Felsenhold Campaign Summary

In 2022 I ran a Dungeons and Dragons campaign for some friends. It never really had a name, but took place in a town called Felsenhold and due to the number of times Kobolds showed up I took to calling it "Kobold Game Wardens."  The way I run a session always starts off with a "Last time on..." retelling of the previous session. Keeping notes on what happened last time allowed me to reconstruct the timeline after the fact.

Here, I preserve it for posterity.

Session 0

We Created Characters

• Krizokz - Goblin Blood Hunter Revenant
• Tam - Human Druid/Barbarian City Saviour
• Stirling Fairfield - Human Warlock/Wizard Reformed Villain
• Justice Ferous Wahrhiem - Dwarf Cleric Justicar

On the way to Felsenhold to help ensure the success of a celbration marking the rebuilding of the town after a war against the giants, the party defended a caravan from an attack by kobolds. The party saved a few folks, but some members of the caravan died, including a fancy lady and her servant.

Session 1

Talked to the Mayor of Felsenhold, Blake Demar, and interrogated a few of the kobolds that had been captured.

After taking a rest, the party went back to their captive kobolds and found one of them dead and missing its brain.

After some conversation with Oteban the Knight and Grant, the town cleric, the party released the remaining captive kobolds in order to track them back to their home, a dwarven fort in the mountains.

Session 2

After scouting much of the tower with Stirling's Arcane Eye, the party stormed it, fighting kobolds and springing traps before running out of resources.

While attempting to take a rest in an upper level of the fort, they were interrupted by the kobolds backed by some more powerful enemies.

Ferous was knocked unconscious by a dwarven berserker, and when that berserker was defeated, an intellect devourer appeared next to it. Even so, a kobold bearing a shield with an eye set in the middle of it got away from the fight.

Session 3

The party left the tower in order to get a proper rest, and witnessed some of the tower catch fire and collapse.

Going back to explore, they found dead kobolds, an abandoned mine, and evidence of undead activity.

Then the party headed back to town, bearing the body of a dwarf. Stirling's goblins also had a body they had found from someone they claimed was trying to break into the mayor's house. The party also conducted an investigation of a nearby lake that was turning briny and had weird tadpoles in it. Then went and talked to Mayor Blake about a dwarven diplomat, Lopen, who had arrived in town.

Session 4

The investigation of the briny lake continued, and some kids were hired to catch the strange tadpoles. A conversation was had with Lopen, who claimed the town and mines belonged to them and made mention of an army the dwarves were moving through the mountains. The party also looked for an alchemist who had setup a stall at the fair but never returned. The mayor's son confronted them, casting shade in response to the death of the lady from the caravan who he claimed he was to be wed to. In a final confrontation with him the found he was possessed by an intellect devourer. Now dead, the son's body was brought back to the mayor.

Session 5

An interrogation of the Mayor's son's friends found they had been perpetrating some nefarious plot to see the party cast out of town. This led the party to a farm where they found some townsfolk captured by a robed figure with tentacles. Cephalosk warned the party that more of his kind were coming but that he was fleeing from them as well. Cephalosk agreed to provide a map of the tunnels under the mountain that the dwarven army may be using to travel in return for the promise of adamantium. The party successfully negotiated the release of the captured townsfolk and returned to the town.

Session 6

True to Cephalosk's word, a dwarf from the diplomatic party showed up with a map. Ferous met with Lopen the dwarven diplomat and showed him that one of his guards had been compromised by forcing the intellect devourer out of the dwarf who had brought them the map. The dwarves were ready to go out and fight Cephalosk at this point, but the party had other things to do in the mines outside of town. They met Hen the foreman and headed down into the mines looking for adamantium. In a section of the mine the humans hadn't started working yet, they found dwarven catacombs infested a demon leading packs of ghouls.

Session 7

The party chatted with a ghost who blamed the party for the invasion of the giants many years ago. Dwarven soldiers arrived. You had a chat with them about intellect devourers but the dwarves were apparently under orders to kill the party. Some dwarves survived the fight as prisoners. Most of them left when given the opportunity, but one named Fedruid Barbhelm stayed, mentioning he was a relative of Lopen. Heading back to the surface, Hen the foreman gave them a barracks to take a rest in.

