It has been a bit

Well, in the interim, I have been prepping for a career change, and this blog has been lying fallow, as  most of my game energy has been devoted to learning new tricks - not easy for old dogs. I learned that my image links have all gone the way of sputnik, because the hosting company has decided they didn't like their old business model. Cest' La Vie. I shall endeavor, soonish, to move all the images and relink the lot. In the mean time, Techical difficulties, please bear with us.

Tumissa Nights pt 2

As I was saying: The event was a palanquin race/scavenger hunt in the market of Tumissa. Each player was to prove their worth as a noble by managing their bearers, guards and runners to find the most valuable items in the market, There were six players, each with a palanquin.. They also had 4 guards, and 2 runners. The task was simple. At each merchant site I had a pile of cards representing goods of interest. They fell into a few categories. 

Spirits

Drugs

Artifacts

Texts

And they also had to acquire buttons, from soldiers of various levels of status. The value of the cards was generally based upon their rarity. The players were given 20 coins (chips) and they were the limit of their spending. Their Victory points were the total of all items they acquired. 

The market had terrain, but also a number of NPCs of various social rank. The players were all of High clans and each had a bit of background telling them why they were competing and what their personal stakes were. 

I used SOBH rules. They are a very simple and elegant miniatures skirmish rules set, but not really meant for a race. Normally there are only two stats per figure, plus special rules. They are Quality (Q) which determines how easily the unit can be activated, and how well it does non combat stuff, and Combat (C) which determines how good they are at fighting. I added a stat for Status (S) for social challenges, making it possible for them to stair down a superior, or be ignored by an inferior. I was surprised that the figures that used it most were the guards.

The role of the figures was intended to be

Guards could clear paths by moving NPCs along, they could be used to defend against, or attack others, and some players tried to use them to negotiate with NPCs.  The guys with purple bases left, are guards. In this shot, they just killed a dog that wouldn't move. Dogs don't care much for social status. 

Runners had a singular use, which proved a bit less valuable than I expected. They were intended to scout various piles of cards, and report back on the relative value of items in the pile. When a runner reached a merchant, they would leave a token, representing the fact that they had been there. Then when they returned to the palanquin, the player could look at that pile and decide if they wanted to go over there to buy something.

Palanquins represented the player. They had to travel to merchant shops or stalls to acquire goods. They were the highest status figure in the players  retinue. To the right  was the player who worshiped Dilinala. You can also see a wooden token indicating that her runner (blue) has been here, and her runner on a blue base. 

Tumissa Nights pt one

It has been a while. Last year I signed up for a 2 year degree program, with the intent of getting skills for a retirement job/career. About Last fall I committed to trying to run a miniatures event for the Tekumel Track at Con of the North. Those two actions - piled onto my current home life and job - have controlled and obliterated most of my free time this year. But I am managing excellent grades, and I did put together what I will modestly say was a successful miniatures game. It had been my intent to document the process, but, life didn't allow much documentation, between homework, and panic painting, and trying to not ignore my lovely SO in the process. I am, needless to say, way behind on TV.

I will try to put this out in a few short posts. The first, I will show some of the terrain I tossed together. It was not my finest work, but it was passable, and, when put together, actually worked pretty well.

Let's see if I can remember how to link in a pic.. the table setting wasn't perfect. Two smallish round tables butted up against each other. Green fleece for some grass.  The large building in the back is a temple of Sarku, lord of worms, but currently doubling in as the Palace of foreign lands. It is made with the simple expedient of turning a styro cooler (I got this square one at a fish store) up end and painting to suit. I added a arch at the entrance, and a couple fires burning on the roof. I gave the Palace a gate way by taking two copies of the big Ben tower wooden puzzles and building one in reverse.

This pic is during set up. That is my tubby frame in the back of the shot.. not my most elegant picture. 

The nearest building is a dept 56 village item repainted. snow has been turned green for moss. when I have time I will toss some flock on it. Just behind the near wall is a market stall made of fabric and wood on Styrofoam base with sawdust flock. In the far end is another resin cast adobe style thing I picked up at a garage sale. The large building that looks like a crypt.. kinda is. At Halloween the local dollar store had these season themed boxes.. you can see some here a few pics down. add paint and Styrofoam and it makes a simple building. Nothing that is gonna rock the world, but serviceable.

The other end of the table was similar..

again, a temple, this time to Avanthe, Goddess of Fertility, as an anchor. The far end has another small building that was a garage sale find and another building made from the dollar store boxes next to a large brazier for burning sacrifices. Near is a small blue puzzle house I picked up at Micheal's craft, next to a ceramic gazebo. There are two more vendor stalls. The central statue is another garage sale find, and generally sits in my living room..

There will be better pics of the terrain in the action shots to come. Finally, we break from terrain to look at the key models for the players..

I apologize. not the best shot.. there are close ups of a few in future posts..

The event was a palanquin race/scavenger hunt in the market of Tumissa. Each player was to prove their worth as a noble by managing their bearers, guards and runners to find the most valuable items in the market, There were six players, each with a palanquin. I will try to add links to the sources for the models when I can figure them out. But two are worth noting as the sources are me. Well, one all me, one me and this guy..  I cleaned up his model and 3d printed it. It is the dark one. And then I built a design from scratch. That is the big model with 6 bearers. Honestly, mine turned out better, but that is about the printers, not the models.

OK, enough for tonite. need sleep. doing homework in the morning.

Tekumel has slipped into a Bethorm again

I am hoping to conjure it back out, but, gaming time has been so limited of late. I am trying to sort and purge stuff to make room, which may also make time, as I won't have to climb over piles to get to things. But, while I do that, I am also expanding some areas of my collection.

I have been puttering about with terrain, primarily for Japan, because I have painted samurai that can be fielded to the the table, and because much of it is has an exotic feel that can fit in Tekumel. Mostly I am building simple, generic terrain pieces, hills and rock outcroppings and such. But, specifically for samurai, I started a bamboo thicket, based upon the tutorial here... which I found via the Ronin Skirmish rules forum here.  I started the project a while back, but stalled while trying to find the appropriate leaves for the bamboo stalks. Then I found this thread on the same forum.

