A Gamer's New Year Resolutions for 2015

Happy New Year everyone! 

I still have over four hours left here in the States, but I want to copy over a tradition from the PbP site I own/run (GotEXP), where I've posted gaming-related, New Years Resolutions for the past 10 years. 

Before I jump into it, I want to take a moment and thank every one of you who reads this blog. I've never been a consistent blogger and was surprised I actually kept up with it for three months, when I revived the blog back in June. Work and personal life got the better of me for the last four, yet I still noticed activity here and readers checking out my posts despite my inactivity, so I want to keep at it and thank all of you again for reading.

I hope 2015 brings you all joy, the best of luck, and happy gaming!

Now, let's see what resolutions I put down for 2014 and what I accomplished, before I list my goals for 2015:

New Years Resolutions for 2014

1. Run a game of Dungeon World, where at least one PC reaches level 10
2. Have a PC in Dungeon World reach level 10
3. Run and/or play Inverse World and Pirate World
4. See some of my submissions for Pirate World make it into the book
5. Play Mouse Guard, Torchbearer, and Burning Wheel
6. Play Lady Blackbird
7. Play The Quiet Year
8. Play Fiasco and Durance
9. Play FAE and/or FATE Core
10. Play Star Wars: Edge of the Empire
11. Illustrate a scene from one of the Dungeon World/Planet games I play/run
12. Have my PC become chief of the Orc tribe and make a pact with a hobgoblin

1-2. No and no, I haven't ran or played a DW game where any PC has reached Level 10. I still play DW, though, and I'd love to see that happen!

3. No, Inverse World and Pirate World still haven't happened. I almost ran/played IW, but almost doesn't count, heh.

4. Maybe (pending). For those of you who have been following Pirate World's development, it took a plunge for a little while, but the guys behind the Kickstarter are back on it, and Iain Chantler (James Hawthorne on G+) just announced yesterday that the text is all finished. I'm not sure if my submissions made it into the book or not, but either way, I'm still excited to read it and play it!

5. Yes, yes, and yes (sort of), hehe. I played a one-shot, Mouse Guard game who my friend, +Lloyd Gyan, ran at Jackercon IV (http://youtu.be/OFHWbmuVnv4). Lloyd also ran six sessions of Torchbearer (two APs can be found here), which I played in, though the game sadly fizzled out. We've been trying to get at least one more session in to finish up the adventure, but it hasn't happened yet. Finally, I said, "kind of," to Burning Wheel, because I got to play a scripted battle, though I haven't officially played the game through character creation or even a single session.

6. Yes! Lloyd ran a live, Lady Blackbird game via Hangouts one day when Torchbearer didn't happen. It was fantastic! I even started a Lady Blackbird PbP on GotEXP, but it fizzled out and hasn't seen activity since the beginning of the month.

7. No. I tried to get a game in the past, two weeks, but it didn't happen. +Riley Adamson, over on GotEXP, says he's interested in trying out a PbP version, so hopefully that'll happen in 2015.

8. No and no. :( I did get an awesome, Fiasco shirt though, and I still really want to play it and Durance.

9. Yes and no. I finally got to play FAE this past week! It was a one-shot, space noir run by, you guessed it, Lloyd, and it was awesome! I want to try Fate Core next. I should also add that earlier this year, I played a few sessions of Dresden Files with the old, Fate rules run by +James Savko, though it doesn't really count toward the resolution.

10. No, but Lloyd said he'll run a game for me in the future. All I have to do is make a character. I want to make that happen soon.

11. Yes (sort of). I haven't had time to illustrate full scenes, but I did illustrate some characters (including two space gnomes from the Dungeon Planet PbP I'm running who are standing next to a Dalek). You can check them all out here, [url]mishapolonsky.tumblr.com[/url].

12. Yes and yes. Huzzah! My Orc Fighter, Nok, did become Chief in a Number Appearing/Dungeon World PbP game on GotEXP, the Hobgoblin Barbarian PC did join Chief Nok's Inner Circle, so I certainly consider that a pact!

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All in all, I accomplished 5/12 of my 2014 resolutions. That's not too shabby, considering that last year, I accomplished about 1/13 resolutions for 2013. Though, as an added bonus, GotEXP finally got its own dice roller this year which was part of the 2013 list.


Anyway, here is my list for 2015:

