Sir Kullen Lorcan Oath Of Vengeance Paladin

 I am on an incredible run of painting miniatures for long running games and having them get killed in the first game they play in.

I am currently playing Dragonlance Shadow Of The Dragon Queen (which so far is AMAZING by the way) and my initial character Sir Dane Lorcan was tragically killed in our first serious combat.  R.I.P. Dane.  This led to me needing to make a new character, and due to us being a small group I needed to play a fairly similar character to fill the frontline fighter role in the party, I decided to travel back in time to 1983 and unleash my inner 12 year old for the classic replacement character idea; my fallen character's brother looking for revenge!

Sir Kullen Lorcan is a Knight Of The Crown Oath Of Vengeance Paladin.

Sir Kullen is basically a bull in a china shop out for revenge against The Dragon Army.  I'm excited to see how he does.

Sir Kullen is yet another terrific WizKids model I got from my Friendly Local Game Store.  You should check out yours.

Thanks for checking in.

-Jay

Five Leagues From The Borderlands - The Civic Minded Six

 It's beginning to look like 2023 will be the year of games that can be played solo for me.  I am actually currently in the process of playing four (seriously FOUR?!) separate solo fantasy miniature skirmish/RPG games.

The first game up in the que is Five Leagues From The Borderlands.  Five Leagues is probably the most popular and well known solo game I'll be playing.  I am definitely still trying to find the game that appeals to me the most.  So far they all have strengths and weaknesses.  Five Leagues is fairly straight forward and rules lite (which I like) but in my opinion lacks flavour.  The campaign system is engaging but it feels to me like the campaign system should be bolted on to some other game?

For my Five Leagues warband I re-cycled two underused figures from previous D&D and Dungeon Crawl Classic games, and painted four new figures.  Let's meet the Civic Minded Six!

The leader of The Six is Sir Dane Lorcan.  Sir Dane is a WizKids Frameworks miniature with a head swapped in from the plastic Frostgrave Captains.

My favourite new character was Cheech my Feral Outsider.  He's a tremendous miniature and was highly effective in my first game.  In my second game?  R.I.P. Cheech.

Penelope Haberdasher was probably my most effective character snipping away with her crossbow and also filling in the underappreciated role of fashionista that every successful adventuring party needs.

My final hero level character is a reused miniature for Donal from a previous D&D game.  I only got to use Donal once in his D&D game before he was forced to retire for somewhat meta reasons.  I'm excited to use him in a bunch more games!  On an unrelated note; R.I.P. Donal.

In addition to my heroes, each warband starts with two followers, who are effectively lesser characters.  My first follower is The Penitent.  The Penitent is a Fireforge Games miniature that I had effectively as a backup character in a Dungeon Crawl Classics game.

My last character/follower is Mac.  Mac is a Wargames Atlantic celt model.  Mac was a moderately effective support character and I look forward to painting more of these cool models going forward.

It was nice to get some painting done, as well as scratching a bit of an old school RPG itch.

And as always I got all of the assorted miniatures from a variety of different companies through my friendly local game store.

Thanks for checking in!

-Jay

First scenery project for Rangers Of Shadow Deep

 Although there's still a week left in 2022 I'm getting a slightly early start on my planned gaming activity for 2023.  This past year has been a bit of a weird one for me in that while I still really enjoy painting miniatures and playing miniature games it's all gotten a bit stale for me.  I think the main reason for this is that my tastes haven't really changed or evolved much over the past 15ish years so my painting has gotten a bit repetitive.  This combined with challenges around my schedule and personal time have pushed me in what feels like a logical new direction; I'm going to try to play more smaller scale, but more 'complete' games.  By this I mean my current thought is that I'm going to paint far less miniatures in the coming year but build and paint a lot more purpose-built scenery for my games so that things look and feel more complete.  Given the challenges I've had actually getting out and playing games with other opponents my plan is to start off with games that have strong solo play, so my first two sets of projects will be for Rangers Of Shadow Deep (fantasy) and CQB (modern).

My first small project will be for Rangers Of Shadow Deep but will also potentially work for D&D and/or the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game.

