New terrain!

Hello guys,

Deciding I lack houses I could use in both urban and rural settings, I decided to build two smallish box houses that could fit in both SA and Modern setting.

They were recycled from my "urban terrain tiles" I built years ago for my zombie town and never really used all that much - I only had them for 3x3 and they started wrapping.

 The design is simple and meant for an easy and fast building. I used slightly larger bases so I could add a bit of a yard to each of them. They have no roofs as I found out roofs to be a lot of hassle for little gain. They aren't used during game, but they do look lovely at the beginning.

 One has a broken fence and the other one a laundry rope, other than that they are both pretty bland. I was aiming for even whiter colour with only a hint of yellow/blue, but I am quite satisfied with them as they are.

I decided against cutting holes for windows and doors as they aren't REALLY needed and as they don't have separate rooms, windows look weird (as they do on my older terrain).

Also, if the two are put together there is a lovely alley formed in between:

In other news, I started working on two technicals for rebels and I hope to play a game soon - I have so many soldiers painted now I'd love to use them some more!

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

The Children of the Sea Serpent: Chapter 1

The good guys.

The bad guys. One of them quite impatient.

My name is  Dr. Oscar Webb. My irrational fear of the sea and any other large body of water, for that matter, has not always accompanied me.

It was not until an interesting incident back in the twenties that I started shivering at the sheer tought of the water. For...you see...something lurks in the darkness of the depth. Something so terrifying, I risk fainting just by writing about it...as you can probably see from my shaky handwriting.

It is best I start at the beginning. Years ago, I was recruited into a top secret governmental agency, called Threshold. I would imagine you have not yet heard of it. Agency has been working in the shadows for hundreds of years, some say its roots go back to the mad emperor Nero of Rome, but I digress.

I was with the agency for a long time and have grown accustomed to dealing with queer things and beings, yes, beings, that do not belong to this world. But nothing could have prepared me for what I have encountered in those days of Autumn 1924.

It was me, my  good friend Stan Hastings and a scholar Artemis Seaton (who possesses certain...gifts) that were sent on a mission in a scarcely populated coastal area in New England. Reports of blood-freezing chanting and daemonic rituals were coming to the Agency more and more frequently. It was a routine mission, find out more about the possible cult and its practice and break it...little did we know, that we were already late.

It was a cold, misty morning, when we went on a foot patrol around the area and we closed in on a worm eaten old barn in the middle of the forest. We heard human voices - or so we thought - and closed in with weapons drawn.

We tried to remain unnoticed for as long as possible and took cover behind the barn. We could heard human sounds...no doubt of that, but there were also sounds that you would not be expecting to hear on the shores. What are we to deal with on this god forsaken place?

There was no time to think - it was time to act! Helped by Artemis, Stan climbed in the barn to outflank the godless worshipers, while I rushed around the corner, putting my faith in Diana, my family shot gun. I emptied both barrels in the direction of a villain and made sure he would see another day. Artemis was following closely behind me.

Inside the barn, Stan was under light pistol fire, but managed to keep his skin whole. I would be worried about Stan more, hadn't I been approach by a being of such a repulsive look, even horror writers would faint! The slippery scaly humanoid rushed at me and I did my best to protect myself - the rest is lost to my memory as I was bested in the fight.

This story continues as it was told by trusty Artemis and Stan. Stan was of quick wits and charged the imposing figure he thought was a leader of the group. He was locked in a fight with the cultist, but was unable to secure a definite victory against the evil doer.  In the mean time, that awful fish-man hybrid shambled towards Artemis, whose wits were so strained, he missed the creature at point blank with his pistol and then fell tho his attack in close combat.

Stan could still not overpower the leader of the party and henchman decided to intervene. Afraid he might hit his leader, he joined in the brawl and did not fire from the distance. This decision turned out to be his undoing, as Stan hacked through him with ease. This small victory apparently motivated Stan to focus and he finally settled the dispute with the cultist.  He wasted no time and rushed around the corner to meet the devil that dealt such a great amount of pain to his friends. He emptied a clip, but did not manage to hit the shambling young man, who turned towards Stan but failed to reach him and engage in a close combat. While Stan always preferred to dance to the song of swords than orchestra of powder, a rusty old cleaver that that pitied creature dragged behind it made him think twice and he instead decided to keep some distance and rather fill the abnormality with lead.

