Bones Wraith

I started working on this wraith way back before Halloween, and just kind of stalled out on her. The big issue was that I was playing around with some OSL from the lamp, and just didn't like it. So I stuck it in the corner of my paint tray and ignored her. Monday night I pulled her back front and center and went at it.



I started by covering over the poorly done OSL, and then highlighting up using a combination of Nightmare Black, Stone Grey, and just a tiny bit of Linen White. For her flesh I used Shadowed Steel and Filigree Silver.

What's more interesting than the figure or the paintjob is that I let it sit there for MONTHS. It's a simple mini. Sure, you can do a lot with a simple mini, but I was aiming for tabletop level... was unhappy with my efforts, and rather than spend an hour to fix it and get it done, I just set it aside.


Hated this OSL...

Oh, and as for why silver skin? I wasn't sure how I wanted to paint her, and asked my bride. She suggested it, and I thought it might be interesting. Not a choice I'd have made, but I like it.

With her done, I'm now at 42 finished minis this year.

Stonehell: Disco Afterparty

Session 50 was played on 10/24. A couple of weeks were skipped due to ReaperCon.

Eiric, wizard 6 (Kat)
- men at arms (Koltic, Pargax)
- linkmen (Lex the Cheeseman)
- Leon (dog)
A-A-Ron, Thief 6 (Henchman)
Orpheus, Human Fighter 5 (Henchman)
Karl, Dwarf 4 (Julia)
- Hobart (dog)
- men at arms (Bollox, Elphon, GoMat)
Daryll (NPC Cleric 6)
Brie, wizard 1 (Apprentice to Eiric) - Stayed in town researching

Brie was pissed. Not only was she left behind while the rest of the party not only killed a demon, and fought countless (nearly 70) hobgoblins, but she missed out on a significant share of treasure! Plus, her researching in the Wizard’s Guild Library resulted in an unfortunate magical mishap. Her mouth stretched much wider and her teeth fell out, only to be replaced by sharp pointy shark’s teeth! Plus a craving for raw meat… She’s taken to wearing veils to cover her face.

To compensate/placate her, Eiric sponsors her membership with the guild, and covers the 1,000gp entrance fee. Eiric then sends her back to the library, while the other members of the party hit the marketplace for new hirelings. The pickings were a little slim with only a single linkman and 2 men @ arms, and they opted to hang out in town for a few more days to see who else would be interested in going into Stonehell. The massive bonuses paid out to the families of the dead helped, as did the carousing. 3 more men at arms decided to join up. Gold speaks very loudly…

Returning to the dungeon, the party goes through the Antechamber, into the Quiet Halls, down to the Reptile House, and then back into the Redoubt without any encounters. Passing back through the hall with the construction supplies, they take the opposite hall from the arena, and come to a locked door. Karl and Orpheus smash it down, revealing the hall that the mountain lions came from.

They pass through an abandoned guard post, cat pen, infirmary, dining hall, kitchen, and cold storage. There is a magic stone in a small cage hanging from the ceiling, which they hide in one of the crates to keep it out of sight. Returning to the hall, they head back around to the sealed door from their last delve, and check it out for clues, but the banging and noises from within send them scurrying away and back to the disco room.

Littered with charred hobgoblin bodies, the party rifles through their pockets for loose change, then continue further down the hall. Looting both the storage room, elite barracks and commanders room, they end up with a decent pile of goods. They set fire to the store room so that no one else can make use of the spare arms left within. Continuing along they discover a section of wall that opens up into a natural cave system, and beyond that a secret bolt hole that has a stashed cache of treasure and magic.

Finding no hobgoblins or other opposition, they press on, and loot another barracks, though there isn’t much gained from that. Moving on, they arrive in in a guard room, a card game on the table interrupted with the big battle....

---

Game was paused here for the night

---

Kills:
Gains: Loot from Commanders Chamber, Forgotten Room, and loose pocket change from hobgoblin corpses
Loses:

---

I honestly am not sure I believe it... 50 sessions... 50 freaking sessions!! How awesome is that??

Sunday Inspirational Image: You'd better be good...

You don't want to end up on the naughty list...



by theDURRRRIAN

Stonehell: Panic at the Disco!

