Three Years of Madness and Mayhem

I almost missed it. Yesterday compiling all my old campaign notebooks I chanced on the notes from the first session of the Hill Cantons campaign. Turns out today is the three year anniversary for the campaign proper (it predates the blog).

Now, I'm not one for the self-congratulatory post about this or that silly blog achievement, but I am so proud of reaching that milestone that I believe—as we say here in Tejas--the sun came up this morning just to hear me crow.

Because, see, in the first page of that dog-eared spiral notebook is a list of goals and point one is: “Go for the long game. Keep focused, don't dump it at the first distraction and let it evolve from the bottom-up bit by bit.” Having successfully (if narrowly) avoided death by distraction—I did manage to run a host of other side campaigns from Tekumel to Hyboria to both phases of the Domain Game—I feel a certain amount of victory and vindication.

The campaign also managed to survive through a number of big real life changes and its own evolutionary jumps. It went from its first year in Austin as an unholy marriage between 15th-17^th century Central Europe and a radical plotless West Marches-like experiment (running Castles and Crusades) in Austin to the stranger beast (running LL and a large heap of its own homebrewed variants) it is today. Currently the campaign balances inter-connectedly between a tight (if infrequently-meeting) San Antonio home group and a wild and wooly weekly Google-plus crew, the so-called Nefarious Nine.

Here's the snapshot “Harper's Index” of campaign factoids:
Number of sessions: 58

Number of adventure site maps designed: 141

Large-scale “dungeons” explored (6-8 levels): 2

Medium-scale “dungeons” explored (2-5 levels): 11
Mini-dungeons and lairs explored: 25
"Squares" in the pointcrawl map explored: 128

Furthest distance from the center of the map traveled: 62 miles

Number of other dimensions visited: 3

Total number of people who have played in the HC: 35

Countries of players (thanks G+): 5

Number of children that have played: 8

First-time players that have played: 9

Most players at a single session: 12

Number of PC deaths: 5

Times that PCs have rolled on the Death and Dismemberment table: 13

Hireling deaths: 27

Longest living NPC follower: Demetrios the Silent

Longest surviving PC: Mandamus

Most successful first-time player: Uma the Thief

Highest level achieved: 6^th

Most potent enemy bested: Qvix, Demon of the Anti-Ziggurat

Biggest haul from a single session: gold bars worth 6,000 suns (gp)

Most potent magical item obtained: the Terminaxe (+3 vs. giant insects) and/or four pieces of the Rod of Seven Parts

Least exp per player awarded in a full session: 10

Least amount of swag per player lifted in a session: 1 sun

Most popular PC class: Thief

Least popular PC class: Paladin

Most popular HC-unique class: Mountebank

Least popular HC-unique class: Lankhmarian White Wizard

Worst-acting participant: me

I raise a glass of slivovice—it's five o'clock somewhere—to all the players. Without you it would all be a Billy Idol song.