Week In Review: Frosty 12th Heroes!

This week I managed to finish up a project that I've been working on for a while now.  It started as something simple and then... yeah, I might have gotten carried away but I'm really pleased with how it turned out.  What is it?  Let's find out!

Auril the Frostmaiden

Yep, that's right.  It's another Auril, but this time I think that she is a bit more impressive.  Here she is in all three forms.

These are a set of figures that I purchased on Etsy from Light And Luck Minis, and they did a really good job with this.  Nice and clean prints with very good detail as well.  The biggest difference between this set and the official set is... well, they're bigger!  The third form on the right is mounted on a 25mm base but the first two forms are both on 40mm bases.  This technically puts them out of the medium size category but it's still shy of the large so hopefully it works out for my friend.

Of course since I painted up this special set of minis I decided that I needed to make a box to put them in as well.  I could have just gone with a plain old box but what fun would that be?  Time to get creative with foamcore and hot glue!

I used the glue on the foamcore to give the box a frozen look to it, which I tried to emphasis with the blue white paint scheme.  My daughter suggested putting the window in the top, and I love how the frosting effect turned out to make them look like they are inside a block of ice.

The cover goes almost the full depth of the bottom and I lined it with some white felt as well.  This should protect the icy detail that I did on the bottom plus it gives the box a bit of friction so the bottom doesn't just fall out.

I've been working on this project for a while so it's good to see it finally complete.  On to more projects!

Daqan Knights for Song of Blades and Heroes

With my elves done, I pushed on to get my Daqan knight troops done as well.  First up was one of the missing crossbowmen.

I didn't write down my process on this one so I was kind of winging it, but I think I am close enough to have it consistent.  I did decide to paint the helmet and torso armor as well, which I hadn't done with the spearmen but I really like how it makes the figure pop.  In fact, I liked it so much that I touched up one of the spearmen so that it would match.

This change will help to tie them together and gives them a more finished look.

The other troops for this little force will be the Outland scouts that I already painted up.

When I looked at the artwork later, I realized that they did the chest armor as metal instead of leather, but I like the hardened leather look.  Not sure if I'll do the rest of them with leather, but I'm happy with these guys so far.  Once I finish up the one remaining crossbowman then it will be time to get back to some Songs!

The 12th Company for Bolt Action

The date for the upcoming Bolt Action event was finally announced so it's high time for me to start working on the 12th company again!  To that end, I decided that I needed to dirty up the Opel Blitz that I'd already painted.

A little bit of rust and a lot more dirt, and I like how worn it looks.  I still need to mount a machine gun at the front of the bed, but that should be a quick addition.  For vehicles I still need to pick up another truck and I'd really like to grab an SdKhz 251 instead of just running the regular M3 half-track.  It's not essential, but I love the idea.

And that was it for this past week.  Things are going to be getting... interesting... as well.  Shorter week for me this week, plus I'm looking to come home from the field for a couple of weeks to help with a project at the office.  Perfect timing since I just got my hotel work station set up just the way that I want.  LOL.  Is what it is, right?  Until next time...

Week In Review: More Frosty Core And Murder Hobos!

And another week is in the books!  The question is what did I manage to get done this time?  I'll admit that it feels like less than last week but this is also my 5e week which does take up part of my schedule.  Even so, I'm feeling pretty happy about the progress I made so let's take a look!

BrushFu For Core Space

Two more for the horde.. of random civilians!

Picture is a bit washed out but hopefully you get the idea

These last two are a corporate and a kid.  Only logical for a cyberpunk style game, right?  You've gotta have a corporate in the mix somewhere for things to be truly cyberpunk, and the kid just seemed like a fun addition.  This model is also available on a hoverboard which could be an interesting twist as well.

And that takes me up to nine civilians... or workers?  Since I have Black Star Rising, I can throw that little twist into the game as well, which I think will add an interesting depth to the game.  And as for the miniatures, I really like them.  These are printed by BrushFu Studios, but the sculpts themselves are from Papsikels. I love the variety of the sculpts that they offer, and I've really enjoyed painting up the minis that I've purchased.  I can't help but notice that the first batch I'd received seem to be larger than the second batch.  I kind of wonder if they might have been 32mm instead of 28mm but either way works for me.  If anything it gives them a mix.  After all, we aren't all the same size, right?

That said, it felt like the details were easier to pick out on the larger figures which makes sense in the most basic way, but it seemed like the sculpts are probably designed to be printed at 32mm height.  The 28mm still look good, things just seem to get a bit cramped on them which makes sense.  Think of a river running between two mountains.  At one height, it is clearly there but if you move higher up the detail of the river starts to fade until it becomes a meaningless line between the two ridges of the mountains.  Now translate that analogy to a fold between pieces of clothing and hopefully you can see what I'm getting at.

