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! 

Stonehell: B Team: It Smells Worse

Session 317 was played on 1/19/26

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

Sonra, managing to keep lunch, uses the wand to cast Fireball on the troglodytes at the end of the hall, and the foul smell of troglodyte is replaced with a new, slightly less bad smell of burned troglodytes. Among them they had several items of jewelry, mostly made of silver and copper. 

Continuing to explore, Glimmer checks a doorway, but triggers a falling portcullis trap, getting himself stabbed by the weighty pointy gate. Adorellen grabs the gate, and holds it up while Glimmer is removed from the pointy bits and given a healing potion. Beyond the portcullis is a decently sized, if empty room. They search around and find a loose flagstone on the floor. After checking for additional traps, they lift it up and find a bag of silver coin within. 

Grabbing the torched troglodyte bodies, they drag them into the room, and Sonra writes a note “take this to Borglope, your life depends on it” along with 15 copper coins, and places it under the loose flagstone. They then leave the room, close the door, and reset the trap. 

Deeper into the level they find some dead kobolds fairly recently butchered and clearly being kept for food, and not too far from the larder, a room that had clearly been set aside as a midden. It was hard to believe that anything could smell worse than troglodytes, but troglodyte shit manages it. 

Gains: silver coins, cheap jewelry
Kills: troglodytes
Losses: 

Kalanzar the Wicked part 2

I finished painting Kalanzar a long while ago now, and forgot to circle back around to show off how I did it and how it looks all finished off.  You did get to see it in the Year in Minis post from back in 2023, but here's a detailed look at the process. 

 

I wanted to keep the palette somewhat limited, both for consistency across the mini, but also for my own sanity, so this was the selection of paint I picked.   

I started with the wings... 

 It looks really bright here... and it is, but this is just the start. 

Then it was off to blocking in the colors on the body. You'll notice the head is missing. I neglected to take work in progress pics of the head, but it was painted separately from the body. 

 There were a few small gaps, but it was big enough to bug me, so I filled them, and sculpted some kinda matching scales to blend it all in. 

More work on the body, deepening the shadows, trying to hit all the highlights. So many scales... 

I regularly plugged the wings into the body to make sure everything was still looking good. I didn't paint with the wings attached both because they got in the way, but also because it was really difficult to try to keep hold of the dragon without them. 

More highlighting...

 

The foam on the base was obviously the wrong texture, so I coated it with mod podge and sand. 

Then I got to painting the lava. Oh, and there's the head. 

And checking how Kalanzar fits on the base... 

 Turns out it needed some extra support. I added some more foam bricks and chunks and then gave them the same mod podge and sand covering.   

 And here it is, all finished up! 

Stonehell: B Team: Six & Violence

Session 316 was played on 1/11/26

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

The party takes the stairs down from Kobold Korners to level 2, and are almost immediately caught by 6 giant spiders. Fire arrows prove somewhat ineffective, but molotov cocktails proved explosively effective. The party cuts and burns themselves from the spider's sticky webs and then notice a smell, a foul odor that cuts through the various burning smells that currently dominate the area. 

Exploring further Loahn checks out a side room, and finds himself alone with another pair of giant spiders. There’s some screaming and hacking and slashing, and eventually the rest of the party goes to see what all the noise is about, and then they take care of the spiders.

All the noise does attract some of the local’s attention. The foul smell from earlier has grown stronger, and everyone in the party is feeling at least a little queasy, while some are actively rediscovering their most recent meals. From the far end of the hall, 8 humanoid lizards can be seen. The stench keeps getting worse…

Gains: 
Kills: 8 giant spiders
Losses: lunch

April ‘26 In Review

As far as the goals for the month, this one was a bust. Didn’t get the tower painted, didn’t get in a game of Hope Eternal, didn’t get a lot of session reports written, and I’m now 4 months behind…. All of this because of the audit at work, traveling out of state for spring break and then again for a neifling’s birthday party, and inevitably coming down with a nasty cold right at the end of the month… What a joy it is to be working on pulling audit documentation while your head is stuffed up. 

On the other hand I got to spend time with family I don’t get to see often enough, and 2 different friends welcomed their first kids into the world! I can't wait to meet baby River and baby Spenser! 

