And if one of those zombies were to accidental fall there would be…

I some how managed to make it to twenty one zombie figures yesterday and today before my will to live finally started to drain away.

Luckily my order of Army Painter Necrotic Flesh Primer arrived today so that I could prime them and start painting.

I was being sneaky using the necrotic flesh as the primer colour because that was also going to be the base coat for the flesh areas.

So once dry I could paint the clothing matt black, and apply the zombie shader that Army Painter do for the Zombicide games.

Once that’s dry I can apply highlights to the clothing to give the hint of colour, along with strategic splashes of blood. Once happy (am I ever?) I’ll do the bases with the Ash Grey flock that I have.

But all that will have to wait until after our fourth D&D session tomorrow.

On that front I was at the library printing stuff off ready for the session. Plus two or three of the mini dungeons that are in The Lazy DM’s Workbook. They were to add to my DM folder as a resource to call upon if needed.

Right I need a good nights sleep so I’m ready for tomorrow.

The Mantic Kings of War Zombie Horde arrived.

So far I’ve only managed to muster up enough inner strength to put thirteen of them together.

I so hate this part of the hobby.

I think there is enough to make about forty zombies. Seriously I’m going to struggle to keep it together making that many.

I’ll stop at twenty. That should be enough for the Jim Murphy Undead mambo. Besides I’ve got those skeletons to assemble as well.

And then I suppose I’m going to have to paint them. It gets worse.

One of the things you need for skirmish miniature games like Last Days or D&D is a collection of scatter terrain. Stuff like treasure chests, barrels, bushes, trees, weapon racks, etc.

For Last Days I’ve been slowly collecting stuff for a wilderness type setting, where there is an old wreck of a farm house surrounded by trees and fences, the odd abandoned car. The trees were an issue.

I’m not up to building my own. Commercial ones were way too expensive. You could be paying over twenty quid, nearly thirty for three trees!

So I’ve been putting getting trees off. I’d need a few and at those war gamer prices way out of my league.

Since then I’ve started DMing. It meant I needed to come up with a solution.

On thingyverse I found a great looking stl file. But I never got round to getting any printed off. My more urgent needs were tiles for caves and boats.

What I liked about the 3d printed option was they would be cheaper to get done. They make great table theatre. I’m a big fan of table theatre. It gives a wow factor. You have to admit when you see the photos of tables full of dwarven forge (or other 3D printed tiles) they look damn impressive. Although some may argue a tad over kill.

Finances force me to take the approach of just enough to get the idea over. So I use a mix of 3d tiles, cardboard tiles, battle maps, with scatter terrain strategically placed on them.

But I found an affordable solution, that didn’t require me to have access to a 3d printer. I found some tree stumps!

One of the things the 3d trees and the expensive war gaming solutions had was canopy. Although very visually impressive. They have the same problem that the dwarven forge dungeons have in the majority of photos out there. In those photos the dungeon walls block the visibility for the players of what’s going on. And that is also an issue with the trees that have a canopy.

The nice thing about the tree stumps is that they show where the tree is without getting in the way. On some of the stumps the players miniature can be placed on top of the stump to indicate that the player has climbed up the tree.

Don’t get me wrong I’d be all over using the 3d printed trees. They look awesome.

But as an affordable compromise that will still give that table theatre, and not obstruct visibility these are a fantastic option.

Next a collection of columns to use.

Here are a couple of useful links for those interested:

Urban Construct Tree Stumps, YouTube videos with links on trees

So this morning I got my hands on the Wisbech Castle vaults map, and a map showing what is known about the tunnels under the town centre.

I decided to use the later first to create a dungeon based on it.

I’ve split the tunnels over two levels. They are too long to fit on a single page.

