Santa's Gifts to Nice PCs: Magic Items 6 – Corvidae Converser

Santa's Gifts to Nice PCs: Magic Items 5 – Summoning Coin

You can make it dance if you want to...

Santa's Gifts to Nice PCs: Magic Items 4 – Whitestone Pebbles

Whitestone Pebbles

Contained in a simple leather pouch, these smooth pebbles are made of whitestone, a soft stone with unusual properties that is found in only one place, far to the north.

Santa's Gifts to Nice PCs: Magic Items 3 – Jaleh's Spheres

Jaleh's Spheres

 A perfectly smooth golden sphere that feels skin temperature. When shaken gently it chimes deeply and feels as though a heavy weight moves inside. The sphere is around 4" in diameter and weighs a pound.

Santa's Gifts to Nice PCs: Magic Items 2 – Crystal Rose

Crystal Rose

This glass cube is 1/2 inch to each side. In the centre is a tiny crystal rose that changes colour depending on which face you view the rose through. The cube is kept in an enchanted pouch which prevents the effects from manifesting.

Santa's Gifts to Nice PCs: Magic Items 1 – Keelor's Eye

Getting into the gift giving spirit I thought I'd post some magic items over Christmas/New Year, here's the first:

Keelor's Eye

People of Ionia

Some of the people that populate Ionia.

Miniatures WIP and finished, quick pics

Here are some quick mobile pictures of some finished, WIP and just undercoated minis. Despite the original idea of this blog being for painting I'm very aware I've hardly put up any pictures so far. I'm hoping to change that and have more regular posts of painted and WIP minis, it just depends on how hard the painting bug has got me.

Scenes from Ionia

Some setting inspiration

New Undead 1: Tooth Fairies

Continuing the theme of terribly named undead, Tooth Fairies! (Seriously, if anyone has a better name, please help!)

An ancient tooth fairy that plagued human settlements for decades before being killed by a powerful band of heroes

Alternative Undead 4: Mummies

Mummies are, like many undead, loaded with preconceptions due to Victorian stories and the films that were inspired by them. Egypt, pyramids, sand, scarab beetles, thick bandages, all associated with mummies. There are mummies in other cultures throughout history but the D&D mummy (including any artwork and minis) are clearly "Egyptian".

Alternative Undead 3: Sirens

Before anyone asks, I am aware that sirens aren't traditionally undead, but as with my zombie post (where they were basically zombies, but not undead) I'm going to switch them up to suit my aesthetic vision, making them something in between  seahags, sirens and banshees.

Alternative Undead 2: Zombies

Zombies have undergone a renaissance in the past few years, shambling in to the consciousness of more people than ever thanks to the success of Left 4 Dead, The Walking Dead, Shaun of the Dead and Dead Dead of the Dead Dead Dead (one of these may be made up).

I'm a big fan of the zombie genre, but not of zombies in fantasy, they are an inherently modern/scifi monster as far as I'm concerned. Skeletons will always be my go to for mindless corpses (thanks to Ray).

So what to do to keep the general feel of zombies but move away from rotting brain eaters?

Alternative Undead 1: Vampires

So undead, I love them, you love them, the whole world is going crazy for them, whether as soap opera zombie dramas or vampire/werewolf/dull girl love triangles. But how do you keep them fresh in your games? There's nothing wrong with a classic garlic hating vampire, but sometimes you want a different feel.

Creepy and sexy, pure win

So I've been thinking about the undead and trying to come up with a twist, this is the first in a short series.

The Funnel. OF DOOM!!!

So we had a friend round last week and I ran the level 0 funnel adventure "The Portal Under the Stars" from the back of the DCCRPG. It was just two players so I had them roll up 6 characters each and everything was adapted on the fly to Labyrinth Lord. Despite not preparing for the adventure at all (it was very last minute) it all ran fairly smoothly and was close enough to LL that I could wing the stats without worry.

Our friend had never played an RPG before but took to it pretty easily. After some rash action at the beginning (getting 3 characters killed before my girlfriend had lost any) he slowed down and was a bit more thoughtful, he'll make a fine old school player with some practice! Hopefully he'll join in with our future campaign, even if it's only as an occasional player.

Some spoilers of the adventure after the picture, be warned!

Update! (or Damn life, always getting in the way...)

I have a few posts planned honest, but a birthday, illness and new job have taken over for now. Here's a quick update on what's been happening.