Seemed a simple solution. So I ordered a pack of the kind that comes in four sizes, and accidentally ordered a second pack. Which, as it turned out, was fine. It is going to be one big field of bamboo. And got a few Woodsies cut outs for basing.

snip off the top close to the leaves.

A few quick holes and some glue, and I had a few of these...

snip the subsequent leaves close and at an angle

 But I didn't want the original bamboo project to go to waste, and, even the tallest of these isn't really tall. So, I took some left over from the smallest, and snipped and cut and glued. This gives all the bamboo the same generally look.

Scoring and painting the skewers is covered in the blog post I linked to above. The top bit of the plastic bamboo is cut off and hot glued to the top of the skewer. I probably should have painted the ends of the skewers, but they are mostly covered by the plastic tops.  Then cut the subsequent leaves each just flush with the top at as steep an angle as possible. This gives you a little pile of leaves with stems. I found it quickest to simply snip, spin the "plant 180" and snip. Careful not to loose the bits.

Bamboo can thow out short branches where it sprouts leaves. Some you will shorten to be flush with the leaves, some will end up with longer stems glued to the side of the skewer.

With a bit of work you end up with these. My original project had bases that were way too small, and the bamboo wouldn't stand up to a light breeze. So I glued them down to larger  bases and added a few of the plastic bamboo pieces to fill them out and tie the two bamboos together. I found this allowed me to get away with being fairly sparce with leaves on the skewers, as the shorter bamboo adds a good deal to the sense of Foliage.

I will update this post when I get the bases completed...

Minor progress this evening.. I got some vinyl spackle and a stirring stick and textured the bases.. waiting for them to dry..
If I do more, and I probably will, I will do this part first, then drill and place the bamboo. I had to be careful not to get spackle on the plants..

But it should give me a good earth texture that takes paint and protects the thin wood bases from warping, if all goes well.

This is a repost of a topic I posted in the Ronin Forum. Ronin is a ruleset from Osprey, set Feudal Japan.

well, I managed to pull it off, not entirely gracefully, but it looked good. I dropped all the factions to 100 pts, had three players so one ran 200 and 100 each for the other two. (I was one of the other two - running the bandits.)

My grand plan would be to have 4 players, two sides, but issues that could lead to internal fightin on both sides, but with three players, I simplified that, and allowed, for example, both the Sohai and the Bandits to gain pts looting bodies. It didn't matter, since they mostly ended up as the bodies.. but I get ahead of myself.

The  Sohai/Bandit, psuedo Ikko Ikki (we will use Ikko hence forth, now that it clear that this is not using the Ikko buntai rules) side had the goal of killing the Daimyos nephew. His side had to leave from a specific point on the map,  preferably with the hostess, to get back to the village where his troops were stationed.  They start at the Tea House.  I had  a house rule that they must complete the ceremony, or loose VP (honor) so each turn he would roll a die, and if he got a 6 the Bushou, Sensei and Hostess could leave. Add one to the roll each turn, so he would automatically get to leave on turn 6. He rolled a six right off.. 

The Ikko split his forces and tried to  defend the bridge with a Senior Sohai, Sohai and Initiate and the Hatamoto and one Senpai moved to take it and he sent his other two initiates to cross the river. 

My bandits worked on fording the fast moving early spring (very muddy) stream to meet his Bushou, Sensei, Senpai, and a Yumi samurai.  A lot had hung on the idea that he would be stuck in the tea house, so I need to mod that house rule some. 

I also ruled that my one Teppo Bandit could have a +1 on his first shot - a rule that shows up in a lot of civil war and Napoleonic. He didn't want to waste it. So he jockeyed for position to shoot at the only armoured enemy he could get into range, the Hatamoto on the bridge.  But before he could get a decent shot, the two sides met on the bridge, and a Ninja popped out on the opposing side and started making for the Teppoman.

Here is the battle on the bridge. After that I didn't get any pictures.

If i do this scenario again - and I probably will - I will drop the Bandit with the Yari in favour of another Teppo-man. One of our big problems was initiative.. the opposition would generally strike first, and toast our units before we could counter.. I need to see if I was doing that right.. (update- I wasn't)

It wasn't pretty anyway. The Bugai/Koryu combination toasted the Sohai/bandits. One Senpai dead, and not a man alive on my side. I admit this was partially our weak strategy. We split weak troops and faced strong troops.. I mis-judged how much weaker we were, despite our greater numbers. I may also have mis-played some rules.. I will be looking at that more closely.

The Fellowship of the Braunstein

Fantasy Flight Game Center

I see posts from a few who were there on their blogs. And pictures and video. Figured I should probably also post a bit on my experience.

Chirene hosted a classic "Braunstein" like event at Fantasy Flight Games in Roseville MN. They were gracious hosts, and we had a fair amount of space and players up on the balcony.. enough to make me worry at time about capacities and structural engineering.. One does that if one has ever read "Why Buildings fall down" and considered the potential for contractors to make minor alterations that have major consequences.. but I digress..

Chirene, for those not acquainted, was painter and miniatures maven for M.A.R. Barkers tekumel campaigns, as well as functioning at various times and in various capacities in the business end of things. As a character, he was a Battle Magic Priest of Vimuhla in the original thursday night group run by the Professor. (Not to be confused with the myriad other Thursday night gaming groups in the country.. I understand some people are having trouble with this disctinction.. )

Setup

He has been collecting, archiving, and living Tekumel history since very nearly its inception. And he has amassed a museums worth of of terrain and figures to support his events. They are remarkable productions. (He has not one, but two separate sets of Sakbe Road props..  I am not worthy..)

This battle was played out in a low lying Archipelago occupied traditionally by the Hlutrgu, and most expectedly in recent times by the Sisters of Serqu, and their would be rescuers / Hlutrgu fodder.. I found myself a home on Team Hlutrgu, and could not have been happier about it. Gave me a whole new perspective on the Species.. Must find a way to get them into my campaign..

Sisters in distress

We located the girls fairly quickly, and they surprised us with some nasty firepower in the form of eyes.. This attracted the attention of every faction on the board, and everyone tried to converge on the fracas. We had no real shot of getting the girls after that, but I reasoned with our chieftain that there was no real reason to care. Tasty human was tasty human, and we agreed that fighting for two scrawny females was not in our best interest. Dead bodies were.

