collection of house rules. I had no idea how this was going to turn out.