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! 

Stonehell B Team: Team Edvard

Session 306 was played on 11/2/25

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

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

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

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

---

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

Stonehell B Team: Bang a Gong (redux)

Session 305 was played on 10/26/25

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

February ‘26 In Review

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

Stonehell B Team and the Witch of the Deep

 Session 304 was played on 10/19/25

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

Glimmer decides to have his fortune read. 

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

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

They continue to wait…

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

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

Q2 Was that the Witch of the Deep?
A2 Yes

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

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

Stonehell B Team: Spider's Bite

 Session 303 was played on 10/5/25

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

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

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

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

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

Stonehell B Team: Stick figures & Pissed off Pixies

 Session 302 was played on 9/28/25

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stonehell B Team: On the way to the Asylum

 Session 301 was played on 9/21/25

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

Departing Rocky the party makes for the stairs down to level 2A. On the way they’re attacked by waves of undead! What they’re doing out of the Quiet Halls is anyone’s guess, but the initial group of zombies is mostly turned, and the remainder hacked down in some vicious hand to hand combat. Blar, V, and VI drop, but only Blar and VI are able to be revived. 

Behind the 7 zombies were 10 skeletons, but 9 were immediately turned by Kessaren, and the upright kobolds tore the last one to bits. 

Before the stairs down, in the room with the broken statues, a group of Troglins is collecting tolls. The party tries to walk past, but the troglins aren’t having it. A quick combat later and the troglins are laying dead, but healing on the floor. The party takes their weapons (and coins) before they finish healing and regain consciousness.

Down the stairs to the Asylum, they reach the room with the stick figures, all of which stop what they were doing to turn to look at the party… an impressive feat given that none of the figures have faces.   

Gains: 7 troglin weapons, 467sp
Kills: Zombies, Skeletons, Troglins
Losses: kobold meatshield V

Simple Foamcore Farm Houses

 Sometimes you just need some quick and decent looking terrain. 

 Scenario 4 of Stargrave Hope Eternal campaign is set on a world far out in the boonies of the galaxy, and as such is a little lacking in tech. The settlement is described in the book as being a combination of prefab structures, homes made from locally available materials, and one tower made from a recycled fuel pod. You need between 6-10 structures for the scenario. I own 2 small 3D printed prefab huts and so need at least 4 more structures, one of which needs to be a tower, so I need to make at least 3 houses. The game is played on a 3'x3' board, but the village needs to be at least 8" away from any board edge so none of these should be very big...

 Keeping the size manageable had me laying out a couple of different size bits of paper on the board, and placing some minis in and around them. 2"x3" was tiny, and 4"x6" was too big, but a 3"x5" note card felt just about perfect. Big enough for a full sized door and a couple of windows, but not so big that they'd dominate the table.  

 Not wanting to spend a lot of time or money on them, I grabbed a scrap of foam core that I'd been saving, and got to measuring. Prior experience reminded me that I couldn't just cut out 3" and 5" wall sections because then the footprint would be too big. I opted to trim the long edges by the thickness of the foam core so that the walls would fit neatly on the 3x5 piece that would serve as the base/floor of the huts. 

I kept the height of the walls at 2" knowing the roof would greatly increase the height of the finished builds. I measured out the doors and windows using a 1" square base, then cut them all out. I opted for one door for each building, and 3 windows. 

I turned on my glue gun to get it hot, then I pulled out some aluminum foil, rolled it into a ball, and rolled it all over the exterior sides of the walls and the floor. It really is a fantastic way to add texture to cheap foam core. Once done, it was time to get gluing. 

 

Not perfect. My measurements were not exact, but close enough. I do like how it's possible to shoot through a building. Then it was time to grab the cardboard recycling and dig out a cardstock box and start cutting thin strips. I was actually more careful with this part than I was cutting the foam.  I framed out the corners and all the windows and doors. 

 All told this was about 2 hours worth of work. I then brought it down to my painting desk and slapped on a heavy coat of mod podge mixed with black craft paint, and once dry, followed that up with a heavy drybrush of antique white.

 I was unsure at this point whether I wanted to paint the interior walls or tint the exterior... I decided to try tinting the exterior using just a tint bit of watered down speedpaint.

 And then onto the roof! My original plan was a standard sloped roof, but my cousin suggested an asymmetrical gable with offset ridge, so that it might look a little less average medieval fantasy 

Once I had the foamcore frame I used cardstock to make the roof, and then started cutting and gluing the shingles... This was a pain to do, and messy.  

I was finally reminded that you can do whole strips and it's a much easier process! Also less messy with the glue and looks neater. It was almost enough to make me redo the other 2... almost.  

Then it was time to put a hole in the roofs for the chimney pipes. These were made from the tubes inside dog poop bag rolls. I also added some trim to the gables under the roof line.  

 Then it was back to the mod podge, and onto painting! The gables were painted just like the walls with antique white and the zealot yellow speed paint, with the brown for the trim.

 The roof was done with a sponge leftover from a mini blister pack and a soft blue craft paint, with a gentle dry brush of antique white to give them some highlights. 

 

Overall, these are great. Not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but solid looking and usable for the games I want them for. I still want to make little HCAV units to fit over the chimney pipes, but that's going to be its own little project. For now, it's onto the fuel pod tower!

The kid decided the houses needed a little something extra, so they all got some stickers. 

 And credit where credit is due, a hefty dose of inspiration came from this video.