In the source material I’ve turned the area shown into an undead lair. The inspiration for this is from the Jim Murphy video Undead! Monster Mambo 4. I’ll probably run it the way Jim suggests. Which means getting a lot of zombie and skeleton miniatures. Sadly the zombies I have are modern zombies from Zombicide. I need zombies that are suitable for a fantasy setting. I also have just two skeletons. So it’s down to that nigh impossible task of tracking down miniatures at an affordable price. Which I think I’ve managed to do. If my calculations are correct I’ll have about twenty of each. The draw back is they are on sprues. Yep I have to resort to that bit I dislike, cutting and gluing once they arrive.

You will notice on my version of the map I’m producing I have two open pits. Which are connected. The adventurers will be able to descend down them, and at the bottom discover the connecting tunnel.

The reason I’m adding stuff like this is to make it interesting and dangerous for the adventurers “curious” enough to venture down. Otherwise I’m left with long straight corridors. So I think a little artistic license is justified.

Whilst I was doing my googling in another futile attempt to find the tunnel plans I came across some ancient plans for local churches. (Although to be fair my friends have helped out a lot and reached out and found me a source of the information I need. Which is fantastic.)

I thought these are pretty cool (see below). Then it struck me. An epiphany. A light bulb moment.

These plans would be a cool thing to keep copies of.

Why?

Well when at some point I may need to create a church for an encounter. I have an instant plan to use. Heck they don’t have to be used for that alone. They can be reskinned for other uses.

But it’s down to that saving on time and effort whilst preparing for a session.

They also act as a cool (well in my opinion) Easter egg for your campaign with your players.

I’m almost tempted to use a historical map of the town as a starting point for a town as well that the party will come across. Another cool Easter egg.

As you can see from the above it’s not hard to think of locations and buildings that are local to yourself to use as inspiration for your campaign. Maybe the players won’t pick up on the Easter egg at all. But for those that do, I think it’s a cool reward for them. That being in the know. Maybe even give them some sort of in game reward for noticing.

The above plan is for the main church in town St Peter’s Church. Which I’ve been to a handful of times for services over the years. But I’ve also been up the top of the bell tower when they opened it up to the public on a very rare occasion a few years back now. So I know that the plan doesn’t show a floor used by the bell ringers.

So I’m not sure if there is an accurate plan of the tower. But still it won’t take much to add that detail in.

There has been a lot of official content from WotC for D&D since September.

Fancy running a campaign in the first layer of the nine hells of Baator? Then the big release of the year Baldur’s Gate: Descent Into Avernus is the campaign for you. For those of us that don’t want to visit there, or won’t do for a while because of current campaign commitments then this is still of use.

Apart from the campaign itself there is a gazetteer for Baldur’s Gate. Which is of use for any campaign in the Forgotten Realms, and for any homebrew campaign that needs a ready rolled city.

The part that really interests me is Appendix A: Diabolical Deals. It’s all about making a deal with the devil! It’s an interesting story element that I think can be used in many campaign settings. I like the idea of getting something awesome but at a heavy price, and the ramifications it could have further down the line. At some point that devil is going to want to cash in on the deal.

I like the new magic items and monster stats also in their own appendices. Although aimed at the campaign, I think they can be used outside of it.

Want to take on dragons? Then the reprints of the Hoard of the Dragon Queen and The Rise of Tiamat in a single volume called Tyranny of Dragons has recently been released. Once again for those running their own campaigns the appendices with the extra monsters and magic items are of main interest.

Just about to hit the shelves of your FLGS is Eberron: Rising From the Last War. For me running a campaign in the Forgotten Realms may not be of much interest. Eberron is a new world completely, more a steampunk meets fantasy setting. I’m not sure yet how I could use this in my campaign at the moment.

Not only has there been the excellent D&D Essentials Kit with it’s Dragon of Icespire Peak adventure. Which is worth the price alone if you ask me. But as I have mentioned in my DM prep posts there is at least one quest I can use in my own campaign. And that is what I love about this adventure in the kit. It’s so easy to take any of the quests and drop them into a campaign. Plus you get the awesome colour map of that area of the Sword Coast the adventure is set in. But more importantly the player friendly map of Phandalin. Which makes a great town/village to repurpose in other campaigns.

