Last night, my goddaughter, Ellie, and I played a game of ZMan Games reprint of the classic Tales of the Arabian Nights board game here at the hotel. Ellie has loved this game since she first saw the 1st Edition of it that I have, and so she played a game with me last night while staying with me overnight at the hotel.

What follows are the written notes that I took about the game (at Ellie's insistence), as she wanted me to post it up in the blog for all - well mostly her mom and dad - to see. :)

So...

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This is the tale of Ali Baba (JohnK) and Zumurrud (Ellie), and their travels across the lands of the Arabian Nights.

Zumurrud would be best described as a pious woman. While she was also skilled in storytelling and in the arts of (minor) magic, her religious nature and choices woujld largely determine the course of her life. On the other hand, Ali Baba was very much a thief, skilled in stealth and sneaking, but also was familiar with quick thinking and thinking on his feet, and with the use of weapons. Their adventures would become the stuff of legend.

Ali Baba set out from Baghdad seeking a mysterious woman who was to be his true love, one who dwelled far distant from the City of Light at the heart of the world. Travelling into the wilderness heading for Bulgars, Ali came upon a small artifact but was blinded by it! Undaunted, he continued his quest.

Meanwhile, Zumurrud set out from fabled Baghdad in an attempt to help a wealthy merchant find a suitable spouse. The merchant promised a hefty reward, though of course Zumurrud acted too out of the goodness of her heart. She set out for the far-off city of Su-Chou, where there was reported to be a slave market of extraordinary quality. The merchant hoped to marry a slave that Zumurrud would purchase for her. Encountering a small village with strange customs, Zumurrud married a man but when he died, discovered they had the custom of burying the surviving spouse with the dead mate! Caught attempting to escape, Zumurrud was beaten and then thrown into a pit, crippled. Encountering another woman in the pit who would not share her food, Zumurrud fell into a sleep like death, but was retrieved by a grave robber who took her for dead, and stripped her of her belongings. She managed to crawl out of the pit, dazed, with no memory of who she is, and penniless.

Continuing his travels, Ali came upon a terrible sight - a demonic 'efreet! Fleeing in terror, Ali was pursued by the creature but was able to fend it off, and gaining stories to tell in the process. However, in the process, Ali came upon his true love in the city of Yalta, and married her becoming a vizier (he also gained courtly graces and wisdom). Heading back to Baghdad by the long route, Ali came upon a pitiable sight - a creature like unto a wax statue of a man whose legs were transfixed in a pillar of basalt. While he could not aid the wretch, he felt pity and continued on his way.

Zumurrud's travels towards Su-Chou had her encounter a captain during a caravan trip, wherein he offered to split the profits if she aided him in robbing them. She prayed to Allah for help, and chose to refuse his offer, but in the process regained her sanity and sense of purpose. Continuing her travels, Zumurrud came upon a small kohl pot that allowed her to see miraculous treasures all around her, but her religious wisdom enabled her to see the truth in these shadows. She discarded the pot for a small fortune and a good story to tell, and then continued her travels to Su-Chou.

Continuing on his travels, Ali came upon a multitude of brigands. As they counted their loot beneath his tree!, Ali fell out of the tree, and fled into the forest. The brigands, for some reason, did not follow. Travelling on, Ali came upon a hypnotic beggar who proved to be of the cult of Magian, and decided to kill the evil man. Ambushing the magian and his bodyguards, Ali slaughtered them with ease, his weapon prowess increasing dramatically.

Arriving in Su-Chou, Zumurrud came upon a mad enchantress, but she was less than that, and when she attempted to follow her, Zumurrud beat her off until she learned her lesson. Travelling with another sea captain, she attempted to avoid him, but found that with the vessel trapped in a whirlpool, it was better to swim for shore, and that is what she did. In relation to her quest, Zumurrud found that the slave market exceeded her highest expectations, and she selected a slave who seemed perfect in all ways. In fact, despite her intentions to return the slave to the merchant, she found that she had fallen in love with him herself. Knowing that she would be stricken with grief if they were forced to part, she shunned the generous reward offered by the merchant and chose to marry the slave herself. Zumurrud was unfortunately pursued by the angry merchant who had planned to marry the slave, but this small shadow was unable to mar Zumurrud’s marital bliss, especially as she didn’t have much trouble staying ahead of her pursuer. She also managed to increase her wealth during this time.

