Baby's first kickstarter

A few weeks ago now I got delivery of my very first Kickstarter reward.  I had pledged the minimum pledge of $10 for Bones 6, and after dithering a long time how to use that credit, I decided on getting a proper dragon.

I selected "Chaarondar the Cruel", the sturdy looking guy below. 

That's Chaarondar the Cruel, with two As

I eventually got a heavy box in the mail, which contained the following:

Since that does not look like much, here is a scale shot of the base. 

Hard plastic base, with an Eldar crew person on a 30mm base

So you can see that the dragon will be massive!  I did a quick assembly test, and everything seems to slot together nicely, although I would need five hands to hold it all for a picture to prove it.  I may need a bit of putty for the wing to body joints, but that is to be expected for a huge guy like this. 

Anyway, so far, I am pretty pleased with the whole thing.  Now it gets put away into a box for a while...

Holidaze

Happy Christmas and New Year to you, dear reader(s).

This year I was able to take off the whole week between Christmas and New Years, which was almost enough to relax, despite the best unmentioned here efforts of 2021 to drag us down right at the end.  

I got some good loot this year as well, and hope you did too. 

Putrid Blightkings, clay shapers, a D&D battle mat flip book, and some figures for a project I am definitely not doing. 

We managed to escape town for a few days to the mountains with the cousins, and I ran the kids through another two sessions of D&D.  Being kids they are a bit easy to distract, and being numerous, they argue about what to do, so we are not that far in the campaign.  They did get to roll dice though, so it was good. 

Flip book in action

Which did not stop me from introducing more side quests, some political intrigue, and to allow them to dual class when they leveled up. 

Aside from the stuff I got personally, we also got some family games, including family favorite Mille Bornes, as well as a few others that the kids got which are not shown here (an escape room puzzle, and a Nancy Drew mystery game).  

The kid also got a combat patrol, dreadnaught, and librarian, so at some point there will be enough marines to viciously slaughter my Eldar.  Of course by the time they are painted, the new Eldar codex and miniatures will be out, so maybe I can regain the upper hand?

Here is to a better 2022 for you and yours. 

D&D 5th Edition Starter Set Miniatures

For Christmas this year, I somehow convinced my wife that we should give her cousin and his kids the Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition starter set... and further that I should buy and paint up a set of miniatures to use with it.

Now, this new D&D set is a "theater of the mind" sort of thing (also known as cheap), so no fold out maps, no tokens or stands.  It barely has dice. So I really wanted to juice it up for them and make it seem more exciting.  Thus the miniatures, and I also made a whole map pack of the Sword Coast for the cousin, who will be the DM of the group. (and that is why I made the Faerûn travel distances matrix).  I went a bit deep with the maps and such, and got about 20 pages of material, including a DM screen that I found somewhere online when looking for travel distances, and I also bought a set of dice for each of the kids.

Anyway, as the kids range from 3 to 8 years old, I knew that I wanted to use Bones miniatures, and began by reading the pre-generated character sheets, which happily are gender neutral. After a few lunch times worth of trawling through the Reaper online catalog, I ordered some miniatures from a seller on Ebay, and set to work.  I made a few conversions, mostly to remove the more egregiously bendy weapons, but also to shift them more in the direction of the starting equipment.

Here is the starting group.

Two humans, elf, dwarf, and halfling

Converted staff

Converted warhammer

Sculpted on detail removed, painted on heraldry

Replaced sword with great axe, removed dragon head, replaced with sculpted tree stump

No changes! 

Replaced bendy sword with plastic

Now, I figured that my own kids might want to play too, and so they needed their own figures (and character sheets, which I wrote up).  So I added a barbarian and a Gnome fighter to the group.

Thankfully no changes

And I also painted up a henchman/torch bearer and a donkey, because every D&D group needs someone to do the dangerous work for them, and I hope that having miniatures for them will help the group to remember this important fact.

I had a pretty good time painting these, although as always it was a bit of a rush at the end to get them done in time.  The wilderness type bases were a lot of fun to do, and if you look closely, you can see there is quite a bit going on there.

Anyway, so there is most of my hobby work for the month.  What about you, did you make any miniatures to gift?