The Sisters bite back

The Ahoggya concerned us, traditionally swamp neighbors, and generally hostile, we also knew that we had some commonality. We both found humans tasty. We invited them to help us harvest. They agreed, but wanted the girls if they could get them. Seemed a reasonable trade.  So we piled on the humans we found in the North, and they struggled against the pirates in the south. A lot of bodies were wasted in the mouths of critters in the sea, I am afraid. In the end we reasoned we had a good harvest; even if many were our own, the humans that lived and the Ahoggya were leaving, and we were going to need to rethink our picket lines..

Tasty humans for the food pit

The rules were minimalist. Ranged combat that hit simply killed, no hit points. (save for some reason when one of the girls took a grapplying hook to the stomach from an Ahoggya who was trying to secure her safety from the pirates by pulling her off their ship..)  Close combat was resolved using the old charts in Qadardalakoi. Compare combat factors vs armour and lose a number of bodies in a melee.. keeping the flow moving is important when you have this many actors each with this many figures.. and a few wandering monsters..

Outnumbered? Tasty Hlutrgu.

The sisters had chosen, probably wisely, to start at the far end of the board from the Hlutrgu village, so our slippery rubbery body count at that end was kind of short.  But in the village, where we had piles of unaccounted bodies hiding inside the huts, we easily overwhelmed the tasty humans. Well on one island.


Other areas we were overwhelmed.. but we turn lemons into Lemoned Hlutrgu bake.. So, we don't mind so much. Chaos ensued until the Sisters chose to leave with the pirates.. (What? And that was somehow a more dignified end? Tasty humans not as smart as Hmelu... )

The Sisters are in the forward ship

The humans that were not marooned started to leave at that point, with the "Rescuers pursued by the remaining active boatload of Ahoggya.. The humans had control of some parts of the table, but, we were limitless, and simply assembled until we were overwhelming. That is our way. This would have happened post game, but be assured, it would have happened. The isles of the breeding pool would have been cleansed and feasting would have occurred..

The marooned Ahoggya would have been invited to the feast, as our chief allowed. And then hunted for desert. They probably didn't think of that.

Thank you Chirene, Fellow Hlutrgu, and Noble Food stufs, for the bounty we were to recieve..

On the roads again

Their biggest obstacle in leaving was that the Sakbe road guards didn't really want to let them leave, and there was a steady flow of refugees cluttering the lowest level coming into Tumissa. There were a few members of Merchant clans heading towards Butrus, but anyone headed out of Tumissa would be swimming against the tide.

It was observed that the middle Tier was nearly empty, and the party started conspiring to get an upgrade. In order to do that, they were going to need to become part of a party with some Status. Mriga went to his temple, and he made some contacts. They found a High status Priest of Thumis who was looking for body guards, and they signed on.

Even so, security was tight, and they only made it one third of the way on the first day, when the Sakbe road guards announced that Mu'ugs had been reported on the road ahead, and no one was allowed through. (Unless, of course, they insisted, and had the status to back it up - which our priest of Thumis did.) They made good time for the morning, then they hit upon a guard house, Tower, with the doors locked from the inside. There were signs of a fight outside, debris, perhaps a merchants retinue? And blood. The Gate house on the lower level was passable, but the stairway up was locked. They climbed up the wall, and cautiously peered at the top Tier.

Technically, none of them had any right to go up to this level. Probably a capital offense. But there was blood on the Beautifully inlaid path, and it lead to the door to the tower. The group reasoned that someone of import had been attacked, and further reasoned that they would not be judged any less harshly by the system if they failed to attempt to render aid.  So they climbed onto the sacred third tier. The blood led to the tower. On the far side, on the wall facing the Chakas and Mu'ugalavia, a lone long slender ladder scaled the wall. Probably not the work of the Mu'ug army. Deserters? A strike team? Spies?


If you are not knowlegeable of the ways of Tekumel, the Sakbe roads are tiered to reflect the class conscious social structure. The bottom tier is for commoners, the next for nobles, the top tier is for imperials and the highest nobles.

The image should give you more information if you follow it to the source.

 Mriga discussed attempting a spell to force the door, but wiser heads prevailed. It was generally believed that the Sakbe Roads Gaurd houses, being both roads, and imperial bastions of defense, also contained wards - said wards being geared to protect against Military magic. A solitary priests spell would probably only result in his own death.

They decided to check the roof, where they did find a open hatch, and they went inside. What they found was a body. An imperial messengers body. He had, apparently, been running the top tier when he came across someone and was injured. Perhaps he was the target, or perhaps a victim of circumstance.

Now a note on Tsolyani culture. In most RPGs, a dead messenger would be an invitation to loot the body. On Tekumel, this would be a crime. And crime has consequences. Our heroes bound up the body as they found it, built a litter, and carried, otherwise unmolested, back to Butrus. There they underwent a long, and serious line of questioning. And a few moderately intrusive spells. But, as their story checked out, and they did the best they could at securing the messenger and his cargo, and did not shirk their responsibility to the Empire, they were released, provisionally, to their respective clans recognizances.

Butrus was suffering a shortage of legionary defenses. The Itos had stepped up, and organized the various temple guards to pull watches, and patrols. The Itos, being the most powerful local clan, with a history of rebellions against the Empire, and establishing their own independent principalities, could always be counted upon to try to run things in times of trouble. The big question would be if they would be as willing to stand down when things were calm again.

Word came that the Itos had also begun snooping about the cave entrance area. It was decided to stage a cave in, and close down the cave entrance, try to hide it, and cease operations there until they knew which way the wind was blowing.
 

Time to catch up to the Party..

When we last left our heroes.. well, that was a while ago anyway..It has been over a year since my last post on the campaign..

