AHPC11: Dungeons and Denizens

 Every year, near the end of the challenge, I end up with one of these posts: literally a dump post of all the things began, yet not finished for this year.

And it is no different in this edition, so labelling it Dungeons and Denizens, it is quite a hotchpotch of things painted in between entries, with the solemn goal of  "who knows if I need it in DnD one day" kind of stuff.

As well as some terrain, being mostly 2x2 dungeon tiles but also a rather big statue, there is some variety of beasts in here.

Repainted clix models, some metal guy on bails of hay of which I got no clue where I ever obtained him from, all that sort of loose stuff.

Which also makes it a bit of a puzzle for the points calculation.  I guess 10 points is sufficient for all the tiles and the statue, it goes for about 6 cubic inch, but the paint jobs aren`t that hard for those.  The beasties are all 28mm ones, so that is 6 of them for 30 points, making 40 points total?

AHPC11: The Graveyard Beach: Zombie Horde

Well, I`m not really planning on building any 9th age or WFB Vampires army anytime soon, but these zombies, an old set from Mantic, would have been perfect for that.

Instead, I grabbed the box at a discount bargain, with the sole purpose of having "fodder" for games of Dungeons and Dragons or Rangers of Shadow Deep.

In that regard, I painted them in a fleshy, not to gory, colour scheme, because that way I can use them as crzed starved fanatical villagers or something as well, forming wave after wave of low hp and unskilled masses to throw at the heroes.

An added bonus is that it paints up really smooth as well, so a couple of hours later I had a nice heap of 30 zombies, ready to claw their way towards the unwilling opponents!

 

So that makes an excellent 150 points for the models, and a nice boost to my tally as it becomes 170 points due to the 20 point location bonus...

 

2.11.0.0

AHPC11: Decorating the Dungeon

 A small entry of essentials from me for this next update on my journey to the "1000" in that I painted up some dungeon furniture this week.

It is essential in such a way that while I have already printed quite some exterior scatter material for (solo) gaming, I realised I barely have any interior pieces.

To that end, I am going to be running my Ender 3 on that job (after I replaced the nozzle, this one has seen it's time, overextruding as a result) and make sure to get a lot of small stuff done, as well as piles of extra dungeon tiles.

Because who knows, this pandemic might actually end this year and I can get that planned DnD campaign going at last, only with a delay of 1.5 years.  Which is still faster then your average public transportation bus here in Belgium...

AHPC11: The Hatchery: Dragon Hatchling

 Entering the second level of our decent into the Chambers of Challenge, we arrive in a large room called The Hatchery.

 

And the theme of the setting is "something that came out of an egg".

While my initial idea was to paint up some raging dwarf shouting Leeeeroy Jenkinssssss I instead went for another model.  Rummaging through my pile of figures I printed up for DnD (delayed due to you know what), I came across this dragon hatchling.

Now, there is no particular reason the little beastie is of the Blue Dragon variety other then that I was working on another entry with blues in it mostly, so that's rather easy going.

And as such, for this chamber I have a single 28mm figure painted up, and the journey continues onwards!

Babirusa's

 The first models finished in the final month of the year, this pair of pigfaced warriors invoked a huge Gamorrean feel with me.

Gained through an Instagram contest back in april, hosted by DnDminisdaily and ProjectDarkWater, they are awesome resin models that will make a nice encounter in one of my groups future adventures once we get going, hopefully in 2021...

 

Their lore states they used to be small beasts hunted for jewelry making of their tusks, but due to the corruption of the Gloam became hulking creatures with a taste for manflesh.  While on a tribal level of development, they are usually solitary beasts with low intelligence and not much of a social structure...

 

Armed with two stone mallets, these beasts can prove nasty suprises to the poor adventurers that cross their paths, and they will be forced to fight for their lives... or end up as supper!

 

 

Lovely models to paint, and fearsome looking sculpts, these are a great addition to my evergrowing collection of beasties!

A new stack of Dungeon Tiles

During orktober, I have been printing mostly movement trays and dungeon tiles, and now the tiles are painted up.

Part of the "Castle Range" from Printable Scenery, the 2x2 floor tile is what I`ll be churning out mostly as before.

 

And as such, another stack of 13 tiles have been finished, so the complete collection so far can start accomodating for medium and larger sized rooms, though i still want to print and paint up quite a bunch of various tiles.

And they can be used for Rangers of Shadow Deep, as I`m slowly preparing for the Tor Varden storyarc mission...