Session 49 was played on 10/3

Eiric, wizard 6 (Kat)
- men at arms (Lindal the Elf, E)
- Naideen(dog)
A-A-Ron, Thief 5 (Henchman)
Orpheus, Human Fighter 5 (Henchman)
Karl, Dwarf 4 (Julia)
- Hobart (dog)
- men at arms (Kanye, Barr)
Daryll (NPC Cleric 6)
Brie, wizard 1 (Apprentice to Eiric) - Stayed in town researching

When your players decide to wade into the middle of the hobgoblin army that has been reinforced by a second detachment complete with a war priest and war wizard, and are spread out over 2 rooms with multiple hallways each… that's the point where theater of the mind just doesn’t do it. Knowing that was exactly the point we were at, I pulled out the battle mat and miniatures. Unfortunately I don’t have that many hobgoblins. Actually, I only have the one… but I do have lots of orcs and some gnolls, so they were my stand ins.









I didn’t take many pictures of the session, or keep track of what happened round by round, so here are the highlights of the battle.

War Wizard, War Priest, and their guards advance in from the south east behind Karl & Co. Commander elite guard advance from the south. More troops come from the west. Karl & Co. are boxed in from all directions but the Disco room to the north.

Hobgoblin crossbowmen and mountain lions attack Eiric & Co. from the west of the Disco room.

Darryl joins Karl & Co. in time for the War Wizard to cast fireball, killing all the henchman, Eiric’s dog Naideen, and hurting everyone else. Those who survive head north into the Disco room.

Kanye used the bucket of poop to dip his arrows into before firing them at the mountain lions and hobgoblins. He dies defending Eiric.

The mountain lions & hobgoblins end up pinned between Karl & Co. and Eiric & Co., and are cut down. The Hobgoblin commander charges with his elite guard, hoping to catch the party in the Disco room. Eiric uses Lightning bolt while they’re squeezed in the hallway, frying even those who made their saves.

As the afterburn of the flash, and the ringing of the thunder subsides, the party looks into the sparkling Disco room littered with hobgoblin bodies, and decides to run for it, rather than try to face the War Wizard and Priest. They backtrack to the forge, and barricade the door with the help of the terrified kobolds who amazingly didn’t run during the battle.

After hours of rest without interruption, they poke their heads out and notice the side passage they skipped exploring before. Seeing a single door, they go to check it out, but it’s sealed shut. A thick wooden beam bars the door shut, and boards are nailed into it, all clearly designed to hold something in. The silence is broken when something within begins to slam and claw against the door.

“Demon!” Someone yells, and the party runs clear down the hall to the barricade the kobolds installed. It’s quickly dismantled, and shifted over to the other end of the hall. Once installed, they continued on in slightly less of a hurry, finding a trash room with a pit leading down into darkness. Across the way an old dusty room full of building materials. Through and around that room, they come to a fighting pit, long disused, but the shadows of former fighters emerged to do battle with the party. They were frightening, but not a real challenge. An impressive hidden cache of treasure was discovered in the arena master’s chamber.

At this point, Eiric called for the party to head back to town. The kobolds headed back to report to Sniv.

Kills: Hobgoblins Commander, 7 Hobgoblin Elites, 13 hobgoblins, 4 mountain lions, 2 Shadows
Gains: 11,000sp, 5,000ep, 7,000gp, 5 pieces of jewelry, 2 scrolls, 3 potions
Losses: Lindal the Elf, E, Kanye, Barr, Naideen

Almaran the Gold

After bringing Almaran home, I worked on touching him up. This is what he looked like when he came home.

Almaran the Gold, Paladin 77058

I mean, low table top quality really. Not terrible, but really a lot of work to go before I'd want to show it off... at all...

Now, I'd love to tell you exactly how I painted him from here, but I didn't take any WiP pics, nor did I keep track of what exactly I did.



His face was cleaned up with young flesh (I think?) and highlighted with scholar flesh. The eyes are soft blue. The hair was highlighted with tanned leather and then Desert Sand (I think...)



The armor got a little more shadowed steel and honed steel, and then Dragon Gold for the accents hit with New Gold to bring it up a touch. The blue is Soft Blue mixed with either Brown Liner to darken it a touch, or Linen White to lighten it.





The flame started with a yellow, don't know which one, then moved onto Fire Orange, Fire Red, and Heraldic Red



The shield was Brown Liner, brought up with Driftwood Brown, and Desert Sand.



