The Adventurer’s Wanted Bulletin Board….

I mentioned this in the last post, here is the actual bulletin board I gave to my players. They had just arrived at Trollshire, in the Sledgemoor Swamp, after their shenanigans upon arrival they settled into Uncle Salty’s Tavern and Inn. That is when I presented the players with this bulletin board of Adventurer’s wanted notices. I made each notice up in Photoshop, with various parchment papers, fonts and images. Printed them out, and posted them with thumb tacks on a piece of black foam board. The one they picked for their next adventure (IE: Game Session) is not the one they decided to go with during the “Next game session” But I was able to wing it anyways. I liked and the the players loved this bulletin board, not only did it give them options of what to do in a brand new city, but it also gave some flavor of what the entire area is like.

The Adventurers’s Bulletin Board found in Uncle Salty’s Tavern and Inn.

Disclaimer: I did use images from The Swamp Gremlins of Malifaux on some of these notices, along with some of the text from their website. Hopefully I won’t get sued, but it is just for personal use, not for sale, not for anything else. Just using it in my campaign. Is this crossing the line? Anybody know if it is?

The thing I like best about this board and all the notices on it, is that it gives the players all the options of what they want to do. They choose what they want to do and then in the next game session, we do it. Most of the notices are quick and easy to prep for the next week’s game. Some are more involved, but as a game master I can plan them out relatively quickly and have it ready to go in a week. Hope you all enjoy the concept.

My Campaign HEX Maps with Experimental Color….

Ok, I am not proud of these two maps. I drew them a few months ago for my campaign. I needed them to run it, I wasn’t sure which way the party would head so I drew two of them. (They ended up going to the Old Fishing Village on the Tucketville Map, in search of Bob the Halfling. He is the son of Alfredo Fogwind, a member of the Raven’s Loft Gentleman’s Club in Sledgemoor. It was a test to see if they were qualified enough to go on the Slith Expedition that the Gentleman’s club is funding, they did in fact rescue Bob, and were hired for the expedition.) See the Expedition Notice below.

So as far as the hex maps go, I did them in my normal black and white line drawings, down and dirty and quick. I needed them for the game. I am not very happy with them because, there is not much detail, not enough interesting locales, the Guargant Swamp Trees are way, way, way out of scale…(One Tree Per Hex would be about the correct scale for them, as 1 Hex=1.4 Miles.) After I finish drawing them, I felt like experimenting with color, so I pulled out my big box of Crayola Colored Pencils and had fun coloring them. I am a perfectionist, so I will be re-doing these maps in the future. Normally I would not post something that is not good enough (in my opinion). I just said WTF, they are not perfect, but they are kind of pretty so I decided to post them as is. I am trying to shrug off that damned perfectionism. Perfectionism just slows you down, does no one any good, and leads to weeks, months, or (In my case) years between blog posts…..LOL….!!!! So here goes, enjoy!

The Raven’s Loft Gentleman’s Club Expedition Notice. Went on the “Adventurer’s Wanted Bulletin Board” But that is for another Post…..and it’s pretty cool…!!!

The Sledgemoor Tucketville Hex Map, with the the Guargant Swamp Trees that are way, way, way, way, way too big.

The Sledgemoor Ruins of Slith Map.

SIDE NOTE: In the previous campaign session, the party had just arrived in Trollshire. After all the various hijinks that ensued, they found the “Adventurer’s Wanted Bulletin Board” at Uncle Salty’s Tavern and Inn. As a DM I had them pick the next session’s adventure from said bulletin board, which the did. Then, when this session started, they totally ignored it and chose the “Expedition Notice” instead. I was totally unprepared for that one, but I had a printed copy of my “Moldvay Random Dungeon Experiment” which I had printed out days before. I had printed that copy thinking I might expand on it to post here, and I had it in with all my prepared adventure notes. It was my lifesaver that session!!!! (That’s why they had to rescue Bob, the halfling, it was all I had with me to use.)

The joys of running a sandbox campaign…..!!!!

Red Cap and The Haunted Tower: A peek into my own DM Notebook…!!!

Many, many years ago I bought a copy of Brian Froud’s book “Faeries”. One particular image stood out for me, along with his short backstory and that was Red Cap. I totally loved the concept of a hard core goblin regularly soaking his hat in human blood.

REDCAP is one of the most evil of the old border goblins. He lives in old ruined towers and castles, particularly those with a history of wickedness. He re-dies his red cap in human blood. Image from Brian Froud’s book “Faeries”

This image and the concept stewed inside my brain for years. In my current campaign I finally created Redcap, his minions Bladze, Stinger, and Chopper. Gave him two Dire Wolves, Chomper and Ripper. He became a reoccurring villain in the campaign. He harassed the characters several times over the course of several sessions. They totally hated him, they tracked him down to his lair in the haunted tower, where over the course of another two sessions they managed to finally kill him and his minions. I am sharing some images of the miniatures I used, along with my actual notes and maps of the first three levels of his lair as written in my DM notebook, warts and all.

Redcap and his minions, Bladze, Stinger, and Chopper. Miniatures are from Reaper Miniatures, hand painted by me, many years ago.

Chomper and Ripper, Redcap’s pet Dire Wolves. Reaper Miniatures painted last year by me.

A handful of Redcap’s Goblin Hordes (I have a lot of these that I used)! Games Workshop miniatures, painted like 20 years ago by me.

The Haunted Tower – Redcap’s Lair: Actual pages of my DM notebook for this adventure. I use a mash-up of old Holmes Bluebook rules with Advanced D&D rulebooks. (That and I make up a lot of shit as I go, so don’t get weird or butt hurt on me and my stats/rules)

Next Pages

Level 2

Next Pages

Level 3 and rules on the “Pit”

Next pages

Last page (I Think) for Level 3

Level 4 is the Big Happy Spikey Fun Ball maze, Level 5 is the caverns where Redcap makes his final stand against the party. I may post those up here on the blog at a later time, or maybe I should just type all this up and publish it as a PDF on RPG Drivethru sometime? What do you kids think? Would anyone in their right mind, actually pay for an adventure module like this? Comment and let me know what you think.

The doorway to the “Big Happy Spikey Fun Ball” Maze.

“Big Happy Spikey Fun Ball” Miniature from Privateer Press, painted by me.

Dabbling in Chaos

I was and am working on a book of Chaos for my campaign, something that I can use as a player handout. These are a few of the images I created for it. The tick-like parasite, and eggs are my hand drawn representations of some miniatures I had printed from Bestiarum Miniatures. The rest of the chaos symbols and images are mine. Just felt like sharing them with you.

Chaos Symbols for My book of Chaos.