Next I want to mix things up a bit and grab some aliens.  There's a collection called Novus Landing which has got a great mix of civilians, bounty hunters, merchants... I think it'll add an interesting dynamic to the whole collection.  The store that I'm looking at for these, Resonating Prints, lists all of these minis as being 32mm so I want to see how they compare with my current collection.  Plus I'll be honest, I'm just having fun painting up all of these civilians and populating an imaginary world.  How can you have a fight in a bar without their being anyone else around?  Or in a market?  It just doesn't feel right so adding these characters just feels right, even if they just stay in the background.

Devastators for Core Space

Back in the beginning of the year, I put paint onto my Purge for Core Space.  I'd painted up the harvesters and devastators in the same color thinking that they would be easy to tell apart.  After playing a few games... yeah, not so much.  Instead, I decided to fall back to the original color scheme (at least partially anyway) and I repainted my devastators red.

And man are they red!  The Menoth white that I'd painted them with was a perfect base.  I'd thought that between the off white color and the shade that was on it that the red would be darker but this definitely works.  I did consider painting the heads white but I like the way these pop.  Really need to get this game to the table again soon, especially with all the new minis.  Really need to make some stat cards made up for them soon, or at least rework the ones that I've done.  The captain seems to be about right, but I think some of the crew need to be toned down a bit.  Might work on that this weekend.

Auril the Frostmaiden for D&D

I also wrapped up painting the three forms of Auril this week as I got paint onto her third form, known as the Winter's Womb.

Compared to the other two minis, this one felt like the details weren't quite crisp enough.  They are still there, but no where near as pronounced as the ice shards on the Maiden or the fur on the Crone.  This is also the smallest of the minis which is saying something as the other minis already seemed kind of small.  Even so, they were fun to paint and interesting change of pace for me.  Plus, they led to me picking up another trio of minis but I don't want to post about those yet.  I don't think that my friend even knows about my blog, but I don't want to spoil the surprise in case he does.

The 5e Waterdeep Murder Hobos

Last but not least, we had our biweekly 5e session and man did it get dark!  We've really been trying to stay clear of the law but this week... yeah, it's gonna be rough.  There was a gang fight that quickly escalated ("What do you mean we are doing non-lethal attacks?") followed by a visit to a shopkeeper.  My connection lagged out when we went to his shop, and when I got the connection back a couple of minutes later we were killing him.  Ummm... okay?  I guess?  Thankfully we have several players that can heal.  As long as he didn't take enough damage for an instant kill, we should be able to salvage the situation... maybe...

And that about sums it up for this week.  As I mentioned, I want to work on stating up some of the Core Space characters so I can get that to the table again next week.  Plus I have some terrain that I need to put together for my next Five Parsecs scenario...  really feel like I need some canals for this one... so we'll have to see what I can get together.  Until next time...

Random Updates: So... That Was A Week...

So I got back out to the field, and started painting like crazy.  The BrushFu minis had come in, then Black Star, plus a friend asked me to paint his Auril the Frostmaiden minis...  I'd even put together a post with pics of the stuff that I'd painted but... yeah.  Just wasn't happy with them.  Very flat and just blah, ya know?  Really uninspired so I just set the blog aside for a bit to think about things.

I realized that I was pushing to get the painting done so I could post pictures of what I'd painted, but they were just meh.  Honestly I thought about just putting the blog on hold for December while I figured things out.  Once I stopped focusing on the blog and just painted... well, it seemed to go better.  So for a while, I'm just going to switch to posting on the weekends and do more of a recap.  Just feels like it will be a better fit, so let's look at what happened this week!

BrushFu For Core Space

At the beginning of the week, my BrushFu minis came in.  Huzzah!!!  With the first order, some of them came with bases as part of the print but this time they were all loose.  I kind of wondered if that might be the case so I ordered ten cyberpunk bases so I could keep that basing scheme going through these minis.  Not only did I get the ten that I ordered, but they also included enough extra bases for the minis that bought with this order, which I thought was very cool!

As for the prints themselves, they all looked very clean and crisp again.  I was a little worried because one of the minis didn't have a head, but then I found it in a ziplock by itself.  With that panic sorted, I grabbed the glue and got to basing.

The first two minis that I painted were the droid waitress and the techie.  The initial paint scheme... yeah, they just didn't work.

