We had to wear our Diva tees. Olivia, as Diva in training, ended up making her own, but it turned out fabulously. Plaid duct tape, who knew?

We gather round and divided into teams. Angel and I paired up. Sarah with Olivia , Michelle (with her ward, Carol) and Tad. Three teams, one objective and an hour to fulfill the mission. Dum-dum-DUM! We got the lists. Lovingly scroll-ized by Taj.

It was a great list. It included hits from our time in Cauldron as well as recent entries from our time in the Black. Legos, flour, Orak’s bathhouse soap, dragons, plot points and rubber duckies….. All that was missing was the Mayor of Cauldron himself!

Sarah pauses for a moment of silence at the site of the burning of the Wee Jas temple.

Because you never know when there’ll be skulks around, I got my bag of flour ready to throw.

Carol successfully bluffs the Home Depot lady by asking for Alpha-Centuri printer paper. W00t!

In an homage to pun-master Tad, Michelle calls lightning.

We had to find a dragon and give candy to a stranger. We combined these on the assumption that this dragon was a stranger to Angel. She looks suitably worried at the prospect.

We had on the list, “D-VA” and since none of us had the actual ship handy, Sarah and Olivia had the most clever idea.

Taj did a wonderful job of listing items we could find in easy distance of Guardian Games. One of these was Jefferson!

Taj set up base camp at Guardian and let the photos roll in!

One of the items was a Lego weapon being used. Angel quickly assembled a Lego hammer and threatened me with it. Scary.

Olivia with her dragon — sweet Hamouk, who saved my bacon more than once.

Handsome Tad with his dragon.

We had to get “5 minis painted all alike.”
Brilliant Angel thought of the lotto pencils at Sheridan Fruit Company.

Sarah gets full marks for composition. She has two unique props –(from left)  a giant mole of science, the death gaze frog and a Lego (her own) using a Lego weapon (not that Imago is any great shakes with a pistol. She’s a doctor not a marksman!).

At game’s end, Taj began the tally process.

We decided to hang out and wait the results…..  It was close. So close that Taj & Jim called in an impartial third judge….. The results:

Me & Angel = 3rd place (sigh)
Sarah and Olivia = 2nd place
Tad, Michelle and Carol = 1st place and all the bragging rights you can eat.

So, what sort of Legos are out there for girl gamers like us? The easy answer is All the Legos! All the Legos are “suitable” for girls. Cue the maniacal laughter.

I realized I’d been looking at the whole Lego thing the wrong way round. The possibilities of Legos in game are endless. I hope we’ll have a chance to test this theory. We’re planning on trying out the Firefly RPG next. And I was thinking How are we gonna handle the minis? I mean with playing Shackled City, it was easy to get minis for the game. With a futuristic, Wild West, space opera, um, where are you going to get minis?

Duh: Legos! A quick look on Google shows me that even I could come up with some sweet props for a Firefly game. So, I guess we can put away the Castle Legos for a while as we explore the universe of Serenity.

Legos Star Wars sets would be the obvious Legos to use for some of the props. Oh, and of course, Indiana Jones! Lucky for this cheapskate there are tons of used cheap Legos out there. It is fun to contemplate a new world to explore. A new gaming engine to learn and new stories to tell. I can’t wait to build my mini!

Druids are great. Chain lightning? Baleful polymorph? What’s not to love? I am looking forward to getting to know Ian, the druid and his big bear Brüs.

I’m hoping we have another new character this coming Wednesday. Last week a woman named Megan showed up and watched the game. I love playing at Guardian Games for just this reason. New people! Megan said she was going to come back this week and she perhaps noticed that we are woefully understaffed in fighters.

Taj bought him some dice and a calculator as a welcome present. As Susan said, “It takes a big man to roll tiny dice.”

And they are tiny. But they get the job done!

I admire Tad; I remember those first few weeks of gaming. I was nervous about playing, about making a mistake or casting the wrong spell at the wrong time. So for him to sit down with total strangers is awesome. He picked a good group. Since most of us are still pretty new at the game, so it is easy to incorporate another newbie.

Now that he’s getting some of the tools of the trade, he needed one of Michelle’s famous dice bags! The irony that Tad was wearing brown and carrying a banana was not lost on us.

When Tad arrived at the game this past Wednesday, he’d been struggling with leveling up Alek. If you remember, Alek is a NPC. And in true form, he is a level 6 paladin/level 6 aristocrat. Verrry useful. At a cocktail party, this guy will rule. So Tad’s dilemma: another rank of Paladin or Aristocrat?

He & Michelle took some time before the game to look at Alek’s stats. Tad realized that he could take a level of Fighter or something to add a little more zing. In the end, they decided on another level of Paladin.

It kinda worked out well, at the end of the night because Alek got killed. Now Tad can roll a new character.

So, meet the new guy. Yeah, guy. His name is Tad and this is a crappy picture of him. I know what you’re thinking — The Dungeon Divas let a guy play with them? It all started innocently.

We’re playing a few weeks ago and, as sometimes happens, a person sat down to watch for a few minutes. We play at Guardian Games so we’re used to that. It’s kind of fun to have visitors. Usually we’re the only group playing D&D on Wednesdays. The rest of the place is packed with guys playing WarHammer.

So this guy asks if he can watch. And we tell him to pull up a chair. He stayed all night. That was our introduction to Tad. And the next week, he came back! So Michelle asked him if he wanted to play an NPC. He could play Alek if he wanted to….. Tad is a good sport because he jumped right in. Taj loaned him some dice and off we went on our adventure. And he did a perfect job. He sent Alek headlong into battle with the bebolith. Exactly what Alek would do.

Then last week, he came back again! Michelle was ready. She had a full character sheet for Alek as well as background on his character, motivations, fighting style, etc. Poor Tad practically first thing last week, he got turned to stone by the basilisk.

It’ s fun having him around. And Michelle was telling me the other day that in other Shackled City adventures she’s read about, Alek dies at the end of that chapter. We get out of the mirror and he pretty much takes on the three-tailed guy and bites it. We didn’t let that happen and so he’s still around!