Ongoing Fuckery: The Origins Story

I just got back from Origins Game Fair on Sunday. It was a good time - I got to hang out with folks I don't see often (disclaimer: if we talked this weekend and I don't mention you here, I'm sorry), I ran a couple of games, I played in a few as well, and I came home with a respectable pile of games.

That said, when folks asked me during the con how it was going, I would reply "fine, despite Origins' best efforts." Origins, it seems, doesn't really much care about RPGs, especially if they're not run by clubs. In years past, it was common to see individual GMs running their favorite games, or mashups or hacks thereof - hell, last year, Kai and I played in a Thundarr the Barbarian hack of Barbarians of Lemuria. I've seen people running obscure games like It Came from the Late, Late, Late Show and Street-Fighter at Origins over the years, but this year, RPGs were mostly run by clubs or companies: Lots of Shadowrun, lots of Pathfinder and various other D&D-related things, and a few offerings from Rogue Cthulhu. And Games on Demand, of course, but we'll get to that.

Why the lack of individual GMs? I assume some of it is just dwindling membership; while my contacts at Origins tell me attendance was slightly up this year, the place still felt pretty empty in comparison to previous years. Also, I think the tide of interest at Origins is moving towards board games (which Origins certainly does a lot to encourage). A lot of the folks who are interested in playing new or unique games, rather than the traditional standbys I mentioned above, hit up Games on Demand - if you want new or indie games, or, like anything involving Fate, that's where you go. I wound up in and out of that room a lot over the weekend, and it was usually full or full-ish (though I had this nagging feeling that I was seeing the same people playing all the time, so I don't know what that means).

Then there's the fact that we (the IGDN) submitted a whole bunch of events that Origins just...didn't include in their online reg system like they said they would. They claimed that they ran out of space, but that was blatantly false; the events that got added back in (too late to be useful; I'll get to that) were scheduled for the Harrison-Hayes-etc room block on the 1st floor of the Hyatt, and those rooms were consistently empty or nearly so. The whole situation smacks less of "we didn't have room" and more of "we don't actually give a single fuck."

On the "too late to be useful" subject: Origins claimed (falsely) that they would include our events in their online reg system, and then did not bother to inform us that they hadn't until the system went live. Because Origins outsources their (shitty) reg system, they couldn't make alterations to it, meaning our events went into the onsite book, but (get this) even onsite, people couldn't register for them! That means that the two intrepid souls who showed up for my Friday Chill game had to pay with generics; Origins could not sell them tickets for an event in their book because they don't have access to their own system.

IGDN will be back at Origins next year, but one of the things we're discussing is how much effort we really want to put into this con, since they seem wholly uninterested in meeting us halfway or, indeed, living up to agreements they've made with us. Which is sad, because I remember Origins of years past, when it was a big, national convention for business and gaming, not a medium-sized, regional con with delusions of grandeur.

Anyway, with all of that in mind, here's my Origins 2016 report, which, again, was very positive, despite the aforementioned fuckery.

Wednesday: The Day of Sweat

Wednesday we loaded up the van and drove to Columbus, so not much to report, there. We set up the booth, which always results in exhaustion and copious perspiration, followed by dinner (this time at Bare Burger, which I highly recommend). 

Ripe with potential! And...just ripe in general. 

Can we talk about this forklift having a goddamn harpoon on it?

 

After dinner, I returned to the convention center to stand in line and get my eldest's badge and my second badge. Why second badge? Well. 

I have an exhibitor's badge, which I need, because I run the IGDN booth. However, I'm also at this gaming convention to play games, which Origins apparently feels is some kind of wacky-ass happenstance, because their (shitty) badge reg system is set up so that if you have an exhibitor's badge, you can't buy event tickets. So I had to buy a badge (which fortunately I get at a discount because I'm a teacher; in previous years I've argued with them until they refunded it, but it's such a hassle that this year I said fuck it) so I could get event tickets so I could play games. I'm actually something of a chump, because I could just buy a bunch of generics and play at Games on Demand, which is where the games I like are anyway, but that didn't occur to me until later. 

Anyway, the first time I looked at the line, it was immense, because an extra 2000 people showed up on Wednesday (perhaps because of a Magic tournament). They had it sorted by the time I got back from dinner, though, and actually getting my badges was the most painless it's been in years (probably because I was asking the bare minimum of Origins). 