A Gamer's New Year Resolutions for 2015

1. Run and/or play a Storium game.
2. Run and/or play a Dungeon World game, where a PC reaches level 10.
3. Run Mouse Guard and/or Torchbearer.
4. Create a character for Burning Wheel and play at least one session.
5. Run another 12-13 episodes (game sessions) for the 2nd season of the Tears of a Machine game I ran this past summer (Tales of the Arx Jericho) and post APs for them here.
6. Create and release a supplement for Tears of a Machine.
7. Create and release an adventure module and/or supplement for Dungeon World and/or Adventures on Dungeon Planet.
8. Finish running the current session of the Dungeon Planet PbP I'm running on GotEXP (226: Story of the Year 3443).
9. Finish running the DW PbP adventure, Sagas of Mahr-En (as in see the PCs complete their quest of imprisoning the Bone Wand of Beshi or die trying).
10. Play at least one of the following games: Inverse World, Pirate World, Apocalypse World (via Hangouts or in person), Ryuutama, Numenera, Lords of Gossamer & Shadow, Scarlet Heroes, any World of Darkness with the updated, God Machine Chronicles rules (especially Demon: the Fallen), Urban Shadows, Monsterhearts, Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, WH40k Dark Heresy, Iron Kingdoms, Serpent’s Tooth, Fate Core, Fiasco, Durance, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Savage Worlds, D&D 5e, Microscope (to completion), Apocalypse World: Dark Ages (at least a few sessions real-time or further exploration if PbP, since our play tests fizzled out), Wield, The Clay That Woke, and more.
11. Be more active on GotEXP, G+, and the RPG communities than I have been this year.
12. Avoid month-long hiatuses for GotEXP games and/or my blog.

Hopefully I can complete at least half of these goals or more!

What are your gaming New Years Resolutions for 2015?

TGW - DW, PbP Revival, New Commission, Maps, and Other Things

Captain's log, Monday, August 18th, 2014. 

Not much in terms of live gaming this week, though I played another session of DW with an epic battle (details ahead). GotEXP is seeing a PbP revival with some games, I got some new, freelance work, and only five days remain until the new, season premiere of Doctor Who! Coincidentally, it's the date of my mother's birthday, and my cat, Trinity, turns a year old. Pretty exciting stuff, at least the Doctor Who news. :P

Anyway, here's This Geek's Week.

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APs, Hangouts, and Live Gaming

Dungeon World

I mentioned last week that I started playing in a live, Hangouts campaign on Sundays, but I didn't go into too much detail. I started writing an AP, but it's not finished yet, so I'll summarize what has happened so far. We have four PCs in a world that's divided by a great ocean, with one side of the world permanently in winter, while the other side is forever in summer. 

The PCs are: Elohïr, the Elven Fighter; Yaygo, the Elven Winter Mage; Valerius, the Human Priest of Zawa; and my character, Lux, the Human Paladin of Zawa. Elohïr and Yaygo are both exiles from their homeland and met Valerius prior to meeting Lux on a ship. Valerius was on a quest to visit all nine Shrines of Zawa, and the eighth happened to be located at the top of the mountain where the elves were from. They all set sail for the desert, where the last shrine is located, and found me on a ship. I was a crazed Paladin who lost his sanity after abandoning his ideals and old god but found them anew when Valerius showed him the path of Zawa, Queen of the Inferno and Goddess of Fire and Passion. We landed in the port city of Zawfo and fought scorpion humanoids who attacked after Yaygo's, wintery magic caused a disturbance that rose them. We discovered they had come from the last shrine of Zawa and had infested it. They had a map to the shrine which we took to begin out quest.

That's all backstory.

In our first session, we came upon an outpost with two, fake guards that turned out to be bandits named Jedino and Ronven. We found out they were with a group looking to amass riches from desert workers harvesting gold from the sand clouds. After the bandits tried to pull over on us, we took care of them the only way an evil elf, a Winter Mage, and two followers of Zawa would, and went on a perilous journey to seek out the harvesters to protect them. Turns out they didn't want our help, so we hid in a nearby cave to make camp so that we could ambush the bandits if they tried to attack the harvesters, but we found ourselves surrounded by hatching, giant scorpion eggs we thought were rocks.

In our second session, this past Sunday, we had an epic battle against the giant scorpion babies and its mother. Elohïr pulled some incredible, acrobatic maneuvers and sword attacks. Yaygo summoned his ice golem to help while ignoring danger and attacking the scorpions directly with a survival knife. Valerius kept chanting divine words and invocating rituals to bless, heal, and protect us. Lux tried to command the giant scorpion to stand down with a voice that transcends language and got his arm cut off. Later, Valerius invoked a ritual and sacrificed Lux's arm, so that Zawa gave him a new one with leathery, scorpion like skin, and tattoos of her mark running up the veins and ending in crooked fingers. 

We then explored the cave, which turned out to be in a dormant volcano, and found a pit of black liquid called Blackbond that hardens weapons and armor for a single use. We applied it to our gear, took some with us, and went back to finish making camp, after Elohïr and Yaygo discovered a fake wall of stone. Some of us leveled. 

We awoke and broke through the wall to find a tunnel, where a young boy saw us and ran away. We followed and met a woman who claimed to be a follower of Zawa. Lux presented himself, Valerius, and the elves, and she only let us come with her due to Valerius being a Priest. Deeper inside, we found a den of women (alleged followers of Zawa), and one woman on the verge of death. Valerius helped save her, but we soon discovered that the markings of Zawa tattooed on them were crude imitations and that they were the bandits we were seeking to ambush.

Now they've drawn their weapons on us, and we'll see how this plays out next Sunday. This is a rushed summary, and I really hope to post all the details in a proper, double feature AP this week.


Tears of a Machine

Earlier today, I posted the AP for Tales of the Arx Jericho, Season 1, Episode 12. In all honesty, I probably won't get Episode 13 up this week, but I'll try to get it up before the end of August or within the first week of September. 

