Stonehell B Team: Fried Fairies with a side of Mushrooms

Session 311 was played on 11/30/25

Sonara, Wizard (Rob)
Adorellen, Elf (Me)
Glimmer, Kobold (Lanse)
Kessaren, Cleric  (Cindy)
Loahn, Halfling  (Josh)
4 Kobold meatshields (iGor, Blar, 3, 6)
KARL! Dwarf 9 (Julia)

Departing the water weird’s room, the party double checks their map, and decides they’re going to firebomb the portal chamber. Karl passes a Natebalm to Loahn and Adorellen and Sonra prep their fireballs. They head around to the door they think separates them from the portal…. Glimmer throws open the door, and bottles are tossed, spells are cast, and the door is slammed shut behind them. The concussive “woomph” and the smell of flash burned flesh and mushrooms is disturbingly savory. 

The party stands ready for something to come for them through the door… but aside from the sound of something burning, popping, and crumbing, the hall is silent. They crack open the door and look inside. Black thick smoke hot and reeking of burnt flesh billows out. Within the once grand hall lush with fungal growth is now a charred ruin. Small areas still flicker with dying flames. The party steps in and begins to poke around at the larger piles, finding the remains of numerous pixies among the char. Then they begin to hear some rumbling…

The sound comes from the north, and they look out the hall to see what it is. They see rocks of a variety of sizes from as small as a fist to ones as big as beach balls rolling down the hall in their direction. Then they hear the voices all rumbling an overlapping “excuse me” “coming through” “make way” “watch your toes” “on your left” “make a hole” “on your right”

The party wisely hurries away from the crushing rolling of the rocks, and goes out a side corridor to avoid them. After the rocks rumble by they check their map for likely locations for action and treasure when a ringing in the background finally gets loud enough to be noticed… like the tinking of 1,000 needles. Karl’s eyes get very big, and he demands the party leave immediately. They take the fastest route from the dungeon, and head back to Morgana’s.
 

Campaign Milestones: New Notebook!

 As I was getting ready for the latest session of the Stonehell campaign, I grabbed the notebook to start a new page for the night's events... and realized we'd reached the end of the notebook! I was prepared for this and had another notebook handy, but it did give me a chance to mark the occasion with a picture. 

Over 300 sessions, 10+ years, and we're still going strong! 

 I'm looking forward to filling this next one up too. I have no idea how long we'll keep up this campaign... it was only supposed to be a filler after wrapping up a 5e game, but it's become so much more. 

Stonehell B Team: Don't poke the water weird!

Session 310 was played on 11/23/25

Sonara, Wizard (Rob)
Adorellen, Elf (Me)
Glimmer, Kobold (Lanse)
Kessaren, Cleric  (Cindy)
Loahn, Halfling  (Josh)
4 Kobold meatshields (iGor, Blar, 3, 6)

Returning to the Asylum via the Quiet Halls and the Reptile House, they started to make their way toward where they thought the fairy portal might be, but stopped to check out a room that on the map was incomprehensibly annotated, but might have connected to the temple looking room with the descriptive “fairies NOPE” written on it. While the rooms shared a wall, there didn’t appear to be a connecting door. What there was was a cistern. Loahn checks it out, and sees something under the water. Utilizing Karl’s collapsable 10’ pole he pokes around at the bottom of the cistern.

And that’s when the water weird attacked, grabbing the pole from Loahn and dragging it into the water. Loahn was quick enough to let go. Bolts were fired from crossbows, and the creature collapsed. Glimmer eases himself into the room to try to retrieve the pole, but the water weird is less dead than it initially appeared, and it grabbed him and starts to drag the goblin into the water. Sonra drops a fireball (always her first choice), burning the goblin, but freeing him from the weird’s grip. 

Running for his life, Glimmer slams the door shut. They’ll have to come back later to deal with this. 
 

Stonehell B Team: Sights you can't unsee

Session 309 was played on 11/17/25

Sonara, Wizard (Rob)
Adorellen, Elf (Me)
Glimmer, Kobold (Lanse)
Kessaren, Cleric  (Cindy)
Loahn, Halfling  (Josh)
4 Kobold meatshields (iGor, Blar, 3, 6)
KARL! Dwarf 9 (Julia)

Down the stairs from the Quiet Halls the party reaches the Reptile House and begins to explore the already mapped but cryptically noted area. Quickly reaching the hall to the Asylum, they get curious about what’s up with the fairies down this way, and head in. 