Nest Trees.  The second scenario in the Rangers Of Shadow Deep rulebook requires some 'Nest Trees' which are the homes to some malignant giant spiders.  This is a great example of a scenery requirement in Rangers Of Shadow Deep which almost any player can easily add to their table.  If a player isn't interested in doing a spider themed tree they can easily use either regular unmodified trees or even a counter or cardboard cutout.  For me with my new plan, and also the fact that I like haunted forests as a game setting I decided to take some diorama trees and add; eggs, webs, and some partial corpses.

I think I went a bit too heavy on the web but overall I'm pretty happy with how these turned out.  For anyone wondering why I've started with the scenery for the second scenario its simply because I need a slightly larger space to build and photograph my intended scenery for the first scenario but I'm REALLY excited about getting to work on it.

Hopefully this is a new and fresh direction that will generate some fun new projects for me.

Thanks for checking in.

-Jay

Review - D&D Starter Set (2022) Dragons Of Stormwreck Isle

 Today I'm taking an overdue look at the new/current (at time of writing) starter set for Dungeons & Dragons; Dragons Of Stormwreck Isle.

Truthfully I kept going back and forth on my opinion about this set because every time I began to formulate an opinion I found myself challenging if that opinion existed in the appropriate context.  Having said that this might be the first time I've reviewed something that I've landed on three completely different but in my opinion completely valid final takes on the overall product.  Let's go! 

Over the now 10 year history of D&D Fifth edition there have been five box sets released that are either intended as "starters" or simply as stand-alone adventures with rules.  Those boxes in order are; D&D Starter Set, D&D Stranger Things, D&D Essentials, D&D Rick & Morty, and now Dragons Of Stromwreck Isle.  The reason I wanted to lay that out is that even though the Essentials and Rick & Morty set weren't marketed as 'starters' this new set feels like a big step backwards from those two products.

Let's begin by talking about what great (and what's great really is great) about Dragons Of Stormwreck Isle.  The production value, in particular the quality of the writing and the artwork are outstanding and exactly what someone would expect from a leader in the industry.  The included adventure is extremely well structured for new or first time players in that although the narrative is very linear the game play experience feels a lot more like a sandbox that confers a lot of agency to the players.  This has the dual effect of allowing the players to feel like they have complete autonomy while preventing them from going too far off the rails (the sandbox itself is relatively small).  I also really like that the design team has done a great job of planting a stake in the ground for what they want 21st century D&D to 'feel' like in that some historically evil humanoids are recast as benign, while also painting D&D dragons as being separate and extremely distinct from dragons in traditional fantasy fiction.  The adventure itself in spite of being relatively short has scenes that will satisfy a variety of different player styles.  It's also worth noting that although Essentials came close this is the first box set that really leans into online support with D&D Beyond which has seen a huge upsurge in popularity in our post-pandemic world.

I'd also like to address what are in my opinion a couple of near misses.  These aren't things that I think are bad, but they are things that could have been better.  First up it bothers me to no end that in all the art the player characters are represented by the characters  from the 80s animated series, but those are then not the pre-generated characters that come in the adventure.  Either the characters represented in the art should have been the pre-gens, or the art should have reflected the existing pre-gens.  This might seem minor but keep in mind creating new art of these characters to appeal to certain gamer's nostalgia was a conscious choice and then not following through feels like a bit a bait and switch.  My other near miss has to do with the timing of the release.  Normally a starter set has a fairly open ended and lengthy lifetime, this one does not.  With the new iteration of D&D scheduled in the next 12-18 months it's not unreasonable to assume that this box has an expected life cycle of 12-18 months, that being the case it doesn't need to be evergreen and it doesn't need to tie to the larger world of D&D (The Forgotten Realms).  So my question is this; if you're only going to sell this box for 12-18 months, and 2 of your significant features and going to be draconic humanoids and dragon mythology, and your next major release is the Dragonlance campaign setting...why isn't this starter set set on the continent of Krynn in the Dragonlance campaign setting?

