Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Jonah Hex for DCC/Transylvanian Adventures

As promised, you yellow bellied dogs.  Now, dance!


Jonah Hex is a wandering scoundrel and anti-hero, former Confederate Cavalry-man and Apache brave.  He subsists as a gun-for-hire and bounty hunter, travelling the Weird West leaving death and corpses in his wake.  Grievously scarred and practically missing half of his face, Hex regularly encounters criminal elements and hostility.  Despite his self-centered and bleak outlook he is generally a hero for the Common Man and the Downtrodden Innocent and is particularly kind to children and women.  In addition to the scum that he brings to justice, he often brushes against the worst parts of the supernatural and weird, facing spirits and extra-terrestrial horrors in his travels.  For a time he travelled through the post-apocalyptic future owing to the machinations of his enemies, and even served otherworldly powers after his physical death.

JONAH HEX (Neutral Level 5 Warrior/Scoundrel Analog)

AC: 15 HP: 55

Strength      15 (somewhat stronger than average, and an iron grip)

Agility         17 (supernaturally quick, and an excellent marksman)

Stamina       16 (very durable but not disease- or poison- or whiskey-proof)

Intelligence 14 (cunning and clever)

Personality  14 (facial disfigurement but men and women follow him readily)

Luck           17 (The Luck of the Devil himself!)

I imagine his lucky roll would be something like: Back From the Dead (bonus to Turn Over the Body rolls, but if Transylvanian Adventures rules are used, see below).

Almost always armed, but a capable unarmed hand-to-hand fighter.

A Bowie Knife (1d8) or A Cavalry Sabre (1d10)

A Colt Navy Revolver (1d4+1 squared) OR a Colt Single Action Army (1d4+1 Squared) OR a .357 Blackhawk (1d6+2 squared)

Sometimes he carries a Tomahawk (1d8)

Abilities:

Hangman’s Humor: If a Ruin point is accumulated by him for whatever reason, then Jonah may elect to make an inappropriate joke and spend a Luck point and shift the Ruin point to another PC or NPC (in which case it may not have any effect at all).  The “victim” may make a Will Save at Jonah’s current Luck score to avoid it. If Ruin points are not used, then Jonah can opt to make the joke anytime a Save is called for, and gets a +1D bonus to the next roll AFTER the save. The joke has to be a snappy one-liner, appropriate for the context, and delivered immediately.  Chaotic beings and people save at -2D to avoid the Ruin acquisition.

Lucky Bastich: Any time Jonah eats a hot meal, sleeps comfortably, drinks whiskey or other spirits, or engages in physical affection with a woman, he accrues +1d3 Luck to his maximum, in addition to whatever other modifiers and consequences might apply.  His Luck does not regenerate otherwise.

What Happened to Your Face, Mister? Any PC or NPC can ask Hex what happened to his face, which triggers a Gallows Humor opportunity, but in this case Jonah distributes a Ruin point to all who hear the joke (everyone at the bar, at the card tables, and the barkeep, for instance).  If Ruin is not used, then Jonah instead gets +2D to a roll of his choice, which he may hold for anytime within the session.  These bonuses do not stack, BUT the opportunities accumulate.  Everywhere he goes, bodies pile up behind him.

White Hot Death: In addition to regular Mighty Deeds as a Warrior of his level, if Jonah slays an enemy with a pistol then he immediately can make another Mighty Deed attack at his full Action Die, until his ammunition runs out, and then can follow the last shot with a melee attack with no penalties for unarmed or improvised weapons.  He uses full Action Die for dual-wielded pistols without penalty.

He’s also skilled with setting traps and deadfalls, and makes these and any Thief-based skills with his full Action Die and stat-based bonuses.  In addition, he gets a +6 bonus to any tracking- or hunting-related DC rolls, and any tests of horsemanship.

Thursday, July 23, 2015

The Scrying Spire of the Spindly Matron

Cruised past this post today:


Which I liked the feel of and so since during the summer time when I ought to be working I thieve away time and fritter away pencil lead... I give you a smallish area to drop into an otherwise dismal and boring area in your thing.  I have been reading Monsterbrains and looking at P. Bruegel on line and thinking about Calvinism and Class Warfare and Oppression.  Also, the medieval-influenced work of Brian Froud in Master Snickup's Cloak, but I digress.