The color combo on the techie wasn't bad but she just needed more, and I wasn't sure where to go with it.  The droid on the other hand... yeah, she was a failed experiment.  My initial thought was to go for a tarnished and worn look for her since she's a droid out on the frontier.  Maybe she wasn't serviced as often as she should be?  Maybe it's a lack of supplies?  Either way, she was just way too dark.

It was pretty disappointing because I thought that things were flowing better and these were just... well, crap to be honest.  I set them aside and decided to come back to them later in the week.  As I thought about it, part of the challenge that I was facing was the details are almost too fine.  Might be time to grab some magnifiers but for now I just decided to pull up the images from Etsy and enlarge them.  Man, did that make a difference!  This helped me identify some of the details that just wasn't seeing, and I decided to hit them for round two.

This time, I'm a lot happier with the results.  On the techie, I painted some of the base colors on her skin, top, and coveralls to add a bit more depth.  I'd initially only done the base followed by a shade, but I think that the extra base helped pull out the details more.  Looking at the enlarged pictures, I noticed the trim and belt on the overalls so I painted these up as well and I really think this helped.  No, it's not display quality but I feel like its perfect for gaming.

For the waitress, I tried to pick out her body panels with a bright gold that I have, but it seemed to thin to give good coverage, kind of like you usually find with yellow paint.  I could have built it up but decided to grab the cold steel instead since that has better color density.  A short time later, I had the raised and more shapely panels painted up and I like how they contrasted with the recessed spaces.  Her calves and feet are far more industrial in appearance, so I left those the original color.  Overall, I'm much happier with how these two ended up, and I think that stepping away for a day really helped clear my head and refocus.

Trollbloods Of Erehwon

In between the other projects this week, I also grabbed by impaler to get some more work on him.  Initially, I wasn't too pleased with him but then I started to pick out some of the contrasting colors and it really helped bring him to life!

There is still more to do with him (the bases, the tree trucks aka spears) but just adding the touches of the cloth wraps and the bronze trim add so much life to the figure.  I also love the two chickens hanging from his belt!  Just an example of the fun little details that the Trollbloods have.  This guy is gonna look great on the board with his two "crewmates" and I might have to paint up the other one just because!

Auril the Frostmaiden for D&D

A friend of mine is running the Rime of the Frostmaiden adventure for one of his many D&D groups, and he asked me if I could paint up his Auril minis for him.  "Sure!" I said, and then realized that I had no idea what I'd agreed to.  Thank God for the internet, right?

It took a few weeks for us to actually exchange the minis but he was finally able to get them to me last weekend.  I'd hoped to be able to get through all three this week, but the cyberpunk bump that I had really through things off.  Even so, I was able to rally and push through two of the three forms.

Her first form is known as the Cold Crone.  This was an interesting one to paint because of all of the rich details that are sculpted into it.  The ridges in the horns, the texture to the fur, the drape of the robe... all of these are very pronounced details so they just came screaming out of the mini when I painted it.  Love it when they make things easy like that!  The fur was done with three different shades which let me keep around the eyes darker so they could really pop when I painted them.  I do still need to give the claws a touch of black but overall I'm really happy with it.

The second form is the Brittle Maiden.  Again, the details on this mini are nice and crisp so washes and drybrushing were my friends.  I ended this with a thinned white that I painted onto the ends of the crystals to make the edges pops.  I like how the figure ended up but I've got to admit that I'm not that big a fan of the sculpt.  I get what they were going for but... I guess it just seems really clunky.  Not that I could have done better, it's just that compared to some of the other collector series minis GF9 has released, this one seems to be on the lower end of the quality scale.

I still have yet to tackle the third form, the Winter's Womb, but since it's the smallest of the three I will be able to knock it out this week.  Heck, I could have done it today if my supplies weren't down south but I really don't want to get into hauling all of my painting stuff back and forth every week.

And there we have it, the week in review!  Think I'll start calling this segment that in the future but I'll stick with Random Updates for this one.  There might be the odd post that I throw up during the week, but for now I am going to shift my focus and just be posting on the weekends.  Until next time...

Dungeons & Dragons 5e: The New Town Of Saltmarsh

The map making continues!  After working on the maps for last weeks 5e session, I decided to step away from using a pdf program to build my maps.  Just a few too many objects on the screen at once was killing the rendering speed!  Instead, I bought a one year subscription to Inkarnate.com and so far I'm loving it!  Here is my new map of the town of Saltmarsh!

Very happy with how the site functions and the end result.  Next is battle maps which are a little more fiddly, but I think part of that is just my OCD kicking it.  I have some other stamps I'm going to pull into Inkarnate and I think the extra options are going to make things a little smoother for now.

