Erseta Campaign #13

Glad to finally be back in the ruins of the dwarven city of Glitterdark, the party decided to explore in a direction they had hitherto avoided. This led them pretty directly into a very large chamber with a number of goblins. While the majority of the goblins were forming ranks, two of them were turning a pair of ballistas to face the intruders. Curiously, the ballistas were facing north originally, protecting a northern passage which had also been barricaded.

While the player characters proceeded to make short work of the 8 or so goblins in the ballista chamber, they also noted that a larger group of goblins was quickly assembling in an adjacent and even larger chamber with some sort of lower gallery accessible by a ramp. Many more goblins-- numbering in the dozens-- and at least several wolves were marshaling, and horns were being sounded, perhaps signalling that more goblins (or something else!) were being called to arms.

Both sides issued demands to the other to surrender, but neither was likely to acquiesce. While oil was prepared and the ballistas were rotated to fire into the mass of goblins, the party started to hear sounds of answering horns coming from the southern passage they had themselves come from. Sensing that they were about to be cut off, they decided to retreat, setting the oil aflame and firing flaming ballista bolts as they set fire to the engines just before setting them off (so the goblins would not have use of them later). The goblins answered with a volley of spears which caught the illusionist and the bard, but the party retreated to the gatehouse facing outside on the mountainside. The goblins, it seemed, had no stomach for following the intruders outside of the dwarven city, or perhaps hadn't been able to follow them at all in their headlong flight.

The gnome thief was sent back inside to determine what was going on in the passages. He only got as far as the large circular chamber with the magical gate leading to the town of Ritterheim (and presumably other places as well), where he could see a large number of goblins bustling to and fro in the passages beyond. Clearly, the party had stirred up the hornets' nest.

Wanting to give the goblins some time to lessen their activity, the party decided to journey to the nearby smithy of Klegg Ironbeard, who had previously provided them with the key used to activate the magical portal back to Ritterheim. He was still there, madly pounding away at something on his anvil, and as finally coaxed into answering a few questions. He's one of my favorite NPCs to do, a very haunted person driven mad by guilt (or so the assumption goes; he has a tendency to be rather non-committal in some of his answers). They got a little more information, picked up some of his works bearing his maker's mark, and returned to Glitterdark.

A brief debate ensued as to whether they should re-enter the city, or simply go into the room of magical gates and use their key to return to Ritterheim. Again the gnome thief was sent in to reconnoiter, and, having determined that the frenzied activity of before had calmed down somewhat, the party entered the gate and returned to the city, there to possibly track down the magical lantern that would activate the magical gate that led back to Glitterdark.

Another good, solid session I thought. A large tactical situation to be dealt with, followed by some stealthy recon and role-play with a key NPC. And of course the group makes the game fun in and of itself.

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Armies of Erseta: The Tamarian Army Takes the Field

Here at long last is the complete Tamarian army for my campaign, built as a starter army using the Field of Glory rules (using "Feudal French" as the basis for the army, and the whole thing can double for that when doing historical minis). It took a lot of work, and I don't consider myself a particularly good painter, but done is done, and any painted mini on the table is better than an unpainted one, so the saying goes. For all picks, as usual, click to embiggen.

 The whole army is arrayed. Javelins in front, crossbows on either flank (mounted on the left flank, foot on the right), the three commanders in the center, three groups of mounted knights behind them, two groups of spearmen, and a group of light archers behind the mounted crossbowmen.

 Close-up of the right flank...

 ...the center, featuring the commanders and standard bearers, all bearing the livery of Tamaria (the number of dots on the banners will allow them to be differentiated in a game, if needed)...

 ...and the left flank.

And here's what they're stored and can travel in. I bought a 5-drawer rolling cabinet from Staples, put some magnetic tape down in strips (you can see some of it off to the left in the photo above) because my FoG army has steel bases. They don't shift an iota when the thing moves, and the whole army (plus some of the demi-human auxiliaries I've also been painting) fits in a single drawer. I'll be moving my Ogre miniatures into the thing as well; just need to get the foam inserts put in for them, because they lack the metal bases and thus the magnetic strips won't work.

