Kickstarter!

Kickstarter. You know it.  You love it.  And you hate it.  As do I.

I'll give you a run-down of my Kickstarter activity, because I know you are riveted to your seat to know what I put my money into.  It's like voting.

First off, I have a 100% success rate.  Meaning, I've not gone into a project and had it fail.  They all got successfully funded; many of them much more so. I'm not going to bore you with a list of them - oh wait, I am. But I'll try to entertain you with some colorful commentary of the cooler projects, and my take on them.

Let's try a cut and paste... frelling hell, it worked.  Yay, Blogspot! Aaaand after some HTML editing, and reversing the order... Ok, here we go...

Deadlands Noir
First ever to join... Still waiting on the printed product and some physical rewards.  This was fun because several from my game group joined as well.  This was the hook. 

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No Security: Horror Scenarios in the Great Depression
I felt this was a great kickstarter; the guy wants to release his game scenarios for free, to everyone. Backers get bonus bits. Most of these have already been written, and I even got my limited edition mini!  And the scenarios should be usable in Realms of Cthulhu!!

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Nightmare Magazine
One of Meran's.  She's getting them in her email and has been enjoying them. 

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Dwarven Adventurers Box Set
These were cool, watching the designers show the new designs and such.. The actual product was nice; I have painted a few of them.  They come in handy for my monthly HellFrost game. 

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OUYA: A New Kind of Video Game Console
This was the coolest, I thought.  An Android-based gaming console... So small I can travel with it!  Currently, they are shipping as I write this, but I haven't gotten any notification that I will get mine soon.

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Reaper Miniatures Bones: An Evolution Of Gaming Miniatures
This was a big one.. We went in balls deep on this one, getting almost all the extras / stretch goal minis. We are expecting over 300 miniatures - some not so miniature: a few of those dragons are pretty big!

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Wild Card Creator
Because I am a Savage Worlds whore, I supported this. I use Hero Lab, but I wanted to see how this guy was going to support importing PDFs of the product I already owned. He's still working on it, and I'm still using Hero Lab.

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Deadlands: Raven Graphic Novel
Again, Savage Worlds related, and a comic!  Best of both worlds.  Issue #3 (of 4) should be released soon. 

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tremulus: a storytelling game of lovecraftian horror
Because I liked Fiasco, and because I generally like everything Reality Blurs (Sean Preston) does.  This looks great, but we need to find someone to run it well to understand it better.  Currently waiting on the printed product, which should be soon according to updates.

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Cthulhu Playing Cards
This was the first deck of cards project.  I have Savage Worlds "Realms of Cthulhu" and thought this would be a great deck to use for it.  I was right. 

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Savage Outfitter - Savage Worlds Has Gone Digital
Another Savage Worlds software product.  It was cheap and comes with online tools to manage your stuff from anywhere... I actually don't have high hopes for this one - they still don't have the Character Creator done.  Hero Lab to the rescue!

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Hellfrost Land of Fire - Arabian Nights RPG Fantasy Setting
Savage Worlds Whore..  I love HellFrost, and now they have added a continent.. I guess it's like World of Warcraft (which I don't play); add a new continent, and everyone will jump to it.  We'll see. 

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Fearful Symmetries: An Anthology of Horror
Ellen is a FaceBook friend of Meran's and I met her in New York when I was there.  We like her stuff and wanted to support her.  It should be good readin'. 

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Mine Kafon
This is just cool... A tumbleweed landmine finder / detonator. We jumped in and got some lights made from the end disc bits.  Should be cool over our wet bar!

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The White Rabbit Playing Cards
Another deck.. the art is pretty cool.  Haven't received it yet, but it should be close to shipping. 

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SEED: The Untold Story, Documentary Film
Got it, and I haven't watched it, but I think Meran has. 

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Interface Zero 2.0: Full Metal Cyberpunk
Savage Worlds whore part... 4 or 5 depending if you count the card decks, because SW uses cards.. Anyhow, 1.0 was good but I never bought the book - we got the PDFs for free! 