And at some point I will be getting back to the minis.  I've dug up a bunch of critters that will work for beasties in Zona Alfa, plus I've got the start of a crew as well.  I still need some more minis to round them out, but I think they will work out nicely once I get the order placed for them.  Until next time...

Workbench: Digital Ghosts In The Zona Alfa Floral Department?!?

Wow have I been crazy busy, at least in my free time.  Our 5e game has transitioned over to Roll20 so I needed to learn the basics of not just playing but DM'ing with their system in last week and a bit.  Add to that my decision to make JPEG maps of some of the locations since I've gone completely off the rails from the written Ghosts of Saltmarsh game and yeah, not a lot of free time.

That said, I'm quite happy with what I was able to cobble together using a pdf program in such a short time.  Here is the first floor of the Sutton estate that my players psycho-pumped.

Unfortunately the 2nd floor and basement didn't look quite as finished as all the details I was adding were really bogging down the program I was using, but I'm still really happy with them overall.  I am looking at getting a Pro subscription to Inkarnate.com so I can do more work for the campaign... and because it just generally is kind of fun.  Crazy, I know, but I'm looking forward to bringing more of this game to life using the digital tools that are out there.

Of course this means that I've had no time for physical painting, but I'm okay with that.  Hobby is hobby after all, and I'm really enjoying running our insane little corner of the world.

This doesn't mean that there hasn't been any hobby though as I've stumbled on some great bits I'm going to use for some terrain pieces.  A week or so ago, I stopped by Hobby Lobby to grab some canvases for my daughter and decided to swing through the floral section just to take a looksee.  I've got a lot of regular terrain, but I was looking for something more alien.  Zona Alfa has recently caught my eye and I've been had some ideas stewing in my brain for some terrain pieces to build.  I wasn't holding out much hope though since this was a craft store so imagine my surprise when I found these little gems!

These two were the first that really jumped out at me.

Thistle pom pom pick

People have done some pretty cool prints for anomalies but since I'm 1) lacking a 3d printer and 2) always looking for the cheap option, these seemed like they might work.  As I explored some more, I had some other options catch my eye so I might just use them as alien plants instead since they would tie in nicely.

The next two were these, with colors inspired by the first ones.

Thistle stem

I can see these being scattered around as ground cover, bizarre little growths that are overrunning our native vegetation.  Or I could group some of these together on a base to create a zone hazard that could be encountered.

Next was this one which just looks bizarre.

Blue green microberry spray

As an added plus, the piece is also really long.  The crazy bubbly stems are over a foot long and there are at least a dozen of them on one plant.  It might be tricky to cut them down without having the bare stems exposed but I'm willing to give it a try to see what I can make.

The final one is a doozy!

Red protea stem

I have already made a carnivorous plant but the center looks pretty floral.  This one looks far more dangerous, almost like some kind of gigantic land anemone.  I can see this fitting in perfectly as a "creature" for Antares.  Some great finds, especially since I really wasn't expecting them.  Now I just need to start making some structures as well so I'll have somewhere to explore.  So many projects, so little time.  Oh well, at least I shouldn't get bored in the next few years as I work my way through all of these!  Until next time...

5e Dungeons & Dragons: This House Is Psycho-Pumped!

Last weekend we "finished" the first part of our Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign.  The caveat on that is the first session, one of the characters (a death cleric of Baphmet) basically kicked in the front door to the haunted house, told the ghosts to get out now, and said that the house was cleansed.  Almost the shortest session ever!

They did ultimately explore a good portion of the house, but it has been a wild and crazy ride.  The party is made of the aforementioned dragonborn death cleric, a tabaxi swashbuckler, and a kenku rogue/wizard, and they are amazing!  The dynamic of the group is all over the place but we're having so much fun with it that it is great.  I never know what they are going to do, but I'm finding that I'm really enjoying that.  I don't have a lot of experience but so far this campaign has had the least amount of preparation that I've ever done.  I do have a number of pages I've written up about my version of Saltmarsh, including it's history (you can find a post about that here) but the actual sessions are so free flowing that I'm having a blast running it.

Between this and a busy weekend around the house cleaning and moving things, I haven't had much time for painting but it's all good.  For now we have two living rooms, so you can't knock that!

Behold the furniture that we are "storing" for our daughter.  Might as well make use of it while it's here!

I did manage to get back to the workbench last night and knocked out a Heroclix repaint (I'm toying with making her Bunny Winters for a Fear and Faith: Kooky Teenage Monster Hunter game).  Very basic paint job, but it's a very basic figure so that works out well.  (I did take a picture to put up here but don't like the angle.  I'll probably throw it up in a later post though once I get some more of Clix painted.)

