Stonehell: The B Team Begins

Session 289 was played on 7/24/25

Sonara, Wizard 3 (Rob)
Adorellen, Elf 2 (Me)
Glimmer, Kobold 3 (Lanse)
Kessaren, Cleric 3 (Cindy)
Loahn, Halfling 3 (Josh)

The PC’s were generally all vaguely aware of each other. Sonara and Adorellen both being apprentices of Morgana, Glimmer being one of the winged kobolds from Nick’s keep, and Loahn being a local working with the thieves guild in the town and acquainted with Borumar. Kessaren only arrived recently, having had the caravan she was traveling with hit by monsters, and her making it to Nick’s castle for sanctuary. Morgana is sending her apprentices out to go deal with things in Stonehell. The others are told about the mission and are those who volunteer to join up. An additional 6 kobolds are incentivized to join in on a promise of 5sp each per day.

The party departs Morgana manse and takes the old king’s road north out of town, crossing over the causeway through the swamp and then up into the foothills where the box canyon rests. They bypass the Gatehouse Inn, and head for the main entrance of Stonehell, reading the inscription above the doorway for the first time. Beyond the doorway they see the names inscribed on the walls, and each adds their own.

They take the stairs down, and follow their map into the kitchen and banquet room off the entry room. Giving it a thorough search, they discover a map scratched onto the underside of the table. In the kitchen area, they work the stuck pump over the sink until they pop out a stone and release a green slime that was blocked behind it. Glimmer gets splashed by a tiny bit of the green slime and ends up with some burns to show for it.

Gains: 60gp gem
Kills: Green Slime
Losses:

Rappan: Immarassrath, the aftermath

Session 288 was played on 07/07/25

Morgana, wizard 10 (Rob)
Borumar, Triton Thief 11 (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter 8 (Lanse)
Nick, Fighter 8 (Me)
Koltic, Cleric 9 (Cindy)
Aroon, Fighter 8 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 8 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 8 (NPC)

This session ended up being entirely logistical and no adventuring was done.

After the slaying of Immarassrath, the party spent weeks recovering from their wounds and being raised from the dead… again. Morgana spent the time focused on identifying the various items recovered. Immarassrath had slain well equipped dragon hunters before, and the loot was hard won, but worth it.

The group also discussed what the future direction of the group would be, and it was settled on that we would roll up some B Team characters to play for a bit, and give our high level characters some in-game down time but still moving some of the storylines forward.

Rappan: The Death of Immarassrath

Session 287 was played on 07/03/25

Morgana, wizard 10 (Rob)
Borumar, Triton Thief 11 (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter 8 (Lanse)
Nick, Fighter 8 (Me)
Koltic, Cleric 9 (Cindy)
Aroon, Fighter 8 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 8 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 8 (NPC)

The party pauses, and Koltic returns to the surface to raise a few zombies to act as distractions/meat shields while the party again paused to bind wounds and catch their breath, and make sure Aroon’s body was safely stashed to the side.

Up on the surface Koltic encountered a little problem with some of the bodies he was trying to animate being hijacked by some overly mobile vines. Koltic has to use his brawn as the vines don’t turn as undead. This takes a bit, but he eventually gets there, and finally can raise the bodies as zombies for his own use. They begin to slowly make their way back to the stairs.

Meanwhile the party hears a lot of jingling and the movement of a LOT of metal, and then the dragon’s voice “Oh, I found it”

Sure, that could have been a trick, but the party pressed on, and hoped Koltic would be able to deal with the aftermath. Down a long tunnel the party came upon another broken vial, and then beyond a large throneroom. Blotto and Borumar were in the lead, and took a fireball to the face, followed by another a few seconds later. Borumar dropped, and Blotto wasn’t far behind. The remaining meatsticks charge in. Nick again throwing his spear, Jameth shooting his crossbow, while Morgana drops an ice storm on the dragon.

Koltic and his zombies continue down the stairs.

Immarassrath smiles and says “my turn.” and throws yet another fireball from its necklace on the party dropping Lor’Koth and Jameth. Nick, and Blotto charge in, both cutting into the dragon’s thick hide. The dragon lashes out with his claws and fangs, while Morgana drops another ice storm on the dragon.

Koltic and the zombies near the bottom of the stairs, and begin to hear the rumbling of fireballs and the roar of a pissed off dragon.

The dragon tosses the bodies of Nick and Blotto to the side, and throws another fireball bead at Morgana. She takes it full on, but still stands, and blasts it in return with yet another ice storm from her staff. The dragon’s rime covered body falters and fails under the onslaught.