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Dicecards: The World's Geekiest Dice Bag in a Deck of Cards
I got the 'print it yourself' option and there should be an Android app, too.  This was just interesting. 

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Achtung! Cthulhu - The WW2 Keeper's & Investigator's Guides
More source material for gaming... Realms of Cthulhu again...

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The Tomorrow Girl: Dresden Codak Volume 1
Meran wanted this one; I think it'll be pretty cool. 

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Albino Dragon's Synthesis Cyberpunk Playing Cards
Another deck of cards, to go with the Interface Zero 2.0 - even though I got the stretch goal deck of cards in that one, too... too many decks of cards? Not possible! 

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Harry Palmer: Starstruck - or "Old Proldiers Never Die"
This looks great! and Lee Moyer is coloring it.  He's a neat guy and a great artist. 

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FlashCity Stories, a Cyberpunk Flash Fiction e-Book
More Cyberpunk!  Source material for Interface Zero.  And only a dollar! 

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The Name of the Wind Playing Cards
Because we seem to be supporting all these guys' projects... We love card decks and Patrick's books, too.

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TRAKLINE: A new kind of belt for men
Pretty cool... no more holes, it's a slick (as in good design, not friction) slider grip track... if that makes sense..
There's the link; go look for yourself.

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Girl Genius Volume 12 Printing and Reprint Frenzy!
Because it is fricken' Girl Genius!

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Low Life; The Rise of the Lowly, Core Rulebook
As I said before, I am a Savage Worlds whore. I bought this book already, and he's redoing it a bit.. so I am just in it for the PDFs.

So there you have it: My Kickstarter Habit. By the way things look, I'll be doing this for a while...

Stumptown comic fest

Portland, Oregon!  Stumptown Comics fest!

Meran and I decided to go.  Mostly because Meran found out that two of the guests were two of her favorites in the comic book universe.  We went to get books signed by Phil Foglio (Girl Genius, Myth Adventures) and Bill Willingham (Elementals, Fables).  We also met quite a few new artists, new books and met some folks that we knew about, but didn't catch our eye in the original guest list.  Christopher Herndon is one of those folks - great guy, great artist and a lot of fun to chat with.

We prepared for the worst.. We've been to a few local comic / book / self-publishing shows here, but with these big names, it's gonna be crowded.. I mean not SDCC-crowded, but I made sure we padded our time to prepare to wait in lines for book signings and prioritized all the books so that if there was a limit, we knew what we were willing to forgo.

Well, seeing as how this was in Portland, OR, and not San Diego; there were virtually no lines, and no limits!

First stop was Phil Foglio (We walked past Bill's spot as he hadn't showed up yet).  In preparation for this, I had drudged up an old TPB of the Myth Adventures Volume One for Phil to sign, and dammit, he had a hardcover of volume one AND two.. So, we bought that, and a pin [awesome!], and 2 novels.. and probably something I am forgetting.. [a Girl Genius bag] All in all, Phil got a good sale and we got all our books signed.  He was fun to talk to as well.  I forgot to get a picture...

Next, we backtracked to where Bill was sitting and started chatting with him. We started pulling books out for him to sign, and he was happy to do it.  Meran had a good conversation with him [fangirl!!], while I was managing the books, plastic covers and the 'to do' and 'done' piles.  We had quite a few for him to sign.

With those two main stops done, we started walking the aisles of exhibitors.  We took way too much time with Christopher Herndon, but I think he enjoyed the time as much as we did. We found Evan Daum of webcomic Rice Boy fame; Meran almost squee'd!

That was our day.  We had fun, and got some good books signed by some good folks.

GameStorm 15

Another year of GameStorm.  It was great, as always.  I didn't get to play in a 'Call of Cthulu' game that I had signed up for, but that's okay, I left a little early on Sunday and mowed the lawn. Yeah, I know.