0: the outskirts of a small remote village that is quiet and genteel. The citizenry are well dressed and make efforts to remain low-key. The pianoforte in the pub (The Black Gööse) has been silenced with silky pillows and the local pipeweed is pleasingly aromatic. Everyone seems to be doing well, financially, somewhat uncharacteristic for the region. Loud noises or revelry draw the ire of the Matron in the Spire, which looms nearby shrouded in mists and smoke. A night visit from the apologetic guards of the Matron (1d20 of them) - see below) will punish offenders but not in a lethal manner - perhaps a fine, or a stern talking-to. Particularly rude travelers will be jailed by the Sherrif, a fat and nervous man who maintains the status quo. There are no children in town, at least on the streets, and the local kirk/kerk has been shuttered and the priest run out of town some years ago. Young adults run to and fro (very quietly) bearing parcels wrapped from local shop owners, toward the spire if they are followed, and up a winding trail that is worn down from foot traffic. As high and dangerous as is fitting for the setting.  The spire is bigger on the inside than out, and a plume of smoke always puffs lazily from a chimney on the northeast face

1) a large handful (1d3 times 3 plus the number of PCs) of cross-eyed and pockmarked youths linger about, here, perhaps on the trail or just below the steps of the cave entrance. Each wears a black dunce cap and a false beard.  They dice or play at cards and smoke pipes (the young men and women) and chuckle silently and write crude notes to each other. Each has a parcel on his or her arm or waist or back. They will intercept those who approach and barter at them, attempting to swindle PCs of interesting items or perishable foods. If attacked, they will run off but if pressed will defend themselves with shaving razors, awls, or slingshots.  Their parcels contain herbs, meat, noodles, local mushrooms, and seemingly valueless trinkets.

2) the paymaster Midas is here, with Che the Lumbering Wood Golem who is partly a chest. There are also spindly Guards dressed in tattered livery - tall and drawn and skeletal, sewn up bulging hide bags of bones and buttons and ticking gears.  They each have a personality determined at random, but all share the quality of apologetic interest in conversation (quiet, and discouraged by Midas). Midas is a diminutive chain golem, made of lockets in which centuries of star-crossed romances can be gleaned: suicides, plague victims, unrequited young love, syphilis, mononucleosis -- tragedies each.  He will purchase with silver any parcels the PCs bring after a quick sniff and rattle. Food is paid for  based on the rotten-ness, herbs are valued highly and trinkets will be paid for with possibly a golden guilder or doubloon. If the characters respectfully inquire, they may be given a request for a rare ingredient which can be sourced nearby at some risk. Three or four of these filled in a timely fashion will earn an audience with the otherwise frantically busy Matron who will take time for her busy viewing schedule to meet with the PCs. Each time the characters fulfill a request they will receive a beautifully penned thank-you note written in a spidery scrawl on the back of a recipe card that bears a cantrip that any character may learn regardless of class or profession (if they can read). Midas will swindle the characters as best as he is able and barter shrewdly to save expenses. Around the corner behind a barred gate there is a pile of mouldering cast offs that are labelled "return to sender" - crawling with bony chitterers and mites and plague-fleas, but possibly having some minor (often detrimental) enchantment. The guards have bardiches for arms and are durable and don't feel pain but will befriend any characters that listen to their complaints of burst seems and aching bones and loose buttons.