Session 8

While the party was delving the mines and taking a rest, Stirling's goblins were back at town running the bar and watching the dueling championships. With their interference, Oteban managed to win, but his opponent was left dead. This led to the discovery that a resurrection scroll that was meant to be used to revive the winner in the final fight had gone missing.

The party then left the mines ahead of a large dwarven force that was emerging. Arriving back in town at night, they found the large effigy in the middle of town had been lit to mark the end of the festival.  With an army of dwarves just a few hours away, the party shut down the festivities and began the evacuation of Felsenhold.

Session 9

A long discussion about next steps led to a demand for rest. Stirling sent his goblins away with the rest of the evacuating town and Tam had some volunteers sign up to help him defend the town on account of his reputation for doing such things in the past. Grant the Cleric and Mayor Blake argued about how to use the missing resurrection scroll, and Cephalosk moved into town and offered to craft magical items in return for the party leaving him alone to finish his work. The group set out to follow the evacuating townsfolk for a bit to keep them safe, and managed to save Stirling's goblins from an ambush by dwarven scouts, one of whom they captured and then left in the care of Lopen.

Session 10

The party headed to the dragonbone graveyard with Oteban the knight looking for more adamantium, taking a day to track through the moutains. Resting for the night they dispatched a zombie. In the morning they went down into the valley, scouting an old dragon skeleton befor fighting against various undead. Though the party was victorious, Oteban was disintegrated.

Session 11

The party returned to town and received their promised items from Cephalosk, who gave more warnings about the coming mind flayer threat then promptly disappeared. Thinking of how best to take the fight to the dwarves to try to stop the invading army, a route over the mountains was chosen, in the hopes it would avoid having to fight through the dwarves at the mines and in the tunnels. Upon reaching their destination, the came upon the lair of a beholder whom they defeated.

Session 12

Mildi the kobold introduced herself, aghast at the death of the beholder, whom it called "the master."  The party explored the caverns, crossed an underground lake and snuck past some dwarves. A large kobold warren was discovered and the kobolds, worshippers of the evil god Bhaal, heralded the party as saviors sent by their god. After further exploration, there was a combat with some dwarven guards, one of whom escaped. More time in the caverns eventually led to a long hall in which dwelled a dire troll.

Session 13

The defeat of the dire troll afforded the party a rest. Then they ambushed some dwarven guards and took a prisoner. More time was spent in the caverns trying to find who was controlling the dwarves and fighting oozes.

Session 14

There was a big fight with a large number of dwarves and mind flayers who began trying to escape with a magical floating chair. Krizokz rescued the gnomish alchemist Nyami, a pair of Giff showed up, and the party managed to stop the mind flayers from getting away with the chair.

Session 15

A discussion with the Giff reinforced that the mind flayer's were up to no good and more powerful forces were on their way to snuff them out and probably the town, too. The Giff blew up the chair, and the party found a safe-ish place to rest in Stirling's Tiny Hut. The remnants of the dwarven army in the area came by while the party was resting, but didn't seem to know what to do about the tiny hut so they left.  More exploration of the area found remnants of the mind flayer's experiments. The mountain was exited back the way they came and the party headed to where they now knew the mind flayer's damaged Nautiloid ship was located.

Session 16

On their way to the Nautiloid there was a dead giant missing its brain. The party awoke after a rest with the feeling they were being followed and watched, but discovered those thoughts were not their own and banished them. At the Nautiloid ship the party hatched a plan to bring down a mudslide on the mindflayers at the ship then mop up the survivors and their pet hydra.

Session 17 & 18

The party headed back towards town in the Nautiloid Ship. Over the dragonbone graveyard they saw the mind flayers resurrect a dragon and take control of it with an Elder Brain, who swooped by to attack them before heading off towards the town. At the town they found a battle already underway and joined in. Though losses mounted and it looked that all might be lost when Ferous was killed, the party eventually killed the elder brain dragon and the mind flayers controlling the dwarves and saved the day.

Epilogue - A year later...

Krizokz went with the Gif, got a different ship of his own and enrolled in Spelljammer Academy. Now he gads about in his small, comfortable ship, occasionally visiting his friends.