After two carefully aimed shots, the being dropped dead on the spot and Stan rushed to get me and Artemis to hospital, where is it I woke up.

The mission was costly for our little team, as poor Artemis lost all his trust in the fire arms and pledged never to use them again - they are inaccurate and not worth the bother, he claims! As for me...oh god...that forsaken beast has swung its blade all over my face and the result is beyond imaginable. I dread seeing myself in mirror - how can I ever let my loved ones see me like this?


Post-game thoughts:

While it has its cons (First version at least), Strange Aeons is by far the most fun I have playing games. Fast and simple and if I play alone nobody hears me adding the sound effects!

To be completely fair, I replayed the scenario, as after first game all three agents were removed from play without causing any damage whatsoever. Henchman with the Tommy gun was killing them without too much trouble - the profile is strong by itself and it had all the best rolls! According to the injury roles, one died and the other one was horribly crippled, so I decided to cheat a bit and call it a practice game, as I haven't played in months.

Artemis suffers from Ballistophobia and will need to preform a test before he can fire a weapon, while Oscar is now hideous, which means every human that comes into base to base contact with him, will have to throw a resolve check.

Strange Aeons AAR: Farmer Janez's salvation

Hello guys,

after a long break, I've finally decided to play a game of Strange Aeons again. I've played solo this time and decided to take a story telling approach. The scenario played was based on The restless dead from Morbid adventures expansion booklet, but I've done some tweaks to better suit it my needs. I have ignored the rule that says there must be more lurker models than threshold models and I've used those profiles:
A mummy for the vampire, mostly for the command and toughness, he is the bad guy in this game after all.
Two zombies for ghosts. I could simply use zombie miniatures, but I decided to go with ghosts as they are better representations of "flickering lights" that are believed to be the souls of the dead in tales. I could also use actual ghost profiles, but zombies came out more practical for my needs.

For agents, I felt like I had too many points for the first time, when making a list! I used a character, two agents and a civilian.

To avoid filling the tale with various explanations, here are the most important ones:
- Janez Novak is pronounced "Yanes" and it is to us what John Smith is to English.
- Marija is pronounced "Maree-yah" and is an equivalent of Mary, so obviously a very popular name in the past.
- Jakob Kelemina, pronounced "Yakob", wrote a book on Slovenian myths and tales in 1930, so he seemed like the best candidate for our hero :P.
- Brezglavec, pronounced "Bres-glavets" meaning "Headless one" is a spirit of an unbaptised child. In my version, this is simply a spirit of a man who died without a proper burial. Conveniently, one miniature is actually headless.

October, 1931. A year ago, Jakob Kelemina published his book on local myths and folklore and he quickly became widely respected as one of the best experts on the subject. This is, indeed, a reason that mrs. Novak, a widow, residing in a remote sub alpine farmstead has contacted him as soon as curious things started taking place both in, and around her home. She claimed...odd things are taking place since her late husband, one Janez Novak has passed away. She is frequently hearing screeching noises from the forests at nights. She is on the edge of losing her sanity at the sight of her farm servants, that passed away ages ago (all died of unexplained, violent causes) walking around the fields that she inherited after her husband's death. But the strangest, and for old and lonely widow, the happiest is her late husband's nightly visits - he joins her in bed every night, as he has done before he died! For Janez, a hardworking farmer and a loving husband, was a sinner. In the past decades, stories have spread about local forests being cursed - travelers, adventurers and even some of Janez's farm servants went missing frequently! There are more versions of the stories, but all of them have the same ending - people traveling through forested hilly area in vicinity of Janez's farmstead, where there are no eyes and no ears to tell the tales, have a high chance for a so-called "violent departure". Many were never seen again.