Next I'll be returning to my Core Space minis.  I still those last two members of Jace's crew to finish off, and I really need to place that order for Zed's.  I'm having fun painting the Core Space minis and want to make sure I have more on hand so I can keep working on them.  And if that wasn't enough, I've got some ideas brewing for Zona Alfa terrain and miniatures but one thing at a time... at least that's the theory.  Until next time...

Random Workbench Update: Well Would You Look At That...

Over the weekend I managed to get two of the three shelves installed, with the location for the holes marked for the last one.  I'm really happy with how it's looking and it is definitely helping to open up my work space.

The next step is going to be... three more shelves!  Originally I'd planned on putting three 6' shelves over my painting space, but instead I opted for three 3' shelves along a wall next to it instead.  That particular wall has a window in the middle of it so I'm going to put three 4' shelves on that other side of the window.  Overall more real estate for placing things and I think it is going to look nicer than the original plan as well.

That wasn't all I managed to get accomplished over the weekend though.  I also made another mini for one of our companions in the long running 5e Out of the Abyss campaign we are still playing.  Yep, you read that right.  I made this mini.  Introducing Globby!

Globby with my old gnome character Kremermesh Mommanpople for scale

Globby (aka Glabbagool) is a sentient gelatinous cube that we encountered, and we befriended him... her... it... by telling it stories.  We thought he had gone off to explore the wide world of the Underdark but he happened to show up in Gracklstugh.

Globby is made from some clear plastic sheets cut into 2" x 2" squares and then hot glued together.  To give him the oozy look, I went over him with more hot glue, pulling the gun down to the base to give it the appropriate drippy look.  And what's even cooler?

Not the clearest picture but you get the idea...

That's right!  He glows in the dark!  Completely unnecessary but when I saw the glow in the dark glue sticks, I just had to do it!

As for what's next... I haven't decided yet.  I need to get the last shelf up, then I want to dive back into my pile of unpainted minis to see what speaks to me next.  Plus I'm thinking about seal some of my older minis that are going up onto the shelf just for good measure, in which case I might have to set up the light box and take some pictures of them.  Until next time...

Audio Noise: There's A Chance You'll Get Hooked By This One

Lately I've been digging around to try to find more podcasts to listen to.  Typically I look for actual plays, but I happened to stumble across this one and decided to take a chance...

Focus: enhancing your 5e D&D experience

Audio Quality: four and a half fleshed out character concepts

Content Quality: five fiendish DM plans

Average Length: 40 minutes to an hour

Release Schedule: weekly

I must admit that I don't usually listen to informational podcasts like this one but I'm really glad that I found it.  The chemistry between the hosts Travis and Jordan is really good, and makes this podcast an easy listen.  They are both enthusiastic about the topic and have a lot of experience that they bring to the table.  They also go the extra mile to tie things in with historical references as well which is absolutely fascinating.  As an example, I'd never heard of Jeanne de Clisson and the bloody path she carved through the English Channel but man does she sounds terrifying!

The only thing that I have found slightly off in the 30+ episodes that I've listened to in the past week (yes, it really is that good) is a slight leveling problem on their audio.  They changed their format in episode  23 to go to a weekly format but the bumpers were a noticeably louder than the podcast itself for a few episodes.  Just made it a little jarring between segments initially but they seemed to have fixed it pretty quickly.

Overall this is a really well put together, informative, and insightful podcast about 5e, and if you are into Dungeons and Dragons I definitely recommend giving it a listen.  Until next time...

5e Dungeons and Dragons: The History of Saltmarsh

I'd planned on working on my minis this week but life didn't play out that way.  Later this week I'll be getting some shelves so I can clear up my painting space which will be amazing!  Until then, I've been keeping myself busy prepping for a modified Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign.  U1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh was one of the first adventures I ever played and I get to try my hand at running it soon.  For those of you not familiar with them, Ghosts of Saltmarsh is a 5e campaign built around the original U series of adventures from the old Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

Overall, I like how they fleshed some of the background with the new campaign but there were things that I wanted different, hence my own spin on the history of Saltmarsh...

History of Saltmarsh

Roughly a hundred years ago, during the reign of King Veryl Rudge, Keoland waged war along its northern border as the King sought to expand his territory.  Not all agreed with this aggressive expansion and some of the coastal families moved further south.  Finding fertile fishing grounds beyond the Dread Wood, they founded the towns of Seaton and Saltmarsh along the northern coast of the Bay of Javan.