3) the Ledge overlooks a chasm that drops into nothingness - possibly a direct route (should the PC survive) into the Christian hell.  The smell is somewhat disagreeable; rotten food, brimstone, notes of decay and corruption.  Large flies (possibly demons, as needed) buzz around.  The Fishers march in a counter-clockwise fashion - these are skeletal forms with their legs replaced by stilts, with wicker baskets/creels on their backs, black dunce caps on their heads, and scoop nets or fishing poles where arms might be.  They plod in circles and their stilts adjust to infinity to bridge the chasm, but as they go to the north, the stilts adjust to about 50 feet or so below the level of the ledge, where piles of bones, tin plates, and snapping jaws are heard rustling and clanging.  The fishers scoop up the tin plates that Mommy drops over her escarpment, and pile them on the edge opposite the entry ledge.  They are quite deft with their fishing lines and can snatch the weapons from attacker's hands at some distance.  They also shuttle parcels over to the other side.  They complain of monotony and dizziness and plod wobbly forever, making circuits every 5 to 10 minutes at a steady clip.  There are always 3 within view from the ledge, one nearby, one arriving, and one departing to the north around the corner.

4) Receiving - Porter is a squat leathery form with a giant frog's skull for a head, receiving parcels and shuttling them to the cook, and bringing request tickets and letters from Mommy.  He is always thirsty and will gladly guzzle alcoholic beverages although no amount will slake his thirst.  Potions requested by Mommy will sometimes not arrive and he will blame the crew and villagers further down the supply chain.  Aggression will cause him to flee immediately, to tell Mommy what is happening and then spells will surely follow.

5) The Kitchen - a giant woodburning oven is here - stoked by an endless supply of wood from a magical hopper and the occasional greasy body of naughty delivery-people.  Cooking is hard work and so the cooks are rotated out, on any given day three are frantically moving hither and thither to the pantry to the southeast, and the Maitre D and Porter shuttle the tin plates to Mommy in her scrying chamber.  The Maitre D always is snooty, and the cooks on staff always exhibit the most outrageous stereotypical accents determined at random; they each remember those with whom they interact but have little time for others.  They give ingredient orders to the Porter, who gives them to the Fishers, who gives them to Midas, who gives them to the Delivery Men and Women.  The food they make always radiates magic, and in addition to other randomly determined potion effects each dish will turn back the ingester's age by 1 year and provide a full feeling that will subside as soon as the eater leaves the room in which it was eaten, and also will make him or her very hungry again a short time later.  They defend themselves with large non-magical spoons, knives, cleavers, serving forks, etc.  The simmering cookpot/cauldron bubbles and roils, and always dispenses a bowl of soup flavored in the cuisine of the Cook that interacts with the PCs, so favors and flattery and group dynamics may benefit the PCs.  The Head Cook on duty always has the serving ladle; the others bear wicked and unclean kitchen tools

6: The pantry holds a staggering assortment of rare ingredients and food stuffs in various states of decay; an alchemist's nightmare since nothing is clearly labeled and if a label is present it's often contrary to the contents...  withered vegetables and hanging meats and fowl and crawling things of all kinds - a PC not paying attention could actually get lost in a extradimensional space unless accompanied by a Cook or the Porter.  The Maitre D will never enter the pantry since he is not trusted by the Head Cook who may or may not be on duty at any given time...

7> Mommy's Scrying Chamber - an enormous, frail, withered, spidery demon-woman with spindly spider arms and legs is nestled comfortably on a pile of pillows before a shimmering silvery mirror in a great carved wooden frame.  The mirror shimmers and shifts and shows scenes from the multiverse, and it literally trickles and drips silver pieces onto the floor that the Maitre D gives to the Porter who then brings them to Midas...  Mommy has a hearing horn, a pad of paper, an inkwell, and an ornate feather pen - she takes endless notes and occasionally jots down a request for a meal or potion or some ingredient.  Her horn allows her to hear bad gossip as far away as the town, and she is angered by loud noises there, as well, including the cries of babes and the pitter patter of little feet.  She is constantly on the lookout for some clue in the mirror and will distractedly converse with PCs for whom she has sent.  One hour a day she leaves the room and journeys up the flue to another dimension and then comes right back to renew her scrying...  The scrying ages her and so she eats plates of food almost continuously and pitches the tin plate over the edge of the eastern drop-off, where they are worried by the Nibblers (see below) and then fished up again by the stilted Fishers.  In a pinch she will cast any spell the dm sees fit but she particularly enjoys paralyzing, webbing, or poisoning rude visitors for inclusion in the pantry stores, since these meals provide surcease from the effects of aging.  She can become a Patron for suitable wizards in DCC.  Smoke curls up from the Chasm, through the Kitchen, where it combines with cooking smells to become quite nice, and then it flows out the Flue...

8... The Flue goes to any of several dimensions; the Christian Limbo, a far-away Space Hulk conglomeration, a parallel reality, and several post-apocalyptic futures.  Mommy is careful only to have the most trusted agents climb The Flue, since what she needs may be scryed there in the mirror.  If an agent or party of agents dies in the far-away, she typically retrieves them and turns them into staff members.  Entering The Flue without Mommy's permission is sure to be punished harshly and may lead to grounding or spankings or worse, but the staff always gossips merrily about these events since they relieve the humdrum monotony of day-to-day life in the Spire.

9.  The Dishes - in the dishpit, that is the pile of bones and scraps and tin plates that mount in the recess below Mommy's bedroom "window", Nibblers clean the plates off and fight for the scraps.  There are always 1d6 +3 Nibblers fighting and playing in the pile of Dishes, and they hate to have their meals taken away by the Fishers, and they occasionally make a snack of the clumsier ones that trip and fall off their stilts on their rounds.  The Nibblers are vicious and bony and perpetually hungry and will befriend anyone who offers them a real morsel of actual food, since what they generally get is spoiled sauce and stale crumbs.  Plates fly down from above like falling leaves; such is the pace of Mommy's eating.  if a Nibbler is killed, then it will be replaced that evening after dinner from the bones that litter the area and it will become more corporeal the more it eats (which is never very much...).  A fully fledged Nibbler will be set upon by its jealous litter mates and devoured; these look sort of like reptilian bird-wolves with beady eyes but the forms vary immensely depending upon the energies from the Flue...

If Mommy is killed or driven off somehow - since she is frail although powerful - the village will face an immediate economic crisis as trade with her will naturally cease.  Food will pile up in the village and rot, since they are plain-eating folks with simple tastes.  Itinerant preachers will return and begin their sermonizing about taking up with sorcerers.  The church will demand participation in weekly and eventually daily services.  This eventuality will likely affect the region for leagues away and the silver she provides will be taken out of circulation, and the normally pious folks will degenerate and become desperate - starting with the younger Delivery men and Women who will take to banditry and rapine and dancing-too-closely.  The Sherriff will begin to plot against Helleborine - the next town over - and will likely begin to plot with that city's Were-rat population to return to illicit narcotics trade.  It was the custom before Mommy arrived to harass travelers and take their belongings on the pretense of some crime, but since Mommy planted her spire this has not been economically feasible nor necessary.  Any surviving staff members of Mommy's will leak out into the environs and beg from passers-by, bore them with complaints, and enter into the welfare system.

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Space Dungeon - Mechannids

These were formerly humanoid creatures that mastered brain transplantation many æons ago, and adapted their forms to those of ultra-brass and orichalcum wormlike chassis



The Mechannids are powerful diggers, swimmers, and can wiggle their longer forms through the aether and the void of space.  They vary from 2 or 3 cubits up to twice the height of a man.

Some have venom injectors in their maws, and some have ferrules in their tail-ends that cause non-healing wounds. They retain expressionless faces on one end, although they do not feed in the usual sense. They may convert radiation or psykick energies for sustenance - proof of this is that they are known to skulk amongst civilized sentient peoples causing distress and alarm. They also bask in and around ley lines and highly charged areas.

Lastly, at least one in every group encountered is a sigil-annelid master. It can cast one magical effect per day by contorting its form into physical shapes that release magical energies.  They enjoy completing simple ones (the Voorish Sign-form, for example) and cantrips but enervating bolts and shrouds of forgetfulness are common dweomers. They enjoy summoning electric void-spiders as a matter of course and sometimes take up with more powerful wizards to siphon energy away parasitically.

Friday, July 17, 2015

Lucky Bin Find

In addition to all kinds of Crossbows and Catapults shit that would probably cost 10K from GW, I found this Necrmunda bulkhead (maybe an old 2nd edition imperial city spruce or something) at the FLGS.  Imperial Assault looks pretty bitchin' BTW but not a good idea right now. Vader!



