Arkhan The Cruel

Being a late-comer to the world of Twitch and streaming D&D games in general I was genuinely stunned a year-ish ago when I started discovering all this crazy content on YouTube.  I was also fairly surprised to see a number of celebrities involved in steaming D&D games but viewed most of those appearances as an extension of an acting profession or a set of improv skills.

But...then you see a celebrity player play the same character across two campaigns and a variety of one-shots and realise; nope, this person is pretty serious about their D&D.

Meet Arkhan The Cruel.

Arkhan is the Dragonborn Oath-breaker Paladin played by Joe Manganiello across a number of different games and now appearing as an NPC in the newly released Baldur's Gate Descent Into Avernus.

This miniature is by Gale Force 9 and depicts Arkhan immediately after severing his own hand and replacing it with the hand of Vecna.  Initially I acquired this model with the intention of running Descent Into Avernus, but it now looks like that won't be happening.  I'm still stoked to have a really nice Dragonborn model to add to my collection and I have begun thinking lately; maybe Arkhan would make a good Darklord for Ravenloft?

I have a feeling Arkhan will be making an appearance in a game soon, I just have to decide what game and in what capacity.

-Jay

I'VE GOT A FEVER! AND THE ONLY PRESCRIPTION.....is more Owlbear!

The funny thing about miniature painting as a hobby is sometimes you'll think you are "done" something, or you have "enough" of something...that's never actually true.

After my most recent Owlbear run a friend pointed out that I didn't have the super-fantastic Gale Force 9 Owlbear, and then he sent me one.

There is so much to like about this model I barely know where to start.  One thing that separates the Gale Force 9 Owlbear from the other models currently on the market is they've gone much heavier on the feather texture as opposed to the bear fur.  Personally I really like this as it makes the creature feel more alien and strange than even the idea of an owl/bear hybrid is to begin with.  The one bear element that the model has retained that I really like is the unbelievably dangerous looking claws.

Overall this is an amazing model that has tons of texture and is a simple joy to paint.

At some point in the not too distant future I see an encounter with a ton of Owlbears attacking a town or village my PCs are camped out in.

Okay...so I think I've now...actually...exhausted all the Owlbear model options currently on the market...again...for now.

-Jay

The hobby A.D.D. it never really goes away....

I've referenced Hobby A.D.D. before and although I generally feel like I get quite a lot of stuff done there are periods where my attention span won't stay on one thing and I keep changing gears and starting new projects without finishing old ones.
So with that insight in mind I'd like to share the 5 hobby projects I started over the past 3 days, none of which are completed yet.

Cowboys!

I've been talking for awhile about getting some new cowboys done.  I got my grubby hands on Dracula's America and even though I have a decent amount of stuff done from my recent binge of Warhammer Legends Of The Old West I can't bring myself to play a new game without adding at least some new figures.  These guys are the Earp (or Tombstone I forget the actual name) pack by Black Scorpion.

Orcs!

As part of my recent retro/nostalgia-gaming fix I got some of the Orcs by Antediluvian Miniatures.  These guys immediately take me back to Saturday mornings in the early 80s.  I think my gift to myself when I get all 5 of these projects done will be to get myself another pack or two of Antediluvian Miniatures.

Venger!

Those Orcs need a boss, right?  I might be one of the few people of my generation who could never really embrace Optimus Prime as a noble hero because every time he opens his mouth to speak I hear Venger's voice.  Venger was the chief villain of the animated D&D series in the 80s and still holds up really well as a cool fantasy evil villain.

Frostgrave!

I'm planning a long overdue return to Felstad and much like the cowboys I probably don't need to paint new figures but I just wouldn't be me if I rolled up with the same-old-same-old.  The actual driver for starting these was digging through my unpainted fantasy figures looking for a knight with two-handed sword to try the free print-and-play intro rules for Relic Blade with my newly painted pigmen.

Survivors!

Almost a year ago I ordered a bunch of packs of modern/near-future survivor models with the intention of using them for This Is Not A Test as well as Last Days.  Unfortunately my experience in purchasing these models was not 'free of hassles' and when they finally arrived I had lost any and all enthusiasm I had for them.  (This was one of the customer service things I was up on a soapbox about earlier this year.)  It has literally taken me an entire year to even look at these miniatures again but once I picked them up I decided I really did want to get paint on them.  Oddly enough it wasn't until I looked at them up close I even realised who they were supposed to be.  I had ordered them thinking they would make good pseudo Division-style trained survivors but then when I cleaned and primed them I realised they are actually the two leads from Stargate SG-1.

Well there you have it.  Nothing done, but a bunch of projects that are each one sit-down away from completion.

-Jay

The good doctors (2 of 2)

Our second doctor can legitimately lay claim to having once been an actual medical doctor but as his areas of interest have changed I'm going to assume he has allowed his medical practise to lapse.

Although Strahd Von Zarovich is certainly Ravenloft's most iconic personality a close second and in many ways the P.O.V. character for much of the background in the original Ravenloft campaign setting  is Doctor Rudolph van Richten.  For those of you not familiar with Ravenloft van Richten is basically D&Ds version of Van Helsing from Dracula.

