Monday, March 25, 2024

Stonehell: Those are permanent you know!

Session 224 was played on 8/2/23

Morgana, Magic User (Rob)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter (Lanse)
Koltic, Cleric 7 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)
Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)

After collecting their wayward goblin who talked his way out of a beating at the furry hands of the bugbear guards, they head back to Tanna T’Liev. Having gotten the lowdown on the3 houses that jointly run the settlement, Morgana picks the one most known for their wizards. Getting an audience took a little doing, but not as much as Morgana was expecting.

In the end the bargain was simple. Morgana would turn over Beard bane, the troll king’s ax, and pledge to serve the house. Oh, and they’ll need to get magical tattoos as well. Lor’Koth declines the tattoo. Word of their talk with Crope also has come to the head wizard, and she also wants the Gloom Crown from the dwarven hermitage. Morgana agrees.

Gains: magical tattoos
Kills:
Losses: Beard bane


Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Stonehell: To the Fire Beetle Bar

Session 223 was played on 7/23/23

Morgana, Magic User (Rob)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter (Lanse)
Koltic, Cleric 7 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)
Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)

The party packs and and heads directly down deep into Stonehell, with no encounters along the way all the way to the elevators that take them down to level 6. The Vrilya guardians thankfully don’t recognize the party, but they have doubled their rates for entry to 200gp per person. An expensive pass given that they pass through the Vrilyan territory and right out the other side to the Fire Beetle Bar.

Getting themselves a table, they look around at the various patrons. The order a round for themselves, mostly getting the Fire Beetle Ale, but Blotto tries the Morlock Grog, while Morgana goes for the blandest wine she’s ever tasted. Feeling bored, Blotto tries to sneak into the upstairs and pee on the owner’s bed, but is caught by a bugbear guard before he gets too far.

While Blotto was getting himself caught, Morgana chats with Crope the barkeep, who tells her that if she wants to be able to pass through the Vrilyan controlled territory they need the patronage of one of the great houses… or one of his counterfeit tokens, which are good but not foolproof.

Gains:
Kills:
Losses:

Monday, March 4, 2024

Stonehell: Getting Sidetracked

Session 222 was played on 7/16/23

Morgana, Magic User (Rob)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter (Lanse)
Koltic, Cleric 7 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)
Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)

Downtime! Morgana spends a month working on plate mail +3 for Koltic (successfully). Blotto spends the month trying to teach the rust monsters to serve as mounts, and gets the local kobolds to make tack for them. He also consults with a exobiologist who’s super excited to have access to a pair of (potentially) breedable examples to learn from. Blotto names the female Esmeralda. The 3 amigos don’t find a weapons master to work with so putter about town.

On the way to the dungeon a flock of hippogryphs attacks the party. Morgana fireballs them as they swoop down, taking out 10 instantly. One avoided the fireball, and races for Koltic, but he hits it with Hold Monster, and it hits the ground hard. They rope it up, heal it, and being it back to town and deliver it to the local lord.

Heading back to the manor, a visitor is waiting for Morgana… a mummy lord who wants her to craft boots of traveling for him. Morgana considers it.

Heading, again to the dungeon, they’re stopped at the gatehouse by 4 gargoyles perched on the roof. The kobolds are refusing to come out, or even open the door initially. The party calms the kobolds, and goes up to the roof. Blotto goes first, as they figure goblin probably isn’t especially appetizing to gargoyles, and they’ll pause before ripping into him. They’re right, and that gives the party a chance to negotiate with them. It’s settled that the gargoyles will refrain from eating any kobolds, and will wait for them to indicate who is a valid meal.

Into the dungeon, they go straight to Rocky and ask him about how to get to level 6 without dealing with the Vrylia. Rocky tells them that there is a way, but isn’t big on specifics beyond the phrase “scintillating orbs”.

The party heads back home. Morgana works on the boots, and knocks them out a little faster than expected.

Gains:
Kills: 10 Hippogryphs
Losses:

Friday, March 1, 2024

Feb ‘23 In Review

I look forward to a month where there isn't any illness to report. This month was a head cold followed up with an eye infection. Thankfully the rest of the family remained largely healthy. It was also another busy month at work, but it looks like things will get a little less hectic next month. On top of that, it was the lunar new year, so family obligations… Needless to say there has been less time to do the painting and blogging that I had planned.

Gaming
I rarely talk about playing video games because I rarely do. However, one night early this month I was in a foul mood, and while I’d planned on painting, I knew that was a bad idea, so I loaded up my Epic Games library to see what I had that I could just click and kill some monsters. I thought about booting up my old XBox and playing some Halo, but I didn’t want to wake the toddler. I settled on Torchlight 2, a slightly cartoonish Diablo clone. It’s a relatively simple game with little that you need to remember either control or plot wise. I’ve continued to squeeze in some play time pretty regularly though the first half of the month, which is better than mindlessly scrolling Instagram or Facebook, but not as good as getting some writing or painting done.