And now, my actual issues with the product overall.  At the start I referenced how this box feels like a step backwards from Essentials and Rick & Morty, that opinion is almost entirely based on the contents (or lack thereof) in the box.  Both of the aforementioned sets included two things that I felt made them feel far more complete than this box.  The first is they included 11 piece dice sets instead of 6 piece dice sets.  Although it can certainly be argued that a product that doesn't include rules for character creation doesn't necessarily need the extra D6s the absence of a second D20 is pretty poor.  For any opposed roles having the DM and player roll simultaneously is more fun, as well as being more immediate for advantage/disadvantage rolls.  The other missing piece (and I'm honestly concerned this represents an intentional shift in philosophy rather than an oversight) is the lack of a DM screen.  As a positive I mentioned that this product is really linked to and supports online play, but some of us still want to sit around a table with our friends, and for new DMs in particular the DM screen is an outstanding reference.  If I go all the way back 10 years to the first starter box the contents match up pretty well, and had this box followed on from that one rather than having three other box sets fall between them it's shortcomings would probably be less obvious.

So overall what do I think?  If you're completely new to RPGs and D&D Dragons Of Stormwreck Isle will get you started and its contents and value for money fall largely inline with what most other companies offer as quick-start sets.  If you and your group have some prior experience with RPGs you will probably find you'll get a much deeper more satisfying experience out of the Essentials box set.  And if you're an existing D&D 5e player you're paying for a 48 page saddle-stitched adventure for levels 1-3.

If Dragons Of Stromwreck Isle is right for you please pick it up from your friendly local game store.  I got mine from my FLGS and they also have all the other bits and pieces I need for all my games.

Thanks for checking in

-Jay

How I got here: D&D Part 1

 I've been doing a lot of writing this past week and it got me thinking about different tastes or styles in RPG adventures and how what is popular has changed over the years.  It's not a question of better or worse, it's really just about different.  Personally I really like current generation game rules, but if I'm being honest I still really prefer the style of adventures and game content that were published when I first got into D&D.  It got me thinking about my first year playing D&D and the first few products that shaped my view of how the game is played.

When I first got into D&D I was 11 years old.  I had basically no money of my own and my family was tight enough for money that I couldn't just go out with my parents and get the things I wanted (or knew of for that matter).  I ended up doing what every 11 year old focused on one thing they want does; I asked for nothing but D&D stuff for Christmas.  I don't remember in detail a lot of Christmases from my youth, but I remember Christmas 1983.

My younger sister used to get up CRAZY early on Christmas morning to open presents.  After a couple of years of ridiculously early December 25ths my mom had set down a rule that when we woke up we could open and play with everything in our stockings, but no presents under the tree, and no waking her up before she got up on her own. So on December 25th 1983 at about 3:30am my sister came busting into my room with her stocking (mine was leaned up against my bedroom door) to go through our stockings.  Every year since my mom had started this practice my sister had come into my room, gone through stockings, and then we would fall back asleep after she got bored, this year would be the first time I stayed up.  My stocking was full of fruit, nuts, candies, and toiletries (the usual for us) but tucked in behind my stocking leaned up against my bedroom door was my first ever D&D book; The Fiend Folio.

I was thrilled!  Not only was the artwork AMAZING but a ton of my early gaming was playing through Fighting Fantasy  books Warlock Of Firetop Mountain and Citadel Of Chaos.  Getting a D&D book that was filled with monsters with the same aesthetic and sensibilities excited me more than any other D&D book I could have gotten at the time would have.  My sister fell back asleep and I sat up in my bed reading the Fiend Folio from cover to cover while everyone else in the house slept.

Hours later we all  went downstairs and started opening presents.  My mom obviously knew which way my interests were going as the first two packages I opened were a JRR Tolkien box set and a CS Lewis box set.  That was awesome!  I had 11 books to read that couldn't wait to get into, but the next package properly kicked off and interest that is still going strong 39 years later...

This was unbelievable!  I was overwhelmed that I had both a Player's and a Dungeon Master's book!  I'd never actually seen this box set before, I had only seen the the AD&D hardcovers before.  And in 2022 I can't accurately convey what a big deal it was to have my own dice, at that time I didn't even know where I could get polyhedral dice from!  I remember thinking I couldn't wait to get together with my friends after Christmas to start playing with my new stuff, and that was before I opened the Player's book and realized it had a solo adventure I was going to be able to play through that day.  That old D&D box combined newness and completeness in a way that still informs my view of what a good starter set for a game should be.

