June ‘26 In Review

Summer has well and truly arrived. School is out for the kid, my FiL is here to help take care of him for the break, and temperatures are supposed to hit 100 this week. I can only hope the high temps and the potential thunderstorms keep the neighborhood artillery blasts to a minimum for the 4th of July weekend, but I doubt it. 

Trek Long Island was this month, and I brought the kid with me. He had a blast. I… mostly got to watch him have a blast. I suppose this is the only real way to introduce him to the Con life. Next year will be better. 

Miniatures
You ever get one of those bees in your bonnet? An idea you just can’t get out of your head, and if you don’t make it happen NOW your brain won’t let you do anything else? I got 2 of them this month. The first was building the cardboard space transport, and the other was turning an old GW paint pot into a Killa Kan. I actually finished building the Killa Kan, and have made good progress on the ship. 

 

On the paint desk, I wrapped up a bunch of wolves, a couple of trolls, the BFG Dhows, and a few other minis, and started on another set of Noble Armada ships, a Frostgrave mini, and am continuing to slowly work on converting some Space Gitz. 

Gaming
We continue bumbling our way through Old Oak city and the crazed wasps and white ants in our Beetle Knight game. While I’m enjoying it, I’m looking forward to getting back to Stonehell, though I do kinda feel an itch to play some sci-fi… something.

The Dolmenwood work game managed a couple sessions this month, and it’s delightful how players can make things just a little more complicated than they need to be. Need to shine some light on something? No, lets not just try lighting a torch, let’s go back to town, buy a dozen mirrors, and set them up to shine the sunlight in the spot we want! 

Media 
Hacks - They really stuck the landing with this one! 
Spider-Noir - Loved it!
Starship Troopers - Rewatch while scratch bashing Dana Meyers… Mmm
Sorceress - So cheesy, so bad… 

Books
Dungeon Crawler Carl Books 5, 6, 7 & 8 - I’m not sure how many tens of hundreds of pages that was, but I couldn’t put them down. 

Loot
Star Trek Lower Decks art book & 3 graphic novels
Reaper minis order
Free RPG Day: 
From Here to There, an old-school hexcrawl
Dungeons & Kittens
Level 1: indy RPG anthology

Goals for July
Play rescue  scenario of Stargrave Hope Eternal
Finish March & April session reports

Rappan: Vomited Up from the Mouth of Doom

 Session 322 was played on 3/14/26

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)

After returning from Rappan, Morgana and Koltic spend some time removing the curse that Jameth had fallen under, then began working on a ring of featherfall for herself. The meatsticks trained on the cleave special attack together. Koltic spent his off time making potions and also communing with his god. In his drunken stupors holy trances he was warned that a great danger was threatening all around Rappan, and would descend upon them in a matter of weeks. Using his Commune spell, he learned over several weeks that the danger wasn’t from the dragons, but would come from the Temple of Orcus within Rappan. 

Around this same time kobolds from the Mouth of Doom showed up. Things were emerging from the depths… undead and demons. They fled and reluctantly came to Nick’s keep for help. Shortly thereafter Drusilla showed up at the keep to complain about an excess of orcs and skeletons and things from the pits (demons) suddenly being all over the woods, and blaming our actions for stirring things up.

Morgana used her magic eye to check out things at the Mouth of Doom and found a full military camp set up in the field outside the mouth. Mostly skeletons, with orc command, and several frog demons over the orcs, including one on a big floating golden throne.  A total of about 200 troops… While the skeletons weren’t a big concern, at least for the party, the demons, and potentially the orcs as well. On the other hand, letting a swarm of skeletons overwhelm even the best fighter isn’t a good idea. 

Knowing the lay of the land, the party planned a quick strike against the small army. Morgana obviously serving as artillery, while the melee members of the party would close in after to mop up.  