Giant Vulture

 Printed and painted for the Rangers of Shadow Deep game I presented earlier this week, this beast is actually a printing mistake.

I needed one Giant Vulture for the game, and with my sleepy head I took the stl file by Miguel Zavala, and scaled it up another bumb, to 200%.

 

The result being a GARGANTUAN Vulture now, but heck, a quick paint job later in two colour tones for all the areas, and the beast was good enough for the game.

And afterwards I can still give it a use as an encounter once the Dungeons and Dragons campaign can actually take off...

Chuul

Actually printed up to represent the Alchemic experiment in the first solo Frostgrave scenario from the Dark Alchemy expansion, this beast can be unleased upon my pc's as well should they misbehave.

I liked the model, an mz4250 design as most of my DnD prints, as it looked like something truly otherwordly as a sort of lobster demon thing.

Now, in the DnD Monster's manual, these survivors of the ancient Abolth empire are a daring foe to face even though it is only challenge level 4, but it can be a serious deterrent early on to block doorways and the likes.

And in the Frostgrave scenario, let's say it's better to reach the door then to face it in combat, especcially at the lower levels of spellcasters (like mine).

Just remember dear PC's, in DnD you don`t fish for food, the food fishes for you...

Kobolds

The kobold, little reptilian ball of joy...

Or, as in most low level campaigns, the "mainstay enemy" aka punching ball for starting out adventurers.

Not to brave, rather shabby fighters, and about as tough as a wet sheet of paper, these are often the first "mass encounter mobs" characters come across.  And "mass" being usually an impressive 3 or 4 at the most.

So I printed up some of mz4250's Kobolds for just that reason, to have a couple of them ready for first encounters and lootgrabbing.

Nothing to fancy, and the one which had an arm print accident has already been lovingly dubbed Stumpy...

Giant Weasels

Thougn not a "necessary" mob to print for my DnD games yet, I am "in between" churning out beasties for the Random Encounter Table.

And that will exist mostly out of enraged wildlife...

Mutated, enlarged or otherwise not standard, but wildlife none the less, and to that end the first models I printed are these four Giant Weasels.  A match for a level 1, even a pair of them, but in a pack they can become tricky prospects if someone gets isolated.

And fun little things to print to, hailing from Miguel Zavala's range of DnD creatures.

Spiders!!!

Printed and painted for the second scenario of the The Missing mission from Rangers of Shadow deep, come these Giant Spiders.

I went on prupose for something a bit smaller then the Mirkwood spiders for example from the MESBG range, as the scenario artwork shows them about the size of a human head, not of a pony.

The models come from Thingiverse and are small Tarantula like beasties, and with the 6 printed I should be able to cover the whole requirement of the scenario, which I`ll be playing in the coming week normally.

So stay tuned for the battle report and see how much havoc these critters can cause on my poor band of heroes!

Preparing for DnD: scatter terrain and Dungeon Tiles

So, as this month brought the idea of becoming a DM came to fruition, preparations have started to get the show on the road.

So that means printing (and painting) heaps of Dungeon Tiles, and I did try a few different ones this month in order to "select" which series I want to go for.

The first of those are 4 of the standard Dungeon Stone ones from OpenForge.  The downside for me is they aren't one piece prints, but they do have a trainload of extra rooms and effect in the FREE range, so I`ll definitly be using those as well.

From the sample pack of Printable Scenery, the Rough Stone floor tiles have been tried out as well now, and as those ARE one piece prints, I think I`ll be printing more of the ranges soon.

From the same manufacturer come these Castle Floor and Rustic Floor tiles as well.

While some small Dungeon Stone items have been done to round out the tiles for this month so far...

Now, apart from the tiles, some scatter terrain has been painted up as well.

The first thing is this bush, from the Journeys in Middle Earth scenography stl pack.

From my Dark Realms patreon comes this Owlbear rug.  Now let's just see if the party will ever slay one to be able to use this rug...

Some Braziers where also done, always nice to have around to make your dungeons just that tat bit more atmospheric.

To keep in the easter spirit this month, I also painted up some eggs... of the dragon kind

The first of a batch of tents I`ll be needing for my first group adventure has also been painted.

A pit trap has also been prepared, just in case I need to deter my party from going somewhere just yet...

So that makes for a nice start...

A Raven Calls: Ayshi the Sorcerer, solo agent

In this piece about the upcoming DnD campaign, I`m showing off the solo adventurer of the group, or Free Agent.