Still need to do the base...


Someone's unimpressed by his sword...

On the other hand, I'm really happy with him! Now let's see if I can do Devona justice.

Hangout Figure of the Month: November part 2

Continuing where I left off... I went over the scales to bring out a bit of the color that got muted in the wash, going over the red with Heraldic Red and adding highlights of Naga Green. I also touched up the rattle with Tanned Leather.


I also had to paint the white of her eyes back in.



The problem at this point was the nipples. What color are a medusa's nipples??


Well that's no help...

So I asked online, and got suggestions of the same color as her tan scales, purple, darker green, lighter green, whatever color she wants, and repaint her upper body to more realistic flesh colors...

*sigh*

I went with the same color as her belly scales.

Her cuffs and the ends of the bow were painted with Dragon Gold, and the quiver was weathered with driftwood brown.



Of course I still need to do the base, but other than that, I'm calling her done.

Sunday Inspirational Image: Hengrauggi

In the 2009 Star Trek movie, there was a series of improbable monsters on the ice planet that Kirk was marooned on. Why improbable? Because they were massive apex predators.

On an ice planet.





Anyway, here's this big red one that in spite of its improbability, is kinda interesting looking.

Hangout Figure of the Month: November

For November, we picked the Medusa for the figure of the month both because she's one of the few monster minis armed with a ranged weapon, but also because she's an encounterable monster in Ghost Archipelago.

After washing, scrubbing, and glueing her to a 1" base, I based her with brown liner, and then gave her a coat of Reaper's Dragon Green (I think). Her belly scales were painted with Tanned Leather (again, I think). Eyes and fangs were painted with Linen White, with heraldic red for her tongue, and the pattern on her scales (I'm sure on these two).



The red isn't shown above, but you can sort of see it in the picture below.

At this point I added a bit of greenstuff to the base, used brown liner on it, and then washed the whole mini with Sepia Wash. It ended up darker than I was expecting. Mostly this is because there was a tiny bit of brown liner still in the small well I was using, and so also made Medusa a lot darker than just a normal sepia wash would. Since I wanted it to really shadow the scales, this ended up working out. It also had the benefit of bronzing her skin more than I expected, but I guess when you add sepia and green, that's the effect you get.



Not pictured, but I used Desert Sand to highlight the chest scales, and repaint the bow.

Who You Gonna Call? Part 4

Not a whole lot to tell with this update, just that I added the sand, and painted the bases!






And with that, I'm calling these Paranormal Exterminators done!

F:GA Crew pt. 2

The crew is really taking shape now! It's nice to work with a solid plastic kit again. It's been a long time since I worked from a single sprue and just built the guys on it. Not since my 40K days really... And given that this is my... 5th kit for Frostgrave, it's my own damned fault for waiting this long.

I snipped out all of the hand weapons and the empty left arms to match with them. There were also 2 shields, and a couple of other accessories that I cut off and gave a quick clean up of. I totally forgot to wash them though. Will remember to do better with the next set. After getting them all glued together, I primed them with Reaper's Brush on Primer.



Then, once dry, it was time to get painting! Keeping with my inspirational picture, I selected Reaper's Soft Blue and Muddy Olive as the base for the cloth, and Rich Leather for hats, flesh, and boots. I used a very diluted Brown Liner for the decking. Everything was cut with Flow Improver.



I really need to build/make a better photo backdrop...

Monster Thoughts...

I've created somewhere around 150 monsters over the last 8 years (need to update the spreadsheet). Sadly I've only used a few of them in game. At this point, there are enough to run an entire campaign, including various special holiday adventures.

The urge to take them all, tweak them for Labyrinth Lord, maybe hire someone to do art for them, and hire someone else to do layout, and then put it up for sale... well, maybe someday. For now, we're all stuck with this spreadsheet, and going through the blog. Which reminds me, I need to update the spreadsheet...

The reason I bring this up is that I had an idea for a monster, but scrolled though what I'd done before, and found I did it a couple of years ago. Not the first time that's happened either...

One thing I'm finding is that my thoughts on monsters in RC are shifting a bit as I'm now 50+ sessions into my Stonehell game. I'm increasingly wanting to turn up their lethality or at least their survivability That might be colored a bit by the fact that the 5th and 6th level PCs are hanging out on the second level still. At the moment, they're cutting through most monsters without much difficulty. Add in their front lines in plate, and a conservative adventuring style... well, it's hard for monsters to be much of a challenge. Or to survive more than a round or two of combat.

