Chronicles of the Consortium

Sir Blanque - swordsman and handsome, dashing noble half mer-person Marion - stabby stabby dagger specialist; Nihrain who currently carries the Runestaff Destiny - Menastrai sorceress covertly raised on Melnibone Bomilcar - Weeping Waste nomad from a chieftain's family Unpronounceable - Draconian from another plane of existence, probably related to the Melniboneans White Plume Mountain! I've been planning this one for a while now. As well as the individual campaign elements, many of which were published as standalone  like this one, but which I have loosely linked together, I have a grand overarching campaign arc. Some of that now comes together: https://external-preview.redd.it/i9_wO7qVPpubsGA4wPjgm4GFhZgUQrB19N3vztXfV10.jpg?auto=webp&s=e3c7f6ebab8e8de0a8bda2dda77af131461c528d White Plume Mountain  is a very famous early 'fun-house' dungeon; above is the link and image to someone's run-through, with really nice details. It's basically composed of three...

Sir Blanque - swordsman and handsome, dashing noble half mer-person Marion - stabby stabby dagger specialist; Nihrain who currently carries the Runestaff Destiny - Menastrai sorceress covertly raised on Melnibone Bomilcar - Weeping Waste nomad from a chieftain's family The Desert of Desolation  campaign book provides the three encounters the characters have already had, and states that three of the minarets are already on the towers of the central hologram they are supposed to join; three of the corresponding side-shapes are darkened. The suggests that someone else (or perhaps multiple groups) has already accomplished three of the six tasks, which seems very unlikely given all of the interplanar shenanigans involved. So I made it six. There are particular campaign reasons for the final one, although the players don't know that yet. I'll make this brief as a way of describing the three extra ones I used. Two of them were taken from the first White Dwarf Compendium, the same ...

 I haven't posted on this blog for many months. Life became very hectic after being threatened with redundancy yet again, and I applied for jobs, some of them quite far afield. I did this on a previous occasion, before I moved to England, and I was offered one in Cyprus and another in Oman, but I couldn't accept them because they were fixed-term contracts only, and with a young family I needed more security than that. So we toughed it out, and eventually things went our way and I got a permanent job in England.  And then it went awry too. I knew this wouldn't end up in compulsory redundancy because the idiots doing the dirty did everything wrong; it was, though, clear that they wanted to get rid of as many of us as possible by making the place impossible to work. So we had a family confab and decided that I should apply for jobs overseas again, as well as in the UK. And I got one. I've been working remotely since January for a University in Abu Dhabi, but it has been fu...

Sir Blanque - swordsman and handsome, dashing noble half mer-person Marion - stabby stabby dagger specialist; Nihrain who currently carries the Runestaff Destiny - Menastrai sorceress covertly raised on Melnibone Bomilcar - Weeping Waste nomad from a chieftain's family Campaign narrative The four adventurers are currently part of the way through a series of side quests. They need to find six inscribed plates that generate holographic images of minarets. Once they have these, they are to add them to a central large holographic image of a floating citadel, which is missing six of its minarets. This will help them summon the Sphere of Power of The Martek, which will destroy the rampaging Efreet Prince Khalitharius. Not so simple, then. At least they already have one of the minarets, and they now go into a side chapel that shows another plate and its associated minaret sitting on the pillow of a sleeping woman wearing loose silken robes that don't cover very much. The teleport plat...

Sir Blanque - swordsman and handsome, dashing noble half mer-person Marion - stabby stabby dagger specialist; Nihrain who currently carries the Runestaff Destiny - Menastrai sorceress covertly raised on Melnibone Bomilcar - Weeping Waste nomad from a chieftain's family Campaign narrative The crystal cathedral in which the characters now find themselves has six side chapels, each of which holds another hologram depicting a different place/time of some sort. They know that they need to find six miniature holograms of minarets to complete the main artwork in the centre of the cathedral, so it looks as though it's time for six side quests. It doesn't really matter which is first, but after taking a look at them all, they realise that each has what looks like a teleport station set into the floor underneath the hologram that represents what is presumaby its destination. It doesn't really matter which one they take first, since they'll need to follow them all. They decide...

Sir Blanque - swordsman and handsome, dashing noble half mer-person Marion - stabby stabby dagger specialist; Nihrain who currently carries the Runestaff Destiny - Menastrai sorceress covertly raised on Melnibone Bomilcar - Weeping Waste nomad from a chieftain's family Campaign Narrative The four characters now have all five Star Gems, the last of which is supposed to be placed in the appropriate indentation in the obelisk at the centre of the deserted city. The obelisk has been giving off a rather lovely chiming sound, almost like a crystalline heartbeat, starting from the point the group retrieved the final gem from the Temple of Ra. When they do this, crystal pillars at various strategic locations around the city begin to emit an accompanying chime; according to an inscription on the obelisk, the players now have to touch one of the Star Gems against a pillar. Doing so summons a teleport disk that takes them to a beautiful garden beneath a glorious crystalline dome - obviously a...

I hit a nice patch on the refurbishment of my old fantasy figures, this time by delving into some of the groups I based as command stands for Greyhawk Wars using Tactica a very long time ago. Many of them were by the talented Julie Guthrie: Her figures were rather delicate but nicely sculpted, and often slightly quirky (e.g. left-handed, like the halberdier in the photo). As part of the re-touch, I experimented a little with a small box of fluorescent paints I bought to help with things like lanterns and fires. The white that came in the set is actually a very light silver, perfect for highlighting armour and weapons; I hope it brings out the details in these. I used the fluorescent red on the Cleric figure at the far left; it's not so bright, but it did make his robes quite vivid, so I am quite pleased with these paints. The second batch is a bit of a mix. The leftmost two as you look at it are old Citadel figures from just when the original Warhammer  RPG was released. You can se...