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Armies of Erseta: Last of the Tamarian Knights

Only the commanders to go and then the army is done, baby, done!

I stretched out with a few new colors for the knights (those two dapper chaps in the orange livery, plus some new blues and such). Once I get the commanders done, I'll have a complete starter army (either Kingdom of Tamaria for my own campaign, or Feudal French for historical minis, even if the paint job is a little ahistorical).

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Fighting Schools of Chevis

I don't really have any problem with having special powers, actions, moves, etc. in a game. What I object to is when they become just things that a player can buy off a list without any sort of investment, and with no real in-game justification beyond "I want my character to be able to do cool move X".

The skill system in Adventures Dark and Deep (based on that developed by Gary Gygax for Castles and Crusades, published under the OGL) allows for the development of such cool moves by a game master, and I thought the following example from my own Erseta campaign might be a good illustration of the concept. Basically, one spends experience points in order to get a level in the skill, and further study gets one additional levels in the skill.

The x.p. cost is given below, and is multiplied by the skill level being sought. If the character's highest attribute is the one given first in the "base x.p. cost" line, he can use that cost. If not, he uses the "all others" cost. Ties count, so if your fighter has a 16 STR and 16 DEX, he can buy the "My Blade is a Reed" skill for 4,000 x.p. If that same character had a 17 STR and 16 DEX, he would need to spend 6,000 x.p. per skill level.

Using the skill requires a successful roll on a d20 against the relevant attribute, with bonuses if you have more than one skill level (-2 per level). Easy peasy. In my campaign, certain skills are only available if one's character takes the time to actually seek out those who can teach them, and spends the money, time, and experience points to gain the skill. Not so easy, sometimes, because there's no guarantee that a teacher will take any jackanapes that walks through his door with a bag of gold!

The city-state of Chevis prides itself on its fighting schools. Lords, princes, and kings send their scions to such schools to be trained in the deadly fighting arts that they teach, and regular knights and warriors dream of one day amassing sufficient wealth to study there. Other cities have such schools of course, but those of Chevis are regarded as the best of the best (albeit usually not by the masters and students of other schools in other cities!), and each is noted for a particular style of fighting. Note that these skills can be learned by characters of any class, not only fighters and cavaliers. Here are three prominent fighting skills taught by some of the preeminent schools of the city. Needless to say, the competition between the fighting schools of Chevis is intense indeed; the right to be called "the best of the best" is jealously guarded.

My Blade is a Reed

Base x.p. cost: 4,000 (dexterity), 6,000 (all others)
Make skill checks against: dexterity
Specialities: n/a

This skill emphasizes the art of parrying with a sword blade, in order to draw a strong enemy in and gain advantage thereby. It can only be used if the character is wielding a sword of some sort other than a two-handed sword. At the beginning of each round, a character with this skill can declare that they are employing this style. If the DEX check is successful, anyone fighting the character with a weapon (of any type) will receive a penalty equal to twice his STR bonus "to hit". Thus, someone with a STR of 17 would actually get a -1 penalty "to hit" rather than the +1 he would normally receive. Additional skill levels will add an additional penalty of -1 per skill level to the enemy's roll. There is no penalty if the character attempting to use the skill fails his DEX check; he can still attempt to use the skill on subsequent rounds.

This style of fighting is taught by the Torontoro School of Chevis. The current Maestro of the school is Schivano Trithi (F13). He holds himself as an impeccable judge of character, and refuses entry to his school to anyone he perceives as being unworthy. Several princes of the blood from around Dornia have earned his disdain, and been refused admission. On the other hand, he has been known to take in students free of charge whom he believes "show promise". Learning each level of this skill will require 6 weeks of training per skill level, and cost 2,000 g.p. per week, unless Maestro Trithi deems otherwise.The colors of the school are red and white.

The Bulette

Base x.p. cost: 3,000 (strength), 5,000 (all others)
Make skill checks against: strength
Specialties: n/a

This skill emphasizes the channeling of physical strength in order to overcome the defenses of others. It can be used by a character wielding any sort of weapon. It can be used by a character wielding any sort of weapon. At the beginning of each round, a character with this skill can declare that they are employing this style. If the STR check is successful, any "to hit" bonus the character would ordinarily gain from his STR score is increased by 1. Further levels of this skill will increase the bonus by an additional +1. This skill will not work unless the character in question already has a "to hit" bonus due to strength.