Finally for fans of Rick and Morty there is the Dungeons & Dragons vs Rick and Morty: Tabletop Roleplaying Game Adventure Boxed Set landing on the shelves of your FLGS any day. A ‘one shot’ fun break from an existing campaign.

As you can see that’s a lot, and I’ve not mentioned the many spin off products official and by third parties such as minis etc. And if you can afford it (it’s not cheap) the official D&D Sapphire Anniversary Dice Set!

I think apart from a couple of the above, the majority can be used as part of an existing campaign in some way. Or even spark ideas for a campaign.

I’ve already briefly talked about Baldur’s Gate: Descent Into Avernus and the bits I think I can potentially use in my campaign. But I also like the idea of some of the monsters escaping from Avernus to the Forgotten Realms causing havoc. Almost creating an adventure that is like an episode of Supernatural. Or having that Blood War spill over into the Forgotten Realm and draw in Angels with humanoid kind stuck in the middle. A bit like AvP, but done right ;)

Out of the campaign books I think that the Baldur’s Gate: Descent Into Avernus is the most use to myself and my homebrew campaign.

My mileage out of Tyranny of Dragons may vary, it certainly interests me. It’s just how much can I use in my campaign? I already have Hoondarrh, the Red Rage of Mintarn for my players to encounter. Could that develop into the party having to deal with Tiamat? Maybe have cultists from the Cult of the Dragons avenge/help Hoondarrh. I like the dragon mask idea.

I really did like those double sided tokens that Sly Flourish uses, and kindly shared with the world.

The image below is the pdf he shared with the world turned into an image (I did this without permission).

I thought well if I made a ‘b side’ for those tokens that show that whatever they represent has been killed, unless I need the token during the encounter again, I can leave it in place showing the corpses position. Ok it doubles the amount of tokens carrying around. But that’s neither here or there I think as an issue.

So using the image above I found a suitable icon online and created the following image to use as the ‘b side’ for each of the above.

I thought those by Sly are great for fantasy themed games like D&D. But something more thematic would be more suitable for a sci-fi or cyber punk RPG.

So once again I hit Google Image search to find some suitable icons to use. I found ones I like. But it’s much much harder for these themes. I think the ones I found work really well for cyberpunk maybe a little less so for pure sci-fi. But there has to be a compromise.

These are the two sheets as images that I created.

I hope that people find these useful.

As a beginning DM it seems like a steep learning curve. Unlike players you have two guides to read, plus a monster manual to study.

Plus there is a wealth of great advice both as blog posts, podcasts and YouTube videos aimed at beginners like ourselves and more experienced DM’s. I’ve mentioned some of those sources in previous posts.

I think the best skill a DM needs is to be like a sponge, being able to absorb all that information.

It’s early days for me. I’m still finding myself as a DM. As I come along interesting articles or videos, or I research a particular subject like travel (I did a post summarising some of the alternative ways to handle travel between two locations) I like to sometimes share them here, but more importantly clip them to Scribe in the research folder.

A lot of the time the authors like to present their way as the correct way, it “fixes” what they perceive as being broken.

I don’t like to think as stuff being broken, but something that doesn’t work for me. Sometimes it may not even be that. I may just think “oh that sounds cool”.

For example I think having a variety of ways to handle travel is cool. But apart from that I think it helps to keep things interesting for the players. Plus one way of travel does not fit all situations, and being able to choose the most appropriate is a handy thing to have in your toolbox.

But I like that we can take some-one else’s ideas, try them out, and if we don’t like them either go back to what we were doing or try something else. “No harm, no foul” as Jack Reacher says in the books.

This experimentation as far as I see it is all part of the DM’s journey. We are almost like magpies picking up shiny nuggets of information as we go along.

I hope that as I find new and interesting stuff on my journey others are finding what I share interesting and useful.

For those curious the title of the blog is a line from the Alice Cooper song Stolen Prayer from the “concept” album The Last Temptation. Which by the way has a pretty cool comic book/graphic novel by the living legend Neil Gaiman.