Season of Scenery Summary

If you're a regular reader, you'll know that I combined my Dungeons and Dragons Eight Week Project with Dave Stone's Season of Scenery Challenge. 

Now with the eight weeks over and the game played, and with the end of August looming,  what did I get done scenery wise?

You can see most of the stuff in the Crypt of the Vampire Knight posts, but here's a bit more detail. 

Sticking to the Plan?

I did work out a bit of a plan, well more of a wish list really. Did it hold up?

Sort of. 

By the time I got around to doing the scenery I'd pretty much decided what the adventure was going to be so I could be a bit more focused.  I was building only the scenery that I knew I'd use, so I could put a bit more time and effort in to it.

Tombs

For speed (and because I really like them)  I used the Crooked Staff Terrain Print and Play Effigy Tombs.  To add variety I made a couple of different effigies,  and I made several tombs just with decorative slabs from Episode 5s Crypts and Tombs. These are probably the tombs of lesser knights of the Order. NB  the middle effigy in the picture below is deliberately incomplete.  It represents a new tomb (the previous Knight Commander) and hasn't been finished.  I see that the one on the right with the axe is missing its arms, this is an oversight. And there's a happy accident.  The first print I did had greyscale switched on, and it gives a pleasing dark grey texture.  Further,  the jar texture now gives a good extra texture for more tombs.

Three sample effigy tombs and six pillars

Altars

Essentially the same as the tombs.  I built them a bit smaller and had planned to add some sort of decorative element to indicate which god they were dedicated to.  This never got done, partly because I wasn't quite sure how to show this.  The blank altars worked perfectly well though. 

I used the textures from the pillars PDF, leading to...

Pillars

I built six of those, using Crooked Staff Terrain Print and Paste Dungeon Pillars.  They didn't actually get used in the game.  If there had been significant play in the main crypts, they'd definitely have been used.  

There absolutely should be pillars in the main temple, but I never put them in on the virtual map, so didn't want them suddenly to appear.

Rubble

I had a couple of ideas for the rubble, but in the end, I didn't make any at all. There's quite a bit of rubble in the temple, but this was just drawn on the floor plan. 

I did put some Terrain Crate rubble in my box, just in case, but it was already mostly painted, so doesn't really count for the challenge. 

Floor Plans and Tiles 

Initially I planned to draw out Floor Plans on Spot and Cross paper as required.  It's much better to have these prepared ahead of time, so I drew some out back in July. 

I drew them pretty much based on Chris Perkins' method (Mystic Arts has a good video explaining this if you can't find the original article). 

I drew out the Temple, which got used for the fight with the gargoyles, with the addition of the 3D altars, and the crypts below, which didn't see play. 

The temple map is pretty much taken from the original adventure, but the crypts are my own design, though they do incorporate elements from the pack.

But for the actual crypt I wanted something a bit more dramatic. 

I saw Crooked Staff's Dungeon in a Box and it looked impressive. I knew I could do something with it,  and it fits my brief of making stuff with multiple uses. I quickly downloaded the PDF and made my own set. 

But the largely square rooms didn't quite give me what I wanted,  so I looked at the 2D dungeons PDFs. Ideal.  Very easy to convert to the new style of 3D tiles,  and I've got the wide hallways I wanted. I also made some smaller doors using a texture I found on one of the bonus PDFs.

Gardrin's family tombs and the false vampire crypt

Built from scratch

Finally,  here's some pieces I made up from bit from my bits box.

Tharnak investigates the braziers

The braziers are two wooden beads stuck on a 20mm washer. The flame is hot glue on a length of barbecue skewer. The whole is painted as seen, I must admit that the photo makes the flames look better than in real life. 

Tharnak and the two snake fonts

The 'Snake Fonts' are toy plastic snakes glued to 40mm washers with an upturned button as the bowl. The buttons are metal and I had to grind out the bit that holds the thread with a rotary tool, which is why there's only two,  rather than the planned four. The whole lot is painted and the bowls filled with PVA glue mixed with green ink, partly to hide the rough interior. 