You maybe can't tell but that line is hella huge.

Games: None.

Awesome People: +Michelle Lyons-McFarland, +Tim Rodriguez, +Ryan Schoon, +Mark Diaz Truman (very briefly), +Jerry Grayson 

Thursday: The Day of Booth

Thursday I spent most of the day in the IGDN booth, sellin' books. Michelle was with me for a lot of it. 

The booth, and Michelle in her Dracula shirt.

The hordes.

I had a Chill game scheduled, but due to Origins' scheduling shenanigans, I had no players and it didn't happen. So I went back up to the booth for a while, wandered around for a bit, and just generally tried to be useful. 

Kai came and found us during the day, too, before zipping off to play Big Eyes, Small Mouth, which he really enjoyed (we didn't play in any games together this con, which was a little sad because I like playing with him, but it was cool that he was playing new stuff on her own).

We went to dinner at Kooma, which was lovely, and talked about games and so forth. 

Games: None.

Awesome People: See above, plus +Derrick Kapchinsky, +Andy Hopp, and probably others I'm forgetting. 

Friday: The Day of Games, Finally

Friday we actually got to play some stuff. Holy cats. First off, we had to get Kai up and out the door because he was running Cat at Games on Demand. Once again, the fact that Origins hemmed and hawed and ultimately tried to say that minors couldn't run games (wtf) worked against us; the "Kids' Games on Demand" idea didn't get publicized and he wound up running for adults. That said, he said it went well (if quickly) and he had fun being a GM.

Behold his commanding presence.

Meanwhile, Michelle and I had signed up to play Baker Street. Now, we'd backed this game on Kickstarter and Michelle's actually in the book as a hack driver (it was a birthday present), but we kept missing out on being able to play it at GenCon, so it was nice to finally get to experience it. 

Shy GM aside.

 

The scenario involved a dead child supposedly killed by the nanny - a vampire! Ha. We were investigators, here. The system for figuring out clues is done in rounds, where first you find evidence, then you narrow leads, and finally you figure out what the truth is. I'd run this game, I think; it's an interesting take on a Holmes-style mystery and (as you probably know) I love investigative games. 

My one complaint about the game (and it's minor): You ever have a guy at your table who gets a dumb idea into his head and just will not let it go, even if it's actively derailing things and is objectively a stupid thing to do? The conflict here centered in part on a poisoned dart, and one guy at the table got the idea into his head that he was going to lick it. Now, we'd already suspected it was poisoned, but this guy persisted and the GM wound up making another player roll against him to get the damn arrow away from him before he licked it. I dunno, I think there's a time for the GM to say "this is dumb, you know it's dumb, let's move on." Like I said, though, that was minor. My grade: A. 

Right, so, following Baker Street I had a Chill game to run. I was expecting not to run it, because, well, see above. But because I'd worked the booth the day before, I'd had time to tell folks about the game, and yep, a couple of awesome people showed up to play. 

I wound up running Big Sky (which will be written up for the site this month or next ETA: it's on DTRPG if you search), because the other scenario I had prepared (Black Diamond) really isn't suitable for just two players. The game went well - they wound up bugging out and calling in more help rather than confronting the main menace, because they didn't wish to be eaten by a werewolf, which is reasonable. 

So then dinner, and then I had an off-the-books game to run: Promethean: The Created 2nd Edition. +Meredith Anne had asked me to run it, in what's become an Origins tradition of "find an awesome person and run a game for them" (last year it was +Monica Valentinelli). So we found a room downstairs and got into it...only to discover that the room was going to be used for the Kobolds At My Baby Midnight Massacre. (ALL HAIL KING TORG!)

This does not make for a quiet room.

 

So we moved to a different room, and played through the game. It was a lot of fun - the players very easily dropped into their characters but also the notion that their characters had some history together; probably helped that the players knew each other. More to the point, the game played really well, which is gratifying to me as the developer. 

And then I forgot to take a group picture. Balls. Ah, well. 

Games: Baker Street, Chill, Promethean

Awesome People: Michelle, Ryan, Meredith, +Scott Holden, Nathan

Saturday: The Day of Even More Games

Saturday I was barely in the booth at all (Friday I was there a little, but I didn't mention it because it wasn't really relevant). But Saturday, man, lots of games. I got up early to go and play The One Ring. 

