(Gnome Wars) Hawaiian Gnome Tiki Giant Now Available from Brigade Games

Thankfully, checking out the Pirate for "Talk Like a Pirate Day" for me, allowed me to realize the secret  Hawaiian Gnome Tiki Giant I saw at Historicon is now on the Brigade Game website.

He is a towering six inches of resin, and $18 is not a bad price of all.

Of course, we're still working on the play-test rules for the Hawaiians (really it's just the pineapple catapult we're tinkering with), so I'll have some stats for the behemoth ready by Fall-In! 

Talk Like a Pirate Day… at Brigade Games

 I've had a few employees that drove me crazy, and Maggie was certainly near the top of my list, but every year, she actively celebrated, "Talk Like a Pirate Day,"  and with the Pirate Gnomes from Brigade Games heartily available, it would be right and fittin' for a landlubber to order a unit or three.

It's certainly a good deal for 14 figures, but if ye only need a crew of seven scallywags, the Gnome pirate squad is a pretty decent deal as well... 

And let's not forget Brigade's 28mm Buccaneers, Pirates, and Privateers line as well, if ye would prefer to walk the plank, rather than playing with gnomes..

(Review) Sword in the Stone Games, Laurel Mall, Hazleton, Pennsylvania

I've had the good fortune to travel around a bit this summer, discovering quite a few game stores.  

But nothing quite got me excited like the opening Sword in the Stone Games in the Laurel Mall in Hazleton, PA. 

Even thought there was a shop a mile away from my apartment, I've frequented every name, iteration, and location of Sword in the Stone since they first opened, and I'm quite happy to swing by their main location in the Wyoming Valley Mall.  It's ten minutes away from me, even in bad traffic, there's always something new, and the staff is incredibly pleasant.  

Why is the Hazelton location, a store thirty-plus miles further away, excite me? 

Because the expansion is in collaboration with Erik at White Knight's Game Room in Williamsport.  Erik's been in business for thirty-sum odd years, in fact his location in Faxon was my go-to game store back in my Northern Tier living days twenty years ago... and his store has evolved in to a behemoth since then. 

Greeting:   It took less than a minute for the staff to not only greet, but fully engage me, and they were working with customers.  Since I've made this my go-to grade, it made me quite happy, and with a new business with a mall crowd, this is going to be essential. 

Cleanliness:  They had just celebrated their grand opening, so everything was new, clean, heck the smell of freshly cut wood was still in the air.  

CCGs:  Magic The Gathering, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Lorcana, One Piece, Riftbound, Star Wars Unlimited, and pretty much whatever else the two other stores stock.  The case was focused on Magic singles, and certain Pokemon products allocated to one per customer per day. 

Board Games:  Not necessarily an immense selection yet, but a diverse one from big board games, to tiny cards games, even some I'm not familiar with!  

RPGs:  D&D and Pathfinder dominate, but they do spread further with their selection.  

Miniatures:  A beautiful and full wall of Reaper Bones (even with this grumpy old guy complaining about the price of plastic) will never be frowned upon, including a number of the larger figures. 

And they do promote Games Workshop, keeping inventory at reasonable quantities.

Other:  Just like the Wilkes-Barre location, they've got plushies, dice, CCG supplies, and can special order most traditional items in a week or two.  

And they have this guy, who is NOT for sale...

Amenities/Events:  They just opened up, but the back gaming space is... spacious, and already had a couple players on a Tuesday evening. Snacks and drinks are available.. plus some decent mall food options to boot. 

Board game nights are Wednesdays at 5pm and Sundays at 3pm.  There's a host of Magic formats, Riftbound, Digimon, One Piece, Yu-Gi-Oh,  and Gundam CCG as well.

With a visit mere days after the grand opening (and an appearance by note Magic artist Ed Beard), I was suitably impressed by what they had put together, and the potential they had for the future.

That being said, based on proper planning, inventory, design, staff, and potential for fun, on my Gaming with the Gnomies Five Gnome scale, I give the brand new Sword in the Stone Hazleton location four out of five gnomes.