The headlining feature for me this year was that I ran / setup / spearheaded the first annual GameStorm Savage Saturday Night!  I became the assistant to the RPG coordinator, which wasn't really important, but it made me a staff member this year, so I got in for free.  We got 6 GM's to agree to run in the 7-11pm slot on Saturday night, and we had almost 100% full tables.  The games that were run were:

• Deadlands Noir - Pinnacle's newest setting, Deadlands set in the 1930's in New Orleans
• Ghostbusters - a homebrewed game
• Interface Zero - 1.0, but with 2.0 elements
• Hellride - the Gamestorm classic Savage Worlds recurring adventure
• Clockwork Justice League - steampunk and supers.. What??
• Agents of Oblivion - Spies and horror

Games I played this year were almost all RPG's: Doctor Who, Mistborn, Fudge (Cyberpunk setting) and board game / miniatures game: X-Wing.
Games I ran this year were both Savage Worlds: Wellstone City (Modern crime noir) and Agents Of Oblivion (Spy / horror).

Doctor Who:
Run by my 'con buddy' Aaron Bowman.  His concept was from a very early Doctor Who episode (and forgive me if I murder this, Doctor Who fans, I like the show, but not an avid fan!) where the Doctor jettisoned 25% of the TARDIS.  Aaron's game was based on what happens to 25% of infinity, where did it go, and what can happen?  We blinked around some space time, and saved Earth.

Mistborn:
Based on the books, and again, I haven't read them, so I was enjoying the game for the game.  We were on a mission to steal a silk-wrapped envelope.  Our opportunity was at a party / dancing ball that was being held.  The Mistborn system, besides having all of the magic from the books of 'burning metals' to user your powers, there was the introduction of a different resolution system using d6 dice pools.  It worked very well as a lot of our 'combat' was actually social interaction where characters were rolling for success with social graces that would be at such an event.  It was a lot of fun.
Mistborn Dice pool system:  Basically, you get a number of d6's based on your skill level and various focus skills and maybe a GM adjustment.  Roll the dice, and look for pairs, using 1 through 5 (a 6 means something else). the highest pair wins, and the difference of the pairs (in the case of vs. rolls) measures the comparative success.  A pair of 5's beats a pair of 4's, but beats a pair of 1's with a much greater level of success.  The 6's you ask?  They are 'nudges'.. Think of them as tie breakers or extra goodness, or if you lose a vs. roll, nudges can help mitigate the bad things that might happen. A pair of 4's with one nudge would beat a pair of 4's.  And no, 3 or more of a kind don't do anything, just pairs.

Fudge w/ a Cyberpunk setting:
Using the funny fudge +/- dice, we embarked on a mission to find out how a group of folks were staying in the Atral plane for hours or days on end.  It lead us to a military installation, and a very beefed up secure 'commune'.  We found a machine that would permanently put souls in the Astral plane, and stopped it from happening.  The folks stuck there? Well, they wanted immortality, and they got it.  It's the guvment's problem now.

X-Wing:
A miniatures game for the Star Wars geek in all of us.  A-wings, Y-wings, X-Wings and the Millennium Falcon vs. Boba Fett's Slave Ship and a passel of Tie fighters.  Luck was on the Rebel's side (mine!) and we didn't lose a single ship.

Wellstone City: Breaking Murphy
The newest adventure from Silver Gryphon Games, I got the map PDF free from Fabled Environments, which pretty much decided which one to run.  It's a bank heist where the characters had to go into a bank vault and get the contents of a safety deposit box, and they have to do it now.  The adventure comes with 52 (use a deck of cards, its Savage Worlds!) complications to the plot.  So if just robbing a bank isn't wild enough, now the characters had to deal with: A vault upgrade, one of the character's mother is in the lobby doing bank business of some sort, a cop car pulls around on routine patrol (although the characters might not know that!) and a errant cigarette starts a fire.  I forgot to initiate the fire, but all the other twists threw some wrenches in the works.  It was a fun game.