When Jakob has heard about mrs. Novak's husband coming back to her bed, he was startled - he quickly brought to his memory numerous stories of vampires he collected from other people in the area. The tales of dead people, coming back to life could be anything from comical to down right frightening. He could've never imagined that he would live to see an actual krvoses - a blodsucker. And on top of it - he had to make sure to do all that is in his power to send the poor soul to the place of everlasting rest. He wished not to burden mrs. Novak with queries about the strange cases of deaths that took  place on their land, but asking around in the local taverns lead him to believe Janez is a damned soul, paying for the sins he committed in his life. This theory, Jakob assumed, was supported by mrs. Novak's visions of said servants - without a proper burial their souls seem to enrage after their murderer's death. There is only one way to resolve this mystery - the dreaded vampire has to be dug out and proper measures have to be taken to prevent his returns. Servant's remains have to be find and cleansed by giving them proper burial. 

Early next morning, mr. Kelemina and two of his dearest friends, priest Anton and adventurer Tristan payed mrs. Novak a visit...

 She greeted them with her loyal farm servant, Pavel, at her side. Jakob could see the past events have taken a great toll on her health - she was all stooped and seemed so frightened, all the blood has escaped her face...making her pale as a chalk.

"T...t...thank you f-for c-c-coming on s-such a short n-notice...m-mr. Kelemina", mrs. Novak patiently stuttered. She followed by slowly explaining once again what she has witnessed in the past days. 

Kelemina was not wasting any time and he knew where to start - at late Janez's grave. He was burried in the orchard he cared about so much. Pavel, mrs. Novak's servant, has offered to lead them to the grave. Mrs. Novak insisted on him taking her late husband's hunting rifle...shall anything go wrong. Forests are close and one can never know when a bear or a pack of wolves might find their way to the property...not to mention the latest events. What if the wandering souls prove dangerous?
Deeply worried of his team's safety, Kelemina himself took a shotgun from his car. Tristan wouldn't leave his house without double .45 - his pride and joy anyways and as for father Anton...he condemned violence. But after brief convincing from the rest of the lads, he reluctantly took a knife with him...just in case.

Pavel has only lead them pass the hayrack, when they have already spotted a flickering light, drifting in the early morning mist. Pavel, a man of a simple mind, was only familiar with the restless spirits from the tales he listened to as a kid. Nevertheless, he aimed his late master's rifle at the abomination and fired a shot. Used to pitchforks more than a rifle, even he himself was amazed as he has hit the moaning  soul. At the impact of the bullet, the light dispersed and got lost in the thick mist. 

 Group was quite startled, and didn't quite knew what to think of their experience. They have slowly moved towards the grave. A lot of works still needs to be done and their knees are already shaky! 

Kelemina has only made few steps forward and he got stopped right in his tracks. "Lads," he shouted to get the group's attention "there he is...he really is walking!" he was amazed. For the first time in his long career, after all those stories - he saw an actual vampire, slowly wandering around his grave under a dried out plum tree. 

Pavel's joy at dispersing a spectre was short lived as another one approached from the other direction! Father Anton has quickly suggested the remains of the all three undead must be found and put to rest, or the frightening visions will never cease! Kelemina was awaken from his day dreaming as a sense of danger has filled his senses - the undead farmer has turned towards them! After a quick setback, he has boldly decided to face this work of Satan and father Anton was already crossed himself at the vision of the earthly devil. He shall cleanse him or die trying! Tristan, as adventures as he was, saw a chance for eternal glory and boldly (or stupidly) charged the dead man. Servant Pavel, on the other hand, was nothing like him. Poor man's nerves snapped and he felt on the ground, crying in mortal horror. He, personally has buried the old farmer and now he is alive? How could that be?

Tristan charged, drawing his knife and not the stench nor dead man's red, devilish glowing eyes could stop him in his search for global glory and recognition. All his enthusiasm and bravery were in vain, and after blocking his initial charge, the dastardly Vampire clutched Tristan with his bony fingers and started sucking his blood, leaving young man to fall unconscious. Hellish fiend didn't stop at that and as he sucked the brain of the poor young man, his friends grew pale with terror.  