This style of fighting is taught by the Morfino School of Chevis. The current Maestro of the school is Tormano Nosca (F15). Entry to the school requires that potential students impress Maestro Nosca in a contest of grappling. His strength score of 18/13 makes this a relatively high bar to pass. This skill requires 5 weeks to learn, costing 1,750 g.p. per week per skill level. The colors of the school are purple and black.

The Death of a Thousand Cuts

Base x.p. cost: 4,000 (dexterity), 5,500 (all others)
Make skill checks against: dexterity or strength
Specialties: n/a

This skill teaches the art of wearing down an opponent by eschewing opportunities to deal killing blows in favor of inflicting a flurry of smaller, minor wounds that end up laying one's opponent low. It can be used by a character wielding any sort of edged or pointed weapon. At the beginning of each round, a character with this skill can declare that they are employing this style. If the skill check is successful, the character gets twice as many attacks as he normally would in the round, but each is made with a damage penalty of -3. It cannot be used in conjunction with weapon specialization.

This style of fighting is taught by the Chorvosa School of Chevis. The current Maestro of the school is Giovano Hech (F13). In the last few years, the school has fallen on hard times financially, and Maestro Hech has opened up the doors of the school to any who have the tuition (he is unaware that it is Maestro Nosca of the Morfino School who has subtly manipulated Hech's investments over the last year or so). This skill requires 8 weeks to learn per skill level, costing 1,500 g.p. per week. The colors of the school are red and black.

NOTE: In the World of Greyhawk Fantasy Setting circa 576 CY (or later), these schools could be said to exist in any major metropolitan locale such as Rel Mord, Rel Astra, or Zelradton.

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Erseta Campaign #12

Several (real-world) weeks of being cooped up in Ritterheim, making glacial progress towards retrieving the magic lantern that would reactivate the portal to the ruins of the dwarven city of Glitterdark, got the players more than a little antsy. So, rather than move methodically towards finding the lantern, they decided to cash in what loot hadn't been yet traded in, paid for an identify spell to be (finally) cast upon the magic dagger they retrieved in the tower of the savant, and set forth for an overland journey.

They invested in a fair map of the barony of Rittergeist, so they had a pretty good idea of which way to travel. Most of the journey was overland on fairly good roads through settled farmland, so aside from fellow travelers, merchants, farmers, and the like, there was little of interest as they made their way to Treven, the jumping off point into the forest that leads, eventually, to Glitterdark.

They picked up the same forest trail that they had earlier, but this time were fairly prepared for the section of evil forest through which it led. At the first fork in the trail, they had turned right the last time, ending up out of the forest entirely and confronted by hostile Vanarian border guards. This time they took the left fork, which they calculated would lead them on a more direct route towards their goal.

They were first confronted by a swarm of giant wasps, and although no one was slain before the wasps were driven off, one of their number was brought to 0 hit points, paralyzed by venom, and barely escaped being injected with eggs. One thing I'm noticing is that putting in tougher opponents works very well when the rules for morale checks are used. Rather than fighting to the death, once the wasps were given a bloody nose and half of them were blinded by one of the illusionist's spells, they decided they had had enough and fled. The party was still bloodied from the encounter, though, and healing from the clerics was dealt out.

Unfortunately, as they continued along the trail, the party began to be shadowed by large black squirrels in the trees with evil red eyes. This understandably unnerved them, and they decided to press on into the night before camping, hoping to lose the squirrels. Around midnight, though, they came upon a creek with a troll on the other side. Kurbag, as he introduced himself, was collecting a toll so that he could afford to have a proper bridge built over the creek, under which he could live. Still weakened from their encounter with the wasps and not eager to fight a troll in the middle of the night, the party decided that 50 g.p. was a small price to pay to cross the stream without incident. The squirrels seemed to have lost interest in them and they camped a ways away from Kurbag's crossing.

