Updated Thews! Character Sheet

I've made some updates to the character sheet for Thews!  I've cleaned it up a bit, added fields for armor Savager bonuses/penalties, and added more snakes.  It will be included in the updated DriveThruRPG version as well.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/284670/Thews

Thews! is now available on drivethrurpg!

The game of barbaric savagery and sinister sorcery is now available as a Pay-What-You-Want download. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/284670/Thews

Get your copy now and get your Savagery on! :-)

Thews Day!

The original play-test edition and the revised edition

The game of barbaric savagery and sinister sorcery!  We have been play-testing my latest beer and pretzels style sword & sorcery roleplaying game Thews!  So far it's going pretty well and I've gotten lots of good feedback from the play-testers.  It's fast, brutal, so so far pretty fun.  I think that it's a much better game than my previous game, Crossbows & Codpieces. :-) . I'm hoping to release Thews! in PDF sometime in the next month.

An actual play photo showing a grocery bag used as a battle-mat

Inktober Day 19: Spear Guy

Kind of a barbaric beanpole.

A Bevy of Barbarians!

I've been cleaning up my barbarian "artwork" and decided to post them for fun.

Skullsword Wielding Slaughtersong

Skullsword Fully Armored

Zurn the Unremitting

Greta Goblinslayer

Skur the Slayer

Tundrak Axewielder

Miniatures Monday

This week, we have twin barbarians posing before looting an ancient temple.  I liked this miniature so much that I painted it twice.  The figure is from Reaper Miniatures and is #03216 Brom the Barbarian, and you can get one of your own for only $4.99!

Revised Swords & Wizardry Armor Table (For more Conan-like armor)

So one of the issues that I've had with armor in D&D like games has been that I never felt it did a particularly good job of emulating the loincloth or battle harness wearing barbarians.  I like armor in my games to be more Hyborian Age and less Medieval Times.  Of course, I guess I could always just say that they are wearing leather armor, but I've always wanted something a bit different.  So I decided to put together a quick revised armor table.  My goal was to separate armor into 3 parts, Helmets, Gloves and Greaves, and Chest Armor, while still keeping the overall armor protections close so that it's not necessary to adjust the armor class of monsters as well.  Below is what I came up with.  Leather become a bit more powerful when worn with a Helmet and Gloves and Greaves, but this can be handled in the case of thieves by not allowing them to wear helmets but not Gloves and Greaves.  Like I said, I just whipped this together, and I'm sure that someone else has already done this (probably better), but I think that I'll give it a whirl and see how it works out.  If it works out, I'm planning to do the same thing for Dungeon Crawl Classics and Lamentations of the Flame Princess.

Armor Type	Effect on AC from a base of 9[10]	Weight (pounds)	Cost
Shield	-1 [+1]	10	15g
Helmet	-1 [+1]	5	10g
Gauntlets and Greaves	-1 [+1]	5	10g
Battle Harness	-1 [+1]	5	5g
Leather Cuirass	-2 [+2]	10	10g
Chain or Scale Hauberk	-3 [+3]	30	65g
Steel Breastplate	-4 [+4]	40	90g

Miniatures Monday

It's miniatures Monday again, a little later in the day than usual, but while the painting was done, the photography was not.  This week we have another barbarian.  The miniature is an old lead figure that I believe was from Grenadier in the 80s.  That 80s hair is a dead giveaway!  Being old, it doesn't have a ton of detail, but I liked the running action pose, so I decided to paint it.  I'm curious about the decision to sculpt him barefoot.  His tribe seems to have access to steel weaponry but not to quality footwear.  I'm pretty happy with the results given that there wasn't much to really work with.  In retrospect though, I should have rebased him as his base is small and he is prone to toppling.

100,000 Page Views

Today, hot on the heels of my 600th blog post, I've reached the100,000 page views milestone.  That's a lot of views of the crap that I put here, and I would like to thank everyone who helped it happen.  I hope that those who read this blog enjoy the stuff that they find here even a fraction as much as I enjoy creating it.  So, to honor 100,000 page views, enjoy this image of a Barbarian riding on sweet skull covered surfboard.

Frazetta Inspired Barbarian Miniatures (W.I.P.)

Following up on my recent post about the upcoming release of five Death Dealer Miniatures by Bronze Age Miniatures, I figured that I would post some photos of four barbarian miniatures from them that I just finished assembling.  They make some very cool miniatures, and these have a definite Frazetta vibe to them.  I'm really looking forward to painting these guys and getting them on the table.  About the only downside to these guys is that they don't ship with bases, so you'll have to provide your own.  Standard slotted bases work fine.

Miniatures Monday

This week we again have a very old miniature molded in plastic, and once more it is from the 1990 Milton Bradley edition of HeroQuest.  This is the barbarian, and again for those of you who might not be familiar, HeroQuest was a dungeon crawling board game that was a joint effort between Games Workshop and Milton Bradley.  It was played by played by up to four players and a referee.  Imagine an older simpler version of Descent: Journeys in the Dark.  There were four available characters in the base game, the elf, the dwarf, the barbarian, and the wizard.  The casts are fairly simplistic, but I thought that it would be fun to paint them, and they will certainly look better on the board.  Anyone familiar with this blog knows that I paint a lot of barbarians, so this one was a no-brainer. :-)

When does the painting end?

