In Memorium: Priest from Dark Rituals - Malleus Maleficarum

 

Fun fact, I haven't played D&D (or any roleplaying game) as a player character in some twenty years or more. I have been DM'ing for that long. So recently one of my players wanted to DM a one-shot D&D adventure using the D20 rules light system that I use. Sweet! This was my first chance to play as a PC in ages and I jumped to it. My character was a 1st level Cleric, Father Benedictus from the Abby of St Peter and St Paul (Cadfael reference there everyone!).

My PC spent much time trying to convince NPC's of their need to get baptised and even almost managed to get a witch dunked. Turned out she was trying to trap me. So, as all evil must be destroyed, our party ended up killing her. Sadly though, we didn't get to build a bridge out of her or see if she weighed the same as a duck (Python reference there!).

Good ol' Father Benedictus found himself often in the front lines with our party fighter and never shied away from a fight when evil had to be confronted. The miniature here is the priest from the Dark Rituals - Malleus Maleficarum board game. Father Benedictus ended up spending much of his second paying session with just 1 hit point. A testament to his devotion to smiting evil.

At one point he was given two bottles of odd liquid and told never to mix the two substances. So, he dutifully wrapped them in his woollen hose and linen tunic and stuffed them in his satchel bag that was slung over his shoulder. This will be relevant later kids, so pay attention.

At one point we realised that two baddies (more witches!) were holed up in a forest and so we proceeded to set that place ablaze. One of the witches kept flittering between the trees, using her magic to extinguish the flames, before shooting long wooded stakes at us. 1 hit point by now remember.

Amazingly our party, which always seems to act as a group of individuals and never as a team, actually worked together for once in an attempt to take the hag down. On a nearby mountain side there was a giant of some description that was allied to said witch and he didn't take too kindly to us burning her forests and less so to us attempting to kill her.

With 1 hit point left, I cried out to the LORD to smite our enemies and then rolled my attack. Natural 20!!!

I torched that hag to a cinder in one hit. It was glorious!

Next thing we hear a roar on the mountain side and see a massive bolder hurled into the air. We scatter but all but one of us then got crushed under that huge bolder. Remember those bottles kids? Well, it turns out that they contained extremely volatile liquids that, when my character was crushed, shattered and mixed, setting off a small nuclear explosion. Up went the forest, the remaining witch within the forest, the mountainside, and the one surviving player character. THAT was truly magnificent!

In his death, Father Benedictus took out the remaining evil dudes, levelled and torches the forest and made a spectacular exit from this mortal coil. In heaven, he would now have bragging rights about how he saved the innocent by destroying the evils that threatened them with one final act of self-sacrifice. It was only Father Benedictus second play session, but in those two gaming sessions, he left an indelible mark on me as one of my most favourite player characters of all time. Fare you well Father Benedictus! May flights of angels carry thee to the LORD's side. You will be fondly missed.

Irradiated Radscorpion for Fallout Wasteland Warfare from Wizkids

 

This beasty is another unpainted Wizkids D&D giant scorpion miniature that I painted into an Irradiated Radscorpion. Its standard brood kin can be found in a post here, with the only painting variation being the use of three difference green paints to show ever increasing radiation emission from the carapace and a green ink wash being used before the final Gloss Agrax Earthshade wash.

So, this blighter does not only normal damage, but radiation burn damage as well from either just being close to it (if you fail a Saving Throw) or being struck by it. Nasty!

Skincrawlers of the Vivimancer for roleplaying

 

Sometime back I posted on the first of the Vivimancer's experiments I had scratch build using Kings of War Zombies, green-stuff, hot glue and wire. Well, I finally got around to finishing off three of the Vivimancer's other experimental horrors. These I call Skincrawlers and I will be stating them up for Old School D&D sometime in future for an adventure with my RPG group. For now, however, here they are in all their horrid glory in time for Halloween.

Lending a helping hand...

Trees for Tabletop Roleplaying games

 

Sometime back I posted about how I was making trees for use in our D&D game (see that post here). The project was shelved for a while given that the trees weren't needed at a game session any time soon. However, I recently finished them and so thought I would show how they turned out.

Tree bases are blank CD's textured with putty

A small hole just big enough for a PC to crawl through. Wonder what lays beyond?

As you can see from the final image above, its easy to see to the ground without the view being obstructed by foliage. This gives the illusion of a wood, whilst permitting clear line of sight to the miniatures on the table. I'm pretty happy they turned out.

Undead Dwarves

 

These lads are plastic Reaper Miniatures Undead Dwarves. The el'cheapo version. The plastic isn't as defined as the metal version sadly. So things like the teeth are not as well defined as the metal miniature version. But for our D&D game, these will do nicely.

Demi-Lich

 

Reaper Miniatures Demi-Lich, perfect for that certain Tomb of Horrors you might to send your player characters into sometime...