Rappan: Doors

Session 327 was played on 4/26/26

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)

The 6 figures reach toward the party. Koltic holds up his holy symbol, and the meat sticks charge forward. They’re tough like jerky, but the juju zombies go down easily enough. The pool in the center of the room… flows. Borumar, reluctantly, takes a dip in and has a look. A long tunnel, maybe 80 or 90 feet stretches off to another chamber. There are forms moving about, but he doesn’t get a good look before deciding to come back and report. 

Rather than risk a swim, the party heads east down a winding tunnel that emerges into a room with 4 doors facing each other. Of note is the fact that the doors are not against the walls, but stand freely about 5’ from the walls. 

Clearly this is something for Morgana to investigate, and everyone else hangs back. The doors, and the frames holding them are of oak, and well made. Otherwise nothing particularly interesting about their construction can be seen. They are not locked, nor trapped, but are absolutely magical. Starting with the south door and going clockwise, this is what they see when the doors are opened.
S - Swirling portal
W - familiar shadowy cavern with a large squat ziggurat. 
N - A meadow, day time, butterflies and other bugs can be seen. The smell of spring and sunshine wafts through. Maybe near the keep?
E - A blast of heat as a desert is revealed. A pair of statues flank the door, and beyond a pack of lions feast on something… someone?

Borumar is volunteered to go through the north door. “To the keep, to the keep” he whispers as he steps through. On the far side of the door, he finds himself in the meadow, Behind him is a stone ruin, maybe an old cabin? And yes, there’s a door. With a shrug he closes it, steps back, and… waits. Back in the dungeon, the party watches as he closes the door, and they wait. Eventually Borumar gets bored of waiting and goes to open the door, but it’s locked. The hair on the back of his neck prickles, and he looks around, feeling watched. Not seeing anyone he picks the pock on the old door… and then out of the corner of his eye he sees it. A giant badger in the grass.

“Hello! My name is Tink” the badger growls politely. 

Cardboard Starship #4: Transport part 2

Detailing a build can take what is essentially a cardboard box, and turn it into something else, something special. My strategy for this, for the interior was that the detailing needed to be such that it didn't interfere with game play. I used a couple of covid tests for the walls above the benches, and used some screen material for the hatches. The rest of the detailing is either cardstock or plasticard

In the above pic you can see the hatch to the cockpit along with the panels for accessing it. I haven't added the ladder up to the hatch yet, but it's coming. Below you can see the hatch for the engine compartment framed out with some additional panels and detailing. While working on this, I was doing my best to remember that this is a gaming piece of terrain, not a diorama, not a show piece... it's literally cardboard and trash, so I tried to keep from going overboard or over stressing about things not lining up perfectly. 

 What I think is more important to the look of the ship are the external panels. Once again, everything here is made of card stock and platicard (largely from old expired and used up gift cards). The basic goal is to make the card board not look like cardboard. I experimented with a variety of different shapes, some of which were more successful than others. Again, frequently reminding myself that it didn't need to be perfect, and that once painted many of the sins committed in its construction would be hidden, and largely I would be the only one to be able to see them. 

One feature that needed to be clear on the ships were the cargo hatches. To ensure they were easily identifiable each is framed by those blue straws that came from the 100 water balloons in a minute sets you can get during the summer. Personally I hate water balloons, and balloons in general for the waste they create. This is my tiny bit of effort to reduce the waste. That and the reusable ones I got for my kid instead.

One thing I didn't consider when I was doing this is that because of the shape, on the table, the panels that slope down will be largely unseen. Unless you're looking at it from the side directly, this ends up being a lot of wasted effort... ah well. It was good practice. 

You might notice the cockpit looks a lot different... I decided I hated the cardboard version, and repurposed the one I built for the cargo hauler. I still need to do a bit more work with the cockpit, but after that I think the outside of the ship is done. 

The prow of the ship was the last bit I worked on, and by this point I felt like I had the process down. So much so that I actually took a bunch of WIP pics to show how I did it. 

and finally the details!

 

Rappan: Orcus' Blessing

Session 326 was played on 4/19/26

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)

Beyond the stream the party follows the tunnels heading north, then east, then north again, finally arriving in another massive rocky cavern. Their light is unable to reach the far end of the room. Keeping one wall in sight, they move forward carefully. Moving around small boulders they eventually spot a large pillar rising out of the ground and up into the darkness above. Along the wall they spy some rat tunnels, and some… wider than rat tunnels, but nothing anyone in the party would want to explore. 