When we last left the party, they had just arrived in Tumissa, amd Mriga had met his charge, and learned he would be going to Avanthar to deliver her to the festivities of the Kólumejálim, but they had some time. Sanjesh made inquiries, but Mis would not see him, as she was in a state of ritual preparation for the 32nd Unspeakable act. In My tekumel this involves the death of the Officiant, an experience every Devotee should try at least once. He learned the purpose of the  Chnehl that had been the focus of so much effort was to rend her into pieces. There was a new body awaiting her, should all go well. Should things go badly, there was a fair chance that the new body might need to be donated by her hand maiden - a woman of whom Sanjesh was quite fond. But still, duty, and all, it was not his to interfere.  Well, not much. It proved also to be true that he was given the honor of being listed as an alternate in the ritual, should any of the primaries become incapacitated.. not that there was any reason to thing they might..

Word was coming from the lines that the Mu'ugs were closing, the local legions, outnumbered, were falling back to defend the city and the roads, and at some point, it was expected that the city would go into lock down to endure a siege. With no emperor, and no heir yet chosen, it might be a bit before relief came. This wasn't a huge concern. Tumissa has survived sieges before, but the party had places to be. All save Sanjesh, whose top priority was to attend the ritual. It was agreed that, should the situation reach critical, the rest would leave him in Tumissa, and they would make way back to Butrus, and then on to Avanthar.


Sanjesh made contact with the serving slaves of some of the primaries, with the help of Mis hand maiden. He also acquired some minor poisons. A deal was struck, the slave would be purchased, and taken back to Butrus, to be given a safe and pleasant detail in Sanjesh' clanhouse, if she would deliver said poison to one of the guards from the ritual. Nothing designed to kill, only to make him ill, and unable to take part. And so Sanjesh found himself called to duty at the last minute.

The ritual was long, and complicated. The problem presented to Sanjesh, and the other guards, was to keep the Chnehl at bay, and away from Mis, until the appropriate time. If they reached her too soon, they would ruin the ritual, and it would be far less likely she would survive her death. There were alternatives in place, but they were chancey. 

We didn't go into a lot of detail on the process here. I think, however, it could serve as an interesting miniatures game, and I may try it one day. Suffice it to say, though a guard was injured, none were killed, and the ritual went off as planned. It was not a pretty sight, and the Chnehl were then herded of for sacrifice. But, by morning, word had come that Mis was well, and recovering, in a new body - no explanation was given as to where she got it. She still could not receive visitors.

And word also came that the last of the legions were headed for the city gates. It was time to leave.

Berserkon

Last weekend I went the inaugural Berserkon Event in Duluth MN. I will say, I went expecting ePic Fail. I had not been impressed with the coordinators communications with the teeming masses, and I was disappointed in a failure to respond to my efforts to make a contact between them and my historical miniatures wargame friends.  But, I was happily disappointed.

This is not to say I don't have complaints, but I did manage to keep myself entertained, primarily with boardgames, and one off indie RPGs.  I will cover that after I gripe. Not a full on rant. I did much of that prior to the event.

I think this event benefited greatly from too much space. Coordination of events seemed poor, but the huge swaths of terra made it possible to easily set up a pick up game for anyone interested. Several events I heard about on Sunday didn't seem to go off.
The price is not competitive with other, larger, Cons. Not a problem for locals, as we save fuel and hotels. But outsiders are paying a premium, and more than they would pay to go somewhere local. 

A three day holiday weekend and you don't take advantage of the third day. Ok, it is Memorial Day, and some might see that as Crass. So pick a different three day weekend if that is your concern. Friday afternoon was a wasteland. I considered creating an twitter account just because I was bored..

Next the miniatures world is larger than GW. LakeSWATT did a nice job with their miniatures event, by all accounts. But, I certainly didn't want to play a tourney when there should be a host of opportunities to play new things. I do appreciate the painting class they put on.. it gave me an opportunity to try blending.. by the schmeer method, as I call it. I don't have patience for the layered method. I ramble..

Things I did do.. and enjoyed..

Artimes Starship Simulator.  This was a hoot,  and it was busy most of the con. For 40 bucks in software, (hardware is another factor, nothing unusual, and your crew can probably provide much of their own..) you can command a starship. Or serve as communications on your friends. Or whatever. That is the price for a crews worth of installations. If you get a chance, try this out.

Power Grid was a pretty decent game, complex enough to be a challenge, simple enough to be approachable.  I would recommend it.

Watched a bit of Standard Action  I had seen the first two seasons on the web, and watched some on a poor screen with lousy sound quality in an nearly empty "theater space" at the Con while I ate and checked facebook. And I crushed a bit on Edda who was there with some other guy from the show.. my inner fan boy found an outlet, for a few minutes, then I drove him back into his Ikea storage cube..

Played a bit of Bare Bones RPG.. late on Fri. The game has a simple, OSR feel to it, with a few add on bobs to push the RPG aspects. The primary mechanic for that is the traits you self assign - one good, one bad, one more for humans (I was human). They added a fate point like mechanic for working them in and playing them up. I took Blind as my bad trait. I was an archer/priest.. I took snap shoots at sounds as a good trait. And Zealot to the phrase my religious texts "Make the whole world blind, that they may see..".  I think I spooked the other players when I threatened the local eldars with hot pokers to purify their souls, but in the end, everyone actually thought it might be a good Idea..


Saturday began with Last Night on Earth.. which was an ok game. I have trouble with a mechanic that lets Zombies act intelligently and gives them options. Might improve the game play, but it breaks my suspension of disbelief.

Painting class was next.. I chose an Eldar from the box, in part because I don't own any, and in part because I wanted something I could approach in a completely different way than the IG I am used to.

     add pic here..

Then I talked a couple guys from the cities into a game of Flash point..  which went ok. I promised I would return after a scheduled game of

Werewolf. I had heard of this and played a game online. Pretty much strictly a social game, trying to suss out which players are werewolves eating everyone else and betting a villagers life that you have pegged it correctly.. Eaten once, Hung Once, Nailed the werewolf once.  An ok record. Werewolves are tricky..

Returned as promised, and played Conquest of the Fallen lands, which was a quick and tricky little game. I was led to believe it was out of print, but that appears to be an error. 