Still heading for Baghdad, Ali came upon an infidel temple, and with a band of trusted men, attacked the temple. Making their way to the inner chambers, Ali and his men foiled a number of traps, and searching the outer chamber, discovered the treasure was hidden in plain sight! Gaining more wealth than he knew what to do with, Ali's quick thinking became legendary among the men and others. Returning finally to Baghdad, Ali Baba met a wise sage and learned a good deal from the man. He decided the time had come to return to see his wife and tend to the lands that he now owned, and vowed to head for Yalta.

Leaving Su-Chow in pursuit of some travel opportunities, Zumurrud came upon a farmer and helping him, stumbled on a chest full of coins. Having a religious change of heart when she first thought of stealing it, she gives the money to the farmer who is delighted to have it as he must ransom his son. As she travelled on, the merchant whom she had robbed of a slave finally caught up with her! Attempting to flee, the merchant caught her and punished her, crippling her severely and leaving her for dead.

While heading for Yalta, Ali came upon a gooleh (ghoul) who had trapped a man in the branches of a tree. Unable to tell whether the man or the gooleh was telling the truth, Ali continued towards Yalta, and his loving wife. On the outskirts of Yalta, Ali came upon a nomadic tribe of Bedouins, obviously brigands, and spotted a large caravan in the distance. Warning the caravan, Ali was well-rewarded for his efforts, and gained some new friends. Travelling back to Baghdad on a mission of some mercy, Ali came upon a dying beggar in the mountains and was rewarded with wisdom and knowledge, and found himself blessed by Allah - his blindness was gone!

Recovering from her wounds, Zumurrud discovered a golden statue of a coiled serpent inside a stone building. As the gold eyes glittered, the statue moved, shattering the rear wall of the building! Zumurrud fled in terror, as the creature lunged at her with adamant fangs. Some time later, while visiting a wealthy man in his home, Zumurrud finds a trapdoor hidden in the library. Carefully opening the trapdoor, she discovers fabulous gems - and the turban of an evil Magian fire-worshipper! She quite cheerfully robs the infidel blind, before leaving the house the next morning.

Returning to Baghdad, Ali met what appeared to be at first a foolish sage, but when he attempted to converse with the man, discovered him to be a numb witted fool in truth, with nothing to teach of value.

Travelling through Herat, Zumurrud comes upon a very large house fire, people running back and forth, the cries of several victims keening in her ears. She cries out, but a man tells her to stop her keening and shoves her in among the women and children who wail and lament the blaze.

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And thus concludes the description of last night's game. I dearly love this game, a game about storytelling at its heart, with the winners and losers secondary to that aim. Ellie had a terrific time playing the game last night with me, and she dearly wants to do a five- or six-player game when her folks and the rest of the Friday night gaming group are around. In the meantime, great evening, and I got to relax with my goddaughter and take my mind off my own troubles.

Made today seem just that bit brighter.

Busy morning so far, and I'm not even at Greek class yet.

Ellie, my lovely goddaughter, is being cooperative this morning (on the condition that she a) gets to play another game of Tale of the Arabian Nights soon; and b) gets to swim in the Southway Inn pool again), so we're just heading down for breakfast before I take her to school and then head for school myself.

I promise that I will post a summary of last night's game of Tales of the Arabian Nights here on my blog when I get a chance today, but lots to do and places to go.

Later, everyone.

Well, my goddaughter will be spending the rest of today and tonight with me here at the hotel, as I give her parents a bit of time alone together on SteveB's birthday.

In the meantime, I've had several folks on Twitter want to know more about what the hotel that I'm staying in, the Southway Inn, looks like on the inside. So without further ado, I give you a pictorial representation of the hotel with perhaps a surprise or two thrown in. All the photos below were taken by spross.

( My home for the last five weeks, in pictures )

So, that's the peak behind the doors of the Southway Inn, for those who were curious as to where I'm living right now. Any comments are more than welcome, of course.

And the timing for writing this was perfect. My goddaughter has just arrived. We'll be heading off to a swim in that pool you just saw in the pics. :)

For those who have not seen it yet, here is the trailer for ERB's A Princess of Mars.



I still don't quite know what to think of this. Especially with the casting of Antonio Sabato, Jr. and Traci Lords...

Tonight should be an interesting night, if you're an Ottawa Senators fan. And if you decide to stay up that late and watch it.

The Ottawa Senators play the San Jose Sharks tonight in San Jose at the Shark Tank. This is the first, and only game this season (other than the playoffs), in which Ottawa plays the team for whom Dany Heatley now plays.

While the two teams are going to go out there and play their game, the Ottawa fans watching the game will be praying and hoping for a Senators' victory over the Sharks, just to get a little bit of payback in. An added bonus would be if Milan Michalek and Jordan Cheechoo (the two player Ottawa got for Heatley) have a good game and get a few points in this one. Especially Cheechoo, as he really needs to get going this season.

