Prepare for the Return of Pablo Strange!

Howdy!

We begin 2016's battle games with Dead Man's Hand, a nifty skirmish game we've talked about before on this site.  It will be a vicious fight, taking place in and around Smokefall Ridge.  The results of this campaign (and the World of Darkness rpg chronicle) will shape the future of the Territory for decades to come.

So what's all this about a strange Pablo?  A terrifying bandit roams the Territory, and the brave citizens and lawmen of that forsaken place have banded together to hunt him down and bring his posse to justice.  Check out the Dead Man's Hand section of the site!

The interesting bit of this campaign is the "bonus" rounds every month.  These will focus on narrative scenarios dovetailing with the World of Darkness games.  This is part of our "nesting" of the games this next year - which we will talk about more at a later date.

In addition, one of the first painting projects of the New Year will be to bring to life our Western miniature collection.  We've got a fine set of miniatures, and we'll be adding a few more before the season is out.  It won't take very long to finish the entire case, and we're for sure to add more Banditos to the box...Strange will have a large posse, dressed to kill!

2016 will start off with a bang - of a six-gun!

Hell Bend (Sessions 10 & 11)

These sessions were originally recorded 12/13 and 12/20/2015.

Dec. 13, 8:23pm

From the Journal of Josephine Maxwell
November 3rd, 1875

We decided to go out to Farmer O'dell's plot.  At the farm we found a pile of random half-packed objects in the floor and coins nailed to the trees.  Farmer O'dell is not there.

9:20pm

We go out to find O'dell and find him on a path toward the river.  Jakey Wales pulled a gun on him and got shot a few times.  While we stop to tend to him, Juan chased after O'dell and fought him.

Dec. 20, 5:30pm

We went back to town, with the injured Jakey Wales in the cart.  We found a place to put him so he would be safe.  The group decides to leave for Round Bend just before daybreak the next day.

November 4th, 1875

When we get to Round Bend we find a group of Native American men with a pile of the bodies from town.  Kyle Barton is with the men, and they tell us to leave after they have a conversation in spirit babble.  I argued with Barton about leaving until a blind shaman-like man came up and said maybe we could be useful and tells Barton that we are sleep-walkers.

We walk for a day's time and camp near the blood pit at Table Rock.  The group seems overly calm.  Anya and I decided that we would take a walk to see if the calm feeling would leave.  While out in the darkness we saw a large, scary creature so we hurried back to camp.

Shortly after that we all fell asleep except for Rusty Shackleford.

After we are all asleep, we find ourselves standing near the fire.  Barton says that we should go.  We go into the pit.  There was a black hole that Juan went into first.  We follow and saw a shaman chanting at the stone in the pit.

Juan mimics the man and then we were all separated from one another.  We all saw the shaman torturing a man until the man disappeared.  Then he took a stone from the place the man died.

I appeared in a different place and a man wearing a buffalo headdress painted red.  He was Wrath, and he knocked me back into a pile of dead people.  The shaman defeats him with dream animals.  Then all the bodies of the dead fell into a vortex.  At the botton of the vortex was a giant three-headed eagle as it ate the dead.  Then the shaman fought it with werewolves and captured it as well.

After the visions we had, we appeared back at the campfire.  We had a conversation about the stone, then head back to Smokefall.

We had a conversation about how the shaman was named Oderinko.  We then heard a giant thunderclap and rushed outside to find the giant eagle-monster.  We saw the clouds open up and shine on Barton and natives all around.  The things disappeared, and Bartons' eyes glowed for a moment.  He approached a wounded native on the ground, joined hands with him, then the native died.

A huge wolf-man walked from behind the barn holding a staff.  The wolf-man tossed Barton a bag of what he called "silver klaives" to us.

Galleries Redux

Astute perusal of this site would alert the reader to the fact that a few days ago, a lot of articles were gathered together under a new 'Galleries' section, accessible from the nav-bar above.  This has been a feature long requested, but we weren't sure how to implement.  There were a few considerations to keep in mind while we deliberated on this, but the end result was we put everything in there anyway.

You'll note some differences in both how things are labeled and (most notably) the variable quality of the photographs.  It's been several years since we started this and we've gone through about four cameras so far, but we obtained new equipment not long ago.  We considered starting the gallery from this point on, using the newer hi-res photos to make sure it all looked good.  In the end though, this wouldn't be right - everyone deserves to have their stuff shown, and putting it in the organization we have allows us to show a timeline of work.

The Galleries are now broken into four sections.  The first is the Terrain section, showing the terrain we've managed to catalog and eventually expanding to all past and current projects.  We've got a whole new table planned and the materials ready to go for "Grey World"!  The miniatures sections are now split between Historical, Sci-Fi and Fantasy to help categorize our seasonal games despite the rulesets we choose to use or the manufacturers we choose to purchase from.

Here's the thing - the Galleries are still seriously incomplete.  All the showcase blog articles from the last five years have been included, but what of all the stuff we've been doing that hasn't made it to the site yet?  We've done a ton of work that has yet to be photographed, mainly because we play a lot more games than we manage to catalog in this journal.  Now we'll have a showcase for the latest Gallery articles on permanent display.

We've almost perfected the process for turning out group projects in a reasonable time.  Format has been the largest concern over the last year as we buck the wargaming trends that have been in place for decades.  We've found our stride, however.  2015 will go down as a low point in blog activity for the Wargate for a lot of good reasons, all real-life related.  2016 is going to be an entirely different story, however...and we're looking forward to it with much gusto.

