That's MR. DM to you!

I finally did my turn at DM-ing a 4E D&D game on July 10. I jumped through all the hoops necessary to make it happen, and if I was falling asleep by the end of it, after a very long day, it was worth the effort. I think the players had fun. They recognized that I was dealing with an unusual sort of module, and unusual composition from them.

The adventure apparently presumes that most characters will be human, since it involves being hired by a Dragonborn (a sort of Lizardman, somewhat like Dragonlance Draconians) to shepherd him and an Elven girl to a wilderness location. The twist came from three of the four player characters being Dragonborn themselves. So I ad-libbed much of the initial portions of the adventure, to reflect that Dragonborn players would handle the events differently than what the creators of the module intended. The encounters in the adventure involve insect and worm monsters, rather than two-legged beings of the human or recognizably-similar sort. The actual fighting went rather easily for the players, because they happened to have a perfect set of powers for dealing with their opposition. All in all, I would have chosen a different module for my debut, but it was the one I was given, and the improv moments were certainly fun.

Today, a week later, I ventured back out to the good old Montclair Book Center to see if they had any interesting new acquisitions. I found one book that I had my eye out for, the recent anthology Swords & Dark Magic. I couldn't pass up a like-new copy for only $8. This is the Sword & Sorcery collection filled with new stories by leading names in the field, including Glen Cook, Steven Erikson, Michael Moorcock, and Joe Abercrombie. I've only read the Cook, so far, but look forward to all of them.

Cook's tale is Tides Elba, which tells of a minor adventure of the Black Company during the years between The Black Company and Shadows Linger. I think many fans will enjoy this look at the simpler time, when Croaker was merely the surgeon and annalist, and not the leadership figure he became later on. I happen to prefer the latter-day character (based on the ability to watch his career-arc and see him grow into his role), but I suspect I'm in the minority here. Even if this story isn't of vital importance to the overall storyline, it was good to revisit the characters. It almost feels like another of the lengthy chapters in The Black Company, only set after the climax at Charm. Will there be more such slices of the unit's history forthcoming? I believe the planned future books, A Pitiles Rain and Port of Shadows, are to be continuations from where Soldiers Live left off, and not fill-ins for the existing timeline. It could be a good thing to eventually have a Black Company short story omnibus, similar to the Soldier of an Empire Unacquainted With Defeat collection for the Dread Empire.

Swords & Dark Magic has received excellent reviews so far, so don't let the meh cover art scare you off, if you like any of the authors involved. I'll post additional comments as I read more of the stories.