In the relative emptiness of the cavern a distinct sound of flowing water begins to be noticeable ahead. But there’s another sound… scales on stone. A rasping, hissing sound. And not small. Then they see the long large forms… basilisks! Morgana drops invisibility on the party and everyone crouches hoping the lizards have a terrible sense of smell. Luckily for the party, it seems they do. Interestingly, Aroon and Koltic both touch rocks with runes carved into them, and suddenly a purple glow spreads throughout the chamber. The glowing rocks aren’t everywhere, they outline marked paths through the cavern. Morgana takes a look at the runes… they’re “Orcus’ Blessing” 

Avoiding the basilisks they take the path they’re next to out of the carven. The tunnel opens up to an ornately carved bridge in one direction, and up a set of stairs in the other. The party opts for the stairs, hoping to find a way back to the surface. After a long and zigzagging climb, they emerge into a chamber with 6 pale humans, their eyes, noses, and mouths sewn shut. They moan, and lurchingly reach toward the party. Are they saying “brains” or “kill us”? It’s hard to say.

Rappan: Does that sound weird to you?

 Session 325 was played on 3/29/26

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)

Continuing their exploration to the east, after finding nothing of value among the ashes of the undead pond ooze, they come to a cave warm and humid, alive with fungal growths. Checking to the east, the caves seemed drier though with weird sound effects… there was a rushing stream, but the sound of it was dampened somehow. While seeing the extent of the effect, Nick was attacked by a wraith, and his strength drained. Nick killed the monster in return. 

Exploring a little more, Nick was again surprised by some rust monsters. Thankfully his armor resisted their curious probes, and Blotto rushed forward to help corral them away from the party, but keeping them along in hopes of being able to add them to his herd. 

The stream is fast and cold, and about 20’ across. Clearly dangerous to cross. Various methods of crossing are discussed, but eventually an ice bridge is deemed the safest for everyone, including the rust monsters. 

Once across the rushing water the sound all sounds normal again. The party spots a large box, half buried a bit of the way down the cave along the edge of the stream. They spend a little time digging it free of the mud and rocks, and open it up. It’s a coffin, and within are the jumbled remains of a human and his ceremonial bronze armor, emblazoned with the symbol of the army of light. They take the fancy armor, and replace the bones, building a cairn around the box. 

Beetle Knight

Taking a pause from our usual game as Josh was off on vacation, Lanse offered to run Beetle Knight, an RPG based kinda on the setting of the Hollow Knight video game (of which I know very little) but basically you play bug knights on quests to solve mysteries. The report below covers all sessions from May through June. 

https://brookletgames.itch.io/beetle-knight-quickstart

We rolled up our characters randomly and ended up with:
Milax the Slug
Harvey the Fire Ant
Charlotte the Spider

In the town of New Elm, we meet up with some refugees from Old Elm, and then find and talk to the mayor. Old Elm has been beset by wasps behaving somewhat out of character, and a weird glittery atmospheric effect everyone is calling “The Glimmer” Those who linger in The Glimmer become trapped, mentally, repeating actions over and over.The mayor wants us to find his daughter, and help deal with the Glimmer and/or the wasps. 

Heading south out of New Elm, the party encounters Lauphy the snail, who is waving around a bit of lilac root that is coated with a shimmery substance. Explains that the lilac root helps ward off the effects of the glimmer, and makes it extra tasty. 

Further down the road, a blowfly is speeding north toward the party followed closely by a dragonfly! The blowfly screams for help, and the party prepares to do what it can when the dragonfly sprays everyone with a brown mist… making everyone desperate to mate with it! Fortunately for the party the only one able to fly up to the dragonfly was the blowfly, and he was quickly dispatched, and his body carried off as a snack. 

Later the party encountered a pair of wasps that warn of white ants and the golden curse. Naturally the party ignores this. Further down the road there’s a first real taste of the glimmer, a gingery spicy glow, and a wasp repeating a series of actions that probably made sense at one point. Using a big of scavenged lilac root, the slug whacks the wasp a few times before enough was knocked from her that she could regain her senses. Unfortunately not much was gotten out of her as she then flew away. The Slug decided to try the glowing root, licking the glimmer from the root and getting high as a kite! 

