Bloodsbane's page

If I was GMing a group that wanted to start a proper excavation, I'd let them start the project, make it a huge endeavor, try to use it as an excuse for the PCs to get to know some more locals who no doubt have opinions on their home town becoming a dig site. But the storyline will keep going and I doubt my players would ignore the immediate goblin threat and the later adventure seeds just to keep focus on the dig. So they won't actually get to finish their excavation until they're supposed to go down there.

Tie it into the story even - there are no experienced miners or archeologists in Sandpoint, so the heroes will have to recruit people that know what they're doing. And pretty much everyone except Brodert Quink will be against the idea, so they'll be bankrolling it themselves.

This whole delaying action is of course entirely dependant on the heroes not getting their hands on relevant magic in sufficient quantity that such a dig would become a cakewalk.

Zealot Games' dungeon accessory kickstarter is off to a thundering start. I love his designs and I'm looking forward to livening up both my dungeon shenanigans and mordheim gaming with this stuff.

Twisting Catacombs

Very nice!

I don't have a printer of my own, but I do have 3d software and some experience making game content with it. It would be fun to add to the opensource library available.

Do you have any other useful links to relevant info for someone who'd want to get into modelling for 3d printing?

Cleanthes, your stuff rocks! Thoroughly awesome!

Since quite a few Warlord troops are coming out as Bones minis thanks to Reaper's recent Kickstarter, the game should become quite a bit cheaper to get into soon.

I'm sprucing up some old critters I've had in the bits box for way too long. Here's a Manticore for starters.

I am very happy with Pathfinder.

Truly an inspiring game room, Monkplayer!

I've got Vampire (- Sophie) + giants, a frost wyrm and Cthulhu coming my way.

On the subject of KR cases, I love 'em and they're both my mini storage and transport solution of choice. I can only agree that their homepage is a disaster, but if you wade through the offensively crappy interface and actually get yourself some cases, you won't regret it. Their aquila 1 case is perfect for transporting RPG minis - space for 25 humanoids (with a M4H tray in it), and fits easily in any satchel bag.

I buy my bases from Hasslefree - they've got small (20mm) medium (25mm) and large (40 or 50mm) plastic bases for cheap.

For the huges and larger, I cut circles out of foam PVC.

Awesome stuff man! Always a joy to see your tinkerings.

I played around with the light tent tonight, after having painted some barrels and half a tabletop world merchant square. I figured I might as well show off the start of my big project for the summer: Sandpoint Civilians.

Das Korvut

Shayliss Vinder

Ven Vinder

Brodert Quink perhaps?

Jargie Quinn? Only noticed just now he's supposed to have one leg, though. Any other innkeeps this guy could fill in as?

Sczarni thugs

Pretty much anyone the players decide to put in manacles

Should I keep this spoiler free, or show my monsters and antagonists as I finish them as well?

Looks great, man!
Sean has a very valid point about lighting conditions durign game sessions not being the most optimal. I've started using a white undercoat after many, many years of black only for just that reason.

Great work!
The face is thoroughly outstanding. I love it!

Sweet stuff!
You're really spoiling your players, you know that right? :P

So what's needed to make this happen? Is there a high enough quality inner sea map available for community use to overlay the data on, or would that need to be created as well? Once you have a map and some sort of "click point on map to add info" funtionality, you could allow the community to do the rest, wiki-style.

And then, when you've levelled some more and you've got $300 to spare, you can pick up Cang the Implacable ;)

Here's an idea. There should be a fair bit of tinkering and rules kitbash ambition amongst the Wayfinder readership, right? How about giving a few of the open art pages over to creatures without rules, then starting a discussion on here and let the community decide what they are in game terms.

I'm in. Can we use the iconics in our pics?

I don't know of anyone that 3d-prints the final, for-sale product, but there are several sculptors that make their masters in 3d. Check out Yedharo Models, they do stuff for Raging Heroes amongst other things.

I don't have any comments on your design work. I just wanted to make you aware that there's some concept art floating around from a cancelled action rpg in the world of final fantasy tactics. Check out Jocke's character work Here. (You need to scroll down to the 'Fortress' project.) There are a couple of environments at Tomislav's page as well. I know I've seen some other stuff as well, but sadly I can't remember any names.

Might give some inspiration!

Seeing how you have 400+ dudes to do this with, my advice is: Be happy with these results and move on. Looks good enough to me :)

If you want to post photos online, I suggest Imgur.com - Fast and easy, and it doesn't require that you register an account.

I've got some serious peeves with imageshack - Clunky, slow and counter-intuitive.

like so many other things, I've realized my initial decision to use easily flexible aluminum wire has been yet another mistake. Steel or copper wire would be stiffer and easier to solder. But now I've got this spool of aluminum wire, so....

