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

Stonehell B Team: Bang a Gong (redux)

Session 305 was played on 10/26/25

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)

As the party wrapped up with Rocky, the door opened behind them and Karl walked in, nodded at the party and gave Rocky a lovely chunk of quartz. The party tells Karl about the gong, and he grabs the maps, flips through them, and points. “There!” 

From Rocky, they head into the quiet halls, passing through the Dance Macabre door, and over to the giant snake skeleton room. The giant snake skeleton remains smashed from a prior visit, but 7 zombies were happy to attack the party. Kess turned 3, while the rest of the party killed the other 4. Karl watched. A fair bit of jewelry was collected from the corpses. 

Pressing on, they passed the shrine to Baal, where giant centipedes swarmed out, hungry for living flesh, and got chunks from iGor, Kess, and VI. They didn’t get to enjoy the bites for long, as the party sliced and stomped them. Further on some bricked up zombies busted out, but Kess told them no. From there it was a short walk to the grand hall, and the giant rusty gong strung up high between 2 pillars at the southern end of the room. 

Karl yelled “BANG A GONG” as he chucked a hammer at it, causing it to ring out loudly. “Now what?” 

They didn’t have to wait too long, the rattling of skeletons sounded from one of the side passages to the east. Following the half a dozen skeletons was a bedraggled looking figure in grey and black robes. His long stringy hair looked greasy, and the shadows under his eyes just made his overly pale skin look even more unhealthy. “Who are you?” 

Gains: zombie’s jewelry
Kills: zombies, giant centipedes
Losses: 

February ‘26 In Review

For the shortest month of the year, I certainly managed to cram a whole lot into it, whether I wanted to or not. Work has kept me busy as we complete the year end wrap up and begin prep for the annual audit. School was out for winter break in the middle of the month, and so rather than spending $$$ to send the kid to camp, we spent $$$$ and all took off to San Juan for the week… coming back just in time for a blizzard to dump 2 feet of snow on us and close school for an extra 2 days. And somewhere in all that, I got my federal taxes figured out. 

San Juan was absolutely wonderful. It was so nice to go somewhere and be warm… Definitely worth the trip, and I even got to go to a castle! 


Miniatures
Playing that one game of Stargrave was enough to kickstart the hobby for the month, building 3 foamcore houses and starting on a fuel tank tower so that I could play the next scenario. It also got me to use some of those matchsticks from the kit I bought last month, and buy 1,000 stir sticks… the tower isn’t finished, but it is coming along nicely, and I’ve been having a great time working on it. And I’m already thinking about the crashed spaceship I’ll need for the next scenario! 

Aside from terrain, I painted up some more stirges, another axolotal mini, a halfling warrior from the (sadly ended) Sensible Shoes line, a Balthian (mind flayer), an alien trooper from Rogue Stars, and a half orc doxie. Kind of an all over the place month, and next month looks like it’s gonna be even wilder. 

Gaming
Because I didn’t get the tower finished, and with all the other stuff going on I didn’t get to play the next scenario of Hope Eternal, but I’m going to get the tower finished and get the game in soon. 

My work D&D game has the players hunting the wyvern. They spent one whole session planning, and buying supplies, and then went out to lay their trap for the monster, and encountering a bandit camp! With some excellent rolls on their end, they managed to wipe out the camp except for the leader, who they captured, and then discovered the loot was almost entirely in gems and jewels… they haven’t noticed that the jeweler who was in the Keep is no longer in residence. 

The Stonehell game has the players dealing with the aftermath of the death of the fairy queen and all the various trapped fey now stuck in the dungeon. They’re lucky they didn’t try to fireball the waffle house they came across.

Media 
Hacks
Farscape season 3
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy
John Wick 4
10 Things I Hate About You


Loot
Mothership boxed sets Awaiting the Burning Gods and Nirvana on Fire

Goals for March
Play scenario 4 of Stargrave Hope Eternal
Finish November session reports

Stonehell B Team and the Witch of the Deep

 Session 304 was played on 10/19/25

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)

Glimmer decides to have his fortune read. 

DMs Note: Why did I not write down what the fortune was?!? 

 While that’s going on Sonra erases some of the dragon’s defenses. After Glimmer’s fortune is read, no one else takes the witch up on her offer, and she departs heading East. Glimmer decides to draw on the wall. 

They continue to wait…

And eventually get bored and head back up the stairs and over to visit with Rocky. 

Q1: do you like magic rocks?
A1: No big flavor difference between them that he can taste

Q2 Was that the Witch of the Deep?
A2 Yes

Q3 How do we summon the king of the fey at a time and place of our choosing?
A3 Bang a gong

Quote of the session: “Lets do the right thing. Murder.”

Stonehell B Team: Spider's Bite

 Session 303 was played on 10/5/25

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)

Adorellen, back at the manse, was studying and working on updating their spellbook in preparation for the next delve, and while they were strongly leaning toward charm person, Sonra, with Morgana’s backing browbeat them into taking sleep instead. It didn’t help when the giant black widow spiders attacked on the causeway through the swamp. Adorellen took 2 bites, and dropped shaking to the rough hewn logs. Sonra used a precious anti-venom potion to save them. 

Investigating under the causeway they found the body of a prior victim wrapped up in their webs. Cutting the body out they found a pair of gems and some silver. 

Heading into the dungeon they made it to the Asylum to wait for the emissary of the queen. While waiting they watch the stick figures, and then they hear someone approaching. A middle aged woman, who calls them out for being so noisy. They talk with her, shocked to see someone wandering alone and apparently unarmed. She tells them that she was visiting with the tooth fairy as they had business. She did not go into what that business was, but gave them general directions on where he could be found. In a lull in the conversation she offered to tell them their fortunes…

Gains: 2 gems and some silver
Kills: giant black widow spiders
Losses: 

Stonehell B Team: Stick figures & Pissed off Pixies

 Session 302 was played on 9/28/25

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

The amusement value of ‘living’ stick figures was too much to pass up, and the party had to play with them. First they tried drawing their own, but the figures were attacked and erased by the native stick figures. Sonra then drew a stick figure dragon! The dragon began to rampage across the walls of the room, causing the deaths of many figures as they ran for cover. 

After watching the dragon lay waste to a good chunk of one wall, they head deeper into the Asylum, encountering quickly a group of platemail armored troglins, being harassed by pixies. Sonra and Adorellen Sleep the lot of them. Glimmer collects the pixies to stuff into lanterns, then ties all the bootlaces of the troglins together, picks their pockets, and then the party drags them back to the base of the stairs in the stick figure room. 

Exploring back and forth a bit they come to a room with giant beetles in it, ans decide to take them on. Adorellen and IV take the brunt of the beetle’s attacks, and IV drops.

They barricade themselves into the room and interrogate the pixies they captured. Eventually the pixies agree to take a message to the queen to open negotiations in 4 days. They release the pixie and head back to the stick figure room, and see the dragon has claimed the north wall. The stick figures on the other wall have created various weapons and fortifications to defend themselves. 

Heading out they give the troglins their weapons back. In the swamp they see a group of spectres killing something… they hurry on, knowing the spectres are too strong for them to deal with. 

Gains: 6 pixies
Kills: giant beetles
Losses: kobold meatshield IV