“I’m perfectly fine… “

Dear reader, he was NOT.

Closer to Old Elm a flee was being chased by wasps. The slug hugged the flee while the party talked to the wasps. The wasps weren’t interested in talking, and make things literally hot for the party before the fire ant slaughtered them. The flee thanked the party and then fled. 

Arriving in Old Elm, the party scouts around the stump before heading in. The concentration of Glimmer was much stronger, and Milax the slug needed to keep whacking the others in the party. Within the stump, they encounter some guard wasps, fight and kill them, followed by a mother in law millipede. She was anxious to find her granddaughter. She’s so obnoxious, but the party agrees to keep an eye out. 

Splitting away from her, the party finds a trail of chalk like powder.. They follow it finding numerous crumbly corpses of ants.

The party encounters wasps fighting and losing to the powdery white ants. Harvey talks to them as best he can (they speak a very old dialect) and we’re brought before the Queen. Her throne reeks of the Glimmer, and seems to be the source. Milax and the Queen both use their Lust powers, Milax on the Queen, the Queen on the party. Milax the slug and the Queen make out in front of EVERYONE sloppy style. 

While everyone watches, both horrified and disgusted, as Milax gets the queen extra slimy, the party smashes the throne, and the ants begin to crumble. Milax tries to hold the queen together, but even as powerful as she is, the ancient magic holding her together fails, and she crumbles in his… arms? 

---

 

There were a few other things that happened over the weeks we played this, but my notes for these sessions were frankly terrible, and I’m lucky I’m able to put this all together in anything that resembles a coherent narrative. Mind you, that’s a failure on my part, not on Beetle Knight, and I would absolutely play this again!

Rappan: Rocks and Ooze

 Session 324 was played on 3/22/26

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)

Exploring the area around the tombs, but away from the spider queen, the party found some charcoal drawings and then a passage leading up… hundreds of feet up, at about a 35 degree angle. With few places left to look outside the webbed sections, the party headed up…  eventually the path leveled out and opened up into a circular cave with a large funnel in the middle of the floor sloping down 30’ to a roughly 10’ hole. Morgana used her wizard eye circlet to look below. 

Down the hole was another rough passage that soon opened up into a massive dark chamber with a very rough rocky floor covered in sharp scree. With nowhere else to go, the party used ropes to get down the funnel and into the large cavern. Moving across the scree was time consuming… but not completely fruitless. A long dead body bearing a signet ring of a notable family from Bardsgate. 

Exploring several of the tunnels out of the large cavern first found some dead ends, but then one that opened up into a second large cavern, this one with less loose rocks, and a still pond in the middle. Blotto excitedly casts a line into the water… except that the line didn’t go into the water, but landed with a plop onto it. A giant ooze! It whipped a psudopod at Blotto, smacking him hard, and the chill feeling that seemed to sap his strength was unlike any ooze he’d ever had the displeasure of encountering, while being more like the attack of a powerful undead!

Koltic held up the thick glass of the bottom of a beer mug and cried out to his god, and the lady of drunken vision answered, dramatically, as the entire lake ooze crumbled to ash

July ‘26 In Review

Starting the month with 100 degree days certainly is a miserable way to kick things off. On the upside, the Dungeon Dwellers RPG kickstarter arrived. Nice big box of new minis to paint and rules to read! Did I actually do any of that? A little. I started reading the campaign guide. I decided to delve into the Painted Wastelands Empire of Bones first, since that arrived last month. As for the minis? Well, they ended up getting checked and then repacked and added to my pile of potential. 

July 4th brought the usual fireworks around the neighborhood. It was otherwise a rather uneventful month. I planted some pumpkin seeds and I’ve got 3 plants that were coming along well. I hope I can get a few pumpkins from them.  2 are still going strong, bur one got damanged on the main stem and it looks like I'm going to lose the whole plant. 

Miniatures
I finished building the main body of the cardboard transport ship, and then paused. I’m trying to decide if I should build the roof of it or get to painting? I’m still unsure, but at this point leaning toward making the roof. 