I also started jotting down some great ideas for Season 2, which I'll most likely run after the new year. 


Primetime Adventures

In the meantime, Robert is still set on running Primetime Adventures for a few months with the Tears group. We've settled on BetaForce for our show, so now we just need to get together to create characters, figure out our setting, and hopefully start playing regularly again soon.


ViewScream

I scheduled a game to play last Friday with Robert, Mike, and my friend, Dean, who hasn't tried it yet. Unfortunately, we had to reschedule to this week, so hopefully it'll go down on Friday as planned. We're going to play The Culler Out of Space scenario, and we'll all have different roles, so that should be fun! I'm playing Bridge, Robert's playing Engineering, Mike's Weapons, and Dean is Medical. If we end up playing, I'll be sure to post another AP with spoilers.


Torchbearer

Unfortunately, there wasn't a game on Sunday again. I thought we'd have to wait two more weeks to play, but it turns out I'm not going out of town this Sunday, so hopefully our game will continue with the sixth session of Ruins of Aldornia. Man, I really need to catch up on APs for that. I simply have too many to write!

GotEXP and PbP Revival

A lot of PbP games on GotEXP have been dormant throughout August, but I'm happy to report there's finally some new activity!

The Caverns of Baal-Harrir (Dungeon World / Number Appearing)

I mentioned this game in the premiere of This Geek's Week. It's a Dungeon World game that's in its fourth session, or chapter, since this is play-by-post.

The PCs are: Chief Nok, the Orc Fighter and Chief (compendium class); Hauk, the Orc Cleric of Bish'gu Urg Der (God of the Red Pain); Klopp, the Hobgoblin Barbarian; Brudda, the Ogre Mage; and Skitch, the Ratkin Mastermind. There's also Grik, the Orc Thief in the party, but that player has been MIA, so I don't know if Grik will continue as a PC or a Hireling.

After Nok defeated the corrupt Orc chief in session 3 and took over to rule his tribe, there was an attack from a dragon that shook the caves. Chief Nok and his new, Inner Circle are currently venturing to the home of the hostile kobolds, who are allegedly paying fealty to this dragon using the Orcs' gold that the old, corrupt chief gave away to them (and which Nok and the other PCs retrieved).

We've been traveling through sewers filled with poisonous gas, and we've met an undead husk-thing named Trolthep, the Immortal. Skitch stole his dagger, and he's promising Nok a favor in return for getting the dagger back, but Nok doesn't care. The Chief says his famous words, "Nok charge!" and continues leading the others foward.


226 - Story of the Year 3443 (Adventures on Dungeon Planet)

I summarized the game in the first report of This Geek's Week, which I linked above. I went ahead and re-read all of session/chapter 2 and reworked the adventure front. I edited the dangers and grim portents to make more sense and used the monster creation guide in the book to stat Jaxx and his crew, a gang of Grenba Orkos* cyborgs. 

The hardest part was reworking the cybernetic implants I borrowed from Jeff Becker's Alterkine Player's Handbook, a D20 Future supplement, and turning them into monster moves. The amount of implants in the book was overwhelming, so I rolled dice to determine which ones Jaxx and his crew got. I may have overdid it, as each foe has about 10-11 implants, though some are grouped together and not all of them provide mechanical bonuses. Plus, Jaxx and his crew are implant addicts and over 50% cyborg, so it makes sense. 

I'd post the monster stats, but I don't want to spoil anything for the players, in case they're reading. There are more surprises that I want to share, but that'll ruin things, so I'll wait until they come up in-game before posting them on the blog.

One spoiler I will share is that there's a new PC joining the game, an Earthling, who's about to appear in-game, so that should fun! 

*Grenba Orkos, or Emerald Orcs, are a race of space orcs living on Earth-3.

Artwork, New Commission, Map Contest

I haven't been doing a great job keeping up with #dailycreative this month, though it seems others haven't been keeping up much as well. Some are on vacation, some went to GenCon, others are busy I'm sure. I've been sketching a lot of reference drawings in my sketchbook, and I just didn't bother to scan them yet. Otherwise, I have some illustrated, comic book panels I'm working on for Tears of a Machine, Tales of the Arx Jericho, which you can see at the bottom of the latest AP. 

The Prophet DW playbook will be up on DriveThruRPG soon, according to Damian, and he even gave me a sneak peak. It looks really great, and the cover art I drew for it really goes well with it. :) I can't wait to playtest The Prophet!

On that note, Damian's hired me again to create cover art for another DW playbook, The Artist. It's an interesting concept, which Damian is still reworking, and I have a great illustration in mind for it which will have a completely different style than The Prophet. 

This is unrelated to games, but I also got some freelance, animation work for the Red Cross, so I'll be returning to After Effects and messing around with motion graphics and compositing pretty soon.

Finally, +Gremlin Legions in the Library of Gaming Maps G+ community announced that my map won the Mythical Map Competition! It was a really fun project, and I want to thank everyone again who voted for it and +Gremlin Legions for hosting the competition.

