MILWAUKEE GAMEFEST '04 REPORT

04/09:

I got in to a rather chilly Milwaukee at 3:00PM local Friday and headed straight for the Midwest Airlines Center where the Gamefest was held (and where GenCon was formerly held). There wasn't too much activity going on; the dealer's area wasn't open and Gary hadn't arrived yet. There was perhaps a hundred to a hundred and fifty or so people milling around getting ready to set up.

The dealer area opened, and I strolled in (suitcase and camera bag in hand - hadn't even been to the hotel yet) and walked around a bit. Fantasy artist Rowena was set up, selling her wares and talking to a few people. Chessex had a big display along with the long-awaited new production run of Battlemats as well as a metric ton or so of dice. Unfortunately, as I was doing all-carryon with my luggage, I couldn't really grab one of those. The majority of the vendors were selling a mix of new and used games; many seemed to be clearing out their "closets" - which is fine, because old Grognards like me typically benefit from things like that. One dealer, who's name I now can't recall, had a few mini-boxed sets. He had three copies of the World of Greyhawk and perhaps twice that many D&D Expert sets in miniature.

 

Titan Games anchored the far near corner of the hall with their massive used games sale. At the risk of sounding like a complainer, I'd like to say that Titan was vastly overpricing some of their wares and under pricing others. For example: they had a red flyleaf Monster Manual, a book that even in poor condition typically sells for $30, priced at nineteen dollars. They were selling copies of Manual of the Planes, a book that typically sells for $25.00 in mint condition for FIFTY dollars! Ah well. They had some Original D&D booklets, and I bought one of their copies of Gods, Demigods and Heroes to further my rounding out of my Original D&D set. No "stand alone" Monsters & Treasures, though.

Titan Games' massive sales booth.



 

The Castles & Crusades banner flies high at the Troll Lords' Booth!

Once I was done walking around the floor a bit, I went over and introduced myself to the most excellent Troll Lords. If any of you guys are reading this, I thank you for a fantastic weekend. Fiffergrund was there at the booth, and he showed me the latest revision of the Castles & Crusades Player's Handbook. Fantastic stuff. As I was standing there talking to Fiff, I mentioned that I couldn't wait to see Gary and get my copy of Greyhawk: Supplement I autographed. Fiff pointed out that Rob Kuntz was sitting behind the Troll Lords standee, so I walked over and got his signature (thanks again, Rob). About that time or so, Sieg and Indigo showed up and we spent a good long time chatting.



I excused myself to head over to the hotel to put my ever-heavier bag in my room, and came back shortly, camera in hand (pictures to be posted later). I hooked up with the Troll Lords again and spent a while chatting, walking around trying not to spend my life savings at Titan Games and snapping a few photos here and there.

I found out that Fiffergrund was going to run a C&C demo game, so I got in on that.

Our party consisted of myself (8th level magic-user), a paladin, a druid, thief, a straight up fighter and a cavalier (Fiff, if I missed any please let me know). We were on a quest to find an artifact that could potentially put an end to all war, and said artifact was housed in a mysterious cave.

After nearly falling off of a thin stone bridge (think Khazad-Dum from The Fellowship of the Rings), our party advanced to a cave in which dwelt a giant eagle. One web spell and a handy torch later and we were around the eagle problem. Unfortunately, it was only the beginning.

We found a scintillating cave with portals of different colors it's hexagonal walls. We experimented with each portal, and found that each had it's own perils. One contained a nasty undead creature that nearly slew our Cavalier; another had a spore-releasing fern that kept several party members reacting as though they'd had a lung full of dust of choking and sneezing blown at them. Still another blasted us (and by US I mean ME) with fire, doing damage.

We finally went through a portal that led to a room containing a huge cataract, with no obvious way to cross it. My magic-user consumed his potion of flying and breezed across, carrying a line for the party to go hand-over-hand on. While I did this I noticed several interesting robes on stone columns that were thrust out of the center of the maestrom. Once the rope was secure, I grabbed the robes and examined them; they appeared to be ordinary...

The party shortly discovered an archway, and our cavalier walked through it...

...and died from a blast of electrical energy. My magic-user, seeing the potential danger, donned one of the articles of clothing and tried the same thing...

...and met the same fate.

At this point, myself and Mike Stewart retired as we'd comprised the casualties in the party. The rest of the group continued onward to try and solve the riddle.

It was about 11:00 or so at that point, so I headed back to my hotel for some well-deserved rest.

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