Wildspire Miniatures: Bugbears, Mummies and Dire Wolves Painted

In my last post I mentioned that I recently got a set of Wildspire miniatures, specifically the Classic Creatures Expansion 1. 

I've begun the process of painting them, here's my first batch (about a week's worth of fairly relaxed painting).

Twelve painted Wildspire minis

Four Bugbears

Most of the monsters in the sets come in fours, nicely building up a collection and giving me a manageable number to tackle at any one time. 

So I randomly dipped into the box and came out with Bugbears.

Preparation 

These four were washed, there was quite a bit of mould release agent on them, then they got the hot water treatment to straighten the pole arms.

There are some mould lines on them; not awful, but visible. I did try removing them, but I'm not that familiar with the material (PVC?), and it seemed to tear rather than cut cleanly, so I left them. 

Then a priming coat of Vallejo German Green Brown Primer.  I considered giving them a lining wash and white drybrush, followed by Xpress/Speedpaints, but the detail looks a little shallow in places, so I'm sticking with more traditional methods. 

Painting 

The fur was Vallejo Game Color Plague Brown, which was then drybrushed with a 1:1 mix of the Plague Brown and Vallejo Model Color Pale Sand (the result looking so much like VMC Sunny Skin, that if there's a next time, I'll just use that).

The darker fur was Vallejo Extra Opaque Heavy Sienna, applied first as a thinned coat and then, as that was still drying, neat over a smaller area, especially the head. This gives the effect of the dark fur fading. I picked out some of the tufts of fur with VGC Beasty Brown to highlight.

I tried to give the equipment a mixed look, after all, bugbears scavenge their gear, so some of the pauldrons are leather (brown or black) and one is metallic. They each have a cloth 'skirt' for which I used different colours to identify individual minis. They also have bits of what I thought looked like a gambeson. So those were a dirty canvas colour, rather like the dwarven crossbows I painted a while back.

Metallic areas were given a wash with Army Painter Dark Tone, then everything was given a wash of Marine Juice/Sonic Tonic.

To lift them a bit after the wash, they got a very light drybrush of VMC Pale Sand.

Finally, I picked out eyes and teeth as best I could.

Finishing 

I wondered about basing. Normally I'd remove minis from their bases and rebase on clear acrylic, but this seems to go against the spirit of these 'cheap and cheerful' minis.

In the end I went for a light colour, VGC Cold Grey. Hopefully they'll look okay on stone dungeon floors and in more natural surroundings.

I may texture them with sand at some point.

They were finished with a coat of matt varnish.

The four bugbears

Four Mummies

Having rather enjoyed painting the four bugbears, I took another dip into the box and drew out the mummies. 

Now there's not much to these.  They certainly look the part, shambling corpses wrapped in bandages, but there's nothing really special about them. 

Preparation 

As with the bugbears, these were washed, given the hot water treatment (some of them had gone from undead lurching to drunken staggering) and primed with Vallejo German Green Brown Primer. 

Painting 

They were pretty simple to do. Drybrush of VGC Khaki, then Bonewhite and finally Off White. 

I wanted to do more than that though, so I squinted hard and imagined that some of the preserved flesh was showing in gaps between the bandages (rather like the Heroquest Mummies).

I've seen mummies in museums (including, gloriously, as a child, Tutankhamun) and the flesh tends to be a dark brown.  But that would have looked a bit too much like deep shading on the bandages, so I went for a dark grey instead, VMC Dark Blue Gray.

When I got to the head, it seemed to be partially unwrapped, with a bit of hair and the jaw showing among the bandages.  I tried to make these features stand out, simply to give a bit more interest.