But I'll bet you that San Jose fans have no problems with this trade so far, not the way Heatley's been producing. Sure, Cheechoo and Michalek have their fans and supporters, but Heatley's done what is expected of him in San Jose, and could be well on the way to a record-breaking season scoring-wise.

Definitely an interesting game to watch, even if it's on at 10:30 pm Ottawa time.

The episode of Castle last night was a repeat, despite the fact that all the sources I looked at said it would be a new episode of the series. It was, in fact, the second season premiere, and I decided to watch it again because I was in a lot of pain in my arm from the flu shot (see yesterday's blog) and because I wasn't feeling tired.

It was a pretty good episode, when all is said and done, but I could have done without watching the re-run I guess. Still, entertaining to watch, and Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic were both pretty good in this one as well.

Oh, and for the record, folks...the arm that I had the H1N1 shot in is hurting me like the dickens today. And I can't raise that arm above my shoulder at all, and even there it hurts like hell. :(

I've just returned back to the hotel after visiting the doctor's office.

The urine tests that he ran the previous week (see this entry) came back normal, so that's good. I had both the H1N1 and the Seasonal flu jabs today at the same time. The H1N1 jab went in my left arm, my secondary arm, while the Seasonal jab went in my right arm. One arm hurts. Guess which one?

I told you I hate and distrust Mondays.

Today is going to be a busy day.

I'm on an early morning break during Greek class this morning, and the rest of today's class promises to be a challenge.

In addition, I have an appointment early this afternoon with the doctor, and then I'm getting the H1N1 flu shot at his office as well.

Just because it needs to be said... Monday is the only day of the week that I seriously don't trust.

Spent a pleasant afternoon partaking in the Tales of the Arabian Nights board game with spross and Tammy Powers.

I took the role of Ali Baba for both games, albeit the second game was aborted after about an hour and a half. In the first game, I started off in Baghdad, but my second encounter had me deal with a Disguised Beggar, and I became Grief-Stricken. The problem is that when you are Grief-Stricken, you cannot use Talent level Skills and can only use Master level Skills at Talent level. And you can only get rid of the Status by having 8 Story points or more. Needless to say, I couldn't get the Story points through any Encounters that I had to get rid of the Status, and so went through the game doing everything Unskilled (though I did have six Skills at Talent level at one point!). Had no way to win the game, but didn't mind, since I was having a good time playing the game. Tammy was having real good luck, getting the right Statuses to be able to make her own decisions more freely, and she won the game in the end. spross played a cautious game, and wasn't really a threat to Tammy, eventually suffering some setbacks in the latter stages of the game.

I played Ali Baba again in the second game of the day, but we didn't play for very long, only about an hour or perhaps an hour and a half. This time around, I started off rather well, and while I had a few Statuses to deal with (including Under Geas), I had managed to get five Skills, one of them at Master level. Tammy's luck completely turned on her in this game, and she was pretty happy to stop playing even though she was enjoying herself. I don't really remember how spross did in the second game at all.

Overall, I had a pretty good day playing Tales of the Arabian Nights, and look forward to doing so again. I had lots of fun, but I think I hurt my muscle under the arm and down the side with some stretching for cards that I shouldn't have done.

Just heard this morning about the death of Robert Holdstock, one of my favourite British fantasists, at the age of 61.

Holdstock's work first came to my attention with his novel Mythago Wood in 1984, and I remember thinking that here was a special author after I had finished the book. Over the years, Holdstock is one of the authors that I tried to keep up with all the time, but I know I missed out on three or four of his works over the years.

His loss is a major blow to the fantasy, and literary, world in general. He will be missed more than he can ever know.

R.I.P. Robert Holdstock (1948-2009)

Gearing up for today's gaming session with spross and Tammy.

Looks like we'll be trying out the new version of Tales of the Arabian Nights this afternoon. See the previous post for more about the game and some pics of the game components.

Will try to provide game report on play of game later today or tomorrow.

After spross got off work, he dropped by the hotel and we went down to Fandom II, the Ottawa gaming store that (at times) leaves a lot to be desired.

While I have the original version of the Tales of the Arabian Nights board game, I have been meaning to pick up the newest version of the game, the 3rd Edition, that came out earlier in 2009. While they take interac and cash at Fandom II, they don't take credit cards (!!) much to my chagrin, but Steve was kind enough to pick the game up for me, and I will pay him back.

What a beautiful game this truly is!