Sat eve got to be late for me. Went to dinner with friends, then went home and cobbled together a kit for demo-ing Song of blades and Heroes. I had been considering doing this, or perhaps Hordes of the Things. I decided I didn't feel comfortable with HOTT rules, which are simple and written for an English professor.  I had loaned my SOBH to a friend, and when I tried to retrieve it, he couldn't find it, so I had tabled the idea. But I knew Sunday had little of interest going. (I think Pandemic was Sunday.. ) So, I dug in my Geek Pile and found another copy, and spent the night pulling figures, and terrain, and printing up Warband rosters, and reprinting them with built in QRFs.  And finally went to sleep around 4 AM, which meant I was late arriving in the AM to Con, which meant I couldn't demo anything before (ah .. that's when that was.. ) Pandemic, so I spent the AM re reading the SOBH rules, which was probably a good thing..

Then Pandemic.. game is good, I had played it before. It is high on my list of cooperatives.. but it is a short list.. so.. not much to say.. Play if you can.. We lost in the end.. with only one disease left to cure..

 And a local chap ran a FATE rpg game he is kickstarting called Time Heroes, a serialized and somewhat silly saturday morning cartoon themed game. This episode was called Rise of the Plushies, and involved trying to stop a time displaced H.P. Lovecraft from melding thousands of animate Cthulhu Plush Toys into a full size Eldar God with cybernetics. I am not sure where the Cyber came into that. But since it did, and since I was a Cyberprincess ala Inspector Gadget.. I eventually got a chance to hack directly into his firm ware. I don't think it was I that ultimately took him down, but, I did insert a bit of viral code called "stop hitting yourself...". I think he would have eventually beaten himself up..


Finally,  I set up my game table and started playing SOBH solo. . The ref from the Barebones game wandered over, and I talked him into taking control of a Warband. I was using my Fractal Cave terrain and Mage Knight figs and the Techno Dwarves were trying to rid the caves of Orcs (me)..

The terrain is my "Fractal Caves" concept.. It was not finished, and looks way too green. I started building it for a battle in the Womb Of Hrihayel, from my Tekumel campaign. I have since toned down the green, and it blends better with the cave formations you see above. They are cast from Hirst Arts molds. I purchased them cast from... hmm. I don't recall, but a licensed seller.*

The demo was successful, though I messed up a few rules and completely forgot to utilize my hero special rules (which grant some auto activation successes), and the Orcs lost, their shaman scampering off into the caves..

So I start breaking it down, as the place is really getting thin. And then I was approached by another gentleman from the twin cities region. We both admitted to being a bit brain dead, but we decided to try another game. He took the Orcs, I took the Dwarves, we cut the Orc Shaman, and several Dwarf warriors to balance, so as to avoid the complications of magic casting. And played a quick game.. It was pretty well balanced, for a bit, but the Orc Poison did it's work and eventually the upended the mounted Dwarf leader, and broke the morale of the few remaining Dwarves..

So two games of SOBH.. And I have a nearly grab and go demo kit assembled.

* I do have a small and growing collection of Hirst Arts Molds. Probably should start using them..

The Civil War

Sorry Tekumel Fans. This is the one sometimes misnamed "The War of Northern Aggression". Played a game using the Piquet rules and "Other peoples Miniatures"tm. I was on the side of all things right and the battle was a corner of Shilo.

This post is mostly about getting back to posting, with a new philosophy. Post short, post often, post with pics if possible.

This is the view from just behind the northern lines..

My personal units coming in from reserve on turn two..  This was a six person game, three commanders on a side.

A couple turns later my forces are engaged at short range with the Rebs, but we have a good deal of shooting left before we end up in melee..

The over all battle field at this point. In the center fenced area, the Rebs have charged and broken our center, while I struggle to start to roll their flank. What you can't see here is the Confederate reserves coming in on the left flank.

 Piquet is a game of Morale, as much as anything. Individual units take morale hits, as seen in the counters next to the units. Armies take morale hits in the form of chips lost from a morale pool. Morale is established using tables and rolls at the start of the game. I am aware that we are struggling to run out their morale pool before their reserves arrives and we are overwhelmed.. but..

With this contact on the left flank the Boys in Blue break, and that is all she wrote..

"other peoples miniatures" trademarked C Lewis..

A long road ahead

That what it appears to be like to catch up on Tekumel. I am not prepared to do so today, as I just realized how very far behind I am. I am going to have to take some notes, and make some drafts, and fill in some memory holes with spackle. A bit like my terrain projects, which are equally behind. But fall leads to winter, which leads to more time cooped up, so, this might be doable.

On a plus note, cooped up time will probably also lead to continuation of the campaign. The group split, momentarily, in two, and one simple tangental story has been played, and also needs to be blogged. Another is brewing in my head.

I had planned on putting the campaign on hold until I returned from Ucon, but that looks to be farther off than I anticipated, as I won't be going. My eldest/youngest/only-est is off to college, and money has dried up.  I need a part time job, I think. So does my eldest/youngest/only-est, but with her class load, it will probably have to wait til summer.. At anyrate, 500 buck I figure I "save" by not going.. which is 300 more than I could have afforded to spend.. So, a good deal that one can't pass up, even though one would like to..

Shouldn't blog when tired.. the brain becomes a barrier

On a related, but more generic note, I have some terrain Bling. From Foxhole Terrain, I picked up some bits of road, some bales of hay, and some fences, as well as some ships, not shown here today.. All can be employed on or off Tekumel, as the need arises. 

On the 40fnordK frontlines, the troops are going into the Warp, until such time as I can score the new rules at a reasonable price. Or possibly forever. Not at all happy with the 4-6 year life cycle they have established for their product line. Looking at 5150, and other sets for getting the 14 ROD into battle.

Ok, sleep calls. One of the reasons I fall behind on projects like this blog is I don't go to bed, so I sleep during my productive hours.. yeah, that's it.

Older projects

I have been on a bit of a terrain kick of late. Lots of things half started. It would be a lie to say lots of things half finished. Tekumel is kinda in Idle. We have played, a bit, but I haven't blogged on it.. which I will remedy. Working on the History of the Three States of the Triangle, but I keep being distracted. Both real life, and terrain. Haven't had much chance to play anything of late.  House projects, and local politics are competing for my attention. Tekumel has been too strenuous, intellectually, I think I need a minis fight..