The loss of a friend hasn't left Kelemina and father Anton untouched. They were decided to avenge their friend and Kelemina started blasting with his shot gun at the Vampire like a mad man. When Kelemina's shot hit, the sinner was visibly hurt, judging by his hellish scream. The power of a shot was so strong, he was knocked back! "This is not good enough!" Kelemina though for himself, while reloading his weapon. He channeled all his sorrow and hatred into concentration, pulled a trigger and blew the devil's head right off his shoulders!

In the mean time, father Anton has decided to do his part in the avenging of a friend, as well. Calling to Christ the savior for his courage, Anton charged the headless spectre. Unfortunately, this day was not his and flickering Brezglavec had no problem disposing with a threat.

Witnessing death of another of his friend hasn't changed Kelemina's dedication to stop farmer Novak's awakenings. The same can not be said for servant Pavel, however. Seeing Kelemina blowing up Vampire's head as a watermelon, Pavel raised to aid his new friends, but seeing a holy man die like that...this was more than Pavel could take. He screamed in mortal fear and ran towards the farm.

Kelemina knew it was a point of do or die. He pumped his shotgun once again, and, blinded by the anger and sadness, fired without aiming. It was a costly mistake, as Brezglavec had his full attention now. Kelemina took a deep breath, reloaded his weapon one, last time, aimed and pulled the trigger. Bang! Right on target. Pellets from a shell were scattered all around, hitting the vegetation the spectre was lurking in and for a moment, Kelemina was afraid his last chance was wasted. Nevertheless, the spectre left out a dying sound and the light dispersed. 

While running away like a headless chicken, servant Pavel caught with an edge of his eye the spectre's undoing. He slowly returned to Kelemina and helped him bury his two friends and mr. Novak - once again. Unfortunately, there was no priest around to cleanse farmer Novak's soul, but they have taken all other precautions to prevent Vampire's return. They have but the remains of his head between his leg and even impaled his stone cold heart with a hawthorn stake. 

In one of the following days, Janez Novak's grave was visited by a Catholic priest that has cleansed his soul and, hopefully, gave his soul an everlasting rest. 
The remains of the two spectres that were encountered, were also found. They were both buried around the archard. Their remains were taken to the local church and were given a proper burial on a sacred ground. 

The vampire's menace was over, but at a cost of two, fine men's lives. 

 After game thoughts:

Well, this post is a lot longer than I planned, but hopefully it made an enjoyable read. While I was throwing dice for combat results, I have to admit I went easy on the team and I didn't use the rule where zombies (so, spectres in my game) would respawn from the graves. Even without that, the good guys barely won.
Other than that, I quite enjoyed the twist on the rules and I'm already thinking of incorporating Werewolf or Deep one profiles in one of the next games. I'm certainly missing some mob characters that would fit in well with the narrative game play - perhaps a pack of Transylvanian mob from Westwind wouldn't go amiss!

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

Some new terrain

Hello guys,

I've finally been working on some terrain for my games again. With all the posts about Salute ruining my days lately, I have also started unearthing old stuff that is either half made or still packed. That includes resin crates and barrels, some miniatures (I am putting off painting cultists as I'm afraid I'd never get colours same again :P) and lots of smaller scatter terrain.

Anyways, I have been thinking and planning about setting (some of) my Strange Aeons games in Slovenia for a very long time (remember the three bridges board idea that never progressed?). As this project overlaps with my idea of  "Slovenian mythology" games, set in Dark ages, and I thus read a lot on the subject lately, I've decided to play some games with what I already have in my collection.

Before I could start, I needed just one piece of terrain that defines the local area more than anything else I could imagine - a Hayrack. We call it "kozolec" which would be pronounced something like "kozolets". It's an awesome little device and while outdated, they can still be found on most of farmsteads in at least one of their forms.  I went with the most basic of the designs - single straight line (Check link above for more variants, some are really great). To make building it easier, I went with stone pillars instead of usual wooden ones. And I also used way too few vertical poles, that are used to hang on hay. As it was a rush job, the pillars are awfully crooked, but that's fine as I was aiming for backwater place anyways. I added some logical supports and talking of the vertical poles, I really should break one, to add the feel of neglect. I did, however, sculpt some hay on it, so that's a plus.