My final gaming present from that first Christmas was another showcase of how great gaming content was at the time.  My first issue of Dragon Magazine.

How could one magazine have; an entire city setting, an complete adventure, a piece of fiction, and a TON of background articles, and even ads (seriously ADS!) that had tons of amazing original artwork?

Christmas 1983 was my first deep dive into fantasy role-playing.  Next up I'll cover summer 1985 when my philosophy of adventures and adventure writing started to take shape.

-Jay

Review - D&D Frameworks Miniatures

 Today I'll be taking a quick look at the new Frameworks line of hard plastic D&D miniatures being produced by WizKids Games.

When I heard that WizKids was going to be producing hard plastic customizable D&D figures I was extremely excited, this was the exact kind of miniatures line I had wanted for years.  I'm going to preface this review by stating two things to make my own perspective clear:

1.  Having a positive personal bias going in, once I received the models I decided to spend some time with the models before reviewing them with the goal of remaining as objective as possible.

2.  I fully understand that on the venn diagram of miniature gamers and role-players aside from the group in the center overlap there are two different sets of wants and needs from a D&D miniature product.

Having said that, let's get to it!

At release there are two basic types of Frameworks boxes; single models (characters and monsters), as well as multi-packs of 'horde' type monsters.  I started off with four single model boxes (intentionally chosen as two sets of two, more on that in a bit), and one multi-pack.  Here's a quick look at the single models:

And then my one multi-pack:

The Good

I will start off by saying the level and sharpness of detail on these figures is outstanding.  Remembering that for as long as WizKids has been making miniatures this is their first pass at hard plastic and the quality is outstanding.  The variety of models available is also great as most basic D&D character arch-types are readily available and suitable for D&D or similar games right out of their boxes.  And I'm really sorry, but as far as positives go, that's pretty much it.

The Bad

The design of the plastic frames themselves is incredibly out of date by modern casting standards, what I mean by that is in the pictures you can clearly see the amount of unused space on the sprues.  This means there could have been significantly more options in each box than we ended up getting.  This issue is further exacerbated by space being taken up on the sprues by repetitive and needless pieces.  The two most egregious example of this are the bases and shields.  Every miniature includes a clear plastic base, but in spite of this on every sprue the second biggest component (after the main body of the figure) is a single flat rock for the miniature to stand on, flat based rocks are a holdover from the days before generic flat bases and you don't need both, it wouldn't matter but given how much real estate on these sprues seems to be at a premium I would rather have another component or accessory than a duplication of basic basing function.  The shields are even more glaring.  The fighter's two shield options are identical except for the groves on the back so they can easily be attached to the figure in two different ways, given that the backs of the shields will be unseen once the models are assembled this is completely unnecessary.  In the case of the Cleric three of the components on the sprue are one shield with two different images to mount on the front, this would be fine if again it wasn't for how much sprue space is given over to what is effectively one option.

The Ugly

Normally this would be my final point but I have to call out what poor value for money these figures are before moving on to ,more subjective points.  A single character box has an MSRP roughly 80%-100% higher (so nearly double) than it's equivalent pack in the softer vinyl.  The material and options theoretically add value to these Frameworks packs, but keep in mind that the packs I'm comparing them to have two figures each, not a single character (in the case of the Kobolds in my market I could have gotten 30 kobolds for this box of 7 costs).  For my next point I'm going back to the start where I mentioned I consciously started with two sets of two characters, two armoured humans, and two unarmoured arcane casters.  The reason I started with 'sets' of figures was to determine whether or not part could be easily swapped from one kit to another reasonably similar kit, for no reason at all the answer to that is; no.  The heads don't have the same attachments, the arms attach at different points in the lengths, and most of the clear plastic accessories attach to a single specific arm or hand.  Due to the models being plastic it would be fairly easy to use a knife or files to modify pieces to get them to fit together, but remember that venn diagram?  I'm going to say 50% of potential hobbyists for these models are really not going to want to do that. 

Overall I am really disappointed by Frameworks.  I had high hopes but the technical execution and some design choices are so poor that almost from the moment I opened these boxes my mind went to all the better options to fill this particular hobby niche.  If you see a single figure that really appeal to then by all means go for it, but if you are looking for a pool of miniature options for your D&D games there are much better choices out there for you.