The next day they avoided a large carcass of some animal on the path that was swarming with giant ants (they happened to choose the direction to avoid the ants that did not lead towards the ant's nest, thus neatly avoiding a potentially painful encounter). They later came across a stone arch near the path, well constructed but quite ancient, that bore a faint inscription in dwarvish: "King Drogo of Glitterdark slew the ogre champion Nurakug the Horrible on this spot, and drank ale from his skull." Lamenting that he had no ale to drink in honor of the long-ago king, the dwarven cleric paused to pull down some of the vines obscuring the arch, and the party continued on.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. They finally emerged from the region of forest with the evil aspect, and ended the session at the foot of Mt. Arak, ready to once again descend into the ruined dwarven city.

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Erseta Campaign #11

We had a much more focused session this evening, due in large part to two new players (one the wife of one of our regulars, the other an old friend of two others, so nobody was a new newt dropped in the fishtank). This was a "caper" evening, where the players were presented with a problem that seemed pretty simple on the surface, but spent three hours planning how to pull it off.

First off was a little more intelligence gathering about "The Cleavers" and their leader Osterbeck. Since the party had learned last time that the magical lantern needed to reactivate the gate back to the ruined dwarven city of Glitterdark was in their possession, they decided to ask their shadiest contact in the city about them. Said contact, Thrivin Mossberg, a halfling fence, provided them with a little more information than they had; the Cleavers were a pretty low-rent band of thugs who mostly worked the area near the docks, but not exclusively. He didn't think too much of the Cleavers, apparently. He did, however, offhandedly ask if the group was open to another job-- several sessions ago they agreed to bring in some merchandise from the docks without it being inspected by the sheriffs for tax purposes.

At first they didn't bite, and that was fine with me (from a GM point of view). But then somehow they decided that the job might lead them closer to the Cleavers, and accepted. The job turned out to be bringing in two wagon loads of fruit into the city for a "secret society" in time for something happening on the Full Moon in 6 days. The catch? The fruit was a "surprise" and nobody could know that it was being brought in.

After being assured that the fruit was legal, and merely "a surprise", they set about their task, and this was where my fun began.

Was it really fruit? Was that just some euphemism for something else? They went to the farmhouse a couple miles out of town where the wagons were being kept and, yep, it's fruit. Bushels and bushels of some rare fruit nobody'd ever seen before. What was it for? The farmer's wife had no idea, but pointed out that the Feast of Deliverance, which commemorated the end of the Drowning Death in the town of Ritterheim, was going to be celebrated on the same day as the Full Moon. When this information was relayed to the party, you could just see the wheels turning. Why? What was this secret society going to do with rare fruit? The Cleavers were long forgotten.

Then came the planning of the caper. For three and a half solid hours, they argued and planned and plotted and schemed and came up with idea after idea. Our usual asides into movies, other games, and shiny things catching our attention were minimized as everyone focused on the problem of how to get two wagons full of fruit through a guarded gate and past the watchful eye of a tax-collecting sheriff. They'd use barrels, no, illusions, no, cover the wagons in straw, no too obvious, cover the fruit in dung, no, that would squish the fruit, maybe cover it in tarps and then cover those in dung, no the fruit would still get squished, maybe pack it in barrels and cover them in dung, no, fill them with fish, no, take out empty barrels, no, that would be suspicious, hire a third wagon and take it out to the farm to fill it up with fruit, no, that would attract attention, so go out one gate and return through another, no, there was no road connecting them outside the town... round and round they went. It was glorious.

They eventually settled on a scheme involving a facade of a third wagon, empty barrels, tarps covering the actual fruit, and the illusionist using his mirage cantrip three times to fool the sheriff into thinking the fruit was just empty barrels. While the two clerics staged a diversion at the gate involving a fascinate spell, because no plan would be complete without a clerical diversion. All the planning paid off, for they thought it through to the point where no obvious roadblocks stood in their way, got the wagons through the gate and to the home of the secret society. Which was known as The Shockers and whose headquarters was decorated with black and yellow bunting. The fruit was delivered to several men wearing masks and dressed in black and yellow motley (surely this had to be the most conspicuous "secret society" ever seen), the PCs got their pay from their halfling employer, and all was right with the world. At least until the mystery of the Shockers and their "secret fruit" is revealed...