North-West Faerûn Travel Distance Chart

I am currently working on putting together a little bit of extra information for the future DM of a 5th edition starter set (to be gifted after Christmas).  I collected a number of maps of the Sword Coast region of  Faerûn, setting of the Forgotten Realms campaigns. Surprisingly I was not able to find a Sword Coast travel distance chart online anywhere (although I am happy to be pointed to one!)

So I made one, using a version of the 2001 Wizards of the Coast map of Faerûn, which sets it in the 3rd edition version of that world, and apparently also rationalized the map to remove empty space and account for curvature of the earth.

I certainly welcome any corrections or suggestions for this chart if you have any!

As I suspect this will be my last post for 2017, Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year to all of you and yours.

The Emperor's Railroad

I have been on vacation the last week, so have not had much hobby time, but I did get a chance to read a few books, including the Emperor's Railroad by Guy Haley.

Set roughly 1000 years past an apocalypse of some sort, this novella is a recounting of an experience a young boy has with the Knight Quinn as he helps the boy and his mother move from one town to another.  A knight is something of a paladin sort, with access to tools and technologies forbidden to the general population by the Angels. (Aliens? AI? Actual fallen/descended Angels?).  There are also technological artifacts and the undead, which makes for a dangerous trip.

Anyway, the book was good, and I liked its very gritty look at a post apocalyptic world. Characters were well written, and I got a grasp of their motivations and histories fairly quickly. Unfortunately the "book" was very short at 176 pages of fairly large type, and more, it felt a bit short too.  A longer version of this same story would have been very welcome.  That said, I am looking forward to reading the next volume in the series, The Ghoul King, which just was released a month ago.

Another part of this book that I enjoyed was thinking about how well it would fit for a sort of "gonzo" D&D campaign world.  Want to do dungeon crawls where you might fight Zombies/Robots/Dragons/AI/cultists?  Knights with swords and pistols? Well this setting could easily handle all of that, and plenty of detail is available from this book to give your future world a nice gloss. Just the sub title of "the dreaming cities" gets my brain working on ideas, and really that is the sign of a good setting.

Converted Spiders

Way back at the end of 2011, I was planning to run a D&D game using miniatures, and as one does, I collected a bunch of various monsters to terrorize the poor players with.  Spiders are a natural fit for this, and I bought a few of the spiders from the then current Warhammer box (Battle of Skull Pass), got out the sharp knife, and produced the following monsters on 50mm bases:

The last picture shows the range of motion possible if you cut the legs off after splitting them apart.  The only ones which are particularly hard to separate are the rear legs closest to the abdomen. Really the hardest part of this conversion is getting the spiders to stick to the bases... and apparently painting them, since this is how they have languished for four plus years. 

Moon Elves

More of an ethnic group of Elves proper than their own race, Moon elves are characterized by long ears, pallid flesh, and ash blond or white hair. Most are thin and wasting, and yet tall, giving them a gaunt appearance. It is surmised that the name "Moon Elves" came from their physical appearance, rather than any connection to the moon, although due to their lack of pigmentation, the Moon elf is slightly more likely to be active during the dusk and night hours, as the midday sun, particularly near the equator, rapidly burns their fair skin. Many Moon elves wear large floppy hats or hoods during the day, and enveloping clothing to protect their fragile skin.

The important distinguishing feature of a Moon elf is not their appearance though, but rather their singular inability to see magic or magical effects. How this came to be is unknown, although various stories involving curses from the Titans, or blessings of Remoos are told around campfires late at night. More erudite theories involve magical creation, lack of a soul, and other darker speculations, but in reality no one knows. Rumors often connect the Moon elves to vampires, werewolves, necromancers, and other creatures of the night. What is known though, is that a Moon elf can not see things that are created by magic, nor the act of magic, nor magical illusions. While they can not see it, they are able to take advantage of its benefits, such as eating magical food, or receiving healing, and can certainly be struck dead by magical effects.

While for most Moon elves the inability to see magic is a handicap, there are a few that profit from this disability, by serving as guards, scouts, and in other positions where having someone see through a magical illusion is useful. In small numbers their inability becomes its own ability.