Combining the Season of Scenery and my Eight Week Challenge really helped me get the terrain ready for the game, I'll have to try this again.

Dungeons And Dragons Eight Week Project - The Crypt of the Vampire Knight Playthru part two

We left our heroes staring into a tomb, littered with bones, rags and desiccated flesh, but not the remains of a Vampire.

Race to the Vampire

Harrow was desperate to take advantage of her Spectral Guardians, and urged the party on and down. 

Despite her hurry, the more, erm financially minded party members insisted on searching.  After all, they might find important information. When they looked at the skeletons they were shocked to realise that they carried the gear of knights of the order. Could they have been placed here to prevent meddling with the vampire's tomb?

Closer examination showed that they had defaced their shields with the snake symbol of Zehir. Worse, some of them had deformed skeletons; elongated skulls, extra vertebrae and similar.  a puzzle, though the dwarf, grim faced, muttered "yuan-ti" under his breath.

When they at last descended, they became aware of a greenish mist hugging the floor and a stench of rotting vegetation, very different from the dry dusty air upstairs.

The steps led to a long corridor with side passages to left and right. Ahead the way was blocked by a sturdy portcullis.

The first side passage just held a sliver statue of a snake rearing up over a bronze bowl.  Green mist spilled from the bowl, so Tharnak upended it, hopefully stopping the poisonous murk.

Assuming the Vampire would be at the end of the corridor, the party advanced. They saw doors off to right and left, Kei jammed them shut in case any danger were lurking behind them.

Through the portcullis they could see a room containing armoured skeletons at guard.  To the right was a raised section, with steps leading up to it.  Somewhere up there a flickering green light issued out.  More of the green flame braziers?

The Court of the Vampire Knight

Roland heaved up the portcullis allowing the others to enter. 

Taryyn slipped in first, loosing an arrow at the undead. Kei then pulled the lever, locking the portcullis and allowing Roland to move, he took advantage of this by attacking another skeleton.

Timbers showed the dragonborn that he, too, had some mastery of magic, weaving a tune that snapped many of the skeletons' bones (shatter).

Harrow then moved in onto the steps, her Spectral Guardians finishing off the damaged skeletons. 

"Well that was rude", a woman's voice called from the raised section to Harrow's left.

Zarrel Gardrinsdottir at last.

"Well that was rude"

Looking round the tiefling saw a grand chamber lit by more of the green flames. In the far corner, beyond an iron grate, was a fine stone chair, it's sinuous design set with green stones.

Lounging on it was a woman, dressed in armour, and holding a sword and long knife. Her dark hair accentuated her pale skin, pointed ears betrayed some fey ancestry.

In front of her stood three more skeletons, a dwarf, an elf and a halfling. 

She moved towards one of the braziers as the skeletons advanced to block the heroes.

Tharnak rushed in, eager to destroy this insult to dwarf kind, while Kei used another new spell, conjuring a ball of fire to engulf the elf, the halfling and the vampire. The party cheered, but as one of the green flames went out, Zarrel seemed far less damaged than she should.  She showed a similar resistance to Harrow's Spectral Guardians, and was far faster than the heroes expected, dashing up and striking before they were ready.  

As the paladins took out the skeletons, on one instance both weapons sliced into the undead dwarf at the same time, neither knew who had dealt the killing blow, the more magical heroes concentrated on the vampire.  She proved no match for their combined might, succumbing just after the last of her skeleton heroes did.

Zarrel at last

As the blow fell, Zarrel collapsed, her body turning to mist which sped away down the grate. The remaining flame leapt up and became another of the ghostly spirits. 

The heroes quickly dispatched this new spectre then ran after the fleeing vampire.

The Final Tomb

Alas, the grate was locked and Taryyn took some time to open it.  Once opened the party were lowered one at a time, Harrow first.  

The shaft ended in green mist of indeterminate depth, though Roland had tried pouring Holy Water down to see if it made any difference.  A little way above the surface of the mist was a ledge, with a short passage of it, blocked at the end by another portcullis.

Harrow advanced and could make out a square chamber, dominated by an ornate tomb.  Hovering nearby was yet another spectre, and it wasn't bothered by the portcullis at all.  Harrow called for someone strong to open the way while the spectre hurt her through the bars.  It didn't last long against her Spectral Guardians though.

Roland descended and raised up the heavy gate, allowing the cleric to enter.  As she heaved open the tomb, the rest of the party made their way down.

With the lid opened, Zarrel sat up, eyes glowing with hate.  In a concentrated flurry of attacks, the party managed to keep her down long enough for Harrow to finish the job, smashing a vial of Holy Water over the undead.  The body rapidly decayed, leaving only the equipment.

The Heroes move in for the finale

So victory to the Heroes of Nentir Vale, and a great day of gaming.  We stopped at that point, carrying on would have seemed an anti-climax, and some of us had long journeys back home.  

There was much chat, of course, and a suggestion that we do this again.

I'll do a seperate post discussing some of the choices I made in designing the dungeon, and there'll be at least one more post wrapping up the Season of Scenery challenge, so check out the D&D8W tag f you want to read more.

Dungeons And Dragons Eight Week Project - Crypt of the Vampire Knight Playthru

The D&D eight week project reached it's climax on Sunday.

Left to Right; Harrow, Roland (with Dire Wolf), Namfoodle Timbers, Tharnak, The Architect of Chaos, Kei and Taryyn

We got together and played through two sessions of around two hours and four hours, broken by a delicious buffet style lunch.

Here's a brief (?) account of the play, a couple of warnings though, I'm no author, so apologies for the writing style, and for those who know the original Madness at Gardmore Abbey adventure,  I've changed it somewhat, so there will be surprises in the description ahead. 

(I've added a few GM asides in brackets)

The Third Day of Mordinius, 600 Years After the Founding of the Empire of Nerath

The party began in the village of Winterhaven and had plans to destroy the vampire they believed was hiding in the crypts below Gardmore Abbey. 

To Gardmore

They stocked up with healing potions and holy water, the latter would prove very useful in the end. 

They had a quiet journey to the Abbey, then Kei showed off his new ability; wings of crackling lightning sprang from his shoulders and he took flight on reconnaissance. He was interrupted by a shape flying up from the ruined temple, a gargoyle! In gravelly tones it thanked the heroes for freeing it and it's companion, in exchange it would permit him to leave unmolested.

(The Knight Arcarnist had three gargoyles bound to him as servants - implied in the original, and especially in The Siege of Gardmore Abbey, though I added an extra one.  The party had previously slain one, and destroying the undead wizard freed the other two from the binding)

Still pondering this change in the monstrous population of the ruins, the heroes made their way up the secret stairway and holed up for the night, taking advantage of Kei's new Leomund's Tiny Hut ritual. 

The party had noticed that there were stones missing from the ruins, the culprits were revealed during the night, a goblin work party. Fortunately, these creatures were nominally acting as spies for the party (particularly for the paladin Roland). They duly reported that the minotaurs in the lower chambers were building walls to seal off their underground domain from the troublesome orcs and others on the surface. Intrigued, and hoping for some help against the vampire, they resolved to call in on the minotaurs in the morning. 

The Fourth Day of Mordinius, 600 Years After the Founding of the Empire of Nerath

(For the next section we used floorplans drawn out on 'spot and cross' paper).

As they set off they wondered what had happened to the remaining harpy (who may or may not have been one of the priests under a curse). The answer was revealed; his bloody remains were strewn around the high altar!

Into the Temple

Incensed,  the party sprang forth, determined to cleanse the area. 

I don't know why Blogger is displaying some of my photos at 90 degrees

The gargoyles had other ideas, they had spared Kei yesterday, now they wanted to inflict pain and misery. Unfortunately for them, they were no match for the heroes, although Kei's attempt to frighten them off by showing them the crumbled dust of their companion only enraged them.

(The party had just levelled up to fifth level, the combat was an opportunity for them to appreciate how powerful they now were).

A bit of cleaning up the altar, and the respectful removal of the harpy's body to the crypts, lead to a minor blessing from the gods (Inspiration).

Going Underground

The heroes then made their way to the Grand Staircase,  a structure dating back to the minotaur occupation of the site.  They were met with a wall, still under construction, with goblins working away on it.

Eventually Lerolax, the minotaur leader arrived, now sporting a fine crown.  He apologised for not informing them, but he was ensuring the safety of his people.  (My version of the minotaurs has them much less likely to blindly attack.  They are on an expedition to seek treasures of the lost empire of Saruun-Khel. The heroes have met them before and reached an understanding with them.  Indeed, they have helped by getting rid of Kashatri the Oni and the gnolls) At Roland's urging, he agreed to build a gate in the wall and would discuss things further in the future.

Vampire Hunting

But this was all just preliminary action and Harrow was determined to deal with the vampire, so they went to the crypt where she was last known to have appeared. 

(Here we started using the Crooked Staff rooms I had built)

The Crypt antechamber know affectionally as Vardin's Chamber

The party examined the chamber, Tarryn was sure there was a door hidden in the wall opposite Gardrin's tomb, but had no idea how to open it. She was puzzled by the many small holes drilled through the mortar, some of which were plugged with silver. 

Timbers noticed graffiti scratched on the great man's tomb "my father turned his back on me", so Roland tried turning the statue. To no one's surprise, it pivoted, and as it did, there was a click, and the secret door swung open.

The Crypt of the Vampire Knight

Beyond was a corridor ending in a door, green light seeping from under it. Surely this was the vampire's crypt.

Timbers began chewing garlic, certain that it would offer him some protection from vampires, Kei prepared his Magic Circle (the upturned font - reading the description, it appears as if the circle can be set anywhere in range, rather than being drawn around the wizard). As Tharnak opened the door, he cast it in, blocking the chamber beyond.

Skeletal guards lined the walls and eerie green flames lit the room with a sickening light. 

Timbers opened the door and rushed in to face one of the skeletons, while the dwarf pushed his way forward to swing at another. Both missed and were nauseated by the flames, but thankfully took no damage.

One of the further flames coalesced into a ghostly figure, but rather than attacking, it drifted to the end of the chamber and seemed to be instructing skeletons there who began tugging at the tomb lid.

Harrow then stepped forward. "By the power and grace of the Raven Queen, I send you to your rest". With the exception of one orcish skeleton and two of the ones opening the tomb, the rest fell apart in a rattle of bone and rusty equipment. The ethereal creature fled to the end of the chamber. Roland and Tarryn quickly brought down the still standing skeleton with javelins and arrow.

While the rest of the party moved in and debated the most efficient way to finish things, unwilling to disturb the 'turned' undead, Harrow called on her god again. Spectral ravens appeared circling around her, pecking away at the remaining undead.

The tomb lid was almost off, and a swift kick from the tiefling finished the job. The spectral ravens swooped in and pecked the occupant to bits.

Was that it? 

The heroes investigated, sure that the thing in the tomb was no vampire, and the keen eyes of the elf spotted scratches on the floor. The tomb could slide.

It was heavy, and the mechanism was old and unused. Roland was unable to shift it, even with Tharnak's help.

Rolling up his sleeves the dwarf took over, "dinnae fash yersel laddie, let a real dwarf show ye how its done.  By Kord!". As the huge stone tomb slid, another door swung open in the wall, revealing steps down.

Ready for action (there are another four skeletons in the tomb section, but the party can't see them yet)

My view of the action, again, inexplicably turned on it's side.

To Be Continued in part two.

MEGAforce Boardgames Night: Villagers

With MEGAforce down to two members recently, Grim and I tried out Villagers. There's a two player version which was ideal for us to learn the game.

What is Villagers?

Villagers is another game from Haakon Hoel Gaarder, designer of MOON, and is available from Sinister Fish Games. The conceit of the game is post Plague Europe. Settlements are struggling to rebuild and need to attract new workers. 

There's a stream of potential new villagers travelling along The Road, and players take these and try and fit them into their village.

The winner is the village that to amasses the most gold by the end of the game.

Gameplay 

Players start with one Founders card, the farm around which the new village will accumulate, eight gold, and a hand of five Villagers cards.

The game consists of Draft phases, where players alternate taking Villager cards into their hand, either from the face up cards on the Road, or face down from the Stacks placed above the Road and used to restock the Road during the Draft Phase. There are no restrictions on which Villagers you can draft, but you might not always be able to add them to your Village straight away.

Players can draft two Villagers, plus an extra one for each red Food symbol in their Village, to a maximum of five.

Once the Draft Phase is over, the Road is cleared and restocked from the Reserve (the cards not yet in play).

The Build Phase is where you add Villager cards to your village from your hand. 

Players take turns to build two cards, plus one per Build symbol, again to a maximum of five.

Example Hay Suit

Villagers mostly build up in chains, for example; Hayer, Grazier, Milk Maid and Fromager (see above), requiring certain existing cards which they are placed upon. The chains all fall into a series of suits, Grain, Hay, Wood, Ore and Grapes (two more are available in larger games with more players). Some Villagers also require Unlocking; in the chain above, the Milk Maid requires the Cooper. Ideally, you already have the relevant Villager in your village, which earns them two gold. Alternatively, you can call on the skills of an unlocking Villager in another player's village, but you have to pay them. As a last resort, you can pay the Bank if no unlocking Villager is in play, so Unlocking is a problem that money can solve.

There are three types of Base Villagers, Miners, Hayers, and Lumberjacks. Up to three of these can be built in addition during the Build Phase by swapping them for cards in the player's hand. These don't add gold or anything, but are vital to build those chains of villagers.

Play then continues with more Draft Phases and Build Phases until a Market Phase is reached.

There are two Market Phases. The first when the first two left hand Stacks are exhausted and the second when all the stacks are exhausted, signalling the end of the game. These are where you actually collect gold. Some gold will have been placed on Villagers during Build Phases and some Villagers have gold symbols. The Second Market Phase also allows you to collect Silver, which is simply a way of differentiating gold collected at the end of the game, it's worth just the same (this sounds odd, but it works fine in practice). Silver is often dependent on other cards in your village, such as the Peddler, who gets three silver for every two gold symbols in your village.

Extras 

There are Solitary Villagers, such as the Priest, who don't belong to any suit. They are mostly used to add Silver in the Second Market Phase at the end of the game.

There are also Special Villagers, who either have a one off effect, like the Tinner, who automatically unlocks all Villagers that you build for the Build Phase when she is played, or permanent, like the Monk, who replaces any one Villager in a chain.

The game part way through. We are in the Build Phase just prior to the First Market Phase.

Briefly, top row, l to r; First Market Phase card, four Stacks, three piles of Basic Villages. Next row, l to r; The Road of six Villagers, the Refresh pile and the discard pile.

Below that are our villages, arranged as we saw fit. You can see some of the chains building up.

My village, with a very creditable 171 gold.

Grim's winning village with 186 gold.

Summary

Villagers is a great fun game. Of course, there's more to the rules than my brief description above, you'll have to play to find out.

I did find the art style a little jarring, it works wonderfully for Moon, for this game I'd have preferred a more 'Medieval' style, but that's just me.

If you like a game with more interaction with other players, there are expansions that introduce various Villagers who can effect other villages (in the base game the Apprentice can do this, but I don't think any other villager can) among other extra effects.

I'll give Villagers an 'S' Tier ranking, just behind Moon.  It looks to have a lot of repeat playabilty and there's a real sense of the different crafts relying on each other to thrive.

BOYL 25 Showcases and Aquisitions

Last post I showed some of the great games being played.  Now here's some photos of the lovely minis in the showcases. 

I won't mention everything in the photos, please just enjoy them.

I've never seen these Discworld minis before,  they look great.  

The 2000AD stuff is fun too

More 2000AD, loving the Gronk 

Classic Chaos beastmen, or are they Broo?