However, before I go cranking things up to 11, I'm going to see how things go as they delve deeper.

What Kind of D&D Character Would You Be?

I Am A: Lawful Neutral Human Wizard (6th Level)


Ability Scores:

Strength-12

Dexterity-13

Constitution-11

Intelligence-15

Wisdom-14

Charisma-13


Alignment:
Lawful Neutral A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs him. Order and organization are paramount to him. He may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or he may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government. Lawful neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you are reliable and honorable without being a zealot. However, lawful neutral can be a dangerous alignment when it seeks to eliminate all freedom, choice, and diversity in society.


Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.


Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.


Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

November in Review

Gaming:
Heading into the silly season with holidays, so there are going to be a lot of missed sessions next month, but this month was a pretty solid one. I'm almost up to date on my Stonehell write ups, I revised my carousing rules, and even got a dry run in on the spell research rules, which are gonna need a tweak I think...

My 5e game is going fairly well, though we mostly played DCC this month, and it's the game that's going to suffer the most during December, and not just from missed session. One of my players is moving to San Francisco. Another is off to Australia... It always stinks to lose a player. Worse to lose 2.

Minis:
It's been a productive and fun month! I finished up the Paranormal Exterminators, and thanks to my sister for picking up some fine grit sand, I even got them based. Better pictures to come



The Bones Sith figure converted from Seelah by my friend Bryan at ReaperCon was a quick and dirty tabletop piece, but I'm really happy with how she looks.

My paint at work minis Devona and Almaran the Gold have now come home, and will be finished up there. They've been replaced by some Lizardmen, though they've all been base coated over Thanksgiving, some by my nieces and nephews... in some creative ways. Mostly going to aim to keep their chosen colors and just clean them up.



I also got a solid start on my Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago warband. More greenstuff work on these 7 figures than I've done on anything else, even if it is just adding stamped bases and some cone hats.

I know I've plugged it a lot already, but I'm really really thrilled with the texture stamp from Happy Seppuku. Really happy!! So happy that I made some of the temple courtyard stone bases for some sci-fi minis I've got. More on that later...

Books:
This was a month for reading chunks of series.
First up was the Valley of the Ten Crescents trilogy by Tristan J. Tarwater. An interesting fantasy series that was solid, but nothing particularly special. I liked the second and third books in the series far more then the first one.

I also finished up Hugh Howey's Silo saga with both the Shift Trilogy and the final book Dust. Getting to see how and why the people of the silos ended up being in the silos was great, and, even more than that, the reason that there was such redundancy built in.

I also read the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. While I'm not the biggest fan of the Holmes stories, they do make for good reading on the subway.

Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago. Hardly seems fair to count a rulebook, but I did read it, cover to cover.

Currently Reading: A Quest Lover's Treasury of the Fantastic, edited by Margaret Weis.

Movies:
Thor was so much fun!
Fargo was really really interesting. Visually fantastic, with some wonderful performances all around.

Goals for December:
Finish Lizardmen, Medusa, F:GA Crew, Heritor, and Warden, watch Marvel's Punisher

Infinity War

Does a new Marvel trailer really need yet another blog post about it?

No, no it does not.

But I'm excited! So you're getting one! Did you watch it already? Good, here it is again.



I honestly have no idea how they're going to get everyone together for this, and still manage to keep it from just being a bloody muddy mess of too many characters. From this, it's pretty clear that Tony is getting a lot of screen time, and the events of Black Panther are going to have some SIGNIFICANT impact.

"Get this man a shield"

And then there's the talking racoon and the walking tree...

"Who the hell are you guys?"

And Mantis just waves at him.

May 4th... Black Panther February 16... 2018 should be a good year for Marvel and us!

Thanksgiving D&D and Lizardmen

Over Thanksgiving, I had the pleasure of both running D&D for my nieces and nephews! (and some extra kids, and my bride!)

The face of a DM trying to figure out what exactly it is the priest wants to accomplish.

In the end they managed to get the pumpkins back from the goblins suffering only one TPK... I mean, capture. And then they managed to defeat the Gulthias vampire under the tree, while not slaughtering the kobolds who were to deliver the evil fruit growing on its branch.