Morgana checks the bodies of her fallen companions and quickly realizes that they are beyond her help. Thankfully Koltic, zombies in tow, finally arrives. They collect Aroon’s corpse from further back and prepare the bodies for resurrection and recuperation. Over the next week, everyone is returned to life, and Morgana and the zombies sort through the treasure. Eventually Morgana is able to teleport the party back to the manor to complete their recovery.

Gains: A literal dragon’s horde.
Kills: Immarassrath
Losses:

Rappan: Assaulting Immarassrath, 2nd try pt. 3

Session 286 was played on 06/22/25


Morgana, wizard 10 (Rob)
Borumar, Triton Thief 11 (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter 8 (Lanse)
Nick, Fighter 9 (Me)
Koltic, Cleric 9 (Cindy)
Aroon, Fighter 8 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 8 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 8 (NPC)


Returning to the pit, the pile of money is checked. It’s mostly lead and copper with a layer of gold coins for appearances. Morgana uses her Scroll of Slug Summoning and has it appear at the bottom of the hole the dragon went down. Watching from above, the rock slug makes its way after the dragon. There’s a couple of flashes of light, the breaking of glass, some roaring, and “oh god, it won’t come off!” screamed in draconic. While this is going on the party is sharing around healing magics, and making use of Morgana’s ring of regeneration.

The party cautiously descends the 350 steps to the bottom of the hole, finding the tunnel the dragon and the slug went down, and see the remains of the slug just a bit down the tunnel in a wider chamber. The large space beyond is largely empty, but for the glint of glass at the far side. Super cautiously the party investigates, worried about the dragon having become invisible. The glinting class is an empty potion bottle…

Out of the chamber is an open passage that slopes around and up. Blotto and Aroon manage to get caught in a rockfall trap. Beyond it is the dragon, and it breathes down the passage at the party, and Nick and Aroon drop from the choking gas. Morgana, just out of the range of the gas attack, drops an ice storm on the dragon, and Borumar summons his triton heritage and spits out a stream of high power water. Even a dragon finds getting hit with a power washer a bit painful. Blotto shoots the dragon with his crossbow, scratching it… Again, the dragon flees deeper into the tunnels, giving Koltic the chance to heal Nick. Aroon took too much damage and will need to be Raised.

Sweet 16

 Happy Blogiversary to me! 

Somehow I'm still going strong. Go me! I expect more of the same over the next year, and looking forward to it. I hope you are too! 

Star Trek Day 2025

Yet another lackluster Star Trek Day. Yet another youtube video. One episode left of SNW for this season, and Starfleet Academy in 2026 and the as yet unnamed Tawney Newsome Trek comedy sometime after that... All this, coupled with the way CBS was willing to pay off the Orange Shit Gibbon it just feels like a bit of a low after the Trek heights we hit at the beginning of the decade. 

But Star Trek is about Hope, and I'm desperately hoping that we see how bad things are, and we come together to make that glorious future that Trek shows us a reality. 

Live Long and Prosper! 

Goblin soldiers

I built these minis a long while ago, and they were part of that batch that I printed with white spray primer that got super chalky and hard to work with. It was some years ago, and because it was so miserable to work with I put basically all the minis away, and didn't do anything else with them for years. 

It finally got to the point that they were taking up space in my figure cases that I needed for actually painted minis, so I pulled them all out and looked up what to do with them last summer. The answer was a wash with alcohol. 

It mostly worked. The primer still wasn't the best to work with, but at least the paint would stick and not rub off. I started with the frostgrave barbarians, then the gnolls & cultists, and now the goblins are the last batch of white primed minis I have to work with. THANK GOODNESS!

They were painted with reaper paint colors: 
Wilderness green for the skin
Leather brown
Purple for the hair
Linen white for the teeth, horns, and shield freehand, and adding to the other colors for highlights
Brown liner for lining
Dwarven bronze 
Gunmetal (vallejo paint)

The bases were covered with a rough blend of gravel and coffee grounds (dried) that I covered with gesso and then dry brushed with various shades of grey.

While not my best work I'm happy to have completed them, and can finally be done with that awful batch of white primed minis. 

Also, while working on them, I was pretty sure they were orcs, but when I finally found them online, they're listed as goblin soldiers. Pretty beefy for goblins, so should I ever get the chance, I'll probably use them as orcs. And yes, one is a frostgrave gnoll body with an orc head. I'll use him as the boss. 