The battle was messy. Starting things off with some fireballs worked extremely well for the mooks, and even the orcs, but the demons had the advantage of being both resistant to magic and fire damage… So Morgana tried a lightning bolt. It was moderately more effective. Unfortunately the demons chucked some fireballs back at the party, and summoned more demon friends to help them. Lor’Koth took the fireball hard, and dropped, Jameth nearly joining him. The sight of the fighters charging toward the remaining demons got the demons to charge right on back. This resulted in the demons finally clumping up just enough for Morgana to drop an ice storm on them. What that doesn’t take out, Nick, Blotto, Borumar, and Aroon finish off. 

From the various corpses a large pile of loot is recovered, including the (no longer floating) golden throne. 

Checking out the entrance of the Mouth of Doom, glowing red eyes can be seen within. Morgana chucks a pair of fireballs into the Mouth, setting them to go off one near the entrance, and the next one deeper down the main hall. 

They take the loot back to the keep. The next day kobolds rush to inform the group that a troop of 2 dozen dwarves is marching on the keep and is only a short distance away!

Cardboard Starship #4: Transport part 1

If you look back at the "cardboard starship" tag, you'll see there have been a couple of previous builds... and #3 was never updated. That's because I never finished it. I was unhappy with the foam I'd used to make it, and decided to scrap it. 

That was 5 years ago. 

Now that I'm actually playing Stargrave again, and the next official scenario requires a crashed ship with a 10x4 cargo area that the crew can go into, it's time to build my next cardboard spaceship!

The only requirement for the scenario is the cargo bay, and while I absolutely could just put a box on the table, that's just not my style. I want a full ship that I can use over and over! On the other hand I don't want to go too overboard and make something so big it'll take up the whole table. Grabbing my trusty graph paper, I got to sketching.

 

Here you can see what I came up with. To avoid it looking like a box, I decided it should be, overall, hexagonal. 45 degree angles are easy enough, right? Plus I could make some simple benches running down the length of the cargo bay. At the front, there would be an elevated cockpit, and at the rear an engineering area and the engines. 

With everything all sketched out, I grabbed some cardboard from the recycling bin in the garage, and got measuring. I wanted to minimize the number of cuts I'd need to do and so made sure the cardboard grain was running front to back to make it easier to bend the cardboard to make the 45 degree angle that I'd planned. In hindsight it was maybe not the best decision, but it worked ok. 

 As it felt a little weak, I decided that it could use some bulkheads in the cargo bay, and so added them in as you can see above. Later I found that single thickness cardboard, cut thin like this is also kind of weak, and it buckled on me. 

 

Next I added the flooring to the cargo bay, which was simply the molded plastic of a food tray that had previously contained some peppers from the grocery store. This was hot glued in place. You can't really see it, but a couple of the spots on the trays have writing molded onto them. At this point I decided not to worry about it. I've also begin to block in the engineering compartment, and glued the ship onto a scrap piece of foam for a little extra strength and to give the engines somewhere to sit. 

 

The cockpit and the benches were added next. The middle section of the cargo bay is where the ramps/doors will be, so no benches there. The cockpit was glued together from some cut off bits of cardboard from earlier in the build. Annoyingly it's not quite level, but I doubt anyone else will notice, plus for this scenario at least it's supposed to be a crashed ship anyway. 

The engines came together quickly, largely made from paint and Yukult bottles, embellished with bottle caps and toothpaste caps. The central area is made from a beer can 6 pack ring and a pizza box support, as well as a few other scrap bits from my junk bins. 

More detailing in the next post!  