Here it is, in case you can't access the link. It's titled, Adventures on Dungeon Planet: Crash on Earth-3 and the Mystical Gate to the Moon.

I actually based the illustration on the first Adventures on Dungeon Planet, PbP game I ran on GotEXP called 226 - Story of the Year 3436. The PCs crash-landed on Earth-3, ran into three tribes of six-armed apes, fought assassin vines, fought a giant basilisk, entered the Crystal Caverns, made camp in the six-armed ape Wizard's chamber, continued through and ran into an ethereal, carnivorous moleman, found the mystical gate to the moon, were transported to the moon with an azure desert, fought huge, white and purple wurms, found a pyramid that was a spaceship, got ambushed by Felidae and Felinae Moreau (Egyptian-like, futuristic cat warriors), saw a mystical coutal in the sky which disappeared inside the pyramid, and ended up at the bottom, inverse of the pyramid, below an inner pyramid housing the Cats of Saturn, and died in a TPK in a giant, pit of a prison, while the Cats of Saturn escaped.

That's a summary in a nutshell. Crazy, right?

Now, in 226 - Story of the Year 3443, the Cats of Saturn have taken over the lower half of the main continent of Earth-3.

I didn't actually intend for the PCs to end up on the moon with all that silliness, but that's what happened. Yay for Adventures on Dungeon Planet!

Kickstarter Rewards

Last week, I mentioned how I got a shirt in the mail from the Kickstarter, Fall of Electricity: the Grunge Era. This week, I got a message from Ross Cowman, one of the band members who helped organize the Kickstarter, and a link to the album, the Grunge Era. 

I really enjoyed listening to it. There are no lyrics, so it works great as ambient, background noise, but I actually payed attention the first time I listened. I can really tell each song has a story behind it even without reading the song title. Some of them sound really similar, but there are enough differences to tell them apart. If you're not a fan of grunge, you probably won't enjoy it, but I really liked what I heard. It's grunge, but a lot of the songs sound futuristic or spacey and somewhat like video game music. It's mostly upbeat with a lot of electric guitar sounds, and I found it especially invigorating to listen to while illustrating. Sitting outside on my deck with the speakers on full, sometimes it would get too loud, but that wasn't a huge issue. 

I'm glad I supported Ross with this project. He writes cool games and plays good music, what more can I say?

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Now I've started playing the first song on the album, Infinite Sadness, as I bid you farewell until next week. Ironically, the song doesn't really sound sad at all.

Tapatalk on my phone is going off, telling me I should get to some PbP posts, so I'll do that and update you with more gaming stories, good news, art projects, and more next time.

If you've read this far, I thank you and commend you. Take care and keep gaming!

TGW - Premiere of This Geek's Week

It's been an incredibly busy week for me, especially with art projects and gaming, and I just don't have enough time to post all the APs that I'm writing on schedule. I'll finish writing them all as fast as I can, but in the meantime, I want to try something new.

Inspired by +Robert Ruthven and the Weekly Geeky Report on his blog, Way of the Zeppo, my goal is to post a summary every Monday about the previous week that focuses on games I've been running/playing, PbP development, art projects, Kickstarters, RPG products, and anything else interesting to write about that relates to gaming. 

Hopefully this will help me stay consistent with the blog each week, at the very least, and give you all a breakdown of my gaming activity and an idea of what to expect in subsequent APs. Ultimately, this is, more or less, my version of a captain's log. 

Without further ado, here's the premiere of This Geek's Week. It's a lengthy, first report, but subsequent reports will be shorter. 

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Hangouts and Live Gaming

On Thursday, I played ViewScream for the first time using the scenario Black Widow, Brown Recluse. ViewScream is a dark, GM-less VARP (video-augmented role-playing game) for four players that blends story game and LARP quite nicely and focuses on four officers stranded on a starship who face a plethora of problems, shaky relationships, and have hidden secrets which usually come out. Despite major technical difficulties during the first half-hour which forced us to take the game off-Air, we all got into it and finished off with one character dying. I had a really fun time playing it, and I believe everyone else did too. I won't go into any more detail, as I'll post the AP soon, which is chock full of spoilers, but I would definitely play this game again with a different scenario. If you like sci-fi, horror, and role-playing games with high character tension, I highly recommend checking out ViewScream by Rafael Chandler. 

On Saturday, I ran Tales of the Arx Jericho - Season 1, Episode 12 for the ongoing Tears of a Machine game I've been directing since April. It was supposed to be the last episode of the season, but due to time constraints, it turned into a two-part season finale which we completed the next day. Saturday isn't our usual Hangout day, but this weekend was an exception due to scheduling conflicts with the players. I normally play in a Torchbearer game on Sundays with a different group of players, but our game was cancelled, so I was fortunate enough to gather the Tears players last minute to run Tales of the Arx Jericho - Season 1, Episode 13, which ended the season with a bang, literally!