Thanks for checking in.

-Jay

 

Review: Questionable Confectionaries Volume 2 Cole'Dren's Tavern Side Bistro

 Today I'm taking a look at the second volume in the Questionable Confectionaries series, and after how much I enjoyed the first collection I'm really looking forward to it!

For those who aren't familiar with the first volume the Questionable Confectionaries series is a collection of food-themed magic items that would occupy a similar place in a treasure assortment to a potion or scroll.  What's nice about the food/treat theme of most of the items is that they inherently give the items themselves a more whimsical nature and may fit particularly well into certain themed games, for example if you're already tapping into some fairy tale mythologies, or possibly even an Alice In Wonderland type feel.

The overall tone and feel of the items themselves hits the perfect balance for me in my games of being very tongue-in-cheek without descending into cartoonish levels of silliness.  This time out the collection is broken up into sections based on overall rarity (which I find extremely helpful). 

I have to say upon my initial read-through of the second volume I was immediately struck by one significant improvement over the first volume, as well as one unfortunate step back.  The big improvement for me was the sheer quantity of content.  In addition to simply having a higher page count (by a significant margin) the layout is a bit changed and updated with a lot more text on every page.  This is a big improvement because if you liked the first volume, there is simply way more of it to like here.  The step back is that all this increased material seems to have come at the cost of a dramatic reduction in the ratio of art to items.  For some purchasers this simply won't be an issue but for me art really makes an RPG product pop, and I not only enjoyed the art in the first volume, but what art there was in the second volume was again very well done (special shout-out to the Draconian Fruit Cake) and I certainly would have liked to have more of it.

One of the areas of expansion covered by this volume is the addition of The Gourmand which is an appropriately foody version of the Artificer along with some new abilities.  This gives both DMs and players more opportunity to work with the Questionable Confectionaries material in-game.

Overall I think Questionable Confectionaries Volume 2 is a worthwhile addition to any DMs toolbox, especially those looking for treat-themed items to add to their games!

Questionable Confectionaries Volume 2 is currently available from DMsGuild at https://www.dmsguild.com/product/333603/Questionable-Confectionaries-vol-2-ColeDrens-Tavern-Side-Bistro?term=questionable for a sweetly priced $5.50.

-Jay

Review: Van Richten's Guide To Ravenloft

 Today I'll be taking an objective look at the newest official D&D supplement; Van Richten's Guide To Ravenloft.

I'm going to preface this review by calling out a few things about my personal thoughts and feelings before I get into the review proper.  As the newest version of an old-school edgy campaign setting from the TSR days Van Richten's Guide has been extremely polarizing in it's reception by the RPG community.  I really enjoyed the original I6 as well as the campaign setting, supplements, and adventures for Ravenloft in 2nd edition.  I thought the black and white art style really suited the mood and feel of the setting, and although it's reliance on pre-existing tropes has often been a criticism of older Ravenloft material, I genuinely enjoyed the feeling that any Hammer or Universal horror film could be directly ported into my D&D game.  So what I'm saying is that as a 49 year old gamer who's been playing D&D since 1983 I really enjoyed Ravenloft's initial run through TSR and wasn't necessarily looking for a shift in tone or feel.  But, none of us longtime fans should look at a setting and assume because the tone or feel has shifted from what we initially enjoyed that that makes the new version inherently bad, or 'less-than' the old version.

So having said all of that in the name of clarity and full-disclosure, as I said before; I'll be taking an objective look at Van Richten's Guide To Ravenloft.

The first thing that I think needs to be recognized about this newest book is that it really doesn't fit into any familiar categories of books that Wizards Of The Coast have published before.  I opened the book expecting a detailed campaign setting and instead what I got was a campaign toolkit.  This will no doubt disappoint many pre-existing fans who were hoping for a 5e update of much of their beloved earlier material, as well as potentially seeming a bit complicated and vague to new players hoping to crack the book open and get right to it.  My initial impression was that this was disappointing and a bit of a failing but upon further reflection it actually seems genius to me.  By laying bare the structure of how to build domains and Darklords and what Ravenloft more or less 'is' the book allows the DM to easily create their own unique content, or for us old-time fans to port over several thousand pages of content in a way that a 256 page single volume was never going to be able to do.  If you're a new DM and you want a campaign ready to go as written, this might not be the right choice for you, but if you want something that feels entirely unconstrained by it's page count this book is terrific.