Given their obvious and characteristic physical appearance, Moon elves are easily distinguished from humans and other elves, even at a distance. They are often discriminated against when not in the City, due to the unsavory rumors which surround them, and while individuals may come to know a Moon elf like any other person, the uneducated, particularly in remote places fear and hate them. In some of the more remote areas of the world, there are even some who believe that Moon elves are themselves a source of magic, and they are often killed and eaten when caught by barbarian tribes.

Race Rules
In the Deepest Sea, Moon elves are limited in the classes they may take. They are unable to be magic users of any type, and can not cast magic as higher level members of other classes, nor may they read scrolls. On the other hand, they have a +1 against any harmful magical effects, and as mentioned above are not able to see illusions or other magical effects.

Like Elves, Moon Elves do not have infravision, instead they have keen vision, which accounts for their ability to spot hidden and secret doors. Moon Elves are able to see much further and more clearly than humans, particularly at night.

Like dwarves, Moon Elves do not have an experience cap, although their lust for adventure may serve as a cap, in that they are likely to die of it. More experienced elves have a tendency to want to return to the capitol city and live off of their stories, at least for a while. In addition, with every level gained above 3, elves have a 1/6 chance of becoming addicted to adventuring, meaning that they are not able to retire, even when they seek to do so. Unlike humans, or other races, PC elves are not likely to create strongholds, as they begin to get "itchy feet" and must go back to the dungeon or the frontier.

New and Old

Not much going on hobby-wise due to being very busy at work (and then working again at home at night) but I did finish reading the D&D 5th Edition Monster Manual, provided as usual by the local library.  Over all it was fun, although it would have been nice if there was more information about treasures, number appearing, and so on, and I found it an odd choice to list the average results before the underlying hit dice (although this is apparently a 5th edition wide convention, as I saw it in the Player's guide as well).

I also thought it was interesting to compare the rules for a Hydra from the Rules Compendium to this book... you can see that in the 5th Edition book the rules/picture/information on the Hydra cover a full page, and in the Rules Compendium they are much more succinct.  The rules are broadly similar though, which is nice for people who want to convert monsters or dungeons from one system to another.

Translation

I spent some time today going through the 5th edition players guide, translating my Pathfinder character to the current version D&D for a hoped for continuation of our campaign on Roll20.

Lots of fun to figure it all out.  Why did I pick to play a multi classed character again?

GW has a booth at the Nuremberg Toy fair this year, and are pitching build/paint kits to hobby/toy stores.  Could be a good way to get some of these older or press part kits circulating again, and certainly seems like something that someone like my nephew might appreciate.

In other news, I have been a bit under the weather due to the recent removal of a minor organ coupled with a cold, a combination that does not bode well for energy.  I did manage to get some work done on the 62 bases of the Steel Legion, which ultimately does not look like much, because again, there are 62 of them so it is sort of swallowed up.

Gaunt and Bone

Recently I have finished the first two novels of the Gaunt and Bone Series, by Chris Willrich. In these novels, a thief couple of Imagio Bone and Persimon Gaunt, travel to the far east of their slightly like the Earth to their not-China.  In the first book, the Scroll of Years, they travel to Qiangguo, meet various people there and end up embroiled in both local politics and the affairs of dragons.  In the second book, they travel west on a quest to find the Ironsilk Moths, which has been demanded as a price to get an item they most desire.

The books are pretty good, although a bit rushed as they are harried about the country/world. Bone is a 99 year old master thief, although often out of his element in combat or against wizards.  Gaunt is a poet/bard/thief, and often ends up being the hero, since she is a bit more combat worthy.  Both books are set in the East, and have a heavy "fantasy Asian" theme, which is alternately refreshing and bafflingly new.  Reading the second book, I would have benefited more from a more detailed review of the map, since I apparently got the fantasy world mixed up with the real one, and had a different mental picture of where they were traveling.

The World of Bone and Gaunt

I also liked how there were various fantasy ideas which seem ripe for theft and incorporation into your D&D game.