Miniatures
With all the travel going on, and the audit at work, mini time was extremely limited this month. I am however extremely pleased with these 2 goblins. Overall though most of the work I got done was at much more of a tabletop standard, and could have all used far more attention. It really shows with the pirate. He looks good from a distance, but up close, his skin highlights were rough. 

 

I have bigger plans for next month…


Gaming
My work game has taken an unexpected turn. They expressed to me that they weren’t really interested in returning to The Caves of Chaos, and asked for some options. I offered them these:

Option 1. Various small local dungeons 
Option 2. Barrowgate and the expansive barrowfields beyond. Undead slaying and grave robbing
Option 3. Megadungeon delving (one big dungeon you keep returning to over and over. Does it have a bottom level? Who knows?)
Option 4. Fairy tale forest crawl
Option 5. Giant desert plateau crawl

Everyone got to pick their top 2 choices. Everyone picked the fairy tale forest crawl as one of their choices, so they wrapped up the little dungeon I had planned for the week, and then went off down a fairy road that’s dropping them inside the woods. I got to bring back Bertie Brittlebones the hag to chat with them.

The Stonehell/Rappan game has us continuing to make our way up from the semi-civilized trolls toward the surface. It's slow going and rough mapping. Stonehell is far more mapper friendly. 

Media 
Hacks
Daredevil Born Again season 2

Books
Dolmenwood campaign book

Loot
Printed out some more Flatline City terrain. 

Goals for April
Play scenario 4 of Stargrave Hope Eternal
Finish January & February session reports

Stonehell B Team: Tough Negotiations

Session 315 was played on 12/29/25

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

iGor calls for Sonra to fireball the crickets. Sonra asks iGor if it has a spare 150gp to cover the cost of the wand charge. iGor does not, so the party just dodges and ducks their way away from the insects. Circling around in the Contested corridors the party gets yelled at by some goblins. The party yells back. Pibble animates a kobold zombie, and leaves it behind as a present for the goblins.

As they continue their exploration, they see, and are seen by a group of humans of dubious morals. Seeing that they are outnumbered, they toss a bottle of flaming oil between themselves and the party and run for it. 

Later they find some graffiti on the walls, which glimmer insists on “correcting” before they can move on. Meanwhile Lowen triggers a trap that catches Adorellen full in the face just outside Kobold Korners. The kobolds hear the trap going off, and come out to see what’s what, and help Adorellen out of his painful predicament. 

Free of the trap, the party heads into the Korners and immediately needs to deal with the power vacuum. With the fairy queen dead, and Nolti missing, there’s been a scramble for control of the Korners, with the factions coming down between Zixx and Klik. Klik is pro keeping the fey around, though no longer as a ruling class, while Zixx wants the fey to pay restitution and depart the Korners. 

Different power sharing agreements are suggested, but it turns out that these 2 kobolds aren’t just political opponents, they’re siblings, and as much as they dislike the other, neither wants their 3rd sibling to be anywhere near power, and so they settle for allowing the fey to remain, but also needing to pay (mostly the party) for the troubles they caused everyone. 

Stonehell B Team: Blood Sucking Stirges

Session 314 was played on 12/24/25

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

Continuing in the Contested Corridors, they find a stash of coin in a ruined chapel, then find some old storage closets where an unusual amount of rock salt keeps turning up. Then they find a trio of hobgoblins in a large room chilling out. They don’t maintain their chill, and attack the party. Being outnumbered, they are quickly cut down. However as the party is rifling through their stuff, Kess notices that the wounds on the hobgoblins’ bodies are stitching up on their own. Working quickly the party piles them up and douses them with oil before lighting them on fire.

Several rooms later the party is set upon by a pack of stirges. Pibble and IV drop, Sonra, iGor, and Loahn get bit before the pests could be killed. Limping along they come to the Chamber of the Desert. The way is blocked by a portcullis, so Adorellen grabs and lifts, only to be dropped on by a green slime hiding in the channel of the portcullis! Everyone helps to scrape and burn it off them.

Back up to the caves they catch 4 goblins among the mushrooms. “Just passing though” the party assures them. Everyone keeps their distance across the cave, and no one gets hurt. In the next section of the cave, over a dozen giant crickets are bouncing around. Loahn has one crash into him, and he squashes it with his hammer in reply. This sets off the rest of the crickets, who go bouncing around the cave like crazy. iGor takes one right in the face and goes down. Kess gets to him quickly and gives him a healing potion.