I also sat down with my my nieces and nephews to paint some lizardmen. Mostly this was to keep them all occupied while dinner was being prepped. The results were... not terrible, though some questionable color choices.

Of the 4, only 1 of them wanted to keep what they'd painted.



The rest of them came home with me, and now I've brought them to work as my lunch time minis.

My goal is to keep them as close as possible to their initial paint schemes, and just clean them up to my tabletop standard. I'm still debating replacing the 4 that my niece wanted to keep. I think I'll just mark them off as gifts and move on.

F:GA Crewmen

Since I want a fairly cohesive warband, and both my Heritor and Warden are going to be painted with a distinctly eastern flair, to match the artwork for the Warden, I've been thinking that I want to shift a bit away from the slightly Arabic feel of the crewman kit.



Maybe to look a little more like this?



Now, the clothing is generic enough that I can easily pull that off, but the bearded heads with the keffiyeh? Not exactly the look I'm going for. So... Out comes the green stuff. I've got enough beardless faces that can sculpt a conical hat onto for my crew. And enough greenstuff...



Okay, so maybe a little harder than I thought? I found the greenstuff more ready to stick to me or to the table than it was to stick to the heads.



Next is to pick arms and other equipment, and then get painting. I'm looking forward to seeing how they'll look all painted up.

Of the 5, I think 2 will be sword and shield, 2 just hand weapons, and 1 with a staff. For the next set, I'll probably do the hats after the arms are on, to make sure the weapons don't get in the way.

Sunday Inspirational Image: Vendetta

Vendetta by Hristian Ivanov Shyne

Splintered Deck in Ghost Archipelago

After reading through my copy of Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago, I knew that I'd be starting my warband soon... And not the mythical "I'll get to that soon" but actually soon.

Actually I knew I'd be doing it before I even had the book. So much so, that at ReaperCon one of the few actual purchases I made was for a Splintered Deck texture stamp from Happy Seppuku.



I usually don't focus too much on bases. In fact I tend to make them fairly bland and generic so that they'll fit in whatever game or RPG. For Frostgrave I was a little more focused on making winter themed bases for the minis that I was painting explicitly for it, but since I was using a lot of re-purposed minis, it wasn't consistent. For Ghost Archipelago, It will be! My entire warband will all have the splintered deck bases.

Oh, and soon is NOW!

Of course using the texture stamp means that I'm cutting a lot of minis off of their integrated bases. With the plastics, that's easy. The metal minis? That's a little more effort. On the other hand, it does mean a more scrap for the melt table! Once I had the minis ready, I mixed up a batch of greenstuff, stuck it on the bases and then pressed it into the stamp. After pulling it off, I then stuck the feet into the greenstuff. This warped the stamp's texture a bit so I went in and fixed that with my sculpting blade.



In addition to the Warden and Heritor, I also did up the bases for 5 crewmen using the 5 bodies from a sprue of the crewman plastic boxed set. Of course I need to figure out what these 5 guys are actually going to be. Probably all base crewmen for this batch...

So this is where I'm at now. Next step is to finish building at least these 5 the crewmen, and then get them painted.

Cranberry Jelly

Here's a little holiday re-heat from 2013. Happy Thanksgiving!

---

The cylinder of crimson jiggled toward the adventurers, leaving a wet smear along the stone floor. It smelled cloyingly sweet.

Nimble launched a bolt into it. "Nothing" he said, backing away.

"Any suggestions?" Allianora asked.

"Burn it?" Rathgar offered.

"I like that idea" Nimble pulled a bottle of oil out of his pack, broke the wax seal, pulled the cork and stuffed the rag into the hole. "Anyone have a light?"

Feris pointed at the rag, and a small flame sparked into being.

Nimble tossed the bottle at the slowly approaching jelly.

Cranberry Jelly
Armor Class: 9
Hit Dice: 4* (L)
Move: 30' (10')
Attacks: 1
Damage: 2d4
No. Appearing 1 (0)
Save As: F3
Morale: 12
Treasure Type: none
Intelligence: 0
Alignment: Chaotic
XP Value:125

Monster Type: Lowlife (uncommon)
A cranberry jelly is the unfortunate result of an alchemical accident. It is nearly invulnerable to physical attacks, taking only a single point of damage from any successful hit. Fire causes full damage, and cold damage allows the following physical attack to cause full damage.