But it was the middle of the month before I seriously got around to doing much painting, but once I did, I plowed through a trio of Noble Armada ships, a pirate, and a whole cartload of orcs (mostly done)! I experimented a bit with painting the orcs without priming. The paint takes to the 3d printed minis just fine, but color matching against the orcs I’d already painted was a pain, and I ended up going back and using brown liner on the rest. 



Gaming
Summer doldrums, and no work games. I’m really looking forward to getting back to Dolmenwood. 

We wrapped up the beetleknight game, and are back to Stonehell. The party is looking for a way to destroy the Gloom Crown, and think they might have the answer. Of course along the way they stumbled upon some dwarves and kobolds fighting over some cursed silver… 


Media 
Resident Alien season 4
DS9 season 6 rewatch
Letterkenny

Books
Second Suns
Broken Stars
Storm & Quill

Loot
Dungeon Dwellers RPG
4 Alternity books (my collection is almost complete)


Goals for August
Finish the cardboard transport ship

Rappan: Slip N' Slide

Session 323 part 3 was played on 3/15/26

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)

“Don’t go down the well!” was the advice heard multiple times around Rappan… It was finally time to ignore that advice and see what was actually down there. About 100’ down the party splashed into about 2’ of water in a rough cave with passages heading out to the north and south. Both were on the tight side, and twisty. Heading north they begin to explore, but reach a slippery section and and up sliding deeper than planned, landing with another splash in a split stream that circled a small island in the cave. A trio of ancient trolls, GurKrang, Wersuch, and Zulbey talk to the party. They’re too old to bother with the “grr-arg” and unnecessary fighting. Adventurers are an unpleasant bunch and it’s easier to talk with them. 

Feeling a little lost, the party agrees to chat, and gets the lay of the land in the area, including some weird burial mounds, and a spell casting giant spider queen. To the best of the knowledge of the trolls, the tombs are untouched… the party give the trolls a gold nugget, and heads off for the tombs, doing their best to avoid the spider queen. 

The first tomb is a secured by a stuck door, and beyond is a single room, with a sarcophagus upon which is carved a face that looks remarkably like the one of the wizard specter in the Temple of Orcus! The name Narosh is inscribed upon it. Morgana smashes the effigy, and the party loots 3 scrolls and some jewelry from inside. They then burn what’s left of the body. 

Onward to the second tomb, it turns out to be much more elaborate! An entire stepped pyramid! Morgana attempts “Knock” on the magically sealed tomb, but the spell fails. She uses Passwall to create an opening into the tomb, but immediately releases a lightning fast creature, barely knee high, that looks like a semi-transparent brain on 4 legs! Even the mighty magical weapons of the party seem to barely hurt the creature, and it takes a frustratingly long time to kill the thing before it can… do whatever it was trying and failing to do. Within the tomb was the treasure horde of a king! Gold, gems, jewelry and a magical cloak of eyes!

Rappan: The Temple of Orcus

Session 323 part 2 was played on 3/15/26

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)

Continuing on, the party comes to a barracks chamber, with 6 beds and chests. One of them has a lightning trap, but Borumar takes care of that. Morgana checks and finds all the chest glow with magic, as does the doorway out of the barracks, which is trapped with a glyph of warding, as well as a scythe trap! Nothing good can be beyond it, so Koltic casts Protection from Evil and Bless on the party. 

Beyond the warded trapped door is a hellscape. A 7 pointed star shaped room with a double set of stairs leading up to a platform in the center of the room suspended over a boiling pit of lava. A statue of Orcus dominates the far wall. A small army of orc and human warriors and priests stand between the party and the stairs, in addition to the high priest up on the platform, and several figures shrouded in darkness. 

Morgana wastes no time and drops a fireball in the middle of the mob, dropping most of them. The warriors charge in, spreading out to avoid any retaliatory fireballs or lightning bolts. It doesn’t prevent a nasty teleport effect that grabs Morgana, Koltic, and Borumar and brings them to the underside of the platform, right above the semi-solid lava. Thanks to some magic tokens, they avoid falling into the lava, with Morgana activating her fly spell. The meatsticks hack the remaining fleshy opponents down. The shadowy figures charge in… Demons! Aroon takes the brunt of the charge, but his fancy swordwork keeps their claws from rending him to bits. Morgana blasts the figure on the platform with lightning, but he shrugs it off. 