In Tales of the Arabian Nights, the players portray the heroes and/or heroines in a story of adventure and wonder, just like those told by Scheherazade to her spellbound sultan. The players and their characters travel the land seeking their own destiny and fortune. They will learn stories and gain wisdom to share with others. However, will your character be the first to fulfill his (or her) destiny? The next Tale is yours to tell! While there is a winner in Tales of the Arabian Nights, the point of the game is less to see who wins and more to enjoy the unfolding and telling of a great story.




In this current edition of this groundbreaking storytelling game, you enter the lands of the Arabian Nights alongside Sindbad, Ali Baba, and the other legendary heroes of the tales. Travel the world encountering imprisoned princesses, powerful 'efreets, evil viziers, and such marvels as the Magnetic Mountain and the fabled Elephant's Graveyard. Choose your actions carefully and the skills you possess will reward you: become beloved, wealthy, mighty - even become sultan of a great land. Choose foolishly, however, and become a beggar, or be cursed with a beast's form or become insane from terror.

The contents of the game box weigh approximately 8 lbs. (!!), and include 1 Game board, 1 Book of Tales, 1 Reaction Matrix, 6 stand-up figures, 6 player mats, 125+ cards, 100+ counters, 3 dice, and the rules.



The game is just as good as I remember it from back in the 1980's, to be honest, and the new edition of Tales of the Arabian Nights has been expanded, with improved graphics and art, and given additional material on top of what the original and German 2nd Edition contained in them. I've been a fan of this game for a couple of decades now, and really look forward to playing it in the new format.

Today has been a beautiful day outside, quite sunny, but somewhat cold and a bit blustery at times.

I decided to go out for a walk late this morning, and found that it was a bit colder than I had expected. Brrr. I went into the local South Keys shopping mall and discovered... Christmas is coming!! Argghhhh!!

Tonight's (or is that yesterday evening's?) gaming session went very well.

As mentioned in a previous post, I decided to run Desolation on the Friday night gaming group for a variety of reasons.

The game pretty much picked up where the last session with the Friday nighters did (see the link for more). The problem is that, unless I'm intent on writing a detailed write-up of the game session, blogging the games never sounds as exciting as the actual play. The player characters continue their travels, attempting to return to their characters' home, Wilkerson Dale. The group encountered their first combined corpse (one of the new beasties from the Desolation: Survivors supplement), and had an interesting time combatting the creature. My goddaughter, Ellie, was both fascinated and disgusted by the creature, but had a good time trying to kill it.

Given that we played in my hotel room here at the Southway Inn, rather than at home or at Kathy and SteveB's where I have my gaming stuff and props and all, I thought the game went rather well. The player characters wrapped the session in a fine pickle, so we'll see next week how this all turns out.

Getting ready to run my Friday night gaming group through their paces. I decided to run the Desolation rpg tonight. While the Pulp adventure feel of HEX appeals to me at the moment, the creativity I can engage in with Desolation and the post-apocalyptic rpg setting has my creative juices flowing somewhat.

Oops, better go. The Friday night gaming group has arrived. We are heading downstairs for dinner in The Shallows restaurant. My goddaughter, Ellie, is quite pleased and excited to eat here.

Later, around 7:15 pm: Back in the hotel room. Getting ready to game. I paid my goddaughter's meal tonight in The Shallows, although the others paid their own meals tonight. Anyway, ready to game. May or may not tweet during the game. Shall have to see.

I met with the estimator and a couple of other people from the insurance company in the house this afternoon. The news is bad, but there is a silver lining of sorts. The good news is that there will be no changes in price or any of the planned repairs on the house. The bad news is that work will not re-commence on the repairs and work until the week of December 7th. The estimator said to me that I should extend the hotel reservation at the Southway Inn until Christmas, and perhaps even to New Year's. :

In good news for today, I have learned from the players in the Friday night gaming group that everyone is healthy and chomping at the bit to play again.

This means that I have to decide whether I'm going to run Hollow Earth Expedition or Desolation on the gaminjg group. Decisions, decisions.

Happy Thanksgiving Day to all my friends and everyone down in the United States today.

Turkey Day means you're all going to get stuffed with roast bird and all, but it's also a day for being thankful for all the things in life that you have - family, friends, and other stuff.

Enjoy, all! :)

Happy Birthday to Thea Gilmore!! A wonderful musician with a style and feel to her music that is both interesting, fresh, and lyrically gorgeous.

Speaking of which, the latest album by Thea Gilmore, Strange Communion, showed up in my mailbox at the house yesterday. Having listened to the album twice now, this is one of my favourite Christmas albums.

One of my favourite songs from that particular decade. Love to drive down the highway to this one, but it tends to make me drive a bit fast... :)



Enjoy! :)