What really excited me about this session was it was all role-playing. The players might be feeling a little frustration that there haven't been any goblins to hack through lately, but this time it was because the game just went in a different direction, not because we were distracted by other non-game-related things. And their forethought and planning paid off. The caper went off without a hitch.

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Armies of Erseta: Spearmen and Crossbowmen

We're coming down to the home stretch in terms of the Tamarian starter army! This time up we have a battlegroup of feudal spearmen and a battlegroup of crossbowmen (foot, this time, rather than mounted). First we have a second BG of spearmen:

And here they are side by side with the first BG of spearmen that were painted to kick off the whole Field of Glory armies project in the first place. I can't wait to see the whole army arrayed!

Here's the battlegroup of crossbowmen. Since these are medium infantry, I'm mounting them 3 per base; fortunately they came from Old Glory 15s in such numbers that I could have based 4 per base if I chose; that leaves me with a few spare bases' worth.

In the home stretch-- one more BG of knights, a few commanders, and I'm done!

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Armies of Erseta: Dwarven Handgunners

Just wanted to quickly dash this one off; these guys were a bit difficult to paint, with all the bags and the poses they had. (Again, I'm going with not painting the demi-humans in any of the national colors, since they serve as auxiliaries and semi-independent vassals in armies across the continent.) But painted is painted, and I'm on to more spearmen, or maybe the crossbowmen, tomorrow. If I'm lucky, I'll have the whole Tamarian basic army completed before I return to work next week!

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Armies of Erseta: Knights and Halflings

One of the great things about the holidays is, well, that you don't have to work. And what does one do when one isn't working? Paint! (Well, that and write and write and write...)

This time I got through two battlegroups for my Field of Glory figures for my Erseta campaign. First up is a BG of halfling slingers (in FoG-speak: Superior, Unprotected, Undrilled, Light foot - Sling), which will be useable as auxiliaries in just about any army that takes the field. For these, I didn't go with any particular national color scheme, but a mix of earth tones for all of them. These figures come from the Essex 15mm fantasy line, and are a smidgen taller than they should be, but hell... that makes them easier to paint.

Next was another BG of knights, still going through the three that came with the Feudal French Starter Army I got from Old Glory 15s, which is serving as the bulk of my Tamarian army.

Next up I've got some dwarven handgunners primed, and am off to prime some crossbowmen and some cannons (yes, mine is a gunpowder campaign). Hopefully this will be a productive week painting-wise!

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On Human Sacrifice

Over at the BRW Games™ website, I've started a new blog called "From the Designer's Desk" that's going to focus solely on stuff that is or will be published, including Adventures Dark and Deep™, the World of Erseta Fantasy Setting™, etc. Please feel free to add it to your blogrolls, and enjoy the opening salvo, which gives an optional rule for human sacrifice...

http://www.brwgames.com/blog/

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Erseta Campaign #9 - 10

Not the second session we've played by a long shot, but my second post. I'm getting better about posting more regularly!

The players have been concentrating on how to get back to the lost dwarven city of Glitterdark. Having finally found the place via a lengthy overland journey, they zipped to the town of Ritterheim through a magical gate found therein only to discover the trip was one-way.

The party decided to have their gnome thief give the alley where the gate deposited them a thorough investigation. In order to avoid discovery, the two clerics engaged in a loud and spirited discussion of theological matters on the cross-street nearby, hoping to divert any attention from the tiny pilferer as he made a thorough study of the walls where the incoming gate had led. Unfortunately, there was nothing at all to be found; no keyholes, secret doors, or the like.

At the same time, investigation by the party's illusionist in the town led to the knowledge that the section of town in which they alley was found was one of the oldest in the town (Glitterdark having been sealed up against the Drowning Death plague 150 years before), and that there was a certain importer of ales, owned by a family of dwarves, on that self-same alley that had been there for several centuries. The bard also uncovered a reference to the "Short Road" that could have some bearing on the means of travel to and from Glitterdark.

Regrouped, the party then called upon the importer of ale, one Korved Ironbeard, a thoroughly dislikable dwarf who was clearly more interested in his ledgers (including one, apparently, where he keeps track of what other people are saying about him) than in recovering the glorious past of Glitterdark. Quite a long session of back-and-forth between the various members of the party and Korved took place, and eventually they gleaned that the means to activate the gate back to Glitterdark was not a key, but rather a magical lantern. Said lantern was no longer in the possession of the importer of ale, but rather was now held by someone named Osterbeck, leader of "The Cleavers". With these key pieces of knowledge gained, the session ended with a solid foundation for next time.

This session took place the Friday before Christmas, and several of the players organized a pot luck beforehand. It was blast, we got to meet one of the wives of the players we hadn't before (who played in the session afterwards, as a matter of fact), and there was much fun to be had before the game as well as during it. And as for my contribution...

Dijon Chicken

2 lbs. boneless chicken breast, cut into 1-2" pieces
2 lbs. red potatoes, cut into 1-2" pieces
mayonnaise
dijon mustard
dill
crushed garlic

Put the potatoes and chicken into a ziplock bag with 4 heaping tablespoons of mayonnaise, 2 tablespoons of mustard, a tablespoon of dill, and a tablespoon of garlic. (You will probably have to split the potatoes and chicken into two portions, depending on the size of the ziplock you're using). Thoroughly mix the ingredients in the bag until the chicken and potatoes are thoroughly coated, then pour into a 9x11 baking dish. Cook at 400 degrees for 45 minutes, stirring halfway through.Check the potatoes for doneness before removing; they should be fork-tender and the coating should be a golden brown.

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Dwarven Heraldry

Heraldry as practiced in courts and kingdoms of humankind features three basic types of tincture; metal, color, and fur. Of metals there are only two; argent (silver/white) and Or (gold/yellow). The basic rule (although there are exceptions known as "arms of enquiry") is that metals should never be placed upon metals in a coat of arms, and colors never be placed upon colors, thus almost all human arms contain either white or yellow.

"Bronze"

In dwarven heraldry, on the other hand, these rules and tinctures are quite different. Whereas human heraldry has only two metals, dwarven heraldry has platinum, electrum, silver, gold, copper, bronze, iron, and tin. "Bronze" in this case is a fine diamond-checkered pattern of copper and tin, whereas "electrum" is a similar pattern of silver and gold; they can thus be seen as analogous to the human furs, although dwarven heralds will vehemently resist such comparisons and strenuously defend their classification as metals. Metals are rendered in metallic paints (which are in some cases more expensive than the metals themselves) or in the actual metals.

"Electrum"

Dwarven heraldry lacks colors, having gemstones instead; topaz, diamond, sapphire, ruby, amethyst, and emerald. These are, however, generally rendered as yellow, white, blue, red, purple, and green, respectively. Some spectacular renderings of dwarven heraldry will contain the actual gemstones, but these are almost invariably only used for decorative or ritual purposes.

There are no general rules about mixing colors and metals, although there are rules about specific combinations of tinctures; topaz should never be placed atop gold (and vice versa), diamond and platinum should not be mixed, nor should platinum and silver.

Ordinaries, divisions, creatures, and objects are generally the same in both human and dwarven heraldry, although the terms are, naturally, translated into dwarvish. Nautical creatures and objects (anchors, fish, etc.) are never seen on dwarven heraldry, but objects like anvils, hammers, axes, and mine carts abound.

Finally, the standard shape for dwarven arms is the round shield (as opposed to other types common in human heraldry such as the escutcheon or lozenge).

Humans often have difficulty distinguishing between some of the tinctures used in dwarven heraldry; platinum and silver, for example. Dwarven heralds scoff at such complaints, however, pointing out that dwarven heraldic devices were originally designed to appeal to refined dwarven sensibilities and not the eyes of a race that "can't tell pyrite from gold."

(Thanks to Inkwell Ideas' excellent Coat of Arms Visual Designer, which was used to create most of the images above, with modifications to shield shape made in GIMP.)