Towards that end I have been buying or trying to build terrain.  First I bought a Hirst Arts project someone else created, off TMP. Space ship interiors, kinda for Space Hulk type scenarios. They were assembled and rough painted. Figured I could put them on table as is. Didn't figure on shipping damage. Pics

very disheartening. Kinda my fault. I asked him to ship them cheapest means possible. And, I didn't note that the description said plaster, not hydrocal. Some of the damage has been repaired. A lot of tiny pieces missing. Currently Boxed.


A couple years back I bought a pile of Hirst Arts Water Cavern Castings, with the intent of making a Cave setup.. This should have been during the Cavern portion of my Tekumel campaign, but, I don't find any posts on it.. which surprises me. At any rate, I have returned a bit to that project. I already have a pile of painted stalagmites and limestone formations. Working on a system for building a cavern. Originally I was just planning on duplicating the Hirst Arts Set, but feel it looks more like a dungeon than a cave. Good for certain types of games, but not really for a tactical fight, and not flexible enough. So, this is what I am thinking at the moment..  pics

cut some pieces out of foam core

build em up as limestone flows

use them to highlight the rock formations. They will need some texturing, and paint to match. Hope I can figure out how I painted these castings..


Building terrain will serve several purposes, I think. There is a bit of a zen quality to the task, so it might relieve some anxiety, It will hopefully consume some of the clutter I have accumulated over the past few years.. most of which I acquired thinking I would use it somehow in terrain of as troops. And it might generate a place for me to field some figures, any figures. A water cavern is generic enought to allow me to stage a battle among pirates, ImperFNORDial Troops, or Sarkus Minions. Or a host of other figures. I also have been cutting bases for all the foliage I have collected. But none of this is getting the campaign arc up to date..

And life goes on

I had planned to finish the project of catching up our timeline, when I learned of the death of  M. A. R. Barker, Professor of Linguistics and creator of Tekumel (in all it depth, breadth, and glory), I felt that a period of silence was in order, as those who knew him personally had time to grieve. I knew little that I could add to the discussion, save my personal feelings.

I never met the Professor, though I long wished to do so. It bothered me that this man, who had such a strong influence on the pattern of my life, lived only 2 hours away, in a city I visited frequently, and I had no reasonable hope of meeting him. It was EPT that got me "hooked" on RPG games in about 1979. It was the first one I played. My session.. including character creation, lasted all of 15 minutes.

In high school a friend convinced me to join AV (audio visual) in order to gain access to some reasonable quality audio equipment for dubbing our own cassette tapes. (Oh, you young'uns... google it...). What I found was a lair of gamers, people who had learned to play RPGs from people who had gone to school in Minneapolis and played with Gygax, Arneson, and Barker. They brought the drug, like Zu'ur, to the northland. They were Seniors, I was a soph. They ignored me. But I watched and listened to them. I learned later they were playing Chivalry and Sorcery.. and they had a sophisticated campaign.  When he was alone, the Alchemist would spend the hour in AV just rolling dice, and cackling under his breath, as he processed formulae trying to find an elixir that would help him breed a better war horse.. The game was, during those moments, entirely in his head, though he would occasionally explain what he was doing, I suspect more because the nature of RPG is the shared experience than because I asked.

I spent free time trying to reverse engineer the game from what I had seen. I was a huge fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Barsoom, at the time, and I tried to create my own game for that. I did not have access to the fancy dice, and my game experience to that date was pretty limited, mostly Milton Bradley and such, so I had no sense of sophistication for game mechanics, and no sense of balance. I did force myself to learn something of probability theory.. mostly by creating charts of possible outcomes - I was a poor math student.

Eventually, I managed to pester them enough to get them to let me try a game. They had switched campaigns, or perhaps they were simply rotating, at any rate, the game they had out that day was the TSR version of EPT. They had to explain the stats a bit, and how to use the dice. It was the standard barbarian on the boat scenario.

Now, I had seen them playing Chivalry and Sorcery, and probably Metamorphosis Alpha, and perhaps D&D, and I had seen plenty of rogue behaviour, which, of course, was all well and good in those setting. I followed suit.  After selling my boat, I tried to pick a pocket. I was unsuccessful, and quickly nabbed by a guard. I had no weapons, I could barely speak Tsolyani, I was handed to the AOL, and impaled. I always figured I was being discouraged from another attempt, but I was hooked. The bell rang... I was off to another class. My grades never recovered.

Having at least the vague notion of how a game was structured, I re applied myself to Barsoom, but I began to listen to their EPT campaign. Tekumel was like Barsoom on Acid. Ahoggya, Vimuhla, Sarku, and my adolescent favourite Hrihayel - whore of five worlds.

I did manage to get one more game of EPT in during AV a few weeks later. One of the players was a Junior, perhaps more sympathetic to my position, and he ran me solo. This time I fared a bit better, and I began to really understand the concept of RPG. My character was a Magic User and I  had a high comliness, so I took Courtesan/ Gigolo as a skill. I don't recall how, but I know I was thrown into the jails of Jakalla, probably as a minor apology for having been impaled on my first gaming session. There aren't many offences that earn jail time, I believe. I spent most of the hour trying to figure a way to pick the locks. What I eventually did was use a spell to cause two guards to fight. Fortunately, they both died. Unfortunately, they were out of reach. When the watch changed they asked what had happened, I stared in horror, and lied about a plague from my home that drove men to homicidal madness. The watch fled.. and they elected to burn the cell block clean... But I stayed low, and the fire weakened the chlen hide doors, and I managed to escape. I disappeared into the foreign quarter, working as a cheap date.


Late in the school year, or early summer, I ended up in a theatre group (outside school) and one of those seniors was a member. I got to know him, and he did me the favour of buying my first RPG when he made a trip to the cities. I had forced my folks to make a side trip to the "Little Tin Soldier Shop" (gone now) when we had been down, and bought dice - and depleted my budget a bit  - sometime before this, I think.. I had seen EPT on the shelf, but it was outside my price range. (I did buy a few EPT miniatures, my first miniatures as well).  I had about 10  bucks, and sent it with him. He brought back Traveller. I also got to know other gamers in the area.. and made life long friends, some I haven't seen in years. I got to play EPT on occasion, with people who knew the setting fairly well, but my Barsoom experience tended to make me a ref, often with worlds I built based upon other works that I understood more readily. Most of the EPT crowd moved away.. this was a sour time for the local economy.