Seaton quickly established trade connections with some of the more organized factions of the Sea Princes and developed into a trading hub, while Saltmarsh became known for its bountiful fishing along the mouth of the Gleaming River.  Both towns grew and prospered in their own way, but It was not long until they fell under the greedy eyes of some of the Sea Princes.

As part of their trading, Seaton was able to arrange for some protection from the Sea Princes but Saltmarsh did not enjoy such luxury.  The initial raids were small, but once word spread of the vulnerability of the town compared to Seaton, it was not long until they became the target of one of the most ruthless Princes, Prince Dugir of Scourgehold.  It began as a blockade of the town, but once the forces of Dugir saw that Keoland was quick to ignore their southern holdings, the true pillaging began.

These were dark days for Saltmarsh and the constant raids quickly took their toll.  The town would have become a mere footnote in history if not for the actions of two of the major fishing families in the region, the Primmwaters and the Owelands.  Together they ran the blockade of Saltmarsh and then began striking back at the forces of Dugir himself.  Calling themselves the Kingfishers, they drove the pirates out of Saltmarsh and broke the blockade.  The final blow came when Amarion Primmwater and Rupert Oweland led an attack against one of the lieutenants of Dugir, Arem the Doomcrier, killing him and sinking the flagship of the blockading fleet.

After their victory, Primmwater and Oweland were divided about what should happen to the Kingfishers.  Oweland favored disbanding the group and petitioning the Crown to provide more support while Primmwater wanted to transition them to into a private town guard, focused on protecting the town of Saltmarsh without the help of the Crown.  In the end, the two compromised.  Oweland reached out to the regional commander in Seaton and stepped away from the Kingfishers while Primmwater took command of the group until Keoland was able to provide what he felt was sufficient protection.

Since then, the Primmwater and Oweland families became well established and have been instrumental in Saltmarsh growing into the town that it is today.  While the Oweland family continued to focus on fishing, the Primmwaters expanded into trade and sent ships along the west coast of the Azure Sea.  Both families have prospered over the generations since, expanding their fleets and influence within the town and the region, and both have remained a guiding force for the growth of Saltmarsh.

Though other mercantile families have sought to expand into Saltmarsh, it was not until within the past ten years that the town council decided to allow it.  The Solmor family, an established merchant family from Seaton, quickly established themselves locally and the head of the local family, Petra Solmor, was invited to join the council as well.  Working together, Saltmarsh has continued to grow under the guidance of the three families.  Today, the council is composed of Eda Oweland, Garin Primmwater, and Anders Solmor.

Eda is the granddaughter of Rupert Oweland, and her family owns or contracts most of the fishing ships operating out of Saltmarsh.  She works together with the Fishmongers Guild to establish competitive rates for their goods.  The Guild also maintains a large smokehouse, letting them expand their markets farther, and they are said to be working on creating magical methods of preserving fresh fish as well.

Garin is the grandson of Amarion Primmwater, and while his family still maintains a small interest in fishing, he has largely shifted his focus to transporting goods in the region.  Though Saltmarsh is mainly known for its fishing trade, it is a closer port to Restenford and Burle to the north, and it is less regulated than Seaton.  In addition to his family’s legal activities, it is commonly known that the Kingfishers were never disbanded and have become a well-established smuggling ring operating in the Bay of Javan and beyond.

Anders is the son of the recently deceased Petra Solmor.  Just over a year ago, Petra developed a mysterious wasting illness and soon passed away.  Rather than send another family member to handle trade in Saltmarsh, it was decided that Anders should take control of the Solmor interests in town.  Raised and educated in Seaton, he has a different outlook on things than Eda and Garin are accustomed to, but he does have useful insights that still make him an asset to the council.

In addition to the council itself, there are also two prominent townsfolk who act as advisors.  Eliander Fiske is the Captain of the town guard and a decorated veteran of the Royal Army.  With the safety of Saltmarsh as his main concern, he keeps an eye open for any trouble that might be stirring up in the region.  Eliander also still has strong ties to the Royal military and has been able to have a small contingent of marines stationed in town in case of emergency.  Trained as soldiers and sailors, these fighting men can be assigned to trade ships if the Sea Princes start to become aggressive again.

The final advisor is Jemis Copperlocks, head of the Copperlocks mine located to the east of Saltmarsh.  Though some of the locals complain that she has no business with the council, the Crown feels otherwise which is why she attached by a royal decree.  Even so, she typically sits as a bystander if the town business does not interfere with her operation.