More Chaos 

Space Orks aplenty. I prefer the look of the Rogue Trader Orks, but these are very nice 

Classic Runtbots 

Eldar; I think the warrior in lime green armour is from the initial Rogue Trader releases, the Aspect Warriors date to the Codex days

More Aspect Warriors 

The best Space Marine chapter; classic RBT01 plastic 'beaky marines'

Chaos dwarves on the top row, proper dwarves down below. The group on the right are Bob Olley sculpts

More of the Dwarven diaspora. There are a couple of Regiments of Renown, Prince Ulthar's Imperial Dwarves and Bugman's Rangers 

Empire and villagers, to the right are the lovely Travelling Players 

Of course I managed to buy a few bits and pieces. Disappointingly, I couldn't find the chap giving out the Show Mini, but I did pick up some Foundry stuff for my various Old School projects.

These Armed Peasants complete the Linden Way Militia pike block. Last year I got a couple of packs of the Lowly Foot, four of those poses appear here on the left. There are also four other sculpts, including a pipe and tabor chap on the right with a rather short pipe*. This gives me plenty of options for including command in the various human troops I've assembled.

These archers may end up as the Linden Way archers, though I've got something else in mind for them as well.

That's also why I got a pack of Zombies. Note that the chap carrying his lunch is missing his lower right arm; a miscast. Never mind, I'm sure it happens to zombies on a regular basis.

Foundry cast up a few specials from the past for BOYL, including this lovely dwarf wizard. Apparently he's a variant of a previously unreleased mini, and was also available in a rather splendid tall hat. 

There were quite a few other temptations that I managed to resist, such as a pack of Bretonian spearmen (complete with slotta bases and a bargain at 8 for £16) and a random pack of elves that I can find no reference to anywhere. 

Still, I'm happy with my haul, and it's pretty much all got a place in my future plans.

And finally, perhaps the most important purchase of the day...

Unlimited hot drinks for the day, though since they didn't have any punch or mulled wine this was limited to tea and coffee.

*I'm sure I'll go on at length about how inaccurate the mini is when I get round to painting him.

Bring Out Your Lead 2025

Last year was my first BOYL and I enjoyed it so much that I was back for more this year. 

Still just a day visitor,  maybe one day I'll pluck up the courage to join in something. 

There seemed to be more games running this time, and a greater variety too.

There was a lovely looking game of Man 'o War, a favourite of mine back in the 1980s. 

I was particularly impressed by the islands and the seascape,  and the fleets were very nicely painted. 

I must get my copy out sometime. 

The fleets assemble

The dwarf fleet, complete with aerial support 

Chaos dwarves, with funnels to match their hats, and orcs

The Empire 

There were also games of Heroquest, with a marvellous 3D board; Talisman 3rd Edition; Necromunda; Armagedon; Mordheim; Bomerz Over Da Sulpha River, and even a game of Hordes of the Things.

Necromunda, I think they were even using the original card terrain

Warhammer Fantasy Battles 

Unsurprisingly,  there were many games of Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40K.  

Classic style Warhammer board just before the battle starts

High Elves vs Orcs and Goblins 

This was even a game of second edition WFB (my favourite edition). A battle from the classic Tragedy of McDeath scenario pack

This table (previous two pictures) was great for playing 'spot the building'. There are versions of buildings from Orc's Drift and Terror of the Lichemaster. Even the Monastery of La Maisontaal.

The main marquee had two huge tables. One featured this awesome mega battle. There was an amazing mix of stuff, including whole regiments of repurposed Lord of the Rings minis, giants, Empire and allies and the fantastic airship 

The other large table was shared by this ruined city, which I think was Praag? and the Bomberz game (the sandy coloured bit at the back)

Warhammer 40 000

There were nearly as many games of 40K going on, with a good mix of armies and styles of terrain. I missed getting photos of the great looking Tyranid terrain on one table.

I think this was a game using the original Rogue Trader rules, though it includes some more modern minis 

Proper 40K spikey cacti 

An impromptu game set up on one of the tables in the courtyard. Great Battlewagon.

There was more, but I didn't get pictures of everything. Apologies if I missed your game here, but I certainly enjoyed everything I saw.

Next time I'll show you what I got, along with some photos of the cabinets.