Stirling built a goblin fortress/community center, attracting goblins looking for a better life. A tall tower is a landmark for the area, with a tower designed to receive Krizokz' airship.

Tam stayed in Felsenhold and helped to rebuild it. He builds a memorial to Ferous and creates a training camp to teach soldiering. As the tales of the defense of Felsenhold spread, the camp becomes well attended.

Duzzea the goblin finds a ring on the body of Ferous. Duzzea receives advice from the ring, to be passed on to Stirling. With the ring's help, Duzzea teaches the goblins at Stirling's goblin fortress how the concept of justice is the way that society shows its love for its citizens.

Modelling Supplies

I do a bit of hobbying with plastic models, as you can tell if you followed my Instagram Page, and I've been asked on occasion (and recently) by folks wanting to know what supplies you need to start assembling models. Rather than continue to answer these questions anew each time they're posed, I'm putting together my list here as a handy reference.

The list isn't long. It basically comes down to clippers, knife, glue. All the links below are affiliate links so I might get a little kickback from Amazon if you use them, but it won't cost you anything extra.

The clippers are used for separating parts from the sprue.  They shouldn't be very large, and need to be of the style where the side with the cutting edge is flat, so you can get as close to the part as possible. You should be doing two cuts when you remove parts from the sprue.  The first cut is on the vents, close to the sprue and away from the actual part you are trying to separate.  Clippers put some force on the plastic, and if your first cut is too close to the part you could warp, stress, or otherwise damage the part. The second cut is to get most of the rest of the sprue off your part. You can spend twenty dollars or more on clippers, but a seven dollar set will suffice.  The GodHand brand is widely viewed as the cadillac of clippers.

For a knife you don't need to be fancy. Your run of the mill X-Acto knife is going to work just fine. You'll use the knife for cleaning the last little bits of sprue off your parts, and also for scraping along any mold lines left over from the manufacturing process.  Some people buy files or special tools just for removing mold lines, but I've been using an X-Acto blade for that purpose for decades and it's worked just fine.

Last up is glue. When you're working with plastic models you want plastic cement not super glue.  Super glue will hold things together but is likely to break if it gets a hard jolt (like if you drop it). Plastic cement lightly melts the two plastic pieces and when it dries the two pieces have essentially become one. Plus it has the added benefit that it won't glue your fingers together. You do still have to be careful not to get it on parts of the model you don't want since it can melt fine details. Lately I've been using Citadel Plastic Glue (expensive) and ModelMaster Plastic Cement (cheaper but smells like weird bananas) and both seem to work equally well.  Some people like Tamiya brand since the bottles come with a brush in the tip that makes getting the glue where you want it easier, and doesn't get clogged like the other bottles.

You'll need paints and brushes when you get to painting your models.  Any search for model painting starter kit will find a host of possibilities. I don't have any direct experience with any of them, but be on the lookout for something with a couple brushes, colors that will work for what you're painting, and some kind of wash or shade color.

You could also just go the Contrast Paint route. Check out the below video for some enlightenment on what that entails.

Book Review: Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

Prince of Thorns is a story featuring a wholly unlikable character with few redeeming qualities.  Even as a product of adversity, Jorg is hard to identify or commiserate with.  He's a character who knows he is doing wrong, and delights in it. He turns away from humanity and remorse at almost every turn. The saving grace for this book is Mark Lawrence's beautiful writing and the fascinating world he has constructed. I only wish that he had chosen to provide the reader with a better guide to that world.

Book Review: Sand - Hugh Howey

Hugh Howey’s Sand is a slow burn through a post-apocalyptic wasteland.  It shows us that the author has many different visions of the future to share with us. It’s a story about family, loss and abandonment and how the different ways people handle adversity. Read it if you like Dune, Mad Max or Snow Crash.



I read the Kindle In Motion version of Wool three years ago, and haven't gone back to Hugh Howey until now. That mistake is on me. I found Sand at the Seattle Public Library and grabbed it to tide me over until some of my book holds came in.

What a great ride this was. What a unique vision of the future. Some authors engage in world building, giving greater importance to the world they are building than the characters that inhabit them. But Hugh Howey treats the world right and the authors with respect.  We experience the world through the eyes of the characters and the world slowly constructs itself around them as the bits of information assemble themselves.