Rappan: Assaulting Immarassrath, 2nd try pt. 2

Session 285  was played on 06/19/25

Morgana, wizard 10 (Rob)
Borumar, Triton Thief 11 (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter 8 (Lanse)
Nick, Fighter 9 (Me)
Koltic, Cleric 9 (Cindy)
Aroon, Fighter 8 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 8 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 8 (NPC)

The party stands invisible, largely silent, and very bored for a good 3 hours waiting for the patrol shift change and the doors of the fortress to open. When they finally do, they shuffle in, and bank to the side out of the way of the lizardmen about to march in and out of the fort. There is a table with a gnome sitting at it right by the doors, and he scribbles into the book as the party passes by, but also doesn’t seem to notice them? He has a chain locked to his ankle, but the short length of the chain isn’t attached to anything. Weird. 

Within the fort are a variety of tents, some bigger than others, a fire with a large boar roasting away, and in the middle a massive stump with a large gap at the base. Around the doorway-like gap are runes. Sitting in front of it is another table with another gnome. 

The party avoids distractions, and heads for the stump, drinking their potions of poison resistance, as Morgana checks the runes. A number of lizardfolk females and young come and go, and the gnome makes an entry in his book as they do. Morgana whispers that as best as she can tell the runes are gibberish. The party passes the gnome and he makes a mark in his book without looking at them. 

Within the stump is a carved stairway heading in and down. It comes to a large open area within the stump, open to the sky. From the stairs are a series of seats like bleachers or pews looking down to the main area that contains a massive green dragon lounging upon an even more massive pile of gold. Off to one side is a large opening in the ground.

 “You might as well come in” the dragon rumbles. 

“Fuck” Nick says, striding forward, while Morgana and Koltic duck back around. Blotto and the Amigos (all still invisible) follow Nick and start to spread out so that any breath weapon attacks can’t hit everyone. Before they could fully spread out, Immarassrath flicks a glowing bead into the middle of the party, and a fireball explodes out of it, engulfing almost everyone in flames. Morgana and Koltic in the back both take the hit but keep on standing. Morgana tries to polymorph the dragon, but the spell is reflected back. Thankfully Morgana makes her save. The fighters charge in, Nick throwing his spear while Koltic casts Cureall on Morgana. The dragon breathes on the rapidly approaching fighters, and is put out that most of them keep coming. It bites Nick, who chops into the dragon’s neck with his ax. Aroon and Blotto get smacked, and both drop. 

Spitting Nick out, the dragon decides to make a strategic retreat, and jumps down the large hole in the side of the room. Morgana summons a water elemental and sends it down the shaft to keep the dragon busy while the party regroups. From below there’s a flash and a bang and some roaring as the dragon kills the elemental. 

Strategies are discussed, and flooding is out, and also impractical… Hoping the dragon will lick it’s wounds and exhibit some patience, the party returns to the surface, and checks on the halfling accountants. They’re magically controlled via the chains, and don't know what it is they're writing in the books. The party tells them to keep their heads down for now. 

August ‘25 In Review

Starting the month with a thunderstorm and a cold front making the temperature much more bearable, and ending it with a long weekend was definitely the way to go. Temps remained largely pleasant through the month, and even got to feeling autumnal in this last week. While Summer is generally my least favorite season, this feels a little too early. And hearing the geese overhead? Definitely too early. 

In between were a couple of long weekends upstate with friends. One of which was a gaming weekend! For the first time in as long as I can remember, I spent an entire weekend playing D&D, staying up way too late, and loving every minute of it. Even the 6+ hours in the car each way wasn’t much of a struggle as I got to listen to 3 different audiobooks.  

I am missing ReaperCon this year, and definitely feeling like I’m missing out on it. I don’t recall if I felt this strongly last year, but I’m really missing my friends this year. 

Gaming
As I mentioned above, we got in a full weekend of gaming, with the B team getting a fair bit of playtime on Saturday, switching over to the A team for a delve in Rappan followed by time in Stonehell. It was all suitably epic, and I can’t wait to write up the session reports. Sadly with everything going on I haven’t spent any time writing this month, and am getting behind on my session reports again. 

Work has been busy, and we’ve missed 3 out of 4 sessions this month. I’m hoping with the end of summer, and vacations, and wrapping up the initial FY26 budget we’ll have better luck with Sept. 
 
Miniatures
Given everything going on, this was a really productive month! I finished off the minotaur, painted up 6 orcs, 4 troglodytes, a pirate, a druid, and another bone pile. 

On top of all that, I’ve got a solid start on the next batch of minis. I think September may have fewer overall minis, but there are some bigger ones that are gonna take more time.

  

Media 
Game Changer season 7
Star Trek Strange New Worlds 
Love Death & Robots
Farscape 
The Studio

Noir by Christopher Moore
What Moves The Dead by T. Kingfisher
System Collapse by Martha Wells
The Wind in the Willows
Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells

Loot
Ashes Without Number
Hull Breach 

Goals for September
Finish the Q3 quarterlies for the RCL
Build a GIANT spider for the front yard