the safe hΘle

 recently my D&D group was able to squeeze in a session on thanksgiving weekend and this past weekend. and through all the action and mischief that was taking place, i noticed one thing that has been a occurrence for sometime now and it's how much little i need to create an encounter for them to enjoy themselves. over time especially this year with our group we have been more role-playing than playing the game with large table set-ups.  with all the papers, books, and the DM area there isn't much room on the table to create an elaborate table display to game on. certainly if an encounter is created randomly out of the blue. like several weeks ago a group was sent to take down a raised skeletal dragon. and i wasn't even sure if we were going to get to that particular fight so i didn't make room for it, but somehow we got to it so i just put the essentials down on the table for that encounter, which was a crashed sky-boat, the adventure party, and a dragon.  and in th...

back in 2023 i repainted a few plastic lions i got from an animal toy bucket from Wal-Mart and thought it would be really cool to set up a scenario based off the movie "the Ghost and the Darkness." now fast forward today and while i am spending my vacation getting some painting done, i figured i would take a break from my western Perilous Tales campaign and play a fresh game with a home brew scenario. basing it roughly off the movie the two lions are the only villains in the game with many perils to make the game interesting and somewhat of a pain. in a game of Perilous Tales there are five villains and three perils. but since there are only two villains i picked the peril, Utterly Horrible to fill out the rest of the villain list. making characters roll for horror checks throughout the game in my mind gives that uneasy feeling like you are being stalked by these monsters of the jungle. the objectives are: Kill the Master, Get Evidence, and Escape!.  the perils in the game ar...

now King Randor has a proper regiment of guards to protect the kingdom! getting the Eternian Guards done awhile back i finally got the Palace Guards finished as well. these were tricky because of their halberd blades kind of bent and warped. so i had to fix that or my OCD would go off and drive me crazy. i noticed one of the palace guards had it's head looking forward instead of off to the side like everyone else, so i clipped two other heads and glued them looking forward. now with these guys done and complete i think i might begin to focus on getting the Evil Horde and Great Rebellion finished. even though i always find odd ball characters to do i really need to buckle down and get them done. I have been dragging my feet on them for some time now.

since resuming my Perilous Tales campaign with the Wolf Man episode i unintentionally created a mini storyline within my campaign that will feature the infamous Whateley family. as one of the villain scenarios in the rulebook i was so looking forward to creating a western version of them being a Lovecraft fan. but to get there we have to stay on the road that is haunted by creatures and undesirables. the episode is the giant frog monster. ( the swamp fiend from the rulebook. ) the group continues towards the Whateley's farmhouse and soon discovers that there is more here than a reclusive family. gossip around town says that some of those graves are filled with children who didn't make it past their first year or stillborn. just sad. the objectives are: Destroy the Idol, Rescue the Prisoner, and Tell Us What You Know.  the perils in the game are: Creeping Death, Driven Back, and Mired. which all were randomly generated. using the Eagle Eye trait to spot some minions, the game st...

continuing painting some more from the Mantic Games Haunted Manor box set, these minions i figure are supposed to be the deep ones from H.P. Lovecraft's stories. but since they lack the fish characteristics i call them the muck people. and not too long ago i found out that these figures are from the Hellboy board game, so i might look on eBay for a few more to add to the group. i had my next Perilous Tales scenario figured out and sorted but in my head it didn't fit with the theme that i had started. so i pulled these out, painted them quickly and got them table-readied for the next installment of my western themed Perilous Tales. i didn't know how i was gonna use these originally for Dungeons and Dragons, but for a modern pulp or even a wild west, these would work nicely. as i am writing this post, i am definitely thinking of getting a few more for other table-top games i enjoy playing. the one muck man who seems like they are wearing pants i didn't feel like that is  ...

yeah i was listening to some classic rock tunes including the Animals "House of the Rising Sun" while i was painting this piece of terrain for my wild west collection. but anyways back in july i purchased a ramshackled house from Renedra Limited and when i started to build it the first thing i thought was damn this thing is small. i got a little worried but then i've seen movies where folks in the wild west lived in small homes and such, so i just put it in the back of my mind. i painted it based on how it is displayed on the box, mainly grays and light drybrush. i actually didn't want much color on it because i wanted to keep the feel of how decrepit and ruined it is. when i went to paint the chimney i used a light shade of red oxide for the bricks. i went back over it with a black wash and then once dried, a very light drybrush of some light gray.  a spirit haunts the grounds of an old run down home. with the fear of the house being too small after it was built i pl...

for sometime now i bought a few packs of core spawn crawlers from Wizkids through their Critical Role miniature line, but i really didn't know what color scheme i wanted to go with. and after some time of really getting tired of looking at them unpainted, i just threw some light brown and some green on them. what's nice about these is that three come in a pack of different poses so i got two packs. there is also a core spawn emissary and a core spawn seer i would love to also get and maybe a few more crawlers to create a nightmare for my D&D group. three different poses from one pack isn't that bad. i have to say the poses are all nicely animated. the ravenous brood of everything that is creepy and threatening.  little Posie Pocketfull stares down what could be just her imagination. to expand my collection of scatter pieces for my dungeon sessions, i purchased a box set of Mantic Games Haunted Manor plastic set. and in this set there are several different creatures that...

it's been awhile since i have done a Perilous Tales game and i recently got some miniatures done specifically for a game. i also thought it would be kind of cool to have a number of games connected to each others with a specific storyline bringing them together. the episode is the Wolf Man. on the edge of the land owned by the recluse Whateley family, Abraham Puckett and company make their way out from town to make sure everything is on the level. with all the strange occurrences happening around town, Puckett thinks he knows where the source is coming from. the objectives are: Kill the Master, Destroy the Idol, and Set the Explosives. the perils in the game are: Creeping Horror, Utterly Horrible, Earthquake, which all were randomly generated. using William Loomis' skill of Eagle-Eye was able to spot the threat marker that was the main villain werewolf. with some decent dice rolls, was able to take him out in one turn by forming a firing squad. after taking out the werewolf, th...

  i have taken a break from painting MotU figures for a short time, i wanted to finish some D&D and wild west miniatures before i get some heavy duty painting time for the next leg of operation MotU, the villainous Anti Eternians.  found a website where i can read comic books online, thought i would look for any MotU comics and came across a limited series called  He-Man and the Masters of the Multiverse. and while reading it i kinda got inspired and took a few of the spared figures of the Evil Warriors and repaint a He-Man figure and created a small band of "heroic characters." with some different color schemes using the comic book as a resource, i have to admit these were fun to paint. i can't wait to paint the villainous Anti-Eternians and get them on the tabletop.  not sure what he was called in the comic book but from what i've seen online, there is a MotU Origins action figure called He-Skeletor.  same color scheme from the comic book and the toy, i fi...

since my last vacation i got some painting done and mainly the odds and ends of whatever i had laying around. most of this is for an upcoming game of Perilous Tales. several headstones i painted up for mainly for Perilous Tales but can be used for almost anything. not sure where i got these but i think i got them from the last gaming convention. a few giant scorpions from Mantic Games some wolves from Next Level Miniatures. my little demonic black goat. not sure if i am pleased with how he came out. i wanted him to be black but not just the entire figure black, i tried to do shading on it but it just came out like one shade. when i went to photograph it the blue spots on it are from the television shining on to it. some werewolves. one on the left is from Wizkids and the other one is Mantic Games. not to thrilled about these i might just go and buy a plastic sprue of werewolves from Wargames Atlantic. a duodrone, prepainted from Wizkids, gave it a painted base.