Now, I'm gonna lose a lot of you here, but I don't like Tolkein's writing. I find it overwrought and boring and hard to read. I started reading Fellowship before the movie came out, figuring it would be useful to know the story to better appreciate the cinematic version, but I got as far as Tom Bombadil and went "wtf even is this" and stopped. But with that said, I really love the movies. I'd just rather spend four hours watching all of it than 80 zillion hours reading it and getting a shitload of unnecessary backstory. 

So imagine my delight when the GM for this game quietly confessed to basically what I just said, including getting up to Bombadil frolicking through the woods before stopping. Also, the game was set in Rohan (we were riders thereof), and we had to do some diplomacy and matchmaking to prevent civil war among the horse-lords. My character was very much a straight-up warrior, but I managed to get some good use out of Awe and Song, too, so I felt useful even when we weren't stabbing people (stabbing was pretty minimal, actually). I wound up buying the game, and I think if Michelle wanted to pick up her "family politics" game The One Ring would be a decent set-up for it. My grade: A

Family trees are an essential part of the process.

 

From there, I had a brief break and we were going to go to North Market, but then a giant rainbow blocked our path. 

Wooo!

 

Pride was this weekend, and I knew that, but it meant that getting across the street to the Market required more finagling than we had time for, so we ate at the food court in and admired people in rainbow garb instead. And then off to the next game!

Turns out the next game was an alpha playtest of Pillar of Fire, a new game by +Cam Banks and run (in this case) by +Renee Knipe. 

The game was described as "Exalted in space," but I didn't feel like it played much like Exalted, which is a good thing (I love Exalted, but the system is not for the impatient). Pillar of Fire plays more like a stripped-down WoD game - it's a dice pool, sure, but actions are based on ability and intent, and non-successful dice pump up your other abilities. For example, the character I played could manipulate gravity, but had to roll a few 6s on dice to "prime the pump," so to speak, and get access to his more impressive powers. 

If you think about it, this is a change from games where you start out with your pool of points full and then spend them throughout the game - here, you start empty, have to build up your pool, so you're full by the time things are coming to a head. I didn't realize until now just how much I like that idea. 

Anyway, the game is intriguing and I very much want to see it from the GM's side. This particular session was fun - two conflicting invasive beings (an AI gone rogue and a malignant fungus monster), and we wound up dealing more with the AI and just nuking the fungus from orbit, which is the only way to be sure. Apart from one player with a habit of interrupting people (which he stopped when I called him on, in fairness) it was a really fun table, too. My grade: A

That put us up to dinner time, and so we (me, Michelle, and Kai) walked down the street to the Happy Greek to get flaming cheese and then to Jeni's for delicious ice cream. All was well until Michelle walked through a crowd of smokers on her way back, triggering her bronchitis that she's been fighting for weeks and making her struggle all the way back to the hotel, and then putting her on bedrest for the rest of the night. Fuck smokers. Smoking is gross. If you have to do it, do it somewhere private, like the bottom of a well. 

Anyway, so Michelle was toast, and Kai went off to play Are You a Werewolf, so I went up to Games on Demand because they'd emailed earlier and said they might need GMs. Turns out they needed players, and I'm there for that! I wound up playing Iron Edda with +Tracy Barnett. 

For Goldheim!

Now, I'd backed this game on Kickstarter but then kind of missed it, because I somehow didn't ever realized it was Fate-based. But man, it's pretty badass. It combines Fate Core and FAE, which at first made me think "...why?", but it made perfect sense in context - Fate Core for the characters, FAE for the giants, which need to work on a different scale. Also, there's a really fun "create your stronghold" system, and I love collaborative world-building, so that was awesome. I wound up playing a seer and teacher of the jarl's rowdy children, and giving a dwarf-piloted destroyed mech a serious case of head-ravens. My grade: A+. I fully intend to run this for some of my players at some point. 

Then, sleep. 

Games: The One Ring, Pillar of Fire, Iron Edda

Awesome folks: Everyone mentioned above plus +Hamish Cameron and probably other folks whose names I don't know, +Joel Sparks, +Steve Wallace 

Sunday: The Final Hours 

Traditionally, I run Clay-o-Rama on Sunday morning...but you know how that worked out. This added in the bonus of the dudes in the main gaming hall not even knowing where the table was that I was supposed to use, but I eventually found it with literally no help from them. I sat there for a little while and then said "fuck this" and went shopping with Kai and Michelle. 