Agents of Oblivion: Cats Eye
Agents have to locate and figure out what happened to a crew of scientists that were in an old Vietnam War era bio-tech lab.  The lab was trying to produce soldiers with night vision using cat's, and the experiment went wrong.  Very wrong.

Glossary:
Con Buddy: someone I am friends with, but they don't live near me, so we only see each other at Con's.

Big Groo

During our monthly comic visit to Excalibur comics in Portland, OR - I was walking past a big box, and on the outside it had the words "Groo the Wanderer" on it.  Groo (and Sergio Aragones) is one of my all-time favorites.  I was intrigued and started pawing at the box.  Debbie, the shop owner, was busy but saw me messing with it.  She told me to be patient.  I was still pawing at it, looking to see if it was sealed or whatever.  She came over and opened up the box (which I made sure to keep) to show us the contents.

This is a book printed in the same size as the original art; there are several of these from different artists, and there will be more. Look for an 'Artist's Edition' if you really like a comic or an artist.  I am amazed at the book, and am glad to have gotten it.  I posted pictures so you can see how big it is!

Other IDW Artist Editions

Still in the box, but that thing is huge!

Sample page.

Hellfrost - The Siege of Watchgap Fort

The adventures of an unlikely band of comrades, as observed by Urto Valja
Check out other related posts: Characters | The Bad Seed

We spend a few days in a nice inn named "The Suckling Deer". After a few days there, we're approached by a caravan leader who wants to hire us for protection; he offers to pay 100 gold. Each. We're going in a similar direction and so this is a good way to get there. In the morning, the caravan has a new addition - a wagon of dwarves and their goods. They are not too friendly nor interested in protecting the caravan as a whole. We travel for a few uneventful days, during which we try to increase better communication with the dwarves.

After a week of almost pure boredom, we reach the area near the Drakewood forest, where we find that two trees have fallen across the road, blocking our passage. A huge mob of goblins and wolves come swarming out of the forest, with some of the goblins riding the bigger wolves. Their attack is focused on the wagons, which allows us some flanking opportunities. The battle ends with a lot of dead Goblins, dead wolves and our only casualty, one dead mule. Many goblins escaped, probably to report elsewhere. Spoils of goblin armor, arms, and supplies are added to our own; the Caravan leader allowing us the spoils for our own profit. We've managed to impress the dwarves with our combat capability, and they seem to be a little more friendly.

One of the wagon mules died in the attack, so I offer my horse in its place, and we continue on. Two days later, we arrive at a townstead where we can get another mule, and sell some of the Goblin's goods.

After another two days of travel, we run across a band of Hearth Knights on a routine patrol. We exchange information, and they are surprised about the Goblin attack, at least at the numbers we describe. The Dwarf leader requests some private time with the Hearth Knight leader for some business dealings. The Hearth Knights and our caravan part ways, with the Hearth Knights expecting our return. By this time, meals are with the Dwarves and are more friendly as time goes by.

The following day we reach a small homestead that is owned by the Caravan master's personal friend. He wants to stay here for a day or so. The Dwarves are invited to stay as well. The introductions are very personal and detailed, taking a great amount of time. A feast was in preparation for our arrival and is going to be held that night. There is a great deal of story swapping about the area, the Goblins, the stead and the Dwarves. I entertain a great many folk with minor magical tricks, mostly flipping skirts up and blowing items around.

The night goes long, and the morning arrives early - with a group of Goblins attacking the stead! There is a Shaman and a heavy-hitting Ogre among them. I focus on the Shaman while Magna makes short work of the Ogre. The battle is pretty much over with by the time our host is up, armored and in the field. The stead prepares for a typical day while we get some more rest. We spend our day making repairs, performing maintenance tasks, gathering herbs and conversing with the Dwarves. We plan on leaving early tomorrow morning for our next destination - Watchgap Fort, only two more days away.

On the way to Watchgap Fort, we find a recently killed Hearth Knight, hidden just off of the road. We collect the body and all nearby items, and carry his body with us to the Fort.