★★★★☆ I highly recommend this book. You won't be disappointed.

Constellar Privacy Policy

Constellar makes use of Google Analytics.  The data allows us to determine how our user base plays the app and tune difficulties.  You can fully anonymize your data in Constellar in the iOS settings menu for the application.

For more information about Google Analytics and its privacy policy visit Google here.

Sometimes You Just Skip a Year

As much as many of us would like to pretend 2017 just didn't happen, I always find it useful to reflect on the last bit of time and see what worked, what didn't and what I'd like to change.

• Games Played
• Worked: Played 40K, Age of Sigmar, Dungeons and Dragons and Iron Kingdoms RPG. I've got 3 healthy Dungeons and Dragons games I'm running and a couple regular game nights per week.
• Stumbled: I've got a lot of Warmachine armies that haven't seen the battlefield in a long time. Infinity also remains of interest to me.
• 2018: Keep it up with the games I've got going. Gaming groups require careful attention and grooming and I don't want to lose what I've got. I'd also like to occasionally play some of the games I've been neglecting the last few years. Company of Iron seems like a great way to get back into Warmachine/Hordes and I'd love to really figure out how to play Infinity
• Models Painted
• Worked: I painted about 40 models this year. My new place of employment has enough people at it that there's a group that runs a painting contest every month.  This has been a great motivator and I've even picked up a couple of free models to boot.
• Stumbled: Things got painted but what I painted was all over the place. I made a point to pick models from a different game system or faction each month.  It means every month's project was fresh for me, but it also means that I didn't get much closer to having a fully painted army.
• 2018: Focus the hobby aspect.  Get a faction's worth of models painted up. Play a game with all painted models that I painted myself.  Get some of my big models painted. I like the bingo board over at Rob Hawkins as a good tracker.
• Video Games
• Worked: Besides a few mobile games I did basically nothing related to video games in 2018.
• Stumbled: See above
• 2018: Get Constellar back on the App Store, publish another app or two. I need to make more time to play games, too, if for no other reason than to stay on top of current trends.
• Content Creation
• Worked: I'm running a few Dungeons & Dragons games, so I'm generating content, just not releasing it to the public at large. I started posting some to instagram and facebook, but let my twitter account(s) gather dust.
• Stumbled: Zero posts on the blog. With this one I at least beat last week's tally. No rules or battle reports reported, either.
• 2018: Get back on the social media train. At least post pictures of the models I finished for the painting contest at work.

Constellar 2.0 Released

ConStellar 2.0 is out!  You can grab it on the App Store by following this link.

This release has five new levels, but the most exciting part has been integrating the new art provided by Mark Barrett of Rescue Pups fame. Mark was kind enough to put together a set of replacement assets for my little game and I am ever so grateful.  The game looks 500% better and I'm super grateful to Mark for helping me out.

New Constellar Logo!

I'd be super grateful if you checked out ConStellar.  Also! If you want to check learn more about Rescue Pups you should check out Mark's Dev Log over at TIGForums.

Mobile Games Dos and Don'ts

Mark Barrett turned me on to an interesting presentation from back from 2013. It's by one of the founders of NimbleBit, who have been cranking out hit mobile games for almost a decade now. It encompasses 29 bits of advice ranging from the general to the specific. It's only a half hour so you're not risking much by giving it a look.

Give it a watch here.

Then you can read an interview with the presenter for some extra explanation.

I've been working with Mark, doing some coding work for a project he's working on called Rescue Pups. You can read about that over on TIG Forums. It's a game about running a dog rescue shelter. Dogs come in, you take care of them, dividing your time and money amongst them to get them as adoptable as possible so someone will adopt them as their pet. The initial prototype is kicking along.  I'm really happy with the progress I was able to make in just two weeks using Objective-C and XCode's Interface Builder. We've got the initial game loop in and we've been iterating on individual gameplay elements, working to find the fun.

So before this post ends without a single picture, here's a concept image from Rescue Pups.

Rescue Pups!

Google Sheets: Disabling Grid Lines

I love using Google sheets for my data and was trying to massage a chart to look the way I wanted for an upcoming project. I wanted to turn off the horizontal and vertical grid lines since I felt like they were interfering with the display of the trendline and would end up cluttering the final display.

