Dark Sword Monster

My Fantasy LotR meets Wheel of Time has moved on from the orcs siege of the city they were trapped in. The Fore-Runners attacked the orcs and trollorcs just as they were capturing the city and the players were deciding to cut and run or try and get back to the inn to collect their possessions and the still comatose Isabella Sedi. 

After days of travelling south through ransacked and deserted villages and farms they finally reach a village with occupants. Seems the raiding parties had either missed the village out or had not made it this far south.

Not that the village was without it's own problems, it seemed that someone was holding the village to ransom. It all started with the odd small animal or chicken going missing but soon escalated to cows being taken in the night. Then came demands of money or worse would happen.

The village at first did not pay, they agreed to lay in wait, pretend to make payments but the plans never worked and more animals went missing and the money demands became larger. In the end the village started to pay until they were desperately short of money. The demands continued to be made and then finally people started to go missing though sometimes parts of them were left behind!

This is what the party walked into. At first it was assumed that the party was behind the problems but once the players had convinced the village elder of their trust and helped out with a payment they were taken into the villages confidence. The players managed to track a creature into the woods and had a short but sharp encounter with a humanoid creature with three horns, VERY sharp claws and the ability to speak Westron. Now they have to solve the problem before everyone in the village becomes a victim of the night caller.

I wanted the figure to have more presence than normal so added the tree trunk as the plan was always to have an encounter in the woods and as such I went for a base that was more undergrowth and mulch like. I used teabag leaves (a mix of used and fresh) to layer over the grass and ground and the tufts were the more lifeless types, no bright greens here.

The figure will only be used in this one scenario so once this is over I will have no future use for it so I am offering it to the players to have. If none wanted it then I would sell it on E-bay and use the money to buy future figures but as it stands at least one of the players wants it which is fine by me.

To give an idea of the size the cowboy is a Wargames Foundry 28mm though the difference in base size gives an advantage to the monster. Next session is fairly soon so it's possible it will have a new home soon, on the other hand we could be rolling up new characters.

The Sacrifice WARNING Naked Female On Show

Two for one post, new figures painted up and the next instalment in my roleplaying campaign. Let's start with the game for a change.

The brother of Nancy the Barmaid visited the party at the Inn they were staying in to see if they had learnt anything about his sisters disappearance. This seemed to be due to his worry about his sister, it was evident that he was not sleeping well but early on two of the players noticed he had black ink on his hands. He explained it away as due to writing up one of his bread recipes which was half excepted (the dead kidnapper also had ink on his hands). Further questioning the players found out that his sister lived with her mother, the father dying some years ago. He was close to his sister and she often stayed at his house. They also questioned where he was when his sister went missing and the fact he was at a bakery showing a new design to the bakers was then checked out. 

Sure enough he was at that bakery, and indeed has been back several times since and had each time mentioned his sister had gone missing on the day he was there and the times did match but the players were a little suspicious that he had visited several times and was reminding the workers of the fact. This lead to asking about his recipes and writing them up. It came out that he could not write and a clerk always had to write them for him.

They found his mothers address and visited. Turned out that he and his sister never saw each other any more since an argument over a year before. Further digging lead them to find out that his two best friends had gone on to do well for themselves, one in the Soap Guild (old guild house was now unused but happened to be where the drover had entered recently) another had been a herbalist but had died a couple of years ago.

The players decided to force entry into the old guild house and searched the property after killing the guard. Finally they worked down into the cellar and came across a dark sacrifice with poor Nancy naked on the alter and her brother poised to stab her with a bronze dagger.

One arrow was all it took to drop her brother and a crossbow bolt smashed into the priest mumbling incantations killing him instantly. This being a level 20 Necromancer (the supposed dead herbalist) had Lee grinning and me wondering how to fill THAT gap in my story LOL. The four watching the sacrifice started to flee in panic but another two shots and a few hacks and all were down on the floor. Such was the rolls that none of them survived, never have I seen such total destruction!!

Nancy climbed off the alter knelt by her dying brother taking the dagger from his spasming  hand and plunged it into her heart falling dead at the players feet. 

On searching the house they did find 12 sets of city guard uniforms and weapons, the uniforms showing where they were repaired. Now they have to decide what they are to do especially as the drover was not at the meeting.

I wanted this guy to stand out, mostly for crimes against fashion and colour co-ordination. This was actually brought on by the really poor casting of the figure. It's a Black Tree Fantasy figure from I think the Harlequin Dungeon Accessory section and comes with the naked female and alter.

Not only was the figure lacking in good detail (just the opposite of their WWII range) but it looks to have had a lot of lead seep out of the mould forming the bubbles I have painted as grey to represent smoke with the idea of passing off the poor quality as a spell effect!!! I have seen the image on the site and this effect is not shown on the image so I am quite sure it's down to poor casting or worn mould. Anyway I did not plan to use it more than once and was so naffed off I gave it little time on the desk as you can see.