We reach Watchgap Fort and report the goblin attack at the stead. The leaders want as much information as we can give them. The talk of goblins goes long into the night.

In the morning, the Knights bring breakfast and we trade our excess weapons and armor. We say our farewells and begin travel to our next destination, another homestead about a week away.

On the second day we find a goblin camp and the corpse of a young girl. A search of the camp reveals little more about their activities. We bury the girl and continue on our trip. The terrain is starting to turn into hills, slowing our progress slightly. The next day gives us two route options; we decide on a less hilly route that takes us through a canyon. This turns out to be a poor choice, which becomes obvious when rocks start dropping on us from above; we look up and see a few ogres. The caravan speeds up as a few of us break away to attack the ogres and protect the caravan. We kill a few of them and find out that the remaining ogre is the mama, and she snaps, going beserk on us, with Polaris being the closest target. I manage to pop off some quick lightning bolts before Polaris takes a hit. We investigate the ogre's lair to find some human remains of what looks to be two "Sisters of Mercy". We take what loot can be had, bury the remains that we can and rush back to the caravan.

The next day is quiet and uneventful, a nice respite from the ogre attack. The homestead is one more day away and we are all looking forward to a bath, home cooking and perhaps a bed.

We see smoke. And a lot of it. I break away and ride faster to the homestead to see if there is a need for help. We find the homesteaders burning a funeral pyre, a very large funeral pyre. Returning to Ulfwald and the caraven, I report there is not any immediate threat, but there is urgent need for healing and some minor aid. Snowfoot and I ride ahead to help where we can, with Snowfoot doing most of the work. When the rest of the caravan reaches the stead, introductions are made and we get the details of what happened. Goblins had attacked and had started killing people. Some homesteaders were actually taken, which is rare for goblin raids. We borrow a few horses and go hunting goblins in hopes of rescuing at least a few kidnapped homesteaders.

A few hours away, we find an abandoned keep which has a lot of goblin, orc and other tracks around it. This is an active area, so we dismount and continue on foot to be a little more stealthy. We sight some lookouts high up in towers. I cast a Guiding Wind on our archers, and we kill the two goblin lookouts which provides us the opportunity to sneak closer to the keep. Slowly making our way into the keep, we split into two forces, one to be a diversion outside, and one to be a strike force within. The diversion team signals an attack and a half dozen goblins storm out of the barracks and into our ambush. We search the courtyard and the other areas to seek out any remaining foes and kill them.

Going into the main keep, we sneak around and find a throne room. The room is dominated by a large throne of ice, with a big ugly orc sitting on the throne, and two orc guards beside him. We get the element of surprise and it is a quick fight ending with two dead orc guards and a hogtied orc leader. Our attempts to question him are thwarted when he suddenly teleports away. Searching deeper into the building, we find a goblin shaman with two goblin guards which we easily overpower. Continuing through the keep, slaughtering the occasional goblin or orc while searching for any captives or other survivors. We finally find what we are looking for: thirteen human prisoners, all on the verge of starvation and in generally poor condition. The extreme cold of the area is not helping them, so we move them to a kitchen we found that was warm from the food cooking in it. We make this our first aid area where we apply healing, medical help and sustenance. Snowfoot stays behind to oversee the rescued humans while we continue our search of the keep. We finally locate a small room with maps and charts and quite a few papers, all written in a language none of us can read, probably orc or giant. We start collecting any salvageable goods we might profit from: weapons, ice wood, wine, beer, and other equipment. A few of the items we’ve captured have magical properties to them. One particular item is a mirror that is made of ice; it has properties that will classify it as a relic, which interests Polaris greatly.

We spend the night in the keep watching over the rescued humans, and prepare for an early morning departure. With the wagons, goods and everyone we rescued, we go on to Watchgap Fort.

At the fort, we discuss our raid and show the leaders the papers we found in the keep. We also send everyone we recovered from the keep to their respective homes, and send a message to Ulfwald that we are at Watchgap Fort. The Hearth Knights offer us hospitality, which we accept. During dinner, the dwarves from the caravan arrive, and we share another meal with them. We talk of the keep raid, the prisoners we found, and there was much camaraderie shared for the killing of orcs and goblins.