     I don't consider myself to be a "good" painter.  My miniatures come out looking alright, and I'm not embarrassed to put them on the table, but I tend to think of them as "OK".  I like to think though that my skills have improved incrementally over that past 35 years or so that I've been painting, and I like to think that they continue to improve.  All of this leads me to my habit of retouching and adjusting my miniatures over time.  I find that as I learn a new technique, or get better at an old one that I tend to go back to miniatures that I'm fond of and try to improve them.  Eyes are something that have always vexed me, so generally I would avoid them, which goes against the whole "faces and bases" mantra of what makes a good miniature.  I've been practicing on eyes though and just updated the barbarian in the center and the dwarf to the right with new sets of peepers.  The dwarf was finished years ago, and the barbarian much more recently, yet both found themselves in the improvement line.  I had used the Doomreaver to the left in an Iron Kingdoms game for quite some time but was never quite happy with his Fellblade, so I repainted that last week as well.  The improvements have been incremental, but I find myself now much happier with each of these.
     So, do most people find that they adopt a "done is done" attitude toward their miniatures, or do you find yourselves going back for regular touch-ups on your minis to make incremental improvements?

Miniatures Monday

This week for Miniatures Monday, we make a return to Reaper Miniatures.  This one is 03397: Raging Barbarian and was sculpted by Bobby Jackson.  Overall I don't think the results are bad, but my decision to go with a bronze color for his shoulder armor makes the overall effect of the miniature a bit brown.  Also, I think that his eyes need to be redone as I painted them before the final flesh wash, and they seem a bit dark.  I'm happy with his teeth since they turned out to be fairly noticeable. I have another copy of this miniature that I was planning to do a bit of modding on.  We'll see how that one turns out.

More Conan the Barbarian (1982) Trivia

Last night while I was straightening out my games shelf, I had the first episode of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys running on Netflix.  At 11 minutes and 01 second in (33 minutes and 22 seconds left), this shot appeared as the exterior of a tavern where Iolaus is arguing with a villager who came to seek the help of Hercules.

A tavern exterior in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys

There was something very familiar about that exterior, and I paused the show and stared at the screen for a few moments.  Then it hit me.  I loaded up Conan the Barbarian (1982) to confirm, and sure enough it was the exterior of the witch's hut!

The Witch's Hut in Conan the Barbarian

I think it's kind of cool that they slipped something like that in there, since Hercules:  The Legendary Journeys really was more sword & sorcery than Greek mythology.  Less interesting then Conan's father's sword, but still neat.

Suffer No Guilt Yee Who Wield This In the Name of Crom

Holy crap it actually does say that. I've been watching the 1982 Conan the Barbarian film at least twice a year for the last 34 years, and until I flipped the frame, I never realized what the runes on Conan's father sword said (or in fact that they said anything at all).  SUFFER NO GUILT YEE WHO WIELD THIS IN THE NAME OF CROM.  It's nice to find that I can still be surprised. :-)

I've stared at those runes for many years an never got it.  I'm really impressed that they thought to put this kind of detail into the film.  Just one more reason that Conan the Barbarian remains my favorite S&S film of all time.  I really can't wait for the Modiphius Conan RPG.  Crom!

Miniatures Monday

I paint a lot of barbarians.  In truth, they probably make up about 20% of my total number of painted miniatures.  Partly this is because I've always been a fan of barbarian fiction like Conan and Thongor, and partly it's because when I started painting 30 odd years ago, I wasn't very good at painting them, but really wanted to be.  Not that I'm all that good today, but I've certainly improved.  This miniature is Roth Mac Lyr from the Fantization Miniatures Celtos line, and you can buy your own copy from them for $6.99.

Gortrüd the Goblin Slayer

A female friend of mine recently asked my why I never drew any barbarian ladies.  Honestly, I didn't have a good answer beyond, "I have very limited range with my drawings."  But it did get me thinking that I need to branch out even if just a little bit.  So here is an attempt at a barbarian lady, Gortrüd the Goblin Slayer.  I clearly need to do some more work on this one.  The dead goblin's head is the only part that I'm really happy with.

Weird Adventure Idea Wednesday

This week's weird adventure idea:

On a brisk evening you come upon a scarred gladiator near an ancient shrine.  The gladiator recounts to you a tale to you that 25 days journey to the west, beyond The Foreboding Dunes of the Gods can be found The Sanctified Cavern of Blood.  It is reputed that there is hidden The Agate Visor of Purity.  But beware, for the gladiator alerts you that it is said The Dire Mind Wrecker of Fetishes tortures all who go there!

If you enjoy Weird Adventure Idea Wednesday, be sure to stop back each week, and check out some of the other free resources in this blog.

Free: Color your own Barbarian

I've joked for a while about doing a coloring book from my drawings, so I thought that it might be fun to do quick one pager that people can print and color themselves.  So, is your refrigerator lacking in barbarian artwork?  Are your kids tired of coloring smurfs?  Are adult comic books just too expensive?  Are your office or cubicle walls dull and lifeless?  Well then just click on the image above (or on this link), and download your own barbarian coloring sheet to make your day just a little more barbaric.
Also if anyone does color it, feel free to post your results in the comments! :-)

Miniatures Monday

An oldie but goodie from Ral Partha.  No doubt they couldn't call Him Groo the Wanderer due to copyright issues, but we know the truth right?  :-)