December in Review

Apparently I neglected to post a November in Review… Things have been busy here at the Tower. I took the Auditing portion of the CPA exam, and PASSED!! I’m now working on the next test which I’ll be taking in late winter/early spring.

My oldest dog is continuing to continue on, but I don’t think for too much longer. At this point, every day is a bonus, and I’m trying to enjoy our final time together as best I can.

Winter holiday was spent down south along the Gulf Coast. Sadly, we picked a week with a cold snap, and ended up with temperatures not much different from what we’d left behind in the Northeast. Still a wonderful trip.

Gaming

I’ve missed far too much of the Curse of Strahd game the last two months. Between vacations, holiday parties, working late, and being sick… I’m just glad I’m not DMing.

Stonehell is going well. Recruited some new players, and came really close to killing their characters. We’ll see how well these low level PCs handle the game… also I really want them to fight a dragon…

I ran the kids through my holiday adventure Frosty's Harsh Winter. The kids spent a lot of time talking to the senile Parson Brown.

Miniatures
I’ve actually been working on a bunch of stuff, which means little was actually completed. Assembled and primed lots of random minis trying to figure out what I wanted to work on. I painted some of the classic horror monsters from Bones 4, converted another mini for a new player in the Curse of Strahd game, and converted and painted some ghouls. There will be a big mini year in review post in a day or two.


Media

Movies/TV Watched
Marvelous Mrs. Maisel - Season 3
Star Wars: Mandalorian
Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker
John Wick 3


Books Read
Void Wraith Saga books 1-3
The Expanse books 1-3

Managed to exceed my goal of 25 books this year, with a total of 29 books! Thank goodness for vacation!

Goals
With the new year, I’ve got another big CPA exam right around the corner. My one goal is to pass. Beyond that? Get in some gaming, and some painting.

Sunday Inspirational Image: Christmas Dragon

christmas dragon by KiRAWRa

Review Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is the generally satisfying conclusion to the Skywalker saga.

This post contains spoilers, but first, the non-spoiler review.

Overall I enjoyed this final installment of this trilogy. It gave me everything I want and expect from a Star Wars movie, delivered in a slick Disney approved package. There were lightsabers, an extravagant amount of new ships and exciting space battles, new aliens, new planets, old planets, familiar old faces, and the battle between the light and dark sides.

It's no spoiler that Palpatine is back, and no shock, pulling the strings. I wasn't sure I'd like how that got fit into the story, but it worked. It wasn't necessarily the way I'd have done it, but then there were a bunch of story choices in it that I'd have done a little differently. None of it was bad, just... it never really reached what I thought could be great.

Also, for a 2.5 hour long movie, it actually needed another 20-30 minutes. Everything was just so rushed, and the movie, the story needed a little extra time to breathe.

Spoilers below

I appreciate how much of the story is Ben Solo's story. His arc is as important as Rey's, especially as it's such a good mirror of hers. He struggles to embrace the Dark Side, has to work at it... and in the end fails. His cracked helmet is the most visible sign of the struggle. He is redeemed, at least a little. He's still responsible for the deaths of countless individuals, the destruction of multiple planets. So by any measure, he's a war criminal of epic proportions, but at the end he found redemption in his sacrifice. I wish that they'd have skipped the kiss at the end. I get it, he and Rey have a connection, but...

Rey and Ben's fight on the Death Star was interesting. I really appreciate how everyone has different fighting styles, and how much is communicated through them, and what I got most out of that fight was that neither of them actually wanted to be fighting the other. Especially Rey. She seemed to be working really hard to just get on with her mission, and Ben was just in the way. She wanted to stop him, but a lightsaber battle wasn't gonna get it done.

Rey's battle with the Dark Side continues to show just how seductive it is. I really felt it was all cheapened by the revelation of her parentage. It was just so unnecessary. The last thing the story needed was to tie her in to the Palpatine bloodline, especially as there was no hint that Palpatine was married, or had kids, or a clone, or... something, anything?

Fin being force sensitive makes sense. Poe being a former drug smuggler wasn't much of a shock either. Scoundrels do bad things. Even if they have hearts of gold.

The way the movie handled General/Jedi Master Leia Organa worked. I do wonder how much of that was forced by Carrie Fisher's death, and how much was planned.

The Knights of Ren were, hands down, the biggest disappointment of the movie. They didn't really DO anything, they never SAID anything, they were just sort of... there. And lacking lightsabers or force pikes or anything... just. Eh. Such a waste of a cool idea.

Overall, it was a solid movie. I'll certainly watch it again, but probably not while it's in the theater.