Stonehell B Team: Wafflehouse and Kidnapping Attempt

Session 321 was played on 2/22/26

Sonara, Wizard (Rob)
Adorellen, Elf (Me)
Glimmer, Kobold (Lanse)
Kessaren, Cleric  (Cindy)
Loahn, Halfling  (Josh)
5 Kobold meatshields (Pibble, VI, Rags, Suv, Zurn)
2 Hobgoblin meatshields (Vorkvul & Gralvar)

Continuing their exploration of the Asylum next brings them to a Fey WaffleHouse staffed with redcaps. They chat a bit with some of the patrons, but avoid actually eating anything. A Gentleman Ghoul is hanging out, and they sell him some of their pixies, and acquire some rumors about Fire Giants in the deep,intrigue in the  Vampire court, and among the Vryellia, and rumblings from the Plated Mage. Sonra keeps out of the Wafflehouse, standing just outside, trying to look at once menacing and invisible so no one bothers her. 

Moving on, they come to a stream cutting through a wide section of the hallway, and across it a small field of mushrooms, who invite the party to rest, relax, and enjoy a mushroom and egg omelet. They just happen to have some eggs, and a frying pan, and a premade woodpile for a fire… the party declines, but does pluck a few mushrooms, and they take the eggs and frying pan. Then Sonra fireballs the mushrooms, just to be safe.

At the next doorway, they find a grumpy old woodsman. He threatens the party, and Sonra decides to further take after Morgana, and fireballs him. It doesn’t hurt him as much as it seems like it should, so the Kobolds charge in and hack at him till he falls. Pibble, excited, tries to raise him, succeeds, but loses control of the fresh zombie, and the kobolds have to put it down again. 

They grab his ax, and decide to finish their circuit of the Asylum and get back to the Korners. Before they can make it, just outside the Korners they’re ambushed by a party of Vryllia! Half the party is magically Held, but Sonra, Kess, Glimmer, and Zurn resist the effects. Sonra lobs a fireball, dropping half of the dozen elves. Another blast of Hold spells nabs Glimmer and Zurn, but Sonra drops another fireball, despite the fact that the elves had closed in. She succeeded in dropping the remaining elves, but also caught most of the party, dropping all the kobolds and Adorellen. Kess managed to get some healing for Adorellen, but the kobolds were too fried to save. 

Sonra, looting the bodies, collected 6 wands. Later, while in the Korners, a letter is dropped off to her, addressed to Morgana. 

Gains: 6 wands (Hold x2, Fear x2, Enemy Detection, Fireball)
Kills: Woodsman, Mushrooms, Vryllia
Losses: Kobolds, Fred

Stonehell B Team: Fairy Magic, Keep Out!

Session 320 was played on 2/15/26

Sonara, Wizard (Rob)
Adorellen, Elf (Me)
Glimmer, Kobold (Lanse)
Kessaren, Cleric  (Cindy)
Loahn, Halfling  (Josh)
5 Kobold meatshields (Pibble, VI, Rags, Suv, Zurn)
2 Hobgoblin meatshields (Vorkvul & Gralvar)

Stepping into the first glen from the dungeon door, they looked around. The late afternoon sun shown down on the glade, and the party poked around, looking at the large rocks, when they heard the telltale giggling of pixies. Sonra and Adorellen both snap out a pair of Sleep spells, while the pixies try to use Web on the party. There’s a brief fight with the few conscious remaining pixies, and Glimmer ends up with several more bottles stuffed with grumpy fey. The quickly head back through the door and into Stonehell closing it behind them before the sleeping invisible Pixies wake up. Loahn writes “stupid pixies” on the door in chalk. 

The next door opens into sun dappled wood with a rustic wood cabin a short walk from the doorway. They close the door and write “More pixies - Fairy magic - Keep out” on the door. Deeper into the asylum they find a padded cell, with clouds floating near the ceiling. They nope out of that room too. 

Finally circling around to see what remains of the portal room, the answer is “not much.” The fireballs made a mess of the chamber, and everything was burned, or at least covered in ash and scorch marks. Sonra is nervous the whole time they spend in the room, expecting something to happen… The hobgoblins find a small stash of silver coins that survived the inferno. Otherwise there was nothing left to recover from the room. 