... a nice happenstance encounter, just when I am reading about casting and mold-making.

I wonder why I wonder if copying this piece would be unethical, somehow?

Thursday, July 9, 2015

Archaeodata Scavenging

If you are curious about these matters, as I am, Audacity will import as Raw Data many of the .PCM files of the old 1993 Space Hulk game with the following settings:

Unsigned 

sample rate: 8000 (I think it was a telephony standard at the time)

Default Endianess

I get some better results if I ignore the first 8 bytes of the data, but YMMV

Sadly, they added the echo effect to the Captain's (unnamed, but I think he's a succesor of Dark Angel Deathwing Terminator Captain Lithonius) voice at the data level and not with some effect so you get what you get. The upshot is that once I figure out how to compile audacity with batch-processing, I can rip out all the clips (and other sound effects although they are terrible, mostly) and make my own little debriefing things. I don't know why anyone in their right mind would do this, but there you are.

2 things occurred to me:

1) it's probably easier to get a mic and do the whole thing myself in my bathroom.
B) it's probably easier to hack out the sounds from the new version of Space Hulk on Steam than it is to dicker around with 22 year old DOS files, but hey.  everybody needs a hobby.

I even have this software that will do lip-syncing for animation cells, provided you have the text.  About 5 or 6 years ago (possibly more) I did a quick screen test with an Anime Studio character and a ripped sample of the game and it worked pretty spiffily.  I probably still have it on Snapfish or that other thing, ehh, that site where you keep dead photos from college.  Photobucket.  Ehhh. Whatever it is.

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

alas poor Yarrick

Nearly finished. I can say I did my duty although it's not a master stroke. I could not be summarily executed for transgression, here.

he is flanked by RT era marines, a librarian and a techmarine with a 5th edition missile loader pack (that fig is unpainted but I got excited about it anyway)

Monday, July 6, 2015

Table/Squads Progress

Painted/Dickered around tonight:

Cut some more foam platforms. That was pretty cool.  I dig hot wire foam cutter and only am I mildly dain bramage from teh fumes. After cutting and the baby went to sleep I slathered some gesso-style acrylic medium gel on them, which has the benefit of maybe forming a protective layer that spray paint won't eat up, and also not running all over the place like water and wood glue soup does...



...and finished a pretty fun objective marker/gang asset from a spare paint pot, turret hatch, and half a mini whiffle ball. I think the other half of the thing will be a portable void shield generator.  Going to put a bunch of Dark Angel/GoTC decals on it so that the locals know not to mess with it.

Glued some Necromunda goliaths to their bases, after all these long years.  These two Juves are practically my favorite sculpts of all time, next to Karloth Valois and my sacred holy grail Vader Librarian (which I can get off of eBay for 20 bucks but Jesus Jones on a pogo stick)

Finished my RT/1st edition Librarian. needs basing.  I got Blood Red paint all over my fingers and need to retouch his pauldrons but he's finish. I debate about the eyes on all my models.  I sort of like the pissholes-in-a-snowbank look.

Finished my 3rd edition Yarrick. needs basing.

Added a servo-arm pack to the RT-era tech marine.

Based but didn't paint the base of my Genestealer brood lord. Kind of a stone/metal/pipes Space Hulk vibe, which ought to go well with my early-industrial Hive World/Librarium table

Finally re-posed and started the bases for my Macragge-era terminator squad. I took their arms off and re-posed with the blob-of-green-stuff-plus-superglue method. I think I probably need to use a great deal less green stuff. The extra green stuff got turned into Helminths that will go on the bases - more granny grating and flagstone and wires and cogs.  I think I am going to dual-prime these guys also.

Next up: more terrain - the before mentioned squatter shacks and townie houses and whatever the hot-glue gun takes a liking to. I have enough foam board and craft sticks to make a couple of pretty nice Inns or way-houses. I'm giving serious thought to some soup can distillation arrays, a gum-box thermo-warp unit, and maybe I ought to stop this madness before I go legit crazy.