Ain't this the saddest damn thing?

 

So we wandered the dealer's hall and bought things. Kai got some dice earrings and some art for his wall, and of course I bought games because I somehow don't have enough. 

I did, however, find a game that looked interesting at first blush, but then I read the back. 

Anyone care to guess how to make me quickly put a book down and wash my hands?

 

Also did some time in the booth, after shopping, and chatted with +Matthew Karafa and some of his buds. Sunday is the day for people to drop by and chat, too, so we saw +Jaym Gates and lots of other folks I'm forgetting. 

Not sure what Matt's looking at here, but it concerns me.

 

So then it was time to break things down, and we got the booth struck and the van loaded in slightly over an hour, which is reasonable, and home we went!

Swag!

Guys, I really love Origins, and I'm coming back, whether it's as a rep for IGDN or just on my own. But I would really love for Origins to bounce back, to absorb the spillover from GenCon (which is getting far too big), and for GAMA to pay attention to some of the other facets of the hobby they're ignoring. Here's hoping! 

Origins 2015!

Origins! Woo!

Yeah, I know. GAMA doesn't do administrative stuff well, their software is weird, etc. Don't care. Still love this con, and attendance was up this year, so that's great to hear. Let's see some pictures!

This year was special because my son Kai was in attendance, and ran his first con game. So we picked him up from his last day of school on Wednesday and hit the road.

We stopped at Grandpa's Cheese Barn on the way, because obviously. 

We got to the con and unloaded the stuff for our booth, and then I went to go fight with registration about exhibitor badges.

Michelle doing booth assembly. 

See, here's the problem. If you want an exhibitor badge, you have to wait until those become open to register. Which is great...if you don't plan to sign up for any events. I do want to sign up for events. That meant I had have them cancel my badge, cancel my events, sign me up for a new badge, and then sign me up for my events real quick. It worked, it just took a long time. But we got it sorted and the folks at registration were really nice and patient.

Back to the booth, then: We couldn't get it entirely set up, because most of the flooring hadn't been delivered. See, funny story, UPS randomly decided to deliver half of our flooring to our house in Cleveland, rather than the hotel that we'd specified as the delivery address. So...huh? But, Amazon and UPS worked with us, and got stuff shipping down to us. So we set up as much booth as we could...

TRAVIS IS A MONSTER.

  ...and fucked off to get dinner.

We got dinner at Bare Burger, a lovely little place across the street from the convention center that serves (you guessed it) burgers, many of them made from bison or wild boar. Very tasty food, though I think the staff isn't used to Origins. When I walked in, I just had Kai with me, and the host said, "two?" And I said, "no, eight, they're just not here yet. Actually, we're both four people." He just kind of blinked. I said, "dude, it's gonna get a lot weirder than me this weekend, best be ready."

Kai contemplates burgers.

Tim & Travis.

Anyway, dinner done, we went back over the convention center. I walked Kai around a bit so he knew the lay of the land, including the giant inflatable sheep.

You thought I was kidding?

And then he had his first game, which was Are You a Werewolf? I wound up playing, too, because I had nothing else going on and why not? AYAW is an Origins staple; we also often play it at our holiday party, though there are some differences. The Origins folks have everyone pat their legs during the night so that you can't listen to movement and try and figure out the werewolves that way (not that it mattered, as loud as the room was). I always find that weird, because it's not like there's anything else to go on, not if you don't know the people and know their tells. Ah, well. It was fun, I got eaten by werewolves, and then we headed back to the room for rest.

Thursday!

Eee!

So, first thing was finishing booth set-up before the hall opened. We got the flooring and got the booth completed, and I think it looked pretty nice.

Buy one of each!

The booth from the other angle.

Thursday I worked the booth, and then had an afternoon Chill game that didn't happen because I didn't get players. Bummer. So I wound up wandering the dealer's room a bit. Kai had a game earlier in the day...

I believe this would be the infamous "anime weird ninja school" game where they give out candy.

 I found Tim doing demos in the booth...

GHOST PIRATES.

 And Jerry in his booth...

Sellin' books. 

But that night, after dinner, Michelle and I went to Games on Demand, and there was a crazy line of people to get in.

Like a Cedar Point ride.