Right now I'm testing gluing the armature to a plastic cup to hold it while I add the clay. That might work.

I think things would be easier for you with something sturdier to hold on to. Maybe take a coke bottle, drill holes in the cap for the armature, and fasten the armature wires to the underside of the cap with epoxy putty. You might even get away with just twisting the wires together and supergluing.

Those metal lumps you see on the Reaper greens is a result of the armatures they use. Check 'em out Here.

Hey. A few notes on the super (and regular) sculpey.

First off, for large figures, are you bulking them up before you add the sculpey? The usual procedure is to make an armature out of aluminium wire, then bulk it with aluminium foil.
Quick example of the process: Shifletts on Youtube
Any wire and foil will work really, it's just that the aluminium is soft and easy to work with.

For smaller figures in (super) sculpey, keep in mind that 1. you can harden them in boiling water, much easier than an oven and 2. you can harden it, then sculpt details on top, then harden again.

You can mix regular and super sculpey - you'll get it slightly firmer than straight pink super sculpey is that way. I find it's easier to see what I'm doing once I mix in some black and white regular sculpey to get rid of the semi-translucent pinkishness of super sculpey.

Best of luck in your sculpting adventures, man!

I'm thinking that instead of having Arael and Janiven tell the PCs about the Bastards outright, this happens:

** spoiler omitted **

What do you think?

I think that would work brilliantly.

First idea that comes to mind is an Iron Golem.

Have you already introduced it in your campaign? If not, you could easily change the visual description to match another large-size miniature you already have.

Edit: This guy could easily look good on a large-size base. He wouldn't really compete with many of the later D&D Mini large-size releases though.

CoT with a solo player should work really well actually.. just let the Children of Westcrown take a more active part in the adventuring, or use them as a recruiting pool. Then you can leave the encounters as is.

I've never had any real problems printing stretched US Letter PDFs on A4. As for more "size sensitive" products such as spell cards or the like, how about just making sure the relevant content fits within the minimum diameters of both formats and supply a printing guide.

I'll admit that it's the lack of info on how well they print on an A4 printer that's held me back from buying your Core Spell Card Set.

Is there a particular Dead Can Dance album that might fit Serpent's Skull?

The Serpent's Egg for the name if nothing else :D

I'm guessing you're all americans, so spotify links won't do much good. I haven't read any specific Serpent's Skull material either, beyond the store blurbs. So I'll just go with the general jungle motif.

Ennio Morricone's soundtrack for The Mission is total awesomeness.
Damon Albarn's soundtrack for Ravenous is creepy and low-tech and tribal and awesome.
James Horner's soundtrack for Apocalypto should fit the theme.
Jeremy Soule's soundtracks for the Guild Wars games are varied in feel, but you're sure to find some fitting stuff in there.

For general low-key background soundtracks, you can never go wrong with The Ninth Gate and From Hell. I like Dreamcatcher as well.

Best of luck with your playlist :)

Awesome work Hugo!

I went ahead and slapped some quickie colors on my players' primary contacts within the resistance. Get 'em Here.

If you feel they're awesome enough for document inclusion, my name's Fredrik Svensson. If anyone's curious, some more of my doodling can be found at bloodsbane.deviantart.com.

Sounds to me like his plan would require pretty much a whole solo session for him. If that's a logistic possibility (either face to face, or via emails between now and your next scheduled session) you could roll with that.

Another alternative is to let your other players take on NPC roles during his infiltration, which frankly sounds like an awesome roleplaying opportunity. Without going into details, there are NPC's in Nualia's gang that's usable for this, and they know little enough of the goings on that gaining insight into their motivations and story won't spoil much of the big picture.

Alternative 3: If your other players aren't comfortable with this dude stealing the spotlight like this, reduce his infiltration to a couple skill rolls, make sure he realizes what his plan means for his involvement in the game in the near future, and if he wants to go ahead with it, let him sit on the sidelines until his last critical moment double-cross.

Did someone request mixed gender pirates?
You might want to check out Tale of War, Black Scorpion and Freebooter Miniatures (specifically the Freebooter's Fate category).

That's one of the things I liked most about Dark Age. Mixing things up within the basic squads. Sure, some specialty ranks were gender-specific, but in many cases you could find male and female versions of most army list entries. It's a shame that game never really had its chance to shine.

As for qualities, something about shadowbeasts stalking the night, and non-Asmodeus beliefs being marginalized perhaps? I don't have a GMG yet, so I can't comment on any of the numbers.

I love Mordheim and I believe since it was discontinued you can find rules online for free. Check the Warhammer site I know they used to be on there. Great for a game that can go for an hour or two. I have of course had games that lasted longer and games that ended in half an hour. Worth checking out and if you can get a league style game going at a FLGS they are a lot of fun.

I was hoping to see some Mordheim love in this thread :)

The biggest downside to it is that it really doesn't come into its own until you have a table absolutely packed with terrain.

I'm with Greycloak. I remember seeing a gridded Rusty Dragon map somewhere, for example. Once you've used gridded maps for a couple scenes that don't devolve into a fight, it won't be much of an issue methinks.

The other alternative is not to bring out the combat maps until initiative is rolled ;)

Paizo is selling another metal Stone Giant mini from Otherworld (I think?) minis. I don't have one so I can't be sure how well it scales to the DDM stone giants or the Reaper stone giant.

Here's a picture of the Otherworld stone giant, together with the DDM Runecarver and Elminster for scale:

Do note that the Otherworld giant (left) stands on a higher base AND is positioned on some cork cliffs to come closer in height to the Runecarver.
Hope that helps anyone considering some stone giant shopping.

Paizo needs someone to create real minis for all the critters they are creating. Who agrees?

I've really only had a chance to peruse the Rise of the Runelords bestiaries.. what are the coolest (or hardest to proxy or just plain deserving of a mini) critters seen so far? Is there art for them available on the blog or elsewhere on the net?

Your line of inquiry also makes me wonder wether Crocodile Games' license is exclusive, and if so - how long they can keep this radio silence until that license defaults.

I wonder how long it'll take until we see some Pathinder equivalents of Reapers' non-beholder Eye Beasts and non-mindflayer Bathalians.

Not that I actually have a live gold membership at the moment or anything, but my tag is Fipplarn. Been looking for some coop excuse to get gold for a while.. any recommendations?

O yea, and does anyone still have Tenchu Z? I never got to try it out multiplayer. It certainly has its flaws, but sneaking around on rooftops and killing ignorant samurai together could be fun.

I'm GMT+1, so any lonely euro-paizoneans looking to tag-team something give me a shout.

Have you checked out Mad God's Key from Dungeon #114 (IIRC)? Should be eminently lootable for your needs, especially the early parts.

Good luck!

Has anyone come up with suggestions for the harridans and other lamia-kin yet?

For the Harridans, my plan was to build something out of DDM Displacer Beast Packlords, but I'm not sure where to find an appropriately sized upper body.

For the Matriarchs (they're large and often serpentine, right?) I'd like to point you in the direction of Kuan-Lin from Helldorado. NSFW nipple alert on that link btw.

For the huge-size giants, I'm not sweating things. I can live with using my DDM mountain trolls for pretty much anything huge and humanoid. In the miniatures department, my plan is to concentrate my time and money on the most story-relevant and unique encounters.

Oh man, Kult. That's a blast from the past!
I haven't played it since my teens (I was 13-14 when it made the big headlines in the mid-90's here in Sweden) but it certainly forms much of my gaming mentality to this day. That game was really the first time things 'clicked' for me in regards to making characters with flaws and ambitions beyond loots and expees.

We hardly introduced any of the supernatural elements into our games, but just knowing it was there behind the scenes made for some really immersive stories. And I hadn't even seen any of the Hellraiser movies at the time!

My girlfriend was wandering how many other female gamers were (or finished) going through the AP ?

In the group of 5 I DM RotRL for, we have one female. She started out as a tag-along since her boyfriend is an ages-old gaming buddy of mine, but these days she's the most hyped member in the group. Went and sculpted a miniature for the ranger's animal companion after I said I didn't have anything 100% fitting :O

Here is our starting lineup.

Anath Zainu, a fervent human Cleric of Kelemvor, grew up an orphan in Candlekeep. She's always been a little heavy on the 'go out and smite the undeads' part of the faith, so a few years back she was sent to Sandpoint to serve under Father Zantus and help out with funeral services. It was hoped that exposing her to a multi-faith congregation and tutelage on more worldly matters might make her a more well-rounded servant of the faith. By all accounts, this theory seems to have been an utter failure.

Krivar Greyscale is a Dragonborn Fighter from a small tribe settled in Erlkazar. Highly discontent with his peoples' penchant to stick to old Abeir customs despite everything this new world has to offer, he has gone out into the world to discover what he can, trade stories with those he meets, and carve out his own fate.

Akalimë, Elven Ranger, expected to become a part of the informal forest folk cordon that keeps the chaos of Luskan confined to the walls of Luskan. Instead, he was sent to Sandpoint to babysit old Niska Mvashti and help keep the Sandpoint Hinterlands safe.

Sincerity, Tiefling Warlock. Con-man. Came to Sandpoint with misters Mortwell, Hask and Tabe to swindle the town dry during the festivities.

Vondal Ricewyn, Dwarven Wizard. Hailing from a wealthy merchant family in Amn, he puts very little stock in these ancient traditions and orders of esteemed magical academies, when by all accounts they don't know anything more than any common hedge wizard about what happened to the Weave, and how to go about repairing the whole thing.

With all the awesome resources and campaign journals I've gotten so much use and enjoyment out of around here, I've come to the realization there's really no two ways about it. It's time I start a chronicle of the mishaps and hard-fought victories of my ill-fated group of adventurers. If anyone can gleam some wisdom from our mistakes, or at least a chuckle at our ill-advised fumbling about in a world where fools are eaten by belligerent goblins, maybe a portion of my longtime lurking and leeching of others' hard work can be redeemed.

So we're playing Rise of the Runelords, converted to 4e D&D using Scott Betts' excellent Tales from the Rusty Dragon blog. Not content with that however, I've even gone and put the whole business in the post-spellplague 4e Forgotten Realms. I'm sure at least 80% of any prospective readership on these particular boards hastily clicked the back button right there, but in case anyone's still here, enjoy the ride. Actually I'm even hoping to find some assistance in making the most out of this corner I've painted myself into.

These are the basics.
Sandpoint lies on the Sword Coast, not far north of Baldur's Gate (which will serve as my Magnimar). I expect to be taking some fairly large liberties with both ancient Realms history and current cosmology. The barebones plan is that it's Returned Abeir that's made the Runelord Resurgence possible. Thassilonian is an ancient Abeir language, and the Runelords' ancient civilization (far from an all-encompassing empire in my campaign) will turn out to be the only one to ever exist on both Abeir and Toril simultaneously. With the large Giant presence in the Adventure Path, I expect something cool can be done with the diety/primordial divide as well, but I'm still a bit hazy on that bit.

So if I'm not taking the time to convert every detail meticulously, why Forgotten Realms to begin with? It's the common denominator for the whole group. One of the players was in my 3.5 Age of Worms campaign that sputtered to a halt in Spire of Long Shadows (after a TPK in The Champion's Belt) about 2 years back, 2 of the others I've played some Vampire: the Requiem with in-between that, and the last 2 haven't played tabletop RPGs in 9+ years. They've all played the Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights CRPG's though, and a bit of shared world history should give me some head start on immersion and a feeling of being invested in the area. Then again, my Age of Worms group (accidentally) let Greyhawk City blow up in a giant storm of Wights and Wraiths, so we'll see how things go :P

A couple of shout-outs are in order.
Scott Betts, this campaign would never have happened without your excellent conversion work. You make the nuts n bolts of 4e encounter design look easy even to this mechanics-paranoid newbie DM. Thanks!

Tintagel, you make my miniatures look way more awesome than they deserve. Your combat maps are a big hit at my table. Thanks!

Mary Yamato, your dextrous parrying of players relentlessly demanding an internal logic is an inspiration. Thankfully I'm blessed with players much more accepting and willing to just go along with the ride when they think that's what the situation calls for, but your insistence on making things watertight still makes me strive to be the best DM I can be. Thanks!

If you see any major stumbling blocks I'll run into with my FR converting, please do give a shout. Any input and feedback will be greatly appreciated.

Coming up next: Our brave (if occasionally inept) heroes Revealed!

A player in a game I am DM'ing has chosen a beast master ranger as his PC. I can't help thinking that it's a bit under powered, as well as being quite poorly explained (do the beast's defences and attacks go up every level, for example, or just every other level as normal?) in the book. Does anyone else have experience with this?

It does feel a bit wonky going in, that the pet doesn't do anything at all in combat unless the ranger spends his actions controlling it. Do consider what little the ranger actually gives up to gain this companion though - prime shot and what pretty much amounts to a feat. Not a bad trade IMO.

The individual statblocks spell out exactly what happens to the beast every time you gain a level. Most of its combat stats are level + something, so the answer to your question would be that defenses & attacks go up every level.

I'll add that my experience with beast master rangers is the same as yours - I've got one in the group I DM for.

I remember hearing a few years ago that the Swedish goverment gave clubs of 5 or more people that met on a regular basis a stipend (small, but still) to buy equipment as a way to discourage living on video games. Gaming groups used it to buy gaming books. I'd love to see something like that in america.

Indeed. You're thinking of Sverok. Then there's Studiefrämjandet. Working with them means making a few accomodations (you need to be open for anyone) and a bit of paperwork, but they're a big help to keep gaming clubs stay afloat. One of a few upsides to having one of the world's highest tax burdens I suppose ;)