Everywhere the subtle signs that your presence is tolerated and we are watching and we won't crush you if you do the chores until you're dead but don't start to think too much and just trust us

Need to take a break from war gaming hobby to write and draw and get HHSOLO2 in medium gear


Saturday, July 4, 2015

Orvisto IV - Book-Dredged Hive World

Since all my week is evaporating like paint thinner in the summer breeze…  I figure this will give me leeway to have fantasy and sci-fantasy terrain and make up some Mordheim-style rules to go with the Necromunda-style territory acquisition thing I like.  More an academic exercise, although I managed to include my Imperium troops and give myself a reason to get a squad of Tau, Eldar, Squats, and Kroot, and maybe even some Dark Eldar (I really gave myself some wiggle room!)

On the fringes of the Segmentum Pacificus, far from modernizing influences, lies the Orvisto system.  The fourth planet from that star orbits just far enough from it to receive sufficient heat and light to keep the human inhabitants uncomfortably chilly, but there is little in the way of free water on the surface to make snow or frost.  It receives most of its food from the nearby Catellaste VII, which is an abundant producer of synthoy and vitamin pills.

In its heyday, Orvisto IV was a librarium planet, and a minor factorum of real books and holodata displays.  It even served as a repository for manuscripts and prints from all over several systems during the last Flood of Fire in which Imperial and Tau worlds were ravaged by Khornate Marauders.  The nobles of nine different industrialized Human planets, including their Tau and Eldar allies, all placed sacred books, histories, and accounting ledgers onto slow barges to safeguard them from the torch, and promptly forgot them when those planets were razed and ravaged.  The end result being that mountains of rotting books and stacks of discs tip over into the sparsely-inhabited byways of the hive cities.  Most of the sensible folk have fled the system for better pickings, leaving millions of foolhardy souls to pick over heaps of worm-ridden and mouldy paper, looking for clues to riches buried underneath in the lower levels of the hives.

The inhabitants are at a late medieval level of subsistence, offer worship to The Emperor of Man, and most know of and work with several minor alien races.  Some are semi-literate and few are even very well-read, although to proclaim such is dangerous.  These sorts of infractions are overlooked owing to the delicate and valuable nature of the treasures the planet holds, especially since the regulation and oversight of the process is placed specifically in the hands of a Dark Angels successor chapter, The Guardians of The Covenant.  Who or what ‘the Covenant’ was is unknown to the common inhabitants of Orvisto IV, but it is assumed that it involves the safe-keeping of mostly worthless words and ink and bytes, to secure some of it (possibly very valuable) against loss.

Thus the Battle Brothers of Orvisto IV, Guardians of the Covenant, in some sense rule the hapless planet.  There is an Imperial Governor, Hew-Watt by name.  He is a wizened cyborg, charged with administering to a machine in which men and women are cogs.  The human population of the planet is mostly devoted to uncovering, sorting, moving, and (rarely) translating texts, and piling newly received ones in a way so as not to disturb lower layers.  This slow accretion of words and paper and silicon has dangerous consequences, in that paper can catch fire, can house molds and insects, and every so often men and women are buried beneath avalanches of old magazines and encyclopedia.  The Guardians of The Covenant enjoy good relations with nearby Mechanicum enclaves and send recovered specifications and rumors Mars-ward whenever possible, and the great Librarium Fortress of Spire Contina has regiments of text-scanning and –processing servitors that are maintained in good repair.  Much of the technology in use is thousands of years old and well-maintained although prone to machine-spirit indolence.

There is a contingent of Adeptus Sororites as well, the Grey Ladies, charged with maintaining the spiritual purity of the populace.  It happens that the digger gangs and reading-and-calligraphy guilds (the so called Copy Clans) will rarely find great caches of questionable reading material from some far-away (now destroyed!) planet and although they often have no idea what the texts say, they sometimes are responsible for the spread of objectionable ideas and heresies which the Grey Ladies are happy to suppress.  They are especially watchful for Dark Eldar insurgencies, since that race is drawn here to raid for docile servants and pliant torture-victims.