 The shingles are on a large side, which might not look as realistic as loads of little ones, but I actually prefer the cartoony "warhammer" feel they make. Don't unfriend me, Joe! :D

Below is a painted version. It's painted horribly as my craft paints seem to be kinda odd. Or I could blame the brushes.

As I was so inspired, I've also painted a very simple hill I've made last year. I kinda like it now that it's painted, but I was putting off painting it for so long for a reason unknown. It's just boring, you know...a hill. Yawn.

It's made for miniatures to fit on it and yes, I am aware I should put more effort in the overall shape, but it will do for a while!

On other fronts, after millionth try on the guns, I've decided it is time for drastic measures. As none of the guns felt quite right, I simply cut off all the putty from one of those, cut the nose and restarted from step one.

Keep in mind F2000 is only about 700mm long in real life, so 12mm seems about right. The guns above it are the "old kind" for comparison. Mine is a bit crude, but I have decided to call it done. If I'll try to have it cast and then polish it and add the gadgets.

I had great plans for my Whateley farm model - from housing an abomination from out of space, to secret laboratory of Herbert West (I never got to build an autopsy table, that I've planned - I should do that!), Church for an evil cult and...naturally, a distillery. I've even made a still for it. It never got painted beyond basic undercoat and seeing it now, I'll swap that wire for something just a bit thinner and I'll coil it more. I will keep the "pot" and the "barrel", I think.

Lastly, a photo of my current (okay, about a session or two outdated) sculpting "table". In upper left quarter are modern weapons and modern sculpts (kinda on hold for now), lower left corner is Kurent (came out too thin - I can't lose that habit!), which is essentially a man wearing mask, cow bells and a baton with hedge hog skin. Back in the days (so, when SA takes place!) the groups could fight each other, so it seemed like a good idea for a lurker - a mad man, hitting people with his club while making noise with the bells - yes please! The large guy is Horroclix's fiend (Frankenstein's monster) that Vampifan kindly donated. He will become a Slovenian demigod for the Dark ages myths games. In the right upper corner are dead bodies (disturbingly ugly sculpts, rushjobs), 4 beastmen, being turned into dog headed soldiers (that hate humanity!) and a "fire elemental" that will probably be painted by a stone idol or whatever. I've been "working" on this one for well over a year, but I'm not too satisfied with it. Lastly, the 4 GW wolves are a Wolf herder (mythological creature) and his pack. They are way too "undead" and certianly waaaay too large for my liking, but I got them as a bargain, so they will be used as a stand ins until I get my hands on some proper werewolves.

That's it for today. I've also played a game (yay!) and I will post report in mid week one day. It's gonna be a bit different than what I usually posted, but just as long, filled with endless blabber! :P

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

The three bridges board - part one

Well,
as I'm still painting my miniatures, I needed something else to post. I got some nice old photos for you, and by making a post about it, board is now officially a project! As I've mentioned it, I was thinking about this board a while ago, during summer. And that is when I went around to collect all those great photos of the place as it looked like from around 1990-1935ish.  This is when Strange Aeons takes place so this is what I wanted.  What I was trying to do was build a board (I am all jelly seeing Clint work on his boards all the time!), that would support my currently favorite game, so Strange Aeons, wouldn't have to bee too modular and could be used at the limited number of shows we do. So, having something as iconic as the three bridges (or the triple bridge if you prefer to call it that way) would be ace. Then, what we'd need are some young slovenes and a bad guy. For a bad guy, I need to make a profile for a so-called Povodni mož -  the (under)Water man. Unfortunately I can't find an english translation of this poem, but France Prešeren (remember this guy, he will be mentioned in this post again) has wrote a poem about a beautiful slovene lady, that was admired by every man and equally despised by every woman in Ljubljana. Long story short, she wouldn't dance with anyone on a party, because nobody was good enough for her - except for this great man, whom she ended up dancing with. He was the Water man turned in a gentleman and he literally danced away with her into the river - never to be seen again. So...who wouldn't want to play a scenario where bunch of brave hearts are saving an arrogant missus, right?