On the other hand I did put more effort into the rest of the pack for some reason. The alter is a one piece casting and though it has one difficult mould line it can be lived with OK. The naked women on the other hand is really well cast and the chains between her ankles is a great bit of work.

Her face does make her look a bit like a rubber doll and the red hair was a real challenge as I wanted it to look fiery. 

I really liked how the breasts were sculpted as they were far more realistic than many a fantasy figure normally provides with gravity defying uplift. In this case they were flattened with gravity taking full control , not sure I could have got away with THAT sentence anywhere else  :-)

How about a B&W shot, that should allow me to apply for some kind of grant based on artistic merit. No? oh well, I'm not deleting it now!!!

Fantasy Figure Female Ranger

Another Player Character off the paint desk and into the game. Only problem is that this is again a stand in figure as this is a Human Ranger and we need an Elf Ranger. I did not realise how difficult it would be to find a figure that would suit. Seems there is not so many Female Elf figures that are not pure magic users about. So any recommendations are very welcome.

This is in fact real old school Fantasy and I think it's a Grenadier  model. Don't hold me to it though, just seems that Cath had a handful of Grenadier castings and it looks their style. The player actually does not have all the kit the figure has but it seemed the closest that we had on hand.

I have to admit their is something a bit Wonder Woman about the figure, what with the head gear and the flowing hair. Not that it struck me as so when I was painting it up which is probably a good job. Another fairly basic paint job with just a few high and low lights added per colour.

I like the pose and it's interesting that two of the five figures chosen are using bows and not swords. I guess it's the Ranger in them ;-) Again I went with greens for the most part but had some fun with the armour, just because. Now all the players are done I can add some real colour to the game with the NPC's I have in mind.

Sometime this week  will do a little write up on the campaign so far and it has been that bit more colourful through using a few adventure hooks from Gothridge Manor well actually his excellent zine The Manor and one of Tim's adventure on a page so for any one running a Fantasy Campaign it's well worth dropping buy and getting yourself a copy. The Manor 5 came out over the weekend and already I have a few ideas from it in mind for sometime in the campaign so well worth picking up. More on these when I do the campaign write up.

Children of the Light Fantasy Update

OK I have recently come out of the closet and admitted I used to Fantasy Roleplay and have even shown off a Orc but now that I am about to embark on a Roleplaying Campaign as the GM I thought I may as well let you all in on the campaign, well as much as the players may know at any rate.

Here is my take on The Children of the Light, or White Cloaks as they were known (behind their backs) these are straight out of The Wheel of Time though I have added the red shields with the bright sun emblem. My fantasy world is 70% Tolkien and 30% Jordon. I think this will work given how much Jordon lifted straight out of Middle Earth. Set in the Fourth Age I think it will allow me to bend Tolkien just enough so that it will work for those who know Middle Earth well.

The figures were bought at Derby the other weekend, sorry can't remember the supplier but they cost just £1 each and are rather nice castings.

I was looking for obvious Teutonic or Crusades like figures as that is how I have always seen them whilst readying the Wheel of Time books. I saw the figures on an early sweep but checked out other vendors before going back as they fit the profile well. I was pleasantly surprised at the price. I may go back next time and buy some of the mounted figures as the Children will feature heavily in the campaign. 

The Children of the Light are a political-military force that is not restricted by Nations or Regions. Their aim is to route out all Shadow Spawn and bring evil doers to justice. Well their view of justice. They have widespread support from parts of most nations and their multi-national make up of the organisation makes it easier to cross boarders. If all the Children were to form up at one place it would represent the biggest single army in all Middle Earth. As it is it has many thousands of small formations (between a dozen and a few thousand) moving around the whole continent. Kings and Queens can not afford to disallow them access to their lands though on more than one occasion the Children have come into conflict with one Lord or another over matters that they have seen differently. 

The Children despise magic and blame all the worlds troubles on those that have used or use magic. Indeed being caught using magic is enough to be called Darkfriend by them and subject to The Question.  This brings them into direct conflict with Aes Sedai, the powerful all female magic users that have their own power-base. Whilst not in open war with the Whitecloaks the Aes Sedai do well to keep themselves at arms reach from the Children. Male Magic users are tolerated by society as long as they keep their skills to a low level, more powerful magic has been banned from men due to the corrupting power found in men. It is this basis that the Children see all magic as evil whilst other less fanatical only see strong male magic as corrupting. Still any man found using powerful magic is hunted down and stilled (the ability to cast spells removed) but if they resisted capture and in so doing harmed anyone they are beheaded AFTER being stilled.

Those familiar with the Wheel of Time will notice a few differences from the books, this is deliberate. I would ask that any comments made regarding the two worlds my campaign is based on do not have corrections or observations that could supply information to the players. Some of the information left out is deliberate due to changes to the world, others are based on what the players would know.

Several of the players read this blog so it could cause an issue or two  ;-)