With grid lines on the left: NO! Without grid lines on the right: YES!

Googling around didn't immediately provide an answer. There were quite a few posts about how to do this when you're using Google's javascript API, but very little about how to do it in a Google Drive spreadsheet. Yes, I was using google to figure out how to use Google's own products. Seemed like should have been a slam dunk.

So let's figure it out. If we look at the customization options for the chart we can set the color of the grid line. So let's just set it to the same as the background color. That's close enough to invisible for my purposes.

Set the Gridline Color to White!

In this case the color is white and the vertical lines are gone but I still had to get rid of the horizontal gridlines. To spare you the twenty minutes I spent examining the customization menu it turns out there's a drop down you have to use to be able to modify the horizontal gridlines.

Use this drop down to change between vertical and horizontal axis

It took so long to find because it's basically the only drop down like it in the whole customization menu. The tiny little arrow on the right really failed to jump out at me. I expected the vertical options to show up in the same panel as all the other customization options. A tab bar would have been a much better choice in this case, since I would have seen what I was looking for and known to click on it. With the option essentially invisible in the dropdown list I ended up spending way too much time hunting for an option I knew should be there but wasn't immediately apparent.

Can we just talk about dropdowns vs. tabs for a minute? Dropdown lists are great when you have many similar options that the user can choose from.  The expectation with a dropdown is that you're making a choice for a particular field not that you're changing the context of an entire section. Tabs telegraph to the user that by selecting a particular tab you are going to be switching between different contexts and the options on the different contexts are going to be related to the heading somehow. By breaking this paradigm, Google Drive has made an interface that requires more effort and attention on the part of the user.

Itunes Connect: Fixing an error with Version Information.

I had a problem today submitting one of the apps I work on, Ops: Infinity Edition.  It's a little squad builder for the tabletop miniatures game Infinity, made by Corvus Belli.  The app has been out for years, but just today I tried to submit a new version with the latest round of data fixes and I was getting rejected by iTunes Connect.

When hitting the Submit for Review button I was getting the "There are one or more errors on this page." message and a little red stop sign was showing up next to the Version Information localization drop down.

Red symbol not shown, but it was right next to the down caret by the question mark.

No amount of modifying the text or changing what languages were supported by the app store page fixed the issue.  Whatever the error was, it was not apparent how to fix it or what, if anything, it had to do with the app's Version Information. Finally, it turned out to be a problem with screenshots.  I had just updated the screen shots, using only the 5.5 inch versions and deleting the old screenshots for the smaller versions.

Solution.  Open the Media Manager (located below your app screenshots) and check the "Use 5.5-Inch Display" checkboxes for everything.

Set all sizes to use the 5.5 -Inch Display.

Only requiring the 5.5-Inch screenshots for an app is a new thing on the app portal and it seems that since I previously had screenshots in there, simply deleting all the images for smaller versions wasn't enough for iTunes Connect to figure out what I wanted to do.

Apple could definitely do a better job telling you what the errors are that you need to fix. Especially in this case where the data with errors is hidden on a screen that doesn't normally display (Media Manager).  If their web design is going start hiding information off screen and the data you input there can have errors, they should really think about a more descriptive error message than "There are one or more errors on this page." I'm guessing they could pretty easily build up a list of errors and display them in their big red scare-box.

It sure would make lives a little easier.

Constellar 1.4 Released

Her

Great

Constellar 1.4 is just released now in the App Store.  Get it on the App Store using this link.

It features six new levels, bringing the total level count up and over the sixty mark. Two of these levels, shown to the left and right were inspired by the current presidential campaign.

Thanks to everyone who has downloaded and played Constellar. If you haven't yet, you're missing out and should download it today.

Blogger Tip: Removing Border and Padding From Images

Sometimes you'll want to remove the padding and border that Blogger.com automatically adds to images. In setting up some posts for Constellar I had to do a bit of HTML trickery when I was setting up the app store download link like this:

Obviously the border and padding around the image aren't desirable, and keep the two images from lining up correctly.  Fixing this wasn't too terribly difficult.