Examples:
Ur-Glue - magical ultimate glue that can not be undone, which is used in some pretty amusing ways.
Iron Silk Rope - rope made from silk as strong as iron, and can bear nearly any weight
Flickering Fire-gems - alchemical gems which contain candle fire
Living Calligraphy - calligraphy as spell scrolls, where a traditional saying acts itself out in some way.
Mummified Kraken - an ultimate undead monster.
Kleptomancer - creates nothing new, but steals knowledge from others using magic.
Magically cutting off an ear to be left in another location as a spy or communications method

There are also a couple of great magical libraries and plenty of weird magical creatures.

Disturbing

Last night I had a most disturbing dream, part of which was the following: A young woman in a red dress was writing on a wooden floor in blood, using the nail of the big toe of her deformed right foot.  The blood, which is dripping down her leg, is marking out some sort of spell that she writes almost unconsciously as she moves about the room.

Seems like this would have use in a more creepy D&D game, or WFRP, as to me at least, it is the sort of image that sticks with you for a while.  Is she a witch?  Is she being used by dark forces?  Whence comes the blood (it was not hers)?  Is the spell something that needs to be interrupted, or would there be dire consequences if it is?

Player HUD

A heads up display (HUD) is a transparent or projected screen of information for a fighter plane, so that a pilot does not have to take their eyes off what they are doing to get vital information. 

Telecanter, who appears to have a bag of 1001 ideas, had the idea of creating one for D&D play, so that what a player is holding and what role they have in combat is clear both to the DM, and probably just as important, to other players at the table.  While this may seem unnecessary to veteran players, for new or more casual players, this sort of thing is pretty useful.  Many times, a character sheet seems to get in the way of role play, as players are looking down at their sheet, and away from each other and the DM.

Telecanter's Version

In the comments to Telecanter's post, I mentioned that I have used name tents to encourage players to call each other by character name [and help me remember!], and yellow sticky notes to show who had light sources, and wondered if it would be possible to combine those ideas with the player HUD. 

Then we had a baby arrive, and I did not have the time to develop the idea further until now.


Click it to get very large

So here is my "improved" Player HUD, with attached mini character sheet.  The idea is that during the game, this is all you need to look at, although for higher level play with more spells/abilities/powers, it would start to be too limiting.

Facing the DM and other players we have right hand/left hand, combat role, player character name, and a light indicator.  Facing the player, we have an injury track, the reduced character sheet, and a d30 reminder.  I also have a "ready equipment" list and a spells list.   This should be everything that a player needs to get going during an encounter.  To make it a "tent" it folds on the dotted line, and then again in between the name/Role line, and the damage track/reduced character sheet line.

The Injury track is supposed to be a way to show other players how your character is doing with a sort of slider, just like in real life you can see if your buddy is bleeding or injured with a glance. You might use something like these Post-it flags, or just a paperclip. 

Obviously your 1hp magic user is not going to be able to use the injury tracking the same way that a fighter might.

Thoughts?  Would this help in your games?

Dungeon Master's Guide II

Last week I finished reading the Monster Manual II (MMII), published in the far off year of 1983, when I was too young to read this.

Most of the thoughts I had of II are the same as of the original Monster Manual, although I will say that the art is over all much better in MMII (and apparently they had more than $5 to pay for the cover art this time around). However, the selection of monsters feels pretty weak to me.  If you are not in to planar adventures, then about 60% of the content is cut, and most of what is left is strange variations of previous monsters.

I did like the Derro (even though they are basically evil dwarves), the cloaker, and the rules for animal skeletons, as all of these are things which could feature in a more low powered game.  Even better, Reaper has some great Derro figures, sculpted by Derek Schubert.  These certainly need to feature in a future campaign (avert your eyes players!)  There are also some now-classic monsters from the various adventures published prior to this book, including the Driders, which of course have become popular since then. (Reaper has some stand ins for those too).

Character Advancement

Roger the GS is discussing how to handle prestige classes.  A while back I had a post about dealing with prestige classes at 4th level, and sketched out a visual representation of that progression with its branches.  Basically there are four classes at level 1, and at level 4 there can be up to 10.