The high priest then teleports Nick, Lorkoth, and Jameth into the air above the lava. Morgana zips over to knock the trio to the edge of the lava, saving them from a burning hot death. Koltic uses Finger of Death on the figure on the platform, and that he couldn’t shrug off. 

Pausing for a moment, they almost missed the spectres that flew out of the wall and tried to get the party. Koltic turned one, and the others were injured before fleeing into the rock wall. 

Gathering the loot from the room, and tossing the remaining bodies in the lava they find a secret door leading into a small crypt with 4 coffins, and the stairs down to level 5. 

Finishing off the spectres, they loot the coffins, and teleport home. 

With the threat of the Temple of Orcus taken care of, Morgana spends some time in her workshop, creating Tokens of Feather Fall for everyone.Borumar has Koltic make 2 sets of gauntlets of grease, one for himself, and the other for Blotto. While all this is going on, the Meatsticks took the B team and cleaned out the remaining undead from The Mouth Of Doom. 

Rappan: What's in the bags?!?

 Session 323 part 1 was played on 3/15/26

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)

The 10’ down (to the next level?) was not far physically, but the sense of dread that pervaded the hallway at the bottom of the ladder was heavy enough to crush a lesser party. The hallway continued before coming to a stair, leading to another hall, a room full of junk, a portcullis and black ooze trap (fireball and oil took care of that), the smell of old body odor, a room full of mud with bubbles stinking of farts. Finding no other path, the party carefully crosses the mud to a crevice in the wall. 

Beyond the crack the party discovered 8 ogres. They failed to land a blow upon the party due in large part to their recently discovered ability to deflect hits! Each of the ogres had a bag, and they had the following within:

1. 3 dead giant rats, a wheel of cheese, 140gp, 3 flasks of oil, large shiny rock
2. Body of an elf with elven chain and sword, 200gp, 6 silver tipped arrows
3. Pot of grease, only kinda sealed
4. 2’ square silver mirror, ring, 30gp, “The wanderings of Helman Hairfoot”
5. Ivory scrollcase w/ 10gp and a map, silver helm, 44gp
6. Body of a wizard, silver dagger, 4 rocks, chewed up spellbook, 60gp
7. Body of a halfling, 3 vials of holy water, 12 xbox bolts, 120gp
8. Cloak, earring, 6 iron spikes, 10 fresh oranges

The bodies were all at least a week old, if not more… where did they get fresh oranges??

Using speak with the dead, they chat with the elf, and decide to bring the elf, halfling, and wizard back to life. Morgana teleports everyone back home and Koltic gets to raising the dead. This took a couple of days, and everyone would be bedridden for a couple of weeks. The wizard was talkative, the elf ready to return home, and the halfling decided to hang out and serve as scribe for the party. Of course they all needed weeks of time resting, so the party teleported back to the dungeon once they were all safely tucked in bed with a host of kobolds at hand to help take care of them.

Upon teleporting back, it turned out the smell of the ogre’s chamber had not improved, and their bodies were crawling with vermin. 

The party pressed on…

Trash Bash Killa Kan

 Do I play 40K? 

 Not anymore

Do I have space orc minis? 

Nope

Is there a single reason I should be working on a Killa Kan for a game I don't play, to go with minis I don't have? 

Yes, Gork and/or Mork inspired me. 

 

And with that, I grabbed an old GW paint pot, and my boxes of trash crafting supplies, and got to work.

I sawed off the threads of the lid, and cut out a cardboard disk to close up the hole. 

Then I used more cardboard, the clasp of a zip tie, and some tubing to make the face. Nothing was measured beyond holding it up and seeing if it looked good. 

Next I had to decide how I wanted to make the legs. I started with a 2" base, and dug through my bits. For one foot I used the inside of a cheap toy car (the interior bit that makes up the windows) that I found on the ground at the playground parking lot, and for the other, a random bit of plastic that was used to secure a toy to a box. Add in some tubing, and you've got some legs!

 

At least the lower half of them. Then it was time for MOAR BITS! and attaching the body to the legs. This did involve some pinning, super glue and hot glue. 

Arms! We need some arms for this bad boy... One side was going to be a shoota of some sort, the other a claw. 