I'll be posting detailed APs for the two-part, season finale, but in the meantime, I posted short summaries for Episode 12 and Episode 13 in the Tears of a Machine G+ community with the AP videos on my YouTube channel. If you've been keeping up with the APs, you'll know that Rick is on his way to piloting a Prophet, Sarah's the new team leader of Alpha Company, and Jason's technical expertise repeatedly helps save his teammates every episode. 

In the season finale, Jason stops the CRC facility from self-destructing after the pilots discover a secret hangar belonging to Rafe Hunter, Rick's father, who turns out to be a hologram of a Mayzor General. All the evidence so far had led the pilots to believe Dr. Johnson was really an antagonist, but he proved to be an ally in the last three episodes, so they're really unsure of what to think. The Arx Jericho is still in lockdown by the military, following Episode 11, but the pilots have to get their SAInts to fight back a Mayzor invasion targeting the Arx itself. Rick, Serena, and Opsie fly the Prophets, or Super SAInts, as Jason likes to call them. Sarah, Jason, and Strudel, of Alpha Company, team up with their ex-company member, Billy, as well as Bravo Company's second-in-command, Joanne, to rescue their sequestered, fellow pilots from invading Locusts all around the Arx. The MetaTron exhibits static, supporting characters' SAInts are hacked into and frenzy, new, aerial type Locusts attempt to destroy the Arx's weapons, backup generators, and engines, and the veteran, throne ranked Magnas, Asmodeus arrives to wipe everyone out. Minus a ton of destruction to the Arx Jericho, the pilots manage to prevent any significant deaths or Mayzor kidnappings while miraculously defeating Asmodeus in an astonishing display of valiant teamwork and strategic firing. 

I had a short chat with the players after the game, and everyone is on board for a second season which is thrilling news. I honestly admit, when I first decided to run Tears of a Machine, I expected to play test it for two or three episodes max; I never imagined the players would stick around long enough for the game to take off, but they did, and it's turned into one of the best campaigns I've ever run. After watching Knights of Sidonia on Netflix, the players are psyched to take the game into space, so Operation Blue Moon may very well come to fruition in season 2, and the Arx Jericho may be the first, airborne military base to take to space and orbit the Earth. +Russell Collins, author/creator of the game, suggested creating a new, larger SAInt type fit for space travel called the Crusader class. Operation Blue Moon focuses on invading the Mayzor and their mothership, Tartarus, directly, instead of waiting for them to invade earth, so I'm really excited to start planning the second season. 

In the meantime, we decided to take a break from Tears for a few months, and +Robert Ruthven offered to run a season of Primetime Adventures. I backed the Kickstarter, but I haven't tried the game out yet and really want to. I'll write more on that development as soon as I have more news.

One last comment I have for Tears of a Machine is a prospective idea to release a PDF on DriveThruRPG featuring custom Locusts and Magnas. I've already posted the ones I created for Tales of the Arx Jericho in the ToaM G+ community, but I want to create more and possibly even illustrate them with a nice layout, perhaps as a Pay What You Want product. Since the game is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, I'm certain this is doable, but I'll definitely chat with Russell about it and get his advice before releasing anything. I've never published anything on DriveThruRPG before, so I certainly welcome any tips that people have to share.  

GotEXP, Storium, and PbPs

While I've only recently started blogging somewhat consistently and posting APs for Hangout games, I haven't written much about the PbP (Play-by-Post) games I'm involved in. 

Many of you might not know this, but I own a forum site dedicated to PbP gaming, or PbF (Play-by-Forum) if you prefer, called GotEXP. An old friend of mine and fellow gamer started it up back in 2005, and I've been its chief administrator and moderator ever since. Unfortunately, my friend wasn't able to keep ownership of the site anymore, so he relinquished it to me roughly a year ago, and I've been maintaining and improving it ever since while keeping up with the community there and the PbP games being run.

For more information, there's a GotEXP Wiki in the works, with a list of active games at the bottom, or you can visit the forums directly. Right now, the majority of the games are Dungeon World-based, though there is one active, Apocalypse World game and talks of starting up an Undying game. 

Here on the blog, I'll mainly discuss the PbP games I'm running and playing in as opposed to all the games on the forum.

Sagas of Mahr-En (Dungeon World)

Sagas of Mahr-En (SoME) was the first Dungeon World game I started running on GotEXP over a year ago. You can read more about it on the forum or on the wiki, though the latter is still in the works and needs to be updated. 

Many players have come and gone, though some PCs have stuck around since the beginning. In a nutshell, the PCs call themselves the Servants of Destiny. They initially accepted a quest to bring a mad wizard and alleged criminal to justice and accepted a strange, magical artifact known as the Bone Wand of Beshlanishutli or the Bone Wand of Beshi. The SoDs soon learned that Beshlanishutli went by several other titles, namely the King of Devils and Sultan of Death. The cursed bone wand glows whenever undead are nearby, but it also attracts them and can trap certain undead inside it to be released later. The wand is also indestructible and unable to be discarded and lost. The only way to secure it is by imprisoning it in a magic box deep within the Temple of the Underground in the Haunted Jungle of Beshi.