To the subject of the domains themselves as laid out in the book there is some tremendous content and ideas but my main criticism is none of them get quite the attention they deserve.  My favourite features of the Domains Of Ravenloft section is that there are two entirely new domains that draw on entirely new and distinct cultures for inspiration, as well as a few of the existing domains being given complete make-overs (I LOVE what the new book has done with Souragne!). 

The section of the book that has thus far seemed to be the biggest target for criticism online has been the section on Horror Adventures themselves.  This section in addition to addressing setting mood and creating atmosphere also brings up the subject of running horror games in a safe and comfortable (real world) setting.  This is the part of the book that players of my generation in particular seem to have huge issues with.  The simple fact of the matter is that we are living in the 21st century and there should be no issue with writing horror content with 21st century sensibilities in mind.  If I personally have a criticism of how this content was included it would simply be that it feels like it belongs more in the core Dungeon Master's Guide than in this book, but given that it wasn't included in the DMG this is the logical place for it.

Separate from the individual sections of the book themselves there are two other elements of the book I would like to call out; one positive, one negative.

On the positive side in spite of my fondness for the original Ravenloft art style, I have to say I really enjoyed the art in this new book.  One of the subtle things the art does is that in many of the isolated character images it simply looks like regular 5e artwork that could be in any core book, without anything sinister or horrific about it.  But in some of the action images (where admittedly the heroes are still looking very heroic) the sense of 'wrongness' is extremely well executed.  This image of a Tiefling is one of the best pieces of horror art I've seen for any D&D product.

My last remaining criticism (I'm really going to try not to rant here) is; how lazy some of the writing feels.  I know saying how lazy it 'feels' may seem a bit unfair but there are a few things with the updated domains that just felt like minimal effort was applied.  The two that stick out like sore thumbs to me are the updates to the Darklords of Falkovnia and Lamordia.  In the case of both domains the previous male Darklords were replaced with female Darklords, this is NOT my problem at all.  My problem is these two new Darklords names could only have been lazier if they took the male characters names and just added 'ette' onto the end of them.  Vladeslav is now Vladeska, and Viktor is now Viktra.  I think the reason it annoys me so much is I'm more than happy to get onboard with new characters, so why would you you use their names to constantly remind me that these new characters are effectively sequels?  The other place I found the writing felt lazy was in lieu of stat blocks for named NPCs simply giving them equivalents from the Monster Manual or Dungeon Master's Guide.  I realize this probably radically increased the amount of content that could be included by eliminating bulky stat blocks but it leaves many of these heroes and villains feeling truly underwhelming.

Overall I would highly recommend Van Richten's Guide To Ravenloft to anyone looking to run a 5e D&D horror game or to anyone who wants the tools to update their existing Ravenloft game to 5e!

And as always please support your friendly local game store and purchase this product from those who support our hobby community, many of whom kept their lights on through a truly horror-themed year.

-Jay

Review: Questionable Confectionaries Niter's Ye Olde Candy Shoppe

  Today's review is something that feels new and unique in the RPG space, the first volume in the Questionable Confectionaries series (more to come shortly!) Niter's Ye Olde Candy Shoppe.

Although the DMsGuild has no shortage of collections of new and wonderous magical items for players to add to their games Niter's is the first collection I've come across with such a clear, coherent and well executed theme.  As is no doubt obvious from the title the theme is candy!

First up the layout and presentation of this volume is terrific.  Each candy receives a full description, clearly laid out game effects, flavour text in the form of an anecdote from Niter, as well as an image for every entry.  This layout both makes the collection easy and engaging to read as well as giving a certain sense of immersion.

Two of the features I'd also like to call out are a brief section on accessibility at the beginning on the book reframing some of D&Ds conditions and separating them from disabilities of the same names.  In addition when purchasing a copy of Niter's you will receive both the standard copy of the document, as well as a dyslexia-friendly version which is a rare and valuable accessibility option. 