Part of my calculations was my score was to obviously keep it lower than the  well-established Sword in the Stone's Wilkes-Barre location... and The White Knight's Game Room's "compound" in Williamsport. 

Except, in possibly my biggest gaffe of my 17 years of blogging, I don't have a current review of the Wilkes-Barre location and I've NEVER formally reviewed White Knight's!  

That will be corrected shortly, but if you're passing by Hazleton anytime, check out the new store (I used the Old Navy outside mall entrance, but the parking garage entrance will get your there faster.   Everything is currently set up on their Facebook page. 

17 Years of Gaming with the Gnomies

On this day, seventeen years ago, I published my very first post onto Gaming with the Gnomies.

5700 posts, 4.5 million page views, still going strong.  I've painted a ton of figures, played a pile of games with my girls, and catalogued all my RPG campaigns.   It continues to drive and intrigue me. 

The end of September will be my "Year in Review", where I post stats, my top ten posts for the year, plus the all-time posts. For now, I guess I’ll keep doing this for a while longer.

And I still have the bulk of that Schneider tank in a shoebox somewhere in the office, certainly unfinished. It might fare better as a kitbash for Death Planet Iota at this point.  

Gaming with the GnomiesGaming with the Gnomies

(Gamma World) Not a Test #129 - The Third Reflection of the Ninth Crossing

Our heroes, the De Facto Explorers, have decided to embark on an epic quest to reach Lathar's long-lost father, Harkonn. After side-quests, distractions, and backtracking, the group has made it past Fair-Town and KIA Academy, and they've just discovered a large blue luminescent phenomena crackling its way towards them.

============================================================== 

Lathar Bracken: A pure-strain human from River Bend.  He's got the muscle, the face, and a mount for most encounters.  Lathar's trusty beast of burden, No Name, travels wherever he does.   Looking for trouble in all the right places. The two-time champion of the Fair-Town Queen's Joust.  Recently married to the now-pregnant Thunnelda Haycock.   He had recently received a letter from his long-lost father, and has convinced the others to accompany him to the Wildlands.

Sneaky Pete: A mutated weasel scout.  Pete's telepathy and night vision take a backseat when he whips out his electrical powers.   Apparently addicted to his newly uncovered yellow powder found at "The Pool House"

Sonny Helianthus: an over 10' tall sentient sunflower artifact examiner with four arms, and trusted Restorationist ties. Knowledgeable,  but not a good one with device repairs or upgrades.   Sonny may have recently detonated an atomic device in the petrified woods... although no one else knows. 

Slitheran Wurmtail (aka Squiggles): a mutated earthworm scout, in impromptu power armor, looking for trouble in all the wrong places,  and finding it often.   He  has been subject to genetic testing and developed super-human strength, a more human body, and a thick coat of shaggy white hair.  Recently attacked and kidnapped then left for dead by an unknown group, looking for revenge.  Also pregnant for the third time, and due to deliver badly out of season

Poppy and Speedy: Two of Squiggles' offspring from his first... litter(?) They're now teenagers in worm years, old enough to grab diminutive muskets and help their Manchi and his friends on this epic quest. 

===============================================================

The Explorers fled out of the compound, desperate to make it outside of the path of illuminated blue energy barreling towards them.  But the swath of destruction (?) seemed to be expanding.  

Pete scurried out beyond the phenomenon's reach.  Somehow Lathar cajoled No-Name to move faster.  But as the two heroes turned around, they saw the crackling energy enveloped the base, cross the top of the river and continuing flowing into the woods on the other side of the Big River.  

And they could only see Sonny standing there obscured by the blue aura.... the energy rolled like a cloud or fog.   He was standing next to several glowing forms.  There was no sign of Squiggles or his kids.

And for once, both the human and the weasel... both were afraid.  

Squiggles' parental instincts may have kicked in for the first time.  The look of terror in his offspring's faces gave him a drive deep in his soul he had never felt before.

It wasn't enough.  