Four shambling mummies Four Dire Wolves My next dip pulled out the Dire Wolves. These have a lot of definition on the sculpted fur, so I tried using Speedpaints. Preparation  After washing - no hot water treatment needed this time - I primed in white. Then they got a lining wash of 1:1 Army Painter Dark Tone and Vallejo Xpress Paint Medium. Finally they were drybrushed white, to approximate a zenithal undercoat. Painting  I wanted them to look like the Citadel wolves I painted back in 2024; greys shading up from a pale belly through darker flanks and finishing with a very dark colour along the spine. I started with a 1:1 mix of Army Painter Speedpaint Holy White and Runic Gray on the belly, face and legs, then, while that was still wet, just Runic Gray on the outside of the legs, particularly the tops, and the flanks. I let this dry before adding coats of Runic Gray and Gravelord Gray, then straight Gravelord Gray. Once that had dried, it was a Gravelord Gray and Grim Black mix. Finally just Grim Black.  Each coat covers a smaller area higher up the body, until the final coat is just a thin line along the spine.  This doesn't match any particular animal that I'm aware of, but I feel that it does look suitably lupine (if I do the boars, I'll give them brown fur in a similar fashion).  I then switched to more conventional painting for details such as the eyes and teeth.

Four Dire Wolves

So are Wildspire Miniatures Any Good?

Now I've painted some of the set, I've a better idea.  I'll do a full proper post if folk are interested once I've painted a few more.  Who knows, I may even get the full set painted this century.

Pros

I like these minis. I've certainly got nicer D&D minis, but not at anything close to this price. They paint up well, and having just four of them is a good number for me to tackle before I lose enthusiasm, almost like the 'palette cleansers' I used to do back in 2021.

They're recognisable for what they are (well, assuming you know what a bugbear is), and I'm sure they'll go well on the table top.

After painting both bugbears and mummies with traditional techniques, I was pleased how well the Speedpaints worked on the textured fur of the wolves; I'll be looking out for opportunities to do this again.

Cons

If I'm being critical, the detail on the bugbears (and other humanoids, but I'm looking at the 'bears here) faces isn't great, though I think I've managed to at least hint at teeth and eyes.  If you're a stickler for correct equipment, bugbears should have shields and use morning stars, though it would certainly be easy to swap the polearm blade for an appropriately spiky weapon head.

The mummies are dull, though this is more a case of the subject matter.  Mind you, even just adding weapons would have made them more interesting.

They all seem a bit small compared to modern RPG minis, which  have got larger over the years.  I would imagine that the bugbears would scale nicely with the first lot of bugbears in the WotC pre-painted line, but I don't think I've got any left for comparison.

The worst issue with size is the Dire Wolves.  In D&D they are large creatures, and have been for multiple editions.  These are on medium bases, though they certainly take up a lot of space on those bases.  It might be possible to rebase them, but that's beyond the scope of this little project.

Whats Next?

I've plenty of stuff I should be painting and building now the D&D adventure is done, but these made a nice little diversion.

This group of 12 minis is 20% of the box, by mini count.

I shall continue to dip in and paint them in groups of four in between other stuff.  I'm keeping track on the photo on the box lid.

Keeping score.  12 down, 48 to go

Wildspire Miniatures for Dungeons and Dragons

Whilst assembling the minis required for the Master Forge I looked at what is available these days beyond the usual Reaper or Wizkids.  

I found Wildspire Miniatures, and thought they were an interesting collection, but by that time I'd decided what I needed, so filed them under 'possibly investigate later'.

I didn't pursue it any further until I noticed that they had a special offer on one of the boxed sets. 

At less than 50p a mini (and some of them are big) I thought it worthwhile investigating. The price has since gone back up, but they are still under 60p each.

(A quick note, this is an expansion to the Classic Encounters Essentials set, so is, perhaps, a little less immediately useful.  Both sets are available in the Classic Encounters Complete set).

That's a small box for 60 minis!

Well packed though

Contents

An 'Acid Elemental'* and three oozes.  I'll admit I thought these might work nicely for some of the elementals in the forge, though in the end they stayed in the box.

They are nicely detailed, and will definitely get some table time. They might get a wash and perhaps a very light highlight, but they're pretty much ready as is.

Translucent Green stuff

Air Elemental and Gas Serpents*. More nicely detailed minis.  I do have Air Elementals already, notably Reaper Bones, but a bit of variety is nice. I'm not sure what a gas serpent is, but the minis look fun.