The Planetary Defense Force is garbed in grey of an antique sort, with crudely burnished helms and armor after the fashion of their respected benefactors.  They have access to old and sometimes dangerous technologies, by virtue of long-covered store rooms and occasional archaeotech hoards.  They prefer to use autoguns and bolters rather than laser-weapons to minimize risk of Stack Conflagrations.  But some squads put flamers and explosives to good use in quick destruction of suspect information.

The local Arbites forces wear similar grey carapace armor and sometimes put down synthsoy riots and patrol The Stacks for xenos scum.

There are the usual percentages of abhumans – many Copy Clans employ ratlings for seeking out texts and tech in tight places, and Ogryn for heavy lifting.

In addition, there are very small groups of xenos that are permitted to exist on Orvisto IV, mainly the Tau-allied species and even some actual Tau agents (prohibited from proselytizing on pain of death), as well as licensed Eldar traders and their associated races.  Kroot are known to track down high-value knowledge in the mid-level warehouses, if they are given sufficient clues and tattered maps.  The Battle Brothers and grey Ladies overlook these influences and take care to present a kindly and beneficent face to the standard citizen, but commoners who know too much or mix too closely with xenos without dispensation are prone to disappearing in the night, never to be heard from again.  Nobles and clan-leaders who employ alien agents do so with the cool gaze of the Guardians, and are monitored closely by several low-level Inquisition agents.  This includes a handful of irascible and generally bored Ordo Hereticus and Ordo Xenos workers , as well as a lone Ordo Sepulturum Inquisitor – Valkrim Hax – who ensures no more outbreaks of Neuronal Plague.  The world has not had a visit from an Ordo Malleus Inquisitor in several centuries…

The whole of the planet is divided into giant arcologies, the top levels housing Imperial administrators and the more illustrious production clans, and (as on other hive worlds), the bottoms of the arcologies are steaming, festering masses of human and non-human filth.  Unlike Necromunda, for example, the spaces outside the giant arcology-hives are divided into clan-owned and –managed pulp forests, canal-farms in which ink-squids are raised for ink and isinglass, and mills for making paper and book-boards.  Towering spires of Calligraphy Guilds teeter and sway in the wind.

Most of the non-spire inhabitants subsist on birds, game, squid and fish, as well as crude black bread from off-world and their own hydroponically-produced vegetables.  The sight of the off-world bakery ships in the sky is cause for great rejoicing, usually given a feast-day!  Inside the stone and steel arcology spires, digger clans in the midlevels trade synthsoy crackers of various colors, vita-drinks, and whatever meager food stuffs work their way in from the dense forests outside.  The lowest sump-level inhabitants are not averse to cannibalism, but luckily they can survive on giant book-worm larvae, helminths, and dire rats.  Power in the spire-vaults is a tricky business, and sometimes water and steam access is questionable, also.  Beneath the arcologies’ production and habitation levels, they are joined together by massive stone storage vaults, oubliette-networks, and tunnel-webs that interlock the planet – these are generally just above the sump levels and none still know the ways the dozens of spires still interconnect.  Indeed, whole clans of Digger-Mapper Squats live and die without ever seeing the Orvistan sunlight and may even go mad if they spend too much time in the open air.

In Gervog Spire, a small trading clan – formerly makers of luscious purple ink – have expanded their claim on water and fragtose resources to create the Taint Cola Company.  It was formerly only popular amongst nobles in the various arcologies but it has eclipsed the Imperial Standard Soft Drink in popularity amongst the citizenry at large within the past few solar cycles.  The Clan Purpurens has always been low-key and trustworthy and a steady supplier of pigment to artisans sector-wide, but demand for their soda necessitates forceful acquisition of water and fragtose rights that  historically belonged to other clans…  Citizens await their soda shipments with an almost religious (but not TOO religious) fervor and riots have broken out when supply diminishes – a strange event amongst a normally bookish and complacent populace.

Sump Platforms

"Up-cycling turns dumpster diving into a legitimate practice", is what I tell my coworkers when they observe my shameful hobby problem from the lobby of my office.  I have so many ideas about terrain that it takes every last jot of my willpower to refrain from bringing home MORE trash than I already have.