The claw was probably the most work of the whole build. I had to double up the thickness of the card I was using to make it, and figuring out how to make it look like it could actually move involved a lot of looking at reference pics of both miniatures and actual robotic arms. 

As for the gun, it is mostly the corner protector piece from.... something. It was plastic and boxy, and had several holes in it. The shoota barrel is the tip of a marker. The only actual piece from a miniature is the red bit on top from a Reaper Miniature CAV mini. 

What makes an orky vehicle really orky? Rivets! I ordered these flat bottom beads from amazon, and got to gluing... 

Then it was Prime Time! 

This was followed by craft smart "metallic brown" then the real painting began!  It's sloppy, and I sarted it with paint markers, but overall I'm pleased with how it came out. 

I might go back and clean up a few details, but this is good enough to post, and more than good enough to put on the table, if I had any reason to. 

Rappan: Back to the dungeon

Session 322 part 3 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)

A week after the dwarves departed, the party gears up and heads off to the mausoleum. With no gargoyles in sight, the party heads in and down, encountering a pair of black skeletons. Most of the party falls under their fear effect, and runs. After regrouping they try again, and take them down. Down on level 2 they head to the ghoul and ghast tunnels, and stick Koltic up toward the front, and he destroys them with waves of his hand, while the meatsticks keep him safe. The party then loots their lair, collecting a decent selection of treasure, including some very fancy dwarven plate mail. If only the local dwarves weren’t such dicks. 

Descending to level 3 they encounter some orcs who warn the party to “Go Back!” Needless to say, the party did not go back, but they did collect $200 their treasure. Pushing on, the party reaches the doorway to the Orcus temple complex. The dwarves want the party to take care of it, and they will…. Exploring around some of the rooms only briefly explored, the party finds a trap door in the floor, with a ladder leading down… a mere 10’. 

“Okay, who’s first?”

---

Once again, we were playing together in person, and our game session ran very late the first night, hence why I split this up into 3 parts. Expect the same for the next couple of posts.

Rappan: Dwarven Uselessness

Session 322 part 2 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)

Blotto, somehow, ends up being the one to go out and meet with the dwarves as they arrive and immediately begin to erect a number of tents. Riding upon Esmerelda the Rust Monster, the dwarves keep a wary eye on the goblin as he approaches, but otherwise remain silent. 

“Excuse me my good bitches, what seems to be the fuck?”

The dwarves faces sour at the goblin’s words, but they remain silent, and continue their work. More residents of the keep emerge to watch the dwarves, but it’s a full day before any speak to a non-dwarf. “You have caused issues for the Davin Clan, and we will summon you when we are good and ready!” Is all Nick gets when he goes to check on them the next day.

Another day passes, and then another before they finally deign to “summon” the party to talk. By this point Nick is feeling insulted nearly beyond words. In full armor he leads the party to the main tent of the dwarves. Within is a raised platform with a long table upon it. 6 dwarves sit in fine chairs on the far side of the table. There are no chairs on the other side. They stare at the party in uncomfortable silence. 10 minutes pass. 

“No, I’m not doing this.” Nick turns and tries to leave, but the tent is magically sealed. “So help me, you will let me out or I will cut my way out through you” Morgana teleports Nick out before he can cause any bodily harm. 

Eventually the dwarves speak, and tell the remaining members of the party in the tent that the armies of Orcus are on the rise, and that it’s because of our meddling in Rappan. As such they demand that the party fix it. 

With that the party is dismissed. The dwarves pack up their camp, and march back off into the woods. “Of all the bloody useless…” Nick could be heard to yell as Morgana told him what they said. 

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

Stargrave: Hope Eternal Mission 4 The Magnificent 10

I played, but didn't do write ups for The Great Maglev Robbery and Dramatic Exit. The TLDR version are as follows:

Great Maglev Robbery - Finding the right train car went as poorly as it could have. The flying drones were more than a nuisance, and while Chelle Ren was recovered, everyone was forced to jump from the train, as the skiff was too far away to be reached due to the drones and the large mutants crawling over the tops of the cars. 

Dramatic Exit - Chella's partner Drix was being taken across town to be loaded up onto a transport shuttle and taken away. He was rescued from the guards, but only at the last moment, and I got lucky with the rolls for additional bad guys coming onto the board. 

