#Dungeon23 Dry Run Week 2

I just realized I never posted the second week of my dry run for #Dungeon23! 

Here's the link to Week 1 of the Poisonous Vaults

8. This statue filled hall hung with shields and banners taken from the Medusa's victims. Most statues are damaged. Every time the room is entered, the statues will have shifted position within the room. None are wearing shoes. 

8a. The Medusa store their collected loot in this chamber. 17,000sp, 5,000gp is all stashed in the various footwear taken from their victims. There are more shoes than victims. 

9. Empty plinth in west alcove. Small chamber to the north is a dusty guard room. Levers in guard room unlock the gates, but only one gate can be unlocked and opened at a time. 

10. White marble pillars veined in blood garnet with rings of brass spikes radiating out of them are set at every 3' the length of each pillar. Walls are covered in mosaics of chaos warriors marauding. Hidden behind the mosaic on the north wall is a chest with 4,000sp & 600gp.

11. The well from Room 2 continues through a collapsed corner of the floor. Anyone over 100lbs who steps within 10' of the collapsed section will cause the floor beneath them to fall on a roll of 1 or 2 on a d6. 

12. A large circular table dominates the room with 12 ornate chairs around it. The table is set with fine china and silverware (200gp total value, fragile). The door to the north is locked, the key is in the lock. 

13. Lounge. Large hookah (1,000gp, fragile) sits in the middle of the room. The floor is piled high with pillows with 3 Medusa relaxing on them. The air is thick with pungent and poisonous (to mammals) smoke (-4 to rolls if save vs poison is failed). 

14 Laboratory of Sthedo (Medusa, MU6). Among the various equipment, bottles, jars, cages, etc. is a small locked chest with The Heart Of Stone. A vial of poisonous gas (10' diameter cloud, save or incapacitated). Her spell book is covered in a contact poison (save or die). 

 

Heart of Stone - Magical anatomically correct heart shaped uncut garnet, can summon a 12HD earth elemental. 4 charges remain.

Editorial: Hey #BrOSR! Grow the fuck up!

 My Old School Brothers* in Dice,

Do you want our corner of the hobby to die? Is that your goal? Because shit like this? 

 

And that's not even going into the classic assholes like Venger, Zak, and Pundit. (if you don't know who they are count yourself lucky!)

This is how you drive people away. This is how you make your tables unwelcoming. The RPG hobby has seen spectacular growth recently with 5E, and that's allowed a lot of very cool OSR and OSR adjacent projects to flourish. I have a shelf full of cool zines and boxed sets and rule books because people have been excited and able to make quality content for classic D&D type games. 

Assuming WotC doesn't ruin that first, your behavior will. That dumb PBS article that you're so up in arms about? They're talking about you. And I don't give a damn about your claims that "there's no politics at my table" and "everyone has always been welcome" because that's bullshit. 

How do I know it's bullshit? Because I've seen the other shit you talk about, the things you post with #brOSR and #SparkleTroll. I've seen the things you've liked and retweeted. You aren't subtle, and you aren't fooling anyone. 

And yeah, I can just block you and happily play my games, but I'd like to be able to get people interested in the hobby without getting a side eye when they find out the corner of it I generally play in. 

It's 2023, and time to stop acting like it's still 1979 (it wasn't good then, FYI). Your racist, misogynistic, homophobic bullshit needs to go. Your gatekeeping isn't helpful or wanted. Your puritanical zeal for a game written before most RPG players were even born is going to increasingly see you relegated to the same dank dark corners of musty old basements that hold the embarrassing collection of Nazi & MAGA paraphernalia that your kids or grand-kids will be embarrassed to have to deal with when you die.   

Kicking in the door, killing horrible monsters, and taking their treasure is a fun way to play. Get your heads out of your asses, grow up, and for fuck sake stop being colossal dicks so I can focus on making cool stuff for my game.

*Yes, brothers, because it's always a bunch of guys, usually older, and usually white.

2022 in Miniatures

2022 was a productive year, largely because of the Reaper Challenge League. It really spurred me to keep painting, even when there were a whole lot of good reasons to not pick up a paint brush. The league probably wouldn't be as motivating if it wasn't for the group categories that I always signed up for, even in the busiest of months. 

117 minis in total in these pics (but there are at least 2 that I can't put my hands on right this second), including terrain pieces and some small terrain accessories Here's a group shot of all the fantasy minis.

 

And some close ups...

I'm still really pleased with these cultists.

And here's the sci-fi contingent.