Stonehell is reaching a pause point, and my player Rob is getting ready to take over the DM’s chair and run more Rappan Athuk. I’m looking forward to that.  


Miniatures
The focus this month was Frostgrave Barbarians, and some Chainmail drakes (which I didn't finish). I also squeezed in the last of my Bones Pathfinder goblins, and a kobold sorcerer. 



Media
The Brothers Sun
Echo
The Marvels
Ted lasso
Ghosts
Resident Alien

Goals for March
Play scenario 3 for Hope Eternal (gonna happen some month…)
Try to get at least 2 session reports written per week.
Take a day off and make some terrain
Finish taxes


Monday, February 19, 2024

Stonehell: Lost Level: Rust Monster? Or Rust Friend?

Session 221 was played on 7/9/23

Morgana, Magic User (Rob)
Borumar, ½ Orc Thief (Josh)
Koltic, Cleric 7 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)
Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)

Continuing along in the dungeon, the party finds a mostly empty store room, but searches through it anyway. Nick finds a slashing blade trap the hard way. Sadly nothing of value could be found among the trash and debris.

Moving on, they come to a door that’s barely holding together, and on the far side of it, a pair of fat content rust monsters. Being creatures of very little brain, confronted with a party largely covered in their favorite food, they amble toward them, feathery feelers waving excitedly. The plate armored members of the party back away and shoot at the beasts, causing both to run back into the room away from the party. Morgana collects random non-magical steel from the party and tosses a bunch to the rust monsters, who cautiously nibble at it.

Morgana removes any iron and steel from her person, and heads into the room to investigate the creatures while they’re feeding. They’re unconcerned about her, and ignore her. She goes back and collects more steel, and brings it to the rust monsters. A couple of repeat trips, and the rust monsters are beyond full, and feeling docile around Morgana. She convinces the rest of the party to help her capture and bring the monsters home. It takes some wrangling, but she gets the teleport ritual circle completed, and everyone gets close enough without needing to get too close to the monsters.

Back at the manor, the plate armored party members flee the teleport room, while Morgana and Borumar wrangle the monsters into a wooden stall in the stable.

Gains: 2 rust monsters
Kills:
Losses:

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

DGS Freeblades Snake Sorceress & Thief

As 2024 is my year of trying to paint as many non-reaper minis as reaper minis (at least) I picked out these 2 to work on. I bought both at ReaperCon not because I have any interest in the Freeblades game (who needs another game that I'm never gonna get to play) but because I liked the sculpts.


However, as much as I liked them, they gave me issues. I think this is in part because I was using some old Stynylrez primer to start them, and the bottle of yellow seems to have gone bad. The reddish brown that I switched to worked, but then fought me as I went along. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that I'm so used to using either black primer or Brown/Blue/Grey Liner (all dark colors). 

The thief and snake sorceress both gave me problems with their skin tones. I started with tanned flesh and worked up with Rosy skin, and they looked ghastly. Literally. Somehow their skin ended up looking grey. Since I was using auburn shadow as the base for both their hair, I gave their skin a glaze of it, which helped but still looked wrong. I then used that same glaze and mixed a drop into the rosy skin. Finally I had something that didn't look dead, and I could work with.

For the thief I painted her jerkin with carbon grey then washed it with black wash, followed by a highlight of carbon grey. I used the same color for the sorceress' pants. The thief's cloak was Orchid Purple largely to give it some color. One of the problems with painting thieves is that they're going to tend toward lots of dark muddy colors to help them blend in to shadows, but that can be really boring to look at. I try to compromise with using dark colors, but still having them be colors other than brown and grey.

The snake sorceress’ top and snake were painted with a base of wilderness green, brought up with viper Green for highlights. I decided to use bronze for her bracers and greaves, gold for the necklace and belt. Originally it was all going to be gold, but I didn't like the way it looked, and painted over it.

All in all these were fun minis to paint, and they'll look even better when I get around to basing them.

Monday, February 12, 2024

Stonehell: Lost Level - You're not fooling anyone

Session 220 was played on 7/2/23

Morgana, Magic User (Rob)
Borumar, ½ Orc Thief (Josh)
Koltic, Cleric 7 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)
Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)

After spending some downtime around town, the party gears up and sets out for the caves leading to the lost level. On the way they scare off a mountain lion that had gotten too close to town, then Koltic dispatched a troop of 10 skeletons in the swamp.

Once in the lost level they make their way back over to the mostly unexplored central area where Morgana fries a mimic that did its best to look like a comfortable bed. The lack of dust was the giveaway.

In a too hot kitchen an angry fire elemental did its best to cook the party, but Morgana summoned a water elemental to deal with it. The fire elemental was SUPER upset at this development, and climbed up the chimney to escape. Once the fireplace had cooled enough, the elemental's treasure was collected, and the party checked their map to decide where next.

Gains: couple thousand coins in silver and gold, Potion of Greater Healing, Potion of Treasure Finding.
Kills: 10 skeletons, Mimic, Fire Elemental (defeated)
Losses: