Mothership: Advent Dawn Session 4

 This was a doozy of a session, and I ended up with  pages of notes!

 

Ossie, wandering lost in the ship for a bit came around a corner to find Doc Stirling, Chl03, and a golden retriever exiting a reactor room. They quickly exchanged stories about what they'd seen, and pressed on. Noping past several suspicious looking rooms, they come to a massive chamber labeled Paradimensional Drive. 

Within the chamber, warning lights were flashing, and a weird sensation passed over everyone. Doc Stirling flashed back to when he tried to attach a liver to an elephant and it did not go well (and how he lost his funding). Ossie flashed back to his 3rd divorce when his now ex wife stabbed him. 

When they come back to themselves, they notice the droids in the room scrubbing only semi-effectively at the blood stained floor where "Corrupt Heart of the Ship" is written. Mostly they're just smearing it. Looking up at the drive itself, a tangled mess of wires and tubes and thrumming a pair of eyes that aren't there look down balefully. 

Ossie swallows the bile rising in his throat and rushes over to a terminal to stop the drive from engaging. He starts to hack it when nanites swarm out of Ossie and into the terminal!  He can't get past the system login. A thick black liquid (oil?) oozes out of the terminal connection. Ossie foolishly touches it and feels a stinging in his fingers where the liquid soaks into him. Stirling comes up to see what's going on. Chl03 uses one of the inactive androids to hook the extra Chl03 head up to, in hopes that she can provide some help.

Other-Chl03 almost immediately begins to scream and burn, the android skin blackening and the smoke  that surrounds her acts more like watery shadows that cling to the android body. Her eyes glow the same red as the eyes above that aren't there. The rest of the room warps and darkens too, the shadows thickening, despite the light levels remaining the same. Ossie and Stirling run for the door... or where they think the door is. 

"I told you to stay out of my fucking head" Chl03 yells. It is unclear which Chl03. The sound of her nailgun rings out. Ossie keeps trying to find the door, and avoiding the androids. He's hit by something, stumbles and keeps going, miraculously arriving at the door. Stirling appears there as well, with Kissygirl the golden retriever with him. Was he there first? Ossie isn't sure. They yank the door open and run for it while the Chl03s continue to battle. 

A short time later they find themselves in a much quieter section of the ship. The signs say Section 14, for what little that's worth. They come to a door to a crew lounge, and within is a skinless android doing some repair on itself, a pair of humans munching on a human arm. The bartender, Hank warns Ossie and Stirling that Hanks is a place of peace, and anyone who breaks that peace will know none. He offers them a drink. It's called "The Fuck" and is made with "anything that can ferment, and a lot of things that can't" Neither Ossie nor Stirling much care at this point and they drink it down. He asks Chl03 to change the music.

Chl03?!? This one, again, just a head, says she's been on the ship 37 days. And she warns that the drive will activate in just over 3 hours. Ossie and Stirling finish their drinks and make to leave. Hank gives them a growler to go, and wishes them luck finding a way off the ship. 

Continuing with little idea of where they are or where they're going, they come to some weird writing on the walls... maybe in blood? Kissygirl licks it. Just beyond it is the door to the waste processing facility. It is remarkably huge, with catwalks, conveyor belts, massive vats... the sort of place you'd expect in a major hive city, not on a spaceship. Nevertheless, hooch in hand (and bloodstream) they decide to check it out in hopes there might be an escape pod. 

Not long after entering, below the sound of running feet. A human boy(?) being chased by a slimy reptilian thing. Stirling takes a shot at it, but misses. It is enough to get the creature's attention, and the boy runs off. Kissygirl vomits up some 2" long purple worms at the creature, and it flees. Ossie is further freaked out, but at this point who can tell? Stirling says she's a good girl. 

Further into the facility they see large blob things moving along on another catwalk, and more of the slime reptile dog things. Kissygirl shows more of those purple worms and keeps Ossie and Stirling safe(ish). Down below they walk above a big 6 legged version of the slime dogs, with tentacles on its back. It SHOOTS them up toward the trio, and Ossie gets bit by one. It holds on, and starts emitting a high pitched noise, loud enough to travel over the sound of the facility. Ossie blows the worm off with his revolver, the last shot. Stirling slaps a quick bandage on it, and they press on as quickly as they can. 