In addition to this, I'm also fleshing out various locations around town and expanding the initial adventure in the haunted house.  I'm the first to admit that this might be a bit much but I'm trying to make sure I have a solid picture of the setting so I can convey it to the players.  I have some thoughts for an overarching plot for the campaign which departs from the one laid out in Ghosts, but that all depends on what the players want.  Heck, they might just hop on a boat and sail away for all I know but at least this gives a solid foundation to build on.  Until next time...

5E Dungeons and Dragons: Ki-ki-ki... ma-ma-ma...

I had planned on doing some more work on my Dustgrave terrain this weekend, but the yard took a bit longer to tidy up than I expected.  Up here in the northeast, its been quite a bit of rain so not ideal weather to mulch the leaves on the yard.  Thankfully yesterday was sunny and dry, so 10k steps later my feet were killing me but the yard is done!  Huzzah!

But this wasn't all that happened this weekend, not by a long shot.

We also killed Jason.

This weekend marked the restart of our long put on hold 5e Out of the Abyss campaign.  Ironically, we will be putting it on pause in a couple of sessions as I hope into the driver's seat for Ghosts of Saltmarsh  but it was still great to get back to these characters again.  But what about this Jason character?  Well, it is October after all, so we had to have a Halloween themed encounter.

That's right, I'm talked about that Jason.

I must admit that I felt pretty confident at the start of the encounter because I'm playing a tanky bard (who knew there was such a thing?).  That ended really quickly when I realized how much damage I'd taken in the last session 6+ months ago... and Jason threw me up into a stalactite, taking me completely out of the action.

By the end of the encounter, two of us had gone out of action but thankfully neither of us actually died.  A great session and I can't wait to see what happens with the next one.  We will finally have an audience with the Deep King of Gracklstugh to see if he is as mad as the rest of the Duergar.

Gracklstugh... Definitely not you typical getaway location.

No worries though, there will be more painting/building this week.  I've already got a couple of buildings in progress, I just need to clean a spot on the desk to get a couple of good shots of it.  Until next time...

Workbench: I Had Such Big Plans...

Maybe not big plans but I was at least going to finally get my table set up and play some Antares... then I left my miniatures in Maine.  D'oh!  Makes gaming difficult when you don't have the minis. 

Instead I took some time to brainstorm more for a Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign.  Not quite sure when this will start as we are still trying to get out of Gracklstugh in Out of the Abyss but at some point, in theory, we will actually make it out of that city.  We might leave it a burning ruin with a rampaging dragon but as long as we are out of the city...

Then I realized that I did actually have something here to paint, my M7 transport for my Concord troops.  I want to do some more detail work on it but at least at this point it has the basic paint scheme on it.

Basing still in progress but you get the idea

Beyond that, I did also receive another shipment of Wrath of Kings minis.  Miniature Market recently ran a warehouse sale so I snatched up some more units that were too cheap to pass up.

These are all from the Rising Conflicts expansion which I was originally going to avoid.  The stuff from the main rulebook has all been errata'd but the newer stuff... not sure how balanced it is.  Since CMON basically stopped supporting the game after the new units were released, it's not something that I see them taking the time to work on.  That said, I really have enjoyed the games that I've played and like the idea of having more unit types available.  And besides, one of those is a unit of flying pigs so... yeah, had to have it.  I need to start assembling and basing those so I can try them out, but first there will be Antares.  A friend of mine is still interested in a demo so I want to push around some minis to put together some good demo lists.  Until next time...

Dungeons and Dragons: Our Traveling Companions

Over the course of our Out of the Abyss 5e campaign we have amassed a number of traveling companions.  Most of the time these characters are just hovering in the background but even so I wanted to have minis to represent them.  Saying that you're traveling with this big group and actually being able to see them are two very different things.  Some of these I painted but a majority are prepaints from the various D&D lines.  Either way, I really like the minis that I was able to find so let's meet our "friends", shall we?

Prince Derendil

A refined and sophisticated fellow, Prince Derendil is an elven prince that was cursed, turning him into a Quaggoth.  As long as he remains in the Underdark the curse will continue but if he can return to the surface... in theory the curse will be broken?  Maybe?  None of us are really buying this at this time but the few times he's been involved in a fight he just decimated people so we're happy to keep him around for now.

This cuddly fellow is a Quaggoth miniature from the Rage of Demons line.  I had considered adding the collar that his character portrait shows but he really has been a minor character for us so I decided to just leave him as is.

Jimjar

A gambler through and through, Jimjar is a deep gnome that has been trying to get us to make a bet with him since the first time we talked to him.  So far he has been one of the less troublesome companions that we broke out with us... though he might have died recently... except he's still with us...  Yeah, I'm sure it'll be fine.