Here is the current version in my Player's Guide. Each "step" has the title of the level, the XP, the HP, and any special skills or spells gained.  Druids are a separate DM approval required class, and any 4th level player can decide to become a Bard (provided they can find a teacher, and have enough XP to enter the class etc).  Dual classing can happen after 4th, and requires an equalization of XP once the new class "catches up" to the old one.



Click to Enbiggen

Rumors by bonus

I was thinking today about rumors and folk knowledge, particularly as how they would apply to mystical beasts and abandoned places in games where all bits of knowledge are not immediately available to PCs.  It seems that given enough time and experience, a certain number of "facts" might be collected about an object.  You could of course role play this out, by having the players interrogate inn keepers or whatever, but possibly you want them to just have a certain amount of knowledge (hopefully limited, deadly, and wrong) about a particular subject, including one that they did not know that they wanted to know about beforehand, but would have reasonably learned just from being in town or life experience.  

How to handle that?

With a sufficiently large rumor table, you could just have the player roll their Wisdom or Intelligence bonus number of times on the target specific rumor table, and thereby learn something about the monster/location/ruin/villain.  This preserves the mystery about the target item, but still provides some (possibly true) information about the target.  (could also work with Charisma, if it is knowledge gained from being around town)

Rangers get +1 roll on the table for monsters, wizards +1 for magical items, clerics +1 for gods, and so on.  Bards (if they exist in your game) get to know if one rumor is true or false (being that they collect knowledge).

Could also be used for generic rumors for town without having to have the players say "are there any rumors?" or some such cliche.

Here is an example, using some information from Hack & Slash about the Cockatrice.

Rolf, the 3rd level Cleric of St. Cuthburt has a +2 Wisdom bonus.  When presented with the question "what is a cockatrice", he, like everyone of his culture, knows the following: it is a monster, like a bird, can turn you to stone.  However, what else does he know?  Since he has a +2 Wisdom bonus, he may roll twice on the d20 cockatrice rumor chart below.

1. They can fly short distances
2. Their gaze or touch can petrify people, even after death
3. They lay eggs
4. The weasel is immune to their petrifaction
5. It doesn't actually petrify, but withers plants, scotches grass, and bursts stone from heat and its deadly breath
6. The beak and claws of a cockatrice are made of iron
7. The feathers are quite magical, and useful for arrows, quills, etc., but they must be used quickly
8. A cockatrice grinds the stone it eats using hard diamonds stored in its stomach.
9. Cockatrices are actually very wise and know many profound and secret thoughts of the origin of things, learned from the earth itself 
10. They are not natural creatures, they are created from a rooster of superior chickens and a still living snake plucked from the head of a medusa 
11. They are used to herd stone giant children and keep them safe 
12. They were designed by the wizard Vora Elgath, a wizard and friend of the stone giants who found them peaceful company 
13. The flesh of a cockatrice is quite delicious 
14. They love to line their nests with shiny sparkly items. The more shiny their nest, the higher the status among cockatrices 
15. They grow a crowstone inside their vestigial gizzards ranging in size from a grain of sand to marble size. This cloudy colorless gem is a potent cure for poisons and venom Swallowing the rank tasting stone is the most effective application. The larger the crowstone the more effective it will be 
16. Cockatrice feathers are useful as magical quills because of their durability against caustic substances 
17. The saliva of a cockatrice can turn stone back to flesh 
18. It is about the size of a goose
19. They are impossible to kill by stabbing. Perhaps this is due to poison or perhaps their skin is resistance to piercing weapons
20. The cockatrice is actually a passive grazing animal and not a predator at all. Their deadly gaze is for insects, not man

Rolf rolls 19 and 13 on the chart above, so the party proceeds to arm themselves with clubs, the better to damage the beast resistant to piercing weapons, and not to damage the valuable meat.  Hilarity ensues.

Thoughts?

Hope for the future

I was looking at the local library website, getting ready to search for a couple of books, when I noticed that the upcoming events list said "Dungeons and Dragons".  The listing is for a starting game for teens, meeting this afternoon, and running 4e.  It should not be surprising to see games played at the library, and indeed certainly not in the whole of the library system, but it was, and a pleasant one at that.  Maybe there will be those who play in the future who are not just our kids.  Maybe the tribe will expand a bit.