Ahead, a flooded area but a hatch out of the facility. Something is clearly swimming in the flooded area, but Stirling things he can make it to the door... and he does, but gets bitten by something in the foot as he gets the door open and the gross sewage flows out into the hall, draining away. Ossie hobbles after Stirling and they close the door behind them, and Stirling patches himself up... or at least stops the bleeding.

Mothership: Advent Dawn session 2 + 3

In the embryo lab, with the screaming head of Alt-Chl03 on a shelf, and an android with skin issues and a shoulder mounted gun, Ossie pulls a gun on the mentally unstable android that's insisting on keeping "our" Chl03 and shoots him in the back. It's a solid, but not debilitating hit. The android turns to Ossie to shoot him, and Doc Stirling chucks in a grenade. Ossie dives behind the central tube of embryos just a fraction of a second before the grenade goes off, and after the first shots from the android miss. In a loud and confusing next few moments, Chl03 unloads her needle guns into the android, while it's attention can't focus on any of the 3 attackers who've hurt it. That lack of focus is probably the only thing that let them survive and take down the unnamed android. 

 Removing Alt-Chl03 from the shelf meant unplugging her from the ship's power, turning her off. Ossie carried her with him, and they progressed deeper into the shifting ship's corridors. 

---

At this point my notes are all but useless. It simply says "nope. nope. NOPE" I don't recall exactly what it was we saw, but it was a series of doors/rooms containing various horrors that didn't seem to be anything that would be worth interacting with.

---

I missed session 3, and my character got split off from the group, and ended up wandering aimlessly while they found a golden retriever they named Kissy Face who is the bestest dog ever, found the navigational data, and managed to avoid death.

Sci-fi Terrain: Chemical Processors

 The construction and painting of these 2 terrain pieces was amazingly simple, once I got around to actually doing it. I built them at the end of June in 2023, primed them sometime in the fall, and then didn't get around to painting them over a sessions until just a few weeks ago. 

They're based around a set of support structures for a 3D printed piece of terrain, something designed to be tossed away, but the shape was too cool to trash. Digging in my recycling/bits box I grabbed a pair of lids from peanut butter jars to give them a more solid structure. There were holes at the top of each of them, and I used a pair of heroclix base inserts to make lids for them. I thought about leaving the bases flat so that figures could stand on them, but I didn't think it looked very good, so back to the bits box, and I snagged a pair of arms from some Reaper CAV minis (The Dictator B) along with a few other random bits, and used an old stretched out hair elastic to make the tube. Zip ties added some necessary texture to the sides, and I drilled holes and threaded some garden wire through for more visual interest.

And because I wanted these to look pretty gnarly, and also cause my super glue wasn't holding great, I slathered it with baking soda. 

Then, like I said, it was a year before I painted them. 

I don't have any WIP pics, but I can tell you the process. On the one in front, I painted it with a quick coat of Stynylrez airbrush Metal Tone primer, and them splotched on craftsmart Lush Foliage. The tubes/hair elastic was painted with Reaper Cairn Stone, and the red was Reaper Seoni Scarlet. The rust effect was painted with Reaper Numeria Rust.

The one in back I forgot to use the metal tone primer, and just painted the lush green straight onto the black primer, but was otherwise painted exactly the same. I did go back and dab on some of the metal tone here and there where the green didn't completely cover the primer. All in all I like the front one better, but both look good on the tabletop.

Caves of Chaos: Heading West!

 Session 7 was played on 9/19

Io the thief
Theiss of Gond, cleric

After returning to the keep, the party brings the bodies of their fallen to the chapel for last rites before burial. The head priestess Kestra is impressed by their dedication.

After resting for the night, they pay Kask and Gyg for another day, and hire Burnore, Brymore, and Yar, and trek west from the keep along the Old King Way, traveling for a full day, mostly along the edge of the light woods to the north. They pass some isolated farmsteads, a tiny hamlet, before arriving at a walled river village.

After talking with the gate guards they're allowed in, and directed to the tavern. Talking with the locals they hear about the goings on, including owlbear attacks, dragon sightings, bandits way laying smaller caravans, including a caravan they were expecting this past week. It should have passed the keep not too long ago.

Kask knows the caravan they're talking about. It left the keep the same day the one he was a part of arrived.

The next morning the party departed the the walked village and heads back to the keep, keeping an eye out for the bandits. Their sharper lookout paid off, as they spotted a break in the woods big enough for a single wagon to pass through, and wagon wheel tracks heading along it.