 The Magnificent 10

The crew needed info from a dude in a small village, but first we needed to save the villagers from slavers before he'd give it to us.    

Pregame setup the villagers are scattered around the table, and the crew set up to try to protect them. The Captain commando, gunner, red, and rocket on the tower, the mate, saw and gobbo near coner 2, Chella and Drix in corner 4.

The initial groups of pirates came onto the board in the four corners. Corner 1 two ruffians one trooper one slaver. Corner 2 two ruffians one trooper one flavor. Corner three four ruffians corner four two troopers two slavers.





Turn 1
Captain coordinated fire on the Gunner troll. Gunner troll shoots at ruffians. Kills 1. Commando kills one ruffian.

Mate shoots wounds and stuns ruffian. Saw shoots and kills ruffian gobbo kills wounded ruffian

Pirate trooper shoots troll for 10. Trooper shoots gobbo for 12 

Rocket damages one slaverbot 

 

Turn 2
Two ruffians a trooper and a slaver bot in corner 2.

Troll shoots ruffian for 3.

Saw wounds trooper

Trooper injurers first mate.

Drix & Chella kill trooper


Turn 3
4 ruffians, corner 2

Saw kills wounded trooper. First mate wounds ruffian

Trooper kills gobbo


Turn 4
Trooper 2 ruffians corner 3

Troll kills injured bot

Chella kills injured trooper. Red and rocket trap slaver bot with Vel



Turn 5
Captain kills slaverbot in hand to hand. Commando injures slaverbot. Troll kills injured bot

Mate kills wounded ruffian. Saw kills ruffian

2 ruffians leave board with villagers. Trooper wounds Saw. Trooper injurers and rocket down against slave bot non lethal. drix kills ruffian


Turn 6
Captain shoots fragmentation grenade at ruffians, injures 1. Commando wounds bot. Troll kills ruffian.

Bot takes out red trooper (non lethal)

Drix kills bot w/ Vel.


Turn 7
Captain miss with grenade. Move into combat, commando joins against ruffian. Troll kills ruffian.

Saw kills wounded bot

Slavers take 3 more villagers. Trooper wounds mate. Ruffian kills commando.


Turn 8
Captain kills injured ruffian with villager. Moves into melee with trooper.

Saw wounds ruffian

Drix wounds ruffian in melee


Turn 9
Captain wounded in melee. Chella kills ruffian.

Drix injured by ruffian


Turn 10
Troll injured trooper. Mate wounds same trooper.

Drix kills ruffian. Chella wounds trooper


Turn 11
Trooper hurts Chella. Drix kills trooper

Last trooper takes villager off the board.

 The captured villagers and their captors. 

Epilogue:

The needed info is given to the crew, and the next stop is a crash landed ship under an ocean on another planet... but first, to rescue the 6 villagers taken. 

Rescuing the villagers isn't officially part of the campaign, but it feels like the right thing to do. 

As an aside, it was great to play on my own board with minis and terrain that were all painted by me. Of course now I need to make the crashed space ship... which is half the reason I'm going to do the rescue mission first! It'll give me more time to build it! 

Stonehell B Team: Smells so bad

Session 318 was played on 1/25/26

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

Continuing their exploration of the former hobgoblin redoubt, the party finds the midden, which seems to be back in use. It smells worse than before… who knew the smell could get worse? As everyone gags, Sonra decides that the best way to deal with the smell is to light a match. A really big match. She sends a mini-fireball into the room. 

Now it smelled like burning troglodyte shit. 

Making use of their new Secret Hut spell, the party climbs in and waits for the flames to die out and the smoke to clear, and hopefully the smell to be less bad. 

Eventually they climb out and continue exploring, heading around the room with the big pits, and down toward a room marked barracks. A pack of troglodyes approach the party from the other end of the hall. One of them casts a web spell on the party, and suddenly things go dark, as a magical darkness follows the web spell. A moment later Sonra throws a fireball in the middle of the troglodytes and yells “go away!”

Once again, burning troglodyte doesn’t smell any better than non-burning troglodyte. 

The sound of one troglodyte running away, screaming in pain can be heard, but not seen. 