 It would be a couple years before I could buy EPT. A few months before I tried to run it. I was overwhelmed, and decided to focus on simpler fare for a bit. I loaned my copy to a friend.. who had a small child.. (it wasn't destroyed.. but it was damaged). I tucked it away for safety. At some point I loaned the maps to a theatre production that wanted fanciful maps on the set. They were never returned..

But I never lost my love of the setting. Years later there was a local campaign based upon real life and an alternative future (inspired by the book Ariel) in which all the players played themselves. I started the campaign, after pestering from a friend, and then went to Basic and he carried it on. I never had a chance to spin the story in that campaign that I really dreamed of running: A trip to the U of M campus, and the Professors old office, and a gate into Tekumel.

It wasn't until I saw an advert at the Source for a Tekumel Minitures event, just a few years ago, that I found the impetus to get back into Tekumel. It was being sponsored by the Aethervox Gamers and I met Chirene. He has been a tremendous help to me, and I am pleased to call him a friend. I had met Victor Raymond a few times, briefly, over the years, in Fandom, but didn't know he was close to the Professor. I got to know him a bit better a few years back at U-con. Through the power of the net I have met or followed others who either knew the Professor, of simply love his work. I think of them all as friends.

I never met him, but I miss him. My sympathies to all who knew him, and to those who love him..

And life goes on.. richer for those who have gone before.

Howard

Emperor Hirkáne, ‘the Stone on which the Universe rests' is Dead

This was the news that met them when they returned to Camp. All of Tsolyanu was in morning, and they closed down all non essential operations at the cave and returned to Butrus to aid their temples and clans in showing their respects, and anguish, and engage in any political posturing necessary. Suni volunteered in her temples public rituals of mourning, Mriga in recitations of the accomplishments of the great emperor, and Sanjesh, and the temple of the Green Lady, did what they can be expected to do in times of uncertainty. This continued for an appropriate time, and then things returned to "normal", save the increased interest in imperial politics, and concerns about the now leaderless nation at war, with enemies on all sides.

However, the tree of time grows despite the desire of men to take a moment to sort things out. With Mis  Ritual of the the 32nd unspeakable act closing in, the group decided to make another trip to Tumissa, and do a bit more business for Mrigas clan. They loaded up slaves with 10,000 K worth of paper and similar products, and headed out again on the Sakbe Roads. Mriga hired himself a personal body guard,  an clan Cousin who has a deep desire to join the 1st Imperial Legion. And Sanjesh had his Temple Guard and Suni her Pachi Lei interpreter slave. Mriga was also tasked with bringing a package back to Butrus, which he should pick up at his clan house in Tumissa.

 At the half way point, they stopped to rest, and encountered a Pachi Lei merchant, with a Chlen Cart worth of arrows, quarrels, bows, and spears, heading for Tumissa. Along with that came news that Moog legions, not skirmishers, but full legions, had been seen coming through the Chakas en route, apparently, to Tumissa. Through the interpreter slave they spoke with the merchant, who was interested in buying their slaves, and any others they could obtain. They wished to transfer as much of their cargo to slaves, to move it to Tumissa and the Legion of Tangled Root Eaters, before a major confrontation could take place, and the Chlen were proving to be too slow. They negotiated a deal, where in the Pachi Lei could rent their slaves,  for the next few days, for an outrageous sum, and the group would load their own cargo onto the cart. The also leased the use of the interpreter for the night.

In this way, the Pachi Lei acquired a small army of slaves, and the party found itself traveling at Chlen pace, along with several others who had made similar arrangements with the Pachi Merchants. There was a  couple from a high clan (purveyors in recreational powders, filters and other consumables), a Lower clan Carpet peddler, a Tinilaya lock and trap-smith, and a few others of little note. They also traded in a bit under one days travel for just over two.

The next day travel was slow, and they were passed by many travelers unburdened by the pace of the Chlen. The High Clan couple left the operations to their agent, and traveled well ahead of the rest of the party, and the smell of the Chlen. Suni took a position with her interpreter, also a bit ahead, not far behind the couples Palanquin. By afternoon, she and her slave had picked up a notable contact high from fumes wafting off the palanquin, but, other than some unintentional Public Displays of Affection between the two, there appeared to be no serious consequences. Until morning, when the Slave was found dead, apparently from a bad reaction.

There was immediate talk of Shmatla, which was reported by the Couples Agent to the couple. He was authorized to negotiate a simple settlement. However, mistaking the PDAs from the night before for a more long standing relationship between Suni and the Slave, he ended up seriously over estimating the slaves worth. Suni, who comes from a Merchant Clan, took every advantage, and played up her price, so that she cleared perhaps 5 times the slaves cost. The slave was dutifully buried just off the Sakbe  roads, in a manner fitting for such a skilled slave.

They also briefly encountered the Priest of Qon they had met earlier. He had, apparently, left the roads after their last encounter, and now returned, again crawling, and salting his wounds, and still trying to reach Tumissa. He had heard of the movements of the Moogs, but was not concerned. If he did not reach Tumissa before the conflict, he would have to simply wait for it to resolve. His preparation rituals were more important. So, they left him behind (even at a chlens pace, they were leaving him in the dust).

Upon arriving in the City, they split up. Sanjesh and the Tiny went off to locate the Pachi Lei in the foreign quarter, discussing Tiny Culture along the way.  Suni reported to her temple and Mriga hired local porters to bring his cargo of fine paper to this clan house. And there he met the Package.  The Clan placed him in charge of delivering their most talented young scribe, a girl of maybe 13, as a gift to the new emperor, as soon as one is chosen, after the Kólumejálim. This was, he was told, a prestigious honor for both the Girl, and the bearer of the gift. He and his Cousin had been chosen for the honor, and though they could turn it down, (and expect considerable loss of status in the clan) they would at least be expected to deliver the girl to Butrus, and pass her along to another who would take the job. 

