More painting for Will's ArcadiaQuest. These three are an interesting contrast.
The first is Montoya. He is clearly inspired by Sean Connery's character in Highlander, not one named Inigo who looks for his father's killer...
The second is a barbarian king called Haldor wielding massive weapons. His face is very
The third is a knight called Johan. This guy was surprisingly simple: covered with metal armor. So I spent some extra time on his eyes and hair.
JP
Here is a book I have been thinking about for the longest time. Initially, I wanted to include it into Saggakar, and as I worked on developing and expanding the creatures so they become a different and unique threat, it felt that limiting them to "just" Saggakar. So that's why I decided that it should be a Gostor product. It made sense to me: the content was not unique, it had nothing that was specifically setting-specific.
So I sat back and thought about the creatures. If I had been in charge of this plot, how would have I gone about it? First, I needed creatures, more than one type of them to provide variety. Next, I had to think of a target threat level, in Pathfinder this means CR. High CR creatures sound good, but I found that few people care for putting them. So I went for some lower-powered creatures. This affected the rest of my design work.
- First, it meant the PCs could fight them at low level. Low-level meant the PCs would not have access to cross-planar travel methods.
- Second, the ethereals could be used in large numbers rather than one big monster: a personal love of mine.
- Third, I could create non-magical equipment specifically to combat the ethereals.
With that in mind, I put everything together. And left it there.
Yeah, I just left it in my pile of "stuff I need to finish". I worked on other projects (many I'm still working on today) and let this one were it was.
I was looking through the internet for another project when I happened on something for this one. WOW! It was better than I thought! So I quickly returned to the book, and began working on Ethereal Horrors again. I quickly got things up and running: formatted and aligned. I thought I was done in a day or so. But after a hardcopy review, a number of additional ideas came to me. Things I wanted to share with the prospective GM. So I went back to my document and added a number of extra information. Namely, unique magic items and expanded the campaign section I had.
I will tease you that Loren is working on making the 5e version of the book! Great stuff!
You can get a copy of Gostor: Ethereal Horror on DriveThru RPG or RPGNow!
JP
And now something completely different...
More ArcadiaQuest for Will! Okay that's not very different. However, these guys are bad guys - from my understanding - and are twice as large as the adventurers I've been painting up to now. I got two beastmen with hammer and two with spears.
I painted them with hair color variation along with highlights so they can be easily distinguished when on the board. I don't know if it matters, but I thought it might be cool.
Another set of commissions for Will from his Arcadia Quest set. This time three new characters from literature.
The first is Victor, but he is clearly modeled after Robert Howard's Solomon Kane. I like how the hat covers his eyes, giving him this dark and brooding look.
The second is Grom. Or should I say Conan? Yeah. Conan...
The third guy is the King of Thieves. He makes me think of a leper king. I feel there is an anime reference with this character.
A second wave of minis by Will begins with three new characters. More fun guys.
The first character is Morgan, who is based on the Merlin character from the Excalibur movie from 1981. It was one of the movies I watched so many times as a kid. Sure it's not historical, but it's visually cool. At least until you can't stand the Carmina Burana anymore. Paint job was very much like the Merlin of the movie. For some reason I always think of that character when I think of a wizard... I gave him the red eyes from the movie as well!
The next guy is called Seth and he is a vampire wizard. The skin tone was a challenge to get right, but it really came through great. His skin - though I thought about making it sparkly - came through awesomely, with a greenish that made me think of the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz.
The third fellow is called Pluck who is some type of alchemist. I painted him with an outfit inspired by the Alan a'Dale from the old Rocket Robin Hood. I like his smile and look.
After the teaser, the theme song really sets the mood for the movie. They add the teasing effect and sets you in the mood. From the asian tune of You Only Live Twice or the pop beat of Duran Duran or the soul-filled voice of Adele, they provide an added link between the movie and its time. The big band sound of the 60s to the pop song of the 80s to the complex tunes of today, they let you know when the movie was made.
This list was quite interesting to compile because of the variety and mood of the songs themselves. Definitely a fun day/playlist that will take you through time.
I did not include the James Bond theme from Doctor No, the big band tune that recurs in every movie. Simply because there it is instrumental, it was disqualified from this list, otherwise it would be a clear winner for this list.
3- Nobody does it better (Carly Simon / The spy who loved me) This one won out by just barely a nose. Perhaps it is because I remember it from my earliest days. Carly Simon's voice is beautiful and the lyrics really showcase James Bond's personal view about the ladies. The Spy who loved me is a great movie with a lot of East/West interaction and the song completes it.
2- Goldfinger (Shirley Bassey/ Goldfinger) Sublime big band theme with the powerful voice of Shirley Bassey over it. She comes off as someone who is both drawn to and repelled by Goldfinger. Although the Goldfinger of the song is James Bond, not Auric Goldfinger. Integrating the James Bond theme towards the end with the brass is a powerful combination. Oh and the Simpsons' Max Power Theme song on the same tune is awesome.
1- Live and let die (Paul McCartney & Wings/ Live and let die) This very Beatles tune feels larger than life from the opening verses to the powerful riff then its brutal reggae beat. As a fan of prog-rock, is there a non-prog-rock that better embodies it? Guns N Roses redid it in the 90s but as usual, the original is so much better.
A few weeks back, I posted to a few local Facebook groups about my quest for a lizardfolk or troglodyte or draconian miniatures.