We wound up playing in a game of Feng Shui 2nd Edition, which was lots of fun. I was a magical cop named Stephen Wei, and lots of fun Jet Li-esque shenanigans were had. Michelle was a sorceress thrown forward in time to handle some Chi weirdness. We fight crime!

The games was really well-run, I think. There were a couple of moments were the GM paused to explain things for a bit too long, but it wasn't an ongoing problem, and the fight scenes (which are important to Feng Shui were evocative and quick-paced). This was run through Games on Demand, and they have yet to disappoint. My Grade: A

The GM, some sheets, my pen. Very minimalist. 

Then sleep! Then Friday!

Friday was the day that Kai was going to run his game of Cat. I was supposed to be free until 2 so I could be with him for his first hour of the game, but my GM got sick and lost her voice, so I had to run two Chill games back to back. Which was somewhat exhausting, but hey.

I segued directly into my second game of Chill, which also went well. That finished up about six, and we had some time to wander. Kai was supposed to be in a game of Mammoth Catan, but Origins fucked the schedule up, so that got cancelled.

Looks cool, though, dunnit?

 We saw a "rocket ship" made of balloons.

Sometimes, a balloon is just a balloon. 

We were supposed to play The One Ring that night, but that got cancelled, so we crashed out instead.

Saturday!

First thing: Kai and I played in a game of Barbarians of Lemuria retooled for Thundarr, the Barbarian!

Now, my dad used to watch Thundarr with me on Saturday mornings, and it was a show we liked. I didn't have time to show Kai much of it, but he got a sense of how it worked. He played Princess Ariel, I played Ookla the Mok, and we beat up a bunch of evil monsters and destroyed the Moon Men and saved the world. It was pretty awesome. The GM kept things moving and moved the spotlight appropriately, and, most important, he played off the 10-year-old at his table nicely; he didn't talk down to him or just tell him what to do (which is good, because Kai can have great ideas on his own if you give him a minute, but he'll go along with whatever folks suggest in a game otherwise). My Grade: A

Character tiles!

Fightin' rat monsters!

And then some lunch at North Market, and then I had a game of Chill to run, which went fine (got to see people I don't get to play with often, which is always neat).

And then more Chill! +Monica Valentinelli had asked me to run a game for her, so I gathered up some folks and we played a game of Chill in the Big Bar, at a Geek Chic table. I liked this game; it's quick and tense. I think maybe I will use it as a con game going forward. No PC deaths, though the monster used the Chill discipline at the end and threw everyone for a loop.

Captain America came to visit. 

Monica and Jerry review their mission. 

Bat Lord: Banished! Woo!

And then sleep? Naw, and then we sat up chatting and drinking forever. And then sleep.

And then Sunday! Sunday morning at Origins means only one thing: Clay-o-Rama! It was weird this year, though. I had eight people signed up, but only four showed, so it went really quickly.

Preparing for battle. 

So that was quick, and then back into the dealer's room to wander around for a while before it was time for tear-down.

Chill book, tokens, dice, and a character sheet. You know you wanna buy it. 

And then tear-down!

Rawr!

SMASH!

And that was Sunday. Monday, we were still there. We got everything packed up, and got on the road to Baltimore for a little mini-vacation, leaving the ruins of the con behind...until next year.

Wait...I still...function...

Of Gods & Heroes - Notes, Actual Play, Comments

So, I'm doing this thing now where I run a one-shot a month for the good folks in the IGDN, and then review the games over on RPG.Net. This month's offering is Of Gods & Heroes, for which I made a character recently. So I am going to take some notes, and then kinda "live blog" the game (really just make any notes that I think might be relevant for the review) and then tomorrow I'll do a proper game write-up.

Opening up Eureka!, I find a plot called "In the Kingdom of the Blind," which, with some tweaking, has the feel I want. The characters will crash with their ship near a village in which 90% of the people have been blinded by evil spirits. This is all due to Amenides, an evil man who desired to see what the winds so, so he caught one of the children of Boreas, the North Wind, and cut out his eyes. Boreas flew down and drew Amenides up and dropped him, killing him, but he tricked his way out of Hades' realm using his superior sight, and came back to his village. He murdered the priests of Athena, Zeus, Ares, Artemis, and Apollo, but bartered with Hecate, giving her one of each of the eyes. Hecate then cloaked the village from the sight of Olympus - only someone who can't see can find the place.