It wasn't the oncoming blue storm that got them, it was the a series of invisible waves flying through the air.  More of these waves must have made the kids' "segments hurt" before, but these dropped all three worms... Squiggles could barely look up to see Sonny's plant structure also succumbing to the waves... it was the only reason he hadn't teleported away to safety.   

Squiggle's survival instincts allowed him only one command to his children:

"DIG!!!!"

The worms' primal instincts kicked in they were quickly, but barely beneath the surface, Squiggles doing most of the rapid tunnelling, while Poppy and Speedy expanded and cleaned up.  

Getting under the ground, and no longer subject of the waves, the worm family recovered, but the blue glow was still cast 

======

Pete kept walking backwards, away from the blue energy.  He saw the glowing figures next to Sonny.  Six beings of light suddenly turning into only one, and standing in front of the sunflower.

"Lathar, c'mon, we need to get out..."

"Get out?"

"Yeah, keep on moving...."

"Are we leaving them?"

"What do you want to do?"

"I don't know Pete, we should jump on No-Name and charged back into there... Sonny has bailed us out so many times..."

"We're going back into the blue???

"Yes"

Lathar hopped on the back of No-Name, still draped with supplies,  The Staggon started to move towards the blue energy.  A few steps in, Lathar leaned over, his hand outstretched to grab Pete... when No-Name reared back in fear.   Lathar went flying off it's back, along with whatever supplies were on him.  Pete narrowly evaded catastrophe. 

======

Squiggles and his children were barely underground but safe.  He had pulled Poppy and Speedy close to his furry body.  

Squiggles was taken aback with the feel of Sonny's giant frond, dipping deep within the tunnel.

"Squiggles?  Squiggles?"

"Yeah....?"

"I can't guarantee that it's safe, but it's not dangerous."

Squiggles and his children crawled back out in to the blueness.  Within the aura was a new figure, translucent, glass-like, staring at all of them.

Sonny:  This is fascinating, I have no idea what it is....

Squiggles:  Are you trying to communicate with it? 

Sonny:  Yes, yes!  Squiggles, meet... oh I hope I get this right... The Third Reflection of the Ninth Crossing. 

The being nodded it head and spoke, a cacophony of multiple voices saying it all off a bit.

"Correct" 

The Third Reflection of the Ninth Crossing

Sonny: There were six of them, the other five vanished.  

======

The invisible waves of energy had nearly crippled Sonny, Sonny was nearly helpless when the visible blue energy had hit him...  

Fifteen meters tall by 150 meters wide, but outside of the world shining with blue light, nothing seemed to change within the aura.  Past Sonny, down along the riverbank, was an odd sigil, glowing in the air..... the area the energy crossed revealed a dry river beneath it, with water flowing away from it, both downriver and upriver.  

Where the riverbed met the shore, six figures... clear translucent humanoids forms... bodies apparently composed entirely of glass... and the sigil disappeared.

Sonny's plant body was wracked with lingering pain, but he could stand up, intrigued by these new acquaintances. He was weakened, but was quietly trying to pool his power together, just in case he needed to teleport away... just in case. 

"Hello"

The beings look at Sonny, trying to process what they're seeing.  They each raised a single hand separately and hold it up in the air.... Then a crackling sound emitted through that group.... and five of them vanished, leaving just one.

"I guess you're designated to talk to me?"

The being looked behind it, pondering the disappearance of the other entity's  

I am the Third Reflection of the  Ninth Crossing. 

"Hello Third Reflection, I'm Sonnny"

Hello Sonny.... Is this the world where we failed? 

  

"Probably.  The Ancients failed , I gather.  Unless you consider it a success."  

No... but we promised it would pass

The being looked up within the aura, towards the sky, trying to look for something. 

"What did you fail?"

We mark this as an acceptable loss.  We said later.... this isn't later enough.

"Are you the Ancients?"

The being simply chuckled... in five similar voices.

"Should we would be worried about the river?"

The River is where we originally put the error.

"What are you and why are you putting errors in our River."

The Third Reflection showed struggle trying to speak.

