(Painting) A Werewolf, a Duck, and a Road Cone: The Musical

After a month of fooling around with role-playing characters, I'm still cleaning things off the painting bench. 

The Werewolf is from the original Reaper Bones line (77009).  It's honestly one of the better Original Bones sculpts, and at $3.99, was quite affordable.  It looks like they've transitioned it to the Bones USA grey plastic and the price has doubled.  

The Duck is a leftover from the ones Millie printed up in class for me.   God help me if more start showing up.

And after a thorough cleaning, I finally recovered the road cone from the Reaper Modern Accessories pack that I dropped off the painting bench and it vanished.  

In fun news, I finally found employment.  It's a step up from entry level, I like my coworkers, and I shouldn't have any issues coming forward with Mepacon or Historicon.  Being a single guy on a limited budget means my evenings are getting focused on RPG sessions, painting sessions, and working through the back catalog of games, particularly Gnome skirmish, Mousling campaign, and prepping for more Egypt games with the girls. 

In the Queue - Teddy Bears (and another "fun with paint colors"), Death Planet Iota characters

Project: 350 -  441 (283/156  from 466 (282 /184) 

RPG Campaign Tour: Day 5 - Can You Tell Us About the Campaign's History?

Day 5 of the #RPGCampaignTourChallenge, and I've been cornered: "Can you tell us about the campaign's history."  

Of course, the overarching history that is Gamma World:  Our future civilization is destroyed in some atomic power apocalypse.  Hundreds(?) of years later, humanity and all of mutant-kind are emerging from the wreckage. 

Or are they?

Because Riverbend is fully established, yet very early American Colonial, with muskets and primitive farming.  

And just a few days walk, KIA Academy is the paragon of technology, if by technology you simply focused on road construction technology for some reason.

And in-between there's Fair-Town, if Dickensian London was hidden in the trappings of a full-time Renaissance Faire, and the tabard-wearing guardsman do a poor job of hiding the laser rifles they've procured somehow. 

Within the confines of our game sessions, one can sense that the Restorationists of Riverbend are looking to expand their knowledge base into the wilderness, especially across the Big River.  Our campaign's heroes, the De Facto Explorers can't be the only group they've hired to investigate Ancient facilities, engage with mutant races, and bring back technology and knowledge... can they? 

As our friends, the Explorers travel, they've engaged with Hissers and Hoppers, befriending many, outright crippling a secret society of mutant supremacists, all the while detonating at least three mini-tac-nukes.  Across the big river, they've encountered agents of the Overlord of Bon-Parr and the Ranks of the Fit, expanding their power quietly and trying to peacefully absorb the settlements.  Things have not always been friendly, groups have not seen eye to eye, but everyone seems to be focused on achieving the same goals through different, but usually peaceful means.

Below KIA Academy, a series of storms are brewing.  Multiple unknown groups, the two largest denoted as "living metal skeletons" and "wizards" have been clashing.   KIA has been in a state of panic for the past year, raising their army, and awakening past sins of their technology-focused culture, bringing the mutant dregs that live in their sub-levels back up to the light to fight as conscripts. 

But the question remains, where exactly did the living metal skeletons and "wizards" come from?  Does it have anything to do with the recent increase in the famed "Southern Lights," fabulous blue glowing light shows that usually appear beyond the foothills, far away from the towns?  It simply can't be a coincidence that rumors of demons appearing.... or an entire community of blue-skinned, pointy eared humanoids known as the Kirothians emerged out of the woods after one of the light shows.  

Of course, as the Gamemaster, and the only one with a solid history of Gamma World, I'm the only one amused by the concept, "What if we aren't in Gamma World"  or perhaps, "What if we're not WHEN Gamma World takes place?"

One of the Kirothians....

After 129 sessions, the story continues to unfold.

The Back-Dated RPG Campaign Tour Challenge for 2026

The dust from January's #CharacterCreationChallenge has barely settled.  The backlog of other posts is finally catching up.

And I entirely blame Ken Newquist's Nuketown for casually pulling me into another RPG Challenge.  

Ken post about the #RPGCampaignTourChallenge drew me in and the concept for the Barking Alien blog is beautifully simple and executable: 

The concept is simple; give your readers/viewers a tour of your current (or favorite or in-development) campaign setting using the prompts provided below by yours truly. Imagine the Challenge as a kind of 'travel guide' to the setting of your game.

I know Ken started on Thursday 2/4 and started knocking out the first two days then.  I'll rely more on social media, but I'll back date the first couple, and hopefully the rest of the prompts will take less than an hour or two every day.  

The Gamma World "Not a Test" Campaign loves its self-promotion, especially since the Actual Play post started this week, after a long holiday and #CCC hiatus. 

Glorious Adventures in the Age of Steam for Fistful of Lead

One thing I've realized about Fistful of Lead... What seemed to start as a $20 set of rules you can cobble together your own version of the fantastic.. or the realistic, is becoming a lifestyle, if one wants to spend the coin.