From a game mechanics point of view the impact that the individual candies would have on a game is quite wide-ranging and seems well defined by and connected to the rarity level of each individual confection.  What I personally found really appealing about the game effects were that they were well anchored and described in the context and sensibilities of D&D 5e, but had very much the gonzo old-school feeling of something that a player might have found in an old fun-house style adventure like Tegal Manor or Castle Amber.

The only real downside I can see in Niter's Ye Old Candy Shoppe is that for groups who like their adventuring style more 'grimdark' the general fun and whimsical tone might not align with their view of what they want in their game.

Overall I think adding bits and pieces from Niter's Ye Olde Candy Shoppe to existing adventures or using some of the options as seeds for adventures on their own can add a lot of fun and wonder to a D&D campaign and I'm personally looking forward to adding some traveling sales reps from Niter's to my own games in the coming months.

Overall I highly recommend Niter's Ye Olde Candy Shoppe to anyone running a 5e game.  It's currently available from DMsGuild at  https://www.dmsguild.com/product/290988/Questionable-Confectionaries-Vol1-Niters-Ye-Old-Candy-Shoppe?term=niter%27s and is a bargain at only $3.99.

-Jay

Now I lay me down to sleep

Although I'm finally getting around to getting an assortment of scatter terrain done a fair bit of it is stuff I've collected over the past few years.  Quite awhile back when I started playing This Is Not A Test I bought these Reaper Bones beds, they're intended for fantasy games, but I thought their ramshackle appearance would fit in with the look of post apocalyptic games.

As it turns out I found something else that will work better for This Is Not A Test and Fallout that you'll hopefully be seeing in a few days.  But having said that it's still nice to have these and they should work as set dressing in a variety of games.

I got these Reaper beds as well as many of my other miniatures and games from my Friendly Local Game Store.

-Jay

Some odds and ends

Yesterday was one of those days I picked away at a few small projects and almost finished projects while trying to get some coherent writing done.  Nothing earth shattering here but one more figure I actually needed with a lot of urgency (played using him as my PC last night), and two more sci-fi scatter terrain bits.

First up; Flint.

Flint Stone is my character for Advanced Fighting Fantasy.  He is a member of the Hanna-tribe which of course makes him a Hanna-Barbarian (I'm a dad, I'm allowed to tell dad jokes!).  Anyway Flint is made out of the Northstar Frostgrave Barbarian box set with a Bolt Action backpack thrown on to complete the wandering adventurer look.

Flint did mostly pretty well in his first game until a short run of bad luck (literally, I couldn't make a single 'luck' roll) and I'm looking forward to playing more Fighting Fantasy in the near future.  I also appear to have begun collecting a small tribe of barbarians since last year. 

There's definitely one more Barbarian in my near future and then it will definitely be time to move on.

The other thing I realized late yesterday afternoon while prepping some more Broken Contract figures is that I had the two bases of oil drums I'd gotten with my two female Gen-Mods just sitting around and I could get them done quickly.

I actually tried something slightly different this time and I think it worked out pretty well, but it may have been just a bit too subtle to show up in my pictures.  For the oil drums I started off by dry-brushing them metallic (Lead Belcher in this case), then painted them with a watered-down yellow (Averland Sunset), and then I hit them with a super light dry-brush of the same metallic again.  This gives the effect of painted drums where the paint is wearing off but no necessarily super-rough or dirty.

So that's it.  I have a few more lingering almost finished figures I'd like to wrap up this weekend and then it's back to the wasteland.

-Jay

Review - Harper's Tale

Today I want to take a look at a 10 chapter, 170 page adventure path for D&D characters of levels 1-10; Harper's Tale.

Harper's Tale is named for lead developer Matt Corley's daughter (and co-lead developer) Harper.  The adventures mix the inspiration and youthful-fun outlook of a child with the sensibilities of an experienced game author to contribute something truly new and unique to the current RPG scene.

The creative team behind Harper's Tale reads like an all-star team of freelance writers and artists currently working in the RPG industry, and it's not just a list of names on the credits page of a book, the quality and experience this team brings really shines through.  Harper's Tale is gorgeously illustrated throughout but I want to call special attention to the fantastic character illustrations by Gwendy Bee, these illustrations are bright and appealing while still conveying a sense of mystery and the fantastic.  In addition to the amazing art I found all of the cartography to be easy to read and use and clearly laid out where I needed it.