There was previously a van Richten figure in one of the D&D pre-painted miniature sets but to be honest he seemed a bit off the mark.  He was a bit too action-hero in his pose for an older man and also had a cape that was proportioned like Nibbler's cape from Futurama.  This new figure (by Gale Force 9) combines some features that make van Richten look his age while also updating his clothes to fit with the current D&D/Pathfinder aesthetic of layered leathers and adventuring gear.

I'm really a big fan of this figure not only for his intended purpose but again much like my updated Professor Vitale model it gives me another reasonable looking figure for a wizard who doesn't simply look like he wears his Gandalf cosplay to go adventuring.

-Jay
 

And our next (two?) Ravenloft NPCs are...

So today I have two more NPCs done, one of whom will definitely appear in the game and one of whom may or may not, I honestly don't know at all.

Liam ApMorten is a Druid who is travelling from one-side of the core back to his "home" in the land of Forlorn.  One of the PCs has been contracted by his church to escort Liam across the core so they will be sharing some adventures together.

The miniature is the Necromancer's Apprentice from  Frostgrave so if I end up starting another Necromancer warband in the future for Frostgrave Liam might make an appearance in that game as well.

The next figure is a flashback to the content of the original I6 Ravenloft module.  The original adventure can basically be thought of as happening in three locations; the lands around Castle Ravenloft including the village of Barovia and the Vistani camp, the lower crypts/dungeons of the castle, and the above ground levels of the castle.  We'll be discussing the first two locations in two future posts but for today we'll be discussing the upper levels.  The upper levels in the original adventure were very off-putting because they swung between classic D&D encounters and some more roleplay-centric encounters.
One of the best loved encounters in the classic module was Cyrus Bellview.  If Strahd Von Zarovich is D&Ds version of Count Dracula Cyrus Bellview is D&Ds version of Renfield.

When the players encountered Cyrus he was typically a Dungeon Master's blank slate to steer the adventure and really play up some of the Gothic horror inspirations that inspired the whole thing.

I don't even know yet whether Cyrus will make an appearance in the new version of the adventure but if he doesn't I'm sure I'll have plenty of uses for a Renfield/Igor type character.

-Jay

Our first Ravenloft NPC shows up!

We haven't begun our game yet but I can start showing a few NPCs over the next few days as they are now beginning to appear in the PCs backgrounds and pre-ambles to our actual adventure.

Alica (not Alicia) is a female Ranger who is known to 2 of the 4 player characters in the game.  She is a character who has a long history with 2 of the characters and sets in motion the beginnings of their journey that will eventually take them to the land of Barovia.  She is sort-of/probably originally from Krynn (the setting for Dragonlance) and will hopefully have some of her own backstory fleshed out as the game proceeds.

The figure itself is actually from the Castle Ravenloft board game.  That's actually a funny coincidence because for about two weeks I've been looking for a female ranger figure in my backlog and everything I came across felt not quite right.  I ended up getting out the Ravenloft board game looking for something completely different and had forgotten she was one of the PC models from the game.  As an added bonus she does not look like she would be out of place ass a Treasure Hunter in Frostgrave so she will probably pull double duty.

I also took some time to paint up one of my Gale Force 9 bargain basement finds from my trip to Baltimore last month.  This is an armoured war dog (an armoured dog is something I didn't have) who will probably be jumping into my Frostgrave warband the next time Terror bites the dust to put an end to the endless recycling of the same dog model.

My next update will be somewhat speculative as I will be presenting our next known NPC for our Ravenloft game and somebody who may or may not (I honestly don't know) be another NPC.

-Jay

Hobby Treasures

I just got back from a four day business trip so my hobby activity has been a little light lately but I did get a few things I wanted to share with everybody.

A few years ago Gale Force 9 started releasing some box sets of resin D&D miniatures.  Their market position was that these are premium products and as such they came with premium prices.  I liked some of their sets but to be frank the prices seemed out-of-line with what was in the boxes so I never pulled the trigger on actually buying any of them.  Fast forward to earlier this week and I found myself at a game store in Baltimore that had their stock of GF9 D&D minis on sale for 50% off.  I decided to buy a couple and give them a try, I will say they are definitely worth buying at 50% off but I don't know that they're worth their full price.

I got the Beneath Baldur's Gate set planning on using 3 of the figures for Frostgrave and also I've also wanted a Wererat figure for quite a while.

Kleef Kenric seemed like he would make a good D&D character or captain for Frostgrave and his little friend seemed like he would be a good fit as an Igor type for just about an horror game.

When I got home I also had something fantastic waiting for in my mailbox.  A bunch of my buddies from back in Edmonton have an awesome podcast called Hobby Night In Canada hobbynight.ca and they have started producing some cool stuff for tourneys and cons.  Mike was good enough to hook me up with some of their awesome dice!

Last up I made a small purchase when I got home.  I bought the two e-pubs for Frostgrave (Sellsword & The Hunt For The Golem).  I'm pretty stoked because this gives me two new sets of scenarios to play through and the captain rules from Sellsword looks like they'll really add something to the game.

Okay.  Now I need to get back to getting my Soothsayer and Apprentice done before this Saturday.

-Jay