In the Edit Post dialog you just have to select the "HTML" button, find the image you want to remove the border from and add the following:

style="border: none; margin-right: 4px; padding: 0px;"

As an example, here's how the HTML code for the Constellar app icon looks:

<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihSmSR4aPHZbYCngn47d_hB5hnrdgKGmKXguxgpjFHNsQd3r5FF6BColY-_PLO_HHps3SJkeHTp4_lniPUOVXIj4aubqS1CAPmWatLsPPuo0Fu-7IUCPjJPO6O4C3ezWhTL1rivP1lxCY/s400/Logo40Rounded.png" style="border: none; margin-right: 4px; padding: 0px;" />

 And here's what the final result looks like:

I hope this helps anyone trying to achieve the same effect.

Constellar: On Sale This Weekend

This weekend only Constellar is on sale!

Maybe you fondly remember the fun you had with connect-the-dots as a child, or just want to give your brain a workout. At just 99 cents Constellar can help you relive your childhood and provide your election numbed brain with some much needed exercise. No need to get off your couch, just download on your Apple device today!

Constellar: The Story

Games often have a story behind them. Here's the story of Constellar.

The "House" level (pictured left) was my first introduction to the kind of connect-the-dots brain teaser featured in Constellar and I discovered it in a Pizza Hut. Back when I was eight or nine we lived in Virginia. I always looked forward to going out for pizza not just for food, but also for the placemats which always had pictures to color, mazes, jokes and brain teasers on them. My brother and I would always ask our server to borrow a pen so we could finish the mazes or play the little games together.

 I remember seeing the five dots with the instructions to draw a house without picking up your pencil or retracing a line. It took a few tries, but finishing that little puzzle became one of the sparks that has fueled a life long fascination with math and brain teasers.

In college I took classes on graph theory, among other things. I learned about circuits and cycles and Eulerian graphs. Finding paths and circuits was a common homework assignment. I learned about the mathematical underpinnings of this kind of brain teaser and the fascinating set of rules that governed the strategies for solving them.

Thirty years later I'm now making games that matter to me. I'm so lucky that in this period of my life I have the opportunity to create things drawn from my life experiences. I get to make games that I want to play as an adult and that I would love to be able to introduce to my eight year old self.

Constellar! I made a video game!

There's an addition now to the sidebar on the right.  I've made and released a video game called Constellar!

Constellar is a fun (at least to me) connect the dots app reminiscent of the Astrarium puzzles in Dragon Age. You can help the stars align in this fun and challenging brain exerciser.

It's been about a year now since I left my office job to make my own way in the big, wide world of game development. In between contracting jobs and various other projects I finally have something I'm ready to show the world. I'm really proud of my work on Constellar and I hope that you'll enjoy playing it as much as I've enjoyed making it.

Progression of Rats

I've finished off the wererat assassin. I'm not super happy with the painting, but I'm not super happy with the model either. The reaper bones miniatures are made of a low quality pvc. If you do pickup any of these miniatures I'd recommend thinking about them like the prepainted miniatures you might get out of a blind box, except that you'll be painting them yourself. The cost of the models makes them ideal for bulking up your collection, especially for things like role-playing games.  But the quality of the cast means there's a very low level of detail and you probably won't want to put a huge amount of effort into their paintjobs.

Shhhh. He's being sneaksy.

He's up to something...

I'm closing in on the last of the rat figures for the pathfinder campaign. Here's the current state of the Skaven Grey Seer that I've been gradually covering with paint. The model is very detailed but actually pretty easy to paint, with all the details accessible even after assembled. I think Games Workshop did an awesome job with all their clamshell plastic character models. After their finecast debacle they just really knocked it out of the park with these miniatures.

Ratsassin Completed

I was able to get one miniature all the way finished for the Tuesday Pathfinder campaign.  Here's the model for my character, a ratman ninja/monk, or as it's known in the Warhammer universe, a Skaven Assassin. The Player Characters are level four, going on five. My three level dip into monk is at an end and I'm just a couple levels away from getting into shadow dancer. Pathfinder has so many variants and options in it for every aspect of the character that it's possible to spend entire evenings weighing options and plotting progressions.

Sneaksy and Stabbity

Since we had a chance to explore a bit more of the dungeon we are trapped in, I have also expanded the dungeon map to include the rooms we opened up during the last play session.