In the first session, A Grave Job at the Gorgeous Inn, the PCs accepted the quest of from a group of mercenaries known as the Hawks of Tyr-Ka and fought off a horde of undead that attacked the Gorgeous Inn, which they were staying at. Another PC joined toward the end, a Stolen Elf, whose background introduced the Underfolk - demon offspring of Beshlanishutli based on the Seemings from White Wolf's Changeling the Lost. The PC also traveled with a miniature, mechanical chimera, named Ekwa, who could locate the Temple of the Underground and the chamber with the magic box that the PCs needed to get to.

The second session is titled, Thieves, Ogres, and Underfolk Demons. The SoDs traveled across the Kibaraz Mountains, en route to the Kingdom of Behyrst, where Sut'vira, the prisoner, was to be taken. There, the SoDs encountered a tribe of hostile Ogres who later proved to be allies, when the PCs found out the Ogres were manipulated. The Grand Vizier of Behyrst hired the kingdom's thieves guild to steal the bone wand from the SoDs, and those same thieves tried to use the Ogres against them. The session culminated in a battle against one of the Underfolk, a colossal demon named Brulktehu, or Father of Ogres, who suddenly appeared out of a portal to take the bone wand for himself and the rest of the Underfolk. The PCs barely survived the encounter and heard another Underfolk through the portal, Charnelbokora, the Leech Wight and Demon of the Grave, before Ysolde, the Mage, closed it up so that the SoDs could make their escape.

In the third session, The Haunted Jungle and the Pygmy Village, the SoDs reached a military camp in the Haunted Jungle of Beshi that belonged to the 2nd Army of the Kingdom of Aelham, where the group's old Ranger, Lieutenant Pallory (no longer with the party), was originally from. The SoDs soon found out that a group of Aelham soldiers, including Lt. Pallory, went missing deep within the jungle. Though they were badly injured, the SoDs accepted Captain Valais's quest to find them and bring them back safely to camp. The Paladin of the party was approached by a half-orc named Thoren who was a member of The Scarlet Wheel, or Gypsy Assassins, and learned that the Grand Vizier sent a third group of rogue assassins to intercept the SoDs and take back the bone wand. The SoDs took Thoren along on their new, side quest, and ran into a strange, ghostly image of an archaic Lizardman (Kibizi) calling himself The Last Kibizi. He claimed to be an immortal servant of Beshlanishutli and a sorcerer who tried using less forceful tactics to get the PCs to hand the bone wand over to him. The SoDs were smarter than that and sought The Last Kibizi out in a hidden, pygmy village where the Aelham soldiers' trail led to. There, the Paladin tried to parley with the pygmy queen, but The Last Kibizi had the pygmies under a mind control spell and performed a ritual that summoned undead, blood cranes to war with the pygmies. The SoDs were caught in the middle of a violent battle but managed to put an end to The Last Kibizi and free Lt. Pallory, the only Aelham soldier who wasn't eaten (sacrificed) by the pygmies. The ritual and the battle caused the sky to blacken and the earth to split apart with magma erupting from the ground like a volcano. The Mage, who had transformed into a more specialized Star Mage, tried to escape through a set of portals and accidentally found himself atop the Monolith, another archaic structure in Beshi aside from the Temple of the Underground. Meanwhile, the other SoDs escaped through a portal that appeared over The Last Kibizi's corpse. At the Monolith, Ysolde witnessed a strange Fae-like wedding between two more of Beshlanishutli's childer: Persephthelene, the Fairest and Brightest Child, Mistress of Enchantments, and Demoness Queen of the Arcadian Realm of the Underfolk and Vasgae, the Wild Demon of Beasts, with Pharolquae, Elemental Demon Minister, Bringer of Tides, and Fiend of the Tempestras leading the ceremony.

The game is now on its fourth session, and the SoDs are currently split up, supposedly inside the Monolith which is powered by Fae (Underfolk) magic. The Star Mage believes he's currently a guest of Persephthelene and Vasgae, but the other PCs have no clue where they are. Unfortunately, the game has been in hiatus for almost a month due to lack of time/energy on my part, but I really hope to pick it up again soon so that the Servants of Destiny can at least finish their main quest and imprison the Bone Wand of Beshi once and for all.

Hopefully I didn't lose anyone in the summary, but I'll make sure to post more about the cast and their adventure in more detail as soon as I can.

226 - Story of the Year 3443 (Adventures on Dungeon Planet)

Adventures on Dungeon Planet is a pulp, sci-fi supplement to Dungeon World written by +Johnstone Metzger and features robots, aliens, spaceships, and four classes meant to replace the Paladin, Fighter, Druid, and Cleric. They are the Earthling, Engine of Destruction, Mutant, and Technician, respectfully. 

226 originally began as Story of the Year 3436 with an entirely different cast who suffered a TPK in the second session. The name 226 alludes to the original cast which consisted of two organics (an Earthling and Mutant), two robots (an Engine of Destruction and android Technician), and a six-armed white ape Wizard that was native to Earth-3, the planet which the rest of the PCs crash landed on.

226 - SoY 3443 takes place seven years after the last game, and the current party made an emergency landing on Earth-3 after an accident aboard their ship forced them into the planet's orbit. Their main goal is to repair their damaged ship, and after obtaining a lead on parts at Blu Brothers' Gizmos, a business run by two, space gnome brothers and mechanics, the PCs found out that a gang of Grenba Orkos (Emerald Orcs), led by the notorious Jaxx, had trashed the place and stolen a plethora of the Blu Brothers' parts. Ni'blu said he'd help the PCs out with their ship in return for finding the stolen parts, so the PCs got a lead on Jaxx and his crew at a religious site north of Port Meluk, the city they were in, called the Open Stone Arena. A group of Grenba Orkos priests devoted to the Arena were held hostage there by hired mercenaries working for Jaxx. After the PCs took care of them and even recruited one to join their team, they found out that Jaxx had taken the stolen parts north into the Boko'ani Desert and was set to return to the Arena the next day. Instead of chasing them down, the PCs decided to lie in wait and set a trap for Jaxx and his crew upon their return. Meanwhile, the alien Mutant, human Shaman, human Mechanic, and beatboxing Robo Bard were joined by a robot Engine of Destruction, a human Technician, and soon-to-be a human Earthling. 

Like SoME, this game underwent a temporary hiatus, but I recently started posting again, and now the Technician and Earthling are set to join the game. The game is in its second session, but I'll post more, in-depth details about it at a future date. 

Aetheron and The Caverns of Baal-Harrir

These are two games I'm actually playing in, not running, but they, too, have been going on for a while, and there's far too much to describe that's best saved for more posts. 

In short, Aetheron is about a group of PCs called the Seven who are trying to save the floating island/city of Aetheron from falling and crashing down into the world, amongst dozens of other side quests and adventures. I play an Ettin Wizard named ZornoshRaz (ZoR) with twin, male and female heads with extremely different personalities. To use TV Tropes, Zornosh is the male, Blue Oni side, whereas Raz is the female, Red Oni personality. I must admit, ZoR has been one of my all-time favorite PCs to play in any role-playing game. They're unlike any character I've ever played before, and Dungeon World is a perfect, loose enough game to include them in.

The Caverns of Baal-Harrir is a another Dungeon World game I'm playing in that's currently in hiatus. It uses the Number Appearing supplement, which lets you play monster races like Orcs, Goblins, Ogres, Ratkin, etc. as protagonists. Like the other PbPs, I'll post more about it in due time, but my character is an Orc Fighter named Nok who recently took over as Chief (compendium class) of the Orc Tribe. Most of the other PCs are in Chief Nok's Inner Circle, and they're currently infiltrating hostile Kobolds in the caverns who have sworn fealty to an antagonist Dragon. 

Storium and Doctor Who: The SOS Files

Last, but not least, I helped fund the Storium Kickstarter a while back, but sadly, I haven't gotten much of a chance to play it yet.

Fortunately, +Robert Ruthven is planning to narrate a Storium set in the Whoniverse called Doctor Who: The SOS Files, which he talks about in his latest Weekly Geekly Report over on his blog.

I just re-watched seasons 5-7 of the show, as well as The Day of the Doctor and the Time of the Doctor, in preparation for the season 8 premiere in just 19 days, so I'm really psyched to play a Doctor Who-based Storium.

Art Projects

Cover Illustration for The Prophet

All of July, I worked on reviving my art skills that I'd neglected for several years, and halfway through the month, +Damian Jankowski commissioned me to do a cover illustration for his upcoming, Dungeon World playbook, The Prophet.

It took me just under two weeks to finish, which is longer than I expected, but I am just getting my skills up to par again and getting back to doing what I love. You can check out the progress from start to finish, but here's the final piece without the playbook title and credits which Damian is taking care of himself. I'll definitely be sure to post the DriveThru link to the final product when it's up.

Illustration by Misha Polonsky

Mythical Map Competition

Over in The Library of Gaming Maps G+ community, I submitted an entry for the Mythical Map Competition, where the goal was to create a map that inspires or tells a story without using words, letters, or numbers. Community members can vote on their favorite(s) by way of a +1, though I don't remember how long they have to cast their vote. 

To be fair to everyone else participating in the contest, I won't post the image or its title until the contest is over, but if you've read what I posted above regarding one of the PbPs I'm running, you'll certainly have a clue as to which one is mine.

I will admit that I waited until the last minute and stayed up all night prior to the submission date finishing it up, and I struggled a quite a bit staying up, but I'm really glad I worked through and finished it. Playing episodes of Star Trek: TNG in the background and drinking lots of coffee sure did help. It was a fun challenge, and I greatly thank +Gremlin Legions, the community's moderator, for posting the contest in the first place and inspiring us to challenge ourselves. 

I also learned that I really do love drawing maps and should work on creating more of them, on top of all my other illustrations. 

Kickstarter Rewards and Other Goodies

Finally, I want to end This Geek's Week by showing off some cool, gaming goodies that just arrived.

First, I received the Torchbearer GM screen over the weekend, which I preordered a little while ago from the Burning Wheel store. I even took a silly picture with my other Torchbearer gear, which I also posted to the Torchbearer G+ community.  