As one could read with the set up of the campagne, Barbara, my GF, can't make it to all the sessions, especially when they are at the club, due to baby Thorin.

So I came up with the plan to use her as my test case / run solo adventures with her.  The idea is that she is a times joining the party, but then again leaves on her own business.  Or at least, that is the instory behind it, and the fact she chose to become a Tiefling, a race often scorned by society, makes this a bit easier story telling wise.

The out of game reason is that apart from the fact that I can test some things in those solo adventures, she can stay around the level of the main party as a result, and prevents a level 2 suddenly having to be dragged along by a party of level 5's or so.

She opted to play a Tiefling as I said, and picked Sorcerer as her class, with the Draconic bloodling option.  That dragon was apparantly a white one, hence the tail.

For those wondering, the runes in the book are for the Black Mage in Final Fantasy, and for the Spiritcaller in Aion, two MMO's she used to play with those classes as the mains.

Ayshi, lvl 1 Tiefling Sorcerer

Str: 9 / Dex: 13 / Con: 14 / Int: 16 / Wis: 13 / Cha: 18

Repertoire of spells:

Lvl 0: Thaumaturgy, /
Lvl 1: /

Both her 4 Cantrips and 2 level 1 spells still have to be determined, but this will happen by the time she actually starts playing, and what the "bigger story" aka the main party is consisting off...

The combination of the Constitution bonus and the Draconic bloodline bonus means Ayshi will have a rather high amount of Hit Points (as I let my players start out on max Hit Die points for their first level, she totals 9, aka D6 (6) + 3 from the bonusses).
The high Charisma (Tieflings have a +2 on that stat) makes her spellcasting rather okay, but the biggest weakness she has lies in the below average strenght, causing a -1 to hit and damage penalty on her rolls.
The other stats are about average, so she will have to see to stall for time and cast down mobs, as getting in close might cause severe problems.

In a party I think she can be pretty usefull as a missile barrage type of mage, but she will have to rethink those tactics and play more on wits and guile when there is no warrior to hide behind present...

Frostgrave Illusionist

With the Frostgrave rules being free to download from the Osprey website a while ago, I decided to (finally) really take the plunge and make good work of the band I wanted to print for this game.

It also contained the solo rules, so I might actually play one or two of the scenario,s (after printing up the foes as well) and try to convince Noshi of the game on top.

Of course, this means my band needs a leader, and that is a wizard of a specified school.  Harking back to my DnD games of years ago, I went for the illusionist school of magic, as I always thought them the most dashing and reminded me of my preferred Blue magic decks back then in Magic: The Gathering.

The model is one from the awesome Michael Zavala sculpts, all free on Shapeways to download, as will be most of the collection I`m creating for this.  Not a shabby figure if you ask me for about 5 eurocents in materials...

I also printed out a Dagger Tree found on Thigverse, and, inspired by A Song of Ice and Fire's wyrdwood trees, painted it a reddish hued white.

Now just to consider wether I`ll be making Dungeon Tiles as well for this game...

My first Dungeon Tiles: new paint test

Hey all!

As you might know by now following this blog, I`m going to be running a DnD 5E campaign at the local club once the whole Covid-19 pandemic is over.

But, as I`m at home for the duration, this means it also gives me plenty of time to prepare, and one of the things I wanted to definitly include, is dungeon tiles.  Now, I already have a couple of Printable Scenery ones in my maps, but for the first try outs on printing and painting I went for some OpenForge (the ones from Open Lock creator Devon Jones, and are all freely available on Thingiverse) Dungeon Stone floors to experiment on.

But even though they print well after some settings tinkering to save on time and filament, I was looking at a serious bill if I wanted to paint them all over the coming weeks, as I`m about to print initially about 100 of them.

Accidentally, one of the flemish cosplay people I follow on Instagram, showed off the Amsterdam range of Acryllic paints, sold by a storechain in Belgium and the Netherlands called Pipoos, and who still run the webshop in these troubling times.  So I made a 'trial order' or a tube of black and a tube of neutral grey for the base colours of the tiles, and two days later they where in the mailbox.

Now, considering a dropper bottle of Vallejo Game Color Black costs me 2.60 euro a bottle of 17ml, and this costs me 3.99 euro for a tube of 120ml, it looked like worth the risk.  If it didn`t work, baby Thorin would already had his first paint tubes hehehe.