The first doorway they come to reeks of musk. The door is unlocked, not trapped, but thick. No noises escape. Opening the door and looking in, they see nymphs… nude nymphs, cavorting and half the party literally can’t handle the view and goes blind. Sonra drops a fireball into the too small for a fireball room, burning several members of the party, including Karl. 

Karl takes Sonra to task for not yelling “Marshmellow!” before launching the fireball so as to give everyone a chance to dive for cover. Then Karl notes that one of the nymphs was still (barely) alive, and went in to finish the poor thing off. Sadly they were as devoid of treasure as they were of clothing. 

As half the party was now blind, the seeing members lead the blind out of the dungeon and back to the manse, encountering a pair of robber flies on the way who took a chunk of flesh from iGor before being killed.

Back at the manse, the potion was identified as a potion of heroism, and traded to Brother Boris for some cure blindness spells. 
 

Stonehell B Team: Fire and Ice

Session 308 was played on 11/16/25

Sonara, Wizard (Rob)
Adorellen, Elf (Me)
Glimmer, Kobold (Lanse)
Kessaren, Cleric  (Cindy)
Loahn, Halfling  (Josh)
4 Kobold meatshields (iGor, Blar, 3, 6)
KARL! Dwarf 9 (Julia)

Arriving early, the party waits nearby to Edvard’s lair, with Glimmer invisible. They hear the gong sound, and wait 10 minutes. Glimmer sneaks out of the hiding spot, and a minute later the rest of the party begins to shuffle out.

Glimmer looks in and sees Edvard with a blue gowned woman of unnaturally sharp features and icy pale skin with Edvard, the 2 of them lounging on his closed coffin. He looks uncomfortable holding a glass of something red and hot. Glimmer creeps up to them, noting the large ice creature lurking unmoving by the far doorway. And Edvard’s silent skeletons are also standing guard. With a gulp, he lashes out with his dagger, which snags in the queen’s gown, failing to penetrate. Now visible, and noticed by the queen and Edvard, Glimmer runs for the doorway. Sonra and Adorellen toss in mini-fireballs and Karl chucks a Nate Bomb in. The waves of overlapping heat singe the party lurking in the doorway. 

As the black smoke finally clears, the queen, the vampire, the ice monster, and the skeletons all lay silent and unmoving, their bodies scorched, fairy and undead flesh burned down to the bone. The coffin wasn’t in much better shape. 

“Were… uh… were we planning on killing Edvard?” Adorellen asks as they step into the ash covered room.

Everyone looks at everyone else… 

“No, but I can’t say I’m going to lose any sleep over it” Sonra answers, sending the meatshields out into the hall to keep watch. Looting the bodies, and the coffin they make off with thousands of coins, a potion, several scrolls, a wand, a ring, and a fancy belt. 

2 Ghouls decide to check out the noise, and they smack one of the kobolds before Kess sends them to their eternal rest. Most of the party votes to head home, but Karl wants to see more, so they head for level 2!
 

Gains: thousands of coins, a potion, magic bottle, several scrolls, a wand, a ring, and a fancy belt. 
Kills: fairy queen, vampire, ice guardian, pixies, ghouls
Losses: 

Stargrave Trashbash Fuel Tower part 1

Following hot on the heels of the foamcore farmhouses, I got right to work on my fuel tank tower workshop. The only appropriate basis for the fuel tank was of course a coffee can. Digging through my bits boxes to find things to make it look less like a coffee can and more like something discarded from a passing spaceship, I grabbed a crevice attachment from a long broken vacuum cleaner, a peanut butter jar lid, and a plastic 6 pack can carrier. 

There was still a long way to go before this was going to be table ready... but I liked the start of it.  Except the crevice attachment was a little too tall. So I cut the bottom of it off, and stuck it on top of the main tower.

Of course there needs to be more to this... it' supposed to be the home and workshop of the main NPC for the scenario! I don't have any good tools at the moment to be cutting metal, so the can is going to remain intact. This means that everything I do to it will be adding onto the can. 

If this is a workshop that all the locals come visit to get their tech things repaired, he might have build out a shed/store front to work from... and a balcony because what's the point of having a big terrain piece like this if there aren't multiple elevations to put your minis on?