Quick Village generation

From Telecanter

Ever flowing fount of ideas Telecanter has a refined die drop method of village generation for your roleplaying games.  Go ahead and read it, I will wait.

In the comments, I suggest that the DM should decide how many d6 to drop for the village, and then divide that number by four to get the number of d8s dropped, and the number rolled on the d8 is the type of building that it is.

d8 table of village buildings
1. Smith (black/tin/gold/silver/white)
2. Mill (saw/wind/water)
3. Town home (noble/wizard/reeve)
4. Leather worker
5. Carpenter
6. Stable
7. Tithe barn
8. Tavern

So the procedure would be roll letter die to get road/path shape, draw your map, select number of d6 (3-12 say), roll one d4 and number of d6/4 d8s with the d6s.  Then record the position of the dice, and the numbers and building types.  If you need to have a "special" building, either for a village headman or for the bad guy, just include a die of another color with the d6s.

Example: Our letter is T for "Tukesbury", the number of dwellings is 12, so the number of d8s is 3.  the DM rolls out 1d4, 12d6, and 3d8.

Anyway, a great, and quick, way to generate a village.  Now I just need to find where my son put my letter die...

RPG Seeds

Over on Frother's, I noticed a link to a new blog by sculpter Andrew May, with what he calls "RPG seeds".  These are little snippits of ideas that he blogs for our use in dungeons or campaigns.  A couple of examples:

#97 The fellow is carving away at a grotesque stone idol. Arms moving feverishly, he sweats through the grey layer of dust that covers the entire front of his body.

#43 The mirror has been daubed all over with quite a quantity of plaster

 

Anyway, give it a look, you may find it to be interesting.

Gentlemen of the Road

On the recommendation of Ckutalik(via this post on historical fiction for fantasy readers), I requested the book Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon from the local library. A short novel or novella, it is about the adventures of a Fafhrd and Gray Mouser type in the 950s in western Asia; a fairly gripping read, I knocked it out in a couple of hours. The book itself is lovely, with two color typeset, and illustrations by Gary Gianni, who is apparently currently working on the Prince Valiant comics in papers. I recommend it for those who like quick adventure stories.

However, like all good historical fiction, the real star is the setting, which here is Western Asia, and more specifically Khazaria, a Turkic empire established in 618 AD and lasted nearly 400 years.  This empire existed as a sort of third wheel to the conflicts between the Eastern Empire to the west and the early Caliphate to the south, and contains names both known to most, and strange. The empire was multi-ethnic AND multi-faith, and had both a diverse economy and significant military activity. For a while at least the country had a dual kingship, with one king responsible for administration, and the other more of a figurehead (and held as a sort of prisoner in a palace). Unusually, the rulers of the country converted to Judaism in the 8th century, possibly as a way to stand in between their Christian and Muslim neighbors.

Frankly, I think it would be perfect for a theft and insertion into a D&D game, or possibly outright use in a more historical game.  The silk road and the multi-ethnic nature of the empire make it perfect for any random character to show up, and there would be plenty of raids to defeat and convoys to attack.  With place names that are both familiar and foreign, and with a history merely sketched in by a few primary documents, it has much to recommend it for adventure.

Random Things

Here are some random things I came across online today, because I have still been too busy to generate my own content, although I did add some Tiger style vision slit covers to my Baneblade the other day; because, hey, anything that helps me keep it in the "modeling" phase and away from the "painting" phase is a good thing right?

Post-Harry-Potter-World for a D&D game.  Hogwarts as a mega-dungeon.  Setting everyone knows something about.  Ridiculous pseudo-Latin spell names. Harry as a more explicit messiah figure. Go!

Converting a Deimos Pattern Predator.  Ping pong ball, Predator kit, and some plastic card mix together to make a retro style tank.  Clearly the next predator I build must be retro. (not sure about having a Flamestorm cannon or the long barrel auto cannon... solved by magnets?)

Original:

From Stuff of Legends

Reproduction:

More closely matches the newer Forge World version

An Introduction to a GM Book.