Next, you put a Duergar in the box.

Paint Night!!! Also Some Maps.

I'm super excited for paint night tonight.  I'm just back from a lovey family vacation, the kiddo is sleeping over at the in-laws and I've got free time to apply paint to miniatures.  The plan is to get one or two rats finished up for use in the Tuesday game.

Also for sharing are a couple maps I drew after being inspired by the blog Dyson's Dodecahedron, which I found out about through Geek and Sundry's Signal Boost! show. They're for locations in an future RPG campaign I'd like to run. Not being an artist myself they're much rougher than I'd like, but I think with some copying and revisions I could make them quite presentable.

A Druid's Home

First up is A Druid's Home. To the east of Dunahara lives a druid.  He keeps entirely to himself, living in the hollow trunk of an enormous tree stump. A stream flows from left to right and a small path cuts across at two shallow points. The trail leading to the stump can be difficult for visitors to find as the druid has encouraged a wall of brambles to grow up around his home. The druid is entirely self sufficient. A patch of bushes provides berries and a small fish trap gives a bit of meat. Anything else the druid might need he gets by transforming into various forest beasts and hunting game.

Dunahara

Dunahara itself is a fishing town of moderate size. A great storm passed through many years ago, sinking a large vessel just off the coast. Many fisherman live in huts practically hanging off the cliff side, but there are a few larger buildings like a tavern and stable. A number of farms in the surrounding area supplement the local diet and economy. The capital lies three days cart ride to the south but less than a day by boat.  Dunahara's fish arrive fresh daily and are much sought after by the capital's citizens.

More Rats

skitter, scratch, stab

Work has been progressing on the rat-folk models for the pathfinder campaign.  The skaven assassin I'm using for my character is almost complete.  He'll be going on the base with the tall archway on it. I've also started putting together a module for pcgen (a fantastic program for creating and tracking a character) that includes some things that we're using in our campaign.  It's got the ironskin spell that we wanted to use but wasn't already in a module.  It's also got some updates to the monk class and ratfolk race for options that we wanted to use but that weren't there.  It's up on github so you can use it if you're interested. Check it out here.

We've got skeleton guards protecting our loot.

I've also put together a map of the dungeon we're currently exploring. We were teleported into it by our employer (and now nemesis) and doors have been slowly opening up, leading to new locations full of folk who want to kill us. I'm no artist, so the tiles were made using a free tileset created by Buch over on OpenGameArt.org. Go here to get it for yourself.


I'm gearing up to start an RPG campaign that I'll be running myself.  The beast trainer adventure that I've mentioned before will be part of that. Right now I'm thinking about how the world works and what the major players are.  To foment conflict I'm looking at having four factions I can draw upon when the players want to be explore in a particular direction. Political, religious, economic and military powers are the broad strokes I'll rely upon to create conflict and tension in the world.

Rats, I'm stuck in a dungeon

Tuesday game night occasionally sees us playing some Pathfinder where the three players in the party are all Ratfolk. We're currently trapped in a dungeon and have plans to take over the whole complex, but first we have to assert our dominance.

Rats!

I was in Portland last weekend and was finally able to pickup a handful of miniatures at Guardian Games to use for the PCs in the campaign. I love Games Workshop's line of Skaven and I was able to find a few that I wanted without having to order online. Instant gratification!

I also picked up a wererat assassin from Reaper's Bones line of miniatures. I knew about Bones but had never purchased any. They really are cheap miniatures, about a tenth of the price of a GW character mini. They aren't high quality, and I don't think any amount of painting skill is going to turn them into display quality. But if you just want some cheap character minis you can use for gaming they're probably not a bad way to go. At about three dollars a pop, though, you're probably better off buying a regiment box from Games Workshop if you need a large number of similar miniatures.

I've gotten a start on painting them up.  One of the PCs is a bomb-tossing alchemist and I was hoping to find an old Poison Wind Globadier but no luck.  I may have to go to the web for that one.

Paaaaaaint Meeeeee!

The Riptide of Joy and Suffering hasn't gotten any love for a few weeks. I've got him sitting on my shelf, staring accusatorily at me. Some day I'll finish him up.