Great clothing illustrations book.

I just came back from the library with this book: European Civil and Military Clothing.

I love Dover's illustrations books so much, their line art drawings are just so clear and fantastic. I had many of their coloring books when I was a kid (Ancient Near East, Egypt, Indian design, etc), they contributed a lot to my love of drawing and my imagination.

Expect some fantasy drawings in the coming weeks. :)

Ruins of the Undercity with no GM.

With my my friends H. and Yan, we played 2 sessions of Ruins of the Undercity. Since we were only 3, we decided to try to explore the Undercity without a DM (as proposed by the book). We used the party organisation chart and the random dungeon generator. But we also used a oracle table on which we could roll to ask YES/NO questions. It was ok, the game was functional, it reminded me of roguelike games like Stone Soup Dungeon Crawl or NetHack. But naturally the whole thing also felt limited. But still we had some fun moments when we complicated our character situation by asking questions to the oracle. Stuff like: "two rot grubs on the floor... ok is the ceiling crawling with them?" and when rolling a "1" while defending a doorway: "shit can the grey critters push me aside and swarm in the room?" We could have been more creative, but most of the questions concerning the dungeon were answered by the random dungeon generator tables.  

What I appreciated the most about Ruins of the Undercity is how the build-in setting color all the random tables. I especially appreciated the list of shops offering local flavored equipment combined with availability rolls.

We rolled up 2 characters each to form a party of 6 characters. We used the former profession table from the book to add some colors to our characters.

We ended up with:

• Galatea, a actor's daughter who ran away to became a cleric in a poor temple.   
• Madu, a bad cartographer who learned some magic charms. 
• Xenokrates, a runaway bower apprentice now fighter.
• Paedo, a ruined leather worker who felt the calling of the Red Goddess.
• Dbeti, a nubian dwarf who had enough of being a petty clerk. 
• Gowad, a persian merchant who dabbled in forbidden arts.   

Madu stats sucked so much (STR 5, INT 9, WIS 8, DEX 6, CON 8, CHA 11), I liked how he was not gifted at anything and how, against is better judgement, he choose to venture in the undercity in search of treasures he imagined when daydreaming while he was reading old and crumbling maps of the city. It was fun to watch him survive against the odds! (But that said, except for his 2 hit points, his poor stats din't hinder him that much) 

Generating the dungeon room by room & door by door during play was slow and laborious. The result was ok, but was not especially interesting or intriguing. I think the random generator can be useful as a GM tool, but I prefer random geomorph tiles over rooms by corridors generation. Or again I prefer to work with a dungeon creation tool, like How to Host a Dungeon, that provide a dungeon history and ecology that spark the imagination instead of detailed floor plans.

Oh and we constantly rolled poorly on the rooms content table, so we din't discover a single treasure in two sessions.    



In conclusion I like Ruins of the Undercity, but not for it GM less proposition or it random dungeon generator, but for how it setting is build-in in it tables and lists. I would play in a campaign of Ruins of the Undercity, but only with a GM that use the random dungeon generator as a tool to dress up his or her dungeon instead of using it to entirely generate dungeon levels.

Gold Beard Fortress

I am reposting the dungeon that I have drawn with How to Host a Dungeon (and my friend H.)
(there is some additional notes on the map).

Some notes about the history of the dungeon.

Primordial Age:

• Three primordial beasts inhabit the region: a cyclop, a gigantic spider and a sentient giant slime. 
• The purple plague infect some of the caves. 

The Age of Civilization:

• The dwarf's runes point toward a deep gold vein. 
• Gold Beard Fortress is build.
• The red gold vein is found and named "The Setting Sun". 
• Construction of the Great Hall of Deep Shine.
• Construction of the red workshops.
• Construction of the Hall of Records.
• Foundation of the underground city of Glorious Gleam. 
• Construction of the royal secret chamber and forging of the first Red Sun. 
• The dwarfs dig too deep and awaken the Beast from Below. 

The Great Disaster:

• The Beast from Below summon a underground river to flood the dwarf's tunnels to hunt them. 

The Age of Monsters:

• The water level diminish and monsters settle in the dungeon.
• The Gnolls - Antling war. 
• The Gnolls vanish, hunted down by dwarven ghosts. 
• The Purple plague orcs tribe settle in the now empty dwarven city and prosper. 

The Age of Villainy:

• The Lich King settle in the dungeon and enslave the purple plague orcs.

Animals adventurers

Cartoony animal adventurer, just for the fun of it.

Other dust mutant characters

I had the occasion to play a roleplaying game again this december. We played a one shot of Other Dust.
We all choose to roll up mutants and we ended up with a really weird group that really din't look like the characters on the cover of the book.

We lost two characters during our venture to bring back a water filter for our village. I liked how each time a replacing character was introduced, this added setting detail and fleshed out the "dungeon".

Strangely none of the replacing character were mutants.

Hyperborean Monk

A random drawing I made this week to pass time.

Poleviks worshiping Poludnitsa, the Lady of Grains.

A idol of the Lady of Grains, one of the mysterious figure that haunt the abandoned farmlands of my Northern Marches campaign. She rule over grains, madness, curses and unlife. Her worshipers can create unlife by stuffing the corpse of a loved one with grains while evoking her name. Some say that she can turn grains into gold. 


