The Mike Lung Gallery #67 - Cthulhu Xothic Wars

Intrepid correspondent, friend of the blog, and AWARD WINNING GM Mike Lung has more craziness, he's share with me:

Hope all is well. I may have mentioned that I'm messing around with Cthulhu Xothic Wars by Gobbo Town. So I wanted to share with you a couple of pics. First is my first batch of Gobbo Town Elder Things (I have another batch on the way) and their pet Shoggoth (Reaper Black Pudding conversion). The other is a pic of some Cthulhu Star Spawn (without wings) facing off one of rival Haster's Byakee (RAFM). Perhaps I can twist your arms' to play a game at some future convention!

Wargaming Recon Questions

Awhile backs Episode #235 of Wargaming Recon the host of the podcast answered a series of questions posed by his Patreon backers. 

I'm going to steal a few questions and answer them as truthfully as possible, largely keeping them within the wargaming community.

#1 - In your opinion, what is your most underrated game?
Rules out of wargaming magazines.  Seriously, some of the best games I've played in came from rules published in Wargames Illustrated.  Heck, the sheep herding game I've integrated in my "Battle of Yellowstone" came from an early issue.

#2 -  What is the most overrated game?
40k -  After 25+ years of largely watching people fall in and out of the vicious cycle, I'm convinced that people like to play sub-part sci-fi rules with a powertripping setting with great painters to inspire you.  The early demise (and minor resurrection) of the Squats might have something to do with it, but while I found some satisfaction in WFB and the Black Library games

#3 -  Two games to a desert island?
With plenty of figures?  Gnome Wars and Mordheim.

#4 -   Money no object, what new convention would I try to attend.
Council of Five Nations in upstate New York.  When I was younger, it was the one New York con my group didn't make it to...

#5 - Biggest gaming purchase regret?
When a local store (Imagination Workshop) went out of business, I was the fifth or sixth person in line when the store opened on it's last day, with 80% off.  I hadn't properly scouted the last few days, so I went all haywire with my shopping.  There was a ton of cool stuff still available, like Armoury paints, Judge's Guild Traveller supplements, and even the aforementioned Squats, but I went with some cockamanie idea to buy up all the 15mm Civil War stuff.   In the end, I turned a profit trading it retail for retail for boxes of Magic, but I still cringe at my actions for the day.

#6 - What is the farthest distance I've driven for gaming?
461 miles to attend the first Origins in its now-permanent home of Columbus, Ohio.

#7 - Have you ever LARPed?
I once ran an Illuminati University (IOU) LARP at Garden State Game Faire.  I was the Man in Plaid.  It's a proud and humbling moment on my gaming resume.

#8 - What is my best gaming deal?
Another gaming store closure, ComicQuest in Emmaus, Pennsylvania.  $2500 MSRP of Ral Partha for $250 plus tax.  I actually lived off of them thanks to eBay, because they had been discontinued and the aftermarket (outside of Emmaus) was going nuts.

#9 -  Do I clip my counters (chits)
Nope, I'm diabolical and half-punch,half spin and twist them out.  Yes, I'm a monster.

Lost Dispatches of Feraso #51 - The Tower of Enerk

The 25th Day of Hexdec in the Year 1027

The Village of Mechitbayeva, Land of Hermetus

To His Lordship, Viscount Wilifrick of Verbobonc,

Following Freigraf Alwin Warmark's request, Murag Mountainhammer, Andrei Krasimir and I took our annual holiday to visit Amberstoll in the Weissmach.   While adventuring through the Weissmach was unstoppable excitement, pedestrian travel through the region has one subject to insufferable boredom.  While we had planned two months to stay with Alwin, the remoteness caused us to depart a month earlier.

To fill the time, we head back to the far eastern edge of the Empire, where Ras-Prythax meets the wizard kingdoms of Hermetus, and the rumored Vampire kingdoms of Vlachia.  

We went on two tours offered by locals to see vampires, but were only subject to potential robbery we easily thwarted.  

We wandered Hermetus proper, avoiding falling giants, and taking advantage of a poor economy with solid sustenance and refreshments.  