Cutting their way free was a very slow process, both because of the darkness, but also the blades kept getting stuck in the webs. After about 10 minutes, iGor starts screaming in pain, yelling about his feet. The darkness makes it all worse, and everyone can feel the thrashing in the webs. It doesn’t take long before someone pulls out a torch and sets the webs alight. Everyone is burned, but free, and Kessaren grabs iGor, and pulls him out of the magical darkness… or what’s left of him. A grey ooze had completely enveloped him, and was now working its way up Kess’ arm. They hack at the ooze, and manage to kill it, or at least kill enough of it that it stops trying to eat Kessaren. 

Scooping up what they can of iGor and putting it in the portable hole, the party makes a run for the stairs and back up to the Korners. The party spends a week recovering, and then hires 3 new kobolds to join them, as well as a pair of hobgoblin warriors. 

Gains: 
Kills: troglodytes, grey ooze
Losses: iGor 

Stargrave Trashbash Fuel Tower part 2

With the construction complete, it was time to get to painting! Because of the use of foam on it, I used my mod podge and black paint mix on all the foam before taking it outside on the first 60+ degree day we had this year and giving it a solid coat of Rust-oleum flat black. That was back in March...

Fast forward to MAY, and I was getting sick of looking at it and it's black primer coat... Not really sure what else to do with it, I decided to use the same green on the tank as I'd used for my other trash bash industrial terrain, but first was giving everything that was supposed to be metal a coat of brown metallic craft paint. Originally I was going ot use the airbrush paint, but I wanted to test out the bottle I got from Michaels to see how it worked.

 That worked out about as well as I could have hoped for! And as it's a lot cheaper, and I don't have to have it shipped to me, this will probably be my go to for undercoating my industrial terrain. 

 The main tank got the aforementioned industrial green, leaving the metallic brown in the groves showing, and the connector bit on top got a hazard yellow ring. I also painted the logo on the tank withe the yellow as a base. 

 

Onto the wood and stucko for the build-out portion, which was painted with the usual antique white, and a random mix of browns for the wood. 

 

Then I started picking out other details, like the wires and the junction box. 

And the final steps were to make the bands around the tank and the radar dish more silvery, black hazard lines on the yellow coupling, and add some weathering using a mix of dark sepia and black wash, putting streaks where it felt most appropriate. 

It's nice to finally have this wrapped up, and now it's time to get it on the table and play with it!  

Norkers

"The little bugger bit me!" Nimble yelled, as much from pain as embarrassment. 

The pink little bugger in question was barely 3 feet tall, but had sunk it's teeth into Nimble's hip. The others giggled with their wide wet toothy mouths. 

"Don't let them get so close next time" Rathgar laughed, booting one prone and running it through with his sword. He jerked to the side just in time to avoid the tusks of the boar that went racing past him, but not far enough to avoid the mounted norker's heavy club.   

"I can see why the village asked for our help" Feris said, knocking aside the blade of the norker poking at him. 

Norkers

Armor Class: 6
Hit Dice: 2+1
Move: 90 (30)
Attacks: 1 weapon 1 bite
Damage: 1d6/1d3
No. Appearing: 2d6 (5d6)
Save As: F2
Morale: 9
Treasure Type: E
Intelligence: 9
Alignment: chaotic
XP Value: 25

Monster Type: Humanoid, Uncommon

Norkers are noxious and obnoxious creatures, superficially of goblinoid stock, but twisted and nastier than the average gobbo. They organize themselves into roving bands that loot, pillage, and burn an area before either moving on for greener pastures, or being driven off. All their loot (whatever isn't destroyed) is kept at their base camp under lock and key of the norker chieftain (4+2HD) and his 1d4+1 guards (3+2HD). 

Norkers keep boars as guard animals, mounts, and beasts of burden. All roving groups of at least 5 members will have 1 mounted on a boar. 

There is a particular enmity between norkers and fairies, and norkers will always be wearing hobnail boots, and as many bits of iron as they can. Cookpot helms are especially popular and fought over among them.

---

I hadn't planned on painting them pink. Originally I wanted them to have yellow skin, but since painting yellow is a pain in the ass, I went with the paint it pink first trick. The thing is, I liked how they looked with the pink skin. They're rather cartoony already, and it felt appropriate. And if you look really close at the mounted norker's boot, you'll see a squished pixie stuck to the bottom!