The ten adventures themselves are all written by separate writers or writing teams and one of their nicest features is they are structured so that in addition  to making up one ten adventure long campaign they are also all framed so they can be run as individual one-shots.  The central story mixes investigation and adventure as the characters start off by investigating a mysterious illness and follow various leads and clues looking for both the source and a cure.  The adventure path is set in the wilderness but uses many different settings for individual adventures (forests, small villages, dungeons, multi-room buildings) to give the ten adventures a great deal of variety.

In addition to a number of different settings the adventure path is full to the brim with interesting NPCs that not only work well within the narrative but could also be used to seed other adventures, for my part I GUARANTEE my players will meet Professor Piewright at some point prior to actually playing Harper's Tale.

And I couldn't resist the urge to convert and paint my own Sir Cheddar!

Overall I highly recommend Harper's Tale.  There is an absolutely amazing amount of the highest quality content here and the mix of art and writing style really evokes the sense of fantastic mystery, fun, and discovery that I think the best fantasy RPG adventures are capable of.

Harper's Tale is currently available from DrivethruRPG at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/311843/Harpers-Tale-A-Forest-Adventure-Path-for-5e?term=Harper

-Jay

Review - Whispers In The Dark (Preview - Horror In The Windy City)

A few weeks ago I mentioned that Matt Corley was running a joint fiction and RPG Kickstarter for an investigative horror game set at the end of 19th century.  I had a chance to read through the fiction-side of the Kickstarter, and it was GREAT!  The follow up plan was to play Whispers In The Dark (the first title in the RPG series) last week to try out the core mechanics but unfortunately the horror of real life reared it's ugly head and pushed our game back to this coming week.  I'm stoked about playing but having done my prep I wanted to share my thoughts on the game itself prior to the current Kickstarter ending.

Whispers In The Dark is a joint effort by Matt Corley and M.T. Black who both have a tremendous track record of writing interesting and thematically original 5e content.  Whispers uses 5e for it's core mechanics which I have to say really highlights how well the Skills and Feats allow players to develop distinctly different characters.  The game drops the concepts of Race and Class entirely, and re-focuses not only on Skills, and Feats, but Backgrounds as well.  This allows players who are familiar with D&D 5e to pick up and play a different style of game without having to learn a whole new set of rules.  From a physical point of view the rule book for Whispers In The Dark is a work of art unto itself.  The layout, font choices, and style of art create a very period authentic mythos feel.  As a longtime fan of Cthulhu mythos, Ravenloft, and D&D this rule set scratches all those itches.  I'm really looking forward to running Whispers In The Dark later this week, and in hindsight my only regret is that I hadn't bought the book earlier, as it would have been great support for a D&D game I just ran (which I should be covering in another review in a week or two).  I strongly recommend Whispers In The Dark for all fans of horror gaming whether they have prior experience with D&D or not.

Horror In The Windy City is a follow up to Whispers In The Dark and introduces a new alignment system, which I think a lot of folks online who have been debating the merits of D&D's current alignment system will really like.  For anyone who's curious the alignment system is up as a preview on the Kickstarter page, I highly recommend checking it out.  The real draw for me personally is that the included adventure content in Horror In The Windy City is the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story of HH Holmes.  If you're familiar with the story of HH Holmes, just stop reading now and go back the Kickstarter.  And if you're not familiar head on over to the Kickstarter and read about the Murder Castle.  Overall I would say that for a lot of gamers Horror In The Windy City looks to straddle the line between period mystery and fantasy horror in a way that should appeal to a tremendous range of players.

Whispers In The Dark is presently available through DriveThruRPG at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/299564/Whispers-in-the-Dark-Quickstart-Rules-for-5e?term=Whispers+In+The+Da it comes in a variety of formats across a number of different price points.

Horror In The Windy City is in the final days of it's Kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/37222410/the-devils-city-for-5e and I would highly recommend backing it to any fan of investigative horror, or anyone interested in bringing in new elements to their Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons game.

-Jay