Why did I need such a mini?
You may remember that a few weeks ago, I ran a poll on the Legacies Facebook Group to find who would become the new Legacies Iconic. The winner, hands down, was the drakonian druid called Bloodclaw. I'll tell you more about Bloodclaw in an upcoming post.
John-B replied to my request, offering a few minis, including one I really thought embodied the character. I asked him what he wanted in return and he had a model he wanted painted in return. I agreed!
He needed a throne painted in the way of Kurzog's Throne from the cover of the DungeonMastery Guide to use for his Rise of the Runelords finale.
We met and hit it off, as two old gamers yakking it up. I really wanted to do a good job for him, make something special. The model he had was not exactly the throne on the cover, but it would work...
I gave it large, magical, non-circular red gems, which came out with an interesting non-euclidian shine. When I first did them, I did not like them initially. Then I added the sparkle (the white dots) and left it there for a few days as I worked on other things, you know... life. Then when I picked it up again, it made sense to me and I thought it really came out cool. Perhaps my mind made the unearthly, Lovecraftian links after the insanity reached deeper into my mind...
Click on the pictures for a larger picture. (They are a little dark unfortunately)
When the Adventure League began producing 2-hour long adventures, I thought to myself "What? Why?" But with a bit more time, the idea and brilliance of the idea became apparent. Now let me explain where I come from and the LONG trip I that made me accept 4h as a "standard" time slot.
Some of you may remember my first convention (I told the story of it in this post from 2012). It was in Amiens, France. Now one thing to remember, if you don't already know, is that French people love to talk, and talking is an important part of role-playing. I love to talk quite a lot myself. The owners of the international language of diplomacy are, well, diplomats. Game slots are usually between five and six hours long. And you don't sit back and wait for things to happen during that time. There is a lot to do and to be done.
Then I returned to Montreal and adapted to the Living Greyhawk 4-hour slots. A little better than the three hours, shorter than the six hours. For the last thirteen years, I have been writing adventure targeting that duration.
After I attended Denver Comicon in 2012, I realized that the 4-hour time slot was too long to provide a taste of the campaign without taking the full slot. At the time, all my PFS adventures were full slots and we had problems with people up and leaving in the middle.
The next year, I returned with two two-hour adventures: Spreading the Word and Lady of the House. Both those adventures got great reviews and their short run-time allowed me to run them quite a few times. They were fun, quick and showcased the setting.
Then as I worked on Saggakar, I began to focus once again on four hour and the short intros went into the "I'll do then later" column as I focused on setting up the world and its mythology...
I did play a few 5e Adventure League adventures that ran for two hours and they felt like a burst of quick excitement. My mind meandered back to those short adventures I wrote for Denver ComicCon 2013 in mind.
Then the last couple of times I tried to organize games, I received a few comments about slots being "too long" and "going on too late".
I spoke about it to Loren to get his thoughts... see what he thought about the idea. And then I posted a poll to get your thoughts on our Facebook Group. Click here to get to the poll. So now I turn the question over to you.
Would be able/available/willing to play more online (and F2F) if we moved to a 2-hour game format?
JP
As many great villains in the franchise, there are quite a few that don't just make the cut.
I had to think about the worst people in James Bond. And I don't mean Most Evil, just these villains that simply SUCK.
Now when I created this list, I have Michael Longsdale's Draw from Moonraker as number one, but as I thought about it more, the movie was terrible, but his plan was actually pretty sweet, and he found the means to get it done. So I decided to drop him from the top 3. So a decent villain and a terrible movie can go together.
Although not every villain needs to be over-the-top, for example Kristatos from For your eyes only had none of those special gimmicks, but he was a credible and interesting character. Sanchez is not.
I remember as a kid watching that movie just wanting for him to die, without feeling anything special about it. At least he died and no one heard or cared about him again.
His origin had everything to become one of the top villains: a Nazi genetic experiment, load of money, and mob connections. But Walken's portrayal and the plot made him such a complete psychopath that I cannot see why anyone would be willing to join with him or give him millions of dollars. He was a complete caricature of an industrialist with a look vaguely resembling Andy Warhol.
So why do he rate so high in the level of suck? Other than being Chris Walken, what did the dude have? He was a psychopath that could not handle himself and would fly off the handle at the drop of a hat regularly. No way such a person would rise to such level. I think even the cast did not believe in the plot or Walken's rendition.
Sorry Chris.
Oh and shall I speak of this fake Iron Man costume that make him even more ridiculous. The GIJoe movie failed. This failed too. Writing this list made me realize how terrible that movie was.
So I re-watched the movie recently and waited for him to finish his monologue with a "Hail Hydra" which would have made sense as the scene was essentially the same as the ending of Captain America: The First Avenger. I know, I know, the First Avenger came years later. However, in CA:TFA, the confrontation made sense and the Red Skull at least had a goal that made people care.
Just no. Just no.
At least he died and we never had to remember him.
Until I created this list.
*Groan*
And here is the final three of Will's first batch of Arcadia Quest.
This group has a Legolas, "Chaz" (who ActionMan kept saying he looked just like Sir Patrick, his Adventure League character), as a Grace-Jones like character. I will say that I think she has to be one of the ugliest woman in history. That said, the model is full of character and captures the her wild and crazy persona in Conan The Destroyer.
More from Will's ArcadiaQuest. This group includes three ladies. I don't have too much insight the pictures don't answer...