Hermetus itself is largely communities of poorly educated subsistence farmers with a few middle class merchants barely making ends meet. 

We found ourselves in the village of Mechitbayeva, drinking local plum-based drinks at The Fluffy Cashew (Andrei's translation, not mine).    The tavern was inhabited by the regular cast of locals, farmers, and drunks, but we did run into an actual adventuring party celebrating their recent success.  Offering to buy some plum-derived liqueur in exchange for their story, I deemed it safer to live vicariously through their actions.

The leader of the party was a smallish wizard named Henri Torsorin.  Beside him was a forlorn looking warrior who went by Serlon the Grim.  Their cleric was a dwarf(!) Thormak Gingerheart, but for reasons unexplained to us, the group simply called Chet.  An exotic looking man with almost ashen olive skin disturbuing accent when he attempted the few words of Trade-Prythax he knew,eyed us suspiciously, but they assured us the this ranger from the Senzar Empire, Lobo, was harmless outside of a dungeon.

Finally, the man acting as the group interpreter was a tall, lanky fellow from nearby Vlachian named Viesbustus

Their story was a classic tale of adventuring with a Hermetic twist.  They had been hired by the heirs to clean out the tower of one of the local wizards who recently passed away.  Unlike many of the loner wizards who ruled the land with an iron fist and a snap of the fingers, this wizard, Enerk, had raised a family before turning into a magic hermit in his tower.  His will had given them ownership of the tower, and although no one in the family wanted it, it had to be cleaned of his "creations" before a proper buyer could be found.

It seemed that the Old Wizard Enerk had some talented, and could create almost sentient clockwork designs.  Many in his early years had been quite useful, but as he slipped into his tower, he dedicated his time to clockwork protectors, clockwork guardians.

In this five story tower, each floor of the tower was filled with these mechanical spiders whose only jump was to prevent intruders from entering.  No one knew how Enerk waved off the orders of these guard-spiders, and so Henri & Company would need to wipe them out.

The spiders on each floor seemed to segregate themselves from the other groups, and each design was tougher and more elaborate than the lower stories.  Copper spiders led to iron, led to silver, led to (fake) gold, and finally, in his lair, this odd metallic red substance which they had great trouble killing the few that populated the study and bedroom of the wizard.

By the time the stories had been told in full, it was quite late, and "Chet" the dwarf was speaking of some talking frog they were going to get a quest from the next day.  I had assumed that the plum wine was making me hear things, so I ignored that last comment.  Anyway, Andrei was overexcited at the time, successfully clearing out the tower meant the family could put it up for sale, and Andrei had gotten their location and other information from Viesbustus.  He was going to give them an offer for the property before it was officially put up for sale.

Murag and I are still in shock.  Despite our best pleadings to come back and perhaps think about building a tower of knowledge (and perhaps power) back in Verbobonc, Andrei was adamant that a true wizard gets a tower in Hermetus, by any means necessary, and this was much easier than other stories he had heard.  He's already met with the heirs, and arranged payment through the Imperial Bank in Feraso City to be delivered shortly.   Outside of a quick return trip with us back to Feldkurton to pack up a few possessions, and return to establish his new property.

I can rightfully say that I am heartbroken.  In my adventures over the years, I have obtained three friends: Alwin, a boring man who lives in a boring town.  Murag, an exciting dwarf the prefers to relax in a boring town, and Andrei, who constantly wants excitement in as many different towns as possible.  I fear the few flashes of excitement left for this Baron of Greyhawk will be fleeting over the next few weeks.

Please update the contact information to one Andrei Krasimir, Magic-User, to Krasimir Tower, village of Mechitbayeva, Land of Hermetus.

Yours Always in Service,

Sir Elsderth Greyhawk, Baron of Greyhawk

Slayer of the Wizard Sazor

Freigraff of the Totenlinden of Amberstoll.

DM Notes: This is the one place in the Lost Dispatches that I get to tell the story of the game of D&D I ran in Basic Training, Summer 1992, in the barracks of Fort Jackson, South Carolina.  