Translucent clear minis

Bugbear, cultist, bandit and unholy knight*. All reasonable minis and pretty useful. They mostly have obvious D&D stats (I'd probably use the unholy knight as a wight). There are four of each of these in the set.

 A good set of adversaries for most heroes

Giant worm*, imp, ghoul and werewolf. There are some noticeable gaps on the ghoul and the werewolf, some filler should help here. Again, there are four of each in the set.

I'm sure I've seen all these in films

Dire wolf, boar, harpy and mummy. The wolf is a nice wolf, but small for a dire wolf. It's a refreshing change to have a clothed harpy. Yet again, four of each.

Are you my mummy?

Naga, giant and earth elemental. One of each of these. These are great minis. 

If I'm being picky, I like my earth elementals a bit chunkier and the pose could be more threatening.

Big stuff

First Impressions 

These are good minis, especially for the price. 

There are some odd sizes when compared to the Monster Manual descriptions, but nothing too egregious. 

Detail is generally good, though it's occasionally soft on some (the bugbear's face for instance). For some reason, the translucent minis seem better detailed. 

Most of these will do the job nicely, though not necessarily better than stuff I've already got painted up in my collection.

What's Next?

I've already started painting some of these (expect posts showing them over the next few weeks).  They easily chunk into groups of four so I'm getting through them steadily.

Will I get any more? 

I'm tempted if I find any more on offer. I've looked at the creatures here, but they also do sets of heroes, which look interesting, with a wide variety of species and class, and a good mix of male and female characters.

I'll do another post analysing the range and coming to some sort of conclusion if they are a must have for role players, or just a big disappointment (though how can you be disappointed by that giant?)

*Wildspire do a booklet of stats and various other downloads which should explain what some of the less familiar creatures are.

The Final Mini from the Master Forge

As promised last post, here's the Sand Creature. 

It sort of reminds me of the SFX in The Mummy (not the original B&W version) with the face leering out of the sand.

The Sand Creature 

From the side 

and the rear

It's a WizKids Mage Knight Pyramid mini, and has long been part of my RPG collection, rebased from the  'clix' base onto a GW 40mm round. However, for the adventure I wanted it on a 50mm clear base, and the painting needed some attention too.

Mage Knight minis use colours to differentiate between different power levels of the same mini, and this had parts of it painted blue.

I painted over these bits with Vallejo Game Color Terra, then drybrushed with Vallejo Model Color Iraqi Sand and then gave the whole mini a drybrush of Pale Sand. Very easy.

It's certainly not the most spectacular mini I've ever done, but it did the job.

I'm slowly assembling quite a few elemental themed creatures, and while I've no immediate plans to use them, it's always good to have them.

Minis for the Master Forge

If you've read the earlier D&DF2F posts, you'll know that I had to change the focus of the in person session. What was going to be a pleasant ramble in a delightful Feywild valley became a tense exploration of an abandoned dwarven forge.

Fortunately, I was able to source a lot of what I needed from my collection of pre-painted minis. 

I still used some newly painted stuff or pre-paints that I added detail to and rebased to match my collection.

A fine selection of creatures

Valley Trolls 

Three jolly trolls

Three troll backsides, sorry, back sides

These trolls are Reaper Bones minis, and are pretty good representations of D&D trolls, to my eyes at least. I dug these out of my unpainted Reaper Bones box (it's a very big box).

They were originally planned for the Valley; indeed I've acquired a few more of the same design in different poses, so I've a good selection of trolls now, should I need them.

For the game session I was going to repurpose them as Scrags (aquatic trolls), but the heroes avoided that encounter.

Painting was straightforward; a liner of 50:50 Army Painter Dark Tone and Vallejo Xpress Medium to pick out the details and give something for paint to adhere to, then a white drybrush.

Then a series of Army Painter Speedpaints and VX paints. I kept the colours simple, and I'm pleased with the results.  

They might not get any table time this time,  but they'll come in useful in the future. 