Spoiler 
Alert
Instructions.. Mouse over this text.. from here to the word end. The text is in white, so I think this will work..

Well, that is what he told the rest of the party. In fact, what he was told was that his girl was and Imperial Heir, far to young to compete in the Kólumejálim, it had been decided that, none the less, it would be very prestigious for the clan to bring her forth and reveal her in Bey Su, or Avanthar at the contest. It was also a concern that some agents in the competition might wish to eliminate her prior to her revealing, and that, during this time between emperors, she was most at risk.  As a result, they advised him to take an indirect route to the games. It was decided they would travel south to Jakalla. 

In through the out door.

Let's see if we can start to bring this up to date.

There has been some disunity in the party of late. As a ref, I could have encouraged a more unified party composition, clan, or temple affiliations..perhaps. But I didn't. So we have two followers of change, and one of stability, all with very different world views. Having brought some level of closure to the story arc concerning the property rights of to the cave, which has been at times dubbed "The Abundant Womb of Hrihayal", the parties common interests have ebbed.

They decided that it was now important to determine who holds title on the land with the back entry to the caves, so they went out to the site, and then climbed to the approximate location where the chimney exited the cave system.   They spent the evening of arrival looking, but found nothing.  Well, not nothing. Mriga found several small blue insects, known for healing properties, and not common to the area. This led him to also find a small, very old, very rusted, iron insignia, possibly dating back to the age of the dragon riders. It caused a bit of discussion.

That night, Suni suggested they all break open the wine, to celebrate being out camping again, but Sanjesh thought that this was a bit suspicious, as she had never suggested that she enjoyed the camping that much. He believed there might be skullduggery afoot, but, in keeping with his temples precepts that one doesn't pass up pleasure, he allowed the guards to imbibe. Which they did. What happened after dark could lead to spoilers, so,
Spoiler
Alert
Instructions.. Mouse over this text.. from here to the word end. The text is in white, so I think this will work..

For Sanjesh's part, he tasked a slave to keep an eye on Suni for the night. 

For Suni's part, she had slipped a mickey into the wine. And the guards got woozey. And tended to fall asleep, on duty. But she also noticed that she was being watched, so she took the slave for her pleasure, and drugged the slave as well. 

Sneaking past the sleeping guard, she went to the chimney.. oh, she had found it earlier, but not informed the others. Suni had instructions from her temple. They had sent a team to do an recon mission into the caves, and they had not returned. She was supposed to destroy the evidence, and, if possible, determine what had happened. First she decided to climb down and take a look around. 

At the bottom of the chimney she felt a very strong flow of other planar energies. It was centered on the Stele, which, it appeared, was shifted slightly off it's base. There were smudges on the cave floor, and nearby rocks that indicated what had happened to the recon party, who had exceeded their authority , with disastrous results.  And she felt she was being watched. 

Suni exited, cleaned up any evidence, roused the guard on duty, and sent him to find his relief, and went to bed with precious little time to sleep. 

end spoiler.. for now..

The next day Sanjesh advised his guard to go hunting, and that they would only eat what they caught, as a penalty for drinking too much on duty. The group set out again to find the chimney, and, by noon, had found it. They also found an abandoned campsite, a ways away, low enough to see the fires of their own cave site, but far enough from the chimney that they may not have been related. The chimney, for its part, seemed undisturbed and sat in amoung the ruins of a very old, and quite simple foundation, as noted by Sanjesh, whose comes from a clan of builders. Suni expressed and interest in climbing down, and, based upon her agility, she was allowed to do so.
Spoiler
Alert
Instructions.. Mouse over this text.. from here to the word end. The text is in white, 

Then a stranger approached her. The stranger from Tumissa, though he shimmered, as if ethereal. He explained that he wasn't really there, just a projection, made possible by the brooch she had been given to trigger communications. She asked if he could see what she was up to through the brooch, and he said that, yes, he could, though he usually didn't bother. (Suni, as you can imagine, was none to pleased with this information.) 

He informed her that these findings: increase in interplanar energy, the remnants of the earlier group, all increased his belief that the object he sought was, indeed, in the cave. And that it would be quite large. He also told her that she was not safe in the cave alone, and things were watching. He wasn't sure what they were, but he was sure they were there. 

End spoiler

Suni exited and reported that things were all normal in the cave, and the party packed up and returned to the base camp. 

Because there have been a few adventures since my last update, I will take them in small chunks. Expect more in a few days.

Going on a short Hiatus in theTekumel Game..

Probably only a couple weeks. What this means is that I have a couple weeks to bring the empire up to date on what has been happening. I may also have time to reference a 40fnordK game or two that I have played. And perhaps get back to work on the Microscope project. And I may find time to take some pics of the minor (and I do mean minor) progress I have made with the Hlutgru figures I have acquired. But, let's not get ahead of myself.


This post I can easily check an item off that list. I have said before, I am not a huge fan of the GfnordW game mechanic, but, it is the popular minis game locally, and, not as terrible as I originally thought. Well, at least it lets me push lead around the table. I have played two games recently, both against my old nemisis, the Tafnordu, and their general.. some call him Tim?


I have been beaten both times, but, I am improving. I am not going to do battle reports here, as I have already done them elsewhere. If you haven't read them, I am shocked.. and can only assume Google has failed.. But I can help.


Game one..
some bling

Game two..

Some more bling
The battles are described at the link, for those inclined to such. I am still debating if this is the place for my GfnordW shame.  My opponent and I are trying to pull together a tourney of 40fnordK to support our FLGS. Need to do some work on that. No idea where we are gonna get prizes..



I picked up a deal via Mantic. Always a sucker for a grab bag, Mantic was selling their folio bag with a pile of random sprues for.. oh.. should have paid attention.. but an ok price. I have been itching to buy some undead for Mrur, and decided to buy a sprue or two and get the bag, hoping for a windfall. It was about 50 shipped. Got like 80 elves, and two elvish ballista, 60 or so undead..mostly skellies, a dozen dwarfs and maybe two dozen Orcs. I am ok with this, as the elves and undead can be tekumel-ized.

I have a draft of the campaign update started. Should be up soon. Possibly friday evening?