Heroes of the Sword Coast (Session 6)

This session was orignally recorded 2/22/2015.

From the Journal of Lydia the Halfling

5:40

Back in the town of Phandalin, Zinge decides to go find the things required to summon his familiar and the rest of us go to stay at the inn.

6:30

The next day we head out toward Neverwinter.  The first day of travel is uneventful.  We make camp for the night and on the thrid watch, Boris is attacked by stirges.

We are all awoken by a scream and wake to see Boris (as a bear) trying to fight off the monsters.

6:45

We killed the stirge and then go back to sleep.  The next day, we go on traveling toward Neverwinter.  The day again is uneventful.  During the night, on the very first watch, Grimeley the half-orc hears a couple of orcs talking to each other.  He quietly woke the party.  Zinge uses telepathy with his owl familiar and is able to see that there are three humanoid creatures near us.

6:58

Grimeley is hit by a javelin that flew out of the woods toward him.  The orcs appear from out of the woods.  We manage to kill two of the orcs.  Then half the party takes off after the last one.  As they finish him, we go through the belongings that are on the orcs and take the rations they have.  

We continue to a place that had a sign that reads:  "Warning:  Zombies and Plant Monsters".

The dragon men decide to play music to attract the attention of whoever is in the town.  A druid runs out and tells us to stop.  he tries to get us to leave, but we manage to get  him to tell us about a dragon he needs help with.  He also writes down the directions to Cragmaw Keep.

We go to get rid of the dragon.  Upon a hill, we see a tower.  After checking inside to see the dragon, we decide to space out.  Then the dragon-men begin to make their terrible  throat-singing / didgeridoo music.

The dragon flies up out of the top of the tower.  As he flies above, Zinge uses his owl to attack the dragon.  Angry and confused, the dragon manages to grab the owl and bite off it's head.

Betsy manages to climb the tower just in time to see the dragon fly upward and begin to circle to see who is there disturbing and attracting him.  Meanwhile, Grimeley and I dive into the tower.  We move the dragon's treasure and attempt to hide it.

I set up a ringing bell on a string at a distance and start to try and lure the dragon into the tower again.  After breathing acid on Betsy, and trying to capture the sorcerer the dragon is finally convinced there is someone inside that he needs to go after.  The dragon runs around the tower and jumps on the roof of the cottage that is attached to it.  It begins to try and claw through the roof.

9:49

We all try and fight the dragon off while it tries to get inside.  

After it takes too many hits to the face, it decides to take off.

Can You Feel the Hand...of the Empire?

It's finally time!

Star Wars has arrived, and with it has come all sorts of awesomeness.  This season, we present a nested campaign for the Galactic Civil War.  Star Wars Roleplaying Game D20 Revised forms the RPG basis for our campaign, but with X-Wing and our own new miniature battle game system thrown in there's going to be plenty of interplanetary mayhem to keep us occupied!  We've been looking forward to this for a while...and now that we've had the season opener, let me tell you - the club is jazzed up and having a blast already.

We're going to be developing the Wargate Battle Game (presently untitled) to do a lot of different things.  There is a basic ruleset that covers both skirmish and company level battles within an easy rules system.  We're going to run this through it's paces with what we're tentatively calling "realms" - and the first one to go full bore is Star Wars Uprising!  More on this to come, and we'll happily provide the text for our fans to use in their own games as it's developed.

Two new campaign sections have been added, one for the RPG and one for the nested battles.  We're planning on a lot of these type campaigns in the near future, and we're settling into the galaxy far, far away pretty hard.  I can already tell we're going to spend a lot of time on the hyperlanes, whisking to the Core Worlds to the Outer Rim and back again.

Just watch out.  Maybe there's no one named Solo or Skywalker around to help our heroes...but someone named Fett has been helping the Imperials hunt down the rogues near Roon.  On Game Day, we'll be eager to see what happens to this rather dashing looking fellow...

Heroes of the Sword Coast (Session 5)

This session was orignally recorded 2/08/2015.



From the Journal of Lydia the Halfling





6:11

We travel for a full day, then make camp on the trail.  On the second watch, we are attacked by an owlbear.  After a bit of disorientation and everyone running in different directions, the dragonborn manages to leap out of a tree on to the monster.  We take the time to kill the owlbear.  As the group catches up on rest, we cut off the claws then head to find the banshee.

8:57

We find the banshee's lair behind a fence of briars and go to speak with her.  We manage to convince her to give us a bit of information in return for a silver comb.  She traded the spellbook to a necromancer that was from the city of Erebor years ago.

Rats!

Fresh from the tables of our painting class, we submit the following for the record.  Deep in the darkest recesses of your favorite fantasy town / village, trouble is gnawing at the gutterbones.  These rats are off the chain, and they are coming for an adventurer near you!

These were really easy, and the class was able to bust them out while learning how to use various inks.  Some are Reaper Bones, some are old Ral Partha and some are Milton-Bradley plastics from their venture with a once respected company which we won't talk about here.  The older ones needed bases, and Wargames Factory has some cool thin bases which added the correct "heft" to these small pieces.

The entire group was simply based white.  We used a combination of various brown(ish) inks to create different tones, but generally speaking any brown will work.  Apply a light brown to the entire model to create a slightly brownish rat skin.  A second application of a darker ink where fur would be will create a nice "coat" for the model.  Be artistic with this - by applying the ink in layers on the model in different staged patterns, we were able to use two applications to finish the model.  By avoiding the eyes, ears, feet and tail with the second, darker application you get a nice "mouse" rendition.

Paint Guide

1. Basecoat White
2. Light Brown Ink Basecoat
3. Darker Brown Ink Fur
4. Grey Base to match Dungeon or Sewer.
5. Green Ink for moss on the stones, or a Grayish Texture / Flock.

Rats can be deadly.  They are one of the first "monsters" many adventurers have to deal with.  Now, we have a good number of painted critters to slice and dice.  Possibly roll them into one pack and drive them at our enemies.  Who knows?  You can do a lot with rats.