Constructs 

A recurring feature of the Thunderforge Clanhold and the Master Forge is a variety of constructs made and used by the dwarves to help in various tasks.

Kluku

Delightful

Many of these had already been defeated or avoided, but the party, especially Harrow, have adopted Kluku, the dragon construct. 

I used an old WotC prepainted Young Copper Dragon mini.  I gave it a Strong Tone wash, then a drybrush.  I picked out a few details in copper, gold and silver to make it look like an assembly of different components rather than a living creature.  

Forge constructs, ideal for smithy work

There are also some forge constructs, designed to help with the heavy manual work. These are WotC Hammerers.

I did the bulk of the painting many years ago, they appeared in The Mines of Dhur, a 4E adventure I wrote as part of the long campaign. 

I added a few extra details and shading. Unfortunately I couldn't rebase them as I've run out of clear bases.

Elementals

Much of the danger in the Master Forge came from elemental creatures. I use the World Axis cosmology, as developed for 4E, for my current 5E campaign*. The individual Elemental Planes, with associated Para-elemental stuff has gone, replaced by the Elemental Chaos. 

This meant that I didn't need lots of gates, cracks, portals or whatever to bring different elements into play, just one McGuffin linking the material plain to the Elemental Chaos can create all sorts of variety.

Further, I don't have to be tied to just one element; different elementals can turn up, though in practice I'm not sure how well that came across.

I already have loads of elemental type miniatures from WotC and Reaper. These generally got used as is, and I took far more than I needed.

The following minis did get a bit more attention.

A xorn

Zzkk Slth

Zzkk Slth is a xorn; Xorn are one of D&D's wierder creatures,  looking like rocky barrels with three legs, three arms, three eyes and a gaping maw. It's certainly not something that's easy to proxy.

Fortunately WotC produced at least two different versions.  Zzkk Slth met the party a few weeks ago and wandered off after being given some bronze symbols of Baphomet to eat. 

I gave him a more varied colour pallet and painted in the eyes (black on the original mini). I painted the teeth and claws like steel, after all, it eats metals, so it's bound to have teeth that look a bit different. 

I didn't get a picture of the Sand Creature (presumably some form of Earth Elemental), but I'll get that posted soon.

So that's the minis I painted for the game.  I'm sure they'll see more use in the future, thus adding to my painted RPG minis.  some of them might have limited use, but all of them are nice to have done.

Mini Studio?

As you can see I've used the Master Forge scenery as a backdrop. 

I've been wary of doing this sort of thing in the past as I've wanted to fit everything into the light box and didn't want too much extra stuff to distract the eye (or the auto focus).  But I think this works,  helped a lot by very bright sunlight to illuminate everything, so I'll be experimenting further.

*This mismatch of game world and game edition seems to be feature of my campaigns. 

I ran 3/3.5 and 4E campaigns in Mystara, originally designed for Basic, Expert, Companion etc rules, so it makes sense (???) To use the 4E setting for 5th edition. 

Season of Scenery/Dungeons and Dragons Master Forge Complete

I got the Master Forge done in time for the game.  Now that's over, I'll show it here. 

You might want to refer to the adventure playthru for more details of what things were and how the heroes interacted with the terrain.  I gave more details on the construction and planning in an earlier post, which, again, may prove useful to review.

The Master Forge

I built four levels of the forge and mapped out the remaining levels and the surrounding cavern and a little bit of the mines on dot and cross paper.  The roll I got last year is still going strong.

The four levels have two entrance/exits to the cavern surrounding the Forge. They are connected by stairs or ramps, and a lift shaft also links them, giving explorers options when moving through the structure.

Basement 

The basement

Basement from the other side

Steps lead up to the ground floor and the lift platform rests on the stone flagged floor. 

The base of the furnace occupies one corner. 

Four pillars surround the centre and wooden walls block this area off. 

Ground Floor (casting floor)

The Ground Floor

Ground Floor from the other side

Doors lead out into the cavern (though they were unusable in play due to the water pressure behind them), and a wooden ramp leads up to the mezzanine level. 