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Armies of Erseta: Tamarian Javelins

I had a day off from work, but didn't have the whole day to paint, as I spent my morning finishing up our Christmas shopping. I did, however, manage to belt out a BG of Tamarian javelin-men (light foot) in the time it took to watch two episodes of "The Wild, Wild West" on DVD, so a shade under 2 hours. These guys actually come from the Esquerdalloc region in the southern tip of the country.

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Armies of Erseta: Dwarven Axemen

Well, I did say last time I'd have a "little" something different. ;-)

5 hours or so elapsed, and I have labored to produce a complete battle group of dwarven axemen. Obviously, since Field of Glory isn't a fantasy game (yet... they are talking about a fantasy supplement, but nothing has been announced, let alone released), this is a bit of a kluge, but I see these gents as heavy foot, average, drilled, armored, heavy weapon. That puts them at 10 points per base, or 60 for the whole BG (for comparison, I'm shooting for around 600 points for starter armies, and knights clock in at around 23 points per base). Since there's nothing overtly magical about them, dwarves such as this will fit nicely into the standard FoG system.

In my Erseta campaign, there are no independent demi-human realms. Rather, all are vassals of one of the various human rulers (even though they might style themselves as kings or princes, and have various levels of autonomy), and thus it is possible to find demi-human troops of various types augmenting the armies of the various kingdoms. Some rely more heavily on such troops than others, but they're relatively common on the battlefields of Dornia (Dornia being one of the several continents on the world of Erseta).

These figures are from Ral Partha, from their Advanced Dungeons and Dragons line (these particular ones are Dwarf Axemen; I've got Dwarf Regulars that I'm going to be using as medium foot at some point; I figured it made sense that the heavy troops would be wielding axes).

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Armies of Erseta: Tamarian Archers

Another day, another FoG battlegroup. This time a group of archers, once more in the purple and white livery of the kingdom of Tamaria. The archers are classified as light infantry, which is why they're only two per base. Elapsed time, 2.5 hours.

Next up, a little something different...

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Armies of Erseta: Knights of Tamaria

Another six hours well spent this afternoon-- a battlegroup of the mounted chivalry of Tamaria. For these figures I went with a different painting scheme than my previous two efforts.

Rather than having them all wear the livery of Tamaria itself, the knights are decorated in their individual coats of arms, and their horses are painted to match.

Those with penants mounted on their lances have those done in the purple of Tamaria, with a few white highlights to designate unit battle standards.

I really like the effect of all the different colors, and the chrome-shiny chainmail looks great.

Again, I don't count myself as even a good miniature painter, but they'll do the job. These figures come from Old Glory 15s. As always, I highly recommend them.

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The Value of Multi-Modal Gaming

Just a quick thought that I'll hopefully be able to expand on later. While preparing some Field of Glory army lists for a few of the nations in my Erseta campaign, I was stuck by just how useful this information was going to be in my ADD campaign, and how I was able to give the lists some color by incorporating some of the material I had worked up for the role-playing game.

As an example of the first, I now know that the Principality of Drachenpost has special troops known as "greatswordsmen"; foot soldiers who fight with two-handed swords. That's a detail I might not have come up with if I was thinking purely in terms of role-playing.

And as an example of the second, when needing to bump up the point value of the starter army for the Barony of Rittergeist, I was able to incorporate the Knights of the Golden Heron, which I had worked up for the role-playing game, as a special force of Superior Drilled knights. It's a little thing, but really adds character and color to otherwise-drab army lists, as well as giving some inspiration for painting the figures when the time comes.

I can see this working in all sorts of ways, with some of the ideas I've got floating around in my noggin. More to come.

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Armies of Erseta: Tamaria Mounted Crossbowmen

I'm on a roll! Hot on the heels of my battlegroup of feudal spearmen, painted in the livery of the Kingdom of Tamaria from my own campaign, Erseta, comes a battlegroup consisting of four stands of mounted crossbowmen, similarly attired. Fortunately, my lack of expertise in photographing miniatures sort of hides my lack of expertise in painting them, but once again, they're painted, and based (sans flocking), and now I'm ready to move on to some of Tamaria's mounted chivalry.