Ghost Archipelago Plans!

I already have my Herator and Warden figures, but I need a crew. The plastic boxed set will take care of my basic crew needs, and I can probably squeeze out a good chunk of specialists too, though I should probably dig through my Bones to see what else I can cover. And then there's the credit with Reaper I'm sitting on to use in December during the 12 days event.

For now though, here's my plan, Heritor with the following abilities:

• Crushing Blow
• Iron Skin
• Leap
• Steel Heart
• Surge

Storm Warden with the following spells:

• Cloud Cover
• Lightning Strike
• Wind Walk
• Water of Life

Speaking of, the official minis for the Heritor and Warden, while nice, have some issues. Mold lines aren't bad, but there's a lot of flash. Also the Heritor's swords came very bent. I'm worried about them snapping off. Also the tsuba (hand guard) on both is a little bent, and I'm not sure if that's intentional or not. The Warden's hand looks weird. I don't think it's miscast, but... I wish I was a better sculptor. I'd redo the fingers. I'd also remove the quiver from her back. They didn't give her a bow, so... WTF?



Anyway, for the crew, this is my plan:
4 standard crew w/ hand weapon and shields
2 standard crew with hand weapon
2 archer specialists
2 crossbow specialists
1 Guide
2 Tomb Robbers
2 Scouts
1 Hunter

That should leave me with 4 figures from the box that I can play with later.

Carousing in my Stonehell game

I've decided to tweak my house rules a bit. I decided that the carousing rules we're okay, but a little flat. Basically I've been running it so that PCs can roll a die and multiply the result by 100, and spend that much of carousing for XP. If they rolled over their level, something bad happened. As they gained levels, they moved up the dice chart, so that there would always be a chance of failure. It worked, but wasn't great.

This is the new rule going forward, though the mishap chart will vary depending on what type of carousing the players choose.

Carousing: Holy Orders

Cost = 75gp*1d4 (neighborhood event) 125*1d6 (Parish event) 200*1d8 (district/quarter-wide event) 300*1d10 (city wide)

If you roll either the maximum amount, or above your level, make a saving throw vs . On a failure, only half of the money spent gives XP, and roll on the chart below for the blunder!

1. Host a Feast Day - Even priests like to party! Sometimes too much…

1. Bit too much of the sacramental wine. Either (1-3) you, or (4) High Priest, (5) civic official/ local celebrity (6) everyone gets totally wasted and causes a scene.
2. Not enough for everyone. Minor riot spoils the event
3. Uninvited Guests - rival temple crashes the party
4. Sacrificial animal objects and gets loose.

2. Parade - Loud, festive and fun! Everyone comes out to enjoy it but…

1. Trampled an orphan
2. Drunken revelers trash the town
3. Bad timing. Someone important dies the morning of the parade
4. Funds are embezzled, and you get blamed

3. Special Service

1. Too many candles, and you set the temple on fire, minor damage.
2. Too many candles, and you burned the temple down!
3. Squirrel in the holiday bush
4. Shrimp is banned for a reason. GI issues… in front of everyone

4. Public Works

1. Feed the Poor - Rotten food, everyone gets sick - make a saving throw vs poison or suffer a -2 to all rolls on your next adventure
2. Clean the streets - Displace a bunch of people into another district, upsetting important people!
3. Restore an old graveyard - Upset a restless spirit
4. Tend the sick - And now there’s a plague. Everyone in the party must make a saving throw vs Dragon's Breath or Suffer a -1 to all rolls in the next adventure.

5. Sponsor Initiates

1. 1d4 new novice nuns/monks
2. 1d6 temple workers (gardeners/cleaners/cooks/etc.)
3. 1d2 Temple Guards
4. 1d10 missionaries

Complications!

1. Infiltration by a member of a rival faith
2. Scandalous behavior revealed after initiation
3. Thieves!
4. Morons, you just can’t find good help these days

6. Commission Artwork

1. Mural/Painting
2. Statue
3. Song/Score
4. Illuminated Manuscript
5. Play

Complications!