More exploring finds an illusionary floor over a pit trap, but the trap was marked on their map, so no one fell into it. Then a room with a labyrinth carved into the floor of the room. Pibble walked the spirals of it, and gains a minor boost to his necromantic powers, but with a chance to lose control of them. One of the heads he had animated on its own, says his name is Fred. 

Gains: pixies in jars, Fred
Kills: Pixies
Losses:

Stonehell B Team: Weird Water

 Session 319 was played on 2/8/26

Sonara, Wizard (Rob)
Adorellen, Elf (Me)
Glimmer, Kobold (Lanse)
Kessaren, Cleric  (Cindy)
Loahn, Halfling  (Josh)
5 Kobold meatshields (Pibble, VI, Rags, Suv, Zurn)
2 Hobgoblin meatshields (Vorkvul & Gralvar)

Departing the Korners, the party descends to The Reptile House and is immediately set upon by a squad of lizardmen! The fight lasts a little longer than expected with such a large party, but the lizardmen only manage a few lucky scratches before all being cut down. Unfortunately they weren’t wearing much, and didn’t have anything of value on them.

From the Reptile House they cross back over to the Asylum, and head straight for the Water Weird’s fount, and as soon as the door is open Kess casts Purify Water, killing the elemental creature. They retrieve Karl’s collapsible 10’ pole, and down at the bottom of the water are the sparkles of more, but it’s too far down to reach. Sonra uses her bracer and changes into a croc, diving into the water. She fish out some coins and 3 magical crossbow quarrels. She returns to her usual human-ish form and they press on.

Checking the rooms across the hall, they find a forest glen through one door… 

Gains: silver & gold coins, +3 crossbow bolts x3
Kills: lizardmen, water weird
Losses: 

May ‘26 In Review

Started the month with 3 days of jury duty. Largely a whole lot of waiting around to see if they could manage to find 18 jurors out of a pool of 170 potential picks. They did. The last person picked was # 126. I was #140. While I’m a little sad I didn’t get picked, the case was expected to run for 5 weeks! Over the 3 days I got to eat some good food from the city and read 5 books (see below). It was an unexpected break from work, but after the audit, it was kind of nice. It also really kickstarted my reading mood. I read more books this month than I usually read over 6 months!


Miniatures
I’ve already written about how I finished my trashbash tower. I also worked on a handful of BFG minis, one large imperial transport and a set of Nicassar Dhows (not quite done yet). There was also the weird assortment of a bed, a wolf, 2 skeletal canines, a troll.. And then I pulled out my greenstuff and got creative. Of course I mixed up too much, but that’s what mushroom balls are for, right?

Of course with all the reading I did, I didn’t get as much painting done this month, but the reading time was definitely worth it. 


Gaming
As I posted just a few days ago, I got in my game of Hope Eternal! It was a lot of fun, even though it’s a solo game. Gotta take better notes for the next one. I did find using the transcribe feature on my notes app helped a lot. 

My work game hit a few bumps this month, and we missed all but one session. I’d hoped to be through the intro scenario for Dolmenwood by now, but no such luck.

The Stonehell/Rappan sunday game is also on hold, but in it’s place we’ve been playing Beetle Knight, which is kinda the TTRPG version of Hollow Knight/Silksong

I also accidentally finished playing through Torchlight 2. I hadn’t realized I was on the final mission, and after I completed it, I went looking for my next quest, only to discover that there wasn’t one… I’ve been playing this game, in short little bits here and there for a couple of YEARS. 

Media 
Hacks
Daredevil Born Again season 2
Maul: Shadowlord
Minecraft
Punisher: One Last Kill


Books
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams. Fun, too short
Kipling's collected poems. Eh.
Beowulf. It's a classic for a reason.
Eversion by Alistair Reynolds. Such a well told story.
The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Holy crap does he have a way with words!
Dungeon Crawler Carl Books 2, 3, & 4
Murderbot Diaries: Platform Decay


Loot
Stars Without Number  


Goals for June
Play rescue  scenario of Stargrave Hope Eternal
Finish February session reports