BEHOLD! I loosely documented the process of scrounging these protective packing foam bricks, just when I was reading IRONHANDS's Necromunda terrain tutorials.  This is a tester and it turns out pretty okay so far...

OBSERVE

Here, I have used my trusted ink-maker and a plastic measuring rod, non-standard, to layout the flagstone grid, with slightly thicker lines to indicate where I ought to make the cuts.  Such handsome fingers!

Here, you may see that I have used the hot wire cutter to inscribe the seams in the stone work, and also to cut a stairwell, large enough for a Space Marine scout to bounce ably up them without distress.  Take note of the mostly-water PVA glue mix in the (now impenetrably sealed) canning jar, behind.  This was intended to protect the foam from spraypaint, but... There is some protective coating or force field on the foam already, strangely, that repelled much of the mixture and left it collected in a puddle in my basement bathroom, which is sure to look suspicious to my wife, and then to the landlord when we leave this place...
Next, a coat of gray automotive primer, with liberal brown at the base to simulate the mung that surely must make up the sumpage of any medieval-level tech sci-fi fantasy Hive World (more on this later - I have an idea for many objective markers)
 
Finished product, with highlight coat.  Surprisingly durable for a wee slab of foam.
Here, you can see the pink generator stack for maybe a really secure Goliath Gang like mine.  The Full Monties.  A WIP, of course.  There's a blue one also.  I'm into the whole metal and stone Underhive thing, but fun colors like in the original Necromunda books appeal to me.  I have lots of Pthalo green and fuschia and other stuff.  These generator/dynamo things are going to get some OSL on the vents and in the turbine windows (not pictured - they're on the ass end around back)

The sewer grating entrance.  Lumber, PVC pipe, and a hatch from a rhino or something.  I imagine the Genestealer cult uses the pipe exit and not the hatch, usually.

Okay, Hive-Scum.  Be About Your Business!  The Emperor Wants You To Consume, And Never Create!  And Send Your Sons and Daughters to the Front Lines!

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Dreadfull Insomnia Ideas

http://papafakis.blogspot.com/2014/07/oldschool-dreadnoughts.html?m=1

It's hard to be a GW gamer.  I went into my FLG/CS to get some 40mm bases and lady had no idea what I was talking about.  There was a single figure on the shelf that was almost 40 bucks (the admittedly cool AM magos). I am trying to transcend GW brand-loyalty and just move into the realm of having fun and not spending a boatload of cash.  I tried to grab an old school RT dreadnought off of eBay last month. I was good to go right until literally the very last moment and the thing was sniped and it rankled me bitterly. But look at those models: they are a terrific base for conversions, the sculpts are fairly simple and straight forward, and they appeal very much to the old school line in my brain.

I spent the early evening in a fugue of thinking about casting bases and my own figs, just to learn how one does this particular thing.

I want to have a small force made explicitly of non-GW models painted and configured to meet 40K fluff, just for use in RT and Inquisimunda games. Something with beast men and angry robots and some mechanized evil wizards. I think I posted some army ideas some months ago. To my mind, every figure would be a conversion and a kitbash

I could start with these Roman Legionaries I have laying around, maybe. A Fallout NV-inspired Caesar's legions?  The models are slightly smallish but on proper bases it could be fun. Hmm.

Roman las-gun troops, beast men elites, rocket-men fast attack, maybe a couple of big-ass death ray wielding robots. The Laser Legion of Lord Macharius. An original (probably a recast!) of Solar Macharius goes for like 45 dollars on eBay, last time I checked.  He's a worthy figure to kitbash from other pieces, in my humble opinion.

Hmm

Added to my feverish enthusiasm for my GS forces and the table and terrain, what I don't need is more products and inspiration...

Anyways, another dread stand-in for your inspirations

http://maxmini.eu/miniatures/andromech-gothbot-miniature

Man, the problem with sleeping for like 4 hours a night for a couple of weeks is that even when you need and want to sleep it gets to be work. Went to bed at 9:00, up at 2:30...  Damn this phone and its light in my brain!
 

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