The centre of the room is a pit of sand, used for casting from the furnace, which can pour molten metals into it.

The heroes never fully drained the cavern, so didn't enter through the main doors.  If they had done, this is the view they would have seen.

The view from the door

First Floor Mezzanine 

The mezzanine level

Mezzanine viewed from the other side

There are large voids in the wooden floor, effectively making the ground floor and this floor one space. 

A wooden ramp leads up to the next level.

There are two doors in the furnace at this level, with flooring allowing the dwarves to access them (for hand pouring of the more precious metals).

Second Floor (ore loading)

The Ore Loading area atop the lower levels

And from the other side

A door leads to a bridge over the cavern, ore was brought in on carts when the Master Forge was in operation.

The top of the furnace is here, with shuttered openings for loading the ore and other substances for the smelting process.

A wide flight of steps lead up and then divide, both arms end in locked doors on the next floor, the Crafting Level.  This level had previously been explored by the heroes, hence it had a low priority when it came to building the terrain.  In fact, it never got beyond being drawn out on paper.

Construction 

As mentioned previously, I used the Crooked Staff method (using corrugated and thin card with the textures printed on paper and stuck to the card) on Fat Dragon EZ Lock Dungeon terrain including the Hall of the Mountain King set.

This did lead to some changes; the original map had stairs and ramps that ascended at 45°, but the card terrain sets have a shallower angle, so I had to account for that. Initially the floors were 20 foot apart, but this would have meant a lot more space for stairs, so the ceiling height became a mere 10 foot. Mind you, it is a Dwarven building.

Walls and Corners 

Initially I wanted to craft sections of walls that could be removed as required. As time ticked by I decided to manage without.

But the upper floors had a tendency to sag, especially at the edges, so I built corner pieces to act as supports and a visual reminder that there are ten foot walls around each floor.

In play, with the floors separated, the corners can be removed.

The Furnace 

I wanted the furnace to look impressive. There's a nice one in the Halls of the Mountain King set (partly why I decided to use it). In the end, though, it wasn't really what I wanted, so I used some of those textures on a Pringles tube cut to size. Other features on the PDF were repurposed to make the fittings on the structure, such as the little doors and the chute.

The Vault of the Fang

The climax of the adventure took place in a strange extra dimensional space. This was simply drawn out (mostly because this was a late addition to the adventure and I didn't have time to do the concept justice in a rushed 3D build).

The tooth was a plastic fang from an old Halloween necklace, trimmed and mounted on a clear base. 

The crystals were taken from a piece I made for the 4E campaign, dismantled for the purpose.

And that's it.

I probably put a bit too much effort into this, but I do want these occasional sessions to feel special. 

As I was building the forge, I was aware that it might be a fancy setting for a mediocre adventure. Fortunately those Fornits seemed to do their job just in time.

What's Next?

Well there's still some time left for the Season of Scenery challenge, and I do have some (lots) of unfinished stuff.  Hopefully I'll get round to finishing some of this off.

The Secret of the Thunderforge Playthru

Here's my write up of the face to face session.  

But first, a few points.  I'm no writer, so apologies for the style and the overlong prose. Reading back it seems all about Tharnak, while it's true that this was his character arc, all the players got lots to do.  My note taking may have focused on him, but in play it was very much a group effort.  I didn't take many pictures, mostly because we were all concentrating on the game.  There are more of the minis and the scenery in the relevant posts.

Also, the structure is technically a foundry more than a forge, but the name stuck.  Apologies if this bothers you (it does me, a little).

Now, read on...

Background 

The party were investigating why the northern branch of the dwarf paladin's clan were considered anathema.

To answer this question, they explored the abandoned furnace and forge of the clan, situated in a flooded cavern. 

Previous sessions showed them that they needed to open some valves and shut others to drain the cavern, and in a previous foray, they actually gained entrance to the uppermost levels. Here they were met by the bizarre site of many of the clan, turned to stone! What's more, they seemed to have undergone the process willingly.