Straight from TMP to this blog: 

It is truly a wondrous age! It seems a new invention destined to change the world is created every day. Babbage's Analytical Engine has transformed modern mathematics and made complex calculations capable of changing the world. Edison's Aether ships ply the space ways making interplanetary travel a daily occurrence. Tesla has made electric power plentiful, and advances in steam technology have made the impossible possible.

Of course, none of these advances in science would be possible without the discovery of X-Matter in 1869. When this miracle element is combined with other substances it can make metals lighter and stronger, and make fuels burn hotter. Even members of the occult societies claim X-Matter has a mystical effect on reality itself.

All this new technology has quickly found its way to the battlefield. Soldiers march to war resplendent in their colorful uniforms, armed with the newest, deadliest weapons. And the march to war beside monstrous, steam belching machines; airships, armored walkers, submersibles and landships.

Glorious Adventures in the Age of Steam is a stand-alone game. People who already own a Fistful of Lead game will notice the core mechanics are unchanged. In this book, you'll find new equipment, weapons and exotic new locations with lists of inhabitants both friend and foe. Your adventures may take you from the haunted back alleys of London to the majestic canals of Mars. Or are you more in the mood for a dinosaur hunt at the center of the Earth? It's all right here.

To be completely fair, Glorious Adventures is available directly at Wiley Games, but is, of course, stocked to at Brigade Games.  The printed edition is $40 with the Glorious Adventures card deck for $20.

RPG Campaign Tour: Day 4 - Is There a Map?

 Day 4 of the #RPGCampaignTourChallenge brings up the bane of my existence, "Is there a map?"

In a post-apocalyptic game set hundreds of years after the destruction of the society, I do have a player or two who expect each town to have an updated map, like they were a state rest stop handing out folding maps for the glove box.  

But they've gotten one or two for me, begrudgingly.  

Obviously, we mentioned our three main communities yesterday, Riverbend, Fair-Town, and KIA Academy.  

Huush is a community of Hissers under a satellite dish that just might still work. 

Level A Inc is an Ancients' facility that was destroyed by a small atomic blast.  

Koto Dam was the headquarters of the Iron Society of mutant humans.  It too was destroyed by a different small atomic blast.   The nearby town of Janius was taken over by the Brotherhood of Thought, but the poisoned water has created a near-ghost town.  

The Wall is just that a massive wall that keeps things out... or, perhaps for the benefits of everyone outside, it's keeping something INSIDE.

"WILD" is the Wildlands, a place where all creatures are feral and the plants run amok.  That token of Chewbacca?  After 100 episodes, it was revealed that the token was the last known location one Harkonn Bracken... Lathar's long-lost father. 

Sculpting a Scrap Beast at Bill Making Stuff

Dear readers might remember me sending love to my new obession: Bill Making Stuff.  I love the kitbashing, the ideas, his world of the Gutterlands.   I've expanded my collection of bits, pieces, and miscellany thanks to his inspiration, if I'm avoiding creating zines, sculpting, and more massive projects.

His latest episode #105 he sculpts his own scrap beast with a near comedic series of errors, but an awesome final result.  

RPG Campaign Tour: Day 3 - Where the Heck Are We?

 Day 3 of the #RPGCampaignTourChallenge and the question is deceptively simple: Where the Heck Are We?  

The answer can be equally deceptive in a post-apocalyptic game such as Gamma World.  

The simplest answer is somewhere in the lower 48... long after the lower 48 ceased to exist.  

We haven't set up a formal name of the region, beyond that of the Big River Valley.  The Big River itself is true to it's name,  250 meters up Riverbend and expanding to well over 300 by Fair-Town, and growing to a consistent 450+ meters past KIA Academy.  

Those three communities, all on the south bank of the river, mark the centers of civilization in the area:  Riverbend, a large farming community, Fair-Town, a thriving walled town of artisans and culture, and KIA Academy, a vast catacomb and tower of forgotten technology that isn't all weapons.  

Far upriver are the mysterious towns of Blackvale and the eerie named Catacombs.  Further downriver, there are only rumors of vastly superior forces, militarily, mutation-wise, and by sheer size... and thankfully if the rumors are in any way true, they haven't ventured this far up the Big River.  

Across the river is mostly wild lands (not to be confused with THE Wildlands much farther downriver), populated by mutant animal communities, including Hissers and Hoppers, and some mutant human farming villages.  Further away from the river are legendary glow lands, allegedly tied to cities of the Ancients. 

Further downriver are the lands of Parr, a strong militarily-led nation of mutant animals.  

Even further on some maps are vague terms downriver, like "Devil's Gate" , "Legion" and even "Racist F*cks", not to mention other towns that rumors state are controlled by actual wizards....

And currently, in game, we're gingerly working our way down past KIA Academy for the first time in the three of so game years of the campaign...  more to come.

Next: Day 4 -