These are all 15mm figures from Old Glory 15s, by the way. I found the mounted crossbowmen somewhat tricky to paint; there were a lot of places where it wasn't very clear where the saddle ended and the man atop it began. But I muddled through; at least the crossbows were attached; I shudder to think what would have happened if I had had to glue them on.

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Armies of Erseta: Tamarian Spearmen

The arms of Tamaria:
purpure, a barulet argent,
with a triangle argent, voided

Well, since my home campaign is now set in my homebrew setting of Erseta rather than the World of Greyhawk, my long-languished miniatures painting project has now been rechristened the Armies of Erseta. And what better way to try to jump start things than to belt out an entire battlegroup of spearmen?

As long time readers may remember, I'm intending to use the Field of Glory rules to do some large-scale battle gaming, and to that end I purchased two starter armies from Old Glory 15s; a Feudal German army and Feudal French army. Plus a lot of extra doodads and such, and others have been kind enough to donate their unwanted 15mm figures to the "Greyhawk Grognard's Home for Unwanted 15mm Figures".

Well, I finally got off my duff and started to paint these bad boys. I don't hold myself to be a great (or even good) painter by any means, but I've got color on them, and a little detail, and they're on bases just waiting to be flocked (I figure I'll do that at the very end, as it's a messy process and better to only have to clean up once or twice rather than each time I finish a base). They're not perfect, but they're painted, and that's better than I've done lately. And more to come; I'm going to make an effort to get the whole starter army done in my copious free time (sigh). Elapsed time on this unit: 4 hours, not including priming.

What I've got here is a battlegroup of feudal spearmen from my Feudal French army, now pressed into service as spearmen from Tamaria, one of the major nations of my own campaign. They bear the colors of the national arms (which you can see at the top of the post); given the dominant religion of the region, triangles and other images dominated by the number three are as prevalent as crosses and variants thereof are in European iconography and heraldry, hence the prominence of the triangle on Tamaria's coat of arms. It is representative of Potaras the Father, Motara the Mother, and Koreyos the hermaphroditic daughter-son; the three gods of the High Church of the Holy Tripartite Family.

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NaGaDeMon: Mission Accompished

Whew!

I honestly underestimated the amount of work that would go into The Torian War when I first undertook to finish a complete game design in one month-- part of National Game Design Month (NaGaDeMon). But here we are and here it is, not in a finished state for public consumption by any means, but a complete playable game; a fact which I proved tonight, just in the nick of time.

The map is printed in grayscale just for the sake of economics; at this size it would have cost a MINT to get it printed in color at the local Staples. That's one of the great things this exercise has allowed me to work through; not only the actual game mechanics (and I learned quite a few things just from this first initial run-through) but also the technical and economic aspects of the project.

I certainly gleaned a lot of information about how to change the game rules themselves; reinforcement rules need tweaking, it's way too easy to stack a hex full of nothing but knights and have an unstoppable killing force, and I'd like to put in some mechanic to make it harder for the Torian (blue) side to launch a counter-invasion. But it seems like the basic concept is sound; the attackers are in a race to snag as many towns and villages before time runs out and/or the defenders manage to tie them up. Some things work exactly as I had hoped; the peasant troops popping up all around the captured villages, for instance, forcing the invaders to maintain garrisons in order to keep their conquests.

There are also some technical snags that this playtest version of the game brought out. My method for making the counters was needlessly complicated; I was just making a lot more work for myself than was necessary. I also need some more practice at getting things in GIMP to scale the way I think they're going to; the map and counters each turned out about larger than I had intended. As it happens, that worked out fine for a playtest version; it just takes up more room, but is completely playable. But for a first effort, it's good to see where the technical kinks lie, so I can focus on making them smoother the next time around.

On the whole, though, this was an extraordinary experience. The Torian War is precisely the sort of thing that probably would have languished as a victim of my "gamer ADD" if I hadn't had the one-month deadline imposed upon me. As a project manager by profession the setting of deadlines is something whose utility I should (and do, intellectually) know, but to have it demonstrated so vividly in a gaming context was quite instructive.

Lots of lessons learned, both on a practical level for this game and for the process as a whole, and I hereby declare my own NaGaDeMon experience a success for 2011!

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