Back To Stennard

 I recently got to return to Breaker Press' fantastic grimdark Stennard campaign.  Ironically after a year-ish away I returned playing one of the characters from the original funnel I played in the setting; Rhonda Eynion.

Rhonda is a first (almost second) level Cleric and is the conscience of a party that desperately needs one.

Being the moral center of the party Rhonda tends to jump in to save people and defend those in need.  The result of this is that she has slowly surrounded herself will a small entourage of NPCs that she is accompanying to their homes and relatively safe havens.

First up is Vela Correnwood one of the NPCs you are trying to save in The Precipice Of Corruption published adventure.  After rescuing Vela Rhonda and the party escorted her to her home at Hillwood Camp to recover her axe.  At this point Vela is filling the niche of a henchman/backup-PC.

While playtesting another adventure Nick is working on the group saved a couple of children that an evil witch in the woods was trying to consume.

Both children should actually be girls, but unfortunately I only had one female child miniature so I had to make do with what I had.  As an aside this is the 'Children' 2 pack from WizKids and I have to say it is one of the few packs of their miniatures I have gotten that I was actually disappointed with.  The figures are quite small (befitting of children) which is fine but for some reason this has translated into some incredibly shallow detail.  Both of their faces are virtually non-existent and the texturing on the boy's clothes is barely there.  Generally I really like the WizKids models but this pack is a rare miss for them.

The other great thing about these figures is that in addition to using them for Dungeon Crawl Classics I've decided I'm finally going to play some Rangers Of Shadow Deep (and maybe some Frostgrave) in 2023 and all of these figures will work well for those games.  The motivation to paint the children was actually as objectives for one of the first scenarios in the Rangers Of Shadow Deep book.  I also want to call out that North Star Military Miniatures official Frostgrave miniatures are a great line both for fantasy RPG miniatures in general, as well as specifically having a great assortment of female miniatures that break from the pin-up style of clothing and gear.

Here's the group making their way through the woods to...safety?

For anyone looking for a grimdark campaign setting with a real old-school feel I would highly recommend checking out the content from Breaker Press Games, all their current titles can be found at Breaker Press DTRPG 

And my miniatures, as always, can be purchased from your friendly local game store.  Please check them out and support local businesses!

Thanks for checking in.

-Jay

I just got 'funneled' in Stennard

 In case it's not already obvious; I like gaming with miniatures, I mean I REALLY like gaming with miniatures.  One of the odder ways this manifests itself is that even when I'm playing an RPG that doesn't need or require miniatures I paint them anyways.  Case in point, I recently got to play in a Twitch stream run by Nick from Breaker Press Games on Goodman Games official Twitch channel.  Obviously playing remotely and we were not using miniatures but...I've got to be me, so I painted up the three characters I would be playing in our level 0 funnel.

A funnel is the concept in Dungeon Crawl Classics where a player players usually four, but in this case three, 0 level extremely fragile characters some, most, or all of whom won't survive to the conclusion of the adventure and then when it's time to play a traditional level 1 starting character you choose the one you enjoyed the most from the funnel.  These are the three adventurers (not heroes) that I played with through The Precipice Of Corruption with.

I should also point out that every time I play through a funnel I seem to follow two traditions or patterns but I'll get into those in the additional entries below.

First up is Aels Crowgrounder.

Aels is a Forrester and statistically was neither very good at anything, nor exceptionally poor at anything (which for me makes him above average!).  Unbeknownst to the rest of the players Aels was in league with the villains of the adventure and was destined to turn on the group at a key moment.  To this end Aels fulfilled the first of my traditions when playing a funnel; I was playing the scummiest character in the group.

Next we have Ehns Logsplitter.

Ehns was a Woodcutter from the nearby community of Hillwood Camp and was statistically my best character.  She was going to fill a warrior role in the group and had above average physical stats as well as being armed with one of the most damaging weapons 0 level characters had access to.  Ehns fulfilled the second of my traditions in that from start until almost the end she was the character I thought would become my main level 1 character at the conclusion of the adventure.

And finally we come to Vandiss The Blinding Light.

Vandiss is a Legerdemainist who is new to the area and is slightly below average statistically as well as being armed with a mediocre weapon and some starting equipment that really doesn't work well with their stats and bonuses.  Having said that Vandiss turned out to be a great utility character who was excellent at playing a support role.

So how did the funnel go?  Aels betrayed the party at a key moment and not surprisingly met a gruesome (no, seriously GRUESOME) fate that he clearly deserved.  Ehns bucked the spirit of the game by in fact being a heroine!  We played for about 5 hours and through 4 3/4 of those hours Ehns was a tank that absolutely demolished every obstacle in the party's way...but man those last 15 minutes were rough.  Ehns squared off against the adventure's big bad and fell to a single crushing blow.  I have to say it was really impactful, no pun intended, because as soon as she died the entire rest of the group seemed very aware of how much danger they were in.  RIP Ehns, you were too good for this world.  And so we come to Vandiss.  Vandiss spent most of their time on the fringes avoiding direct confrontation and not being particularly brave or cowardly.  In our first of two sessions Vandiss did manage to get off an attack with some flash powder that greatly assisted the melee characters in the group, so overall they had a positive impact on the group as a whole, but they also made the decision in the closing moments of the final battle that there was in fact no place like home and broke for Stennard before the battle's conclusion.

Overall I really enjoyed The Precipice Of Corruption and anyone looking to run a Dungeon Crawl Classic funnel should definitely pick it up at Precipice Of Corruption 

I also really like the figures I painted up to sit on my desk alongside me while we streamed this game and highly recommend this box set from Fireforge Games for anyone looking for 0 level characters for their low level RPGs or specifically Dungeon Crawl Classic funnels.  It's a rare box set that includes both male and female figures as well as a mix of both actual and improvised weapons.

And as always I picked these miniatures up from my Friendly Local Game Store.  Please support both your FLGS and small publishers online!

Thanks for checking in

-Jay