Gains: coins
Kills: thouls, cave cricket, stirges
Losses: IV

Stonehell B Team: Contested Corridors

Session 313 was played on 12/14/25

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

With Nolti back on his feet and anxious to get back to the Korners, he and Roi join the party. However, not knowing how the kobolds in the Korner will take to having Nolti back is potentially dangerous, so they stick them in a cave in the box canyon and direct them to write 5,000 words on how to deal with the fey in the Korners.

The party leaves them to write and heads into the dungeon, making for the Contested Corridors. The first door they check out is trapped with a fire trap that catches Glimmer. From the other side of the door they hear “No Solicitors" yelled out in goblin. It seemed they meant it, so the party moved on. In the Chamber of the Woods, they encounter a troop of kobolds returning from a mushroom collecting trip from elsewhere in the corridors, and talk to them about the death of the Queen of the Fey. They’re thrilled and promise to spread the word. Notably, the party does not mention Nolti or Roi.

Further into the area they find an old storage room, and hear a giggle. Sonra was ready to drop a fireball, but caught sight of a small kobold kid in the shadows and held off. Glimmer gives the kids lessons, and each gets a caltrop.

Circling through the quadrant they come to a guardpost for another entrance to the Kobold Korners, and apologize for startling the kobolds on duty. Continuing their explorations they find their way up to the caverns, slaying some vermin along the way, and loot a giant rat’s nest.

Gains: coins
Kills: giant rats, giant centipedes
Losses:

Stonehell B Team: Party at the Gatehouse

Session 312 was played on 12/7/25

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

Karl went off to get drunk, and it was decided that they should retrieve his 10’ pole from the water weird before he notices it’s missing. Returning to the dungeon, they spot some lizardmen in the swamp hunting something. It’s far enough away that everyone basically ignores the other party. They make it to the Gatehouse Inn and find Karl there drinking with the kobolds and a couple of goblins named Gibblit and Giblit. Of course the party joins in and it becomes a party! 

Over the course of the party they hear stories about an albino ape living deep in the dungeon with a pile of treasure to make a dragon jealous, and of a vanguard of orcs looking to gain a foothold in the dungeon. 

---

Session long on role play, short on notes. 
 

March ‘26 In Review

What a month!! From winter to spring and back again a couple of times… Took a trip upstate for another weekend long gaming get together, and despite a cold that dragged on through the month, had a great time. On the long ride back and forth I listened to 1.66 audio books, and while there I had some excellent beers! 

Yes, that is the 20% abv D&D 50th anniversary stout! 

Work has been stupid busy with audit prep, which has meant some long hours and even weekend hours. It’ll be so nice when we’re through it. I also lost one of my team members rather suddenly, and once again find myself taking over a chunk of their duties. Lousy timing really... 


Miniatures
It ended up being a bit of a rush to get things done by the end of the month. I had bigger plans, but I’m still pleased with what I accomplished, and I’ve got some really fun minis lined up to work on in the next couple months. I am however way far behind on non-reaper minis so far this year… not counting the terrain I’ve been building, which is honestly the thing I’m most happy about. It's been hard not to start the next project! Though I have planned it. 

Aside from the terrain, I've done several rather large minis, including the wyvern, the boats, the shipwreck revenant, and the Tau capital ships. Q2 is going to continue the trend with another wyvern, and a ringwrath on a fell beast. 

Q1 minis

Gaming
I didn’t get in the next game of Hope Eternal, but I’m going to try to paint up the tower in April and get the game in before the end of the month.

Stonehell/Rappan has shifted from the B team’s exploration of Stonehell back to the Morgana’s crew and the goings on in Rappan. During our weekend together we stormed the first of the temples to Orcus. We’ll be better prepared next time. But in spite of being teleported over lava, we somehow managed a win, though it was a painful one.

The work game saw the adventurers deal with the wyvern, then have to deal with some insistent wererats, before departing for the big city and heading into the sewers for more rat tails as they await the completion of some custom equipment they’ve ordered.

Media
Hacks
Farscape season 3
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy
Daredevil Born Again season 2

Books
I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I'm Trapped in a Rom-Com (surprisingly raunchy, but fun)
The Three-Body Problem (audiobook, ⅔ done, need to finish it)

Loot
Picked up Stargrave: Dead or Alive and Bold Endeavor 

Goals for April
Paint up trashbash tower
Play scenario 4 of Stargrave Hope Eternal

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!