Stonehell: Ogre sized problems

Session 115 was played on 12/08

Borumar, ½ Orc Thief 7 (Josh)
Brother Dimetri Andropov, Cleric 3 (Jeff)
J, Fighter 1 (Jay)
Drolo, linkman (NPC)

Having successfully revived their friend Jo (who needed some time to recover after being petrified, Borumar decided to head back to Stonehell for a little fun. Joining the party for this delve was J, a young swordsman eager to prove his worth in the mightiest dungeon around. Entering the dungeon through the hobgoblin caves, the party spends a while poking around the already cleared 2nd level, slowly making their way down to the third, and finding that without a high level wizard, they weren’t getting through the arcane locked doors and out of the medusa’s lair. So they did the only sensible thing, and continued down into level 4.

Not too far into their exploration they decided to open a door… surprising half a dozen ogres squeezed into a room only just big enough to contain them all. “Sorry, wrong room” J said, closing the door. They jumped to the side, and readied themselves for the ogres to come out the door, and after a long drawn out moment, they did.



Thankfully for the party, the small (for the ogres) door kept them from all coming out at the same instant. Unfortunately even one ogre hits like a falling tree, and Dimetri was only saved from death by Borumar’s speedy dumping of a healing potion down Dimetri’s throat. Also in the party's favor was the fact that the ogres had to pull the bodies of their fallen friends out of the doorway in order to effectively fight. Somehow, they managed to defeat all 6 ogres… Sadly they didn’t have much treasure on them.

Continuting their exploration down the hall, they were surprised by a pair of gaunt hounds. Dimetri still not really recovered from the previous fight, was dragged down. J and Borumar finished off the beasts, and dumped a potion of extra healing down Dimetri’s throat, and then they all decided that they’d had enough.

Gains: 310gp worth of various coins
Kills: 6 ogres, 2 gaunt hounds
Losses: potion of healing, potion of extra healing

Sunday Inspirational Image: Hoarfrost Dragon

by Sandra

Rowboat and Raft

I wasn't sure what else to work on one night, so I pulled out the Bones 4 row boat and raft, washed and scrubbed them, and primed them with Green Liner. I then painted both with Russet Brown and Vampiric Shadow. The goal was to make them both look really old and faded. I washed them with green washes to make them look a little mossy/moldy. I was envisioning that these were both craft that were from Reaper's town of Dreadmere.









I have no idea what side of the raft is the top and which was the bottom....

Stonehell: Medusa Hunt

Session 114 was played on 12/01

Borumar, ½ Orc Thief 7 (Josh)
Brother Dimetri Andropov, Cleric 1 (Jeff)
Phynara, Elf 8 (NPC)
Drolo, linkman (NPC)

Having come up empty handed as far as medusa hair was concerned, Borumar decided to try to find where the medusa in the side dungeon got moved to. A young cleric who was interested in so noble a cause, suggested that the temple of the elementalists would be a good place to start, so off they went.

Making sure to clear the already cleared rooms, the party spends some time digging through the boxes in the old storage room. Little seemed of value till a box was discovered hidden under some preserved meat of questionable origin. Within was a small cache of coins and a potion! Feeling this a good sign, they continued exploring.

Once they reached the main temple, they saw a light and heard a noise coming from the central room. Within was a giant weasel playing with a glowing coin. The weasel abandons its toy in favor of live prey, but is cut down when faced with a heavily armored elf and cleric. Brother Dimetri strings the coin and hangs it around his neck. Drolo is tasked with skinning the weasel.

Checking out the 4 elemental rooms, the wax filled fire chamber was the most interesting. Using his shield, Brother Dimetri began to chisel chunks of wax off the walls, looking for hidden things… and discovered a door! Beyond was a dusty and dark hallway leading to a flight of stairs leading up…

Taking the stairs, and following the corridor beyond, they came to a locked door flanked by dusty alcoves on either side, each with an old stool. Borumar checked for traps, then unlocked the door… beyond was another pair of alcoves flanking another locked door. However, instead of old stools, rusty iron statues stood guard. Checking the statues, and finding them solid casts, Borumar again bent to work on the lock. The statues (of course) animated. A tense and bloody fight ended with the statues destroyed, and no weapons sucked into them. Borumar then unlocked the door, and within a nude medusa stood in the middle of a trashed room. Whatever caused her gaunt form and sickly pallor did nothing to slow her frenzied assault at the party.

Borumar dodged back, firing an arrow as he went. Phynara did her best to avoid the medusa’s gaze while still managing to hit with her sword. Then the inexperienced Dimetri stepped forward, looked her directly in the eye, and slammed his weapon into her face, dropping her to the ground.

Phynara lopped the medusa’s head off, and Borumar bagged it. Then they searched the room, discovering that most everything had been destroyed, except for 10 pieces of jewelry! Gathering up their loot, the party rushed from the dungeon, and back to town, delivering the head to the alchemist.

While the alchemist worked, Dimetri returned to the dungeon with porters and a wagon, lugging out several large pieces of furniture that the elementalists had left behind, as well as as much wax as they could take.

Gains: 10,000gp worth of jewelry,
Kills: Giant Weasel, 2 iron statues, 1 medusa
Losses:

Image Source: Medusa by.paulo