I used to be plural, I miss the overlap.... This body is too loud.  I can hear it thinking...

He asked if it would hurt.... We said no

"Who asked?"

He... is.... downstream, maybe in this time.

"Which way is downstream?"

The Third Reflection turned back to the river... and the water flowing up and down river, chuckling again in his signature awkward attempt at harmony:

We learned the wrong lesson perfectly.

For just a moment, Sonny pondered using the Children's Alchemical Laser that he had discarded at his feet.... but influence from his fellow Explorers faded... grabbing his furry worm friend out of his burrow needed to be the next step.

======

Squiggles kept staring at The Third Reflection, all the while trying to hail Pete and Lathar...  The being shuffled its feet to keep track of the worms circling.  Poppy and Speedy kept quite close to their Manchi. About halfway around the circle, Speedy got brave, stepping half the distance between Squiggles and the creature.

The being kept watching, but finally spoke towards them.

Don't stand too close, I crack when I'm anxious.

Squiggles pulled his kin backwards, earning another nod of approval from it.

"Is this your first time here?"

We failed to stop, or  to stay, or to agree, but this river is in every version...

"Have you seen others like me.... or Sonny?"

Yes, he asked if it would hurt.... We said no.

======

Pete and Lathar recovered from their debacle, realizing the single  glowing creature remaining had human features, and the entire Wurmtail family had reappeared.

Pete: "It doesn't appear to be hurting them, but be ready to flee.  I'm not going into that.  

Lathar:  "Are they... talking?"

Pete: "They're moving their arms like it... they don't look like their in danger... yet."

Lathar:  "I'm leaving my rifles here with No-Name, just taking my shield.  Don't go anywhere.

Lathar, shield in hand, walked up the to the aura and walked into it.  Nothing seemed to unnatural, outside the blue-tinted vision and his hair standing on end. 

Squiggles motioned to his friend to be peaceful.... Lathar walked gingerly and sideways, until it made eye contact with the creature, and it spoke to him:

He... is.... downstream.

Lathar became breathless for a moment, but regained his composure, "How far?"

You are earlier than expected....

Speedy:  Are you from here? 

Our failure was marked as an acceptable loss.

Poppy: "How did you fail?"

Yes, he asked if it would hurt.... We said no

Lathar seemed a bit more insistent:  Will my journey end in sorrow, or in happiness?

This is why forgiveness takes so long...

With that cryptic answer.... they notice the blue aura going across the river remained, but the Big River has resumed going fully downstream.

Lathar:  What was it like before?

If we just learned, we could stop repeating. 

The Third Reflection stared off across the river.

The river hums differently here, it always does...

Lathar continued to treat the being like a local village soothsayer.

"Does he want to meet me?"

The being chuckled for but a moment, like Lathar amused it

You look like him before the apology....

"What was his affront?"

====================

It was at that moment, that it turned in the direction of Pete outside and started walking....

He is not singular anymore...

It walked out of the aura and towards the trees... and Pete.

Pete could hear it, like it was talking to itself.

This body is too loud.  I can hear it thinking...

Pete used his mental mutations to try to connect with it.  He's met with his own voice reflected back to head.

The being turned it's head towards the weasel before passing him.

If we learned, we would stop repeating...

Pete speaking out loud: Is there anything we can do for you? 

Not in this version where we meet you.

Next: #130 - The Slow Walk to the Gren

Trying to Figure Out the Fall Con Scene

 I’ve had the fortunate situation of traveling up upstate New York to watch Maya play volleyball the past two weekends.  With the move up there, a new travel team, and the very backwards set up for varsity sports at the new high school, it's  been a bit more trying than it should.

I’ve been paying more attention in recent months, not to the player interaction, but how a coach actually "coaches'.   In my conversations with Maja, I've realized that there are honestly few true coaches been any level of sports that can instruct to a full roster, strategize with the flow of the game, and just general personnel management.  With some Shake Shack between us, and with no disrespect to the wonderful adults who have stood in that role over the years for both my daughters, but we really only came to a consensus of two coaches in the dozen years of sports,  that have really been excellent coaches, in all segments.