The Heroes plus Hangers On

The heroes consist of;

Harrow, tiefling cleric of The Raven Queen 

Kei, dragonborn wizard

Roland, half elven paladin of Bahamut

Tarryn, elven rogue 

Tharnak Thunderforge, dwarven paladin of Kord

Timbers, gnome bard

They are accompanied by Kluku, a construct built in the form of a small dragon, Tordek and Lonar Deepdelve, father and son and Clan chief and heir of the Deepdelves.

Kluku was adopted by the party (especially Harrow) when they met him trying to sell them merchandise in the abandoned Thunderforge market. He has proven useful with his knowledge of Clan individuals.

Some of the Heroes of  Nentir Vale can be seen in one of last years' posts.

Draining the Cavern 

The first stage was to drain the water; accompanied by Tordek, Chief of the Deepdelve Clan, they were able to enter the room containing huge metal pipes with tarnished wheels, presumably some sort of tap?  Water pooled around them, but Harrow was eventually able to open one valve. When Roland joined in, the puddle rose up and attempted to engulf him. Fortunately, the group soon dispatched the creature. 

It was a simple matter then to open the second valve, causing a drop in the water level in the cavern.

But water was still gushing in through the ceiling. 

Earlier, the heroes found a room above the cavern with similar pipework, but with no apparent control, only a blue crystal set in the wall. Time to go back and check further.

Tharnak's use of the Thunderforge motto seemed to bring the crystal to life; glowing runes appeared in a language none of the party understood. Tordek was annoyed; these defences were supposed to require at least two Clans to lift, the ancient Thunderforges were clearly keeping secrets from his clan. 

Harrow mollified him; surely the Deepdelves also had clan secrets?

Kei used his magic (comprehend languages) to try and read the writing, but when he touched the stone, his eyes lost focus and he slumped. His mind was elsewhere, where a strange watery presence demanded to know what he wanted. 

Questioning revealed that it was an elemental creature of water. Despite it's alleged great power, it was compelled simply to control and direct water for the dwarves.  Kei asked it to turn off the water, but the dragonborn was no dwarf to be obeyed without question, what could he offer in exchange?

Quickly Kei asked what it wanted. Would it like the blue crystal? With delight, it seized the thing binding it to servitude and vanished, shutting off the flow as it went.

The players thought this rash. Without the elemental would the forge still operate? Was Highpeak doomed to a dry dusty future? As Kei's consciousness returned, this was something to ponder. 

The water now drained slowly out, revealing a lower wooden bridge, another door in the side of the forge, and a series of mine tunnels leading from the cavern. The Deepdelves suspected that this was a section of their mines that had long been flooded.

The Fate of the Forge Master 

The heroes then persuaded Tordek to remain outside. He was a leader, but no warrior. He agreed, providing his son Lonar accompanied them. At Tharnak's insistence, dwarves were placed at intervals so that the alarm could be raised if needed.

The doors opened at Tharnak's whispered words. "More Thunderforge treachery" Tordek muttered as he took up position just outside.

Entering the Master Forge

The doors had leather seals to keep out the water, and the place was warm and dry. Pillars supported the ceiling and steps led up to doors, presumably the doors that had proven impossible for Tarryn to open in a previous session.

In one corner a cylindrical feature rose floor to ceiling, a faint reddish glow emanating from it. 

Both a ramp and a shaft led below and various tubs and crates littered the room, filled with rubble.

Entering the Ore Floor

A shuffling sound behind the pillars alerted the heroes. What could be moving after 300 years?

Tharnak concentrated; as a paladin, he could sense the undead, and there was an undead creature there. It slunk forward, hissing and licking it's dry lips. It was, or had been, a dwarf. 

Still wearing the remains of its apron and work wear and clutching a metal staff topped by a miniature anvil it approached.

"Ah, rescue, at last. But why did you abandon us for so long? Deepdelve doings I'll wager".