The paint is a bit "gooeyer" then wargame paints as it's made for canvas painting. I can imagine it doesn't lend to painting miniatures, but it covers like no other.  A single black layer is sufficient on the PLA of the prints.

I painted over it with a liberally applied coat of the neutral grey afterwards, and once dry it is the same color as Cold Grey by Vallejo.

The final touch for the tile was a wash using Army Painter's Strong Tone, my go to thingy to cover terrain in to bring it a bit more alive.  usually I drybrush afterwards, but for these tiles, who can look dirty and dangerous, I chose not to.

And this is the result:

I`m pretty happy with how it turned out, and this will mean that not only I can churn through a lot of tiles once painting starts, but that I can also draft Noshi to lend a hand in painting them all up.

So yeap, a great find I must say, and once the stores open again (I have a Pipoos in the mall 5 minutes away from here) I`ll be grabbing quite a few of the black, grey and brown tubes for the purpose of "tiling"...

A Raven Calls: the Finruvia World Map

So, as we progress through the preparations for the DnD 5E campaign, I spend the past early morning tinkering with Inkarnate to create a world map for the setting.

Now, this setting is totally fictional mind you, as this allows me to toss in all sorts of source material, books and series where I get ideas from.

The map, as one can see, only has the main landfeatures on it like mountains and forests, as this allows me to "evolve" it whenever the adventurers go to new locations and settings.  The only city is the one at the bottom, which will be the starting point for the brave souls and where they can try and find perhaps a "handler" (or quest giver if you like) to get them on the road once the characters have been created.

I have also created a tab at the top of the blog, where this map will be updated, but it will also have numbers on it once the campaign gets going.  On the tab page, these numbers will contain the link to the "report" of the session, in order players can look back on their journeys.

Next up for this budding DM: prepare the first game session (or 2), print tiles, and get the needed models together (though the combination of a large Middle-Earth collection and 3D printer access should prove sufficient).

A Raven Calls: going Dungeons and Dragons (5E)

Okay, so this has been brewing for a while, and since I have my Ender and as such access to print what I need, I really wanted to DM a group.

And so I send out notes to some friends to ask if they where intrested, because Noshi certainly is.  

But this did bring a bit of fun-packed problem with it; baby Thorin.  The idea was to run a session once a month at TSA once the covid-19 pandemic is a thing of memory.  But with a baby, one can never be sure if we could actually get both there.

So I came up with the "free agent" idea.  While I will indeed run the sessions over at the club with the party, I will, in parallel, also run "duets" or DM and a single player, sessions with Noshi at home, shortly after the monthly game.  That way, she kind of becomes a free agent that can join the table when she can come to the club, but she will also be staying "on level" with the other players as a result as she has to solve her own solo adventures in the meantime.

I went through DriveThruRPG to grab each and every free adventure module suitable with DnD 5E as a result, including some "low prep" and "one shot one night" adventures to that end.  And those are also handy when someone of the party has to cancel last moment.

The campaign world itself will be totally of my own invention, with a "growing map" as players travel the lands, and I kind of will be basing myself on the sandbox model of the very first Elder Scrolls videogame from the mid 90s, Arena.  To that end, I can exchange and intertwine hack and slash, puzzle or dungeon crawl adventures as needed, and let the campaign and the players grow from there onwards as I devellop my campaign world "sort of on the go".

The planned start is somewhere around summer break, as this gives me ample time to print up dungeon tiles, monsters, npc's and the likes as well.  As it will be held mostly at the club for the bigger games, this also gives the benefit that for the sessions taking place in forests or villages, I have all the club scenery at hand to lay out the "lay of the land" as an added bonus.

I did impose upon myself two "DM Rules", things I will adhore to while adventuring:

a) No-one dies before they reach level 8, unless of their own insane stupdity (so no, your not immortal, but that goblin spear through the chest will put you out of the adventure, but you'll recover as it missed any vitals).

b) not ONE FOOT will be put down in Ravenloft (blame our old GM, we always ended up there from the word go... even when we weren't playing the setting).

But for now, I`m first going to sort through all the files and adventures, and as a result already prepare some print maps for the Ender-3 to have a go once the first batch of dungeon tiles, whom I`ll be start printing this week, is ready.

This will be fun hopefully, and let's see how I manage on my first outing as DM instead of as a player... it,s not like I can`t tell a story, or have an immense mental and fysical library of books, series, novels and games to draw from to create campaings.

Because I can`t count how many times I though with a book or series "heck, that would be a great adventure to play"...