Jimjar was one of the tricky minis to find as there just didn't seem to be any good deep gnome sculpts.  Ultimately I decided to go with the gnome trickster from the Blood War line.  Sure his skin is the wrong color but other than that he fits the bill so I'm good with him as is for now.

Ront

Seeming to be your generic "smash first, talk later" orc, Ront has the distinction of also being a coward.  While running away from an earlier combat, he was captured by the Drow and sent to the lovely day spa that is Valkenveld.

Since Ront was just a generic orc warrior, I decided to go with the orc sergeant miniature from the Aberrations line.  There were several other choices that were pretty good but this one particularly caught my eye.

Shuushar

A pacifistic fishman, Shuushar was one of the hardest minis to pick out.  There aren't many kuo-toa sculpts out there and most of the are armed.  After quite a bit of digging I stumbled across this sculpt and knew right away that it fit perfectly.

While he is listed as a kuo-toa whip in the Night Below line, this mini looks far more priestly which is perfect in this case.  Very happy with this figure and I'm glad that I stumbled across it.  He was a noncombatant the whole time he was with us but our DM did such a good job with him and his Spongebob style voice that I just had to add him to the group.

 Eldeth Feldrun

A shield dwarf scout from Gauntlgrym, Eldeth was the first of the companions to approach us when we reach the "luxury resort" of Valkenveld.  Of course the DM actually said that she was a dwarven shield maiden, not a shield dwarf, so I instantly thought of her as some kind of defensive fighter.  I headed over to the Reaper site and quickly found the perfect figure for her.

This is Freja Fangbreaker sculpted by Werner Klocke.  This mini perfectly captured what I thought a shield maiden would look like plus I was thinking about using her as a replacement character if Jaaren died so I wanted to make sure it was a figure that I liked.

Buppido

A mad derro who is convinced that he is a god and that we should all worship him... man, does he just get under my skin.  In fact I wanted to kill him since we first ran into him because he is just that annoying.  So why did I buy a figure for him?  Because he became our DM's favorite character and it was only right that he be represented as well.

Drawing from Reaper again, this is the derro mage by Derek Shubert.  I honestly have no idea if Buppido has any magical abilities at all but the pose and overall feel are perfect.

Those familiar with the campaign might notice that there are several characters missing.  We managed to loose a few on our travels so I haven't picked up figures for them yet.  Two of them never even made it out of Valkenveld (Topsy and Turvy) so I probably won't worry about them but Sarith Kzekarit was as close to a friend that one can be with a drow.

Sarith and Jaaren quickly reached an understanding that we all needed each other if we were going to survive and he was key in getting us to the Neverlight Grove.  Unfortunately we realized on the way there that something was possessing him in some way and in the end I felt it was only right to end his suffering.  Our DM still talks about how awesome it was for us to say prayers over his funeral pyre so someday I'll probably add him to the group as well.

Breathing Some Life Into Bone Hill

Over the summer our friends headed north to their camp which put our current Dungeons and Dragons 5e campaign on hold.  Rather than just letting everything hang in the balance while we waited for an opportunity to get together with them again, I decided to offer to run them through a game by themselves and they jumped at the opportunity.  I started thinking about what to run and quickly decided to pull out an oldie but a goodie, the Secret of Bone Hill.  Unfortunately it wasn't quite as good as I remembered.

Before I get a tirade of hate from old school gamers, let me explain.  L1 packs a lot of information in there.  In fact it is really more of a setting book than a module so it really is jam packed which is both good and bad.  Lots of ideas to incorporate into a game but the detail is almost too much.  Most of the townfolk are written up down to how much copper they have but how useful is this really?  I'm pretty sure that the party won't be ransacking the entire town so I don't need quite this much detail.  There are also some of the names.  Well actually most of them.  I'm sure they were very appropriate for the era that it was released but today... let's just say that they didn't age all that well.

All that said, it still has given me a great framework to build my adventure on and we are really having fun with it.  We even had an entire session go by with no combat! How crazy is that?!  Of course we also tried out the carousing rules and between the two of them they managed to win enough money that they became local legends.  And of course this was right after they said that they wanted to stay out of the public eye.  It's going to be interesting to see just how that plays out.

I have also been writing up the adventure as we've gone along, expanding on the original text with my own ideas and updating it to 5e rules.  Some of this has been a challenge but overall I've really been having fun with it and so has the family which is the whole idea.  I've also been recording the whole thing so maybe I'll actually post it here at some point as well.  We'll have to see how it all pans out.  Until next time...