Tharnak, Roland and Harrow watched its approach, the tiefling mentally preparing the blessing of the Raven Queen that should send it to it's rest. But the creature seemed to want to talk, so the heroes questioned it.

In between complaining about how hungry it was, and it's shame at what it had had to do to survive, it revealed that it was Goran, the Forge Master, and son of the Clan Chief. When asked, Kluku recognised him, confirming his tale.

At some point (he seemed confused by the time he'd been shut away) Highpeak was attacked. There were reports of Grey Dwarves in the depths. All dwarves mobilised, but Keldrick, the Thunderforge chief suspected the Deepdelves were behind this.

He withdrew as many of the Clan as possible to the Master Forge. A great battle was fought in the cavern outside (where, incidentally, the bravery of the Deepdelves proved they were innocent of collusion with the dvergar at least). When all seemed lost, Keldrick triggered the defence mechanisms, flooding the cavern and the lower mines.

With a supply of food and drink, they settled down to wait. With the dvergar washed away, surely the other clan chiefs would drain the cavern and release them?

But no help came.

Keldrick issued instructions to his son to lead the apprentices in the regular rituals that kept the forge running and stable, then ushered the rest of the Clan upstairs. A short while later he returned, pale and shaken, locked the doors and sat, sword in hand guarding the stairs.

Now Goran became very upset as he recalled how they ran out of food. Flosi, the youngest apprentice, fell ill and passed away, solving the food problem for a while. 

Eventually, only Goran remained, he glossed over what happened to his father, but did mutter that "he didn't stand a chance against all of us". 

His anger at being abandoned returned and he prepared to attack, exuding a foul stench which caused the paladins to retch.

"They couldn't help, there was a dragon. It attacked and drove everyone away" pleaded Harrow, staying the creature.

He remained suspicious at the timing, but Tharnak commanded him to stand down. Recognising, perhaps, the Thunderforge blood, he declared his watch over, bowed and offered up his staff, begging the adventurers to save the foundry which he feared was dangerously unstable. Harrow offered to finish the undead creature's existence, but Tharnak took that responsibility.

Searching the area revealed that the round structure in the corner was the top of a furnace. Peering in, the heroes were surprised to see it was still lit (and very hot).

Rummaging through the various tubs and bins, the heroes found they contained ores of different kinds.  Strangely, some of the more valuable pieces accidentally fell into Tarryn's pockets.

Disturbingly, there were also gnawed bones, among which was a fine sword, a key and a ring.

The sword had clearly had three gemstones embedded in the hilt, though they were now missing. The ring matched the ghostly ring the ghost placed on Tharnak's finger when they first arrived in Highpeak, and the key opened the doors at the top of the stairs, to Tarryn's delight (they had previously tried to open this from the other side, but the poor thief only rolled a 2).

Descending the slope, the adventurers reached a mezzanine level. Wooden flooring partially concealed the floor below, flickering flames near the ceiling illuminated the area.

Descending to the mezzanine level

View from the other end of the room

But as the heroes explored further, the flames moved! Three bat like creatures wreathed in fire flew at the intruders.

Roland swung at one with his glaive, cutting it in half caused a burst of flame. Seeing this, the heroes resorted, where possible, to ranged attacks. 

Lonar was determined to prove his worth and charged towards one of the bats but slipped and fell (natural 1). As he recovered, the characters were assaulted by more of the bats. They made quick work of them with arrows, magic missiles and, where necessary, glaive and the Forge master's staff. With the creatures destroyed, the party were happy to tell Lonar that he had finished one of them off.

During the fight, Tharnak discovered that the staff protected him somewhat from fire and seemed especially effective against the elemental creatures.

(This encounter made the most of the partial nature of this level, and being able to place the two levels on the table.  Sadly no proper picture of the encounter in play, but the next picture does show three levels with the heroes on the mezzanine in the middle and Lonar sprawled on the floor).

Fighting the Fire Bats

In haste to get to the heart of the forge, the heroes quickly looked around, then descended the ramp to the floor below.