"She assailed folk working at noon causing heatstrokes and aches in the neck. Sometime she even caused madness." 

Encounters (illustrations)

Some of the creatures the adventurers have encountered in the abandoned farmlands and in the dark forest:

Update

I have been busy for some time, and my gaming was also starting to take a lot of my mind-space so I felt like I din't had the time to both game and blog about it. 

But now I have some drawings to post for this blog, so I will reactivate it for a while.

I have been busy with finding work, getting involve with the protest movement here in Quebec and with personal illustration projects. 

On the gaming side, I have tried some indy games, participated in a local con and I am now regularly refeering my Labyrinth Lord,(west marches style) campaign. 

...

The indy games I have tried/played:

- Shock: Social Science Fiction:

We played one shock in two session. It was about the human race being put in tutelage by "benevolent" aliens. Shock was interesting to play, but the game text was sometime confusing and since this is a GMless game, we were sometime unsure about how or when to intervene at the table. Also this is a game where you have to do a lot of improvisation and everything can easily become too vague or confuse. In the end the result was fine, we ended up with a interesting story, but while we were actually playing the game, I dint especially enjoy myself (but it was ok). I am not writing off Shock, I think the game could be more interesting if we play a series of shocks like it suggested in the game where a shock = a chapter of a book. In average you play 3 scenes by shocks, so when you just play one shock, you have to resolve your entire character's arc and setting issues in only 3 scenes. The jumps between the scenes are huge and the stakes can easily become too big and the world feel less "real". But I think that when you play a series of shocks you feel less pressure to play with HUGE stakes, and the game fiction flow more naturally. I think Shock is a game that you have to play a lot before feeling comfortable while improvising with. I would also like to try Human Contact.  

- Dogs in the Vinyard: 

A game I was curious about but that I skipped many time because the setting was leaving me indifferent. I am glad that we finally tried it, because once you are playing, the setting really shine and is really fun to engage. The game system is also super fun to use and not so abstract, I really enjoyed it a lot. But what I enjoyed the most is how your character traits change and evolve while playing. It make you feel like everything you do have a impact or leave a mark on your character, this is super rewarding. We played two town in 3 sessions and if we had a third player I would really have liked to continue playing. One-shots of DitV seem fine, but l think the game is way more involving when played as a campaign. This game is now definitively on my playlist. 

- Ocean:

A GM less game about amnesiac survivors exploring a underwater station. It was fun, but I think the overall concept was more interesting then our actual gameplay. There is so much improvisation to do, it easy to get creatively tired or lazy and then the game become too vague or generic. (And due to the underwater station setup, it easy to slip and to get repetitive with the obstacles). I was hoping for more character interactions and sexy moments, but we din't get any. I still think Ocean is a interesting game, I would play it again if offered, but I don't think I will be offering it myself (since there is so many other games I want to play). 

- Burning Empires:

I wanted to take the time to learn this game, so we decided to run a 2 players campaign to be able to get more familiar with the system (even if we had some good experiences with Burning Wheel). Our setup was really nice, I liked the world we had burned and all the characters beliefs, but at the last minute one of us decided to leave our small group and so we had to cancel everything. Damn! 

- Apocalypse World:

I so want to enjoy this game! I like everything in it, but when we play it never deliver! Everything always end up being so unengaging. It just don't rock. (not because of the game system)

...

The Geek-o-thon:

A small one-day local con here in Montreal. 

In the morning I tried to run a game of Apocalypse World. I know, I am obstinate! It was ok, but again it din't rock! And it was definitively not sexy! (even with a hot and sweaty setup).  

In the afternoon I played in a game of Savage World Hellfrost. It was nice, I enjoyed the game and the arctic expedition scenario, but the con room was so noisy, I had a huge headache and a hard time keeping myself in the game.

In the evening I played a game of Lady Blackbird. This game ROCKED! It was so fun and dynamic! I really enjoyed it. I played captain Cyrus Vance and I was scoring my keys non-stop while giving daring orders and trying to get close to Lady Blackbird. Sadly the 2 players playing Lady Blackbird and her bodyguard were very protective and I was not able to get close to the lady to gain her heart. The game is so fun, I would like to try it with every characters. Huge replay value! :)  

...

OSR gaming:

-Stars Without Number:

We played 5 or 6 sessions and we were all close to getting to level 3. But the referee din't had the time to prep his sessions so we decided to switch to Labyrinth Lord since my campaign was already prepared. Stars Without Number was super fun, I enjoyed all of our sessions and the derelict spaceship was a fun dungeon to explore. But strangely the character being too easy to save when they reach zero hit point and the fact the no one died ended up making the game kind of less exciting for me. I like how character dead become a event to be remembered and I also like to see characters join the group. So I think I prefer my OSR gaming with stronger zero hit points consequences.  

-Labyrinth Lord:

I am now regularly running my Northern Marches campaign with a group of 5 to 7 players. We played 6 expeditions, the characters are now mostly level 2 and 3. It really interesting to see the group discovering and exploring the sandbox. I really enjoy being the referee for this campaign, the interactions with the players are just so fun and exciting. And as a referee I am also learning a lot. Running the game for 7 players is a good challenge, but so far it work very well. (for other kind of games my comfort zone is usually 3 or 4 players, but hexe crawling with OSR games seem to play very well with many players :).