And as a further downer for the weekend, Shake Shake is nothing more than overpriced vintage Wendy's with pretentious Frosties.    

I do have to laugh, our time was probably better spend attending CouncilCon 26 in Schenectady, even if she had to leave halfway through the day to go to work… If I didn’t have to take the journey to go visit my mother and take care of yardwork and fixing a few more things, I may have even stayed for Sunday

Despite being the emotional athletic support systems both weekends, I have gotten a few other things done.

I finished a revisit to Flights 2 and downgraded the their review.  It's only a half-gnome deduction, but  the folksy and cluttered appeal began to wear thin as I double checked a few things.  

I've also been able to visit not one, not two, but THREE different game stores, with pending reviews coming up.  

Most importantly,  was able to enjoy the extra time with my daughter, trying to plan a game-filled November we normally have in Pennsylvania.

First off, FALL-IN 2026, November 6-8, 2026 at the Wyndham in Lancaster will NOT have a formal HMGS NEXT GEN presence.  I'm half tempted just to sign up for the day or the weekend, maybe volunteer to judge events for a slot, although between my  conversations with Maja and a my long drive down the Thruway on Sunday, I think I have an event to run a) that's fun  b) simple to assemble and c) still Gnome themed.  It might require a few trips to the dollar store, Michael's and definitely the evil Hobby Lobby.    With this, I might just be willing to run the joust.  

Mepacon 51 -  Is the following weekend , November 13-15, in Allentown Pennsylvania. 

For Mepacon 50, I had run an assortment of “best of “games. I’ve done over the last 35 years of convention.  

For Mepacon 51, I was strongly pondering a Fistful of Lead sci-fi game to cover the alien theme and I was actually being pressured to run a sequel to the “Cthulhu Comes to Springfield" games, most notably, an alien themed vignettes under "Don't Blame Me, I Voted for Kodos!" 

I don't think I'm willing to do the 12 hours of gaming anymore to get the free badge.  Hell, I’m not sure I might even go anymore.

Couple that was some pretty big news for the Gamma World campaign happening this Monday night, as well as the normal October-to-September year end reviews I do  and we’re sort of had a crossroads of what I really want to do, And what’s really important?

Perhaps it's the request from Maja to bring "The Boyfriend",  Drew, to SATLOF (Saturday After Thanksgiving Left Over Feast) my college roommate, Steve (and Angi) still host.  Considering Steve was one of the "trusted uncles" Maja begged opinions of the young man, this should be a smooth transition.

(Painting) Underground Burrowing Monster

I may have created a new personal gripe about 3-D printing.  I have no idea where I bought this piece while at Historicon:

I don't think it's Trainwreck 3D, but with the random purchases I grabbed and put into a bag, I can't be sure if this was one of their figures that isn't on the website, or is it somebody else's.

As to be expected, we have a new threat on Death Planet Iota.  A Murder Wurm?  A baby Krayt Dragon?  A burrowing suit of organic power armor? We'll need a scenario to try it out!  

Next:  So now that I finally got one thing off the painting bench, what's on the agenda?   An absolute mess that needs a weekend without anything else to do to clean up.  The Hawaiian Gnomes will get an accessory upgrade, there's the regular assortment of miscellaneous things, and I do have to prep this year's Christmas project that I've acquired (Mwhahaha)...

Project 350:  After all the chaos of #RPGaDay, I resume my quest to reduce my draft and scheduled blog posts with an unfortunate uptick.  I'm currently at 470 total posts behind the scenes (310 drafts / 160 scheduled), up considerably from  460 (297 drafts/163 scheduled)  way back on July 3rd.  

The scheduled number really can never drop below 100, as that's all the various holiday filler posts I've set up... for nearly the next 20 years!   And while there are a handful of cool scenarios I've seen on other blogs that I'd like to recreate, the uptick in drafts is early prep work/placeholders for my next RPG community event, the #CharacterCreationChallenge. in January.