Io sneaks parallel to the path in the woods, and spots 2 bandits in tree stands keeping a watch. Unfortunately one spots her, and she runs for it.

Rejoining the party they all book it down the path back to the keep, and after taking to the guards at the gate gain an audience with the castellan to tell him about the camp. He wants to hire them to take care of the bandits, and offers 15gp per bandit captured or killed.

Gains:
Losses:
Kills:

Caves of Chaos: Sticky Sweet and Rotting Flesh

Session 6 was played on 9/12

Io the thief
Gizzard Wannabe the Wizard
Theiss of Gond, cleric
Tiptoe the thief
Boots the ranger
Amnyuthist the halfling

The party hires Garwood and Kask and head back to the swamp, aiming to finish off the lizarmen mound. On the way, they meet a dozen warriors headed to the keep. They’d just come from the mound, and report that they’ve looted and burned it. The 2 groups continue on their way.

Deciding that a trip to the swamp is a wasted trip if they don’t do anything, they begin to stomp around, hoping to turn something up. Something, in this case ends up being a giant bee. They follow it at a distance to the hive inside the trunk of a massive dead tree. Not wanting to try to fight them, the party has Wannabe put them to sleep. Io then squeezes into the hive and collects some of the honey. Tiptoe follows and collects a little, but a bee makes its way out from deeper in the hive and attacks. Tiptoe is hurt, but runs for it.

They make it back to the Keep, soggy, but with some honey that Wannabe thinks has some magical healing properties.

The next day they hire Gyg and Vlad and head to the caves, and explore the goblin caves… finding them empty?!? Well, almost empty. 4 dead goblins rise up and attack the party. Vlad and Garwood don’t survive the encounter. They take the bodies, and bring them back to the keep.

Gains: healing honey
Losses: Garood, Vlad
Kills: 4 goblin zombies, 1 giant bee

Reaper's Baba Yaga's Hut

 Back in the fall of 2023 I started working on Baba Yaga's hut. It came assembled, and while the chicken legs are great, I wanted to be able to use the house on its own. So I started the process to remove the legs in a way that I hoped would allow me to use them in the future. Ideally I'd be able to put the house on the legs and take them off as needed. They were very tight, and practically soaked in super glue, so I knew this was going to be a process.

First I boilded some water in a pot we no longer used for cooking.And while the water was heating up, I got some heavy duty gloves.

Into the water it goes. I think I ended up soaking this thing half a dozen times total. After each soak, which got the legs wobbly soft, I would take it out of the water and pull as hard as I could. That was enough for one leg, and it popped off, but the other leg I had to get my xacto knife to cut at the glue

Eventually I got there! 

Of course there was then so much water in the house itself, I needed to let it drain. 

But I could get the legs back on! Success! 

It would then be more than a year before I actually started to paint it. 

It started with a coat of Brown Liner, followed by Redstone Shadow for the walls. 

The roof was a succession of Desert Stone, followed by Desert Sand dry brushes, which were also done to the walls. I wanted this looking as dusty, rotten, and in desperate need of some TLC as it could. 

I went lighter on the roof support beams, and then began splotching on Olive Drab, followed by Olive Drab plus more and more Pure White

Then it was onto the windows. I made sure to repaint them with Brown Liner to get them dark and clean up any stray brush strokes from earlier steps. and then hit the glass parts with Kraken Ink. Initially I kept the highlight on the broken edges of the glass small, but it didn't look as good as I wanted. 

So I made the glass less dark overall, and that worked. 

Finally it was adding a few details to the doors and the chimney, and it was done!

Actually painting the hut only took a few evenings worth of work. Dry brushing once the main colors are blocked in made it go really quickly, and then it was just a matter of going back and cleaning up the details. 

Now I just need to do the base and the legs so it can be a proper hut for Baba Yaga!

2024 in Minis

Another productive year, with 122 minis painted (including some terrain) 65 of them are Reaper minis, which is just slightly more than half. As my goal for the year was to paint more non-Reaper minis, I'm going to count that as a win! 

 

Further breaking it down, about 10% of the minis are sci-fi, a stat I want to bring up for 2025. Once again Undead are also sorely underrepresented, though there are a good number of Demons.  I'm also happy to have put a good dent in the old WotC Chainmail minis collection I've got.

 

And that doesn't count the 19 trees I make and painted this past summer! Adding them in brings the total up to 141, which would be my best year since I started tracking it.