The forge had a spout angled towards the centre of the room, which was covered in sand. Investing this revealed that the sand was of some depth. 

It also disturbed something.

A vaguely humanoid figure formed out of the sand and attacked. No chance to parley, it only wanted to destroy.

Despite it blinding Tharnak with a storm of sand, the heroes proved their worth.  Roland's use of his glaive at distance proved especially useful, and the Forgemaster's Staff walloped lumps out of the thing. Shatter spells seemed less effective against it's sandy nature, but it soon collapsed back onto the floor under the combined assault.

The Sand Thing attacks

The party were surprised when opening the furnace door released a stream of molten metal. The foundry was still operable after all these years, though they could find nothing that looked like it could stabilise the forge.

But there were steps down, so down they went.

The bottom of the foundry was a large octagonal pillar supporting the cylinder above. Wooden walls surrounded the central area and a lift platform rested below the square shaft. The adventurers tried to get this working, but whatever mechanism drove it didn't respond.

But their main focus was the foundry base.

Like the water room high up in the forge, there was a crystal engraved in Primordial, but this one was red.

When touched, a voice asked if they wanted to access 'The Chamber of the Tooth". Of course the party said yes, and found themselves transported to a room the same size as the basement.

A rainbow swirl of colour lit the place and many of the party felt a strange itch or buzz as the energy in the chamber was intense.

The only features here were six large crystals and, corresponding to the foundry, a large tooth thrust through the floor.

Coloured energies swirled around the tooth. 

The crystals spun on their axis, four were irregular shapes and glowed red. Their spin was erratic. A fifth was similar, but a much paler colour. The ghostly shape of a dwarf could be seen trying to control it. The final crystal was regular and shone with a clear light. Another dwarf spirit was controlling this.

Tharnak recognised the latter as the ghost that had treated him earlier, the party was sure the other spirit was that of the Forge Master.

Kei quickly deduced that the crystals controlled the flow of energies from the Elemental Chaos. Presumably the tooth somehow let them through?

Four of the crystals clearly needed attention. Kei and Timbers could use their knowledge of arcane procedures to do this, but since the whole device undoubtedly referred back to the Dawn War, the cleric and paladins could too; different path, same destination.

Tarryn elected to stay on watch, and, after brief consideration, Tharnak joined her. He did attend classes back in the temple, but the finer points eluded him and he felt he could add little to the crystal work.

Before the heroes began, Harrow (I think) called on the Raven Queen to bless their work. Then they set to.

As soon as they began the energies around the tooth coalesced and two fiery spirits appeared.  Tharnak and Tarryn tackled these, and they were soon dispatched.  As the rest of the party concentrated, their crystals began to loose the angry red colour, but they needed more attention to stabilise them, alas, Harrow took longer than the rest, giving more fire spirits the chance to attack, but they were no match for Tarryn and Tharnak.

As the last crystal turned clear and spun smoothly, the energy from the tooth flowed pure and clear.

The ghost of the elder dwarf bowed to the party and turned to Tharnak "you are a true Thunderforge" he said.

And that's pretty much where we left it, time was passing, and many of us had long journeys.

Some more story was revealed as we packed away.  The tooth was that of a Primordial (presumably a dead one!) that pierced the veil between the Elemental Chaos and the material Realm.  The dwarves didn't know where it came from, but it allowed them to access very high temperatures for the foundry and forge, and control them too a very fine degree.  This was the Secret of the Thunderforges.  Keldrik (the last Clanmaster) had found out the Deepdelve secret, and it wasn't anything to do with the dvergar.  He didn't feel it appropriate to divulge it though...

I'll finish by thanking my players for turning up and making this an amazing gaming experience. 

Look out for more posts showing the minis and the terrain, and I may even waffle on about some of the choices I made.

Ready for Adventure

Here's all the stuff I'll need for the face to face session. 

If it looks a lot,  some of those boxes are fairly empty!

There's a box of terrain,  maps, rulebook, dice etc and minis. Even my D&D goblet just for fun.

Expect a write up and a more in depth look at terrain and minis later.