 I "built" paper mockups for what i was thinking, and... yeah. I like it. Originally I was going to base this on a bit circular 5" base, but the more I worked on it, the more it felt too constraining, and hindering what I wanted to do. So at this point I'm planning no base. I got a little ahead of myself and build the first support for the balcony out of match sticks. 

I then realized that I needed to do more work on the can before building the balcony, but... I might as well check to make sure it's strong enough, right?

 Yeah, that'll hold up ok it seems. 

 

So I started working on the can. The first thing I did was to cut out strips of cardboard box and wrap them around the can, and also to make some to wrap the crevice attachment to the can. At this point I started wondering how he's going to get out onto the balcony... So back to the bits boxes, this time checking out all the various tank bits I've collected, and I pulled out a bunch of hatches and doors. A Rhino top hatch will work for the ground floor doors, and a round tank hatch for accessing the balcony. 

Yeah, the Rhino hatch works. I made a frame for it out of corrugated cardboard and then framed out the build out structure from foamcore. 

I also added 2... handles? brackets? flanking the chimney that I imagine are used by the ship to help secure the tank in place. They are made from the tubes at the center of dog poop bag rolls with foamcore braces wrapped with zip tie, with the zip tie clasp on top.

I then started to build out the rest of the braces for the balcony. You'll note that the balcony and the door are no longer on the same side of the can. It started to feel too busy on the one side. There are also some clamps added to the opposite side of the can from the chimney. I found them in the street years ago, and I don't actually know what they're from.
 

I then added the stir sticks to the build out to match the wattle and daub I did on the farm houses. 

And finished the balcony. I decided that I'd skip the railings, as there isn't an OSHA to enforce safety regs. 

 I decided to add a satelite dish. Originally I was going to put it on the chimney tower, but decided to use a chopstick, topped with a bit from a lotion pump, some wires, and bits of matchstick and stir stick to secure the dish. I don't actually recall where the dish itself is from. I used various wires twisted together to make cabling running from the dish down to a box on the side of the tower, with one twisted wire cutting behind the vacuum attachment down to the front door.  

 I took some mesh from an old screen door out in the garage and cut a circle out for the top of the peanut butter lid, and glued it down with superglue, adding the little tube on top built from a can cap from a 6 pack of beer and the cut off bit from the vacuum attachment. As a decoration I added the same 3E shape as on the main body, and unseen, is the cap from a used tube of superglue inside the tube. Oh, and the little decoration? It's actually the carved out bit of the grey clasps so that I could bend them enough to glue onto the can. Literally just the scrap bits leftover and reused. 

 

Next (and last) up is the hatch for balcony access. Using a combo of match sticks for the outer frame, and stir sticks as the hatch itself, I glued them all together on a bit of paper, added the green wire to indicate the hinges and the handle. And because the tower is rounded, I added a pair of stir sticks to either side to accommodate the curve. 

And once installed, I realized that I still needed a ladder to get from the balcony to the roof, so taking bit from the bits box, and adding to it, I built a simple ladder.  It was then I noticed the grey hook wasn't quite big enough for my Sgt. Forscale to stand on, so I added another little platform so a mini can stand on it, which brings the usable elevations on this tower to 5! Not bad for a coffee can.
 

 And now, it's time to paint... but that's for next post, as this one has gotten way too long! 

Stonehell B Team: Team Edvard

Session 306 was played on 11/2/25

Sonara, Wizard 3 (Rob)
Adorellen, Elf 2 (Me)
Glimmer, Kobold 3 (Lanse)
Kessaren, Cleric 3 (Cindy)
Loahn, Halfling 3 (Josh)
4 Kobold meatshields (iGor, Blar, 3, 6)
KARL! Dwarf 9 (Julia)

The party talks with the vampire Edvard, finds out that he doesn’t want to be the “fairy king” or even the “fairy consort” but he’s too afraid of the fairy queen to stand up to her, and for some reason, she really gets off on being with him. The party offers to take care of his problem, and he tells them that she’ll be back in 5 days. 

He goes back to his coffin, and the party talks about what to do, and how to do it…. It’ll take too long to make any potions, but maybe Lady Eiric has a stash of Nate Bombs? Karl suggests that raiding her vault, with permission, is the way to go… however as it’s still days away, how about going down to level 2 for some fun?

Heading down to the Reptile House they stumble upon an army of giant frogs almost right away.

---

Short on action, but there was a lot of talking, planning, discarding plans, more planning, and yet more planning, and even a call to Lady Eiric (Kat) for permission to raid her vault