1. Sacrilegious
2. Insulting to someone important/you
3. Stolen/Vandalized
4. Left unfinished because
1. The artist is a flake
2. The artist is a drunk
3. The artist dies

Stonehell: Into the Hobgoblin Redoubt

Session 48 was played on 9/26

Eiric, wizard 6 (Kat)
- men at arms (Lindal the Elf, E)
- Naideen(dog)
A-A-Ron, Thief 5 (Henchman)
Orpheus, Human Fighter 5 (Henchman)
Karl, Dwarf 4 (Julia)
- Hobart (dog)
- men at arms (Kanye, Barr)
Daryll (NPC Cleric 6)
Brie, wizard 1 (Apprentice to Eiric) - Stayed in town researching

Having caught their breath, the party notices that a troop of lizardmen have taken an interest in them. Various times throughout the ‘night’ they see the lizardmen poke their heads around. Otherwise they take no other action.

After resting the party gears up, and with kobolds in tow, head back toward the hobgoblin occupied areas. First is checking out the rooms occupied by the hobgoblins in the reptile house. They manage to avoid a simple trap, a bucket of hobgoblin shit in a bucket. Karl claims the bucket, and makes Kanye carry it. Kanye demands 15gp for the honor. Karl uses the poop to smear all over the beds of the hobgoblins.

Eiric has everyone dress up in hobgoblin outfits from the chests in the barracks. Karl has to do some serious tailoring to get it to even vaguely fit.

Moving into the main halls of the redoubt, the party comes across a hobgoblin barricade, and Karl uses his pick-ax to bring it down. A-A-Ron scouts ahead, and discovers a strange tiled room of colored lights that emerge from large mirrored balls that shine all over.

The kobolds are assigned construction duty to ensure that nothing comes around from behind.

Karl then heads into the room, and is hit by a beam of light that burns him, and then shot at by hobgoblins lurking beyond the disco room. Yelling the equivalent of “bullshit!” in dwarven, he charges toward the hobgoblins while Orpheus mutters “Shit, come on!” and charges after him. Naideen and Hobart follow along with Kanye and Barr. The disco lights are all avoided or have no effect on those they hit.

From the other side of the hall, more hobgoblins start shooting at those who didn’t charge across the disco room. Limdal and E both drop, but Daryll uses his magic to get them back up on their feet.

Karl and Orpheus (and hirelings) wade into the hobgoblins, mowing most of them down in a single swing each. The first half dozen are reinforced by another half dozen along with a champion. Orpheus calls him out, and cuts him down in a single mighty blow (another critical!).

Standing among the fallen hobgoblins, Karl and Orpheus can hear more coming from multiple directions…

Kills: 32 hobgoblins, 1 hobgoblin Lt.
Gains: none
Losses: none

Sunday Inspirational Image: Altair

The sounds of the vendors hawking their wares was subdued in the mid-morning, as the day settled into it's slower rhythm.  The alleyways thinned of men as they took time in the cafes and smoke shops to discuss the latest happenings either in the palaces, the temples, or the streets. Lately, there's been more from the temples and palaces than usual.

The smell of sweet strong coffee mingled with nutmeg and cumin in the slow moving air, and tinging it all, harder to nail down, the smell of trouble stirring.

Image by Klaus Wittman

Painting at work: Week 2

Okay, 2 weeks in, and I think things are going well. I've managed to apply paint 8/10 of the past work day lunchtimes.

Progress:
Lady mage is coming along. Trying to do some decent shading using Burgundy Wine and then I'll be highlighting the dress blending up with some Linen White. I'm not convinced by the lavender bit in the middle. I'm generally happy with how her face is coming along. She does need a bit more work there, and her hair just looks too muddy. I wish the detail with the hairnet she's wearing was a little sharper. Thinking about adding pearls to it. So far it's progressing pretty well. In looking back over it, most of the stuff with detail work is on what I painted yellow. I should have done that in blue so that the gold would stand out better. Ah well.

He's coming along nicely. Now that I've base coated the armor, he's looking much better. Face is still a little soft. The shield arm is really in the way.

I'll probably not be able to finish them off this week unless I bring them home to work on. Which I might, simply because of the detail work to do on them, and then start in with the lizardmen after Thanksgiving.

Thoughts
Need to bring in a pin to unclog bottles. Paperclips don't do it.
Leather brown doesn't cover all that well by itself
Don't bring different minis in the future. You've only got minutes to paint, it divides your focus.
Not having my magnifier is a pain. I keep expecting it to be there