Yes, that's an official, Torchbearer shirt I'm wearing.

I also received a Kickstarter reward in the mail today for an RPG called Wield, "A Little Game about Ancient Powers," written and designed by Gillian Fraser and John Wick. I've had the PDF, but I wanted to wait until I got the physical book to read it, so once I do, I'll talk more about it. Basically, the game chronicles a vatcha, or weapon with almost limitless power, and the compromises it makes with its wielder. It seems like a really unique, interesting game, and I can't wait to finally read it!

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Well, there you have it. Thanks for reading This Geek's Week, and I'll do my best to keep these post consistent every Monday and shorter!

Until next time!

Magic Item Monday - The Bone Wand of Beshlanishutli

So there's this thing called Magic Item Monday over at the Dungeon World Tavern on G+, and as part of my #dailycreative, I decided to do a light/color study and practice some digital painting, both of which are weaknesses for me that I'm trying to improve upon.

The item I picked for MIM is one that a group of PCs are currently carrying in a Dungeon World PbP I'm running on GotEXP called Sagas of Mahr-En.

I went in trying to draw the bottom half of a femur with some metallic rings and inscribed runes, but as several people pointed out in the tavern, it came out phallic-looking. That really wasn't my intent, but it is pretty funny. I guess I was too focused on capturing light, colors, and values to notice.

The Bone Wand of Beshi or The Bone Wand of Beshlanishutli 

A cursed bone wand from the Jungle of Beshi, it was originally crafted by Beshlanishutli, King of Devils and Sultan of Death. It attracts any undead within near range and glows a bright teal color whenever undead are nearby.  

Certain undead creatures (nightwing, ghosts, banshees, possibly more) may be absorbed by the wand which cause its runes to light up with the same, teal glow. Anyone capable of summoning or manipulating the undead may then draw them back out of the wand.  

I haven't quite figured out what happens when all three runes are fully glowing, but I'm sure it will be terribly evil and detrimental.  

It's also indestructible and unable to be lost or thrown away. If whoever is carrying it attempts to do so, it just comes back to wherever it was stored.  

In the game I'm running, the PCs are on a quest to keep the wand from falling into the hands of Beshlanishutli, his demon offspring, and his minions. Since the PCs can't destroy it, lose it, or throw it away, the only means they have of getting rid of it is by imprisoning it in a special box deep within an ancient, underground temple dedicated to Beshlanishutli. 

One person in the Tavern post also made a good point when they asked: 

Also, if the wand can't be lost, does that mean its location is always known to at least one person? Let's say the PCs succeed in their mission; they bury the wand deep beneath the earth of the demonic temple. Even if no one else knows where it is, the PCs all know. When all the PCs die, the wand's location becomes unknown again, which I read as "being lost". So what happens?

I didn't go into much detail regarding the 'special box' and wanted to include it in the drawing, but technically that's another magic item in and of itself. The point is that the box is the only means of imprisoning the wand. I haven't fully decided why that is, exactly, but the PCs know that whatever magic it holds, it's certainly powerful enough to keep the wand imprisoned.

Here are the drawings. The first one is actually from over a year ago; I quickly drew it up for the game, but tonight I wanted to recreate it in a more realistic style. 

Next time, I'll try and go for a less phallic-look, though that's hard when bone wands are concerned. ;)

Drawing from over a year ago.

Tonight's attempt at a digital painting and light/color exercise.

DW - Another ZoR Sketch

Today, I worked on another sketch of ZoR, one of my Dungeon World PCs from the floating city of Aetheron. It's supposed to be a WIP, but I'll probably just treat it like another drawing exercise. One of the other players in the PbP game mentioned how the previous poses seemed too graceful for ZoR, which I agreed with, so I tried to tone that down a bit, but now this pose isn't dynamic enough.

There are other bits I'm not too happy with either. The arm holding the sword seems off, and I want to play around with other hairstyles to make Zornosh and Raz more distinct, even though they're supposed to be twin heads.

I also don't have a lot of experience drawing chainmail armor, especially one that's supposed to be elven-made. I've been looking up references, which have helped, but it still needs work. I think I'll spend a day on armor studies real soon.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with how ZoR's turning out. You can be sure to see a lot more drawings of this character in the near future. Once I nail down the right pose, features, and setting, it'll be well on its way to a nice, illustrated piece.

DW (Aetheron) - ZornoshRaz Sketches

I pulled up a couple of sketches of that I did a little while ago and decided to work on some more dynamic poses and gestures with the character. The latter two with the chainmail are from tonight.

Meet ZornoshRaz, the Ettin Wizard from the floating city of Aetheron and respected member of the Seven.

ZornoshRaz is a PC I play in a PbP Dungeon World game over on www.gotexp.com. Zornosh is the male head, while Raz is the female. They usually go by the shortened nickname, ZoR, and each head has opposite personalities. Zornosh is methodical, more of an intellect, and prone to melancholy, while Raz is feisty, quick-tempered, and more of a fighter.

There are elements I'm happy with and elements I'm not so happy with. I'll keep plugging away at this character to find the perfect pose for a full-fledged illustration.