The characters' ship gets blown off course by the blind wind child, who wants his fucking eyes back. To the characters, this is going to look like he's fucking with them. But then they get there, and the people tell them about the nightly wind-demons. A blessing from the priestess of Hecate can keep them from getting blinded, if they can convince her.

And then it's just a matter of finding Amenides, for which they need a blind person (Follower or someone can get blinded, which would be more badass). Let's find some creatures!

OK, so let's use the Harpies for the spirits, aaaaaand...Oni, I guess, for Amenides? (I would normally just stat him up myself, but I'm out of time.) I think that'll work.

And I think my first player is here, so the next thing will be PCs.

• Balendin the Smith: Descendant of Hephaestus. Prowess: Beloved of Hephaestus. Fatal Flaw: Trusting. 
• Aedeleus the Deadly: Former solider in the Peloponnesian War. Prowess: Deadly. Fatal Flaw: Red Rage.
• Tellus the Skein: Blind oracle (which the player came up with entirely independently, it was just really serendipitous). Prowess: Wise. Fatal Flaw: Trickster.
• Zetis the Hunter: Child of Zeus and the Golden Hind, hunted by the gods and goddesses forever. Prowess: Fast. Fatal Flaw: Sacrilegious.
• Dolophous Kouneli the Assassin Rabbit: Another child of a god whose mother was in animal form, this one is a child of Hades after he sent a rabbit to retrieve the Golden Apple for Persephone. Prowess: Beloved of Hades. Fatal Flaw: Proud.  

Our story begins at sea. The characters are sailing back from an adventure, when a thick fog blows up and a strong wind takes the sails. Tellus is at the wheel, until Dolophous takes it, reasoning that he can do better. He is wrong, however, as he fights the wind and wrecks the ship up on the rocks (and gains a Legend Point for being proud). Tellus and Balendin are thrown into the water, but the others rescue them, and with their surviving sailors they head inland.

Led by Tellus (who can find his way unerringly, which is strange), they find a village. But most of the villagers are blind - their eyes sucked out by some horrible force. Looking around, they find that the temples are largely abandoned, and the priest of Poseidon is dead. It seems as though the gods have forsaken this village.

Villagers speak of horrible demons that fly at night and suck out the eyes of those they catch. Dolophous orders the soldiers to gather the dead and bring them to the temple of Hades for burial (there's a hole in the temple floor leading to the sea, which is where this village disposes of their dead). Aedelphus finds one temple that remains intact - a temple to Hecate, the goddess of magic.

Tellus speaks with the wind, and learns that the man responsible for this is Amenides, the Cruel. The heroes learn from the priestess of Hecate that Amenides stole the eyes from a son of Boreas, the north wind, and then after Boreas killed him, used those eyes to find a way back to the land of the living. He then made an agreement with Hecate to blind the gods to the village, and lives like a dictator. The heroes offer a sacrifice to Hecate (and Dolophous uses the ram's blood to cast a ritual making his eyes appear already gone). Hecate's priestess, sensing her goddess is pleased, casts a similar ritual on the heroes, protecting their eyes. And then night falls, and the demons come.

They attack, but Dolophous fires an arrow over their heads and grounds them, making them corporeal (using a Legendary Feat). The others best the demons with nary a wound taken, and then the Heroes wait for morning.

Come morning, the priestess shows them Amenides home - on a mountaintop. They climb the cliffs (Balendin making a pulley system for Tellus to use, since he's not much of a climber), and they come to the home of Amenides the Cruel.

He steps out of his hut, and Aedelphus attacks (Legend Point for Red Rage). Amenides, though, wears the eyes of the priests on a necklace of sinew, and grabs an eye, becoming muscular and fast, and backhands Aedelphus away. But then Tellus slips in unseen, and cuts the sinew with his blade (Legendary Feat). Zetis runs and grabs the necklace. Amenides grabs the other end, but Dolophus shoots his thumb off. Aedelphus lunges in and runs Amenides through with his spear.

The Heroes take the eyes back to the village, and restore everyone's sight. Dolophus carries the head of Amenides, and Boreas and his son arrive to reclaim the wind-boy's eyes. Tellus takes the eyes of the dead priest of Poseidon, restoring his sight, and the Heroes set to work rebuilding the village and getting a ship together, to take them on to their next adventure.