As for my other goals from last year:

• BFG Tau fleet - Never touched. Didn't paint a single spaceship in 2024
• Frostgrave & Stargrave figures - Success!
• LotR Sauron - Never touched it.
• Baba Yaga's Hut - I painted the hut! I have plans for the base & legs, but I'm not there yet. 

The other fun thing about this year's work is that after I put them away after taking the picture, I ran out of space in my figure cases. So I just ordered another one that should get me through this next year, assuming I keep up my average painting rate.

I don't know if I'll manage more than 100 minis next year, but it isn't just about the numbers! It's being happy about what I got done, and this year, I am. It wasn't all great. I had some issues with the white spray primer I used on a lot of the Frostgrave minis I worked on, which made them chalky, even after a wash with isopropyl alcohol. Of all the minis, I think I enjoyed getting the Chainmail Drakes done the most, but it's hard to pick one, or even one group of minis as my favorite.

Anyway, for 2025 here's what I'm thinking:

• BFG/Other Space Ships - no particular goal, just paint some
• More Frostgrave/Stargrave Minis!
• LotR Sauron & Ring Wraith on Fell Beast
• ~50% non-Reaper Minis
• Build & Paint some Sci-Fi Terrain
  

Caves of Chaos: Swampwalk

 Session 4 was played on 8/29

Venus the Halfling
Io the thief
Gizzard the Wizard
Theiss the cleric
Gloin the Dwarf

Checking the tavern, they find 5 caravan guards interested in going for an adventure. Especially for a gold piece a day each! Rather than return to the caves, the party decides to explore the swamp and look for the lizardman encampment. Venus the halfling scouts ahead. Wandering for many soggy hours, they deal with numerous bug bites, and spot a variety of wildlife before they see signs of the lizardmen.

Eventually they do find the lizardmen mound, and in the heat and humidity of the late afternoon the lizardmen guards are sluggish and don’t spot the party. Gizzard uses his sleep spell to ensure that they can approach the mound unbothered. They quickly dispatch the sleeping lizardmen, and then fight the ones from inside the mound that try to come out to get the party. Sadly for the lizardmen, because of the narrowness of the mound’s entrance, they aren’t able to mass against the party effectively and after a couple more deaths, they just close up the entrance till the party goes away.

Checking over the corpses, they find one was wearing a heavy gold chain around it’s neck. They take it and head back toward the keep. On the way they spot 7 skeletons marching through the muck toward them. Theiss holds up her holy symbol and sends the skeletons running back into the swamp.

Gains: gold chain
Losses Kril the man at arms
Kills: 6 lizardmen

December ‘24 In Review

In the least shocking turn of events, I’m ending the year with a cold. I thankfully didn’t get it while I was visiting family for the holiday week, which was a joy. Watching the kid tear through the wrapped presents was a lot of fun. We also watched the ball drop with him (at 8pm) and toasted the new year together. A happy and (relatively) healthy end to the year.


Gaming
My Caves of Chaos game has wandered off to explore away from the caves. I’m going to need to fill in the map around the keep and the caves to let them wander. Thankfully that ties into the #Hex25 I’m starting today!

Stonehell was on pause this month, and Lanse has been running a terrifying game of Mothership. It’s nice to get to play, as always, but I wonder how long we’re gonna make it before it all ends in death?


Miniatures
A productive month. I didn’t get any painting in during the holiday, but in spite of that, I got a lot done before the end of the year. I’ll be doing a year in minis review later, but for the month, this is what I wrapped up!

Too many big things to fit it all in the lightbox!

I’m especially happy to have done the 2 scifi terrain pieces. They’ve been collecting dust for a while.

The necromancer diorama that I started a year ago has seen some more progress… For something that’s only 2 minis, It’s really going slowly. I need to just finish it up.

Media
Star Trek Lower Decks (season 5)
Silo (season 2)
Ghosts
Muppet Christmas Carol
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Secret Level
Arcane season 2

Loot
This month’s loot was my reaper christmas order. There were just too many freebies to pass it up, plus with the credit I get from doing the reaper challenge league, it was half as expensive as it would have been otherwise.

 

I also got in my Painted Wastelands setting book for OSE. Haven’t even cracked the plastic wrap on it yet, but I’ll post something about it after I do.

Goals for January
Keep up with all session reports
#Hex25