Weeks into Basic, heat advisories were throwing off training schedules, we were just squared away enough for a platoon of non-combat MOS Privates that the Drill Sergeants gave us a little more time than we expected after evening PT.  

Most took the time to relax and keep a low profile, in case the Drill Sergeants came out, but for those of us with lockers in the far left back corner, a few of us figured getting smoked for gaming in the barracks was better than attempting to ask permission.  

This is not my Platoon's picture (this one's only 49 months early) but dammit if all of these look alike.  I swear I could make out every character in the platoon, including everybody from the game, and the guy that still owes me twenty-five bucks from AIT in Fort Gordon.

With no dice coming until AIT, we made due for random number generation. When I mailed my military portraits home, I saved one of the cardboard portrait folders, and with the few office supplies I could obtain, created a d4 to d20 spinner, hiding the various designs inside the folder, and creating the actual spinner from a broken Bic pen and a paper clip.  

It worked way too well, so everyone took made up the character of choice back home, and I ran a basic tower adventure, relying heavily on the clockwork horrors from MC7 - Monstrous Compendium Spelljammer Appendix. 

The game was a rousing success and it spawned a follow up game run by "Chet" involving a lot of fairy tale stuff that didn't jive with the other guys.  Before that point, I had been assigned some other duty (possibly to "break up the gang"), and within another day or two, the heat had let up and we were back to whatever training we needed to catch up on.   

And now, after 27 years, The Tower of Enerk finally has its proper space in the World of Georic.

Next: #52  A Letter to the New Viscount

(Kickstarter) Mystery at Millwarren by Insane Angel Studios

After a very successful campaign (and subsequent Ennie nomination) for The Hidden Halls of Hazakor, Insane Angel Studios has launched a Kickstarter for a new adventure, and potential sequel to Halls, Mystery at Millwarren.

Mystery at Millwarren is a fully illustrated, 76+ page adventure for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons... for levels five and up.   Written with a special focus on young, new Dungeon Masters, Mystery takes up the  mantle of teaching new DMs to run a game, but filled with more tips of the trade to run a game for ages 12 and up.  

Hidden Halls of Hazakor was a great Kickstarter, with great communication, creating a great product.  In fact, I named it my personal Kickstarter of the Year just over a year ago.  

(Kickstarter) Gelatinous Cube Soap... with Polyhedral Dice Inside!

As a father, I've witnessed the drama of various bathtime "fun" items... those tiny dinosaurs that eventually expand into large dino sponges, the almost as small squares of fabric that become t-shirts or washcloths, and, of course, the infamous bath bombs with a surprise inside.

Gamers, meet your official convention soap....  Gelatinous Cube Soap to be exact.

An ingenious first-time Kickstarter in Canada has brought the concept of semi-transparent lime soap in the shape of a cube... with dice floating in it!!!!  

The price-point is pretty perfect for a gimmicky item, although shipping costs for this are a little crazy. 

Another Month of New Gaming (November 2019)

With the arrival of Game Trade Magazine #237 in pdf and at your FLGS this week, we've reached the post-Christmas releases (solicitations are due by mid-November.  Most items are 2020 releases.)

The Rules:  I note the cool stuff coming out that I want, the stuff I kinda want if money (and time) were no object, and if I still operated an FLGS (last done in December 2000), what items I would like to stock the store with.  I've got biases and opinions, so if you want to see if the 12th iteration of the Hobbit LCG by Bombastic Games, check out the issue of Game Trade.  I've seen too many of those as negative inventory anchors and dust collectors at stores to be enthused... unless my imaginary customers were interested in that.

ViscountEric's Want List
9th Level Games
The Excellents  ...................................................... $12.99
The Kobolds Ate My Baby crew look into the world of... Princesses???  It's crazy enough that it just might work.

ViscountEric's Money-is-no-Object Want List
Zip

The Imaginary Store List (The Pegleg Gnome)
Angry Hamster Publishing
Familiars of Terra RPG ............................................ $30.00

Arc Dream Publishing
THE SONG OF THE SUN QUEENS (5E) ................ $14.99

Ares Games
Battlestar Galactica Starship Battles ........................ $16.90 each

Asmodee Editions 
Imagineers ....................................... $49.99
Marvel: Crisis Protocol - Black Panther and Killmonger ... $34.95
Yeah, Thirty-Five bucks for two figures and some other miscellany.  The anti-Wizkids, I guess....

