M is for Minis #AtoZChallenge

Miniature figures (“minis”) are used in many roleplaying games, particularly those that use a grid system to represent player character and monster locations in combat (or sometimes out of it). These days, minis are often made of plastic and pre-painted, or pewter, which are not painted. In the olden days, they were made of lead. Minis made by one of the largest makers of miniatures, Reaper, are 25mm tall, although special edition minis can be as tall as 38mm.

Painting minis is a skill unto itself requiring patience, acrylic paint intended for use on minis, very tiny brushes and, optimally, magnifying goggles. Tutorials are available online for how to paint in various styles and techniques. One style is called “non-metallic metals” or NMM for short. This technique uses non-metallic paint to create the look of metal. A great place to see painted minis is CoolMiniOrNot, a site where visitors vote on how cool a particular minis is.

I don’t have as much time or patience these days to paint minis, but it used to be part of our ritual. Once we decided on a character race and class for a particular campaign, we’d head out to our Friendly Local Gaming Store to purchase minis. The minis would go home with me, and my husband or I would paint them before the next gaming session. Those expeditions produced the minis below.

L to R: Ka-Quindath, Rafael Ceurdepyr, [ ] , Olmos

L to R: Ka-Quindath (Mosaic), Rafael Ceurdepyr (Leviathan), Bellos (Mosaic) , Ulmas, druid companion (Borders of Despair)

L to R: [ ], Brand Hammerlock, paladin companion, Kyria Leodegar

L to R: Rashmali (Mosaic), Brand Hammerlock (Ptolus), paladin companion (Ptolus), Kyria Leodegar (Ptolus)

What do you think about minis? Comment below!

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Mosaic update

Saturday's game was very fun, and very different. Our DM had a timed combat set up of 25 rounds, with particular things scheduled to happen at various points. And happen things did.

We had gone to the town of Sandpoint at the behest of Rashmali's cousin Aadrashini, because giants were attacking. Understatement. Lots of giants were attacking. We spent the time running from one end of Sandpoint to the other, dispatching clusters of giants. Fortunately I was in a mood to use up magic items I'd been carrying around for a very long time. Mordecai decided to use the scroll of fly we'd acquired ages ago, and now I've decided that fly is essential for a gnome. He's taking the fell flight invocation as soon as he can. It was very cool to be able to fly around and eldritch blast the heck out of monsters from a safe distance.

We were fine with fighting the stone giants, but then the juvenile red dragon swooped over. Ack! I was worried about that, but Bellos (J's tauran druid) zapped it with baleful polymorph and turned it into a lizard!!

That was the coolest moment of the whole game. WOW.

We managed to defeat the giant menace in the alloted time and prevented the destruction of most of the town. Quin, Bellos and Rashmali have gone up to 10th level, and Mordecai's at 9th.

Gaming goodness

Haven't posted in a bit, not substantially, so here goes.

We didn't get to play much, but we have the beginnings of an intriguing adventure ahead, finding out more about Rashmali's people, the benraman. We played for not quite an hour, then sold stuff and bought more stuff, which took about three hours. But it had been ages since we'd done that, since before the Underdark, so we had a backlog. I still haven't gotten to see how Mordecai performs as a gnome; he's fought a scale golem, but those have spell resistance. He made some tasty magic item purchases that should help in that area.

I'm excited about running a one-shot 4th edition game for S. on the 20th. I'm reading through Keep on the Shadowfell and will mod it to some extent–well, the extent is getting greater and greater the more I get into it. Should be interesting, and fun to run a game again, although 4e still seems more like a minis game than D&D. I'll try and reserve judgement though.

RPGCentric contest results!

Hey, I won 2nd place for my Mordecai entry, now with monkey butlers! http://rpgcentric.com/?p=144

Although I really wish I hadn't used the monkey butlers.

Midweek

This is sort of a catch-all entry today. 

Last Saturday was the first session where I played Mordecai as a gnome. No real problem, except he only has a 20′ move. NBD. The session ended in a quite cool way, retrieving the egg–which appeared to be a giant sapphire–of a sapphire dragon who had wiped out just about an entire city of yuan ti who were intent on sacrificing said egg.

Rick got the lead in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde! He was a bit worried that Stacy wouldn't cast him because of his age; the leading ladies are 20 and 22, respectively. No worries. And she double cast the role, so he won't have to do every single time. Jeanette has a role as well–Hyde slays her at one point. Don't think that's occurred before. He's married her and given her elocution lessons on stage, but no murder, I don't think.

One of the two new medications I'm on is making me feel…not quite nauseous, but not quite right. Not sure I like it. I think I have lost a bit of weight though, which is part of the goal. Better than the sleep clinic. And tomorrow is my first visit to Dr. Parker. Should be…um…interesting. I'm expecting to feel like I've been through a wringer. She seemed quite nice on the phone, although she did jump to the conclusion when I was explaining about our infertility experiences that we had then gotten pregnant. Yeah, I know, it happens to some people when they quit trying. But not everyone. 

I am still really enjoying listening to Clockwork Cabaret's podcasts and finding lots of new and often weird music. They are fun. Too bad I'm not going to Dragon*Con to see them!