Hell Bend (Sessions 7, 8 & 9)

These sessions were originally recorded 11/15, 11/22 and 11/29/2015.

Nov. 11, 6:28pm

From the Journal of Josephine Maxwell
November 1st, 1875

We went to the next town (Round Bend) to notify them about dead bodies.  On the way to their town we find another dead body.

Jakey Wales stood over the body and cut himself.  A spirit came to him.  It said to him that it knew the man was dead and that it found him.

We found another body of a younger woman.  A quarter of a mile later we find another dead body.

In the town we found a bunch of dead people (35).  There was smoke coming from someplace in the town.  As we walked into the town we noticed all the bodies were all face down facing Smokefall.  I also noticed there were a lot of blackbirds.

Jakey Wales seemed to be surrounded by a spirit.

We walked into the church and it all seemed to be covered in blood.  The group decided to go into the saloon and see who was alive there.  In the saloon, we found a man who seemed very disturbed and said he hadn't and wouldn't go outside for days.  He said he would make a meal for the group, but we went to investigate the town.

I headed quickly back to Smokefall before they did so.

November 2nd, 1875

After the group returned to town I showed them the picture I had taken of Jakey Wales.  There was a mist around him that seemed to suggest a human face.

The Doctor's Office caught fire.  Doc ran out of town toward the totem.  Juan saw the Doc and followed him.  Once they got out there the Doc turned wolf-like and scared Juan away.  They both ran back into town.

A man came into town and the Doc told the man about the wolf spirit.  The man told the Doc that he could help him.  The Doc goes with him and everyone heads off to find items the man told them to look for.

I went with the man and the Doc.  Just outside of town the man pulled a gun on the Doc and said to go to the locus barn.  I turned to shoot the man, and shot off his hat.  He shot me and then the Doc shot him.  The Doc and I hopped on my horse and rode into town.

The others went to go see if they could find the man.  They only saw a trail of blood.  After the group came back, we debated on what we could do to help the doc and he requested to be tied up.  The Doc then started to speak in gibberish.

Jakey excused himself and returned shortly thereafter.  He grabbed the Doc and made for the locus.  In the barn, they say a wolf monster battled an eagle spirit, and in the end the eagle ate the wolf.  It then told Mr. Wales to come back regularly.

We went back to the saloon and then the creepy guy from the river, Burke came in.  He suggested that he knew what was going on, and we should agree to help him.  He explains that in return for the locket, he will give us information on the demons that plague us.

Burke told us when Oderinko the Shaman's tablet was destroyed, it released 7 demons into the world.  He said the demons had learned things from their imprisonment.  Burke's horse walks around on the boardwalk watching us.

Demons of Table Rock

• Lo'khahn the Avenger (Malus Locus at Table Rock)
• Kho'al the Warrior (Reverend Revenant)
• Voku'ale the Serpent (Burke)
• Saskahale the Black Wolf (sent to Hell, was urging the Doc)
• Mo'shaz the Collector (Farmer O'dell)
• Ramaho the Denier (Jed Kinley)
• Lasa-Ayo the Silent (Tanya Kinley)

Krampusfest 2015!!

Ah, Krampusfest!

Last weekend marked the sixth year we have celebrated our new favorite holiday, and the celebration was grand indeed!  Friends old and new pitched in to make it one of the biggest Krampusfests we've ever had, and I want to take a moment to thank everyone who came out to make it so.  The girls especially worked really hard at all the grub and presentation and lent a gravitas to the situation that could not be denied.

"It's dangerous to go alone. Take this..."

We marked the festivities with a grand feast, as per usual.  This year were the proverbial Indian Tacos (sic) and a plethora of other goodies.  There was even vegetarian fare, as has been the custom the last few years.  We asked folks to stop by our photo booth, and nearly 200 pictures were taken last Sunday.  We'll show a few here, mostly because I'm lazy.

The 'Whovian' Delegation, after swapping super-deformed Time Lords.

This year has been a marker for Krampusfest, not the least of which being the release of a new movie.  I haven't gotten to see it yet, but I hear good things.  The pop-culture mainstream is catching on to Krampus, and we couldn't be happier.



We're considering putting together a podcast for the community, and right now we're exploring how to best expand our horizons.  We've got some definite goals for the near future, and we'll talk about that at a later date, but the short of it is that the format of the club is going to change to something far more dynamic than the hermitage it has been the last year.  It's time to branch out!

"In this general direction.  Here.  Over yonder."

The fun and festivities carried on into the night.  There was such good fun and cheer in the air that no one even noticed we weren't playing any games.  That's right - nary a single die was rolled this Krampusfest, for everyone could not stop eating (even for one round of combat).  That's how you know we're doing it right.

To everyone who came out, to everyone who helped organize, and especially to those who helped prepare the feast, let me give a collective "Thank You!" on behalf of the entire club.  Every year you've outdone yourselves and this year is no different.  I really felt the energy and enthusiasm welling up in everyone despite there not being any games this Krampustag.  I know my own drive to game and complete projects has been ramped up to a new degree, and new projects are in the works!

Though the roster and games may change, Krampusfest is our yearly reaffirmation of our community and club-spirit.  It's absolutely essential for the club to celebrate this holiday, and now I think it's more than just a quirky ritual.  It's become part of the Wargate tradition.  Who knows what Krampusfest 2016 will hold?