Atlas Games
Gloom of Thrones  .................................... $24.95
Hedgehog Hop .......................................... $12.00

Cubicle 7
Warhammer 40K : Wrath and Glory Core Rulebook Revised .... $59.99

Days of Wonder
Ticket to Ride Map Set 7 - Japan and Italy ............ $39.99

Fantasy Flight Games
Star Wars Legion - Crashed Escaped Pod Expansion ......... $39.95

Free League Publishing
Alien RPG: Chariot of the Gods ....................................... $19.99

Gallant Knight Games
Savage Worlds Sagas and Six-Guns ............................... $24.95
Tiny d6: Tiny Supers ......................................................... $29.99

Goodman Games 
Cthulhu Alphabet (Regular Edition) ................................. $24.95

Green Couch Games
Into the Black Forest ....................................................... $20.00

Gunmetal Games 
Interface Zero (Starfinder) .............................................. $39.99

Kobold Press
5e Tome of Beasts Pocket Editions ............................ $21.99

Legendary Games
The Horseshoe Calamity (Pathfinder 2nd Edition) ...... $11.99
Star Battles (Starfinder) ............................................... $24.99

Mongoose Publishing
Sea of Thieves RPG .................................................... $79.99
Eighty bucks for a basic RPG?  I thought it just a few years ago we admitted that $60 was bearable.  

Sea of Thieves Legendary Dice Pack ........................... $24.99
Yes, you read that right, $25, but it sounds like you're getting 20 decent sized dice.

Traveller: Behind the Claw .............................................. $49.99
Traveller: Naval Adventure 2 Showing the Sunburst ...... $19.99
Traveller: Reach Adventure 6: Exodus ........................... $19.99

Paizo Publishing 
Pathfinder RPG: Advanced GM Screen ................ $19.99
Pathfinder RPG: AP Extinction Curse Part 1 - Show Must God On .... ...................... $24.95
Pathfinder RPG: Bestiary Battle Cards ................  $59.99
Pathfinder RPG: Flip Mat - Casltes Multipack ......  $24.99
Pathfinder RPG: Gamemaster Guide HC ............. $49.99
Pathfinder RPG: Gamemaster Guide HC Spec Ed..... $69.99
Pathfinder RPG: Flip Mat- The Rusty Dragon Inn ...... $14.99
Pathfinder RPG: Lost Omens Gods and Magic HC ...  $34.99
Pathfinder RPG: Pawns - Bestiary Box ...................... $49.99
Starfinder RPG: AP Attack of the Swarm 6 - The God Host Ascends ....................... $22.99
Starfinder RPG: Flip Mat Dead World ........................ $14.99

Reaper Minis
More from the Bones IV Kickstarter, both in Bones Black and classic white.

Why Not Games
Rocket Age 5e ......................................................... $59.99
Rocket Age: Non Stop to Jupiter ............................. $12.99

Wizards of the Coast
D&D RPG 5e: Eberron - Rising from the Last War ...... $49.95

Wiz-Kids 
Marvel Heroclix:  Captain America and the Avengers
Booster Bricks, Fast Forces, and well and Dice and Token Packs.

Marvel Heroclix: Fantastic Four Cosmic Clash Starter Set ..... $34.99
4-D Environments: Homestead ....................................... $39.99
4-D Environments: Medieval Farmer ..............................  $39.99

(353/120)

Movember 2019 Offered Mini from Pulp Figures

Bob Murch at Pulp Figures is again supporting Movember in support of a number of causes, with the end result of men's health awareness.

For a $10 donation to Bob's Movember page (and some S&H), Bob is offering Marshall Grin Duster.

Limited quantities of previous Movember figures are still available.  E-mail Pulp Figures for details.

Five years worth of Movember figs 2013-2017

Last Year's Movember figures, Barnabus Tash

Check out the Pulp Figures Movember page for more information.