Random Coin Design Generator

It occurred to me that although gold coins are a huge part of D&D they are very rarely given any thought beyond the usual arguments about how much to give and whether xp should be linked to it. I thought a simple method of generating designs that are on the coins, representing the lost and alien civilisations that built the dungeons and left the treasure would be a fun way of adding some weirdness and highlighting that, actually, its pretty crazy that there are all these gold coins lying around.

So I made a D20 table, you can roll once for a quick generation or three times for extra randomness. Some of the ideas are taken from actual coins (horned turtle for example). I'm sure you could use this to add backstory to a dungeon, giving some explanation of it's origin or just as some throwaway flavour.

40k Without Number

I've been reading the Stars Without Number rulebook, and wow, it makes me want to hack it to run a 40k campaign. I'd probably struggle to find players with the people I know, but that won't stop me planning it.

The Retired Adventurer has done some posts on hacking SwN for 40k:

http://retiredadventurer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/40k-stars-without-number-eldar.html

http://retiredadventurer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/40k-stars-without-number-expert.html

http://retiredadventurer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/stars-without-number-40k-skill.html

http://retiredadventurer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/40k-stars-without-number-minor-xenos.html

Putting these here (in no particular order) as a reference for myself. I can't find anyone else who has done this so any links to other ideas would be appreciated.

Miniature Pics (Finally!)

The whole point of this blog was to show some of my painted minis. I started painting again at the start of the year after a decade (or more?). I don't claim to be a good painter but at least I'm reasonably quick! Most of these models were painted, not including drying time, in 1 - 2 hours.

Necromunda Gang Name Generator

This was created on a sleepless night as a way to pass the time. Thanks to my girlfriend for help when my brain stopped working!



Pretty self explanatory,  the "of [NAME]" part is definitely optional.

Alternate elves

Elves, everybody loves them (or not), everybody uses them. The basic D&D elves are very LotR-y, and being awkward I decided to do something different with them and not to have them as a playable race in my setting.

So elves in my (as yet unnamed setting) are physically typical elves; tall, slender, very long-lived etc. Their hair, eyes, skin etc subtly changes colour depending on the seasons and their surroundings, so over time an elf which lives in the desert will find his/her colouration washing out to bleached/sandy shades, an elf that lives in the mountains will turn pale shades of grey.

An elf which lives in one place for long enough continues to change (as their skin petrifies, turns to sand etc) and eventually is unable to leave the place they live, losing their personality and identity and becoming a nature spirit (nymph, sylph as appropriate).

Most elves consider this a curse and as a result rarely settle in one place but some become tired of life and accept the change.

Elves don't age and can only die through physical violence. They are very selfish and fickle, have no interest in other races for the most part. They will have been the dominant race at one point but have suffered a fall (basically stolen wholesale from the 40k eldar, but who cares right?). Magic items, ruins and other cool stuff came from them. They are super-fertile and able (and being degenerate bastards, willing) to breed with pretty much anything, giving me an excuse to put in some other races such as beastmen (yeah, Warhammer again).

I was intending to create half-elf variations for all the other races, but sitting down to it it seems slightly ridiculous and unnecessary, so if a player requests it I will, otherwise they just exist as occasional NPCs.

Random Hexes and Magical Background Effects Table

Well, the first real post was originally going to be some models but after reading this (the hex part, obv) on D&DWPS I was inspired modify the table for my own use. I added some weird landscape features and some high magic areas that can mess with magic users. Of course then I had to do a magic effect table.

Intro

This blog is going to be a way of showcasing my painting and modelling, both for D&D and 40k, along with anything else I fancy painting.

On top of that I'm going to post my ideas on D&D in the hope that someone will find some ideas and inspiration they can use in their own games in the way I have from amazing blogs such as Monsters and Manuals, Wampus Country and D&DWPS.

I'd never played an RPG until recently when I persuaded my girlfriend and sister to play LL with me GMing. We're playing through Keep on the Borderlands as written as a practice for all of us, both players running 2 characters which I pregenned for them. Even playing the module warts and all it's great fun, and I can't wait until we can start playing the setting I'm creating.

My setting is going to be fairly "generic fantasy" with a few changes, with the intention of leaving it open enough to expand once I've more experience as a GM. The whole thing will be very relaxed as to what is introduced, I'm not interested in realism, this is just about having fun with friends and family, giant laser-nippled flying cows and all!