Near the end of dinner a horn starts blaring; it’s a warning that the fort is under attack. Everyone rushes to the courtyard to see what is coming. Looking beyond the walls of the fort, we see a huge host of goblins surrounding the fort, and camped for an impending attack. We have little time to prepare, but we do what we can, and positions are assigned. We get to protect the West wall and our dwarf friends are manning the East wall. Goblins start the attack with archers covering the assault force. We retaliate with our own ranged attacks: spells and arrows. My spells backfire on me once, and I suffer a wound, all while goblins swarm the wall. Quite a few goblins manage to make it over the wall but our Hearth Knight companions back us up and slay the few straggling enemies. The first wave was repelled with no casualties on our side. This looks to be the first of quite a few planned attacks; we are officially under siege.

A few hours later, a second wave of goblins storm in with the aid of an ogre, breaching the West wall. While most of us focus on the fort interior, Snowfoot uses the power of his wolf magic to keep the gate safe. Another wave is eventually defeated, and we repair the breaches as quickly as we can; it’s not good, but it’s better than leaving the holes open.

The third attack force is focusing on the gate. A tortoise shell maneuver protects some troops as they hammer on the gate. We fail to neutralize the threat in time and the gate crashes in and another ogre forces his way into Fort Watchgap. He wreaks havoc on the inside, killing several defending Hearth Knights. The dwarves leave their post on the East wall and surround the ogre, taking him down quickly and efficiently. The rest of the goblins hold ranks for a little while before breaking and retreating.

A little while later, a catapult attack begins. A few shots later we realize that the ammunition is body parts: heads of humans, goblins and the occasional ogre. This is very disturbing to a lot of the fort defenders, and our task is now to calm down the forces inside, as there are going to be more attacks soon.

We are called to a meeting to discuss the problematic catapults. The decision is made to assemble a strike force to attack the catapults. We get some aid from the fort herbalists with a compound to mask our heat signatures from the orc and goblin infravision. Our force strikes at night, infiltrating the engineering camp. Goblins fall to our surprise attack, and we keep our advantage. We find the orcish engineers and kill them as well as their ogre guards. We return to the fort victorious. With our successful mission, Leotrek is promoted to commander of the archers. The rest of us stay on the walls with some reinforcements from the Hearth Knights.

Waves of attacks start coming in. Goblins, orc beserkers, and ogres all throw themselves at the walls, most of them repelled. During the battle, everyone is taking a beating, forcing us back into the fort tower. During our retreat, the dwarven commander, Hauld-Ousri, falls due to his wounds. We and his comrades gather around him for what seems like his last few words. He calls our group friends of the dwarves, and gives us a dwarven phrase that will tell other frost dwarves our status whenever we meet them.

The first order of business is to retake the courtyard. We sight the orc commander, resplendent in full plate. It is easy to make a concentrated attack to remove him from leadership, permanently. Their leader dead, the goblins lose interest in the siege and flee from the fort.

The host doesn’t dissipate, and we start preparing for another attack, hopefully the last. We spot goblins, goblin wolfriders, orcs and ogres. Backing them up is a goblin shaman. I pick him out as my personal target: time for some magic vs. magic. The Hearth Knights form a wedge formation and start into the field. I skirt to the outside with some the remaining dwarves as my guards. We traverse the battlefield, making our way to the shaman. When I get within range, I fire off a few spells, and he drops very quickly. Magna, Polaris and Runolf are ogre slaying while Snowfoot is influencing the wolves out from under their riders. Leotrek and his archers are pounding the goblin hordes. On the high point of the attack, the thundering sound of horses echo across the valley. An entire host of Hearth Knight cavalry is charging in. The invading host realizes their time has come and flees, every goblin for himself.

And that is the story of the Siege of Watchgap Fort, as it is sung by skalds across Rassalon.