A very productive year. I haven't finished any minis yet this year, but I've got several that are close to done, and a couple others that I just started. Ideally I'll paint at least the same number of minis... I have a couple of big things I'd like to get done this year too, including getting back to my cardboard spaceships.

Demon Idol

You know what’s really cool? Having a fellow player in your game who say “Hey, I’ve got a 3D printer. Anyone want anything printed out?”

And yes, yes I do…

One of the things I’ve really wanted was the demon idol from the 1e player’s handbook. Now I have one!

The green plastic was a little weird, and the print quality was pretty decent for something this size. The smaller PC sized minis were unfortunately too small for the details to come out, so I’m glad I went with something a little more substantial.

After cleaning up the support bits from the printer, I primed it with black craft paint. I was generous with the application, and the paint is thick to begin with, and for the most part it did a good job filling in most of the print lines.

I thought about carving out the fire and replacing it with the head of the medium fire elemental, but decided to just go with the printed flames, as the head wasn’t quite big enough, but the fireballs were too big.

Wanting to keep it fairly simple, I built up a couple of layers of dark, medium, and then lighter grey, but the more I worked on it, the more the lines stood out.  So I smeared the whole thing with wood glue and coated it in fine grained sand, and then painted it black again.

 

I still wasn't super thrilled, and so in frustration I put it away... for a long time. Way back in the summer of 2018.

Pulling it out recently I decided to wrap it up. I repainted it, added some OSL from the flames, and a pair of gems were glued in for eyes. 

I think that's looking just fine! And I'm glad to have it finished. 

December ‘22 In Review

Well, there was another long few days of rain, and my basement office flooded again. The bookshelves were moved out to the main (not flooded) room, and shopping for the shelves for the other books was put on hold. Repairs have yet to be done, but probably will be taken care of early in the new year.

Christmas break was a quiet one, except for the near constant sounds that come from a toddler. Add to that a cold that knocked us all down a few pegs, and kept me from finishing all the minis I’d planned on finishing.

Gaming
Stonehell has reached a pause point as Lady Morgana hit level 9, and immediately retired to her manor to do some research and magic item making that will keep her busy for months. In the meantime I’m getting to play Nick in Rappan Athuk.

I also started #Dungeon23, completing a 2 week dry run before the start of the new year.

Miniatures
Like I said above, didn’t get everything finished that I wanted to, but still managed to wrap up a few minis that I’m pretty proud of. I’ll be doing a minis of 2022 wrap up later this week.

Media
Star Trek Prodigy
Bad Batch
Ghosts
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
Spirited
Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas Special
White Christmas
The Lost City
Daredevil season 1

Goals for January
Continue Dungeon23
Write up 1 session report/week
Play scenario 2 of the Stargrave Solo Campaign

#Dungeon23 Dry Run Week 1

A week ago I decided to do a dry run at #Dungeon23. I have no idea if I'll include this little 14 room dungeon in my megadungeon, or add it to Stonehell, or what, but as I've completed the first week, I wanted to share it.

Welcome to the Poisonous Vaults

1. Stairs down open up to a massive fountain that dominates the north side of the room. Serpents & snakemen hiss a harmless water mist that blankets the floor 1' deep in concealing mist.

2. Sloping passage down to storage room. North side piled 10' high w/ precariously stacked rotted worthless crates. Dry well in the SE corner drops down a little over 100'. Secret door is trapped with poison gas. Save or take 2d4 Con damage (heals @ 1pt/day)


2A. Secret stash. 1000gp, 10 bottles of wine (10gp each) 7 gems (100gp each). Rotted food and travel clothing.

3. A pair of Medusa polish the copper serpent lamps and duct work (500gp value if carefully removed). All gates are locked. Stairs down to next week's level. The polish is caustic (as oil).

4. Copper lamps continue from 3. 1 not working. West side has dais with hooded cobra backed throne. Non working lamp has a 7,000gp gem wedged in the pipe. Removing it & not relighting the lamp will fill the room with gas. In 3d4 rounds will explode as fireball

5. Beyond the locked door is an area of magical darkness. 2 gargoyles flank the door. They hate the Medusa and will give the treasure away if given one of the Medusa heads. Along the N wall is an empty wine rack save for an ebony scepter wrapped with a gold serpent and topped by a goose egg sized polished garnet (900gp). The SW quarter of the room contains destroyed rugs, floor pillows, and couches.

6. A Medusa and her pet giant rattler are playing with a blinded giant rat. The rat has already been bitten and will die in 1d6 turns. The Medusa has a pouch with 76ep.

7. Blinded giant rats (14) pick at the torso of an orc. The petrified legs are leaning in the NW corner.

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you peace and joy this holiday season, and a stocking full of toys!