Here is an awesome photo of the bridges by some guy. The photo was found here, to make sure everybody knows it is not mine.

Before Jože Plečnik, an architech that has designed most of what is worth admiring in Ljubljana (and Prague and Vienna) buil what we know as the three bridges, there was only one bridge at that spot. You can see it in the pictures (and photos) below. Tramway was operating since 1901 and bridge was rebuilt in 1930, so we can assume those photos fit in that time span. There is a small square with a church and monument to previously mentioned poet. Monument has him standing and there's a muse above him. He was desperately in love with a girl twice his age that never really liked him.  The monument has bunch of profiles built around it, but more on that once I'd set to build something like it.

Photo below says "Ljubljana, (virgin) Mary's square - Monument to Prešeren". You can see the river bank is not regulated, but that was changed at the time the brides were built. It's all concrete now and there's a dam regulating the flow further ahead. The square is now covered in cobbles.

 Below is a same bridge, right after an earthquake in 1895 - so no Tramway yet at that time. The side of the river that doesn't have the monument (to help you with visualisation) has an old city centre and is clumped around a little hill with a castle sitting on top of it.

 Another photo of the square, this time overlooking the monument and a church. This church is now pink for some reason.

The caption below says "Ljubljana - Mary's square with a franciscan bridge", named after the church. Bridge was known by other names as well. Postcards (yes, that is where the pictures are from mostly) with german text are certainly older than 1918, as Ljubljana was part of Austro-Hungarian empire at that time.

And below are the pictures showing the other side:

And some after the three bridges were built:

 Oh, here you can even see Ljubljana's first skyscraper, now cleverly known as a "skyscraper". There's a caffee on top but I honestly don't know if it's open or not - I think it was reopened few years back, but most of the time it was closed because of its...convenience to make the last jump. It was finished in 1933 and now I'm thinking about how cool it would be to make a board resembling that caffee - who wouldn't want to fight in a cafee, overlooking the city? :O

 And few shots of a tram...not counting my modeling skills, a tram would be a must!
 There are photos of new and old kind of tram. There were probably other versions, too. The last photo shows 1933 tram, so this is what I'll be after...but I honestly can't remember when the carriages were changed.

Caption says "old tramway carriage"

 And here it is in a museum. For some reason, I've read taking photos of this tram are forbidden. But that might as well be old information, we're in 2013, after all -.-

 I haven't done any measurements yet, but the idea is, a bit less than half of the board (by lenght) would be reserved for a square. It would have some facades, wide enough for miniatures to stand on (perhaps a scaffolding on one of them) and certainly a monument - because it looks cool. It would also need a tram carriage, but as long as it looks old and it's painted red, I wouldn't be bothered by realism too much.  The rest of the board would be occupied by bridges and smaller part by the other bank. Now, I am not sure what to do about the bridges. There certainly have to be 3 of them, because that's whole point of the board. The board has to scream familiarity. I was thinking about making two bridges - main bridge and one foot bridge, with third only being half built...to make it more interesting - any opinions on that? The river was dry (I thought I had some photos of that too) at the time the bridges were built, as its basing was being strengthened by concrete, so water would be great. Plus it looks nice. Perhaps a little boat or sometihng, too.

This is all just thoughts for now, I already have a hardwood board (2x3 feet), but I have to go buy an insulation foam that I will use as a core. Once that is done, I will be thinking further on, as I'll have better idea of the space left on the board. I might ditch the buildings all together, as even front facade would use up a lot of space.

Feel free to share the ideas or thoughts!



Completely unrelated, but if anyone is interested, here are some photos of World War 2 border in a village that is now part of Ljubljana. As Slovenia was divided between the occupying forces, this is how border between Italy and Germany looked like at that time. Conveniently, my mother's family lived near by!

Well, that was another post with whole lot of ideas but nothing actually done, but you can't say there isn't lot of nice pictures to admire!

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo