Fantasy Thursday #3

Wow! My last Fantasy Thursday post (and that was only the second) was back in March 2016!  Nethertheless, given that it's my main hobby focus at the moment, I've decided to revive the series. 

Gaming

The FLGS Group

As regular readers will know, our main campaign is the Barrowmaze using Old School Essentials. 

Sunday's session was a busy one: we had two and a half very well-paying delves (the half was a quick journey to pick up cached loot).  We had some classic encounters: a spectre, giant centipedes; an ochre jelly (which involved us setting fire to each other), giant crab spiders, a lich (arrghh!), and ghouls.  We play an Open Table, and were able to welcome a new player to the table (I think he may come back!).

And only three PC deaths!  Surprisingly my character survived.  Again, regular readers will know that I'm notorious for having my PCs killed at Level 1.  This character (a Cleric of Solis named Leofric) is my 15th for the campaign.  Much to everyone's amusement he jumped from Level 1 to Level 3 in an afternoon!

Next Sunday's session will be me DM'ing, running The Hole in the Oak.  The following session (22 Dec) will be back to Barrowmaze with our extra-long Christmas session in which we will be raising money for charity by having a jar which will allow us to re-roll on payment of a fine.  This is a week-long fundraising system across the store in aid of MIND.

The Home Group

The Home Group has had two sessions down The Hole in the Oak, which I touched on last week. 

They're far from being Murder Hobos, and by savvy use of the Charm Person spell have got involved in gnome politics and picked up a lot of useful intel about the dungeon.  I've no idea what they'll do next (but I hope they go on a mushroom hunt for a crone I've introduced them to!).

We play on a Thurday night, however tonight's session has been cancelled due to illness and stuff, so I'm dabbling in...

...Online Gaming

More about that later.

More Shiny!

On the whole I behaved myself during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday nonsense.  I bought a few things on DriveThruRPG.com.  But I also took advantage of the sale at Hasslefree Minis to pick up some extra figures.

Nothing exciting, a couple more female figures, a dwarf and an elf (he didn't come with a label - he's HFE007 - Ceril "Brooding Elf Lord").  I'm not keen on metal figures that require assembly, but that's down to my own inadequacy rather than anything else!

I think the pictures speak for themselves.  All nice sculpts as you'd expect from Hasslefree: Henn of Gar is by Tre Manor, the rest by Kev White.

Paint Table Saturday - 7 Dec 2019

I haven't done any painting since before the summer, but the prospect of hosting my own RPG sessions requires me to get some minis ready for the table.  The group often says nice things about the minis I put on the table, so I thought I'd let that be a prompt to get the brushes out (we all need some encouragement!).  In addition, we're having a bumper session at the end of December, so I thought it'd be nice to have some new options.

So what have I been working on?  Grouped here by manufacturer for ease of identification;

Shield Maiden and Lanterns from Bad Squiddo Games

Hirelings and Not-Bullwugs from Lucid Eye

Frostgrave Cultists

Gnomes from Krakon Games

Those photos are from last week as I did the prep.  I didn't get as far as I intended, but have made some progress...

Seconds after taking the second photo, I snapped the 10-foot pole the hireling is carrying.  Sharp-eyed readers may also spot that one of the gnomes has lost his axe-head.

Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge X

Also, it's that time of the year again.  The AHPC starts towards on 21 December.

I won't be taking part this year: for the past few seasons I've felt like dead wood and that I've been clogging up the limited roster of participants.  I know no-one would begrudge me, but that does take some of the fun out of it for me.  If you are interested though, I would recomend it.  Its not a competition: it's a group of painters working in parallel, having fun and being supportive of each other.

You can follow the Challenge here.

The Other Side of the Screen

Well, I'm now a Dungeon Master!

As I mentioned on my post about Old School Essentials the arrival of Kickstarter loot has prompted me to run The Hole in the Oak.

Hole in the Oak is a sweet module to run for a novice DM.  It's very well laid out and everything ties in neatly.  I can't put it better than this review here.

Due to scheduling problems (and electrical problems at our favoured venue), I've not yet had a session with my regular gaming group.  But the ad hoc group I put together 'to practice on' (henceforth The Home Group) have had two.  And they claim to be enjoying it!  I certainly am.

I'm not going to give any spoilers, but suffice to say that they went in a completely different direction than I expected (both literarily and figurately).  The interaction have been great, and the way they are taking up 'clues' and plot hooks a pleasure.  Not being one to waste effort, I place the location near a version of the setting of Heybrook that I drew up for my solo games, and the party have been merrily interacting with the inhabitants.  And as the indications are that we're going to continue playing as a group, I've been planting the seeds for further adventures...

So, without question a positive experience!

Finally, two of the players are doodlers...